No More Damsels In Distress Post-Divorce

I couldn't find a better post-divorce survivor if I tried, than Sigourney Weaver in Political Animals.  As Weaver said in an interview Friday, "When I look around the world, I don't really see too many damsels in distress." As Elaine Barrish, Weaver is strong, determined, intelligent and competent. So of course Barrish is called cold and calculating by some.

No one exits a marriage sans angst, but what are the successful ingredients in a relatively distress-free post-divorce adjustment? These are my suggestions for damage-control:

Take yourself seriously. Whether it's as a parent, at work or in a new pursuit, whatever it may be, what you're doing is the most important thing you've ever done in your life. Make it real. When you're busy taking yourself seriously, there's not much room for negativity.

Focus on what you're doing. What you're doing deserves your complete attention. The class you've started, the meal you're cooking, the work you're doing, they're all worthy of your focus. While taking care of business, you don't have time to wallow.

Try new stuff. Consider something different.  I doesn't matter if it's yoga, speed-dating, a triathlon or an art class. Shifting some of your time and attention to mastering something new is a good challenge. It creates positive energy and optimism.

Keep busy. Forget about taking time to process.  You'll process enough. Keep yourself scheduled and doing things. Think about the people and things you want in your life, and make space for them.

Be authentic. Let your thoughts, words and deed reflect the things you truly believe in. You may have to figure out what you believe in, since divorce does have a nasty way of shaking up all our beliefs. But these are good things to spend time thinking about. What do I really want, need believe?

Practice stress management. You can cultivate the non-judging, patience and acceptance of mindfulness, increase or change your exercise, make more time for friends or spend more time with nature. Think about what decreases your stress and do more of it.

As Barrish said, "You'll never get to the next great moment if you don't keep going." If you'll forgive the mixing of media, be a Ripley. Be the last survivor.

Survivor, Destiny's Child

Find Your Post-Divorce Lifeline

We’ve all had our personal Titanics, we’ve all had those moments where we really have not shone, and we’ve had to live through and block it out and try to face some kind of future knowing that we missed an opportunity to be bigger and better than we were.

I love that quote from Frances Wilson’s interview.   She spoke of her book about J. Bruce Ismay, who owned the Titanic and survived it’s destruction.  For many of us, divorce is our personal Titanic.  The thing that sinks us to the depths of depression, hopelessness and fear.  The thing for which we need, if not a lifeboat, at least a lifeline.

Perhaps it would be more apt to think of the marriage as the Titanic.  The thing that threatened to take us down, along with innocent bystanders.  And here’s where I think we want to take stock.  Wilson asks, How do you pick up a life after that?  There’s a difference between surviving and living.

Very true.  So what’s your lineline going to be?  Lifelines I’ve known include yoga, running, a career, friends, writing, travel, gardening, music, etc.   These things broaden us.  They change us in positive ways.  Think about it.  What’s your lifeline?  Just pick something, and see.  See if it saves you and makes you bigger and better than you were.

Just waiting for an excuse to include WoodenShips, Crosby, Stills & Nash

Surf’s Up Post-Divorce

Bethany Hamilton lost her arm to a shark in 2003 while surfing.  She had planned for a career surfing, and she did not let it stop her.  It’s hard to imagine that she was surfing within a month, while so many of us spend many months or years bemoaning the various trials with which we are faced post-divorce.  It’s sobering, yet inspiring.  Perhaps learning to surf is in your future.

How can you be a post-divorce survivor and live your dreams? 

*Retain your focus and purpose

*Use your social network for support

*Dig deep and tap into your drive to succeed

*Hang out with people that make you laugh

*Keep moving…exercise and be active

*Learn something new every day (surfin?)

"It's exciting just to see how life works out," she says, "and how good can come out of bad situations."  Bethany Hamilton (listen to her inspiring interview)

Surfin’ USA, The Beach Boys

Eternal Sunshine of the Post-Divorced Mind

How about a machine that erases all memory of a former lover? The plot of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I loved but many didn’t, is about just that. It was brought to mind last night by a Radiolab show discussing erasing the memories of rats. Seriously. It’s been done.

