Life After the Storm – Weathering the Pain of Divorce
It has taken me a long while to finally write about life after my divorce, and how I found myself waiting in line to take my life at the Beth Israel Hospital in New York City.
"Today I am a relationship specialist, international speaker, soon to be author, run relationship workshops and I am now in loving conscious relationship. I also have incredible friends and have established my company Soul Connection as the leading company in RTT – Relationship Transformational Technology. But it was not always that way.
Back in 2006 I found myself at my lowest ebb. Waiting in line to take my life at the Beth Israel Hospital in New York City. Like a murderer handing themselves into the cops, I decided to hand myself into the doctors to stop myself from taking my life that day. I wanted the sense of loss and pain to stop. I wanted the feeling of guilt, shame and sense of loss that I was feeling to subside. The pain was excruciating and I didn’t know how I was going to get through minutes of my life let a lone days.
Once again I found myself in a broken relationship, but this time it was just any broken relationship, it was the one to my then ex-husband. We had been together for 5 years and me moving to the United States was for us to finally consecrate our love for one another.
For 6 months I didn’t know whether I was coming or going, whether I was up or down. My friends at the time couldn’t understand the pain I was going through, couldn’t understand why I had turned to a packet of cigarettes a day when I was non-smoker, and was drinking heavily to numb the pain that I was feeling inside.
But it wasn’t until a friend of mine gave me a book. Sometimes it takes one thing, one thing to make all the difference, and this book was it for me.
Sometimes in life it takes one thing to turn your life around. And this one thing for me at the time was a book on what makes for a conscious relationship, that a friend of mine gave me. I began to see some light at the end of the tunnel as I was finally able to understand what had gone wrong in our relationship and with that the pain started to subside.
As my healing process began, I started on a journey of personal development and one that now finds me here. After 100,000 GBP later and with a wealth of knowledge from my learnings from Anthony Robbins, Doctor John Demartini (No1 Behavioral Specialist), Gay, Kathlyn and Harville Hendrix just to name a few, I set up Soul Connection, a company that takes relationships from a place of anger and resentment to a place of love and gratitude. I trained with John Demartini and the Centre of Right Relationship to fulfill my purpose as a relationship specialist.
So why did things fall apart?
Things were great for the first 6 months and then we started to disconnect and my relationship to him felt distant. I kept on telling him that I wanted us to connect more – as our schedules were so different, this was challenging. He would love to watch the games with his friends at the weekends and drink, while I stayed at home and studied. At the time I dreaded the winter seasons as he would drink heavily and hung out with people that would do the same, his behavior did not help our intimacy and I started to feel lonely and the passion plummeted.
Like most people I know now in relationship when things start going off track, I stuck my head in the sand, ignoring the signs. Wishing it all better, without doing anything about it. We stopped communicating because when we did we would do so in a very unsafe place. There was criticism, contempt, stonewalling (shutting down) and blame. As a result I sought connection outside of the relationship and that was it – my fate was sealed.
I still remember that day. The heavens opened and it rained for 2 weeks without stopping. The backdrop of torrential rain, storms and darkness was a complete reflection of what I felt inside. I now look back on this moment as a blessing, as an opportunity to finally heal, love and accept myself as I am.
What have I learnt?
I have learnt a lot over the past 4 years, but here are just few of the most profound insights that come to mind immediately.
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The torment and pain was really about old wounds that had not healed properly throughout my life. I now realize that the break up was finally an opportunity for me to heal from all my past wounds of perceived rejection, bullying and mistreatments.
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I now see this event as the start of me finding my purpose.
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I also now realize that there are just events in our lives. That what we may see as tragedy at the time, turns out to be a gift and a blessing. If my divorce had not happened, I would not be living on purpose now. I wouldn’t understand the pain nor do what I do as well because of this understanding.
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That the new relationship I have attracted into my life has been as a result of loving me more and doing a lot of spiritual and personal development work on myself. As the saying goes – “If you cannot love yourself, you cannot truly love another.”
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That there is life after divorce. Although at the time I honestly thought I would never find anybody again, that I was broken and damaged goods and who would want me? I realize now that these were just voices in my head that needed to be beaten down by doing a lot of personal development on myself.
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That I co-created and therefore was responsible for things going wrong in the relationship. At the time I blamed him, but now I realize that it does take two to tango. There is never cause without effect and that the only constant in every relationship was me. I now know that if I wanted a different relationship, I would have to change so that the same patterns would not repeat themselves.
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That blaming another was the most disempowering thing I can do, as I don’t learn anything nor do I grow from it. I give the power to the other person. By asking powerful questions about my role in the dynamic, I am able to understand myself more, take responsibility and empower myself.
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That I cannot change anybody other than myself. That no matter what the other person has done or not done, whatever I am feeling inside about that action, has to do with my “stuff”. Nobody can ever make us feel anything….
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That we all have the power to turn our lives around if we choose. This is a choice. We are always at choice. We may think that we are not, that life and circumstances happen to us, but this in fact is not true. If we do think this we have no power and become a victim to our own story. However if we choose how we want things to be, then we can move on and create whatever we want. I have seen this happen so many times and I just want to let you know that it is possible..
I hope that this story and my insights can help you on your journey of starting over. You may not see nor feel this now because you are scared, in shock, feeling angry, guilt or shame, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is these times that make us strong and allows for us to grow the most. In some cases I have seen people go on and live their purpose to make a massive difference on this planet from situations that they perceived to be the worst thing to happen to them."
Marina Pearson
Marina founded Soul Connection Trainings to focus on intimate relationships. The company prides itself in being London’s number 1 company in RTT™ - Relationship Transformation Technology, a cutting edge transformational technology that uses games, and the most powerful concepts in the market to deliver long lasting transformation to turn breakdowns into breakthroughs to get relationships back anybody’s relationship back on track.
