Tag Archives: divorce

Life and Relationships

The Spiritual Side of Divorce

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Divorce in America is at an all time high. The rate of divorce for second marriages is even higher than the rate for first marriages. Over the last 3 years, the demographics of clients in our relationship coaching practice represented a divorce rate of over 80%. So what’s going on in our world where relationships have become as disposable as plastic water bottles?

Spiritual Divorce
Spiritual Divorce
One way people can respond to this epidemic is to say that the moral fiber of our society is crumbling and crashing. Or that commitment to long-term relationships and the stability they are intended to provide for each of us is rapidly becoming an out-dated institution? Perhaps you personally may believe this explanation is valid. Or perhaps it isn’t.

Is the alarming divorce rate is a symptom of a society that has a deficiency? A deficiency of unworthiness that causes us to fear intimacy, openness, giving and receiving, sharing and love. As relationship coaches, we have found this to be the case with many of our clients who are facing rocky marriages and divorce.

From our vantage point we see the high rate of divorce as a symptom of a society that has become increasingly fragmented, isolated, fearful and expendable and sees relationships only as a means to a personal end.

However, we also see divorce as an opportunity to specifically heal the emotional wounds that marital relationships represent to both parties.

To heal an emotional wound is spiritual. Any lasting workable solution to any relationship problem is spiritual in nature. There is no alternative. If you believe that a big, fat alimony check is going to make everything all better, think again!

The problem was never about the divorce or how your spouse never lived up to his or her side of the bargain to honor and obey, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer.

The real problem, which is always an opportunity for spiritual growth and healing, is that you bring to your relationships (marital and otherwise), your wounds from your past. Until you heal those wounds, you will repeat them.

The spiritual side of divorce, is like any life challenge, a potential blessing in disguise. It is an opportunity to look at yourself head-on in the mirror and say to yourself, ‘What is this situation showing me about myself and what is it attempting to teach me?’ Ask for an answer. Ask for guidance. You will hear it!

The spiritual side of divorce can open the door for you to finally grow-up and truly become the mature adult who can readily participate in healthy mature relationships.

When we say ‘mature’ we are not referring to the day-to-day activities and responsibilities of the average adult like having a job, paying the bills, putting a roof over your family’s head and food on the table.

We are referring to a maturity that goes much deeper than that. A maturity that has less to do with who you are and what you do and more about your willingness to heal where you are emotionally wounded. This is what it means to be spiritually mature.

Spiritual maturity is about learning how to take responsibility for your life. Responsibility for your life situations, experiences and relationships as well as the state of your emotions.

The spiritual side of divorce represents an opening. An opening where perhaps just a sliver of light is shining on a situation that looks very dark. It is only through your willingness that more light can shine on you and your life.

It is only when we begin to heal from within that the physical reality of our life and relationships permanently improve and change.

If you are experiencing intimate relationship challenges, consider the following tips as guidelines that may assist you to begin to see you and your life from a new, healthier perspective:

1. Stop playing the victim! Playing the victim role always attracts a cast of characters who are more than willing to perpetrate emotional pain on to a willing victim.

2. Cease blaming others for your situation. Until you take full and complete responsibility for your life and the role you play in it, you will suffer at the emotional mercy of other people.

3. Be open to looking within and discover why your life is not the romance novel you hoped it could have been.

4. Become more open to changing by developing a more positive, optimistic attitude and notice how you are attracting more positive, optimistic people in to your life.

5. Begin the process of loving and respecting yourself more. If you don’t love and respect yourself, how can you expect anyone else to love and respect you?

Whether you are going through a divorce now, contemplating one, have experienced one, and are attempting to get your life back on track, know that now is the time to heal your wounded relationship. First by beginning to heal the relationship with your spouse or your ex. Second, and more significant, is healing the relationship with yourself.

As relationship and divorce coaches we believe that ‘relationships are the cornerstone for all existence.’

The spiritual side of divorce is a divine invitation from your soul to heal your emotional wounds from all of your current and past relationships.

If you are contemplating divorce, going through divorce or rebuilding your life after divorce, we can assist you! Learn more.

©Possibility Coaches LLC

spiritual divorce

spiritual divorce

Life and Relationships

3 Keys to Healthy Relationships

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We all want healthy relationships! So why don’t we have healthy relationships? To experience healthy relationships, it’s important to understand that the physical world we see is like a gigantic mirror. It always reflects back to us our dominant thoughts, beliefs, feelings and emotions. What we see is a result of what we project. Our world is the screen. On that screen is a movie. We each script it, produce it, direct it and even act in it.

