Overcoming Divorce with Jena Jake

Episode 049: Overcoming Divorce with Jena Jake

Divorce can feel like the end of a life you thought you were building forever. It can shake your identity, your nervous system, your confidence, and your belief in what love is supposed to feel like. In this episode of Overcoming Anything, host Anne Vryonides sits down with Jena Jake to talk about overcoming divorce, breaking unhealthy relationship patterns, and learning how to choose yourself again.

Jena Jake is a compatibility strategist specializing in divorce prevention and recovery. She helps people understand the difference between chemistry and compatibility, trust their intuition, recognize body signals, and turn one of life’s most painful transitions into a powerful new beginning rooted in self-love, clarity, and alignment.

Key Takeaways
• Divorce is not failure. It can be a growth process that reveals where you have outgrown an old version of yourself
• Chemistry is not the same as compatibility. Chemistry can be familiar, but compatibility is what supports long term emotional safety
• Healing after divorce requires rebuilding your nervous system, choosing yourself, and learning to stop handing your power to someone else

Timestamps
• 00:00: Introduction: overcoming divorce and rebuilding after heartbreak
• 02:10: Jena’s beliefs about love: “I love me. Your love is extra”
• 05:00: The hardest part of divorce: rewiring your nervous system after losing your person
• 08:00: Early signs that something was not aligned in the relationship
• 11:00: Why business and marriage without boundaries can become overwhelming
• 14:00: Red flags, chemistry, compatibility, and why we ignore what we already know
• 18:00: Why chemistry can recreate old relationship patterns
• 22:00: How compatibility assessments can reveal long term relationship fit
• 26:00: Empathy, values, and why differences matter during real life challenges
• 30:00: Can compatibility and chemistry exist together?
• 34:00: How to tell whether someone has done the inner work
• 38:00: Why smart, self-aware people repeat the same patterns
• 42:00: The divorce hangover, trauma bonds, and the caterpillar to butterfly process
• 47:00: Navigating the nothingness between who you were and who you are becoming
• 51:00: Body signals, expansion, contraction, and knowing what feels safe
• 56:00: Fawning, people pleasing, and practicing a new response
• 01:01:00: Early cues that reveal emotional availability
• 01:05:00: Why divorce is not failure, but realignment
• 01:09:00: How to become strong enough to attract a different kind of partner
• 01:13:00: What to do when you feel like a failure after divorce
• 01:17:00: Choosing yourself and creating space before making big decisions
• 01:21:00: Boundaries, business, and protecting your dignity after divorce
• 01:25:00: How divorce can make you stronger and more aligned
• 01:29:00: The first shift from fear to power: knowing what you deserve
• 01:33:00: Jena’s work as a compatibility strategist
• 01:37:00: Manifesting a compatible partner and becoming the version of you who receives that love
• 01:41:00: Following what you love, listening to the whispers, and choosing courage
• 01:45:00: Where to connect with Jena Jake

Connect with Jena Jake
• Janna’s website: https://jenajake.com | Instagram | TikTok

Resources
• Katie Clarke on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/@katieclarke2100
• The Purpose by Jena Jake, https://a.co/d/0fWNucGZ

If this episode helped you, share it with someone who is navigating divorce, questioning their relationship, or trying to remember who they are after heartbreak. Divorce is not the end of your story. It can be the beginning of a more honest, aligned, and powerful chapter. 

I’ll see you next time on Overcoming Anything.
 ❤️ Anne

Disclaimer
The content of this episode is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy, diagnosis, legal, medical, or relationship counseling.

