Ep. 116 – What Can You Learn from Your Divorce

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;23;28
Unknown
Hello, Everybody out there. Hope you’re having an amazing day. Today we’re going to talk about learning from our divorce. So if you’re ready, let’s get started. Hello, Daryn. How are you? I’m good. How are you? Why are you laughing? I always laugh. I know you do. That’s a good sign. Yeah. Yeah. Anything new? Lots of great things going on.

00;00;24;01 – 00;00;48;21
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. As we get ready for fall. Well, I guess fall is upon us. How about the weather the other day? Yeah, it’s. We’ve had our. I would say, first cold. Um. Snap. Yeah. Of weather here in sunny south Florida, which is always. It always reminds us as to why we live here. One of the reasons why we live here.

00;00;48;21 – 00;01;08;24
Unknown
Right. It’s so beautiful outside. Well, it’s just. It’s sunny and it’s crisp and it’s cool outside and. Yeah. So chilly for me. Yeah, but, you know, it comes and goes so quickly. We always say in Florida, if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes. Right. Right. It is back there getting a little warmer. Yeah, it will.

00;01;08;24 – 00;01;35;21
Unknown
It will. So today we’re going to talk about learning from your divorce. Yeah. And I think it’s a great episode to talk about. I think so. I think learning from past circumstances, experiences. Yeah. Is always the way to grow and to learn what not to do. Again, what you liked, what you didn’t like. I know we’ve touched on this in various episodes, but here we’re really going to get in and focus on it.

00;01;35;26 – 00;02;04;13
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, we’ve talked in the past about not just failing forward, but learning from your mistakes and making you stronger and wiser. And I think that when you learn from your mistakes, you’re definitely growing. You’re definitely moving on to a better place. Yeah. And hopefully in addition to that and I think one of the most important things is not to make the most the same mistakes over and over again.

00;02;04;13 – 00;02;30;11
Unknown
Right? Right. I was trying to think of that that that saying about making a mistake once, shame on whatever. I couldn’t remember it. But there are definitely a lot of things out there that talk about making the same mistake twice. Right. And one of the things that I don’t think we got an actual stat on it, but we do know that the Googles tell us that the divorce rate for second and third marriages and moving forward is higher than first marriages.

00;02;30;12 – 00;03;06;13
Unknown
So what is what is that telling us as you know, as as a community, it’s telling us that we’re not learning from our mistakes. Right. We’re going into new relationships and maybe not taking the time. So I think it’s really important as you move forward and you recover from your divorce, that you take the time to really think about and jot down and study what you liked, what you didn’t like, and what you can improve on, and maybe the things that you want to really focus on in your next partnership.

00;03;06;14 – 00;03;29;06
Unknown
You know, ask yourself, what do you want to be different and how you can contribute to that? Absolutely. So I know we are going to break this down, right? Yeah. Okay. So I’ll start. So I think one of the first things is owning your part in the issues, in your your relationship. You know, the reason people get divorced are many.

00;03;29;09 – 00;03;56;07
Unknown
However, in many cases it wasn’t mostly or typically about one particular person. We spoke about this recently and that, you know, while it may be one issue, one circumstance that really like the straw that broke the camel’s back. Yeah, that it really is. You know, typically both spouses that made mistakes they made error and judgments. They were engaged in hurtful actions.

00;03;56;07 – 00;04;26;27
Unknown
You know, whether intentional or not, large or small, these acts erode or destroy relationships over time. Right? Sure. So it’s not easy learning about yourself and your history and what you you actually contributed to the end of a relationship. But on the other hand, as we just said, it’s a good place to learn what you want, what you need, and what you brought into that relationship and what you don’t want in the next one.

00;04;26;29 – 00;04;53;10
Unknown
So investing your time in getting to know yourself and what you’re all about, you know, and what that looks like includes things like potentially, like we said, sitting down, reading, journal eyes, journaling, sorry, therapy, of course, coaching. This is one of the things we reflect we looked at when we coach with someone. We look at their past, their present, their future.

00;04;53;11 – 00;05;14;24
Unknown
Right. We look at those, we learn from those and we grow a future and goals. And when you examine your mistake X and you learn from them, you’re less likely to repeat them in your next relationship. So as we said, you may choose your next partner more wisely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, and you know, this holds true.

00;05;14;24 – 00;05;35;14
Unknown
I know we’re talking about divorce, but this could be in any relationship you’re in. Absolutely. It could be a relationship with a friend that you lost a connection with, you lost friendship with or family member. Family member, coworker, coworker. Yeah, right. So it could be any relationship? Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. The next thing is building your resilience or your ability to bounce back.

