Divorce, Freedom and Love

I was in the studio the other night after yoga and my yogis were kind of hanging out, talking and shopping. I’m eavesdropping as usual as they talked about their marriages... the dullness and the typical resentments that you hear about marriage. I don’t know what overcame me, but I blurted out “I LOVE BEING DIVORCED”. It caused a brief moment of pause and then another woman in the studio stuck her hand in the air and blurted out “ME TOO”. Of course, everyone laughed, but I had a moment of regret because I saw that little “flicker” of possibility cross a few faces. A few others had a sad moment of resignation.


Now, I do love being divorced. I enjoy unimaginalbe freedom. I do what I want when I want. My mistakes are my own. My home looks and feels like I want it to. Dirty...clean...it doesn’t matter. I eat what I want, when I want. I save. I spend. I travel. I LOVE IT. I have only to take care of me me me me me. (and two kids, two dogs, a cat and a mortgage).


but....


It wasn’t always like that.


I used to hate being divorced. I couldn’t stand to be alone or the thought that I would end up alone. (Worse yet, the thought that I would end up with three dogs and two cats.)


So what changed?


As I pondered my own divorce and those sad “flickers” of some of my yogis, I suddenly realized that the reason I love being divorced is that I am no longer lonely. I am alone more than I’ve ever been in my entire life, yet I am not lonely. It really hit me hard as I realized that my marriage came to an end because I was lonely in it. I felt all alone in my marriage.


You marry a person thinking the person is your other half not realizing that two halves in the realm of weird-math relationships makes one quarter...not one whole. Another person cannot fill you up. Over time, you get more and more despondent because your needs go unmet. The problem is, your needs could never have been met because another person cannot fill you up. Two wholes make a marriage, not two halves.


I’m alone, but I’m not lonely. That’s huge. I’m all filled up. I’m filled up with purpose. I’m filled up with love.


I look back to my own marriage with wiser eyes. I don’t want anything to change but I do naturally wonder how it would have been different knowing then what I know now. Perhaps I just needed to fill up with love for self, service for others and a splash of creativity. Perhaps he just needed to do the same. Perhaps then, there would be no loneliness in marriage.


If you are suffering in your relationship, pause and ask yourself if you are lonely. What can you do to fill yourself up? You would be amazed at how you can shift by finding meaning in your life through service. You can serve through the work that you do, the home that you keep, your creative expressions and yes, volunteering your service. Fill yourself up with love. Of course, yoga is a great place to begin the process of self-study.


Shanti, Pamela

The suitcase at the top of the stairs

There is a suitcase at the top of my stairs. It has been there for a long long time waiting to unpack and go either to the basement or on another adventure. It has been sitting there since my last trip which was with a now ex-boyfriend to a wedding which we ended up not going to once we got there.....that's a whole other blog.

I don't know why I don't unpack it and put it away. It's in my way and I trip over it frequently. Sometimes if I get up late at night for a drink of water, the huddled mass at the top of my stairs scares me. I wish someone else would just put it away. Every time I see it, I have to think of this failed relationship which then makes me think of my failed relationship with my ex-husband.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to not have these people in my life anymore. There is a time and a season. That having been said, the relationship with an ex-husband is never finished if you have children. Somehow you have to move forward as a new and improved kind of contemporary family. My ex and I have not done this well. We simply ignore each other and text details related to kids, but we have not stayed friends. I thought we would.

This makes me sad. If your other half is simply a mirror or shadow of yourself, then what is my ex mirroring back to me. I will tell you he is cold, aloof and unforgiving. He has a need to be right. I have been cold, aloof and unforgiving. I have a need to be right.

What's in that bag at the top of the stairs? All the emotions of my lost marriage and more importantly of that lost friendship. I'm going to unzip that bag and let all those emotions of loss and grief out and then move that empty bag to the basement. Today I will just start with the outside pockets.

Acknowledging and embracing your emotions is the first step to letting go of attachment to them. It sounds like a little thing, but it is a huge step to healing. Just feel inside your body and let the emotions come. Label them, honor them and then let them go. Know that this is hard and sometimes painful. Know that you will feel better when it is done. Don't procrastinate.