Divorce Care: 3 Steps to Protecting Your Heart

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• How Divorce and Global Warming are Connected

  I was talking with one of my clients in an off-scheduled call during my morning yoga routine. She was distraught with emotion and we started making the analogy of how divorce can be described through weather patterns. We have EARTHQUAKES! This is the initial shock that rocks our foundation, destroying what we’ve grown and built over the years. We don’t know how much damage there is until we get underneath the structure. Sometimes the structure can be rebuilt, and others it needs to be completely torn down or abandoned. What do we learn from the earthquake? The importance of a strong foundation that is built on honest and open communication, and true intimacy and vulnerability. We learn the importance of creating a partnership from a foundation of shared values, hopes, and dreams. We learn the importance of knowing ourselves deeply before getting into a relationship in the first place. We learn the dangers of building our foundation on denial, resentments, and withheld communications. We have TORNADOS! These are the emotions that rip through us leaving us in a pile of rubble and not knowing how to clean up the mess. Sometimes, we don’t even know where to start. This is when we need to call in Red Cross! Get help from people who know the terrain and has access to the federal emergency fund. This is where you employ the support of friends to hold you when you cry and therapists, and coaches who have your back and help you navigate the emotional waters of divorce so you come out the other side empowered and ready to move on with confidence. While grief is anything but linear, we’re highly trained and have experience and expertise in helping you reinvent your life after divorce or breakup. We have FLOODS and Wild Winter Storms! These are the endless tears of grief that envelop us as we begin the process of letting to and accepting our loss. It can be very difficult to let go, even if we know it’s the right thing for us. We grieve the loss of an intact family, we grieve the loss of companionship, we grieve the loss of friends and family, and we grieve the loss of our hopes and dreams for a happy family. “You cannot heal what you cannot feel,” is a motto I live by. While denial is an active component of the 5 stages of grief that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified, sweeping your feelings under the rug or pretending you’re okay will only prolong the grieving process. Your birthright is to feel! While it may seem you will go out of control or that you will go so deep you won’t come back, if you give yourself permission to feel fully, then you will come out the other side feeling cleansed and renewed – just like the day after a huge thunderstorm. If you’ve ever been in one, you know the quality of freshness and aliveness is tangible – and delicious! We have GLOBAL WARMING! – more commonly known as Hot Flashes! Yes, divorce is compounded when you’re in your forties and fifties because many of us question our attractiveness and F*#%ability. We question our value and ability to attract a partner. Our bodies are changing! Our emotions and even our sleep patterns are affected by menopause. A friend of mine said that menopause means, MEN – o – PAUSE – and while she claims it’s a time to take a pause from men, I say it’s a time to Reclaim Yourself! Pay attention to the interconnectedness of your inner and outer experiences. Take the time to delve deeply into your belief system and become internally referenced. Let go of patterns of self-sabotage, limiting beliefs, and ways of thinking, and embrace your authentic core essence of who you are! We have the RAINBOW! Divorce is the perfect catastrophic life event to give birth to yourself! It’s a golden opportunity to learn who you are and to commit to a consciously created life of your choosing. There is life beyond divorce, and more often than not the struggles immediately following a divorce can bring you a better life. Imagine the rainbow and remember the promise of hope and renewal of life after the destruction! You can do it! You will get through it! And you don’t have to do it alone! This is where Spiritual Divorce and my Reclaim Yourself After Divorce process help. First Spiritual Divorce helps remove the layers of shame and guilt as you learn and integrate universal spiritual laws that heal your heart and empower you to move on with confidence. After you complete the one-on-one intensive Spiritual Divorce process or an online Study of Spiritual Divorce, then you can being the Reclaim Yourself Process and fall in love with yourself, regain your confidence, grow your self-esteem, and become the beloved you want to partner with. Take your Reclaim Yourself After Divorce Assessment and schedule and take your first steps toward the pot of gold!

