7 Reasons to Date an Athlete

Posted on by stilllearning2b

After my divorce, I decided I was only going to date athletes. My decision had nothing to do with body fat percentages or max bench press (although those factors certainly don’t hurt!). Nor was this decision dependent upon the man in question being some sort of professional competitor. In fact, I define “athlete” as anyone who regularly and passionately engages in sports or physical activity.

So, why did I limit myself to dating athletes if I didn’t care about the size of a potential partner’s biceps or the scope of his bank account?

Grit
All you have to do is watch the face of a runner in his or her last mile of a marathon to understand that athletes have grit.

Read the rest on The Huffington Post

The Four Agreements in Divorce

Posted on by stilllearning2b
four agreements in divorce

As a homework assignment for my recent girl’s weekend, I was asked to read The Four Agreements. I was fully willing, but somewhat skeptical, since as the only child of a counselor, I was raised on a steady diet of self-help. I think I overdosed.

After the first few pages, my skepticism was replaced with excitement and understanding. This was one book that made sense to me.

The premise is simple: four agreements that, if followed, will change your life. The book is short and the agreements are extremely simple but nowhere near easy. They are applicable to every area of life and manage to be general and still useful all at once. They are interconnected; one always leads to another.

As part of my own work with The Four Agreements, I am drilling down and applying them to various areas of life. I’ve already explored The Four Agreements in Marriage and The Four Agreements in Wellness. Those were easy applications. After all, those are areas where your intention is to be honest and want to be your best. Now, for the hard one – The Four Agreements in divorce. How can these covenants help you navigate such an awful time with more dignity and awareness? Can these promises actually hold true while in midst of a life disintegration? Can they help to provide support and focus intention in those darkest of days?

I think they can.

The dictionary lists “acceptance” as one of the synonyms of “agreements.” Perhaps that is a better approach when it comes to divorce. After all, you may not agree with the divorce, you most likely do not agree with your spouse or ex spouse and you certainly don’t agree with the courts. But you still have to accept it if you wish to find peace. So, bad grammar aside, here are the four acceptances of divorce:

Be Impeccable With Your Word

“I can be impeccable with my word. He/she is a #$%@! Did you hear the latest?”

I think we have all been there. Refraining from badmouthing your soon to be ex is a daunting task. He or she may appear to have morphed into some cartoon villain, fiendishly planning attacks while safe in his or her secluded lair. You feel justified in your verbal besieges; after all, you’re just responding to the volleys thrown at you.

But step back a moment. Where are your utterances really coming from? You’re hurt and speaking out to try to distance from the pain. You’re scared and trying to armor yourself with words. You’re angry and slinging insult-trimmed arrows. You’re sad and seeking comfort from others.

Are your words really about your ex? Or are they about you?

Is it more impeccable to say,

“I’m frightened. I haven’t been alone in a long time and I don’t know if I can do it. I’m scared that I won’t be able to be a good parent for the kids. I’m worried that I can’t be strong enough for them.”

or

“My ex is such a terrible parent. Every little things is a battle. I don’t even think he/she thinks about the kids, much less wants to be there for them.” ?

This acceptance was extremely difficult for me. I felt justified in my anger and outrage and I needed to express it. I felt like he had stolen my voice by refusing to talk, so I screamed instead. I poured pages of vitriol into my journal, I sent him scathing emails and I cursed him to others.

But on some level, I knew that, while purgative, those strategies were limiting. When I painted him as the villain, I cast myself as the victim. To release my bindings, I had to release him as well.

Do not expect perfection of yourself with the acceptance. You will be disappointed. Rather, keep it in mind and strive to express what you’re feeling underneath the chaos of the split. Try to avoid blaming, either yourself or your ex. Try to accept the entirety of your ex, from the person you loved to the one you no longer know. Speak to them both.

Related: The Blame Game

Don’t Take it Personally

I hadn’t read the book yet, but this little acceptance changed my life. When I embraced this message, I began to forgive and to release the anger. Before that point, I saw him as deliberately working to destroy me. On some level, I pictured him plotting in his basement office, stroking the soul patch on his chin,

“Let’s see… I’ve already maxed out this card. Hmmm…I know! I’ll use the one in her name so that she has to deal with it later. Okay, now that the financial ruin has been planned, what else can I do? Well, obviously, an affair would be upsetting. Now, where can I find a willing woman? Oh, and at some point, I’ll have to leave her – yeah, that will really destroy her! What would be the worst? In person? Phone call? Letter? Sticky note? Skywriting? I know! I’ll do it with a text message. She’ll never see that coming!”

