We don’t always see the lessons when we are knee-deep in a crisis, our only thought is, “How do I survive this storm?”
I write a lot about the storm. I’m no stranger to its devastation, and if you’ve been through a divorce, neither are you.
The Coronavirus has brought the crisis to every single home around the globe. I can’t remember any other time during my life where we were all forced to pay attention at the same time and learn how to adjust at rapid speeds.
In light of COVID-19, the brilliant author, speaker, and leader John C. Maxwell has been offering a free virtual summit on Facebook. I love his definition for the word crisis, “An intense time of difficulty requiring a decision that will be a turning point.”
Wow! This definition brought me way back to the end of my 19-year relationship…” An intense time of difficulty requiring a decision that will be a turning point.” My decision to leave my marriage was one of the most challenging decisions I have ever had to make, and it was a significant turning point in my life and the lives of my family.
When I was knee-deep in “the crisis,” it felt as if I was in total darkness, complete isolation. Talk about “social distancing.” Hundreds of people could have surrounded me, yet still, I had never felt more alone. I was in an energetic lockdown. I didn’t realize that the darkness was the pathway to my healing just yet.
The caterpillar does this so perfectly when it spins itself a cocoon before it radically transforms into a brilliant butterfly. It’s a painful process that happens without help from the outside world, but even the caterpillar has no idea what’s to come.
Amid crisis is a time to reflect, to journey within, and to sit in stillness. The stillness is where your truth lives. Collectively we are so uncomfortable with being still, which is why so many of us are going stir crazy right now. I think we feel that if we sit for too long, we may not like the feelings that flood to the surface, so we distract in the many other things that help us escape our reality.
What do you think happens when we suppress our emotions and aren’t living in our truth? It becomes a toxic environment, and that toxicity metastasizes in our body. I know, at the end of my marriage was when it showed up the most for me. It showed up as depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, and cystic acne, to name a few.
John C Maxwell also said, “Crisis reveals what is already in us.” I challenge you to look at what this time is revealing to you. What is coming to the surface is what is already below the surface. Is it fear, anxiety, depression, lack, feelings of being in this alone?
How Divorce Prepared Me for a Crisis
Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” ‘In the middle’ is where the magic happens. In the middle is an opportunity for decision and massive action, because you are no longer going to let another day go by living a life that isn’t fulfilling you. Change happens in the cocoon, in the middle, so embrace the uncertainty.
You see, a crisis is an opportunity to dig beneath the surface and heal what is beyond the cracks. Divorce allowed me to rebuild a life on a solid foundation and not on quicksand. Quicksand will never withstand a storm.
Divorce forced me to look at my truth, the truth of who I was and who I wanted to be. In the cocoon was when I realized I was living a life that wasn’t my own, that I had neglected my spirit to make everyone else happy. I would have never lived my purpose had I not embrace the unknowing, had I not been so uncomfortable living one more day in suffering.
Divorce will not be the last crisis I face, and neither will the Coronavirus be. A crisis is part of our humanness; it’s unavoidable. I leave you with the words of Roger Crawford, “Being challenged in life is inevitable; being defeated is optional.” Do not let this defeat you, find the many lessons, and get ready to RISE.
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Thank you very much Marisa for your article on ‘How Divorce Prepared Me for a Crisis’. You’ve articulated really clearly similar feelings that I’ve been thinking about now we are all globally having to live in a very different way due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I do feel really quite alarmed & concerned about the situation around the world, as my parents live in Italy, family in the UK & for my kids, my partner & my community here in Australia where I currently live.
However, five years ago I got away & out of a marriage where I had experienced extreme fear, isolation & narcissistic abuse: financially, psychologically and physically abusive behaviour. The police came several times to our farm. First they removed any firearms (I hate guns, they actually were my ex-father-in-law’s but my ex-husband used them sometimes on the farm & was ex-military & had a licence) & they gave my ex-husband a talking to & advice on where to seek mental health assistance. They eventually returned a few times & they offered to help me leave as I clearly wasn’t safe in that isolated place…(but interestingly not enough to charge him) …where was I to go with four young children and no money for a rental deposit? I thought I would end up in a woman’s shelter but in the end I got some help from my parents & friends and made a plan & got out.
Once I left, I oscillated between many emotions. I felt incredibly sad, yet hugely relieved, continued extreme fear, shame for leaving (having a failed marriage) but equally, shame for having stayed as long as I did (14years), confusion, anxiety, PTSD and probably some depression.
A few wonderful friends were amazing & still are. I will never forget their kindness in my darkest of hours, but a fair few treated me like my ‘condition’ was contagious and openly stated I wasn’t really welcome in their lives. I felt very alone at times.
I left our family home out on a farm with my four your children ages, 6, 6, 4 & 2 and only a bit of furniture & clothes for the kids & myself… I couldn’t take my pets which guts me still to this day, although thankfully I eventually rescued my dog, but god only knows what he did to our cats.
I now have sole parental responsibility. Five years later my ex-husband still is intent on taking me back to court again and attempts to minimise or whitewash his behaviour.
Life goes on, the children and I are survivors of domestic violence. They are mostly thriving, not merely surviving and although it can be really difficult being a single parent at times, we’ve emerged a strong unit. I live for my kids welfare and strive to keep life normal and emotionally stable. Life is still financially a tight balancing act, but I emerged from the darkness of that period into a stronger, clearer & more compassionate human. I feel for people who’ve suffered similar experiences as it truly horrendous at times. You develop a thick skin and a a sense of humour to cope with the pain.
My power hungry, lying, thieving, cheating bully of an ex-husband vastly underestimated me while he was busy devaluing me. I think in his deluded and narcissistic arrogance it allowed him to believe I would just be a pathetic and malleable, sad ex-wife who would relinquish the children to him when ever he wanted in any way or that I wouldn’t cope without him. He was wrong.
So, in this current time of crisis, isolation and fear of illness, death & loss of income, I do worry incredibly but also feel that this is something I can weather, I’m comfortable with my discomfort, able to live isolated with my 4 kids, my kind & loving partner & his 3 kids. Life as we currently know it could be far worse for me. I feel reasonably calm, logical & vigilant but definitely not the terror & loneliness I felt five years ago.
Stay safe & well Marisa Lupo, thanks again.
Best wishes
Polly