How to Consciously Uncouple
The term Conscious Uncoupling came up when we heard Gwenyth Paltrow use it during her divorce from Chris Martin almost ten years ago. We have since come to understand that conscious uncoupling is a term that may help couples empower themselves in a process that can normally be full of shame, remorse, intense emotional argument. Rather, a couple (and it usually takes both to participate) can work towards individual responsibility and integrity in the separation process.
In Katherine Woodward Thomas’ book, Conscious Uncoupling, she outlines the five-step process:
Step One: Find Emotional Freedom
You may find yourself going over your breakup story again and again, laboriously trying to piece together a narrative that weaves the fragmented, jagged and ill-fitting bits of memory and information into one cohesive whole.
Ruminating upon the subtle clues missed conversations ill-timed and fatal mistakes only now clear in hindsight, you will try to craft a story you can live with and that will go on to become the legacy of this love affair. Most likely your tale will be centered upon the multiple ways you were misunderstood, mistreated, devalued and wrong. The victimized, blaming and shaming story of your love will go round and round in your mind, building momentum and gaining traction as you struggle to figure out what went wrong, who is to blame and why. Yet in your attempt to integrate the breakup into your overwhelmed and fragmented psyche, the majority of your attention will likely be drawn toward pining blame, as you carefully craft a grievance story that justifies your indignation. For good reason, too! Your former partner probably was selfish. She didn’t keep her word. He was a cheat. She did let you down. What happened was most likely unfair and immoral. However, here’s what’s more true. As long as your attention stays fixated on what someone else did or didn’t do, you’re not looking to discover all the subtle, covert and toxic ways that you yourself co-created what happened. Even if the other person is 97% at fault, you want to be really interested in your 3%.
Step Two: Reclaim Your Power and Your Life
Ask yourself...
“In what ways did I give my power away to this person?”
“Where might I have skipped over my own knowing, dismissed my feelings, or avoided telling the truth and/or asking for clarification?”
“How was I trying to get someone to love, want or approve of me more than I was attempting to make an authentic connection?”
“Why didn’t I do what I knew I should have done that may have averted a bad experience, and what made me hesitate to do it?”
“In what ways was I selfish, unkind, or even abusive that may have caused my former partner to respond in defensive and destructive ways?”
Step Three: Breaking the Pattern, Healing Your Heart
You may be feeling disheartened by what appears to be a repeat of old painful childhood hurts, as though you’re somehow cursed when it comes to finding happiness in love.
Yet, the sooner you can see how your life has been happening through you rather than just to you—through the lens of your assumptions and beliefs, and the automatic ways you then respond inside of those perspectives, the sooner you’ll be empowered to graduate from your disappointing patterns in love.
Understanding ourselves as the source of our experience means that we have the power to start creating new and different experiences moving forward. It begins by seeing your “source fracture story” clearly. That’s the story you created when you were too young to know any better about who you are, and what’s possible (or not) for you are in love. It was the original break in your heart. And the beliefs you formed about yourself, others and life in response to what was happening in your little world, are what lies at the heart of your disappointments in love.
Step Three Practice:
Identifying Your Source Fracture Story Practice
Liberation from your painful patterns in love begins with seeing your source-fracture story clearly. For once you make conscious the underlying beliefs that have been driving you to duplicate your old painful patterns again and again-- wreaking havoc with your love life, and preventing you from realizing your higher potentials in love, you’ll then have the power to challenge—and to shift that story; awakening to a deeper truth about your value, your power and your worthiness to love and be loved, as well as the possibilities you hold for happy, healthy love in this lifetime
Step Four: Becoming a Love Alchemist
Steps One, Two and Three have all been about you getting right within yourself, and Step
Four is now about you getting with your former partner. It is a true accomplishment to be at this point of your conscious uncoupling journey, where you’re finally ready to clear the air of old hurts and resentments and move forward in life with a clean slate, which is particularly helpful if you are raising children together.
Though it’s never easy to admit the negative impact that our choices may have had upon another (intended to not), and take the necessary actions to make amends, to do so is the beginning of true liberation, moving you towards your new life with renewed hope and possibility.
1. Understand, the Sole Purpose of this Exercise is to Clear the Air.
2. Identify the Active Hurts and Disappointments You’re Each Still Struggling With.
3. Become Willing to Take Responsibility for the Impact Your Behavior Has Had On Others.
4. Let Your Former Partner Know What You Now See About the Impact Your Behavior Has Had Upon Him or Her.
5. Offer to Make Amends By Taking Wholesome Right Action.
Step Five: Creating Your Happy Even After Life
It’s important to remember that you (and your children if you have them) will be living with the consequences of every action you take and every choice you make during this tender transition, often for many years to come. Therefore, it’s critical you find a way to harness the energies of the wildly dark and difficult emotions you may be experiencing such as rage, hatred, fear and despair and transform them from destructive impulses to hurt yourself and others, into the constructive drivers of positive change.
While your new life may look little like the one you left behind, your goal is not to try to create a better version of what you once had, but to expand what’s now possible to include fresh new horizons, friends and interests—and the exploration of forgotten, yet promising possibilities.
