God is everywhere. We can feel God’s presence in the strength and beauty of the setting sun, in the brilliant colors of an early morning sunrise, in the innocence of a newborn baby, in the scurrying of God’s critters and creatures, birds and hawks and baby deer outside our back doors, through the swishing and swaying of deeply forested trees dancing in the wind, and through myriad other experiences that awaken a sense of spirituality in and through us.

When we allow ourselves to slow down, therefore becoming conscious of the present moment, there is much more to life and to ourselves within our lives, to become aware of. Of course, all of this means removing or quieting ourselves from the noise and constant intrusion of social media, the news, politics, and consumerism that come at us so quickly, inclining us to feel numb and separated from ourselves.

What an oasis filled with Gods peace and love, serenity and freedom, going to our inner room can be. Here, in our freely chosen time-out space with God, we are secluded from the constant noise and grind of the everyday, positioned and freed to get to know ourselves better. In our inner room we are positioned to know our feelings, we are positioned to know who we really are and who we would like to become, not who other people would like us to be.

In our inner room we can quietly reflect on our marriage, our parenting, our relationships, to listen to our hearts with God in them, to understand what it is we might want to change to be true to our hearts and what is meaningful to us.

In our inner room we are at peace with our God who loves us, with our God who knows us so well, who wants to guide us, affirm us, dig in with us and explore with us what we might want to change, encourage us, strengthen us, and help us to love ourselves enough to take in the good feelings, safety, and security that come from knowing just how much God loves us.

In our inner room we’re strengthened and given the courage to face and to ferret out those feelings we run and hide from because we believe they will harm us. In our inner room with God with us, we learn instead that the very feelings we dread and fear, are the feelings that build bridges, not walls, to our understanding. Only through understanding those fearful feelings that we have been taught to avoid, are we able to deal with and manage them, rather than them managing us.

You see, the more we allow closeness with our God in our inner room, the more darkness begins to fade into Light. That Light is God’s Grace, Wisdom, Compassion, Caring, and Kindness. It is God’s Love in Oneness with us, saying “Come back to me with all your heart, don’t let fear keep us apart.”

My prayer for you all through Lent is that by establishing a habit of going into your inner room with God during the 40 days of Lent, you will find a treasured space that you want to return to again and again. A space that is all about your and God’s time together. And that once you learn to love that space and that time, both the telling and the listening, you inner room will be a space you return to, everyday of your life.

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Essentially, this is the story of being human. That’s not a bad thing but a behavior that we might want to become more aware of so that in the moment of choice-making, we’re clearer about which way we want to go, to be true to who we are and who we want to become.

Examples of the Head vs. Heart Conflict

Some examples of what I’m referring to might include reactivity in our relationships. Or times when we tell ourselves we’ll be on social media or our phones for “X” amount of time but long later, recognize we far exceeded our original commitment to ourselves.

In the latter example, we might well feel frustrated and/or disappointed in ourselves. Not maintaining our original plan might leave us with less time for other things we wanted to achieve. This again is part of being human but becoming more conscious of habits that lure us away from our primary goals, helps us to create change through better choice-making.

In the first example of reactivity between ourselves and others we truly care about in relationships (spouses, parents, children, in-laws, co-workers, friends) it’s not an intentional choice to strike out in reactivity and yet it so often happens. We feel bad after we’ve cut someone off or are critical of them in a conversation, yet in the moment that we struck out, we felt righteous. What they were saying was wrong in our view and we are right. Not only do we feel right, but the other person needs to know it.

The downside is that the other person may well feel hurt, judged, demeaned or disrespected. Clearly, they never saw that reactivity coming! Simultaneously we, too, may feel bad about our own behavior, even though we still believe that we were right. Somehow, we need to find a way to make amends (to ourself and to the other person) and go forward.

Moving Toward Acceptance

One way that might help us resolve this head vs. heart conflict is to stay connected to our heart when we feel the reactivity button being triggered. We must remember that we love this person, that they are meaningful to us and/or our family, and that we don’t want to damage relational ties between us.

In fact, another choice beyond reactivity is acceptance and tolerance, growing beyond believing that we are right. Moving toward acceptance that we are all different and have different views is an important step in raising our consciousness. Neither one of us must be right nor wrong. In fact, the gift that comes from this latter choice is one of self-growth.

We become more of who God made us to become in God’s loving care, no small gift. As we make the choice toward tolerance and respect for others, we simultaneously engage in self-respect toward ourselves. The good feelings that emanate from choices that help us feel good about ourselves can only become increasingly self-reinforcing. The more we feel good, the more we want to feel good. Try it on for size and see what you think. And don’t forget to take in all the good feelings!

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That said, it still seems to me that as a culture and as people, we pretty much remain closed off to facing our negative and painful emotions. There is just something inside of each one of us that cringes and recoils, shutting down when those most painful emotions come even close to the surface.

I wonder what that is? As you read this, what is your understanding of what shuts you down when you feel painful emotions arising within you?

I think as an example, of how we apologize if we spontaneously break down and cry. What is it that makes us uncomfortable that we need to apologize for?

Learning to listen and lean into our feelings through divorce and beyond, no matter how we dread them, is central to healing and growing into who we genuinely are after divorce.

Learning more about who we genuinely are allows us greater freedom to become more of who God made us to become in God’s likeness. 

Just think about it for a minute. All the upheaval, all the arguments, all the times that you felt confined or limited or unable to be your true self – or all the ways that you stopped being yourself upon learning that your spouse was leaving you—is now all the past.  In the present, you are now called to open all those windows and doors to become more of your genuine true self, free to blossom and fully become.     

You may likely be aware of the concept of “High Conflict Divorce”. In fact, a majority of divorces in recent years tend to be high conflict processes between the couple for reasons that are related to intense feelings each party has toward the other, that simply have not been resolved. Conflict is a way of staying connected to each other, albeit in a counter-productive way.   

