There is an enemy to grief is judgement; judgement of yourself, where you are at on your grief journey and what your unique grief journey looks like. If you've been feeling like you 'should be over him by now' or 'it's been long enough - just get over it', then you may have some unacknowledged judgement of yourself and what you're feeling. This judgement can keep you stuck and unable to process through the grief you need to allow so you can heal.
Listen in as I discuss why judgement is the enemy of grief and what you can do to drop the judgement, opening yourself up to allowing grief in all it's forms.
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Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it shows up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Going through a divorce and needing help healing, you're in the right place. You're listening to Becoming you Again, episode number 161, and I'm your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life, so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast. My lovely ladies, I am so glad that you're here. I don't know about you, but my life is very kind of in this crazy frenzied time. Kids are my kids are in this space where one is coming home from college in a few weeks, one is graduating from college in a few weeks, my partner's kids are in high school, one is turning 16 in a couple of weeks, the other one is very involved in athletics and they have things every single day. I just feel like everything is culminating all at the same time. It's like all of these things happening and life is very busy and chaotic, on top of all of the things that we're just dealing with in regular everyday life, like the grief that we're going through, the really hard things that we're going through, the fun things that we're experiencing, like all of the things right. So if you're like me, I feel you, my heart goes out to you. You got this. Just keep holding on. You're doing great. It might be overwhelming, but I promise you this will not last forever. I keep telling myself this just keep holding on. You're doing great. It might be overwhelming, but I promise you this will not last forever. I keep telling myself this right, we're going to get through this. It's going to be fine. Summer's going to hit. Things will slow down a little bit and it's all going to be good.
I'm actually very excited for my summer. I'm actually going to go to Alaska for two months and stay with my sister and just live in Alaska. She lives in Alaska. She's lived there for quite a long time 10 or maybe more years and I visited a couple of times and it is the most beautiful place I've ever been. And summer times are like my jam, like 70 degrees ish, sometimes even less during a regular day. Rains a lot yes, please, all the time. Summer's in Utah, where I live Not really my favorite thing. It's very hot here, like 9500, sometimes all through, like the mid June to about mid August. It's hot, it's dry, it rains very little. I mean, utah is a desert, let's be real and it's not my favorite thing. I don't like to go outside. But Alaska in the summer, which is the only time of year that I've actually been to Alaska and I will take it every day it's beautiful, it's amazing. Rain is my favorite. I love cooler, but not super cold, like I don't think I would like it that much in the winter. Anyway, I'm rambling. This is all just to say I'm very excited about it and I would love to hear what your summer plans are. Message me on Instagram at Karen Nelson coaching and let's chat about what your summer plans are. I'm excited to hear about it.
All right, so this is going to be kind of a shorter episode, but I think it's going to be poignant, because one of the things that we all struggle with when it comes to our divorce is grief. I talk about it a lot. I have many, many, many episodes on grief, and there's a reason for that. Grief is a huge part of our healing, of our growth, of our divorce experience, whether or not it's grief around the actual loss of the relationship, grief around our children, like grief, can show up in many, many different ways, and I always give this definition of grief as whenever the perception of your situation doesn't match the reality like whenever you thought it was going to be something and that doesn't match what is actually happening you have permission to grieve over that, and that can happen in many different forms in your divorce, and so this is why I talk about it so much, because it is a huge part of healing and being able to reconnect with yourself, get to know yourself on a deep level and be able to heal from all of the things that you're going through.
As you go through a divorce, as this relationship, this part of your life, comes to an end and you move forward into this new chapter of your life, it's really hard to move forward and to create a life that you love and that you're excited about when you are divorced, not allowing yourself to grieve all of the many parts that need to be grieved. So what I wanted to talk about today when it comes to this idea of grief is that there's kind of an enemy to grief, and that enemy is called judgment and when I say judgment, I'm talking about the judgment, about your grieving. I've talked about this before on the podcast, but there are myths about grief and if you want to go back and listen to what those myths are, you can listen to episode number 152. I believe I talked about the myths of grief in that episode. Specifically, you can listen to episode number 111. That one is literally called Three Myths of Grief. So if you want to know what those myths are, that will be very helpful for you if you are wanting to lean into allowing yourself to grieve in the many ways that you might need to.
