Our Blogs on Divorce ⋆ Tanya Somerton ⋆ Divorce Angel

The 4 Blessings I Received From My Divorce

Every process we go through in life is an opportunity to grow and evolve. It doesn’t matter if it is either negative or positive, as long as we are grateful we will manage to add value to our lives. It is the same with divorce. We can regret the time lost in a relationship that didn’t work, or we can be grateful for what we lived and learnt during that marriage. In this episode, I would like to share with you the four blessings I received from my divorce.

Let’s get into it

Timestamps

Teaching my kids through the divorce [00:01:30]

People under stress show their worst [00:04:00]

When the needs and wants are not compatible [00:07:30]

What I’ve learnt in my first marriage [00:09:00]

The give and take relationship [00:12:00]

There has to be more than this [00:15:00]

I always felt a deeper calling [00:18:00]

Real friends [00:21:00]

From derelict to brand new [00:22:30]

Links

My book: The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering Independence through Divorce

https://tanyasomerton.com/shop/the-jelly-bean-jar/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

Transcription

Hey guys, it’s Tanya back again. And I’m really excited to share this podcast today. I’ve been thinking about doing this one for a while. It’s an opportunity today for me to find time to put pen to paper and think about what I wanted to get across to you.

No matter where you are right now, whether you haven’t decided to leave, perhaps you may have already left. You might already be trying to pick the pieces up in your life and get going again. I wanted to share that it always has been, and it always will be okay. And I’m a true believer of that.

We grow and evolve, and we can just, it’s like the old saying about water will find its natural level. We do that as well as humans. And look, don’t get me wrong. It can be tough, I’ve been there. It can be tough, but as long as you pick yourself up and you keep going, you can get through it. So tonight I wanted to talk about what I have learnt and what I like the most about being divorced. And I suppose my number one thing would be around my children

and showing my children that sometimes love just isn’t a fairy tale, but in saying that, it doesn’t need to be a villain. If you are smart with how you deal with your divorce, it can actually be something that your children learn from. And I hope that I acted that way. Look, I’m sure I made mistakes. If I had to rewind and go back, would I do some things differently? Yeah, I probably would. I probably would do some things differently because there’s no book out there.

There’s no manual on how to get this right. Because we’re talking about different people and you will have heard me say before, no two divorces are ever the same. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got one child, two children, three children, however many, add those into the mix. And sometimes things can get out of hand, but because I was a child of divorce, I’d sort of been through it myself.

I had a sense of what I had felt, and I didn’t want that for my children.

My middle son has already told me that [00:03:00] throughout life, we’re probably going to have more than one relationship.

Maybe that was his take away from my divorce. My eldest son, I think he’s very committed. And him and his girlfriend, who I love dearly, like a daughter in law. I hope that they’re together forever. And maybe that is what he learned from his parents’ relationship. Perhaps he learnt how to choose, or how to act, what to do differently to meet the right person.

But even that in saying that, at the time when I met their father, I thought right there, he was the right person. I had three beautiful children with him. And he was the right person for me, he was the person to teach me the lessons, to give me the opportunities, the things that we built together.

If I hadn’t have met him, I might not be where I am right now. I’m very, very grateful for that. So I’m a big believer of that.

When you’re under stress, you see the best and the worst of people. When people make decisions under pressure, that’s when they get to see the real you. So I hope that the decisions that I made when I was going through my divorce with their father were enough for them to realize that even when everything feels awful. When you’re getting up day after day, and you feel like you’re doing everything, maybe that’s not true. That was just a story I was telling myself at the time. I did feel I was doing everything, but then that was a consequence of the choices that I made at the time.

And I had to live with those, and I accept them. But at the time it felt like it was never ever going to end. And I wanted my children to see, even though some days I thought I couldn’t get out of bed, I wanted my kids to see he and feel that it’s okay to feel like that too.

Throughout life, we can go through those moments, but then you get up, and you keep going, and you fight, and you try to be bigger and better than you were before.

And one of my personal drivers is to make my children proud. Make them think, wow, look what mom was able to do. She turned whatever adversity around to be the person that she is today. And still, sometimes I have to bite my tongue when they say things about their dad, and I can remember living through something, and there may be going through it now. And I want to tell them, look, be careful. Look out for this. But I can’t, it’s not my lesson to teach them it’s their lesson to learn.

I’ve got to be careful and mindful of that. And that’s something that I still grapple with today, but I just bite my tongue and know that it’s not for me to say. If they want to talk about their dad, I let them speak, and I listen, it’s not my place to say anything. It’s, it’s their place to learn. That’s really hard, but that’s my choice. That’s what I’ve chosen to do. And it worked out well for me.

The second thing that, you know, I’m really grateful for from my divorce is my evolution.

When I think about my marriage, and about the 22 years I was in it, it felt well for many years. It felt like it was right until it felt like it was wrong. If you understand what I mean, like it was at one stage, all of a sudden this isn’t right, this is wrong for me. We’re not going in the same direction.

And my needs and wants were different from his. And he wanted to have me fit his perfect picture. And that’s where all of a sudden things start to go wrong. People put their own interpretations of what they want for their life on their partner, and it doesn’t work like that. And when I think about my new marriage, I’ve got no interpretations of what Richard does or how he does it.

As long as it’s within the realms of being faithful and loyal. And loving, and not breaking any laws, which is not going to happen anyway. I don’t have any expectations of him other than that every day he wakes up and loves me. And because I don’t have any expectations, he doesn’t have any expectations of me neither. I don’t expect anything when he does something, I’m grateful for it. And like last week’s podcast, when I talked about gratitude and the law of attraction and repelling what you don’t want, that’s what I’ve got in this marriage. In my first marriage, I used to do the basic day to day level. I learnt so much from that, and I am not going to replicate those same mistakes that I made before. I’m being really raw with you right now. I wasn’t the perfect wife the first time around. I got married, really young. We ended up where we were not just because of the things that he did. Still, I’ve got to take full and outer responsibilities for the part that I received as well because for every action there’s a reaction.

And whether it was me pushing one way or him pushing the other, it was friction. And that friction caused is to disharmony. And when I wanted more, he didn’t, he wanted me to do things that he wanted me to do. And the same for me, I would be forcing him to go, you know, can you please do this? Or can you do that?

It just doesn’t work like that. We’ve got a given voluntarily to the bigger picture or purpose. And I was actually talking to mum this morning, and I said to her, the funny thing between the two special men that I’ve had in my life is how different they were, and I what learnt?

Well, the first part of Tanya in this world was to be this person married to that husband. And that husband would give her three children. The next part of my evolution as Tanya is to be married to Richard. And to live this part of the evolution and evolvement of Tanya. So how I look at it, Richard was sent to me, with the law of attraction, I was able to, to attract Richard. And we both can lift each other up rather than taking each other down. And I suppose that’s the most beautiful thing. Like when I think of what my divorce gave me, it gave me the ability to know, because I’d been there and I understood. So I really knew what I want.

You hear me talk about these stats all the time we got, you know, 45% of first-time marriage is failing 70% of second time and 90% of third. And it’s because the people that are getting married they’re second and third time, I not doing this deep dive like I’m talking about right now into this, into themselves.

And fully understanding what they need and what they are prepared to give, because it can’t be, and it shouldn’t be a one-way road. It has to be a give and take relationship to be successful.

When I talk to clients going through their first stages of separation, often they’ll repeat similar words. Things like, I feel like I’m being taken for granted, I feel our needs aren’t being met.

I had a guy this week that I was talking to, and my heart broke for him a little bit because he said, and I hear it often with the guys, I worked really hard to bring in the income to give my family what they needed. He thought he was doing the right thing. He really did. I believe that’s what he thought. And so many guys feel the same way they think they’ve got to go to work. They believe that they’ve got to bring in the money so that their family has everything that they need.

And then the wife feels like she’s been forgotten or left or whatever. And I suppose it’s something that in pre-marriage when you have to go and do the classes, they don’t talk about any of that. Why aren’t the people talking about, look guys you need to have some rules of engagement? When you get married, you need to understand these are what your roles are going to be. Do you accept them? And if you don’t, don’t then look back years later and go, I was forced into having this role because you’ve got a voice. And that’s something I’ve learned. I have a voice. If I don’t like something rather than accept it. I can say, no, doesn’t work for me. I want this to be changed or altered. And so many of us don’t realize that can because before we know it, our beds are made, and we have to lay in it, and we can’t go back.

Now. We’ve missed the ability to have the job that we wanted, or we fancy ourselves every day, leaving a lot that we never thought would be possible. And right now, as I’m sitting here, I recall a moment when I was in my backyard when my first marriage. And I remember looking up to the sky, just thinking, no, there’s so much more than this. There’s so much more than this, but I had no idea what it was or where it would take me. And, you know, I don’t know whether that was the moment that made me start to think about everything else in my life. I don’t know, but I certainly am aware that my second time around brought me to a different kind of love. It brought me to learn that there are so many different people in life. And I don’t know what’s wrong with having two beautiful people in your life that give you various opportunities at different times. Who says that that’s not okay?

People that sometimes say, Oh, you know, I feel like I’ve failed because I’ve got divorced. Who’s to say it’s not a success? Who’s to say that? Just because it didn’t work. It was what you needed at the time because then you peel back another layer of the onion. You evolve into the person that maybe you were always meant to be. Or, you know, perhaps you can continue to peel back layers and become even more and more different.

And I suppose that’s what brings me into the third thing that is so good about divorce. And that third thing is you get to be whoever you want to be. You get to choose what you do. You get to wake up every morning, and rather than being part of a couple, you get to make your own decisions. When you’re in a relationship, like mine was, my ex-husband seemed to be the person making all the decisions. And I suppose he probably was to some extent when it comes to our business and that sort of thing, because, you know, day to day he was running it. And I think I realized that I couldn’t just get up and have a job. I just didn’t want just a job.

So his business, or our family business, hat’s what it was to me. It wasn’t something, I wasn’t changing anyone’s life. I wasn’t doing anything like that. All I was doing was going to work and helping him build. It was a product-based business, and I needed more. And each of us is different. Some people may or may not be happy with that sort of career. That might be what some people would love to have. But I always felt like there was a deeper calling ever since I was a young girl. I was a real nurturer, so I knew that I needed to have a job that was bigger than me. If that makes sense. Like if every day I help you, you help someone else. They help someone else. It’s the ripple effect. And that’s what I’ve tried to build now in my life. Like I knew that there was more and I just had to go out and make it happen. And knowing that you’ve got the strength to do that, that alone is a huge turning point in anyone’s life. So that’s the third one. And then the last major point for me, which has been hard and then it gets more comfortable, but the thing now, looking back about what I liked the most about getting divorced. I got rid of a lot of baggage.

Now I’m thinking about how I wanna say this, I often say you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. Those persons rub off on you. You learn new things from them and explore. They bring you different ways of thinking, and you can lift your knowledge as a person.

And when I look back now, the thing that happened when I got divorced was a lot of those people that I had in my life that I thought were my friends, they weren’t. And my mentor talks about, energy being like a tire on your car. And if you think about every time you speak or deal with someone, if they’re an energy sucker.

In other words, if they’re taking, taking, taking, and not giving, those people steal from you every time they receive from you. Your tire gets flatter. And I suppose when I look back now at the whole divorcing, there were some people in my life and I was running on a flat tire. They were just sucking out of me rather than giving back.

Now there are definitely people in that same time that stood out. And I know for sure are my lifelong friends who I’m very, very blessed to have in my life, but the rest of them, they’ve sort of all just gone and disappeared. And at the time I thought they were important, but the truth is you come into this world alone, and you leave this world alone.

So the people that you spend a lot of time with really need to be the people that deserve to be there. That deserves your attention. And relationship, just like the one with your partner, is a give and take one. It’s just not a take, take one. And I was talking to my brother-in-law last night, and he does up old cars, and I was thinking about this today. And can you imagine this? Your life is like a beat-up old car that’s maybe 30, 40 years old. It’s got scratches. It needs a paint job. You know, it’s pistons, aren’t running well, the brakes are probably worn out. Even the tires need to be replaced. So what he does is he refurbishes the motors. He gives them a paint job, and they look fantastic. And now I go from being bloody derelict to worth a fortune. And that’s the same picture I have in my head about my divorce when I think about it. I feel like, or I felt like that car with flat tires. My pistons weren’t working well.

You know, the body of the car is reliable. The internal part of the vehicle is all good. I just needed a bit of a paint job, some new tires, an excellent service, an update on my motor. And all of a sudden I’ve gone from feeling like I was a broken-down old car that was sitting on the junk to be a fully riffed up piece of machinery. And that people want to pay a load of money for it. That’s how I feel about my life now, just like that. If you’re struggling, I share with you the great things that came out of my divorce. You know, the opportunities really are endless, and you might be struggling right now. But remember you’re going to be okay. And it always has been, and it always will be okay. Okay. My darlings I’ll talk to you next week. Bye. For now.

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by Tanya Somerton | Episodes

What we often attract is not what we wish, but is a repercussion of where we put our energy and our focus on. When we think about it, it is reasonable that if we are struggling financially, our attention will go to the lack of resources. The thing is that according to the law of attraction, if we focus on what is missing, we will attract scarcity and repel abundance. The universe sends back what we send out to it; it’s as simple as that. If we send out gratitude, kindness, compassion and love, what kind of life do you think we will have?

