Posts Tagged ‘divorce’
Insider Tips For Choosing Your Divorce Attorney Or Mediator
Whether you’re a man or woman, the dumper or dumpee, one of the very first things you probably realized you needed to do to get divorced is that you need to hire an attorney. If you’re like most people, you probably asked a friend or family member who’s been divorced who they used and then promptly hired that attorney. It wasn’t until after you’d already plunked down your retainer that you had any idea of what working with this attorney would be like.
If this sounds like you, you might be in for some surprised. This article will help you to better educate yourself about what you can and should expect from your attorney – AND how to select a new one if you decide to adjust course on your representation.
If, however, you’ve not yet selected an attorney, then READ THIS BEFORE you retain one.
STEP 1: Develop your short-list of attorneys. You need to interview (yes, interview) at least 3 attorneys before deciding whom you want to represent you. Go ahead and ask your friends and family for referrals, if and only if, your friends and family felt comfortable with their attorney.
STEP 2: Decide on the questions you want to ask your short-list of attorneys. One of my attorney friends wrote a great article for my website – “How to Choose an Attorney”. You can check out her article on my website at http://www.drkarenfinn.com/images/pdfs/howtochooseanattorney.pdf. In addition to the questions she suggests you use to interview your short list of attorneys, I also suggest you ask about the minimum billing increment. Attorneys typically bill by the hour for their services and have a minimum billing increment. What this means is that if an attorney has a minimum billing increment of 15 minutes and they receive a call from a client that lasts for 10 minutes, the attorney will bill their client for 15 minutes of time.
STEP 3: Schedule the interviews. Attorneys are busy people and you might not be able to get in to see them as quickly as you’d like. You probably knew this already on some level, but sometimes having the reminder helps.
STEP 4: Prepare for the interviews by getting yourself a notebook that you use to track the answers each of the attorneys provide to the interview questions you decided on in STEP 2.
STEP 5: Interview each of the attorneys on your short list. The key here is to remember that the attorney will work for you. You have the responsibility to make sure you’re choosing differently if your first choice doesn’t work. If you decide you need to choose differently, just start at STEP 1 again.
STEP 6: Select and retain the attorney you believe you will be best able to work with during your divorce. Once you’ve completed all of the interviews, allow yourself some time to review all the notes you took during each interview and then choose your attorney.
Choosing the correct attorney to represent you when you divorce is vitally important. Divorce changes your life in ways most people can’t predict. Because of the changes, you’re going to want someone in your corner who has YOUR best interests in mind. By following the 6 steps above you’ll be able to find the best attorney for you.
Your Functional Divorce Assignment:
If you’ve not yet hired an attorney, follow the steps above. I rarely believe it’s a good idea to divorce without the help of an attorney or mediator. There are just too many things that can get misinterpreted in filing paperwork on your own. So, please, do yourself a favor and save future headaches by working with a professional now.
If you’ve already hired an attorney, remember your attorney works for you. It’s not unusual for me to hear stories from clients that their relationship with their attorney isn’t working. (These are the ones who hired me AFTER hiring their attorney.) What I remind them of is the fact that their attorney works for them. If your attorney isn’t representing you the way you expect, then schedule some time to discuss your expectations. Most attorneys are more than willing to understand how best to serve their clients. Oftentimes, it only takes a simple conversation to clear the air and get things back on the correct path again.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are dealing with the stress and pain of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
Stop Scaring Yourself!
Here’s how to stop letting your imagination make things seem so much worse than they really are.
Since it’s the season for scary stuff, I thought I’d tell you a couple of horror stories I told myself when I was getting divorced. The first story is the everyday story. The second is the special event story.
I’ll start with the everyday story. I started telling myself various versions of this story shortly after my ex-husband and I separated in March of 2002.
My fears were LARGE. They invaded almost every facet of my life. I was afraid of living alone. I was afraid of not being able to support myself. I was afraid that I’d get sick from eating food that had gone bad. I was afraid of getting fat. I was afraid of getting old. I was afraid of losing my job.
I’m guessing you get the picture. It’s what I used to do with each of these fears that made up the everyday story.
Here’s one version of the story. I’m afraid of losing my job. Then I’d tell myself that if I lost my job, then I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay my bills. If I wasn’t able to pay my bills, then I’d lose my house and have to live on the street. If I had to live on the street then I wouldn’t’ survive long and I’d die a horrible death.
