Leslie Ellen Mathews JD, MSW

04/13/2026

Fourteen months.

That's how long most women white-knuckle it alone before they reach out for support.

Fourteen months of holding it together for the kids.
Of keeping up appearances at work.
Of convincing themselves they should be further along by now.
Of Googling things at 2am and closing the tab before anyone sees.

And by the time she finally asks for help,
she can't sleep but she's exhausted.
She knows something is wrong but she can't name it.
She wants things to be different but she can't picture what different even looks like.

That's not weakness.
That's what fourteen months in survival mode does to a nervous system.

When you've been running on adrenaline and willpower for that long,
your body doesn't know how to downshift.
Your brain can't access clarity.
Can't access hope.
Can barely access the next right step.

And then she sits across from someone and they ask
"So, what do you need?"

And she starts to cry.
Because she doesn't know.

If this is where you are right now,
I need you to hear this.

You don't have to know what you need to ask for help.
Showing up is enough.
We figure out the rest together.

You've been strong for so long.
You're allowed to let someone help you carry this.

Mindful Untangling is a private divorce support community with weekly live calls, guided resources, and a circle of women who will never ask you to pretend you're fine. You don't have to have it figured out to walk through the door.

Mindful Untangling: Divorce Support Community, Trainings, and Library of Resources https://theloomlife.com/community

04/13/2026

I keep thinking about how many decisions we make from a dysregulated place.

Not because we don’t know better.
Because our nervous system is overwhelmed.

There’s a part in this conversation about how your body literally tightens when you feel unsafe to speak
and how that doesn’t just affect your voice.

It affects your relationships.
Your clarity.
Your ability to trust yourself.

So many women I work with aren’t lacking strength.
They’re trying to make aligned decisions while their body is in survival mode.

Mindfulness isn’t about being calm all the time.
It’s about creating enough space inside yourself to actually hear what’s true.

That’s where everything starts to shift.

Click the link to watch the full episode

Podcast: https://www.pullingthreadspodcast.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

04/12/2026

Hear me out.
We spend so much time asking why do women stay —
like the answer is weakness.
Or codependency.
Or not loving themselves enough.
But what if the real answer is simpler than that?
What if no one ever taught her that her own instincts were trustworthy?
Think about it.
She was the little girl who was told she was too sensitive.
Too dramatic.
Overreacting.
The one who learned that what she felt
didn't match what the adults around her said was happening.
So she stopped trusting her gut.
And started trusting everyone else's version of reality instead.
Fast forward twenty years —
and she's in a relationship that doesn't feel right.
But she can't trust that feeling.
Because she never learned how.
So she stays.
Not because she loves him too much.
But because she doesn't trust herself enough to believe that what she's feeling is real.
That she's not overreacting.
That she deserves more.
That she's allowed to go.
This is what we don't talk about enough.
Leaving isn't just a logistics problem.
It's a self-trust problem.
And self-trust is something that can be rebuilt.
If this is the thing that's been keeping you stuck — this is exactly the work I do. DM me or save this for when you're ready. 💚

04/11/2026

What if the reason you feel stuck has nothing to do with your circumstances and everything to do with your voice?

There’s a moment in this conversation that stayed with me.
Not about singing. Not about performance.
About the quiet ways we learn to hold ourselves back.

How early it starts.
How deeply it lives in the nervous system.
How it shows up in relationships, decisions, and the way we move through the world.

This episode isn’t really about music.
It’s about identity work.
It’s about emotional regulation.
It’s about what happens when you finally stop shrinking and start listening to yourself.

And maybe what becomes possible when you do.

Click the link to watch the full episode

Podcast: https://www.pullingthreadspodcast.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

04/11/2026

She said it so quietly.
Like she wasn't sure she was even allowed to think it out loud.
"I don't think I'm allowed to be unhappy because he's not a bad person."
And I had to take a breath.
Because that one sentence holds so much.
The guilt of wanting more when nothing is technically wrong.
The shame of feeling empty in a relationship that looks fine from the outside.
The exhaustion of trying to talk yourself out of your own unhappiness.
He's not cruel.
He's not abusive.
He's not a villain.
And somehow that makes it harder.
Because at least then you'd have permission.
But here's what I need you to hear —
You do not need to be suffering dramatically to deserve more.
You do not need a reason that other people will understand.
You are allowed to be unhappy in a relationship that simply isn't right for you.
"He's a good person" and "this isn't working" can both be true.
At the same time.
Without guilt.
Staying somewhere you've outgrown isn't loyalty.
It's self-abandonment dressed up as being a good partner.
You're allowed to want a love that actually fits who you are.
If this has been living in your chest — you're not alone in it. DM me or drop a 🤍 below if this is you. I see you.

