Divorce, Break-up, and Moving Forward
Supportive Therapy for Parting Ways Provides Clarity, Healing, and Resolution for this Disheartening yet Defining Phase of Life
Breaking up is never easy. But finding clarity & resolution opens the door to moving forward.
Whether you've known about this breakup for a while or it caught you by surprise, you're inevitably confronted with the finality that your relationship has officially ended.
This is where the phases of grief, such as shock, denial, anger, sadness, and acceptance, typically emerge. And they often take time. But you don't have to passively wait.
You can talk about what's emerging from your healing heart. You can allow yourself to feel the various and sometimes painful feelings and realizations
You can also review what happened with a relationship autopsy of sorts to alleviate your breakup stress.
You can introduce relationship clarity to gain an objective view of your relationship and breakup. Once you can see the relationship as it was, you can begin moving forward.
Relationship Clarity is discerning what's about you and what's about your partner.
Relationship clarity begins with the willingness to look at your relationship exactly as it was. It's seeing beyond how you needed your partner and the relationship to be.
When we relate to someone in a romantic relationship, we tend to project the things we would ideally like in a partner onto them.
So relationship clarity is discerning between who and what your partner and the relationship truly were, and what you projected onto them.
With this clarity, you can begin to objectively sort what happened and what didn't happen in the relationship. You can discern what the relationship was and what it wasn't.
This discernment and understanding provide resolution. And completion or closure. Your mind can begin to accept what happened, grieve it, and start moving forward.
Finding Clarity and Resolution allows you to heal. This frees you up to move forward in your life.
Often, it is not understanding why the relationship ended and didn't work out that keeps us attached to it.
Now can truly heal. We have the clarity to know what we are grieving. It moves beyond blame and resentment.
There's simply what you wanted in the relationship and what your partner wanted. There's what you were willing and able to open yourself to, and what your partner was.
And that may be very sad. This deep sadness of the love you shared and the love you wanted is often the core of the grief and healing process. It takes this to heal
You don't want to skip this grieving. Not allowing yourself to feel this creates unmitigated grief, which can sabotage your future relationships. This is a common mistake.
Giving yourself some therapy and some time to heal pays huge dividends. It allows you to create something different and more fulfilling in your next relationship.
You begin to trust that when you're ready, you can create a clear and loving relationship you've always hoped for with a new partner who is open to sharing it.
So let's roll up our sleeves and delve into this. Your new life awaits you...
Divorce & Breakup Therapy Specialties
Divorce, Break-up, and Separation
Divorce and the end of a relationship hit us at a deeply personal and tender place. Grieving its loss is essential. It provides an opportunity to reevaluate what we truly want in a romantic relationship.
Relationship Assessment Should I stay or go?
Your relationship has not been right for a while. You've tried everything you know. There's still love there. The prospect of leaving is scary. Is it time to leave, or can you make this thing work?
Single Parenting & Doing it on your own
Your marriage is not working, but what about raising the kids, the money, the schools, and the house? Can you do all this on your own? You may be stronger than you think, and perhaps it takes a village.
Hi, I'm Michael
When I'm not playing the drums, exploring the Pacific Northwest, or interpreting dreams, I offer psychotherapy sessions with my root cause approach, which both relieves current symptoms and heals the underlying core issues to provide lasting freedom to fully enjoy life.
I bring 30 years of postgraduate experience and extensive training to create a personalized program tailored to your specific needs and situation.
My specialties include: 1) relationship issues and intimacy; 2) anxiety, depression, and social isolation;
3) men's issues and masculine roles; and 4) life transitions such as empty nest, divorce, and breakup.
I'm happy to guide you. Therapy works. Find someone you can work with. It's worth it. Whether it's working with me or somebody else, you owe it to yourself. If you'd like, schedule a free 15-minute consultation. I'm easy to talk to, and I'll help you get the ball rolling.
How Root Cause Divorce & Breakup Therapy Works
Phase 1
Relieve Current Symptoms & Find Relationship Clarity
The first priority is to relieve the stress, pain, and suffering of your current symptoms of breathing up. Establishing relationship clarity with the relationship that is ending or has ended effectively resolves the symptoms of breaking up.
Phase 2
Heal the Root Cause of Your Divorce Symptoms
Now that you've identified your symptoms, we can trace them to identify your underlying core issues. Healing these core emotional issues frees you from future symptoms and helps you create resolution with your past relationship.
