Positive Outcomes of Divorce

Imagine that you’re preparing your husband’s favorite meal. He walks through the door at dinnertime and you greet him. Suddenly, and without any provocation at all, his mood changes. It’s as if a dark cloud has come over the room. Your mind starts racing back, you wonder what did you say, what did you do? This scenario plays out over and over again in some marriages and can diminish self-esteem, wear down emotional resource, and kill your soul.

Or maybe you’ve hit a wall in your marriage. You’ve been here several times before with your spouse, and you both feel at wits’ end. When marriages are untenable and there is nowhere else to go, in order to save your emotional and sometimes physical life, as well as secure the mental health and wellbeing of your children, sometimes the only place to go is “out.”

It is at this moment, when you decide to change your life, to advocate yourself and your children, that a visit to a counselor, psychiatrist or psychologist is warranted.

Positive Outcome of Divorce #1: Self-Reflection and Self-Healing

With professional guidance you can discover what affected your choice of a mate and assure yourself that you will never make that mistake again. This self-reflection and self-healing is one of the most positive outcomes of divorce. By doing inner work, you can recognize and acknowledge your own patterns that led you to a dysfunctional relationship in the first place. Then, if you can integrate back into your psyche those early patterns from your family of origin, you can redeem them and never have to repeat them again.

At this time of greatest trauma, your defenses are cracked open, and for the first time in a long time you are your natural self. This is the undefended healthy core of your existence, and it is from this place of your natural resource that you can heal, renew and experience rebirth. By experiencing your authentic self, you will automatically build your self-esteem, depression will lift, and you are able to move into a happier and healthier lifestyle.

When you first fall in love, you may project onto the beloved your ideal: the best of who you are, those rose-colored glasses of your imagination. This is what we call a projection. However, by suppressing who you really are — by going along to get along — you are using up vital energy just to hold down your feelings.

You will still be compelled to move towards those old patterns that worked for you within your original family. However, because you are now conscious and aware, you will see red flags everywhere, and you have the opportunity, therefore, to override those impulses that compel you to move towards the wrong relationship and as a result make room for the right one. In essence, you’re changing a habit, and as you grow and break your old habits, you allow yourself the opportunity to experience a different relationship with a new spouse. It’s important to remember that we are different with different people.

This is restoration, how you bring yourself back to your full potential — the you that you were meant to be. A healthy partner is the one who carries the positive characteristics of our opposite sex parent, and that’s when second marriages can become fulfilling and mutual. Even your physical health can be restored.

Positive Outcome #2: Better Health

Now we know that telomeres, the little rings around your chromosomes that fall off as you age, also fall off when you are stressed. Miraculously, they can be restored through healthy lifestyle changes. Therefore, by releasing yourself from an unhealthy partnership, you not only can become healthier mentally and physically, but also add years to your life through happiness.

Positive Outcome #3: Self-Confidence and Empowerment

The first feeling you experience at the onset of divorce can be fear of the unknown. However, by moving into your fullest capacity, the real you, as I describe above, this will automatically rebuild your self-esteem, your sense of self, your capacity for intimacy, your creative energy and allow you to take back the power you surrendered in a poor relationship. In my work as a researcher, educator and human behavior expert, I’ve witnessed that poor marriages are often based on possessiveness, lack of intimacy, need for space and distance and need for control.

Positive Outcome #4: Giving Your Children the Gift of Modeling Healthy Relationships

Finally, as difficult as the process of divorce can be on your children, it also allows them to watch you make human mistakes — and then grow from them. As you do your inner work and regain your true self, your children are watching, and they can learn the importance of valuing yourself. They also have the opportunity to learn how to properly behave and react should they find themselves in a similar situation down the road. And finally in the future, you can model, for your children, a true and healthy marriage.