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• The Law of Divine Guidance

  The Law of Divine Guidance says that you can trust the flow of your life. Whatever religion you practice will be honored and respected. I’ll support you in using whatever Divine Guidance you choose to help you find your own answers. Learning how to access your own inner wisdom will be key to integrating The Law of Divine Guidance. Your internal world is a safe place for your Divine Guidance to make itself known to you. In this process of healing your heart, I will guide you weekly into your internal world to access this wisdom. RESOURCE – Eckhart Tolle — A New Earth Maybe you watched the Oprah webcasts. I found the series very powerful and resonating. Give it a try. Meditation is a powerful tool to use to connect with your inner wisdom. Share with me how you connect with your inner wisdom. In this short video, Deepak Chopra talks about how to meditate. This is a tool I like to use to connect with my Divine Guidance. via My Heart Heals With The Law of Divine Guidance | My Heart Heals.

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• The Law of Creation

  The Law of Creation frees you to consciously step out of self-imposed limitations and into the infinite wonder of what is possible for your life. When you have integrated the other six spiritual laws, you will be well on your way to a healed heart and in the perfect position to go for what you desire. Once you have forgiven and broken the painful ties that bind you to the past, you will be in the perfect place to create from clear ground. You deserve to be free from the pain of the past and to live with an open, loving, and trusting heart. It may be hard work for you, but I guarantee you that if you make the commitment to heal your heart, it will be well worth it. If you were standing on a blank canvas, what would you create? AN EXERCISE Give yourself a little time to dream. Before you begin this 10-15 minute journaling exercise, clear your mind of all limitations. If you notice doubt or fear creep in, just ask it to sit aside for your journal time. Use the following prompts to imagine what you would create: If your heart were completely healed, what would you be able to have in your life? What is it that you would be able to do that you haven’t been able to do up to now? Where would you live? work? What new things would you try? A new hobby? Would you take up an activity that you haven’t participated in for years? How might you look at the world differently? If you had the feeling in your heart that you were unstoppable, what actions would you take this week? What old grudges would you drop? What fears would you let go of? If there were no limitations, what would your life look like? Once you’ve written for about 15 minutes, fold the piece of paper up and place it under your pillow. Read it every night for a week. Feel free to add to it or update it as you re-read it. Let the good feelings build in you as you commit to creating what you want for your life. Share with me what you discovered about your desires. via My Heart Heals With The Law of Creation | My Heart Heals.

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• The Law of Acceptance

  The first spiritual law states “everything is as it should be.” It’s not easy to embrace this law when your spouse just lied to you about your financial situation, cheated on you with your best friend, or is threatening you with divorce. Nor is it easy to embrace this law when your heart is broken and you are in the most intense pain wishing to not have the experience you’re having and for your life to be different. There’s an old Sufi story about a farmer and his son. Have you heard it? The farmer heads out to feed his animals and his prized horse is dead. As soon as the village learned of this tragedy, they came to express their condolences. The farmer heard the same message throughout the day: “What a terrible thing to have happen to you. This is the worst thing that could happen.” The farmer repeated what became a mantra to the well-wishers: “Perhaps…. perhaps…” The following week, while the farmer was working the land, his eldest son runs to tell him that he just captured a herd of wild horses. This time the villagers were excited for the farmer and came to congratulate him on his good fortune. “You are so lucky! Look at the blessing that has been bestowed upon you. An entire herd of horses! You rock!” Interestingly, the farmer’s reply was the same as before, “Perhaps…” A few days later he sent his son to tame the wild horses. In the process, the farmer’s son was thrown to the ground and his leg was broken. You know the villagers were pretty tight back then, so they all heard of the tragedy. Once again the villagers came to check on the boy and to inform the farmer of what bad luck he was having. The farmer’s reply once again was, “Perhaps… perhaps.” The farmer’s son was still bedridden several weeks later when the emperor sent his messengers to round up all the boys who could fight in a local battle. Of course, they passed the boy right on by when the messengers saw how injured he was. A few weeks later, the neighbors, who lost their sons in the battle, again come by the farmer’s home and say, “You’re so lucky to have your son home with you.” And do you know what the farmer said? You’re right, “Perhaps… perhaps.” Acceptance: It may be the last thing you want to do. Usually, when we’re in the middle of a crisis, our first thought tends to be something like this: It shouldn’t be like this. Why is this happening to me? The Law of Acceptance teaches us that our lives are always evolving whether we know it or not and invites us to remember that what may appear to be a tragedy, maybe in reality leading us to the fulfillment of our dreams. When you are living this law you will be heading toward a trusting relationship with the Divine. You will trust on an intuitive level that the changes that are taking place in your life are ultimately for your highest good – even when you are hurting. The Law of Acceptance is the first step toward healing your broken heart. As you embrace The Law of Acceptance, you will open yourself up to reinventing yourself and creating the life that you most desire. RESOURCES: exercise, book, and a video. Spiritual Divorce by Debbie Ford The Right Questions by Debbie Ford Byron Katie — Is it true? In this powerful video, Byron Katie highlights a story about a woman who doesn’t even know what she wants. After asking a few important questions, she discovers that she doesn’t even want her husband back. Can you imagine the freedom you can have from discovering what you really want?

