Victimhood:
The Curse
of Divorce
Recovery-
by Shelley
Stile
Feeling
or labeling
yourself a victim
of your divorce
is one of the
most disastrous
moves you can
make. It will
prevent you
from moving
forward into
a new life. Victimhood renders you powerless.
To create a new life after your divorce takes
a person who is fully responsible for their past,
present and future. Being responsible means having
control over one's life and that is what
it takes to both recover from the emotional wounds
of a divorce as well as plan for your new life.
If you consider
yourself a victim then you believe that you had
little to do with what happened to you. You take
no responsibility. The responsibility is someone
else's and that leaves you with no power.
Victims blame someone else. Blame absolves them
of their part in the dissolution of their marriage.
Blame keeps them stuck in the pain of the past
and their divorce.
It is so much
easier to place blame on someone else then accept
personal responsibility. The fact is that two
people inhabit all marriages. Those two people
are co-creators of their marriage and their divorce.
Even if one of the partners was unfaithful or
a liar, there are always signs along the way
that we either refused to see or to acknowledge.
If we are in denial about all the warning signs
along the way, we can only look to ourselves
for lack of some responsible action.
Blame leads
to resentment. Resentment consumes our mind chatter.
We spend far too many hours ruminating about
all the things that our ex has done or continues
to do to us. We resent their new life and our
lack of one. Consider the amount of time wasted
being in resentment? Exactly who suffers? The
answer of course is clear: you. You are the one
who is angry, sad, bitter and unhappy, not your
ex. Your blame and resentment, along with your
regrets, are like poison in your system. It completely
immobilizes you.
How do we overcome
these feelings of victim hood? Here are some
suggestions:
1. What is
the truth of your marriage?
If we are completely
honest and courageous, we will have begun to
recognize that indeed, we played an integral
part in our marriage and divorce. All too often,
we interpret events and situations in our marriage
and believe them to be the truth. For instance,
my husband was cheating and lied to me about
it. I interpret that to mean that I am no longer
desirable, that I failed as a wife. I live in
my marriage as if that is a cold, hard fact.
It is not. The fact is he cheated. Period. That
fact could mean a hundred different things. Stick
to the facts.
2. Where am
I responsible?
What were the warning signs along
the way that I refused to acknowledge? Where
was I in denial? Where was I an enabler? For
example, I know a woman who was completely surprised
when her husband left her. She went on to tell
me that she always gave him total freedom to
do whatever he wanted: trips that lasted a month
at a time and little or no responsibility in
rearing their children are just a couple of items
on the list. She handled it all. Translation:
she was an enabler and gave him the rope that
was needed to strangle the marriage. Acknowledge
where you didn't do what you needed to
do. Accept responsibility. Responsibility if
empowerment.
3. Exactly
what are you resisting?
Why can't you
see the truth and accept responsibility? Why
do you suppose you cannot accept the reality
of your Life as it is now? These are questions
that must be addressed. What do you gain by remaining
a victim? Are you afraid of facing the truth?
Are you living in what you think should be versus
what is? Do you enjoy being a victim? Do you
like the fact that being a victim absolves you
of any responsibility and therefore any positive
action?
4. If you are
resisting the reality of your life, consider
doing a turnaround and simply go with the flow
of your life's direction.
Fighting reality
is a useless business. The more you resist something
the more it will persist. Consider the flow of
a river. What does it feel like to swim against
the current? That is what you do when you cannot
accept what is.
5. Do you allow
your fear of the unknown to run you?
Are you
afraid of your future? Are you afraid of being
alone? What exactly are you afraid of? I recently
heard someone say that they spend so much time
worrying and little or nothing of what they worry
about actually comes true! Do you see the insanity
of that? As far as the future, we don�t
know from day to day what the future holds for
us. How about if you believed that your future
was going to be just fine instead of being in
fear? What if everything happens for a reason?
6. Consider
your perspective on life.
Your attitude. What
is it? Do you believe that life is hard and unjust?
Do you see all that is wrong and nothing that
might be right? Let me tell you something, not
only does your attitude affect how you handle
life; it can actually determine your reality.
If you believe that life is too hard then that
is exactly what life will be for you. Kind of
like a self-fulfilling prophesy.
7. Do things
differently.
If your victim hood along with it's
blame and resentment is not working for you (and
I guarantee it isn't) then for heaven's
sake, do things differently. Try on a new perspective.
Examine the truth of your life versus your own
personal interpretations. Take responsibility.
Take actionable steps forward. Stop resisting.
Get out and do new things, meet new people and
don't isolate yourself. Get back into
the swing of things.
8. Learn from
your experience and use that new wisdom for empowerment.
Once you see the life lessons of your marriage
and divorce (and believe me they are numerous
and impactful) you can use that wisdom to be
a better person, to help you to become the person
that you truly want to be. Everything that happens
to us in life has a hidden lesson for us if we
only look for it. Might there actually be a silver
lining in this storm cloud?
9. Consider
the costs of remaining a victim?
Do you want
to live your life as a bitter and angry person?
Is that how you ant to be seen? If you have children,
is victim hood what you want them to model? How
to you want to be seen? Do you realize that as
a victim you have no power to change your life?
Remaining a victim is a very bleak picture.
10. Choose
a new and better life.
Think of all the decisions
and choices you make during the course of a day.
Are they moving you away from being a victim
or keeping you stuck there? Stop and think before
you make important and even not so important
decisions or choices. Our choices define us and
determine the course of our life.
In closing,
I want to share a few bits of wisdom from the
Dalai Lama:
When you lose,
don't lose the lesson. Follow the three
R's: respect for self, respect for others
and responsibility for all your actions. Remember
that not getting what you want is sometimes a
stroke of luck. Judge your success by what you
had to give up in order to get it.
Author's Bio
Shelley Stile
is an ACC certified Divorce Recovery Life Coach
and author who guides her clients to let go the
pain of their divorce and move on to create new
and vibrant lives after divorce. Shelley has been
through her own divorce so she knows first-hand
about the journey of divorce recovery. Shelley
coaches her clients on a one-on-one basis and
also leads tele-seminars and workshops. She has
published powerful articles and books on life
after divorce and is the author of the new book,
95 Transformational Tips for Letting Go and Moving
On After Your Divorce.
She is a certified
coach and member of the International Coaches
Federation, the governing body for Life Coaching.
Shelley trained with the Coaches Training Institute
and the Ford Institute for Integrative Coaching's
Spiritual Divorce Recovery.
Receive her free,
powerful e-book, The 10 Secrets to Coping with
Divorce', and her monthly ' Take Back Your
Life After Divorce' Newsletter by going to her
web site or contact Shelley at her
email to schedule a free consultation and
sample session of divorce coaching. For more information
on Divorce Recovery Coaching go to her
web site.
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