Top Ten Divorce Tips

Have you ever wanted to divorce yourself? Your life? Your choices? Your bad habits and/or outlook on your “situation”. I sure have.

Before you blame everything on everyone else here are the Top Ten Things I wish I would have known BEFORE I got married and then divorced.

Spoiler Alert: The common denominator is YOU shug. The good news is you have 100% control over your choices too! Woohoo!

I am happy being single but not for the reasons most assume. Some people are just happier solo. I don’t like who I become in tandem so there’s always that to think through. How are you naturally the happiest?

I chose to leave my marriage very abruptly which I do not advise without planning and preparation.

I am pretty sure some of us aren’t built for marriage as well as others, allowing that yo be okay is where a lot of us struggle.

I am one of those women who got married for the wrong reasons: age, fears, societal expectations; a general unfulfilled unhappiness all wrapped into the pressure we put ourselves under to force a timeline of accomplishments and all that should happen by certain ages and life stages.  I don’t live that way anymore and life is so much happier!

The pressure to partner up is interesting. The married friends who feel the most sorry for my single situation are usually the most lonesome and sad in their relationship, but hey, at least they are married right? Blech.

I question the norm; the idea of what my new normal relationship wants, needs and expectations are and what will make me the healthiest, happiest and generously loving person in the world. With so much divorce, why aren’t we all questioning the norm?

I have zero tolerance for bad behavior from others, especially from myself, which is the lesson I am most thankful for because of divorce. If I allow someone to bring out my inner mean girl – that is a NO GO fo’ sho!

When I focus on this list I would have saved myself a lot of hard knock learning by feet in the fire always reacting in constant crisis mode instead of planning proactively creating the life I want.

First and most important words of wisdom for any stage in life = Practice your 30 second elevator pitch without a sad or angry or weird yucky back story.

Hi, I’m Cathy, fun, creative & fearless ready for adventures!

1. Forgive Yourself. Redefine what perceived failure leads to change in yourself, for yourself.  Do not compare your path to others.
2. Know who you are and what you stand for.
   • Visualize what you want your next chapter to be like.
   • Ask yourself what kind of person you are in the world?
   • Who are you mind, body and spirit as a single person (as if marriage or partnership never existed).
   • What is your new title?
   • What will you do on weekends?
   • What kind of married or divorced person will you be?
   • What kind of co-parent will you be?
   • What kind of guys will you date knowing what you know now?
   • What will your identity in the world?

Example: Will you be that divorced gal/guy who acts like a sex starved cougar in denial of her age, the angry/bitter victimized Debbie downer nobody wants to be around, or the hot mess party girl busy staying so busy so she is never home alone by herself, the attention starved people pleaser push over, the man hating relationship expert, the hyper religious judge Judy, the sensitive recluse or the freedom fighting feminist?

You get the drift, you WILL be changed because of marriage/divorce, health/sickness, wealth or lack thereof, [insert all life stuff here]… so its important to just go ahead and think it through before life twists and turns defines it for you. (This “at the crossroads” of personal change rule goes for high school/college age too).

3. Vacation Alone.  No, not a fun girls trip, not a hobby group with other solo sojourners, but 100% take at least one alone vacation PER YEAR that does not cater to being single or married. Know who you are and what you like. Go to the Beach, Grand Canyon, Disney World or Las Vegas for example – just you, yourself and all the head voices in toe. Just GO, BE YOU! Do you know who that is? If you don’t it’s fun to find out.

4. Stash Cash. Keep a financial diary. If you don’t save naturally, at least one year before your big DDAY, start stashing as much money as possible in cash because once you start divorce proceedings every account is sliced and diced out of your control. The legal system and very crazy emotions take over and your funds are literally frozen. This goes for saving and planning for a wedding just to turn out being divorced bridezilla in the end.  What I know for sure, who you think you’ll be through marriage/divorce planning isn’t who will show up. That goes for your spouse too. People who are stress triggered, get really weird and unpredictable very fast. In break up preparation make a survival freedom kit.  Why not consider the grocery store check out line a cash back savings option. Simply get an additional $20 out to feed your secret cash stash can if possible, get even more. Save! Save! Save!

5. Plan your Career.  Do this as if you will never be able to rely on another person to take care of you financially ever again. Career is more than just a job to pay bills (we all need that too), its how you serve and make a difference in the world that uses your skills, gifts and abilities to contribute to the greater good and brings you great joy at the same time pays you very well which supports your lifestyle for the long term.
   • Have your own health benefits, car & life insurances.
   • Visit a banker to create a budget considering cost of living inflation; evaluating your credit as a single person and what you can expect.
   • Meet with an attorney to understand what to expect during divorce and how much it will cost, have your own savings/retirement plan.
   • Research areas of town you’d like to live & have fun.
   • Be realistic about what you will have to let go of in your new life. Be realistic.