Awareness of your discomfort toward your own negative, painful feelings through divorce is a first step toward changing the dynamic that currently shuts you down from feeling close to yourself and to others

If perchance you are reading this and shaking your head, believing that “nice” people, good Christian Catholics shouldn’t have or aren’t allowed to have negative feelings, I hope that you will find a way to resolve that and move beyond that belief.

The truth is that feelings themselves aren’t bad, it’s what we do with them that allows them to become harmful or not.  It is what we do with our feelings that allows them to become sinful or not.

I think about the painful emotions of fear, grief, terror, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and despair through divorce.  I’m aware of the effort it takes to block these feelings, rather than opening up to them, to allow them to help us learn more about who we are. 

When we allow fear, hopelessness, anxiety, and other painful emotions to enter into our mental and spiritual space, then we are better able to explore, work through, understand them, and discern how we will use these feelings 

How will we strategize and manage these painful feelings going forward? Or, how will we resolve them and let them go? Or, what do we need to do differently to respond to these feelings when they emerge, rather than react to them?

Left unchecked, these painful feelings may ultimately sabotage us, leading us to devolve into reactions and behaviors that we wouldn’t otherwise choose for ourselves. 

It is true that we have learned from our earliest life experiences to dismiss our negative emotions. Consider for a moment how acceptable (or not) you would have been in your childhood home with negative feelings.   

But more than learning to ignore painful feelings, I believe a bigger problem is that fact that we never learned how to deal with painful or negative feelings.  We simply are not experienced in knowing how to accept or work through them.   

We haven’t been taught, how to tolerate the painful emotional energy behind painful emotions, in ways that allow and bolster us to use that energy.  What I’m suggesting, is that rather than control these painful emotions, another choice is to harness the energy inside of them to grow emotionally and spiritually. 

What I am suggesting is that when you work with your painful feelings, you free the energy inside of your painful emotions to help enlighten your path. 

Trust me that I know that sitting with those painful emotions and working them through is not easy.  And my use of the word “choice” might seem in poor choice.  But in the end, I think what we do with our painful emotions and how we allow them to change us in less than healthy ways, is a choice. 

Choosing how to manage painful feelings is a choice that I believe we all want to be mindfully aware of, especially in the presence of children who are living and learning the effects of your unresolved painful feelings.      

Surrendering and giving up your painful emotions allows you to enter inside of them with your whole heart and soul. Once inside, your heart and soul will guide and enlighten you, as you delve into pain that feels too great to bear. 

The process of opening up to and going inside of your painful feelings might almost be described as becoming presence with them, a process that welcomes and allows the Holy Spirit to be in that space and inside of those feelings with you.

The Holy Spirit knows who and where each of us is and where each of us really wants to go. 

Through prayer, the Holy Spirit will help you to get there!

The Holy Spirit knows how easy and comfortable it is for us to slip into our small, ego driven selves. And through prayer and intentionality, the Holy Spirit will help guide and motivate you toward healing that reflects more of your True Self.

The concept of becoming more through divorce is very real, from a life and from a faith perspective. 

There is no life without loss and grief.

Everyone’s life has some amount of grief and loss, whether we choose to work with it or not. 

Divorce, for whatever reason you are experiencing it  —

whether you are the one who initiated it or are the one upon whom it was initiated –

whether yours is a “gray divorce” occurring when you were just stepping into later life,

 or divorce that occurred and is occurring in your younger life –

is an opportunity for growth. 

Beyond divorce, we need to learn to like and love and value ourselves – just the way our loving God loves us.

Human, weak, imperfect, unfinished, insecure or bold, exhausted, hurt or confused – God loves you!

The question is, do you love and value yourself?

Whatever aspects of who you are that were less than desirable for your partner, be aware to not become critical or belittle yourself because of those judgments made against you. 

Rather, decide for yourself what is honest and reflective of who you truly are, what needs to be changed or not, to be at peace with yourself.

There is only one of each of us and we are all precious in God’s sight.

As I read Pope Francis’ homily, delivered at the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on October 10, 2021 announcing the opening of the Synodal process, I couldn’t help but be struck by a sense of synchronicity I experienced between his words and the words that I was writing for this article. 

Encounter, listen, and discern are three keywords in the Synodal process. 

“By listening to the Holy Spirit, the Synod can be a process of healing” Pope Francis stated. By listening to the Holy Spirit, moving into your painful feelings can be a process of healing this article suggests.

“A Synod calls on everyone to become experts in the ‘art of encounter” in a way that is uplifting and transformative” Pope Francis stated. By honoring your painful feelings and working through them to become so much more in God’s likeness, you too will be uplifted and transformed this article suggests.

“Celebrating a Synod means walking on the same road together” just like Jesus did – encountering, listening, and discerning with all who one meets.  Are we prepared for the adventure of this journey? Or are we fearful of the unknown? Pope Francis asked. By listening to your feelings and discerning honest choices that best represent your True Self, this article suggests that you will become better prepared for your Life journey. 

If you remain fearful of the unknown, continue working through it. If you need professional help to support you, by all means find a therapist you feel safe and secure to work with.

Because the Holy Spirit will never leave you or let you down, if you just remain connected and open.

Last, I paused, and smiled when I read Pope Francis’ words about walking on the same road together.

I know, and I hope that you know, that separated and divorced Catholics are walking on the same road together with the larger, wider church. 

We are one church.

In fact, the whole church has a lot to learn from separated and divorced Catholics.

It is through suffering and dying to our dreams and our goals, our good intentions and multiple efforts that failed, together with our vow driven commitments, the endings of which only God understands, that we are led to dying and rising again into the fullness of God’s love.  