Pretty crazy, huh? I was taking it personally. In reality, he was not thinking of my well-being any more than I considered his during the divorce. Once I realized that his decisions and actions were about him, not me, I could stop reacting defensively and start seeing more rationally. He was hurting too.

It is difficult in a divorce to not take things personally. After all, you two were a partnership, a team, and now your partner has been recast as your adversary. It’s a wake-up call to realize how individual we really are. You were married to each other, yet you each experienced the marriage through your own experiences and perceptions. We can have empathy for another yet we have to take responsibility for ourselves.

Our egos take a beating in divorce. They perceive any attack as directed and they try to fight back. Put down the gloves and accept that the ego is simply protesting, much like a child throwing a tantrum. Let it cry. Let it scream. And then wipe its tears.

Related: Pardon Me, Ego. I Need to Get Through

Don’t Make Assumptions

Divorce is a time of great unknowns. Our brains hate the unknown, those gaps in the narrative. They strive to fill in the missing pieces. The medium used? Assumptions.

We assume we know why our ex is acting a certain way. We assume we know how he or she will respond. We assume that their actions and words accurately reflect their beliefs (as though they are impeccable when we are not).

We respond to assumptions rather than reality, building an entire relationship based upon an ever-weakening foundation of expectations.

We reach conclusions before we listen. We anticipate before we observe. We expect instead of accept.

Assumptions are a surefire way of maintaining your suffering. You are all but guaranteed to be hurt and disappointed when you live off expectations. This is yet another way that we can keep ourselves in the no-responsibility victim role, as we can see our hopes dashed again and again.

A divorce begins with letting go of the assumption that your marriage would last forever. The pain of the divorce will continue as long as you hold on to your other expectations. There is peace in letting go.

Related: Quitting vs. Letting Go

Always Do Your Best

Be gentle with yourself. You have suffered a great loss.

Be patient with yourself. It takes time to heal.

Be loving with yourself. You are deserving.

Be kind to yourself. You are not your mistakes.

Be firm with yourself. Always strive to do better.

…and recognize that your ex is probably doing his or her best as well.

Accept.

Drama Queen

Posted on by stilllearning2b

“Hi. My name’s Lisa and I’m addicted to drama.”

Luckily that’s not true.

But that hasn’t always been the case.

Until the divorce, my life was pretty drama-free. I grew up in a stable environment and calm order was my status quo.

And then the world fell out from under me. For 8 months, from the text to the decree, my life was a soap opera. Each day brought new information, one shocking tidbit after another. And, after a time, they began to lose their impact. Drama became my new normal. My status quo. I needed bigger and bigger shocks to feel much of anything.

I had unwittingly become a full-on drama junkie.

Part of me yearned for it all to be over so that I could settle into a calm life again. But another part of me craved the stimulation that comes from drama. After the divorce was final and I stopped tracking my ex’s actions, I went through a bit of a withdrawal period. When friends and coworkers would ask for the daily update (I had become the days of their lives), I had to respond that I had nothing. They weren’t interested in hearing about the awesome lesson I taught that day or the furniture I was scoping out at IKEA. Normal life just couldn’t compare to the intrigue provided by bigamy and double lives.

I felt a bit lost for a few weeks. Empty. I was used to a fresh injection of “new” every day and I had gone cold turkey. I had to train myself to be content within the normal pace of life, going from fast-paced thriller to non-fiction. Luckily, my drama-free childhood was a stronger set point than that brief period and I was able to adjust without much trouble.

That’s not the case for everyone.

I was talking with a friend the other day who faced her own period of drama while caring for a very sick child. She is now past the worst of it but has two years of drama conditioning to overcome. She is aware of her higher threshold for stimulation, which is the first step in resetting your normal. I think she’ll be okay as she learns to trust and relax in the face of calm. She has to trust that no news is good news.

I know others that are not so fortunate. Their childhoods were filled with drama. Chaos has been their normal from the get-go. I’m not a proponent of the Law of Attraction (if it worked, all my students would make As on every algebra test) but I do believe that our intent and our vision tends to direct our decisions and influence the types of people that are attracted to us. In this case, drama begets drama. From my perspective now, I look at those crazy lives and I shake my head. I can’t imagine that level of chaos. But, yes I can. I was there myself. From the inside, it eventually doesn’t feel chaotic. It just feels normal. And, for those that were raised within that kind of environment, they know nothing else.

