Ending a Relationship? Why not do it right?

Ending a Relationship?  Why Not Do it Right?

If you are ending a relationship, whether you want to or not, you can choose to ‘end it right’.  So many of us have experienced the heartbreak of goodbyes.  It may be the hardest thing you ever have to go through.  So much loss, so much uncertainty, so much fear, so much anger.  Because it can feel so insane, we wind up acting insanely!!

Don’t deny it.  You feel you that are being ‘pushed’ into acting crazy, forced into behaving in ways that you are truly not.  I know.  I experienced it too.  

But what if it doesn’t have to be that way?  What if, among the hurt, anger and fear, you can still hold on to the true person you really are at your core. A respectful person.  A kind person.  A compassionate person.  A loving person.  Under all that hurt, bitterness, anger, fear and craziness, trust me--you are still there.

I know that you don’t want to be that person.  You genuinely don’t want to be hurtful, disrespecting, nasty, mean, or even vengeful.  But your feelings, distorted beliefs and destructive actions seem to push you there.
  

To Part Consciously                      

Conscious Partings means to part ways with an increased  awareness of who you truly are and who, definitely, you are not.  It means to become aware of what is driving your hurtful, destructive actions and make the conscious choice to act more accordingly to who you really are at your core.  It is about becoming more mindful of your feelings, more aware of your distorted beliefs, take calming breathes and quiet the mental noise so you can reclaim your true Self.

I write these blogs to help you as you move through the relationship-ending process.  To help you do it right. Whether you are the one doing the leaving or the one being left, you can do your parting from a place of love.

LOVE FOR YOUR SELF.

Lessons Learned: Danielle's "same kind of guy"

Lessons Learned:  Danielle’s ‘same kind of guy’

Lynne A. Santiago, PhD, LMHC

“Why do I keep choosing the same kind of guy?”, Danielle asked during one of her earlier sessions.  I hear that a lot.  It is possible to be in one very long term relationship—just the partners change.  This is when the same things keep happening time and again, no matter who you are in relationship with.  We may say “I’ll never date someone like that again”, or “next time around it will be different”. Yet there you are in a new relationship and you find yourself facing the same type of challenges.

When this happens, I can assure you, you have not learned some valuable lesson, so you have been ‘left back’ in the University of Life, to take the course again until you get it right.

This was the case for Danielle.  She was 42 years old, divorced for 10 years and had a life long history of at least five relationships with the ‘same kind of guy’.   Lucky for her, she learned some things in her last relationship that helped her see the pattern repeat in the current one a lot quicker.  She recognized her own familiar behaviors, thoughts and feelings bubbling up once again.  Though she was still a bit stuck on blaming her boyfriend for all the things he was doing that caused their problems, she was able to see through it all and acknowledge that she was back to trying to get her partner to change—a common theme in all her past relationships.

So Danielle got to work in her therapy.  She started to peel away the onion one layer at a time.  She learned to become conscious of when she felt anxious—a sure sign  that she was obsessing over something she had no control over.  Rather than try to ignore or self-medicate the anxiety, she choose to view the discomfort as an opportunity to learn more about her need to control. It was an opportunity to sit with the anxiety, become more aware of the story she was weaving inside her head, and consciously take a different approach.  

Danielle did some incredible things during her time in therapy.  Her willingness to become more conscious helped her understand the roots of her need to control, heal from past wounds, and finally see her true worth.  Something that will make her next relationship a healthier one. 

You can learn more about Danielle’s incredible journey by following the Conscious Partings blog.  

Lesson's Learned: Liz's Anger

Liz’s Anger
Lynne A. Santiago, PhD, LMHC

I recently had a client say “I had been so full of anger there was no room for love”.  She had come to realize that this happened during the relationship—long before her ex asked her to leave.

This client, who I’ll call Liz, started therapy because she was devastated that her lover of 10 years ended their relationship, claiming it was Liz’s anger that she could no longer live with.

Thankfully, rather than blame her ex, Liz listened and decided to understand more about the anger she had carried into the relationship and let spill out on the very person she loved.   

We all carry baggage into our relationships.  We can either help each other unpack the contents or we can throw the contents at our partners without any awareness at all while usually blaming the other for “pushing my buttons”.  But then we are left with a big mess to clean up along with two broken hearts.

The end of a relationship is intensely painful.  As creatures of comfort we rather find ways to avoid the pain rather than sit with it.  Yet it is in the sitting with it that we can learn so much about who we are and what may be driving behaviors that harmed and weakened our relationship.  There are always valuable lessons contained in loss, especially when the loss is a relationship and the person we had shared our lives with.

