Ep. 22 – A New Year

Hello, my friends and happy new year as we start this new year, I thought it appropriate to discuss where you are after your divorce or breakup. What I will refer to as your mindset starting point. And when we speak today about your mindset starting point. And the stages of your mindset. Keep in mind that this is yours, your starting point in the healing and growth process after divorce is unique to only you, the way you are affected by the divorce is yours and cannot and should not be compared to that of anyone else.

Okay, so what’s going on with you? What’s going on with me? Well, been a trying year, as we all know. More trying times at this moment, but let’s be optimistic. Let’s look forward to an amazing and happy new year on so many levels together. We can make this happen. So let’s get started. What if I told you that your divorce could end up being one of the best things that could happen to you?

I’m Doreen, Yaa, marital, and family, lawyer, and certified life coach. I’ve been coaching and consulting women for over 26 years. I’ve seen it all. Now I’m sharing my expertise and my own personal experiences to help you turn a difficult time into your amazing divorce. Why do I want to start with understanding your mindset stage?

Because I know in my heart of heart that you will heal and grow and maybe even appreciate, and eventually be thankful for going through this tough time. Many of us don’t take the time to listen and understand where we are in life on so many levels. We’re just so busy and busy on so many different levels.

Basically like check in with ourselves the way we would check in with a loved one, by knowing where you are today, as you start another new year, we can take time. I suggest each month, this year to see where we are in the progress. You have made to heal and grow from the divorce and give yourself the praise and yes, the high five you deserve.

And if you’re not moving forward, then to think about why and make the changes. So let’s open up our minds to all the possibilities of head for you this year. And let’s get started, you know, without question. Divorce is one of the most difficult and challenging things you will encounter in your life. The negative thoughts and feelings that you may have for months or even years, but with the right mindset and hard work by you to see the positive and basically change your story.

And your thoughts. I am hopeful that you can get to a happier and amazing place sooner than later. You know, I created this podcast for this purpose to bring insight and tools for you to try on for size and considering this journey of. This being the case, the first place it makes sense to start is to know where you are today in the healing and growth process.

Again, this is different for each of you. It is a private exercise that you can share or choose not to share. It’s all up to you. It’s just a chance to be kind and loving to yourself without any judgment you see, knowing first where you are provide you the insight to be the observer of your predominant thoughts.

About your divorce or breakup. You see, knowing your thoughts gives you the opportunity to work on reframing them to thoughts that are serving you, because your thoughts create a feeling and a feeling creates an action or inaction, and then you have your results. You know, you need to work on your thoughts when you do not like the results in your.

It’s plain and simple. It’s the guiding principle of my teaching to you. And as a life coach, you see most people never, ever take the time to slow down and think about their thoughts. In other words, why are they choosing one thought over another thought? Thoughts truly are optional. It’s why you can have a circumstance in the world and people will think about it and act upon the same circumstance in very different ways.

Haven’t we seen a lot of that over the last number of years. My goal for you is to help you see, or be the observer of your thoughts and help you to make gradual changes, to have a more useful mindset. That will start to heal you and create those results you want. And if I’m talking about things I’ve talked about in the past, it’s because you have to continuously work on this.

You see our brain is not set up to work in this faction to slow down and to think about what it wants to. It is on a knee jerk reaction. It is there to protect you to do what it knows, whether it’s hurting you or not changing and making a shift is not, it’s not a race though. It should be done on your own personal timeframe.

There is no right or wrong. There is awareness first to see where you are starting and to then. Through help from me, a therapist, other resources, to see how you are doing over time and to keep moving forward and healing. You see my friend, different coaches and therapists go about this and their own unique and individual ways with their clients and patients.

But although the process or the program or the therapist, or the coach may have their own unique spin on. They really are. I promise you all, generally speaking the same language I suggest there are generally six states of mindset stages. And what I’m trying to do with you today is to get you to think about your starting point of where you fit in to the six states of mindset stages.

Say that by times fast. Through your stages of mindset about your divorce and each of you falls into a different stage and sometimes in between stages. So the six stages that I have come up about your thoughts about the divorce. What I call your mindset are one survival, two acceptance, three perseverance.

Four growth, five excitement and six amazingness. Now these six stages are just mine from many years of practice as a family, lawyer, and life coach working with clients, just like you. And as I am not a therapist nor do I have any formal training or education in social. This is just based on my own insight, through my own experience with divorce, my continued education independently, from any degree in social work, from my readings and my self coaching from my clients and training as a life coach.

So let’s take some time together now to. Listen for me to explain and go through each of the six mindset stages that I’ve come up with of divorce and ask that you see where you might fall into any of these stages and how you might start to work on your thoughts about your divorce to help move you up the ladder to the amazingness that lives in you.

