How Conquering Divorce Gives You Confidence

Posted on by stilllearning2b
confidence

Whenever you successfully complete something that you thought you could not do, you gain confidence. Whenever you have to reframe your assumptions about your weaknesses and limitations, you fuel belief in yourself. Whenever you face your fears and survive, you acquire strength. And whenever you come through a struggle bruised and battered yet without giving up, you build trust in your abilities.

 

Divorce gives you plenty of practice in all of these. The end of a marriage is rife with authentic opportunities to build your confidence: 

 

Whenever we accept too much assistance, we sacrifice our self-confidence. But divorce gives plenty of practice in self-reliance. Because at the end of the day, you have to do it yourself.  You can accept help in everything from paperwork to counseling, but the talks with the lawyers, the tears in the night and the conviction to move forward are yours and your alone.

Divorce seems never-ending. The mountain seems insurmountable between the emotional process and the legal one. One step forward is often followed with a mudslide back. It’s a powerful feeling when you look back and realize how far you’ve come. Baby steps add up to marathons.

In many marriages, you grow to depend upon your partner as your go-to when you’re stressed or upset. But in divorce, that is the one person who cannot offer you the comfort you crave or the helping hand you desire. You have to do it all without the support of the person that you had always depended upon. 

Divorce is scary. It requires cojones just to face each day. You never know what may lie in wait around each corner and what demons you may be asked to slay. And if you have kids, it takes even greater courage to be the strong one for them.

When a marriage ends, it leaves no surface untouched. It affects every area of your life from finances to future. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is safe. It’s not easy living in a land of uncertainty with no firm footholds.

When you are partnered, you see yourself as your spouse sees you. You may accept his or her perceived weakness as truth and you may lose faith in your ability to conquer challenges. As you separate, you are forced to revise your self-image. And you will discover that you are stronger and more resilient than you ever imaged.

Made it through divorce? Here’s your trophy. You deserve it!

silver-trophy

A Geographic

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Brock has been busy lately. Very busy. So when he had to drive to the other side of town this morning to drop something off for work, he invited me along for the ride. That’s life – sometimes quality time comes from a romantic evening out and sometimes it comes in the form of an hour plus on the highways of Atlanta (which even have traffic before dawn on a Saturday morning).

It was a quiet ride for the most part. The comfortable companionate silence between two people with nothing to prove who simply enjoy each other’s company. But it was also a journey to the past for me, as we drove from where we live to the area where I spent ten years of my former life.

I make that drive once a month or so to visit with friends or to attend some event. But usually I am either the driver or the sights are hidden beneath a shawl of darkness. This morning was different. The soft morning light had just brightened the sky when we made the turn into my old stomping grounds and, as the passenger, I had endless opportunity to peer between the trees to see what had remained and what had changed.

We drove by the street that was home to my first Georgia apartment where we served breakfast to the family who came into town to celebrate our wedding. We passed by my old library, where I checked out endless decorating books with the intention of turning our house into a home. I saw the biscuit place that my husband loved and the Costco where we went together every Saturday. We pulled through the drive through at the Starbucks where I met dates and sought public solitude after my divorce. And I caught a glimpse of the Gold’s Gym that was my sanctuary where I rebuilt mind and body.

I first heard the term “a geographic” relating to a need to pull up roots and start over somewhere new when I read Stephen King’s Duma Key. At the time I read the book, tucked securely in my other life, I didn’t understand that drive.

A few years later I understood it too well.

Once the reality of the end of my current life had set in, I felt an overwhelming need to escape. To run. To get away from every reminder and every location.

I wanted a geographic.

If I was going to be forced to start over, I wanted it to be fresh. Not built upon the dunghill of my former life.

Necessity kept me local for that first year; my job and my support system were nearby and needed. But that whole year, I felt restless. I no longer belonged. I needed to move. I was planning on a move to the West Coast, as far away as I could get in the continental U.S. But then love happened, and I cut my planned move short by about 2100 miles.

But it was far enough. As our morning drive took us through the streets of my old life, it felt like another world, another lifetime. It was distant yet interesting. I was curious rather than anxious. It held no pain, only far off memories. And it certainly didn’t feel like home.

I am feeling the pull for another kind of geographic right now. This semester has been way too frantic. I’ve felt pulled and prodded, trying to balance too much for too long. I feel the need to get away. To run. Not to another life, but to the woods for some quiet and simplicity. Life pared down to its most basic. Where the morning fire is often the most pressing item on the to-do list.

Peace. Hopefully without frostbite.

Sometimes we need to get away. Maybe for a few days. Or maybe for a lifetime.

Sometimes a geographic can help cure what ails us.

It Doesn’t Get Easier; You Get Stronger

Posted on by stilllearning2b
stronger

I love the feeling of doing something that was once difficult only to find that it has become easy.