#overcominganything #midlifetransformations #energyhealing #resilience #divorcerecovery #healingafterdivorce #lifeafterdivorce #divorcesupport #relationshiphealing #relationshippatterns #compatibility #selflove #selfworth #selftrust #emotionalhealing #traumahealing #healingjourney #nervoussystemregulation #relationshipadvice #startingover #reinvention #personaldevelopment #selfimprovement #boundaries #overcomingadversity #podcast #podcastlife #podcastcommunity #podcasthost

Transcript

Anne Vryonides 0:00

Welcome to Overcoming Anything, the podcast where we dive deep into stories of resilience, transformation, and growth. I'm your host, Anne Reese, and today we have an incredible guest who has overcome divorce. Joining me today is Jenna Jake, a compatibility strategist specializing in divorce prevention and recovery. She helps people break unhealthy relationship patterns, trust their intuition, and turn one of life's most painful transitions into their most magnetic new beginning. Welcome to the show, Jenna.

Jenna Jake 0:29

Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be here

Anne Vryonides 0:32

Awesome. Excited to have you. So before we dive in, what's one belief about love or relationships you had to completely unlearn in your own life?

Jenna Jake 0:41

Oh, I have a few good ones. I have a couple. One is if a man can feed you, he can starve you. Second one is I love me. Your love is extra.

Anne Vryonides 0:50

Ooh, I

Jenna Jake 0:50

like that. And then I would say my third is really got it. Like on the level that we live in a vibrational world and you can be, have, do, or whatever you want.

Anne Vryonides 0:59

Yes. And so it is. So let's start at the beginning. What is the most difficult thing about overcoming divorce

Jenna Jake 1:05

O? When you get married, you never think that you're gonna get divorced or maybe you're naive about it at best because you think, oh, I'll just get divorced, but you create a life with somebody and your nervous system combines with their nervous system and they become your rock and your person, and so much of them revolves around your life. When all that goes away, it's like, your nervous system goes, Hey, wait, what's going on here? If you're old, old enough to know whatcha talking about Willis, like what is going on? Right.

Anne Vryonides 1:31

Yeah.

Jenna Jake 1:31

And that is the hardest thing to rewire your nervous system and your brain. That is the hardest.

Anne Vryonides 1:37

Okay. So for someone listening who might be silently struggling in their relationship, what were the first signs in your relationship that something wasn't aligned, even if you couldn't name it yet?

Jenna Jake 1:47

It was like this feeling of. This wasn't right. It was like, we have a business together. And so everything was about the business. And I understand the X'S kind of urgency towards that because there was a lot of pressure there, which I completely understand. But it was like there needed to be space for something else other than just a business. There needs a marriage is something that continues and has to continually be fed.

Anne Vryonides 2:11

That's gotta be challenging because you're with them at home and you're with them at work, and it is like everything is commingled together.

Jenna Jake 2:18

There was no separation of church and state, and that was a huge mistake.

Anne Vryonides 2:22

So looking back, most people say the signs were there, so why do we ignore red flags when we actually see them? And what's happening emotionally or psychologically in those moments?

Jenna Jake 2:33

So basically this is the crux of my business now that I being a compatibility strategist, it's like chemist. There's chemistry and there's compatibility, and everyone talks about chemistry. They go for chemistry. Chemistry is the thing that makes you feel good. The thing that is exciting, that's fleeting, chem compatibility is like getting along with the person long term and being happy with the person long term. So chemistry is basically you recreating all your old patterns and having your nervous system find something that's familiar and thinking that's love. And that is the big problem right there, because people don't know who they are. They don't understand themselves enough to say, oh, that's chemistry. No, no, no. Who's to be the most compatible with me?

Anne Vryonides 3:14

So true. So how does someone test that compatibility before they get married?

Jenna Jake 3:18

I'm so glad you asked. I happen to have a personality assessment that I use that shows. Basically what you value, what your tendencies are, how you're likely to act in certain situations. And I, it has subscales, so I could say like for instance, I have empathy four out of five. The ex-husband has zero. Like zero. So how is that a problem? Like when my mom got dementia. There wasn't a lot of empathy from him, or when I had, I went into a little funk because my mom was gone, but she was still there and there was like, what the hell is wrong with you? There's no empathy there, there's no understanding what I'm going through because she's not dead. But in my world, she's gone, you know? So there was a warning period that like totally he missed that kind of thing. So it managed, it creates problems.