Let’s get into it:

Timestamps

We are where we are supposed to be [00:01:30]

The difference between knowing and understanding [00:03:00]

Stopping negative thoughts for starters [00:04:30]

The law of attraction [00:07:30]

There is undoubtedly something to be grateful for [00:10:30]

We tend to ignore what we already have [00:13:30]

Creating consciousness of how lucky we are [00:16:30]

We should get what we are entitled to, not more [00:19:30]

Life can be scary sometimes [00:22:30]

Links

My book: The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering Independence through Divorce

https://tanyasomerton.com/shop/the-jelly-bean-jar/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

Transcription

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week’s podcast. As I record this today, the people next door are demolishing their house. Literally, there’s been cranes, they’ve knocked down the whole front end of their home. So please, excuse me if you’re hearing banging and things like that. And because of the noise, I can’t work in my office. So I’m in my kitchen recording this podcast. However, on a positive side, I’m grateful that I still have the opportunity to do this for you guys and get it out there. Today, I wanted to talk about something that I had learnt since my divorce many years ago. And my evolution as what I would like to say, I’m just peeling off more and more layers of my life as I get older. I’m more open now to things that I don’t think I indeed saw they were in front of me. I did not see them or understand what I was witnessing, seeing, and feeling. Still, something I have learned is where you are right now is a reflection of you. It took me such a long time to truly understand what this meant. Think about it, where you are right now in your life, is a reflection of your decisions and choices. And, of course, many other things, like your environment, all of those opportunities, some may say. All of those circumstances have got you where you are right now. They have you feeling how you are right now, whether that be good or bad or sad or happy. These are all a reflection of where you are right now and a reflection of you so much.

My mentor has this saying: “you are where your attention is.”

What he means by that is that if you concentrate on the good or concentrate on the bad, you get more of those things back in your life. For instance, if you’re focused on lack or scarcity or hardship, you seem to bring more of that back into your life.

Whereas if you concentrate on gratitude, abundance or happiness, you will get more of that in your life. It’s taken me a long time, folks. It really has taken me a long time to fully understand what this means. Now I’ve talked before about the difference between knowing and understanding.

We can know something, and we’ve got knowledge of it, and we can understand it because we’ve read a book. You know, we may have heard about it, but the difference between the two is gigantic. For instance, you understand what it is to have a broken arm. You understand what it means to have a broken arm because maybe one of your kids has had a fractured arm. So you understand what a broken arm is, but you don’t fully know what a broken arm is unless you’ve experienced it. And I’ve never had one. So I don’t fully know what it’s like to have a broken arm. But when we’re living our lives, we know what gratitude and abundance and happiness actually are from experiencing it.

Now, this is where the shift happens, because right now, no matter where you are or what you’re dealing with, you’re probably feeling the complete opposite. Maybe you are struggling to find gratitude in your life right now because everything seems so wrong, but this is where you can change your life.

If you can master this skill of stopping those thoughts as you start to feel them and you change them, you can maybe begin or stop those negative feelings, spiralling out of control. We can do that by controlling the frequency, the vibration and the sound.

You might be saying, well, does not make any sense. Still, there’s proof that our thoughts change our feelings. And when we change our emotions, we turn our vibration and vibration is what actually we send out into the world. So ask yourself, has there ever been a time when you felt at the top of your game, you felt like nothing could go wrong? And imagine when you walked into a room, and you felt like everyone turned around and looked at you. And they might have been times, and I can recall one right now as I’m recording this. After I’d left my husband and I was at work, I think all of a sudden it just clicked this freedom that I hadn’t felt for a long time. And I’ve really started to realize the opportunities that I could have in my life. And I remember walking through a corridor and people would just sign to me with tenure. What’s happened to you? You look so different what’s happened. And I didn’t actually know what they were talking about. Now, many years later, when I look back, my frequency was so high because emotionally, I just felt so alive, so happy. I felt like I had broken through. I felt like I was on my right track. Everything just was right for me at that moment, and people were commenting on, Oh, you look different. I was still exactly the same person. You know, I hadn’t had a haircut. I hadn’t lost any weight, nothing like that. It happened. So what was it that people were noticing? Now with all the knowledge that I have and fully understanding this concept, it was my frequency and my vibration that they were sensing. I was sending that out to the world. Now, if we talk about the law of attraction, for instance, the law of attraction works in a very similar way.

The law of attraction is where you put your attention. So stop and ask yourself, are you actually repelling whatever it is that you want right now? Because if you concentrate on the lack and the scarcity, and how hard everything is; then, what you’re doing is you are repelling all those things that you want. Because you’re thinking about all the things that you don’t have, all the worries in your life. And then that frequency that you’re sending out around you is bringing more of that negativity back into your life.

So it’s like this perpetual loop. Think about it this way. Think about gravity or momentum. Imagine you were standing there, and all of a sudden you felt like you were going to fall over. Once you start to fall, the only way you can stop is either by putting your arm out to try and prevent you from touching the ground. Or maybe, someone catching you or being able to stop you from falling. So they’re halting that forward momentum. And that’s what I want you to start thinking about with what we’re talking about today. Your life is a reflection of you. And I want you to begin to think about if you were falling and someone was going to catch you, or you are going to put your arm out and to stop right there.

You need to do the same thing with these thoughts you’re concentrating on. So if you’re thinking I can’t do this, everything’s going to be wrong. How am I going to survive? I’m not going to have enough money, whatever it is that you’ll be wiring about your vibration and frequency is so low.

What happens is you’re bringing more sadness, you’re bringing more unhappiness. You’re bringing all of those feelings back to you continually over and over again. So what you have to do is stop the momentum, stop that falling that we’ve been talking about and to do that, you’ve got to catch yourself. So the way around this is as you’re feeling these emotions, just say to yourself, stop, just stop.

And I want you to go back and think about something that you should be grateful for. Everyone’s got something, no matter how small, to be thankful for. And to try and illustrate this point, I want to tell you about a very close family friend of mine right now.

So a few weeks ago, we went and stayed with her and her husband, and they are the most lovely people on earth. She’s one of the most caring women I have ever met in my life. And you will hear me say many times you are the sum of the five people you spend your time with. She’s without a doubt, one of those people that if I had to pick and choose, she would be in my five.

She’s just amazing. So why we were there, she was saying to me how, you know, I’m just having trouble eating. She said, it feels like I don’t know what it’s like to have my stomach stapled. I eat a little piece of toast, and I feel full. Anyway, to cut a long story short, she started to vomit. So her husband took her to the hospital. This happened on a Thursday, and by Friday, 24 hours after going to the hospital, she had a diagnosis that changed her life forever. She’s got cancer in so many places in her body that it is heartbreaking.

She’s got it in her stomach, in her lungs, in both ovaries and some other places as well. Can you imagine putting yourself in her position just for this moment, one day she thinks everything is okay. And the next day she gets this news. So overnight that her life will never be the same again. And who knows? I don’t wanna put it out there, but it does not sound good for her. And even she, you know, she’s using the word terminal. Now, what does this mean? One day she’s going to work. She’s looking after everyone else. She’s doing what she thinks she was here to do and, you know, striving for retirement and all the things, all the things that we believe we have to do every day.

But, overnight, her life changed. Now, when I said to her, are you in any pain? She said, no, I’ve got no discomfort whatsoever, still to today. Like this was, you know, this diagnosis was within the last seven or eight days. Um, even to today she’s got no pain, but the gratitude, this woman shows is next level. Amazing.

The gratitude she feels for having no pain. And every little thing that someone else now is doing for her is such a lovely gift that even though she’s, she’s fearful of what the future looks. She said there is nothing I can do about it. I just need to do what I’m instructed to do, try my best, but every day she finds some form of gratitude, some reason to get back up, some reason to keep going.

She’s in a place where I don’t even know, to be honest. I’ve thought about it and wondered whether do I have the strength to be the same as she’s. I’d hope that I would, but I don’t know until, or if I was ever put in that position. Sometimes we don’t fully understand that seeing the sun shining, or also having a roof over our head in the current environment that we are living in. With COVID just having a job is a significant accomplishment at the moment. However, you still hear people complaining about their jobs complaining that, Oh my God, my boss is doing this. They’ve cut my hours.

Stop, some people don’t even have a job like that. Hell! Some people do not have a job right now. Some people’s lives are entirely in disarray, and people still do not fully accept how happy they should be just by getting a pay packet. They always want to see the bad in it, or what’s not going right for them.

So you may or may not be asking yourself. So what should I do now? And it’s easy. It’s so easy that we miss it. It’s so easy that we’ve made life so complicated that we overthink everything. But if you’re lucky enough to be listening to these podcasts right now, that alone tells me that you’re a lucky person. Because you’re one of a small number of people. When you look at how many people are on earth, that can listen to this. Millions and millions of people that don’t even have it, that ability and gratitude the way this starts. And it doesn’t matter what you’re going through in your relationship.

There’s gotta be something positive because when I help you, I help myself. It’s all that the law of reciprocity when I help you, I help myself. And I’m so grateful to be able to simply just do this for you to share what it is that I’ve learned. One little bit of what I’ve learned could be a light bulb moment for you. And you go, actually, my relationship is terrible, or maybe it’s not bad. Perhaps it’s that. You’ve just had this awakening, and you know that there’s more and it’s actually not that your relationship is wrong. Maybe your relationship is meant to be what it is. And it’s just that.

You’re searching for more. You’ve gone to a new level of, let’s call it evolution, and you’re searching for something better in life. And, um, you know, I’m not saying that, whether you’ve been married for five years, 10 years, 15, 20, 30 years, wasn’t great. Maybe there’s just something else out there, and you’ve got to be grateful for whatever it is. It’s got you to where you are right now. Maybe you’ve got to be thankful for the money that you’ve got in the bank. I was talking to a lawyer yesterday, and he was telling me about. This stuff makes my blood boil, about a couple that he’s just finished a court case. He’s client was the husband, and the wife was after quite a lot, was really ridiculous, to be honest. And this is where it comes back to the law of reciprocity. Why the hell does someone think they deserve more than they really do? And then the lawyers get involved, and then the lawyers go, yeah, yeah, you are entitled to that.

So ridiculous. What this woman wanted, you know. She was happy to her husband not see her children, to accuse him of some of the things that none of us would ever say about anyone else.

You can marry someone. You can have kids with them, then you can accuse some of just these deplorable things, just so you get the right control the children and to have more money.

But then once it went to court, it becomes evident of her lies. And the judge obviously said, not okay. She wanted him to pay her a thousand dollars a week, of spousal maintenance. She wanted him to have, visits with the children only when someone else is around, and she wanted 85% of the overall pool. Now she spent $150,000 on legal fees just to try and make those points.

But this is the killer. We’re talking about an asset pool. Now, this is only worth 190,000 alone. So she spent all of that money to make a point to try and hurt the other party. That’s what does not make any sense to me. Her life is a reflection now of her decisions; everything’s fallen apart for her.

I’m assuming that because yesterday, where she thought she was going to have got all the money. Full custody of the kids, get everything and get some, you know, massive spousal maintenance from a guy that can hardly even afford to leave is ridiculous. And the lawyers were enabling her to think that this is all possible.

Thinking of the law of reciprocity, and you are where your attention is, has caused her to feel like she’s a victim that everything’s gone wrong? I can’t believe this has happened to me.

Just consider, just consider for one minute. If she looked at this entirely different and she thought to herself, all right, what’s fair and reasonable for both of us? Firstly, she wouldn’t have spent $150,000 on legal fees. So that means that would be in the family pool. It means that she hasn’t made all of these accusations have been proven not to be true. She and her ex-husband might have a relationship that they can talk about, you know, their children growing up and those sorts of things.

She probably does not feel the way she does right now because my interpretation of it would be that she would be feeling agitated, and who knows? She would be feeling pretty bad. I would suspect. And at the end of it, she’s got a far worse outcome than what she would have done. If she’d only just sat down and they took it from a place of gratitude.

I’m so grateful that I met you. I’m thankful that we’ve got these children. I’m grateful that we build this life, but now it’s time for us to go our own separate ways. And what would have happened would have been a completely different outcome? So what I want you to do right now, I want you to ask yourself.

If you are where your attention is right now, what are you concentrating on? And using the momentum in your life and using the law of attraction? Are you attracting back what you are worried about, and do you need to stop? You need to stop right now, stop your thought process and change it and just be grateful.

Just be grateful for the littlest thing, because who’s to say that maybe just like my friend, who one day, you know, went to work and the next day had this awful diagnosis. It could happen to any of us. We just need to live our best life right now. We just need to live our best life right now. And you might be saying, Tanya, it’s easy for you to say, you’ve been through it, and you’re out the other side. Still, I’m telling you because I’ve been there. I’m saying this because I’ve lived it. I’m telling you because I witness it every day with the things that the lawyers are telling me, not that my clients do any of these things, cause I would never allow it.

When I hear these stories, it breaks my heart to think of people suffering collateral damage from poor decisions, wrong thoughts, wrong feelings, and wrong vibrations.

Go back to when you walked into a room, and people said, wow, what’s going on in your life, you look different.

