Episode 50: Letting go of your divorce story

00:42

Hello, everybody. Before we get started, I want to let you know that I am currently accepting new members into the next chapter. And let me tell you why you need to get in there. Because life is too short to be your own worst enemy. And if you’re struggling in your relationship with alcohol, in any way, whether you’re over drinking, on and off the wagon, or finding that sobriety is not all puppies and rainbows, then you need to get emotionally sober.

01:11

because this isn’t about alcohol. It’s about your relationship with yourself. My program is not typical sober support like you think of with the meetings. It’s self-care support. I help you change the goal from being the perfect drinker or non-drinker to becoming a person who trusts herself with or without a drink in her hand. I will teach you how to separate intuition from anxiety.

01:40

and how to rewrite the subconscious programs that are keeping you stuck in cycles of self-sabotage. The next chapter is my 12-week program, and it is like a college course. You’re going to learn about yourself, how to read your own body language and speak from a place of power. I will literally train you how to think differently, how to separate the neutral facts from what you are making them mean.

02:06

how to shift what I refer to as your locus of focus from your story about what’s happening to the underlying beliefs that you’re carrying that are limiting your perspective, and then how to resolve those beliefs energetically so you can move forward. I do wanna say my program is not for everyone because I will push you out of your comfort zone. When you work with me, you’re signing up for a 12-week marathon.

02:32

But the direction, accountability, and skills that I offer you will accelerate your recovery. You will leave my program in 12 weeks with a completely new perspective of yourself, your challenges, and the future. If you are interested, sign up for my free master class, where I lay out the foundations of emotional sobriety, as well as the other tools that I use.

02:57

And whether you decide to work with me or not, this masterclass is filled with takeaway tips that you can implement immediately, and it’s completely free. If you do decide you wanna join, I explain the next steps at the end of the masterclass. And also, you can always reach me by email if you go to my website. So click the link in the show notes and register for the masterclass that will redefine your understanding of both the problem and the solution.

03:26

to alcohol issues, and quite frankly, everything else, and give you very clear next steps. So today’s episode is going to focus specifically on divorce and how to drop your story about your divorce. And let’s start with why that’s so important to do. What is a story? A story is the story that we carry around.

03:54

prevents us from seeing anything new, or we’re just carrying around all this subconscious baggage. If you meet somebody and you’re completely neutral, you have no idea who they are, you have no history with them, and you’re just showing up in that interaction free of pre-existing knowledge or biases or expectations.

04:22

then you show up with a much more curious attitude. And that curiosity gives you the freedom to evaluate the circumstances as they are. You’re not jaded, so to speak. So I’m gonna begin this with the end in mind and share with you my attitude and how I’ve arrived at it with my ex-husband. So my ex-husband and I were married for 20 years together, 22 years.

04:51

And we had four children and a huge life together. I mean, we got together. I wasn’t even 18 when we met. We were engaged at 19 and married when we were 20. And having that history together, regardless of our divorce, makes me feel like I know him. I know what that guy’s thinking. And that’s the story that I’m talking about.

05:19

Because when you box somebody in based on information you collected from the time they were 17 years old, it is impossible for you to allow for the growth or the evolution of the person. Think about how much you have changed since you were 18 years old and the experiences that you’ve learned from. And when you free yourself and someone else from the story that you have about them,

05:48

You allow for growth and new possibilities. But when you think you already know what somebody is going to say or do, or even deeper, you know exactly why they’re doing what they’re doing and what their problems are. And usually in divorce situations, you’re fairly confident that your ex is a narcissist. When you enter into any situation with that person and you’ve already defined who they

06:19

Well, then you ain’t got nothing new to learn. And every interaction with them is gonna be some replay from the past, which is why it’s so uncomfortable to deal with our ex-partners, especially when there’s children involved. Because we don’t see who they are, we only see who we think they are. And I think we can all agree that the opinion your ex-partner has of you is probably the lowest of the lowest opinion anybody can have in your life.

06:49

I mean, if you polled all of the people in your life, for the most part, you would get your worst reviews from your ex partner. And that’s one thing I recognized, you know, as my story evolved throughout my healing journey post divorce, I recognized that it wasn’t even my ex husband that I hated so much. It was my the version of me I was with him.

07:18

I was disgusted by the way I was showing up. And in the end, that was truly what I needed to escape. Not him, because he was some sort of horrible, abusive tyrant. It was me in that relationship. I didn’t stop loving him. I stopped loving myself. And quite honestly, it’s hard for me to even talk about this right now in a way that allows me to share how I truly felt at the time.