Anne Vryonides 4:04

So I'm sure a lot of our listeners are thinking, okay, so if we find someone that we're compatible with, can you still have long-term chemistry with compatibility?

Jenna Jake 4:13

I think so. I think it's like getting the best of both worlds a lot of times. Compatibility may seem a little boring because it's not what your nervous system is looking for. It's looking for what's familiar, not what's good for you, but if you know better and you've done the work, I think what you're compatible with will become what's you're, what excites you?

Anne Vryonides 4:33

And so if you just meet someone, and let's say you haven't had a chance to give 'em the compatibility test.

Jenna Jake 4:39

Yeah.

Anne Vryonides 4:39

How can you tell if they've done the inner work and they've healed those childhood wounds? Because let's face it, everybody has some childhood wound,

Jenna Jake 4:48

right? That's a really good question. Obviously they haven't figured it all out. Nobody ever does. But I think if you have done your inner work and if you got divorced and you haven't done your inner work yet, you're going to find the same person in a different pair of pants or a skirt or whatever it is you're into. So I think that. When you start to do your work and love yourself and your life is extra, you're not gonna be putting up with the same thing. You're not gonna be aligned with that same kind of person. So it's gonna feel like, like when I hear a guy yelling or even on a, like a, like an a meme or something, I'm like, oh no, I don't want that anymore. That used to be like passion and excitement and now it's just, you can, you need to say that a lot nicer. 'cause I'm not interested in that.

Anne Vryonides 5:29

Got it. So why do so many smart, self-aware people still end up repeating the same relationship patterns and what are they missing about how attraction really works?

Jenna Jake 5:40

Because I like a lot of it's unconscious, subconscious, and they're just trying to recreate their family, their, parents loving them again or wherever they exiled themselves. They're trying to get permission from that other person instead of giving it to themselves.

Anne Vryonides 5:55

Okay. So what was the moment that you realized I deserve something different, and did you have that internal shift from surviving to choosing yourself?

Jenna Jake 6:05

Yeah, that took a long time because I will be honest and say I went to a very bad, dark place after like a divorce hangover. Because when your nervous system's used to this kind of relationship and you're on eggshells a lot, and then you're, I use all like the therapy terms, trauma bonded or whatever it is. You need to like clear that all out and it takes time. Like a caterpillar turns to nothing before it becomes a butterfly.

Anne Vryonides 6:27

Ooh, great analogy. I like that.

Jenna Jake 6:29

Yeah. Yeah. You have to go to nothing to become the butterfly and really it's a lot of work about yourself because it's. It's not about the other person. It's about how, what you think you deserve, how much do you love yourself, what your boundaries are, what you're willing to put up with. It has nothing really to do with them. And then once you realize that it's not them, it's you. There's a lot of freedom in that.

Anne Vryonides 6:51

So how does someone navigate the nothingness, the in-between of the caterpillar and the butterfly?

Jenna Jake 6:57

Oh gosh. A lot of therapy, whatever they're, whatever they're into. That would be self-discovery. Some people use therapy, some people use plant medicine, psychedelics, things like that. Some people go, breath work, so, whatever it is. Some people use ketamine. I don't know, like all the things that people try and you just have to keep trying things until you find the thing that helps you heal.

Anne Vryonides 7:19

You teach people to read their body signals, so expansion versus contraction. So how can someone tell when their body is saying safe and aligned versus familiar and unhealthy?

Jenna Jake 7:32

Oh, you know, because you start to become very good at catching yourself. Because we're all addicted to drama, we're all addicted to our old dramas, and even in other ways like. My dad just recently, unfortunately passed away and his girlfriend is like, yeah, thank you. It's been a rough couple of years. I lost both my parents, but that's a whole other animal. And won't let go. And then she'll say nasty things or something like that because I don't wanna participate in the next grief parade that she's trying to. Be the leader of whatever it is, and then she'll, shoot at me and it's oh wow. Like I could come back at her because that was be like my ego doing that thing, or like the healed me is just not my monkey, not my circus. Let's stay focused on this positive things.

