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Who Can You Trust?

May 11, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

Quotables

Divorce is the result of a betrayal of a trust.  A trust we place in another to love, support and care about us.  It’s also a trust we encourage our partner to place in us – to trust us to love them, to support them and to care about them.  Trust of this magnitude is amazing when you really think about it.  It’s an wondrous thing when two people decide to blend their lives and live together in partnership.  And when a trust like that is broken, it can be a terrible, ugly thing which causes many people to not want to trust anyone else for any reason.

“When you trust someone to be who you want them to be instead of whom they are, you get hurt.”

Karen Finn

I know it was true in my case, and I suspect it is true in yours also.  When I got divorced I realized I had trusted my ex-husband to be someone I wanted him to be instead of who he was.  Because he didn’t meet my expectations I got hurt.  I got hurt a lot because I had deceived myself for years by expecting him to be who I trusted him to be and not who he was.

“…if you don’t feel like you can trust anybody to talk to anybody, you feel like you’re really alone.”

Fiona Apple

With all my mis-spent trust in my marriage, I wasn’t sure if I could trust anyone as I started on my divorce journey.  I was suspicious of just about everyone and as a result, I felt really lonely.  And the more lonely I felt, the more depressed and fearful I became.

“You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.”

Anton Chekhov

One of the things I did as I was building my trust in myself again was I reached out and asked for help.  When I moved into a new home during the course of my divorce, the previous owner mentioned that the neighbors across the street wanted to meet me when I was ready.

“We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxiacally, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.

Frank Crane

One day, shortly after I was mostly settled in my new home, I screwed up my courage and walked across the street to meet the neighbors.  It was scary walking across the street.  But I did it.  And you know, the rewards have been immeasurable.

The family who lived there was generous and kind and recognized how scared I was to be facing my new life on my own.  They turned out to be my family away from my family.  I felt loved and cared for in a way that I hadn’t since I lived at home as a kid.  (I’ve lived across the country from my family since I was 18 years old)

“Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence.”

Democritus

Screwing up my courage and walking across the street that spring morning was a real turning point for me in my divorce journey.  It was the first time in a long time that I had trusted myself to be able to discern if it was OK for me to trust someone.

That’s exactly what I want for you.  I want you to know that it’s OK to trust yourself, that it’s OK to trust yourself to meet new people and that you’ll know if they’re worthy of your trust.  And if they are worthy of your trust you just might find another family to support and love you like I did.

Divorce for most of us is scary and learning to trust yourself so you can trust others can take some time, but when you start down that road of trust the rewards of joy and love can be yours again.

 

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Reread the 5 quotes in today’s article.  I used the quotes to tell a story of how I learned to trust again as I was going through my divorce.  How do these quotes apply to you?

What actions do these quotes inspire you to take?  You might need to screw up your courage like I did before you take action.  Or, the action you choose to take might come easily to you.  Whatever you’re inspired to do to test your ability to trust, trust yourself enough to know when the right time is to do it.

Do it and evaluate the results.  The thing about any new experience is that you need to evaluate the results.  Check in with yourself after you take action and see how you feel about it.  You may be pleased and feel empowered to trust more.  You may be displeased and choose to choose differently next time.  You might feel something in between these two extremes.  The key here is to be truthful with yourself and adjust so you can continue to build your trust in yourself and in others.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Do You REALLY Trust Yourself?

May 6, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

self-trust

Divorce is one of those life events that can cause you to question EVERYTHING.

At least that’s what happened for me.  Somehow my change of marital status caused me to wonder if anything about my life was what I thought it was– was any of it real?  How could I know what was real and what wasn’t?  After all, I had thought I’d be married to my ex-husband for the rest of my life and that wasn’t true so what really was true about the rest of my life?  I felt hopelessly lost.

Slowly, though, I began to understand that the only path out of a life of being hopelessly lost was to begin to trust myself again.  I needed to believe that I could trust myself and that I was the only one who would know what was and wasn’t true for me.  Knowing which path to take is different from actually walking down the path.  The walk, for me, took a while because I was walking blind-folded.

When I look back at that time in my life, I know that it took me longer to walk the path to self-trust than it might have.  I didn’t know where the path was headed or what was required of me to successfully walk it.  But I know it now.  I know the path now because of my own journey and because of the journeys I’ve been honored to watch my clients make too.

I’m going to share my knowledge with you so you will be able to walk your own path back to self-trust without a blindfold.

Before I start with the how-to’s of building self-trust, it’s important to define the term.  Self-trust is the ability to make decisions, to know that your emotions and feelings are real, and to take care of yourself.  It’s a fairly lengthy definition, isn’t it?  Basically, self-trust involves trusting yourself on EVERY level – cognitively, emotionally, logically, intuitively and physically.

I’ll bet you’re wondering, “With a concept this big, where do I start?”  You start with a decision to build your self-trust and then you roll up your sleeves and begin to work.  It won’t be (at least not for most of us) a magical process that once you make the decision you’ll automatically have a wonderful sense of self-trust, but with consistent work you’ll definitely make significant progress in a fairly short period of time.

