My Coach’s Notes: Pain of Divorce

She started to laugh and said, “Yep, the old me was naive and immature. Our years of marriage changed me. I realize I have probably changed far more than he has, but oh, that may be the problem.”

I told her, “Is it your pain, or is it the confusion over who you are dealing with that is causing discomfort? Only you can make that call.”

Here are a few processes designed to lessen or attenuate the impact of pain. Here is how they work.

• The unpleasant events have feelings attached to them, and it is amazingly easy to dwell on the trauma and get looped into the pain again. Sometimes, we have a similar feeling and get dragged back to the same old pain.
• Think about how the emotional impact and the pain follow the trauma/event. This process is called a trigger response. You hit the trigger, and your system responds with those old, familiar feelings of pain and inferiority.
• To break the trigger/response, we need to bring the response back before the trigger pulls you down. This process makes it much easier to manage and get rid of in a couple of seconds. You know that thinking about the event causes the feeling to rear up and gives you a heads up to stop the feeling from grabbing you.
• Here is an example: Him, “You never like to have Joe and his family over for dinner. It is your fault we cannot invite him. He’s my friend.” You hear this, and you do not get triggered. Instead, you remember that Joe cheats on his wife, and that is why you don’t want him in your house. You hold your head up and say to your husband, “Joe made his choices by cheating on Annie. I have made my choices to keep him out of my house.”

When a feeling starts, ask yourself if it is attached to what is currently happening in the present. If it is not related to the present situation. Use this process to gain almost instant relief:

• Am I safe here now?
• Is the feeling attached to the present situation?
• What color is the feeling?
• What has to happen for the color to change?
• Once the color changes, you are back in control, and the feeling will not rule you.

Unwanted feelings make you feel you are not in control. The number one priority for most people is control, and feelings seldom cooperate with us.

There are a couple of earlier My Coach’s Notes that may be helpful in regaining control of your life and feelings. One is Lizard Brain, and the other is Kingmaker. Both address how to impact the current situation and build the tools for a more elegant future.