Tips for a Healthy Relationship
Tips for Healthy Relationships
If you are unhappy with ‘the plot’ and the cast of characters in your life, then perhaps it is time for a re-write of your script. The quickest, most efficient way to change the world you see is to begin to be more open, willing and vulnerable to healing your life through the relationships you may consider unhealthy or unstable.

Here are three key ways that the healing power of your relationships can assist you to create a new life for yourself.

Tip #1: Be open and willing to stop trying to ‘fix’ and ‘save’ other people. If you are in the habit of trying to fix and save people be open and willing to give this up now! Do not expect anyone else to change because you want them to. If you are carrying a ‘I’ll be happy and at peace when (s)he changes’ belief, you are going to wait a very long time…even a lifetime, for that to happen.

Wanting someone to change for self-gratification is an emotionally exhausting process. It creates stress and frustration, as well as physical disease. It is really about a need to control. Ultimately, the desire for someone else to change so we can be happy interferes with our Life learning process. In the end no one gains the wisdom required to be truly happy. This wisdom is programmed in to each relationship that affects our well-being.

Instead of wanting other people to change for you, focus on YOU and how you can make an uplifting contribution to all of your relationships. Start by blessing all of your relationships, past and present, good or bad. When you do this you instantly have a more positive impact on the world.

While going through this new process, you may also uncover some aspects of yourself that you may not like very much. Be okay with who you are! There is always room for change. Creating change from within is a conscious choice that we each can make if we want to improve the quality of all of our relationships.

Tip #2: Get to know yourself now! If you truly desire more intimacy in your personal relationships begin by focusing on developing an intimate relationship with yourself. The truth is, if you are challenged being intimate with you, how can you expect to be intimate with someone else?

Get to know “you” by going on a date with yourself. Spend alone time. Journal your thoughts about what you love about you. Begin to enjoy your own company!

To improve all of your relationships begins at home, with each of us contributing our share for positive change. Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you want to see.’ This is especially relevant when it comes to the state of our relationships. To improve and awaken to the power of our relationships requires each of us to lead by example. Strong, healthy relationships are the result of giving our focused attention to our feelings, emotions and energy levels directly linked to the relationships themselves.

To improve our life and our world requires us to consciously aim to put our heart and soul in to each and every relationship, because your relationships always reflect the heart and soul of who you think you are and who you potentially can become.

All relationships are the building blocks of life; however, they are often forfeited or destroyed in the name of personal needs or gratification and even for what some may call ‘success.’

Tip #3: Begin to develop more self-confidence and healthier self-esteem. You achieve this by learning to let go of the past and cease worrying about the future. Be alive now. Accept that you are unique and one-of-a kind and so is everyone else. Experiencing healthy relationships is also about realizing that we are all interconnected to everyone and everything.

To experience this idea of uniqueness and interconnectedness simply requires a shift in how you look at things. Recall that your life and world is the movie you created. You can edit and re-write the storyline as you choose.

We are each the small successes on the big stage called Earth. Small successes, compounded over time, can create some awesome results. To achieve results requires commitment, fortitude, courage and a willingness to play the Game of Life.

The Game of Life cannot be played out to its full beauty and grandeur without your consent. All, truly healthy, mature relationships, must contain consenting adults. From this point forward, consent to take responsibility for your life by strengthening all of your relationships.

Have you ever considered Relationship Coaching? It’s great if you are single and looking, in a relationship or just ended one. See what it can do for you.

©Possibility Coaches, LLC

healthy relationships

healthy relationships

Life and Relationships

Is Your Relationship/Marriage Made in Heaven or a Living Hell?

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As a Relationship Coach, I absolutely love counseling couples! Why? Because I enjoy listening to both his and her version of what’s ‘really going on.’ Each one, comes to their sessions believing they know what’s ‘wrong’ with their relationship/marriage. I always sit there with a grin as they each proceed to enlighten me on what their partner is or isn’t doing and saying or not saying, causing a breakdown and ultimate failure of the relationship.

Create Healthy Relationships!
Create Healthy Relationships!
My grins are a response to witnessing ‘the butting of two heads.’ Author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle calls this interaction ‘the meeting of two pain bodies.’ Your pain body, as well as my pain body, is that part of us that believes you and I are separate from everyone else. This pain body also requires other people to fulfill its’ insatiable needs- especially those of the emotional kind.

When we do not have these emotional needs met we are typically faced with large amounts of internal strife. We can label these struggles with a variety of names and conditions. None of them feel good. Some of the names and conditions we give to the other person who is not fulfilling our needs are: ‘selfish,’ ‘self-centered,’ ‘unloving,’ ‘untrustworthy,’ ‘immature,’ ‘manipulative,’ ‘deceitful,’ ‘controlling,’ ‘argumentative’ and ‘critical.’ These are some of the descriptive words my clients, and perhaps you, too, have used to describe your partners both past and present.