That I know you have, that I know you can. So the first stage is survival. You are in survival mindset stage. When you generally have thoughts like life isn’t fair. I have been wronged. I hate him for doing this to us. I will never have a good relationship. I’m a loser. I am not lovable. I can’t believe this has happened.

Sound familiar. When you have these thoughts, the general feelings that come with them might be anger, sadness, hopelessness, blamed, denial, and fear. Just to name a few. If you fall into this stage, you could start to reframe your thoughts to thoughts. Even though I am feeling this way. I can acknowledge that it is possible that I can heal and grow from this, that I will survive while it hurts today.

I am. Okay. I have my health, I have my kids, I have shelter, food, and clean drinking water. Some people don’t have these things. I do have things to be thankful for. I am open. To the healing process. You see how I reframed the thoughts, the negative thoughts to thoughts that might better surf me. The next stage.

Number two is acceptance, you know, after you go from survival mode, just trying to basically get up in the morning, you know, and STR find the strength to carry on and to do what you need to do that. you generally start moving into the next mindset stage of acceptance. You start to shift into the acceptance of the divorce as a general state of mindset, acceptance that this is, it’s just a new reality that you are now divorced or that you’re getting divorced or that you did break up.

And that you’re now in a position where you’re adjusting to single. In this stage of acceptance, you may have thoughts. Like, I feel overwhelmed on all the new changes and adjustments. I wake up with a lot of anxiety about the unknown as to the future. I’m so unsure how to make my life work and my kids’ life make it okay.

And better I’m feeling alone and no one really gets it sound like you. When you have these kind of thoughts, you likely might feel anxiety, overwhelmed, uncertainty, confusion, fear, and sadness. Now your thoughts might not be like these exactly, but you know what I’m speaking about and your feelings might be different, but I know you get where I’m coming.

If you think you fall into this state of mind, this stage of acceptance as to your current thoughts, you might wanna consider reframing your thoughts with thoughts. Like, well, I am concerned for my future and I have many things to handle at this time as to changes. And everything’s stemming from my divorce.

I have my own back though. I will take one day at a time. Set forth a game plan and take care of myself along the way. And this includes getting the help I might need. I know that each day I can get a little stronger. I’m going to be kind and loving to myself and allow myself to feel better. Just one day, one step at a time, then you start moving into what I call perseverance stage.

That may be the next more often MI mindset that you have now. What do I mean by the next more often mindset that you have? And maybe I should have explained this earlier, but keep in mind that these mindset stages are not like a straight line through them. In other words, you might find that you more often than not are in one mindset.

Stage over another that’s the stage you would be falling into. The difference is that there will be one more stage, one more thought process. One more mindset, more often on a daily basis that is dominating your general thoughts through the day about your divorce. About where you are in life about your future.

Remember you will move through the mindset stages in your own timeframe. If you are not moving after a period of time, though, you’re kind of stuck, then it might be that you need to do more work on your thoughts. Maybe bring in some other tools to assist you along the way. Tools like one-on-one coaching meditation, exercise, yoga, better eating, caring for your body.

The beauty here is in the awareness, my friend, this is the key. And then you get to take action or it’s okay to decide to this side, to stay in that stage a bit longer with the goal of healing. If you’re grieving. and in the stage of survival mode, you may need to work through that longer. You understand, you see many people want to also jump to great to awesomeness, to I’m okay.

By avoiding the work of letting their feelings be there, they buffer with false pleasures, which, which I’ve spoken about a lot, probably too much. No, there’s never too. They try to ignore the pain or the feeling they don’t want to deal with. I truly suggest that you not do that when you’re in perseverance stage, which by definition, according to the search that I did on the Googles means steady course of action, especially in spite of difficulties, sound familiar.

You may be having thoughts. Like I am hanging in there. I’m doing okay. I’m making progress while things are still challenging. At times, I am starting to see some glimmers of hope. If you are in this mindset, you could reframe your thinking to go a step further and expand your thoughts to things like I’ve done.

Pretty good. So far high five to me. I know that if I keep on this course taking little steps every day, that things can only continue to improve for me. I can see now why the divorce happened, or at least start to see it and things that I might want to look at avoiding in the future. So I don’t recycle certain old behaviors, especially in romantic relationships that aren’t healthy.

This, my friend is a stage where you can start to open up the thoughts that things can better serve you and the results you want, that your thoughts are key to that. Like, I may not have all the answers and that’s okay. I’m gonna decide today to just feel better next stage number four, growth. I love the growth stage, cuz that’s where all the, the changes really happen.

Although they really started happening way before that. Cause you gotta go through the negative, you gotta go through all the pain and suffering through all the different stages that we discussed, but then you can get to the stage of growth and you will. So the growth mindset stages, where you start to have more thoughts about coming to terms with the.