Go back to that feeling. How do you get that feeling back again? Because when you send that feeling out to the world, you send out those vibrations, more of that comes back to you. And when it comes back, your life is going to be buddy kick ass. And that’s what we want for you.

Anyway, I can tell right now that the people next door are about to have a massive bang. So I have the time to get off my house, but just please listen to this. Go over, listen to it again, try and get the message. Not only understand what I’m saying but know it, know it, leave it to breathe. Live by the law of reciprocity of life, just like I do. Okay. My darling friends, I’ll talk to you next week. Bye. For now.

Recent Episodes

The 4 Blessings I Received From My Divorce

Every process we go through in life is an opportunity to grow and evolve. It doesn't matter if it is either negative or positive, as long as we are grateful...

Did You Know Your Life Is A Reflection Of You?

What we often attract is not what we wish, but is a repercussion of where we put our energy and our focus on. When we think about it, it is reasonable that if...

Effective Communication Grants A Successful Divorce

Communication is a crucial element of any human interaction, and of course, it is not different when we deal with divorce. It requires a set of skills more...

Effective Communication Grants A Successful Divorce

by Tanya Somerton | Episodes

Communication is a crucial element of any human interaction, and of course, it is not different when we deal with divorce. It requires a set of skills more complicated than merely talking and listening. For instance, we feel triggered when someone says something, and maybe, what we understood wasn’t what that person was trying to say. With the right guidance, it is possible to get to communicate effectively. In this episode, I will explain how effective communication grants a successful divorce.

Let’s get into it:

Timestamps

Most of us communicate the wrong way [00:01:30]

What triggers us? [00:03:00]

The rule of the six possible scenarios [00:06:00]

What I hear is what you are saying? [00:07:30]

How my communication skills evolved [00:09:30]

Reading the body language [00:12:00]

The art of mirroring [00:14:00]

Looking deeply inside of us [00:18:00]

Links

How To Tell Your Partner, You No Longer Want To Be Married.

https://divorceangel.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1022671

My book: The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering Independence through Divorce

https://tanyasomerton.com/shop/the-jelly-bean-jar/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

Transcription

Hey there. Welcome back to the divorce angel podcast. I hope you’ve had a great week. And I know that sometimes I feel a bit funny when I say that because I know that when you’re going through a divorce, there’s nothing like a great week. Actually, it seems to be a continuation of shitty weeks until, all of a sudden, you can see out of the darkness. You can see the light, and you know that you’re getting somewhere.

So please, when I say that, don’t take it the wrong way. I mean it with the best intentions, and I do hope given what you’re dealing with right now, you do see some light. I hope you know some gratitude in your life. Some positives make you want to keep getting up and striving to do better every day.

That’s why I want to send my love and care and let you know that’s what I’m thinking about when I say, “I hope you’ve had a good week.”

This week, we’re going to have a chat about communication.

Communication is a crucial tool we teach our clients in my five steps to a seamless divorce. And we do it in a few different ways, but mostly by some exercises that we do to prove a point. And what I mean by that is sometimes we don’t actually understand how bad we are at communicating, and communicating is not just speaking. It’s listening, and it’s understanding. And this is where the most significant issues arise, especially when we’re emotional.

And we do this exercise that I’m not going to tell you about. If you become a client, it is a fantastic exercise, clients just love it. They can ultimately see why their communicating style or what they’re hearing is not actually what their partner is saying to them. Can you imagine having the skills to break down the barriers and what is being said, and not interpreting what you think it is?

And this is the most significant issue when you’re getting divorced.

A tip that I got taught a long time ago is sometimes when someone says something to you, and it triggers a response, it’s not their fault that they’ve triggered you. Maybe even the word “fault” isn’t the correct word. It’s just, that’s, you’ve reacted.

So sometimes people say things, and we react without even understanding why, because it’s only a trigger and those triggers can be deep-seated. They can be from our childhood, they can be subconscious. There are many reasons why other people trigger us. And the other thing is how we interpret what someone is saying.

The greatest thing that I’ve ever learned about relationships is when someone says something to you, or your partner says something, what they are saying is not what they mean. Or sometimes, what they’ve done does not mean what you think it means.

A trick I learned was if sometimes you get triggered by something, you should go back and ask yourself, why were you triggered? And what do you think the meaning of what they were saying was? Then consider six other things that that could have meant. Let me give you an example.

Now, let’s say, for instance, my husband comes home, and we’re having dinner, and he snaps at me. Now I could take it personally and think to myself, oh my God, I’ve cooked dinner, I’ve done this for you, and now you snap at me! And it triggers a response from me, but then consider, rather than getting upset.

Which is what I would have done in my previous life. I was the sort of person that when my first husband and I were discussing something, if I didn’t like how he said it or what he said, I would think all of these reasons why he said it. It was ridiculous, to be honest. I would go quiet, and I would turn into myself rather than discuss what I thought he was actually saying to me.

But when you come up with six others, it could mean something completely different. So let’s go back to the scenario of my husband coming home and snapping at me over dinner. It could only be he’s exceptionally tight. It could be that he’s got pain somewhere in his body, maybe he hurt himself at work. Or he’s worried about something. Or it can be he doesn’t like what I’ve cooked for dinner.

Maybe I’ve said something that’s triggered him, or it could be all in my mind. Perhaps he doesn’t like the sauce that I’ve used, who knows? But in my head, when I go through six other possible scenarios, plus the one that I’ve come up with, what happens is it escalates in my mind why he did what he did.

Because in most cases, what someone actually says is a commune that is a combination or a consequence of exterior things happening outside of their life. And sometimes, they say something and how we react because we think, “this is what they’re trying to say,” which ultimately is not valid.

So, when we go back to communicating, the whole thing is to listen and make sure that we listen to what someone is saying. And a tool that I teach my clients is to repeat what people tell them.

So, in other words, repeat how you interpret what they said, “I hear you saying” or “what I think you said.” When you say it like that, it gives the person that’s speaking to you the ability to come back to you and go, “oh no, no, no, that’s not what I said, you actually got it wrong. This is what I meant.”

And then there will be no issues as far as having, um, the wrong understanding of what was trying to be communicated. So I had used that tool for the last 12 months. It’s a tool that’s very, very good because it makes sure that there’s no ambiguity around what could be trying to be communicated.

When we communicate, and we, women, do this a lot, we beat around the bushes. Men and women communicate so differently. So, so, so differently. What we need to do as sex is making sure that we just come straight out and say it if we want to get something across.

There’s no point beating around the bush or saying something that we really don’t want or don’t need to make someone else feel better. And once again, I relate to this because this was me. So say, for instance, my, um, ex-partner or my husband would say to me, um, “oh, is it okay if we go to X, Y, and Z tonight, even if I didn’t want to go to X, Y, and Z.”

I would say, ah, yeah. Okay. Let’s, let’s go to X, Y, and Z. And I would think by the way I said it or how I communicated it with my body language, they would understand that I didn’t really want to go to XYZ. Then I would get upset or angry because I ended up going there. Can you see how ludicrous this is?

But women are very good at, at this sort of thing. For instance, tonight, when we’re talking about straight-talking, my husband asked me something. And he said, “oh, would it be okay if I give this to a mate?” and I think really highly of this friend of his. And I usually would have said, “yeah. Yeah. That’s okay”. But you know what I did today? I said, “do you know what, babe? Actually, no, I prefer you not to give that to him. You know, I haven’t really used it yet, and it cost me a bit of money, and I’d prefer him not to use it.” Now. I noticed in myself at that moment, how much I had grown as a communicator.

Five years, 10 years ago, I would have just said, “Yeah, no problem.” And then I would have felt a little bit cheated that this new piece of equipment that I haven’t even used it, someone else had. And then, to be honest, it’s the sort of thing that you talk about. It’s a particular sort of microphone. I would probably have thought twice about using it again, especially in this environment with coronavirus and everything else going on.

So kudos to me. I was quite happy with how I reacted to that. And then there is nonverbal communication, and this is just, it’s such a beautiful way of getting to know someone by how they communicate. There are telltale signs, there are moves. In the gambling world, there are things that people do that give away their stories.

And there’s also things like that happening with you right now with your ex-partner. There are things that they would repeatedly do to tell you a story about what they really mean. They might say one thing, but they might do an action that shows you that it means something else.

And a lot of people have to think carefully and later on think, actually, that’s what that meant. But in the heat of the moment, they don’t realize it. Be mindful of nonverbal communication. There’s also the way someone looks, whether they look up to the left or whether they look up to the right when they’re talking, one means that they’re recalling a memory. The other way says that they’re actually considering it as being a lie or telling a fib.

And there’s other tells of nonverbal communication. I recently did an exercise with my mentor about the American presidential candidates. When they talked to each other, going up against each other, and the way they would stand, whether they were square-shouldered or on an angle. Things as simple as body language can make such a difference with what someone is trying to get across and portray.

It can be they think,” I’m better than you. I think I’m good at this,” There’s a lot of other ways that nonverbal communication is part of the equation, and then there’s pacing. Now I spoke about pacing last week. And especially when we’re going through a divorce, the pacing is something when we’re talking to someone else, we go, “yes, I understand, that makes sense.”

You’re meeting them where they are. You’re actually trying to accept what it is being said. You’re mirroring what they’re doing. If someone, in their communication, continually says the word “mate,” When you talk back to them, you would say the word mate.

If they use other colloquialisms that were common to them, you will use those words back to them because their subconscious mind relates to that specific word. And it makes you look like you’re more approachable. It makes you look like you understand what they’re saying. And they will be more interested in you and what you’re saying because they can relate to you.

You’re relatable because you’re using their language back to them. The other thing, if someone sits forward in the chair, you should sit forward too in your chair. If they sit back, you should sit back. Those things are telling the other person’s subconscious mind that you were on the same page that they’re on. If they cross their arms, you cross your arms.

That’s how you also mirror someone’s behaviour. If they talk fast. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You need to babble. If they talk slow, you need to slow down your talking as well to make sure that you are mirroring what they’re doing. And that’s a great way of getting their subconscious mind to actually accept you and trust you and want to work with you.

The other thing is, these tools are excellent when you’re discussing with your partner, or when you’re negotiating. You need to meet them where they are. We’ve spoken about this before, about the different stages of divorce and I call them category A, B and C.

Category A is if you’ve decided to leave the marriage. Category B is if you didn’t even know it was going to happen. And then category C is where you both decide to leave the relationship together, or it is not working. Now, if you’re category A, the research says that with category A it will take years to come to terms of, “no, this isn’t working for me, and I want to leave.”

If you say to category B, “Well, I want to sell the house tomorrow.” You’re two years in front of them emotionally. You’ve thought about your future. And there, all of a sudden, they know that you’re not going to be married anymore. So when you’re communicating with them, they are just going to be a blocker category.

They will just block, block, block. For me, those are the clients that need the most help and support because they’re still in shock. They’re still in mourning. And when their partner is so far in front of them, it’s tough to get the momentum going. And it’s natural. Understandably, they are the clients that I think need the most love, support and care.

So when their partner says, “no, we’re putting on the house on the market tomorrow,” It is because they’re ready for that. Category B, they would say, “still hang on a minute. This is my home. I’ve lost my marriage. Now you want me to sell my home? This is ridiculous.” But if category B was paced, and they were said, “okay, if I was you, I would understand how you feel. If I was you, this makes perfect sense. If I was you, I would feel the same way.”

Then they feel like they are being heard. And there’s a way of negotiating and getting things done that doesn’t hurt either party. And it’s when you do it that way, it really does look like you are being a compassionate person.

But this is the problem with lawyers. They don’t know how to write or to use any of these terms. And these are great tools, not only for dealing with your ex-partner but also in life in general, they can be excellent skills. The narrative around why you are saying what you’re saying also has.

Communicating with yourself is as important as doing it with others, so if you have this narrative in your mind, what your subconscious mind hears you say, it believes it. The words that you say out loud, as well as to yourself, they usually come true. So you need to be very careful with what you say to yourself and the narrative that you’re telling others. Communication is such a fantastic skill. It’s an impressive skill. So let’s just recap on what we spoke about. There’s the listening, then there’s the straight talk, you know, getting right to the point.

And then there’s the non-verbal communication. Then these pacing and making sure yes, we understand. I get that. Then there’s meeting the person where they are at their point in the divorce journey. And then the last part is how we talk to ourself and then narrative and communication that we’re using around our own situation.

Hopefully, these tips have helped you. If you are thinking about leaving your partner, and don’t know how to start the conversation, on my website, I have a course on helping people to communicate with their partner.

So go and pop onto my website and have a look. There’s a workbook there as well, and it helps you work out what you need to do. That’s it for this week.

I look forward to talking to you again next week. Bye. For now.

Recent Episodes

The 4 Blessings I Received From My Divorce

Every process we go through in life is an opportunity to grow and evolve. It doesn't matter if it is either negative or positive, as long as we are grateful...

Did You Know Your Life Is A Reflection Of You?

What we often attract is not what we wish, but is a repercussion of where we put our energy and our focus on. When we think about it, it is reasonable that if...

Effective Communication Grants A Successful Divorce

Communication is a crucial element of any human interaction, and of course, it is not different when we deal with divorce. It requires a set of skills more...

