The Divorce Ceremony

Healing Spiritually and Divorcing Amicably in Twelve Weeks

PATRICIA ANN RUSSELL

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First published in 2013 by Turning Stone Press, an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, llc With ofces at: 665 Third Street, Suite 400 San Francisco, CA 94107 www.redwheelweiser.com Copyright 2013 by Patricia Russell All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, llc. Reviewers may quote brief passages. ISBN (paperback): 978-1-61852-043-2 Cover design by Jim Warner Cover image: Matt McDonald Printed in the United States of America IBT 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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This book is dedicated to Harry, who died on March 14, 2005

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Contents

Acknowledgments Preface: Making the Connection Part I: Divorce: A New Context and Denition 1. Divorce and Ego: The Hidden Marriage 2. The Moment of Disclosure: Getting in the Game 3. The Game: Hide and Seek 4. Ego: A Personal Interview 5. Spirit: Reasons, Responsibility, and Liberation Part II: Egos Players And Strategies 6. Need: Ego and Questions 7. Anger: A Smokescreen for Fear 8. Fear: A Gateway to Ego Identication 9. Guilt: Maintaining the Separation 10. The Release: Identifying the Core Belief of the Ego Part III: The Awakening: A Return to Spirit 11. Choice: The Exercising of Free Will 12. The Choice for Completion: Letting Go of Need 13. The Choice for Peace: Letting Go of Anger 14. The Choice for Love: Letting Go of Fear

vii ix 1 2 19 31 57 71 93 94 113 130 146 164 191 192 205 214 220

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15. The Choice for Forgiveness: Letting Go of Guilt 16. The Choice for Joy and Freedom: Letting Go of Pain and Suffering 17. The Choice for God About the Author

228 245 253 257

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Acknowledgments

There were times when I thought I would never nish writing this book, or have it published. It was then that God stepped in and took over. It was His presence and connection that kept me motivated, and His guidance that led others to work with me. I thank and praise Him, rst and foremost. My daughtersOlayinka, Olajumoke, and Sady planted the seed to write the book. In January 1998, when their father and I shared with them our decision to divorce, they helped me see that divorce is a natural part of life, and that it didnt have to be angry and bitter. It was not an easy time for them, and yet they honored the decision with love and grace. Their courage and acceptance made the process easy. It is a privilege to have you as my daughters. People come into your life at different times and they affect your life in profound ways. My ex-husband, Mutiu Fagbayi, was one of those people. We spent twenty-ve years together and without having met, married, and later divorced, this book could never be. I am fortunate to have a family on whom I can always count to forgive, support, and nurture. Barbara, Kathleen, Sharon, Audley, Philmore, Earl, and especially Mom, I love you. Your wisdom, generosity, and constant

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reminders that this too, shall pass gave me the strength to move on, day by day. I have lived and breathed this book for years, and so has my extended family, Penny Bowers and Ceil Chella. You fed me, loved me, supported me, and asked for nothing in return. Thank you from the depths of my heart. Ed Levy, whom I met during my work as a Landmark seminar leader, has been a constant positive force in my lifecompanion, movie and food buddy, condante, and student. You are my angel. To Homer, the embodiment of unconditional love: I am a more compassionate and forgiving person because of you. It didnt matter what hour of night it was, you were always there to console me, answer my questions, make me laugh, and keep me going. Thank you for being there. To my lawyer, Paul Burbank, who had the courage to write the document to support the premise of this book: I thank you. To everyone who joined us on October 12, 1998, the day of the Divorce Ceremonyfamily members, friends from the neighborhood, members of the community, and our acquaintancesthank you for your support and courage to witness to a new way to divorce.

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Making the Connection

Who would you rather take on your journey? Fear and Grief or Love and Joy? The Voice, August 18, 2000

My husband of twenty-ve years and I mailed four hundred invitations of our Divorce Ceremony to family, friends, and acquaintances. One hundred of them came, including my in-laws. Especially important for me was that my father, who had not visited me since I moved away from the Bahamas twenty-ve years earlier, lovingly participated. The event was catered, videotaped, and photographed, and a DJ entertained our guests. My daughters and their friends, who participated in the planning of what they called the Divorce Party, sang and danced. Later, my ex-husband and I read our declaration of independence and interdependence before the minister then mingled with our guests. They had numerous questions about the meaning behind the event, and how I was coping. Naturally, people were concerned. After all, this was not just a party; it was a ceremony to end my marriage. I knew that, of course, but I still thought I had to handle everything, as I had for most of my life: socially appropriate and in control. I wasnt even sure I wanted the divorce because my
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automatic response to expressions of concern was, I will be okay. Everything is under control. In my mind, the ceremony was just another party my ex-husband and I were hosting. The guests would have a great time, the next day we would get up; talk about it, and everything would go back to normal. But this time, it didnt. I had no clue I was in denial until two of my daughters left for college, the visits from my ex stopped, phone calls from friends dwindled, my business began to falter, and I learned that my father was facing advanced prostate cancer. I turned my attention to him. As the months passed and the realities of his illness and my divorce (coming home to dead silence every day, crying alone at night, pretending not to be embarrassed and ashamed, suddenly being friendless and without a traditional family structure for support) settled in, I fell apart. It drained every ounce of my spirit and energy. I very quickly ran out of zest for writing a book about the Divorce Ceremony. Even the premise of my unnished book, anything can be overcome with love, which sustained me through the ceremony and for a while thereafter, outlived its appeal. I felt justied in pitying myself because I was the one left behind. When I couldnt handle the pain and pressure any longer, I put aside my pride, visited several divorce groups and consulted a few psychiatrists. There I was met with religious philosophies, prescriptions, and solutions for protecting myself, which were okay. However, when I heard during one of the divorce presentations that it would take seven or more years to heal, that I should wait to start dating, and that I would go through a ght, I thought there must be another way, one that would take less time and not leave me bitter. Thus began my frantic

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search for answers out there (books, counseling sessions, friends, priests, medication) to save me from what I was considering: suicide. I was on a downward spiral emotionally (feeling useless and unwanted), nancially ($172,000 in debt), and spiritually (without faith). I was suffocating under the weight of my self-imposed isolation and pretense, and I wanted out. One night while lying in bed, exhausted from crying, praying, cursing my condition, and screaming out to God in desperation from the pain in my lower back, I heard a voice say, Who would you rather take on your journey? Fear and Grief, or Love and Joy? I was too tired to respond, but the truth and simplicity of the question was difcult to ignore. Somehow it comforted me. Then it said, You never really separated from God or left home. It is because you think you have, that you are not home. Think and believe that you are home and you will be. In that moment, I felt fullled and, for the rst time in months, I slept through the night in peace. The next morning I awoke renewed. I realized that in my aloneness I was not alone, that everything I had put my faith in (materially and psychologically) couldnt save me, and that what mattered most was establishing and maintaining a relationship with that comforting Voice. That was my turning point. I had made the connection with God, my Father, through the voice of my big brother Spirit, an ever-present connection that gives me messages and helps me navigate the world of Ego. My Faith was restored. For three years following my Aha! moment, I developed an intimate relationship with my Dad (who I visited more during that time than I had in the twenty-ve years I had been away), Spirit, and God. I prayed, kept

