Letting Go Of Guilt: Divorce Without Regret

Divorce can be devastating and the more you understand how fear can keep you stuck, the better able you will be to operate from a higher state of consciousness so as to not allow superficial attachments to stop you from moving on without unnecessary guilt and regret.

Divorce is not a step backward. It's a step forward toward a healthier life, especially if you are awakened and on the conscious healing path. When we decide to divorce, we are often at our lowest point mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and even financially, so it is crucial to operate from divine laws that allow you to release unnecessary egoic attachments to negative, false beliefs if you want to move on and let go sooner than later.

Transcript

Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough,

The podcast that empowers you to transform your life by awakening to your true,

Authentic self.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano,

Your host.

As an award-winning author and certified life coach,

I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible power of an organized mind.

I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self.

My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening.

In this podcast,

I'll share insights,

Tools,

And transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery.

Hey,

Everybody.

I bow to the love and the light that is absolutely in you,

And thank you for joining me.

So today I got a really interesting email from Terry in Virginia,

And I think that there's going to be a lot of people that can relate to it.

She writes,

Dear Lisa,

Please help.

I'm an ACOA,

Which is the adult child of an alcoholic.

I go to CODA,

Which is a support group that is for codependents who are in recovery,

And I have been to therapy.

I have been to recovery retreats,

Followed gurus and shaman.

I am able to feel good about myself for just a little bit of time,

But just when I think I've healed,

I end up discovering I'm really stuck.

I know my marriage is over.

My husband is completely self-absorbed,

And although there are moments I think he can hear me,

24 years later,

I now know he has no intentions of really changing.

I want to leave,

But I struggle with feeling like I'm giving up.

I will have to start all over,

And I am so scared.

I worry about being 50 years old plus single.

I worry that I'm too old to date.

I'm worried that I have to move out of my beautiful home and find an apartment.

I will have to give up my antique furniture and so much more.

I hear myself saying,

Oh,

These are just things,

And then I feel guilty about feeling superficial.

Help me unravel this.

Love,

Terry from Virginia.

And yes,

Use my real name.

I love you.

Thank you so much,

Terry from Virginia.

So there are so many different things that are going on in this email.

We have a woman who has obviously done her fair share of personal work.

She has invested a lot of time.

She has invested a lot of money.

So she's sincere,

And she's earnest in her desire to feel less suffering in her life.

So the reason I wanted to,

I picked her email is because I believe that it really is so poignant,

And it helps identify and clarify for so many of us this idea of struggling and suffering in our lives.

I think that all people suffer for the same reason,

And that reason,

In my humble opinion,

Has to do with our perceptions and our beliefs,

Which is the result of childhood programming and societal programming as well,

And our associations to and with attachments.

Whatever we're attached to keeps us stuck.

Believe it or not,

Dear ones,

You can be attached to an idea,

And you can be attached to a concept.

And so when I'm listening to Terry talk about this idea that she knows that she wants to leave her marriage,

But when she thinks about leaving her marriage and finally making that cut and saying,

I'm done,

I'm leaving,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

She is overwhelmed by what all those changes mean.

What I see happening is that when she thinks about moving forward,

What rushes in is all her ideas about her attachments to things that she has learned to believe make her happy or make her successful or to define her as a success.

So very oftentimes,

People define themselves as successful if they're in a marriage or if they're in a relationship,

And that's a false idea.

So that is an attachment to a false idea.

So if I think that I'm only successful if I'm married,

That is a false idea.

Then I am attached to this false belief,

And I will suffer if I'm not in a relationship.

And that's why some people say that suffering is a choice,

Meaning that if I choose to believe that my worthiness is found in me only when I'm able to be in a relationship,

Then I will suffer,

Because the reality is I'm worthy whether I'm in a relationship or I'm not in a relationship.

And you are worthy whether you are in a relationship or you are not in a relationship.

But depending on how you were raised and depending on what your belief systems are,

That will define what you're attached to.

And so if you were raised to think,

Oh,

I'm worthless if I'm not in a relationship,

Dear,

Then you grow up thinking that you're worthless,

And then you seek validation outside of yourself.

And then what you do is,

In most cases,

Because you attach this idea that I have to be in a relationship,

You might put up with unnecessary nonsense because you are in a relationship,

And your mind thinks,

Oh,

I need to be in a relationship.

I can't be out of a relationship.

So what I hear Terry saying is that she is tied to attachments,

And what she has to do is help herself face these ideas of attachments and then free herself one by one.

So what she mentions is antique furniture.

Oh,

I'm going to have to give up my antique furniture.

