285 GUEST BLOG: Gerald Rogers.

I was sent this and I feel it makes great sense to share as Gerald's advice makes great sense.

Read... and take on board.

My advice after a divorce following 16 years of marriage, by Gerald Rogers.

Obviously, I’m not a relationship expert. But there’s something about my divorce being finalized this week that gives me perspective of things I wish I would have done different… After losing a woman that I loved, and a marriage of almost 16 years, here’s the advice I wish I would have had

1. Never stop courting. Never stop dating. NEVER EVER take that woman for granted. When you asked her to marry you, you promised to be that man that would OWN HER HEART and to fiercely protect it. This is the most important and sacred treasure you will ever be entrusted with. SHE CHOSE YOU. Never forget that, and NEVER GET LAZY in your love.

2. Protect your own heart. Just as you committed to being the protector of her heart, you must guard your own with the same vigilance. Love yourself fully, love the world openly, but there is a special place in your heart where no one must enter except for your wife. Keep that space always ready to receive her and invite her in, and refuse to let anyone or anything else enter there.

3. Fall in love over and over again. You will constantly change. You’re not the same people you were when you got married, and in five years you will not be the same person you are today. Change will come, and in that you have to re-choose each other everyday. SHE DOESN’T HAVE TO STAY WITH YOU, and if you don’t take care of her heart, she may give that heart to someone else or seal you out completely, and you may never be able to get it back. Always fight to win her love just as you did when you were courting her.

4. Always see the best in her. Focus only on what you love. What you focus on will expand. If you focus on what bugs you, all you will see is reasons to be bugged. If you focus on what you love, you can’t help but be consumed by love. Focus to the point where you can no longer see anything but love, and you know without a doubt that you are the luckiest man on earth to be have this woman as your wife.

5. It’s not your job to change or fix her… your job is to love her as she is with no expectation of her ever changing. And if she changes, love what she becomes, whether it’s what you wanted or not.

6. Take full accountability for your own emotions: It’s not your wife’s job to make you happy, and she CAN’T make you sad. You are responsible for finding your own happiness, and through that your joy will spill over into your relationship and your love.

7. Never blame your wife if you get frustrated or angry at her, it is only because it is triggering something inside of YOU. They are YOUR emotions, and your responsibility. When you feel those feelings take time to get present and to look within and understand what it is inside of YOU that is asking to be healed. You were attracted to this woman because she was the person best suited to trigger all of your childhood wounds in the most painful way so that you could heal them… when you heal yourself, you will no longer be triggered by her, and you will wonder why you ever were.

8. Allow your woman to just be. When she’s sad or upset, it’s not your job to fix it, it’s your job to HOLD HER and let her know it’s ok. Let her know that you hear her, and that she’s important and that you are that pillar on which she can always lean. The feminine spirit is about change and emotion and like a storm her emotions will roll in and out, and as you remain strong and unjudging she will trust you and open her soul to you… DON’T RUN-AWAY WHEN SHE’S UPSET. Stand present and strong and let her know you aren’t going anywhere. Listen to what she is really saying behind the words and emotion.

9. Be silly… don’t take yourself so damn seriously. Laugh. And make her laugh. Laughter makes everything else easier.

10. Fill her soul everyday… learn her love languages and the specific ways that she feels important and validated and CHERISHED. Ask her to create a list of 10 THINGS that make her feel loved and memorize those things and make it a priority everyday to make her feel like a queen.

11. Be present. Give her not only your time, but your focus, your attention and your soul. Do whatever it takes to clear your head so that when you are with her you are fully WITH HER. Treat her as you would your most valuable client. She is.

12. Be willing to take her sexually, to carry her away in the power of your masculine presence, to consume her and devour her with your strength, and to penetrate her to the deepest levels of her soul. Let her melt into her feminine softness as she knows she can trust you fully.

13. Don’t be an idiot…. And don’t be afraid of being one either. You will make mistakes and so will she. Try not to make too big of mistakes, and learn from the ones you do make. You’re not supposed to be perfect, just try to not be too stupid.

14. Give her space… The woman is so good at giving and giving, and sometimes she will need to be reminded to take time to nurture herself. Sometimes she will need to fly from your branches to go and find what feeds her soul, and if you give her that space she will come back with new songs to sing…. (okay, getting a little too poetic here, but you get the point. Tell her to take time for herself, ESPECIALLY after you have kids. She needs that space to renew and get re-centered, and to find herself after she gets lost in serving you, the kids and the world.)

