How are you? How are you feeling today? Are you having a great day? How about a good day, A so-so day? Maybe you’re not having a good day at all, but you know what? That’s okay. Well, I would much prefer that you always have a good day. Always be in a good. That’s just not possible because it’s a 50 50 life.
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.
Hello, my beautiful friends. This human life that we are in is a life of good and bad, my friends. And that’s what I’m gonna talk to you about today. I’m gonna talk to you about the good and the bad. Do you notice I didn’t say the word or I didn’t say good or bad? I said good and bad. You know how you feel today about your divorce is not how you will feel forever, I promise.
Because believe it or not, the intense emotions that you’re feeling, maybe their anger, sadness, loneliness, confusion. However, that feeling is showing up for you today about your breakup is not how you will feel forever. It’s not finite. This is not, and will not stay with you forever.
Living in sunny South Florida, my husband Jeff and I spent a lot of time on our boat enjoying the water. You know, I was out last night actually. We went for a nice boat ride down to one of our favorite restaurants in Fort Lauderdale area, and as we were out on the boat, I was thinking about this episode and I was thinking about my message to you.
As I saw the wake that our boat was making and the wave it was causing, I looked at how the wave was forming and then hit a crest and eventually cascaded forward and flattened out as if there was never a wave there in the first place.
You know, this is how our life runs. We have good days and bad. We will always experience a range of good and bad. The bad, like your divorce will eventually even out and your life will return to its neutral, steady existence. This too will pass. You know, that’s one of my favorite sayings. This two will pass.
So long as you are alive, things will continue to happen in your life. That will be both good and bad. We can work and we will work towards increasing the good with things that we can control. But as to things that we cannot control, such as likely where you find yourself today from your divorce, it is passed, it is done, it is happening.
We have to learn how to grow from it, learn from it, and move on towards the next chapter of your Amazing life. Remember that the reason I chose to name my podcast Your Amazing Divorce isn’t because I would ever put out there in this. That divorce itself is amazing because it definitely is not. It falls on the bad side of our 50 50 good, bad life experience, and we know that it is from your divorce that you can and will.
I promise you have amazing things for your future and for many, and in fact, most of you. Your divorce will help you to grow and learn and become such a stronger version of yourself.
I want you to walk with me down memory lane for a minute. I want you to think back to something that happened to you in your life that was super hard for. Something other than your divorce. Something from a while ago, like maybe it was getting fired from a job, being diagnosed with an illness, a breakup, a death of someone you love, an accident.
Now, when you bring yourself back to that point, remember how scary it was, how hurtful, how sad it was for you when it happened. Do you remember how that felt? But you know, It might even be hard for you to remember the feeling of it because it didn’t last forever. In fact, maybe you even recognize that the event that was so horrible for you back then cultivated you and even made you stronger, better, and helped to mold you into who you are today.
You know, the negative feeling past or feelings passed and doesn’t feel anything like it did back then. So one of my daughters last year at the ripe age of 17 had a bad breakup from her boyfriend. She was so devastated. I remember when she came home from visiting with him, and you know how moms just know things.
I was walking downstairs. I heard her come in and she was walking upstairs, and I looked at her, she looked at me, our eyes caught, and I said, oh, no. And she. Lost it. She was crying. One of those cries where you can barely catch your breath. She was devastated and as her mom, it was so painful for me to watch her suffer.
But I knew that at 17 she would get over it. She would move on, she would be with someone else eventually, who was a much better fit for her and she would survive and that she would learn and grow from it, that the pain and sadness would pass, and it has for her. She has moved on and she has made peace with that relationship.
Well, you are in the same boat my. Of course you’re not 17 most likely, and you likely have much more invested in your marriage. But just like my beautiful daughter, you will be okay. You will land on your feet again, and hopefully you will learn and grow from the pain. No matter where you are in the grieving process and the pain stemming from your divorce, I can promise you one thing, you are not going to be there forever.
You will be okay. So long as you are alive and you are human, you will be going through life with both great things happening and not so great things happening.
You know, there’s an ancient Chinese story I wanna share with you. And I think it’s really relevant to what I’m bringing to the table today, which is that life is a combination of both good and bad. No matter how much you try to manipulate it, no matter how much you try to make it perfect, it is never perfect.
And if you have the mentality, life is a combination of the good and the bad. It really helps. So let me tell you about the story and if you’ve heard this, just bear with me cuz I think it’s always good to bring it up again and, and to think.
A farmer and his son had a beloved horse who helped the family earn a living. One day the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed. Your horse ran away. What? Terrible luck. The farmer replied. Maybe so, maybe not. A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild horses back to the farm as.
The neighbors shouted out, your horse has returned and brought several horses home with him. What? Great luck, the farmer replied. Maybe so, maybe not later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the horses and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The neighbors cried. Your son broke his leg.
What terrible. The farmer replied. Maybe so, maybe not. A few weeks later, soldiers from the National Army marched through the town recruiting all boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son because he had a broken leg. The neighbor shouted, your boy is spared what? Tremendous luck. To which the farmer replied.
