Buy Yourself Flowers

Don’t wait for life to unfold around you. Taking control of your joy is taking control of your divorce and all that is to come.

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Happy Mother’s Day! I hope you are celebrating your awesomeness in all its glory.

Holidays can stir the emotional pot (especially when nothing feels the same or quite like the Hallmark holiday they were supposed to be) because they are highly charged with memories and expectations. That’s a lot of baggage to drag along.

We all had hopes and dreams when we walked down the wedding aisle — and let’s be honest, divorce wasn’t on the list. Sitting amidst a pile of legal docs wasn’t either, but here we are.

I’m not suggesting that you don’t feel the enormity of this moment in your life (that certainly won’t serve you). Instead, I want you to allow yourself to view it all differently.

Divorce can dredge up feelings of vulnerability, sadness, depression, anger, isolation, and even a sense of failure. Then as we mindlessly scroll through social media, we pour more salt onto the wound by perceiving everyone’s Instagram-perfect life as evidence that we have bombed in this arena.

Instead of drowning in a vat of self-defeating pity, what if you gave yourself the opportunity to view this through a different lens?

We walk away from partners and marriages for myriad reasons. You may view leaving or being left as a failure, but what if it were the biggest win of your life?

Divorce can be one of the greatest opportunities to stand up for yourself and your kids and to declare, This isn’t OK. I deserve more, I am more.

I don’t take the dissolution of a marriage lightly, nor staying in a toxic relationship with a narcissist or bully. In fact, many of the mamas we work with saved themselves and their kids from just that — and that takes guts.

Even if you are relieved to leave your partner behind, you are likely experiencing the grieving process because your marriage mattered...and so do you. And it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t love, or goodness or even happiness...but something changed and so did you.

Navigating the process and the calendar year of ‘firsts’...the first time splitting holidays with your parallel parenting plan, the first time alone or doing things differently, can be triggering but it is also a blank canvas to paint upon. It is your moment to redesign how holidays and life play out going forward.

Many of the mamas in our program slowly lost pieces of themselves in their marriages. They made concessions, lost their voices and eventually barely recognized themselves. Whatever the catalyst for divorce is, seize the opportunity to redefine life on your terms, to model healthy living and relationships to your kids, to reclaim your power and joie de vivre.

Beneath the pain of letting go of what was, is the hope of what can be.

In the meantime, be kind, compassionate and gentle with yourself. You don’t have to have all the answers and strategies — just the desire to live a more authentic, grounded, heart-centered and healthy life for you and your kids.

And in this process of this life renovation, allow your desires to emerge. What do you want life to look and feel like?

Don’t sit around and wait for someone else to define you or tell you what that should look like. Start designing your happy-ever-after and claim it.

And while you’re at it...buy yourself flowers...the most glorious, decadent bouquet you can find. You deserve it mama.

—Kristen Noel, Certified Intuitive Divorce Coach | Editor-In-Chief, Best Self Magazine