Family truths are not your truths

My Spring break this year was held in Palm Desert California with one grandparent, three parents and 7 grandchildren. Ages ranged from 13 to 83 and were spread over two condos, 6 bedrooms and three golf carts.

In my family I am known as a Bad Driver

Their story seems to be that I learned to drive at 19 and have had several accidents. Neither of these “family facts” are actually true: I learned to drive at 16 and drove myself to and from work at 17. I paid the driving instructor out of my own money and have never had a bad accident beyond a small fender bender years ago, nor a speeding ticket (although I probably do deserve one!).

After all these years, it still really aggravates me when they talk about my driving, and perpetuate their version of “fact” every time I return to my childhood home or are surrounded by other members of my family. I also realize that memory is elastic, and that time changes our perception and that it really doesn’t matter in the general scheme of things. But recently I caught myself getting irritated about it again, when my daughter asked what they were talking about.

I tried to explain it to her as best as I could as she didn’t understand why my family were talking about my driving in such a way. She had never experienced the Bad Driver they were all discussing – the fact being that it’s my daughter, not me who is the main insurance risk on my policy.

And then I simply decided to let it go. (Well first I called the DMV to see how far back they keep driving records and found out it’s been too long to recover. Then I put it to rest!)

Sometimes the people we love (and are often related to) assume or make decisions about who we are when we are still young, before we had chance to live our own lives and have our own children. And these collective decisions about who we are sticks. As tribal people, I suppose it is easier to just categorize personalities and leave them in their lifelong box.

Don’t judge a book by its cover.. Now this is a good, solid saying.. maybe I should get it printed on a T-shirt! (Tweet it!)

Were you always the shy kid? Now I bet you give presentations in front of hundreds of people or have your own podcast! But I hazard a guess that folks at home still refer to you as the “shy one”. In this case you have two choices: You can let this old stuff bother you and try to change people’s minds (they aren’t listening anyhow); or you can just let it go.. Let it go and understand that there are people in your current life who DO know you better. Or at least know you as an adult.

People choose to be part of your life

Now you are older and more independent, people take the time to get to know your many faceted character. They choose to be part of your life and probably also understand that you are different now from how you were. Although your family have known you since you were born – they may not actually know you. Not like your adult friends do.

I am not suggesting that you didn’t allow these people or family to get to know you: The current you. The real you [although not everyone needs to know all about every part of you]. I am saying that sometimes people have known the “you” at a certain period or stage in your life and have been left somewhere in time. It doesn’t mean they don’t care, it may just mean that their learning curve has lagged or stopped. They either haven’t had the opportunity to catch up with the “you” now. Or they haven’t thought to invest in it. That’s okay.

 

Coaching with Tamara Mendelson

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Reinvention makes people nervous. How can people compartmentalize you if you keep changing? Roll with it. Even if you have been married for 15 years and your great aunt still asks about the two friends you dated at the same time in high school. In these high pressured social interactions where the inevitable “family facts” pop up, you can do a few things to keep yourself neutral and centered and sane:

5 ways to handle childhood drama real or imagined that come back to bite you

  1. Smile and nod: Think whatever you want. Hum a little song to yourself. Think about how you will reward yourself for being so calm and even-tempered. Smiling and nodding is an underrated art form! Practice doing it whenever someone says something you don’t agree with but refuse to argue about.
  2. Be your own biggest fan: Only YOU truly know what you have overcome and accomplished in your life. Take pride in yourself, in how far you have come, and how well you have managed your journey along the way.
  3. Temper your expectations: When you do the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome, that’s a perfect recipe for disaster and disappointment. So when you are in situation where things usually become difficult, remind yourself that being upset with them won’t change anything, and try not to take comments or judgements or teasing seriously.
  4. Stop banging your head against a wall: You are no longer a child. Maybe you have your own children. Maybe you are 30-something or older. Learn to accept that there will be people in your life who don’t listen. You will never change their minds no matter what you say or do. Stop trying. Save your time and energy for things and people that you can positively affect.
  5. Be who you are no matter who you are with: Consistency is a great way to keep yourself centered. Try not to make yourself smaller when you encounter people who want to put you in a box. You can choose not to allow people to make you feel like a child or smaller than you are.

Think outside the box. Be outside the box. Just be.

Over to you – what family truths have held you back in the past? and what is YOUR truth to hold onto now?

When going through hell, keep going

“When going through hell, keep going”
-Winston Churchill

A friend of mine had a big birthday recently. We got to talking about how the things you think are important change as decades and life stages pass. One of the most profound things she said was “In my middle years, I want friends who are curious, compassionate and kind.” What a remarkable thought. She didn’t care how well travelled people were or professionally accomplished or highly educated. What she really wanted was to surround herself with people who were kind.

After thinking about it, I realized that I agreed with her. We all know that people who live in a constant state of high drama and competitiveness are exhausting. I remember joining a baby group when my kids were babies and the mothers compared their infant’s progress as if it were the Olympics: “My baby is speaking complete sentences at nine months”… I remember laughing out loud as I thought the woman was making a joke. Apparently I was the only one who thought it was funny.

My children are of legal age now. It’s kind of a shocking thing to have a really intense 24/7 kind of job that you age out of after 18-20 years. My heart goes out to all parents that invested so much of their beings into good solid parenting only to be out of a job after 18-20 years. Then the lag before we can hopefully become grandparents.