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a daily journal and, in quiet moments, I wrote. While writing, I began to understand, through the Voice, to accept my divorce as a symbolic act of divorcing my own Ego, a prelude to its nal submission to a higher authority, and the spiritual emergence of a Divine Self. The Divorce Ceremony had been an a priori celebration of my reunion with God. My only recourse was to let go and face the truth of how dangerous and clever my Ego had been, and to trust and accept the invitation of Spirit to intervene in my healing. I also found my calling and with that came a responsibility. I had started writing this book on March 8, 1999, six months after our ofcial, public Divorce Ceremony and completed the rst draft in December 2002, a month before my Dads death on January 19, 2003. What had started as a project of the Ego blossomed into a book of Spirit! It was no longer about how to plan and conduct a Divorce Ceremony. Instead, it became a spiritual inquiry into the nature and purpose of divorce, the role it plays in our lives and a testimony to Gods abiding love. When asked if I would go through the divorce again, my immediate response is, Yes, indeed! Its how to marry God. However, surrendering my life totally to a faceless, formless awareness I had only heard and read about, and occasionally trusted in, was not easy. It meant acknowledging abuses and dark secrets about who I had become and what I had done. It meant asking forgiveness for the hurt I had inicted with my thoughts, words, and actions. It meant forsaking the Ego, and putting God and Spirit rst in my life. The rewards that accompanied this choice have been miraculous. My new relationship with Spirit circumvented the destruction of precious friendships and shortened my grieving cycle from the statistical average

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of seven years to three. More important, it reconnected me to God, the source and joy of life. I also learned that my search for answers to lifes unanswerable questions such as Who am I? and What is my purpose? are a scheme of Ego to keep me distracted from remembering that I am a child of God and that my purpose is to make Him proud by living consistently with His will for me and using the gifts and talents He gave me. I learned that placing my Faith in God fullls me and when I am God-connected Pain and Suffering are unnecessary. Today, I am free from the connes and burdens of lifes cycle of Need, Anger, Fear, Guilt, Pain and Suffering. Life at every moment is joyous and effortless, sweet and delicious. No doubt, divorce is a universal experience of struggle, Pain and Suffering. It is also a spiritual journey into the darkest part of yourself, which allows you to awaken to the brightest partthe star that you really are. I can cite numerous instances of the physical Pain and Suffering I endured during my divorce. But I have no scientic proof of divorce as a journey to know God other than the examples of those I have coached and the fulllment and joy with which I now approach my life. What has guided me to write this book is my belief that divorce can be amicable and the healing process accelerated when you connect with God. This book is designed to support you in that journey. It is intended to answer any unresolved questions and to expand your spiritual understanding of divorce so that any insights gained promote actions that will signicantly shorten and ease your process. It is centered on this premise: Divorce is an unconscious, intentional, selfinitiated spiritual act designed by you to know God. It is a

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response to your call to reconnect and re-establish communication with Spirit. This is a bold conclusion I have reached based on my conversations with God, Spirit, my dad, and the divorced participants who so generously shared their experiences with me. It is also the culmination of many spiritual day trips Ive taken in my life. My Catholic father and Baptist mother raised me in a Catholic family and taught me simple wisdoms that included Have Faith in God and Love is the foundation of everything. I have carried these teachings with me everywhere, as a child, as an adult, as a parent, in my work and through my divorce experience. Practicing these principles daily has allowed me to develop a rm conviction about them in my life. Two signicant pieces of literature also inuenced this premise. In 1982, I read Jane Roberts book The Nature of Personal Reality, one of the Seth Speaks series. Seth made the profound declaration that our beliefs create our reality. When I decided to put that principle into practice, living became effortless. Then in 1993 I read, studied, practiced, and facilitated group sessions based on the principles from A Course in Miracles. This spiritual self-study system also afrms love as the foundation of everything. It teaches that the way to universal love and peaceor remembering Godis by undoing guilt through forgiveness. The teachings from both of these books, and more recently the Holy Bible, helped build my philosophies about divorce and spirituality. This daring thesis about divorce as an unconscious shout out from your Spirit is what distinguishes my perspective from others perspectives on this topic. It is contrary to the generally accepted worldview that divorce is an unplanned, accidental event or a wake-up call. To

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date, no author has provided a unied, spiritual method that enables divorced people to navigate the emotional, psychological, and mental quagmire of divorce; shorten the healing process; explain spiritually what they are going through; and awaken them to Spirit. This book is full of real-life examples and anecdotes that demonstrate why a simple shift in how you think about and relate to divorce accelerates healing, promotes amicability, and provides psychological freedom. It follows the healing and recovery of several participants in the twelve-week Divorce Ceremony seminars and documents the unique and innovative framework of self-transformation. The concepts and structure for healing outlined throughout the chapters come at an opportune time for our society whereby more divorces can be handled amicably, and divorced parties can seek both a speedy recovery and a better understanding of their experiences. More important, though, it addresses an area on which other books have touched only minimallythe duration of the healing process of divorce. The ideas being introduced acknowledge your healing process without allowing you to wallow in it. It afrms your humanityyour power and ability to heal quicklyand inspires your divinity. Re-examining divorce within this new context accelerated the healing process for the Divorce seminar participants and myself. It also caused us to question and challenge our preconceptions about divorce and our relationship to Spirit and God. You will probably do the same. It helped to explore these ideas with the mindset that we are responsible and accountable and not victims of our condition or circumstance. I suggest you do the same. If you are already divorced, my belief is that this

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book will bring you understanding and acknowledges your experience. For those considering divorce, my prayer is that it brings consolation as you determine and clarify your path. For others, who are supporting the divorced, my hope is that it helps you to understand and support what they are going through.