07:46

because I really have let go of my story and allowed myself to reestablish a relationship with the man who I co-parent with. I’ve given myself permission to forgive myself, to forgive him. I’ve given myself permission to let go of details and events that were hurtful at the time because they no longer exist.

08:15

They’re only memories. And if I force myself to keep the story alive so I don’t forget, then I continue to dredge up all that pain every time I’m around him. And that is not just affecting me or him, two people that are just destined to fight it out for the rest of their soul’s existence, but we have four children. And life is too short.

08:43

to carry these shitty stories around we have about each other. I worked with a client this week who has been stepping into emotional sobriety, and our session was about her feelings about her ex-husband. And they have grown children, and they’re dealing with a situation where one is in the hospital, so of course they are forced to talk to each other and be around each other.

09:12

And she was sharing how hurt, how much hurt she has carried because he had an affair according to her. He won’t admit it, never has, and left her with, I think, four kids. She describes him as a narcissist who she must remain diligent of to continue to protect her kids, even though they are adults.

09:41

And this belief that she has to remain on guard has kept her stuck in a chronic cycle of stress for the last, I think, 21 years, maybe 25, I’m not sure. This story has defined her life. And what I was able to point out to her, being the coach, she has signed up to work through this. So being the coach that I am, I got her to see

10:11

Her husband hurt her 25 years ago, her ex-husband. But for 25 years, it’s no longer been him that’s hurting her. For 25 years, it has not been her husband’s affair. Let’s just boil it down to that. It has not been her husband’s affair that is causing her distress. It is her thoughts and feelings about her husband’s affair, if he even had one.

10:39

and what that means to her and about her and about him and the kids. And that story has been in the forefront of her mind to where she can see nothing else but a threat, a threat to both her and her children. Now, I don’t know this man or the story. What I do know is the basic facts is that her children are 30s, maybe even 40s.

11:07

And so the belief that she needs to continue to protect them by worrying about them and perhaps even running interference in their communications with their father is just a belief. One could argue that that is no longer necessary. And a belief is simply a thought we no longer question. And a belief.

11:35

is not the truth. Truth, as I define it with the big T, big T truth, is something that is true 100% of the time. It doesn’t change. Everybody would agree on it. It’s neutral. It’s objective. It is what it is. What we do with truth is we attach meaning to that truth. And that’s what creates the story.

12:03

But everybody’s got a different story. And that’s how you can tell the difference between truth and a story. The real truth is what everybody can agree on. So in this case, the real truth is that there is a disagreement about the situation about whether or not the husband had the affair. She has a story with details that she is interpreting and labeling that as an affair, which she has every right to do.

12:32

because we all have the right to feel how we feel about something. But so does the ex-husband. He’s looking at the same details and saying, no, that wasn’t an affair. And so the truth is there’s a disagreement about the truth. It is what it is. And even if her ex-husband is completely lying and she could absolutely, in a court of law, prove that she’s right, it doesn’t matter. Because the truth is that they can’t agree on what happened.

13:02

And that’s the pain she’s trying to avoid by insisting that she’s right. And that is a hard pill to swallow. But it is the medicine that frees you. Because forgiveness begins and really ends with acceptance. You can reframe forgiveness as when you stop arguing that the past should have been different.

13:30

and just acknowledge that it is what it is. She didn’t get a divorce because her husband is a narcissist who cheated on her and left her with four kids. She got a divorce, period. That’s the only situation that is the neutral truth. There’s legal paperwork to corroborate that. Everything else is a story. And that story has prevented her from joy.

13:58

She’s blocking her own happiness and contentment and peace because she feels like she has to keep this story alive in order to protect herself and her kids and possibly punish and hold accountable her ex-husband for what he did. And that need is arising from a place of wanting to avoid the pain of

14:26

the traumatic event that is divorce. Because the brain, her brain is wanting to tell her a story. She’s resisting the feelings, and so she’s arguing with the facts. She wants to justify the reasons that it happened, because to accept that a divorce happened without assigning blame is not something we know how to do in this culture. Every situation has to be somebody’s

14:56

fault. We frame everything through the lens of right and wrong. And if something happens, then you better figure out how to be right and how to explain why somebody else is wrong. But just as divorce is what it is, there’s no such thing as right or wrong either in terms of big T truth. Emotional sobriety is the ability to divorce yourself.

15:25

excuse the pun in this episode, divorce yourself from the neutral facts of a circumstances from what you’re making it mean. And moral judgments are something that you can apply. And of course we all do apply because that’s part of the humanity. That’s what we’re doing here. That’s what creates our emotional experiences. But you don’t have to be a victim of your emotions.