And we are also a generation who not only has children to love and raise but elderly parents to manage and care for as well. It takes a lot out of us. Several people I know have lost parents in the last year and it’s heartbreaking. And losing a parent – whether you have unfinished business with them, or a close relationship – still hurts. And it hurts for a long time. Parents are our buffers to mortality.

Reinvention is something that we do as we progress through our lives

Even if it isn’t categorized that way. Gone are the days when we start with a company and stay there for our entire adult lives and receive a gold watch and retire. People move from the city they were born and or raised in. And may move every time a they change jobs. We get married and divorced. Move to where our children settle or find warmer climates to retire. As fast as the world is changing we must figure out a way to live with those changes and not be overwhelmed by them.

So what do we do? We either embrace change realizing that not everything will be successful or easy. Or resist change and get unhappily swept along in a current we must work hard at to tread water. The third and least attractive option is to get stuck. Dig yourself in and neither move or live, but just exist.

One of the things I have found with many of the people I work with is that their suffering is self-inflicted. I believe suffering to be a choice. Not grieving – with each loss there needs to be whatever amount of time the person requires to construct a new normal – but allowing the pain of divorce or loss of a loved one or job or financial stability or good health become the place where they live. Better the pain you know then the unknown.

Pain can be a constant and familiar companion. It doesn’t have to be where you stay. (Tweet it!)

Sometimes we forget what we have to be grateful for and focus on the loss, hurt, or anger. We let it define us protecting us for more hurt and loss but also from experiencing joy. Cutting off the things that make life much more than a burden or something to be gotten through. It is a dark and heavy place to live.

Coaching with Tamara Mendelson

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If any of this sounds familiar and you really want to live your best life, begin by following the five steps below:

  1. Start with one thing you feel grateful for. Just one thing. It can be a small as the first daffodil after a spring snow storm. A chance meeting with an old friend. Your favorite team making it to the playoffs (go Blazers!). And I have found that one thought of gratitude leads to another and with each grateful thought some of the negative feelings you are experiencing dissipate.
  2. Acknowledging that you don’t want to live in a dark painful place is a good next step. Admitting that you want to move forward puts you in the right mindset to begin doing the moving forward.
  3. Tell a friend or work colleague that you are feeling down. Find a group online. Confide in someone going through a similar experience. It is always helpful to know someone out there is going through the same thing.
  4. Distract yourself in to feeling better. I was going through a difficult time with empty nesting last year. I couldn’t seem to get out of my own head. Then I discovered Audible books. Now if I am being a little obsessive about anything I grab my phone and earbuds and start listening to a book or comedy show or one of their great channels.
  5. If your black mood doesn’t shift or lift after several months seek some help. How do you know when it’s time? When you continue to feel miserable after trying the first four things on this list.

And what about you? Have you decided to embrace the change in your life with positivity? Or will you choose to stay with the hell you know?

On surviving a cross-cultural marriage and divorce

My ex-husband is a 6th generation Israeli. His family can be traced back to Spain and the Spanish Inquisition. They are sort of royalty in their community and have many first cousins, mostly named Miriam and Eli.

He grew up in Israel, fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and was badly injured. All the men and women in his family served or fought in one Israeli war or another. His father worked for the government. In English, this means he may or may not have been a spy. One family story my mother-in-law loved to tell was of receiving postcards from one location while her husband was actually living in another place.

Both sides of my family have only been American for three generations. And that’s just barely. My grandmother was born as her family was crossing the country in a covered wagon in the early 1900’s. Their origins are Eastern European but kind of all over the map. I grew up in Portland, Oregon in a small but vibrant Jewish community. My parents chose to live in a suburb of Portland and in my high school of 1,500 students, I was one of 25 Jews. I explained why I didn’t celebrate Christmas every year when I was growing up. It was kind of a novelty then.

Marriage to someone from another country and culture is exciting and exotic

..until that turns into a liability and a stressor. The language, the food, and the society are different. And different can be a great relief. That novelty can be as different as hummus instead of peanut butter. Or as different as what is important in raising children.

Both of the partners are disadvantaged (Tweet it!)

It took me years to understand that being a Jew growing up in a non-Jewish country is indeed the opposite of growing up in a country with a Jewish majority. There are no cultural references or shared holiday practices. And one of you is home (in every sense of the word), while the other is a new immigrant no matter what it says on your passport.

My ex expected that I would become a local after our marriage and relocation to Israel. That I would pick up Hebrew in a matter of months and feel right at home as I did in Portland or San Francisco.

Learning a foreign language as an adult is no easy task

I know people who have done it. I am not one of those people. My ex learned English as a child at an American school in Turkey. His spoken English, although accented, was better than fluent. Before we met, he had lived in the US for many years. I had a difficult time learning English. I was dyslexic as a child and worked hard to overcome this disability. Over the years, I have realized that people with dyslexia must find new ways to do things that other people do as second nature. Learning Hebrew, even now after 20 years, is difficult for me. Certain letters are backwards when I look at them. Ready from right to left in a different alphabet isn’t any help either. So I struggle working around the system with help from my friends.