How This Book Works

I wrote this book based on the request of private clients, as well as, the Divorce Ceremony seminar participants to have additional information about what I was teaching. I have drawn heavily on their examples and experiences to illustrate the ideas and philosophy, which contributed to their healing. For this I am extremely grateful. As you read the book, you may nd yourself grappling with the conceptual meanings just as the seminar participants did. You may even want to put the book down. I ask you to stay with it. Suspend the need to question, to understand, and allow your heart to guide you. Towards the end of the book, I share the details of the Divorce Ceremony and invite you to decide on a ritual to support you in this transition of your life. This book follows the self-transformational process used in the workshops and is organized into three major parts. The beginning chapters contain timeless wisdom, practical examples, exercises, and stories that guide you through a thought-provoking inquiry into the spiritual nature of divorce. In Part I, Divorce: A New Context, Chapter 1 describes pictorially the relationship of divorce to spirituality. It explains the spiritual genesis of divorce and offers a different context and denition of divorce. Chapter 2 provides insight into the it that hurts when

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you rst nd out about your divorce, why it hurts, and where the hurt is located. This spiritual clarication provides an overwhelming sense of relief and unburdening. Chapter 3 introduces the game of hide and seek as the game of life and explains the role divorce plays in the game. Chapters 4 and 5 introduce the two primary forces that shape the game: Ego and Spirit. In chapter 4, Ego, through a personal interview, reveals how it controls your life, and shows you how to recognize it. In chapter 5, the biblical concept: . . . for by thy words thou shalt be justied, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned (Matthew 12:37) is used to demonstrate the power of the spoken word to invoke your divorce to destroy or to heal. The primary focus is not to outline the traditional reasons for divorce. Rather, it proposes that if the divorced individual can get beyond the physical reason (what happened) of divorce, to the metaphysical (how it happened) and spiritual (why it happened), the probability of the healing accelerating from blame to total acceptance is increased. By considering specic examples, you have an opportunity to scan your divorce process and determine what is needed to move along that continuum of responsibility and empowerment. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 in Part II, Egos Players and Strategies, are dedicated primarily to discussing, in a nontraditional way, the relationship of Ego to Need, Anger, Fear, Guilt, Pain and Suffering. Elaborating on the story from Chapter 1, for example, Fear is positioned as a positive afrmation of a belief we hold about ourselves because it leads to exposing the Ego. When the belief is uncovered, the cycle of Need, Anger, Fear, and Guilt that the belief perpetuated is disrupted. Chapter 9 provides an in-depth examination of Guilt, and

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Chapter 10 concludes Part II with a series of exercises to help you discover the Core Belief of the Ego, which leads to the acceptance of your Divinity. Part III, The Awakening: A Return to Spirit, has seven chapters that form the heart of the book because in this section you are asked to make choices that will ease your divorce process. To support that process, Chapter 11 makes a fundamental distinction between choice and decision, and presents ten overall qualities of choice that give it power. With this understanding you are asked in the remaining chapters to choose Completion versus Need, Peace versus Anger, Love versus Fear, Forgiveness versus Guilt, Joy and Freedom over Pain and Suffering, and ultimately God. When these choices are made, an awakening occurs, which propels you to take actions, such as, letting go of resentments and rebuilding relationships so that you can complete the divorce and move forward with a forgiving heart. This book offers unconventional, challenging, and thought-provoking ideas for you to consider. One idea is that perhaps you unconsciously invited your divorce onto your court of life to play the game. Another is that your life experiences, like divorce, are choices you are making to awaken to your calling or responses to requests from an imprisoned free will that is consciously unknown to you. Either way, this book goes beyond the mechanics of how to and invites you, through exploration and real-life examples, to consider divorce as a planned quest to know thyself. It asks that you look beyond your everyday experience to spiritual truths that uplift, acknowledge the human spirit, and empower choices that bring peace and amicability. Once you truly understand this fundamental premise that divorce is your request for a spiritual

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initiation to awaken to the power of living a God-connected life, you will be forever transformed. Finally, much of what is contained in this book was born of my study and practice of the works of Florence Scovel-Shinn, Neville Goddard, Louise Hay, Jane Roberts, J. Krishnamurti, Napoleon Hill, and from the Holy Bible and A Course in Miracles. I am honored to have known the authors through their writings. They taught me how to look beyond my everyday living and to trust my inner knowing. Their words and wisdom altered the course of my life, and through this book, perhaps will alter yours. A word about the use of the word God. There are as many terms and expressions used as there are people to describe the source of the overwhelming feeling that envelops us when we make contact with a presence beyond our conscious mind. Some of these terms are God, Creator, Higher Power, Internal Teacher, Inner Voice, or the phrase the source from which life and creativity spring. Without disrespecting the choice that each one of us makes in referring to this source, I have chosen to use the word God to describe this all-encompassing power. Divine Self denes that part of us commonly referred to as Spirit, and belief denes the Ego.

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Part I Divorce: A New Context and Denition

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1
Divorce and Ego: The Hidden Marriage

Divorce is an unconscious, intentional, self-initiated, spiritual act designed by you to know God. It is a response to your call to reconnect and re-establish communication with Spirit. Patricia Russell

o question: Divorce is one of the most painful and complex experiences a human being can endure. It shatters your belief in til death do us part and can strip you of every ounce of decency, self-respect, and human dignity you feel you have left. Youre in a ght for your survival physically (joint custody of the children, child support, and basic material possessions to live), emotionally (trying to keep it all together without being angry, afraid, and feeling guilty) and spiritually (wondering if there is something wrong with you that needs to be xed, often conicting with a deep inner knowing that this is untrue). Yet you do not know whom you are ghting? What the ght is for? Or what is causing the ght? You think you are ghting the person you married and still somehow, even after years of being divorced, you wonder

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why the scars from the wounds still persist. Bella locked herself in her home for almost thirteen years blaming her ex-husband for the affair he had. You think you are ghting for the ownership of material possessions and custody of the children, only to discover that even that rarely brings satisfaction. Linda got the home, joint custody and child support and was still disgruntled thinking it was her ex-husband that was causing her dissatisfaction and hurt. You think what is causing the ght is external to you. It is not! The dilemma of not knowing or understanding what is causing the ght adds a level of complexity to the physical experience of divorce that is very hard to explain. Fred, a well-respected school teacher found himself wandering supermarket aisles, doing laundry at 2 a.m., and following his wife to conrm his suspicions that she was with a former boyfriend (who happened to also be a family friend). When questioned about his actions, he kept repeating, It hurts. There must be something wrong with me. Freds response is common among the divorced. When asked to describe their experience many respond, It hurts or It sucks. If followed up with other questions: What is the it that hurts or sucks? Where is it located? Why does it hurt? they are at a loss for words because the answers to these questions are spiritual and not physical or emotional. Many prescriptions and books exist to ease the physical (medications, as an example) and emotional (psychiatrists, counseling, as examples) pain of divorce. Some books, such as, The Good Divorce by Constance R. Ahrons, provide prescriptions for coping with and getting through the divorce process, while others, like the book Fighting for Your Marriage: Positive Steps for Preventing Divorce and