Drama may not be all bad. In my case, my desire for novelty led me to date (“Match Madness”) and helped me make major decisions about where to live and switching jobs. It is an adaptive behavior that keeps us from becoming overwhelmed and shutting down in the midst of craziness.

Life has a way of providing periods of intensity. If they last too long, we have to adapt to survive. When the chaos fades, it is time to release those adaptations. They are no longer needed. Recognize that life may feel boring for a time as you adjust to a lower level of stimulation. If you have children, understand that you are setting their drama status quo when they are young; try not to set the threshold too high.

It’s okay to release the need for constant stimulation.

It’s okay to be boring.

It’s okay to leave the drama for the big screen:)

 

The Four Agreements in Marriage

Posted on by stilllearning2b

As a homework assignment for my recent girl’s weekend, I was asked to read The Four Agreements. I was fully willing, but somewhat skeptical, since as the only child of a counselor, I was raised on a steady diet of self-help. I think I overdosed.

After the first few pages, my skepticism was replaced with excitement and understanding. This was one book that made sense to me.

The premise is simple: four agreements that, if followed, will change your life. The book is short and the agreements are extremely simple but nowhere near easy. They are applicable to every area of life and manage to be general and still useful all at once. They are interconnected; one always leads to another.

As part of my own work with The Four Agreements, I am drilling down and applying them to various areas of life. Here is my take on The Four Agreements in marriage:

Be Impeccable With Your Word

In essence, this agreement is your promise to say what you mean and to avoid speaking against yourself or others in fear, pain or blame. In a marriage, this means to refrain from using words such as “always” or “never” when referring to your partner’s actions. The agreement suggests that speaking in blame is not being impeccable since the underlying motivation does not match the message. When speaking to others about your spouse, avoid endless complaining, as this only serves to reinforce those beliefs. Also, avoid speaking against yourself, saying words that diminish your value and worth.

I am working on this agreement in my current relationship. When I get frustrated, I find myself running an internal (sometimes it slips out!) dialog cataloging his wrongs and missteps. Or, I berate myself endlessly for my role in some screw up. To be impeccable, however, is to speak in love and kindness, forgiving both he and I in the interest of a better relationship. To help with this, whenever I am frustrated with him, I intentionally catalog his gifts and blessings or my own, if I am speaking against myself. In this way, the words and the intent match.

Don’t Take it Personally

No spouse enters into a marriage as a blank slate. They have a lifetime of hurts and fears that they carry with them. Any reaction they have is filtered through their unique experiences and views. It is so easy to react to every word or action as being directed to you, but the reality is that they are operating from their own place. You are not the center of their world; they are. It’s strange, it’s easy for us to identify the multitude of factors that influence our own thoughts yet we seem to think that our partners somehow don’t posses that complexity. When you feel attacked by your partner, don’t take it personally. Try not to be defensive by realizing that they are projecting their own fears and wounds. If you can remain open, it is possible to work down to the root cause of the verbal strike.

I’ve shared my struggle with this issue with Brock. I am learning not to take it personally when he needs distance; it is not about me. Likewise, he does not take it personally when I need time alone to decompress and recharge.

Taking things personally has been my biggest challenge of all of these. As life so often does, it is making sure that I get repeated lessons here. By choosing to share my writing (and my life) publicly, I have been the target of many attacks. I have come to learn that when someone (especially a stranger) is so threatened or incensed by my words, that they are really a trigger of some other event in their life. It’s not about me.

Don’t Make Assumptions

My 8th grade social studies teacher had the following bumper sticker posted on his board: “Never assume because all you do is make an ass out of u and me.” I’ve never forgotten that message, although, like all of the agreements, it is easier said than done:)

In a marriage, assumptions allow us to feel judged and can keep us in a victim role (not exactly an attractive trait in a partner). It’s easy to assume you know your partner’s motivations and to assume that they understand yours. Before you respond, ask. Find out their perspective. And then listen. The worst part of assumptions is that they prevent us from really listening to our partners. It’s amazing how much your attitude can be transformed once you release assumptions and become open to possibilities.

