Erica Stevens - Thrive After Divorce

09/06/2023

SORRY...I'M JUST DONE.

Many years ago I heard a story on "This American Life."

It was told by a woman who had had a totally normal, busy life with 3 young children...until she sent them off to school with a friend one day.

There was a car accident, and the friend—along with all 3 children in the backseat—died.

What the narrator said next still haunts me: "You can get used to anything."

You can get used to anything.

No matter how heavy the weight on your heart. No matter how little you're sleeping. Or how unrecognizable you are to yourself.

And it makes sense, doesn't it?

If we completely fell to pieces we wouldn't be able to feed ourselves, go to work. Survive.

And in that sense it's good that we can get used to anything.

But it's also a big problem.

It allows us to stick our heads in the sand and keep going through the motions, even if that means giving up on all the things that give our lives meaning: close, connected relationships with people who truly see us; purposeful work; a rock-solid conviction that we are loveable.

Getting those things, especially after a traumatic divorce (and there's no other kind!), takes courage.

Because there is risk involved. And lots of investment.

Change is incredibly scary.

And not just because there's always the chance you'll fall on your face.

But because you might succeed.

Then there's no excuse to stop...and the challenges just keep coming.

That's when the real work begins.

True happiness requires loving yourself enough to chase it.

Not just for a moment or when you feel like it, but All. The. Time.

And that is the biggest investment of all.

Because a human life is hard to maintain!

Just think of everything it needs to flourish: rest, stimulation, community, support, love, visibility, closeness, space, freedom, beauty, fun, laughter... and the list goes on and on!

And none of it is automatic.

You have to go after it relentlessly.

But how?

If you never learned that you HAVE needs, let alone how to meet them, it can feel totally overwhelming.

Unless you have a roadmap...and the support of women who know EXACTLY what you're going through, because they've been there too.

That's what my clients are getting in my new coaching intensive for divorced women.

It's 8 weeks of hands-on coaching, all geared to giving you the skills, tools and confidence you need to start loving yourself fully... so you can get back to YOU... and start dreaming again.

When you invest in yourself like that, there's just no way you won't get results. FAST.

So if you're ready to say, "I'm just done..." with half-living...with being sad, lonely and scared all the time... And you're ready to be YOU again...

Then PM me now.

We'll talk about what you're up against and see if this new program can help.

Until then, be well, and I look forward to getting to know you!

Best,
Erica

Send a message to learn more

08/31/2023

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WOMEN LET THEIR ROLES DEFINE THEM

My mother-in-law is going through the health gauntlet right now, and it’s made me think about the life she’s led as a wife and mother for 50 years.

Very bright, she was the first in her family of farmers to go to University, and on a hefty scholarship at that. She studied home economics for 18 months before she learned she was pregnant and dropped out to get married and start a family—the only reasonable path she could see at the time.

Eventually she did go back and finish, when her three children were in school, but she likely did it with a complicated mix of guilt and shame. About wasting her scholarship the first time around, because she was a “slut” (her mother told her so, as did her doctor). And about selfishly choosing to fulfill her career goals.

My mother-in-law has always fascinated me. The woman has never once, until recently, decided to lie down to rest during the day. She insisted on washing the outside of her second story windows herself well into her sixties. And would plough the driveway herself after her husband had a debilitating stroke. No outdoor task was too big for her.

And inside? Watch out. Everyone who enters that house, family or not, is a guest when she’s around. Forget about going into the fridge to poke around. She’s always there, asking what you’d like to drink or eat, cycling through the litany of options even as you start to drink the water you just poured, or eat the sandwich you just made.

This kind of servility isn’t courtesy, or generosity, or graciousness. It’s compulsion. Because the people on the other end of it don’t have any say in what’s happening. It (usually) has nothing to do with what they might need or want. It’s all about the giver, about the main way she derives self-esteem: in her role as hostess, caregiver, servant.

This phenomenon isn’t limited to women, but I’m sure you can recognize it easily in some of the women you know (and maybe yourself), especially those from my MIL’s generation.

It’s one of the things that can happen when you grow up feeling unimportant, because your own caregivers didn’t attend to your needs in a timely way or show interest in your feelings and inner life.

After some trial and error you discover, as a child, that if you bend yourself into a pretzel trying to please others, or take care of them, you get a little praise, a little bit of positive attention. And at some point you decide, unconsciously, that if you can be a superstar servant, people won’t leave you, and you’ll be loved.

Of course, this isn’t true. Others still leave sometimes. And even if they don’t, people whose whole identity is role-based have an invisible barrier between them and any true intimacy.

My MIL’s flurry of activity in the kitchen keeps her from participating in any real exchange with the other people in it, and this is partly by design. She’s probably terrified, deep down, of being exposed, because on some level she believes she IS unimportant, not smart or good enough, basically unlovable.

But in protecting herself from being seen, she also keeps others at bay, and deprives herself of the opportunity to know and to love, and to be known and loved.

It’s sad. Going through life like this isn’t just physically exhausting, it’s terribly lonely, too.

And there’s only one way to fix it. By addressing the low self-esteem—all those feelings of inadequacy—at its root.

