Learning to THRIVE Part II (17)

When I think back to the first days of my divorce it is almost like trying to remember having a child (for us women out there). After you know the pain of that first baby, why would you want to go through it again? Somehow God or Mother Nature takes the memory of the pain away and you don’t remember saying you would never go through that ordeal again. For you men out there it is a little like pushing a watermelon out through an opening the size of a grape.

But I have worked through the terrible pain and physical exhaustion of a divorce and given birth to a new me. After two years I have to refer to my GOWI© notebook and journals I kept at the time. I hate it when someone says “time heals all wounds” but I guess it is true with an emotional pain whether it be divorce or death. The pain has subsided and I am better than I was so many months ago. For all you out there that are beginning your healing know that it does get better even though you don’t believe it today. I had to learn new things and train my brain and emotions in a different dance to get to where I am today. So I will begin at the beginning. Not only finding a good counselor is important, but I contacted friends and family for emotional support and without each of them I would not be a better, stronger person. I received positive messages and great support that still means a lot to me. I would print the messages and put them in my diary so I could re-read them when I would feel down and in need of something positive. Don't close yourself to friends and family that might be able to help you through the dark days.

Remember I said when I first started counseling I felt sooo small. Just a tiny person in a great big world that I thought had no place for me. I remember feeling that way long before the divorce. I may have been having that same feeling since I was a born, I don’t know. I never felt like I fit in, was noticed by anyone. I didn’t have many friends and if I did have any it was not a large number. I don’t blame my parents, they were busy with other children, working to maintain an income and did their best with what they knew. I am just telling you how I felt whether it is reality or not.

When I began the CD series I wrote down what my emotions were telling me. For example: I will be alone forever; No one will ever want me; I am too old to start over; No one will ever really love me. As I went through the series and the counseling, slowly I began to realize that these were all untrue. I had to learn how to keep my emotions from lying to me and start telling the truth. First I learned why humans love and why it sometimes ends. There are 4 primary drives of the human heart. First to survive, then connection, accomplishing a unique mission and last, wholeness. When my ex and I met together with our counselor, he checked our relationship for these 4 qualities. We failed. He didn’t tell me that for awhile but failure means the relationship needs to end unless both of us wanted to work at building it back. Since my ex didn’t want to it was best for us to divorce and move on. It took two to fail so I don’t give him all the blame. We both had given up, just at different times. Neither of us was brave enough to say 'I want out'.

After a few weeks, when the shock and fog settled down, I discovered my counselor was right. I had never felt wholeness, a blissful feeling of being with my man. So failure of the marriage was inevitable. When one of you gives up, it’s over if you don’t fight to save it. I had to face the truth that we had a decaying realationship but that was a difficult task for me. I don’t give up easily. Neither of us were fulfilled. I was tired of living in a crumbling relationship so I had to say goodbye to him in my heart and start building a new life. For the task of removing him from my heart this is where prayer helped me. For you non-believers you can skip this portion. I kept praying that God take the yearning from my heart so it could heal and become healthly. My heart finally let go of him and I was able to think about the possibility of finding another relationship. My counselor would say ‘there is purpose in the pain.’ I decided it was my ex’s loss and I can’t make him love me. I had to keep saying to myself ‘you don’t get to be with me anymore.’

Now, I will admit in the beginning I was a basket case. I couldn’t believe that he had given up so quickly, but I didn’t know at that time he had given up years before. He just – didn’t tell me. He wanted me to find out so he didn’t have to tell me. Adultry is not about sex or romance, ultimately it is about how little we mean to one another. I thought I was the one who had given up years before and I was afraid of hurting his feelings. Imagine that. At least I would have left out of just wanting a better life, not that I had found another man. That was never a consideration - I was sad, downtrodden, who would want me? When I finally found out he had another woman and was leaving, I cried, I screamed, I was very angry (never in front of him, except the crying). I felt cheated, disappointed, fearful, stupid, ugly, hated, left behind. I could go on and on. I did not think clearly for months. I was in a daze, doing things automatically so I could cope with all that was happening. How could he leave the woman who had given him children, kept a home when he was gone for so many years, given up her life for his career? Where was my reward?

As I listened to the CDs I would feel better. I listened to them over and over. At bedtime, in the car, doing dishes, whenever I could. I didn’t have to write anything down all the time, just get the words into my head. I made posters of favorite statements and put them where I would see them often. I had to learn to capture the good thoughts and weed out the negative. The HOPESTEALERS© helped greatly and I still use them today. Instead of feeling like I would never be loved I had to think “I was loved before, I will be loved again.” My goal became being my best self, not love and marriage. If I am my best, then the best man will come into my life. I had to start valuing myself as a person. I had to ignore my ex’s behavior, not care where he might be (even though he lived very close by for a short time), concentrate on me. Life will get better, I will find someone to love me in a better way. The hurt will stop. Until then I am okay; I don’t have to have someone right now. I am not ready and I need to be at my best.

Growth comes through failure. I was not promised a perfect life. I had to do my best and screw the rest!! I can’t control what people do or say. Live and Learn, but Live! Like Auntie Mame (for you younger people, check out this classic movie with Rossaland Russell). There is a lot right with me and I will not believe what my ex says about me. I smiled when I didn’t feel like it. I had to counteract the negativity and for me this was a constant battle. Emotions aren’t reality. Regret is a wasted emotion. The real me is down there and I will battle out of the canyon of despair and come out whole.

After being raised in a strict, Christian home I needed to learn to relax. That is a big task for me. My children say I don’t know how to have fun but they don’t know everything about me either. But, they were right in some ways. I was too rigid, too ‘stuffy’ and needed to learn to breathe and be happy with myself. So I had to begin thinking about what I wanted my life to be about. Instead of listening the the tape in my head of my mother telling me what to do, I decided I would start listening more to my heart and my head to live my life. I had to tell myself constantly that I am a good person, not a flawed, nervous, ugly person. There are wonderful things about me and if someone finds them I need to accept them and not say to myself, “They only want something. They don’t mean it.” Now I refuse to seal myself off in a place of despair. I am choosing to believe that good things will happen to me. I stay with reality. I will make room in my heart for another. I won’t hurt forever. Within my grasp is the capacity to grow. It’s the beginning of a new life.


 
Courage is to feel the daily daggers of relentless steel and keep on living. ~Douglas Malloch