6. Make New Friends that are not associated or determined by your relationship status. Your married friends will change. Count on it.

7. Make Firm Decisions & Stick to them. Give your self bear hugs, uber-respect, take yourself on selfie dates, offer yourself reliance as security & self-assurance and most of all be gentle with your self through high and low emotional waves.  I found myself laughing more than I expected I would be. At first I felt guilty about it that I should “act sad” or “be angry” or…whatever we are taught to do during crisis times of injustice.  Life is funny to me, so when I was alone I found myself giggling at what a mess I made for myself to clean up!  So, in CathyV fashion I just keep cleaning it up the messes knowing this too shall pass and doing the hard work of learning that lesson to avoid future messes.

8. Break Your Old Routines….dinner for breakfast anyone?

9. Ask Questions often –who, what, where, how & why do I believe this to be the right or only way to think about this?  Ponder the alternatives. PS. Do not get funky on Facebook, you look like a crazy person spewing the bitter blame game, it’s ugly, don’t do that.

10. BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN HAPPINESS! 

If I would have done all of this before I got married to the wrong person, because I was being the wrong person myself, I would never had to have gone through the relational failure lessons and legal pains of divorce. Even though it was the best thing that could have happened for me personally, I don’t suggest it to anyone for obvious reasons.

I don’t believe God hates divorce IF it makes us better people because of having learned from what it needed to teach us. Especially if we use the lessons to help others in the world avoid the same mistakes, heal etc… But, I will say avoid it at all costs by doing the things that make yourself happy before you make a life altering decision that hurts yourself and so many other outside of the marriage.  But do not ever stay for the sake of others happiness above your own either.

I give all my unhappily married friends the same advice. The grass is green where you water it; feed and water yourself daily first, create your own life, bloom despite next to whom you are planted. This goes for quitting jobs, all break ups, getting married or living together, co-parenting…doing anything for the wrong reasons, or expecting others to fill your souls unhappy void is just dumb and usually based in fear. Learning better boundaries by figuring out how to fill my own voids has been key for me. Knowing what you need and want isn’t easy if you are a people pleaser, fixer, saver or codependent type.

#Interdependent is where the happiness is at!

Being solo wont make you happier, you can choose to be happy or unhappy right where you are, no matter who you are with, no matter what you are doing or what you have or think you do not have. It’s a simple choice.

DONT BE A JERK! … OR PUT UP WITH ONE EITHER.

Make those internal changes for yourself, nobody else. Nip bad behaviors. Its up to you to recreate your life in a way that works vs. the drama, making others wrong in order for you to justify yourself, and all the negative emotions that tag along with that choice. And, It is 100% a choice. Own it – the good, bad and ugly is what you choose life to become.

Being free and single doesn’t fix any of what breaks down in marriage in the first place. Being married doesn’t make you more successful in life either. Cultivating and balancing your own interdependent healthy living habits, inside of any key relationship is always a struggle because we all are in constant change, and that’s okay too.  

Thats the best part, its all A-Okay and do not let anyone make you feel otherwise!

Living, Learning & Laughing at myself  A LOT!

Catnap Philosophy

I’m convinced the Art of the Cat Nap can literally change the world.  I am not sure if it’s the in between R.E.M sleep where the imagination, subconscious high five passing the baton or what.  It just makes every thing I need answered become clearer much quicker.  When I get stuck on my brains spin cycle that’s my cue to take a 20-minute catnap.

Some might call that a “brain break” or in new age terms meditation.   The trick to it is to ask the big question you’re wresting with, take deep and slow breathes that calm you down into not thinking mode. I like to relax to the place where my minds eye see’s a cyclone or what looks like an eye of a tornado like portal swirling in my head.  Sometimes I drift off to sleep, sometimes I go to the half doze zone and can’t remember if I got creative ideas from there but sometimes I jolt back awake by getting a direct answer to my prayer, wish or big question I was struggling with from before the nap.

I love after the nap and keep a notebook handy like capturing a dream – it goes away fast if you don’t hold onto the flashes of what seemed so brilliant at the time.  It feels like herding butterflies with my hands slicked with coconut oil…really tricky to catch but fun!   Am I the only one this happens to?  None of my friends talk about this topic?  So, in true CathyV form, leave it to me to talk about it.