Maybe so, maybe not. We will see. I love that story. It’s such a simple story, but it really is very on point. You see, you just never know what the consequences of misfortune or good fortune will be as only time will tell the whole story, and it works both ways. Something great can come your way and over time it could turn out to be not as you imagined it would be just like when you feel bad about something and it could just turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.
Like for you going through the divorce could open up doors to a new career, a new home, a move, a new relationship, a new awareness of who you are and what you want, and on and on. And. Just think about this for a minute. You know, the universe is always changing. For me, having a true grasp of this has helped me to forget the sorrows from my past and worry less about the uncertainty of the future so that I’m able to live in the present and see life as not good or bad, but just as.
Maybe so, maybe not. We will see mentality takes the tough times and makes them easier to handle. At least for me.
You can choose to think of your divorce as bad, or you can choose to drop your story. That life would be better if your marriage stayed together and simply release that and let your life unfold knowing that you will have good times and be happy. Maybe so, maybe not good and bad, hard to say. You just don’t know what your future has in store for you.
Take my story as an example. I got divorced, but you know, at the time of my divorce, I just never thought I would ever find or be in a meaningful romantic relationship again, let alone re. So I’m shopping at our local mall here called The Town Center, and I stopped to have lunch, which I usually would not do.
Okay. But I was really hungry and I said, you know what, let me just sit down here and like actually like sit and eat something and take a timeout. And Jeff, my current husband, just happened to be sitting alone at the table next to me and there was like this immediate weird chemistry with his stranger and he came over and said, hi.
We sat for three hours talking. Turned out we knew a lot of the same people, had a lot in common, and it was just like amazing. That was on July 3rd, 2010, and we actually got married November 23rd, 2010. So what is that like just under five months and now it’s been, what, 11 years? I would’ve never believed that story in a million years.
That I would be sitting there stopping for a bite at the mall and my husband to be would be sitting there in the next table and now it’s been 11 years. Crazy stuff. Right. What will be in store for you, for your. No one knows, but what I do know is that your life will be beautiful and sad and happy and good and bad.
It will always be an ever-changing combination of both parts of it, the good and the bad.
I look at my clients from divorce as to where they are during the divorce and where they are today, and they’re. You know, they have their ups and their downs and they are better and they are bad and they get there and they get through it and most of them would never even think about remarrying. You see, when you label things as bad, like your divorce, you rob yourself of the maybe, maybe not.
You know, it’s okay to acknowledge instead that it was bad at that moment, but who knows if it is going to prove to be the best thing that happened because of where you will end up. That never would’ve happened if you stayed. Keeping this in mind helps when you see it as what it is. Just one of those bad things that your life as a human has encountered.
The maybe, maybe not. We will see. Good or bad. Hard to say. You know, it starts from a very, very young age. The messaging that we give to little girls is that when we get married that it will be this happily ever after story. I mean, really think about that. Think about what we’re teaching these little. I would suggest that this is a very juvenile thought process, that the marriage will result in this happily ever after.
I would strongly suggest that we consider teaching our children and said that life is good and bad, and that marriage will have ups and downs, great days and bad days, and even great years and bad years. That marriage truly is fluid in that sense, and that while most of us go into a marriage thinking it will be a forever situ.
That it may not be. And let’s keep in mind that marriage requires two people to be successful, and so that might even make it more uncertain, unlike things that you do as an individual that you have more control over. See, the reality is that you are never going to get to a place, my dear, where there is only good knowing that the human experience will always be a combination of good and bad, and that the world will never be a perfect place and that there will never be a perfect person.
That we all will have flaws always that unfortunately, bad things will happen. People will get sick, accidents will happen, marriages will fall. This doesn’t mean that we don’t try to make things better, to set goals, to accomplish greatness in the world and to contribute and give back. It just means that we go about it with a greater understanding that there is no perfect.
I personally feel so much less tension and am less afraid to put myself out there with this mentality. When you realize this, you can move forward without getting so hung up on having to make everything perfect because perfect just doesn’t exist. It’s fluid. What is perfect today is not perfect.
Tomorrow. What’s great today is not great tomorrow. What’s bad today is not bad. Humans are good and bad. It’s impossible to be a hundred percent perfect. It is okay not to agree and to still see that we have differences. And that’s okay. For me, I prefer having an understanding of both sides of an argument.
You know, I guess it stems from being a lawyer for what, over 25, 26 years now. It’s part of what I do. It’s part of what I’ve been trained to do. It’s what a, I think a great lawyer does. I always practice in my cases, looking at what the other side’s position will be. It makes me a better lawyer to anticipate and understand where the other side is going with their arguments and why.
When I listen to one News channel, and while I may find myself aligned with that news channel’s philosophy, I force myself to listen to the other opposite channel so I can keep my mind open and have an under. I challenge myself to see the other person’s view. I suggest you might consider doing the same.