Here are 6 steps you can use to build your self-trust:

1.  Eliminate victim mentality.  Victim mentality is living in the belief that things happen to you and you have zero impact, influence or control over what happens to you.  I’m not suggesting that you can’t be a victim.  What I’m suggesting is that you don’t want to let that be your entire story.  Yes, bad things do happen and you can choose how you move on from those things.

As an example, suppose you are divorcing because your spouse cheated on you.  You can either live the rest of your life feeling like a victim of your spouse’s choice or you can come to accept that your spouse’s choice was hurtful and you can still move on with the rest of your life regardless of what your spouse has done.

2.  Eliminate negative thoughts about yourself.  Regardless of whether or not you’re going through divorce, most of us have negative self-talk – you know, those voices in your head that are constantly criticizing you in some way.  A friend of mine calls them the shitty committee.  Learning to quiet those voices and recognize them for what they are is an incredibly powerful skill.

Most of the time, those hyper-critical voices are that way because they’re trying to protect you from something.  For years, my negative self-talk revolved around not liking myself.  It took a while for me understand what was behind those messages, but I finally realized that it was because I wasn’t trusting myself to know what was best for me.  I would often defer what I wanted to what my ex-husband wanted.  Once I came to this realization, it was much easier for me to quiet those negative thoughts and pay more attention to what I wanted.

3.  Recognize your strengths and successes.  This has a lot to do with self-esteem and knowing that you are capable because you have innate strengths and because you’ve been successful in the past.

I’ve written a previous blog post about how to do this and instead of re-writing it here, I’ll just direct you to that post: http://www.functionaldivorce.com/blog/2012/03/30/a-quick-and-simple-way-to-dump-divorce-depression/

4.  Become aware of what you’re thinking and feeling.  Now that you’ve eliminated a bunch of the stinking thinking in the first 3 steps, you’re ready to start being pro-active with building your self-trust and it all begins with paying attention to what you’re thinking and feeling (both physically and emotionally).

There are a couple of different ways to do this.  The first is to ask yourself at least 3 times during each day just what you’re thinking and feeling at that particular moment.  Once you have that answer you can then decide what if anything you want to do to improve how you’re thinking and feeling.  The second way is to journal about your thoughts and feelings.  Most people are more aware of their thoughts than their feelings.  If this is you, you might want to journal by using the phrase “I feel…” as many times as you need to so you can get everything out.

5.  Keep your word to yourself.  Believe it or not we all make promises to ourselves every day: “I won’t eat any more sweets”, “I will start a daily exercise routine today”, “As soon as I finish this report, I’ll take a break to clear my head before starting my next task.”  The thing is that despite our promises we wind up eating a fresh-baked cookie a friend brought over to share, we skip a day of exercise and soon we’ve stopped exercising all together, and we skip taking a break because we talk ourselves into believing we didn’t really need it after all.  Breaking promises we make to ourselves, sets us up to have a poor level of self-trust.

I used to be especially bad at keeping my promises to myself involving rest, relaxation and fun.  I’d usually feel guilty if I wasn’t working and pushing myself all the time and yet I’d hate myself for not taking care of me.  It was really a vicious cycle.  What I discovered by allowing myself to keep my word to myself about rest, relaxation and fun was that I had LOTS more energy for getting my work and workouts done.

6.  Learn from your mistakes.  This is the biggie when it comes to divorce.  It takes two for a marriage to not work.  (I know that might be an offensive statement to some, but it’s what I believe and if you’d like to discuss it with me, please do!  You can reach me at karen@functionaldivorce.com.)  Learning what your part in the divorce was will go a long way toward helping you build your sense of self-trust because you’ll know that you can take care of yourself.

It took me a while to recognize that I played an active part in my divorce, that I wasn’t a victim, and that there were things I could learn from my failed marriage.

Yes, this is really the master’s level of self-trust.  Being able to realize that you are going to make mistakes at times and still trust yourself because you are willing to learn from your mistakes will allow you to take appropriate risks and live a wonderful life.

Once you’ve conquered these 6 steps, you’ll be well on your way to trusting yourself again.  So, the next time something happens in your life that changes everything, your ability to trust yourself will help prevent you from feeling hopelessly lost again.  Even if you do wind up questioning EVERYTHING, you’ll be able to trust your answers because you’ve learned to trust yourself.

 

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Make the decision that you can trust yourself even if you aren’t sure you do right now.  Making the decision is always the first step in making a change.  Learning to trust yourself is critical to having a wonderful life.  Emerson said “Self-trust is the first secret to success” and I agree completely!

Take the checklist above one step at a time.  Start at the top of the list and work your way through each step.  Some may be easier for you to do than others and you may want to re-do some steps along the way, but if you work through them in this order it will be easier for you to master each of them.

Know your limits.  This is one of those extra bonus things about trusting yourself.  As you trust yourself more you’ll know exactly when you need to ask for help and what kind of help you need.  If what you know you need is someone to help hold you accountable to doing what you need to do to build your trust, then give me a call (817-993-0561) and let’s spend some time putting together a strategy to get you on your journey to feeling better about yourself and your life.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

 

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Part 2: How to Decrease Stress when you’re going Through Divorce

April 22, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

closet

When I was a little girl and let my dad know that I wasn’t feeling well, he’d ask how I was feeling.  If I couldn’t give him anything more than an “I don’t know” he’d pass on some advice he got from his mom.  “Go take a shower.  You’ll feel better.”  And you know what?  I did!