The best relationships come out of strength, not weakness. When you are whole and know yourself, you will meet someone with whom you can be mutual. This is a marriage born of strength, not of lack. Once the negative and critical patterns of poor partnerships are released, you can expand into the undefended you. By rediscovering yourself, that inner you that you were before marriage, following your own rhythm of sleeping, being, staying home and going out, you act on your own behalf and by so doing find your own authority is empowered. This returns a sense of control, allowing you to grieve the past and embrace the future.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gail-gross/positive-outcomes-of-divo_b_4768426.html

Divorce And Kids: 5 Ways Divorce Benefits Kids

Contrary to popular belief, divorce isn’t always negative for kids — sometimes it’s excellent for kids. Here are five ways that your children can benefit from your divorce:

1. When Mommy and Daddy are happier as individuals, their kids will be too. When there’s ugliness between the couple, no one’s happy. Once the halves of the couple move on and find their grounding, each one as an individual has the opportunity to be happier than ever. When children have a happy mom and dad, they’ll do much better.

2. When the tension dissolves out of the house, kids will be more relaxed. Children are like barometers. You can measure the level of tension in the air by their behavior. Once the split happens and the nasty intensity in the environment fades, watch how the children’s behavior follows.

3. When you model that you deserve to be in a satisfying and supportive relationship, you model something wonderful to your kids. If you stay in a bad relationship “for the kids,” don’t fool yourself that the kids will really benefit. Although there will be certainly be an adjustment when you divorce, the end result is positive. You’re showing your children not to settle for an unhealthy marriage.

4. With shared custody, kids have the opportunity to experience each parent as a full and competent parent. Usually when both parents are together, one of them takes on most of the nurturing and/or logistical planning. After a divorce, the children can have each parent completely focusing on them with the time they have together. They can also see each parent fully taking care of home business.

5. There’s the potential for your kids to either witness you being happy on your own or finding a better partner, both of which are a good thing. Whether or not you decide to pair up with another mate, your kids can benefit by watching your joyful independence or new positive relationship. Either way, your children will benefit. 

So, if you were thinking this article would be about the horrors your children will experience if you divorce, at this point you’re either hugely disappointed or greatly relieved. What’s most important to remember is your newfound single life after divorce is what you make it — and your children’s attitude and well-being will follow suit.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/divorce-and-kids-5-ways-d_n_1519485.html

7 Financial Management Tips For Anyone Who Just Went Through A Divorce

A divorce is painful, that’s a given. And anybody who has gone through a divorce would admit that if there were anything that would have kept their marriages off a divorce court, they would have readily done it. Divorce obviously affects the children in the union negatively. But apart from that, it affects the couple emotionally, psychologically, mentally and of course, financially.

Yes, divorce hurts the finance and leaves too many loopholes to be filled. Everyone wants a break after a drawn out litigation battle; a break from lawyers and dates and paperwork. But there are still a few things to be done if you want to breathe easy after a divorce.
Life is never really the same after one is freshly single and there will always be those things that remind you of the good times and the bad times you had with your ex, moving on becomes a little difficult, but move on you must! So here are a few tips that could be very helpful to get you to move on while securing your finance as well:

1. Revisit Your Insurance Broker

Contact your insurance broker and update your umbrella liability coverage. Screen Your list of assets scheduled on your homeowner’s policy and screen out the things your spouse received in the divorce also screen them out if they were sold. There is no sense in paying insurance premiums for assets you do not own.

2. Apply for a new credit card

Depending on your situation, it may make sense to apply for new credit cards before you cancel joint accounts. Especially if you have marginal credit and don’t have an emergency reserve of cash.

While credit cards are generally not very good financial helpers, comparing its downsides to what can happen in the short-term if someone does not have sufficient funds to cover their core bills can make it not only desirable, but a priority. A Credit card can provide a temporary bridge fund for you while you get on your feet after a divorce.
Again, you need to make a list of the accounts you had while married, and seek to replace them as soon as possible; Savings accounts, Investment accounts etc.

3. Re-title Your Assets

If you owned any assets jointly with your spouse and that asset was retained by you or received by you in the divorce settlement then you need to re-title them. For instance if you owned your house in a trust with your spouse, you’ll want to re-title it in your name personally or in the name of a new living trust you create.

4. Get familiar with Your Investments

This will apply where your spouse handled the investing, there may now be things you own that you aren’t familiar with or that perhaps aren’t right for you.