Here’s another version of the story. I’m afraid of getting fat. If I get fat, then no one will ever want to date me. If no one ever wants to date me, then I’ll never get remarried. If I never get remarried, then I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life. If I’m alone for the rest of my life, I’ll be living alone forever (which amped up the scary factor). If I’m living alone forever, then what would happen if I lost my job? If I lost my job then I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills. If I can’t pay my bills, then I’ll lose my house and have to live on the street. If I had to live on the street then I wouldn’t survive long and I’d die a horrible death.
Are you getting the idea of my everyday story? I was convinced that if any one of my fears came true then I wouldn’t survive long and I was going to die a horrible death.
OK, now for the special event story.
Shortly before my divorce was finalized, some friends from graduate school invited me to join them in Spain. Although I was in desperate need of a vacation, it took some convincing before I finally agreed to join them in Spain for a week. Initially, I needed convincing because I was afraid of spending the money just in case I lost my job. (Yes, that does mean that I started telling myself the everyday story.)
As the day for departure approached, I was happily anticipating and dreading it at the same time. I started telling myself that I was a horrible person because I was getting divorced and that I deserved to die. The closer the day for departure loomed, the more convinced I was that I was probably going to die in a plane crash because I didn’t deserve to have fun. I made myself miserable and a nervous wreck. All of the fun I could have had anticipating the vacation I turned into torment and torture.
As you already know, my horror story didn’t come true. I didn’t die in a horrible plane crash. I even managed to have some fun in Spain and on the way home I was too tired to worry about whether or not the plane crashed.
So what’s the point of me telling you my stories? Well, what I’ve found over the years is that many people dealing with divorce torture themselves with their own horror stories. I’ve heard horror stories about never being happy again. I’ve heard horror stories about never being financially well off again. I’ve heard horror stories about children never loving their parents again. I’ve even heard horror stories similar to my own.
In case you’re telling yourself horror stories, I want you to know two things. First, you’re not alone; many people tell themselves horror stories when they’re dealing with divorce. Second, it’s OK to tell someone who won’t judge you, about your stories and have them help you create a better story – a story that inspires you and makes you happy to be you.
Your Healing After Divorce Assignment:
| Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
Identify the horror stories you’re telling yourself. What are the stories you’re telling yourself about your future? Anything that doesn’t inspire happiness and positive anticipation of the future just might be a horror story.
Stop torturing yourself and reach out for help in rewriting your horror story. If you’re ready to change the story you’re telling yourself into one with a happy ending, schedule a Complimentary Consultation with me. We’ll discuss how coaching can help you more quickly and completely work through your divorce and rewrite your story. Simply contact me now either by email karen@drkarenfinn.com or by phone 817-993-0561 and I’ll be happy to schedule some time with you.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach. I help people just like you who are dealing with the stress and pain of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice.
If you’re looking for more help recovering from your divorce, read more articles about Healing After Divorce.
Finding Your True Power
I love the Beatles. OK, it’s more accurate to say I love the Beatles album 1. I consider it “happy music” and often put it on when I’ve got a long drive ahead of me or when I just need a pick-me-up. One of the songs on the album is Help!
If you’re not familiar with the lyrics of the song, you can find them on Metro Lyric’s website. For me, the idea behind the song is that we learn how to be independent when we’re young and as we grow and mature we yearn and search for interdependence.
When we’re born we’re completely dependent on others and essentially helpless. All we can do is cry and scream when we want help. Then, when we turn about 2 we begin to discover our own power and the magic word “NO!”. That’s when our natural desire is to begin to find out who we are independent of our parents. Most of us tend to begin intently striving for our independence during our teen years. Some of us wait until we get to college to become independent and some, like me, don’t realize our full independence until much later. Regardless of when you establish your independence, it’s an important milestone and the ability to exclaim “I did it!” is one of the headiest moments anyone can experience.
And yet, after we’ve achieved independence and it’s glories, there’s often the desire for connection with others. I’m not talking about a temporary connection, but a deep meaningful connection that helps us to know that we’re not alone in our life. This is the search for interdependence and where we recognize our true power – our ability to be part of something so much larger than us that nurtures and supports us and everyone else in ways beyond what we could ever do on our own.
The key to this power, our true power, is the ability to be vulnerable and ask for help when we need it. This is different that asking for help simply because you want something that you’re unwilling to do for yourself. This is about asking for help because you’ve been working toward and straining for something and you realize you’re just not able to do it all on your own, you need the help of someone to take the next step, to ease some of the burden, to be connected with all that you can be and all that is. This is the type of asking that true interdependence demands. I believe this is true maturity. I also believe this interdependence creates a joy and meaning in life that is beyond compare.
