I’m inviting you to take a few moments, take a few breaths, and as you focus on what a beautiful day it is here and hopefully where you are, go inside and see if you can find a feeling that you haven’t been letting yourself feel.
If it’s a big feeling like sadness or fear or anger or pain, just invite that feeling to titrate.
What does it mean to titrate? it’s like when a nurse comes into a hospital and adjusts the rate of the drip in the IV bag. You can ask your feelings to come out a drip at a time, instead of overwhelming you.
Let’s invite our feelings to titrate in a way that we can handle instead of ignoring them, instead of denying them, instead of staying too busy or eating too much.
Wherever you are now, let’s just connect with our hearts, with each other, and just for a moment allow ourselves to feel a feeling.
Sometimes when we’re lucky enough to have friends that we can feel our feelings with we’re very blessed. In the meantime, we can be our own friend to ourself and allow ourselves to feel what we need to feel.
We don’t need to eat too much or drink too much or deny them or repress them or suppress them, we can just be with what we feel. Even if we can’t be with it because it’s not right right time, let’s just send our feelings some hugs.
Let’s just your feelings know you know they’re there. Go deeper and deeper and send love to your inner child if she or he is still suffering from something unacknowledged, sending love to your inner bride or inner groom who may have some feelings.
I think when we don’t allow ourselves to feel our feelings we get all bottled up, we get stuck, we get heavy, and dense, and slow, and sluggish, and moody.
If we could just acknowledge time to journal or meditate or take a walk or sit in nature or connect with someone we love or cry or vent or scream or whatever you need.
Just take a minute or two. Even if you don’t have that minute or two to be with the feelings, send them hugs. Let them know you’re there, let them know you’re aware.
In the quiet, compassionate, witnessing awareness that we can give our feelings, those parts of us that we exile or ignore, when we take just a few moments to give them the attention they can transform.
We’re just going to take a look at what it’s like to be in nature, to be in a place where we can explore our inner being and not have to do, be, do.
Here’s my little spot, right there, welcome you to join me, and here’s what it \looks like when I come here.
I just knew I wanted to be with you today. Nothing special, just sending love, and sending a request if you choose to join me, and taking a moment to take a breath and take a look inside and be with ourselves in a loving, compassionate, giving way that will give so many other people in our lives.
Even a few moments will make the difference. We can all pretend we’re taking a little walk deeper, and deeper, and deeper into the core of our being where everything we meet here is love; so your sad parts, your vulnerable parts, your hurt parts, your envious parts, your judgmental parts — just love them all. In loving them all they can transform.
Then when you’ve hugged your feelings send a lot of love and hugs, and understanding, and compassion to the feelings of the people in your life.
You can never have too much love, empathy or compassion.
In this moment of feeling our feelings, allowing them to breathe, bringing compassion to ourselves and ultimately to others, we can also just join hearts and hands in this beautiful experience of life.
Whatever you might be challenged with or struggling with, now or in the past, just allow yourself to feel and reach out for help.
Ask people you love to support you so that you know you’re not alone. Just know I’m sending you a lot of love, a lot of light, a lot of compassion.
Your fear can be a big feeling, but if we just allow ourselves to feel it and just tune in to what you’re afraid of that can dissipate. We don’t have to stay too busy to be afraid, we can just deal with our fear and share it because it’s universal, everything we feel is universal.
Just like the tree is supported by the earth, so too are we. Take a few deep breaths, belly breaths, and as your feet touch the ground, wherever you are, just imagine growing roots to the center of the earth.
Imagine as those roots grow deeper and wider you’re going to feel very firmly rooted, and planted, and grounded.
Invite up from the earth some nurturing and supportive energy. It goes from your feet up through your legs, your thighs, your hips, your groin, your stomach, your chest, and into and around your heart, with all the feelings that you have.
Then allow that nurturing energy from the earth to go up through your throat, your jaw, behind your eyes, your forehead, to the crown of your head, and out the crown of your head all the way to the sky.
Then invite down from the sky, universe, mother nature, higher power, God, what’s ever out there, invite down some very calm and compassionate energy.
Breathe even bigger than yourself so you surround yourself with this calm, compassionate energy. Then focus that compassion inward and find any place in your body where you’re holding tension or tightness, where you’ve got a thought or a feeling, and just allow yourself to be with it.
You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to make sense of anything, you don’t have to fix anything, you don’t have to change anything, just allow yourself to be.
In that being-ness you’re bringing full presence to the moment.
With your full presence, full awareness, and open heart, your feelings have a place to move and be embraced. As you feel your feelings you might want to journal (or not) or you just might want to take a moment or two and know that you’ve given them some attention.
