AMA with AMA: Answering YOUR questions!
Advice for a friend who is getting divorced.
Dear Kula Diaries,
I’m here with another AMA — that’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ — and I’m so grateful that all of you are here too! This particular AMA is pretty personal, because I’m going to share a lot about my own experience with divorce. Last year, when I first started writing the Kula Diaries, I talked about my divorce in one of the first posts that I ever wrote. I want to be totally transparent with all of you: I had never publicly talked about my divorce ever prior to that moment. I was terrified to mention it. It was a source of a lot of shame for me, and I incorrectly believed that if I shared that information, people would think less of me.
I now know that this is completely false. My fears were not based on any evidence of disappointment or judgement from others… but rather upon deeply seated beliefs that existed in my own heart.
I am no longer ashamed to have gone through a divorce, and I’m happy to answer any questions about my experience. I now understand that it was an important part of my journey — one of the steps that helped me get to where I am today. If you are similarly going through a divorce or a separation or a break-up, I hope that my words can offer you a glimmer of peace for wherever you are right now in your life.
As you read this week’s AMA, please remember that I am not a therapist. These are my words, opinions, and advice. Please use curiosity while reading them and take what works for you, and feel free to ditch anything that doesn’t. Above all things — trust yourself more than anybody else (including me).
Dear AMA,
What's your best advice for someone going through a separation/divorce/breakup? Even if it's amicable, even if I'm the one who spoke up and initiated things, even if nothing was ever really "bad" but the little things finally added up, this still hurts a LOT. Also, I'm not 20 years old anymore, so starting over in my 40s is pretty terrifying (both financially and emotionally). I'm already seeing a therapist (win!) but if we were friends and I called you about this...what would you say?
Dear friend,
I’m so sorry for your grief and loss — divorce is tough and I have a lot of empathy for what you are experiencing. I am going to speak from my own experience with divorce, but keep in mind that each of us are completely unique — so take everything that I say with a grain of salt, and always trust your intuition.
I got married (for the first time) many years ago — and I will truthfully admit that it was not a very conscious decision. My boyfriend at the time and I were the ‘right age’ to get married (according to the world)… and so, without really considering what it meant, we decided that it was the next ‘logical’ step. We had the type of relationship that had repeated itself many times throughout my life — an intense ‘honeymoon’ phase of adoration… followed by a phase that felt more like, ‘auto-pilot’. When we decided to get married, the excitement of wedding planning seemed to brush any problems under the rug temporarily. We went on a vacation together shortly after we got married, and I remember feeling so awkward — it felt like I didn’t even know who I was with. I realized that we had, throughout the course of dating, never really done much together. Our relationship could have best been described as, ‘playing house’.
My ex was not a bad person at all, and I had (and have) absolutely no hard feelings for him. We were just on completely different wavelengths — and, to be fair, I contributed equally to the demise of our relationship. I spent nearly 100% of my time away from home (when I wasn’t working) so that I could pursue my backpacking and hiking goals. He, on the other hand, preferred to stay home and watch TV. Instead of trying to work on our quickly deteriorating relationship, I avoided it entirely.
During this time, my social media addiction kicked into full gear — I’d sit and use Facebook for hours and hours when I was home, effectively contributing to our mutual avoidance of tending to our relationship. Eventually, it was pretty obvious to me that this was a non-sustainable situation. I expressed a desire to separate, and I made no attempt to go to marriage counselling or therapy to try and ‘fix’ anything. I just felt like I was done.
I remember the first time that I told my mom that I didn’t feel like I should stay married. I described that every single time I used his last name, it felt like there was a sock in my mouth. It had never felt like me…. and I didn’t know who I was. I felt very lost, confused and distraught.
The early stages of approaching the divorce conversation were very difficult. While I wasn’t happy in our marriage, there was also nothing horribly wrong. We were amicable, and I genuinely wanted the best for him (and for me). I also felt a deep sense of shame — I hid the divorce from almost everybody I knew (including my best friends). I was so ashamed of this ‘failure’, that I didn’t think I could face people anymore. I deleted my social media accounts and retreated into a one bedroom studio apartment.
