Self and Singleness Archives - The Separation Project

Social connection is a basic human need. We all need to feel love, acceptance and belonging to live a happy and healthy life.

When one of our main social connections is severed, it can be devastating. The death of a loved one or a painful divorce can be difficult every day for years, and certain holidays can emphasize the pain. On Valentine’s Day, the world appears to be awash with happy, affectionate couples, exchanging gifts and enjoying a special day to celebrate LOVE. If you are single and feeling alone, it can be a difficult holiday to navigate. I propose you use the day to heal!

Your heart is like a savings account at the bank. You need to fill it up in order to have anything to take out. Deposits need to be larger than withdrawals to maintain a healthy account with a positive balance! A good strategy is to take more control over your own ‘heart bank’. Keep track of who is making deposits as well as withdrawals. Ensure that the deposits are bigger than the withdrawals. Make enough deposits yourself so that the influences of others impact you less. Maintaining a positive balance in your account will increase your resilience and enable you to have the reserves when you need them.

1. Celebrate yourself!

Use self-love to fill up your own heart. Make some deposits!

Your most important connection, at any stage in your life, should always be with yourself. You should always work actively on self-love! Celebrate your successes! Pamper yourself. Treat yourself well.

Love is the great miracle cure.

Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.

– Louise L. Hay

So often, as a coach, I hear people criticize themselves. Recognize when you are having negative thoughts about yourself and consciously stop the pattern. You are depleting your own bank reserves with the negativity! Much of the non-stop chatter that goes on in our minds is a variation on the basic message that we do not measure up: “I am not enough.” Why do we talk to ourselves like that? We don’t talk to a friend like that! In fact, we often enjoy the quirky qualities in our friends that they themselves dislike.

Your greatest treasure hides behind your self-loathing. Love it out of hiding.

– Pamela Miles

Becoming aware of how you talk or think about yourself is the first step towards improving your deposits. Then work to forgive your difficulties as you would for a good friend, and celebrate your accomplishments! Be supportive! Build yourself up instead of tearing yourself down. Be a good friend to yourself!

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

– Buddha

Learning to love yourself, right now (not when you lose 15 pounds or stop some bad habit or make some change to be better) can have a tremendous effect on your life. You are worthy of love and connection right now. Not next week or next year. Do you self-sabotage, exaggerate your faults and cause damage, or do you forgive and accommodate your shortcomings? You need to get comfortable with your strengths and what you like about yourself as well as your weaknesses. Stop putting yourself down and accept your flaws as they are with self-respect and self-awareness. No one is perfect but we are all worthy of respect, love, and connection. Your account balance will grow if you can improve how you think about yourself.

Loving yourself… does not mean being self-absorbed or narcissistic, or disregarding others. Rather it means welcoming yourself as the most honored guest in your own heart, a guest worthy of respect, a lovable companion.

– Margo Anand

Once you convince yourself you are worthy of love, healthy boundaries and positive relationships follow naturally. Your children, friends, and family will follow the example that you set and find you worthy of more love and respect too.

Love yourself first and everything falls into line

– Lucille Ball

2. Celebrate your time to be on your own!

Take a ‘stay single vacation.’

I went through a painful divorce and while reeling from the loss, a loved family member asked me if I was considering dating. I was so conflicted and afraid to go into the dating world that I didn’t have a good answer. I was told emphatically “Do not date for at least a year. Give yourself time to heal and rediscover your strengths and what you want! There is no rush.” This advice removed much of the anxiety of being alone and feeling needy. I was on a ‘stay single vacation!’ I felt a surge of relief and I highly recommend taking the time to be alone! It gave me time to accept my situation, reconnect with myself, and helped me heal to be ready for future love relationships. I knew when I was ready to start dating and was in a much better place because of the ‘vacation.’

To be beautiful means to be yourself.

You don’t need to be accepted by others.

You need to accept yourself.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

3. Celebrate the family and friends you do have.

Let the gratitude for the connections you do have right now fill your heart.

Are you thankful for what you do have? What friends are good for you? Who treats you well? Who do you need to reconnect with? Who fills you with positive energy that you would like to see more often? Who drains your energy that maybe you should see less often? Who can you do something thoughtful for right now? Who can you acknowledge with a thank you note? Who would you like to know better? What can you do to improve the quality of your connections? Feel good about the connections you do have! Congratulate yourself on who you have in your life.

A true friend sees the good in everything,

and brings out the best in the worst of things.

– Sasha Azevedo

4. Celebrate the friends you do not know yet!

Look for new connections you can make in the coming years.

