Thursday, September 13, 2018

5 Signs that Tell You When It’s Time to Leave a Relationship. By Ash Osborne

Relationships can be tricky. They’re amazing when they’re going well but if something happens, or you’re on a rocky road, they can be painful. If you’ve been with someone a long time, you can start to get stuck in a routine. You might not necessarily notice the behaviour of your other half because it’s become the norm to you. Taking a step back and looking at your relationship from a different viewpoint can be really beneficial and help you to gain perspective on a scenario.

There is no ‘perfect’ relationship. Even the happiest of couples can have arguments, disagreements and temporary breakups. That’s life. But there is a time when you have to look at your relationship without rose-tinted glasses and see if those small arguments are actually escalating into massive rows. Sometimes, you have to leave a relationship and put yourself first to be happy. So, Psych2Go shares 5 signs that tell you when it’s time to leave a relationship.

1) You’re consistently unhappy.

Any relationship, be it friends, family or romantic, should bring you happiness. You should look forward to seeing your partner, and enjoy spending time with them. Obviously, you can’t be constantly happy in a relationship because that’s not realistic. But you should feel supported, safe and loved. If you start to feel consistently unhappy, maybe it‘s time to ask yourself why. Maybe it’s you, or it may be your partner. It‘s good to understand why you’re feeling unhappy so you can either fix the problem or choose to leave. There is no shame to admit that your relationship is not offering you the same support and contentment that it once was.

2) You’re travelling on different paths.

Sometimes, you can start a relationship in one place. But as you grow, you can change mindsets. Long-term relationships can be amazing as you can grow and change with your partner, but sometimes you can grow and change at a different rate to your partner. If you’re moving in different directions to your partner, it can be difficult to navigate a relationship. Also, if you’re in a different place emotionally, you might not want the same things. In this case, it’s best for both of you to separate amicably. It’s a good thing to discuss what each of you wants from a relationship if you’re going to be serious about a partner.

3) Lack of support

In a relationship, support is key. You want to feel that your partner believes in what you’re doing and is behind you 100%. But if that support isn’t there, you can start to feel let down and unfulfilled. Emotional support is also really important. If you’re not feeling that in your relationship, it can be damaging and can affect your happiness. If you don’t feel like your partner is invested in you and is behind you all the way, then it might be time to consider having a conversation about your relationship with your partner.

4) Abuse of any sort

By this, I mean emotional, physical, sexual, financial, and so on. If your partner has abused you in any way, then that is a clear sign you should, at least, consider leaving. Abuse is very damaging, and the abuser can often try and convince you to stay in the relationship. If this is the case, you should leave for your own safety. It can be very difficult to leave a relationship like that, but there are hotlines available to contact should you need to. Here is the link to a document with the number of any hotlines should you feel you need to use them. Remember, you’re not alone in this.

5) Lack of trust

The foundation of all relationships should be trust. The trust between you and your partner should be strong. If it isn’t, that could mean you doubt their actions. As a result, this could possibly lead to jealousy. If you don’t trust your partner, you could work on it and try to rebuild it. Losing trust is often a sign that something is wrong within your relationship, and you’ll need to address it. However, if you’re past the rebuilding phase (maybe your partner betrayed your trust too many times), ending the relationship could be a possibility. There is no shame admitting you can’t be with someone you don’t fully trust. It’s all about what makes you happy.

Surviving Divorce: David Sbarra at TEDxTucson 2012

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

A Guide to Getting Through the Emotions and Pain of Divorce. By Nora Boghossian

As you deal with the emotions and pain of divorce, there are actions you can take to address these feelings and begin the healing process.

The end of a relationship brings forth a multitude of raw, shaky emotions, feelings, pain, and when not addressed it turns into suffering.
We may be triggered by words, sights, sounds when we don’t do the work to release the emotions and pain of divorce fully.
period of grievance is necessary to fully digest a divorce. Just as we would for any other passing, loss, end. So, too, is the process required to go through during the end of a relationship – divorce, separation, or the end of a committed relationship – in order to be in clarity and reconnect with ourselves again, in order to choose love again and to keep moving on our forward path.
It helps to know that we each have a path to walk on and through, that each of our path is full of lessons. The lessons come in all forms and experiences on all levels – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
When our inward and outward is one, then we are in alignment, centered, grounded vertically, and what happens externally in our horizontal realm does not easily shake us out of our path. Yes we may still be challenged because we are human after all, but we don’t get sucked into so far deep so quickly that we can’t come to the light again. We will be able to rise again. Each time we fall, we will know how to stand again.

