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Hey friend, it's Nicole, host of the Nicole Walters Podcast.

Here's where we laugh, we cry, and we grant ourselves grace as we do life together.

Let's get started.

Hey friend, we have been having so many powerful chats week after week here.

I mean, some of them have been great because I've been able to introduce you to some of my friends and some of the people I've worked with and some of my clients and just people who I know are out there doing incredible work that you may not be hearing about but you should know.

So I've loved having those chats, but I've also really enjoyed some of our what I like to call our one to ones, you know, our quick little 20 minutes where I get to kind of update you on where I am, what I'm learning and hopefully give you information that is helpful for you and meets you where you are.

And as you know, the theme of this entire season, you know, this entire sort of grouping of chats that we're having is starting over and how we really need to get good at starting over and how life is going to call us to start over whether or not we want to or sometimes by choice.

You know, starting all over isn't always negative. Sometimes it's about having a new baby or choosing a new business idea or getting into a new relationship.

You know, there's a lot of really fun, positive, happy ways that we get to start over.

But sometimes it's also something that is more unexpected and a little bit more challenging like ending a marriage or ending a friendship or terminating a career or even something as simple as maybe a little neutral like becoming an empty nest or having your kids grow up and move out.

You know, all those different things are part of starting over and I'm just excited because I found that a lot of the lessons are transferable and all the conversation that we've been having the back and forth if you guys reaching out to me and leaving me voicemails and telling me about, you know, how a lot of this information is applying in your life has just been really fruitful and helpful for me and I'm just very grateful to all of you.

And today what I wanted to talk about is a little bit more sensitive if you will it's I would say for my mom is in the room that this may be a headphone chat just in case you've got some little little ones but it's definitely like teen 14 year old and up friendly because I am going to talk about more of like relationships and dating and things like that.

But you know, we always keep it appropriate around here, but I do want to just give you that heads up because for me it's also super sensitive this is a little bit more personal and I'm still.

I usually share my scars and not my scabs so I like to share things once they've healed over a little more even if there's still marks around them not when they're still fresh but I have a feeling that we're the season I'm in right now in relation to this is just going to be fresh for a while.

If you've listened to episode one of season three you already know that I parted ways with my husband and I'm currently by coastal so I live in LA and Atlanta with my babies and I am doing the single woman thing if you will but if you've been watching a little closely over the past couple months you also know that I have recently re entered the dating pool.

And it's interesting because it was something that I did not anticipate and it wasn't something I was seeking out and frankly like just to be really honest I wanted to talk a little bit about this and I'm going to talk about it as much as I can in different ways it's a bigger issue and I know it's different for everyone but everyone always wants to know what is that like do you even consider anyone like what are the feelings and what I want to share is kind of what I've experienced I've been told a lot of what I'm experiencing is kind of textbook.

And so I'm hoping it meets you where you are if you either are still in a relationship with thinking of exiting and worried about some of these things if you are recently out of a relationship and you're wondering if this makes sense for you if you're just one of my internet besties and you're worried or wondering how I'm doing like I'm happy I'm going to talk about some of this stuff now so.

So this episode is all about the before of getting ready to date and what that means and what that was like sort of even putting on my single girl hat after being a wife for 12 years so what you may not know is that I got married super duper young wow it feels weird because I'm about to I'm about to tell my business right.

We've got to talk about business real this is a real like home girl we're sitting down we're going to chat Jack as you guys mean I don't really talk about this type of stuff I talk about it my book a good bit you guys will see that come out at the top of next year but you know I guess we just doing it so grab your ginger girl because we got to chat so I met the was bend when I was 22 and I was married by 23 and I know that some people get married at 18 or 19 or they've known their high school sweethearts and all that but I mean we may not know what I'm going to do.

That when I was 22 and we were engaged within six months and the was bend is actually a little over six years older than me so we had like you know some good space in between us and what's interesting now you know obviously hindsight like I'm almost 40 so like hindsight looking back I think about the fact that I have two girls that are the age that I was when I got married you know I've been tiny as 20 big tiny as 23 and I'm like.

Oh heck no like I can't even get me tiny like move up out my house you know I mean like she is like no I'm up under you mom like are you kidding me you know big tiny is probably nine months over and doing really well entering the world but my gosh marriage hardly even on the plate and I'm just like what was I think you like my first thought going back to all that was what was I thinking getting married at like 2223 like.

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