My thought is that we all live lives that are combination of dependent and interdependent thoughts, habits, beliefs and actions. I think of the path between dependent, independent and interdependent being a continuum. Probably the easiest way to visualize it is as a line with dependent at the far left, independent someplace in the middle and interdependent is at the far right.
I’ve yet to meet someone who is living completely interdependent life. Of course, there are lots of people I’ve not met yet.
Your Friendly Coaching Assignment:
Where are you on the continuum of living a dependent, an independent and an interdependent life? What I find is that the answer depends on which part of my life I’m thinking about. You may find the same is true for your too. If that’s the case, answer the question for each part of your life. I’m sure your answer(s) will be interesting.
Are there parts of your life that you’d like to move more toward independent or interdependent? This can be a tough question to answer for a lot of people because we aren’t really sure if such a change is possible or we might be plain afraid of the consequences of such a change.
If you answered “no” to the last question, good for you! Chances are great that you’re comfortable with your life exactly as it is now. That’s a wonderful thing!
If you answered “yes” to the last question, get ready for an adventure! Figuring out how to realize more of your own power is the greatest adventure anyone can take. You’ll discover so much about yourself that you’ll be in awe of whom you truly are and who those around you are. That’s been true for me anyway. I also know that it’s not always the easiest adventure to undertake and yet every time I move from dependence to independence and then to interdependence I am ALWAYS happy I have.
Happy adventuring!
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach. I help people just like you who are dealing with the stress and pain of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice.
Life Is What’s Happening Now
Time is one of those concepts that we all get, but is difficult to define. It’s a marker that allows us to separate past, present, and future.
Why bother discussing time? Because, I agree with Alan Lakein who is credited with saying, “Time = Life, therefore, waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life.”
When we go through divorce, it’s so very, very, very easy to get caught up in either the past or the future instead of being here, now.
We can get caught up in the past by thinking things like, “If only s/he would have told me they weren’t happy, I know we wouldn’t be getting divorced now.” We might even think things like, “I knew before I got married that I shouldn’t marry him/her.” This was one of the thoughts that I had when I was going through my divorce. It was the truth, but it didn’t do any good. The fact was that I had gone ahead and gotten married despite what my gut was telling me. Spending time thinking about a decision I had made YEARS ago wasn’t making the situation any better. It wasn’t helping me to deal with what was going on right then. It was just a way for me to come to terms with the end of my marriage – for a while. What it did in the longer term was it kept me from REALLY understanding what was going on in the present – what was going on with me. A large part of my struggle with divorce came down to the question, “What is it that I need to change or do to reclaim my happiness?” Focusing on the past never helped me completely answer this question. It gave me hints and clues, but never the answer.
On the other hand, we can get caught up in the future by thinking things like, “I don’t know how I’ll be able to make a living”, “I don’t know how I’ll be able to pay child support”, “I’ll never find someone to love me again”, and “I am so afraid of the future”. Focusing on the future with thoughts of fear, lack and struggle makes the process of divorce that much more difficult. Who on earth would want to move forward to a life of fear, lack and struggle?!
I know I sure wouldn’t, and yet, when I was going through my divorce, I had many of these types of thoughts. My thoughts and fears of the future played havoc with me. I would make a decision about how many to move ahead in a positive direction and I would break out in hives. I’d make another decision about how to move forward and I’d have a panic attack. Living in fear of the future was miserable!
Luckily for me, over time, I learned how to live in the present. I learned how to take the past and extract the hints and clues it provided about how I might be happy again. With the hints and clues, I started experimenting with my thoughts and actions to discover what made me happy in the present. I learned how to look with the anticipation toward the future and use the happiness of the present to project what would bring me even more happiness and fulfillment in the future.
I’ll be honest with you, this wasn’t an easy transformation for me, but I did it. Because I did it, I’ve been able to teach my clients how to do it. Because I’ve been able to do it and teach others how to do it, I know YOU can learn to live in the present too. YOU can appreciate and learn from your past. YOU can anticipate your future with happiness all while you are enjoying the present.
The most important thing to remember is that life is what’s happening NOW. Appreciate now. Enjoy now. Live now.
Your Functional Divorce Assignment:
What are you holding on to from your past that is keeping you from completely experiencing the present? You might find this question tricky to answer. It takes a willingness to get really honest with yourself and it might even require you letting go of some blame (either of yourself or someone else). On the other hand, you might be very well aware of what you’re holding on to.
