Better Apart: The Radically Positive Way to Separate

166 Pages·2016·1.63 MB·English

by  Gabrielle Hartley

Dedication
This book is dedicated to everyone—dating, married, divorced, separated,
divorcing, or separating—who believes their relationship could be just a little bit
better.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Invitation and Welcome
Pause—Are You Sure You Need a Divorce?
Chapter 1: Designing Your Elegance: Dissolve the Myths, Once and for All
Chapter 2: Patience: Slowest Is Quickest
Chapter 3: Respect: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Chapter 4: Clarity: So You Can Perceive What Else Is Possible
Chapter 5: Peace: Finding Calm Within the Chaos
Chapter 6: Forgiveness: Letting Go and Moving Forward
Chapter 7: Need-to-Know Divorce Basics: The Elegant Approach
Chapter 8: Don’t Let Money Move You: Defining Your Emotions, Desires,
and Needs
Chapter 9: Parenting Forward: The Legacy You Will Leave
Chapter 10: Really, We’re Better Apart
Acknowledgments
Resources
About the Authors
Also by Elena Brower
Copyright
About the Publisher
Invitation and Welcome
Y
ou are cordially invited to revolutionize your perspective on separation and
divorce. If your marriage or partnership is coming to an end, the book you hold
in your hands is an innovative manual for cultivating presence and poise as you
move forward. It’s a map to your grace as well your growth for months and
years to come. This is your invitation to quiet your mind, access your clearest
thinking, and create progressive solutions.
Would you like this time to be the most intentional time of your life? Would
you like to emerge from this moment centered in your most refined state of
being? What if the end of this relationship were transformed into a powerful
healing experience that prepared you to face challenge and taste sweet success?
Dissolving your relationship responsibly requires courage, steadfastness, and
emotional flexibility. As you’ll experience, the content of this book will help you
look back at this time with pride, having handled yourself with both agility and
dignity. This is your invitation to practice five key states of being: patience,
respect, clarity, peace, and forgiveness.
In my work in the context of divorce, I’ve observed clients and peers
embracing a more positive state with quantifiable results. By dissipating
negative emotions and consciously cultivating patience, respect, clarity, peace,
and forgiveness, you’ll more easily regulate your responses to legal proceedings,
custody disputes, and other common triggers. By being more responsive rather
than reactive, you might save months of time and thousands of dollars; you also
might move more clearly forward on your path to fulfillment and freedom.
Since I began practicing family law nearly twenty-five years ago, helping
families like yours transform positively within the context of divorce has been a
privilege. Professionally, my goal is to help you craft a mutually beneficial
arrangement for your family, boost your emotional health and that of your
children, and counsel you through legal matters during this fragile time. I can
say from personal experience that good divorce outcomes are possible, even in
emotionally fraught contexts. My parents divorced creatively and consciously
when I was a young child, and their choice to live around the corner from each
other and visionary plan to share custody had a lasting impact that formed the
foundation of the work I do today to revolutionize divorce as we know it.
As a longtime teacher of yoga and meditation, Elena Brower works to help
you locate your grace, love the lessons, and ease your family’s experience of this
time. Elena and I are here to walk with you, offering guidance and our own
professional and personal experiences. Having manifested her own graceful
divorce, she offers you precise, potent practices in order to dissolve your fear,
stabilize your heart, and design your family’s calm future. Elena’s path will be a
beacon for your own, even at the hardest points.
In this book, expect to sense our support throughout your process. There will
be bumps in the road, and it can get messy. Our commitment is to walk you
through the five essential elements with easeful explanations and personal
shares. You’ll practice implementing patience, respect, clarity, peace, and
forgiveness throughout your divorce process and into the future. You’ll explore
what you’ll need to know legally, including selecting the optimal way to work
with a lawyer and/or a mediator, and whether you actually need to go to court.
We will delve into matters of your finances, parenting, and healing your mind
and your heart. Handled well, your divorce will be a stepping-stone to your
highest freedom and most conscious living.
Your Role in This Book
Shifting your state of being will take intention and effort. This process demands
discernment, efficiency, and willingness. Right now, you might not have the
time nor the emotional energy to read a long book with extensive instructions.
So I’ve distilled my experience and advice together with Elena’s simplest
practices into clear, concise steps and prompts that will make a difference in
your divorce and life right this moment.
You needn’t be an experienced attorney, a meditator, or a yogi to be here; the
tools in this book are designed to be accessible and highly efficacious for all of
us. Our recommendations and writing exercises offer constructive, favorable
shifts for you and your family.
Engaging in this approach takes tenacity and willingness, and the benefits are
substantial. This approach is grounded and doable, with compelling examples
and uplifting practices to help you move forward. Even if you find yourself in a
state of confusion, anger, or sadness right now, you are on the precipice of a
metamorphosis. When this process is complete, your elegance will light your
family’s path to higher love and courageous freedom. It’s our honor to help
guide you and walk with you.
Pause—Are You Sure You Need a Divorce?
A
s messy and complicated as relationships can be, leaving may not be the
answer. A fresh mindset and some new habits can give you the internal power to
meaningfully change your relationship for the better. While many of us may be
better apart, some of us can actually become better together.
Separating may seem like a quick fix—an easy escape. Even if it is the right
decision for you, please know that there is no simple solution. Before exiting,
consider this: some of us can radically change our dynamic for the better from
within the context of the relationship. An openness to small shifts in habits and
perspective can make all the difference. Remember, while the shape of your
relationship may change, your reliance on each other will continue if there are
children.
Several times a year, I encounter clients who come to the realization that
separating was not the answer for them. They decided staying together was the
better option for their family. They realized that better did not mean perfect.
Becoming better means recognizing where there may be edges to explore.
Insights to gain. When our relationships become difficult, sometimes a step back
is the best way forward. Staying and leaving elegantly both entail courage and
fortitude. To be graceful and grounded with either choice requires that we go
deeper.
We can transform our relationships when we are open to skill building.
When we begin noticing what we can change and what we must accept. When
we learn to take care of ourselves, listen to one another, and respond rather than
react. Remember, as much as we’d love to change the people we love, we have
only the power to change ourselves.
Consider the possibility that a pause, whether brief or prolonged, can offer
unexpected benefits, even in the midst of a painful time. Where there was once
deep love and commitment, there is also the potential to transcend even the
deepest discord. The decision to separate is one that will impact the rest of your
life, especially if you have children. It is a choice that deserves significant