•    Openness:

Be willing to share (but not over-do) what you are feeling and experiencing with others. Stay open and honest with friends and family. Sharing your emotions promotes healing.

•    Action:

Moving forward with your life implies a willingness to take action. On days you would rather pull the covers over your head, force yourself out of bed. Put one foot in front of the other – because any movement is forward movement. For sure, a forward direction is the one you want to take. Get up and get going. Start with the biggest baby steps you can take. Soon you will be moving forward by leaps and bounds.

•    Belief:

There is no healing without the belief that you can heal. Belief in ourselves and in our ability to weather the storm is our greatest tool when it comes to moving through a time of adversity.  Push any self-doubt you have aside and believe in your own competence. Develop discipline, push negative self-talk out of your head and believe that you can become who you want and live the life you want. Because you can!

Sharpen the elements of your new approach; make them part of your daily life. Openness, action and belief in yourself will never fail to bring you through adversity in  life. One day you will look back and realize that all the grief and the challenges you faced with your divorce gave way to some of your greatest accomplishments.  You will have grown more than you ever thought possible.

For more good tips, delivered to you directly, sign up for my newsletter: www.judysmithdivorcecoach.com.  When you subscribe you will also be entitled to a free copy of my Special Report – that describes different strategies for divorce recovery and how several clients applied them in their own situations

1. Don’t assume your date is exclusive with you.  If you’ve never talked about it, you probably should.

2. Don’t be afraid of silence.  Occasional silences allow a conversation to feel natural and unforced.

3. Don’t make sex the objective. Good reasons for going slowly into sexual activity include:

•    reducing the risk of sexually transmitted diseases;
•    avoiding the awkwardness of intimacy with a total stranger;
•    having sex to look forward to.

If and when sex is right, it will happen – there’s no advantage in rushing.

4. Don’t date beyond your budget.

It doesn’t impress your date if, in the long run, you have to make an embarrassing confession. A wide
disparity in income calls for frank discussion early on. If your date spends a lot on you, reciprocating
with a home-cooked meal, a hand-made gift, or assistance with a task needing to be taken care of will
even the tally.

5. Don’t get too self-conscious.

The media focus on youth and fitness these days can make anyone feel insecure and unattractive.
Look your best, and then forget about it. Instead of worrying what your date thinks of you, focus
on what you think of your date.

For more good tips, delivered to you directly, sign up for my newsletter: www.judysmithdivorcecoach.com.  When you subscribe you will also be entitled to a free copy of my Special Report – that describes different strategies for divorce recovery and how several clients applied them in their own situations.

Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”

First, make sure that you have allowed sufficient time for your emotions to reach the point of a ‘healthy recovery’, then you can move forward. The world has changed though.  Know that, if you have never been taught boundaries, or how to deal with unwanted pressure in dating relationships, you may wind-up doing something uncomfortable or ‘against your will’. A “boundary”, particularly as it applies to dating, can be defined as:

•    A limit that defines you as separate from others
•    A limit that promotes integrity and respect

Boundaries can be emotional and/or physical.

Boundaries are applied differently in different types of relationships. Naturally, there is a tendency to be more liberal about boundaries with those you know and trust versus those you don’t.  But, understanding what a boundary is, and applying it, is a good standard to maintain in general, and particularly when getting back out into the dating world.

Regarding physical boundaries and “safe” distances with new acquaintances – interestingly enough, it was anthropologist, Edward T. Hall, who determined that “no one  you do not know or trust should be within an 18 inch space of your body, because this is considered an intimate zone”.  Hall’s definition has become the concept of Proxemics (personal space zones) and is still widely used today.  Indeed, his concept gives us ‘food for thought’.

I’ve learned that it’s hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people’s feelings and standing up for what you believe.  Anonymous.

For more good tips, delivered to you directly, sign up for my newsletter: www.judysmithdivorcecoach.com.  When you subscribe you will also be entitled to a free copy of my Special Report – that describes different strategies for divorce recovery and how several clients applied them in their own situations.

This is a guest post by Judy Smith. Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”

That’s like putting yourself in the spin cycle!

I’m not minimizing what these women are thinking in the least.  I actually refer to the spin cycle when I’m with them, and they laugh.  Because the truth is, we’ve all been there, and sometimes it takes someone else pointing it out in a humorous way to realize that we got stuck there.

When we are working through a painful or emotional experience, it’s actually worthwhile exercise to run the gamut of the other options and choices we could have made. We get to indulge our need to travel those different paths and the possible outcomes if we’d chosen them. And considering the options can even provide some release.

But when it goes beyond an exercise and into a thought-loop, we’re in trouble. You aren’t going to be able to change the past, or change the decisions you made. And if you could, who’s to say that the outcome you imagined would actually be any different, or any better for that matter?

When we get stuck in coulda, shoulda, woulda, we haven’t made our peace with what was, which allows us to live today with what is. When we’re stuck in that thought-loop,  we’re trying to express emotions we haven’t come to terms with yet – for whatever reason.

