Divorcing With Sanity

Teaching is hard work. Going through a divorce while teaching is gruelling. Divorcing while teaching in a foreign country on a work visa is insane.

I work with divorcing expat educators to help them hold on to their sanity, their job, and their ability to stay in their host country, so they can move forward without losing everything.

That's my whole deal. If you're an expat teacher going through divorce and everything feels like it’s caving in, I'm here. DM me to book a free 30min chat.

In this episode of Divorcing With Sanity podcast: The divorce left you feeling like you're left with nothing, save a few scratches and scars. The blankness feels terrifying. But guess what - it is also the first time in years that nothing (other than you) is dictating what comes next. Now whip out your creativity and dream - what are you going to paint next?

https://www.rfr.bz/ff0be2e

I had Ting Ting when I was still married 15 years ago. I still remember the warmth of her furry body, her lazy purrs and her spongy paws.

When I was pregnant, she found my belly to be a nice place to curl up to - probably thought it was a massage chair when my baby was kicking! So at 7-8 months, I often woke up to an extra weight on my tummy with Ting Ting's tail swishing in my face.

After my ex-husband moved out at the end of our marriage, few months later, Ting Ting went missing and never came back. We were staying in a black and white ground floor apartment unit in Portsdown, so she might have climbed out the window. The estate was riddled with pythons, so I'm not sure if she didn't want to be with me anymore, got lost or got eaten 😭

She was always a free roaming cat during the 6 years that she was with me, but she never wanted to go out and it was never a problem.

Perhaps her journey with me was meant to end, just like my marriage.

Lost or eaten, she must be in kitty heaven now, 15 years on. Always thinking of you, Ting Ting. 🩷

He was the one who cheated, but he won't let you go.
I understand how perplexing that is. What in the world does he want? I understand how that makes you feel like your freedom is at his mercy. And I understand how exhausting it is — because every single time he changes his mind, you have to start again emotionally, mentally, physically.
The torturous part? Somewhere in the dark crevices of your mind, you secretly wonder whether his ambivalence means something. Whether it was a pure mistake. Whether leaving without trying makes you the bad person.
Here is what I know. When a man starts threatening you with custody and your visa status at past midnight — that is not confidence. That is panic in disguise.
Divorce is not just legal. It is psychological warfare. Keeping your mind in the sanity zone is the most important thing you can do for yourself and your child right now.
DM me for a free 30-minute chat.

Somewhere in the depths of your childhood, a sagely ancestor once passed down this wisdom in your family: “A man only leaves when his wife has failed him."

It’s not like you made an inspiring conscious decision to believe it - you simply absorbed it the way children absorb everything - without question, judgement and unconditionally.

Now as an expat going through a divorce, you bear two things at once. The divorce itself, and the disgrace of it. (Divorce & Disgrace - sounds like a good sitcom title?) When your mother calls on Sunday and asks how things are, it was easy for you to say “Fine, all good.”, because you had rehearsed this. Or rather, you had considered telling her and drafted about 10 different versions of how you would tell her and finally decided it was still easier to not get that conversation started.

You hang up and sit in silence for the next 1 hour because pretending everything is fine for that 30-minute phone call was just plain exhausting.

Divorce is a multi-prong attack on your emotions, wellbeing and sense of self.

Don’t bear this alone. DM me to book a call.

There's a nagging question that haunts you now and even years after a divorce: "What was I thinking??" In this podcast episode from Divorcing With Sanity, we talk about the woman who keeps prosecuting her younger self. But hindsight is 20/20, and you made the you could with what you had. That is enough.

https://www.rfr.bz/f0e36cd

In the 8 of Cups of the Tarot deck, a figure walks away in the dark, leaving eight cups behind him. It looks desolate, sad, and you can almost hear the violin music in the background. But notice he isn’t walking into nothingness - there is a longer path ahead of him. The cups are not fallen. In fact, they are beautifully stacked - with an opening in the middle of the structure.

We can understand the 8 of Cups like reading a book. When you are done with one chapter, you need to flip the page to get the to next.

Your divorce can feel like it’s the end of the world. But that’s because you don’t realise you’re part of a fantastic novel with several more chapters to go.

What if?

Many of my clients come to me believing there was only pitch darkness ahead of them. By the end of the program, they’re seeing that there’s more.

Want to find out what’s next in your story? DM me to book a call.

theend

When you're going through a crisis like divorce, your mind becomes the master of catastrophe. Problems are never small, and it writes worst-case scenarios like the best Hollywood blockbusters.

“I’m ruining my children’s lives”
“I’m not a worthy teacher”
“I’m never going to find happiness again”

My client found a way to release herself from these catastrophic possibilities that hasn’t happened - by realising that how her child would walk this story, her self-worth and happiness was all within her control.

And what she could control was now.

When she started to take authority in all she had now, today, in this present moment - that was when her life started turning around.