Ok, that was a geek reference if ever there was one.  However, I couldn’t get it out of my head, so that’s the title.

I did something finally that I hadn’t ever done before, but always had been talking about.  I performed bellydance solo.  Not as a solo in part with other dancers, but as in stepped up and - with the support of my friends - did my own thing, to my own music, with my own costuming.  And it was significantly different from things I’d done before.

It was surprisingly refreshing and frightening at the same time.

It’s amazing how different I feel now.  It is as if doing that changed some wiring inside me. I had been avoiding it for the longest time - not that I couldn’t dance solo on an impromptu basis, at haflas, at gatherings, around bonfires.  But I went to an organized event and danced cabaret-tribal style in a cabaret-tribal costume and made something my own. 

It was NOT perfect, by any means.  But it was not horrific. 

And now I’m scheduled to do it again at the end of August - which frankly freaks me out.

Everytime I have a dance weekend, I contemplate the enigmatic world of bellydance.  I wonder what I am doing here in this corporate world, sitting in front of a desk when I could be drilling, shimmying, choreographing.  Is this how everyone is when they immerse themselves in their art?

This last weekend was very much the same - but also very different.  This weekend marks a change in how I go forward.  I will be dancing with others, but I will also be pursuing a solo existence.  And I’m not sure how necessarily to balance both worlds evenly. 

 Why is it so hard to go solo on a project?  What is it in me that will go to the end of the earth for a group project, but when it is just for me, I end up settling for something that gets me through it without TOO much shame.  Why can I sacrifice my time and put all my creativity into something that is a manifestation of a few people, but not able to do the same for something that comes just from within me?

I don’t know, but I have a feeling I’m going to find out.

Le danseuse est mort.  Viva la danseuse!

So, I’ve been quiet for a few days.  Learning lessons.  Not new lessons, but old, powerful lessons.

I was in a mind-altering car accident this weekend.  As in, should-have-died level of accident.  At a standstill in traffic, a car plowed into us from behind going 50-60mph, pushing us into another car.  I do not remember the airbags deploying, but when my eyes opened, there they were, flattened sacks.  The above is the remains of the car.

We all walked away basically together - no limbs broken or gone, and major body functions still in tact.  We are in the process of dealing with the medical fallout of all of this.

Geeks - I feel as if I have a better understanding of what one might experience in one’s first time ever plane-shifting.  Or if someone forcibly tried to pull me through a wormhole in space.  I think that might feel like this car accident - where all the molecules around me are suddenly squished together.  There’s this moment of intensity, a moment of compaction where sound is so dense that it no longer is sound - it is more akin to silence.

So, that’s what happened on my way to the Madison Farmer’s Market.  Right now, my life feels achingly misaligned, like the bones in my back.  It is as if every cell in my body knows that something has changed, but no one can see that from the outside. 

This situation has imposed, rather perilously, several life lessons upon me that I thought I’d share that, while pertinent to the car wreck, are also pertinent to life.

• Impatience is unnecessary.  No one needs to anywhere that fast to sacrifice the well-being of oneself and others.  That goes for work and personal life - pushing something to the limit of its speed will result in poor results.  And you won’t have enjoyed the ride.  And the path taken often makes a difference in how successful the achievement is. 
• The body is amazing.  Not only did it do all the necessary processes to ensure that I would be at my most flexible, but it also conveniently blocked out the few seconds of my head hitting the airbag and seat that I really didn’t need to know.  Thank you selective memory during traumatic events.  If my brain can forget the traumatic seconds of a car accident, then I can teach my brain to forgive and forget other things that hold me back.
• Your life can change in the blink of an eye, and without your permission.  And being flexible, able to go with the flow will always be helpful.  This is a great analogy for dealing with change.  In an accident, if you see it coming, you tense up and the damage is always worse.  In life, this can be compared to stubbornly holding onto the past as long as you can before letting go.  There’s an art to recognizing inevitable change and following it when it comes instead of making it drag you through hell.
• Did I mention change happens without your permission?  It gives new insight to me, who is someone who strives to always be in control.  If I can never be truly in control, then perhaps I am wasting energy in that direction that could be more appopriately focused in achieving my goals.
• In the same vein as not being able to control what happens outside of me, there’s a degree of chaos in trying to control what is inside you.  It is a delicate balance between nature and nurture, and be careful what label you assign to each feeling.  I don’t WANT to feel anxious right now, but the chemical imbalance as a result of the accident doesn’t give me that option. 
• Your perception can completely change without anything visible occurring.  I went back to my job and back to my life, and nothing changed externally.  But I feel completely changed internally -for good or for ill.  I think this is something that many people experience when going through a difficult time.  The rest of the world may not fit the new you, and the person you thought you knew might not be there anymore.  And it only takes a split second.  Take the time to find out what has changed, and where your heart lies. 
• The things you come back to in a traumatic event are the things that you need to keep paying attention to.  Those are the things/people/beliefs that really matter in your life.
• Sometimes you need to forego asking “Why did this happen?” and move straight to, “What do I do now?”  Too much time spent with the former question causes fewer options to be available when you reach the second question.  The Why is historical and nice to have, but what matters more is who you are and what you want NOW.

