Ep. 46 – Anger & Divorce

Okay, my beautiful friends, and how are you? Hope you’re having a good day. Listen, today we are going to talk about anger. Oh yeah. That creepy little gut wrenching feeling many of you are dealing with stemming from your divorce and your ex. So if you’re wondering what to do with all these anger, feeling, Wondering if you will ever get past them onto the other side.

Let’s talk about it. Let’s dive in. And so let’s get started with anger and divorce.

Are you ready to create a life that’s better than ever before? We are Doreen Yaha and Jeff Wilson, and we are here to give you the strategies you need to create the life after divorce that you. And desire as partners, both in marriage and coaching. We use our expertise as well as our own personal experiences to help you make the next chapter of your life the best chapter.

Let’s get honest here today. Most of you, at some point or another, whether during the divorce process or even past it, are angry. You’re angry, you’re perturbed, you’re downright mad as all get out as to your divorce. Or maybe it’s your. Or maybe it’s somebody else that, uh, you had to deal with during the divorce.

I did an episode previously episode 30, on getting annoyed, which may be close to the feeling of anger, but it’s a little bit different. Listen, whether he cheated on you, he’s moved on, you got less than you expected. You had forever in. Even if you are the one that wanted the divorce, that feeling of anger has visited you during this process.

You know what? I am certain of it. Well, the first thing I want you to accept is that certain feelings based on the circumstance, and in this case of course, we’re talking about your divorce, are just plain, normal. I want you to know that it’s perfectly normal to feel anger and to process that feeling and not my friend.

Try to push it away. I’m not asking you to go out and act upon your anger. We’re gonna talk about that. But what I am suggesting and asking you to consider doing is to let that feeling of anger. Just let it go through your body, let it flow its way around. I want you to feel it. I want you to accept it. I want you to let it be there.

Don’t react to it and see where it’s coming from. So when I talk about feeling your feelings, and I’ve talked to you about this in. Other episodes. What I mean by that is to not buffer it away, right? So what happens is when we have a feeling we don’t want many of us buffer it. What that means for new people that are listening.

Okay, my new friends, is that you do something to make the feeling go away, that you don’t like. In this case, I’m talking about anger, and so you’ll, um, overeat. You’ll over drink, you’ll go on social media for like hours. Anything to get your brain, your thought, your feeling of anger from where it is to something else.

One of the most important things that I recommend for you going through in post divorce as you got to feel your feelings and anger is one of those feelings in divorce that just is part of the deal. Okay. Very few people. I don’t even know One, as I sit here today after practicing for over 25 years as the family lawyer and being a life coach, I don’t know one person who’s gone through divorce that hasn’t been angry.

Okay? And if they have, then they’re buffering themselves into numbness. That’s all I can say. Say, so. You need to feel your feeling right. You need to recognize that you’re feeling it, which should be pretty easy to do. And what I want you to then do is to identify your thoughts. Around your anger, what thoughts are you having that are causing the anger?

I need you to identify those if, if you can. It’s really important that you understand where it’s coming from. What did he say? What did he do? What did the court do? What are you dealing with with your children? Whatever it is that’s making you angry, I want you to identify that circumstance now, while it’s absolutely a hundred percent normal and likely, I mean, really, it’s expected to be angry.

What is not normal, okay? Is when you react to it and you show up by way of action that is causing results in your life that don’t serve you or that you regret or that possibly could even be destroying you, your children, or even your ex. Again, having practiced family law for so long, unfortunately I have seen people in divorce act super irrational and even destructive, mostly, may I say, destructive to themselves.

Or their children. So they think they’re acting in a certain way based on their anger to get back to their ex, to show him to whatever it is. But what happens is, as an outsider seeing in as a family lawyer and a life coach, I clearly see that the person that’s mostly being destroyed, Is the person that is reacting my client, whether I’m in, you know, family law mode, or I’m serving them as a life coach.

This is what I see because for those who don’t understand their feelings and where they come from, which in simple terms basically come from our own thoughts about something, they are unable to. Control of themselves, and it tends to build. And for these people, it can even send them into a spiraling tailspin that they never rec recover from.