15. Be vulnerable… you don’t have to have it all together. Be willing to share your fears and feelings, and quick to acknowledge your mistakes.

16. Be fully transparent. If you want to have trust you must be willing to share EVERYTHING… Especially those things you don’t want to share. It takes courage to fully love, to fully open your heart and let her in when you don’t know i she will like what she finds… Part of that courage is allowing her to love you completely, your darkness as well as your light. DROP THE MASK… If you feel like you need to wear a mask around her, and show up perfect all the time, you will never experience the full dimension of what love can be.

17. Never stop growing together… The stagnant pond breeds malaria, the flowing stream is always fresh and cool. Atrophy is the natural process when you stop working a muscle, just as it is if you stop working on your relationship. Find common goals, dreams and visions to work towards.

18. Don’t worry about money. Money is a game, find ways to work together as a team to win it. It never helps when teammates fight. Figure out ways to leverage both persons strength to win.

19. Forgive immediately and focus on the future rather than carrying weight from the past. Don’t let your history hold you hostage. Holding onto past mistakes that either you or she makes, is like a heavy anchor to your marriage and will hold you back. FORGIVENESS IS FREEDOM. Cut the anchor loose and always choose love.

20. Always choose love. ALWAYS CHOOSE LOVE. In the end, this is the only advice you need. If this is the guiding principle through which all your choices is governed, there is nothing that will threaten the happiness of your marriage. Love will always endure.



In the end marriage isn’t about happily ever after. It’s about work. And a commitment to grow together and a willingness to continually invest in creating something that can endure eternity. Through that work, the happiness will come. Marriage is life, and it will bring ups and downs. Embracing all of the cycles and learning to learn from and love each experience will bring the strength and perspective to keep building, one brick at a time.

These are lessons I learned the hard way. These are lessons I learned too late. But these are lessons I am learning and committed in carrying forward. Truth is, I loved being married, and in time, I will get married again, and when I do, I will build it with a foundation that will endure any storm and any amount of time.

If you are reading this and find wisdom in my pain, share it those those young husbands whose hearts are still full of hope, and with those couples you may know who may have forgotten how to love. One of those men may be like I was, and in these hard earned lessons perhaps something will awaken in him and he will learn to be the man his lady has been waiting for.

MEN- THIS IS YOUR CHARGE: Commit to being an EPIC LOVER. There is no greater challenge, and no greater prize. Your woman deserves that from. Be the type of husband your wife can’t help but brag about.

BLOG 284: The Branch in the Bubble

"I don't want to live in the bubble...I can't, I would be cheating myself" Diane Lane 

The success rate  for resisting the love bug is up there with that of trying to get a tan by candlelight. It simply does not happen. 

You'd like to think that you know the branch of the tree of life called Love. You know it is weak and that it has failed you. So as a sensible person you resist that limb. 

But as I said, resistance is futile. Sooner or later you figure out that every chance you take is a different limb. Yeah...it may look the same but you don't know exactly what it is made of; you do not know how strong it is until you try it. 

And before you know it those four chambers that pump blood through the body are engaged again. 

You reintroduce yourself to anticipation, excitement , sexual desire, and singing to yourself while you do the most mundane chores. Before you know it some deep dark pocket of hope that has been hidden away for years is warming and defrosting the cold shoulder that had frostbitten all comers for years. 

Your defences lower and suddenly you become aware of a crushing loneliness within you. You realise that independence is in fact singleness and singleness makes you feel small, exposed and defenseless. You feel like that new kid who is suddenly asked to join the cool kids - you take a risk at the welcoming hand and join the circle of the living, the feeling... the loved. 

For a while it's all about finding what you have in common - you both like your news from the radio and not the tv or paper, you both think a year 11 school child with a good calculator could solve the global financial crisis in half an hour and neither of you can quite remember when it was that British TV Comedy lost the battle with America but agree it did. 

That's when you enter the bubble... the honeymoon period... when the limb you went out on can carry not just both of your weights but the whole world. You wonder why you were so shy of getting out here before. You look forward to seeing each other daily, it’s  all about the shared laughter, conversations, touch.  