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Preserving a Lasting Love by Howard Markman, advocate for marriage. Caring for the spiritual pain, however, offers a different challenge because the solutions for uncovering the it, which is at the heart of the discontent and pain requires a different denition and new realm of thinking about divorce. Granted recent spiritual books from The Spiritual Divorce by the late Debbie Ford to There Is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem by Dr. Wayne Dyer, offer fresh perspectives. When read within the context that divorce is the dissolution of a marriage between two people; a wake-up call; a problem to be solved, or something that happens to you, spirituality in this sense becomes another approach, not a new context. Rearranging the furniture in a room may make it look different, but it does not make it a different room. The current dominant worldview and denition of divorce contribute to a social stigma about divorce that perpetuates systems that divide rather than encourage collaboration, lengthen the recovery period, and avoid divorce as a topic of discussion. If the statistics are correct that every couple that marries today faces a forty-three percent chance of eventually divorcing, and it takes on average seven years to heal, its clear that divorce is not to be taken lightly. If society is to lessen the negative falloutalcoholism, nancial hardshipfrom divorce and accelerate the healing process, divorce must be acknowledged as an experience of the human condition, and not pushed under the carpet in hopes that it will go away. A shift in contexta new way of thinkingabout divorce is necessary. This chapter offers an alternate context and denition. It provides a spiritual explanation of the source of

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the it, submits that divorce and spirituality are inextricably bound, recognizes the fact that divorce is a crucial element in the design to awaken spiritually, and afrms your power in the design of that awakening. It depicts ways of thinking and believing that work for some but not everyone. It is intended to remind you that, contrary to what you or others think there is nothing wrong with you. You have only forgotten that you are a perfect creation of God and the internal struggle is a ght by you to regain your spiritual birthright, and your divorce is the pathway back to that knowing. When and if you can embrace the idea of divorce, as an unconscious, intentional, self-initiated act designed by you to know God, you will be able to accept rather than resist divorce as your chosen path to spiritual growth. But who is the ght with, you may ask?

A Likely Story
To answer that question and understand divorce as a pathway to reclaim your spiritual birthright, lets begin with a likely story. Think of the caterpillar that weaves itself into a cocoon, passes through four stages of growth (egg, larva, pupa, and adult), and remains in stasis until it emerges into an elegant buttery. Our spiritual lives follow a similar process (see Figure 1). Imagine that before you were born, you were perfect, whole and complete. In this state, called Spirit, you were endowed with a birthright (two gifts): free will and the power to create with thoughts (see Position 1 in Figure 1). When you thought beauty, beauty got created and then forgotten. When you thought joy, joy got created and was forgotten. And so on. Then one day, while creating, you thought imperfection and imperfection showed up. You were fascinated
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by this thought, which was 180 degrees different than your other creations of thoughts (see Position 2 in Figure 1). You decided to keep the thought as a playmate and to call the playmate it. Every now and again when you were creating, you would play with it and then put it away. One day, while playing, it said to you, Im bored. Lets make up a game and call the game hide and seek (see position 3 in Figure 1). I will hide and your job is to seek and nd me. You said, OK and proceeded to design the game with it. The game included four key players: Need, Anger, Fear, and Guilt, and each was given a role to play. Since a game needs an object to begin to play, just like a basketball game needs a basketball, so does the game of hide and seek need a means to start the game. Needs role is to go out and retrieve an object, a ball, to begin the game. Anger was given two roles. The rst is as a shield to hide it by creating a disturbance and the second is to mask the third player in the game: Fear. Fears role is to act as a decoy, meaning activate a story, based on a thought, to lure you away from nding it, using Anger as a smokescreen. Guilt acts as the arbitrator that settles all disputes to resume the game. Its role is to referee the game and serve as judge (the critic who condemns) and jury (the group that grants it permission to punish or redeem). Just when you are about to start the game, you asked it, How will I know when I am getting close to nding you? It suggested adding another player called Pain and Suffering, whose role was to act as a gauge of when you were getting close to it. Do you remember how, in the childs game of hide and seek, getting close to nding the person was called getting warm while moving away was called getting cold? Well, the greater the experience of

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Pain and Sufferingthe equivalent of you are getting warmerthe closer you are to nding it. They are your cue, it said. You agreed and started to play. The game was fun, until you noticed you were playing the game more than you were creating. That is because unbeknownst to you, it had added another player called the Insatiable Appetite, whose role was to stoke your desire to keep playing the game. The longer you played, the more out of control you felt. It capitalized on that moment and said, God, your Father and Creator, is not going to like what you did. Lets go somewhere else to play the game. You blindly nodded yes and then you were born. At birth, it and the Insatiable Appetite became Ego, meaning, ease God out. At that point, you became Egos host, i.e. its eyes, ears, nose, hand and body, as a thank you for rescuing you from being found out by God that you had made it. Of course, God knew what was going on so He asked Spirit to cross over that threshold of birth with you, to wait for your call and with a whisper, remind you of who you really are. As the statement, we are spiritual beings having a physical experience captures, now both Ego and Spirit are in you and neither is aware of the other except you (see position 4 in Figure 1). The more you played the game, the more you forgot who you were as Spirit and that you had made up a game with it. You did not even remember that Need retrieved the objects to start the game, Anger kept you confused, Fear kept you off track, Guilt watched to see when a mistake was made and Pain and Suffering were your cues to getting close to discovering it. As Egos host, you became caught in a world of make believe called the game of life, where Ego assumed control with you as the pawn. Because

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Figure 1 The unconscious path and role divorce plays in your spiritual awakening

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Ego became more predominant than Spirit (see Position 4 in Figure 1), It was no longer a playmate you could control. Eventually, you committed an unspeakable act: you transferred responsibility for yourself to Ego. Ego became your constant companion and you were now indebted to it. In short, you and Ego married and Earth became the playground in which the game of hide and seek was played. Ego eggs you on to nd it by designing adventures, which escalate in intense Pain and Suffering until one day, the Pain and Suffering becomes so great that you declare, I no longer want this. There has to be another way. This declaration usually happens when a traumatic event occurs, often referred to as a life-changing event and it can have one of two impacts. It could either be a call to Spirit, which begins the journey back to reclaiming your gifts of free will and the power to create with thoughts or plunge you deeper into the arms of the Ego because of the intoxicating draw of the game. In the latter case, the game will continue in escalated Pain and Suffering, even unto death.