15:53

This woman has lived in turmoil for 25 years, which means she’s been punishing herself for her husband’s crime. And I asked her about the level of narcissism or emotional abuse that anybody’s still experiencing, and there really wasn’t any new facts or information. But even if there was the acceptance of what is versus what should be,

16:22

still applies. And as she’s dealing with adult children, it is no longer her responsibility to take responsibility for their feelings and their relationship with their father. If you boil it down to brass tacks, it’s really none of her business what the relationship is with her that her children have with their father. It’s none of her business, but she’s subconsciously

16:51

because she’s still living in a story that the basic details happened 25 years ago. The past no longer exists. Of course it happened, but she’s the one keeping it alive and allowing it to have power over her and over her children. And quite frankly, it’s feeding into a self-fulfilling prophecy for sure. You know, I have banned the word narcissist

17:20

from my particular vernacular. Because between my first husband and now my second husband, one can get in a rabbit hole on YouTube about how to spot a narcissist, how to deal with a narcissist. Or as I do, I love to read, I’ve ordered books on narcissism to learn more about it. I don’t even know how the word got into my vernacular, but it’s so popular now, everybody’s a narcissist. And when you’re in relationship with someone,

17:50

and you’re looking for evidence that someone is a narcissist, you’re going to see it. It’s called the self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s confirmation bias. So in any interaction she has had with her ex-husband or I have had with my husband’s, when you go into a situation with somebody already wearing the label that you’ve assigned, let’s say narcissist, then you miss all of the other information that might prove otherwise.

18:18

You miss the little act of kindness. They showed up a few minutes late, or excuse me, a few minutes early. Or they showed up at all. Or they touched your arm in sympathy. Or gave you some credit where credit was due. Like you miss all of those things because your mind can only focus on one story at a time. And we have blind spots. And when you are fully committed to your story about who a person is, you completely

18:47

all of the other things that they also are for sure. I did an exercise with my coach once early in sobriety. You know, I was not real sure about my marriage, you know, post, after you’ve been drinking for so long, I personally was wondering if I would be getting another divorce. And so I sought therapy and I had a coach. And one of my coaches was really good about directing me to rewrite my story.

19:14

and also look for things, other things that could be true. So over an eight week period with my coach, I rewrote the story of my divorce, not from the perspective of what happened, but from the perspective of how I wanted to feel about what happened once I accepted that it happened. And this was such a powerful question, because how did I wanna feel? I wanted to feel at peace with the past.

19:42

I wanted to feel joy that I have four children, and I didn’t want it spoiled every time the conversation turned or included my ex-husband. I didn’t want to live like that. I also didn’t want to be some bitchy old ex-wife shrew to him. I wanted to feel healed. I wanted to feel whole, and I wanted to be happy. And the only way you can choose happiness for yourself is if you release the story.

20:11

Because deciding that somebody else needs to be imprisoned by the past keeps you in prison too. Like if you want to lock somebody up, you got to lock yourself up with them. That’s your option. And as I don’t want to be locked up in a prison of crappy, shitty stories that are, you know, at this point for me, my stories are 10, 12, 15 years old from my divorce, if I don’t want to be locked up in those stories, then I got to let it go. I like being free.

20:41

to create new stories. And that’s why I don’t use the word narcissist anymore in terms of my personal relationships, because there’s no such thing as a narcissist. That’s not a species that scientists have identified by their legs or number of eyelashes or ears. Narcissism is an idea that might explain a certain set of characteristics and personality traits.

21:07

And I’m sure it can be helpful in a clinical setting. But I’m not a psychologist. I’ve got no business or reason diagnosing other people’s mental health disorders. I mean, I’ve kind of got plenty of my own, you know? It serves me better to not label people and just practice self-care in the moment and set boundaries where I’m needed and not need to give myself a reason to set a boundary. I don’t need.

21:34

anybody to be a narcissist to give myself permission to opt out of a relationship. Like, it’s OK to just let my know be a no and to say I’m not going to be connected with that person, or I’m going to limit my interactions. I’m going to make sure the interactions occur on my terms. Because here’s the deal. For every narcissist out there, there’s somebody who’s given away their power. It takes two to tango in a codependent relationship.

22:03

have to agree that one person’s opinion is more important than the others. And once you realize that you’re being gaslit, you’re no longer a victim. You’re a willing participant. For every abuser, there has to be somebody who agrees to play the role of the victim. And in relationships, for the most part, not always, but for the most part in relationships, being a victim is a mindset.

