How To Get Your Daily Dose Of Awe

Anyone going through the divorce process knows you need the full range of stress reduction tools at our disposal. Tapping into awe is one of those tools I've recently written about. The article starts like this:

On my travels one day, I saw a skunk. Not one dead by the side of the road. Not one scurrying in the dark. It was a medium sized guy ambling across a campus road just after dawn. There were no other cars or people, so I had the opportunity to stop and watch. It had a clean and shiny coat. It didn’t seem to have a care in the word, pausing to sniff, then moving on. Also sharing this space with me were some squirrels, deer and geese.

It's hard to describe what I felt. Wonder. Peace. Community. Part of a larger world that included all these other beings. It all adds up to awe.

Read more here...

 

A Few Tips for Friends of the Divorced

Jancee Dunn has some really good tips for friends of divorced people. It includes some that are perhaps obvious, like invite your friend to do things. There are others that aren't so obvious, like don't trash the ex.

 It's worth a read here...

Before Offering Advice To Adult Children Consider This One Question

 

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels

Now that you're divorced and parenting on your own, here are some tips for dealing with grown children.

When I decided to marry at the ripe old age of 19, I did not seek my parents’ advice. They thought it was a terrible idea (spoiler alert: they were right) but they did not let on. Had they, I would not have listened. And I would have been angry. I knew what I was doing.

At a certain age, we all become experts. We have advice for friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and, of course, our adult children. Whether married, divorced, remarried or never-married, we believe we know what everyone else should do on these matters, and myriad others, from work, to end-of-life choices.

Do we have a crystal ball in which we can see the future? I think not. Do we believe we’re right? Yes, we do. Are we right? That’s open to debate. 

Continue reading here...

What You Need To Know About Lying to Your Therapist

 

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels

Divorce leads many people to therapy as they try to make sense of the past and move forward into the future. 

Clearly seeing reality is a waystation toward the goal of enhancing your wellbeing. As you might imagine, lying to your therapist impairs both your and your therapist’s ability to see that reality. If you’re like most people, you’ve probably lied to your therapist.

In their book, Secrets and Lies in Psychotherapy, the authors report that between 84 and 93% of clients lie to their therapists, often about multiple things. This isn’t terribly surprising since research has shown that the average person lies once or twice a day.

Consider your honesty on a first date. Odds are, you may be less than totally truthful. You may paint your job in a more positive light, talk about relationships with your children in a slightly more glowing way, or tell an anecdote about something, embellishing the details to make it more humorous or interesting. 

These are all normal lies told for the sake of impression management, to make us look a little better, appear somewhat more accomplished or take a conversation from merely interesting to scintillating.

Read more here…

Why It’s Healthy To Feel Your Negative Emotions

Negative emotions run rampant post-divorce.

But it doesn't have to be all bad. We call it toxic positivity because sometimes experiencing negative emotions can be healthy. My take: 

“'Toxic positivity"keeps you from embracing the discomfort of negative emotions. But consider that you must welcome the fear, pain, and anxiety of a challenge to run your first marathon, return to school after a hiatus, go on your first meditation retreat, or try your first post-break-up date. Allowing the negative feelings in opens you up to new, enriching experiences. Pursue something a little scary — this is the true road to happiness."

Read more here...

Life Coach Notes, Newsletter, Summer 2019

I'm sure you'll find some useful tips for moving forward post-divorce.

Click here to see my Summer, 2019 Newsletter, with recent articles about health and wellness, relationships and making meaningful changes in your life. Read it here. 

What To Do About The Agony Of ‘Adulting’ (At Any Age)

So you're divorced. Maybe this is the first time you've had to take on some of the tasks of "adulting" solo. Here's my piece about why it's difficult, and how to make it easier.

I’ve been hearing about “adulting” from many of my clients, as in, “I spent all morning at the bank, getting the car washed, and taking my mother’s emotional support animal to the vet…#adulting.”

When I saw the headline in my Sunday paper, “Learning to ‘Adult,” I realized “adulting” wasn’t just a passing linguistic hiccup. One of the local colleges is running a series of talks called “#Adulting.”

Some have complained about the term. They find it sexist, which hardly seems apt, since men use it too. They find it gross, but I find it ironically self-reflective. Like making blonde jokes when you’re blonde, it shows you don’t take yourself too seriously. 

Read more here...

Post-divorce Survival Guide

My book is mentioned in a "Best Relationships Books" article!

The book helps the reader manage and thrive in the difficult situations and adverse conditions that arise in the wake of divorce. I call on my personal experience and years of work with clients going through this devastating life event to demonstrate how you can emerge even better than before.

Check it out here!

10 Happy Reminders Of Why Divorce Is Sometimes A Beautiful Thing

My teenage son bought me a Kavu bag for my birthday to complete my "hippie look." It was the perfect gift given only by someone who really gets you. I thought about how strong our relationship has become. 

Similar to many post-divorce occurrences, it's not that it couldn't have happened when I was married, it's just that it counts as one of many happy results emerging from an unhappy situation.

These are 10 lessons I learned from those happy results of life after divorce: 

1. I can be closer to my child. I'm not saying you can't be married and close to your children. But often there seems to be a unique bond between the divorced and their children. Not having to divide attention between spouse and child accounts for some of it. 

Maybe the rest comes from having to live together through difficult times. I'm grateful for that closeness and work hard to cultivate it.

Continue reading here...

 

Why Your Emotional Support Animal Is Not Treatment For Your Anxiety

Anxiety comes with the territory post-divorce. You might need more than your pet. Here's a recent post on why, and how to reduce anxiety.

I was on a recent teletherapy call with an anxious young college student. Let's call him Robbie. Half-way in he told me he thought he needed an ESA. ESA, I thought…is that one of those texting anagrams I should know, like FOMO or YOLO? Before I had a chance to ask, Robbie said that having his long-time companion, his adored tabby, in his dorm room would make his anxiety manageable.

It came to me in a flash: Emotional Support Animal. I'd read about these. A quick Google search after the call revealed that people are contacting teletherapy services, like the one I took Robbie's call on, to obtain virtually (pun intended) immediate certification to have their ERAs in dorms, pet-unfriendly apartments and on airplanes. 

Read more here...

Spring, 2016 Newsletter

Click here to see my Spring, 2016 Newsletter, with my recent posts and others I've enjoyed on health and wellness, relationships, dating and post-divorce adjustment. And there's news about my new office. Read it here…

For the next 5 days my book, The Post-Divorce Survival Guide. Tools for Your Journey, is available FREE.

Relieve Your Stress And Become A Better Mother

As the stress mounts post-divorce, parenting is an area where it can really take a toll.

I'm quoted in a post about ways to reduce your stress for better parenting.

You can read it here...

Inhale, Exhale — Let Go Of Negative Energy Post Breakup

You've probably had one of those knots in your back like the one I have right now. You stress out over something, lean over your computer too much, go to yoga, slip on your mat and, a day later, agony. You can hardly lift your arm over your head without excruciating pain. This must be much like the samskara, or energy knot, my yoga instructor has been talking about. 

Samskaras are negative patterns of behavior we have developed over the course of our lives. They are strategies that do not serve us well, yet we are compelled to repeat them over and over. Like Freud's repetition compulsion, when we try to undo past trauma by engaging in the same ineffective behavior, we are doomed to fail.

There are some particular post-breakup samskaras I hear over and over. Consider a few options for releasing their maddening hold: 

1. Social media lurking. Checking your ex's activities on various platforms, via your friend's platforms or by allowing people to pass info onto you, each represent misguided attempts to hang on.

Read more here...