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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Avoid S.T.E.A.T.s during your divorce

The way you handle the aftermath of divorce is very important, as this story illustrates.

Imagine a child comes home from preschool with her feelings hurt by an interaction with a teacher. Mom asks: ‘What happened?’ The child responds tearfully that the teacher was mean to her.
Mom says: ‘Don’t cry. Here, have a cookie, you’ll feel better.’
For many of us, from an early age we’re taught, often by important figureheads in our lives that feelings can be fixed with food.
Eating the cookie, the child is distracted and forgets about the incident. However there is no completion of the emotional pain caused by the event.
The event and all feelings attached to it have been buried.

One thing to guard against is to ensure you are not avoiding dealing with your emotions by burying yourself in things which either numb the pain or distract you ongoingly. These are called: 

Short Term Emotion Avoidance Tactics

Don’t get me wrong, in the early days of your divorce, the S.T.E.A.T.s are probably the things which help you feel better in each moment. BUT the thing to be aware of is that it’s not feeling better for real – it’s a false sense of security – a false feeling of recovering. It fits into the false healing category.
Short Term Emotion Avoidance Tactics are things you do to avoid feeling the pain or to numb the pain or to take the pain away in the short term. They are often ‘escapism’ type activities where you keep SO focused and ‘busy’ that there is not time to think about how you are feeling or doing. If you fill your life up with lots of S.T.E.A.T.s, your healing will not progress.
The sad thing is that for most people who struggle to get over their divorce, they are engaging in a cycle of feeling the pain – applying a S.T.E.A.T. – feeling the pain – applying a S.T.E.A.T. etc. until over time they feel numb and they think this ‘numbness’ if them healed from their divorce.


 Other S.T.E.A.T.s include:

>>  Food
>>  Alcohol and drugs
>>  Excessive anger towards others
>>  Clubbing or partying
>>  Over-exercising
>>  Fantasy or escapism activities (books, TV, movies)
>>  Isolation
>>  Sex
>>  Shopping/retail therapy
>>  Work and becoming a workaholic
>>  Spending countless hours with your children under the guise of being a good parent but the actual agenda is using your children to help you feel better

The problem with Short Term Emotion Avoidance Tactics is that they are short term. They do not last, and they do not deal with the true emotional issue. S.T.E.A.T.s are distractions that either damage or delay the recovery process.


Exercise

>> Try to identify at least two examples of short-term relief you have used to displace your feelings. This is not as easy as it appears. It could be your first chance to demonstrate your commitment to total honesty in this recovery process.

Sending you a big hug!


Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Top tips for how to behave at work whilst you are getting divorced

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Are you out of touch with your emotions??

I notice with many of my clients that they are out of touch with their emotions – almost like the divorce has NUMBED them…

To remedy this, BUY A JOURNAL – CALL IT SOMETHING SPECIAL REPRESENTING THE NEW YOU – the you who has healed from the betrayal and who feels positive and amazing about her life…

With all your survival, you have stopped paying attention to how you are feeling and what you are feeling. My sense is you are a bit numb to how you are feeling. I want you to focus on how you are feeling and journal how you are feeling EVERY DAY for 14 days – you will be surprised by the results you will achieve by simply becoming aware of how you feel…

I feel…  (Circle the emotions which are most appropriate – at the end of the day, update the chart to see what other emotions you experienced during the day)


Emotions

People spend a great deal of time talking about their feelings and about their emotions vs. actually processing them and feeling them. They attend workshops, they visit therapists, and they describe how they feel about it.  They talk and talk about their feelings but they don’t feel their feelings.  They intellectualize and analyze their feelings without feeling them.

To avoid this, ACKNOWLEDGE your emotions and your right to them. This is the beginning… The Naked Divorce program also has a solid structure for how to handle your emotions – watch this space!

Sending you a big hug!


Sunday, April 3, 2011

Try these Simple Reframes on your Ex-relationship…

Think about your relationship from different points of view:
  1. What are the generalisations you have made about yourself and your husband?
  2. Now think of someone you admire (friend, mentor, character from history). Imagine he/ she is watching a movie of this part of your life and step into their shoes to watch it instead. What would their comments be?
  3. Now imagine a completely neutral observer is watching the movie of your life. Step into their shoes and watch it from there – what do you notice about the interaction from this neutral perspective?
  4. Notice the differences  seen from each point of view  – what do you notice?
Do this exercise with another person as well and message me to see what you have noticed…
For more tips and techniques/ exercises and cool stuff, please visit http://www.nakeddivorce.com/
Sending you a big hug