Anne Vryonides 8:15

That's definitely not easy to do to emotionally. No detach.

Jenna Jake 8:18

No, it's a lot of practice.

Anne Vryonides 8:20

I was gonna say, do you have any tips?

Jenna Jake 8:21

A lot of therapy. Yeah. A lot of the practice. A lot. Because you can't, you realize that the old Jew was trying to run this game, Like for me at least, I'll say was fawning people pleasing. And to stop doing that feels very uncomfortable. Like there's something wrong. But then you realize, oh no, this is just me being new. Until that becomes a pattern.

Anne Vryonides 8:40

So how did you replace the fawning and people pleasing with a different type of habit or respond differently in those situations?

Jenna Jake 8:48

Oh, practice. Practice. I still practice. I'm still practicing. I don't know. Ask me any day now, but I, now I see it, I catch it and I'm practicing it. So I went from doing it unconsciously now to seeing it, and now it becomes a choice. Do I wanna do the old behavior? Because even and people pleasing is not all bad. It does work for you on some level. You just don't wanna overuse it and then it starts to work against you. So it's not something to get rid of, but something to be in control of

Anne Vryonides 9:16

and

Jenna Jake 9:16

then make a choice.

Anne Vryonides 9:17

Great point. So what are two to three practical things that someone should pay attention to early on? Like micro behaviors or cues that reveals their emotional availability

Jenna Jake 9:28

yeah. So you have to really go deep because I would say, oh, I set myself on fire to keep my family warm. And when people are doing that, like nobody appreciates it really? And, it's like, why did I do that? Oh, okay. My household, when I was a kid, I had to fawn to get attention or whatever it is. And it just a pattern that keeps repeating. So when you're going for chemistry, you're not picking a mate, you're just visiting an old pattern. You're just. In that cycle. So to really work on yourself and say I'm not going to date. I'm going to choose me. And that's sufficient because the minute you give someone else power to choose you, like they, then when they walk away, you just handed them the keys to your whole kingdom. That's just never gonna work. So it's really just staying with yourself and knowing that you are enough and loving yourself, like all the things we always hear, but it's true. It's not just rhetoric, it's real and knowing, but knowing that you are a fractal of God. And I don't know if you ever saw Anita Moorjani she, I think she was very famous for having an NDA experience. Wayne Dyer was friendly with her Uhhuh and she said God is a state of mind. So just to keep that vibration high, knowing that what's meant to come to you will, it cannot be avoided.

Anne Vryonides 10:34

Yeah, so true. So could you explain fawning in case one of our listeners doesn't know what that is? Yeah.

10:39

Sort

Jenna Jake 10:39

of like, oh my God, are you okay? And how can I help and what can I do for you? And I'm here trying to just get attention that way in like a pleasing kind of way. Okay. People pleaser to the extreme.

Anne Vryonides 10:50

So divorce can feel like a failure, but it could also be like a reinvention. So how does someone need to become internally strong in order to attract a different type of partner?

Jenna Jake 11:00

I think when they stop worrying about where they're coming from, that's what they say. Then they'll find that person. Because. It's really difficult out there. It's like a jungle and you're only gonna find somebody as healthy as you are. You're only gonna be in a relationship with somebody as healthy as you. So you gotta be healthy to attract that healthy person. So when you are loving your life, the people that love their lives that don't need a relationship are gonna be the ones that show up in your simulation of reality.

Anne Vryonides 11:27

Okay, so let's say someone just got divorced and they're feeling like a failure. What advice would you have for them or how do you help them shift their mindset?

Jenna Jake 11:36

Yeah. Divorce, first of all is not a failure on any level. You outgrew that person, this is a growth process and as Carolyn me says, healing is brutal. And I mean, brutal. It has been brutal. I've had brutal couple years. And, but it's all a healing process, like a sloughing off process. It's not an easy thing, and better things are coming for you because you are outgrowing this and you may be nothing right now, going through that metamorphosis, if you will, because you're not the caterpillar, but you ain't the butterfly yet.

