She Has Spent More than Twenty Years Holding Women Through Divorce. Now She Is Building the Space the Courtroom Never Could.
Interview by Heather Anderson
Shumsha Hanif-Cruz has spent over two decades as a family law attorney in the Bay Area, sitting with clients through some of the most disorienting passages of their lives. She knows the legal system intimately, its structure, its limits, and everything it leaves untouched. That knowledge, combined with fifteen years of her own deep spiritual practice, is what led her to build something that does not exist anywhere else: a retreat and community space specifically for women navigating divorce. Through The Journey Within, she holds the grief, the rage, the uncertainty, and the becoming that the courtroom was never designed to handle. She is also a board member of Liberation Pathways Healing Space, a BIPOC-led organization connecting marginalized communities to land-based healing in Oregon, and a past President of the Earl Warren Inn of Court.
You have spent over two decades as a family law attorney, sitting with people through some of the hardest moments of their lives. After all that time inside the legal process, what did you start to see that the courtroom simply could not offer?
What I know for sure is that the legal system was not created by women, and it shows in how much litigiousness and animosity it generates. It is designed for strife and conflict rather than resolution. It is not a good system for families. It is not a good space for people to come together and decide what is actually in the best interest of their children, themselves, and their family as a whole. And what I kept witnessing, over and over, is that this process leaves so many people broken. Searching for ways to reset their nervous system after one of the most challenging times in their lives. Trying to recover from courts that are not designed to look at how any of this affects people long term.
The grief alone. There is so much grief in this process that is not addressed, not acknowledged, not honored. And that is what the legal system cannot give you. It was never built for that.
You created a retreat program specifically for women navigating divorce, something that exists almost nowhere else. Where did that idea come from?
For the last few years I have been asking myself what is next. I love what I do. I love helping my clients get through some of the hardest seasons of their lives. But I have also been searching for work that nourishes me, not just work that I am good at.
When I finally sat with that question honestly, the answer became clear. I have been doing my own deep spiritual work for more than a decade and a half, and that practice is a huge part of what has allowed me to hold other people's stress and struggles without losing myself in it. The retreats are a way to bring all of that together. My legal experience, my spiritual practice, my understanding of what women in this process are actually carrying. When I realized I could marry all of those parts of myself in one offering, I knew this was it. Something that lets me be in service and lights me up at the same time.
And when I looked at what existed for women going through divorce, the gap was undeniable. There is simply no space designed to hold them in this way. That is what I am building.
You are a board member of Liberation Pathways Healing Space. Can you tell us about that work and how it connects to what you are building?
Liberation Pathways is a beautiful BIPOC-led organization that holds space for BIPOC and indigenous people to reconnect with the land. They offer retreats, family camping, and workshops on this stunning privately owned land in Oregon. Farming, nature connection, all the things that families in urban and low-income settings rarely get access to. We have only been in existence about two years, so I am a new board member, but I am genuinely excited to help support their mission. Land is healing. The stewards of that space are deeply committed humans, and the work they are doing for immigrants and marginalized communities is real and necessary.
It connects to everything I am building, because at the root of all of it is the same belief: that people deserve spaces to heal that were actually designed with them in mind.
“Somatic healing gives the body a way to process and release what the mind is too overwhelmed to handle. It is not dramatic. It is not scary. It is just coming home to yourself.”
After designing retreats, you’ve now built something even more accessible and recurring, a monthly virtual gathering called the Liminal Hour, open to any woman navigating divorce. What moved you to create this as your next offering, and what happens in that space?
I wanted to create a space where women do not have to pretend. Where they do not have to wear a mask or hold it together or perform okayness. A space where grief, anger, and uncertainty are welcome, where all of it is held without judgment.
The Liminal Hour is that space. It is virtual, and it is open to any woman in this transition. I wanted to offer something that let people meet me, get a sense of why this work matters to me, and experience just a little of what it feels like to be held in community with other women who understand. Because this business is still new, I think the most important thing I can do right now is show up, consistently, and say: you do not have to face this alone.
The name comes from the concept of liminal space, that in-between threshold of who you were and who you are becoming. That is exactly where women navigating divorce are living. And the Liminal Hour is an acknowledgment of that place. You are here. It is hard. And it matters.
What does a woman need to know before she shows up to the Liminal Hour, and what can she expect to feel when she leaves?
First, this is not therapy, and it is not a space to vent about your attorney or your ex. It is a space to drop into whatever emotion or theme we are working with that month. Each gathering is led with an intention, a topic, and we begin with a few minutes of somatic touch, breathwork, or meditation to ground everyone in.
You are not required to speak. You can show up and simply be present. You can witness and be witnessed. What most women feel when they leave is that they are not alone in this, and that is not a small thing. That feeling, even just for an hour, can shift something real.
We also stay mindful of how much space each of us takes up, because we are sharing this container together. Everyone deserves to be held.
The Liminal Hour meets on the third Wednesday of every month. There is a small cost of $28 or if you are facing financial hardship, $11. You just have to show up.
For women who are ready to go deeper, you are building day retreats. What does a woman actually experience when she steps into that space?
The day retreat is an opportunity to step completely out of the fighting, the stress, the legal workings, and come back to yourself. Not the mother, not the litigant, not the soon-to-be-ex-spouse. Just a woman who deserves to be met with compassion and kindness and grace.