I’ll give you a couple of examples of language issues that are funny looking back, but were not funny at the time. Growing up in suburbia, I had to defend my religion all the time, but not by serving in the army and being wounded in a war. My ex mother-in-law called my ex-husband Mami. This term is an endearment in Hebrew. But it totally freaked me out. My children called me Mommy, but it was still strange. I asked about it. My question was met with a look of incomprehension and then laughter.

My ex was/is great with languages. We spent a week in France and he was chatting up the chef by the time we left. I am not good at languages. I was and still am dyslexic and was very self-conscious.

After our marriage, some of his friends couldn’t be bothered to speak with me in English, so I was completely left out of conversations and often felt alienated and alone. And when I did try to speak, people would either switch to English and say something under their breath about Americans or make fun of me. With friendly encouraging phrases such as…

“How long have been in the country?”
“Why is your Hebrew so bad?”
“I hate Americans – they are so rich and spoiled and entitled.”
“Why is your house so American? Don’t you know you live in Israel?”

I don’t believe anyone was trying to hurt my feelings or make me feel bad. I just think people were trying to hurry me along with my indoctrination into the culture. Israelis are an accomplished group. For example: there is only one country with more start-ups that have gone public on the NYSE than Israel and that country is the United States. Israel is about the size of New Jersey.

The challenges were daily

Another of my fondest (huge amount of sarcasm here) memories have to do with going to the grocery store. I wanted to buy cottage cheese. Seemed like a simple enough task. I brought home sour cream for months until I figured out which was which. All the cartons looked alike, and the writing was squiggly longhand, same shape and color. I was completely intimidated by the dairy case. The challenges were daily, and my ex had no idea how to help me. When he lived in the US (before we met) he lived with Israelis and worked for an Israeli company. He lived in an apartment building with other Israelis and worked in NYC.

When I moved to Israel after our marriage, I had no car and lived about a mile from the nearest bus stop. There were no cell phones at the time, and I was lost. Eventually, I started to make friends, but they were other immigrants. I learned enough Hebrew to get by, but not enough to be social. I had no family in Israel except for a few stray cousins and it was a 24 hour journey to get home to Portland. I started to make my own way slowly.

 

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I had two children in two years and the only people that reached back when I reached out were other immigrants. I met a few parents of the kids. I started them in English speaking pre-school, so their English would be as good as their Hebrew. And slowly, we built a community. I found a place to get my haircut, a family doctor, where to buy fresh fish. My mother-in-law, who spoke five languages, was around for the kids’ school events and I had friends fill in when I wasn’t able to attend. Like any friendships, those had to be nurtured. Carpools and holidays and celebrations and milestones.

When my ex and I decided to divorce, we both eventually left the neighborhood we called home for 15 years. Because of the children, we stayed in the same small town. We didn’t divide friends, but they divided themselves almost exclusively down language lines. Or ideological guidelines. After my divorce, I reinvented myself in the face of this massive, personal upheaval. I got a masters degree, began teaching at a local college, and started a business helping people going through big life changes.

And in a way, I became a new immigrant again.

Over to you: Have you struggled with cultural differences in your marriage and divorce? What did YOU do to ease the transitions?

5 behaviors to leave behind when getting over a breakup

I’m not saying that wallowing after a breakup isn’t allowed. A certain period of mourning is expected and even healthy as the loss you are feeling is great. But moving on without dealing with your feelings can backfire months or years down the line.

Be responsible for you and your immediate family. If a whole office, company, or community of people is depending on you, let them know that you are taking a step back for a while. Delegate until you feel up to the task again. And you will.

Here’s a great example of not dealing with your feelings after a breakup: Dating and going straight into a new intense relationship almost immediately! If you don’t give yourself the time to reflect on what went wrong or what didn’t work in the previous relationship, don’t expect the next one to be any better! The unresolved issues will carry into the next relationship and can easily sabotage it.

Who doesn’t want to feel that elation in a new relationship? Suddenly you are fascinating to someone else and you’re elated. The honeymoon period is a wash of emotions, and this person seems PERFECT. But jumping into another relationship immediately after a breakup puts a lot of pressure on you to try to erase the past or rewrite it. You’ll be constantly comparing this new person to your ex — and anyone seems amazing compared to them — even someone who’s actually not so great.

People and relationships are not black and white. No one is perfect. And human interaction is far from perfect. As my boyfriend is fond of saying “Everyone’s shit smells.” And he has a point.

So what do we do to avoid this idealized view of a new person?

Time. Take time to get to know them and not fill in the blanks with your fantasies.
Letting your feelings be felt after the breakup is the best way to move towards healing. All of us need a period to mourn what was. The time will depend entirely on you and what you need. If you keep them bottled up inside churning like acid, they will eventually corrode the core that is your emotional well-being!

So here are my top 5 behaviors to leave behind BEFORE you let a new person into your life (Tweet it!)

Social media: Do not look at or respond to your ex’s social media after the breakup. People lie and always put their best face forward. If your ex’s new chick is younger, hotter, or richer, you don’t know the whole story and all it does is make you feel bad. You don’t need her picture burned into your brain. Why would you torture yourself?

Being a weepy mess: Everyone who has gone through a big messy breakup needs to fully experience this stage of post-coupledom life for as long as they need to. If you are a weepy mess, be a weepy mess but don’t expect even your closest friends or family to want to hear about it 24/7. Get some professional help (yes that’s what I do) and work on getting yourself back together. For those of you that have joined our group – well done. This is a safe space and we are happy to have you.