It was valentine’s day, so I suppose it clicked for that reason as well. So would you? If you could? Completey erase your memory of a love lost? You’re no longer divorced. You were never married to begin with.

What do you get from the memory of the love, the loss, the pain?

First off, how do you ever figure out relationships if you don’t learn from the ones that have failed? Once you’ve gotten past the initial hurt, loss, guilt, elation, or all of the above, what can you learn? What can you take away and use to grow? How can you be better? How can you avoid the same problems?

Next, if you erased those memories, how would you be you, the person you really are? Part of the way you understand the world is through your own experiences. It’s so idiosyncratic that it makes each of us the wacky, wonderful, unique beings that we are. And let’s face it, nobody can be you as well as you.

Finally, as I’ve been saying of late, whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. How can you be stronger if you don’t remember what almost killed you? It’s part of the fabric of who you’ve become. It gives you strength and power. You become a post-divorce survivor.

Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime, Korgis

Divorce Won’t Kill You But it Will Make You Stronger

I’m not sure how I decided that whatever does not kill you makes you stronger would be a life coach blog, instead of a post-divorce blog. What was I thinking? Of course divorce is the very thing that will make you stronger.

How will it make you stronger, let me count the ways.

1. You will figure out what you need to move on. Unless you wallow. No wallowing allowed except for a short while. Do things that make you happy.

2. You will realize that you can live without a partner. Unless you’re compelled to jump right into another relationship. There’s no right answer to this, but be smart. Think before you leap.

3. You will find that you can do things (get the wasp nest out of the mailbox, get the bat out of the garage, change the light bulb that’s impossibly high up at the top of the stairs, leap tall buildings in a single bound) that you never thought possible. Unless you stop yourself. Go ahead, get the broom and go after those suckers.

4. You’ll see others having the experiences you thought were unique to you. Unless you have to have the most painful divorce. Stop right there and recognize that you’re part of a community and it’s a good thing.

5. You’ll notice strengths you forgot you had. Unless you say I can’t a lot. Figure out what strengths have been dormant and use them to succeed.

6. You will recognize that you can survive this ordeal. Unless you get stuck. It’s imperative that you take whatever action is needed to get unstuck. Try coaching, therapy or a divorce group.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Divorce will make you into a veritable superman/woman if you allow yourself to reach your potential.

Sunshine came softly through my window today
Could’ve tripped out easy a-but I a-changed my ways
Sunshine Superman, Donovan

Divorced? Wake up and smell the coffee

Launching a new blog is like…well, it’s unlike anything else in my experience. It may be a bit like starting a new research or writing project. You have an idea, but it’s time to make the commitment and get going. So I had the idea for this blog, but how to begin? Gratitude, rage, resilience, hurt, bounce-back, disappointment? And it finally came to me. 

There are three books that have been sitting on my “to-read” shelf for about six years. It’s about the length of time I’ve been separated/divorced. One is by Maxine Kumin called Inside the Halo and Beyond. The Anatomy of a Recovery. It’s about her recovery from a spinal cord injury. Another is John Bayley’s Elegy for Iris, written about his wife, Iris Murdoch, and her devastating decline with Alzheimer’s disease. The last, Still Me, is Christopher Reeve’s autobiography; need I say more on that one?

What might we conclude? Perhaps that I was damn depressed when I heard or read about these, thought they were interesting enough to read, and purchased them. Thankfully, I knew better than to actually attempt to read them at the time. I also knew better than to read The First Wives’ Club, which a friend “kindly” sent me, even though I wasn’t a first wife. I guess she figured that, as many years as I’d been married, I was close enough. 

The point is that divorce is often like a death, terrible illness or injury. It’s feels tragic. There’s doubt about our own capacity to recover. There’s a question as to whether to wallow, wallop or wake up (as in smell the coffee). I’m here to tell you that I could read all these books now with equanimity, as a coach, divorced person and psychologist, trying to learn about survivors. Of which I am one myself. You can be one too. 

For a little inspiration, try Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love