Alternate Context and Denition of Divorce

Within this likely story, a new context and denition of divorce emerges. Ego needs balls with which to play the game. Divorce is a perfect ball Need can retrieve because of the number of times Ego can use this one ball to generate other activities that escalate in Pain and Suffering. Marriage is also an example of another perfect ball, except this would cause you to say colder versus warmer in the game of hide and seek. Imagine trying to play the game of tennis without a raquet. Similarly,

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without the game there is no ball called divorce; without the ball divorce, Ego has no game to play. No one is immune or excused from participating in the game. The only difference is the ball each person selects and the amount of Pain and Suffering they will endure before deciding that there has to be another way and choose Spirit. The event is personal. My life-changing event was divorce. For others, it could be a loss of job, going to war, etc. Viktor Frankls ball was incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp. He declared there had to be another way, survived and designed a new psychology based on the experience. Martin Luther Kings ball was the civil rights movement. Jesuss ball was fasting for forty days and nights in the desert. If you recall, nothing tried Jesus or pushed him closer to his physical, mental, and spiritual limits than those nights in the desert. He was tempted by the Devil three times to sell his birthright, to surrender his power to create through thoughts and the free will to choose those thoughts. The Devil waited until Jesus was at his lowest to attempt to entice him into submission. He was famished when asked to make stones into bread, mentally exhausted when asked to cast himself down for the angels to come and save him, and spiritually drained when offered the glory of the kingdoms of the world to worship him. He refused to submit and chose another way and partner: Spirit. The same, which occurred for Frankl and King, can occur for you. If divorce is the ball you have chosen, then that has become your pathway to spiritually awaken, meaning, divorce the Ego, recommunicate with Spirit and return to God (see position 5 in Figure 1). From this perspective, divorce and spirituality are inextricably coupled. You are divorcing itsevering

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ties with Egoand that is why you sometimes act as an observer, an unwilling participant or irresponsible during divorce. Ego does not want to be divorced. It wants to play the game. And because we are conditioned to try to eliminate Pain and Suffering, the Ego goes undetected and the painful game continues. Each day of the divorce process, you will be tempted by Egothe notion of being inadequateto play the game. To choose Spirityour inner knowingin each moment, you must believe there is nothing wrong with you, and you do not need to be xed. Without this context and understanding that in addition to physically divorcing you are also spiritually divorcing the Ego (it), choosing your inner knowing will be difcult. Since Ego is in control and you are unaware of the game, divorce is an unconscious act. Although unconscious, you also participated in the design of the game so divorce also can be intentional and self-initiated. To think of divorce in this new context, however, contradicts what you have come to believe about divorce. It also challenges religious, cultural, social, and personal ideas of who is responsible and accountable for the divorce. However, positioning divorce as a natural and integral part of a human beings spiritual journey of self-realization and actualization changes it from an after-the-fact problem to be analyzed and solved (which brings resistance, struggle and shame), to a before-the-fact awareness, which encourages self-observation and discovery and accelerates healing. Although divorce is not seen as the preferred way to awaken spiritually, one cannot deny that, regardless of the intense Pain and Suffering this traumatic experience generates, divorce can ignite a re within that has lain dormant for years, begging to be acknowledged and embraced.

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This unique perspective and coupling of divorce and spirituality is also not so easily accepted because it makes a bold assumption about your role in the unconscious initiation of your spiritual awakening through divorce. It suggests that divorce is a response to an individuals unconscious quest to know thyself, similar to the stories and myths dating back to biblical times, in which individuals knowingly set out on a journey seeking to understand who they were or to achieve immortality. In the case of divorce, the decision to begin the journey seems unconscious because it is not clear that choosing this path is a response to this yearning until the journey through the Pain and Suffering of the process is underway. Consider Rosie, who had dedicated her life to being a stay-at-home mom. She was not sure what happened the day she and her husband went to see their marriage counselor: I thought that we had been seeking counseling to work out the graveyard issues in our marriage, only to nd that our intentions were entirely different. He wanted a divorce. I almost fell out of my chair. It hurt. After days of tears, questions, and support from friends, she found herself demanding that her husband ght for the marriage, just as he was ghting for the divorce. For the rst time in perhaps my life, she continued, I found the power I had always been searching for. I found my voice. Up until then I had considered myself powerless to do anything. It also prompted her to say, Whether I divorce or not, I will be okay because I will have connected with a part of me that I knew existed but never accessed. During the process, Rosie remembered who she was. She connected with and re-established communication with Spirither voice. Her divorce was an unconscious

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act that awoke her inner knowing that she is powerful. It led her to know God. She had no conscious idea that her potential divorce would be a spark for her spiritual awakening, and she probably would not have planned her quest to know herself that way, given the Pain and Suffering her divorce generated. Although her awakening happened, the question of whether Rosie could have intentionally initiated her divorce, or whether it was unplanned still remains. The worlds answer to that question is no since a yes answer could be an admission of Guilt or wrongdoing. If you consider Rosies comments about nding her power, it would seem that she was unconscious and unaware so the divorce must have been unplanned versus intentionally self-initiated. But does her lack of awareness negate the possibility of intention and self-initiation? From the dominant worldview, it does since divorce is generally seen as unplanned, unintentional, and uninitiated; a lesson from which to learn, and an opportunity to create a second life and move on. Further inquiry casts doubt on the idea of divorce as an unplanned, spiritual wake-up call when examined by questions, such as, who or what initiates the wake-up call? How was the call initiated? Who is being called, and why? Who received and responded to the call? And from what are you waking? Examining Rosies story in light of these questions offers a different view, which supports the idea that spiritually, divorce is an intentional, self-initiated act even if you (the conscious self) are unaware of it. Here is how it works. Rosie unconsciously initiated the call through her thoughts of powerlessness and her

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yearning to be powerful. She was aware of the desire consciously based on the many events she designed in her life to compensate for her powerlessness and to afrm her powerfulness. However, she fell short of accessing her power in a way that was lasting, so she forgot about it consciously. She went about living, unaware that spiritually her deep yearning from the soulthe feeling of powerlessness in her Spirit and her thoughtshad also initiated a call to God, her higher consciousness, like a prayer. Her higher consciousness, which is impersonal yet faithful, responded; remembered and remained faithful to the call until it was answered, even when she (her conscious self) might have stopped. Unknown to her, events in her life, both conscious and unconscious, escalated into experiences of intense Pain and Suffering (at rst, her husband staying out late; traveling a lot; having an affair; then asking for divorce) until she experienced a breakthrough in her thought of being powerless. While for others this breakthrough might occur on the heels of a childs death, a diagnosis of cancer, or another trauma, Rosies precipitating event was divorce. Rosie also said she found her voice. But had it been lost? No. Forgotten? Yes, and it took her impending divorce for her to remember it. Her divorce was an unconscious act designed in advance, with an intended outcome to lead to a higher evolution, such as knowing God in a personal and intimate way. Rosie described it as reconnecting with her voice. Other participants describe the experience as nally knowing who I am. Still others cannot nd the words to describe their experience. By undertaking the personal exploration; deepening their spiritual understanding about the role divorce plays in life; and consciously shifting their view of divorce, Rosie