But when we're talking about judgment specifically, it usually will show up around us telling ourselves that as we're going through our grief process, that we're doing it wrong or that something is wrong with us because we still feel sad or we still feel this grief over this thing, or it's been so long, like shouldn't we be over this by now. Or maybe somebody is saying something to you and then you're kind of letting that sink into your own psyche of like why can't you just let it go? Why don't you just move on? Why, after what he did to you, why don't you just like forget it, say fuck you and move on with your life. Just move on already, right
I've had many conversations with people who have so much judgment for themselves over the grief that they're feeling about their divorce and they get upset with themselves and they're kind of like I just don't understand why I can't just get over him, why I can't just let this go. I want to move on. Why can't I just move on? I'm so ready to move on and the way we talk to ourselves and the way we judge ourselves and our healing process and the grief that we need to allow so that we can move through it is so mean and so unnecessary, because it is truly that judgment that we're placing on ourselves when it comes to our grief that is creating this idea of these.
Emotions are good, they're fine to have. Like the sadness, the pain, the hurt that I might be feeling, those are okay, but when it comes to grief, I should just be over it. Those are okay, but when it comes to grief, I should just be over it. And it's almost like saying those emotions are good and these emotions are bad and I shouldn't be feeling these bad ones because they've just been going on for too long. They're just sticking around forever. You're doing it wrong by having these emotions still.
And when we kind of label our emotions good or bad, that automatically puts them in judgment right. Good and bad is a judgment right. When you're deciding what is good and what is bad, you are judging it in that way. And when we do that to our grief, when we put those labels on it, instead of allowing us to open up to our grief and allowing us to process through it and allowing us to heal from it and understand it and be open to it, be open to our life, kind of expanding to allow that grief instead of that judgment shrinks us. It puts pressure on us to be a certain way, to act a certain way, to produce a certain way, to be a certain thing, to show up in a certain way in our lives. It kind of tells us that we should be feeling better by now, we should be acting differently by now. We are supposed to act a certain way, and why aren't we?
And what I want to say about that is that is creating so much unnecessary stress, so much unnecessary judgment and almost like anger toward yourself that is keeping you stuck exactly where you are the way around. That is, to give yourself permission to be and feel exactly the way you are being and feeling right now. Give yourself permission to grieve. When we give ourselves permission, we are telling ourselves it's okay to be who I am, it's okay to be honest with myself as I feel this grief and to just allow myself to feel what I'm feeling. I used to use the word permission a lot when I was first going through my divorce and it was so useful and helpful for me to literally say the words I am giving myself permission to do this thing, to act this way, to experience this, to open up to this, because for a very long time, for many, many years of my marriage, I didn't give myself permission to feel. I didn't give myself permission to experience new things, to have an opinion, to feel a certain way, to be myself fully and honestly. And when I opened myself up to the idea of giving myself permission, it was almost like the floodgates opened and I could step into a more real, honest version of who I am.
And if that's what you're needing, so that you can allow yourself to grieve and feel whatever it is that you're needing to grieve and feel right now, because grief is made up of many different emotions. It's not just like one emotion. It's so many different feelings that we have at many different times and many different moments, and we need to open up to those and allow them. And so if what you're needing is to drop some of that judgment and really just open yourself up to giving yourself permission to be awkward, to cry, to set boundaries, to sleep more, to be a little bit flaky, to say no to things, to say yes to things, to say I don't know if I'm going to do that, maybe I'll show up, maybe I won't To express yourself, to take a day off from work, to lay in bed for an entire day, like whatever it is that you need to give yourself permission for that.
You need to pause and say this is okay, I'm going to allow this. Please open yourself up to it and do it. You need to be allowed to grieve. You need to be allowed to feel those emotions and sometimes, when we're not, when we're judging ourselves for feeling them, what we need to do to drop that judgment is to give ourselves permission, tell ourselves it's okay, that, however, you are needing to grieve, that is right for you. That's one of the myths. There's no right way to grieve. That is right for you. That's one of the myths there's no right way to grieve, right. And so there you go. You didn't even have to listen to the other episodes, I just gave you one of them. So give yourself that space, give yourself that permission, open yourself up to grieve and do your best to drop your judgment around it. This is one of the best ways that you will be able to heal from your grief, that you will be able to heal from your divorce, from the end of this relationship, and that you will be able to move into the next chapter of your life.
All right, my friends, thank you for listening. I can't wait to hear from you about your summer plans. Come and message me and, as always, I will be back next week. Talk to you then. Hi friend, I'm so glad next week. Talk to you then in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to karinnelsoncoaching dot com. That's wwwkarinnelsoncoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating. Wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.
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