Thanks for being here, thanks for being with yourself.
Spend a few more moments with yourself and come back and join me at the Botanic either virtually, or like some people can hopefully soon, in person.
Sending you a lot of love, a lot of light, and a lot of hopes for a beautiful day filled with all kinds of feelings and, most of all, ones that bring you gratitude and joy.
Sending you love, bye for now.
xoxoxo
p.s. Feel your feelings so that you can transform them, release them, and let them go. Then you have room for more peace, love and joy. Y
You Can Heal and Transform
Your Relationship
with Your Former Spouse.
Even though your divorce is over, you may have lingering unresolved issues with your “ex.” Don’t give up hope on improving your relationship. It’s never too late! Get your FREE CHAPTER and apply the information in it to help heal and transform your “post-divorce” relationship
Your Family Can Be Peacefully and Respectfully Restructured.
The Way Forward Starts with SELF
You once promised to love your partner forever, and now you’re thinking about a divorce. You are probably wondering if this is the best decision, and worried about the effects on your children and your partner. You can make decisions with mutual respect and peaceful dialogue. I’ve helped thousands of individual and couples to learn a new way to communicate so they can discuss all their issues as they heal and transform their relationship—even under the most contentious circumstances.
If you have children, you don’t want them to suffer from an adversarial process that pits one parent against the other. You can resolve your differences and co-create an amicable co-parenting relationship. If you don’t have children, you can heal your heart and be free to move into the next chapter of your life with a sense of empowered liberation.
“Should I stay or should I go?”
How many times have you asked yourself this question—over how many days, weeks, months, years, even decades?
Do you feel like your relationship is difficult and don’t know how to change it?
Have you been thinking about leaving, but are afraid to bring it up?
Have you had marriage counseling that didn’t work?
Are you too “checked out” to even try again?
Do you feel angry, hopeless, defeated, disconnected?
Are you considering leaving your relationship, but not sure what to do next?
Are you reluctant to talk with an attorney because that would make the situation “real?
Have you “threatened” to leave for so long that your partner doesn’t believe you anymore?
Right now, you may be suffering in silence or engaged in all-out war with your partner.
But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Many couples play our their emotional dramas without regard to the collateral damage they inflict on their innocent children. Two people who once cared enough to promise to love and cherish each other can begin to feel fear and anger after years of pain and unmet needs.
The more experience I have counseling these hurting individuals, the more I have compassion for the profound sadness underneath the rage. And no matter how far apart a man and wife can become emotionally and physically, their children are caught in the middle and continue to feel the strife.
Families do not have to be “broken”, but can be peacefully and respectfully re-structured.
Whether you are stuck in an emotionally abusive situation, considering a divorce, in the middle of one, or long past the date of dissolution, if you are still angry and/or anxious in the company of your (ex)spouse, there is healing that can be done.
It starts with compassion – for yourself at first, and then eventually for your (former) partner.
No matter what the reasons are that cause a union to terminate, there is pain and sadness and fear on both sides. Learning how to acknowledge those feelings, and to be met with empathy and understanding, is a gift you give your whole family, beginning with yourself.
Your children will only have one biological mother and father, no matter how many other partners are introduced into their lives. Children of all ages seek on some level to have a “happy family.”
If you can’t find a way to live with the other parent, you can find a way to connect with civility, courtesy, and even kindness.
Healing can happen, and it starts with you.
Some of my clients ask me, “Why should I have to do any more work? I was always the only one who cared enough to try harder!”
The work you do is ultimately for your own personal growth. With or without your (former) partner present, you can explore the origins of your own pain and anger, and learn how to relay your needs in words that don’t sound blaming or judgmental. You can learn how to calmly talk about your sadness and your fears, even if the end result is a decision to leave your marriage.
And if your divorce has already begun, you can find a way to reframe your experience so that it becomes a catalyst for forgiveness and a healthy letting go of pain. As you heal, your children benefit from your inner peace. And then you are truly free to go on with your own life, unburdened from the wounds of your past.
Divorce is the death of a dream.
When you get married to someone you love, you do not think you will ever get divorced. When faced with the end of your marriage, the grieving must be done. Calcifying your loss with indifference, resentments, or cut-offs only exacerbates the heartache you and your children bear. Learning how to relate to the other parent with dignity and respect is a priceless gift of love to your child and ultimately to yourself.
Divorce itself does not cause the damage. It is the parental conflict and bitter feelings that leave the lifelong wounds.
Losing Your Marriage, Finding Your SELF
Victim or empowered? The choice is yours. You can exit a marriage with grace, no matter how long it’s been since you first said “I do”. And it is never too late to begin. The first step you take is the path to your authentic SELF a state of calm, clarity, compassion, creativity, courage, and confidence.