Such emotion is intense and intense is frightening. Its scary to be so incredibly happy, a dry fear infiltrates the bubble; you start to fear that such happiness will not last forever.  However the bubble is strong - you shelve the fear and become determined to enjoy it for as long as you can. 

You don't wish to be negative - so you don't become so. But a certain pragmatism invades. You start to view what you have as a gift. 

An oasis in your journey through life's desert. 

You reflect back on your single days. Your experience up to now is no one stays. Yes, being out on a limb is exciting but why now against all the evidence should you now have a match, a mate as soul companion? Your life to now may not be the life you would have chosen, but this is the only life you have got. You give yourself close scrutiny - you realise there is nothing there that would induce anyone to stick around. 

And so you resolve to simply just cherish every hug, every joke even every battle.  When this limb enviably bows and breaks... you will at least have your memories. 

You refuse to meddle with life in the bubble, you don't question it or measure it or plan beyond the moments you are in. It becomes enough, more than you expected to be out on this limb at all. You treat it for what it has become - a  gift. 

There are those who survive, thrive even, long after their bubbles have burst.

And yet whether there be life beyond the bubble or not, memories will always run back to that special time of discovery and hope that life in the bubble will always represent to you.

However it is only the when the bubble is gone that you will discover exactly what the limb you went out on is made of. 

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BLOG 283 - Cut the cord!

  

"Good parents give their children roots and wings—roots to know where home is and wings to fly off and practice what has been taught them." Dr Jonas Salk 

My son will soon be starting his own adult adventure when he departs the nest in September for university. 

It is at this juncture that many a parent takes stock and wonders about the bond between their offspring and themselves. This is the bit where the proof is in the pudding. Did you do a good enough job to unleash a free standing , functional adult into the world? Or is the umbilical cord still running essential services from the placenta? 

The writer Milton once said of God that he made us his children, free to stand or fall.  

We often refer to deities are parents, Mother earth/ God the father. I like to think that Milton was also indirectly referring to us as parents. For a lot of our children's lives we are like deities, all knowing and all controlling and our children are all honouring. But there comes a stage where we as parents must stand back and see if our offspring can stand. Or if they will fall. We must trust we have done enough for them to know what to do in either case. 

The urge to run and pick our precious ones up is huge. But we must ask...what will they learn from this? Of course there is a point where that is the right course of action... but I think after the nurturing years to adulthood are done...we must (with arm itching to assist) stand back and wait and see if our offspring can get up by themselves. 

If we don't we do more harm than good. 

But sometimes a parent unwittingly turns a child into the love of their life. I see it so often with mothers of sons in particular. 'My little soldier'. Hang on are not YOU the parent supposed to be doing the protecting here? 'He always puts mother first'. No, no no... shouldn't YOU the parent should be doing the providing? There seems to be a point in some loving relationships between parents and children where it all becomes a little twisted. 

My first college boyfriend was so used to being the 'man of the family' as his lone parent mother looked to him to do everything. He struggled for a long time with his guilt of leaving his mummy to have a life of his own. His mother always seemed to having  'The Vapours' about the most routine things - once he drove across the county to assist simply because a light bulb had blown and she had no idea what to do. I recall being appalled at how manipulative she appeared to be. But in the end I could see the symbiotic relationship. He was as much to blame as she was. As much as his mother  had used her eldest son as a substitute husband, he totally got off on being the head of the family. He felt it gave him a maturity beyond his 18 years and enjoyed being in control of others lives. While the rest of us students cared only for beer and parties, he had 4 young siblings and a grown woman looking to him for  guidance. There was little offered in the hedonistic world of freshman year at university that could top that. It took him a long while to cut the cord. But hey, he was only 18 and had spent 7 years being the man of a large family. It was all he knew and I am pleased to say that finally he did, and recognised that being a grown up involved  striking out on his own. 

But some are unable to cut the cord and remain the child they have always been, encouraged by doting parents who are frightened to redefine themseves once hands on child rearing is over. 

This is becoming ever more common as house prices soar, the rental market become ever more out of reach and young people are finding it difficult to leave the parental home, even many years after university. Leaving home is not as easy as it once was. 

I heard a cautionary tale of young man who (although a bonefide adult) has become so stunted in his growth that he has elected to live with mummy and daddy till death do them part. 