“We walk by faith and not by sight, no gracious words we hear, of him who spoke as none e’er spoke, but we believe him near” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Geraldine M. Kerr, Ph.D., LMFT, is Licensed in Marriage and Family Therapy as well as having a Certification in Pastoral Ministry from Fordham University School of Religion and Religious Education. As an experienced therapist for over 30 years, Dr. Geri is an educator, retreat leader, workshop leader, and speaker. Working from a family-systems, somatic, psychoeducational, and psychospiritual perspective Dr. Geri has worked with individuals, couples, and families for many years, specializing in trauma and loss. Dr. Geri was an active participant in the Ministry for Separated and Divorced Catholics years ago when she began her journey as a single parent. With the strength of her Catholic faith, she raised a strong and vibrant single-parent family that consists of four grown children and ten wonderful grandchildren! Dr. Geri Kerr is passionate about her work and her life, giving honor and glory to God each day for God’s way of helping her turn endings into new beginnings!

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In fact, many of us likely believed that being married Catholic somehow afforded us extra protection that we would never end up getting divorced.  We took our Catholic vows seriously.  Through the good times and bad, we never considered divorce.     

Yet if you are reading this article, it is likely that you or someone you know and care about is facing divorce.  The sad fact is that divorce occurs among Catholics with almost the same frequency that it does among the culture at large.

The partnership you thought would last “until death do us part” came to an end. 

For some of you that may have happened abruptly, a change of heart in your spouse that you never saw coming.  Least of all, were you prepared for the shock and sudden ending.  My heart goes out to you, for this kind of traumatic ending is difficult to process and resolve. 

For others of you, married life may have had its peaks and valleys, but you coasted along always believing the best.    

You cared for the children, you worked, cooked, cleaned, and shopped, making family life happen in a way that required more energy than you ever dreamed that you had. 

You prayed, went to Mass and Communion as a family each Sunday, and lived a good Catholic life.  You felt the dark days lifted by the brighter days and believed this is what marriage is.  Even though the spark seemed gone between you, you never envisioned that your marriage would end in divorce. 

You believed that there was more between you.

You knew that drinking or substance abuse had created a wedge between you and your spouse.  You felt alone.  You just never envisioned divorce.

You knew that your spouse had experienced emotional, physical, or sexual abuse in childhood or may have been raised by addicted parents, but you never realized that emotionally abusive childhood would snuff the life out of your own marriage.  

Where closeness once was, distance has now moved in.  Over time, you felt your spouse becoming increasingly detached and distant from you.  H/she no longer considered your feelings and/or partnered with you in decision-making, finances, family activities, parenting, and so much more. 

You even went to marriage counseling to work on the relationship.   

Eventually, and with sad resignation, you recognized that you were alone in the marriage.  Looking back, you realized that you had been alone for an exceedingly long time.  Worse, when you told your spouse how alone and unloved you felt, s/he made no attempt to work toward greater connection with you. 

Through prayer, you slowly came to grips with the fact that you were in a loveless marriage. 

For so long, you thought it was you.  You blamed/shamed yourself for not being good or lovable enough.

Love and connection that once reflected God’s love between you, was now barren.    

You will never know for certain when or how marital love between you died, but you knew that you could not live in a marriage where there is no partnership.

It is in partnership in marriage that the warmth of God’s love and presence brings two people into oneness and Being with Him.      

It is in a growing, loving relationship that God’s love binds and leads you to become so much more together, than you ever would be alone.    

With resignation and a sense of God’s presence within you, you decide to end the marriage.

You feel God’s compassion for the reality of where you are as you end the marriage.     

If there is one thing you know, it is that Jesus calls us to Life!    

Whether sudden and unexpected or slowly eroding over time, you simply never expected to be facing divorce.   

What will the ending of this relationship look like? Who will you be, and how will you carry yourself through it?  

Clearly, ending a marriage through divorce is a prayer-filled process.  Whether you are the one who left or the one who was left, the ending of marriage through divorce requires deep prayer and a spirit of discernment to help you to understand what happened that led to the divorce. 

It is only through understanding what happened in the marriage that led to its ending, that you can surrender and let go of your will, to join with God’s will for and with you. 

When you let go and surrender to the ending of your marriage, you do so with trust in God’s will that will transform your life into more Life with God.  As you let go of the past and awaken to so much more of who you are filled with the life of the Spirit within you, innately you begin to see your new beginning.      

How do you envision surrendering a marriage that you may not have wanted to end?  How do you envision that God is leading you forward into more Life?  What do you know about yourself as you envision the bumpy road ahead that will require extra prayer and patience? 

What is your understanding of letting go of the life that you had, as you remain open to re-learning a new life, with your True Self in it?

What do you know about yourself and the ways that you put yourself into God’s loving embrace to find courage in the face of loss?

Slowly, you begin to envision that although divorce is an ending, divorce also signals a new beginning. 

You see, endings are the other side of beginnings.

When you face an interior process of endings or loss, you use what you previously knew, loved, and had, to carve out more – more of your True Self with God in it than you ever knew before!    

Trauma has the potential to transform you into spiritual awakening. 

Through an inner experience of waking up after the ending of your marriage, you may find yourself experiencing a shift in consciousness. 

You see, trauma forces you to face the limits of your own egocentricity.  In newly expanded space you become more conscious of being one with God. 

In the inner silence of your heart, you hear God guiding you.  Right/wrong, black/white, either/or thinking is replaced by the bigger picture of your whole life.   

We find God in brokenness!

Brokenness becomes a unitive experience with God in you because it is precisely in not knowing that you learn and find God! 

Not in the predictable, but in the unpredictable; in the trusting and the seeking rather than the knowing and the known!

You see, learning God is so vastly different from learning facts about God!  Those tiniest seeds of faith nurtured through your younger life are now waiting to flourish into new Life filled with God‘s tender mercy, compassion, love, and healing! 

Transformation and new beginnings can only occur when you let go of what you once had to stay open to gifts of God’s love and tender mercy, filling you with more than you have ever had! 

You see, when you let go of your way and your wishes — your vision of what your life “should” have been – only then are you able to open up to so much more that God wants to fill you with!    

As you move forward in your life toward new beginnings after divorce, I encourage you to stay fully true to who you are with an awareness of God’s presence within you more than ever before!

Transformation requires growth emotionally and spiritually.  Use your Catholic Christian values more than ever before to stay true to who you really are as your grow with God’s grace within you! 

