So have a new expression and it goes like this. Yes, you can. Well, it’s not really mine, I have to be honest with you. Kind of like stole it from the sky. Cody on the Peloton. Love Cody. Give me some Cody. And let me remind you, I’m gonna say it a million times. It’s a 50 50 life. That’s just the way it is.
And when you can come to peace with the fact that life is a mixture of good days, bad days, bad years, good years, great years, It just makes life a bit easier to understand and be at peace with. 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. 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. Hi there. My most amazing friends. How are you now? Really? Tell me. Be honest with me. How are you doing today? Now, remember after divorce, but anytime actually in life, you’re gonna have good days and you’re gonna have bad days.
Or should I say more appropriately, right? You’re gonna have good moments and bad moments. I get that. Been there, done that. This is rough stuff. But you are strong and I know you have what it takes to move on from your divorce into a better, more amazing life because you know what? You are amazing.
You know when something bad happens to us, like we get served with the divorce papers, especially when we didn’t know it was coming. That’s not good. That’s bad. That’s that bad part, right? Y’all get that. So we’re not always supposed to feel good. Now, social media marketing, you know, everything you see on tv, they’d all want us to think and believe that life is all amazing.
We look amazing, feel amazing. Our families are perfect, et c. But, uh, that’s not reality, my friends. So for all of you newbies, and for all of you that have been listening to me for a while now, listen, I wanted to remind you that I named the podcast Your Amazing Divorce, which by the way, I get a lot of slack about, you know, I tell people the name of the podcast, your Amazing Divorce, and they’re like, what?
And they look at me and they’re like, yeah, amazing. In the same sentence with the word. I guess maybe for some, it’s a little over the top, but that’s okay. I’m gonna roll with it cuz I believe it and here’s why. I’ve been practicing marital and family laws and turning down in Florida now for 26 years and I’m also a certified life coach, and I went through my own divorce a million years ago.
Remarried now for 11 happy years. Okay. Not always happy, but mostly happy. Let’s just say much better. Yeah, so here’s what I noticed. I noticed, and I believe this for you, is that when I’m coaching people, either through the divorce as a lawyer and I see them years later, or as a life coach, I realize that they’re in such a better place.
Most of them, even without coaching from somebody like myself, seemed to get it. Like they seemed to realize that they were in a bad marriage. Things weren’t right. It ended for a reason. And then they move on and they grow and they end up being in a much better place. I had one client the other day and her and I were talking and she said, you know what, Doreen?
I actually called up my ex and I thanked him. I’m like, what? She goes, yeah, I called him up. I’m in such a better place. She just started this amazing business and I thanked him. I said, you know, Best thing you ever did to me was to file for a divorce. So anyhow, if you are like in a bad place, I just want you to know that we’re here for you and together we’re gonna get through.
You have the ability to learn and grow from your divorce, and that’s why I’m here to help you, give you some tools and things to figure it out, to let you know that you are not alone, that you will be okay, and in fact you will and can be better than, okay. You can be amazing. It’s really up to you.
So I’ve been thinking about all of you and what you’re dealing with, picking up the pieces and moving on. So I have a secret and a question you see after my divorce, and to be honest, a few. I had a lot of regret feelings that I was dealing with. Are you dealing with any feelings of regret stemming from the breakdown of your marriage?
I bet the answer is yes. For some of you, it may be a lot of regret that you’re thinking about it on a more regular basis, and for others it might creep in there every so often, you know? Go on a date and the guy’s a real dud or whatever and come back home and you’re like, Ugh, you know what? My husband wasn’t so bad.
My ex was pretty okay, but I don’t want you to get it stuck in that regret mode. But to be honest with yourself, you’re probably having some regret feelings every so often, regret around your kids, and a broken home regrets when things get rough for your alone on a Saturday night. So today I wanna dive into the feeling of regret and how you can use regret to your advantage to create a better life for yourself by avoiding the same mistakes and instead going for your.
So let’s start with the definition of regret. I, of course go straight to the Googles, and here’s what I found. Regret means as a feeling, a verb is to feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that has happened or been done. Especially the loss or missed opportunity to feel sorrow for the loss or absence of that pretty much may sum it up for you as.
But did you know that there is a way to deal with regret effectively, or should we say maybe more accurately not to deal with it? You’re like, what Dore? What are you talking about?
So regret can be a useful emotion. First of all, emotions, especially the ones you have after divorce, can be either emotions that are useful or that are not useful, even though they feel just plain horrific when you are feeling them. But these negative feelings like. Can help you to propel forward to the life you wanna create.
Now, when you feel regret, it likely is because of something you did or something you think you should have done right? Do you get what I’m saying? And all of these tools that I’m teaching, it’s not just because you went through a divorce or going through a divorce, you can use these in your everyday situations.
So let’s take a rather harsh example. Let’s say you had an affair and your ex found out about it and you ended up getting divorced. So in that circumstance, maybe you are thinking, well, that was a big mistake. That’s the regret thought, right? It cost me my marriage. But that kind of thinking is past thinking, thinking about what happened in the past and what you cannot undo.
You know, it’s done. It’s. But it’s not as easy as just moving on. That’s not the purpose of this. The purpose here is to learn and grow. You see, if you can learn from a past mistake and realize that it was not the best choice, then we’re on to something here. Then regret can be a helpful emotion. You can move past the regret to a place of growth so you can learn and not make the mistake again.