Compassionate Mediation®
Alone or with your partner, you can make decisions that will affect the rest of your life. You and your spouse can calmly discuss all issues in a compassionate way to lead to a peaceful and respectful resolution.
Post-divorce, healing can still be accomplished, with or without your former partner present. How did he/she remind you of your mother/father? What issues did you bring to the relationship? What can you learn to help you form more positive relationships in the future?
The Miracle of Empathy
Understanding and forgiving yourself and each other charts your course towards emotional liberation. As unbelievable as it may seem to you now, your future can be filled with peace and joy, and your children can have the benefit of parents who can both be present at important times in their lives.
If you don’t think it matters to your children any longer, just ask them.
You owe it to your “re-structured family”, and to yourself, to be open to the possibility of a healthier relationship.
It only takes one to start the process. You will be amazed at the difference it will make in all of your lives. You have inside of you all the answers you need. Take you time. Listen for your own voice. And take good care of your SELF.
How do you take the first step?
If you feel you’ve reached the end of your rope, that you can’t go on this way any longer—that you’re at a crossroads and don’t know which way to turn next—before you take a step in any direction, it’s time to come home to your SELF.
Love is the answer —and it all starts with loving your SELF.
We use many terms today to describe our most centered, compassionate and spiritual nature: for example, true self, inner wisdom, higher self, etc. Regardless of your beliefs, and in the interest of laying common ground and language between us, I call this best, most loving, wisest part of us—the SELF (all capital letters).
We’ve all had those moments when we feel, calm, clear and compassionate. Moments when we’re free of judgment or anger toward others, and simply respond from our hearts, our higher SELF. Think about those times when you just “knew” you were seeing the world from a “higher perspective.” And you didn’t have to force it. It just happened.
Whether you want to create
a more PASSIONATE Marriage or a COMPASSIONATE Divorce,
help is here now.
Please take a moment to tell me about your situation and I’ll send you a FREE Chapter of my award-winning book on Compassionate Mediation® and other resources to heal and transform your relationship – no matter what form it takes! Please click here.
You will be able to:
Be your best SELF now
Create a Compassionate Relationship
Explore All Your Options
Understand Your Finances
Create the Relationship You Desire and Deserve.
Compassionate Communication offers a new way to communicate to give you the tools to create something new and better – either alone or together. You can stop being reactive, defensive, judgmental or blaming and offer the best of who you are to your partner now.
With empathy, you communicate about all the issues that are causing you stress, and make decisions that are calm, clear and confident.
As you look at all the options you have to make changes – with yourself and between you both, you will see that transformation is possible, even if you’ve been hopeless for awhile.
Whether you are:
unhappy but hopeful
unhappy but stuck
separated
divorcing
post-divorce
You can change how you feel about your situation as you add more peace, love and joy to your life.
Please SHARE with anyone who could use more calm and clarity during a challenging time! We can help heal and transform relationships and families now.
As a therapist, mediator and attorney, I am dedicated to helping change the face of divorce, one heart at a time.
A Compassionate Divorce
Heals Your Re-Structured Family
Families need not be “broken,” but can be peacefully and respectfully “re-structured.”
If your marriage in in conflict, if you are separated now or even in the middle of your divorce, you can proceed with compassion, empathy and respect.
Create the Relationship You Desire and Deserve!
No two relationships are alike.
If you take a moment to tell me about yours,
I can offer you solutions to help you make the changes you need now. Click HERE to get your FREE RELATIONSHIP ASSESSMENT.
It will be sent to you, along with an invitation to my next LIVE Webinar.
You don’t have to destroy your family, even as you end your marriage. Click here to learn.
Linda Kroll, a therapist, mediator, attorney, and author has worked with hundreds of individuals and couples for over 25 years. She shares that Compassionate Divorce is not only possible, but a healing opportunity for your future.
Compassionate Mediation® leads to a Compassionate Divorce, and healing and transformation for the future.
You once loved your partner enough to promise to love them for a lifetime. Your story about the current relationship has caused you to choose to leave. Or your partner wants a divorce and you have to respond.
Marriages end for different reasons:
Unmet needs and expectations
Irreconcilable differences
Abuse, addictions, affairs
Growing apart
(put your reason here….)
Whatever your issue, the same emotions appear in one or both parties: sadness, fear, anger, terror, rage, confusion, pain, longing, hopelessness, hope, regrets, guilt…. and more.
You need to acknowledge the roller coaster of feelings even as you negotiate the legal and financial details.