Do you need new people in your life? Start to plan how to make new connections over the coming year. Join groups with similar interests, do volunteer work, invite an old acquaintance out to reconnect or a new one to get to know them. Years ago, I found myself too dependent on two friends at school. After a total anxiety attack and skipping school to avoid spending a lonely lunch hour (both my friends were away on the same day), I actively started inviting other people to join us in the cafeteria until I had a much stronger community of friends. This brought so much more balance into my life. I had created a much more diverse and balanced group of friends — many I still appreciate today! Small steps to increase your connections add up over time. Connections just need to be made! Friends are out there — you just haven’t met them yet!

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

-George Eliot

If you are having trouble managing your separation please contact me. Divorce coaching can help you navigate the business side of your divorce and the emotional aspects of being on your own.

I do offer a strategy session.

Pam

Pam Mirehouse
The Divorce Coach in Dundas

Image © fabioberti.it / depositphotos

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We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone.

Only through our love and friendship can we create

the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.

– Orson Welles

From birth until death, we make and break connections with others. Some connections will last for our entire lifetime and some wax and wane while we navigate the different stages of our lives. We all yearn for and need to feel connected to have a fulfilled life. Feeling connected is a basic human need.

Marriage usually becomes a huge influence on how we live our life. Our partner becomes a major connection and we identify ourselves as part of our marriage relationship. Breaking the connection with a life partner during a divorce can be very disruptive and fraught with difficulty such as suddenly finding yourself feeling very alone. If you did not choose to end your marriage being alone may feel especially scary, unwanted and shameful. Loneliness is defined as a feeling of sadness or even anxiety that occurs when you want company but have none. It is possible to feel loneliness in a crowd, especially if you aren’t interacting with others, or in a relationship if your needs are not being met and you feel no connection. Feeling all alone is a normal feeling when you go through separation and divorce.

To cope with loneliness, some people jump into a new relationship to avoid being alone. Most of these relationships just delay the inevitable. Sooner than later these people find themselves alone again with all the same issues. If they do not do the work and get comfortable with what they want they repeat the same mistakes. Some people fill their schedule up with busyness to distract themselves from being alone. They may delay the feelings of loneliness but it will resurface eventually.

Language… has created the word “loneliness” to express

the pain of being alone. And it has created the word

“solitude” to express the glory of being alone.

– Paul Tillich

When you are going through moments of loneliness, and those moments can be intense during a separation, try to think of being alone as solitude and learn to embrace the positive aspects of being alone. The word solitude carries the sense that you’re enjoying being alone by choice. Being alone can be wonderful if you choose it to be. It is how you think about it. Sit alone, settle in and get comfortable. Choose to enjoy your own company. Get to know yourself and your likes and dislikes. What do you value most? What can you not tolerate? Allow yourself the time to grieve your losses. Heal your wounds. Let yourself feel your emotions for the sensations they are. Feel all of it – the sadness, the grief, the guilt and the joy. Getting uncomfortable means you are stretching your comfort zone and you will learn new things about yourself and grow as a person.

I am not advocating isolation. See your friends and family as much as you can but do not avoid alone time. When you do experience moments of loneliness, become aware of how you are thinking and switch your thoughts to take advantage of this solitude. If you have filled up your life with busyness, schedule some alone time. We really do need this time for ourselves!

Here are some benefits of spending quality time alone with no distractions or interruptions from others:

Unwind, relax and become more centred.
Replenish your energy reserves.
Take the opportunity to discover your authentic wants, needs, likes, dislikes, dreams, and goals. Get to know what you like without others opinions or wants to influence you.
Learn the lessons provided by what did not go right in your marriage relationship. Our mistakes can always be valuable to us if we take the time to learn the lessons that they teach us.
Your concentration and productivity will improve, as will your decision-making.
You can work through the bigger problems that require complete focus and deeper contemplation that we usually put off for when we have more time.
Breath deeply, release your tension, be still and notice the details of the moment you are experiencing. Being present is a true gift.

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how

unlonely being alone can be.

– Ellen Burstyn

You will know you are healing as you transition from a fear of being alone to enjoying being all by yourself.

Happiness is a choice. Choose solitude over loneliness. Fall in love with yourself all over again. Regain your confidence and remember who you were and who you want to be.

When you truly learn to enjoy being alone and become your authentic self, you will find you will make better connections with others. When you are content you will start attracting amazing people into your life. Being alone also means you are available when the right relationship does come along.

Divorce is never a pleasant experience. You look upon it as a failure. But I learned to be a different person once we broke up. Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success.

– Michael Crawford

If you are thinking about separating or already in the thick of it, divorce coaching can improve how you are managing your situation! I can help you find the best path through the process to speed up healing and get on with the life you want to live.

Please contact me.

I do offer a strategy session.

Warm regards,

Pam

The Separation Project Coach!

Archive for: Self and Singleness

4 Good Strategies to Enjoy Valentine’s Day while Single

1. Celebrate yourself!

2. Celebrate your time to be on your own!

3. Celebrate the family and friends you do have.

4. Celebrate the friends you do not know yet!

The Benefits of Spending Time Alone during Separation and Divorce

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