22:34

also creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in the victim, which is why I teach with emotional sobriety that in most situations, it is not the circumstance that is the problem, it is your thoughts and feelings specifically about yourself that are the problem. And the only way to reclaim that power is to take radical responsibility for your thoughts and feelings that are leading to your behavior.

23:02

Stop worrying so much about what the other person is doing and figure out what it is you’re doing and change your behavior, including relocate your body. Don’t put up with it. And I don’t mean to be dismissive of this. If you are in a situation where you feel like you are being victimized, especially emotionally, where it’s maybe not as clear cut, it is absolutely important for you to get yourself some support.

23:31

so that you can find a way back to your power and can figure out what your options are, because you don’t have to be a victim. And a good coach or therapist will direct you to the underlying subconscious beliefs where you believe that you have no other option, and so you’re agreeing to put up with things you don’t agree with, because you don’t like the alternative. But there’s always another option. You know, as I end,

24:01

As I saw that our marriage was ending, my first marriage, I can see how for years I was giving away my power. Not to him, he was not some abusive fuck who was awful to me, but where I didn’t wanna take the actions, the uncomfortable actions that I needed to feel better about myself, such as getting out of the home because I’d been home with four kids for years, I wasn’t willing to take the actions that I needed.

24:30

to speak my truth, and I was just continuing to play in a dynamic of a relationship that had not changed since we were 18 years old. And for a long time, it seemed like it was easier to blame him for my lack of connection and lack of happiness than it was to take responsibility, get off my ass and do something about it. It was easier to tell myself a story that my husband was an asshole.

24:57

than it was to tell myself that I was scared and missing something that only I could give myself. Because I grew up in a very traditional household, my parents are still married, my mother didn’t work, and one of the mindsets I had was that the man is the provider, both financially and I guess of all my other needs that I’ve ever had. And when he failed to meet those needs, because quite frankly, I failed to identify them, then it was easy to get stuck in a cycle of blame.

25:27

Blame serves no purpose. Emotional sobriety is accepting that it is what it is, not what it should be. Not just about the other person, but about yourself. I failed to accept that it is what it is and that I had needs that maybe he wouldn’t have liked or been supportive of, like I don’t know. I can now look back and admit that I wasn’t being honest with him or myself because I was way too worried about keeping a list of things he was doing wrong.

25:57

But now, you know, none of that matters. And only by letting it go am I now able to interact with him almost like I would a brother. And as I have healed my story about him and changed how I show up in our interactions, I’ve noticed he’s done the same. We got through it. We did it. And we’ve done a good job. Only took 10 years. But hey, we got there.

26:23

We had 20 years together with our kids as husband and wife. And we’ve had 10, 11 years since where we have co-parented. Some of them are rocky. We had wins and we had loses. And that’s how life is. And I have no regrets. And I hope he can say the same, but it’s none of my business what he thinks about me. You know what I mean? So if you’re dealing with a story that you want to heal,

26:50

The first thing you need to recognize is that it’s just a story. And by keeping that story alive, you are blocking your own joy and love. You’re blocking the chance that there could ever be something new, including a new story about the past. That’s what’s the coolest thing of all about emotional sobriety is you can, as you heal the emotional charges from the past, your story does naturally change.

27:20

you become more forgiving about the details. And as we so often do, you forget the bad in favor of the highlights. That’s what our brains naturally do. You can give yourself permission to forget the bad, whether you did it or they did it or whatever. It happened. The pain happened. And you can let the pain fade into the past if you stop.

27:44

bringing it into the current moment because you’re still trying to argue or resist or deny or justify. I don’t care how long it has been since your divorce. If you’re still carrying your story, set the intention of letting it go and give yourself time to do the grieving that you’ve probably never done. Because by staying in your head, you’ve avoided the feelings in your body. It’s okay, allow the feelings they’re not going to kill you.

28:13

In fact, by bringing them up, it will be very cathartic. And you can release them. And then when your subconscious does remind you the story, because this isn’t a one and done process, you guys, you have to practice letting the story go. But every time you do it, it gets easier the next time, to the point where in time when you look back, you can’t really remember what you were so pissed about. And when the dirty details come out, you’re like, yeah, but there was other.

