subject: Know The Obstacle Which Can Keep You From Real Divorce Support? [print this page] How to Create the Life You Want After Your Divorce: Characteristics to show you the RIGHT way to create a life of abundance, love, fulfillment, passion, & happiness Part 4: Resolving Distress:
Before I share with you the challenges for you to overcome in order to develop a strong and secure sense of self, and what you can do to accomplish that task, there's one more aspect of a insecure sense of self I want you to be aware of: Distress.
When someone with a weakened sense of self experiences distress within their own life or watches someone they care about or are dependent on in some way in distress they don't know how to handle it. They feel completely powerless & at a loss as to what to do. Perhaps you even feel victimized by events or circumstances in which you're experiencing distress. When distress is experienced, you are unable to defend against it; you don't have any effective or healthy defense mechanisms.
What this means to you is when you or someone you care about is in distress your problems will not only significantly increase, their potency and intensity will significantly multiply as well. And if you are unable to learn how to defend yourself against distress, employ effective & healthy defense mechanisms, and/or allow your partner to experience distress without it causing intense anxiety within you, you will not be able to resolve or get past any of your problems. In fact, the opposite is true: One or both of you will feel more bitterness, resentment; "stonewall" more (basically shut down and be unwilling to talk); blame more often; and be more critical.
What is "distress"? Distress is basically being in a position in life where you feel stuck; you do not know how to move forward, you are losing hope rapidly and may already be hopeless; you feel less powerful; you are experiencing a much higher sense of stress than normal; nothing you do seems to work. Some examples of distress are: job loss, birth of a child, death of a loved one, moving, an affair (or even the belief or suspicion of an affair), retirement, a child moving away from home, losing your home, severe debt (spending more than your bringing in), abuse, trauma (car accident, assault, death of a pet, unresolved grief), medical emergency, or some other crisis, and so forth.
And when you don't have a strong and secure sense of self instead of turning "toward" someone who's a 'safe person' for you in distress and making yourself available to them, you turn "away" and isolate. You avoid others and attempt to ignore the distress and the event(s) or situation(s) stimulating the sense of distress. You seek false comfort (drinking, substance use, compliments from those other than your spouse, excessive working out or dieting, thrill-seeking, pornography, masturbation, fantasy life, and so forth). What this means to you is your problems will become much worse, you will argue and fight more and more intensely or you'll become more and more distant from others basically living like a cave man (or cave woman).
Be encouraged: Everyone experiences distress in their life, and usually more than once, twice or three times. Any major life even has the ability to trigger a sense of distress; whether your moving, starting a new job, lost in the woods (literally and figuratively), a child is moving away, you purchase a home, and so forth. I've experienced distress multiple times and even though I handled it poorly for the first several times I still got through it; it didn't kill me, it wasn't the end of the world (as I thought would happen). I didn't make great choices at first in response to distress & in some ways I'm still dealing with those consequences. Yes, I have regrets as to some of the decisions I made just to try and avoid my feelings of distress, just to feel better.
Yet as I was able to develop a more and more secure and strong sense of self (and so can you!) I responded better and better to distress. I made better decisions. It became easier to deal with distress, and the length of distress became shorter and shorter. I learned better defense mechanisms (meaning healthy and effective ones instead of the negative and useless ones I had learned growing up). Now, I feel confident I can deal with any distress when it comes my way (not if). It's not fun (and never will be when you experience distress) but you CAN learn to master it. Think of distress this way: When you tried to ride a bike for the first time it was scary, wasn't it? You fell down & probably cried. Maybe you felt embarrassed. Perhaps you thought you were letting your parents down. Maybe you got up and tried again...only to fall back down and get scraped up. It hurt. It wasn't easy, it felt uncomfortable...until...you nailed it! And now, it ain't no thing to jump on a bike and ride around if you want. You may not go out and win any bike races, but you can ride without falling down, without getting hurt. Well, distress is similar; it'll kick your butt for the first few times until you learn the SKILLS I'll teach you to handle and master distress so it's something you simply experience and go through.
In the fourth part of this section I'm going to tie everything together; explain WHY criticism, your someone you care about's mood, and distress have the affect they have on you; and some action steps you CAN take which will help you to resolve your problems & get the divorce you want by developing a secure sense of self. You will NOT want to miss out on this!
P.S.: Was this helpful to you? Did you learn something new or were you reminded of something you needed to be reminded of? I'd love to hear your comments or questions! Either leave a comment or email me at brian@ProvenDivorceSupport.com. If there's someone you care about & think this might be a benefit to them as well, do them a favor and "Pass it on!"
P.S.: Was this helpful to you? Did you learn something new or were you reminded of something you needed to be reminded of? I'd love to hear your comments or questions! If there's someone you care about & think this might be a benefit to them as well, do them a favor and "Pass it on!"