Listening to the negative tapes in your head: Don’t listen to the little gremlins in your mind that tell you that the breakup was your fault or you are not enough. If you were thinner, richer, more interesting etc. You are the best you that you can be. You are unique and talented and special. If there are things you want to change for you, take this as an opportunity to work on the things you want to work on to improve yourself for you and your children. But you are enough RIGHT NOW.

Kicking yourself around: Be kind to yourself after a breakup. You may feel like a failure now, but you DESERVE self-love. This is not the time to add pressure. And this is not the time to start new projects. This is the time to begin to heal. Make the words you say to yourself gentle and loving. Get a massage or just take your two hands and rub the back or your neck. Feel the tension? Do things that are soothing for you. Music, exercise, coffee with a friend. For a cheap spa experience, warm some nice smelling oil in the micro (don’t boil it) for a few seconds and rub your feet with it. Repeat to yourself in a loving voice, “I am more than enough” as many times as you need to start believing it.

Watching negative news: Limit your intake of bad news. The world is in a mess right now. Floods and fires, destruction and death. In some places, complete devastation. We cannot constantly take in news like this and be okay. Make a small donation if you want to help. I sent underwear to Houston through Amazon. I knew that it would go directly to the people who needed it and felt a little better that someone will have clean underwear to put on tomorrow. And that makes me feel a little better.

Just as you would not pour salt directly into a cut, scrape or other wound, stop doing the things that bring you more pain. Breakups are tough. Be kind to yourself. And when you’ve done these things, only then are you ready to invite a new love into your life.

Now over to you: which habits do you need to work on before you start dating again? I’d love to hear!

Coaching with Tamara Mendelson

Are you struggling through an unexpected life change? I’m now taking applications for 2018 Coaching and I’d love to hear from you! Sign up below to receive my coaching application form straight to your inbox.
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Where grief lives

I left my house to get to work before 7 this morning. My daughter arrived home from work after I went to bed. She lets me know she’s home with a kiss or a hello from the doorway. I do the same, only this morning, I wanted to see her sleeping face and breathe her in for a moment before I left for the day. We pass one another in slumber.

I reached down and kissed her. With her eyes still closed she reached her arms up to me without lifting them from the blankets. She mumbled “I love you, Mom” and I lost her back to sleep. I back quietly and quickly out of the room and tears of grief come to my eyes. My body remembers a similar goodbye 11 years ago when I lost my mother. She too reached her arms up but had no strength left for her thin, frail body to raise her arms. ‘I have to hug you” she said. I leaned down and kissed her forehead, knowing I would lose her soon. She waited for me to arrive, a 24-hour, across-the-world trip. One of many I had made in the previous four years. Leaving my then young children at home, sometimes not knowing if she would be alive when I arrived.

Her battle with cancer lasted four valiant, knowable years. I spent hundreds of hours in the hospital with her. Sitting, chatting, and letting the family know what was going on. My MD father didn’t stay long in the hospital. As a doctor, he had inhabited hospitals all his life. It was too hard for him to be there. This was his grief. I understood, although we never spoke about it. Not through the two bone marrow transplants and the several remissions.

And the skies opened up and howled

After she lifted her arms, my mother closed her eyes and soon slipped into a coma. Those were the last words I ever heard her say. There were noises later, but nothing human sounding as she left this world. It was July and there was a magnificent thunderstorm. My father told her she could go and her pulse got stronger. She wasn’t a big fan of being told what to do. And the skies opened up and howled. My daughter is fearless just like my mother. And hugging her is similar to hugging my mother. It helped me tremendously in my grief when I was missing my mother so profoundly that first year. I think having children helps in the healing process.

She is the next generation – the correct order of things – as I have been losing people all of my life. Grief is as familiar to me as a hug. And I feel lucky to have known the people I have lost. It is my hope to always keep them alive in my heart and memories. My grandmother left paintings and sculptures and an odd sort of whistle she used to use to call my baby sister to her in the mornings.

When we get stuck in our grieving process, that is when it’s time to take stock (Tweet it!)

No one can say how long one can grieve. Some people never move on and back into life after someone they love dies. It’s a sad situation to become immobile between the past and the present. In some ways, I believe this speaks unkindly of the person who passed through our lives and is now gone. It sounds trite, but how sad our loved ones would feel if they could see that we could never move on in our lives without them.

My mother left a life well lived and no regrets except that she would not get to see her grandchildren grow up or have the old age my father had promised. She was a positive upbeat person and never once said “Why me?” when the diagnosis of Leukaemia was delivered.

The more love you give, the more you have

Every meal was the best meal for her. Every tennis game, a joy. Each season, the most wonderful. Each visit with a friend, the most joyous. My mother grew up in poverty with an absent, alcoholic father. Her single mother, my grandmother, taught her the secrets of life. One of the most important being “the more love you give, the more you have”.

Someone asked me once, “How you get over loss and grief and get back to normal?” I laughed. This isn’t the right question.

When you lose someone you love, there is no going back. There is just a new normal – living without them

And you talk about them. Share stories with the people who knew and loved them. Some of those other people will find this exercise too painful. But I believe it is important to the healing process. The pain and grief speaks to the impact these special people had on our lives.