So that means there's a belief to I am worthy or I need this antique furniture.

No,

You don't.

You need to drink water.

You need to eat food that's good for you so you can survive.

And we could probably get by with eating really crappy food,

Too.

But what do we really need,

Dear ones?

We need food.

We need shelter.

We need warmth.

We need clothing.

That's what we need.

These are the things that we absolutely need.

We think we need our antique furniture,

But we don't.

We think we need to be in a relationship,

But we don't.

We think we need to live in a big house,

But we don't.

So it's all these ideas and these attachments and these perceptions that we have about what we think we need that keep us stuck.

So Terry,

To help you unravel this,

I don't want you to feel it.

I mean,

It's silly for me even to say it,

And I'm so glad that I said that.

I don't want you to feel or I don't want you to say that you feel guilty.

That is a ridiculous thing to even say because you already feel guilty.

So what I want you to do is I want you to acknowledge that your feeling guilty represents your attachment to this idea that you don't have a right to feel the loss over the things that you will ultimately lose as a result of your divorce.

So it is normal to feel the loss of the things that you will lose in a divorce.

It's very normal,

And if you sense that you're feeling guilty because now you're judging yourself because,

Oh,

I shouldn't feel this way.

I've been to shaman.

I've been to gurus,

And I know that this is just materialistic stuff,

And I know that I shouldn't feel this way,

You're judging yourself.

So another piece of advice that I have for you is just accept how you feel.

I often use this idea of layering,

And I tell people don't layer an emotion.

In other words,

If you feel guilty,

Allow yourself to feel guilty.

You feel guilty.

It's like I have green eyes.

I can't help it.

If I feel guilty because I suddenly had this moment where I'm upset because I realized that I'm thinking about losing this antique furniture,

And now I feel guilty because it seems so silly when I think about it out loud,

I allow myself to feel that way.

I allow myself to feel that guilt.

Don't judge yourself for feeling that way.

It's a very normal feeling.

Someone has made you feel guilty,

And that's why you feel guilty over this one idea.

Allow yourself to mourn and to grieve the things that you will lose.

It's very,

Very normal.

But then make a decision about what you want to do anyway.

So I believe that you're suffering,

Dear one,

Because you have attachments to things that are outside of you.

And I think that ultimately people do suffer on planet Earth because we have been conditioned and brainwashed to see value in things that are outside of ourselves,

Including relationships,

Including other people,

Including other people's validation.

And that's where codependency comes in.

We seek validation in other people,

And we think that we need this validation,

And then we are attached to this need that we think we have.

And so unraveling it has to do with seeing what we're attached to and seeing how these attachments are keeping us stuck.

And then understanding the benefit of appreciating the idea of letting go.

Sure,

It's OK to mourn the fact that you're not going to be in this big,

Beautiful house anymore.

You might live in a little apartment.

Sure,

It's OK to mourn this physical stuff,

Absolutely.

But it's not OK to get stuck there.

Because what I want you to take away from this video,

Dear one,

And anybody who's suffering at all due to attachments and false ideas and false premises,

Understand that they're self-sabotaging.

What I want you to understand that it's absolutely normal and human to experience loss,

Grief,

And suffering.

That's normal.

Because we've all been conditioned to attach to things outside of ourselves.

Advertisers do it all the time.

They force feed us these ideas that we need this product,

Or we need that,

Or we have to look a certain way.

So we are actually forced to believe in this idea of attachments and things outside of us.

So I'm here offering you this piece of advice and asking you to really look at those things head on.

Ask yourself,

What am I attached to?

And how are these attachments keeping me stuck?

And how are they preventing me from living the life that I truly want to live?

I know for myself,

And I just had a conversation with someone yesterday about this,

When I moved into,

And my newsletter is about this too,

When I moved into my home,

My little tiny home after I got divorced,

It was,

Oh my God,

It was a horror compared to the house that I lived in with my children and my ex-husband.

And I remember there was a time where I was judging myself,

Thinking,

Oh my God,

I'm going backwards.

Look at this little house.

Look where it's so different than where my kids grew up.

And I was really feeling bad about myself.

And we had a dirt basement,

And we had a 1920 bathroom,

And the bathtub was slanted.

You took a bath,

And half your body was out of the water.

I mean,

It was just,

A lot of stuff was wrong with the house.

Everything had to be revamped.

And there was a time where I got caught up in judging myself.

I'm not a good mom.

Look what I've done to my kids.

Look at the house they're growing up in.

Look at the street.

Ba,

Ba,

Ba,

Ba,

Ba,

Ba.

And I was judging myself relentlessly.

