One of my favorite activities is to browse the discount books when I go into a bookstore. I will admit there are far fewer bookstores to choose from as behemoths like Amazon and the remaining large chain bookstores have eliminated many of the familiar hometown bookstores. However, one of the advantages of these chain stores is the ability to place excellent, but overlooked books on sale at greatly discounted prices. On occasion, I find books I would have paid full price for because they are so truly valuable. Reinventing Yourself by Mario Alonso Puig is one such book.
I cannot recall how many times friends, counselors, priests, and others reminded me that my divorce provided me with an opportunity to hit the reset button and reassess my life. I suppose this idea was in the back of my head when I left the town I had lived for over 20 years after my divorce and sought a new life in the city where I worked. In addition to the tremendous difference in my former 50 mile commute to a five block trip, moving to a new city did allow me a chance to heal and grow in relative anonymity.
One of the areas where I reinvented myself was in the area of cooking. Prior to my divorce, I could cook, but the majority of my culinary skills would qualify as bachelor cooking. I knew I would not starve, but with the exception of Mexican foods I learned to cook from my mother, I could not go much beyond the burgers, scrambled eggs, pasta domain. Four years later, I am a much better and more confident cook, who is often asked by my daughter to make dishes. Nothing has given me more satisfaction than her willingness to ask me to make pretty much any dish and telling me how good a cook I am.
Dr. Mario Puig would likely approve of my culinary skills, but Puig has more ambitious plans for his readers. Puig is a physician and surgeon at Harvard Medical School and he brings his scientific knowledge to bear on this topic of reinvention. However, Puig is not a proponent of "scientism", the chauvinistic belief that science is the final arbiter of all matters in life. In fact, Puig has a welcome ecumenical nature in his approach to this topic with chapter titles like "The doors of perception" and "The dark night of the soul" that suggest there is a world beyond the scientific one. In 19 short chapters, Puig provides compelling evidence, scientific and otherwise that we not only can, but should reinvent ourselves.
The quote at the beginning of the "Introduction" is from Carl Jung reminding readers that there is a world buried beneath the world of reason. Puig proceeds to argue that to change ourselves, we have to change our minds. He writes, “If we wish to increase our capacity to solve problems and become more competent when looking for opportunities, we need to learn how to transcend the limits that our mind has set us.” Puig bolsters his argument by noting the first Noble Prize Winner for Medicine, Dr. Santiago Ramon y Cajal claimed all of us had the ability to sculpt our own brain. Throughout the book, Dr. Puig combines scientific evidence with spiritual insights to demonstrate how we all have the power of reinvention.
Puig advocates self-examination so we can uncover mental assumptions and barriers which would impede our progress. We literally need to become more familiar with our consciousness and root out the unconscious roadblocks to our progress. Puig spends time explaining brain architecture and how such knowledge can help us to attempt to use both hemispheres of our brain and not simply rely on reason.
Puig takes this analogy further with a metaphor that explains how the conscious and subconscious part of our mind works. "Our conscious mind can be compared to the captain of a sailing boat, and our subconscious mind to the wind that fills the sails. Even if it is hard for him to admit it, the captain has to learn how the wind works (and to use it in his favour), or he won't get anywhere with his boat."
Dr. Puig firmly believes in the extraordinary power and capacity of our brains and minds, which we must understand like the captain on his boat. He exhorts us to be vigilant in being attentive or what today we might call "mindful" and to do our best to realize the power of our words and our thoughts.
In his chapter titled "From Darkness to Light", Dr. Puig introduces a five step process to help us move beyond automatic emotional responses to certain situations. In some ways, it reminds me of Buddhist practice, but regardless of its origins, these processes would allow us to raise our minds and consciousness to another level. Puig also provides some activities and practices we should follow daily to establish and mental good mental and spiritual health. He writes, "If we wish to feel more energy and vitality, we need to bear in mind all our dimensions: the cognitive, affective, corporal and spiritual as they are all inter-connected."
In the final chapter of the book, Dr. Puig speaks of twelve dimensions of being and experiencing the world. Once again, he makes reference to Buddha explicitly, but also to Jesus of Nazareth as an exemplar of these twelve dimensions. Here Puig is far from the hallowed scientific halls of Harvard Medical School. I admit I am not fully convinced of the accessibility of these dimensions, but it is provocative and if one could dwell in the twelfth dimension, life would be quite good.