In truth, it’s just plain difficult to work through emotions we’re experiencing, and reach the other side of them! I have worked with many women who describe it as remaining ‘lost’. They have a destination in mind of where they would like their life to be, but they have no idea how they’re going to get there.  The good news is that I have coached these women through many forms of emotional agony and have helped them get to a point where they no longer reside in those feelings of defeat.  They are proof, so to speak, of the fact that you can get the defeat and begin to live again.

Let me share with you what I have found over and over again in working with women who are stuck in coulda, shoulda; they feel overwhelmed. And that sense of overwhelm makes them feel weak. That feeling of weakness then colors their perception of all areas of their life: everything has a negative connotation attached to it, and nothing feels like it is in their control.

This in turn becomes that spin cycle. It can be so difficult to break free from it.

Here’s a tip to help in this situation: When you feel yourself “spinning”—reach out and “grab something solid”. You can do this by taking those thoughts, writing them down, and reframing them into something different. Use your journal to work through it.

1)    Acknowledge that the event happened.
2)    Write down your feelings attached to the event.
3)    Go ahead and express what you coulda, shoulda, woulda—and the possible outcomes that may have occurred.
4)    Put words to how you feel the event and the associated emotions are impacting your life today.
5)    Elaborate on how the past had possibilities, but so does today and tomorrow—which you can take care of now.

By writing it out and analyzing your particular thought-loop situation, you will actually be taking away a bit of its power over your thought process. You can quit spinning and start living, moving forward with the experience you’ve gained through the process.

Let me know how it works out for you!

For more good tips, delivered to you directly, sign up for my newsletter: www.judysmithdivorcecoach.com.  When you subscribe you will also be entitled to a free copy of my Special Report – that describes different strategies for divorce recovery and how several clients applied them in their own situations.

This is a guest post by Judy Smith. Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”

Psychologist Martin Seligman sheds some light on the difference between two similar-sounding theories: Learned Hopelessness and Learned Helplessness.  Learned hopelessness is a more serious state, bordering on deep depression.  Learned hopelessness is often the result of being in a state of learned helplessness for a long time.  … It seems reasonable, then that involvement in addictive and abusive relationships will contribute to one’s ‘weariness’ and thus cause feelings of hopelessness.

The problem with prolonged bouts of hopelessness is that it may be a sign that an individual is setting him or herself up for a relationship pattern known as the “Super Victim Syndrome”.  It stands to reason that, if you stay for an extended period of time in an unhealthy relationship, you stand to wind up feeling more helpless and hopeless.  Emotional and psychological abuse creates damage that, once incurred, is difficult to heal.

Divorce is a highly emotionally charged transition.  No wonder it takes such a toll on an individual. It is a stepping stone which often leaves people with a sense of hopelessness – just by virtue of the fact that the divorce occurred in the first place. A psychologist I know offered an excellent interpretation of such a life transition, “Divorce is a choice born out of hopelessness about the viability of the relationship and the possibility for change.”

To achieve relief from pain, of course, one needs to seek healing remedies. You could start by getting information: read books, search the Internet, seek the wisdom of mentors you respect.  You could expand your social circle too.  Should pain continue for an extended period of time, however, you might want to seek support from a professional.  I would be honored to be considered the professional divorce coach who could help you use divorce as the foundation for turning ‘theories of hopelessness’ into ‘theories of optimism’.

“I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus on the brightest. I do not judge the universe.”
– the Dalai Lama

This is a guest post by Judy Smith. Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”

Israeli seeks divorce, says coaching turned wife into tyrant
JERUSALEM — An Israeli man is seeking a divorce on the grounds that life coaching sessions turned his wife into a tyrant.

“My wife turned me into a slave,” the man said in a divorce request filed with a rabbinical court, the Maariv Daily reported on Friday. “She became even more authoritarian after undergoing life coaching sessions,” he said.

Life coaching, which aims to help individuals determine and achieve personal goals, is increasingly popular in Israel.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.

This is a guest post by Judy Smith. Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”

The article refers to a woman who tries her best to visit her divorced aged parents, living in different assisted living facilities.  “I make the circuit,” she said. She visits her mother, in a facility in Rhode Island, then she visits her father in his apartment about a half-hour away in Massachusetts, then his second wife, (the woman’s stepmother), in a nearby nursing home.  Finally, she stops to see the man who was her mother’s second husband for nearly 20 years.  “Four stops,” the woman said. “I don’t get as much time with each of them as I’d like.”

This is the aftermath of a spike in the divorce rate that struck in the 1970s. States liberalized their divorce laws, working women became less inclined to remain in unsatisfying marriages, the cultural stigma of divorce faded — and 30 years later, the grown children of these broken marriages are dealing with the unanticipated consequences.

“It adds another layer of complexity to an already complex and emotional situation,” said Suzanne Mintz, president of the National Family Caregivers Association.  Years after parents split, their children may wind up helping to sustain two households instead of one, and those households can be across town or across the country.

With remarriages, moreover, the cast of characters increases. Children may find themselves caring for three or four older people instead of one or two, dealing with several sets of doctors, social workers, accountants and attorneys. And with stepsiblings, sometimes a squadron of them.

