A few of you know that this has been a year of great transition for my children and I. There have been situations arise from seemingly nowhere. There have been many "highs and lows" both physically and emotionally (spiritually, too, I might add). Quite a roller coaster ride. I went to Houston one day with my kids. Can't remember where we were....but I picked up a free "take one" publication. I just sorta flipped thru it and came upon this article. I thought that I would share it with you all. As it seemed to make lots of sense to me.

Here it is:

Change vs. Transition
The words "change" and "transition" are often, mistakenly, used interchangeably, according to change expert William Bridges. He clarifies the difference beteween change and transition in the following way:

Change is situational. Its something new. Its external.

Transition is a psychological process we go through in coming to terms with a change. It is internal.

"Unless transitions occur, change will not work." Bridges says.

(Also in this magazine, there is another highlighted area that I might as well tack on here.....)

"Making Successful Transitions"

"It isn't the changes that do you in, it's the transitions," writes William Bridges in his best selling 1991 book, Managing Transitions. There are generally three phases of transition, Bridges explains: the ending, the neutral zone and the new beginning.
The transition and change guru offers the following suggestions for effectively navigating these three phases:
-Before beginning something new, you must end what's old.
-Identify what's changing/ending and what you're letting go of. Define what's over and what isn't. Mark the ending in some way.
-Think about what other (secondary) changes the change will cause.
-Acknowledge and accept the reality and importance of any losses involved.
-Grieving for the old is a natural part of the transition process. Share your feelings.
-Recognize that the "neutral zone," the mid-transition period between the ending of something and the new reality, is an important and necessary part of the process. It is here that many people stumble, because the old is gone and the new is not yet familiar of comfortable. Though many people try to, the journey through the neutral zone can't really be rushed, Bridges says. And to abandon the neutral zone altogether is to abort the transition.
-The neutral zone is often your best opportunity for creativity, renewal and development.
-When you've worked your way through the neutral zone, then your're ready to fully undertake the new beginning. ---Bill Lindsay

(makes sense to me. I just hate the process!!!)


More from me....

Not sure which area this was appropriate for. So, I chose "real life".

God bless!

Donna

Seems like the right place to me. Thank you for this. It served as a good checkpoint. Early on before reading the entire thing, words like accept, let go, reality check etc. came to mind. It was nice to see them further on. The good news is, although a chore and a lot of hardwork in the beginning it does eventually become automatic. The things you learn when the journey begins take root and start overflowing into all areas on a daily basis. Acceptance and letting go are very hard in the beginning until we realize how controlling we tend to be.

yeah, it works here

Good subject, I've been 'transitioning' for years it seems like, some areas go faster than others, some don't seem to be moving at all and then 'wham! - I let go of the steering wheel and let God do the driving and things start moving again

Isn't that just like Him?

/

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A few of you know that this has been a year of great transition for my children and I.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">*chuckles*

It sounds as if someone is riding in the same boat as me.

I completely understand the highs and lows on that emotional roller coaster ride. I sometimes wonder if the ride will ever end.

Up until recently I had bever really thougt about change or transition. But.....sometimes these things are forced upon us against our own choosing.

OK, so the old has ended. With my wife's recent divorce I would have to accept that this has definately ended in her eyes.

It's the letting go that is killing me. The adapatation of living somewhere else. Of not being able to see our children each day as they get off the bus. Not helping with homework. Geez, for that matter, not having to wash tons of clothes, make beds, sweep, mop or even take out 10 bags of trash each week. Those things I miss.


-Acknowledge and accept the reality and importance of any losses involved.
-Grieving for the old is a natural part of the transition process. Share your feelings.

The acknowledging part is easy, accepting the realities and losses is another story. Would this count as sharing your feelings? And the grieving process? I promise you that I still love my wife. But in this grieving I attempt to bury (in a good sense) and she keeps getting up out of her grave. Just about when I think I have managed to put a part of this to rest she throws another monkey wrench in and I have to start all over again. Oh! how it hurts. Things I have learned! Sin has two brothers. They are named sorrow and death. And they each bring their own share of pain.

-Recognize that the "neutral zone," the mid-transition period between the ending of something and the new reality, is an important and necessary part of the process. It is here that many people stumble, because the old is gone and the new is not yet familiar of comfortable. Though many people try to, the journey through the neutral zone can't really be rushed, Bridges says. And to abandon the neutral zone altogether is to abort the transition.

I guess if I ever got out of the greiving stage I could transition into this stage. Can I abandon this stage? Not likely! It is during this stage that we will see many areas of growth. Emotional, spiritual and how we conduct ourselves. I know that I do not want to ruch this stage but the world sure seems to feel different about it. Those who tell you to just suck it up and get on with life. Let go, she does not need you anymore. She's no good, get on with your life.