Take part in support groups for separated and divorced, reaching out to others while healing and growing on your own!  If you cannot find a support group for separated and divorced, start one of your own.  Resources are out there to support and guide you in this undertaking.

Above all, know that your story is important and that you belong – to God, to your family, your community, and your church.  Separated and divorced Catholics have so much to teach the church and the Christian community about dying and rising; endings and beginnings!

If I might ever be of help to you in any of these ways, please do not hesitate to contact me.    Above all, stay close to Jesus and the Blessed Mother through prayer.  Be still, and in the silence of your heart, you will feel God’s presence and guidance.  Stay open to it, and may you find the fullness of God’s blessings and peace!  God knows exactly where you are and wants you to feel his closeness and connection!

Geraldine M. Kerr, Ph.D., LMFT, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.  With a background in Pastoral Ministry, Dr. Geri has worked for years with individuals, couples and families from a psychospiritual perspective.  Dr. Geri was an active participant in the Ministry for Separated and Divorced Catholics years ago when she began her journey as a single parent to four small children ages 1, 4, 7, and 8.  With the strength of her Catholic faith, she raised a strong and vibrant single-parent Catholic family, now extended to include ten wonderful grandchildren!  Dr. Geri has an extensive background presenting workshops and seminars at conferences, both nationally and internationally.  She is passionate about her work and her life, giving honor and glory to God each day of her life for God’s way of helping her turn endings into new beginnings! 

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Especially if you were married as a Catholic or as a Christian in church, you took that extra step as a way of solidifying your marriage in the eyes of God and the larger Christian community.    

You took the solemn vow of marriage before God, family and friends because you saw marriage as a commitment – a lifelong commitment that you intended to keep. 

Whether your marriage has been long or brief – whether you saw the separation and divorce coming or you are the one who initiated it – there is nothing easy or straightforward about the divorce process. 

What so many people fail to recognize is the interwovenness of marriage. 

Simply stated, “I” becomes woven into “We” through the years of being married together.   

You enter into marriage as “I” – but you create another whole entity and identity along the way called “We”.

Of course, you maintain your individual “I” as well. 

Still, in separation and divorce, it is painful and hard to separate the “we”. 

We work hard to unravel who am “I” without the “we”? 

Divorce impacts are felt beyond the immediate family.    

There is the community, the extended family, friends, school, church, and your own precious children.

Separation and divorce ripples from all of these extended systems are felt and must be contended with.

Of all of these, the most important are the children of divorce.

The marital relationship our children are born into is the only family they know. 

Now as you sort out your marital relationship through separation and divorce, you must place emphasis on ways to best take care of your children.   

How do you provide the same sense of oneness of family life for your children – while living apart?

Above all, how do you keep your grievances about and toward each other, away from your children? 

These are not easy issues.  Especially in the midst of great emotional turmoil and pain, you may feel lost and unsure how to move forward. 

Your well-intentioned family and friends may be guiding you in ways that are not cohesive for your soul.

Because you chose to become married in the eyes of God as a sign of your faith, I believe that you want to move forward through separation and divorce in the best ways possible with God’s guidance and grace. 

Ministry for Separated and Divorced is a ministry for those grieving the loss of their marriage through the transition into divorce.  For those who have children, Ministry for Separated and Divorced includes a focus on single parenting as well.   

Ministry for Separated and Divorced will meet each week for eight weeks. Each session will begin with a program that touches on all the most important aspects of divorce.

Come as you are, which might include hopeful, broken, discouraged, disappointed, angry, relieved – you name it!

Together with others, you will find your way forward into the next stages of life. With or without children, your participation will position you to move forward with a clearer sense of who you are, and where you want to go. 

For further information, please contact me here. 

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The arguing was often a stinging experience for the kids who loved both parents.

The children were clearly caught in the middle in these situations.  They bore the brunt of their parent’s divorce anger toward each other.  Somehow, it seems the parents were too overwhelmed with their own pain to recognize the life-long pain they were inflicting on their children.    

I have a lot of empathy for adult children of divorce. 

I also have a lot of empathy for those of you who are presently going through divorce.

The depth and breadth of painful emotions triggered by divorce can leave life-long scars.       

Very few relationships in our life are more significant than the relationship of marriage.

Therefore, very few relationship endings are as painful as the ending of a marriage for the couple, and for the children of their marriage.   

With all good faith, I believe that we want to move through the divorce process in ways that are least damaging to ourselves and to our children.    

And yet, how do we do that?  How do you move beyond the pain of ending a relationship that at one time joined you together in body, mind, and spirit? 

How do you move beyond a marriage that you believed would last forever?   

Issues of loss are profound upon the ending of marriage.  Loss and grief accompany the ending of your dreams, goals, hopes, and your vision for a future together.      

Divorce impacts a sense of who you are.  Your identity seems suddenly shaken.

Although you may rationally understand why your partnership ended, what is less clear is how to move forward.

More than anything, you strive to behave in ways that do not impact the children negatively through your divorce.      

But how do you do that?  How do you let go of the pain and the fear; the vulnerability and brokenness; the ambiguity, abandonment, and aloneness that lives within you? 

How do you stuff down your fears of loss around physical and financial security, loss of your home, family, friends, and community involvement, joy and happiness, partnership, health, and full-time living with your children?

As I list these major divorce losses, I am deeply aware that divorce, and separating oneself out from the marriage that was once your identity, is a major life transition. 

In fact, divorce is a major life transition that can only be achieved in healthy ways through our close relationship with the Holy Spirit, calling upon God’s guidance and protection every step of the way. 

Because the truth is, each of you needs to separate in ways that are respectful to the person God made you to be, to the children you brought into the world, and to the values that you intentionally need to hold on to and aspire toward. 

Whether as a single person or a single parent, your sight must be fixed on finding ways to transcend your pain, in order to weave forward with the Holy Spirit.        

You might ask, what does respectful divorce look like, and how do I open myself to new life?    

First and foremost, you must give yourself permission to grieve and mourn the ending of your marriage.      