And listen. That’s you and you are in that place like you are just beyond controlling yourself. That’s something that you would want to go and speak to a certified, a licensed therapist, right? For those folks, their anger obviously is not productive. It is in essence causing them more harm than what. Or whomever they are angry about or two, right?

So let’s assume for the purposes of this episode, that’s not you, right? You are angry, you’re internalizing it. You probably haven’t worked through where it’s coming from specifically, and you haven’t let it really flow through your body. I can tell you one thing, any feeling, I don’t care if it’s anger, if it’s embarrassment.

If it’s, um, reluctance, if it’s sadness, the feeling itself is not going to kill you. It’s not going to harm you. But what can harm you is what you do as a result of your feelings. So, let me go back a bit here so you can get a little bit of a recap from me on where anger comes from, right? You see, let’s just take an example.

If your ex says something hateful to you, the words themself right do not cause you to be angry. Now, slow down and listen to me. It’s your thoughts about the words that cause the anger. So let’s take a better example. Let’s assume your ex says you didn’t deserve anything from the divorce. He says, you know what?

You don’t deserve anything from me. Those words, you don’t deserve anything from me. Those words, those words themselves, don’t create the anger. They’re just words. They’re just words. They don’t mean anything. The anger only comes as a feeling. After you have a thought about the words he says, right, you make a decision to think about the words in a certain way.

Why is this true and why do I know this? It’s true because two women could hear the same exact words. You don’t deserve anything from me. They could hear that from their ex, and one has a thought. He’s such an asshole, and the other woman she thinks, Something like, well, I guess he’s having a bad day, right?

The interpretation is the thought about the words, and that’s what drives the anger. The person that has a second thought, the second woman who says, well, I guess he’s having a bad day. She might still get angry about it, but she’s. That level of he’s an asshole. Okay, so stick with me on this. So the first thing again, is to recognize that the words or the action or whatever is in your mind generating a thought.

That is creating a feeling of anger, that this truly is an optional thought. But I hear you saying to me, I hear you out there and you’re saying to me something like, but wait a minute, Dorian. You don’t know my ex, my divorce and what I had to go through as a result of this divorce and where I’m still at and what I’m still going through, trying to get my life back together.

And to that, I would first say, oh, I do. I’ve been there, done that. I went through my own divorce, remember? And I get it as I was just as angry as you may be from time to time, it’s normal again, and it’s expected. But anger is just an emotion like any other. Emotion, feeling anger in and of itself is not bad.

You have every right again to feel angry. You really, really do, and I don’t want you to beat yourself up about that. The question is, do you want to feel angry and you need to make a decision and say, you know, You could say, hell yeah, I wanna feel angry. And if that’s your choice, just be aware that that is your choice.

And if you do choose to be angry. Right. My next question to you is, how does that show up for you? It’s a question, how does it show up for you? What do you do when you feel angry? I want you to answer that. What are your results that you get when you act from a feeling of anger? Plain and simple. Is this.

Feeling. Serving you? Serving you? Is it serving you or is it not? Now, I want you to consider also that if your ex or your divorce is what’s sparking. This anger, and let’s just assume for one moment that your ex is not one of your favorite people right now. Right? I could probably presume that. Why my friend?

Would you let this person that you don’t even like a little bit maybe. I mean, really, you probably don’t like ’em at all. Some of you do. I mean, I like my ex, but I didn’t like ’em when I was going through the divorce. So that was a lot of hard work for me and a lot of, uh, what I’m teaching you here today.

But why would you let someone that you dislike so much. Get the best of you. Why would you let him have that kind of effect on you and steal your time or give you results that don’t help you move forward or create greatness for yourself as being angry can be in my mind, Steeler of your time, your energy you’ll, your children’s focus, and of your dreams.

And your goals. So while I encourage you to process the anger, my goal and thought is you don’t want to get stuck in that place, right? If you get stuck there, you can easily my friend, lose yourself and can, and likely it will spill over to others in your life. New relationships that you have, your children, your friends.

Your extended family, your business, and your overall physical and emotional health can be at risk. So I presume that you likely don’t want to live there to be stuck there for very long. So notice that. How long do you, if you choose to be angry, want to. In that mental state, in that place. You know, I have to ask though, why would anyone want to hold onto anger?