You may still be upset and angry from time to time, but you were starting to see that there were issues in your relationship and cues that you should have taken in and understood that you can come to learn from and grow from. You might even be looking at things that happened in your childhood, in your family, and you start to take responsibility for what you want your future to look.

Everything from how you want your family to be, what kind of relationship you want, what you expect from that relationship, what you tolerate, what you won’t tolerate, what, how you wanna grow physically, emotionally on all different levels, you know, in the growth stage, you may have thoughts. Like I can understand why things in our marriage fell.

I am optimistic about my future and creating what that looks like. I can use my divorce and everything I went to to assure I don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. I can see now that my future is full of real possibilities. I am ready to take action. So reframing thoughts here, you’re gonna be like, but what am I reframing?

I mean, these start to sound positive. But you have to keep practicing. You have to keep being aware of your thoughts because in order to create a new habit, it has to be repeated. And that includes my friend, your thoughts about things. You have a circumstance, it creates a thought, and that’s where you can make real significant changes in your future.

So you can reframe by some more positive mindset items like. Things like life is not always perfect. Things happen. Unfortunately like sickness and death and divorce that are out of our control life is truly a balance of good and bad. It’s not all good. It’s not possible to have all good. I acknowledge that I do have power over my thoughts, feelings, and results.

I am willing to take real planned action, real set, forth planning. And action to create the life I want for me. Then the next stage stage number five is excitement. In this mindset stage, you will generally have thoughts that are positive as to your divorce. You may find a new burst of energy more often than not.

In this stage. You find that you are not thinking as much about the past, but instead are thinking more about your. and it’s exciting. It might be scary and exciting at the same time. In this stage, you may have thoughts like, wow, look how far I have come. I don’t understand what I was so angry and upset about.

I want to accomplish certain goals and will do whatever I need to do to get there. I am HAPPI. You can include a reframe in this stage, bring in thoughts, such as gratitude for everything that has happened in your life. That brought you where you are sitting right now, here today to see your own personal growth and strength, and to open up unconditional acceptance and love for who you are at this very moment in that stage.

This is a mindset stage for real change and setting forth to a life you want, you will find yourself having new desires. Maybe it is to get back into the dating scene. Oh boy, I’m ready to go. Maybe get on some dating sites or go back to school or start a new hobby or project. And then you’re ready to take.

It’s a beautiful stage of mindset as it’s where all the pain of the divorce has made you stronger and ready for your amazingness. It’s like training for a marathon. It is uncomfortable and painful training. Each day, you have gotten stronger and all your work has paid off. You are better than you were before, and you appreciate this and you know, you are ready for the race.

The last stage, the sixth stage is kind of a stage I put together, but it’s an important stage. I think it’s important. I hope you do as. But whether you do or you don’t, I hope that you’re getting something from this episode about the various stages and controlling your thoughts and reframing. So the sixth stage amazingness, why is a name of my podcast, your amazing divorce.

Well, This might answer a little bit about that. The next mindset stage is what I have termed finding your life’s calling the value that you wanna share with the world, your happy place, all about you. You see, once you’ve gone through the mindset stages of divorce and you have grown and learned, and yes, you have survived.

My friend, you now have the opportunity to live your best life to do. To not just be okay with being okay or average or even good for that matter. You see, most people are okay with average and good, but I suggest that you are here on this earth, on this planet for not just average or good or mediocre you are here to have and be amazing.

And that’s personal to what you think is amazing. Your life’s calling. What makes you happy? What makes you smile? What makes you warm inside this stage requires constant focus and growth and planning and control of one’s mindset. In this stage, you have thoughts daily that you can do anything you set your mind to do create believe and yes, accomplish.

You see most people, like I said are okay with good. I want you to consider your great. Your amazingness and I wanna help you to get there. So in closing my friends, my beautiful friend, may I suggest that you think about your current mindset stage and where you are without. And I say it again without judgment check in with yourself routinely, be that kind observ.

As you heal and grow, appreciate each stage in getting there and getting through it and give yourself a high five, be loving and kind to yourself along the journey, my friend, and always know that wherever you are, this two will change and you will be okay. You do have it in you. And there will be a day that you will feel much differently than you do, right.

You will not be here stuck forever. You got this. Okay. So have a most amazing, super, super, super weak. And if you have any thoughts or comments, you can always reach me at D YFA Y a FFA life balance, lawyer.com. That’s D like Dore. YFA Y a FFA life balance, lawyer.com or visit my [email protected].

I know that this has been a lot. I hope you take the time to give yourself the attention. You need to think about what I’ve talked with you about today. You’re amazing. You will get there now. Have a blessed week and go out and love yourself.

And until next time, have an amazing rest of the day. And remember, yes, you can buy everybody. Thanks so much for listening for tips, updates, and expert advice. Be sure to visit your amazing divorce.com. And remember my friends. Yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce. See you. Views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by YFA family law group or your divorce law center, their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or representatives.

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