How will it all work out if I get divorced?

You want to know the how right?

  • “But how am I going to move forward once I decide?”
  • “What will all of that look like?”
  • “How can I avoid mistakes?”

This is a point that all of my clients reach once they’ve coached with me long enough to have identified what they want, figured out their reasons for their choice, and are now ready to move forward.

And I get it, I really do.

I remember when I talked to my lawyer that first time and she told me that it would take 8 months minimum to get divorced and my brain was like “Say what?!”

I could not imagine how on earth I was going to make it through 8 more months. I felt like I was already at the breaking point and needed things to change NOW.

But here’s the reality, I didn’t.

I’m still here, still alive, and I went through each and every day of those eight months that it took to get divorced without knowing ahead of time what it would be like. 

And I was able to do that by trusting in my choice and managing my brain along the way.

The obsession you feel with knowing the “how” is just part of what our human brains are built to do.

You brain wants to analyze all of the risk, try to figure everything out ahead of time, and plan each step.

Some of that is what we do in coaching; we go in and clean out all the closets in your brain and sort and organize everything so that you have a solid foundation, but then there comes a point when it’s time to trust the foundation you’ve laid and just get in there and start going. 

Because here’s the thing, you never know “how” to do something until you actually “do it.”

Like learning how to swim or ride a bike, there’s only so much you can gain from talking and thinking about it before you just have to jump in the pool or get on the bike and start pedaling.  

And with the tools you learn in coaching, that journey of figuring out your “how” becomes less painful because you know how to not make all of the moments when things are tough and you fall down, mean that you’re failing and it’s never going to work. 

You know how to love yourself through all of it and manage your brain so that it’s working with you instead of against you.

Coaching is what helps you find your reasons for your choice and a strong “why” that you can come back to for commitment and resilience as you go through the “how.”

When you have a strong enough why, the how gets naturally figured out each day.

So ask yourself,

  • Do I know my reasons?
  • Do I have a “why” that I love and feel solid about?

If you don’t, invest in coaching to help you create that foundation, and then once you do, trust that the journey will reveal the “how” to you along the way.

You Can Trust Yourself

“I can’t trust myself.”

By the time I was starting to consider divorce, I had already had many years of practicing this belief.

I had developed a pattern of looking to people outside of me for guidance and insight into what I should do in my life.

This looked like taking copious notes at religious meetings and then trying to checklist everything that had been mentioned.

Listening to every comment from my spouse on my appearance – “don’t like bangs, too much jewelry” – and changing it accordingly.

And oversharing with my friends and family in the hopes that someone would tell me the right things to do.

And then, when I would actually decide on my own, when things got tough or didn’t work out like I’d thought, I would beat the crap out of myself mentally. “This was such a stupid idea. What were you thinking? You look like an idiot. Don’t ever do this again.”

It’s like a part of my brain had become this negative animus that was there to constantly shame and judge me whenever I struggled or wasn’t perfect.

It was a seriously sucky way to live. Always worried about what others thought. Always trying to control their thoughts about me by taking actions that I thought they would like.

It was exhausting and felt like a hamster wheel because, newsflash, you never have control over what another human being chooses to think about you.

But coaching changed all of this.

I learned that I could CHOOSE my beliefs about myself.

That the statement “I can’t trust myself” was just a thought. And after seeing what that thought was producing, I could choose to let it go and believe something else about myself.

Slowly, little by little, I started to understand how the negative thoughts I had about myself weren’t helping me at all.

Instead of “motivating” me to change and helping me “get better,” they were creating the very things I was trying to get away from – fear, inadequacy, anxiety, depression, abandonment of self, people pleasing, and hiding.

I slowly started to develop trust in myself by changing my thoughts and my life has steadily improved ever since. I now actively practice thoughts that help me develop trust in and love for myself.

Change is not impossible, and it’s also not as hard as you think. What you believe about yourself is not set in stone, and it absolutely is not a fact.

I work with my clients, step by step, to find these old beliefs about themselves that no longer serve them, and to try on new beliefs that start creating the life they want. Because when they know they can trust themselves, then the choice to stay or go becomes clear and they move forward.