I never thought there would be a day when I would truly believe the thought that I wanted my ex-husband to be happy. That was too painful. He’s happy and I’m not? I still had a lot of work to do. I knew that I was lonelier in my marriage than not, but I needed to learn how to BE alone. To be ok with myself, the thoughts in my head, the way I spoke to myself. That was SO MUCH WORK! You aren’t good enough; how could you be, he chose someone else. You aren’t as smart as you thought you were. You have no backbone, you are a pushover, you allowed so much in your life, how could you do that? How could you be so stupid?
ANGER
I still loved him, still wanted to be with him and was mad at myself for that. I was jealous and HATED that I had that feeling. You are better than that. I would bully myself because I didn’t want to do the real work of figuring out what was really going on. So much self-doubt, insecurity, fear. All masked in anger. And damn was I good at using anger to resist my real emotions. I’m mad, so get busy and get things done. But the more I reacted with anger and resisted feeling what was really there for me, the bigger the emotions became. Oh, I’m not insecure – denial. I don’t want to feel those things, I don’t know how, so I’ll go for a run or workout or call a friend. Often we use food or alcohol to buffer. Feeling sad, eat. Feeling worthless, have a drink. We don’t even realize we are eating and drinking our feelings.
REJECTION
My brain kept circling back to rejection and the stark pain of it. Go ride my bike, find a friend to tell me I was ok. But I wasn’t ok and what I was doing wasn’t working. I WAS STUCK. When I was first introduced to coaching and heard about feeling your feelings, I thought “seriously”? Growing up, we weren’t allowed to have emotions. Hurt? Toughen up. Sad? Suck it up. Anger? Not allowed. Disagree? Oh hell no. I don’t blame emotional detachment on my parents, once we KNOW better, we DO better. It was time to do better. Courage. I thought courage was for heroes, but we all can be heroes. Courage is standing in our truth and putting our vulnerability on the line. I decided I was all in. Was it easy? Absolutely not. I had to admit to myself that I played a martyr, ugh. Oh, and did I put myself in the victim role? Many times. Did I beat myself up for all of this? Constantly. Admitting these things was only the beginning of the work.
COMPASSION
Compassion became the key for me. These were my experiences and now when I think back to all those moments of fear and anger based feelings, I try to give myself a break. I did the best I could with the tools I had. Of course I was angry, sad, hurt, and lonely. I’m human. COURAGE. Standing in the light of who I was, who I am and who I want to be. I get to decide how I show up in the world. I get to decide to teach my children about emotions and vulnerability and courage. When I made the commitment to not judge myself, I judged others less and compassion came easily. I want to inspire those around me to stand in their own truth.
GRIEF
I was given the analogy of processing grief to that of a tornado. If you put the work in to growth you will continually move up the spiral, but there will always be moments when you fall back down. Not as far down as the last time, but it’s never a straight trajectory up. Nor should it be, the work is hard and your strength and courage are forged in hard work. Comfort is staying on the couch blaming your ex-spouse so that you don’t have to look at your own demons. I didn’t want comfort anymore, it hurt too much. I look back and see how the rough times polished me. The process was uncomfortable at best, painful at its worst. Worth it? ABSOLUTELY. I realized that our feelings are all born from our thoughts. We have the choice, the control over whether we want to grow OR wither emotionally, mentally and physically. I am responsible for my happiness, just me. NO. ONE. ELSE. As for wanting my ex-husband to be happy, I remember the day I could finally say it and mean it. FREEDOM.
CHANGE
I still struggle with my self-worth at times. Years of this belief system have remained one of the hardest parts of my story to rewrite. I’m committed every day to challenging the thoughts that are sneaky and pervasive, telling me I’m less than or not good enough. Now self-doubt doesn’t drive, it just rides in the backseat. Here’s the decision that we need to make, and decide it EVERY SINGLE DAY: show up and treat yourself with respect, talk about yourself in a kind way, in a nice way, in a loving way. How can you expect others to treat you this way if you don’t expect it from yourself?
That’s where I come in.
