"I'm drained...I have nothing left." It's time for practicing Gratitude.

“I’m Drained…I have nothing left.”

This is a common refrain uttered by a spouse going through a divorce. Though it could be referencing their bank account, more frequently it represents how raw and depleted a person feels emotionally.

Sometimes, the couple has fought and argued and battled and attempted compromises and truces to no avail. The experience has left them bereft of any true sense that mediation will work for them. At other times, the couple walk into the divorce mediation session primed, like a caged animal, to lash out and defend themselves from their perceived danger of divorce.

To be in that place of Emptiness…a barren vessel with no cargo, no port to call home and no crew, is devastating. One feels like crying all the time. One’s stomach constantly aches and one’s muscles are continuously aching with pain and cramps. There is a perpetual headache on both the right, left and middle side of your head.

You can picture it. Sitting cross leg on the floor with tears streaming down your face and an anchor of regret and anger squarely pressing down onto your chest. Your heart and spirit feel depleted of oxygen. The depression darkening your horizon grows more formidable with each passing minute.

How can a person go on?

I ask you to take a slow deep inhale and ruminate on this:

Having nothing to give is actually having something to give.

True, you may be vulnerable but you are also in the state of an emotional cleanse. Your nerves have worn down to the point that your entire being is ready to rejuvenate and your physical and mental palette awaits new stimuli.

When the mind has been emptied and the barriers of Judgement and Self-loathing have been removed, your receptor neurons and spiritual connectors are ready willing and able to regrow with a new perspective: With a new rudder, sailing you in a new and different direction.

Divorce is a falling apart of the building blocks, but it is also the opportunity and necessity of finding yourself in the current and movement of transformational growth.

Flowers regrow…bank accounts replenish …dreams rehydrate and that insidious feeling of emptiness and stagnation is refilled with hope and courage.

At this time of Thanksgiving, we implore you to Give…even if you feel empty with nothing to share with anyone. The sheer and simple act of turning to another person and saying, “ I am here….I see you.” is as deeply felt and important a gift that any one person can give to another. Place out into the world your self-gratitude and your thankfulness for others.

And when you give of your nothingness, that act is internalized deep within yourself as a “Thank you” to yourself. It becomes the first breath you take toward filling yourself back up to full.

Your divorce is something, that when over and with the help of Mediate for Life Divorce Mediation Center, will be nothing but a fleeting memory. Our Goal, as your divorce mediators, is to make you feel, once the Agreement is finalized, as full and as content as you do after devouring all the fixings at ThanksGiving Dinner.