00;05;35;21 – 00;05;56;15
Unknown
I mean, you learning ways to cope with anger and grief and pain and fear. You know, we all seem to have buttons that kind of push us or triggers trigger us into our dark side. Yeah. So to speak. But there are ways. Yeah, we use that expression. Don’t, don’t, don’t poke the bear. Sure. And there are ways to diffuse them.

00;05;56;17 – 00;06;23;03
Unknown
So it’s best to talk with someone who cares about you, Who Who’s maybe a friend or a family member. That’s not going to inflame the situation. They’re not going to try to fix it. They’re more just going to be a listening, correct. That’s what we do in coaching and listening. You know, when you take control of your emotions, which we try to help people understand how to how to control their emotions, you can let go of grudges.

00;06;23;10 – 00;06;57;19
Unknown
You can forgive and focus on your future self. True when you turn to friends or family to stay healthy and feel loved, then you can focus on self care and self development. You know, we used to say in martial arts being ten feet tall and bulletproof. And what that means is, you know, ten feet tall that you can always keep your eye on the goal, always be able to see that the destination where you’re going and when you’re bulletproof, all the negativity is bouncing off of you.

00;06;57;19 – 00;07;35;05
Unknown
You can handle the negativity because you’re focused on that goal. So you want to be ten feet tall and bulletproof. Yeah. Yeah. The next one I want to talk about is that it’s okay to be alone. Many times when people end a relationship or a marriage, they look to fill that gap with someone else, a romantic interest. And it’s really something that, you know, if you look at therapy and you talk to therapists, isn’t really the best way of finding your your peace and moving on.

00;07;35;07 – 00;08;03;28
Unknown
So after the divorce process is over, maybe one can feel, you know, you’re going to feel down and your confidence level is definitely going to be low and it’s helpful to meet new people and potential partners, but you want to make sure that you’re not moving into those relationships chips without first learning who you are. So I like to say, you know, jump into a new relationship with yourself.

00;08;04;01 – 00;08;38;27
Unknown
Yeah. Find out who you are, find out what really makes you tick. Do the things that maybe you have thought about doing for a while, that you haven’t had the time during your marriage or your relationship to really focus in on. You know, it’s important to learn to be okay with the stillness of being alone. I was talking to one of my one of our children the other day, and I think I shared the conversation with Jeff, but I was talking about like she was saying how uncomfortable she is when she has downtime.

00;08;38;29 – 00;09;09;07
Unknown
I wonder who she learned that from me, of course. But it takes time to feel comfortable with yourself. It takes time to be in like the quiet and just sit there and just really discover who you are. And for many people, keeping busy is a form of buffering, right? Be aware of that, because when we talk about buffering and we’ve discussed this in other episodes, it’s really important that you recognize when you’re doing it.

00;09;09;09 – 00;09;38;17
Unknown
You know, buffering is when you go to something to feel better. So it can be drinking, it can be eating, overeating, it can be surfing the net. We always talk about that Netflix saying or getting on, you know, just zoning out with TV, things like this. But it can also be overworking. Sure. And so when you still your mind and you learn to be okay with who you are alone, it’s something that a lot of people learn, learn, have to learn how to do.

00;09;38;19 – 00;10;02;20
Unknown
Many of us never take the time to do that right. And I think it’s okay to get out there and meet new people and experience different activities to to kind of build up your confidence and build up your is probably get to know yourself a little better when you do meet other people. But I think we’re talking about more of a relationship with somebody, a romantic relationship.

00;10;02;20 – 00;10;31;29
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. And right now you know number this one is for me about relationship with your self. So like I know recently I started taking up yoga again, which is something I do for myself. Right. And you started taking up meditation again? Yes. Right. So find something maybe that you enjoy doing by yourself. I have a friend that she goes to the movies by herself all the time, and I thought, That’s quite interesting.

00;10;32;02 – 00;10;58;07
Unknown
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever done that maybe a couple of times in my life. But but you know, something to try on for size, right? Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that you may realize quickly is that co-parenting apart comes with a lot of new skills that you’re going to need to learn. I think one of them might be like cooking for an example.

00;10;58;09 – 00;11;22;24
Unknown
You know, if you’re not used to being the cook in the family and now you have the kids and there’s a kitchen staring at, you may need to get in there and learn some cooking skills, you know, and that could be fun. You know, the bottom line is that you’re going to have to learn a different skill to co-parent after divorce than you were co-parenting during your marriage.