We will move through grief work. We will connect with each other through individual prompts and reflection. We will do somatic and nervous system work. And throughout all of it, the intention is the same: you are going to be cared for today. You are going to be seen. For one day, your nervous system is going to feel safe.
That is what women rarely get during this process. Someone to hold them, not just advise them, not just strategize with them, but actually hold them while they move through something that is genuinely enormous.
I held my first divorce retreat and did not expect to feel so uplifted. But I was. The women who showed up inspired me. What happened in that room was real and authentic. That is what I am building toward, more of that.
You describe divorce as a liminal space, the threshold between who someone was and who they are becoming. Why does naming it that way matter?
Because it takes the fault out of it.
Liminal space says: you are here for a reason, and it is okay. This is not what you envisioned for your life, and that is okay too. You are going down a path you did not anticipate, and we get to honor who you were in that previous chapter, because who is going to come out on the other side of this is going to be someone more in tune with herself, clearer about what she needs, more certain about what she will and will not accept. That is not loss. That is transformation.
The liminal frame gives women permission to be exactly where they are without shame, and then it points them toward what is possible on the other side. That is what I want every woman in my retreats to feel. You are not stuck here. You are becoming.
You incorporate somatic work, grief ritual, and nervous system support into your retreats. For someone who has never experienced that kind of healing work, how would you describe what it does?
Somatic work has been instrumental in my own ability to do what I do. After a really hard moment with work, when I am feeling anger or grief on behalf of my client, somatic work is what brings me back to my body. It helps me ground. It helps me know that what I am feeling is okay, that there is nothing wrong with me for feeling it.
What somatic work does is let your body lead. It moves you out of your mind, out of the endless loop of thoughts, and drops you into your heart space. Into the parts of your body that are aching or holding tension or asking for something. Our bodies are so wise. We just rarely slow down enough to listen.
During divorce especially, the nervous system is under constant siege. Court dates, conflict, uncertainty, grief, all of it lives in the body, not just the mind. Somatic healing gives the body a way to process and release what the mind is too overwhelmed to handle. It is not dramatic. It is not scary. It is just coming home to yourself.
Divorce grief is real but often unacknowledged. People expect you to just move on. What do you wish more women knew about what they are actually going through?
That their family and friends, as loving as they may be, often do not understand how long this process takes or how much it asks of a person. I hear it constantly from clients. Being asked questions, they cannot answer: Are you not done yet? Why is it taking so long? Why did you give them so much? Questions that feel like an attack, even when they are not meant that way.
What those women are already doing every day is defending themselves. In court, in negotiations, in conversations with their ex-partner. And then they come home to more questions they cannot fully answer, from people who love them, and it is so disheartening and draining.
If you want to support a woman going through this, ask her what she needs. Not what you think she should be doing or how much longer it should take. Ask how you can help. And then listen.
Because here is what I know to be true: we are all doing the very best we can. She did not ask or anticipate being here. And she is already carrying more than most people around her understand.
Who is your ideal woman for the Liminal Hour and the retreats?
Someone who knows there is more for her on the other side of this. Who understands that this is one chapter, not the whole story. Someone who is willing to do the work, because it does take courage to look at your grief, to sit in the discomfort of the in-between, to drop out of your head and into your body and ask, what is this experience teaching me?
She does not have to have experience with somatic work or ceremony or ritual. Curiosity is enough. If she has sat in ceremony before, she will recognize the container. If she never has and something in her is pulled toward it, that is exactly who this space is for.
She wants to be held. She is tired of holding everything herself. And she is ready, even just a little, to let someone else carry some of it for a while.
You are twenty-six years married, a mother of three, a Bay Area native, and now building something at the intersection of law, healing, and women's empowerment. What does this chapter feel like?
Like a gift. Genuinely. I get to honor all of myself in this work in a way I never anticipated. My legal training, my spiritual practice, my own journey, all of it together. That is a privilege I do not take lightly.
When I held my first retreat I did not expect to leave feeling so full and uplifted. But I did. The women who showed up gave me something powerful. I was inspired by them. And I know that as I continue this work, I am going to keep being delighted by the women I meet and the healing that happens in those rooms.
I want my joy to be visible. I want women to see what it looks like to step into a new chapter and feel lit up by it, because that is possible for them too. That is the other thing I am hoping to offer: proof that the other side of the in-between is worth walking toward.
If a woman is reading this and feeling like she needs somewhere to land right now, not a therapist, not an attorney, just a safe and understanding space, where does she find you?
Come to The Journey Within. Everything lives there. Here is where to start:
The Liminal Hour — a monthly virtual gathering, third Wednesday of every month. No experience needed. Just show up.
Day Retreats — for women ready to go deeper. A full day to step out of the process and come back to yourself. Join the waitlist.
Book a Consultation — to talk about the retreats, coaching support, or whatever you need right now.
And if you do need legal support, you can find Shumsha’s legal services here!
You do not have to have it figured out. You just have to be willing to not do this alone.
Connect with Shumsha on LinkedIn or Instagram.
You can also find her on The M List, The Mamahood's searchable database of mom-recommended resources, or connect and collaborate with her inside The Club membership for women Founders.