28:42

things that could be considered. Like you just move into this place of acceptance and forgiveness and you’re allowed to heal and move forward. But in order to heal and move forward, you have to release the other person. And as long as you’re carrying a shitty story about them, you’re the one whose back is gonna break. You’re the one whose joy is going to be sapped. One of the assignments that I had my client do,

29:08

that may help you after you realize you’re in a story and you make an intention to let it go, then you might sit down and list out all of the neutral details. And how do you judge a neutral detail if your ex-partner would agree that that happened? So there’s no because or what happened then, we got a divorce because blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, we got a divorce. Then there might be some other details that you can write down.

29:36

But don’t go into the meaning of those details. Drop the story, just the basic facts, maybe the timeline, whatever. You should be able to explain the neutral facts in three sentences or less. And that’s one of my favorite things. I tell my clients when they come up for coaching, that’s one of our rules. You got to give your story in three sentences or less. And I’d like to take the opportunity right now to thank my ex-husband for that.

30:05

Because when we were in the worst of our emotional battlefield and going in court and fighting about money and custody and all of that stuff, at one point, we were trying to both show up for one of our kids. I don’t remember what it was. But there was something that was bigger than all of that bullshit. And he said to me, because I said, why don’t you ever respond to me, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, because your texts are like trying to read a novel. And he goes, and I just don’t care. I can’t. I can’t stand.

30:34

to read all of that. He goes, if you want me to listen, I need you to just boil down the basic facts into three sentences or less. Turns out that is amazing advice. So thank you, my friend, for sharing that with me, because now I’m passing it on. So boil your story down to three sentences or less about what happened. And then just let that be. Work on acceptance. All of those things happened.

31:03

Feel the resistance, feel the grief, feel the urge to argue and negotiate and try to change it with other, by telling yourself a story. You’re trying to change the past with your story. And it can’t be done unless you want to spend the rest of your life doing it. I mean, I suppose you can try. So boil down your story to objectives. And then what my coach had me do was write a new story.

31:31

Like literally choose what do you want to think about it. Reverse engineer your life by deciding how you want to feel and then designing the story that goes with it. And it may feel like lying. And you’ll have to let go of that too. Because the truth is you can believe whatever you want. You can make up any story. The story you’re telling yourself is no more true than any other story as long as you’ve got the basic facts right.

31:59

When I asked my client, how do you want to feel in the future when you’re around your ex-husband and around your kids? And she said, I want to feel joy. I want to feel relaxed. She was so ready to do this work, because it’s been exhausting to carry her story. She even said, I didn’t know this was one of the options. I didn’t know how to do that. She said, I’ve gotten more out of this session.

32:27

that I have in months of therapy, which makes sense. Because talking about your story keeps it alive. There is another option. You can let it go. This does take time, but I tell you what, it is emotional freedom. You can drop the baggage. You can drop the rocks you’ve been carrying because you want to throw them at someone else, because you’re never actually going to get to, because none of this exists. The only thing is the future.

32:55

And if you’re still in relationship with your ex partner and you have to see them, why not enjoy yourself? Why not give yourself permission to have a sense of humor? Learn how to laugh again. You know, you weren’t with that person for nothing. There was love there. And you’re never gonna feel that again and have those precious memories restored if you’re not willing to let go of the hate. Personally, I did not want 20 years of my life to be defined.

33:25

by what was a few years of tumultuousness and that ended our marriage and divorce. I didn’t want 20 years to be defined by that. I wanted to look back and love that guy and be happy when I see my kids and I notice that they look like him or they’re making certain gestures like he is or doing something else that he does. I want to love all of them. And I couldn’t do that.

33:53

if I still hated my ex-husband. And I never hated him. But of course, for both of us, there was a lot of hurt. And the best thing either one of us ever did was to let it go. It’s super cool that I think he’s let it go as well. I encourage you to let it go too. Thanks for listening. If you liked what you heard, please take the time to rate and review the show so that other people can find it. I really appreciate it.

34:19

And check out the show notes for any resources I’ve mentioned, including links to follow me on Instagram and join my private Facebook group where I connect with my tribe every day. I love it in there and we have so much fun. And finally,

34:35

If you’re ready to redefine sobriety so that you can feel excited about quitting drinking, follow the link to my 10 Days to Spontaneous Sobriety course, where I will help you eliminate, eradicate, obliterate, cancel your desire to drink. Because looking and feeling your best is addictive too. I’ll see you soon.

35:04

I love it in there and we have so much fun. And finally, if you’re ready to redefine sobriety so that you can feel excited about quitting drinking, follow the link to my 10 Days to Spontaneous Sobriety course where I will help you eliminate, eradicate, obliterate, cancel your desire to drink because looking and feeling your best is addictive too. I’ll see you soon.