Want To Separate And Don’t Know How?

by Tanya Somerton | Episodes

One of the first things we make clear when a client approaches us is to be positive about getting divorced. It is a huge decision, and we warranty there is no doubt about it before we start the engine of our support machinery. Still, what I’ve realized during the clarity call sessions, is that people’s biggest struggle is not about getting a divorce or not, but how to do it. If you already decided you want to separate but don’t know how to do it, this podcast episode is for you.

Let’s get into it

Timestamps

Is it possible to have a life of freedom, happiness, and love? [00:01:30]

Have you explained to your partner, how do you feel? [00:03:00]

100% commitment [00:04:30]

The seven alternatives [00:06:00]

Why do you need to be sure about separation? [00:08:00]

Security after divorce is everything [00:10:30]

First steps into getting divorced [00:13:30]

The importance of looking at the full facts [00:15:00]

The biggest issue about getting divorced [00:18:00]

Links

Podcast Episode #2 – When is the right time to leave my marriage?

https://tanyasomerton.com/when-is-the-right-time-to-leave-my-marriage-2/

15 Min Clarity Call:

https://msgsndr.com/widget/bookingcalendar=kcpWfO0ij7Aq2u4TzFEk

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Transcription

Hey there, this is Tanya Somerton, I am back again for this week’s Divorce Angel podcast. Now, for those of you that don’t know, I have a Facebook group called the Divorce Angel Facebook group. And before you can come into the group, I actually ask you a few questions. And I do that because I need to understand how I can help and support you with what you’re going through and what you’re dealing with. And to make sure that we have the resources to help the people that are going through challenging times right now.

I hear people say quite often, I want to separate, but I don’t know how to do it. If you go back to, I think it’s maybe my second or third podcast, there’s a podcast back there on how to separate the right way, which might also give you some ideas.

The other thing is, If you go to my website, www.tanyasomerton.com, under our programs tab, there is a free resource, which has quite a lot of content about that.

There are downloadable eBooks, some padded pick the right lawyer, and a few other things that might really be beneficial to you. And as I said, it is free material. So get in there, have a look and make sure you get as much information as possible before you take steps to start this journey.

So can you imagine a life of freedom, happiness, even purpose and love?

And the answer to that question is yes. Yes, you can. And you might say, well, Tanya, how do you know that? Well, I know that because if that wasn’t what you were searching for, you wouldn’t be listening to me right now. So how do you go about wanting to separate and doing it the right way?

So there are a few things that you really need to do. You need to understand clear in your mind why you want to separate and make sure that you’re not just jumping ship because everything seems too hot. A question I often ask the clients at the clarity call is, do you still love your partner?

Because if you still love the person you are married to and still love you back, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. But quite often, I will say to people when we have our query core, have you actually explained to your partner why you feel the way you do?

And this question, sometimes I am entirely perplexed by the answer that I get.

In many cases, people haven’t explained to their partner, their wants and needs and why things aren’t working. And leaving marriage counselling until when everything is so wrong that it can’t be repaired.

We should be working on our marriages every single day.

We shouldn’t be waiting to they are so bad. And in such disrepair that there’s no hope of making it any good. We should be working on this every single day. And if you’ve been listening long enough, you would hear me say the lessons that I learned from my previous relationship.

And these are the lessons that I’ve learned. And maybe this is another podcast I should do one day.

Working with people day in day out in this area, I see the same things happening over and over again. And we’re all making the same mistakes, but no one is addressing them. So in my marriage, what happens is my husband and me, we give 100% to each other, not 25, not 50, not 70, not 75, but 100% to each other.

Every morning when I get out of bed, my first thought is what I can do today to make his life better? And he will do the same thing for me every day. What is it I can do to make Tanya’s life better. Now don’t get me wrong, It’s not perfect. We both still, you know, are learning our ways around our new relationship.

We’ve been together now for nine years and married for five coming up in November. Still, we’re committed to making each other’s lives, better. And I’ve learned so much from my previous relationship.

I know my issues, the things that I do wrong. I know that when I’m tired or, if my husband said something in a specific tone, I have like muscle memory to my previous marriage.

And all of a sudden I get reticent, but there are things that I know for sure I need to work on.

But our communication is so important. If I say to him, hey babe, I don’t know if you realize, but that just brings back a sombre memory for me. Or it brings back something that I don’t want to have in our relationship, and straight away, he apologizes.

But a tool I learnt long ago was, every time you feel a certain way, or you feel triggered by something, think about it seven alternatives. So straight away, my response to him talking in a tone might be that he’s unhappy with me. He’s aggressive with me. I’ve done something wrong. Or something that might happen on his drive home from work, someone’s cut him off.

He’s had a terrible day at work, he’s hurting in some way, shape or form. So whether that be because he does a physical job, has he hurt himself at work, but he doesn’t want me to worry. So he doesn’t tell me. What I do is whenever I feel triggered, I go straight away to thinking of all of these other reasons. And my interpretation, I can tell you in 95% of the cases, is not at all, what he meant.

And it’s because of that on my website I have “How to tell your partner you no longer want to be married”. And it’s a course, and I show you how to use specific tools and techniques, that have been taught to me, to make sure that we deescalate, and have a good conversation about what are we feeling.

There’s so much that our subconscious mind takes in and we don’t realize it is being taken in. So when we want to separate, all of those consequences that we’re so worried about start showing up. But if you really want freedom, happiness, purpose, and love, you need to find all of those things in yourself and not from someone else.

And in many cases, a lot of people haven’t found happiness, purpose and love for themselves. So they’re wanting someone else to deliver that to them. But when you know for sure, you want to separate, and it’s a pretty much a black and white decision. It’s either yes or no.

It’s not ever, oh, I’m considering it, weighing it up. Because by the time you committed to leaving, you know, for sure that you want to go. No one ever makes that decision wondering, Oh, is this the right decision? Or should I have stayed?

The only time they do do that is when there are emotional or psychological problems that need to be addressed with either a counsellor or a psychiatric professional.

There might be underlying reasons for those specific problems. Perhaps abuse or other things that have happened. And those people need a significant amount of love and support and an excellent help professional network around them.

So what do you need to do to separate? Once you’ve made the decision and you know that you need to leave, the next thing is understanding what the consequences of that are.

And to understand the effects of leaving, you really need to work out because unfortunately, for all of us, security is the number one thing that we need.

And to be secure, we need to understand how we’re going to pay our bills. How are we going to have a roof above our head? What’s going to happen to the children? And sometimes those three questions keep us in unhappy relationships because we don’t have the answers for them.

When we do a divorce roadmap, we get the answers to each and every one of these questions. And in a lot of cases, when we do divorce roadmaps, people who thought that they couldn’t survive, realize it wasn’t that bad as they thought. People often say, there’s some money in this other area that I didn’t know that I could touch. There could be control issues in your relationship. No two divorces are ever the same. And no two people’s wants and needs are ever the same.

For instance, if you go back and listen to last week’s podcast about Rachel, Rachel had no money, nothing. She was actually so far in debt that it wasn’t funny. So security to her wasn’t about finances. It was about finding herself, standing on her own two feet. And that’s what you need to ask yourself. Is the ability to leave the unhappiness of your relationship? What is controlling your emotions right now?

Would it be better for you to be single than to be in this relationship? We don’t ever get married, hoping that one day we will get divorced. When I put ads on Facebook, sometimes I have to control myself when I see people the most ridiculous comments about why people get married. It is because they’re trying to make money off a partner or they want a better life, but it’s not about love or anything like that.

The most ridiculous thing with that is that the other partner chose that person to be in their life. They picked them to get married. It wasn’t like they were forced into it. In marriage, both parties have to agree, it’s a contract.

Now just to make that comment really clear as well. Obviously, there are religions around the world where people are, either the Troast or, parents choose who someone marries. I’m not talking about those folks in that comment. The majority of people who get married, get to pick and choose who they marry and why they get married.

So, On Facebook, when people write those comments, I know for sure that they’ve had a bad experience. Whether it be their parents or themselves, or something that they’ve witnessed to give them that idea. Or their interpretation of what marriage is all about, because there are far more good marriages than bad. Well, that’s what I want to believe. And it’s also what keeps me doing what I’m doing. Because I’ve seen many people leave their first marriage and be so happy in their second marriage simply because they make different choices. And it’s not a one way. Right?

So back to you and back to wanting to separate, but not knowing how, you’ve made a choice, and you are sure that you’re going to leave. The next step is understanding how is your financial position today. And we do this when I do a divorce roadmap. And this is what I would suggest that you do as well.

To find out your current financial position, you got to have to get things like your mortgage documents, your credit card bills. You must compare the debt and the assets that you have with your partner.

And we call that in and out. We put the data in an assets and liability sheet. With the assets and liability sheet, what we can do is work out a net position of the couple. And this is where everything starts to get either a little bit exciting or a little bit daunting. Because it’s that correct number that allows us to understand how you can survive and what that means.

Now when clients work with me, when we’re looking at that net position. It tells us a story. It tells us what your future will look like. And that’s important for you to understand if can you afford to keep the family home or maybe you need to rent it. But everyone’s individual position is different from the rest.

There’s not a blanket rule on this, and that’s why it’s essential to make sure you have someone that can help and guide you through it.

I say this because I’ve seen many times people not looking the full facts and making wrong decisions. I even had a mortgage broker a few weeks ago who I was talking to. And she explained to me that she gave her ex-husband, $60,000 out of her bank account. And I said to her, Oh, why did you do that? And she goes, Oh, because I’m keeping the rental property that we have. What she didn’t take into consideration is that the rental property and she’s in this industry, she knows that she doesn’t have the amount of money to refinance a loan. And I explained to her that it wasn’t that simple. And then, you know, she would need to get some orders to transfer titles, and she would need to refund finance and mortgage.

She said, well, I can’t afford to refinance a mortgage. And the property that she owns is in a state where the investment is not going up in any form of capital growth. But here’s the thing, losing money that she already put into was so bad for her. She was prepared to take on the risk of a lousy performing asset just so she didn’t lose the stamp duty and the deposit that she put into the house initially. But when you’re separating, I like to think about it as a reset on life. It’s a chance to learn what didn’t work and what is working and making sure that what you do, puts you in an excellent position moving forward.

So from a mortgage brokers perspective, she thought she was doing the right thing. She thought by giving her ex-husband’s 60,000 and keeping their house that it was a level playing field. She didn’t take into the account the rest of the consequences.

So, he still gets 50% appreciation. Like there was so much that this lady hadn’t thought through. And that’s why you need to be thinking the same way and making sure that you’ve thought about all of the consequences and you’re aware of them. If you don’t go and get the proper advice, and a lawyer is really good at giving legal advice. Still, they’re not good at providing financial advice.

That’s why my team gets excellent results. Because we work together as a collective to look at someone’s financial position and legal position from a holistic point of view.

And that was the biggest issue that I found out when I was getting divorced. Lawyers didn’t do that with me. And it’s a flaw in the system, and it’s such a floor that it causes people to be financially worse off.

And because there’s nothing to compare your situation to since no two divorces are the same. It’s not like you can go through and research and find out what someone else did, or what someone else didn’t do. And this is what you need to be mindful of.

So wanting to separate names, you need to have a net position of your financial circumstances. And I want to just be clear. I want you to discover that divorce doesn’t need to be complicated, it doesn’t. We, humans, make it difficult. We think because we don’t have the answers that it’s tough. We listen to other people’s stories, and they may have gone about it the wrong way.

I can tell you right now, I know that many people do. Still, when you do it the right way, it can be enlightening, empowering, and it can be the restart that you need to a successful life.

So added everything that I’ve just explained, I’m wondering though if you understand that that is not the hardest part of getting divorced. Because I can help you through the fundamentals of it.

But the hardest part of getting divorced is the emotional side. You must know that you can do this. You should know that you’re strong enough and that you can have a better life. It’s being the person that you need to be to have that better life.

So if you’re going to do this alone, you make sure that you have an excellent support network. That could be a divorce coach. It could be a counsellor, it could be someone like that that keeps you on track and helps you move forward in the right way. Because if you become stagnant, all of a sudden, it’s like a game of snakes and ladders and you just slide all the way back then again. You want to make sure that you’ve got momentum and you keep moving in the right direction. The other thing is you may be putting a lot of pressure on yourself for a particular outcome, for a specific expectation of living standard. And I want you to realize that by getting rid of all of those expectations, your outcome could be a lot better. And not being committed to a particular result will allow other amazing things to happen to you, other opportunities. Because you were thinking differently. So when you ask yourself, what’s really important to you, you’re going to immediately start to be able to convince yourself. That taking the next steps of what is right for you and your life.

Recent Episodes

The 4 Blessings I Received From My Divorce

Every process we go through in life is an opportunity to grow and evolve. It doesn't matter if it is either negative or positive, as long as we are grateful...

Did You Know Your Life Is A Reflection Of You?

What we often attract is not what we wish, but is a repercussion of where we put our energy and our focus on. When we think about it, it is reasonable that if...

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Rachel’s Story – From Financial Whoa To Wonder

by Tanya Somerton | Episodes

This week I received a beautiful email from a client who, helped with the tools and support we offered to her, managed to make a 180 degrees change in her life. I believe we can learn a lot from her story, from how she handled her divorce, and mainly, from the way she regained control of her life. Join me and enjoy Rachel’s story, from Financial Whoa to Wonder.