After reading, Dr. Mario Puig's book, I felt inspired and hopeful that true and fundamental change was indeed possible. It encouraged me to buy a used piano and to learn the basics on this instrument. It further inspired me to make the decision to return to school to obtain my MFA in Creative Nonfiction, a program of study I will begin in the fall of 2018. At 51 years of age, I realize that there is no time like the present to live more fully and purposefully. I am grateful to Dr. Puig for sharing his wisdom and optimism with his readers.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Moving Forward
This concept is central not only to life after divorce, but for life after a change in circumstances and for some as a life mantra. Jim Smoke, who was a Christian minister who specialized in divorce ministry wrote several books regarding divorce. Moving Forward: A Devotional Guide for Finding Hope and Peace in the Midst of Divorce is one of his best. If you are like me, you likely read books and then try to resell them or pass them along to friends or people who might need a book like this. This one I will likely keep for awhile. Not so much because I am in need of this 4 and 1/2 years out from my divorce, but because it just contains great information and truly is a pastoral book for those dealing with divorce. Yes, Smoke is definitely writing from a Christian perspective, which works for me. However, he is also providing excellent information and methods to help you get through a divorce, regardless of your religious background.
It is a series of devotions that do follow a thematic arc leading trying to meet you where ever you find yourself in your divorce process. In addition to his own thoughts, Smoke readily seeks advice from other sources, not all of them religious in nature. In his introduction, he quotes Robert Veninga, author of A Gift of Hope, who uses the metaphor of seasons to discuss pain. Veninga writes, "Human pain does not let go of its grip at one point in time. . . There is a season of sadness, a season of anger, a season of tranquility, a season of hope. But seasons do not follow one another in a lockstep manner. . . The winters and springs of one's life are all jumbled together in a puzzling array. . . but when one affirms that the spring thaw will arrive, the winter winds seem to lose some of their punch." There is much truth in this statement and right now I feel I am in a season of tranquility. Yesterday I received official notice of the annulment of my marriage. When asked about how I feel regarding this, I replied that this decision only affirmed what I had known for several years, even prior to my official divorce. My marriage was not a truly sacramental marriage. Does this mean, I will not possibly experience or anger? No, there is no guarantee, which is why I plan to hold on to Smoke's book and the wisdom it contains.
At the beginning of the book, Smoke provides a list of ten things to do when you think your marriage is beyond repair. It is elements like this which make this book invaluable for those of you who might experience divorce.
Smoke is well aware of the emotional, spiritual, and physical challenges of divorce and provides practical ways to deal with these issues. Smoke provides another 8-point list to address the issue of fear. Fear is ubiquitous in our lives, but it is even more prevalent in the midst of divorce as one has to force the changes to come. I found Smoke's list to be accurate and it helped me address these fears.
Once you can solve or at least confront your fears, you are on the path to a new life. Smoke acknowledges this and does address how you might seek to marry again and what would you learn from your first marriage as you ponder another marriage.
Obviously any second marriage does not exist in a vacuum and the question about how to handle your first marriage and first spouse is often the elephant in the room. Smoke advises writing a letter to your ex-spouse that you will never send. You can pour all of your emotions positive and negative into this letter. As a Roman Catholic, I would compare this to going to Reconciliation/Confession and putting all of your emotions out there. I did actually go to Confession with a few months of my divorce and it was incredibly healing for me. I slept well for one of the first nights in several months. I have also written this letter which I will never mail and it too was a moment of cleansing that helped me on my divorce journey.
Related to making peace with the past and moving forward is what Smoke calls the "the tyranny of the shoulds." He write, "My should do's give me a complex, whereas my can do's offer me a choice. There's a fine line between the two." In other words, we cannot beat ourselves up about the choices we did not make or try to relive things we have no power to change. As he does throughout this devotional, Jim Smoke keeps you looking at the path ahead. Near the end of this book, Smoke devotes several pages to the various ways we must move forward and he concludes with a pastoral wish for peace in every aspect of our lives.
