Julianne Hough Says Seeing Her Ex-Husband and His Girlfriend at a Wedding Helped Her Feel ‘Fullness of Life’ (Exclusive)

Julianne Hough had no issues sharing space with her ex-husband, Brooks Laich, and his girlfriend.

In PEOPLE’s exclusive sneak peek at part three of Hough’s appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, the Dancing with the Stars host, 36, candidly describes how she felt attending a wedding where the former NHL hockey player, 41, and his girlfriend Katrín Tanja Davíðsdóttir were also in attendance.

“It was so beautiful. It was so beautiful,” she says. “And again, like I’m in this place where I now feel like I’m just beginning with so much wisdom, with so much insight, with so much compassion and so much empathy and understanding of like, what’s possible, and having the extreme of like, ‘Will this ever end?’ to ‘Oh my gosh, like, I get to, like, literally, design and create the life of my dreams’, and know that every decision I’m going to make is going to be from here and that, like, you know, it still doesn’t mean it’s going to be this perfect life.”

The professional dancer notes that while she doesn’t “want a perfect life,” she wants a “full, beautiful, connected life.”

“You feel joy because you feel sorrow, you feel all these things because you have the spectrum to feel it,” she says. “You have the space to feel it, and that, I think, is what we’re here to experience, is the fullness of life.”

She and Laich began dating in 2013 and tied the knot in an outdoor wedding on Lake Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in July 2017. After almost three years of marriage, they announced their decision to separate in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE in May 2020.

Hough officially filed for divorce in November 2020, and the two finalized their divorce in June 2022.

Since then, Laich has been dating CrossFit athlete Davíðsdóttir, with whom he went Instagram official with in August 2021.

As for what Hough is looking for in her next partner, she shares that she wants someone she has “certain non-negotiables.”

Ultimately, however, she wants to be “living and vibrating in the place of my most authentic self for that to be what attracts whoever it is, versus I’m gonna put what I think I want and need out there and then literally force create it.”

The third and final part of Hough’s interview on The Jamie Kern Lima Show premieres Tuesday, September 24.

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