How to Find Joy Again After Divorce & Hard Seasons

**How to find joy again after divorce, loss, and major life changes—plus simple ways to rediscover yourself and create more joy every day.** What happens when the roles that once defined you suddenly disappear? In this episode of *Doing Divorce Different*, Lesa Koski sits down with attorney, law professor, and author **SC Perot** to talk about **how to find joy again** when life looks nothing like you expected. After her marriage ended and she stepped away from practicing law, SC found herself facing a profound identity shift. Long walks, a search for “good energy” music, and an unexpected love of Harry Styles became the beginning of something much bigger: a journey to understand what joy really is and how we can intentionally create more of it. SC shares the powerful question that emerged during that season: **Who am I when I strip away my roles, relationships, career, and accomplishments?** You'll also learn SC's four-part **CAPS framework for joy: Cultivate, Adopt, Protect, and Spread.** She explains how to notice your personal “joy profile,” why what brings you joy can change over time, and how noticing small moments of joy can train us to see more of them. We also explore comparison and jealousy—especially on social media—and SC's beautiful concept of **“borrowed views”: allowing someone else's happiness to add beauty to your life instead of seeing it as evidence of what you're missing.** If you're going through divorce, midlife change, grief, or simply wondering where *you* went in the middle of taking care of everyone else, this conversation is an invitation to start asking a different question: **What brings me joy now?** Because learning **how to find joy again** doesn't mean ignoring what's hard. It means remembering that hard things and beautiful things can exist at the same time. ## Timestamps: (00:00) Why we're talking about joy instead of divorce (03:00) SC's divorce, career change, and identity shift (07:00) Finding a new soundtrack for a new life (11:00) The unexpected Harry Styles journey (15:00) Who are you without your roles and accomplishments? (20:00) Why movement and music can help during hard seasons (25:00) Protecting the things that bring you joy (30:00) Childlike joy vs. childish behavior (34:00) The CAPS framework for finding joy (38:00) Cultivate: discovering your personal “joy profile” (43:00) Why what brings you joy can change (48:00) Learning to notice joy when it appears (52:00) Joy vs. forced gratitude (57:00) Adopt: jealousy, comparison, and social media (1:02:00) Finding “joy in the wild” (1:07:00) The powerful idea of “borrowed views” (1:12:00) Turning someone else's joy into joy for yourself (1:17:00) Protecting your joy from judgment (1:21:00) Spreading joy through generosity and kindness (1:24:00) Finding joy even when you're going through something hard ## Key Takeaways: - **Your identity is bigger than your roles.** Divorce and major transitions can strip away familiar labels while creating an opportunity to rediscover who you are. - **Your “joy profile” can change.** Something that brought you joy five years ago doesn't have to bring you joy today. Pay attention to what lights you up *now*. - **Notice joy in the wild.** Sometimes we experience joy simply by witnessing someone else's happiness. - **Comparison doesn't have to steal your joy.** SC's “borrowed views” concept offers another way to experience other people's happiness without making it mean something about your own life. - **Protect and spread joy.** We can stop judging what brings ourselves and others happiness and intentionally add kindness, generosity, and light to the world. ## Guest Bio: **SC Perot** is an attorney, law professor, author, and speaker whose personal journey through divorce, career transition, and rediscovering joy inspired her book *Styles of Joy*. Her work explores how we cultivate, adopt, protect, and spread joy—and how paying attention to joy can change the way we experience even difficult seasons of life. ## Resource Links: ***Styles of Joy* by SC Perot:** https://www.scperot.com/book/ **OsteoStrong Minnesota:** https://osteostrongmn.com/affiliate-referral-koski/ **Soberlink:** https://www.soberlink.com/prove-sobriety/family-law?utm\_source=affiliatelink&utm\_medium=referral&utm\_campaign=lesa-koski-affiliatelink *Disclosure: These are affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you.* ## Tags/Keywords: how to find joy again, finding joy after divorce, joy after divorce, divorce recovery, life after divorce, rediscover yourself after divorce, women and divorce, women over 40, midlife women, midlife transition, finding yourself after divorce, identity after divorce, healing after divorce, divorce mindset, joy and happiness, cultivating joy, comparison and jealousy, social media comparison, Styles of Joy, S.C. Perrault, Harry Styles, CAPS framework, Doing Divorce Different, Lesa Koski