I have this one running route that I have been frequenting for the last year or so. It is an eight-mile loop from my house through a nearby neighborhood. This particular community is a favorite training ground for the triathletes in the area because it has HILLS (not to be confused with their tamer brethren, hills).

This run was a real challenge for me at first, as I had been training primarily along the river and the greenway with their decided lacks of HILLS or even hills. I grew comfortable with level ground and my legs and lungs fought to handle the grade changes. In fact, there were many ventures through this neighborhood that resulted in more miles walked than run as I failed to meet the trial.

But I still keep going back.

And last night, I just finished that route in my best time ever.

But even better? There is one looong HILL towards the end of the run that is a real beast. I always prep myself ahead of time, slowing my breathing and adjusting my gait so that I can make it up the entire stretch. Last night, I was into my podcast and didn’t even notice the hill (it has officially lost its HILL status now!) until it was behind me.

I was so excited when I became aware of my unawareness, that I even had enough energy to sprint the final mile home.

There is no better feeling that staying with something until it becomes easy.

Because you become stronger.

 

A major side effect of divorce (especially when infidelity is involved) is a lack of confidence. The cure is not to have people tell you you’re great. Or to seek out the attentions of attractive members of your preferred gender. Although both are certainly nice, they only scratch the surface.

The way to build confidence is to try something you think you can’t do.

And then try again.

And again.

Until it becomes easy.

Because you became stronger.

 

And no, you don’t have to run. But before you say you can’t, read about how I started.

 

 

In Perpetuity

Posted on by stilllearning2b

“Mom, what does ‘in perpetuity’ mean?” I asked from the backseat as we drove by an intown San Antonio theater advertising Rocky Horror Picture Show Friday 10 pm  with the unfamiliar words posted beneath.

“It means it keeps repeating, going on without end.”

“So they show that same movie every Friday? That’s dumb,” I concluded with the assurance of a know-it-all 8-year-old. “Who would want to see that?”

Me, it turns out, since once I was a senior in high school, I visited that theater more than once to watch the movie and enjoy the theatrics in the spirited audience.

I guess I didn’t know everything when I was 8.

Or even when I was a senior in high school.

Because when I was a senior in high school, I thought someone could overcome their past just by wanting it badly enough.

I saw my parents’ divorce and vowed that it would never happen to me. I felt left behind by my dad and was confident that my boyfriend (later husband) would never leave my side. I witnessed the power that worry held over my mom and swore that I would be more carefree.

My boyfriend felt the same. He looked at his father with disgust and proclaimed he would never follow in his footsteps. He was fully aware of the alcoholism in his genes and promised that he was stronger than its pull. I saw the intensity in his eyes when he renounced his childhood and swore he would chart his own path. And I believed him.

 

I didn’t yet understand that it takes more than intention to escape the replays of the childhood patterns. I didn’t realize that old wounds, long since buried, would spring up again with new players filling in for old roles. I wasn’t aware how many of my actions and behaviors came from past experience rather than responding to some present stimulus.

I didn’t yet comprehend that our childhoods have a tendency to play in perpetuity unless we find a way to stop the feedback loop.

And it takes more than desire to stop the pattern.

 

My biggest childhood wound was a fear of abandonment. I was fully aware of this fear, yet I didn’t exactly address it in the best ways. When my dad moved across the country, I convinced myself that I didn’t need a dad. I could take care of everything myself. When I had several friends die, I decided to push the others away before they could leave. In school and work, I set myself apart by always being willing to take on the extra tasks and responsibilities; I made sure I was too needed to be rejected.

But none of those really mitigated my fear of being abandoned; they just made me think they did.

In fact, the only way I got over my fear was to finally face it.

And, as it turns out, the fear of abandonment was worse than the abandonment itself.

 

One of the strongest memories I have of the end of my marriage is from one night shortly before he left. From what I knew, he was in Brazil on a work trip. He had been experiencing uncontrollable hypertension for months and, on a rare call from Brazil, stated that he had also come down with some gastrointestinal bug. He sounded miserable, alone and scared. Two days later, I anxiously awaited his call from the Atlanta airport, where he was supposed to arrive that morning. I tracked the flight online, noted its landing time and waited.

Hours went by.

Calls to his phone went straight to voicemail. Repeated checks of the website verified the flight time and safe landing. I paced the hallway, gripping my phone in my hand. The dogs paced with me, their nails clicking on the laminate floor. I sat down at my desk and tried to find a number to call in Brazil. I paced again when the anxiety-fueled tremors grew too strong. I had images of him alone in a hotel room, too sick to get help in a foreign country. I felt impotent. Helpless. I paced again. I finally located his out-of-state office’s number and called his boss. He sounded surprised to hear from me.

Minutes later, the phone rang. It was my husband.