And what I want right now is sleep.  Good night all.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” - Oscar Wilde

Tell me. What do you do for a Living?

I’m eager to know.  Because I don’t think what we do for a Living necessarily is our “job”, or even our “profession”.

I was thinking about this one morning, discussing with Jizo-Sama regarding the titles we take on willingly, or don’t allow ourselves to take on.  That’s a whole OTHER post.  But it sparked something in me about the fact that we label ourselves all the time, but almost always about our job or profession.  Joe is a plumber.  Sue is an Administrative Assistant.  Mr. So-and-So is an Attorney, and Ms. So-and-So is a Graphic Designer.

But that’s not really what we do for a Living.  That’s what we do for existing.  For bill-paying.  Some of us are lucky enough to have jobs that would qualify as “living”, or even get to do their preferred “living” actions within the confines of their job.  Perhaps Mary Smith loves to write, but does it within her annoying Copywriter job.  She could probably ditch the other aspects of her job, but it allows her to do one thing she LIVES to do all the time.

But the majority of us put up with corporate world in order to Live a certain way, to Do certain things.   They rarely have anything to do with concepts we associate ourselves with, and even more often these days, have little to do with what we studied in school. 

I find it interesting that we ask a seven year old what they want to BE.  They are allowed to BE anything.  When children get older, we ask them what they want to DO.  Now we have narrowed it down from dreams to interests and hopes.  At adulthood, we don’t even deal with the term “want” anymore.  What DO you do? 

That’s like asking: What do you do now that you’ve given up your dreams and interests?

I’m reminded of Fight Club where Tyler says, ”You are not your job.”  I am not my job, but I willingly take on those labels specifically when people ask me what I do for a living.  But in reality, that says so very little about me.  In fact, it says near to nothing. 

So I asked myself: what do I do for a Living? Not my job, but my dreams and joys.  What do I do to experience life?  What would I call myself? 

Thinker. Dancer. Writer. Blogger. Singer.  Lover. Pennsic-goer. Reinactor. Traveler.  Seeker.  Retail Therapist.  Activist.   

So what is it that you do for a Living? 

These things can always be looked at several different ways.  After listening to WNYC’s RadioLab on “Where Am I?”, I was very uncertain about the brain’s role in religion and spirituality, and how we might create the “proof” for these beliefs.  When the brain loses track of the body, experiences similar to “near-death experiences” occur.  Perhaps these situations are merely a reaction of the brain being confused? Does this call into question other spiritual experiences as really being physical manifestations of some issue, misinterpreted as something esoteric?

Then Dr. Taylor has this stroke of inspiration, which I’m reposting here.  She was featured in the New York Times just last week.  According to Dr. Taylor, nirvana is attainable by choosing to behave and perceive using more of one’s right hemisphere.  There isn’t clarity of exactly how one is supposed to go about doing that (perhaps you need to buy the book?) 

But it is an interesting proposal.  Add in the RadioLab information, and the question becomes even more convoluted. 

First - is it merely an electrical stimulus of the brain we are perceiving as peace? 