So as you move through your life, I hope that you are able to look inside and understand that as long as we are breathing and hear on this planet that there will be negative parts along the way, like your. There will be pain and hurt and discomfort. This doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you.
It just means that you’re human. It’s just part of the deal. The choice you have is to live in that negative story or to take action to improve and do so from a place of possibility and love and excitement and abundance, and not from a place of resistance to the. To just know that it is part of the journey and part of your experience as a human.
What I can say with certainty is that you will have more obstacles in your journey that you will need to overcome. Your divorce is just one of these obstacles and unfortunately, my beautiful friend, there will be more. I suggest that you consider approaching your life in the way this is the way it’s supposed to be, because if you can find some truth in this, it will make it so much easier for you to move on and to.
What is your option otherwise? I mean, really when you think about it, what’s the other option? If you sit around thinking about how unfair things are, you’re gonna feel miserable about that. I mean, there’s just no question about it. If you think that you were dealt bad hand, you’ll be stuck in a bad place.
When I think about this, I also think about the many people that are dealt such great. Maybe they were born into money, or they have beauty or intelligence beyond, you know, their wildest expectation, or they even take it to the extreme, win the lottery and are just plain miserable. Why is that? It all boils down to your thinking about the circumstance and your feelings that stem from your thinking built in with this bad and good that coexist.
The goal, my friend isn’t to be happy all the time. I mean, if you’re happy all the time, then you don’t need to be listening to me. You need to go talk to somebody else that is much more qualified. You see, that’s just not a healthy way of thinking about your. That everything, every moment, every minute is supposed to be amazing, beautiful, happy, wondrous, you know?
No, no, no, no. It doesn’t work that way. Bad things will happen. And so they do. And when they do, you want to be upset. You want to be sad, you want to be angry. If someone you love dies, you want to and will be. We need to work on processing the parts that we don’t like in our life that we don’t think are fair.
When you have been wronged and when you have wronged someone else, it is not healthy to resist against this or be stuck in it. Process it, move on with the knowledge that this too will pass. And your life’s future will continue to be a combination of good and bad. It will always be a balance in the good and the bad.
Not good or bad. It is both. It is the maybe, maybe not. We will see just like the Chinese farmer. So I wanna suggest to you, and I think this is really, really important for you to be in a better place and move past your. Your goal should not be to be happy all the time. I don’t want you to be happy when life stinks.
It isn’t healthy to pretend that those negative feelings don’t exist. I want you to acknowledge your feelings, not resist them, not buffer them away with false pleasure. You need to process the negative and move on. That being mad about it and fighting against it will not serve you. Look just like me, you know, I get stuck in the woe is me mentality all the time.
I mean, I’m just a human, okay? I’m a human person and I make mistakes and I do great things and good things happen to me and bad things happen to me. So I know when I get triggered, for me, when I get in that mindset, I have to stop. I have to put myself in timeout. I talk to myself. I think my kids probably think I’m completely insane.
My husband knows I’m insane. So I talk to myself. They say, Doreen, go put yourself in timeout. Really, and I journal. For me, I have to take deep breaths. I have to do a little meditation. I have to journal. I work through my models, through the models of the circumstance. Something that, whatever it was that happened, that was bad.
That’s the circumstance. My thought about it, my feeling about it, my action, and the result that I’m dealing with at that moment when I’m in that thought process. And I have to work hard at changing it. This kind of work doesn’t happen overnight. It’s an ongoing process. We are constantly, constantly learning and growing into what I hope is the best possible version of ourselves.
I mean, that’s what I want for me, that the bad is just part of the deal of my life. Just like it’s part of the deal of your life. That it’s on me to get this, to understand it, and that I get to make choices. It is all part of the imperfection of this life. I also find that when I think this way, I’m able to have more compassion.
I’m able to be a kinder version of myself, meaning the way I treat myself and the people in my life. When I’m able to better understand and to accept the bad and the good and that people will do bad things, to understand that while whatever they did was unacceptable. If someone hurt you, if somebody wronged you, if your ex is that person, that they are also just human and that humans do good and bad.
It has helped me to move on and not be stuck circling around in negativity that doesn’t serve. But instead to use that energy on productive things that I can control to propel me towards goodness and greatness. I want this for you so bad, and you can do this. Yes, you can. I ask you. Please, please, my friend, be kind with yourself as well.
That you get to love yourself in spite of your imperfection. You will love yourself and you will be disappointed in yourself throughout your life. Trust me. Try to find the good and the bad in things, in people and situations. And yes, in your divorce, when you can see both the good and the bad, and you can do this work, when you can allow yourself to feel the bad and the good and to process through it, then you can decide to take your power back and create a life that is doable and great and amazing and bad.
All wrapped up in one. When you can do this, my friend, you can change your life. You can make it amazing. Some things will get better and some things not so much. The 50 50 will follow you. This is life my friend. Have a most beautiful day and remember. You can. 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 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.
