Break ups are never easy, especially the longer you've been with someone and the more your lives have become intertwined. Yet once you get past the unpleasant task of untangling everything, purging crap (including cleaning up your digital life) and establishing new norms, slowly but surely a calm washes over you and soon thereafter a sense of hope begins to build as you find yourself forging a new path, and you realize that what you have in front of you is an amazing opportunity for a new beginning for yourself, and maybe eventually with someone else-- someone better suited to meet your needs and share a life with you.
Personally, what I found after my divorce is that after the dreams of my happily-ever-after came crashing down, a whole new world opened up with very little rules and a heck of a lot of flexibility. Both professionally and personally I found myself far more willing than ever before to test new limits and challenge preconceived notions of how things "should be done." The less rigid my mind has become, the more doors just keep opening up-- and maybe this is more than anything else attributable to the fact that before I simply wasn't able to see them from my limited point of view.
To change your way of thinking and the way you view the world does not happen overnight. Appreciating the complexities of life happens over time, with experience. But sadly, for many of us the experience that tends to jolt our systematic way of thinking is a catastrophic event, like death or divorce. Thankfully, this is NOT a person's defining moment, it's just the trigger for a series of events or a chain reaction that will lead to someone's metamorphosis.
Honestly, a key part to my own metamorphosis was dating-- because it opened me up to seeing the world from varying perspectives. In the last 8 years, I've dated people ranging from 13 years my senior to 6 years my junior, and some have been richer while others have been poorer, with some being totally non-committal while others were just rushing to walk down that aisle again. (I highly recommend avoiding the latter.) Needless to say, there has never really been a dull moment in my own post-divorce journey and by being open to these different opportunities, my own understanding of the world has grown far deeper and richer than I'd ever imagined possible.
For those of you about to embark on this journey, I encourage you to watch last week's episode on MMCTV with New Beginnings, and you really should consider getting a personal guide to help you through the process of rebuilding a new life. There are also some great books out there, and the one I mentioned on air is a quick read-- and it is free online: Butterflies are Free to Fly by Stephen Davis. Here is the link:
http://butterfliesfree.com/
I know a lot of you will not survive the holidays together-- after 15 years of handling divorces, I've seen the trends, and it is no secret that many of you are just trying to grin and bear it right now. All I can say is that I'm sorry you are going through this right now, but you are not alone, and while the path ahead may not be easy, try to see this as an opportunity for a fresh start. Hopefully, you too will soon become a free butterfly.
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