Let’s get into it:

Timestamps

We want to feel safe [00:01:30]

The lessons we need to learn [00:03:00

What we should avoid during divorce [00:04:30]

The beginning of Rachel’s story [00:06:00]

The body talks [00:07:30]

The beauty of this woman [00:09:00]

Rachel’s critical situation [00:12:00]

The last straw [00:15:00]

The first step into a new life [00:16:30]

Some things never change [00:18:00]

Rachel’s email [00:19:00]

Links

15 Min Clarity Call:

https://msgsndr.com/widget/bookingcalendar=kcpWfO0ij7Aq2u4TzFEk

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

My book: The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering Independence through Divorce

https://tanyasomerton.com/shop/the-jelly-bean-jar/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Transcription

Hey, everyone. And welcome back to this week’s podcast. Today I wanted to talk to you about something very near and dear to my heart. It is not only financial literacy for women, but also for men. It is also about the power plays that I see going on in a lot of relationships around money. Sometimes it’s a ploy, it’s a trap how the other person in the relationship controls what’s going on. But today I wanted to talk specifically about a client of mine who is now divorced. And this week I received an email from her that I will read at the end.

The email was so touching, given everything that she’s gone through, that I got tears in my eyes and got very emotional.

When this client came and sat in my office, her situation was, the only word I can use is, dire.

For all of us, when we are going through our relationship breakups, the most important thing we want is security. And security is perceived to come from finances.

In other words,

knowing that you can pay your rent, that you can pay for your gas and your electricity, put food on the table, put petrol in your car, and pay the bills that you’ve always paid. Those are the things that the majority of us want the most.

And there’s no doubt that the fight over finances when going through a divorce can be very bitter. And sometimes people think they deserve more for whatever reasons.

But what I like to try and get across is when we are going through our divorce is to be sure that we get what is fair. Not what is perceived as I deserve this. I went through this, I put up with this, but what is fair. And the reason, the word fairness is so important is because I’m a big believer in Ani. And Ani is an ancient Indian word, and it means the reciprocity of life.

And what I’ve witnessed, given the facts around divorce, I’ve spoken about them before. Still, it’s roughly 45% of first-time marriages fail. 70% of that 45% fails a second time. And then 90% of that 70% fail a third time again. Can you imagine?

And this is my primary driver with my business. Not only to help people get through a divorce with my Five steps to a seamless divorce program. But also to understand if we do it the right way, the first time, and we learn the lessons, let me repeat that. We learn the lessons, so we don’t get what we are not entitled to. We don’t go and spend a fortune fighting for something that really was not asked. That we don’t prolong a war. We don’t become so emotionally distraught over the fight that it affects us via stress.

And then as we all know, stress brings on all of these other medical conditions. Divorce is awful if you do not do it the right way. But when you do it my way, what happens is you’re not part of that 70%. You’re not part of that 90% because you’ve done it from a position of fairness. You’ve got what you deserve. You’ve learnt the lessons that many, many people are not learning. They’re just repeating the same mistake over and over again because they had this sense of entitlement.

And this client that I’m about to talk to you about is a prime example of what good looks like given everything she went through.

And I think that’s why I am so emotionally connected to her because his story is sad. Still, she’s now one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. So let me tell you about her. She’s a woman who works in a school. She has two teenage children, and she’s married to a man that has his own business. Now, throughout the 20-year marriage, she’s worried about being the home carer.

She makes sure that the house is respectable. She looked after the children because you know, her goal in life, their purpose is to help children with learning and literacy. So of course her own children are so vital to her and making sure she does the right thing and leads by example for her kids.

Her husband is in the building industry. And because of that, he has these grandiose ideas of the sort of property that they would live in. He had what’s known as an identity issue. His identity is tied to wealth because of the family that he comes from.

His family is quite wealthy, and he was brought up with privileges that many of us didn’t have.

His parents always bailed him out when things got a little bit hard. So as an adult, he would make decisions. And those decisions sometimes put the family in a very precarious financial position. Still, he tried to keep how bad it was from his wife until it got to an unbearable stage.

One day she came into my office, she was referred to me by a financial advisor, and we sat down, and we did a deep dive into her situation. She told me for many, many years, she felt sick in the stomach, and doctors couldn’t tell her why she felt this way? Looking back now, 12 months after she left and now divorced her husband, she said, Tanya, I know what that feeling was. It was my body warning me that things weren’t right.

Can you imagine right now inside of you, you have a warning signal? That he’s giving you information, that’s feeding you the truth, but if you don’t listen to it, it can’t help you. And that’s what happened to this client.

But now she understands what it was telling her. So here she is in her forties with her teenage children. And she knew that something wasn’t right.

We sat down and went through some of her bills, her mortgage and how much the house was worth. And straight away it didn’t add up to me. The truth is always in the numbers. So when we were doing her divorce roadmap, I asked her to go away and get me some documents.

Now, this is where this woman is so inspiring. She was working full time, getting an excellent wage, but pretty much had no money.

She knew she needed my help to find out exactly what was going on and get to the bottom of it. But she had no money to survive. How was she going to pay me?

This was the beauty of this woman. She knew she had to go and do something because if she didn’t do anything, nothing was ever going to change. She would stay with this sick feeling all the time in her stomach.

Her ex-husband, he’d taken loans out in her name and forged her signature. He had rung the bank, and he’d done things like not paid specific mortgage instalments. Those sort of things just to try and move money around from here to there. Now I’m not saying this man did this on purpose, to be honest, I actually think he has some problems that he needs to address. I’m not placing blame here by any means.

My client was a little bit of an enabler because she didn’t stand up to him. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t want to know more because deep down she knew something wasn’t right. And she did not want to cause conflict. So she allowed it to happen.

I often say it takes for a successful relationship both parties have to be committed, not 50%, but 100%. And neither of these parties in hindsight, we’re committed 100% to the success of their relationship. Lucky it had got so bad financially that there was little that either of them could do that was so committed to their struggles.

Both of them, him trying to hide the issues and her ignoring that they were even happening, that they just existed in this relationship.

We realized that they were so far in debt, that there was no doubt, after talking to the lawyers and the accountants, that at some stage in the near future, the bank would repossess the house. The cars would be repossessed. And there was no doubt because of of the precarious documents that we found, that she would eventually either be forced into bankruptcy or at least have to go into liquidation.

Can you imagine? This is a woman that got up every day, went to school, did a job, looked after her students, loved her children and cared about them. Like you wouldn’t believe. She also said later on. Her children pretty much were the reason that she stayed.

She thought I’d just have to stay for the kids. They’re getting to an age now really when they’ll be ready to move out of the home. And when that happens, I can address this issue.

So here she is with this terrible decision, she had to leave her husband, and make the decision whether to declare bankruptcy or wait for the hearing to happen.

Now, she took control of her life, and that is what’s so amazing about this woman. She took control of her life, even though the picture in front of her was so dire.

If we circle back the thing about security, she felt there was nothing secure in her life. Other than the love she had for her children and the ability to control their lives. She had no money whatsoever. If she didn’t go bankrupt, she would owe so much money that she would have to work for many years just to pay back the debt.

And there’s so much more here than I am not explaining to you.

She said, looking back, there were only lessons and no regret. She took on her shoulders. The part that she applied in allowing her ex-husband to get them to the physician at that ring. And she realized. That she was going to work and she was paying the majority of the bills.

She was a pretty experienced teacher, so her wage was pretty substantial. [00:15:00] Her salary went to just keep everything as it was, they never got any better. They never got any further in life. And I think the last straw for her was when the local mechanic rang up and said to her, you owe me $4,000. And she said, what for? And he said, oh, well, because your car was serviced a few months ago and it needed all of these things done to it. And you guys still haven’t paid. And like these things day after day would keep being pushed in front of her. She had to address it, and she was not even aware.

So I let’s fast forward 12 months, she left her husband and took her children. She rented a property. Now, this was the key. If she’d stayed where she was, she wouldn’t have been able to get a rental property because they do a credit check on you and they want to understand what sort of debts you have.

So by leaving before she went bankrupt, this woman was able to get a property for her and her children to live in an area that she wanted to stay in and she could pay her rent.

And then, after she’d set herself up with our assistance and we got it relocated, she went and had a chat to her husband and explained to him what she’d done.

So she said, “Our marriage isn’t working”, and she went through why she was leaving. Then she told her ex-husband that she’d gone into bankruptcy and why.

He was so perplexed. Because he’d been living in such ignorance for so long and he thinks this perpetual circle of robbing Peter to pay Paul, just to keep afloat is a great idea.

He could not believe that she would and take into consideration none of this. She was continually down to work and paying the bills. And yet she was with the courage of their convictions to stand up and say enough is enough. I need to do something about my life.

Because if I don’t, I’m not going to move on any further.

Her ex-husband was flawed by what she did. He never did it.

He continued to do the same thing. Six months after she moved out, he took in a new woman with her children. He’s just still living the same life.

She’s still getting letters from the bank saying that mortgages haven’t been paid. He’s so out of control that it’s going to hit him like a sledgehammer. But she’s already moved on with her life.

So she’s moved to new rental accommodation. She’s got her children with her, her children are happy, and she said, I ignored the signs because I thought I was doing the right things for the kids.

Now I look back, and I realize I should have done it so much sooner because what was I teaching my children?

I was teaching them to ignore what was going on in front of them instead of addressing it.

Now I want to read you the email that I got from her this week. Good morning, Tanya. As I sit on the beach, looking over the bay, reflecting on all kinds of stuff. My mind wandered to you.

And I wanted to say, thank you, thank you for providing a stable and clear platform for which I could begin my much-needed separation journey. And what a journey it has been.

Goodness. Being so generous and caring for my financial situation, directing me to other professionals who have acted with such integrity, care and thoughtfulness as you. Helping me to begin gathering my life back together again and finding a more normal- normal. Showing such empathy and understanding and encouraging and empowering me to look forward and starting, not just another chapter of my life so far, but a sequel, a new adventure with my beautiful big kids, family and ever so cherished friends.

You had an impact on people, tenure and provide strength and possibility. You are an angel as your business name suggests. Sometimes they cross your path. And I was one of the lucky ones for such an experience. Thank you again, darling, with a big smile on my face and much love.

So, can you imagine me opening this email and reading this, given the strength that this woman has shown?

Not just that. I also got a beautiful text message from her mom. I’ve got a text message from her mom telling me that I’d made a difference to their life.

Now, I did nothing. All I did was provide the tools. I gave her the support, and I let her know that it would be okay. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s one of the strongest women that I’ve ever met. And she is without a doubt, one of my genuinely brilliant success stories. Simply because she wasn’t fighting over money. There was no money to get. She was fighting for a better her, and she was fighting to show her children with tenacity and strength and courage that everything will be okay.

So my darling friends. Can you imagine the life that she now has?

She’s paying her rent. She’s doing everything else. But for seven years, when you’re bankrupt, you can’t buy, you can’t get financed. So she can’t buy another house, but she has a clear picture in her mind of what her future looks like. And she’s doing such a great job. And you probably already know if you are in a similar situation and your [00:22:30] body is telling you something.

The truth is that it is inevitable that at some stage, something has to happen. So ask yourself, how long are you prepared to wait until you actually address what’s going on? Yeah, because no one will do it, but you. And if you need my help and support, just know I’m here for you. And we’ve got the tools, the support and everything else that you will need to get through this dire situation.

Okay. My darlings, I will talk to you again next week. Bye. For now.

Recent Episodes

The 4 Blessings I Received From My Divorce

Every process we go through in life is an opportunity to grow and evolve. It doesn't matter if it is either negative or positive, as long as we are grateful...

Did You Know Your Life Is A Reflection Of You?

What we often attract is not what we wish, but is a repercussion of where we put our energy and our focus on. When we think about it, it is reasonable that if...

Effective Communication Grants A Successful Divorce

Communication is a crucial element of any human interaction, and of course, it is not different when we deal with divorce. It requires a set of skills more...

Your Answers Are In Silence

by Tanya Somerton | Episodes

After a tough couple of weeks, I’ve realized that even when life put us in dark places, there is something positive we can get from it. We might torture ourselves overthinking what would have happened if we acted differently, or how our life would be different if we hadn’t choose what we chose. Sometimes, the best choice is to shut all that chatter in our heads, connect with our feelings and be alone with our thoughts. Maybe in silence, we might listen to the answer we are looking.

Let’s get into it:

Timestamps

The body talks, we should listen to it [00:01:30]

The pressure goes up [00:03:00]

I think I had experienced this feeling before [00:06:00]

One more pull [00:07:30]

What I wrote in my diary [00:10:30]

Letting go of the heavy baggage [00:12:00]

The message I’ve got [00:13:30]

Links

15 Min Clarity Call:

https://msgsndr.com/widget/bookingcalendar=kcpWfO0ij7Aq2u4TzFEk

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

My book: The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering Independence through Divorce

https://tanyasomerton.com/shop/the-jelly-bean-jar/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Transcription

Hey there, everyone, welcome to this week’s podcast. I don’t know where to start this week. I have found these memes on Facebook where they say, I want a refund from 2020. So if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re not in the year 2020. Just let me explain what’s going on right now. Not only in our society, not only in our country, but the world, is in a position in time, which for me, and the years I’ve been on this earth, I’ve never seen. And I’m the sort of person that I can feel the energy. When I’m talking to someone, I can feel their pain, I can look in their eyes and see how hurt are they.