“There are more people to share some of the burden, but also more people to negotiate with,” said Xenia Montenegro, author of an AARP report on midlife divorce (PDF). “You may have more sources of support, or more sources of conflict.”

This is a guest post by Judy Smith. Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”

Have you noticed any patterns? Is there anything in those patterns that could be affecting how you are feeling physically and emotionally?

It’s important that when you recognize negative thought patterns that you have been clinging to, you become your own best friend and cheerleader, and encourage yourself to let go of them.

I have worked with women going through divorce who have told me they had never taken the time to listen to what they were saying to themselves. And boy, when they did! Well, they were shocked that they had some repetitive loops going around in their head—and they weren’t the most pleasant loops to be stuck on.

In many cases, they were being exceptionally hard on themselves. Or, they were dwelling on events in the past that were made bigger than what they truly were, and their perception of a past event now colored their perception of today.

There’s a technique that I successfully coached these women to use, and it was this:

Take a spectator’s stance.

You know how it is. When something happens to you, it’s an intimate occurrence. You passionately see it through a mix of emotions, fears, past experiences and memories. But if a friend happened to witness these same events, they would have a more dispassionate view of the event and its meaning. Not that they don’t care, but they are one step back and removed from it all, not looking at it so intimately with emotions involved.

Let’s take one example that can happen during the process of divorce. Maybe you think, “My ex really made out—he really won in that settlement! I was the true loser in this whole deal.”

This thought can become a loop inside your head. All day long you are repeating this idea to yourself, or some variation of it. Before you know it, you have succumbed to a victim mentality, that not only did you lose in this deal, but you are really on the short-end of the stick now.

Notice I didn’t say you had become a victim. Rather, a victim to a mentality, to a set of words that you have talked yourself into believing.

Now play devil’s advocate and step outside of your own situation. Step back and look at the divorce settlement, as if it has happened to someone else. Look at the facts, and the reasons behind any decisions that were made. Disconnect any emotions attached to these facts or that try to spring up as you go over them, and just review the story without commentary.

How does it feel to look at an event and see it for its facts, without the emotion-laden commentary running next to it? It’s a whole new perspective, isn’t it!

Of course, I don’t recommend that you try to lead a passionless life – to not feel the gamut of emotions that are your birthright. What I encourage you to do is monitor your thoughts and feelings, and see how they are affecting you. If you find patterns that are somewhat destructive, try this technique to look at the trigger event from a spectator’s point of view.

This is a guest post by Judy Smith. Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”

“Social networking sites can raise a wide range of problems for people working through divorce. For some people, the best solution is to simply avoid these sites entirely. You can deactivate your accounts and return once the terms of your divorce have been finalized.

However, for other people this is not a wise option. Social networking sites can help to maintain connections with support systems, which can be critical when working through divorce. In these cases, the goal should be to minimize the potential risks of social networking sites.

Ultimately the key is to avoid displaying private issues in public spaces, and to remember that the Internet is a public space. Assume that your future ex-spouse and his or her lawyer will see anything you post, and restrict your posts accordingly.”

This is a guest post by Judy Smith. Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”

Q:  My wife and I have separated after 25 years of marriage. She keeps stressing that she wants an amicable divorce, yet I just can’t do that. I can’t get past the anger, resentment, or hatred for her for destroying everything that my life revolved around. I just can’t let it go. What do I do?

A:  We have been discussing your question for days because it so clearly demonstrates the pain of divorce – and we wanted to make sure any answer we gave didn’t just sound like the pat answer, “go to counseling” – although, ultimately, that might be the right answer because a counselor will be able to help you navigate the emotions you are feeling.
We understand it sometimes takes time to get to where you even want to feel better. In the beginning, if you feel wronged, it’s not uncommon to be stuck in how wrong the other one was, and that you have a right to hate the other person.

But being right doesn’t make you feel better. In fact, it probably makes you feel worse because you absolutely cannot understand how someone you loved so completely ended up being so selfish and insensitive.

Recovery after a break-up is a process, not unlike recovery from addiction, because getting over a painful break-up takes time. As is the case with working toward sobriety, while the decision to get clean is often empowering, the process is long and hard. Some days are good and some are bad, which is why the “one day at a time” philosophy applies so well to coping with a break-up. Looking too far down the road can feel overwhelming – and that’s where it sounds like you are right now.

One of the most important things as you go through the process is to put on a stable face for your children (no matter their age) and for your colleagues at work. This does not mean you should act like nothing is wrong, but that you should not come off out of control. Your actions should say that the people who depend on you, can still depend on you, even though you are no longer living under the same conditions you did for years.

“Finally, when you are ready”, the counselors say, “we are confident counseling will help.”

……And I would like to add: engaging in divorce coaching at this time will be a major step on the road to a fulfilling new life after divorce!

This is a guest post by Judy Smith. Judy specializes in helping women create a new life after divorce. She uses experience and skills acquired over a lifetime to help divorced people transform their lives. Get the personalized help you need by joining her Divorce Coaching Club. “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.”