Compassionate Mediation® supports you as you:
Be your best Self
Create a compassionate relationship
Explore all your options
Understand your rights and finances
Create the relationship you desire and deserve.
Linda’s clients say:
“I learned there could be a Compassionate Divorce.”
“I imagine that working with me and my spouse was quite challenging as we both brought a lot with us while dealing with intense life issues. Once the difficult decisions were further along, there was space to let concepts into my mind and heart of empathy and compassion.
“Linda always seemed to maintain an ability to stay above the fray, and she taught me how to come from my Highest Self. I feel that I understood the meaning of Highest Self immediately, yet before being introduced to that concept by Linda, I don’t think that I operated from that place often enough. I am now am working toward living my best life, from my Highest Self, looking for good things for myself, my newly structured family, and for the greater good in my business and personal life.” — Paul
“Linda guided us mindfully through the impact of divorce.” “My (former) husband and I owned a business together and worked together every day. We wanted to dissolve our marriage but not lose our company in the process. Linda helped us sort out the dysfunctional parts of the relationship from the parts of our relationship that still worked and we wanted to retain, allowing us to continue to work together, successfully, for years. She helped us separate from each other in a mutually respectable way so that I could move past my anger and disappointment in the failed relationship.
She also helped us stay focused on what was really important: our 3 year old child, making him the center of most of our decisions, asking ourselves what was best for him as we wrote our joint parenting agreement. When our son attended a group for kids of divorced parents at his school, they thought he was fantasizing when he told the counselor his parents worked together every day. Not only was Linda able to guide and advise us mindfully through the psychological and physical impact of divorce, but also the legal aspects, helping us as she wrote our divorce decree to suit our needs.”
—Gina
“I came to Linda seeking mediated divorce documents and came out with nothing but peace and hope.”
“Linda’s unwavering pursuit of compassion and dogged exploration into the emotional history of both our lives was incredibly revelatory. I came to understand how little I understood myself emotionally as well as how much pain I had suppressed, hidden, or avoided. I was able then to see my wife as a person to be respected, instead of a problem to be solved, and now am party to perhaps the best divorce the world has seen. My relationship with my ex-wife now is better than it ever was when we were married. Our child has performed a full reversal of negative behaviors to become a desired friend, colleague, and leader in her social circles.”
–Jeremy
Yes, you can believe it!
Perhaps that is hard to realize when you are suffering from unmet needs and expectations. You may have built walls around your heart to protect yourself from being hurt. You have negative filters through which you see and judge your partner (and often yourself), and you keep believing the same stories you have been telling yourself.
You have explained the reasons why you are unhappy to friends, family and maybe a therapist. You may have hired an attorney to begin the divorce process, and told them your perspective as they go to court on your behalf.
Your children may be caught in the middle of a cold war or an all out conflict, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The biggest gift you can gift your children is to minimize conflict between you and your spouse.
You can learn a new way to communicate now, and spare your children from the shrapnel of your animosity.
You can choose to separate and divorce with peaceful conversations about all the issues you need to resolve.
A new method of conflict resolution will give you the tools you need to re-structure you family in the highest good for all concerned .
With Compassionate Communication, no subject is off limits. When you relate to your partner with empathy, even at this life-changing experience, it gives you an invaluable opportunity to heal even as you individuate.
You have both done the best you know how to do. You can become more calm, clear and confident as you ask for and receive what you want and need.
Why compassion when you’re so angry or hurt?
Remember to start with compassion for yourself!
Acknowledge your feelings, have the courage to talk about your needs, find support for yourself as you embark on a transformational process.
You will get through your divorce, but HOW you navigate the process will affect the future of yourself and your family.
If you have children, you will always be in contact with your “ex.” The way you relate, and even the energy you experience when you think about your former spouse is picked up by your children.
They marinate inside the relationship you build, no matter what form it takes. Why not give them an environment of peace and respect instead of animosity and blame?
You will have to grieve your loss.
You don’t expect to get divorced. It wasn’t supposed to happen to you. It was for the other 50% of the population. You will have to feel your feelings and the denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance that comes with the death of a relationship.
But your relationship does not have to die. It can shift into something new and better than it is now. You can model for your children how conflict can be resolved, and peace can be restored, even with a new way of relating and living apart.
But don’t get stuck in the typical adversarial process. You can bring a whole new way of being to your relationship as you negotiate a better future.
When you create a Compassionate Divorce, you heal relationships from the past and moving forward.
You have the power to create an atmosphere of respect for your extended family — and even in future step-family situations.
No matter how much pain you feel right now, or how hopeless it feels, get your free chapter so that —
Together, we can change the face of divorce, one heart at a time.
