When we're feeling overwhelmed by divorce we freeze and see far fewer options for action and agency.

The house, the finance, legal issues,  coparenting; holding all of these challenges inside leaves us with feet in blocks of cement and a heart that is heavy. The holding weighs down the optimism we need to experience the alchemy of drawing lessons from our divorce and building a good life.

When we're feeling afraid and uncertain in the face of divorce, how can we lower our defensive posture and connect with possibilities for self-expression and creativity?

Do you love to paint? Do you find keeping a journal therapeutic? What dismisses your inner critic and quiets the critical voice inside?  What is the portal to  you? Go there! Do that!

For example, if you find you can lose the critic while journaling, plan to sit down, not to write anything in particular but to allow everything from your mind to pass down past your heart, down your arm and into your writing. No editing. This is about...

All life transitions bring stress, even the amazing transitions, the ones we have worked so hard to make happen.

Difficult transitions create even more stress and make the challenges and pain worse. Here is speak of this later variety of stress, the raunchy cousin of the stress of witnessing miracles.

So why do we tend to hold onto every ounce of stress like it's a precious jewel?

We grasp and cling to stress like we are afraid that if we loosen our grip it just might, like the proverbial one million grains of sand, slide right through our fingertips.

Stress is coveted for many different reasons.

Don't get me wrong. There are good reasons galore for appreciating stress. One being, it motivate peak performance. But remember, the stress discussed here is the ball and chain kind of stress. The I not only can't run but I can barely walk kind of stress. 

Surely you have noticed how holding on to stress offers diminishing returns. How stress greedily sucks up to fear and leaves us with...