Granted, I would think that most who make these type comments and never experienced what one is going through. I guess that's why God allows some of us to experience this type of pain and sorrow. So that when the time comes we are better ble to understand exactly what that person is going through. But.....until you have walked in those shoes it is hard to show empathy and comapssion. In addition to the feeling that you get from old friends. In divorce even these people begin to treat you as if you had a disease or something. Not sure of what to say or to say anything at all they begin to ignore you or pretend that nothing has happened. Oh! if it was only that easy.


Sincerely.....thanks for passing this on as it was needed today. Sort of keeps me on track as to where I have been, where I am, and where I am going.

Good words Saphy


It sounds like you have a lot of insight into your own situation Trusting Him. My pastor once said that "if you resent your process, you abort your purpose." That sounds pretty pertinant to the amount of changes you and Saphy are in the middle of right now.


God bless!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It sounds like you have a lot of insight into your own situation Trusting Him.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Insight, yes! Only because I went back to my first love. God's sustaining grace has enabled a LOT. But.....I can honestly say that it IS NOT a place that I would want others to be. Not even my worst enemies.

Now, if I could just be a bit more like that bannana.

Just an addition to Saphy's transition article. I stumbled across this tonight and it brought home the fact that it is ONLY God who can reach deep into the wound to clean it out properly.

~~~~~~~~~~
God as Healer
By Rose Sweet

I flew to the Midwest to visit my little brother, Fred, one of the top spine surgeons in the United States. Fred picked me up at the airport and told me he either could drop me off at his home to visit with his wife and their kids, or I could go with him to the Children's Hospital, where he'd just been called in for an emergency procedure. He would outfit me as a medical student and I could watch him perform the surgery. I agreed excitedly without stopping to think about what I was going to see. "Are you kidding? Let's go!"

Wearing blue scrubs, booties, cap and mask, I stood by Fred along side a gurney while he talked to the patient, a twelve-year-old boy. The boy's leg had been almost severed just below the knee in a playground accident. Dr. Fred assured him everything would be okay, and he was quickly wheeled into the operating room.

Four days earlier, the emergency room doctors had sewn the wound up and sent the boy home. However, he'd developed a high fever and when it reached 105 degrees the parents, worried and in tears, brought him back. It turned out the improperly cleaned wound was still filled with gravel, and some of the skin around the sutures had died and was spreading to healthy tissue. The boy's body was racked with infection, and the fever had signaled what was going on behind those stitches.

I'll never forget watching a sight that was together the most gruesome and most awesome I think I'll ever see. Within minutes the medical team had the boy under general anesthesia, draped, and ready for surgery. I was shocked at how aggressively Fred removed the stitches, reopened the wound, and stuck his sterilized and gloved hand right down into the boy's bloody leg to clean it out. As I stood nearby, I watched as my baby brother's skilled fingers quickly cleaned around flesh and bone and then delicately cut away dead tissue that was infecting the rest of the leg. After the wound was cleansed, Fred directed the assistant surgeon to close up while we left to find the boy's parents. The operation went well, Fred told them, and he gave Mom and Dad steps for follow-up care at home.

Divorce is like that boy's injury. It's never an intended hurt, but more like a terrible, unexpected accident, usually ripping apart family members and leaving a trail of emotional blood and guts. Too often we are quick to bind up the wounds and move on instead of getting to the deepest levels of pain and allowing God to heal us completely. After all, we've got jobs to do, kids to raise, and bills to pay, and life goes on. We're often ashamed of the fact that we have been divorced, and we tell ourselves, or our loved ones tell us, "Get on with it!"… "You'll get over it."… "Next year you'll feel better." But that's not usually the case.

Some of us have been carrying the unhealed wounds of divorce for years and the infection has spread, as it always does, into other areas of our lives: isolation, rebound relationships, workaholism or power parenting. That's why it's so important to reach deep into the wound to clean it out properly. If you're a parent, imagine your children as part of your family's healthy tissue. Failure to address the deepest emotional issues of your own divorce undoubtedly will cause the infection to be passed to them and succeeding generations. Kids pick up on your attitudes and get caught in the middle of raging emotions. Even if you don't have children, the hurt, pain, and bitterness of divorce can spread slowly into other healthy relationships.

Our physical health, too, usually suffers as we experience sleeplessness, headaches, eating problems, and addictions. Work can become even more stressful. Friendships can become damaged and we may start unhealthy new relationships. Maybe even worst of all, new marriages will be affected - or infected - by the poison of untreated divorces and the cycle will start all over.
Has it been a while since you were divorced? Maybe you feel fine and are dating others, or have found contentment in the single life. But maybe-just maybe-you still have hidden wounds that will surface later: distrust, anxieties, anger or avoidances. Ask God for the courage to take a look at your complete emotional and spiritual X-ray-and the grace to complete your healing.


Adapted From Chapter 2 of A Woman's Guide to Healing the Heartbreak of Divorce Hendrickson Publishers, Inc. 2001.