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reconnected with their Spirit and transformed how she related to her divorce. You can do the same. Many divorced individuals, I have coached, at rst recoiled at the notion of divorce as unconscious, intentional and self-initiated. When they considered this new denition and context of divorce, they discovered that saying to themselves I am one hundred percent responsible and accountable for what I manufactured, what has happened, and what will be happening, rather than I am partly responsible and the other person is partly responsible brought relief, accelerated healing, and gave them the condence to deal with the divorce in a loving and empowering way. Thinking that you are partly responsible limits your potential to generate win-win solutions because you spend too much time defending your position (the part for which you do not think you are responsible), pointing out what your ex-spouse is doing wrong, or trying to solve their problems. Essentially, you are robbing yourself of precious time either licking your wounds or getting involved in the other persons responsibility sandbox a place you have no business playing in the rst place. Rosie, who came into the seminar uncertain about her future and her identity, and consumed with what her soon-to-be ex-husband had done, was doing, and was going to do recognized she was taking on her husbands responsibilities to avoid learning how to take care of herself. At rst she struggled with the concept, but by the fourth session of the seminar she said, I am not only clear about what I must do for myself, but I look forward to accepting responsibility for creating a life I love. She also stated, One of the most important concepts that I received was the understanding of my responsibility in the

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relationship that I have with my husband, in the beginning, the middle, and the end. She was not a victim. Glenda, a homemaker and vertigo sufferer who home-schooled her three children, was empowered by the realization that accepting accountability did not mean that the other person was getting away with murder, or that she was condoning inappropriate behavior. Taking accountability removed the drama and emotion from her court appearances, improved her interaction with her lawyer and family, and helped her negotiate her needs. She was able to detach from her own mischievous thoughts and Anger, connect with her Spirit, and move forward peacefully. Her lawyer, who had initially found Glenda angry, bitter, and victimized, gave a powerful testament to the impact of her shift in thinking and ownership. When asked if his experience with Glenda was different from his other clients because of the spiritual intervention, he quickly answered, Yes. She was much more aware and calm, and her sense of humor returned. In addition, her handling of a court situation that could have become hostile was commendable. Glenda is currently pursuing a singing career and building a life for herselfall within one year of her ex-husband leaving their home. Rosie and Glenda both approached divorce in traditional ways: taking a seminar, using a lawyer in the court system, and so on. However, it was the new context about divorce and a slight shift in thinkingI am totally personally responsible and accountable and not a victimthat made the difference. Perhaps youre thinking that this shift may work for them, but probably not for you. Correct? Different thinking combined with action produces powerful results.

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How many approaches have you used to ease the pain and hurt of your divorce, only to discover that nothing really changed? How many of you are still seeking that one action or thing that will bring you permanent relief? How many of you have given up on an approach? Judith, a physician who also came to the seminar to heal from the pain of her divorce, almost gave up. For twelve years she had been in a relationship she knew was not working. She felt put-upon and was struggling to end the relationship and remain friends. On the advice of a friend she decided to participate in the seminar, and received a rewarding surprise. She said, I came to heal from divorce. And what I also understood and resolved were childhood traumas, which had plagued me for most of my life, and for which I had been in counseling for years. For the rst time I am hopeful that I can reclaim my childhood Spirit, which I had not lived in a long time. Again, a slight shift in thinking, from feeling victimized and helpless to I could see how I was responsible and accountable, became her catalyst for healing. This, combined with actions that stem from the new thinking, such as extending love, produced a powerful and lasting result. Judith decided to stop seeing her psychiatrist after the last seminar session, and completed the relationship that had been troubling her. Participating in another seminar would have produced only temporary relief for Judith had she not shifted her context and denition of divorce. In fact, another seminar might have even prolonged her Pain and Suffering. Instead, she found the solution in thinking differently and producing different results.

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Chapter Recap
As with all contexts, rearranging outdated beliefs (thinking) inside the same context does not a new context make. It was within a new context and denition of divorce that Glenda, Rosie, and Judith were able to accelerate the healing process. Divorce and spirituality are intimately connected. Physically, divorce is the dissolution of a union between two people and that is not what causes the excruciating pain you feel. It is the spiritual divorcing of the Ego, which feeds its insatiable appetite through Need, hides itself using Anger, deects through Fear, and justies its existence through Guilt, that is causing the Pain and Suffering to keep a game in play. Spiritually, divorce is either a request from an imprisoned free will to reconnect with Spirit or balls on the court in the game of hide and seek of the Ego, depending on your view. When you were born, both Spirit and Ego became part of your thought systemthe mindwith neither knowing the others existence. Your inner knowing comes from Spiritthat part of the mind that is connected to God. It is the gentle voice that emanates from your mind in the stillness, reminding you of a time and place when you were complete and needed nothing. Your inner feeling of being broken and needing to be xed comes from the part of the mind that is connected to the Ego. It is the part of mind concerned with satisfying the body. It is your self-made image, which considers itself as separate, disconnected and in need of more. This is why in the moment you are asked for a divorce, your internal struggle begins. It is your struggle to return home reclaim your spiritual birthright.

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2
The Moment of Disclosure: Getting in the Game

The sorrow puries and deepens the soul, and the extremities of sorrow are the prelude to truth. James Allen, As A Man Thinketh

here is probably no point in time when the pain of divorce is most intensely felt than at the moment of disclosure. You literally go into immediate shock. You feel vulnerable, hurt, angry, guilty, afraid, confused, and betrayed, all at the same time. Then, in the next moment its common to deny whats happening by pretending what you heard was just your imagination. That is what Sheila did. Sheila, normally a hot head, says she remembers her moment of disclosure as if it were yesterday. As she tells the story: That evening my husband said he wanted to talk after I put the kids to bed. When I was nished, my husband said to me, I am leaving you. My translation was that he was just going out. I wanted chicken wings so I responded, I have a craving for wings and please dont forget. I want extra blue cheese.
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He said, No, no, no, I am leaving you. I said What? and he said Yeah. I felt like throwing up. Racing around in my disbelief, I thought to myself, wait, we are still communicative, sexual, the kids are doing well and he wants to go where after a twenty-ve year relationship. Then I asked, Dont you think we should talk about this? He said, I am leaving unless we nd a revelation. We did not nd one. I got up the next morning numb, got the kids ready for school, dressed myself, and went to work. I went from being a regular person to a robot. The empty shell went to work looking extraordinarily good with a little more makeup than usual and worked all day. The masquerade continued. I still pretended he would come to his senses after going through mid-life crises and one day he would drive up in a Corvette, with a new hair style and sunglasses. I even went to see a social worker to help me create a home life for him upon his return. Two weeks after he said he was leaving, he left. I will never forget. He left on a Tuesday. I went to work, came back and he had moved out. The day he was physically gone, it became real. But it wasnt until six months when I found out that he was seeing someone else and she had met the family that I went ballistic. I let out a primal scream that lasted ve minutes. I threw myself on the oor and was out of control. I had not put soap in his cereal, instead I had asked, can you bring me some wings? I never thought there was another woman. One day at work, when I could not play the charade anymore, I broke down and cried uncontrollably. I was released to go home and as I lay on my bed, with the

