Separated But Thriving - Coping With Separation

Separated But Thriving

By Rob Hadley

This information is provided to assist anyone going through separation or divorce. Feel free to reproduce it and use it where you choose, on condition that you include the credit “by Rob Hadley, www.VancouverHypnotherapy.Org”.

Part 4

Early Days—First Steps to Combat Rage

The shock of separation—the gradual realization that “giving each other some space” has become Separation—leaves all of us shaken. What happened to the last 15 years? Isn’t there some way to step back from the brink?

For those who are angry, it becomes easy to blame the other person. We’ll see that doing so is an entirely meaningless exercise. Pushing out that much energy—and often having it thrown right back at you—does nothing to move you forward.

But how do we avoid doing so? How do we talk ourselves into casting off the luxury of being the person who can have that anger—the person who can be filled with righteous indignation?

And it is a luxury. Who hasn’t enjoyed the momentary joy of standing up for yourself when you have been wronged. Perhaps a checkout girl has given you the wrong change at the supermarket and you let her have it. You know you are right and, in a mildly sadistic way, it feels quite satisfying to “get your way.” Yet, in issues of marital breakup and separation, the stakes are high.

The hurt stays with the other person and with you for a long time. To inflict a wound on your spouse ends up feeling like a wound inflicted on yourself—right or wrong. Yet abandoning that behaviour and taking this moral high ground can feel like giving in, or allowing yourself to be walked over.

Here’s some important news. It takes real strength to allow yourself to be walked over. To choose the hard path, in the full knowledge that it will be difficult—and still choose it—is what true strength is about. So casting away that luxury of being able to act out our rage, giving up the right to be angry, is an early step to growing ourselves stronger.

It’s a little like agreeing to be the designated driver. You know you are not going to participate in quite the same way as the other people going out—but you can do it all the same. For the greater good of all involved. Someone has to be the smart one. In the long run, you’ll also be the person who makes the key decisions.

The trouble with rage and anger is that we can fall into that behaviour very easily when we are worried or feel we are threatened. We do this because we fail to relax and get increasingly agitated and fatigued. This results in an outburst of emotion, often in the form of frustration or rage.

We can overcome this process by working on two simple things, ideally simultaneously.

• The first is to reduce the feelings of worry and of being threatened. Keep in mind that most of the things we worry about never actually happen. We’ll look into this in greater detail as we go along (you’ll be dealing with bullying a little later).

• The second is to avoid fatigue. Most people working in extremely high stress conditions quickly realize the value of being able to grab a quick sleep. While working in the war in South Sudan for the UN, I learned to sleep in the loudest of aircraft, even if it was just for 20 minutes. Some of these aircraft were tiny planes carrying aid personnel into remote locations, often to conditions of terrible human suffering.

Everyone I worked with was extremely stressed and lived with anxiety        hovering on their shoulders like the angel of death. By managing to grab rest whenever the opportunity was offered, however, we coped very well—our wits remained keen and we succeeded in our task.

You must develop this ability to grab rest—perhaps not in the back of a tiny plane—but at regular intervals when you need it. The habit of going to sleep late and waking early is not easy to break. It can be the result of a lifetime of conditioning. It can also be making you ill, however, and affecting the way you make decisions for you and your children.

By taking an early afternoon nap on the weekends, by going to sleep a little earlier (try going to bed 20 minutes early and doing the breathing exercise below), and by getting a little more sleep in the mornings, we can improve the way we function immeasurably.

Throughout our journey during The Year That Will Change Your Life, we will look at the importance of relaxation and allowing our physical bodies the ability to rest and regenerate. No matter what our emotional state, a tired body will not help us. As we learn to take care of our bodies, we’ll also see that resting our body and our mind should be balanced by a controlled level of physical exercise.

Whether coping with your own anger—or the anger of someone else—one path that immediately helps is to start physical exercise. For some this means walking the dog every night. For others it may mean joining a gym, swimming, or perhaps joining a yoga studio.

Keep in mind that a gym is essentially you working alone in a room full of other people. Starting yoga or perhaps a martial art will place you in a group setting, which in turn helps you develop momentum for your new goal of maintaining your physical health.

Getting some exercise does not mean going to a gym and throwing yourself into a level of training you cannot keep up. It means setting attainable goals to gradually improve your physical condition.

Start with something simple. It may be simply walking in the evening—but do something, and do it today. Improving your situation will always require some positive action—and this is the first step for you.

Find some form of physical exercise and start it. Think of it as your homework.

Before long you may discover that in people who are excessively stressed, you can see a number of things far more clearly.

• One is that they may look unhealthy.
• Another is that they are always slightly unwell—their body is not helping them, because they are not helping it. You will come to a realization that the link between physical health and mental health is so painfully obvious, you will wonder why you never saw it before.

You’ll learn many things on this course. One of the most basic things to learn is how to breathe. This exercise will help you start to relax. By doing this a couple of times a day, you’ll find yourself able to start pushing away anxieties. You’ll feel your energy grow. Give it a try.

1. Begin by lying flat on your back or standing up straight. You may also sit up straight in a chair, if that is more comfortable.
2. Place your hand on your tummy.
3. Breathe as you normally would and notice whether your hand rises or your chest rises.
4. To breathe properly, your tummy should rise as your diaphragm expands.
5. To learn to breathe correctly, slowly breathe in through your nose for a count of 5 while gently pushing your hand up with your stomach.
6. Hold the breath for a count of 5.
7. Slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of 5 while gently pushing down on tummy.
8. Repeat this process for 5 minutes.
9. If the process causes you to start to panic, do it for only as long as you are able.
10. Increase the length of time each day until you can do the exercise for at least 5 minutes, twice per day.
11. If you continue to practise breathing this way, you soon will be doing it naturally throughout the day.
12. An additional benefit will be that once you are familiar with the exercise, you may do it while experiencing anxiety or at the beginning of a panic attack, and you will feel relief.

Don’t be angry with yourself or give up if you cannot do this exercise correctly right away. It takes practice. Give yourself time. Don’t be afraid of the exercise causing panic. Remember: You are in control and can stop at any time. Take it as slowly you like.

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