Over the years, I’ve learned that a shower is a great start, but I’ve realized that it takes more than that to really feel good about myself and decrease my stress.  I’ve shared my philosophy with my clients and they report that they feel more relaxed and better about themselves too.

So you’re probably wondering what exactly my philosophy is… Yes, it does start with following my grandmother’s advice to shower every day, but it goes much further than that.

How you look plays a big part in how you feel!  At the risk of sounding like Stacy and Clinton on TLC’s What Not to Wear, taking care of your appearance really does impact how you feel.  In addition to helping you feel more confident, you’ll feel calmer too.

You’ll feel best when you’ve got the whole package – clothes that are flattering, fit you well and that you feel great in, a haircut that is flattering and easy for you to style, flattering and current makeup, along with flattering and current facial hair for the guys.

Believe me, it’s worth spending a little time and a little money to update your look when you’re going through divorce.  In fact, after my divorce was final, I actually invested in working with an image consultant.  She really opened my eyes to the way I was undermining myself with my wardrobe, hairstyle and makeup.  It was after I felt confident about how I looked that I was confident and calm enough to begin dating.  My clients who have examined and adjusted their appearance after their divorce was final have also had a lot more confidence to date too.

I know that you might have read all of this and thought it seems pretty superficial, but you’ll never know the profound change feeling confident in your appearance can make until you try it.  No one I’ve worked with who has made an effort to take care of their appearance has felt it was a waste.  Everyone who’s made the effort has felt more calm and confident.  I’ll bet you will too!

 

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Take all the clothes that are stained, torn or don’t fit you anymore out of your closet.  Removing the things that need to be either thrown out, given away or put in a bag to be worn only when you’re painting will remove the temptation to put them on.

Take all the shoes, belts, bags, and other accessories that are worn out, don’t fit or are out of style out of your closet.  If the item has more life in it, give it away.  If not, throw it out or stuff it in the bag with your other painting things.

Once you’ve removed the things that aren’t working for you from your closet, you’ll be left with only the things that work for you which (along with that shower my grandma suggested) should leave you feeling calmer and more confident every morning.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Part 1: How to Decrease Stress when you’re going Through Divorce

April 15, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

As anyone who’s been through divorce knows, it’s an incredibly stressful time.  If the only stresses you had to worry about were due to divorce that would be one thing, but the real problem is that the rest of your life doesn’t stop just because you’re getting divorced.  All of your usual day-to-day stressors (work, traffic, kids’ schedules, other family demands, and the news) somehow become even larger when you’re dealing with the big D.

In this first of three articles on minimizing stress when you’re dealing with divorce, we’ll be focusing on renewing your energy.

When’s the last time you thought about where your energy comes from?  It wouldn’t surprise me if you’d never thought of it before.  After all, it’s something that most of us take for granted.  We assume we’ll have the energy to get through our day each and every day.  We just accept that some days it’s easier to get through the day than others.

The thing is, when you’re going through divorce on top of everything else it can be more difficult than usual to get through your day.  When I started consistently having trouble having enough energy to get through my day while I was going through my divorce 10 years ago, I got interested in how I could boost my energy and that led me to wondering where my energy came from.

What I learned was that our energy comes from our psychology and our physiology.   Yup, it comes from a combination of how you think and how your body responds (which ultimately means how you treat your body).  It’s just as simple and as hard as that.

Luckily, the concept is pretty easy to understand.  The more positive and calm your thoughts and the more healthy your body is the better you’ll be able to deal with stress.  Unfortunately, the concept can be pretty difficult to implement if you’ve not paid much attention to your thoughts or your general health prior to divorce becoming a reality in your life.  To help you out, I’ve got five quick tips that can give you a head start to renewing your energy even in the midst of divorce.

1.  Start your day with a positive thought.  Lots of people get out of bed dreading the day, but if you can start your day with a positive thought it will go a long way toward lessening the stress you have all day long.

Ten years ago, I was one of those people.  I felt like I was on a treadmill of needing to meet one responsibility after another with a few catastrophes thrown in for variety.  Learning to wake up with a positive thought (or two) really made a difference for me.  It helped me get past the plague of depressive thoughts about being divorced and on to better things.

2.  Schedule at least one break for yourself every day where you have ZERO responsibilities and ZERO interruptions.  The break can even be as short as 5 minutes.  The important thing is that you take it.

Ten years ago, I didn’t know what it was to have a real break.  I spent almost every waking moment either working or worrying – neither of which was very helpful to renewing my energy.  Learning to take a real break was hard for me, but by constantly trying out different things I realized that by allowing myself to have a time and space where I had zero responsibilities or interruptions that I felt tons better.  I had more energy to go back to working (and worrying).

3.  End your day with gratitude.  Allowing yourself to appreciate the good that happened during the day goes a long way toward allowing you to have restorative sleep at night.