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• Divorce Care: 3 Steps to Protecting Your Heart

  Protecting your heart is a normal & natural thing to do! But it won’t get you what you want. One of the first things to happen when you go through a breakup or divorce is: you hurt like a #($*%. The pain can cut through you like a hot knife leaving you gasping for air. The normal human reaction to pain is to protect yourself. But unconscious protecting of your heart will leave you feeling alone and miserable and at it’s worse, it will deaden your spirit and leave you disconnected from the very things you most want: love, partnership, connection, to not be alone. It’s very common to commit to never loving again because of how deeply you’ve been hurt. Here are 3 steps you can take to protect your heart and keep it open. Step 1 -Stop Pointing your Finger! Protections like anger, blame, and resentment, are a few of the walls we erect to protect our hearts. We think these protections keep us safe, but they don’t really work. We mistakingly think that someone has to be responsible for what went wrong and we either blame the other person or we beat ourselves up without mercy. What’s really happening if you’re blaming your ex for the pain you’re in is that you’re unconsciously directing responsibility for the breakup away from yourself. If he or she did something that was really awful, then it’s easy to point your finger and say, “It’s all your fault!” It’s no different than self-blame, except that you’re unconsciously taking all the responsibility. If you’re a self-blamer, then you’re saying things like, “If only I did _____ differently,” or “If only I was better at______.” Either way, the first step is to cease and desist all blame – inbound or outbound. What if it didn’t really matter whose fault it was? What if you could take responsibility for your part without blame? What if you didn’t take responsibility for the parts that aren’t yours-without pointing your finger? The result will be a conscious awareness of what you and your ex co-created – together! Your breakup wouldn’t be happening if only one of you was in the relationship. While it may still be painful to look at your breakup in this way, if you want to protect your heart and keep it open for future love, then you must take responsibility without blame. Learn more about Spiritual Divorce ™ and the Law of Responsibility. Step 2 – Be Ruthlessly Compassionate! You can’t keep your heart open and protect it without a huge dose of compassion as you look at yourself and your part of the breakup. You may be tempted to circle back to the blame. Instead, take a breath and tell yourself that you’re okay and you did the best you could at the time. Be firm with yourself and don’t go into beating yourself up. If you do have an over-powering inner-critic, send him or her away for a vacation – they need a break! You will need to be able to be gentle with yourself as you notice your relationship patterns. Step 3 – Identify Your Red Flags! The information you discover from taking responsibility without blame will likely illuminate the choices you made that led to your breakup. If you’re completely honest with yourself, you will likely notice that you avoided something that you shouldn’t have avoided by sweeping it under the carpet. Maybe you didn’t speak up or you ignored signs of cheating, maybe you weren’t really happy but stayed for the kids. Give yourself permission to find your red flags, because they are your gold mine. Your red flags are what you will use to keep your heart open and safe at the same time. By addressing red flags as they come up, you will build a trusting relationship with yourself that you can count on to make conscious relationship choices. Need Support and divorce care? Learn the 7 Spiritual Laws in an 8-week Study & Support Group If you just haven’t been able to get through your pain, then I’d like to invite you to join me in a study of Debbie Ford’s Spiritual Divorce and get divorce care and support in our interactive online group. Use the above link to get more information or email me to sign up for the 8-week support group starting soon. You’re going to be okay!

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