The thing about divorce is that even if you know it is the best thing for you, it is still really hard… and it’s also completely normal to feel so many things about it. I felt intense guilt… shame… sadness… and grief. I questioned whether or not I was doing the right thing. Divorce doesn’t mean that you don’t care about the other person — in fact, in some ways, a separation can be the most caring thing you could do for somebody else. While we don’t keep in touch, I do know that my ex really changed his life after our divorce and quit his TV watching habit and became very active in fitness and hiking.
I’m providing this background information simply to set the stage for my own divorce, and also to provide context for what I’m about to share next… the things that I wish I had done differently… and the things that I am glad I did.
Things I wish I had done differently:
I wish that I hadn’t isolated myself from everybody in my life. Deep down, I know that I did this out of shame as a coping mechanism. As a kid, I was always the ‘perfect’ child who never failed or disappointed anybody. Also, having been raised Catholic, I had a completely untrue belief that there was something inherently sinful or awful about a person who got divorced and that I was likely going to be struck by lightning and cast into the fire pits of hell. As a result of these deep wounds, I cut myself off from the world around me, which made things much worse. I lied to people. I hid the truth. I retreated into a metaphorical cave, and didn’t tell anybody what was going on. I hurt some friendships in this process, and I definitely regret that. Luckily, my friends are unbelievably understanding and were able to extend forgiveness to me many years later and we were able to rebuild our friendships.
I was not kind to myself during my divorce. One thing that helped me move beyond my negative self talk was the practice of asking myself this question: If the same thing that I am going through now were happening to a friend, what would I say to them? I know for a fact that if a friend had come to me in the midst of a divorce, I would never have told them that they were a disappointment and a failure. So why did I say such negative and cruel things to myself? And why was I so afraid to reveal this truth to the people who cared about me? Honestly, I don’t know. But I do know that I would have supported and loved my friends unconditionally. Unfortunately, I was not able to do that for myself, so I didn’t think that others could grant me the same grace. I was very wrong. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would be open and honest with my friends about what was going on in my life.
I felt a lot of guilt about how much I isolated myself for a long time, but ultimately, I realized that the guilt was hurting me more than it was helping me. It accomplished absolutely nothing to punish myself for something that I couldn’t change. I gradually learned how to accept what had happened, and to move on. Looking back, I know that I was doing the best that I could during that time, and I forgive the very scared part of me that simply wanted to hide.
Things I’m glad I did:
Immediately after moving into my small studio apartment, I started seeing a therapist every week, and I’m really glad that I did that. The therapist helped me to see the truth that I was not a bad person for having a divorce. She helped me navigate through some of the intense shame and grief that I was feeling.
I started a regular meditation practice and I started going to yoga classes. It’s easy to get scared and to deny ourselves self-care opportunities when we step out on our own, particularly if we are feeling fear around being financially stable. However, I’m really glad that I prioritized going to yoga classes at a local studio and also re-invigorating my meditation practice. This was a tumultuous time in my life, and it was also very important in helping me begin to discover a sense of presence that I had forgotten was there.
I took a break from hiking and mountaineering — which seems a bit odd, since those were things that I really loved, but I also recognized that I had been using them as a form of escapism. I knew that I needed to answer this question: Who am I without these things? As I let go of this form of escape, I started a daily walking practice. I also started writing in my blog again (which ultimately would morph into the backpacking Facebook group that would lead to Kula Cloth). I also tried new ways to express my creativity — I went to a local pottery shop and decorated and designed mugs for people that I cared about. I began to find a sense of comfort and belongingness within myself — that was not attached to a specific person or activity.
Things I wouldn’t say to a friend who was getting a divorce:
Having been through the process of a divorce, the things that I would not ask a friend include things like:
What are you going to do for your living situation?
How are you going to make ends meet?
What’s your plan moving forward?
When are you going to start dating?
What’s your 5 year plan? Your 10 year plan?
Aren’t you afraid?
Are you sure you want to do this?
There are very well meaning people who asked me these things when I got divorced, and let me be very clear: it did not help me. While they are valid questions, I had (obviously) already been considering them, and having my fears amplified was not productive. I was already worried and freaked out enough on my own. I did not need to be additionally saddled with more things to worry about.