Some helpful things I learned during the process of grieving:

1. Express your grief out loud. Don’t feel you have to hide your feelings. They need to be felt.

2. Don’t try to put on a brave face. You are finding a new normal and that can be painful. So why pretend to be happy?

3. Explain that you have had a loss. Don’t feel obligated to attend other people’s happy occasions if you can’t be happy for them.

4. Keep them (the people you have lost) with you in your heart.

5. Carry on their legacy by taking up their cause – and live each day to the fullest.

Sometimes when I’m sad and filled with grief – and wishing I could share something with my mother, I smile and realize I know exactly what she would have said and how she would have reacted. And I feel blessed for having had her in my life for as long as I did.

Over to you: How do you handle your grief on a daily basis? What small things get you through?

Coaching with Tamara Mendelson

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Break free from pain and live your life again

People have told me their secrets all my life. Most of the time, I don’t even have to ask any questions. Or maybe just one question.

“How are you really?”

People just tell me stuff. Deep personal stuff and day-to-day life stuff.

It comes as naturally as breathing.

It may be a deep-felt empathy. An immediate connection? Possibly other people see a kindred spirit in me and feel safe. I have certainly faced my own pain and challenges in life and have mostly overcome them through hard work, asking for help, and a dogged tenaciousness.

It started before I was born. After a stressed pregnancy, my mother delivered me at 31 weeks. That was 50 years ago. The doctor on duty told my mother I would be born dead. Many babies didn’t make it. I was lucky and came out fighting. And I have been rooting for the underdog ever since.

When my marriage broke up, I became the go to divorce expert in my community. My marriage may have been tumultuous at the end, but our divorce was as amiable as one can be. Soon after that I started to coach people and wrote a book of poetry to track the progress of my journey. More recently, I created a DIY program to help people get through their own divorces.

At the end of 2017, I received a note from an old boyfriend. I was 23 when we met. These days, I have a son that age. This man and I had been together on and off for a few years way back in the 80’s and I realized even then that although I was good for him, he wasn’t good for me.

Here is an excerpt from that note:

“I want you to know what a positive impact you had on my life — It was your influence that made me follow up on Law School and I have been an attorney now almost 30 years.

So thank you for that. You seem very grounded in your writings and happier than the average person. I hope that’s true — it’s been at least 25 years since we spoke– it means a lot to me to be able to draw the strands of my life together. Our relationship was a big part of helping me find my path — not only professionally, but in all my relationships since we knew each other too.”

Thanks to Facebook and teaching at a college, I have gotten quite a few of these notes over the years. It’s nice to know you have had a positive impact on people’s lives. And after my own divorce, I started quite by accident helping other people through their own separations and divorces.

But now I feel that it’s time to branch out.

Many times in my life, I haven’t know what I wanted to do but knew exactly what others needed. Maybe I have a heightened sense of empathy. Or being able to see the whole picture when someone else can’t?

Fortunately for me, we as a species are great storytellers. It’s how we make sense of the world. Maybe the people responsible for writing the Bibles knew this. Novelists and actors know this. Like feelings, our stories need to be told. And these stories need to be told often enough to take the sting out of them and for us to move on as people.

When we hold onto our stories and secret them away, they eat away at us, whittling us down bit by bit until that one story too horrible to tell stops our whole life. Keeping these personal tragedies close to us – making them sacred – keeps us stuck. They leave many of us emotionally immobile and unable to heal.

I knew I was onto something when my own counselor asked my advice about her personal situation. I couldn’t believe it. I was paying this Medical Doctor huge sums of money to help me with my own PTSD after a benign tumor was removed from the lining of my brain, and she’s asking about what to do with her newly retired husband.

Seriously?

But of course, I offered what I thought was sound advice.

When I was in college I was a peer counselor. In graduate school, I was the person my classmates turned to when they were having a difficult time in their lives.

When my children were small, other mothers would call me before they would reach out to their own family doctors.

And since my own divorce, I have been coaching and counseling people through the rough times and move on.

When my kids were younger, their friends were in and out of our house all the time. They would often ask me for advice about getting along with their parents or sometimes about their new relationships. My favorite refrain at that time was “at your age, it shouldn’t be so hard”. It has been many years and these young adults still thank me for helping them grow up.

For the last five years, I have been teaching at a local college. My favorite comments from former students are “you taught us so much more than English.”

So now I do this for a living.

And here is what one of my clients said about me recently:

“A year ago, I connected with this wonderful life coach and counselor Tamara Mendelson, and I wanted to share the love. If you are looking for any kind of mental health support and life stuff, I warmly recommend reaching out to her. She’s wise, kind, and not a pretentious psychologist – comes from a place of experience, care and strength.”

Coaching with Tamara Mendelson

Are you struggling through an unexpected life change? I’m now taking applications for 2018 Coaching and I’d love to hear from you! Sign up below to receive my coaching application form straight to your inbox.
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Choosing happiness after divorce

Can you make a difference?

The sixth largest economy in the world, that we call California, is in flames. This time southern California. At the end of summer, it was the Northern part of the state.

Hurricane names have used up half the alphabet in 2017 alone and Puerto Rico and six other Islands have been devastated by flooding and the aftermath of these giant storms.

I have lost count of the number victims of mass shootings in Las Vegas, Florida, and a church in Texas.

Then you have SAD (seasonal affective disorder) that happens when the days get short and people don’t get enough sunlight. It also causes vitamin-D deficiency and depression.