Second - does it matter? Does the fact that one can choose to be in nirvana make it less desirable to attain?  Less of a challenge?  I mean think about it - part of the method of attaining nirvana was to let go of the physical - and now we have some indication that nirvana is purely phyiscal?  A matter of making synapses happen more on the right brain than the left.  Does that alter our understanding of most metaphysical teachings?  Meditation?

Perhaps spirituality has less to do with what’s OUT THERE as opposed to what’s IN US, and how we connect to others. 

Anyway - have a look.  (If this video isn’t working for you, go here.)

I was sent this earlier today:

Edit: By the way, the webcomic for this is hilarious, and all geeks should get on this asap!

As a beginning, I would say that I am too often prompted to make posts by reading Penelope’s Brazen Careerist blog.  And rarely because we are discussing careers.

She posted, on Monday, about the Emily Gould article on the NYTimes.  I’d already started reading this post last week because it was left up on the Mac at home (which was probably a fortuitous accident rather than a planned jab).  At that time I’d only ready one page before I had to start preparing for my weekend activities.  Today, I read the whole thing.  My review?  Eerily accurate in the description of online addiction to immediate gratification and communication.  Otherwise?  Sort of a prodigal daughter story mixed with your average rise and fall of a job experience.  Just because it was in the fast-paced and exciting “blogging” career-field doesn’t make it any different than any other job experience.

However, beyond Penelope’s response of a jealous-tinged, “No one is special.  Get over yourself,” it makes me begin to think about online exposure and what propels us to be so open.

It’s an interesting topic.  Privacy is something we fought to protect, and has been included in the interpretation of the 9th Amendment to the Constitution.  How often do we receive privacy notices in the mail, or agree to them online?  Regulation S-P has pushed privacy into the forefront of the investment world.  We can opt out of mailings, opt out of getting phone calls.  How many times do we assert that other people can’t tell us how to live our own lives?  All on the basis of privacy.

So, how do we explain our nation’s growing love of invading privacy and displaying our lives openly?

The Emily Gould article discusses the online blogging phenomenon in a way that  I think many online bloggers might find a little too close to home.  It seems that online, we feel much more safe to share our personal information than if perhaps someone called us and asked.  If someone were to open our diary and tell everyone what we feel, we might freak out.  But we in essence do the same in our blogging world.  Some of us use alternate names for the people involved, but others do not.  And sometimes they don’t have to - as in the Emily article, or with Penelope, we all know who the individual is.  What prompts us to share so much of ourselves online?

Add in myspace, Twitter, and other online apps that allow you to keep in touch all the time, across the globe, and it becomes dizzying how much our culture is moving towards compromising our own privacy.  I admit - I easily put information out there about my life, at times perhaps more than I should. 

Let’s go further - what about Reality T.V.?  No longer happy with the typical soap opera fiction, we have show after show that delves into the lives of real people and their dramas.  The axiom to avoid airing your dirty laundry has changed to promote putting it all out there - even the stained underwear.  And it isn’t just an American phenomenon - Europe loves Reality TV. Reality tv is the definition of uncomfortable levels of sharing - it really exemplifies the whole “watching a train wreck” phenomenon. 

But at the same time, it also evokes a sense of salvation and after-school specials.  Lessons that used to be learned after 30 minutes of family sitcoms like the Cosby Show are now lived out, in painstaking episode after episode, inviting us to learn about “raw and uncut” human nature.  Either you are unsave-able (remember Omarosa of The Apprentice?) or a stray sheep who just needs a little direction to get back to the flock (just about anyone on The Biggest Loser, The Nanny, etc.)  Each person’s success or downfall is watched, discussed, and analyzed.  What did they do wrong?  Who deserves to win?  What are good traits to have, and what are failures?

Even within fictional tv shows such as Sex and the City, we are getting more and more personal in our displays and discussion.  The topics go deeper into the human condition.  Six Feet Under gets pretty vivid into our relationship with life- and with death.