Just like becoming a couple was a process, so too is divorce and un-coupling a process. 

Processes take time, so it is critically important that you mindfully create space in your life for prayer, stillness, and inner silence where you discern God’s presence guiding you forward.    

Getting to know your painful feelings through your divorce is important because in the absence of knowing your painful triggers, you are vulnerable to acting them out. 

You are vulnerable to acting out your feelings in ways that make you feel worse, not better.

Your goal through divorce is to become responsive rather than reactive.    

Becoming defensive and combative are reactions more likely to occur when we block or deny our painful feelings.

Learning how to strategize painful triggers in ways that lead to more effective outcomes will help soften and heal you. 

Understanding and working through painful feelings provides important information for you to learn more about what has purpose and meaning in your life that you want to become attuned to.      

Ignatian prayer offers us a beautiful path toward healing through divorce.    

Imagine that Jesus is sitting next to you.  You begin to talk to Jesus as you would a friend.  You share your pain, you pour out your frustrations, and you tell Jesus the very shortcomings in yourself that you struggle terribly with, and you ask for guidance.  You ask for support.  You ask for strength.  And you ask for pardon and mercy that in your humanness, you may not always be showing up the way you would like to.     

And then you listen!  You listen to Jesus’ response in return, guiding you forward into new paths and inroads, thoughts and possibilities.  You may feel resonance with the Spirit, guiding you toward a bigger picture, one that God alone knows that you want to achieve.  In this way, God inclines you to become closer to who you are; closer to who you want to become! 

In effect, we move through divorce through surrender.  By surrender, I mean moving beyond resistance from what you have no control over, to stay and remain as present as you can to the present moment.     

Surrender takes courage.  Through surrender we are better able to place ourselves, our choices and decisions going forward, into God’s tender, loving care.      

Through surrender, we give up our small self to meld into our True Self; our authentic self.

Moving slowly with intention into your True Self frees you to find inner peace and solace where God molds and enlightens you to become more than you ever thought you could be.

It is when we give up our inner resistance that we can begin to find New Life!

It is in our acceptance that hopes and dreams we once had for our own lives, are silently being refashioned and transformed by the Holy Spirit into lives and dreams far greater than we ever imagined.    

It is in allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us that we find more of God in our lives through and beyond divorce, than we may ever have found by staying in relationships that were closed and broken. 

It is through feeling and experiencing God’s love in our new lives that we find and experience our God of New Life who leads us forward to become so much more of our True Self.

It is through softening our ego-driven willfulness into Spirit-led willingness that we are enabled to go beyond walls that held us back, into new spaces in our lives filled with Light.    

It is only through living in darkness, that we begin to see the Light!

Upon finding the Light, we see so much more to become so much more than in the dark!

Once we let go, led by the Light,

We still hear the triggers; the injustice; the issues we were fighting for —   

Yet with God’s grace in the Light, we are now able to find peace; to let go. 

We understand the Easter message more clearly than ever before. 

We understand that Jesus died and rose to show us the way to New Life! 

We understand that we too die to our old life, to make room for New Life filled with the Spirit of God in us in ways that will be with us forever!

                              Be still, and know that I am God! (Psalm 46)  

Geraldine M. Kerr, Ph.D., LMFT, is Licensed in Marriage and Family Therapy and Certified in Pastoral Ministry from Fordham University School of Religion and Religious Education.  As an experienced family therapist for over 30 years, Dr. Geri is an educator, workshop presenter, retreat leader, and public speaker.  Working within a family-systems, somatic, psychoeducational, and psychospiritual perspective Dr. Geri has worked with individuals, couples, families, and ministry groups for many years.  Dr. Geri has worked with Ministry for Separated and Divorced in the past, and has recently started a new Ministry for Separated and Divorced group at St. Matthew the Apostle Church in Ironia (Randolph) New Jersey.  A single parent herself, Dr. Geri raised a family of four (now adult) children and is grandmom to ten wonderful grandchildren.  She believes strongly in the vibrancy of ministry for separated and divorced and the many contributions that divorced Catholics have to give, as well as receive, from our church.    

This blog originally appeared at thecenterforspiritualawakening.org and is reprinted with permission from the author.

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That said, healing emotional abuse from parents is also complicated by the fact that so many of you who need to heal, are unaware that you were abused. 

Marriage and relationships, in general, are often fraught with difficulties stemming from residual, unresolved effects of emotional abuse from parents.  Many people think that healing from emotional abuse from parents means abuse that was outwardly physical, like hitting, punching, beating, or other physical forms of abuse.   

What I am referring to here is emotional abuse from parents that created shame, emptiness, anxiety, loneliness, abandonment, depression, loss of significance or importance, insecurity, denial, and a general sense of loss of wellbeing and happiness that has permeated who you are from your childhood years. 

I am talking about a lack of freedom to become who you really were as a child, without encountering shame, blame, humiliation, ridicule, put downs, verbal attacks, name calling or more. 

Many of you may not realize that emotional abuse is every bit as damaging and long-lasting as physical abuse. It may even be more damaging because it is silent. Most times, emotional abuse from parents does not come to the attention of other family members, the authorities or teachers. 

In fact, the sad part is that many years ago when many of you were being raised by your parents, even they did not recognize that the way they spoke to you was emotional abuse!

However, the shame is so great for children emotionally abused by their parents that they rarely talk about it. 

If you are healing from emotional abuse from parents, you likely pushed it down inside. With the result of feeling “less than” in many ways from your peers. It is likely that you are bearing responsibility for never feeling that you were “good enough”—then and now.      

When children are raised with emotional abuse from parents, they are emotionally abandoned. 

You learn to feel unworthy, unlovable, incompetent, inferior, shameful, guilty, and oftentimes turn to addictions to soothe the aloneness. 

Children raised with emotional abuse from parents often learn to become people pleasers. Rather than meet their own needs, they excessively put the needs of others before their own. Putting others’ needs before one’s own is an attempt to become acceptable to others. 