When I was going through my divorce, I used to have terrible nightmares.  I’d dream about the worst case scenarios of all the things I had gone to sleep worrying about.  As a result of the nightmares, I got very little sleep which just made life that much harder the next day.  When I learned to change my thoughts at night from the worry to something more positive, the frequency of my nightmares decreased dramatically and I slept better.  Of course when I got better sleep, I felt more energetic the next day.

4.  Eat well and regularly.  I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “you are what you eat” before.  There’s definitely some truth to that phrase, but when you’re going through divorce it’s even more powerfully truthful.  Most people change the way they eat when they’re feeling stressed.  They’ll over eat or eat “junk food” to soothe themselves or they’ll “forget” to eat in an attempt to gain some control.  Either path leads to decreased energy.  They’re either fueling their bodies with junk or not fueling their bodies at all.

I went the control route when I was dealing with the big D.  I severely curtailed my eating and tried to live on next to nothing.  I became anorexic and let me tell you that starving yourself is not the way to increase your energy!  I felt exhausted and anxious most of the time.  Luckily, I had a trainer who literally got in my face about being anorexic and got me to start eating healthfully again.  It made a HUGE difference in my energy level and my mood.  I actually started to feel happy again.

5.  Get some exercise daily.  When you’re going through divorce, it’s really easy to believe you don’t have time for exercise because there are just so many other things needing your attention.  Exercise doesn’t have to mean a trip to the gym or the yoga studio, it can be as simple as taking a walk around the block, playing Frisbee with your kids and dog or even doing 5 jumping jacks.  Exercise is anything that gets your body moving in a way you don’t usually do. The wonderful thing is that the novelty of the movement will energize you.

I was a glutton for punishment 10 years ago.  I took everything to the extreme and would work out daily.   What I learned from that was exercise doesn’t have to be work.   It can be fun.  The point of getting some exercise daily is just to move your body and change your thoughts.  The wonderful thing I discovered about changing my thoughts was that I felt better and more energetic!

These 5 tips for renewing your energy are simple.  Hopefully, they’re simple enough that you’re ready to try one or more of them out for yourself.  I know you’ll start to notice improved energy levels and less stress once you implement at least one of these tips daily regardless of where you are in your divorce process.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Eating well and regularly is a challenge my clients always face, so Your Functional Divorce Assignment will focus on this tip. 

Take the following quiz to get an idea of how you might eat well and regularly.

Select one answer for each question.

1.  On average, every day I have ________ servings of caffeine (energy drinks, coffee, sodas, tea).

A.  More than 5

B.  2 – 5

C.  Less than 2

2.  I eat some protein with every meal or snack.

A.  Rarely

B.   Sometimes

C.  Usually

3.  I eat _____ meals each day.

A.  0

B.   1

C.  2-3

4.  I drink _______ glasses of water each day.

A.  0-2

B.   3-7

C.  8 or more

Ideally, C is the better answer for each of the questions.  If you’ve answered A for any of these questions you might want to consider changing things so that you can answer B instead and I’ll bet that you just might feel a bit more energetic when you do.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Divorce and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

April 1, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

www.copyright-free-photos.org.uk

As I’ve mentioned before, I do a lot of reading and I’ll often be reading several books at the same time.  I’ll pick up whichever one fits my mood when I have a few moments to read.

One of the books I’ve got open these days is The Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life by Glenn Beck and Keith Ablow, M.D.  I found one particular passage interesting because it reminded me about perspective and how my life has changed since I got divorced.  The passage is actually a quote from Robert Pirsig’s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which I read about a year after my divorce was final.  Here’s the passage:

The trap consists of a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake.  The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole.  The hole is big enough so that the monkey’s hand can go in, but too small for his fist with rice in it to come out.  The monkey reaches in and is suddenly trapped – by nothing more than his own value rigidity.  He can’t revalue the rice.  He cannot see that freedom without rice is more valuable than capture with it.  The villagers are coming to get him and take him away.  They’re coming closer…closer!…now!…

There is a fact this monkey should know:  if he opens his hand he’s free.  But how is he going to discover this fact?  Be removing the value rigidity that rates rice above freedom.  How is he going to do that?  Well, he should somehow try to slow down deliberately and go over ground that he has been over before and see if things he thought were important really were important and, well, stop yanking and just stare at the coconut for a while.  Before long he should get a nibble from a little fact wondering if he is interested in it.  He should try to understand this fact not so much in terms of his big problem as for its own sake.  That problem may not be as big as he thinks it is.  That fact may not be as small as he thinks it is either.

When I got divorced, I felt like that trapped monkey – terrified and held captive by my fears about what I thought was important at the time.  What I thought was important back then was that my life after divorce needed to work pretty much exactly the same as it had before my divorce – except that I now had an ex-husband.  This was the fact whose nibbling I ignored.  I ignored the reality that one person cannot be as productive as two people working together.  I ignored that it would take me longer to do all of the household chores on my own instead of sharing them with someone else.  I ignored the fact that caring for 3 attention-loving pets on my own would be more of a challenge than it was when I was married.  I ignored these realities and expected that I could do it all with at least as high a quality as had been done pre-separation and divorce.

