When It Rains, It Pours: The Ups And Downs Of Life

Accidents, death and Robin Williams can teach you to turn heartbreak into optimism and action. 

As a self-employed member of the sandwich generation, no matter what happens, I have to try to keep working. In the last five days, my son broke his foot, my mother sprained her ankle and I learned that a colleague, 10 years younger than I, was killed in a car accident. And Robin William died. Talk about a downpour.

My son is halfway across the country, almost 21, and said I didn't need to come. He has his teammates, trainers, coaches, gf and her parents. This being the first week of soccer pre-season, it's heartbreaking. I hope he will learn more about coping with adversity and grow stronger for this experience.

There's nothing to be done about my colleague who was also halfway across the country. It's heartbreaking but it reminds me that life is short and I must try even harder to use my time wisely. 

Read more here...

 

The Post-Divorce Survival Guide

The Post-Divorce Survival Guide

I am excited to announce the publication of my new eBook, The Post-Divorce Survival Guide.Tools For Your Journey. It is available  on Amazon .

With tips and steps to escape negative thinking, emotional impasses and behavioral stagnation, the book will help you negotiate the treacherous terrain of post-divorce life. Lightened up with a heavy dose of humor, I draw on the positive psychology literature with concrete suggestions to pro-actively manage and thrive in the difficult situations and adverse conditions that arise in the wake of divorce. 

I call on my personal experience with divorce, and years of work with clients going through this devastating life experience, to show you how you can emerge even better than you were before. The book addresses three tasks of post-divorce adjustment. The first is "Acceptance," identifying the reasons for the divorce and viewing them in an empowering way. The second, "Coping," provides help dealing with the often unexpected consequences associated with divorce. "Becoming," the final section, encourages you to aspire to be your best self and view your divorce as an opportunity to flourish. 

There are chapters on developing a positive mindset, identifying and using signature strengths, developing more optimism, setting and reaching goals, becoming happier and cultivating mindfulness. There are also chapters devoted to practical aspects of post-divorce adjustment including acceptance, emotional reactions, coping with your ex and dealing with issues like holidays and vacations, relationships with friends and relatives and dating.

I hope you find it useful and enjoy it. I'd love to hear your comments. 

Post-Divorce Post-Infidelity Recovery Skills

In addition to coping with the post-divorce period, you may also be coping with the aftermath of infidelity and affairs in your relationship. Speed up your recovery from infidelity using self-care, resilience and optimism.

See my post on YourTango.

Happy listening with I'm Better Than I Used To Be, Tim McGraw

Tips for Post-Divorce Vacation Blues

The article I just read about summer depression and seasonal affective disorder triggered my thoughts about special post-divorce summer issues.  Specifically, how to handle your kids being gone with your ex.  Often summer visits are longer, sometimes as much as two months when geography is an issue.  Here are the tips for handling the special challenges:

1.  Try optimism.  Thinking about longer visits as vacations exudes optimism.  It’s a vacation from your kids.  Not that you don’t love them to death, but they don’t say absence makes the heart grow fonder for nothing.  If you’re kids are going on an actual vacation, perhaps one for which you done have the time, money or inclination, think about how positive this is for them.

2.  Make good use of the opportunity.  Everyone has things that pile up.  This is an opportunity to get some things done.  Whether at home or at work, it’s catch up time.  When the vacation is over, you’ll be able to give yourself a huge pat on the back for accomplishing something that’s been looming.

3.  HAVE FUN.  Even with all caps I cannot emphasize this enough.  Whatever fun is for you (and if you can’t remember, this is a great time to figure it out), whether reading novels, renting videos the kids would hate, going zip-lining, having dinner with friends, not cooking, cooking what you’d like to eat…whatever it is, do it.  A lot.  It’ll counteract the pain of the loss.

4.  Refresh and renew.  Fun refreshes and renews, but so do other things.  What refreshes and renews for you?  You probably have more time to get to the gym or your yoga class (that you’re about to sign up for), for a long bath, a solitary walk, a facial or a massage.  This is “me” time.