If you or someone you know is on the verge of divorce or is going through a divorce, I would highly recommend Jim Smoke's Moving Forward.
Czar
It is a series of devotions that do follow a thematic arc leading trying to meet you where ever you find yourself in your divorce process. In addition to his own thoughts, Smoke readily seeks advice from other sources, not all of them religious in nature. In his introduction, he quotes Robert Veninga, author of A Gift of Hope, who uses the metaphor of seasons to discuss pain. Veninga writes, "Human pain does not let go of its grip at one point in time. . . There is a season of sadness, a season of anger, a season of tranquility, a season of hope. But seasons do not follow one another in a lockstep manner. . . The winters and springs of one's life are all jumbled together in a puzzling array. . . but when one affirms that the spring thaw will arrive, the winter winds seem to lose some of their punch." There is much truth in this statement and right now I feel I am in a season of tranquility. Yesterday I received official notice of the annulment of my marriage. When asked about how I feel regarding this, I replied that this decision only affirmed what I had known for several years, even prior to my official divorce. My marriage was not a truly sacramental marriage. Does this mean, I will not possibly experience or anger? No, there is no guarantee, which is why I plan to hold on to Smoke's book and the wisdom it contains.
At the beginning of the book, Smoke provides a list of ten things to do when you think your marriage is beyond repair. It is elements like this which make this book invaluable for those of you who might experience divorce.
Smoke is well aware of the emotional, spiritual, and physical challenges of divorce and provides practical ways to deal with these issues. Smoke provides another 8-point list to address the issue of fear. Fear is ubiquitous in our lives, but it is even more prevalent in the midst of divorce as one has to force the changes to come. I found Smoke's list to be accurate and it helped me address these fears.
Once you can solve or at least confront your fears, you are on the path to a new life. Smoke acknowledges this and does address how you might seek to marry again and what would you learn from your first marriage as you ponder another marriage.
Obviously any second marriage does not exist in a vacuum and the question about how to handle your first marriage and first spouse is often the elephant in the room. Smoke advises writing a letter to your ex-spouse that you will never send. You can pour all of your emotions positive and negative into this letter. As a Roman Catholic, I would compare this to going to Reconciliation/Confession and putting all of your emotions out there. I did actually go to Confession with a few months of my divorce and it was incredibly healing for me. I slept well for one of the first nights in several months. I have also written this letter which I will never mail and it too was a moment of cleansing that helped me on my divorce journey.
Related to making peace with the past and moving forward is what Smoke calls the "the tyranny of the shoulds." He write, "My should do's give me a complex, whereas my can do's offer me a choice. There's a fine line between the two." In other words, we cannot beat ourselves up about the choices we did not make or try to relive things we have no power to change. As he does throughout this devotional, Jim Smoke keeps you looking at the path ahead. Near the end of this book, Smoke devotes several pages to the various ways we must move forward and he concludes with a pastoral wish for peace in every aspect of our lives.
If you or someone you know is on the verge of divorce or is going through a divorce, I would highly recommend Jim Smoke's Moving Forward.
Czar
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Wisdom for Divorced Parents
That is the subtitle for Len Stauffenger's brief Getting Over It, a manual of sorts for divorced parents. Part of the attraction of Stauffenger's book is that it was written by a male author. Most of the works I discovered regarding divorce had been written by women or had a particular religious orientation. If you have read this blog, you will know I am a practicing Catholic, but I have plenty of friends and acquaintances divorced and married who don't have any particular religious orientation. I appreciated a perspective that offered advice and processes not particularly geared toward the belief in a higher power or particular doctrines. As I read through this book, though, I did discover some traces of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and teachings from the Landmark Institute, an organization I know of through association. Landmark preaches taking full responsibility for your life and actions, which I would subscribe to for the most part.
Stauffenger's book consists of 8 chapters and is fewer than 200 pages. He begins with a preface on how this book is more about parenting, than merely divorce. So if your marriage did not involve children, this book may not be for you. However, I did find the parenting chapters to be useful and insightful. What I most appreciated was the list of resources and websites for fathers and parents at the end of Chapter 8.