 This grown man not only lived with his parents long after he should have struck out on his own, but was so installed into his childhood that he was still was getting the school-run treatment! His parents only substituting his place of work for the schools gates! This man had no intention of ever leaving mummy and daddy and had ended every romantic relationship he had ever found himself in if it threatened the status quo.  Remarkably this chap did find women to date but even on a date would ring his parents to check in every few hours. He once had a girlfriend stay over at his parental home, but didn't do this again as neither the woman nor his parents found it appropriate.  Therefore he could have a sexual relationship away from home but made it clear that he would be expected back in the nursery before midnight. Then of course there was the programme of non negotiable 'family times' where as their son he would not and could not be available to the outside world, which he was entirely complicit with. The only thing that surprised me about this chap was that he was EVER in a position to end any relationship, as I cannot imagine what sort of self respecting woman would even consider dating a manchild of this quality! I do feel for the parents though, they love their child so much that they do not even see the damage they have done nor the fact their 'love' has in fact sentenced their child to be incomplete and alone after they die. 

It is good to be aware of this phenomena though. It is so hard to let go of your precious child. It goes against every instinct. You want to protect and provide for them... else why else bother? But the point of the exercise is to let them go... to stand ...or even to fall. You have to trust you have done enough for them to be able to handle life without you. Because the fact of the matter is... in the normal run of play, you will die before them. You will NOT always be there. 

My son means the world to me, and we have worked together as a team for many years, just the two of us.  The absence of a hands on father means that we have become a unit. However I have never lost sight of the fact that I am neither his best friend nor his love.  I am his mother. That is a big enough role to play in someone's life. He must be allowed to use his on judgment to fill the other roles. 

As a parent yes of course you are the primary relationship. This is where the unconditional love is . Your child will never have that again until they in turn become parents. Everything else will have conditions attached. 

BUT in the safe relationship between parent and child where the love is not ever to be withdrawn, we teach our children how to negotiate the adult world as best we can. Then... as much as it hurts us, we let go. 

We let our children stand...or fall. 

And while we are allowing this to happen, we fill the void with rediscovering a person we more or less forgot about while the herculean task of raising a human from egg to adulthood was on going. 

Ourselves.

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BLOG 282: Day 101

"We don't live our world by facts, but by emotions. Life is about how you value your life. Because if you think your life is a dark abyss, it will probably will end up as one."  Priory Therapist

I am reliably informed that I have made good progress in the 101 days I since the shitstorm hit. Yay me! I still am battered, I am still in the sick-bay of life. BUT (to work that analogy further... ) I'm out of intensive care. And that has to be good. 

I was brought up to pay things forward so this little bloglet is for anyone in pain out there. I'd like to share with you some steps that have helped me make this movement forward. To do so it would help if you do have friends/family who will support you. These often will not be the one you thought who would. You must be open to whom ever steps up to the plate with the genuine heart. I also think if  access some kind of therapy many groups are free of charge - look into it) it odes help to have a mental health professional monitoring your progress. Face facts if you broke your leg you would seek a physical health professional. Being emotionally battered does require the same kind of medical support. 

Okay... my journey to date: 

The number one thing my therapists points out is that I have a genuine commitment to getting to the other side of what has happened to me as I am not prepared to do a Miss Havisham and live entirely in the past. That said I think it should probably go without saying that loss is loss and there is no escape from the fact that it is a mighty game changer. 

Having the game change means that you have to learn some new coping tools. 

The first thing is being able to find...even in the midst of total and utter heart wrenching misery... is the willingness to even want to reach for happiness. 

Too often focus on the events outside our control and let them define us, we become the circumstances. This is comforting at the beginning when the shitstorm starts and we are in shock that such a thing could happen to us. But what happens is we start wearing the Victim Label like a badge of honour and become reluctant to remove it.  

As much as it garners a comforting response from people, I just was not prepared to be "the girl who waited years for the love of her life who then died 2 days before her birthday, 20 days before Christmas just at the time she lost her livelihood and home too". I'd live too long on this planet and achieved too many things for this to remain my final pigeon hole. I had to commitment to putting these devastating and sad events into the past and focusing on the future. I had to push myself into making plans and visualising how it would feel to accomplish this. 

This is where therapy helps. It helped as a therapist can guide you towards getting in touch with the healthiest part inside of you. Without a doubt a shitstorm that takes away your relationship, your home and your ability to provide for yourself is a blow at the most visceral level. But somewhere in you there is a drive to keep building a life for yourself. If you can locate it (and it will be a very small and weak drive) then you can  start to work with this fragile drive and by  boosting it you will boost your recovery. 