What hints and clues does your past give you about how to experience more happiness now? When were you happy in the past? What were you thinking? What were you doing? How does what you were holding on to point you in the direction of what you might need in the future to be happy?
How are you using fear to keep you from anticipating the future with pleasure? What is it that is keeping you from moving forward with pursuing your future?
What does your ideal future look like? You don’t have to have every detail here or even know exactly how you’ll achieve it. The important thing is to know that your future can be ideal.
How might you use the hints and clues from your past along with an anticipation of the future to make your ‘now’ more enjoyable and fulfilling? If you’ve spent the time to answer the questions above, you’ve got the beginnings of how to make your ‘now’ happier. Remember, there’s no time like the present to start making things even better for yourself!
Appreciate now. Enjoy now. Live now.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are dealing with the stress and pain of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. If you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
4 Steps To Overcoming Overwhelm
Overwhelm is an expected consequence of divorce. I say that because WITHOUT EXCEPTION it’s something I work on with every single one of my clients. It’s also something I had to learn how to overcome when I went through my own divorce. What I’m going to share with you today is EXACTLY what I share with my clients as we pick through the pieces of what makes up their overwhelm. The result? They ALWAYS feel calmer and more in control of their situation. You will too, if you follow these 4 steps.
Step 1: Get really clear and specific about what you’re feeling overwhelmed by. It’s not unusual for this step to be difficult. Many of the people I work with have a general idea of what’s going on with them, but to be specific can take some digging. Be willing to dig! What you find during your excavation process might be thoughts, tasks, beliefs, or even more feelings.
What’s surprising to most people is that simply by getting clear about what’s going on they can start to alleviate some of their overwhelm. In fact, one of my clients recently told me at the end of our session that simply by specifically identifying all that was contributing to his sense of overwhelm, he was already beginning to feel a sense of relief.
Step 2: Put each of these things into one of 3 buckets. Anything that’s contributing to your sense of overwhelm can be placed into one of 3 categories:
- I am the only one who can do anything about it
- I can delegate it
- I can drop it
What’s interesting to me is how often people will incorrectly categorize the things that are contributing to their sense of overwhelm into the first category. They decide that they are the only one who can do anything about it. What my clients and I usually find when we work through Step 2 together is they have been assuming incorrectly that they are the only one who can do anything about every single one of the things contributing to their overwhelm. To be fair, this assumption is partially true; you do need to decide what to do about each item. However, most people make this assumption because it’s either what they’ve always done or because they don’t feel comfortable asking for help. The truth is that even if you truly are the only one who can do anything about any particular item, you can almost always find someone who can help.
Look at all the items in each of the buckets. Ideally, the list in each category will be shorter than the list you identified in Step 1. If you’ve got one bucket holding all of the items from Step 1, take a deep breath and go through your items one more time. See if you can move any of the items to another bucket.
Step 3: Prioritize. Prioritizing is vital to overcoming overwhelm. The highest priority items are those you identified as needing to be dropped. Place a #1 next to the items in the “I can drop it” bucket.
Next look are your “I can delegate it” bucket and identify which item will take you the least amount of effort and provide you the most relief. Place a #2 next to this item. Identify the next item which will take you the least amount of effort and provide you the most relief. Place a #3 next to this item. Continue this process with all the items in your “I can delegate it” bucket.
Finally, move on to your “I am the only one who can do anything about it” bucket. Figure out which of these items will take you the least amount of effort and provide you the greatest sense of accomplishment. Place an A next to this item. Figure out which of the remaining items will take you the least amount of effort and provide you the greatest sense of accomplishment. Place a B next to this item. Continue this process for each of the items remaining.
Step 4: JDI This is where the Nike spirit comes into action. It’s time to Just Do It.
Start with all the #1′s and drop every single one of those things contributing to your overwhelm. Take a deep breath and notice how much easier you feel now that you know you no longer need to worry about any of them.
Next, take care of #2. Do what needs to be done to delegate this item to the appropriate person. When you’ve completed this delegation, take a deep breath and notice that you’re feeling more in control.
Next, take care of A. Remember this should be the easiest thing that only you can take care of. Go ahead and just get it done! When you do, I hope you’ll take at least a few moments to bask in a sense of accomplishment and increased ease because there are even fewer things in your “I am the only one who can do anything about it” bucket.
Your Functional Divorce Assignment:
Step 1: Get really clear and specific about what you’re feeling overwhelmed by. Be sure and list everything. If something comes up after you’ve started one of the other steps, loop back here to Step 1 and continue back through all 4 steps.