Acknowledge and Address Feelings Related to Divorce

So we need to work on ourselves on a deeper level. What does that mean? What does that look like?  Acknowledgement that something is off is key. So when we are aware, it is imperative that we honor that awareness.  The acknowledgment process allows us to address any and all of the feelings and pain of divorce.
The feelings to address may be anger, shock, guilt, sadness, doubt, loneliness, shame, feeling unlovable, lost, unworthy, insecure, loss of trust, disappointment, feeling like we’re not enough, and/or feeling like we’re a failure. These are all stemmed from our fears, conditionings, lack of self-love, lack of self-trust, as well as having dishonored ourselves, our truth, and self-compromise where the commitment to ourselves has been compromised.
One of the fears is that our identity as we had known it has fallen apart, or is no longer. So our mind doesn’t know its function anymore. So we don’t know what to do. This impacts us emotionally and mentally, which then impacts us physically. We feel like we don’t know who we are anymore. In truth, we have forgotten who we are. We forget that we are greater than our experiences such as a divorce. We attach who we are to our human experience instead of who we are at our core. Love. Light. Grace. We have forgotten that we are a Miracle, Blessing, and a Gift, that we have unique gifts to create, collaborate, and share. So having attached ourselves to the form of our external relationship, we feel lost once it ends. We don’t know what to do and what not to do. Constantly judging ourselves. The dialogue is on in our head. We fall into despair, downward spiraling, and the questions begin to swirl.
  • What’s wrong with me?
  • Why me?
  • Why now?
  • Why is this happening to me?
  • Am I not good enough?
  • How am I going to get over this?
  • When is this going to end?
  • Am I ever going to be OK again?
  • Am I ever going to have my life back again?
  • Could I have done more?
  • Am I ever going to be in a relationship again?
It’s OK to have these thoughts. It’s part of being human.

Free Write Responses to Bring Yourself Clarity

In order to address these questions, one of the many exercises to practice is to free write your responses. This is a way to release what’s in you. Give yourself the sacred space answering these questions without editing, without holding back, without judgment. This helps you get the feelings out. Then you will become present and clarity will rise again. Repetition of this practice as many times as you need it is what carries you to clarity.

Practice Doing Nothing

As you process out the feelings, as they come up, it’s also important to practice doing nothing. This means sitting quietly with your eyes closed so that you may tune out the external more fully and tune into the energy inside of you. Practice being Silent. Breathing. Taking deep breaths. Silence brings forth wisdom, and wisdom unravels clarity. That’s the nature of wisdom. Silence is the frequency from which wisdom is birthed. Wisdom requires us to be quiet and pay attention in order for it to speak to us, and in order for us to hear it well, to tune in, and listen. When we do hear the words of wisdom come through, what comes next is Trusting. Trust is huge. We need to trust what comes through. To trust to the point to which we then begin to take steps towards that trust, that wisdom that’s been delivered to us.

Awareness Is Key

When we take one step, the next step is revealed to us in divine timing. Awareness is key here. When we are aware, our ears are in tune with our soul so we have a deep innate intelligence that’s awake and alert to guide us. As each step is revealed to us, we will acknowledge it. We are in a state of being connected and interconnected. There’s a circling of energy flowing with the higher consciousness.
What happens too with acknowledgement is that we are giving ourselves permission to feel all the gradients of our feelings. We are giving attention to each feeling, which is the beginning. To sit in the pain of divorce and to face it. The work of processing it all through us starts. Since this is deep and intense work, it is important to create a sacred, safe, private space wherein you can dive deep into all the range of emotions freely in a clear and open space, in order to bring them all to completion. So by creating this sanctuary we are able to allow ourselves to be in it, feel it, then we will be ready to release it, to clear it in order to heal it.

