This is my personal sharing of divorce, how it felt for me and my experience with it. My relationship with divorce doesn’t end. Its within me, an experience that I still feel the impact of and continue to heal. Whilst undertaken with an intent to finish and wrap up a painful period of separation and to signal a readiness to move on it, it has proven to be a thorn in my side. A wound that continues to heal.
It became a label that I wore which unconsciously put barriers around me, impacting how I related with self and life. Little did I realise that this label would create negative imprints on my sense of self. Imprints that were created from witnessing how my parents, and aunts and uncles moved through their divorces. How the bitterness, anger, resentment and fear became a lens from which I viewed and believed divorce to be. Even to this day I am clearing the lenses and coming more and more from my own internal heart centre, the knowing that there is another way to engage with divorce. The pull of the past, which is all I had to tap into is strong and takes diligence to keep clearing these past ties that bind me to old paradigms of divorce.
Divorce tapped me into deeply held religious dogma propelling me down a path of shame and defectiveness. In Gods eyes I had broken my vows ‘till death do us part’. I had sinned and would be punished. I was damaged goods, unlovable and dirty. My life was done. Its pretty full on shit. Yet the feelings were real. I don’t even know where the hell this programming was coming from? For I had not grown up in a religious environment, we didn’t go to Church, I wasn’t baptised or christened. What the hell? Here I was condemning myself to a life of self retribution based upon old biblical and religious constructs, none of which were relevant to my life here and now. It was as if from the deep recesses of my soul a voice bellowed these sermons to me. This caused huge internal conflict as the woman who I know myself to be here and now was chastised by the voices of the past. I needed to get up of my knees, I am not kneeling to God in a church in this life time.
Divorce is an incredibly unique and intimate experience. No two experiences will be the same, just as no two relationships could be the same. How could they be? A relationship is the result of two separate beings coming together and co-creating a space that cocoons and sustains them both. It takes on its own life force and forms its own unique resonance. Like an embryo impregnated by the sperm that creates a foetus, so to do two people come together to create a relationship.
Divorce can be arrived at from many destinations from one party or both.
Whilst divorce is the term given to the legal dissolution of a marriage it is much much more than that. It’s a process, signifying the ending and at the same time a beginning. The beginning of a new way of living. It’s a label. It’s an emotional and mental rollercoaster. It has the capability to rip apart; a force unto its own. It can destroy and leave a tsunami of wreckage in its wake. Its deeply personal and will shine a light on one’s internal wounding. It will bring forth what one has been trying to keep hidden and out of sight. It will bare your soul. Break your shell. It will pull out from under you your once steady foundation. It’s a huge hole you could fall into. It will take the wind out of your lungs. It has the capacity to exhaust your nervous system. It will leave you on the floor without a second glance.
Divorce breaks families. Whilst its undertaken between two (or just one) person in the marriage the impact rips apart the family that was built through this once love centred union.
Divorce will push you to the end and challenge you to keep going.
Divorce is painful, messy, uncomfortable and paradoxically exquisite.
As I continued to unravel I became closer and closer to my truth. Quite literally I was cleansing my soul by releasing the judgment on myself and freeing myself from ideologies and behaviours I had taken on from other. Aligning more to my core knowing I am beginning to relate with divorce in a whole new way. The fight against it stops. In its place an acceptance of the outplay of my marriage. Its relating with divorce in a healthier way and not giving my power away to it. Its stripping away the label and in doing so fully opening to the offering divorce provides.
It’s an intensely powerful process that provides personal growth, healing, integration and recalibration. It’s a reset button.
Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash
