>   It’s our most difficult challenges that present us with the greatest opportunities for personal growth.  I’d say divorce ranks really high on that list. So, since I’m going through one as I write, I thought I’d share an insight or two.

    Insight #1: It’s never about them. It’s always about you.
   

        It’s so easy to find fault with the Other and make them the reason for the break-up of a relationship. In fact, it’s too easy. Focusing or blaming another is simply a convenient technique to absolve yourself from personal responsibility for 1) choosing to align with that person to begin with and/or 2) acknowledging that you’ve changed… grown…. and the alliance no longer supports your highest good (or usually theirs as well, for that matter, but that’s their issue to deal with not yours).
    If you  choose a partner for the wrong reason(s)…out of need and dependence rather than out of a maturation process wherein you’ve actualized yourself and seek out another fully actualized person…then you can almost certainly anticipate a future point in time when the “jig” will be up and you will find yourself faced with an increasingly deteriorating relationship, as well as an ally turned adversary.
    The solution to this situation gone awry is to take stock of where you are in your own life and how you see yourself going forward. If that assessment and vision is inconsistent with who the Other is, well, then, you’ve got two choices. Abandon your own desires and goals or relinquish the illusion that they are attainable while aligned with incompatible energy in the form of a partner who does not enhance, or cannot even help support, that vision you have for yourself.
    It’s my experience that no matter how difficult the latter, it is not only do-able but it’s also the only road to self-respect and self-actualization.  Abandonment creates deep emotional wounds…whether someone does it to you or you do it to yourself.

    Insight #2:  Accepting responsibility brings inner peace and facilitates forgiveness.

    Refusing to accept responsibility for your choices, but instead placing blame on events and persons beyond yourself, fuels feelings of resentment, anger and victimization. If you believe that what you are experiencing is the result of someone else’s choice or events beyond your control, then it is impossible to feel at peace with what is happening in your life.  More importantly, if your suffering is someone else’s fault then how can you forgive them for your plight? Without forgiveness, you’re going to stay stuck in negative feelings that will only serve to impede your own growth and prevent you from actualizing your highest good.
    Once you accept that your choices have created every experience you are having in your life, as well as all the people who are showing up in it, only then can you begin to make deliberate and conscious choices that fully support you in achieving the life you truly intend. Fully conscious choice that originates from a place of heart-felt passion within you is the road to inner peace and personal satisfaction.
    Accepting personal responsibility for your circumstances allows you to see others in a different light going forward and to forgive both them and yourself for past circumstances. 

    So as I traverse this rocky divorce terrain, filled with opportunities to stumble, I am reminded of the adage that it’s not falling down that matters but how quickly you are able to get back up.

REMEMBER to click here to download my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

    
   

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