Face the Pain of Divorce

So again, in order to get to and be in freedom, first we need to acknowledge our pain. We need to clear our pain in order to heal our pain. We do that by sitting in our pain. Ride it out. Feel it through. Express it out. Giving it the time, space, and attention it needs.
The only way to flush out the feelings that do not serve us, the pain that is keeping us stuck, is to face it and give it the moment, the attention, the acknowledgment that is needed in order to work with it, process it through and out of us.
Otherwise, we leak it everywhere and on everyone since we are holding on to it, carrying it with us throughout our day, day in and day out. We carry the weight of all those feelings, pains, and when avoided and suppressed long enough, they turn to sufferings. The more you hold on to them, the harder it’s going to get to let them go. But with work, it is possible to release them.
This unnecessary hold, this grip will wear us out on all levels. It causes fatigue, aches, and pains on all levels – emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual too. The more you hold onto them, the harder it’s going to get to let them go. But it is possible.
So don’t be surprised, for example, when you wake up tired even though you slept. Sometimes the pain overlaps into our subconscious mind and we experience the pain while we are asleep. That is how we may have dreams of discomfort, sadness, pain, etc. The same feelings we have during our awake life. So, when we have incomplete unsettled feelings and pains we are facing in our wake hours, those remain within us as we go to sleep. So you wake up feeling the impact of it.
As we work on ourselves, we begin to dissolve and lighten ourselves from the feelings and pains energetically and mentally, physically, and spiritually. We begin to rise and reconnect with our higher self, our higher consciousness, and we begin to live from our higher potential.
It’s a matter of being aware of who we are – love and beyond our physical form – on all levels.
As we evolve and grow, new sets of challenges may arise for us to face and overcome. So, it’s an ongoing process. As you may know, the Universe is not concerned with our comfort zone. It works in such a way so that we are learning, growing, evolving, and transforming eternally.

A Different Way of Looking at Yourself and Relationships Will Come

With work, commitment, consistency, compassion and courage, a new and different perspective, a different way of looking at ourselves, at relationships, and at divorce and end of your relationships comes about.
This is what I have learned and I feel the calling to serve you with what I’ve learned, evolved, and transformed in my life too.
I was divorced. I had those feelings. I had those labels. I had those questions. And with the work, commitment, and consistently showing up for myself, I have a new outlook on myself, on my divorce, and end of relationships. So I want to offer the same for you. The two services that I have are a support group only for women on a monthly basis and private one-on-one sessions. When someone is interested in the private sessions, we have a conversation about it in more details.

Commitment: The Most Important Factor to Transform Yourself

The most important factor to transforming ourselves and getting through a divorce, or an end of relationship, is our commitment to ourselves, the consistency to keep committing and recommitting to ourselves, to keep showing up for ourselves. Not just for the sessions but in life itself. Once you have completed your sessions, you will integrate into your life all the wisdom and tools you come away with. This, too, is a process.
The work we are doing is finally giving our pain the attention it has needed in order for it all to clear out of us with respect to the divorce, separation, or end of a committed relationship, so that you may get to heal and recover, reconnect, rejoice, and be free and light again.
What stands in our way of our new possibility is really our own mind, false beliefs, and our limiting ways and what we see ourselves as, our limitations, our identity of who we think we are, our grip and hold on our identity. Our feelings and our collapsing into it over and over again is the vicious cycle, because we haven’t brought them to completion. So that pattern repeats, until we do bring them to completion.
We may feel like our feelings are who we are, but our feelings are just feelings and they pass. They are not who we are.
It may feel that way when you’re in it, living it, breathing it, the pain of it all, and doing so over and over again, cycling back to them again, or being triggered back to them again. And that’s what happens when we don’t clear out what’s there.
So what happens too is when we’re carrying those feelings unresolved we end up manifesting a relationship, a man, or a partner who reflects those unhealed wounds, which are within us and we are faced with them. So they become our lessons.

Be the Queen of Your Life

In order to invoke the King into our life, we have to be the Queen of our life. In order to do that, we have to be able to remove all the blocks within us, all the barriers which keep the man who is a King at bay. We also need to embody the Queen to invoke a king. That means once we’ve cleared our pains, sufferings, and we have healed our wounds, etc., we begin showing up in our own life fully by being and creating all that brings joy into our lives. We have to continue to give attention to our body, mind, and spirit in the way of self-care, and do do so even when we are not in a relationship. To look and feel our best, even when nobody is watching so to speak. To do so for us. Because that tells the universe I’m working on myself. I’m preparing. I’m getting ready. I’m open. I’m available for a relationship again. I am fully connected to the love that I am, again. And we know that – we are ready. We exude a magnetic energy as we practice being in our feminine light.
We practice acceptance, freedom, liberation, rejoicing, and reconnecting to the core and essence of who are – love, light, joy, blessing, and miracle.
The moment we decide we are going to work on ourselves, to get to our clarity, and to reconnect with our highest self again, to choose love again, up comes our fear, resistance, our stories, conditionings, patterns, and issues. It is important to know that this forwarding of our fear is part of the process. It is part of being human. It is our protective mechanism that’s been conditioned over the years. The challenge is to keep on. To commit and recommit to working through all the versions of our emotions and labels of our fears. No matter what shape or form it takes. WE have to keep committing and recommitting to ourselves, so that we are being and living our highest potential.