Penelope’s blog is about where work and personal life intersect - and perhaps that’s a telling statement in of itself.  In our workplaces, we hear more and more about work-life balance (subject of future post) which makes us feel as if the two are interconnected more than they used to be.  Dealing with individual’s feelings about their job, their goals and personal issues have become a part of what your manager has to think of on your review.  These things used to not be part of the workplace, but today, you are quite the recluse if you don’t share what you did over the weekend, or talk about someone’s upcoming divorce.

Both Penelope and Emily talk about how they are “moved” to be completely honest with their readers, to share their innermost feelings.  This seems to set them apart from the crowd of bloggers who still use vague references or pen names - and garner them a whole lot of flak from commenters…and family. But is it really them, or a growing cultural phenomenon to open up to strangers?  They aren’t the only ones doing it.  And as Penelope points out, history has had those who felt the need to chronicle their lives and experiences. 

Why would we have this desire to open up to strangers anyway?  It seems antithetical in a world where identity theft is very real and information management is big money.  Even branding has a lot to do with projecting the right brand information out there, not all the brand information.  Is it narcissism and self-infatuation?

Or could it be born of a lack of community?  In our world we are so very separated from each other physically.  Once upon a time, we had a community of people we interacted with, we shared with, we lived around.  Now, this is less so - and perhaps that prompts us to seek out new communities (Livejournal, Tribe, myspace, Facebook, blogs…) in which we can get that human connection again.  In a world where it is sometimes deemed weird to look people in the eye while walking down the street, we feel able to talk about our favorite sexual position online.  Or share our poetry.  What we did last weekend.  Our breakup, our loss of a friend, our one-night-stand, our embarrassing drunken situation.  Things we might only tell a diary or a close friend…

And further - we are able to be whatever we want to be.  In the physical community, if you talked a lot about being a dancer, but no one ever saw you dance, few would believe your initial statement.  Now, someone can go online and do a minimal amount of researching to have an opinion on anything, and then position oneself as being part of that community.  And few people will be able to check your credibility because they don’t REALLY know you, despite how many IM’s you share.  Perhaps we feel free in expressing everything not because we feel close to the people on the net but because we feel separate from them - protected?  From revelation, from being who we really are, from having to explain ourselves.  Entitlement?

These are all just theories and thoughts - I don’t have an answer.  But I’d like your theories and thoughts.  I’d also like to throw out a couple of questions for those who inspire my post.  I’d really like to get insight into the source of their sharing.

Penelope:  What drives you to post about your personal life?   You could just write a diary and keep it to yourself, or write emails in gory detail to a friend.  What prompts you to feel you should share these things with others? Is it a feeling?  A liberation?  Is it a self-established code that you live by?

Emily:  Your article really seems to indicate that you feel the person you were who shared everything was the wrong person to be and that you’ve changed.  What makes you feel you should share less?  Is it your negative experiences?  What is it that pushes you to distance yourself from the online sharing - and why do you think that is better than what you were doing? 

I think this may, in fact, be true.

Take off your cynicsm hat, and put on your open-mind cap.  And dispose of any “psychological clap-trap” judgment meters.  This may push the boundaries of self-help, but give it a chance.

I was contemplating upon many things that have happened in my life, including my recent impending divorce.  PNC (Personal Negativity Coach) stepped in and said, ”Guess Love doesn’t really conquer all.”

And I felt down.  I felt like somehow I’d failed to do…whatever it was I was supposed to do to save my failed marriage.  That if I’d really “loved” this person, that it should have worked.  I felt as if I’d neglected to follow the blueprint for a successful marriage, and that I didn’t love “enough”.

Or - the converse - that love is really just sort of a nice thing to have in a relationship, but it isn’t necessary or dependable.  That “head-over-heels” will ultimately become “bending-over-backwards” and “laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank”.  Furthermore, that love is only one aspect of many aspects of marriage that needs to be sound.

While I don’t disagree with the latter statement that love cannot be all you have in a relationship, it still doesn’t fit that whole idea that Love Conquers All.  So - there I was, feeling low for a moment in thinking that either A) I was a failure at Love or B) Love is not as powerful as it seems.

Option B is surprising to me.  I am moved to do so many things through Love, moved further than any other feeling moves me.  I sacrifice more, I give more, I am more vulnerable to fulfill the mandates of Love.  I would have once said that Love moves me to make poor choices, as well.  So, not only was I possibly a failure at Love, but it might be less worthwhile to pursue.  How depressing is that?