I'm not sure if anyone has ever presented it to you this way. Divorce is like death. There is a grieving period that will vary for each person. It's the death of a relationship/marriage. There is no time schedule for any grieving. Sometimes the stages of grieving revisit us. Don't anybody evfer let anyone tell you to get on with it and get over it. If you try doing that you are sure to fail yourself and all others your life touches. There's no easy way and ypou NEED to feel the feelings. Denying them only elongates the whole process. Remeber, tears are the first step to getting better. Of course, if the grieving takes too large a toll, there are professionals to help you through it.

I know this will seem to be to TH. It just happens to follow his post. The above is also true, for empty nesters, people fired or layed off, the loss of an animal, a major move (especially unexpected and unwanted) and the death of anything else that is held dear.

Ahhh....but if I remember correctly you word for a Hospice.

An old friend of mine left our church as Minister of Education to work for a Hospice in Mid Flordia. It was when he returned for a visit and gave a seminar on Grief. As i read threw the different stages of grief it was like a light bulb going above my head.

Ah Ha....no wonder I feel this way. No wonder after a period of time I just sometimes lose it and begin crying. No wonder, when out of the blue a single thought triggers floods and anger and sadness.

I read and then obtained a copy of his material. It was a wonderful insight to actually understand what was going on in me.

But.....unlike death...divorec has no real ending. I can go to my Grandmother's grave and know that it is final. With my former wife, I bury her and she keeps climbing back out of the grave. NO, it's not funny but I literally feel like that at times.

With three young children and a father who wants to be involved in their lives it makes thing a little harder.

TH, you are absolutely right! Divorce is like the living dead. I posted my post for all to read. Until a failed relationship and my counselor telling this to me I had never thought of grieving anything but death. Even subliminally we are taught that grief is reserved for death situations. We aren't taught that there are other things we grieve or die and that's why we don't know or understand what we are experiencing.

With death at hospice we ourselves and in counseling families deal with finality and closure a lot. The only thing final or that gets any closure is the fact that the body is gone never to be seen or talked to again. People don't understsand that sometimes either. Going to the grave may bring some comfort but it doesn't change the feelings of loss and pain. We say it doesn't get better it gets different. ie. I don't miss my mother any less than the day her body died. However, I'm no longer as affected by time of death, day of week, was I with her or not, and things like that, that are very important and real at the time. With my failed relationship, the what if's, what more's if only's etc. were very important and even became compulsive. When it got different they still existed but had less importance and hold on me.

In terms of death, the triggers that cause old feelings to renew themselves is known as residual grief. A sound, smell, location and any number of other triggers can put one back in the moment. People have gone for years and years never conciously giving thought to these sorts or things then boom it's very real and in your face. Unfortunately we have no choice but to once again deal with it. This too will get different with time.

I know this seems off topic but I feel it's all inetrelated. At hospice we have a memorial service every six weeks for those who have passed. Their family and friends are welcome to come and honor their memory. It isn't infrequently that those of us that are also part of the bereavement team hear people not just there or not even there because of the most recent loss. It just made them realize they hadn't dealth with a death a decade ago or more. They thought they had but then knew they hadn't. During the shock period and for quite a while after a loss is new to us God in his infinite wisdom seems to carry us through. For those forced into getting on with life or getting/snapping out of it they never actually go through the necessary steps to move on.

I'm rambling but if any of this helps you or others I guess it's worth it. TH this all still very new and fresh. I wish it could be different for you right now. It can't but know it will. Just as we think we want closure for loss it's not really true. If we actually could bring closure to it, it would negate the person ever existed. It would mean we stopped loving them and caring about them. What we truly want is for it to stop hurting so badly. In time it will. I promise.

All so true!

Do I want closure to this relationship? Can't close it as we still have three precious children to raise. But I would like to get to a point where the meatal images and awful thoughts have a less of an impact on my emotions and thought process. And for our children as well. They too hurt and must greive the loss of this relationship.

It has been five months since I moved out of the house, almost three since her divorce was final. Me? I try to go on with life but in a somewhat slower fashion than my former wife. I want to be able to at least reconcile to a friendship where we can communicate effectly for the sake of the children.

But...just tonight I was praying with our oldest daughter and she began to cry. I make a concentrated effort to not put her in a position where she would have to choose between either me or her mother, but she has asked that we pray for Mom.

What triggered these tears. Your guess would be as god as mine. At my age I find it hard to understand and make sense of this. I KNOW that it has to be hard for them. Either way, I quit praying aloud and began quitely praying to myself and just ler her cry. Forty five minutes she just laid there in my arms and cried, huge tears flowing and a whole box of kleenex.

My former wife has stated that this has had no effect on them. She seems to think that just because she has moved on with her life that the children should be there too. I'm sorry...I've read to much, talked to many people who have been here and spent way too much time in counseling to believe that they are not hurting.