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bottle of sleeping pills in my hand, I was contemplating going in the woods behind my home and never returning. I would look at the pills, sob, look at them again and think the kids would be better off without me. Luckily a friend called and said she had made dinner reservations for us. She told me to hang in there and let me know someone was going to pick me up. I was in no state to drive. I thought about the place we were going to have dinner, the time with them and I put the pills away. My friend saved my life. The crazy thing is you believe that the people who love you will be better off without you. You deny the logic that they do love you and all you can think about is leaving. Do you remember Rosie, who found out about her divorce during a counseling session? She said, The shock was so intense, I did not know what to do except cry and think there must be something wrong with me. The pain of the moment was excruciating. Then she said, I surprised myself when I stood up and demanded that he ght for the marriage as hard as he was ghting for the divorce. Rosie discovered a treasureher voiceburied beneath the surface. She accessed a part of herself that was rejoicing, not because she was going to divorce, but because she was reclaiming her power. For Rosie and Sheila, the shock in the moment created an internal struggle between the thought that there was something wrong with them and their deep inner knowing that this is untrue. The internal struggle is like thinking to oneself, I was perfect and now I am a mess; or my life was ok and now my life is terrible. In that moment, Rosie realized that she, and not her husband, had allowed herself to be powerless for most of her marriage. It was her decision to think and behave without power. Realizing

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this liberating truth and taking full ownership as the architect of her divorce and her awakening, Rosie started making plans for her life while still married, and began to treat her soon-to-be-ex-husband with compassion. The revelation that she was powerful did not come through another human; Rosie unearthed it for herself, in the moment, through Spirit. What Rosie nor Sheila knew at the time, was that to sustain their empowerment they had to understand what was happening in that moment spiritually. This chapter explores the dichotomy of the moment of disclosure and sheds a spotlight on the it in the statement, It hurts.

The Shock of the Ego

The moment the request for a divorce is made, it isnt you going into shock. It is the Ego. It seems like you because of your agreement to be the Egos container. It is not you. The shock is the Ego being caught off guard, dramatized by you. It did not realize that this particular ball divorcethat Need has selected, based on its request, to play the game may be the one that will nally expose it. When this happens, Ego does not know what to do, so it brings out the second player Anger, which causes a range of emotions, from feeling paralyzed and pathetic to outright rage or humor. As its body, in that moment, you act in ways that you sometimes cannot believe. Glenda found herself lifting heavy rocks and throwing them after her ex-husbands car, even ruining the hood. Bella took her husbands very expensive business suits, washed them in bleach, dried them and hung them in the closet, shrunken and spotted. Since you are running around for Anger gathering emotions to shield Ego, you do not recognize that you
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are getting warmer, maybe even hotter to nding it. Interestingly, when all of the emotions die down and you begin to see reasonhave a thought that might connect you with Spirit and expose itEgo brings in its third player, Fear as a decoy. Have you ever noticed how many tangents you go on and how hard it is to identify what you are afraid of during the divorce process? That is because Fear uses that thought to make up stories and have you act as if they are real. Thats why the acronym for FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real and when you are in the story, you are being lured away from seeking it. One workshop participant, Trudee, rather than experience Fear of embarrassment and shame made up a story that she is not worth loving. Acting from this story, she sabotaged any relationship that looked like it was going to be permanent. For her, the story became a selffullling prophecy. She was unaware she had re-entered and stayed in the game. For Ego, it had kept itself hidden. The nal player, Guilt, is brought into the game to seal the deal, that is, reinitiate the game. The signal to Ego to start the game all over again, of course, comes from you saying, Im sorry. Spiritually, the moment of disclosure is the meeting place of three powerful forces: You, Ego, and Spirit. For Ego, this moment is a heads up that it might be discovered. It is signaling either death (the end of the game) or life (the continuation of the game played skillfully and stealthily). If the Ego thinks it is dying, it will ght ferociously to stay alive. For Spirit, it is a moment of rejoicing for the possible return of a lost child. Spirit is waking up in response to a call for help. For you, this is a poignant moment. You are questioning who you are and what you should do with your life. But you and Ego are

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so intimately connected, it never occurs to you to make that call, or to hear Spirits response, if you did make the call. For you, this is a turning pointan opportunity for you to exit the game and call on Spirit to intervene in your healing. At this crossroads, at which you arrived unconsciously, will you die in the crash, or be reborn spiritually? Until this moment you were not under pressure to choose who to take with you on the rest of your journey through life, because Ego and Spirit had never been together in the same place at the same time. At any other time in life, only one was in play and your choices were easy. Now that you have brought Ego and Spirit together, you must choose who is better equipped to walk beside you. Will you continue to submit to the Egos control, or will you reclaim your spiritual birthright? Your pledge of allegiance to one or the other will determine the experience of your divorcebitter and prolonged, or peaceful and brief. You must make the choice. Otherwise, Ego will. Making a choice seems clear when you are not in the midst of chaos, right? Of course, I thought so too. But guess what? It is at precisely this time, when you are in throes of battle, that making a choice is so critical. In the midst of my confusion, the choice became clear when I heard the Voice ask, Who would you rather take on your journey? Fear and grief or love and joy? The Voice was Spirit asking, Which master do you want to serve and have coach you for the rest of your journey? I chose Spirit. The ball called divorce still remained in play, in the game of hide and seek. The difference was the motivation. With Ego as the master and coach, the motivation is separation and/or death through Pain and