I kept ignoring all of these facts about my home life and kept expecting that I could and should do it all as had been done before.  I also kept expecting the same high-level of performance from myself at work, at the gym and at play.  I expected so much of myself that I virtually eliminated any time for myself – any down time to just relax.  I had built a very elaborate trap for myself – one that kept me frazzled and eventually led to burnout.

Today, more than 10 years later, I’m amazed by what an elaborate trap I had created for myself.

The thing is, I’m not the only person who got divorced and created a trap.  I regularly meet and work with divorced people who create their own elaborate captivities.

Back then, just like the people I meet and work with today, I simply wasn’t capable of identifying my captivity when I got divorced.  I thought it was just how my life was and that somehow I was defective because I couldn’t keep up with everything I thought I had to keep up with.  Today I know that wasn’t the case.  Today, I know that back then I wanted my rice (all my expectations of myself) and didn’t realize I was selling my freedom to have it.

Like most people dealing with divorce, I’ll bet that you are holding yourself captive unnecessarily too.  Check out Your Functional Divorce Assignment to help you identify and loosen the bonds of your trap.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

What trap are you in?  There are all kinds of traps people create for themselves when they get divorced.  Maybe your trap is similar to mine in that you expect your life to be pretty much the same.  Maybe your trap is a belief that you’re too old to ever find another significant other.  Maybe your trap is a belief that you have no employable skills and no way of getting any.  Or maybe your trap is something else all together.  It could be big or small, the size doesn’t matter.  What does matter is identifying how you are feeling captive.

What are the reasons you believe your trap exists?  Come up with every single reason your trap is real no matter how small or how big.  You might want to write them down so you can get them out of your head and make sure you’ve got them all covered.  Besides, having them all listed in one place will help you with the next step.

For each of the reasons, ask yourself “Is this reason 100% true?” and “What makes this reason true?”  I wish I had known how to ask myself these questions when I was recovering from my divorce.  What often happens when I compassionately ask my clients both questions is that they’ll start to get a nibble of a fact they had been ignoring.  That nibble will often lead to a new idea or a new perspective that allows their trap to be loosened – at least a little bit – which will often entirely change their trap if not eliminate it completely.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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The 4 Phases of Divorce Recovery

March 25, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Financial Divorce | Permalink

seasons

Divorce is one of the most stressful life changes you can experience.  When I went through my divorce, I felt as if I had been tied up, blindfolded and strapped into the front car of a run-away roller coaster.  It was terrifying!  What made it so bad was that I didn’t know what to expect next and I was always anticipating the worst.

What I’ve learned through my own divorce recovery and helping all my clients over the years is that when you have some knowledge about what to expect, things are less scary.  This is like the idea of taking the blindfold off so although you might still feel like you’re tied up and on the roller-coaster ride at least you’ll be able to see what’s coming up next.

So let’s take that blindfold off you once and for all!  There are four phases of divorce change that you’ll experience – just like there are four seasons:

  1. The End/Beginning – Winter
  2. The Chaotic Redefinition of Life – Spring
  3. The Settling In – Summer
  4. Moving On – Fall

The first phase, the end/beginning, is tough – just like winter is.  This phase is a progression from the first thought of divorce, to the struggle to make the decision and then finally to making the decision.  In this phase it’s common to feel frozen by fear and/or indecision.  Once the decision is made, unless both spouses made the decision together, it’s common for the spouse not making the decision to feel frozen by denial and rejection.

In the spring-like phase of divorce, the chaotic redefinition of life, everything seems to change at once.  Life can feel tumultuous and like there’s too much happening.  It’s hard to keep your bearings and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by everything.  This is just like spring when there is a tremendous flurry of activity with the plants emerging and coming back to life along with the scurrying of wildlife to build nests and welcome their young.

In the next phase of divorce, settling in, things slow down and pick up a new rhythm just like we all do in summer.  You’ve learned what you needed to learn to get your life on the new track and you’re able to slow down the frenzy of activity of the last phase.  There are still a few things that need your attention, but overall you’re feeling pretty good about your life.

The fall-like phase of divorce is when you’re able to move on with your life.  You’ve completed all the transition and preparation and now you’re really living your life again.  Just like fall was traditionally the time to relax and appreciate all of the hard work that went into the spring and summer.

And just like our weather, there are no firm and fast divisions of the four phases of divorce.  There are freak storms in divorce recovery that can make spring and fall feel like winter, but that’s all they are, just storms that you can weather and move on from.

Now with this knowledge of the phases of divorce and how they echo the seasons of the year, I’m hopeful that you’ll feel like you’ve been able to remove the blindfold and know more of what to expect on your divorce roller-coaster ride.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Which phase of divorce are you in?  By recognizing which of the phases of divorce you’re in, you can be better prepared to weather it and know what to expect next.

Feel like you’re in more than one phase? Don’t worry.  It’s common to feel like you’re in a couple of phases at the same time.  Just like the seasons don’t abruptly change, your divorce recovery won’t abruptly shift from one phase to another.