Step 2: Put each of these things into one of 3 buckets. The 3 buckets are “I am the only one who can do anything about it”, “I can delegate it” and “I can drop it”.
Step 3: Prioritize. Remember that everything in the “I can drop it” bucket gets a #1. The items in the “I can delegate it” and the “I am the only one who can do anything about it” buckets get prioritized by asking yourself, “Which of these items will be easiest to get done and provide me with the greatest sense of relief?”. Everything in the “I can delegate bucket get a number starting with #2. Everything in the “I am the only one who can do anything about it” bucket gets a letter starting with A.
Step 4: JDI. Start with all the #1′s and drop them. Let them all go. Then go back and forth between the numbers and letters to get things done. For example, if you have 3 items in your “I can delegate it” bucket and 5 items in your “I am the only one who can do anything about it” bucket, you’d tackle the items in this order: #2, A, #3, B, #4, C, D, E.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and persona life coach. I help people just like you who are dealing with the stress and pain of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice.
Three Steps To Making Your Divorce Easier
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
-Shakespeare
As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139-143
Divorce is one of those times when we notice that people exit from our lives and the roles and responsibilities we shared with them no longer make sense. Many of these roles and responsibilities are ones we probably took for granted when these people were regularly in our lives. But now that they aren’t we just might find ourselves at a loss for how to get these unfilled roles filled.
Unlike a production of one of Shakespeare’s plays, we don’t usually have an understudy that will step up in if the person currently fulfilling a role suddenly isn’t there any more. This is where we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work on the functional divorce.
1. The first step is to identify which roles and responsibilities have been dropped.
To help you get started here are some roles and responsibilities people struggle with when they divorce. Well, they range widely – from the simple to the complex. Here is a partial list of what you might be struggling with:
-Chef/cook -Budgeter/Bill payer -Mom/Dad -Home maintainer -Lover/loved -Primary wage earner -Maid/butler -Laundry/Dry cleaning expert -Grocery Shopper -Investor
We struggle with roles and responsibilities when we get divorced because in a sense we’ve allowed ourselves and our spouses to become type-cast. We get used to how we’ve been living and how we’ve been living with our spouse. When we get separated/divorced, all the roles we’ve become so adept at are suddenly changed. We can feel overwhelmed about how much we’ve now got to do. We might feel a sense of freedom about how much less we have to do or we might have a sense of fear about how much less we have to do. Most likely, we feel a combination of it all.
2. The second step is to prioritize the order in which the unfilled roles need to be filled.
Not everything needs to be done at once. Which is the most critical role that needs to get covered? And after that is taken care of which is next most critical. Go through your entire list and prioritize each and every roll you’ve identified.
3. The third step is to develop your game plan for getting the most urgent roles filled.
Yes, you’ll probably have to work on multiple roles at once. I wish it was easier, but divorce is difficult at times. What I can tell you is that by taking a systematic approach to your functional divorce you will establish your new normal much more quickly. The benefit of that is a decrease in the stress and strain you (and your kids) are experiencing as a result of your divorce.
Taking a good look at the roles and responsibilities you had in your marriage and how they are changing as a result of your separation/divorce is critical to decreasing the stress and strain you experience. By having a good feel for how things are changing and what you can do to make it easier on yourself and your kids will go a long way toward getting you and your kids settled in your new roles. You can think of this experience as a script change and you are the chief writer who is determined to end the story happily.
You Functional Divorce Assignment:
Make your own list of roles and responsibilities that are impacted by your divorce. Use the list above to give you inspiration and come up with all the roles and responsibilities that you are now faced with covering.
Prioritize your list. Yes, there are a lot of things that in flux when you get divorced, but not all of them are top priority. Which are the most immediately important and which can wait for a bit.
Develop a game plan. How will you incorporate your new roles and responsibilities into your life? The important thing here is to make sure your game plan is realistic and achievable.
It’s OK to ask someone for help. Sometimes the parts you realize you now need to or want to play in your life are way different from anything you’ve ever done before. If that’s the case for you, I want to encourage you to ask for help. The right help at the right time can make all the difference in how quickly you can reach the happy ending to your divorce experience.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and personal life coach. I help people just like you who are dealing with the stress and pain of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice.
From Endings To Beginnings
For most people, spring brings to mind sprouting plants, rain showers and new beginnings. And yet, despite the season, most people going through divorce find it hard at times to think of beginning anything new when what was -their marriage- is ending.
