Let Divorce Be the Steppingstone to Finding Your Truth

As moms, we have been hardwired to put our needs last on the list. We go to great lengths for our children and want them to have the best that life has to offer. We will even convince ourselves to stay in relationships that no longer serve us out of fear of what we believe divorce will do to their spirit.

I stayed for many years, convincing myself that it was “best for the children” to have mom and dad together under the same roof. Little by little unknowingly slowly chipping away at who I was.

I became very tactful at distracting myself: shopping, vacations, planning events, keeping busy with the kids were all the ways I numbed out. Moms are good at being busy. I convinced myself so brilliantly, telling myself that I was so happy with my life, that I believed my own betrayal.

Busy sounded better than disconnected.

As women, we are taught that sacrificing our needs for the sake of everyone else is honorable. So we learn to go without, to not ask for anything, to continue to run on empty until the engine is entirely out of gas. And at the tail-end of my marriage, I was completely out of gas; I had nothing left to give.

All that I had given left me unrecognizable.

My marriage felt needy, disconnected, controlled, and it stunt my growth. It never allowed the freedom to fly, to discover who I was, to align with my purpose.

I was conditioned to believe that flying was dangerous; it wasn’t conducive to a healthy marriage. When you’re married, you do everything together, you become two beings that morph into one, or so I was told.

Clipping my wings was how I stayed. I made myself believe that my true essence wasn’t as vital as being “a good daughter, wife, and mother.”

What happens to a butterfly whose wings are clipped? Would it slowly lose itself? The butterfly would live, but it would never fly again; it would never experience the freedom and joy to emerge into its true essence fully.

I was that butterfly, and it was no fault but my own that my wings were clipped. It didn’t happen in one single moment. It happens insidiously: every time you silence your voice, when you say yes, but your heart says no, when you allow others control over your choices, when you take the path of least resistance instead of being willing to stand alone in your power, when you live your life worried about what others will say instead of saying this is who I am, when you don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings at the cost of hurting yourself.

Why do we clip our wings? Because we don’t want to get uncomfortable, we rather stay asleep.

I divorced my children’s father so that I could leave a legacy of truth, courage, and resiliency in the face of great adversity.

Divorce wasn’t an option for the generations of women that came before me. They were made to silence their voice and swallow their pain. That pain broke them, and I carried their pain for many years until I realized it wasn’t mine.

I had to embody what it meant to “Untie the Knots of Divorce” so that I could step into my purpose. I didn’t want my children to know a mother that was disconnected, lifeless, and unfulfilled. I didn’t want it to be my children’s obligation to fill the deep hole inside myself, because I was unable to find my happiness. An elderly resentful and bitter woman was what I saw as my future self, and it terrified me.

I created Untying the Knots of Divorce so that I could give other women the tools that helped me not only get through but also heal from a high conflict divorce.

My divorce was painful. There were so many moments I didn’t know how I was going to get through it. The thought of running away and starting over became a recurring fantasy. I felt powerless and unsupported.

The pain of it all became a great catalyst for change. I was tired of living the same recurring nightmare of not feeling good enough, feeling like a terrible mother, feeling like I had to defend and prove myself worthy, letting my negative beliefs and thoughts grow like cancer, feeling like I had no idea who I was anymore.

Let Divorce Be the Steppingstone to Finding Your Truth

A stepping stone is an action that will bring you closer to your goal. What do you believe is the purpose of divorce?

Let me first tell you what the purpose isn’t.

The goal of divorce isn’t to:

Survive
Protect
Hide in shame and guilt
Avoid having hard conversations
Defend yourself as a mother or a woman
Hang on to anything that doesn’t want to be held onto
Stay silent
Hold onto beliefs that aren’t serving your highest good
Stay stuck, immovable, paralyzed
Live in fear

Divorce burns all the boats and leaves you on the island alone, and when you are on that island alone, you will realize that divorce is not the problem. The real issue is that you forgot who you are. You forgot your power, you forgot your purpose, and you haven’t learned how to stop carrying what isn’t yours.

Inside my digital course, you will learn:

Awareness around what led you to this unconscious relationship
How to create lasting change
The language commonly used in divorce that creates your reality
Limiting beliefs that are keeping you stuck
How to stop sacrificing who you are as a mother out of fear of “losing” your kids
How to reconnect to what matters most, your inner spirit

And so much more!

When I work with clients, the first thing we do is look at what isn’t serving them. They learn how to put the fight down. They understand that no matter what their ex is doing or not doing, it has nothing to do with their journey towards reconnecting back to their truth.

One of my clients said to me, “Marisa, I started letting go of control, letting go of expectations, and it started shifting the dynamics of our co-parenting. My child was happy to go to his dad’s instead of fighting it.”

You have the power to heal what led you to this unconscious relationship, to set your baggage free, and to become a parent that doesn’t rely on their children to fill the emptiness inside of them, but it starts with healing ourselves. You have to be willing to put your ego and pride aside and lean into loving yourself unconditionally.

Co-parenting does not have to be driven by bruised egos. Your children deserve to have parents that have done the work to release and heal from their baggage and who remember who they are. True embodiment means walking the talk for your children. It means showing them that even if mom and dad aren’t married any longer, they can still honor each other as their children’s parents.

The choice is yours. Either you can choose to stay stuck in the fight and believe me, this can happen for decades, or you can step out of the rink and focus on what you can control…YOU and your happiness.