“I’m so sorry you were worried, baby. My flight’s tomorrow.”

“Are you okay?” It was all I could think to ask, my legs giving out beneath me.

“I’m fine,” he chuckled,”But I need to let you go now. It’s too expensive. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

I wonder where his soon-to-be other wife was when he made that call?

 

That afternoon was my dress rehearsal for abandonment.

I experienced the real thing two short weeks later.

With my dad by my side.

My parents working together.

And my mom putting aside her own concerns for the care of her daughter.

 

I realized four things in those early moments after being jettisoned from my marriage:

I was never really abandoned in my childhood.

After really being abandoned in adulthood, I was strong enough to survive.

Accepting help doesn’t make you weak; it makes you real.

And the way to protect against abandonment is by letting people in rather than by keeping them out.

 

After facing spousal abandonment and thriving, I’ve even been able to find some of the hidden gifts.

 

It’s strange how life continues to present us with lessons until we are ready to learn.

A tutorial in perpetuity until we are ready to listen.

 

 

 

Starting Over

Posted on by stilllearning2b

“I can’t do this.”

“Why should I try again? I’m just going to fail.”

“Maybe I’m just no good at this.”

“I’m tired of trying.”

I hear those refrains from my coaching clients about lifestyle changes. I hear them from my blog followers about relationships. And, most of all, I hear them from my students about algebra.

My days are filled with students groaning  in frustration, papers wadded up and thrown away in disgust. Every day, I reach into my supply of pencil-topping erasers and provide students with a way to obliterate their mistakes. Sometimes, they become too defeated by even the faintest echoes of work gone wrong, and I have to provide them with a fresh copy, unsullied by their past choices. Some students thrive when they can write on the Activeboard or even with dry erase markers on the desk, where the marks of any error erase without a trace. I model starting over, capitalizing upon rather than hiding my own mistakes at the board.

So much of my day is spent coaching people in starting over – motivating past the initial resistance and guiding new attempts. And even though I coach students on algebra and adults on life, much of the lessons are the same.

We would rather fail because we didn’t try than fail because we couldn’t do.

This was a powerful realization in my early teaching days. I would get so frustrated with students who would just give up and refuse to attempt anything. I saw it as lazy. Or obstinacy. But usually it was a form of self protection. You see, if we try and fail, it reflects upon on abilities. Whereas if we do not try, it only discloses our choices. I learned that in order to reach these students, I had to first convince them that they were worthy in spite of their failures. I found ways to build them up. To let them know that it was safe to try and fail; I would not ridicule mistakes and I would not allow other to either. And then I would find ways to create successes so that they could feel the joy of finally getting something right.

Failure means you’re learning. Starting over means you’re applying the lessons.

We may me more mature than those kids in some ways, but we also shy away from trying because of a fear of how it reflects upon us. We internalize failure rather than see it as a sign of growth. We want to play it safe, stay in known zone where the risks are not too great and the effort not too imposing. We look at the past effort as wasted and we fear starting over because it may lead to another dead end. But the reality is that nothing is ever wasted if you learn from it.

Starting over is overwhelming.

Whether it’s one of students having to re-do a page long problem or a person facing dating again after the end of a long marriage, starting over is hard. Very hard. It’s like taking your first step of thousands in a marathon – your leg is moving forward even as your brain is screaming, “Don’t! It’s impossible!” As with any feat of endurance, the trick is to focus on one step at a time. Starting over requires energy and if you’re mentally biting off more than you can chew, you’re exhausting your resources before you even begin.

When we focus only on the results, we grow frustrated. Celebrate the steps along the way.

I get a strange look from students when I praise their reasoning or skill on one step of a problem but still advise them that their answer is incorrect. “But, Mrs. Arends, I got it wrong. Why are you telling me I did something good?” Learning is a process. Starting over is a process. When we attach too much meaning to the outcome, whether it be a date or an algebra problem, we may miss the signs that we are getting better. So even when the results aren’t what you wanted, celebrate any signs of improvement.

Defeat only occurs when you give up. It’s better to change your goal than to throw in the towel.

In spite of the message put forth by the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality, not everybody can do everything. There are times that you may be trying to accomplish something that is beyond your reach and requires an endless amount of starting over. Rather than just give up completely, shift your goal to something you can do.

When we begin again, the possibilities are endless.

There is something about a blank slate that cultivates enthusiasm. It’s an empty canvas ready to accept whatever you put down. It’s easier to start from the actions of the past, rewriting what we have already tried. But this is your chance to do something new. Different. If one way didn’t work, toss it out and play around with another. If you allow it, starting over can have a sense of playfulness. Curiosity. Wonder and excitement.

Starting over is not doing the same thing again. Starting over is a gift of being able to apply the wisdom of your past to create the image of your future. 

Try. You just might amaze yourself with what you can do.