Let Yourself Mourn

So I had to make a decision. Do I stay where I am? Or do I let go of all of those dreams and aspirations that we could have built together as a couple? Because, you know, if you work at it, I suppose there’s potential, right? 

There’s potential if you’re prepared to give up other things. So if I was prepared in my life to give up, let’s say, for instance, freedom, because I was longing for freedom, because I felt controlled a lot of the time. So freedom for me was something that was so incredibly important. So if I was prepared to give up freedom, and to be honest, I have spoken about this before, this void in my stomach of feeling lonely. 

I felt so lonely, even though I was in a house full of people. And I didn’t want to feel that void inside of me. And as years have gone on, I realized that possibly the hole wasn’t so much even my marriage, but it was the void in me as far as what I could give back to the world. And it was the void in not feeling my own potential in life. 

And you might relate to these. And you may not either, but what I wanted to talk to you about today is that it’s okay to mourn. It’s okay to mourn and to work through everything. Because we don’t actually know. We don’t know what our future might look like. And all of us sit there and hope for the best we work towards what could be better than what we’ve got today, right? So what happens is, when our marriage falls apart and we find ourselves separated, we think that we’re actually going three or four or five or 10 steps backwards in life. And that is also what we’re mourning. 

So we’re sitting, considering, how is it that I found myself here have worked so hard. I’ve built these assets, I’ve got some money in the bank, I’ve got superannuation, or whichever country you’re from, you know, whatever it is that you put aside for your retirement. 

You think, Wow, I’ve worked all of this time. And now. Now it’s got to be divided. And rather than spending it together on whatever it was that, that I thought our future would look like, I’ve now got a proportion or a portion of this amount. 

And I have to survive on this plus, whatever asset you’re getting out of your separation financially, and that can be so hard. And many of us, especially me, I was brought up a good Catholic girl, you know, for me, the belief was that you never get divorced. The idea for me was that I’d found my prince charming and had to remain married to him. 

Because I’ve said this before, my ex-husband, he’s a good guy. He made some mistakes. But Jesus is a good father. My kids are fortunate to have him, and I’m lucky that he is the father of my children. So it’s not like, Yeah, he didn’t bash me he didn’t do anything wrong. He just had his own history. And from his past, he had habits, and from those habits, he had beliefs, and from those beliefs, he had actions, and I then become a consequence of how he was bought up. 

And that’s what happens in so many of our lives, we meet someone, and they’re already trained in who they are. And we either accept them for who they are. Or if we can’t get it, we have no choice but to move on. And that’s pretty much what you know what happened to me. 

I believe that I should be staying married to this man for the rest of my life. So thinking now that all of a sudden, you know, the holidays, the assets, the business, whatever it was, all of those things at the time that that was so important, I realized now, they actually hold no value for me now. It’s come with a lot of evolution, especially for me a lot of evolution. The growth that I’ve had internally has made me realize that money is just money more, don’t get me wrong, money makes our lives easier. But there are also so many other things that are just as equally as important as money. And the other lesson that I’ve learned throughout this journey is that money seems to flow a lot easier when I am happy. But there are not so many financial issues as maybe there may have been in the past. I don’t know whether that’s just a consequence, but it’s certainly something that I’ve witnessed. So I suppose for me, this is the thing. Mourning the past can bring happiness to the future. 

And I don’t know where you are right now, in your own journey, whether you’re at the start, whether you’re in the middle, or whether you’re at the end. But being quite a few years down the track. Now, all I can do is share what I’ve witnessed and learned with you, and even my clients, what I’ve seen in them, especially once it’s all over with; it’s so hard, it really is. 

And you have every right to mourn, you have every right to feel like this isn’t fair, this shouldn’t have happened.

I can’t believe I found myself here. You have every right to feel that way. Because you are mourning everything that you thought your future may hold. But here’s the thing, there’s a reward as well when it gets to a particular stage that if you haven’t moved on, there’s a reward for you feeling the way you do. 

So I want you to ask yourself, what is the reward? I am getting for feeling the way I do. It’s probably a really, you know, maybe you’ve never been asked this question before. 

But it’s, it’s something to consider. I often ask myself this when I’m finding things are tough, when I feel like I’m in a position where I don’t really want to move forward. And even today, I still have those moments. But the way I get moving is by asking myself, Tanya, what is your reward for staying where you are right now. And there’s always one. So let me give you an example. Consider that you don’t want to ask someone for something. And you know that you have to, you know that you have to start a conversation or ask for something, but you’re so scared. And it could be a conflict, or it could be that you’re afraid of retaliation or the consequences. You lay awake at night, just wondering, you know, you have this conversation going through your head is how you’re going to tackle it. But every time you get the opportunity, you still don’t do it. And something is holding you back right there. 