So what about if you were the one that was cheated on, right? It’s just another example of looking at something in the past. So if you were the one that did the wrong in the relationship, and let me just suggest this and get it out there. It takes two to tango guys, okay? I know that there’s some real shitheads out there that you know, shouldn’t be in relationships to begin with, but most of the time in most marriage, It’s both people’s fault, right?
So whether you had an affair, he had an affair, there was a lack of communication, money issues, children problems, whatever it is, it’s a combination of both people. And so your regrets about the breakdown of your marriage or your relationship is something that hopefully you’re just gonna learn from.
So you can think about the regret and how you can make a different choice in your next relationship. That’s when regret is helpful. So the issue is that most of us, when we feel regret, we have a tendency defend it by turning it around to what I call the blame game. It sounds like. But you know, if he was more attentive, if he was home, or if he was more romantic, if he worked harder, I would’ve never been tempted when that guy came around, you know, to pursue him or to make his life miserable or whatever.
We could have worked things out. You see the difference here in this mindset, you spend a lot of time focused on what the other person did or didn’t do. Casting blame rather than just owning it. And this kind of thinking about regret serves absolutely no purpose for your growth, your future, and your amazing life.
It just keeps you. No growth, no learning what you can do differently the next time around in your next marriage, your next relationship. No reaching for your dreams and the life you want and becoming the best version of the person you can be. I hope you think about this and how if you focus on the past, when you think about regret and how someone else did you wrong, that this is just a worthless use of time and energy.
It doesn’t serve your future. So may I suggest that you think about regret as not what you could have done differently in the past to what you can absolutely do differently in the future so you can work on avoiding future regret. Got it. It’s not the easiest of lessons to teach, but it is one of those things that once it clicks, it clicks and it can be amazing.
There is a famous quote from an American actor, John Barrymore. I love this quote, and it goes like this. A man is not old until regrets. Take the place of dreams. It’s the difference between being stuck in the past and looking forward to creating and reaching your dreams. That’s what I want for you to look forward and to learn and grow and blossom and become the person you envision your future self to be.
We can’t undo what already happened it was meant to be, and so it was. And so when you think of the past, let it set you free, that it’s over done and gone. You have today, tomorrow, and the next day and on to change your life and to avoid regret. To make the choices to get to the life that you want, that you deserve to say to yourself, Hey, listen, self, that was supposed to happen so that I could be right where I am today to grow from it and move forward, stronger, better, happier.
What matters is that I make a different choice now.
Let me just take a pause here because I want you to get a piece of paper and sit down in a quiet place and do a little exercise with me. No tv, no kids, no dogs, no anything, just you and your paper. I want you to close your eyes and envision your future self five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from.
Even 25 years from now, think of your future self. You’re 25 years older than you are today. Can you close your eyes and envision yourself there? What choices can you make today to avoid regret years from now? For me, I would regret not being here with you and doing this podcast. Had I not been brave enough to put myself out there, I’d regret.
I might regret not eating healthy today. You know, if I was to get sick in the future or to exercise, or maybe I would regret not spending more time with my children years from now, I would regret that for some of you, maybe it’s starting a new career or a business. If you’re gonna regret it 10 years from now, the biggest disappointment would’ve been in my mind for you, that you could have done it.
You could have accomplished this goal of yours, but you didn’t put yourself out there and take the risk. What might your future regret look like based on the choices you make? You know, decisions today to take care of your future self are key. Think about it. Think about your goals. Think about what you want, your world, your life, your years later down the line to look like and go for it.
You know, I’m gonna talk in another episode about reaching goals, but when you think about your future self and what you want that to look like, I love to work backwards. You know, for example, and I use this a lot, is that if you wanna get into the best shape ever, You know what you need to do. So if you know that a year from now you wanna look a certain way, you wanna be a certain kind of weight or health, or maybe put more muscle on whatever it is, I know you know what you have to do.
You’ve gotta work out, you’ve gotta be dedicated, you’ve gotta eat well, and it’s pretty simple. So now you just gotta write it down and you just gotta follow. You don’t wanna have regret years from now for the things that you know you want and that you can accomplish, and I know you can. Absolutely. A hundred percent.
Yes you can. You can accomplish anything you want, anything you set your mind to do. So you have a choice right now today to stop punishing yourself with regret and to create the life you envision for. Don’t let regret steal your future, your dreams. Look back, forget the blame. Learn from things, learn from mistakes, and move forward.
Instead, by showing up and becoming the best version for your future self, take the risk. Go for it. You got it. If one way doesn’t work, try another way. Just keep trying. You got. I think the worst regret in life would’ve been what you could have done, achieved, been experienced, and you didn’t do it. Listen, my amazing friends have a most amazing day, and until next time, love yourself.
Give yourself a big hug. You deserve it. Thanks so much for listening. Get further information and some free secrets on how to make your life amazing after [email protected]. And remember my friends? Yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce. See you there. Views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of, nor are they endorsed by Yaha Family Law Group or your Divorce Law Center, their respective officers, directors, employees, agents, or representatives.
The content of your amazing divorce is for entertainment and educational purposes only. None of the content on your amazing divorce should be considered legal advice, nor does anything herein create an attorney-client relationship. As always, consult a lawyer for your legal questions.