And maybe it’s one of the gifts that I have that make me so good at helping people through the challenging time of getting divorced. When I worked at the airport, my life was in danger, and I had a risk assessment because of my role at the airport. I had to control unfavourable people who were doing things wrong and breaking the law. And when I would come in contact with these people, the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up. And it was something that I learnt to trust. I would get a feeling in my stomach, and I just learned to listen to what my body was telling me. I tried to remove what my brain was saying.

My brain was saying, you’ve got people around you, nothing’s going to happen. But something inside of me would say, Tanya, step back, move away. And one of these guys that I would step away from, later on, threw a Molotov cocktail into one of my staff members. And that proved to me that I needed to listen to what was going on in my body. I’m telling you that story to give you an idea of what I am feeling now.

The world is in a dark place. And that puts next level pressure on people. We feel that pressure in our homes, in our schools, in our business life, in our communities. It’s heavy. And on top of all that, there’s been a lot of sadness that’s happened. So for me, in the last few weeks, my youngest brother in law has passed away unexpectedly. We have been completely and utterly shocked about it.

And this is just gone to add to what I am feeling. I was sitting around because sometimes I need to sit and listen to what it is that I need to hear. I’m not being woo-hoo or anything like that. But sometimes when I’m quiet, when I’m with myself, the answers just come to me, whatever that is.

And I’ve watched my inlaws and my husband suffer terribly, I needed to be there and support them. And I also had my own grief of what’s happened.

The shock of my brother-in-law passing away and not being able to see him again, not being able to laugh with him again. And all of the special moments that we had because he was a very, very funny bugger, to not have him anymore in my life really meant that I had to think long and hard.

About not only what he brought to my life and the value that he brought to my life, but I started to wonder how we work so hard. We go about things day in, day out, and we do it because we think that we’re building something bigger and better in our lives. And then you wonder, what is it all for? What is it all about? Why am I doing this?

And going back to where I started this conversational loop a few minutes ago, the correlation between death and divorce feels so familiar to me. The feelings that I’ve felt in the last few weeks feel so familiar to what I went through when I was divorcing my first husband—the feeling of being aimless.

The heaviness on my shoulders, I couldn’t shake it—the feeling in my gut. I can’t describe what the feeling was, but I was so aware of it every minute of the day, these dense feelings. And it reminded me of when I was mindful of the emotions, and I was trying to shake them.

And I kept saying to myself, come on, Tanya, you’ve got to restart, get back to where you were before this happened to James, which was my brother. Go back to where you were.

And I realized I was mourning, and I realized I was struggling, but I was just trying to get over it again. I was trying to restart. And it reminded me of when I was a little girl, my grandfather used to repair mowers all the time, and I would see him pulling the cord. Then he’d pull again, and again, and sometimes, they’d turn over.

And then all of a sudden one big pull and the thing would start. And that’s what I was sensing. Every time I was trying to shake it off. I was telling to myself, come on one more pull, one more pull, and you’ll be back to normal. But why is this important to you?

Well, it’s important to you because I want you to understand that you will get over it, and you will get through it. What you’re dealing with right now, there is no doubt, is precisely the same as mourning the loss of someone extraordinary in your life. There’s no doubt that you are crying the future that you thought you were going to have.

And maybe you need to show yourself a little bit of love. Don’t be hard on yourself. Don’t try and think that you’ve got to do everything if you need to sit in silence. Just as I did, sit in front of the TV for a few days and do nothing if you need it. Just do mind-numbing, nothing so you can regroup.

But don’t allow other people to put pressure on you to do something that maybe you don’t want to do. If it doesn’t feel right. Listen to what your body’s telling you. Sometimes our analytical brain wants us to think or do something just to get us restarted when we need to stay in the cocoon that we’re in for a little bit longer.

But if you want to understand some ways to get yourself out of this feeling. If you’re feeling like this, I wanted to share with you some of the things that I did. I’m a big journaler. I liked to write down my thoughts because when they leave, my brain goes through my hands and onto the paper. It’s like, they’re there for the world to see. And I just wanted to read to you what I’d written in my diary last week.

This is what I wrote: “It’s my choice, but I just want to lay around and watch TV. I want this feeling of worry to go away. Even though it takes energy that I would prefer to be using somewhere else, putting off the decisions I know must be made, but I ignore them.”

And that little bit right there, it was about everyday life decisions. It was nothing to do with survival or anything like that. It was just me trying to get back into what my normality meant for me.

It is the same today as what it was a few months ago. It’s my choice what I want to do because it’s what I love. But when you’re going through a divorce, we’re talking about your normal being so abnormal to you. There’s no doubt that you feel uncomfortable. What I want you to do and what might help you is to make sure that you check in with yourself and you do write down what you’re feeling.

And that’s why just sitting in silence is what you need to do. Just sitting there and I’m not talking for about five minutes. You probably need to do it for a minimum of 30 minutes. You need to turn off the TV, you need to turn off everything, and you need to sit with yourself and your thoughts.

When you do that, all of a sudden you can get through all of the heavy baggage. And you think about all of that stuff that’s uncomfortable because there’s no noise around you, there’s nothing keeping you entertained. So you have to think about the thoughts, but that once you’ve done it, automatically your mind goes to solutions. Automatically your body is coming up with, what do I need to do to address this? And once you’ve done that, then it’s like, okay, I’ve got rid of that top layer of the cake and now I’m getting deeper. Now I deal with the next issue. Then the same thing.

Then you move into the one underneath and if you tackle every problem, one at a time, the biggest one first. You will feel like you are actually getting somewhere and that’s all you need to do. You need to feel like you are getting somewhere, just like me with my brother-in-law. I don’t know if this is how you are feeling right now.

But the question I kept asking myself is, why is it that we try so hard, that we put in what we think is a hundred per cent, why we get up every day? We keep doing what we keep doing, and it’s the same thing every day.

We get up. We go to bed, we get up, we go to bed and then one day we might not get up at all. And I know this might sound sad, but I just felt like I had to talk about this today.

I went through my divorce. I changed my life. I did what I had to do to have a better experience, but then just like my brother-in-law tomorrow, I might not wake up.

And what does that mean? And now this is where the beauty came about. So after my few weeks of feeling aimless, not understanding what it was, what is this message that is coming from this experience? To me, the message was simple.

But it took me a while to get it. And the message is my dear frames that life is so damn short from when we’re born to the moment where we die, it disappears in the flick of a switch.

We need to make sure that every day we do our best, we try our hardest, and we live our life to the fullest because we don’t know if there will be a tomorrow.

So if right now you feel like you either don’t have the strength, or you’re wondering if you made the right decisions. Just ask yourself one simple question. Are you better off where you are right now or where you were before? And what can tomorrow hold? I’m not talking about years from now, but what will tomorrow hold that is better tomorrow than it is today. And if every day you get up and you think today is going to be better than yesterday, because this is what I’m going to do to make it better. Then it will be a beautiful day. It will be a good day.

And I am very grateful for my brother in law, for the lessons that he taught me, for my previous marriage, and for every single thing I have in my life. I am so damn lucky right now.

And even though the world seems heavy and it doesn’t seem to be what it used to be just as long as I get up tomorrow and I do the best I can do, and I give back to the people what I need to give back. Just as I love my family, my husband, my children, you, everything will be okay.

So hopefully you get the message that I’m trying to get across to you right now, but just know it will be okay. Just wake up tomorrow and do the best you can do. Not the best that anyone else wants you to do, the best you can do. And when you do that, everything will be okay.

Bye. For now.

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The 4 Blessings I Received From My Divorce

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Did You Know Your Life Is A Reflection Of You?

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Your House Is Your Home Even During A Divorce

by Tanya Somerton | Episodes

The house we share with our partner at the moment of the separation has both a financial and emotional value. From an economic point of view, keeping it could look more accessible than it is; my experience showed me that numbers sometimes could be deceiving. But also, emotions will try to get a voice in this decision. We might feel inclined to keep it or get rid of it; it will depend on the happy or sad memories housed there. In this episode, I explain to the detail the elements we need to consider when deciding what to do with the family home at this difficult time.

Let’s get into it

Timestamps

A real bugbear [00:01:00]

Is it possible to win at divorce? [00:03:00]

Is not easy to give up on some things [00:06:00]

Thinking twice before moving [00:09:00]

Why is it important to get a legal document? [00:11:00]

Can one partner take over the mortgage? [00:13:30]

What happens if the house sells for less than the value of the mortgage?[00:16:30]

The best way of moving on with your life [00:18:00]

Links

15 Min Clarity Call:

https://msgsndr.com/widget/bookingcalendar=kcpWfO0ij7Aq2u4TzFEk

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

My book: The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering Independence through Divorce

https://tanyasomerton.com/shop/the-jelly-bean-jar/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Transcription

Hey there everyone. And welcome back to this week’s podcast. I wanted to talk today about something very near and dear to my heart, and that is properties. So as you will have known if you’ve been listening for a while, when I got my financial separation from my husband, I purchased three investment properties with that money.

And I still have those properties. And I just loved the thought of capital growth and, you know, money working for me. When I go to bed at night, my money is working hard for me. I’m not a financial advisor. I’m nothing like that. Everyone needs to do their due diligence and looking at what they want to do when it comes to investing their money.

But that’s not what I want to talk to you about today. What I want to talk about is keeping the family home.

It can be a real bugbear and a point of contention for the majority of people going through a divorce. The family home is not only the most significant asset the couple might have, but it also has an emotional connection that people are not willing to give it up.

And in a lot of cases, it’s what most people fight over.

What I’ve noticed dealing with all of the people that I help is that people don’t fully understand firstly, the consequences of keeping the family home, secondly, they think that it’s just merely a swap. They think, well, if the other person is going to take X amount or I’m going to get this percentage from our split, I should be able to keep the house, and it doesn’t work like that.

I see a lot of people getting frustrated when I sit down and explain to them; it doesn’t, that’s not how it works.

There is so much more that has to happen before you can keep the house. And not just that. You need to understand if it is the best decision for you.

What do I mean by that? Sometimes people just want to keep the family home because they want to say, well, I got the house, or, I won.

Some people could perceive that the person that keeps the family house won the divorce. Those are the sort of person that thinks that divorce is about winning or losing. I can honestly tell you it’s not.

I’ve spoken here about the law of reciprocity. If you do not give your ex-spouse what they are entitled to, or you try and trick someone, the universe will come back and bite you on the bum.

Now, whether you believe in this or not, you don’t have to, but I’ve watched it time and time again. I’ve seen people that have tried to do the nasty to their partner. And something has always happened to make them regret the decision. I had a guy ring me this week, and he said, look, I want to be fair with my ex-wife.

I want to look after her. I want to give her a house, and I want to make sure she and the kids are okay. I’m always talking to him. I was thinking, wow, this guy seems to be kind and caring. And then as I was going through my conversation, asking him some other specific questions, I realised by the hair standing up on the back of my neck, he was doing the complete opposite. And I had to say to him, I’m sorry, I don’t work with people that do not want to be fair and equitable to both parties. He was trying to make it look like he was looking after her best interests. He was trying to make it look like she [00:04:30] was essential to him.

But actually, he was protecting his self-interest, and I’m not interested in that. I want both parties to make sure that what they get is fair and equal. So let’s talk about property and divorce. People have strong emotional ties and big visions of renovating it. Or they’ve recently finished building it and putting a lot of work into it. Maybe sometimes that’s been the crack of the relationship breakdown because building or renovating puts a lot of stress on a relationship. But if there’s a relationship that’s already a little bit fractured, it can be enough just to send it over the edge.

The lost vision of what their life was going to be, plus the uncertainty of a future without that house could unleash a fight.

They’ve got the vision of, “I’m going to live in this house, my children have their unique bedrooms, we worked hard to get this asset.” You fought so hard for all that, so to give it up is not easy.

Do you sell it, or what should you do? The truth of the matter is you need to first and foremost understand if you can afford to keep the property and maintaining the property isn’t as simple as just your ex handing over the title.

You need to understand if it is necessary to refinance the loan and if you can service the loan. Once it’s refinanced, and people think that it’s just as simple as a spousal to spousal transfer, but every property has a title, registered at the land titles office. That title specifies the names and percentage of ownership that every person has on the property.

So, for instance, if one party has a business, the other party might own the property as a protection mechanism, if they were to get sued. So let’s assume that a wife holds a business and they put the family home in the husband’s name. So their home might be 100% in the husband’s name.

What that means is the husband can sell the house at any time because the wife is not on the title. Legally, he is the actual owner of the property when it comes to selling it. To the family court, both parties are entitled to the equity or the split of ownership within the house.

What you might do, though, if you’re the person that is not on the title of the property, and you’re worried that your partner might sell it, it might be a good idea to take a catered out. So you are notified if something happens in the property is put on the market to be soaked.

But upon separation, immediately selling might not be the best idea. I did have a client like this once. Three months after they divorced, the house was on the market. The husband had then gone and bought her a unit for the kids. And eight months later, when I finally spoke to her, she said, I don’t even like where we’re living.

