In a recent workshop, there was a woman giving a lecture on the way our mind works. She took a large piece of paper and started to write down some of the positive emotions on the piece of paper, and then some negative emotions, followed by exciting emotions and later, by emotions causing fear, creating a paper filled with all kinds of emotions. The emotions were placed strategically. Once the exercise ended, the sheet was folded about the size of an 8.5″ X 11″ piece of paper, and the square that was visible to the human eye only contained negative and fearful emotions.
Why?
The first question that comes to one’s mind is why are we only seeing the negative side of things and the emotions of fear and not the more positive ones also written down on the same piece of paper? The answer is because that is how our mind works. All of us have a wide range of positivity in our life and yet, when we are triggered, our mind can only set its sights on the negative stuff in our life.
Lessons to Be Learned
This is a great example to learn lessons from in life. Yes, your marriage didn’t work; yes, you may have been left wanting in life, yes, you were unable to achieve all that you wanted to with this relationship. Yet, much like the piece of paper, your relationship has had positives and negatives and during the talk of divorce, those positives shouldn’t be forgotten. There was a reason you started a relationship with your spouse, and then went ahead and started a family and had kids. Before your divorce, they were someone you wanted to spend your life with and did. The fact that your life couldn’t work well together doesn’t mean their positives no longer exist. This is why it is important to look at the big picture in life in general and in a divorce in particular. As much as you hate it, you will have to accept that even after a divorce, you cannot end all ties with your spouse. You will have a relation of being a parent even after the divorce and you’ll have to share that with your ex-spouse. For that, it is important that you aren’t on bitter terms with the other spouse. Keeping view of the big picture which has some positives as well as negatives is helpful in divorce mediation. The process is all about cooperation, conversations and coordination. You will have to agree to the resolution of your divorce with your spouse. It would be easier to do so if you had some element of positivity in your mind about your spouse. A divorce can be emotionally and physically draining, but to ensure that it is not financially stressful, it’s best if you opt for divorce mediation in Orange County or elsewhere, where you get to decide your future.