On top of that, we have the expectations of the holiday season and if you’ve just gone through a breakup or divorce, all these things are compounded exponentially.

There have been so many natural and man-made disasters that Facebook has developed a way for users to report themselves as safe.

What do we do if you are drowning in sadness? If our internal electricity is on the fritz? If we are lonely? Alone? Isolated?

Happiness as a choice

For many of us it’s a choice. I’m not talking about grief or loss of a loved one – grieving is on its own timeline. I’m talking about a personal disaster of some kind getting you stuck and staying stuck in that place of pain and recrimination.

And if you chose not to wallow in sadness indefinitely, It is all about getting unstuck.

Emotional pain is a human condition and finding little pieces of happiness every day is the way to move forward as a human being.

Divorce is a big huge bag of pain. Even if it was your idea. (Tweet it!)

It should make it easier, but it doesn’t necessarily make it less painful.

Being happy is about protecting ourselves from too much ugliness. Not a “burying your head in the sand” kind of protection, but not internalizing every-single-thing that happens in the world.

No need to bathe in sadness. Wear happiness or joy as a shield of sorts.

I used to watch the nightly news, read a daily newspaper, pick up a news magazine weekly. I was constantly and continually updating myself on current events and cultural happenings.

In our information saturated world, so much of the news out now is gossip. Regurgitating and revealing every minute detail about people that should be private and certainly not front page fodder.

I’m not talking about the recent deluge of sexual misconduct allegations. That is news and as a “me too” person myself, a long overdue reckoning.

Or the news about refugees fleeing their home countries all over the world. Regular people, risking their own safety and their lives to try to find a better life for themselves and their families. That is reporting on the human condition is monumentally important.

I am talking about Hollywood, pop culture that shows the “have-nots” how much “the haves” have. These details do nothing to improve our lives. They are like junk food for your brain.

Choosing happiness is a mindset shift

Instead of watching the freak-show, try to do something positive to impact the world around you.

We only get 24 hours a day. Use them wisely. Be protective of your time. I just spent 12 minutes watching the lecture of a woman I respect and admire.

So this Holiday season, don’t get sucked into things that don’t matter. How about spending time with people who fill you up emotionally?
If you have an hour, educate yourself on something that is important to you. Find out what’s really going on in Yemen. Help build a well in Africa. Make sure every child has a meal at lunchtime in your own community.

Have you considered volunteering your time to a worthy cause? Clean out a drawer and donate to someone less fortunate. It’s almost impossible not fret about the state of the world. But you, with one charitable act, can make a difference.

When the hurricane hit Houston, a woman on social media was soliciting for a charity to buy those people who lost their homes new underwear. No, I am not kidding. To lose everything all at once? And flee your home and not even have a pair of underwear to your name?
I followed the directions and picked out packages of little boys and little girls underwear (on Amazon) and it was all anonymous.

And you know, it made me feel a little better knowing that some little kids in Houston had Superman and Wonder Woman underwear to start their day on the first day of their new reality.

So this next couple weeks, when the luckier people in the world will be celebrating holidays, celebrate yourself for the new life you have chosen or been given or pushed into after your divorce. Look for the little things that make you happy. Treat yourself as you would a cherished loved one. Use your time wisely and be kind to yourself.

And whenever and wherever you can – choose happiness. When you wish people Happy New Year, mean it.

 

 

 

 

5 ways to celebrate (and enjoy!) the holidays after divorce

Every day can be difficult after a breakup or divorce. Celebrating the holidays after divorce can be a miserable time fraught with emotion and disappointment. There’s no getting around the fact that your first Christmas/ Hanukkah post-divorce is going to feel all wrong – holidays are all about family and tradition.

There are five rules I’ve developed over the years that can make the transition into the holidays easier and happier for all concerned.

Here are my 5 rules to celebrate (and enjoy!) the holidays after divorce!

Invent new traditions

There is nothing sadder than trying to keep traditions alive without all the people that used to participate in them. This is especially true if you and your ex are not on good enough terms to be in the same room. The children will feel the tension and the only thing you will be celebrating is when the meal is over and you can return to your own corners.

Decorate sugar cookies with your kids before they head off to your ex’s celebration. Ask your kids what they would like to do. Their ideas may surprise you. Harry Potter marathon anyone? Experiment with a holiday dish you’ve been wanting to try but never made because your ex turned up their nose. Wear your pajamas all day long. Just be okay with whatever you decide.

If being with your family is too much for you, skip it this year. You and your children can make other plans. There is nothing more uncomfortable than having people discuss your divorce and your social life over a family dinner or at a holiday party.

Decorate

If you have never decorated before, this is a perfect time to start. If you have boxes of old ornaments, choose only the ones that bring you joy. Think about what you can do to liven up your space. If money is tight, streamers and paper chains are a good family activity and participation is a good way to get everyone into the spirit. It’s not about the stuff. It’s about being together.

For example, a poinsettia is an amazingly hardy plant with bright red and green leaves. They are available everywhere and will last for months with very little care. Most kids love to hang streamers and with colored paper and a little tape or glue you can make homemade streamers.

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If you are not a DIY person, a couple candles and a happy upbeat saying on a piece of wood is festive. Soap in shapes you like. A few hand towels with snowmen on them. A snow globe from a trip or your own hometown. Use the good dishes. A mug with a saying you like filled with candy on the table.