As a result of attaching labels and conditions to our partners, we also simultaneously attach descriptive conditions to ourselves. If we do not feel good about ourselves, our self-talk can easily convince us either consciously or unconsciously that somehow we may deserve this current relationship. Your relationship/marriage which you once thought was ‘made in heaven,’ now appears to be ‘a living hell.’

This ‘living hell’ is a direct result of our feelings of unworthiness. This unworthy feeling stems from the belief that we are not deserving to be truly loved for who we are. We may also believe, on some deeper level, that love is not really meant to feel good, so consequently, we push away goodness from our lives. This is particularly true if we were taught not to trust people in general and/or we have experienced people who we thought loved us suddenly depart from our lives either physically or emotionally.

Right now, in this very moment, if you can honestly recognize and assess the status of your most significant relationship, I applaud you! So where do you rate it? Is it a heavenly co-existence, a hellish on-going battle like the ‘hundred years war,’ or somewhere in-between? Does it seem to switch without warning from blissful and loving to rage-filled and chaotic?

Begin now to take notice of the conditions, patterns and behaviors of both you and your partner/spouse that dominate and trend in your relationship. Observe if conflict is more prevalent than peace. Is intimate conversation and communication absent or a painful process that seems to be avoided at all cost?

Be honest about all of this! If you can’t, then honesty is absent from your relationship. I have found that most relationships lack a certain degree of authenticity in that each person wears a variety of ‘personality masks’ to keep themselves from getting hurt by other people.

These masks we wear are associated with the beliefs we have about ourselves, love, and whether or not you and I are deserving of receiving and giving love.

If your relationship/marriage is hellish, don’t get down on yourself or the current situation!

I have found with my own life journey and as a guide to hundreds of others over the years, that our relationships, like every other circumstance we experience, are reflections of how we see ourselves.

Now, this idea has some staggering, perhaps life-altering implications if you even contemplate and consider that this may be true. If all our relationships are simply like a mirror reflecting back to us what we are ‘putting out’ to the world, and we are dissatisfied with what we are experiencing, then perhaps it is time to be pro-active to positively changing the status of our relationships.

I’d like to share with you some basic, yet mandatory requirements that will assist you to begin the process of moving out of hellish relationships toward ones that are more likely made in heaven. These applications can be applied to all of your relationship, however, I am particularly focused here on your most intimate and significant ones at this time.

These ‘requirements’ cannot be overlooked or omitted, for if they are, you will surely experience a continuation of displeasure, disharmony and discord in your relationship or marriage. These requirements are listed below and must be followed in sequential order to create success in your relationship:

1. BEING READY, WILLING AND OPEN. Be ready, willing and open to improve the quality of your relationship. If you are not, then do not proceed! Instead, ask yourself ‘why am I resistant to moving forward?’

2. LOOK WITHIN. Once you agree to the first requirement, be open to looking within. This serves 2 purposes: first, it allows you to get in-touch with your true feelings toward the other person and yourself. It also provides you with greater insight to how you are in some way attracting unloving and unwanted relationships in to your life.

3. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE QUALITY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIPS. When you begin to accept that who you attract in to your life is a reflection of who you believe you are, you can begin to take responsibility for all aspects of your life, including your relationships.

4. COMMIT TO CREATING POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS. Knowing that you are responsible for the status of all your relationships, you can now begin to positively affect their status. To do this requires commitment- and this is huge! This is about becoming the type of person you want in your life. This is acknowledging once and for all that the only person you can effectively change is you!

5. ACCEPT THAT ONLY YOU CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY. By accepting that only you can change your relationships, you are on the road to becoming and doing whatever it takes to make your relationships work. This means that you cease to hold others responsible for your happiness. You also give up trying to change people to meet your emotional needs.

If you are willing to utilize my suggestions, you will gain clarity about yourself and your relationships. You will also see many of your relationships strengthen through love. On the other hand, some relationships may change course or even dissolve, yet they will do so in a more loving way.

This all can be a scary process! However, consider the alternative represented by a lifetime of unhealthy, unpredictable, dysfunctional relationships.

In the end, I guarantee you that the emotional payoff far outweighs the risk you take to create heaven on earth through your relationships!

To learn more, I invite you to download our free gift: Special Report: Breaking The Chain of Emotional Pain:
http://www.possibilitycoaches.net/pain

Are you ready to improve all of your relationships including the one you have with yourself? Contact us or a complimentary, no obligation coaching session.

©Possibility Coaches LLC

marriage

marriage