Time For a Reframe?

What if I gave you a hall pass to stop rushing through the pain of your divorce? Do you really need more pressure than you are already feeling right now?

Hey, I get why there’s this rush to stop hurting — to ‘get over things’ — to say the buzz words. When we’re in pain, physical or emotional, we simply want it to stop. However, there’s a lot of living, healing and revealing that takes place between point A and point B that can’t be rushed.

Healing has its own timeline, and it cannot be forced. That in itself can cause great suffering.

Why? Because that’s not healing — that’s pushing, bypassing, shoving the reality of your feelings aside. That’s making things more comfortable for others — that includes kids, friends, family, co-workers, community, religious organizations, etc. That’s pretending you’ve got this under control. That’s about optics — not about the truth of your experience.

Divorce is messy — and if you’re lucky, it’ll dig up a bunch of other stuff for you.

Yep, it’s true. I’m not trying to add more to your plate especially when you feel like you are up to your eyeballs in decisions, feelings and documents.

I’m trying to breathe air into your life — to create some space for you to be still — so you can exhale all that you don’t want to take along with you.

When we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to heal in our own time, to see what needs to be seen and dealt with — it causes us to repeat patterns, find ourselves in the same scenarios, situations, and relationships down the road. And who needs that?

You don’t want to slap a Band-Aid on your divorce and just get through it as quickly as possible. Now, I’m not talking about endless fighting for the wrong reasons that ultimately only makes your lawyer rich and keeps your life entangled for far too long.

I’m talking about seizing this chance to completely shift the narrative of your story.

That’s the gift of divorce.

There’s a reason that you are here — something needs to change. And while you can’t control all outcomes of your divorce process, you can take control of how you experience it.

Besides, pretending that you aren’t hurting doesn’t make the pain go away.

And this isn’t just about you, this is about your kids, too. No matter how old they are, they are picking up on the energy of the house and all the shifts and turns in their world. What are you teaching them when you act as if ‘everything is OK’?

You’re teaching them that they need to show up and pretend that they are OK. Is that what you want for them?

We can still be OK and not OK. What I mean by that is, we can be unhappy with the status quo, we can acknowledge that. We can be confused with what steps to take next. We can be scared — AND we can also trust that we will get through this, that we will figure it out and we will make the changes that need to be made.

That’s it.

Parents often try to shield their children from life’s discomfort, but try as we might...we simply can’t (and we don’t want to). Worse yet, our best intentions can backfire when you realize that you haven’t given your children tools to navigate life’s adversity.

They too are walking through this human experience and will need to lean on themselves to do that. That’s the greatest gift you can give them — play-acting, not so much.

In a memoir I’m currently reading, The Critic’s Daughter by Priscilla Gilman, the author (a child of divorce) writes, “I didn’t have the courage to talk openly about my fears, my sorrows, my confusions. Or rather, I wasn’t given permission to do so. I knew that to do so would have been an act of rebellion against my mother and a betrayal of my father.”

We think we are being strong when we are holding it all together for others, but we miss the mark when we focus too intently on this. We teach our children to stuff their emotions away and to package themselves.
When we don’t guide our children through their own experience, they are left to come to their own conclusions, and bear burdens that are not theirs to bear.

The inspirational memes plastered across social media tell us to let go, forgive, forget, move on. Sure, we want to do all of that, but that’s only part of the equation. Besides, we can’t rush our own process. It’s all that we experience on the way to those ultimate goals that matters most.

This is the space where we discover a great deal about ourselves — and where we can reframe our experience by declaring that we are simply a work in progress.

You can learn to share your experiences with your kids without completely embroiling them, enlisting them as your confidant or frightening them. You can keep them out of the conflict, not force them to choose a side — and allow them to express their feelings.

You can still be a good person and a good mama even if you want out of your marriage.

You can find a way to divorce differently, protect your kids, stay grounded, attune to your intuition and trust that life is working out for you.

A reframe isn’t about revisionist history, it’s about choosing to see life through a new lens — one that is aligned with your true self, and one that believes that life is working out on your behalf — and that you are a co-creator.

Think of it this way…have you ever put a beautiful new frame on an old piece of artwork? Suddenly, its value shifts and you see something you hadn’t before. It’s the same thing with life events.

When we can look at them from a new perspective, we often see something we hadn't before. We understand it differently and it takes on a completely new meaning. That’s a reframe…and it’s a powerful tool during divorce (and life beyond).

You are not broken because your marriage fell apart.

Ask life what it is trying to reveal to you. Ask it how you can use it. Ask it for guidance. Ask it to help you see what needs to be seen, heal what needs to be healed — and let it lead you.

A reframe is simply a new way of telling your story and living your life.

Something deep within you already knows this...allow this voice to be heard, mama. It’s been locked away for too long.