If you are someone holding onto anger, ask yourself why. I have some clients that have told me that they feel in control when. Angry or that they are not letting the other person, you know, they’ll say something like, I’m not gonna let the my ex get away with what he did or said, or whatever. And so they stand their ground by reacting in an angry way towards this person.

Maybe they take it out on others, right? Maybe they take it out on the. But I have a little news flash here that never works. Your anger doesn’t affect the person you are angry with. It controls you instead. Learning to let go of the anger is the sweetest, sweetest revenge, my friend. It’s really amazing.

Moving on to a better, happier, productive, amazing. We’ll do much more for you and let your ex know that you are no longer playing into his BS if he is trying to get a rise out of you or to spark you in some way. Think about that. Also, remember that it takes two to play the game, meaning that if you are in one of those ongoing hate relationships with your ex, and let me tell you.

I wasn’t, but my husband, Jeff was with his ex. It’s amazing though, how when you back off and you don’t react from that place of anger when they’re trying to push your button, they don’t know what to do with it. So I see so many exes. They have this ongoing contact with each other. It’s almost like they still have this need to be connected, but they don’t like each any other anymore.

And so they are constantly, you know, like at this place where they’re just. Not nice to each other. There’s a lot of anger, but they’re still in connection with them, and you have to wonder about that as well. If it’s happening with you and your ex. Think about that. Like, really? You guys are divorced or getting divorced, right?

There’s no need to have that kind of communication. The best communication you can have is about what you need to talk. Until you can get to a place maybe. And that’s a very, very, that’s very, very few of you will get there, where you can be friends with your ex on a level, like for example, I am with Sam.

But listen, unless you have children together, you don’t need to be this person’s friend. You have other things to do with your time, your energy, your goal setting, the next chapter of your amazing. Also, I want to just suggest that be careful as there is a thin line many times between anger and blame. It usually sounds something like this.

It’s his fault. He made me feel that way. If only he didn’t do X or he did Y, then I would be okay. I spoke a few episodes ago. I don’t know. I think it was two or three and I’m sorry, I don’t have the number with me about emotional adulthood. It’s when we are willing to take responsibility for our own life, our own results, and own it and not blame others for where we are or the results we have in our life.

It’s emotional. Adulthood, right? So if you need a little refresher on that, I’d suggest you go back and listen to that episode as well. You know, I also wanna suggest that anger is usually a secondary emotion that is projected from some deeper internal feeling that we may have to deal with, such as fear, shame, lack of confidence, sadness.

Or loss. So let’s turn now to how we can take our power back, how we, you can turn that anger into an emotion that might even work in your favor and fuel you. In order for anger to work in your favor instead of against you, you need to be creative on how you’re going to use it, right? I want you to consider using.

Anger as a constructive force, not a destructive force, right? When used properly constructive anger allows you to feel powerful and motivated to go after what you want to propel you to move you past the divorce to the amazing life I know. My friend, I know, I know you may not know, but I know is possible for you.

You can use what I call constructive anger for the greater good of you. So what I’m suggesting to you is to use that negative emotion in a way that benefits you, that gets you the results in your life that you are proud of instead of results in your life that are destructive to you and your future.

Maybe even the people you love around. Have you ever heard the phrase become the change you want to see? What does that mean really, I think it means taking the anger that you are feeling and letting it inspire and fuel you to go out there and to take action towards a. You want to be that example to not just sit back and get angry about whatever it is, but to do something to make a positive change.

You know, as a society right now, we are dealing with a lot of this, you know, civil unrest, school shooting. Inflation war politics, we only have to turn on the news and see how anger over these horrific topics, these horrific situations, can turn into just more violence, more name calling, more hatred. What if we as a society, each took a small little step using our anger to become the change?

That we want to see. Just something to think about as, I don’t wanna change subjects here because the subject right here is about you, but the change you want to see in yourself. Fuel can be fueled by your anger, right? Be that change. Don’t be what you don’t want. Your goals, what inspires you? Become that.