5.  Accept.  This is how things are going to be.  It may be difficult, but acceptance is key to moving forward and flourishing in your new circumstances.  Breathe, notice and use your strengths to brighten your days.  You can do this, and it gets easier.

And totally dating myself, as usual, for a blast of summer, Summer in the City, Lovin’ Spoonful

Post-Divorce Optimism, or, Try to Love Again

What a gross oversight.  No blog entry on post-divorce optimism.  Faced with the sometimes devastating but always distressing aftermath of divorce, your optimism will be put to the test.  You know, optimism, that ability to see the bright side, to think positively and to have hope.  Where has it gone? 

Martin Seligman, in his book Learned Optimism,  suggests a number of steps you can take to counter your pessimism, should it rear its ugly head.  The basic idea is to argue with yourself against the negative thinking.  There are several steps.

For example, to counter the pessimistic thought, I’ll never meet anyone I can love again:

What’s the evidence?  Well, I’ve met people before, and I don’t really have a tough time meeting people.  Or maybe I do have a hard time meeting people and this is something I might want to work on.  I know several people who’ve divorced and remarried or gotten involved with someone new so there’s nothing keeping the same from happening for me. 

What’s an alternative thought process?  It may be difficult, but if I really want to meet someone, I know there are steps I can take.

What are the implications of the belief?  To hold the belief that I’ll never love again is just going to keep me from moving ahead.  If I’m open to the possibility that I might love again, that gives me a direction to move in.

What’s the utility of the belief?  The negative belief keeps me stuck and feeling bad.  It makes me feel that I’m not lovable.  If I believe that I’m lovable then I might be able to meet someone I want to love.  Getting rid of the negative belief allows me to try to meet someone, try to be happy single or try to focus on other things in my life right now.

It all goes back to one of the basic premises of cognitive therapies, you can’t always believe what you think.  Likewise, in coaching, sometimes you have to find your optimism when it gets lost in the post-divorce miasma.  Identify one of your pessimistic thoughts and go through the steps.  Asking the tough questions can help you move ahead.

The First Cut is the Deepest.  Sheryl Crow

Post-divorce Aphorisms for the Helper and Helpee

David Loxtercamp has come up with 14 aphorisms for country docs like himself.   I liked them all, but it struck me that some of them lent themselves to the post-divorce period.

Risk factors are not disease.  You are at risk for spending the rest of your life alone.  That does not mean you will spend the rest of your life alone.  And, you were always at risk for spending the rest of your life alone; you just didn’t know it.

Aging is not an illness.  Divorce is not an illness.  It’s like the death of one’s parents, infertility, getting fired from a job, and so forth.   Stuff happens.  While not an inevitable part of life like aging, it’s pretty close, as the staggering divorce statistics reveal.  There’s no pill for it.  No surgery.  You just have to figure out how to cope and flourish (my concept of the week). 

To fix a problem is easy, to sit with another suffering is hard.  You suffer post-divorce.  What you may need is to sit with that suffering a bit, and to have someone to sit with sometimes.  You cannot fix it.  It’s a done deal.  Feel it, learn from it, and grow as a result. 

The most common condition we treat is unhappiness and the greatest obstacle to treating a patient’s unhappiness is our own.  Try not to hang out with unhappy people too much.  Others in the post-divorce boat may be empathetic, but they may not be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel any more than you can.  Here’s where coaches are great.  They bring a lot of optimism to their work.

Nothing is more patient centered than the process of change.  Everyone knows what you should do after your divorce, and they’re more than happy to tell you.  The process of change, as Loxtercamp suggests, is highly individual.  You must be free to go through this your own way.  It doesn’t mean you can’t get help, it just means that you know best.

Consider these for your post-divorce recovery, and for those trying to help with someone else’s post-divorce recovery.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.

My song of the week:  Lovely Day. Bill Withers