This ‘Divorcee Doula’ wants women to reclaim their confidence and get their ‘zhoosh’ back

Divorce has a method of eroding women’s confidence, distorting identification, and making the longer term really feel unsure.

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For Sue Zarco Kramer, that emotional free fall wasn’t simply private — it grew to become the unlikely basis of a brand new calling. Today, Kramer is called “The Divorcee Doula,” an professional for women navigating the uncooked, disorienting terrain of life after divorce and serving to them reclaim what she calls their “zhoosh” — that spark of confidence, sensuality, and self-worth that usually will get misplaced alongside the way in which.

A proud Latina filmmaker, Brooklyn-based author/director, and branding entrepreneur, Kramer didn’t set out to change into a post-divorce coach or confidante. Her path started with storytelling—with a brief movie in 2023 that was born out of her personal post-divorce courting journals. “Swipe NYC,” a fictionalized model of Kramer’s life starring Lisa Edelstein, chronicled her plunge into the bewildering, awkward, and generally absurd world of on-line courting after divorce.

Kramer defined to Know Your Value that the movie struck a nerve, sweeping movie festivals nationwide and opening a floodgate Kramer by no means anticipated: women lining up to inform her, “That’s me” – and asking how they too might write their subsequent chapter.

That’s the place The Divorcee Doula was born. Through wardrobe edits, magnificence makeovers, narrative teaching, courting steerage, and emotional help, Kramer now helps women not simply survive divorce, however step boldly into what comes subsequent.

Kramer chatted with Know Your Value about how her work started, why divorce hits women so exhausting, and what she believes each lady deserves to know earlier than, throughout, and after the tip of a wedding.

The dialog, which is beneath, has been edited for brevity and readability.

Know Your Value: Tell us how “the Divorcee Doula” began.

Sue Zarco Kramer: “…I made a film two years ago, a short, called “Swipe NYC”, starring Lisa Edelstein, that principally performs me. It’s a fictionalized model of me, and it’s primarily based on my courting journals. It’s primarily based on me leaping into actually deep water, not figuring out how to swim, going into the courting circuit of courting apps, and not figuring out what the heck I used to be doing.

So, I made a journal. Every evening. I’d go on a date, and I’d come back, and I’d write a journal

…So, I made this movie primarily based on my journals. And it grew to become a nationwide movie competition hit. We gained tons of awards. And what occurred was I received this huge quantity of individuals writing to me and lining up at festivals saying, “I’m a divorcee. You’re like the Carrie Bradshaw of real divorcees.”

And then one time, a girl wrote to me, and she mentioned, might I work with you? Could you’re taking me out … and fashion me, and give me some zhoosh that you’ve got … And I used to be like, “I would love that.”

And after that day, she mentioned: ‘You know what you are? You’re the Divorcee Doula. You’re not simply someone who’s serving to women, you’re doing all of it. You’re serving to women rebirth.’ And at that time, which was one yr in the past, precisely, we’re at my one-year anniversary, I launched the Divorcee Doula.

Know Your Value: You speak lots in regards to the significance of women “getting their ‘zhoosh’ back.” Why accomplish that many women lose it?

Kramer: So many women lose their ‘zhoosh’ for a lot of causes—it’s not simply divorce. We can lose our ‘zhoosh’ from a job, from burnout, from a relationship, from a household state of affairs.

…Divorce is a killer. It takes your vanity away. It takes your confidence away. And so, getting your ‘zhoosh’ back, which is my motto and my goal, is to actually convey that vitality back up to women, and present them their worth, and present them their price, and present them that there’s a lot extra to come.

I’m in one of the best chapter of my life, and I’m divorced. So, I’m right here to be a testomony to that.

Know Your Value: What’s step one to getting your groove back?

Kramer: …One of the primary issues I do is undergo your closet. Many divorced women shed weight and then disguise in their larger garments. I say, if it’s not a 9 or a ten, it goes. We’re going to give it to someone who wants it.

And then we do a buying day, and we purchase garments that look wonderful… and I take them to [places like] Bobbi Brown’s Jones Road. [Bobbi] has been my first ambassador … Jones Road is all about reinvention, and trying your finest self, trying your pure finest self.

Many women will say, “I can’t leave because of the children” even when they discover on the market’s infidelity. They will typically hold their partner as a result of they don’t need to break up a wedding or a household. And the reality is that households are available in many alternative packages. I’m a single mother now, I’ve a daughter, she’s thriving.

…It was not straightforward. I’m by no means going to inform anybody it’s straightforward. It’s actually, actually exhausting. But my biggest recommendation is encompass your self with a terrific help system.

…My friendships are my household. My household is my household, and my daughter is my household, and that brings me a very wealthy life, and I’ve a profession, and I journey, and I do all of the issues

I feel [people who are in a bad marriage and considering divorce] assume that their life goes to finish. And that isn’t true. I’m right here to inform women there may be a lot extra to come. Chapter 4, 5, and six out of each novel is a number of the biggest pages of a novel. Trust me, these pages are to come, and they’re full of wealthy experiences. Experiences that you simply by no means dreamed of in your marriage. Freedom that you simply by no means dreamed of in your marriage. Empowerment that you simply by no means dreamed of in your marriage.

It is so empowering to say, “I’m doing this on my own terms. I know my value. I know my worth.”