00;11;22;27 – 00;12;05;13
Unknown
So you can develop a cooperative relationship and cut each other some slack, especially in the early stages of the divorce. And you may even be able to help each other get up to speed in the areas that are new to you. Right? Because typically in most marriages, people have either known or unknown parenting skills. Right? I call it kind of like there’s a pie and what needs to happen with the children, everything from who’s going to take care of schooling, responsibilities to setting doctor’s appointments to the routine in the morning pickups, you know, the routine in the night, everything that you’re taking, visits, weekend activities, all that kind of stuff.

00;12;05;13 – 00;12;25;26
Unknown
Sorry, our dogs in the background, obviously saw something and apologized. But, you know, the way in which you co-parent during your marriage is going to be different than the way you’re going to co-parent those responsibilities. Now, I see that happen all the time, right? Is that now this person has to take on these new responsibilities that the other party used to do, the other side used to do.

00;12;26;00 – 00;12;44;11
Unknown
And I think this is important because it benefits the kids to know that the parents are working together. Exactly. And, you know, and like you said, I think it’s really important to give the other side, the other party, the other parent some a break. They’re not going to do it as well as you did if that was your responsibility.

00;12;44;11 – 00;13;19;17
Unknown
Right. So, you know, just realize that and really kind of work together, maybe even sharing some ideas as to how how you used to take on that responsibility. Right. Because they may they may enjoy those tips, Right? Yeah. And need them. Yeah. The next one I want to talk about is money, because that’s always something that you have to learn as well, is, you know, during the marriage, basically there was usually one person generally that handled the financials and one person that focused on other parts of the relationship.

00;13;19;17 – 00;13;43;20
Unknown
So when you divorce, you usually it comes a change in the financial circumstances. Of course, and there’s a lifestyle change typically involved as well. So learning from your marriage might be how things were handled then versus how they should be handled now. What you can take from what worked well during the marriage financially, you know, learn some of those skills.

00;13;43;20 – 00;14;01;25
Unknown
Maybe it’s a skill of how saving was done or how bills were paid or whatever, whatever it is for you that you take the good, you bring those with you, maybe even ask some questions if you need to from your ex, if that was the person that handled it and then, you know, develop your new skills from there.

00;14;01;28 – 00;14;33;11
Unknown
Yeah. Next thing that is is really neat is that you can learn how to build peace. In other words, both of you can stay friends with mutual friends. There’s no need to turn friends away from your ex through blame and shame and talking bad about the other person. So I think it’s an opportunity to learn about how to how to have good relationships and how to bring peace into those relationships.

00;14;33;14 – 00;15;04;08
Unknown
The divorce is certainly an opportunity to learn that it’s tough at times, right? Because many people, for many people, it’s their immediate reaction is to distance, you know, the people closest to your ex. So that probably is going to be their family, which are the in-laws, is your children’s grandparents. And, you know, the not so much the cousins, I would think, But, you know, the niece, the the uncles and the aunts and all those.

00;15;04;10 – 00;15;32;06
Unknown
And then also even their good friends. So the the friends that were maybe more aligned with your ex. So gives you an opportunity to build peace, especially important in today’s world, right? How we can show our children how to maintain love for a people that initially only they may see and you may see as the enemy, right? Or on the other side, right aligned with the other side.

00;15;32;09 – 00;16;05;26
Unknown
What an opportunity to show your children that you can do this. I did this in my relationship with the paternal family For my children. I really made an effort to, you know, just do simple acts of kindness to to to to have a knowledge, an olive branch, reach with them, which was like just sending a happy birthday on my ex’s mother’s birthday, which I didn’t tell the kids about, But somehow it gets back to them.

00;16;05;26 – 00;16;30;24
Unknown
Right. Right. So I think I think it’s called being the bigger person. Yeah. You know, and no matter if your ex is talking bad about you, if you don’t talk bad about them, it reflects great on you. Correct. You know, so talk about your exes, if you would. Hope they would talk about you, you know, and always show up, I like to say is like show up as your best self, your authentic self.

00;16;30;27 – 00;16;57;06
Unknown
What would you want someone or how would you want someone to act towards you or towards your family? Right. Right. And and maybe look at coming from a place of acting as in a way that you would want the others to act. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Absolutely. 100%. The other thing I think that divorce can teach us is don’t fight over the small stuff.

00;16;57;10 – 00;20;23;08
Unknown
Right? Right. So many times when.