For two years, I was blind. A dug out ditch. An empty pocket. A life support system for my beautiful child and my work and my family of animals. I staggered from day to night to day with no joy, no sense of anticipation, no hope. I struggled mightily to crawl toward those things, but I kept slipping backwards into … Read More
Know Thy Process
Nearly a year after our divorce was finalized, Pete told me he wanted more parenting time. Imagine a cartoon character whose eyes pop out of their sockets and whose skull flies open to release explosion smoke, and you’ll get the picture of how I felt about this request. In the two months it took for us to put a new … Read More
Real healing begins when you release the armor of blame
You have a story of your marriage and how it has led you to divorce. He said, you said; he did, you did. It’s fixed, immutable. The wrongs, hurts, disappointments—all locked down in the deepest chambers of your heart. Of course, you can’t change what’s happened. But you can change the stories you tell yourself. And this has unbelievable power … Read More
Make a love project
A year and a half into my divorce, I took a job at an ad agency after working for myself, from home, for 15 years. This required shoehorning my life into the conflicting timing requirements of my workday and my son’s preschool. Pete and I worked out a delicate dance that involved me showing up at his place with Teddy … Read More
Regulate your biorhythm
One of the most jarring dimensions of co-parenting is the irregularity of our biorhythm. And it’s one of the most challenging to resolve. From day to day or week to week, we have different combinations of people coming and going from our home. This can effect everything from our sleep to our daily schedules to our ability to allocate resources … Read More
Give Yourself Breathing Room
My mother never let me go to sleep wearing a Band-Aid. She insisted a wound needed to breathe to heal best. I have found the same to be true in my emotional life. For years, I’ve been field testing the idea that when you fixate on the problem, you lock it in—therefore limiting air circulation and healing. I’ve noticed that … Read More
Name Your Divorce Tigers
When I was pregnant, I read a book called Birthing from Within. What I remember best from the book is the idea of a birth tiger, which points out: a woman’s labor is designed to stop when she encounters a tiger. This is a built in survival mechanism. Since women today don’t often encounter literal tigers while birthing, the book … Read More
Be Careful What You Wish For
When Pete started a new relationship a few months after moving out of our home, at first I wished for his relationship to fail. Why should his life skip right along without missing a beat when mine was entirely starved of music? Less than a year later, it was clear that Pete’s girlfriend Taylor had become an important and loving presence … Read More
The Wisdom to Know the Difference
When we go through a divorce process, so much of what happens is out of our hands. Being clear about what we can influence and what is definitely not ours to manage can help us conserve energy and emotion. Here’s a list I made for myself. The things you can not change The things you can change What your ex … Read More
Running Filters
When Pete would trigger in me something big—often in that rushed and complicated time of handing off our child—I’d get lost for a while in the old spin, the suffocating stories, the righteous rage. Day by day, with great reverence for my tender heart, I’d reel myself back in with a practice that I call “running filters” through which I … Read More