Stauffenger begins his book with the story of his own marriage and divorce. It is mostly evenhanded though he does attribute much of the blame or "responsibility" on his wife's unhappiness, which in retrospect he feels preceded the marriage and certainly helped lead to the marriage's dissolution. He states he and his ex-wife are not friends, though he holds no animosity towards her.
This lack of animosity or what he terms "freedom" is the starting point of chapter 2 "Getting Your Head Right." There is much useful information here and I would agree completely that you have to get your act together mentally to survive a divorce. There is no time limit for this and from my experience, you will grieve and process the divorce in your own time. Disregard well-intentioned attempts to tell you to "get over it" or to "get on with it." I used a program DivorceCare and work with a therapist to help me get my head right. It took the better part of a year to do so. Now this didn't stop me from dating prior to truly having my head right, though my lack of clarity helped to end these relationships.
Chapters 3 and 4 cover forgiveness, both personal and marital. Chapter 3 covers self-forgiveness and Chapter 4 is on forgiving your ex-spouse. He jokes he titled Chapter 4 "Forgive, But Don't Forget" and not "Forgive Him or Her" so people would not throw the book away. I did struggle with both forms of forgiveness, especially my own self-forgiveness. I blamed myself for the dissolution of my marriage and it took me some dark nights to realize the ending of my marriage was a team effort.
Now I caution you to not forgive yourself only to demonize your former spouse, which is cheap and easy to do. If Dietrich Bonhoeffer can write of cheap grace, I would call the desire to want to blame your ex, cheap forgiveness. I am forgiven because my ex was a bitch or bastard who never loved me, cheated on me, abandoned me, etc. For me one of the most effective methods for determining and owning my own responsibility in my marriage and divorce is the Catholic process of annulment which forces you to write the narrative of your own divorce.
The next three chapters deal with parenting and putting the focus on what remains of many divorces, children from the dissolved marriage. Chapter 5 is about living in the moment, "It's All About the Kids and Time is Short." This is a truism, but it is nevertheless an important one. I remember having some moments of mourning and regret on the first trip I took with my daughter after the divorce. However, I fought these feelings and channeled them into having a great weekend with my daughter on our mini-vacation. What good will I be to my daughter if all of her memories of me are sad ones? I would not want to spend time with a person who is always moping around in a fog of self-pity. Don't make this mistake!
Chapter 6 is on how to be a good and consistent parent, which is not as easy as it sounds in divorce. Given that my ex-wife made and still makes twice as much money as I do, I have moments of envy when she and her new husband can go on vacations and live a lifestyle well beyond my own means. Nevetheless, I resist the urge to always been the fun dad who not only tries to buy my child's affection, but bankrupts himself in the process. As Stauffenger writes, "Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say."
Chapter 7 proclaims, "There is No Tomorrow", so what will you make of this fact when it comes to parenting? Frankly, I wish I had read this prior to my divorce as I still struggle with a relationship with one of my sons, who is now in his mid-20s. I realize I should have perhaps been less concerned with being the lord of the manor and more concerned with letting my son know how much I love him. Stauffenger gives Five Rules for Effective Parenting: 1) Control Your Emotions 2) Be What You Want Them to Be 3) Love, Not Fear 4) Set Rules and Boundaries and 5) Be a Hero. Chapter 7 is my favorite chapter in the entire book. It is worthy advice regardless of your marital status.
Stauffenger concludes his book with a chapter that hopes to encourage and inspire those of us who have endured divorce. "Big Change, Bigger Opportunities" exhorts the reader to embrace this often seismic change and to come out a new and hopefully better person. Four and a half years after my divorce, I am trying to do just that as I am returning to school to pursue my passion for writing. This fall I will enroll in an MFA Program in Creative Writing. It is an opportunity I may not have ever pursued had I stayed married.
In addition to his book, Len Stauffenger has a website www.wisdomfordivorcedparents.com where you can find additional resources. Though I do not agree with all of his parenting wisdom, I do appreciate Stauffenger's candor and integrity in sharing his own divorce journey.
Stauffenger's book consists of 8 chapters and is fewer than 200 pages. He begins with a preface on how this book is more about parenting, than merely divorce. So if your marriage did not involve children, this book may not be for you. However, I did find the parenting chapters to be useful and insightful. What I most appreciated was the list of resources and websites for fathers and parents at the end of Chapter 8.