Need some help weathering the changes? If you’d like to have a bit of extra support, please reach out to me.  I’ll be happy to schedule a Complimentary Consultation with you and help you put together a divorce recovery forecast that you’re pleased with.  You can reach me at karen@functionaldivorce.com.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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How to Calm Your FEARs

March 17, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

FEARs

When I got divorced, FEAR was my constant companion.  I was afraid of almost everything and I spent a lot of time imagining catastrophes that could happen to me.  Some of the catastrophes I vividly pictured were being trapped in my home by a tornado (that was the happy version – the worst version was just being obliterated by a tornado), being poisoned by the food I had bought at the grocery store, being killed in a car accident, and even losing my job which would cause me to never work again and having to live on the street where I would die a painful death.

Luckily, none of my catastrophes have come to pass, but I wasted a HUGE amount of energy and time living with the fear of them.  And yet, being afraid is a common part of going through divorce.  There are so many changes happening all at once that can seem to threaten survival if your FEARs take hold of you like mine did.

Could I have worked my way through my divorce without wasting so much energy and time on being afraid?  YES!  But I didn’t know how then.  I know how now and that’s what I want to share with you – exactly how to calm your FEARs.

You can look at the word fear as an acronym – FEAR – which stands for False Expectations Appearing Real.  Each one of the catastrophic fears that I had were actually FEARs.  They were just expectations that I made come terrifyingly alive for me even though they were not real events.

The first thing to remember about FEARs are that they are based on a loss of trust.  When you have False Expectations Appearing Real you’ve lost trust in something.

When I was afraid of being obliterated by a tornado, I had lost my trust in being able to take the necessary precautions in a tornado warning.  When I was afraid of being poisoned by the food I bought at the grocery store, I had lost my trust in the food production, safety and distribution organizations. When I was afraid of being killed in a car accident, I had lost my trust in my ability to drive defensively and my trust in the fact that most other drivers are going to follow the rules of the road.  When I was afraid of losing my job, I had lost trust in my ability to perform at work even though I was still doing so.  When I was afraid that I would never work again, I had lost my trust in myself.  When I was afraid of living on the street, not only had I lost trust in myself, but I had lost trust in my friends and family too.

Now, losing trust is a normal part of going through divorce.  It makes sense to have a questioning about trust with respect to relationships when you’re going through divorce.  However, generalizing the loss of trust about relationships to other things is where FEARs start. So as easy as it can be to question your trust of other things in your life when you go through divorce, actually losing trust can lead to creating catastrophes where there are none.  And this is exactly what I did when I went through my divorce.

The second thing to remember is that what you’re FEARing is probably not happening now.  In fact, that’s the best way to start calming a FEAR.  Just ask yourself if what you’re FEARing is true right now.  Is it happening right now?  Usually, it isn’t.  Usually, your mind is just going down the path of creating a wildly vivid movie of your FEAR.  But, the moment you’re able to push the pause button on the movie you’ve been creating by acknowledging that it’s not happening right now, you’ve just started calming your FEAR.  Your FEARs will calm because you’ve changed your focus, if only for a moment, to the fact that it’s not happening right now.

The third thing is to help your thoughts change the channel from the FEAR movie as soon as you pause it.  There are millions of other thoughts you can have instead of becoming engrossed in the movies of your FEARs.  The easiest way to change the channel is to become engrossed in something else.  For some people exercising works great.  But if it’s the middle of the night when your FEAR movie-fest starts, it’s not too practical to start exercising.  What I think works even better at any time of the day or night is to write down what your FEAR is and then write down as many things as you can think of to prevent that FEAR from becoming real.  Another thing that can help any time of the day or night is to ask yourself what is happening now.  What are the sounds you’re hearing, the things you can see, what are you touching, etc.  Just by bringing yourself as fully into the reality of your surroundings as possible can help to quell the FEARs and change that channel.

Fears are a normal part of healing from divorce.  The thing is that sometimes they can get out of hand and become FEARs (False Expectations Appearing Real).  By having a plan in place that can help you change the channel when your FEARs start playing in your mind, you’ll be able to calm them quickly.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

What are you FEARing?  People FEAR all kinds of things when they get divorced.  Maybe you FEAR being alone for the rest of your life.  Maybe you FEAR not being able to find a job when you return to the workforce.  Maybe, you’re like me and you FEAR eating the food you bought at the grocery store.  Whatever it is that you FEAR, acknowledge it.  By acknowledging your FEARs, you’ll have more control over them instead of being ruled by them.

Now that you know what they are, prepare for you FEARs to show up. Understanding that your FEARs might show up again even after you’ve identified them will put you well on your way to calming them.  They’ll become a movie you’ve seen a hundred times where you can recite every line of the dialog by heart.  You’ll just need to remember to ask yourself, “Is what I FEAR happening now?” as soon as the FEAR movie starts to play again so you can pause it for just a moment.

When the movie is paused, pick one of the three options to change the channel. If your FEAR movie starts playing at a time when you can exercise, you might want to do that.  If your FEAR movie starts to play at a time when it’s not possible to exercise, you can either write down your FEAR and as many things as you can think of to prevent it from coming true or you can start becoming firmly engrossed in your surroundings.

Whatever you choose to do to change the channel when your FEAR movie starts will be a HUGE boon to you calming your FEARs and being able to move on with your life after divorce.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Update These Documents after Divorce

March 11, 2013 in Financial Divorce, Functional Divorce, Legal Divorce | Permalink

paperwork

When you get divorced there are all kinds of paperwork and documentation you need to update, change, create and just be able to put your hands on at a moment’s notice.  It can feel overwhelming to have to deal with all of this on top of the emotional turmoil of divorce.

