Setting healthy boundaries should never restrict you from living your best life, but protect you from getting hurt by external forces out of your control. Author and speaker Regina Hiremath experienced a rough childhood and got into an unhappy marriage, but she handled the wounds of her journey by doing the inner work and creating boundaries in the right places. She shares how overcoming her fear of public speaking and undergoing a self-discovery allowed her to share her story of trauma, domestic violence, and divorce to the world. Regina also explains how to find your own “onesome” and learn to ride the huge waves of life’s challenges. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.   Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   The Power Of Setting Healthy Boundaries With Regina Hiremath What happens when you don’t feel like you’re enough as an individual? What happens when your confidence has been snatched? What happens when you lay down boundaries and you realize it’s protection and not restriction? These are the questions and more that we’re going to learn from our conversation with Regina. Let’s get into this episode now.     Regina, welcome to the Widowhood. Thank you so much for having me on, Tina. When you hear that, if I were to see the ticker tape in your head, “Welcome to the Widowhood,” what would be the backstory that you would not have wanted to tell me? Especially reaching out and the whole idea of the Widowhood, what were you thinking or thinking now about that concept? Widowhood typically means a sisterhood of people who have lost a spouse, and someone has died. I feel like I lost a spouse. For a period of time, I died, but I came back to life. What It Feels Like To Share Your Story Of Grief To The World Thank you for making that correlation. The idea is that in grief, we experience very similar paths when we’re going through grief. Understanding my community is based on people who have experienced a profound loss of a spouse who will not come back. What I have spoken to people, in the world, resilient or people enduring harsh experiences, it is some of those same building blocks that we use to be able to figure out why I want to keep living after experiencing X, Y, Z. What motivated you to finally say yes to sharing your story publicly? How did it feel the first time you did? As I was going through my divorce, I started a divorce blog because my journal writings were very therapeutic and cathartic for me. Therefore, I started Alimonia Life, the divorce blog. After doing that for some time, I realized that I wanted to have a greater impact. For me to do that, I was going to have to speak, but there was a big hurdle between me and speaking because of my past. I had a lifelong fear of public speaking. I had to really work hard to overcome the fear of public speaking to get out there, to put a face and a voice to the story that I was sharing. You described your book, Lessons On The Way To Onesome, as more than a domestic violence story. It’s about overcoming adversity. When we had our pre-show conversation, it was important for that to resonate. When I thought about it, sometimes, we can get so lost in our pain, which deserves its recognition. It deserves saying, “This is why I’m here.” I believe the goal is to live more of our lives outside of that painful experience, on how to leverage it to live. That’s why I knew it was important for you to share your journey, because there are also people in my community who have suffered through domestic violence. That has compounded their grief because people can hardly listen to one thing we’ve experienced that’s difficult, let alone to hear the person who is now deceased. They lived in the pain of their hand for so many years, but never said anything. They never articulate it. Going back to you actually sharing your story, how did it feel inside to finally say it out? I can remember when that first occurred. I had been writing for some time and made the decision to step out and use my face and voice. Shortly after, I said, “Yes. I’m saying yes to using my voice to help others.” I was asked to speak at an abuse symposium. After I agreed to it, I went home, and it hit me. “You’re going to speak. You said yes, and you have a lot of work to do to be prepared. You’re capable of doing that, but it’s happening. What you’ve spoken to existence is happening now.” I remember the months leading up to it. I remember being directed to read a book that someone handed me one day. It sat on my nightstand for months. I picked it up prior to this event and discovered that this was a person sharing their story of domestic violence. In that moment, I knew why this book had been handed to me and why it sat on my nightstand. That particular moment I picked it up was completely to prepare me for speaking about coming out and sharing my story, which I had never done before. Everything that happened that day, I attribute to preparation, passion, and purpose aligning. For me, when those three things come together, I’m moving in my element. All of the fears and things that used to choke me up and have me stumbling and fumbling over my words