For Liz, one of the areas she came to realize was that she did not have effective ways to manage and express her anger.  She could even see how this was true in her other relationships to include family, friends and her co-workers.  As she continued to work on understanding herself, she gained insight into the things she tended to get angry about—the common threads that would trigger her.  She also learned that she had a tendency to hold on to anger because she believed if she expressed it there would be conflict. Though often times she had valid reasons to be angry, she held back saying any thing about it.  She was very afraid of confrontation.  But the anger would eventually come exploding out and conflict would happen any way.

It was so important for Liz to learn these lessons, and fast, because she was pretty angry about the break-up and angry that her ex “abandoned” her.  She  genuinely did not want to do anything more to hurt her ex.  They still had to communicate.  They had shared responsibilities to their children and their financial obligations.  There was no getting around it.  They had to talk.  They had decisions they needed to make together..  And they would still have disagreements.

What was great was that Liz decided to start counseling just days after the break-up so as issues came up she could talk them out in her sessions.  For the hour, she could sit with her pain and her anger.  She could step back and explore how she had responded in the past to similar situations and what the results had been.  She could then choose a different approach.  She learned that her past anger reactions were rooted in the fear that if she expressed the things that bothered her others would disapprove, reject or abandon her.  She learned that she was actually depriving herself of love because of this.  Love not only from others, but love for herself.

 And in becoming more conscious of her feelings she was able to ask herself “For this situation, how can I respond from a place of love rather than a place of fear?”.

There is more to this story.  Please subscribe to this blog to learn more about Liz’s lessons.

Collaborative Divorce: What a Surprise and a Relief

Collaborative Divorce:  What a Surprise and a Relief!

Lynne Santiago, PhD, LMHC

A couples of weeks ago I attended a two day training on Collaborative Divorce.  My co-attendees were a mix of lawyers, financial advisors and mental health professional.  The training really opened my eyes.  And I was so relieved to learn that there was a better way for married couples to un-couple.

I had no idea what a Collaborative Divorce was until I recently met a family lawyer based out of Tampa, FL  who provides the service.  Joryn Jenkins was eager to educate me.  To my surprise, I learned that the Collaborative Divorce model  fits perfectly with ideas I speak of about Conscious Partings.  



As a Relationship Counselor, my number one goal is to help couples heal, rebuild and strengthen their relationships.  But unfortunately, and even despite genuine efforts, some relationships can not be saved.  And when the relationship was bonded legally through marriage, it takes legal actions to undo the bond.



We have all heard the term “nasty divorce”.  You probably know someone—perhaps even yourself—who had a divorce that fits that description. Didn’t you think “What a shame!!”.  Two people who once loved each other, worked to create a life together, maybe had children together were then in a battle as they fought to win the money, house, cars, and the children.  It becomes who can out do the other.  Once loving, they become mean and vengeful.  Some will spend outrageous amounts of money to have a lawyer do the battle for them.  And the divorce process drags out over months and even years.

I already knew it doesn’t have to be that way if each person is  able to become aware of how fear hijacked them and made them act in ways that were unloving and destructive.  But now it is great to learn that there are lawyers who believe this as well and choose not to engage in a competition to see who can win the case.  



If you are wanting to end your marriage in a peaceful way and avoid a ‘nasty’ divorce I urge you to look into the Collaborative Divorce model.  You may be just as surprised as I was.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE MODEL VISIT THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONALS WEBSITE

Click for International Association of Collaborative Professionals
https://www.collaborativepractice.com/

LEARN MORE ABOUT JORYN JENKINS, ESQ
Joryn JENKINS - Open Palm Law

Collaborative Divorce: What a Surprise and a Relief

Collaborative Divorce:  What a Surprise and a Relief!

Lynne Santiago, PhD, LMHC

A couples of weeks ago I attended a two day training on Collaborative Divorce.  My co-attendees were a mix of lawyers, financial advisors and mental health professional.  The training really opened my eyes.  And I was so relieved to learn that there was a better way for married couples to un-couple.

I had no idea what a Collaborative Divorce was until I recently met a family lawyer based out of Tampa, FL  who provides the service.  Joryn Jenkins was eager to educate me.  To my surprise, I learned that the Collaborative Divorce model  fits perfectly with ideas I speak of about Conscious Partings.  




As a Relationship Counselor, my number one goal is to help couples heal, rebuild and strengthen their relationships.  But unfortunately, and even despite genuine efforts, some relationships can not be saved.  And when the relationship was bonded legally through marriage, it takes legal actions to undo the bond.

We have all heard the term “nasty divorce”.  You probably know someone—perhaps even yourself—who had a divorce that fits that description. Didn’t you think “What a shame!!”.  Two people who once loved each other, worked to create a life together, maybe had children together were then in a battle as they fought to win the money, house, cars, and the children.  It becomes who can out do the other.  Once loving, they become mean and vengeful.  Some will spend outrageous amounts of money to have a lawyer do the battle for them.  And the divorce process drags out over months and even years.

