Can breaking free from all-or-nothing thinking transform your post-divorce life? This episode promises to show you how shifting away from black-and-white thought patterns can unlock the power and choices you didn't realize you had.
I'll walk you through how this limiting mindset can leave you feeling powerless and stuck during your divorce. I'll also offer practical strategies to recognize and challenge these habitual thoughts. By the end of this episode you'll have tools to step into your inherent power and see the spectrum of possibilities available to you as you move through your divorce and beyond.
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Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it shows up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
This is Becoming you Again, the podcast that offers you the mental and emotional support you need as you go through your divorce. You are listening to episode 184, and I am your host, karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast.
This week I am going to be talking about stepping away from all or nothing thinking. All or nothing, thinking black and white, thinking good versus bad that type of thinking keeps you stuck. It keeps you stuck exactly where you are. It keeps you feeling very powerless. And when you are stuck in all or nothing thinking, it's really difficult to see where you do have power over your own life and over your own decisions. Divorce because when you think in this way this all or nothing you fail to see that you actually do have choices all over the place. You have choices in pretty much every situation, but they're really hard to see when you're stuck in this kind of thinking and, instead of seeing choices, you only see things one way, which is often interpreted in your mind as and that means I have no control, which then is going to leave you feeling helpless, it's going to leave you feeling powerless and it just like completes that cycle of feeling stuck. My friends, this is no way to live, this is no way to go through your divorce, because my goal with this podcast is to help you step away from that all or nothing thinking, so that you can step into your power, so that you can recognize that you do have choice. You can recognize that you do have choice, you do have control, you do have agency in your own life, and my goal is to help you feel more safe in a world that is full of gray, that is full of nuance, not just stuck in this black and white, good and bad, all or nothing thinking.
The first thing that will help you step away from all or nothing thinking is to recognize the old, habitual way of thinking that is keeping you stuck. Now, this I think this is probably the trickiest part is recognizing that you're doing it right. But the thing is is once you start to recognize, you get better at it. You kind of step away from what your brain is telling you and you step into watching or paying attention to what your brain is feeding you, what your mind is feeding you. So it's tricky but it's not impossible and the more you do it, the better you get.
And then if you still feel stuck, you can go to someone like me, you can go to a coach, you can go to a therapist, you can go to a very trusted friend who can show up in an unbiased way. They can help you see things in a different way, which can really get you out of that kind of thinking. So this might look like noticing that you've been thinking or believing that you can control how someone else behaves by showing up a certain way around them, like if I do this, maybe they'll do this, if I do this, maybe they won't throw this back in my face. This might look like never saying no to your kids while in single parenting mode because you're afraid that will make them hate you, which will mean I'm a I must be a bad mom If my kids hate me. This might look like thinking that you don't deserve love later in life, because you couldn't make it work, because you're a divorced woman, because you weren't enough, because you didn't do enough to make the other person happy.
I mean, there are probably a myriad of thoughts that you've been thinking in a habitual way, and I have them too. You are not alone in this way of thinking, in this all or nothing thinking, and the thing to notice is that none of these ways of black and white thinking are true, however it's showing up in your life. They're not true statements about you, but what they do provide is a feeling of comfort, because we've been living with these ideas for so long. We've been living with these narratives, these beliefs for so long that, in a way, it feels very comfortable to latch onto them and to not let them go. But the problem is that when we believe these types of thoughts, we keep our world very, very small and our decisions are basically already made for us, because it's a habitual way of thinking, and so we just keep doing the same thing, and so we'll look something like well, I'm not even going to try dating after divorce, because it's proven that I'm not lovable. I'm not even going to try dating after divorce, because it's proven that I'm not lovable. So what's the point? So the decision see how it's just basically already been made for you. You're not going to date, or it might sound something like well, I just have to put up with my ex's bad behavior, because if I try to set a boundary he may take me back to court and take my kids away, so I can't rock the boat. So I guess this is how my life will be. He's in control as usual, and I'm here with no choice but to fall in line again. The decision is pre-made fall in line. It's per usual. You feel powerless in your own life. So right now I just want you to pause and I want you to ask yourself where in your life do you notice some all or nothing thinking going on? Where do you have a story that isn't true, that is based on emotional narratives without fact, that isn't helping you, that is keeping you stuck? See if you can notice any that come up.
I used to hold firm to some black and white thinking about divorce in general. There was literally no gray area in it for me. I was raised Mormon, as most of you listening to this podcast, and in that religion divorce is pretty uncommon, so much so that even if a woman is divorced from her husband, that's only an earthly divorce. If you had been married in an LDS temple LDS is just another name for Mormon that meant that you were sealed together as a couple Okay, as a unit for time on earth and for all eternity. And if you got divorced, that was only for time on earth and you were still tied to that man for all eternity.
So, being raised Mormon, I believed. I was raised to believe that marriage was forever, forever. And if you were struggling or you weren't compatible or you didn't want to be married, too bad, you made it work. You figured it out. In fact, two or three years into my own marriage, my husband at the time came to me and he told me he didn't think that we should stay married. He told me that he was having reservations. He told me that he was unhappy, he told me that he didn't feel that he wanted to be married anymore. And my response was so steeped in black and white thinking I was basically just like well, divorce isn't an option, we'll go to the Bishop, we'll get help, we'll make it work.