To help make things a bit easier on you, here’s a table with the most common documents you’ll want to make sure you’ve appropriately dealt as you complete your divorce.

Document Name

Purpose of Document*

Changes to Consider**
Social Security Card Personal identifier for individuals in the United States If part of your divorce decree included a change to your name, you’ll want to file that change with the Social Security Administration and receive a new Social Security Card.
Driver’s License Grants a person the right to legally drive.  It’s also commonly used as picture identification. If part of your divorce decree included a change to your name, you’ll want to file that change with your state’s Driver’s Licensing office and receive a new Driver’s License.
Property Titles (for real estate, motor vehicles, etc.) Used to identify ownership of property Transferred ownership and any name changes
Retirement Plans (e.g., 401K, IRA, pension plan, etc.) Monies that are set aside for an individual’s retirement and can be released to a beneficiary upon the death of the individual Make sure your beneficiaries are updated to reflect your new marital status.
Life Insurance Policy Provide for your family after your death, pay for your funeral costs Make sure your beneficiaries are updated to reflect your new marital status
Will & Trust Can identify the persons or entities that will receive your property when you die, for you to appoint a guardian for your minor children, appoint those you wish to manage your estate, revoke or alter a previous will Make sure your beneficiaries are updated to reflect your new marital status
W-4 Helps your employer to withhold the correct federal income tax from your pay Make sure to adjust your number of dependents to reflect your newly single status
Medical Treatment Authorization and Consent Form Used for those situations where minors are unaccompanied by either parents or legal guardians.  Because your children may be in different care situations than when you were married, you might want to make sure whomever is watching your children has the ability to help your children get appropriate medical care.
Medical Power of Attorney Designates a person that you trust to make health care decisions on your behalf should you be unable to make those decisions. You’ll probably want to make sure you update who this person is.
Directive to Physicians and Family or Surrogates Designed to help you communicate your wishes about medical treatment if you are no longer to make decisions due to illness or incapacity. You’ll probably want to make sure to update who this person is.
HIPPA Authorizations at each of your doctors Allows you to indicate who besides you may have access to your medical information. If you had originally filled out forms at a doctor’s office allowing information to be left with your spouse, you might want to change this.

 

*  The purposes identified in this table are just casual descriptions.  For legal descriptions, you’ll want to contact the appropriate authority.

**  The changes to consider are just suggestions.  You’ll want to work with the appropriate authority to verify which changes are appropriate for you.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Which of the documents above do you currently have?  For each of the documents listed in the table that you’ve already got, take the time to review and update them.

Which of the documents do you not have? For each of the documents that you do not have, look at the purpose of the document and determine whether or not you want to have it.  If you want to have the document, make an appointment with the appropriate professional to have the document created.

Where are your documents? There are some documents that you’ll want to keep handy.  You’ll want to make sure that the appropriate family members know where you documents are kept.  You’ll probably also want to make copies of the documents for yourself and family members in case getting to the originals may not be speedy enough.

There are other documents, like the HIPPA Authorizations at each of your doctor’s offices that they’ll keep the originals of and that you’ll just have copies of.  You’ll want to keep tabs on these as well in case you need to update the information on them in the future.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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Changing Your Mood Might be as Easy as Changing Your Shirt

March 3, 2013 in Emotional Divorce | Permalink

colors

One of the most curious things that happened when I was going through my divorce was that I started to wear black almost all the time.  What was so curious about it was that I had always loved color, but for some reason I didn’t understand then, I was drawn to wearing all black for quite a while.  It was really different for me and many of my friends commented on my new wardrobe choices.

At the time, I didn’t think too much about it.  And after about 6 months, I started to wear more colorful clothing again.

A few years ago, while doing research about emotions and ways that environment affects our moods, I found there is a wealth of research on how colors affect our moods and vice versa.  I was really surprised by what I learned because it explained why I had been drawn to different colors while I was going through the worst of my divorce.

Here are some of the things I’d like to share with you about color and how it can affect or reflect feelings:

Black Many of us associate the color black with mourning and that was my first guess as to why I was drawn to it during the worst of my divorce.  Well, according to color therapy theory, black is also the color that gives us space for reflection and inner searching.  I have to tell you that I was doing a whole lot of thinking and trying to figure things out while going through my divorce and so this makes a lot of sense to me.
Blue Blue is the color of a beautiful Caribbean sea and the color of a sunny sky.  Like a sunny day spent lazing on the beach, blue is the color of relaxation.  Color theorists say that blue also promotes relaxation and healing.
Red Red is a VERY energizing color.  You probably remember from watching cartoons when you were a kid that when characters were angry their eyes became red.  You’ve probably also heard the phrase “seeing red” to indicate that someone is angry.  Red intensifies emotions, especially anger.
Yellow Yellow is an interesting color from a color theory point of view.  It is said to stimulate mental activity, promote feelings of self-confidence and increase alertness.  Who wouldn’t want a healthy dose of those feelings?
White White light contains all the colors.  If you need clarity in your thoughts, white may just be the color you need to see more of.