Anne Vryonides 12:08

So just

Jenna Jake 12:08

keep spreading, working on yourself, developing yourself, taking it easy on yourself, not judging yourself. Just no, you are enough. That is what you are here to learn right now, that you are enough and that whatever that situation was is not working and now you're growing into something that's more aligned with you. So it's not a matter of failure, but it's alignment.

Anne Vryonides 12:28

Yes, I agree a hundred percent. So you had mentioned before that people can be in these relationships and become trauma bonded, if someone is aware that they need to leave, or maybe they are outgrown that person, or they're no longer in alignment, how do you suggest that people garner up that strength? They may believe that they don't deserve it, but how do you consult them on how to actually choose themselves and walk away?

Jenna Jake 12:54

I would never tell anybody to leave or stay, they know what they need to do. Even as a therapist coach, nothing, I would never tell anybody that I certainly, as a compatibility strategist, I would not do that. However, people know, they know something's wrong and they, and it's a hard decision to make. I'm not gonna lie. Maybe what would be like the next step forward? Would there be a way that you could like test balloon and go stay with somebody else, or, move in with a parent or just take space for yourself to make that decision? Cause you don't know, maybe you could work on yourself and come back. I, everybody's got a different story, but it seems like there's a lot of self intrigue that's on the horizon.

Anne Vryonides 13:33

So how did you get to the place where you're like, okay, I'm choosing me and this no longer serves me

Jenna Jake 13:39

In my situation, it wasn't that easy because, my daughter was having issues at the time and we were living in one place, and then I brought her to live with a relative, could have above a relative's house and another, because it was a better situation for her, which I think triggered, made it easy, to trigger a divorce. I don't know. I don't think that at that time I was even looking to get divorced. I was just looking for some space to foc, like just think and give my kid what she needed. But I, in retrospect, I will say, and it's been like I'm saying, a long road, it's not just like I woke up, like I woke up like this, that's not

Anne Vryonides 14:12

right

Jenna Jake 14:12

but I think everything that's happened has happened for the best given that, how. My ex-husband's behaved in the past couple years and everything that he's done, I'm thinking, yeah, I deserve better than what I put up with.

Anne Vryonides 14:24

So in your situation, you said you owned a business together, plus you're married. So when you got divorced, are you still together in the business? And how do you put up your boundaries to maintain your dignity and your alignment?

Jenna Jake 14:38

I have nothing to do with him or that business. I own a piece of it, but he has it. It's his, and that's it. That's how I handle that.

Anne Vryonides 14:45

No

Jenna Jake 14:46

communication.

Anne Vryonides 14:46

So how did your divorce actually make you stronger and more aligned than before?

Jenna Jake 14:52

Because, and I had no choice because it was like, it's live or die in this point. Like you have to make a choice to say. I'm gonna live, I'm gonna be better. And keep choosing that choice every single day. You have to make that choice. And so it's been rough, in a lot of ways, but at the same time it's been exhilarating and amazing and strengthening. And I like myself much better than the person that I was when I was married to him for sure.

Anne Vryonides 15:18

I like that. So if someone listening is heartbroken or they're considering divorce right now, what's the very first shift that they can make today to move from fear to feeling powerful again?

Jenna Jake 15:29

Getting really clear on who they are and what they deserve, and saying, even in my childhood, I had this ex parent or that parent and I deserved a better parent, but that was what I got, but I deserved better and I deserve a better spouse or a better relationship or a better situation. And it's like fighting for that for yourself, rescuing yourself, Disney movies gave us the wrong message about somebody's gonna rescue you and no, they're, you're giving them all your power. You need to rescue yourself.

Anne Vryonides 15:55

Yeah. So how did you become a compatibility strategist?

