Divorce can be a profound emotional upheaval, bringing along a whirlwind of grief that often is ignored. In this episode the conversation will navigates through the unique ways grief can manifest in the context of divorce, tackling societal pressures that often lead to minimizing one’s emotions.
As you listen, discover actionable steps for creating space to grieve and heal. By embracing the messiness of emotions, we can allow ourselves to grow and expand from our experiences. This podcast explores the often-overlooked emotional aspect of divorce grief, teaching you how to embrace the grieving process without judgment, while offering tools for healing and resilience.
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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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Interested in the Divorce Betrayal Transformation? Learn more here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
When you're going through a divorce, sometimes what you need most is a giant hug from somebody who's been through it and knows exactly what you're going through.
This podcast, becoming you Again, is that giant hug you've been waiting for. You are listening to episode number 205, 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'm going to be talking about giving yourself some compassion as you grieve through your divorce. I think this is a really important discussion that needs to be had so that you can feel more comfortable in whatever kind of grief is showing up for you as you go through your divorce or even after your divorce.
I was watching an episode of Succession a while back and I remember a scene that happened. I think it was in the last season. It definitely was in the last season, now that I'm thinking more closely about it because of some things that happened. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. But one of the characters had experienced a death and she was really finding it difficult in her very busy life to grieve that person dying. And so what did she do? She scheduled time in her busy schedule to grieve. She literally put it on her schedule, had her assistant find a place for her to go when it was time so that she could be alone and she could open up to and process through whatever emotions she was feeling. She wanted to be present for that. She wanted to feel that she wanted to allow it in her life, and so she scheduled it. And my partner and I we were watching this together and at first he seemed a little surprised by this action in the sequence of this episode, right. But then I let him in on my opinion about this that it actually can be very useful to set aside time to grieve if necessary, and that I have actually at times offered this as an option to my clients who are working through the divorce grief but also finding themselves living very busy lives, which I think most of us could probably relate with, right.
So here's the reality of divorce and grief. If you are going through a divorce, you're feeling grief. There's no getting out of that. Now, it may not be the kind of grief that you would typically attribute to the end of your marriage. Maybe you're very happy that this marriage is ending. Maybe you are very happy, or maybe not happy isn't the right word, but you are. Maybe you have chosen this path. Maybe you recognize there's some kind of toxicity or abuse, or the relationship just isn't working any longer. Whatever, it is right. Maybe it's not that typical type of grief that you are feeling.
I still want to let you in on a little secret. You are still feeling some kind of grief around parts of your life that will now be different, and this is what is so fascinating, but also really kind of perplexing, about grief. Grief doesn't follow rules. I know you've all heard about the stages of grief. You might feel some of those stages and you might not feel some of those stages, but those stages were actually a theory that was offered in terms of grief around someone's death that you have experienced in your life. Now, I'm not saying that those stages are bad or wrong, but when we put all of our eggs in one basket, of saying this is how my grief must look is to must go through these five stages and it must go through these five stages. In this way, we stop ourselves from experiencing and allowing and processing through grief in the way that it actually occurs, which is very nonlinear, which is following no rules, which is different for everyone, because grief doesn't only show up when you lose a parent or you lose someone who you love. Grief doesn't follow those stages exactly and then all of a sudden, okay, I've gone through the stages and now I don't have to feel grief anymore. It's not linear, there's not a hierarchy of what's worthy to grieve over and what's not. There's not really a beginning and there's not really an end. There's not really a beginning and there's not really an end. And grief also. This is again like I said, it's a very perplexing and fascinating experience that we all face at one time or another in our lives. But grief isn't necessarily just one emotion. It's rather many, many emotions folded into one. It can be sadness and anger, confusion and relief, gratitude and peace. It can be all of those and something else.