You need to do a deep analysis of all your investments to see if it is prudent and beneficial to you financially at the present. Sell off investments that will not help you and retain those that are potentially or presently rewarding.

5. Sell Off Some Valuables and Move On

This tip is reasonable not just because it makes financial sense, but because it also helps you move on while securing your financial future. There might be a few things that you owned jointly that you may need to sell off even if they have or had sentimental value. Resources like Worthy.com makes selling off such valuables more reasonable by giving you a financial advantage.

There are also a few suggestions about what to do with your engagement ring after a divorce for instance, especially if it is the kind of ring either of the Kardashian sisters received which was worth thousands of dollars! You may need to think of selling it and moving on.

6. Consider Moving

Moving from a family house is often an emotional decision, but deciding not to move on the basis of sentiment is “...often the beginning of a very difficult situation because it costs a lot of money and the house is not liquid,” says Pilz.

Since you’ll have to pay for this home with one person’s income, if your budget’s tight, moving to a less expensive home or renting may be a good option to consider. You need to approach it as an investment asset, and you need to make decisions from that context as well

7. Get a new everything

In addition to getting a new account, you might need to make a number of other changes. Divorces can mess up your finance and you will need to re-evaluate your finances in general; what comes in and goes out and what are assets and liabilities, what taxes you now qualify to pay.

You may need to change your will, get a new filing system, and perhaps even get a new name if that will help you sleep better at night.

The point is that a divorce is a major (and sometimes devastating) life change and the earlier and faster you can get back up and on track, the better for you.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/toby-nwazor/7-financial-management-tips-for-anyone-who-just-went-through-a-divorce_b_10373494.html

Tricks for Combatting Procrastination | Tim Ferriss

Procrastination can be a major barrier to making much needed change in our lives. 


Some wise words here from Tim Ferriss... What do you think?

Want to Thrive after Divorce?

Life Coaching: After the Split, 6 Principles to Move Foward in your New Life

SIX UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES FOR THRIVING AFTER DIVORCE

After going through her own divorce, Carolyn Ellis, Ph.D., studied coaching with Debbie Ford, the New York Times bestselling author of “The Dark Side of the Light Chasers'” and “Spiritual Divorce.” Today, Ellis is a certified spiritual divorce coach. Ellis has developed success strategies she calls THRIVE. Practicing these six principles provides a way to move from merely surviving a divorce to thriving in your new life. Here are her six principles for thriving:

T – Trust.

OK. Right now life sucks. Embrace the suckage. Everything happens for a reason.

H – Honesty.

Get real with the grief. Develop a strategy for getting help with the loneliness. “Often parents keep a stiff upper lip and hold their grief in because they don’t want their children to see them upset,” Ellis said. “Modeling healthy ways to process your grief gives your children permission to feel their own pain.”

R – Responsibility.

You are in the driver’s seat and 100 percent responsible for your life, past, present and future. You are not a victim. You had some part in choosing what has happened. That means you get to chose where you go from here.

I – Integrity.

Don’t be thinking or saying one thing while doing another because every time you make a commitment to yourself and don’t follow through, you destroy your ability to trust yourself. Remember: your words are powerful. They must be in alignment with your actions, otherwise, you’re going to attract the wrong kind of people.

V – Vision.

While staying in a marriage is about honoring choices you made based on the person you were years ago, divorce gives you an opportunity to create a direction based on who you are today. So, create a bold vision and reach for what you really want.

E – Express.

This is a step is about learning to process all your emotions in healthy ways. Learning how to move emotions through you is important for your physical and emotional health. “Emotions are just energy in motion,” Ellis says. For example, on a day when life is really getting you down, Ellis suggests one way to model healthy expression for your children is by speaking truthfully and asking for something that will help you feel better. For example, “Mommy is feeling really sad right now. What I need is a five-minute tickle fight.” After all, laughter is the best medicine and there’s nothing like a raucous tickle time with kids to remind you of what’s really important.

Source: https://www.wevorce.com/blog/want-to-thrive-after-divorce/amp/