And so we did for the next 17 years until I started to open myself up to that gray area that maybe staying together for the sake of staying together wasn't the only option. Maybe each person's situation is different and it's possible that I get to choose my thoughts about it and I don't have to go along with what I've been told my whole life. I can let go of the idea that I'm bad, that I'm a failure, that I'm wrong, that I'm not as worthy as a woman. If I get divorced, maybe all of those ideas that have been handed to me on a platter in the religion that I had been raised in maybe that's not true. Maybe I actually get to decide for myself and I had to step into that gray area and let go of that all or nothing thinking to be able to choose for myself, make decisions for myself and see that I wasn't actually stuck. I had the opportunity, in asking for a divorce, to see that our relationship was complete. I got to open up my life to new avenues, to new experiences, to an amazing opportunity to get to know me in a deep, fulfilling way that I had never known myself in that way before.
And I can't speak for my ex. He's not here with me so I can't speak for him, but I am going to make some observations of his life since our divorce, and, from my observation, he has also flourished in many, many ways. He has become a better dad to our kids. He has made time for them and shared in their lives in ways that he didn't when we were married. He has been able to travel all over the world and he has really leaned into a life that he always kind of hoped for, that we didn't ever achieve together while we were married.
And so I want you to ask yourself, whatever situation you've got going on where you are noticing maybe some black and white thinking, I want you to just ask yourself how would someone in the same situation think about it? That might be different than the way I'm thinking about it. What might they be seeing or how might they be interpreting it? Because when you do that, you are able to step outside of your own habitual, unintentional thinking model and you open yourself up to a new way of thinking, a new way of seeing things, new glasses to put on to see things through. Start to notice times where you use words like always or never or other words of extreme one way or the other. Those will give you hints of thoughts, to kind of take a look at and ask, okay, well, is that statement true?
Once you start to do that, then you can notice what's going on in your body. Do you feel a tightness anywhere? Do you feel constricted when you think those statements or that statement? Constricted when you think those statements or that statement, notice the thoughts and then notice the sensations in your body and breathe through it. Allow the sensations to be there. They're not going to hurt you.
Once you begin to notice the all or nothing beliefs or the statements that you're saying about yourself, that right, there is the first step to taking your power back. And then, to gain some calm within your body, you can reassure your nervous system that you are not in any imminent danger, you are not unsafe or at risk in this moment. I mean, obviously, when you take note, and if you truly are in imminent danger or unsafe, then please run, move, get safe. But if you're not, just reassure your body like we are not threatened right now, we are not in imminent danger, we're safe, and then, after you do that, look for ways that your perspective on your situation is keeping you from seeing other options, other alternatives, other ways of thinking about it. And then I want you to ask yourself can I step out of this all or nothing thinking and decide for myself what to think and what to feel?
So again, notice times as you go through your divorce or as you're divorced. Notice times where you describe things like this is a disaster, this is the worst, my kids never want to be around me, my ex is always playing the victim, my life is a total nightmare, my family is completely ruined nightmare. My family is completely ruined. Things like that. You see the extreme speaking to yourself, the never, the always, the ruined, the disaster, the worst, right, those types of thoughts that you're telling yourself. Those are clues that you are stuck in all or nothing thinking. Those are clues that you are stuck in all or nothing thinking and once you notice them, you can work on asking if what you're saying is actually true. Do an assessment and then you can try and replace that type of thinking with a more neutral approach. Sometimes my kids want to be with me and sometimes they don't. Sometimes my life is hard and I'm unhappy and sometimes it's easier and I feel better. Sometimes my ex plays the victim and occasionally he doesn't like. See if you can start to replace all of those extreme ways of thinking with sometimes, with often, with occasionally, and see if that's more truthful, see if that feels better in your body, even if it's like one or 2%. That's what we're shooting for is for you to feel a little bit better, to feel less stuck, to feel more powerful in your own life Once you can recognize where you're stuck in the all or nothing thinking and you start to question it, and then you start to see what's really true.
That's when a different perspective is going to come in. That's when you start to question it and then you start to see what's really true. That's when a different perspective is going to come in. That's when you get to open yourself up to a more expansive life. Expansive, it's a beautiful thing. More expansive thinking helps you step away from feeling powerless and again helps you step into your power. You are powerful. You are more powerful in your own life than you even know. Let's bring that power to the forefront. Let's have you harness it so that you can feel into it and live the life you were meant to live.
Listen, if you are enjoying this podcast and you feel like it's helping you get through your divorce right now. Text a friend, text someone you think this podcast could help. Go, copy the link to the episode right now, or just send a text to whoever you're thinking of and say hey, I've been listening to this podcast becoming you again and I think you'd really like it. So do that right now. Then start to notice this black and white thinking and step into your power. That is what I have for you today and, once again, I will be back next week. Hi, friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening.
I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real-life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to KarinNelsonCoaching dot com. That's wwwkarinnelsoncoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.
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