Referred Pain Syndrome

Ending Your Relationship…Without All The Drama

Idon’t want to be married anymore. For those of you who have read “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, you remember reading these words four pages into the novel. If you read the book and were startled by how closely your thought’s paralled the author’s, you’re not alone. What was fascinating to me was how many people happened to pick up this book during a time when they too were contemplating a separation or divorce, myself included. What many of us gleaned from this insightful, engaging and inspirational story is that divorce doesn’t have to be ugly. Sometimes, when approached with love, strength, and purpose, it can be a path to peace. The author’s quest to find balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence made me seriously wonder (as did she) if it was even possible to have both. At that point, I realized that my biggest challenge was going to be myself. Or more specifically, my thought processes. Because in the end, what you ultimately end up with is exactly what you believe or “think” you’ll end up with in the first place.

Fast forward a few years and after intense soul searching and personal development work which included silent retreats, taking spiritual courses and workshops, working with energy healers, and reading hundreds of books, we were able to have a completely amicable divorce. Some people still say we were just incredibly lucky. My ex and I mutually agreed that it was time to end the relationship, and not only have we been able to continue to run a business together, but we are friends as well. But was it luck or a result of two people who refused to allow drama to control the relationship? Even in situations where there is nothing to fight over, people find reasons to fight. There were so many situations where one of us could have allowed negative thinking and blame to shape the outcome. But we never went there. Instead we focused on the positive aspects of ending the relationship and what future opportunities we were allowing into our lives as a result of this ending. When one door closes…another opens.

Most people pass through stages of grief after losing a loved one or experiencing some other kind of traumatic loss such as divorce. In fact, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross created a model commonly known as The Five Stages of Grief, which is a process by which people cope and deal with tragedy. The stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. My question is – do we have to pass through or get stuck in any of these stages or can we go directly to acceptance and peace? I believe it is possible to come to terms with a loss in a more peaceful, healthier way and the way to do that is to eliminate the drama that often occurs in these situations. How do you do that? Or better yet – how did I do that? Even though my divorce was completely amicable, I still went through some of the stages of grief. I believe that I was able to accelerate the process and refrain from getting stuck in any one of these stages because of the deep, spiritual and personal development work that I was doing at the time. Most of it centered on becoming more aware of what I was thinking and how those thoughts were controlling my actions. Any time I had a negative thought – something that would stir up a whole lot of drama, had I let myself dwell on it – I had to stop and ask myself the following questions. 1. Is this thought the truth? For example, if I had a thought like, “I can’t believe I failed in this marriage” – I would stop and say to myself, “ok, do you really believe that you failed…what did you accomplish by being with this person…would you have accomplished the same things if you weren’t with him?” Then I would realize that the negative thought wasn’t really what I truly believed. 2. Does this thought help me or hurt

me?

3. Is there another thought that would make me feel better?

It wasn’t until years later that I read Byron Katie’s book, “Loving What Is”, and I