Denying one’s own self to become acceptable to others inclines us to become our false self.  In becoming your false self, you lose sight of who you really are and what you really need and want.

To complicate healing from emotional abuse from parents even further, you take this false self into all of your other relationships – work, home, family, friends, and marital relationships. At first, your way of life pleasing others before yourself works. 

But within a period of time, your true self longs to emerge and you become agitated and restless. There is a good chance you are not aware of what is pulling you down. But once again, you are not feeling good about yourself.  Even as you put others first, you no longer feel good.

You may feel unsettled, reactive, or depressed.  But what is behind your feelings is outside of your awareness. 

Many times when individuals or couples enter counseling, they become aware for the first time that they are healing from parental emotional abuse. As therapy progresses and we explore family of origin histories, healing emotional abuse of parents become apparent.

Once emotional abuse from parents is identified, you are able to heal. You are able to expand your relationships with others in ways you were unable to without therapy. 

The psyche is a beautiful thing. It has its own ways of allowing us to know when we are emotionally and spiritually stuck.

The truth is that we really cannot go forward without first finishing the past. 

Moving beyond the past enables you to transform into the beautiful person that God made you to be. It also enables you to become more relationally available to both yourself and the ones that you love.    

If you would like to grow beyond where you currently are to heal emotional abuse from parents, I am here to help you. 

Together we will explore how and where you got stuck, in ways that enable you to go forward with more of your true self than you ever dreamed possible!

Please contact me if you are ready to heal and grow beyond where you currently are.

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In fact, the thought process you engage in and the belief system you develop around accepting a medical diagnosis will determine to a significant degree how you will handle it. And it will also determine how you work with your diagnosis as you move forward.

If you remain open, your journey will be hopeful. 

If you are closed off and shut down, your journey may become more difficult. 

To be clear, none of us ever expects to receive a negative health report. Upon hearing that there is a medical diagnosis, it is not uncommon to freeze with fear and apprehension. You hear the words. You possess what you think is a textbook understanding of the diagnosis. And you simply shut down.    

Freezing, becoming fearful, negative, and thinking the worst are common responses after receiving a medical diagnosis. We have learned to become negative after receiving any kind of bad news. Instinctively, you think the worst. Through experience, you have learned to fear any kind of loss of control. 

In thinking the worst after a diagnosis, it is important to recognize that you are also closing off hope and possibility. 

You are closing off other channels within yourself that would likely lead to a better process during your treatment.  Remaining open to a more positive process may lead to a better overall outcome. Remaining positive will relieve you of the burden of depression after a medical diagnosis.    

A first step in moving toward a healthier process involves reframing your health information in a way that widens and broadens your awareness of who you are. What do you bring to the process of your health that expands your whole self, rather than being reduced to depression after a medical diagnosis? 

By reframing, I mean considering the overall health of your whole body. This includes aspects of your health that are healthy and strong. These aspects are able to support other aspects of your body that are currently burdened by a medical diagnosis.

Let’s use cancer as an example.  You may have received a diagnosis of cancer or perhaps have learned that your cancer has recurred. You immediately feel depression after a medical diagnosis like this. But I am suggesting reframing your diagnosis in a way that envisions cancer cells being surrounded and supported by millions of healthy cells. 

Acceptance of a medical diagnosis is enhanced by engaging and putting your healthy cells to good use by staying positive, eating, sleeping, and resting in a healthy way as a step forward.

I am saying that acceptance and refusing to engage in depression after a medical diagnosis frees and restores healthy energy that helps your body fight the good fight.

And I am also saying that by letting go of ego-driven fear, you will more graciously surrender control. You will place yourself in God’s tender care.

You will be enabled to trust that God who knows and sees everything, is right there with you and for you. In fear, you are unable to feel God’s closeness.

Let’s think of it this way. At the moment you receive a medical diagnosis you are betwixt and between where you were, and where you are going.   

The term for this is liminal or transitional space. This space is where you are leaving behind one phase of your life and entering into the next.   

How you choose to move through this space is completely up to you. 

You may not have control over your medical diagnosis. But you have complete control over your attitude and the way you want to carry yourself through the process. 

As someone who needed to make decisions about how I was going to accept and work through my own medical diagnosis, I know that surrendering to the process, foregoing depression after a medical diagnosis, and freeing up my energy to be better connected to God within me, helped me to go through the process better. 

When you accept the process ahead of you after a medical diagnosis, you free your body and soul to feel the Presence of the Spirit. You place your trust in God who loves you and lives within you. This formula does not provide the outcome of a medical diagnosis. However, it does provide a pathway toward your transformation through the process.

In place of depression after a medical diagnosis, you lay down your fear and apprehension to find more of who you are along with God’s holy Presence. 

Perhaps for the first time in your life, you will learn openness. You learn openness to God’s love, supportive love of others through your diagnosis, and love for your own life and all that you are. 

Once you accept that you are no longer in control of outcomes (as if you ever were!), reality opens up. And it provides you an entirely new way of moving through life. 

Fear and depression after a medical diagnosis can be a very lonely place. Once you place your vulnerability and fear into God’s holy Presence, you will become more peaceful and less alone. Others will join the Spirit within you.  Together, you will find strength, not weakness.    

We are all vulnerable in the face of a medical diagnosis. 

However, there is no greater moment than being transformed beyond weakness and fear, into thriving, resilience and hopefully ultimate recovery. 

I have walked this path in my own life. And I am happy to help you if you are beginning your own journey toward accepting a medical diagnosis.  Please contact me here.    

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Step # 1 – Allow yourself permission to grieve and mourn.

First and foremost, allow yourself the time and space to grieve and mourn your loss.  Divorce at any point in marriage is distressing, but divorce at midlife was most likely not in your plans.  In the many stages of midlife divorce recovery, grieving and mourning the loss of your marital years together as well as the marital relationship itself is crucial for your healing. 

As you experience an abundance of feelings related to the ending of your marriage, resist the temptation to build in filters allowing you to grieve only “acceptable” feelings.  Instead, give yourself permission to mourn whatever feelings come to the fore.  The more you understand precisely what you are grieving about the loss of your marriage, the more you will be able to heal from aspects of loss that are specific to you. 