But something inside me disagreed.  I recognized a voice that was distinctly NOT PNC.

No.

It isn’t the lack of Love, or that Love is less powerful than believed to be.  It is the shifting of Love.  The balance of it.  Love does not push me towards poor choices.  Instead, I love the poor choice more than I love choosing something better.  I loved a man more than I loved myself, more than a healthy relationship.

It was only because I began to love myself again that I chose to leave. It seems odd, because in those dark moments you seem so very far from loving yourself.  In those stark times of making the final decision to leave, you wonder how you could love yourself, how the shattered pieces of what you had represent how UNlove-able you are. 

But in reality, you are making that decision to choose a better you.  To allow yourself to be loved - by you, by someone else.  To choose something healthy over something unhealthy, no matter how much it may seem to hurt you at this time.  Because you Love, you choose wisely.

This brings me to realize that many of those old axioms about fools and blindness in Love are missing something.  There are hundreds of sayings: I am two fools I know, for loving, and for saying so - Love is blind - To be wise and love is scarcely granted to the angels above.  And sure, many people who are experiencing the first light of Love seem to be heart-sick, unable to see someone’s faults, wearing rose-colored glasses and all the other trite phrases. 

Maybe Love really doesn’t grow until that “glowing” phase goes away.  Until you interweave yourself with this other person.  Or in the case of self, until you sit inside your own being and really feel.  Building a Love for yourself enables you to open up and truly Love others, beyond dependency, beyond allaying loneliness.

When you really Love, you see the person for who they are.  And you see yourself for who you are.  You make choices wisely for the good of both of you.    The sacrifices you make take into account the balance of Loving someone and Loving yourself.  Love helps you to see how you can be happy for yourself and with another.  And Love helps you see when it is time to move on.

That is the powerful nature of Love. 

Amor Vincit Omnia.  Love conquers all.

I would like to introduce you to someone.  Someone very personal to me, who knows everything about me, and is always ready to give an opinion …that will bring me down.

I’d like you to meet PNC, my Personal Negativity Coach.  PNC is the voice that exists in the back of my head that is always willing to negate my actions, goals and feelings.  PNC takes personal pleasure out of being judgmental, divisive and generally complaining.  PNC is bolstered to greater success when something truly negative does happen - a bad experience at work, negative feedback from a friend, or a car blowing up just as one gets onto the Beltway through Madison. 

In fact, PNC is resilient and ever-ready.  PNC takes paranoia to a new level by getting involved in my daily observation of the world and trying to classify everything - usually to my detriment.  That person talking quietly near you?  Obviously, they are talking about you.  That email you got with the ambigiously professional language?  That means the writer is upset with you and distancing themselves.  Truly, there is no end to the possibilities for PNC in Negativeland (which is also the name of an interesting band.)

Don’t paint me a freak.  I don’t follow PNC’s advice all the time, or even give him much of my attention.  It’s in those moments when I’m feeling low that I can hear the voice a little more clearly.  I’m actually a generally positive person. Many times, my hopeful and energetic nature impedes me from acknowledging the real difficulty of getting around obstacles until later.  Which is why it is always good that I sit with an idea or goal for a while before running ahead on it (as evidence, please take note of the tote of fabric I own, yet I still do not know how to sew and therefore have not completed any of the projects I was so excited to start).  I am generally open to new experiences and don’t let fears stop me from doing things I want to do…or at least initially trying them.

It’s just that when you are having major changes in your life, PNC feels he has a duty to raise his voice and question everything you think, do, say or feel. 

And PNC is not always wrong - which is why it is hard to just discredit him.  For example, I recently came to terms with the fact that I should work more on listening to people.  PNC has been telling me this in ways for years.  But now, I am realizing that what I thought was “listening” was really more like hearing.  That I may listen, but I am not a “good listener.”

And that means listening to PNC too.  Listening to what PNC has to say and connecting that with what feats I harbor about myself, my world, and my choices.  Hearing the inner voice, but not letting it rule me.  In fact, using it to undermine PNC by really making an effort to keep negativity from invading my life.