How? By identifying one’s own needs, passions and gifts, and acting on them out in the world.

Being a mother is not a full-time career beyond the early years of our children’s lives.

Women need more than motherhood and being a wife to maintain a healthy self-esteem. They need a fulfilling purpose, and sources of joy outside of their families—just like men.

Only then then can they escape that crushing sense of loneliness, those fears of abandonment and that driving compulsion to serve until their body physically won’t let them.

Only then can they enjoy an intimate relationship in which they can love and be loved, and experience real happiness.

If you’d like to learn more about finding your true identity, PM me about my coaching intensive for professional or executive women. I show women who feel lost without their roles of wife and mother how to rediscover their independent, joyful, lovable selves. If you’re ready to invest in yourself and your happiness, let’s chat to see if you’re a fit.

08/31/2023

What can happen when you don't know what you need or how to get it:

WHY GOOD WOMEN STAY IN BAD MARRIAGES

Women who finally manage to leave long, abusive, loveless marriages sing a common refrain: “What took me so long?”

And in most cases, the answer is complicated. Concerns about financial security, raising kids, proximity to family and friends are all factors.

But at base, it’s something more fundamental. Women—no, people—stay in bad relationships because it’s what they know.

Not just from years of being in an unsatisfying marriage with their husbands, but from before. From growing up in homes where, for whatever reason, they didn’t get the message that they and their feelings are important and worthy of exploration.

So when they end up with someone whose needs take precedence over their own, it feels normal. And when they put 110% of their focus and energy towards making sure their kids, family, and friends have what they need before even considering what they want, it feels normal.

In fact, until and unless things in the marriage become dire and resentment overtakes them, or until something else big changes in their lives, they often aren’t even aware they have needs, let alone what they are.

Because this wasn’t the language they learned growing up.

What did they learn? The language of invisibility: how to serve, how to care for, how to soothe, how to walk on eggshells, how to avoid, how to repress, how to be lonely even when surrounded by family.

Here’s the thing: it’s easy to look at an abusive marriage, especially in retrospect, and say it needed to end. It’s not so easy to look back at seemingly intact relationships and acknowledge that lots of them needed to end, too.

For example, those relationships that ended with the husband leaving abruptly, often after one or more affairs—they were broken before the affair, whether both parties were aware of it or not.

But being blindsided can be so devastating, so shocking, sometimes the easiest way to make sense of it is to blame the one who left for being an expert impersonator.

On the other hand, the one who was left might say they thought had the perfect marriage, because they had beautiful, successful kids; a nice home; didn’t fight. They might say their partners seemed happy, and they were happy, too.
What’s more likely is both partners were acting out their childhood dramas, surviving on emotional fumes. In this case, “happy” really means “comfortable.” Not connected, supported, seen, loved.

Because comfortable deprivation is still deprivation.

And in case you’re wondering, it’s impossible for one person to set up this kind of dynamic on their own. It always, always takes two to create an unsatisfying relationship—even if it’s worse for one person than the other.

Why is this important?

Because just as women sometimes beat themselves up for not having left an abusive marriage sooner, women who are left abruptly can get stuck blaming their husbands for ruining their lives.

They spiral into depression, believing their husbands stole the happiness and joy they were entitled to. They can’t get off the couch or out of bed, can’t stop crying. They can’t sleep. Their kids start to pull away.

They’re convinced they’ll never find another relationship. And that without an intact family, they’ll never know joy again, either.

And it’s all his fault. Because things were great before.

This is real-life purgatory, and it can last years if you let it.

How many of you know that one woman who’s been divorced for a decade but her ex-husband and marriage still live in her head as much now as when they were married?? And she’s still miserable.

And it’s tragic, because this idea that divorce and devastation are clearly the result of one person’s actions? It’s just a fantasy. Even for those women whose husbands really are bad people who do bad things.

Even then, the women had a role in what happened to them. Because we ALWAYS have a role in what happens to us. Even if that role is only looking the other way, making excuses, tolerating deprivation for too long, or enabling bad behaviour.

So when you insist on keeping this kind of fantasy alive—the one where you’re as helpless as a child and think you need someone or something to rescue you from your pain, or you’ll just live out your days going through the motions—you are your own jailer. Not your ex. Not the world “out there.” Not your circumstances. You.

But there’s good news. If you are your own jailer, you also have the keys to your freedom.

It starts with acceptance: a willingness to embrace the facts of reality no matter how scary. And a desire to accept responsibility for the shape your life takes.

Accepting your own power to change your circumstances and the way you engage in the world, and to choose healthy relationships and learn how to maintain them, can be overwhelming and scary at first. But it’s the only way to recover from divorce and build a life you find truly rewarding, one full of support, peace of mind, and a new loving relationship.

You get that by developing courage, confidence, and an unflinching decision to take control.

Victimhood—helplessness—is the surest way to misery. But finding your way out of it is a choice like any other.

When you choose power, you can recover from divorce in months, not years. So can you really afford not to?

And if you’re not sure where to begin, PM me. We can talk and see if my coaching intensive for professional or executive women would be a good fit. I help women rediscover their own power and the unique identities they lost in the course of their marriage—in just over two months.