I would never, ever have chosen this. This client found herself in a precarious position because if they’d gone and spent stamp duty on this unit, where she did not want to live. She found herself in the worst position.

My advice always is before you go and buy something new, you should consider renting for some time, getting your life sorted out because you might not want to leave in the same area that you live in right now.

But back to the question, should you sell right away upon separation? It’s probably best to understand what you’re entitled to first and foremost. So you can understand what financial your future looks like and weigh up if keeping their house is the best idea for you. You make it work by holding the property and selling it at a later date. There’s so much to consider because you know, it costs us so much. Getting a property stamp duty is expensive, and what a lot of people don’t take into consideration is when you’re paying back a mortgage, you’re paying it back with interest on top of it.

The majority of times we are paying double for a house than what we initially pay for it only because of the interest on the loan. So, you want to make sure that you aren’t getting capital growth, and it is in an area where it will continue to get capital growth. Selling a property is not always the right thing to do.

You might be able to keep it and rent it out, but there are so many things to wire up, like tax implications, and so forth. So it’s not just as simple as saying, I want to keep the family home. Some people have said, you know, can we both live in it? And that all depends on the relationship and how amicable you both are.

But if you guys both want to stay in your house and it fits for what you want in your life, you can do it. It’s up to you because the law says that you’ve got to get this sorted out and finalised. If you weigh up the consequences of why you both want to continue to live in it, and it makes sense for you, go for it.

You can have a binding financial agreement with both leaving the house to a specific date, and then put it on the market. Or one of you can buy the other one out. Any amount of possibilities needs to come up with it. And whatever works for you can most probably be written into a legal document.

You might want just to have a share handshake agreement between the two of you, but you do need to be careful when you do something like that. Because if one of you outgrow the other or meet someone new or want to move on and you can’t because you have nothing to fall back on, it can make it a little bit difficult.

Those situations need to be weighed up and looked.

I think I’ve spoken about a client that put a wall in the centre of the house. She lived on one side of the house, and he lived on the other one.

And she finally decided that she wanted to sell and move out of the house and he was so comfortable there; he did not want to move. And she couldn’t get him to move. They’d lived like that for 20 years after they had divorced. So it was tough for her to get him to move. And I think in the end, if I remember correctly, she had to get a court order to be able to sell the property. And that’s what you’ve got to weigh out.

It might work right now, but if you don’t have anything to fall back on, it can get complicated.

Can one partner take over the mortgage? The answer is, unfortunately, no. I’ve seen this happen very regularly where people think, “well, no, my partner’s moving out. Um, I’ll keep the house, I’ll just keep paying the mortgage. I can afford to keep paying what we’re paying right now.” It doesn’t work like that.

The banks will not allow you to take over a mortgage on a property, especially if your partner is also on that loan, they will want to make sure that that loan is refinanced into your name only. Now, if you can’t service that loan, unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to keep the house. And that’s why it’s essential to make sure you have a strategy.

It’s so important, mainly because it’s one of our business pillars of the divorce roadmap, we do the strategy. And this is all part of what we do. We want to make sure that the client that we’re working can keep the property because if you can’t, you’re wasting your time on legal fees, arguing over a property.

That is something that you’re not going to be able to keep. And I see often, and it frustrates me how lawyers don’t get this part of it. It’s essential to understand what it is that you can and can’t achieve. Can I change the title of the property from joint ownership to sole ownership? The answer is yes to this question, but it can only occur when the family court has stamped either your binding financial agreement or your consent orders. The reason is when you refinance the property; the bank will want to see the consent orders where you support that the transfer is taking place.

The other thing is, especially here in Australia, if you do it this way, there are no stamp duty implications because it’s a spousal transfer. The next question I sometimes get asked is, what happens if the house sells for less than the value of the mortgage? And unfortunately, especially in this current environment that we’re living, where the world is going into recession, and if property markets decline, and your mortgage is at a very high, the property will get sold for less than what your mortgage is. Now, if that happens, you need to make up the difference in the lease, which is nothing.

That’s not a good thing to happen. You don’t want it to happen, but you might have to sell other assets to pay back the shortfall in the mortgage.

You might even need to borrow money, and what could happen? The debt that you have with the bank when the house sells, unless you’ve got something to cover that, the bank can force the sale of other assets to make up the difference.

Now, if the loan is only in your name, you are the one that is responsible for paying back that debt. That’s, why is so important you get legal advice.

What happens if the mortgage isn’t paid? Unfortunately, the consequences are poor credit ratings.

And when you become independent, you need a good credit rating. Whether you need to get gas or electricity or water or a phone bill or take a car out on hire purchase or alone, they will always want to look at your credit rating. So you want to make sure, no matter what, that you continue to pay your mortgage.

Now, if you are struggling, you need to ring the hardship department in your bank and let them know what’s going on. They might even just take it from a principle and interest repayment and make it an interest-only repayment, but at least you’re paying something, and you are keeping in contact with them.

And so make sure that you do that, make sure that they are right across what is going on.

Some clients might ask if I’m going to pay back the mortgage and I’m not living in the house, can I get that money back later on? And the answer is maybe you can add that back into add-backs when all of the assets sold, but it depends on your specific circumstances.

And it depends on what are the assets, income, ages of children. All of those things need to be taken into consideration when we’re talking about add-backs.

What I’m trying to say here, the fastest way that you and your ex can reach a financial agreement and create a court order and the real value of what your net position is as a couple, then the quicker you’re going to move on with your life.

A lot of people do not want to sell the family home. If it is inevitable, my advice to you is taking a deep breath, and even though you are emotionally attached to the property, if the timing is right in the market, or if the market’s not moving, if you have to do it, just do it. The quicker you can get it done, the faster you can move on and untangle yourself from the financial relationship that you have with your ex-partner.

If you’d like to know more about how we help clients with this, a Divorce Roadmap is a smart way to do it. It’s where we work out a lot of the stuff that we’ve spoken about today.

And as I said, it’s one of the pillars of our business to make sure it’s evident in our strategy. And we’d be more than happy to help you out. Just get onto my website www.tanyasomerton.com and have a look, or you can contact me via the site as well, and we can have a chat about what’s best for you.

All right. That’s it for today. I wish you a great week, and I’ll talk to you soon.

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You May Need To Hear This Right NOW

by Tanya Somerton | Episodes

Regardless of the kind of marriage you had, a divorce can take you to dark, cold places. Even if it looks like you will stay in these places forever, you won’t. Life, like everything on this planet, has its seasons. And every season is followed by the next one to maintain balance and keep the cycle of life flowing smoothly. So if right now you feel like your life looks a lot like a harsh winter, relax, spring is just one season away.

Let’s get into it

Timestamps

Life’s seasons [00:01:00]

Knowing where are we going [00:04:30]

Why are you here? How did you get here? [00:06:00]

An opportunity to learn valuable lessons [00:07:30]

The things that matter in life [00:09:00]

You may need to hear this right NOW [00:10:30]

The way we talk to ourselves [00:12:00]

Links

My book: The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering Independence through Divorce

https://tanyasomerton.com/shop/the-jelly-bean-jar/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

Transcription

Hey there, everyone. Welcome to this week’s podcast. I wanted to talk to you today about two different things.

But first, I wanted to start off with the seasons of life. Here where I live in Australia, down here in Victoria, on the Mornington Peninsula, every day around four o’clock, the sea breeze comes in.

And right now we’re in winter and suddenly at four o’clock temperature seems to drop. It seems to plummet. And it’s mostly because of this sea breeze that comes in that I was thinking about it. And there’s no doubt that even in life, and you’ve probably heard it before, or you may or may not have realised that there is something called the seasons of life.

I don’t know which one of the seasons is your favourite. In my case, there’s no doubt about it, I am a sun lover.

I usually lay on my asphalt driveway, and the poor postman thinks that I’ve actually had an accident, and I’m actually laying there, sunning myself like a lizard. He still jokes about that now.

For me, it is everything. It’s the heat, the long days, it’s the dry air. It makes me happy. It makes my heart sing. I feel like a different person in summer to how I feel in winter. And there’s no doubt that in winter, I get the winter blues. The days are shorter. They’re colder and windier. There’s less that we can do.

I think the other thing is the lights are on in the house.

It’s chalk and cheese. The seasons are so different. But in between those two seasons, we have autumn and spring and.

In spring, new life arises. Butterflies, flowers are blooming and all of those things.

And our there’s no doubt our lives go through these journeys as well. Right now, you might be about to live autumn and entering winter, or you’re coming out of winter and going into spring. The reason I say that is if you’re just starting this journey, everything is starting to feel a little bit dark and gloomy.

You can sense that things are about to get cold and you may or may not have realised that they are the seasons of life. And, you know, I recall them vividly, and maybe that’s why I hate winter.

Okay, that’s not true because I’ve always disliked winter. I’ve never, ever loved anything cold.

The seasons of life are what make us actually appreciate when things are good. So what you’re dealing with right now, while it’s hard and you feel like you’re struggling. All I can say is the old analogy around the rainbow and what is at the end of the rainbow. And as you become happier, the birds chirping, the sun shining and the days getting longer will start to happen to you. As well as you go through this journey of separation and trying to find your feet. Trying to see where you fit into this equation.

You probably don’t know what you should be doing. You don’t know what steps you should be taking. And the uncertainty like the weather in winter is what you are struggling with.

Most people want to understand how the outcome looks. Because if we realised where we were going, it makes it so much easier to go with the flow and let everything happen.

One of the great peaches that I have in my mind when things get too hard usually is it’s hard because we’re pushing against something and it’s not flowing smoothly.

A great analogy of that is if you could imagine a strain, a stream of water free-flowing. Imagine that you put a stick in that water and suddenly the water goes around it. The water changed its flow all of a sudden, rather than being free-flowing. And there’s something that’s dividing it. And it sort of lost the ability to be so powerful. The stick has stopped the power in the momentum, and that’s, what’s happening.

Right now, you’ve made a decision, or a decision has been forced upon you, which all of a sudden makes you stop and wonder about what it is that you’re here to do. Why are you here? What were you meant to do and how did it turn out like this?

If I go back to the seasons of life, what I’ve learned not only from myself but from other people, is after you go through the coldness of winter, spring starts to happen.

Your energy changes, your body starts to warm up. Your smile gets bigger. Things just seem to happen. And when they do, you appreciate them so much more because you’ve been through the coldness of winter and you don’t want to go back. You want to enjoy every day. Hopefully, this makes sense to you; I think what I’m trying to get across is what you are dealing with right now.

It’s not forever. It’s just a season in your life. And if you keep getting up every day, you put your socks on, put your shoes on, do your hair and do what needs to be done. You look back whether it be tomorrow, or two weeks or even six months, and you will recall the season of your life when everything seemed too hard.

But you did it anyway, you got through it, and you are going to be bigger and brighter and healthier. And the exciting part will be those people that go through the seasons of life, they learn lessons that the people that haven’t. They will not have the skills that you have got while you deal with what you’re dealing right now. And I want you to remember that.

When I say to you that it might be a gift. I mean it with the most loving context. Maybe what you are dealing with right now can be a gift. It can be a gift that can change the way you think, it can change the way you act. It can make you appreciate things that you never thought about recognising before.

We fight over finances when we’re going through a divorce because we want to be secure in our future.

The interesting thing is it always has been, and it always will be okay. No matter what happens tomorrow, you will be okay.

And that I know for sure because when I speak to people, they’ll often say at the time the problems that I had and the issues that I felt was so significant. I look back now and realise they simply weren’t.

I want you to understand you should not be too tough on yourself. Just go with the flow, let the stream do what it needs to do.

And everything will work out okay. I promise

Does this mean something to you? Because there’s something in me telling me that I needed to do this podcast today. I needed to say this because it might be you listening right now that need to hear this. Know it’ll be okay. I promise you. You’re going to get through it. Spring is only a season of way. And when spring comes, so does new growth, new life, hotter weather and beautiful long days.

And at the start, I said that I wanted to talk to you about two things today. And the second thing is which I’ve spoken about before, but I just want to reiterate to you.

How do you talk to yourself? Make sure you are kind when you speak to yourself in your head. Your subconscious mind believes everything that you say. You would not walk into a supermarket or talk to someone on public transport, the way you speak to yourself. How do I know? I also did the same thing. I remember talking to myself, how did I get here? I must be so stupid. Really? How could I have let this happen? And it went on and on.

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about because you’re probably doing the same thing right now, but here’s the challenge.

We didn’t know all of these things come off it. If we knew it, we wouldn’t have put ourselves in this position. It’s no one’s fault, it is what it is, and there are lessons to be learned.

Now, if I was to talk to you in three, four, five years from now, and you jump back into another relationship and make the same mistakes again. We would be having a serious conversation.

But right now, you are learning like everyone else. We’re all here on this earth to learn our lessons. And it’s what you do with those lessons that mean the most.

So remember when you wake up in the morning, and you look in the mirror, and you say to yourself, wow, I am looking old. I’m looking tired. I can’t believe I find myself here. Whatever it is that you are saying to yourself, just remember if you would not say it to someone else, stop saying it to yourself. Just stop because you don’t deserve to be hard on yourself right now.

I’ll be back next week. All right, bye. For now.

