Don't Let Divorce Hold Your Best Self Back

Divorce devastates, not everything, but many, many precious things.

Divorce gives us, leaves us, with a long sad story.  A story that initially feels like the greasy  scraps from an overcooked marriage.

Never Again.

“Never again” we tell ourselves.

As if we could ever trust ourselves after the mess we had just lived through.

We don’t know how to trust our self again, and that mistrust of self creates more pain and loneliness than not being able to trust another soul again.

We believe there is only one way to make sure that “Never again” is true and that is to hold that divorce story front and center, like a dangerous curve warning sign, for which we continually slam on the brakes and proceed slowly and cynically with life. We lead with suspicion, even congratulating ourselves for our trepidation and our commitment to “Never Again.”

We must come to trust that we have learned from our divorce experience, or we will forever peer at life from around that dangerous curve sign, foot slammed on the brakes, eyes never taking in the glorious mountain top view.

Even if you don’t believe it, can't conceive of it, your learning from divorce happened. You know that it is impossible for you to have not to learned from your life.

Now continue the learning.

The next essential stage of learning comes with the act of letting that heavy divorce story go and moving on with our lives.

The idea of letting our heavy divorce story go reminds me of a metaphor I heard shared recently, which I believe applies perfectly here.

Imagine you're walking along a beautiful beach with a backpack. Your toes press through the pockets of wet sand. Every step feels like a foot massage. Until, abruptly, you stub your toe on a buried rock.

To keep from stubbing your toe on that rock again, you reach down, pick the rock up and put it in your backpack. You’re never going to stub your toe on that rock again, you’ve made sure of that!  

Now each further step is the feeling of oozing soft wet sand between your toes until, again, you stub your toe on another rock. Each time you stub your toe on another rock, you put that rock in your backpack too. And the next one. And so on…Until you’re so weighed down by all those rocks that you’ve held on to, that you can’t move at all.

That backpack full of rocks is your divorce story.

The more we hang on to the devastating details of the story of our divorce and disappointment, the more it holds us back from giving our best and most authentic selves to the world.

Putting the backpack down, emptying out all the rocks, we begin to enjoy the beach walk again. We smell the waves on the light breeze. We hear the chirp of the gulls as they swoop seaward. We trust our eyes to see the day anew.  We trust ourselves to take care of ourselves going forward.