I had to give up so much of my furniture.

I had to start all over.

I had,

My ex-husband took my car away,

And my kids were driving around in this crappy little minivan.

And I was judging myself,

Right?

And when I was beating myself up,

I eventually realized that I was inducing my suffering,

Or I was actually increasing my suffering.

And I began to change the way I was looking at myself.

And when you change the way you look at yourself on the inside,

That's when the world begins to change.

And I began to understand that it was these false ideas that I had about my worth and my worthiness.

I had these ideas that were caught up in my head that said something like,

Well,

If I was a good mom,

I wouldn't have gotten divorced.

If I was a good mom,

Then I would have been able to work it out with their dad.

Or if I was a good mom,

You know,

They would have those roller blades versus no roller blades.

If I was a good mom,

My kids would have this,

Or they wouldn't,

You know,

They wouldn't go without.

If I was a good mom,

Then whatever,

They would have these clothes versus those clothes.

I was judging myself like crazy.

And I began to understand this idea of attachments.

I was attached to these ideas that I allowed other people to define.

And I had to come full circle with it.

I had to realize,

Wait a minute,

Wait a minute,

What am I putting my sense of worthiness in?

I'm saying I'm worthy if I can do this,

This,

This,

Or this.

And I'm saying I'm not worthy because I live in this house.

And then I began to understand that I had to face those ideas of attachments head on.

And I had to go down a list,

A checklist,

And do what I could to let those attachments go.

So dear one,

You are attached to ideas that are not serving you.

You have worked yourself up,

And you believe that you're worthy if you can have,

If you can take this virgin with you.

Maybe you can't.

Or you're worthy,

You said something about you're worried about being 50 years old and single.

So you're attached to this idea that because of your age,

You're not worthy to date.

But whoever you're going to date,

Hopefully be around your age,

If that works out for you.

It's OK if it doesn't.

It could be older,

Could be younger.

Whatever floats your boat,

Dear one.

Whatever it is that makes you happy.

But what I'm trying to drive home is this idea that you may be attached to a false premise or an illusion.

And the illusion is not serving you.

So dear one,

What I would say to you is make a long list of all the things and all the ideas that you feel attached to.

Make a list of all the concepts that you think are holding you back.

I'm not worthy because,

Or I don't think,

I'm afraid to get divorced because.

And what you'll find at the end of that sentence is an attachment.

And what you want to do is always bring it back to,

But I am worthy.

Even if I never date anyone again,

I'm still worthy.

Even if I have to give up my antique furniture,

I'm still worthy.

Even if I have to move into a small apartment,

I'm still worthy.

Even if,

Even if,

Even if,

Because ultimately,

Dear one,

That is your truth.

That is my truth.

And that is the truth for every human being that's ever been born.

The problem is we have all bought into this idea that someone else is supposed to tell us we're worthy before we can actually be worthy.

We've been told by advertisers and alike that we're not worthy unless we look a certain way.

Or we're not worthy unless we drive this car.

Or we're not worthy unless we have sex this many times a week.

Or we're not worthy unless our hair is this long or that color.

It's a bunch of nonsense.

And in terms of advertisers,

It's manipulation.

And trust me when I tell you that advertisers spend big bucks analyzing the way people think and trying to really rattle their cage and figure out what makes a human being tick.

And they use this information against us to manipulate us in marketing.

So dear one,

You are enough.

I hope that if you have decided that your marriage is over,

That you find the courage to walk through that door.

And I read a quote one day that said,

The bridge shows up when you jump.

The bridge doesn't show up before you jump.

The bridge shows up after your jump.

You're struggling with attachments.

And it is my sincere hope,

Dear one,

That as you move forward,

You will be able to face these attachments and cross the morphine list and end your suffering sooner than later.

Thank you so much for writing me and asking me my opinion and asking me to help you unravel this.

I hope this has helped you.

Dear Terry from Virginia,

Namaste,

Dear ones.

I bow to the love and the light that is absolutely in you.

Bye for now.

Reviews

This is exactly what I needed to hear/learn today. I have so much anger in my heart toward my soon to be ex because I have pegged my worth to our marriage for so long. Her actions left me feeling rejected and unworthy. But now I see it’s because of my attachment to a belief about my worth being tied to “succeeding” at marriage.

Brought more clarity to my decision of living solo. Thank you!!!🤍

Thank you much gratitude for this talk on guilt and attachments I am also divorced of 5 years now and it's been a slow long process on working on myself and letting go, showing myself love and grace to feel.all my old beliefs and heal. I know I am not alone and this community helps me daily. Much love ✨✨✨🩷