Don’t be alone

If the kids are celebrating with your ex on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or First Night of Hanukkah, join someone else’s family celebration. Don’t sulk at home! Unless your dream for a perfect holiday includes binge watching your favorite movies in cozy pajamas with hot chocolate stirred with a candy cane. Okay, maybe that’s just me.

Be proactive, be proactive, be proactive

The holidays should not come as a surprise. They are mostly on the same days every year.
The day after Halloween, Christmas decorations go up and people start talking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Hanukkah, or whatever they plan to celebrate.

It’s just a day. 24 hours. If you have kids, don’t fight about who gets whom when and where. It just adds to the stress of an already stressful time of year. If you aren’t a fan of the holidays, try to think of the ways you can include things that you want to do.

Do the work before the day. Don’t wait until the morning of to suffer. Talk to a counselor, clergy, friends, and family and make sure they all know how you are. Make plans and try not to wallow. It’s a difficult time of year for lots of people and you will only be alone if you want to be. If people don’t know your situation, they can’t help.

Get into the spirit of giving

Keep in mind the things you are grateful for. They can be small things, like not having your uncle Harry’s nose. Your sense of humor. Or larger, more soulful things, like the fact that your friends and family are healthy and safe.

Being grateful and counting your blessings is a documented way to start feeling more positive.

There are so many people in need right now between floods, shootings, and fires. It’s a great time to donate things that you no longer want or need. Being generous doesn’t mean writing a check necessarily. It can also mean donating your time as well as unwanted or unneeded items.

There are churches, synagogues, community centers, and all sorts of charities that run programs all year but especially during the holidays. Sometimes helping others less fortunate brings the spirit of the holidays home in a way spending money or buying presents can’t.

Throw your own party

Sometimes too much family time isn’t a good thing for everyone and an excuse to have some fun might be just the tonic other people need.

How about a desert and eggnog competition? A chili cook-off? This could be a great way for people to gather together and blow off some built-up steam. It can be a random day and not on the actual holiday so as not to compete with other events and guarantee a larger turnout.

Or maybe try an ugly sweater party or a light brunch before all the other festivities happen. It’s your time to take the holidays back and do what you want with the people you care about.

It’s not about the day. It’s about the spirit of the season. (Tweet it!)

Peace on Earth. Send light into the universe. Joy begets joy.

Be kind to yourself.

Now over to you: What will you do to make your post-divorce holiday season a little brighter this year?

5 strategies to battle empty nest syndrome after divorce

We may not be husbands or wives anymore, but we are parents for life.

Even if they don’t live with us all the time, and don’t need us in the same ways. Even though we have an empty nest.

For the first 30 some years of my life I wasn’t a parent. I was an older sister, a babysitter, a cousin, a camp counselor, a peer adviser. I may have had nurturing tendencies and I loved babies but was happy enough to be able to hand them back to the parents when I had my fill.

Now, I am lucky and blessed to have been a parent for 23 years now. That’s a long time to have a job. And the job description has changed dramatically over time. It started as a 24 hour a day job to try to satisfy the unmet needs of a being who couldn’t communicate with words. Some of my first marital arguments were over child rearing. Parenting can be the best job ever but it is also physically and emotionally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.

You can also do everything right as a parent and still things go wrong. We blame ourselves even when our children are adults, making what we think are bad decisions.

After divorce, we move from a home with a family to a one parent home. Once our children are grown, we move to a home without our children. All of these changes may even take place in the same geographical home — but it’s not the same home.

What do we do when parenting duties become few and far between? (Tweet it!)

When you get fewer requests for meal or a ride, a recipe or a definition of a word. Giving less occasional pep-talks, or being a sounding board when they want to talk to someone with more life experience.

We’re kind of out of a job. At least day in and day out. I have heart to hearts with my kids every now and then. Mostly I listen and try to give advice when needed and encouragement always. But now, their friends or spouses are the center of their social lives and they live independently.

So what do now that we have empty nest?

Make your space over for yourself

You no longer have to decorate for your family or your relationship but for you. Use colors you like. And photos or pictures you love. That home office or workshop you always wanted? You have the space now, so use it. I’m not saying do a big remodel, I’m just saying if you want to move the glass table with sharp corners into the living room, go ahead and do it. Use your grandmother’s china whenever you want.

My daughter has a great room in my new apartment, but she doesn’t spend much time there. She prefers her father’s large house and garden that provide her friends a place to hang out undisturbed. I have a small outside space. The apartment I rented is pretty much just for me. No competition with my ex. His girlfriend is kind to my kids so I can’t really whine about her decorating choices.

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I have a closet full of old framed pictures, photographs, and art. I didn’t put any of them up on the walls, preferring to wait and live here awhile. The pictures I did put up are of my kids as babies. They embarrass them but I love them so they are on the walls. I have a few boxes of stuff that belong to my son and someday he might go through the stuff. For now, it sits and waits and that’s okay.

Spend time with other people’s children

We’ve all heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child.” And over the years, I’ve spent some time with other people’s children. Lots of kids call me Auntie, and I am not related. It’s true. You can do this informally with friends or family. All kids could use a sympathetic ear and a little extra adult time. I know someone who hired herself out as a Grandmother for people whose parents were not around much.