So how do you turn your focus from the past to the future. It's all well a good giving the psycho-babble about harnessing your mind and time being the best healer, but  the reality is that when you are in the eye of the storm you are battered up so bad you lose the ability to focus on the basics let alone the herculean task of getting your life back. 

So... and I promise nothing. I have made progress in 101 days. I am not cured. my mind is still often in torment and it is exhausting. BUT it is possible to shut down some of the crap when it sneaks up on you and tries to impede your progress. Because I am proof that you can make progress  - even from such a massive blindside. 

So if you ever feel overwhelmed by the scale of the shit that life occasionally dumps all over you and are finding it hard to cope -  here are some tricks you can use to make it through the days: 

Shake what you mama gave ya! Obsessing about details you can never have is a great way of holding back your recovery. The if when why whats will do nothing to change what is. But this syndrome will keep trying to keep the gut wrenching pain fresh if you let it. So get in your mind a wet dog - you know how they jettison the water from their fur by shaking from head to tail very quickly? Well, when you need to jettison the if when why what thoughts and fast. 

So... (and you may need to exit to somewhere private to do this) stand up and literally shake it off. Shake it!!! - from head to toe, good and hard. Waggle your arms, wobble your head, jiggle your butt!!!  It's guaranteed to break the gloom of retrospection even for a short while. 

Wake the lazy cleaner Imagine that your mind is a small, wooden-floored room that keeps getting all dusty and dirty (The dirt represents all your negative thoughts). Now visualize a tiny, inch-high cleaning lady snoozing in the corner of the room, an old-fashioned twig broom leaning against her chair.  

Every time your thinking drifts back into dangerous territory, wake her up! Get her to start sweeping the room. Literally have her working away furiously, sweeping all that unwanted muck out the door and making the place spic ‘n span. 

Yappy Yappy Dog This simple but effective trick helps you separate yourself from intrusive thoughts.  Imagine that you're walking down the street and you see a dog chained up to a fence next to the sidewalk, yapping wildly at you (the dogs racket is representing  the cacophony of thoughts in your head). 

Every time you get that scrabbled thinking racket try to imagine that chained up dog, imagine you simply continue on your way down the street knowing that the racket the dog is  making, can't hurt you. It's just noise. Hold your head up and keep on walking. 

Paint the Wall This technique enables you to manage those rotten bad feelings you walk around with. Picture yourself vigorously painting all those angry, hurt, pent-up feelings in strong colors on a great big wall. Use your whole body, jabbing and stroking until the wall is violent with color. Stand back and take a good look at it. This multicoloured mess is no artwork - this is the turmoil you have inside you. Look at it. 

Then imagine grabbing a roller, dipping it in a tray of thick neutrally coloured paint and rolling it criss-cross and up and down until the wall is covered all over with a field of pure neutrality. Stand back again and let yourself exhale. Then inhale and breathe in the calm. 

The thing is, obsessing about the changes that are sometimes forced upon us... The things we never wanted/The things we most fear... paralises us from moving forward. And life is a forward motion. Yes we should stand still and take stock. But then we must go in the direction of our feet... they point forward (look down...they do!). 

I'm not making light of what happened to me 101 days ago. 

When this is over I will look back and see the huge turnpike in the road of my life and see it for what it was... an almighty game change. But I have to fight everyday to stop the doom and gloom thoughts (and lets face facts it was SHIT... and that's to say nothing of the fact that  all the end of year/early new year events will forever be scared by the timing of these events)… but using these techniques helps build up some positive energy that can be used to fuel that fight. I am committed to recovering from this. 

 Happiness is a choice that we have to keep making for ourselves at every twist and turn in our lives - the choice to roll up our sleeves and do whatever it takes to keep moving forward . 

I have been able to work hard on my commitment to get to the events that tried to define me. I'm nowhere near it, but I certainly am not where I was 101 days ago... I am a long way from that dark and shocking night. I hope that anyone reading this will never have to experience their world imploding so dramatically, but I think even with the little stresses and strains we all face in life, that some of these techniques that I have been using will be of help should anyone find them selves in any kind of emotional abyss. 

Because... even the darkest night passes.

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