I know I’m not the only one that has ties with PNC.  PNC is known by others often as their “Inner Critic” and sometimes as “The Mind” if you read the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (yes, he does sort of remind me of a deranged elf.  Next question.)

Negativity exists, but dwelling on it can be damaging to yourself.  It’s been shown that negativity is easily absorbed and changes how your brain works.  Happy people are better able to think logically, as cited by Creating Passionate Users’ blog article on “Angry/Negative People Can Be Bad For Your Brain.”  Specifically interesting in this article is the reference to Mirror Neurons.  Mirror Neurons reveal so much potential for the individual that it would be crazy, nay, ludicrous to waste that potential with negativity.

And as proof that negativity affects your brain, and therefore your feelings and decisions, the AP reports that negative political ads actually work.  It causes a lot of philosophical ideas, including free will, into question. Personally, when I see negative ads, it makes me dislike the person putting them on the t.v. more.  Perhaps that classifies me as an independent.

To he who has brought so much sunshine into my life. 

Happy Birthday!

Love,

BC

Today I was reading Brazen Careerist and noticed Penelope referenced her ex-husband.  Click the link and, sure enough, she’s getting a divorce. 

As you may know, I am also getting a divorce.  The reasons are not the world’s business, and unlike Penelope, this blog is not the right medium for discussion regarding that background.  Suffice it to say, it was unhealthy to remain there and we are jointly filing.

But in reading the comments to her blog post about the decision to get a divorce - and her internal drive to always look forward and move on - I noticed that the world might need to be disabused of a few notions regarding divorce, or in some cases, any end of a long-term relationship. 

Ready?  Ok, let’s go.

1.   Divorce Means You Didn’t/Don’t Love Your Spouse (Or Breaking Up Means You Didn’t/Don’t Love Your Partner)

I’m putting this one first because I’m pretty sure that in 99% of the cases, this is not true.  I repeat, not true.  And the majority of people getting a divorce - or even breaking up from a long-term relationship - DO,  in fact, continue to love the person they started the relationship with.  Relationships don’t work for many many reasons, but rarely because the emotion wasn’t there.

Relationships are crazy things, and they can end because of lack of respect, lack of trust, lack of interest, and yes, even lack of love.  Committments can end because people have changed and they no longer see life the same way.  They can end because one side cannot give as much as the other side, or because they have grown to want other things.  Relationships can end because you hurt each other so much that it is not possible to go back and fix those wounds and live a full, happy life. 

Please stop thinking that “love” has anything to do with why two people don’t stay together.

So you’re saying, “Oh, if you loved each other, then the problem must be that…”

2.  Divorce Means You Weren’t Committed

Oh My God.  If I hear any of the following ever again, it will be too soon:

• Guess ’till death do us part’ doesn’t apply here.
• People these days just don’t want to work on their marriages.
• Everyone always gives up when the going gets rough.
• For better or for worse has become when it is no longer convenient.
• People used to stay together in marriage and find a way to make it work.
• Are you sure you tried everything to make it work?  It can’t be saved?  There’s no hope?

I thought I’d give a head’s up:  many (probably most) of us have worked on our relationships.  Quite a bit, with a lot of blood, sweat and tears.  We don’t want to get divorces.  We go into marriages with the intention of staying together forever, of being with that person till we are old and grey.  We buy into all of that, and believe it with all of our hearts.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t get married in the first place.

Why is it when someone breaks up with a long-term boy/girlfriend, they are supported and encouraged to start fresh, but when your marriage breaks up, you are a pariah and just didn’t give it enough time/energy/committment/love/effort?  Why is the contract of marriage more drama than the contract of relationship?  Why does that allow someone to judge me more than someone else? 

Sometimes, you can’t fix things.  Sometimes, it would take more energy than you have left in you to fix that relationship.  Things like respect, trust, intimacy - these all are hard to gain back.  Perhaps you thought you could fix it, but it required some sacrifices from the other half that they weren’t willing to live with.  Maybe, just maybe, you aren’t the same people you were, and you both will be healthier and happier separated. 

