Divorce Coaching & Counseling. Crisis Survival Guide for Divorce
Divorcing? Newly Separated? Hack the Matrix
BEFORE I ever imagined that my own marriage could end, I watched a close friend go through her divorce. For maybe 6-9 months after her husband left, whenever I saw my sweet friend, she cried-- it was as if the tears were always present just beneath the surface. She felt she was barely "holding on". And, I understand now that that's exactly what she was experiencing inside "holding on".
TIME passed as it always does and my friend changed. She eventually stopped holding on and let go. She surrendered to the internal processes and felt experiences. After a while the grief receded. Her thoughts moved on, she focused elsewhere and thus returned from the underworld. But she came back much stronger. She was much more at ease, like she had cracked some codes she didn't previously have. She'd hacked the matrix so to speak.
WHEN my divorce began years later, I got it. I thought I had understood my friend's pain, but I hadn't grasped the depth and weight of it- really. And, although the circumstances of our divorces were very different, the felt experience- the feelings- the fears, the uncertainty was similar, if not exactly the same. I can remember days of overwhelm, tears, fetal position crying, anger, indecision, shame, guilt, excruciating pain and unrelenting anxiety.
WAKING UP: It was precisely this pain which urged me and urges all of us to dig deeper, ask more meaningful questions of myself and life. The divorce event, uncertainty and pain served a wake-up call. I read somewhere that "pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth". I have found this to be true. Crises are evolutionary invitations for growth, but it is up to us to how we participate and thus how much we evolve or wither. It is what we do with these circumstances that determines how much we grow and evolve. Specifically it is most important HOW we hold and walk through the experience.
We think the circumstances of our lives are the issue. Living in a material world, we are deluded into believing these situations/people/places/things (the matrix) must be fixed in order to be "enough", "loved or "free". When in all ironically, it is through these terrible situations that we get to solve the riddle of human experience: We discover it is 100% an inside job. ~ Doc Regina
5 Musts for HACKING THE MATRIX
1. Remember this is happening for you, not to you.
2. Remember you are having a human experience, this is just a part of the experience
3. This too shall pass.
4. This situation, person place or thing is not the issue. The issue is never the issue. The issue is HOW you walk through the issue.
5. Create a daily morning ritual: mediation, prayer, spiritual reading and/or yoga etc. Something deeply meaningful for you which centers and aligns you. Practice it everyday as if your life depended on it, because it actually does. (spiritual warfare).
My friend paved the dark divorce road a bit for me. She did for me what we are meant to do for one another. She shared her lived experience. When we share our story, our shame, vulnerability, our tears and triumphs- we drop breadcrumbs along the path for the next human being travelling through unknown terrain. We share how we did it and thus say, you can do this too.
I remembered the breadcrumbs my friend dropped, I remembered what she had modeled for me- spiritual warfare. She did not steel herself against her pain, become hardened by sadness, allow herself to foster resentment and become bitter. She remained vigilant to HOW she walked through her divorce, choosing mindfulness practices and attitudes. She would allow but then gently let go of self-pity or judgmental thinking. She chose to practice self-kindness, and regularly noticed how or what she could be grateful for today. She softened towards herself, attended and lovingly fed herself "Chicken soup for the soul". She committed to spiritual practice to center and ground her each morning.
If we turn and face the feeling waves as they arise, they can return to the larger mind from which they came. When the waves arise, we remain present. We notice and sense into this water with curiosity. Notice the sense experience, is this one cold, soft, warm, heavy...what color is it? Close your eyes and tune in to this human experience. Touch it lightly. Allow it, Soften towards it and yourself and gently let go. See "Catch and release" article for more on mindfulness based feeling attunement.
Get support through this time. You are not alone. Call me for a consultation.
Love and Light,
Dr. Regina
858-353-8530