What is Divorce Glow

I bet you’ve been through a divorce and don’t even know it. 

The word divorce in our society is almost solely connected to the concept of the dissolution of marriage but what if it meant much more? That’s what I believe. I believe that the definition of divorce as a verb —  to “separate or dissociate (something) from someone” offers a powerful opportunity for each of us to choose the action of separation and growth from anything or anyone in our lives that we feel is stunting or stifling us. 

My husband and I divorced in 2014.  We have children.  He will continue to be a person I need to associate with forever in some capacity even though we are divorced. So did we really separate or dissociate? We live in separate places and have taken different lovers but we are forever bound by the family we made.  So I began to think, on that day in March 2014 what exactly did I divorce? And with that, questions my mind began to explore and the answers I found really surprised me.

I divorced extended family

I divorced a mindset

I divorced my expectations

I divorced a lifestyle

I divorced the suburbs

I divorced sense of security

I divorced social status

I divorced disappointment

I divorced extra weight

I divorced cycles of depression

I divorced aggravation

I divorced a constant feeling that I was not being permitted to experience life

I divorced arguments

I divorced shopping

I divorced planning large holidays

I divorced obligations

I divorced health insurance

I divorced cheaper car insurance

I divorced monotony

I divorced thinking that I knew what how my life would turn out

I divorced friends

I divorced pretending

I divorced holding my tongue

I divorced family

I divorced what I thought my life would look like at 40, 50, 60, ….

I divorced my need for material things

I divorced my impression of my self

I divorced bad habits

I divorced having to ask for permission

I divorced having to make excuses

I divorced having to put my attention on someone else rather than myself

I divorced other people’s expectations of me

Through my experiences over the last several years I have grown tremendously and continuously developed my own insights, gifts and talents to see clearly now that what makes divorce so hard for people is when it is treated as a noun, a finite thing.  But if I can teach people to see it as a verb, an action that is ongoing and not just related to the dissolution of a marriage, suddenly there is opportunity, there is control, there is room for growth, there is choice, there is expansion.  Throughout our lives we “separate or dissociate from something” many times. We divorce careers, business partners, lifestyles, addictions, friendships, religions. We choose to take action and separate when something begins to feel misaligned or unfulfilling within us or sometimes divorce is put upon us and our choice exists in how we respond. No matter how you find yourself in the midst of a divorce it will always provide you with opportunity.

It’s within this opportunity that people find themselves faced with a chance to expand themselves and their greater purpose or remain in the comfort of limiting patterns and habits. This, in my opinion, is where fear comes in. The old “fight or flight” decision. When faced with a complete separation and divorce from all that you know and are comfortable with (although possibly unhappy) do you retreat and recreate the past including all of it’s shortcomings or do you move forward and choose to create new, unknown, untested and often unsupported realities? Do you retreat to survival or move forward into the unknown and unfamiliar and commit to thriving?

My vision for Divorce Glow is for it to become a movement and a resource of insight, motivation, learning and growth for anyone who has gone through a divorce in the broadest sense of the word.  So that anyone, anywhere experiencing the struggles, joy and intermittent confusion of actively divorcing what they were once familiar with can feel connected, strengthened and motivated to keep going.  Because it’s through the constant commitment to self betterment that you will achieve Divorce Glow.