Tony Robbins - how To Create a Strong intimate Relationship and Improve your Love Life

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Parental Conflict Alienates/Hurts Children of Divorce Long Term. By Rosalind Sedacca, CCT

In a newsletter from Dr. Mark Goulston I read that: “A majority of teenagers, when asked if they had the choice between their parents being nicer to them or more loving towards each other, will pick the latter. The animosity between parents is very painful to their children.”

Stop and think about that for a moment. Teenagers would sacrifice receiving more love from their parents if they could assure their parents got along better with one another. This reinforces what most mental health professionals have long known: Parental conflict is a source of continual pain for our children – whether the parents are married or divorced!
As a Divorce & Parenting Coach and Founder of the Child-Centered Divorce Network for parents, my goal is to make sure both parents fully understand the impact of parental discord upon your children. That’s why I ask every client: Do you love your children more than you hate your soon-to-be-Ex? If you really do, then you need to understand the negative consequences when parents (and other relatives and friends) fight, disparage or in other ways disrespect one another around the children.

Parents are the stability in any family. Children derive security from parental love, support and protection. Even after divorce, if the children feel both parents are still there for them — participating in their lives and providing love and guidance — they can thrive. However, when one parent tries to demean the other parent or uses the kids as confidants to vent their anger or frustration about the divorce, the sanctity of security is broken. Now the children are thrown into a state of conflict and confusion. With whom do they side? Will the other parent resent them for taking sides? What if they still love their other parent who is being criticized and demeaned? Are they being disloyal to mom or dad if they want to defend or support the other parent?

Children, even older teens, are deeply troubled when trying to find solutions to these challenging questions. It robs them of their sleep, affects school performance, and changes who they are emotionally and psychologically. This is a burden no parent should inflict on their children, yet it happens all too often, with little awareness of the consequences.

Feeling guilty, shamed and confused, children start acting out to cope with the internal conflict. They may get more aggressive, start bullying at home or at school, and showing other behavior problems with parents or siblings. Others turn within, disengage from family and friends, withdrawing from school, sports or other activities they used to love. The despair and loss of trusted parental security creates despair and can lead to depression and thoughts of suicide. Child psychologists deal with these challenges regularly as parents bring their children in for “help.” Most haven’t a clue that the cause was their poor parenting choices during and after divorce.

Here are some typical comments to avoid when talking to your children about their other parent:

Do you hear yourself saying: “Sounds like you picked that up from your Dad/Mom.”

Do you make a negative retort about their behavior and end it with “just like your father/mother.”

Do you frequently compare your ex with other divorced parents you know, making sure the kids get the negative judgement?

Do you counter every positive comment your child makes about your ex with, “Yeah, but …” and finish it with a downer?

Do you make your children feel guilty for having had fun visiting the other parent or liking something in their home?

Do you throw around biting statements like “If Mom/Dad really loved you …”

Do you try to frighten or intimidate your kids during a disagreement by saying “If you don’t like it here, then go live with your Mom/Dad?

It’s easy to fall into these behavior patterns – and they can effectively manipulate your children’s behavior – for the short-term. But in the long run you will be slowly eroding your personal relationship with the children you love and alienating their affection. This will bite you back in the years to come, especially as your children move through their teens and grow older.
Minding your tongue around your kids can be one of the most difficult behaviors to master after a divorce. However, it is also one of the behaviors that will most benefit your children on a long-term basis. Don’t let anger, bitterness and indiscriminate remarks hurt and harm your kids. Work on maintaining the best possible relationship with your ex – for the sake of the children. Need help? Join a Co-Parent support group, find a compassionate Divorce Coach, seek out a therapist, talk to a school counselor. Master communication skills and be the role model you want to be for your children. That’s a gift that will keep on giving, enhancing their lives — thanks to you!
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Rosalind Sedacca, CCT is a Divorce & Parenting Coach and author of the internationally-acclaimed ebook, How Do I Tell the Kids about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook Guide to Preparing Your Children — with Love! For her free ebook on Post-Divorce Parenting, coaching services and other valuable resources on divorce and parenting issues, go to: www.childcentereddivorce.com.

https://movingpastdivorce.com/2016/01/parental-conflict-alienateshurts-children-of-divorce-long-term/

Skills for Healthy Romantic Relationships | Joanne Davila | TEDxSBU