Stauffenger begins his book with the story of his own marriage and divorce. It is mostly evenhanded though he does attribute much of the blame or "responsibility" on his wife's unhappiness, which in retrospect he feels preceded the marriage and certainly helped lead to the marriage's dissolution. He states he and his ex-wife are not friends, though he holds no animosity towards her.
This lack of animosity or what he terms "freedom" is the starting point of chapter 2 "Getting Your Head Right." There is much useful information here and I would agree completely that you have to get your act together mentally to survive a divorce. There is no time limit for this and from my experience, you will grieve and process the divorce in your own time. Disregard well-intentioned attempts to tell you to "get over it" or to "get on with it." I used a program DivorceCare and work with a therapist to help me get my head right. It took the better part of a year to do so. Now this didn't stop me from dating prior to truly having my head right, though my lack of clarity helped to end these relationships.
Chapters 3 and 4 cover forgiveness, both personal and marital. Chapter 3 covers self-forgiveness and Chapter 4 is on forgiving your ex-spouse. He jokes he titled Chapter 4 "Forgive, But Don't Forget" and not "Forgive Him or Her" so people would not throw the book away. I did struggle with both forms of forgiveness, especially my own self-forgiveness. I blamed myself for the dissolution of my marriage and it took me some dark nights to realize the ending of my marriage was a team effort.
Now I caution you to not forgive yourself only to demonize your former spouse, which is cheap and easy to do. If Dietrich Bonhoeffer can write of cheap grace, I would call the desire to want to blame your ex, cheap forgiveness. I am forgiven because my ex was a bitch or bastard who never loved me, cheated on me, abandoned me, etc. For me one of the most effective methods for determining and owning my own responsibility in my marriage and divorce is the Catholic process of annulment which forces you to write the narrative of your own divorce.
The next three chapters deal with parenting and putting the focus on what remains of many divorces, children from the dissolved marriage. Chapter 5 is about living in the moment, "It's All About the Kids and Time is Short." This is a truism, but it is nevertheless an important one. I remember having some moments of mourning and regret on the first trip I took with my daughter after the divorce. However, I fought these feelings and channeled them into having a great weekend with my daughter on our mini-vacation. What good will I be to my daughter if all of her memories of me are sad ones? I would not want to spend time with a person who is always moping around in a fog of self-pity. Don't make this mistake!
Chapter 6 is on how to be a good and consistent parent, which is not as easy as it sounds in divorce. Given that my ex-wife made and still makes twice as much money as I do, I have moments of envy when she and her new husband can go on vacations and live a lifestyle well beyond my own means. Nevetheless, I resist the urge to always been the fun dad who not only tries to buy my child's affection, but bankrupts himself in the process. As Stauffenger writes, "Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say."
Chapter 7 proclaims, "There is No Tomorrow", so what will you make of this fact when it comes to parenting? Frankly, I wish I had read this prior to my divorce as I still struggle with a relationship with one of my sons, who is now in his mid-20s. I realize I should have perhaps been less concerned with being the lord of the manor and more concerned with letting my son know how much I love him. Stauffenger gives Five Rules for Effective Parenting: 1) Control Your Emotions 2) Be What You Want Them to Be 3) Love, Not Fear 4) Set Rules and Boundaries and 5) Be a Hero. Chapter 7 is my favorite chapter in the entire book. It is worthy advice regardless of your marital status.
Stauffenger concludes his book with a chapter that hopes to encourage and inspire those of us who have endured divorce. "Big Change, Bigger Opportunities" exhorts the reader to embrace this often seismic change and to come out a new and hopefully better person. Four and a half years after my divorce, I am trying to do just that as I am returning to school to pursue my passion for writing. This fall I will enroll in an MFA Program in Creative Writing. It is an opportunity I may not have ever pursued had I stayed married.
In addition to his book, Len Stauffenger has a website www.wisdomfordivorcedparents.com where you can find additional resources. Though I do not agree with all of his parenting wisdom, I do appreciate Stauffenger's candor and integrity in sharing his own divorce journey.
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