I find at times that I will predict Brock’s response to something before I even bring it up. Then, I respond to these assumptions, at times getting upset before I’ve ever given him a chance. Crazy, right? But does it sound familiar?

Do Your Best

One of my favorite aspects of yoga training is that you are encouraged to do your best on that day; it recognizes that “best” is subjective and movable. In a marriage, be gentle yet firm with yourself. Expect your best and accept where you are in that moment. Recognize that your spouse is doing his or her best, even when it may not feel that way. Part of doing your best is to do things for your spouse without any expectations. You do your best for you, not for recognition.

This is an area where Brock has really helped me. I used to be too hard on myself and not forgiving of periods of anger or sadness. He helped me accept that I was doing what I could at that moment and that the moment would eventually pass.

So, don’t take it personally, but do your best to check out the book (don’t assume you know what it says) and see if I’ve been impeccable with my word:)

Next up, the four agreements in divorce (that’s gonna be fun!) and in health/wellness. Okay, maybe I’m a little obsessed at the moment:)

Provider

Posted on by stilllearning2b

We received news yesterday that our bid on the house was not accepted. I was disappointed, but not surprised. I suppose in a way, I was even relieved since I have some anxiety about the financial implications and obligations associated with buying a house.

(On a side note, I realized this past weekend, while sharing my story, that the financial aspect is the only area from which I have not healed. I’m not sure if I can move past that part while I’m still paying for his lies. It’s better than it was, but money issues can still be a major trigger. Grrr.)

Almost immediately upon hearing the news, I let go of the house. We had already discussed that if our bid was not accepted, we would go back to casually keeping an eye on homes and continue to save. After all, we still have 5 months until the planned move date.

Brock didn’t take it quite so well. He was restless. Discontent. He started searching the data base of houses for sale in the area. He sent listings to me and called me in to look over his shoulder. Verbally, he agreed that it made sense to pause and that we had plenty of time, but his actions spoke to a deeper need.

We even drove to look at a house (it was really amazing yet had a 100+ foot drop off in the back going down to a river and needed too much work for its price). I sensed that he needed to feel like there was forward momentum. I get it. I am usually guilty of the same anxiety-driven restless energy.

I awoke this morning to a note by the coffeepot:

“I promise I will get you a house you can be proud of.”

Wow. This explained his energy the day before. He sees himself as the provider. He knows that our current home is a bit of a dump (what’s funny though is that I’ve adapted and even learned to appreciate not having a “nice” home). He is feeling responsible for making sure that I am in a place where I can be happy.

He is taking house hunting literally. I’m surprised he hasn’t armed himself with a spear yet:)

My response to him?

“I have a husband I am proud of. That’s what matters.”

It’s been interesting for me to learn how important the “provider” role is to him. I didn’t get it at first, especially because he was insistent that women that he dated had their own career/income (he fully supported an ex for awhile and hated that). On my side, I’ve never wanted a man to “take care of me.” I was very uncomfortable with one man that I dated who had this approach. I saw the responsibility as equal.

It is true that Brock carries the majority of the financial burden. I’m a teacher. He’s not. What I now understand, however, is that he carries all of the financial burden in his mind. He feels responsible for the material well-being of our family.

I am grateful that Brock can articulate this need. My ex couldn’t and I think it was the initial domino in his fall. From what I can gather, it seems as though my ex faced professional decline. He lost a job and couldn’t find one to replace the responsibility and income level that he had before. He opened his own business, yet I do not think it was successful. My gut tells me that the spending and stealing started to try to cover for the lack of income he was receiving from his company. I think he was ashamed that he could not be a provider. He felt diminished and depleted. Embarrassed, even. He hid these feelings from me just as he hid the financial concerns. As a child, he was taught to keep shame buried deep and to not ask for help. He learned that lesson well.

I have come to understand that the way Brock feels about his role has a greater impact than how I see it or how it actually is. His self-image is based on being able to protect and provide. My role is to help him feel supported and appreciated in those realms, regardless of the external circumstances.

(I know that I also have areas upon which I base my self-image, but for the life of me, I can’t pinpoint them. Hmmm…got me some thinking to do!)

So for now, the boxes will remain broken down on their stack in the basement and the books will remain on their shelves. We will continue to live and laugh and love in our run-down rental. And, when it is time and the right home appears, we will make the move.

Until then, we live. And look at copious quantities of real estate porn.