Laughter in surprising places

I received this link in an email from the Friends of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Australia. HH the Dalai Lama is teaching a number of programs in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart in early December 2009. This clip is delightful and I just wanted to share it.

Enjoy the laughter and click here.

Things take time

Sorting out issues takes time. So does healing and moving on.

I tend to think that these processes are a bit like recovering from an injury. If you look for improvements minute by minute you won't see any gains, but if you look for improvement month to month you will see how much improvement occurs.

It takes time to get your head around changes in your life. It takes time to sort out what you need to do, when and how, and then of course, it takes time to implement these decisions and actions. Writing "To Do" lists can help to keep you on track, but make sure they have realistic time frames or you might feel like you are not completing anything.

Be prepared to revise what you had planned based on what is going on and remember to take into account any influences that you had not expected that might affect your desired outcomes.

Some Questions to Consider...

Are you ready to consider some tough questions when facing the details of your divorce?

Are you willing to admit that you had a part in the relationship breakdown just as your partner did?

If you consider that you want to have a great relationship with your children, can you allow your partner to have the same?

Will you allow your children to talk with you about the good times they spend with their other parent without getting upset?

What will you compromise on to have a workable separation and divorce?

Do you want to have a positive life that is not bogged down with the pain of your current experience? What would it take for you to move beyond this?

How we see and relate to our world, our experiences and our circumstances can be influenced by our beliefs and attitudes, as well as our self-talk and what and how we hear others say to us.

Choose what you want and work towards it.

Respect and Empowerment

Just wondering -

If we gave others the respect we crave and allowed them to feel empowered the way we would want would we all get along better - ALL the time? This seems to be a huge part of the discord of marriage and relationship breakdown - playing a part in both the cause and effect.

Anger, frustration and feelings of lack of significance (whether real or imagined) make us react in ways that may not be in our best interests and leads to arguments, discord and distrust. This might be a bit simplistic but I think it is part of the picture of stress in our lives.

We need to be responsible for our actions and reactions, and our feelings as well. And of course, at times it would help if we could think before we acted or spoke.

Peace and Kindness

I found a great website today for browsing through books. Random House Australia allows you to download a .pdf file of the First Chapter of some books.

They offer this from His Holiness The Dalai Lama's book "How to Practise: The Way To A Meaningful Life"

I think it is beautifully written so download it here.

It can be so very difficult when facing divorce, challenging times and difficulties to forget how to live with grace and dignity.

The best gift you can give yourself and your loved ones when facing challenging times is to remain true to who you are and not become embittered by the processes you encounter.

Good surprises can happen!

I had a difficult divorce (aren't they all?), and worked hard to make it work.

I think I have had confirmation that I did quite well.

I was recently invited to my former husband's home for a BBQ lunch by my son, my former husband and his new wife. Each asked me at different times to make sure I got the invitation.

This is an incredible shift from my own childhood and parent's divorce. Theirs was the worst kind of acrimonious divorce from the start to beyond my father's death. (Well, before then because their acrimony would have started during their marriage). My childhood felt so bad that I delayed leaving a bad marriage because I couldn't stand the thought of living the rest of my life the way they had....

So, it was really nice to be given that invitation!

Heart felt pain

I seem to be bringing more health warnings about the end of important relationships again this week.

Results released recent from an Australian scientific study ("The Cardiovascular Effects of Bereavement - CARBER") revealed that the emotional pain that some people experience when grieving can have a real physical impact. The study of 160 people (half of whom were in mourning) commenced in 2005 and looked at changes in blood pressure, blood clotting, immunity and heart rhythm activated during the acute phase of bereavement.

The researchers found that grieving could raise blood pressure, heart rate and result in changes in the immune system and clotting - all of which can contribute to an increased risk of heart attack.

There was a six-times higher risk of heart attack for those who had suffered the death of a partner or child. The risk decreased after six months and levelled out after two years.

I believe that the death of a marriage creates similar physical impacts - not just emotional. So many of my divorced friends talked about heart ache and chest pain, and I felt it too.

If you are or have experienced chest pain or other symptoms that are not usual for you, make sure you get checked by an appropriate health care practitioner. It might be easier to think that it is just your experience of your grief, but get it checked out anyway.