Remember, feelings themselves are neither right nor wrong. It is what we do with those feelings and how we use them that makes all the difference in the world.  Just as the ocean moves in and out and we have no control over that, neither can we control what we feel.  Feelings are potential guideposts for deeper learning about who we are and what we need to thrive and grow. 

Engrained within the stages of midlife divorce recovery are memories not only of your partner, but also who you became together as a couple.  The identity of “we” is hard to let go of. Whatever feelings of shame, embarrassment, shock, disappointment, anger, betrayal, worry for yourself and perhaps for your partner and children, you clearly need to work through it all. 

The clearest reason for working through your feelings of midlife divorce recovery is so that you grow more comfortable with your personal experience of the divorce.  You do not want to isolate or remove yourself from socializing with family and friends.  Depending on whether you are the one who initiated the divorce or the one who was presented with a divorce that you did not want, midlife divorce recovery necessitates emotional healing in order to go forward better into the next chapter of your life. 

Step # 2 – Understand what sense and meaning you personally make of your divorce.

Understanding what sense and meaning you make of the divorce event is an important step as you move through midlife divorce recovery.  Apart from your spouse’s perception of what led to the divorce, what do you think led to this moment?   

Specifically, what led to your divorce?  What part did each of you play in the relationship ending?  Who was triggering whom? What do you understand now about an emotional process between you that ultimately led to this divorce?  What meaning do you take away with you as the marital relationship comes to an end? 

Are there aspects of the marital relationship that you now recognize were counter-productive from the start of the relationship?  Is it your sense that you were limited in your ability to grow as a person through the relationship?  Looking back now, do you think the marriage was a poor fit for you/your spouse from the start?  Were there aspects of the relationship that you truly valued while having doubts and feeling wary in other areas?  If so, what is your understanding of that?

Are you better able to understand what aspects of the marriage were working and which aspects were not working for you and your spouse?  Do you wish you had both communicated about the problems more effectively?  Do you understand what may have compromised that communication?  What is your bottom line take away from this stage of midlife divorce recovery that will help guide you in the months and years ahead of you?    

Step # 3 – Discover and re-discover more about yourself!

By the time we reach mid-life, we generally know a whole lot more about ourselves than we did when we first got married.  In many, if not most marriages, we learn to adapt ourselves to accommodate our partner and our partnership.  In this third stage of midlife divorce recovery, you are free to learn more about your needs. When you got married, you made compromises for the sake of the marriage and your partner. Now, without that pull to please, you can ask yourself foundational questions.

What is it about you and your needs that you know more about now than when you first got married?  What do you know about who you innately are, and what do you want to aspire to in your life that will lead you forward to become happy and fulfilled?   

As you openly and honestly assess who you are and what you want in your life, you may begin to recognize aspects of yourself that you forfeited and gave up to keep peace and harmony in your marriage.  It is not uncommon to feel sad or dejected as you take this honest look, but I prefer to encourage you to look at the other side; specifically, that whatever aspects you perceive that you lost, can become your new goals moving forward through your midlife divorce recovery.    

It is not uncommon to be down on yourself or even to feel sad during this stage of midlife divorce recovery. Yet, it is critically important that you not be harsh with yourself as you grow and discover more about yourself. 

Feelings of vulnerability can actually help you to become aware of more that you want to become and achieve moving forward.

If there are ways that you compromised who you are to try to make the marriage work, you made those choices for all the right reasons that were honest for you then.  Now, moving forward you can and will make different decisions and choices that will help you to heal in this midlife divorce recovery process. 

If there are ways that you adapted to fit your partner’s needs that are not cohesive for who you genuinely are, then continue the process of discovery and re-discovery of yourself through the divorce!  Use this stage of midlife divorce recovery to your advantage as you discover and re-discover more about yourself! 

Step # 4 – Pray.

As you experience change and major loss while working through midlife divorce recovery, it is important that you make time for prayer. 

Apart from needing time and space to pour out your many feelings of disillusionment and confusion to your God who loves you so much, prayer is also a time for you to listen and be guided.

Through prayer you are not only asking God for what you need, but you are also going to stay attuned to guidance and grace that God pours into your heart as you listen to God’s guidance in response to your prayer. 

No one knows your inner self and your heart’s intentions better than God does.  As you take new steps forward in a changed and uncertain land, allow God to be your guide and your friend.  Allow God to help you to heal. 

In fact, working with a prayer journal as you move through midlife divorce recovery is something I highly recommend.  A prayer journal consists of a notebook where you journal your thoughts, feelings, joys, sorrows, vulnerabilities, wishes, dreams, and goals each day. 

A prayer journal is where you write out the specific needs you are asking God for today.  In your prayer journal, you ask God for guidance on choices and decisions that you are close to making. 

In your prayer journal, pray for those in your life you care about.  Pray for your children, family, friends, and in-law family members you care about.  You know that they may not fully ever understand this transition in your life but pray for them to support and encourage you forward. 

Write whatever you are feeling. Remember that while feelings are not right or wrong, we all need help and guidance as we try to understand our feelings.  Then, one day – whether that be weeks or months later — go back and read your journal.  What has changed?  What have you achieved that you previously enlisted God’s help in?  What steps do you still need to take to go even further in your journey?  What will you ask and thank God for today?   

Step # 5 – Avoid Unnecessary Interactions with your Ex-Spouse.

When a couple has been together for as long as you have, interactions with each other through this fifth stage of midlife divorce recovery can be thorny.

Although you may feel drawn and pulled toward each other, interactions with your ex-spouse may well be filled with memories and emotions that remain unresolved.  In fact, these unresolved emotions may have been part of the quagmire that led to the divorce, specifically because they were unresolvable between you!

What makes this stage of midlife divorce recovery particularly thorny is a magnetic pull many couples feel toward each other.  Intellectually you know that certain topics and conversations will lead to nothing good. But emotionally it is hard to let go. 