It’s so easy to get caught up in all the things that just won’t be any more -growing old together, taking that dreamed of second (or maybe first) honeymoon. It is sad that those things won’t be. And yet, your life will go on. You will be joyful and happy again -even if it doesn’t quite seem like it right now.
What do you say to the idea of starting to think and dream of things to say “hello” to? I hope I heard you say “YES!”
One of the things I know about any relationship and especially marriage is that you make compromises along the way. Maybe your former spouse snores like a freight train and in order to get any kind of sleep at night you’ve worn ear plugs to bed for the last 20 years! Or maybe your former spouse had food allergies and was allergic to garlic. So you haven’t eaten garlic bread or ordered pizza for the last 5 years. (Yes. I do know someone who was in a relationship with someone allergic to garlic. No, it wasn’t me.)
I’m guessing there are certain compromises you’ve made during your marriage -things that you simply won’t have to do anymore. Am I right? Well, these are exactly the things that you can now say “hello” to now.
You Functional Divorce Assignment:
Make a list of compromises you made during your marriage. Put it all down. Did you give up a favorite hobby? Did you change what you ate? Did you change how you spoke?
Decide what you want to invite back into your life. Take a good look at your list. What on the list do you want to start doing again? What on your list do you want to start having again?
Write a “hello” letter. Using that list of things you want to invite back into your life, write a letter to yourself about all the things you’re going to invite back into your life. This is your “hello” or new beginnings letter.
Pick one. Which thing that you’re saying “hello” to are you ready to do or have right now? Make sure it’s something that you’ll enjoy now and feel good about in the long term. Then, just go after it!
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are dealing with the stress and pain of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And if you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.
A Quick And Simple Way To Dump Divorce Depression
It’s rare that someone sees their divorce as a success. Most people see divorce as a failure – their personal failure. The very sad fact is that it’s not unusual for someone to interpret the failure of their marriage as their failure in life. This couldn’t be further from the truth!
As an individual, you deserve to be successful, to feel confident and be happy again. Although none of that will happen until you choose to believe that you deserve to be successful, confident and happy again.
One of the first things I explore with each and every one of my clients is their belief in themselves. Let me ask you the same question I ask them. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most wonderful sense of self-confidence and 1 representing a level of self-confidence that’s on par with where earthworms live, what’s your level of self-confidence?
Most people going through divorce report numbers below 8, sometimes well below 8. If that’s the case for you, relax, you’re not alone.
Here’s the story of one of my former clients that I’ll bet you can relate to.
Anna (this isn’t her real name) has a great sense of adventure and is always ready to try new things. Her sense of adventure allows her to feel lots of excitement for almost any new project. Although something happened when she got divorced, instead of her usual optimism, she felt adrift and uncertain.
When we first started working together, she would enthusiastically start working on new goals and projects, but for some reason she just couldn’t keep her excitement up long enough to achieve any of them. Instead of feeling excited, she would start thinking about how hard the goal would be to achieve or that now really wasn’t the best time to start working on this particular project. Of course, then she would start to feel bad about herself. Her lack of self-confidence was causing her to get bogged down and not achieve her goals of creating a wonderful new life for herself after her divorce. She was sabotaging herself.
Our work together showed that the root cause was a lack of self-esteem and belief in her right to have a good life again, so I created a custom program for her designed to increase her confidence. She was diligent in working the program and boy did it pay off!
Even though she still has moments of doubt that creep up once in a while, she is now pursuing her dreams and enjoying her full life again. And when the occasional doubt creeps in, she simply reviews her program and gives her confidence a boost. This boost allows her to sustain her sense of adventure and excitement while she continues pursuing her goals.
Are you curious to know more about Anna’s program and if it would work for you?
Let me give you an exercise to start you on you way to a higher level of self-confidence.
Your Functional Divorce Assignment:
Start by making a list of 10 things you like about yourself. If you find it difficult to come up with 10 things, ask someone close to you to tell you somethings they like about you and put these things your list.
After you’ve got your 10 things, read your list out loud to yourself with positive emotion. Now, to get the best results, read your list out loud to yourself when you first get up in the morning and just before you go to sleep at night. When you read your list in the morning, you’re setting up how you want to feel about yourself for the entire day. When you read your list before going to sleep, you’re setting up your subconscious to focus on what’s wonderful about you.
The more consistently you do this, the better you’ll feel about yourself. And before you know it, your self-esteem will regularly be at an 8 or better.
I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce coach and advisor helping people just like you who are dealing with the stress and pain of divorce. You can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice. And if you’re interested in taking the first step toward working with me, you can schedule an introductory private coaching session.