As a result of my own experience with these types of unhelpful inquiries… I’ll now share…
Advice I’d give somebody else now, knowing what I know:
Don’t try to figure out your entire future right now. If I attempted to contemplate how I was going to ‘figure out’ every single aspect of my new life and how it was going to work out, I’d quickly work my way into a complete and utter panic attack. Trust yourself and your decisions, and be OK with not knowing everything. The only thing that you need to know right now is your very next step. And by ‘next step’ — I do not mean for the next 6 months… I mean for this exact moment in time. Maybe your next step is just taking a deep breath. Maybe it is taking a shower. Maybe it is making yourself a lunch you enjoy. The more deeply you can focus on the present moment, the less anxiety you will feel about a future that you cannot possibly know.
Above all things, my divorce taught me to learn how to be OK with right now:
Trying to know an imagined future is completely impossible, and you will destroy yourself trying to know all of the unknowables. Trust that things will fall into place for you. Trust your intuition. Trust your heart and believe that things are going to work out for you. Spend as much time as possible finding ways to be present… to focus on gratitude and appreciation… to find ways to give and contribute to others in ways that feel meaningful and purposeful to you. Start a meditation practice or a dance practice and really invest in discovering more about who you really are — beyond your story.
Be gentle with yourself. It’s OK if the process feels like a complete rollercoaster of emotions. It’s OK if you worry that you’ve made a mistake. It’s OK and normal if you second guess yourself. It’s OK and normal if you are struggling, even if you know in your heart that this was the right thing to do. When you got married to your partner, there was love… and while that love has shifted and changed… there is likely an element of care that still exists (especially if it is an amicable separation). I felt a lot of guilt and shame for hurting somebody that I cared about — and I want you to know that is normal, and also, it doesn’t mean that your decision is wrong.
If I hadn’t gotten a divorce, I don’t think that Kula Cloth would exist. Kula Cloth only exists because I was able to step past the limiting fears that had kept me stuck in place for my entire life — and leaving my first marriage was a big part of facing those fears. I’m really grateful for my first marriage experience, because it taught me a lot about life… and it really pushed me on a spiritual path that I had tried to avoid through obsessive and compulsive hiking and mountaineering. The pain that I experienced during that time was critical for me, as it turns out. I also learned a lot about love and forgiveness — how to receive them from others, and most importantly, how to receive them from myself.
I was really nervous to get married again, and, in fact, I told my now-husband Aaron that I would never get married when we first met. Obviously, I changed my tune. Also, it’s worth noting that my relationship with Aaron followed a similar trajectory to my first marriage … a few years of the ‘honeymoon’ phase… followed by the predictable ‘auto-pilot’ phase… which deteriorated into near-cataclysmic disaster. Except this time, armed with more tools and with more conscious awareness, I was able to see very clearly what was happening. It was a really dark time for us, but we were able to pick up the pieces and put them back together. I recognized my mistakes and my own contribution to the mess, and we were able to pull ourselves out of the seemingly inevitable downward spiral. Next weekend, we will be celebrating our 9th anniversary together, and our relationship has never been better.
I also want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you and you have not failed at anything because you are getting a divorce. Not one person told me that when I got mine, and I know it would have helped me. I want to make it clear that I’m not blaming anybody else for this — my lack of support was mostly my own fault since I had isolated myself from practically everybody in my life. But, if I were calling you up on the phone today, that’s what I’d want you to know: you are doing great, and you will figure this out, and it is going to get better. You are no less loved or lovable because of a divorce, and it does not have to define the rest of your life. You can use this experience to continue to bloom and grow into whatever life is wanting to express through your infinite goodness.
I am sending you a genuine wish for ease, peace, love and joy — and I am so proud of you for following your heart. My post-divorce life has been rich and beautiful in so many ways, and I truly hope that you have the exact same experience. Approach each day with curiosity and love, and allow yourself to receive and experience and create the life that you deserve to live.
Friends — thank you all so much for being here and for reading The Kula Diaries. I’m so grateful for your kindness and support. If you want to submit a question for an upcoming AMA, you can drop your question anonymously in The Kula Diaries Vault.
I am wishing each of you a day filled with ease, joy, peace laughter… and maybe a little bit of dancing. You are loved.