No one chastises you for ending a contract in business.  You move on when the deal no longer works for the parties involved.  Guess what - it’s like that here too.

Well, you’re now saying: So you tried to fix it.  That must mean that…

3. A Divorced Person has Issues

Oh yes.  I have three points here:

• Someone is mentally/physically/emotionally damaged and that’s why things didn’t work out. 

While true that one or more people in the relationship may have issues, that does not mean that the issue is the sole reason the relationship didn’t work out.  Thank you, but when a major relationship fails, we are more than capable of blaming ourselves for everything, so you don’t need to contribute.  Yes, we should look at things clearly and honestly, but rarely is one thing the source of the end of a relationship.  And, sometimes you are damaged as a result of the relationship.  Well I guess that means…

• Now you’re damaged goods.

Thanks - I needed the vote of confidence.  Don’t worry, I’m already thinking that, somehow, my failed marriage means that I am not fit to give advice, be a good friend, be a quality employee, or be a health individual.  It’s part of the process of dealing with the ending relationship.  We look to assign the blame.  It doesn’t mean any of those things.  AND - It also doesn’t mean that I cannot have quality relationships that are long-lasting. It doesn’t mean I can’t marry again.  It doesn’t mean that other marriages will fail. 

• One person is responsible for the divorce because they….

I’ve got a news flash - no one person is ever responsible for the end of a relationship.  It always involves poor decisions and actions of both parties.  And yes, I’m using the word “always“. Because it is truth.  It is never that one person didn’t sacrifice enough.  Even abusive relationships involve poor decisions on the part of both people.  Owning up to one’s appropriate portion of responsibility is part of the healing process.

Regardless, after a relationship ends, you must need…

4.  Prescription for Some Time Alone

It always seems like people know what is best for you.  After a long relationship breaks up, that means you should spend some time “with yourself” - aka, stay single, and perhaps you shouldn’t even date for a while.

Ostensibly, this means any of the following: finding yourself, resolving your issues, avoiding a rebound, process what has happened, be single to kill any dependency issues, figure out if the reason your relationship tanked is because you are screwed up. 

This may be something that people need to do after a break-up - I cannot deny that, and I’ve done it before.  However, it is not a universal prescription for every person, and may not apply to every situation.  Some people feel it important to have time to have time alone after a breakup to process what happened and how they feel.  Others might have spent plenty of time doing that during the relationship.  Each situation is unique. 

Overall, it isn’t bad advice - but one must temper it with the fact that it may not apply to the person you are talking to.  And really, it isn’t your place to judge what is right for another person.  So if someone starts dating soon after a breakup, keep your snotty whispers to yourself.  It’s part of moving on. 

Conversely, if someone decides they want to take some time to themselves, as long as they aren’t throwing a rope over the rafters, be their friend and don’t pressure them to get back into the game. 

5.  The Fact that it Ended Means It Had No Value

There’s a quote I want to share. 

There’s a trick to the Graceful Exit.  It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over — and to let go.  It means leaving what’s over without denying its value.

–Ellen Goodman 

This piece of advice might apply better to those having the break-up as well as onlookers.  Yes.  It didn’t work.  That doesn’t mean there weren’t good things about it.  That doesn’t mean I’m happy about the fact that it ended, or that I would change my mind at this point.  I find a tendency out there to completely trash the whole past rather than accept the growth one got from it and move on. 

Frankly, I think this is tragic - and I don’t use that word often.  People make choices based on the person they were at that time.  People change.  But to look back and denigrate what choices you made with the information you had at the time is to not only belittle where you were then, but also all the growth you’ve experienced and where you are now.

6. It’s a Sad Thing, Not Always a Bad Thing

I don’t want a cake.  I don’t want drinks.  I don’t want a party.  It isn’t something happy for me to be getting a divorce, so when it is final, I’m not expecting to whoop it up around town and declare - Whee!  I’m a free woman again!  I am grateful now that I got out while it was still time to salvage myself from more damage.  I’m not going to toast the passing of a relationship.  I might sigh in relief when it is all done because it is sad, annoying and painful, even more so if you have children.

It’s a passage, and it deserves some respect.