Before my nap I asked, okay honestly, I demanded an answer.  “Okay, God, seriously I am really getting pissed over here waiting.  WHAT THE PLUCK am I supposed to do with my random & weird skills for real, I mean apart from consulting gigs here and there with no end in sight for financial security and career longevity.  I am so tired, just tell me what IT is that I do, so I can go do that?”

Oh how the humor of life never ceases to crack me up on the daily!   A very clear inner voice woke me up asking me a question back.  “What does a Philosopher do?” So of course I wiki Google it to find out.  Isn’t that for old long hairy beardy weird men in caved isolation?  Some days I feel like that, but there aren’t any “real” philosophers left in our day?  Would Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, Joel Osteen, Oprah, Ellen, George Clooney; any outspoken celebrity with an opinion seems to be one.

But, who in our modern day and age is a true philosopher and what do they really do?  Here is a list of life old and modern day philosophers if you’re interested like I am now, thanks to the catnap I’m off down into another wormhole.  http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

The only one I recognized on the modern list is Ayn Rand.  Like a super geek I am clicking through each person on the modern list for some sign from above to please send me another bread crumb trail to follow to the Holy Grail called what to do with my next life chapter…and that answer needs to happen fast!  No offense God, but I need to know. NOW!

More importantly, if I am on a philosopher’s road to enlightenment, I want to know how and what and when they get paid?  I really don’t know?  Do you? So now…like an itch I must scratch; I must find out.  I CRAVE wisdom, learning, absorbing information not to claim a stance or opinion, just to know what different ideas and ways of thinking and believing exist.  I like to take it all in as a consideration, not as a fact.

I always have been super weird about seeing perspective differently than what’s normal for the circles I seem to be surrounded by.  I put meaning into everything and I always have, it drives people NUTS, so I’ve learned to just keep it to myself…and then blogging was invented.  At least you can choose not to read anything I write, but on the flip side I get to write it out so I don’t explode. Win Win!   So I looked it up. “What do Philosophers do”?  Here’s what I found.  Enjoy the irony and laughter.  I certainly am.

“A philosophy is a way of thinking about the world, the universe, and about society. A philosophy is a group of ideas, worked out by a philosopher (someone who has studied ways of thinking about the world). The ideas in philosophy are abstract, which means that they are “things that cannot be touched”. But this does not mean that philosophy is not about the real world. Ethics, for example, asks what we should do in our everyday lives, and metaphysics asks about how the world works and of what it is made.

Sometimes people talk about how they have a “personal philosophy”, which means the way a person thinks about the world. This article is not about people’s “personal philosophies.” This article is about the ideas that have been thought about by philosophers (people who think and write about ways of thinking) for a long time.

What is good? What is beauty? Do we have free will? Does God exist? Does the world around us exist? What is a person? What is truth? What is evil?  What is the relationship between mind and body? What is science? What is philosophy? What is love? 

WHAT do Philosophers  do?  They ask questions about ideas (concepts). They try to find answers to those questions. Some thinkers find it very hard to find those words that best describe the ideas they have. When they find answers to some of these questions philosophers often have the same problem that is how to best tell the answers they found to other people. Depending on the meaning of the words they use, the answers change.”

So, that’s makes more sense of my entire life and obsession with understanding how the world works now.  I am a philosopher of the CV2 upside down & backwards perspective!  I make up words and alternative ideas about life’s true meaning.  Kids and animals are drawn to me like elephants are telepathic with sound lanquage. It’s a spiritual gift.  In numerology I am a 7, the most metaphysical and spiritual number to be.  Einstein was a 7 too.  Unlucky in love and success “alive”, but very lucky in thought and legacy; I guess I should celebrate my fellow #7 company philosophically and metaphorically speaking.  (Insert a very strange Confucius blank stare here)

Now what?  As much as I love catnap philosophy enlightenment moments, I still find that it’s always time for wine to help me make sense of life.  Can get I paid to think about my thoughts and share them, like in books?  Hmm…I happen to be working on my first of 12 self published Kindle books as we speak…what a strange coincidence.  In the meantime I’ll go back to sales consulting for peanuts on the dollar until my big Philosophy Career break call comes!

I figure if I have this many words, I might as well logically categorize them into book form.  Maybe I’ll get a few cents from the effort, but most of all I will be officially a published author – bucket list item – CHECK!  That’s worth a million bucks philosophically speaking! 😉  Just being me, over here thinking about my thoughts….CathyV