Here's the truth that I know about grief and divorce. If you are divorcing, you are having an emotional experience with grief and this is not a problem. The problem with divorce, grief, usually comes when we think about what we've been taught about grief and how we should typically grieve. Society teaches us that we should judge our grief based on a hierarchy of what is acceptable to grieve the worse the atrocity, the more okay and acceptable it is to grieve. So when we go through a divorce, we have this idea in our head of what we're going through and then, because we're very human, we compare our experience to what other people in the rest of the world are going through. And then, because we're very human, we compare our experience to what other people in the rest of the world are going through and we will say things to ourselves like why am I struggling with this? There are so many other things in this world that are a million times worse than this. There are way worse things that people are experiencing than me going through my divorce. I should be over this by now. It shouldn't hurt this bad.
I don't know why I'm still feeling sad about this. I don't know why I haven't been able to move on. I don't know why I continue to worry that I've ruined my kids' lives. I don't know why I continue to look back on the past and think about the good old days. I don't know why I continue to think that I'm going to be lonely and sad forever. Why can't I just get over this and move on and let it go?
That kind of judgment does nothing to help you open up to grief. It instead keeps you in resistance of what you are actually feeling. Resistance to feeling emotions is pretty much the best way to ensure that those emotions are going to stick around for a longer period of time. The more judgment you have about feeling grief or about your divorce or about anything that has to do with your divorce, the longer it's going to stick around, leaving you feeling confused, stuck, perplexed about why you keep feeling so bad and why you can't move forward in your life and why you can't just let it go. So I want to reiterate yes, there are tragedies and terrible things happening around the world. I do not want to discount all of the atrocities that are going on in this world. Those deserve to be grieved, of course they do. But your divorce and your grief doesn't take away from those other things being grieved.
Grief isn't a finite thing where there's only so much grief to be felt in the world and once it's used up, there's just no more to be had. Grief is universal. It is part of the human experience. You are allowed to grieve, to grow around the grief and to expand your life because of that grief. That is what grief does for us. It's expansive. It's expansive, it's growth inducing. It's there to help us move through and heal from whatever we have experienced.
So here's my invitation to you If you are experiencing divorce grief in whatever form it's showing up for you, I am inviting you to do it with compassion for yourself. I'm inviting you to let the grief in and to make space for it. I am inviting you to honor whatever you're feeling and ultimately decide that maybe there's nothing wrong with feeling divorce grief. Maybe there's something actually right about allowing it to be present and to be with you. Here's where you can show up with compassion for yourself.
While you're grieving, you give yourself permission. Permission is a very powerful force. When I was going through my divorce, one of the most powerful things that I did for myself was I gave myself permission for all kinds of things. I gave myself permission to feel more into me and to show up more fully as me and use my voice. I gave myself permission to go out and experience new things. I gave myself permission to let go of constraints that I had given myself or that society had placed upon me. I gave myself permission to step out of that box. I gave myself permission to actually listen to my wants and my needs and my desires. My life today is completely different, in the best ways, because I gave myself permission. So I'm inviting you to do this with grief and give yourself permission to feel and experience whatever feels right in the moment for you, and remember throwing this back to the beginning of the episode.
If you are finding it hard to make time or to take time to grieve, schedule out some dedicated time, like that character in succession did, and then give yourself permission for any of the things that I'm about to list, or anything else that feels right or resonates with you as you open up to and allow and process through your grief. Give yourself permission to rest, to sleep, to take a long bath, to stay in bed, to take a nap, to wrap up in a cozy blanket with a purring cat or a snuggly dog all day, or for an hour, or for 25 minutes. Give yourself permission to feel. Whatever you are feeling, without running away, without resisting it, without pushing it down. Give yourself permission to share your story If that feels right, or to cry, or to scream, or to rage, dance or to just be messy. Give yourself permission to say no to things, to stay in, to not answer texts, to not answer emails, to uphold boundaries for yourself, for your own safety and protection and compassion for you and what you're going through. Give yourself permission to just be.
This is how you compassionately grieve your divorce. This is how you compassionately grieve your divorce. You show up with kindness and with softness for yourself while you're dealing with something that is difficult and challenging. You let go of the judgment over what you're feeling and how long it should take, and you just be. You give yourself support in the ways that feel right to you. That is how you grieve your divorce. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. As always, 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. That's wwwk-a-r-i-n-n-e-l-s-o-n Coaching 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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