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What I Learnt from Online Dating

by Tanya Somerton | blog

Some years ago after my marriage break up and l was working at the airport, l realised it was time to start dating again, but l really didn’t want to go out to sleazy bars to meet the ‘man of my dreams’. For me, it wasn’t as easy as getting onto a dating website because l worked with some nasty individuals, who, if they had the chance would hurt me…and l am not kidding!

At the time the AFP had a risk assessment against me and my current situation, l had certain procedures l HAD to follow, in which to protect my safety. One of those conditions was NO social media because the individuals in question, could find out personal details and where l lived. As l was a single woman, l was always aware of my safety and those around me.

So what is a woman in my position to do??

I went to my AFP liaison officer and explained my situation, l felt ready to get back into the game. It turned out which he explained that the AFP had recently done some work on internet dating websites, the person who use them and the ones which were legit and how best to get a positive outcome. So at this time the data had just come back, to say EHarmony had the best conversion rates and algorithms to match people’s criteria and a safe and secure platform.

The thing that was very important to the police at the time, was how my profile was written and the limited information l published for my safety, so they helped me write it up.

Using the information, they had recently collected on successful matchups and how to make a profile stand out and improve what they called conversion rates l learnt the following tips:

Make sure you talk about the things you want in a man that are achievable…let’s be honest our imaginary boyfriend or girlfriend is just that, he/she is not real.
Don’t whinge or complain about previous relationships, in any form.
Be truthful but don’t give too much away. As they say less is best! And make them want to contact you, to learn about the real you. Be alluring!
If you know the sort of partner you are looking for and the hobbies he would like, make sure to use photographs which show you doing those things or showing a side of adventure, eg; exploring or trying new things, which men like. The photographs with you looking like a supermodel are those that other women will look at and admire but men who are looking for a lifelong partner, see something different. This is the biggest mistake we women make with internet dating. My male protectors told me, males are turned off by being fully made up, makes you look like hard work and that you are self-important. You don’t want to look like someone that takes all day to get ready and the BIGGEST thing, you want to look like someone they will want to take home to meet their mum’s. We used photographs of me at the Grand prix and another holding up the president’s cup, (which is a golfing tournament). Now to be honest, l liked both of these events but not as much as a man would. I thought l had much better photographs but l was told they would attract the sort of man l was after. What did these photos say about me? Well, they were strategically chosen, they didn’t give to much away about the real me, yet showed that I like different sports. Now as we women know, men love their sport! BOOM.

Now if you are attracting the wrong men, take a look at the photographs you are displaying. If you are only getting losers or one night stands, what do your photos say about you? Are you holding alcohol and looking like a party girl, ask your self would you take me home to mum?

Always use positive words and don’t make your profile fluffy. Blokes don’t get it! What men say is what they mean, they don’t think like we do. Be direct in your writing.
Make sure when you start communicating that you actually communicate. Don’t just reply with one word answers, give a paragraph back. It lets them know you are interested in them and always ask questions. This then requires a reply and keeps the conversation going and note that this part of the internet dating process is just as important. It also shows you the sort of person you are communicating with and if they are worth your time and effort.

Now maybe l was lucky because not only did l have two police officers help me write my profile and pick my photos, they had also just spent twelve weeks investigating the dark side of internet dating and what not to do. They knew the way for me to get a response. Also, with age and experience the knowledge of what l wanted in a partner and to a bigger extent, what l didn’t want, was just as important. The younger ones out there, will still be learning this but it helps and is half the battle.

So, as you can gather, l am not one who follows conformity, so EHarmony has you go through different levels of matching and checklists before you can actually email each other. l knew straight away that the man on the other end of the keyboard was for me, the way he wrote and the words he used resonated with the person I was. I also knew that the longer it took for me to talk to him one on one the more women he would be also talking to and l needed to get rid of the competition. I therefore jumped all the different levels of internet dating and after three nights of communicating the EHarmony way, I started emailing him directly.

For me, my experience with internet dating was wonderful and the man at the end of the keyboard after only 3 days of communicating became my husband. Some might say l was just lucky but l like to think that the strategies the AFP taught me, minimalised what l would have added to my profile and certainly writing my profile from a male perspective helped. I encourage you to consider what you are looking for in a partner and note it down. This helps when doing your profile and helps with picking your photo… as they say in the corporate world, know your audience.

I also used internet dating as an experience and it was the start of me really stepping outside of my comfort zone. Given way to NOW, how I live my life and the rewards l now see, really knowing what you want makes all the difference. The man of your dreams will not come knocking on your front door, you need to take the reins of your life and control your future. If you’re on the internet and things aren’t working look at it differently. Don’t be desperate because it shines through, make it like you are a needle in a haystack, which you are! If you have been considering joining, don’t hesitate, give it a try, what have you got to loose other than a night out and best case, marrying a wonderful man.

Good luck.

About the author:

Tanya Somerton is the ‘Divorce Angel’, whose business is to facilitate a seamless and amicable divorce and separation with the aid of her ‘Army of Angels.’ Tanya provides a step by step process which limits cost and conflict that sees you achieving your most financially beneficial outcome possible, now and for the future.

Tanya is also the Director of TLC Investment Group, a finance and mortgage company. She helps her clients budget and plan, rather than wondering if you can keep the family home. If you need help and support in this area, contact tanya@tlcinvestmentgroup.com.au for help and advice.

She is also the author of ‘The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering independence through Divorce’. If you are looking to prevent any mistakes and save money this book is a must. Purchase your copy here

Waking Up Scared Is A Powerful Thing

by Tanya Somerton | Episodes

Getting out of the comfort zone is scary. We can’t control what is happening, and we don’t know what to expect. However, to be afraid is as understandable as necessary if we want to create change in our lives. If we decide to stay in the security of our safe spot, the prize we will pay is too high. It is a cost that someone going through a divorce can’t afford to pay. That is why we need to embrace the fear of defying our limits and push our boundaries daily. Then one day, we will discover that waking up being scared is a powerful thing.

Let’s get into it:

Timestamps

We usually speak in three different ways [00:01:00]

Communication and interpretation [00:03:00]

What is your biggest fear? [00:06:00]

Stepping out of the comfort zone [00:07:30]

Creating a ripple effect [00:09:00]

Escaping normality [00:12:00]

Links

My book: The Jelly Bean Jar – Empowering Independence through Divorce

https://tanyasomerton.com/shop/the-jelly-bean-jar/

Join my Free Facebook Group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/divorceangel/

Divorce Roadmap Session:

https://tanyasomerton.com/divorce-roadmap/

Transcription

Hey, my darling network. How are you all today? I hope everyone is well, especially in this current environment that we’re living. It’s essential to me, if you ever talk about something from a position of knowledge, it is necessary to understand what it is that someone’s going through.

And I’ve learned this from working in the environment that I do because there’s no doubt there are two sides of a story. And the truth fits typically somewhere in the middle. When we are telling someone something can shade, what we are actually thinking. What I mean by that is when we talk, we usually speak in three different ways. We speak in generalizations, deletions, or distortions.

If you consider each of those, we’re not describing facts from the position of what happened.

I’ve previously spoken about the story of this man, many years ago, that rode through the middle of town, wearing a hat.

Everyone on the right side of the road thought that he had a black hat on, and everyone on the left side swore that he was wearing a white hat. The problem was both sides were right because he had a multicoloured hat. But what it did is it caused a massive problem. The people of that town were saying, no, no, you’re wrong. That wasn’t what happened. He had a white hat on and then the people on the other side of the road saying, no, you are wrong. He had a black hat. This is what occurs when we talk about interpretations.

Sometimes we see something that is true, but the person on the other side of the road can see something that is true as well. And both things are entirely different.

When I was working at the airport I was in charge of parking infringement notices, please don’t hold this against me. I would have to go to the local magistrate’s court and have to enforce people paying outstanding fines.

The airport came under the federal airport’s act. So we as an airport had no say on it, it was the job of the federal government to keep the airport secure and make sure the environment was protected. So, you know, people might park for 20 minutes. The airport authorities were worried that people were either touting or looking at what was going on around. Or that people were trying to get inside of Intel, whatever the case might be.

So a lot of people thought that they were being fined simply for staying longer than needed, but there was a bigger picture. And when I look at interpretations, I felt like I was doing well.

I knew I was doing what I had to do. I had been informed of the dangers and possible threats that travellers weren’t aware of. If we are honest, we will see that people don’t care about what’s happening from a security perspective, everyone’s in their own little bubble. They worry about what’s going on for them, and what they’re interpreting the situation to be. So what happens is they just see that they are getting fined because of staying five minutes longer than they should have. People would say, “that’s not fair. My family member hasn’t come out” or “the plane’s been delayed. How is that my fault?”

And if I move this into someone going through a divorce, similar things are happening. Both sides of the situation have their own interpretations, their personal stories around why they feel the way they do.

They’ve got their own stories around how the other person is treating them. And then, they’ve got the environment that they live in, which is adding to the whole perplexing situation.

The reason I want to talk about this is that I was interviewed last week on a show called fearless.

And the question was, what am I most afraid of? And I can tell you I’m happy to share and be vulnerable with you guys because you if I’m not vulnerable with you, you won’t be vulnerable with me. And that’s how we’re going to change the world. We need to be the people that stand up that make the right decisions.

And that we go out there and we share our love. And when you’re vulnerable with me, it means I can be vulnerable with you and the world will be a better place.

He said to me, what am I most fearful of? And I said to him, I’m afraid of not living up to my full potential. And it’s true. I’ve got this fear of not trying harder to make the lives of those who are getting divorced easier. I want to do is simplify those lives because if we can simplify them, it won’t be perplexing, it won’t be complicated. And when things are simple, we can move through the steps a lot quicker and easier.

And when we do that it’s not too expensive and we can move on happily.

So when I was being interviewed, he said, well, how do you know that you’re living up to your full potential? And this is where you guys might be able to relate. If when I wake up, I don’t feel sick in the stomach, like if I have butterflies or feeling like something is out of balance, I know that I will not have a good day. That might sound a little bit contradictory because here I am saying that I want to wake up with the feelings of being a little bit sick in the stomach, a bit worried. And maybe worry is not the right word, but the reason I want to wake up that way is that I know when I wake up that day, I am stepping outside of my comfort zone.

And when I step outside of my comfort zone, that’s when amazing stuff happens. So if I wake up and I feel okay, it’s just going to be another day. It means I’m going to be average that day, and I don’t want to be average. I want to help as many people as possible. And to do that, I must be living up to my full potential. I must be waking up sick, and I must be doing something every single day.

That is pushing me outside of my comfort zone. Cause otherwise it’s just going to be another average day, and I don’t want to have them anymore. I want to have a fantastic day, and I want you to have a fantastic day.

So, if I’m pushed myself outside of my comfort zone, if I do something that doesn’t feel natural or normal to me, it means that I grow as a person. It means I can bring you along on that journey with me.

And when you come on that journey with me, it’s going to help you have a happier life because I’m leading by example. And I’m showing you that if I can do it, and I’m just Tanya Somerton, If I can do it, you can do it. And if you can do it, you can help someone else do it. And if you help someone else do it, they’ll also help someone else.

And your kids are happy because you’re happy. Can you see what’s happening? It’s having a ripple effect. It’s a stone in the ocean, and it’s just rippling through.

So, if I don’t feel in my gut that something is going to push me out of my comfort zone, I know that I will not do something extraordinary that day.

And what I want you to understand that it’s right now, if you are scared, if you are fearful of what’s about to happen, think about what I just said. If you do nothing, if you continue to stay where you are, nothing’s going to change. And if nothing changes,

what are you prepared to pay for that? Because there has to be a reward. Are you getting the compensation of not doing anything? The reward is that you’re not having to address whatever pain it is that you’re feeling, that you don’t have to resolve your financial situation? That you don’t have to address the conflict? Those are all the things that many of us don’t want to have any confrontation about.

But the more significant issue is, if you don’t do something, you could be in the same situation for another year, another two years. And how much is that going to cost you?

If you want to have an extraordinary life, if you’re going to be happy, you have to be fearful. It is okay to be afraid because that’s, what’s going to get you moving. It’s what’s going to get you thinking about what you need to do. It’s going to get you to where you need to go. And you will have heard me say before a marathon is one by one step at a time.

I am, without a doubt, fearful here every day. Every day, my friends. So don’t think that by ignoring the pain, it’s going to go away. What I want you to do is to appreciate the pain. I want you to wake up every morning and be excited about feeling uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that you don’t want to get out of bed, but you do it anyway because it’s then that you are going to do amazing things.

You are going to make decisions that you wouldn’t have done if you were waking up and feeling ordinary. Because when you’re feeling normal, you’re not going to do anything to change that feeling, that momentum. Our life is full of energy, and when we fear a little bit outside of our comfort zone, we’re pushing the boundaries. We’re pushing the glass ceiling, and once we break the glass ceiling, we get to where we need to go.

So if every morning waking up, we are fearful, and we love and enjoy that feeling. If we get used to it, can you imagine the world we would live in, the life that we would have, the changes that would be made? And that’s what I want from you. So that’s it for today.

I’m going to go to bed tonight, and I’m going to contemplate what is gonna scare the shit out of me when I wake up tomorrow. And I want you to do the same thing. Okay. My darling friends, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.

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