 

So does this color theory work?  Many believe it does.  I know that I enjoy being surrounded by colors and that some days I prefer one color over another.  I know that when I feel confident and calm, I do tend to wear blue.  When I’m feeling vibrant, I tend to choose red.  And when I need things to be more organized and clean, I tend to choose white.

What color are you wearing today?  Is it a reflection of your mood or thoughts?  Is it just the first clean thing you grabbed to put on?  Or is it your signature color?  You just might be surprised about what the color of your shirt says about how you’re feeling and thinking.

Your Functional Divorce Assignment:

Determine if color therapy could be useful in your life.  This week, have some fun noting the colors you wear each day and how you feel.  At the end of the week, compare your color/mood combinations to the list above and see if your moods matched the colors.

If you find a correlation between the colors you wore and your moods, experiment with adding more of the colors you were wearing when you felt good.  Adding pops of the colors that help you to feel good into your home and office could help you to get back to and maintain a good feeling.

If you don’t find a correlation between the colors you wore and your moods, don’t worry, it just means that you’re probably not especially sensitive to colors right now.

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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All Tangled Up?

January 27, 2013 in Emotional Divorce, Functional Divorce | Permalink

Have you ever felt all tangled up on the inside and didn’t know which direction to turn?

Or maybe you’ve felt that you’re stuck in quicksand and it’s taking all your effort to just make it through each day?

Or worse, you’ve felt that you’re wearing a choke-chain of all your responsibilities and don’t really know who you are anymore?

Don’t worry.  I’ve been there.  In fact, everyone I know who has been through divorce has been there before too.  Overwhelm can be hard to overcome and yet it’s a common part of divorce.  Knowing how to get through it or stop it all together is a critical skill to develop.  What I’m going to share with you today are some of the techniques I regularly use with myself, my family and my clients when things start to feel overwhelming.

1.       Change your story.

When I was finding my way through the aftermath of my divorce, I used to tell myself really scary stories.  They were stories of doom and I told them over and over again – like a broken recording.  I was feeling overwhelmed and the stories I told myself made things worse.  I didn’t see any way that I could ever stop the chaos I was living in.  I felt like I was performing and not really living.  I was really miserable!

But, things slowly changed when I started changing my internal story.  Instead of envisioning a life of doom and destruction, my stories became more about experiencing sadness and then more about being tired of the sadness and imagining what changes I could make.  And then, I started actually making changes – some really big changes.  I started living again instead of feeling like a prisoner of circumstances.

It can be the same for you.  Simply by changing the story you’re telling yourself, you can dramatically (even if it takes time like it did for me) change your life for the better and stop feeling overwhelmed.

2.       Take care of you first.

For those of us who have a tendency to get burned out, when we feel stressed about out divorce it can be especially easy to forget about taking care of ourselves and just focus on what needs to be done for others instead.  After all, they’re depending on us, right?

It’s easy for me to identify a new client who isn’t taking care of themselves because they have a difficult time answering questions like

  • Are you getting enough sleep?
  • Are you exercising?
  • Are you eating nutritious meals?

in the affirmative.  They’ll squirm a bit before answering or try to deflect the question with a joke or some explanation as to why they can’t sleep or exercise or eat well.

If you can’t honestly say you’re getting enough sleep, adequate exercise and eating well, you would probably benefit from taking better care of yourself.  Taking care of yourself isn’t an afterthought – something you do after you take care of the rest of your responsibilities.  Taking care of yourself is VITAL to you being able to take care of your responsibilities.  Without your physical well-being, you won’t be able to take care of anyone or anything else, so, please, make sure you’re putting you first and treating yourself well.

3.       See the lighter side and laugh.

Somehow, when things are really miserable and you’re just not sure how you’re going to deal with one more pressure, there comes a moment when you realize just how ridiculous everything is – all the pressure and stress suddenly become laughable.  I’ve found the best thing to do when I reach that point is to laugh.  I’m not talking about a simple tee-hee-hee or chuckle, I’m talking about a really deep from the gut laugh.

Laughter is a great cure for stress and overwhelm.  It causes you to loosen some muscles and tighten others.  It requires you to breathe differently and it gets some different hormones flowing through your body – the kinds that help you to feel better.

In working with my clients, I often incorporate really bad jokes to get some laughter going.  Laughing always lightens the mood and allows my clients to see things from a slightly different angle and break the strangle hold overwhelm had on them.

With overwhelm and stress being such common elements of our daily lives – not to mention divorce, these 3 simple ideas can be a great springboard for you to prevent yourself from succumbing to burn out.

Your Functional Divorce Coaching Assignment:

The next time you’re feeling stressed out, pick one of the 3 suggestions above and try it out.  After all what have you got to lose besides your stress?  I know that if you consistently take the necessary steps to help you deal with the stress of your divorce, you’ll be better able to manage it.

If you’d like more do-able ideas for decreasing the impact of stress on your life, give me a call at 817-993-0561 so we can schedule a Complimentary Consultation and together we’ll figure out a way for you to have less stress.

 

© 2013 Karen Finn.  All rights reserved under all copyright conventions.

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