Focus on the FUTURE
BEL MOONEY helps others open up on coping with the pain of divorce at a supportive workshop
ITWAS a powerful moment at the beginning of the special café-workshop. Experienced counsellor David Waters from The School of Life asked everyone present to think of a word to sum up the process of divorce.
Our responses were pretty obvious (fear and hurt, for example), but we were quickly led onwards. The whole point of this workshop was to focus on coming to terms and taking the next steps. Parting may be painful, but there are positive strategies to learn – to help you move on.
Welcoming everybody to the event on behalf of the Daily Mail, I’d explained how my own first marriage broke up after 35 years in 2003, making this a subject close to my heart. As the Mail’s advice columnist I’ve received countless letters about the pain of separation from people stuck in the past and understandably afraid of the future. They always need a helping hand.
That’s where Lloyds Bank and the very wonderful organisation The School of Life ( www.theschooloflife.com) came in. The twin sponsors of the workshop know all about the need for financial and emotional support at a time of crisis surprise you that trouble readers often explain tha emotional pain of a brea is made much worse by financial insecurity: how I live? Where will I go? T why Lloyds Bank stresse the need for support and advice at this challeng in stage in life.
David Waters pointed out long relationships are harder than ever to sustain in the modern world. We live longer and there are far more pressures on all sides. But it doesn’t help to see divorce as ‘failure’. If we are aware of past patterns in our lives, he said, we can perhaps help ourselves to move on. Don’t feel helpless – there are strategies you can learn. The workshop technique involves the ‘leader’ talking or a while, then inviting all of us to discuss the issues ith the person next to us. It fascinated me that participants were so ready to share their feelings – for example, the young man next to me, married for just three months, told me he feared he had lost his freedom, and I confided how my second husband differs from my first. Such intimacy is possible because everybody knows it is a safe and private space.
I was pleased to hear David Waters stress that nobody should expect to ‘move on’ quickly from what is, after all, a huge loss. Kindness, understanding and hope are essential – for ourselves and the partner who is now the ‘ex’. Is that too much to ask? No. Itmay be hard, but this fascinating café-workshop showed how everything is possible, walking forward, step by step.