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Suffering. With Spirit, the motivation is healing and joining through reason and understanding. Obviously, depending on the choice, the actions you take will be different. Actions coming from an Ego-based decision will be wrought with Fear and panic. You think you must act quickly to survive or you will die, when in fact you do not have to. That is Ego playing you. If it senses you are giving up on its ability to save you, it must do something to regain your trust and dependence. For Ego, this moment is delicious! It is in control of you. It has you by the tail and is ipping you back and forth. No wonder you feel exhausted and discombobulated. The Ego is not interested in you. It is motivated by playing the game and will do anything to keep you from unmasking it. The movies Waiting to Exhale and War of the Roses depicted the extremes the Ego would go to not die. It is the Ego, not you, that faces death. Of course, the Ego will not die without your permission because you are its maker, but it does not know this. All it wants is to play the game. Although the urge to ght to survive is not you, make no mistake, the survival urges do feel real, because you agreed to be the Egos ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and body in exchange for ensuring your safety and protection. It is paramount, therefore, that you to take some action to satisfy your emotional, psychological and physical wellbeing, by recovering physically (such as taking a walk), mentally (seeing a psychologist or joining a healing group), and emotionally (spending time with a friend you can cry with). Actions taken within a spiritual context are much calmer and civilized; accelerate healing; and over the long term bring success. Spirit has no need to survive and

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neither will you if you align yourself accordingly. Spirit is calling to help you understand that the physical, emotional and psychological Pain and Suffering you are in is an indicator that you are deep in the game (close to exposing and divorcing your Ego) and your release from an unconscious, self-imposed prison is imminent. It is a call to turn from Egos vicious cycle of survival to a spiritual healing. Fred heeded the call and stopped wandering the supermarket halls and stalking his wife. He resolved their differences and met another woman, who he is currently married to. Glenda packed up and moved to another state to pursue a singing career. Sheila helped her ex-husbands new wife during her cancer treatments. I held a divorce ceremony with my ex-husband; engaged our daughters, in-laws and friends to participate and am pursuing a new career. Without listening to the call, our healing process is prolonged because the choices are Ego-based. Although you are on the verge of a spiritual breakthrough (emergence of Spirit), you must still be vigilant. The Ego is very skilled and highly impatient. It wants what it wants now and not later. It must keep the game going and stay in control because the moment you are no longer angry, afraid, guilty, or needy, you have an opportunity to see it for the illusion that it is and the game can end.

What Is It?
From societys perspective, the breakup of the marriage; the surprise of the moment; the loss of dignity; ghting for custody of the children; death of a dream or the inability to reconcile til death do us part are good examples of the it that hurts. Does the it that hurts feel better with

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the resolution of the custody ght or the property settlement? Rarely. Bella was divorced for thirteen years, lived comfortably, and still cried and suffered at any mention of her divorce. It still lingered and it was not any of the above examples. Spiritually, the it that hurts and imprisons you, if you recall the likely story, is the thought you had when you wondered about imperfection as you were creating. It is unlike the perfect creation you are as Spirit. When joined by the insatiable appetite, they became Ego and took form in the body. In the game, its role is to hurt and inict Pain by sending Need out to get balls, like ghting for custody of the children, so you can nd it. The ghts are merely distractions (anger hiding it to keep you paralyzed with Fear). In the moment, it (thought of imperfection) is suddenly staring you in the face daring you to unmask it. You may be thinking why or how can a thought or belief hurt? Imagine the last time you were faced with a new way of thinking and you resisted it? Did you get a major headache, or feel disoriented? Now take a look at what happened when you were receptive and let go of your long-held thought. The headache probably disappeared. Your investment in the old way of thinking is what creates the headache. It is no different for the it of the Ego, except that it is lodged so deep in the recesses of the mind that extracting it requires a traumatic experiencein this case divorce. Add to that the Egos refusal to be dislodged, and you have a perfect environment for Pain. The other reason it hurts is because of the role you and Ego assigned to Pain and Suffering: to serve as a gauge of how close you were to uncovering it. The closer

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you got, the more intense the Pain would be. This should be a good hurt, but you have been programmed to know, expect, and accept that Pain and Suffering accompanies divorce and to mask the physical pain, medication is prescribed without regard to the spiritual context. By addressing the spiritual contextrealizing that the Pain you feel is you divorcing the Egocan the healing process accelerate. Divorce severs a union that involves much more than the accumulation of time spent in a marriage, or the feeling of connection to another human being. It creates a sudden breach in belonging (the spiritual attachment) between you and the Ego, like a mother to a child, when an umbilical cord is cut. Divorce undermines the Ego thought system you manufactured to experience what it is like to be imperfect and forces you to relinquish a self-created image, an idea deeply rooted in your core, which no longer serves you. The moment of disclosure is a crucial point because it presents the opportunity for you to correct your sense of separation from God, choose between the real you and your self-made image (Ego), and then reclaim your Spirit. The excruciating Pain Rosie was describing was her it (powerless) staring her in the face. When she nally said its name, she discovered her power. The game was over and she could live responsibly, consciously, and effortlessly from her Spirit. The truth does hurt, and it can also set you free. For Rosie, the truth of acting powerless and victimized in the marriage was Egos game to keep her hostage to a bargain she made with it. The shock was not the surprise of being asked for a divorce. Instead, it was the Egos shock at being found out. It is exposed, like a wound whose scab

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was suddenly removed, and because you are its vehicle of expression, you are experiencing Ego as if it were you. The miracle this moment offers is a return to your Spirit and a way to take control of the game.

Chapter Recap
There isnt a perfect way to ask or accept a request for a divorce. There also isnt a perfect way to prepare for it nancially, emotionally, and maybe even mentally, much less spiritually. The Egos wrath at being discovered is unknowable, while the Spirits whisper of love and reason is sometimes unwelcome. What could make a difference in minimizing the shock and hurt of the moment of disclosure is how you view divorce and the it that hurts. Consider the following questions to help you decide on an approach to guide you. If you viewed divorce as part of an intricate game to keep your free will imprisoned, to diminish your power and maintain control over you, would you submit to the game or take control? If you understood that Fear and panic come from an Ego source (it) designed to keep you confused and longing for more, would you spin out of control or remain objective and negotiate what you need? If you adopted a new thinking of divorce as a spiritual act, which is natural and necessary for self-actualization versus the worldview that divorce is an event that happens to you, would that ease your mind? If you could choose whom to take on your journey, Ego or Spirit, which would you choose? You may be thinking those questions sound good and my answers make no difference if my ex-spouse does not cooperate. That thought would be right coming from Ego

The Moment of Disclosure: Getting in the Game

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and the game. If you reclaimed your spiritual birthright: free will and the power to create based on thoughts, your answers will inspire you. Remember, the majority of the action is really taking place in the mind. You choose whether to interact with your Ego, whose goal is separation and death, or Spirit, who wants peace and union, whether you stay married or not. Which perspective empowers you?

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