The issues you'll deal with in the early stages of divorce are generally on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum -- yet another example of how polarities, or a sense of opposites, are part and parcel of major life changes. Indeed, most people going through a marriage breakup enter therapy disoriented because they can't choose between wildly conflicting emotions.
"One minute I love Jack" says a thirty-five-year-old woman of her feelings about her former spouse, "and the next minute I hate him. Sometimes I think I must be going crazy."
The secret lies not in the ability to choose the right feeling. The secret, odd as it might sound, is the ability to choose both feelings while maintaining the ability to choose neither. Accept each feeling as it arises, even if it conflicts with what you felt five minutes ago, and at the same time, release yourself from feelings whenever the emotional roller coaster begins to make you sick.
Reducing the day-to-day world of change to a collection of preferred options -- good over bad, happy over sad -- and trying to chart a course by choosing one and repressing the other will only lead to dead ends.
Healthy life, and therefore healthy ritual, consists less of choosing this feeling over that than of simply acknowledging the polar urges that are always present in us and building a path between them -- a path, as a Chinese philosopher once wrote, that leans toward the light. As writers Alan Watts and tai chi master Al Chung-liang Huang point out in their book Tao: The Watercourse Way, the art of life is more like navigation than warfare.
An individual devising a divorce ceremony must recognize both the anger she feels toward her former spouse for his past behaviors, as well as the sadness that comes with having lost a shared, precious dream. Mixed into the packet of seed that life hands to each of us are many kinds of plants. The beauty is that as each one sprouts, we may choose how we can best use the plant to create the garden we most desire.
With care and attention, anger grows into strength, sharing becomes friendship, and apprehension leads to adventure. "Everything is paired," explains an Indonesian elder to the children of his tribe. "Everything has its other half -- the opposite, the counterpart. If no pair exists, there is nothing."
The following discussions will help you deal with two distinct pairs of divorce-related issues. One pair has to do with disidentifying yourself as a wife or a husband while still fully acknowledging the pain of having played that role. The other pair involves retreating from society into a time of respite and self-maintenance, and later using the people around you to firmly affix the lessons of your experience.
The Need to Disidentify
Emerging from divorce with a new and healthier perspective of life requires viewing yourself as much more than a spouse, realizing that your identity goes well beyond the tremendous pain you associate with that role. One of the best ways to do this is through a process called disidentification.
Marilyn is a forty-two-year-old West Coast loan officer. She first came to see Kathleen following an agonizing decision to end a ten-year marriage that had been on the skids for almost two years. She and her husband had tried counseling with little success; both recently had concluded that divorce was inevitable. "I would've thought that finally deciding to end the struggle would be a relief," Marilyn told me with a puzzled look. "But if anything, it's left me anxious. I know this is the right thing to do, and yet there's a voice inside my head saying, 'Go back! You made a horrible mistake! Go back!"'
Marilyn found great comfort in a simple exercise developed by Roberto Assagioll, founder of a branch of psychology called psychosynthesis. This exercise speaks to a fundamental principle long recognized by many of the world's ancient philosophies and religions, namely, that in times of trouble you need to remove your garments of life in order to see the whole person underneath -- an act referred to as "driving yourself to the core".
Just reading the following disidentification exercise may leave you feeling that something so simple couldn't possibly be valuable. This problem arises when casually reading any meditative exercise; it's like trying to absorb the full impact of a Mozart symphony by reading the sheet music. But Kathleen and many of her colleagues have seen hundreds of people achieve great measures of calm andregain their center" by working with this exercise fifteen or twenty minutes a day. "
While this isn't so much a ritual as it is a simple daily exercise, you can increase its power by steeping it in two of ritual's most basic tenets.
First, perform the exercise in a place that's comfortable and private, perhaps even sacred, where you will have absolutely no distractions. Unplug the phone. Lock yourself in the attic. Do whatever you have to do to honor this time.
Second, if a particular activity helps you relax before you begin -- a bath, running, listening to music -- make that part of the routine. (Keep in mind that while alcohol may relax you, it will diminish your ability to focus.) Are there special clothes -- colors, fabrics, or designs -- that make you more prepared to focus inward? If you prefer to follow the sound of a voice, then make (or have a friend make) a tape of the instructions; the words should be read or spoken quietly and slowly, and if necessary, repeated several times.