But she did tell me that she never cries with her Mother. I asked her if it was something that I had said or done that triggered it. She said no, that she just felt like crying and she knew that she could with me and not be fussed at. Ouch!

So I do struggle with trying to help each of them cope knowing that they have to experience each and every thing that we do in this loss. That is sometimes hard when the other half of this thinks that everything is just fine with the children. She seems to think that as long as she is buying them new things that all will be well.

Wrong answer.

Much like a new relationship is Novacain to a broken heart, this staying busy and running around constantly only delays their healing process. Oh!, how I hurt for them.

P.S. Maybe it was the Joan of Arc movie we watched tonight tht triggered it. I know that there were many scenes that caused a few tears to be shed. But......!

I was suprised. It was a pretty awesome movie. I like her one statement that went something like this.

God is in control of everthing and everyone, even those who might not think so.

I'm so very sorry for the pain you and the children are experiencing. It's too bad their mother doesn't allow them to be themselves. Thank God you do.

I admire your wanting to at least be friendly and have open communication about the kids. You should probably allow that that may never happen and just do the best you can. It takes two and sounds like unless it's to her benefit she has no interest in friendship.

I suspect the reason she doesn't allow the children to cry or show sadness is because it bums her out and may raise guilt feelings. She does seem to be an "all about me" sort of person. You haven't even pushed that image but it's what comes through to an outsider I think. I'm not saying she is necessarily a bad person but suspect pretty self centered.

Although painful, feel blessed and honored by what your daughter ssiad and the way she behaves. That my friend is what true love is about. They're very fortunate to have you for their father.

Remember although you're not perfect you've done all you could to fix yourself and this marriage. No person could do more. To be moving at the pace she is there must have been something going on for a while now. If that isn't so, once again she's displaying the "all about me" thing. She seems to have no regard for the needs of her children only hers. IMHO she should have given the kids at least a year to recover some from the divorce. Introducing a new dad like this is cruel. I'll shut up anytime you want me to but sometimes an outsider can see a little more clearly than someone close to the situation.

You only have control over your and the kids relationship. She will do what she wants regardless of communication or anything else. Keep it real and good with the kids. It's all you can do for now. I truly believe the time will come when your wish for the thoughts and mental images to diminish or vanish will. Sometimes the harder we try to make something happen the longer it takes to happen. Try letting go a little more. As you couldn't force/make the marriage work, you won't be able to force/make the thoughts and images disappear either. Now you all are in my thoughts and prayers. Actually the ex too. I really more wouldn't want to be her than you or the kids.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> I'm not saying she is necessarily a bad person but suspect pretty self centered.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And you would be right. Underneath a hardened shell is a wonderful woman and mother. But only she can come out of that shell.

I'm glad that it seems that I have not pushed that sort of image. Because if you saw it here then it would also be evident to our children. And the last thing I need is for them to think differently toward their mother becaue of my words or actions. That opinion has to be made for themselves.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">To be moving at the pace she is there must have been something going on for a while now. If that isn't so, once again she's displaying the "all about me" thing. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Is it OK to plead the fifth here.

I will go as far as saying that introducing the children to a new Dad is harsh. I even offered to keep the children for an extended period of time so that just this thing would not happen. But...that bring us back to the image and self centered thing. What would others think of her if she DID NOT take the children.


No need to shut up. Sometimes we get so close that we fail to see the forrest for the trees. It is an outsiders viewpoint that helps me to move along.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Try letting go a little more. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This is what I need and coming from here and from my daughters mouth in less than an hour apart.

The youngest daughter and I were just at the store getting the pictures back from her birthday party. Bear in mind that this is the one who cannot stand Mom's new boyfriend. As we were leaving an employee of the store was talking about how mice and civilized the people had been today, even in the extremely long line. After we paid for her pictures she made the following comment;

Daddy, I think you ought to marry that lady. She was really sweet and pretty

This from the youngest.

Why do you think that I ask.

So you will not have to live with your sister and you won't have to be by yourself.

But how is that going to make you feel when you come over and visit. Won't it make you angry if you see another woman living with Daddy?

Not her Daddy cause I like her, I just don't like Mommy's boyfreind

I just shut up here and got in the car. This little one is full of suprises. But she is also the one who speaks her mind too.

Like I said in another post. Kids are born perfect.

Once again, I admire your doing the right thing! For the kids it's a good thing! (Sorry Martha) You are teaching them well. Just another example of bad things happen to good people too.