It’s time for a new paradigm in separation and divorce. A new story – an alternate ending. It’s time to take it higher, to evolve. It is time for empowerment!

We are ready for a shift in consciousness: from blame to responsibility, from devastation to expansion, from separation to oneness, from anger and hate to peace and love. It’s time to move from victim consciousness into empowerment.

There is such a stigma surrounding divorce, so many negative beliefs. Labeling children of divorce as those of “broken families”, believing that financially, one or both parties must “lose”, talking of the marriage as “failed”. My marriage didn’t fail – it evolved! It was a beautiful expansion of the two of us as individuals, serving its purpose of growth and love into the people we are today. And we are not a broken family – we are a beautiful extended family with more people to love. There was no financial winner or loser, it was a thoughtful division based on what was best for everyone involved. And I understand that we are “unusual”, that most separations do not end as peacefully as ours, but this is the separation of the future. This is what is possible when you do all of the emotional and spiritual work, when you decide that peace and love are your priority and continue to choose it at each step.

The days of trying to take your spouse for everything and fight out your marriage battles in a court room with a winner and a loser should be over. The days of using your children as pons and as leverage to hurt your former partner are done. It’s time for an integrated approach for moving through separation with body, mind and spirit. Making wholeness, healing and thriving for all involved the primary focus. Where even amidst child support payments and alimony, a win-win situation can be found for all to thrive. Where co-parenting means loving your children so much that you are not willing to put them in the middle of any discord, and you work through any issues within yourself and your adult relationship and let the children be children. Where regardless of how your relationship used to be, you can hold a space of peace around your former partner.

Many people don’t realize that this exists – that you don’t need to “lawyer up” and fight it out. And you may still need to go to court, but it doesn’t have to be a battle. You may still need a lawyer, but there are many wonderful collaborative lawyers now, and many who will work peacefully with both parties together. There is a whole new world of peaceful divorce options and this world will continue to grow.

The first step is to realize this is possible. The second and much harder step is to make peace your priority; to make the choice and then take consistent action to put it into place. And it only takes one person to make this choice, to choose peace. Yes, it will be more difficult being peaceful with a non-peaceful partner, but it is possible.

How do you do this? To realize that nothing needs to change for you to be at peace. As Wayne Dyer said, “conflict cannot survive without your participation.” Peace is an internal state, not a representation of your environment. The people and things in your life that trigger you (make you upset, angry, frustrated, etc.) are only showing you pieces of your internal environment that need attention, that need healing.

Moving out of victim consciousness means shifting out of blame and into responsibility. Realizing that everything in your life is happening for you so that you can see the wound or dynamic that needs to be felt and healed within yourself – the next layer to be shed so that you can return to your true nature – peace and love.

The only thing you can control in divorce (and in life) is how you show up and how you react to whatever it is that they are doing (or not doing). If you find yourself angry, in blame, hurt or victimized by what another is doing, start there. Notice what you are feeling and the story running behind it. Don’t focus on them, focus on you. Notice the story being told by your brain about what is happening (what is being done to you, what issues the other person has or how they are “wrong”) and notice where else in your life, often from your childhood, this story exists. Most of our triggers are from a wounded former version of ourselves that need to be heard and loved, and you can do this for yourself or with a therapist or healer (it won’t ever be healed by someone changing their behavior).

The biggest change needed to move into empowerment is a change in your frame of mind. To realize that even if this wasn’t your choice, you have the ability to create whatever you want out of this experience. You have the power in any situation to see it as something horrible that is happening to you, or something that is happening for you. You can take this situation and ask how you and your family can be served by this, how you can grow, how you can heal and expand into something more.

This is almost certainly not what you had planned for your life, what you dreamed of as you were sharing your vows, the life you wished for your children. And this separation may not even be your choice, but you have the ability to create whatever you want out of this moment. You have the ability to take this experience and use it as a platform on which to stand, to rise up and create beauty out of pain, healing out of suffering and joy out of sadness.  It’s time to take your power back and write your own happy ending!