I already knew it doesn’t have to be that way if each person is  able to become aware of how fear hijacked them and made them act in ways that were unloving and destructive.  But now it is great to learn that there are lawyers who believe this as well and choose not to engage in a competition to see who can win the case.  

If you are wanting to end your marriage in a peaceful way and avoid a ‘nasty’ divorce I urge you to look into the Collaborative Divorce model.  You may be just as surprised as I was.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE MODEL VISIT THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONALS WEBSITE

Click for International Association of Collaborative Professionals
https://www.collaborativepractice.com/

LEARN MORE ABOUT JORYN JENKINS, ESQ
Joryn JENKINS - Open Palm Law

Learn more about Conscious Partings and my work with Veterans

LEARN MORE ABOUT CONSCIOUS PARTINGS AND MY WORK WITH VETERANS

Lynne Santiago, PhD, LMHC -- Licensed Psychotherapy & Consulting Services

Ending a relationship is never easy.  Fear & Anger can hijack all reasoning.  Learn more about Consious Partings and the work I do with active duty military, veterans and their families.

As an Army veteran I am passion about helping my fellow brothers and sister adjust to civilian life and cope with PTSD and Moral Injury.

That Business Show with Jamie Meloni - iHeart Radi
Click link below and Fast Forward to 28:00

That Business Show with Jamie Melonie

Making the Shift from 'Fear' to 'LOVE'

Make  the  Shift  from  ‘Fear’  to  ‘Love'

Lynne A. Santiago, PhD, LMHC


Ending  a  relationship  is  never  easy.    Whether  you  are  the  one  being  left  or  you  are  the  one  doing  the leaving,  each  of  you  will  experience  pain,  anger,  sadness,  stress  and  fear.    The  adjustment  going  from “we”  to  “me”  can  be  as  turbulent  and  terrifying  as  being  a  float  on  a  raft  in  a  stormy  ocean.    You  may feel  left  without  an  anchor.    Because,  actually,  you  are.    During  the  time  you  and  your  lover  were together,  you  were  anchors  for  each  other  but  now  you  are  out  there  on  your  own.  

I  remember  first  making  this  analogy  to  myself,  as  I  sat  sobbing  in  my  bed  clutching  an  empty  mint chocolate  chip  ice  cream  container.    I  had  recently  moved  into  my  own  apartment  after  selling  my  home of  10  years  and  had  just  signed  the  papers  that  finalized  the  end  of  a  20  year  marriage.    I  felt  ‘lost  out  in sea’,  being  tossed  around  in  the  raging  currents.    But  the  biggest  surprise  for  me  was  that  I  was  feeling that  way  even  though  I  was  the  one  who  initiated  the  divorce  after  many  years  of  trying  to  make  it  work with  someone  who  wasn’t  willing  to  put  in  the  necessary  effort.    I  mistakenly  thought  I  had  started  the grieving  process  of  ‘letting  go’  many  months,  if  not  years,  prior  to  actually  taking  the  action.    I  thought  I had  already  ‘accepted’  the  end  of  the  marriage.

Love  vs  Fear 

Using  the  word  “love”  may  feel  like  a  stretch  for  you  at  this  moment.    Love  may  be  the  furthest  from your  mind  and  the  last  thing  you  are  feeling  in  the  wake  of  breaking  a  heart  or  having  your  heart  broken.   It  is  more  likely  that  anger  is  fueling  the  parting,  or,  more  likely,  that  anger  drove  you  to  the  decision  in the  first  place.    He  wronged  you,  she  wronged  you.    She  changed,  he  changed.    He  cheated,  she  cheated.   He  betrayed  you,  she  abandoned  you.    Whatever  the  case,  someone  is  the  villain  and  someone  is  the victim…or  both!!  

Conscious Partings 

Becoming more aware while you are moving through the relationship-ending process allows you to honor the sacred commitment to ‘honor and to love, for better or for worse’, even if the ‘worst’ is the end of the relationship. Love does not have to end. We are still capable of loving while moving through the process of ending a relationship. But it takes you being consciously aware of what is happening not only outside of yourself but within.

When a love relationship begins to end both you and your ex-lover move into a place of fear, being driven on the energy that anger and fear produces, causing you both to be reactive, self-protective and defensive. Both you and your ex, who were once kind, caring, supportive and loving people, become bitter, resentful, possibly even vindictive and hateful. You are not that person at your core yet you become that person when you approach the relationship’s end from a place of fear. Being conscious of your fear allows you to move into a place of love, allowing you to see your options more clearly, make better decisions, and remain the loving, kind person you really are.