That magnetic pull is trying to fulfill an emotional need you have to remain connected.  It is difficult to let your intellect guide you to just let go when you feel the pull to remain emotionally connected with your spouse through midlife divorce recovery. Any connection at that moment might seem better than the emptiness you feel for letting go.

This is not an easy issue.  Through midlife divorce recovery not “biting the bait” and getting back into dysfunctional interactions might be the hardest thing you need to accomplish.  By contrast ask yourself “What does biting the bait accomplish?”  You generally feel worse when you engage in counterproductive conversations that only lead you to feel defeated and misunderstood again.

Also, because of the longevity of the relationship in midlife divorce recovery, you both know each other extremely well.  You know exactly what buttons to push to get a rise out of the other.  Again, this may be your psyche’s unconscious way of remaining connected to your former spouse, but at a price that holds you back from moving forward well. 

In summary, none of this is easy work.  Letting go after years of being together in midlife divorce recovery is not an easy task. However, it is a necessary one for you to heal, feel better about yourself, and move on. 

I am here to help you through this process if that would be helpful.  Understanding the divorce process and having worked with many people as they have worked through their midlife divorce recovery process, I am available to help coach you through the most difficult aspects of your divorce.  Please contact me here.

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“Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, what God has ready for those who love Him”

Prayer is a relationship with God.  It is down to earth conversation with God as if God were sitting right next to us listening, caring, and speaking to us just the way a friend would.    

God is our friend who wants to know us better. 

In fact, God wants us to know ourselves better so that we might make choices and decisions that help us to stay true to who we are. 

The more we stay true to who we are through the gift of prayer, the more peaceful we become.   

So often, we make decisions based on who others would like us to be. 

We turn away from what we know is true for who we are.  We like to fit and belong and be acceptable to others.

When we pull away from our true selves and fail to respond to what we know is true for who we are, we often make decisions or behave in ways that disappoint us.  Then we may feel discouraged. 

In those times, we may also pull away from God, believing that God is disappointed with us too.

But in fact, it is when we are most confused, upset or discouraged with ourselves that God wants to be with us the most.  

God understands that we are all imperfect and that we grow by making mistakes.

God understands that when we grow through our mistakes, we are enabled to move forward better, making more informed choices in the future.

Yes, it is in our moments of need and brokenness that God wants to be there to comfort and guide us. 

God does not turn away from us, we are the ones who turn away from God when we feel bad about ourselves.

Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen has suggested that the essence of prayer is learning to listen deep within ourselves for the comforting inner voice of love.

Although there are many forms of prayer, including formal or rote prayer, the real “work” of the gift of prayer begins in the silence of your heart where God’s inner presence dwells within you and becomes part of you. 

God speaks to your heart.    

God is closer to us than we are to ourselves (St. Augustine). 

There is a big difference between saying prayers and prayer. 

Saying prayers is an activity.  Saying prayers consists of words, which words often lead us to the heart of God within us. 

Through the gift of prayer with words, we often become connected to God’s presence within our heart.

We become aware of the Spirit dwelling within us wanting to feed and nurture us in ways that help us to remain true to who we are in God’s likeness. 

Sometimes we pray without words entering into contemplative space with God. 

Praying without words, or contemplative prayer, is an attitude of the heart that opens us up to the broader meaning of our life with God who is in us.    

Over time, prayer becomes an attitude toward our whole life.  Awareness of living in right relationship with God becomes woven through all our relationships. 

Living in relationship with God becomes part of who we are as a way of life.

It is through an attitude of prayer that we remain open to meaning and purpose in our lives that help us to stay connected to who we are. 

It is through an attitude of prayer that we find ourselves awakening to more of life and the many ways that God shows up in our lives in mysterious ways.

Fostering at attitude of prayer where we develop our relationship with God often begins in the silence of our heart. 

Silence is not always easy.  We like to be in control.  Through silence we develop our relationship – our connection with God — as we learn to trust.

We learn to discern the many ways that God is guiding us and prompting us to go forward in our lives, filled with the wisdom of God’s grace and presence. 

All that we need is a heart this is willing to stay open to the bigger picture of our lives that is becoming clearer to us through the gift of prayer.

A bigger picture experience of our lives might mean becoming aware of deeper meanings that live in and through our life experiences all the time.

This might mean that we move away from our small selves where we think out of dualistic frames, either/or thinking.      

A bigger picture perspective instead helps us to move into our bigger selves, selves that are open to God revealing more to us than we might initially see or be aware of.

A good way to open our hearts to contemplative prayer is by closing our eyes and becoming still, breathing out all that has rattled us into feelings of righteous, while breathing in all of nature and God’s renewing life within us. 

Opportunities for contemplative prayer often surround and enfold our lives in ways that we fail to notice. 

These could include peaceful moments of serenity, awe, and wonder as you are gardening,  folding over the soil and observing firsthand the many forms of life that quietly live beneath the surface of the earth; 

Or the rising of dough as you bake bread;

The transformation of sounds and syllables of toddler babble becoming formed into  a baby’s first words;

Or those moments of seeing shapes formed through clouds in the sky – a heart or some other formation that just speaks warmth, love, and God’s presence to your heart. 

All of these filled with humble, sacred awareness of God’s presence and connection to us in our everyday lives. 

Contemplation is a way of being present to what is inside of our experience. 

Through contemplative prayer and awakening we come to understand that our lives are not insignificant or unimportant.  Rather, what is timeless and eternal is found in the ordinariness of our everyday lives.

Being connected to God in relationship through the gift of prayer opens us up to experiences of oneness, unity, harmony, presence, resonance, wonder, and awe. 

Prayer is knowing God rather than knowing about God.

Prayer is knowing God experientially through our lives and our lived experiences, rather than through objective knowledge about God.

Prayer is feeling God’s love and affection.

Prayer is feeling God’s kindness and caring for who you are.

Prayer is a gift that you open up and give yourself to, a gift that helps you to know more about who you are and who God is within you.   

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