Jenna Jake 15:59

I have a background in counseling and therapy and then doing, advanced, certified in this assessment. And I didn't wanna do coaching anymore or therapy, and I decided this was really more of a happy place that I wanted to be. Helping people like you can use it to either save a relationship, choose a mate, create the perfect avatar for compatibility or within a relationship. There's a lot of misunderstandings that go on in people's personalities because you're looking at the other person from the lens of who you are, not what's going on in their mind. So they're seeing the world a completely different way than you, and this assessment opens up the conversation for that. So I am, I like that, and I've always been great with strategy and predicting behavior and saying, okay, this is how this is gonna go down with this personality. This is what they're likely to do. And so it's just a different space than the spaces I've been in, and most people aren't doing this, so I really enjoy that too.

Anne Vryonides 16:54

How fascinating. So if someone has created their ideal avatar and they've done the inner work and they're ready to call in their avatar, how do you suggest that someone goes about meeting this person?

Jenna Jake 17:07

Either I guess working with a matchmaker, because this is why matchmakers love me because I do all the heavy lifting for them. Or, just knowing that. Being really clear on this is who you are and this is who I'm looking for. And just knowing that like when you order in a restaurant, you don't worry that your food's not gonna show up. Like this is what's meant for me. And being the person that's in that relationship, what does that feel like? But does that vibration, because that vibration, it's already in reality, that version of you is already living that timeline.

Anne Vryonides 17:36

So like manifesting. So you get clear on your avatar, you get in the vibration of that person, and then you figure out where they would be or what they would be doing. Yeah. To put yourself there

Jenna Jake 17:47

a hundred percent and start doing that. Oh, like he loves to fish. Like, why aren't I fishing? Why aren't I at this like hotel where he hangs out or whatever it is, because this is our life together. So if you're gonna be doing that in the life, do it.

Anne Vryonides 18:00

Awesome. So is there a book that helped you along your healing journey that you could recommend to one of our listeners?

Jenna Jake 18:06

Ooh, so many books. I just went through all my books yesterday and I was like, oh, this is a good one. This is a good one. What's jumping out at me? Nothing. Of course. Nothing right now, but let me think about this for a minute. I'll give a shout out to Katie Clark on YouTube. I love her, maybe not a book so much jumping out at me, but Katie Clark talks about this and she's able to talk about the manifesting in a way that's very easy to understand. And I would go find her on YouTube, so I'll give her a shout out because she's, she deserves that.

Anne Vryonides 18:34

Okay. Awesome. We can link that down in show notes. So any wisdom that you would like to impart upon our listeners today?

Jenna Jake 18:41

Yeah, all the things that you want, if you want a divorce on some level, but you're afraid. The universe doesn't want you to have something that you wouldn't want it if it really wasn't meant for you. Like, you know what I mean? Like I don't really wanna go play in the NFL.

Anne Vryonides 18:53

Right?

Jenna Jake 18:53

Right. So just do what you love. I wrote a book called The Purpose, and the whole purpose is like just doing what you love. And everything else will come together around that. Just follow your heart as, what he was talking about the hero's journey. I can't think of his name now. Joseph Campbell.

Anne Vryonides 19:08

That's great wisdom. Sometimes it's hard for us to do what we love. Some people don't know, they're not in tune to really know what they love. And then other people know what they love, but yet. They're not doing it.

Jenna Jake 19:19

No. You have to have courage and you would think it's so easy, I just wanna do what I love. But you have to have courage. So that you know this, these are whispers. Listen to the whispers. The whispers are trying to open the door so you could walk through.

Anne Vryonides 19:30

Yeah. Yes. Yes. I love it. Awesome. This has been such an inspiring conversation. Thank you, Jenna. Thank you so much. Where can people connect with you follow you or learn about

Jenna Jake 19:38

what you do? My website at ww dot J-E-N-A-J-A-K e.com. On Instagram or TikTok.

Anne Vryonides 19:47

Okay. Awesome. We'll link that down in show notes. Excellent. So if you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might be facing a similar challenge and needs to hear this message of hope and overcoming. Thank you.