Sit in a comfortable, relaxed position. Close your eyes and take several deep breaths; breathe in and out from your belly. You may find that your mind is running at high speed; see your thoughts pass by, but don't follow them. Watch them drift through your consciousness as if they were leaves floating down a river or smoke rising from a chimney. If it takes you ten or fifteen minutes of breathing before you feel calm, before your mind slows its chattering, that's fine. Take all the time you need. When you're ready, say the following lines, repeating each as many times as necessary until there occurs a "spark of recognition."
I have a body, but I am not my body. I am myself. I have feelings, but I am not my feelings. I am myself. I have a mind, but I am not my mind. I am myself. I am. I am. I am myself.
The purpose of this exercise isn't to belittle your body, your feelings, or your mind. Rather, its purpose is to acknowledge that there's more to you than is defined by any single item or object. In times of stress, you might think that your current physical, mental, or emotional feelings are the sum total of reality. But that just isn't so. Your body is a precious instrument of action and experience in the outer world, but it isn't you. Likewise, your feelings may swing wildly from love to hate, calm to anger, joy to sorrow, but your essence, your true nature, doesn't change.
We know for a fact that people can learn to direct and integrate their emotions to serve specific needs. Much the same can be said about your mind, which is constantly changing as it embraces new experience and knowledge. While your mind may provide you with valuable pieces of knowledge about the world around you, it is not you. "You" lies beyond your mind, beyond your body, beyond your feelings, in a quiet, seamless center deep inside.
Embracing Loss
When performed on a regular basis, the disidentification exercise will help you come to know an endurable, unshakable self inside, one with the power to fashion new worlds out of ash and rubble. The fact that such an exercise can keep you from being consumed by your emotions doesn't mean that it could, or should, keep you from fully acknowledging the pain that's come on the heels of your separation.
Divorce throws a harsh, glaring light on a great many crumbled dreams, on plans that were once bright and full of promise but that now lay shattered and abandoned. While you can't spend all your time dwelling on these losses, you can't ignore them, even though facing them may hurt. This kind of recognition and acceptance always is painful, even for people enthusiastic about ending their relationship.
In order to work through this pain, you may find it helpful to honor your loss through a special ceremony. (Note that when we say honor, we're talking about feeling the depth of the loss without letting anger get loose and take you somewhere else. This doesn't mean repressing your anger. Look at it directly. Tell it that you understand it has a valid reason for being there. Then move on to the calmer, somewhat more detached place lying underneath.)
Lillian, a forty -five-year-old Denver attorney, arranged to use an out-of-town friend's apartment for an evening ceremony, thereby removing herself from her day-to-day environment. When she arrived at her friend's the night of the ritual, the first thing Lillian did was unplug the phones and then sit quietly for fifteen minutes to focus on why she was there. Afterward, she wrote on separate slips of paper a brief description of each hope and dream she felt had died with the end of her marriage. She thought of the country house that she and her husband intended to build, of the Christmases that were to be spent with grandchildren, of the trip overseas she and her husband were going to take now that their two daughters were off to college. "That evening brought the tears out of me like nothing else had", she admitted later.
Next, Lillian built a small fire in the fireplace, thoughtfully and purposefully placing each piece of kindling and each log, slowing down whenever she felt she was starting to hurry. When the fire was burning well, she proceeded to feed each slip of paper into the flames, one at a time, acknowledging aloud that she was letting go of that particular dream. When the last piece of paper disappeared in the flames, she sat in front of the fire and watched until it burned out completely, honoring the emptiness, the quiet space that lies between a former state of being and the one yet to come. Afterward, she dressed in an outfit she'd purchased earlier for the occasion and went out for an elegant, if somewhat melancholy, dinner with her best friend.
This article has been excerpted from
Rites of Passage
by Kathleen Wall and Gary Ferguson.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Beyond Words Publishing, Hillsboro, OR 97124-9808. 800-284-9673. http://www.beyondword.com.
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About The Author
KATHLEEN WALL practices psychology "with soul," providing helpful transition consulting for individuals and organizations. She serves on the faculty at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, has a private practice in San Jose, California, and is a counselor at San Jose State University.
GARY FERGUSON has been a free-lance writer for sixteen years. His science and nature articles have appeared in more than a hundred national magazines. He is also the author of numerous books. He and his wife make their home in Red Lodge, Montana.