04/10/2026

You've seen the before and afters. But nobody shows you what actually happened in between.

The divorce effect is real, but it's not the freedom or the haircut or the weight loss that changes you. It's the moment you stop abandoning yourself to hold something together that was never meant to hold. It's the grief you finally let move through you.

The glow isn't the goal. The glow is what happens when healing finally takes root. And it's available to you. Not on the other side of perfect circumstances, but right here, with the right support around you. 🤍

If you're navigating divorce and ready to stop surviving it and start transforming through it, my Skool community (Mindful Untangling) and Through divorce program were built for exactly this moment.

Link in bio to learn more and join us. 🌿

04/10/2026

If you take anything from this week’s episode, let it be this:

You don’t have to rush your way through hard things.

There’s so much pressure to just “get through it,” to make decisions quickly, to move on. But the truth is when you slow down, when you regulate your nervous system, when you give yourself space to actually process,

you protect your future in ways you can’t see yet.

This conversation is really about that.

About mindfulness.
About emotional regulation.
About having the support to make decisions that are actually aligned with who you are becoming.

That’s the kind of personal growth that changes everything.

If you haven’t listened yet, you can come back to it anytime.

Click the link to watch the full episode. It’s available on my podcast and YouTube.

Podcast: https://www.pullingthreadspodcast.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

04/10/2026

The latest episode of Pulling Threads, Weaving Authenticity... because it is not as easy as it looks on TikTok!

https://youtu.be/blDdFBDraAQ

✨ Ready to do the real work behind the glow up?

📌 THROUGH (8-week divorce coaching program): https://theloomlife.com/throughdivorceprogram
📌 Mindful Untangling Community (launching May):
📌 Book a discovery call: theloomlife.com
📱 Instagram: .loom.life |
📧 support@theloomlife.com

Ready to do the real work? Join THROUGH: https://theloomlife.com/throughdivorceprogram or Book a call: theloomlife.comThe divorce glow up is everywhere on Ti...

04/10/2026

Betrayal by a close friend erodes trust not just in that person, but in others too, leading to generalized distrust. For women in crisis, this compounds existing doubts about judgment and safety, activating trauma responses. Your nervous system may register it as danger, leading to hypervigilance, withdrawal, or emotional numbing. Discovering betrayal by someone you confided in brings profound questioning and distrust.

04/10/2026

She told me she was “good at relationships.”

What she meant was she was good at managing one person’s emotions so the house stayed calm. She was good at reading the room. Good at knowing when to bring things up and when to swallow them. Good at keeping the peace at the cost of keeping herself.

And she was exhausted.

Not the kind of exhausted that sleep fixes. The kind where you don’t even know who you are when no one needs you to be anything.

This is what emotional management does over time. It doesn’t just drain your energy. It disconnects you from your own feelings, your own instincts, your own voice. You become so tuned in to someone else’s emotional frequency that your own signal goes silent.

And most women don’t even recognize it because it started long before this relationship. It started at a dinner table where a parent’s mood ran the house. It started in a family where being “easy” and “helpful” was how you earned love. So when a partner shows up whose emotions take up all the air in the room, it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels like home.

That’s the pattern. And it will keep repeating until you see it.

This isn’t about blame. It’s about awareness. Because the moment you realize that managing someone’s emotions is not your job, everything shifts. Your relationships change. Your nervous system starts to settle. And you start to hear your own voice again, maybe for the first time in years.

If this is landing for you right now, I want you to know that this is exactly the work I do with women inside coaching. We look at the patterns, we understand where they started, and we build something different. Not overnight. But with intention and support.

Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.

Save this. Share it with someone who needs it.
Follow .loom.life for more.

04/09/2026

Something we don’t talk about enough:

Not all money is equal.

Two numbers can look the same on paper and have completely different outcomes in real life.

That part of the conversation really stayed with me.

Because when you’re in a heightened emotional state, it’s so easy to just want things to feel “fair” and be done. But without clarity, without understanding, without slowing down, those decisions can follow you for years.

This is where inner work and awareness really matter.
This is where alignment meets real life.

When you understand what you actually have and what it means, you move differently. You choose differently.

And that’s what this episode really gets into.

Click the link to watch the full episode. It’s available on my podcast and YouTube.

Podcast: https://www.pullingthreadspodcast.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

04/09/2026

https://youtu.be/02TQlcRpZBc?si=Ggsvujfxm7eZ-Xon

Such a great conversation for anyone going through or considering a divorce! I learned so much from Melissa.

Divorce financial planning starts before you hire a lawyer — and the team you build changes everything.📖 Melissa's book — Divorce by Design: https://amzn.to...