You could lend yourself out informally, for lunch dates or pickups after school or attending performances. Or find a more formal way to do it through a church group, or Big Brother or Big Sister. You could find a youth group that needs an advisor. A choir that needs a director. A sports team that needs a coach.

Some hospitals need people to hold babies. Foster parenting is a possibility as well. Libraries need readers for children. You could help kids with homework. It very much depends on how much you want or need the interaction.

Acknowledge your feelings

Parenting is about change. It’s important to take the time to think about your accomplishments and not just about the loss. You aren’t losing your children, you are just moving to a new type of relationship. And as they grow up and pair off, you will see them differently.

If you feel down and your sleeping or eating habits are being affected — or you feel depressed — get some help and talk to someone. It’s not an easy transition and some of us need some extra help.

What have you always wanted to do but couldn’t with children at home? A friend of mine bought a motor home and says she will travel around in it until her kids have kids. She also adopted a puppy and posts pictures of him on Facebook.

Plan an adventure

It’s expensive to travel with a lot of people. A round trip ticket to someplace warm this winter isn’t so expensive. Maybe you have wanted to visit that old friend from college or middle school? Or maybe a cousin you’ve been meaning to invite or go visit. This is the time to do it when your life is a bit quieter and a bit simpler.

There are all kinds of travelling groups out there advertised all over the internet. Go with your Church group to Israel or Greece. Follow your ancestors path to wherever you eventually landed.

Meet some new people

This goes along with the new hobby or new interest. If you put off getting yourself out there to date because you have kids at home, maybe try dating light. A coffee, attend a lecture, take a class.

Let your friends and acquaintances know that you’re looking to meet someone nice. Make sure you remind them that someone being divorced isn’t the only thing you need to have in common.

Now over to you: how did you handle empty-nest syndrome after your divorce?

What to do when everywhere you look is dark during divorce

It’s been a tough week for humanity. People losing their lives or livelihoods or whole neighborhoods and everything they have worked for their whole lives. It seems like half the world is flooded and the other half is parched.

And we sensitive beings can only watch in horror or write a check or send another kind of donation. And count our blessings. It’s hard to count your blessing when your own personal world is dark as well.

It’s hard to do anything with forward momentum when you feel stuck and sad and paralyzed. That’s what a divorce feels like.(Tweet it!)

At least it did to me. And that was after years of disappointments, unfulfilled promises, and working hard to be the best partner I could be. It was never about me. Not really.

That is how I felt in my marriage near the end. I didn’t see anything to look forward to other than my children. The idea of my life stretching out before me as a series of stupid fights and unmet expectations and heartache just depressed the hell out of me. There were days that I could hardly manage to get out of bed.

There were two things that did tip the scales for me. A good counselor who helped me learn tools to cope with my broken heart and the feelings of shame and helplessness. And writing a book of poetry to chronicle my experience through the five stages of divorce. It’s called Divorce Poetry: Breaking Free. And at the beginning of the book, I didn’t see much hope.

Now I help other people through this blog and one on one counseling and my book is out there on Amazon for anyone who wants to read the story of my journey. It’s raw and real and a labor of self-love.

BROKEN HEARTED

The pain has finally split my heart in two
Halves that will not be again together
The break was ragged want to seal anew
Some are lost to me now and forever

My ravaged heart still beats a different time
I do not recognize the new-formed flow
Why did I not see the heart was mine?
Concentrating on my breathing deep and slow

And with two pieces I will now go on
The path unknown to me and so unclear
The sore muscles from overuse are strong
The worst is past and nothing left to fear

Although I cannot see my way ahead
Hearts are blind; I’ll use my eyes instead.

Often during my separation and divorce, I couldn’t articulate what I wanted to say verbally so I wrote it in a poem. It has always been the way I have dealt with strong feelings. My mentor always talks about how to deal with big emotions or roadblocks. “Make some five-minute art,” she says. I believe it gets you out of your head long enough to see things a bit differently.

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I don’t mean Rembrandt kind of art. I mean taking a piece of paper and a pen and drawing stick figures. Or writing “roses are red violets are blue.” Knitting, pumping iron, singing a little song, humming. A client of mine who is a lawyer wrote a brilliant haiku at my request when she was going through a divorce, and I am quoting loosely here, no title:

When you think about
Your husband’s plane crashing
Time to get divorced

Okay, so no Pulitzer Prize here. But it serves a purpose and we laughed about it for an hour. It also got her to see how ridiculous her situation had become. She didn’t really wish the father of her children ill will. But she did need to get away from him and end her marriage.

I brought poetry to couple’s counseling. It was humiliating. My ex charmed the counselor and explained that he had no idea why I was so unhappy. I poured my heart out and she called me a trouble maker. Okay, so we picked the wrong counselor. But it was too late by then. His happiness was always more important than mine. And the fantasy he conjured up in those sessions was a reality check for me.

So how about this week, you make a little art. Take pictures. I would love to see what you’re up to. There is something about keeping your hands busy that frees up your mind to deal with things.

Back to school this week, so go buy some colored pencils and draw a train or scribble. Playdough is good. How about baking? Draw on a picture in Instagram. Snap chat if you feel like it.

Or play your favorite music and sing at the top of your lungs.

Do something for you.

Joining our private FB community, Breaking Free, is a great start.