The reason something is holding you back is that you’re getting a reward for staying where you are. So the reward might be that you simply don’t need to deal with the conflict. The reward might be That because things aren’t going well, your friends might be paying you a lot of attention or asking you how’s everything going, you might be getting, you know, people contacting you or friends or family and you’re, you know, without knowing it, subconsciously, you’re liking that, that’s possible. 

It could be simply that you just simply do not want to face the fact that whatever it is that you have to discuss with whoever it is will end either a relationship, it will end a bond, it will end something. Then you know that you’re going to have to mourn whatever that conversation is about. And that’s pretty tough. And it’s really tough. And I know, because I’ve been there, I’ve been in that same position. So having to do something that you don’t really want to do

means that you don’t have to deal with the consequence of that. And that’s why we get a reward. And it took me a long period to understand that that reward is very short-lived. And if we can understand why the reward is so valuable to us, we can actually make it up at the other end of the equation. Let me just go over that a bit more. So what I mean by that is right now, by not doing something that you need to do, it might be just because you don’t want to face the facts, or you don’t want to face the feelings because you know, you have to deal with them. And it’s so painful. And it hurts so much that you just think if I can just leave everything as it is, or, you know, continual long as things are right now, I don’t have to deal with all of the garbage that comes with this. None of this is easy. No one who has ever been through a separation or a divorce would ever say to you that it is easy.

But what I’ve witnessed is the pain can grow amazing things. Because as people, we don’t usually go through the pain that we go through when we’re going through a separation or a divorce. It’s not something that happens to us very often. Let’s hope it only happens to us once. But when it does happen, it teaches us things about ourselves that we never ever thought possible. Because I can tell you right now, you’re stronger than you ever knew. You were so strong that you really could do anything if you put your mind to it. But it’s just being able to connect your mind and your feelings and understand that you’re heading in the right direction. But to do that, you first need to mourn everything that you hoped for. 

You have to mourn your marriage; you have to mourn what you’re losing. And for many of us, It also morning, our in-laws are friends, because people need to pick sides. And as much as they say that they don’t, unfortunately, they do, and they will. And as much as you might be the best person, there is on the world in the world. Sometimes the other side puts pressure on whoever it is that that you think would be impartial. 

And they are forced to choose the side without really wanting to or without even really knowing it. So don’t get upset. If someone you thought would stay loyal to you changes their mind or does something, you didn’t expect. Because they’ve also found themselves in a position that they didn’t understand, and they didn’t know how to behave or what to do. 

I recently had this incredible story of one of my clients divorced now for three years. And his mother. Well, actually, let me go back a step. He has recently started dating a new woman. And this new woman is just so beautiful that she encompasses all his children of his ex-wife of his parents. And when they went around to pick up his children the other day, the new girlfriend got out, met the ex-wife, and had a good chat. 

When she went around to his mother and father’s house, she stated How lovely the ex-wife was. And she said I can see where the children are so beautiful. And you know, these guys together have done such a great job. Now, this woman is a connector; she’s going to be the glue. Because what she’s done is rather than going to his parent’s house and bagged the ex-wife, she’s built her up, she said, What a wonderful person she is. And what that shows is this person’s inner strength and ability, and self-worth, because she knows how valuable she is in this new relationship. 

So guess what? The mother in law who hadn’t spoken to the ex-wife in three years because she’d taken the side of her son, turned up at the ex daughter in law’s house, and went in and had a coffee. And she talked about everything that she’d lost. She spoke about how she’d mourned their friendship, how she mourned her, how she missed her. Now, who said the rules state that just because there’s a separation or a divorce, you can’t see the other side anymore. But everything takes time. You’ve heard the saying before time heals all wounds, and you know what it’s possibly true. So this girlfriend, this new girlfriend, has become the glue for this family. The kids love her. His parents love her. His ex-wife even talks kindly of her. And he’s only been going out with her for a brief period. But the difference she’s made is because she knows how valuable she is in herself. And because of that, she’s helping the men. She’s helping them heal. And that’s a new way. That’s the way you want to go. You want to get to that place. It might be too soon, just yet, but that’s where you want to get to. Because the consequences are. If you continue to stay in that morning state, you continue to be a victim. And when you’re a victim, new opportunities don’t arise. You can’t see the goodness in the world. The simplest thing becomes a big, big problem. People might call you a complainer that they can never make you happy. The day the consequences of remaining in the morning state. If you look at you, that’s why people who have morning were black because black is the colour of sorrow. And we don’t want to stay there. We want to be able to move on. We wish to colourful life. We want a life of giving. And to get their lack of justice explained about the girlfriend. She knows exactly who she is. She knows exactly what she wants. And she brings value to all the relationships and all of the people she touches in her life. And you know, if we could all be like that, the world would be a better place. So that’s my hope. That’s my hope for you. So it’s okay to mourn. It’s okay to mourn, but we just don’t want to stay there. All right, my darling friends. Thanks for listening.