Use the anger to fuel you there my friend. We can spend our time stuck in these negative emotions or we can understand them where they’re coming from, okay? So remember to identify that. Know what’s making you angry. If it’s something he said, something he did the situation, whatever it. And then use that feeling to make a difference.

A difference in your life, your future, your children’s future, and even the betterment of the world. There is so much potential in all of you to create. Amazingness. Really there is, it can be super challenging to do this during and post divorce when it feels like everything around you is falling apart and you aren’t sure what tomorrow, next month or next year looks like, or even how it’s all gonna work out.

But that is the exact point. Let’s say you don’t know where you’re moving to or how you will make ends meet, or what you even want for your future. Take that anger and use it to help you set goals and then take the steps you need to attain those goals. One step. At a time, instead of allowing your anger to cause you to lash out or curl up in a ball or give up, use it to push you to face your fears, move towards healing to forgive instead of keeping you stuck in an unhealthy.

Mindset that will hurt you. When you can open up to and realize your anger, you are that much closer to getting past it, to moving ahead. You know, some people live in denial about their negative feelings from the divorce. They try to push ’em away, pretend they’re not there. Buffer not dealing with these feelings can be just as hurtful as acting out because.

Of them. So in order to heal, in order to move on from your divorce, you have to permit yourself to process where you are emotionally, what you’re feeling, what you want to feel, and changing your thoughts about things. To get the results you want in your life, you know? And that’s what I do when I life coach.

It’s all about letting them make decisions. You know, I’ll say to a client something like, she’ll say, well, this happened and that happened, and here’s how I’m feeling. And I’m saying, why did you choose to think that way? And many times they’ll look at me like, what? Like they don’t even. It’s a choice, but you know it’s a choice.

I know it’s a choice and happy to work with you. I only take on a few clients at this time, you know, in my life coaching, but if you’re interested, you can reach out to me. Just send me an email, of course. And. You know the next thing, cause I always like you to leave you with an exercise is write down all your negative feelings.

Get to understand them. Hell, I had one client who even named them. And for goodness sake, use what? What’s out there to help you? A therapist, a life coach, meditation, exercise, healthy eating, and routines and habits. Give yourself time and space without beating yourself. Everyone, everyone that goes through divorce is at a different place and stage and situation after the divorce.

And so I ask that you not judge yourself. Take the time my friend. You need to process and heal and then decide. Is enough and move on from there to your greatness. Another thing I want you to consider is how we show up. I just need to say this for our children because I just dealt with a client today who the child is in the middle of.

The parent’s divorce, meaning that the child’s affected by it. The child knows that the parties are at odds with CH with each other. They’re not good at hiding it from the children. Not that I think you ever can, but whether your children are younger or. Older or even a, you know, adults, they are watching you.

They’re taking it all in. They’re learning from you on how you react in times of adversity. This is a time my friend, during and post divorce to teach them that yes, you can survive when bad things happen, when the circumstances that you’re dealing with are not what you want or pleasant. They are learning from you?

Are you teaching them that positive change, that example of what you want them to be, to grow up, to be, to be for the society, for the better humans that we all strive to be. If not, you know, I just have seen it far too much that the children suffer, they act. They suffer what I call collateral damage to the divorce.

So please just consider that it’s hard, and I would suggest even impossible to hide anger, even if words are not spoken from your children. They just. See it. They see it in your body language. They see it in your gestures. They see it when you get off the phone or a text. They know my friend. So listen, go out there.

Process your anger. Know where it’s coming from. Be gentle to yourself. Make a decision if you wanna. Stay angry and for how long? See how the anger is showing up for you, how you’re acting as a result, and what the results you have in your life are as a result. Make a decision if you wanna get past that and use all that beautiful energy to create the amazing, amazing life that you can have after.

And the change you want for yourself. All right, my friends, have an amazing blessed week. Love yourself. Be kind to yourself and remember, yes, you can be in an amazing place. After divorce. All right, see you next time.

You have the vision of what you want your life to look like after divorce, but maybe you just don’t know how to get there. So if you’re ready to take control of your life and want to find out more about our coaching visit, At L A d-coaching.com, that’s l a d as in life after divorce-coaching.com. Until next time, have an amazing rest of your day.

And remember, yes, you can have an amazing life, life after divorce.