Phase 3
Move Forward to Create the Life You Want
Now that your symptoms and issues don't define what you can and can't have in your life and relationships, you're free to move forward in your life. Ongoing guidance and support help you integrate the things you value into your new life
Divorce & Breakup
Therapy Workflow
This is for those of you who like to see things broken down in the specific work we will be doing together. For some, the above section of the three phases will suffice. Either way is fine. We will address what we need to as we proceed in our work together.
While each client's symptoms of anxiety, depression, and isolation require specific interventions, the following is a general therapy workflow to treat current symptoms and underlying issues to achieve lasting personal freedom.
Phase 1: Relieve Current Symptoms and Establish Relationship Clarity
1. Identify the Current Symptoms of Stress, Conflict, and Wounding Related to your Divorce or Breakup.
With your life history and experience and my knowledge of the symptoms of conflict in divorce and breaking up, we'll compile a list of your current symptoms. During our therapy sessions, we will work together to identify ways to address each of these symptoms.
2. Discern what's about you and what's about your partner.
This is the nitty-gritty of relationship clarity. There will be things about your relationship stress and conflict that are about you, and things that are about your partner. It is essential that you know the difference. Without this clarity, you cannot get an accurate bearing on what happened in the relationship. We err on both sides of this. We make things about us that are about our partner. We also project things about ourselves onto our partner.
3. See your partner as they are. Identify what you projected onto your partner. Be mindful not to project.
Relationship clarity requires the willingness to objectively see your partner exactly as they are. To do this, we have to let go of how we need our partner to be. There is a tendency to project things a bout ourselves and the way we need our partner to be onto our partner. This creates tension and emotionally pushes our partner away. Awareness of this tendency helps you be mindful not to project onto your partner.
4. Personal Program to Relieve Your Current Symptoms and Establish Relationship Clarity
Together, we will design a personalized program that will alleviate the current symptoms of your divorce or breakup. This personal program will provide a new orientation for your life, replacing the previous maladaptive orientation you relied on.
Phase 2: Heal the Root Cause of the Symptoms of Your Divorce or Breakup
1. Trace Your Symptoms Related to Your Divorce or Breakup to Their Underlying Core Emotional Issues.
Now that you have identified your symptoms related to your divorce or breakup, we can walk them back to identify your underlying core issues. Your symptoms point to your core issues if you know what to look for. By addressing your core emotional issues, you can free yourself from experiencing future symptoms and enjoy greater happiness, love, and freedom in your life.
2. Identify Your Limiting Beliefs Associated with Your Core Issues.
We acquire various core beliefs about ourselves and the world in childhood, which are reinforced as we grow into adulthood. While these beliefs serve you for a while, they limit you as you grow and mature. We will explore the beliefs and stories you tell yourself that obstruct your life.
3. Disempower the Fear Associated with your Core Issues.
Fear naturally arises as you get close to what you want most. Since fear is future-based, you can break each fear down to an if/then statement about what you believe will happen. This format clarifies how fear limits your life and puts it into terms that are manageable.
4. Heal the Core Emotional Wounds Associated with your Core Issues.
Beneath all the symptoms, core issues, limiting beliefs, and fear, deep-seated emotional wounds reside. They may arise when you become triggered by experiences. They often involve trauma, betrayal, abandonment, and loss. These wounds surfacing offer an opportunity to feel and heal them, creating lasting emotional freedom.
Phase 3: Move Forward to Create the Life You Want
1. Consider What You Want in Your Life Now that Your Symptoms and Underlying Issues No Longer Define what you Can and Can't Have in Your Life.
Now you have the freedom to choose and create the things you want for yourself. It helps to break down the things you want in your life into their core elements or essence. Examples of elements include love, friendship, abundance, community, intimacy, strength, and purpose.
2. Create a Clear Intention for the Life You Want. When you offer your intention, it initiates and activates a new way of being. We work with what you choose to create in your life and boil it down to an intention for your life. This creates a crystal-clear focus for working with and integrating the things you want into your life.
3. Be Conscious of Relationship Contracts.
All relationships are contractual. Contracts are conscious and unconscious agreements that you made with your partner. When you or your partner changes, it breaks the old contract and invites a new one. The person who breaks the contract typically feels guilty for betraying the contract and their partner. The partner whose contract is broken typically feels betrayed and hurt —even if they do not know why.
4. Integrate the Things You Want into Your New Life.
Taking action and practicing trial and error brings the things you want into your life. Introduce new approaches to your life, and notice what works and what doesn't. An updated personal program and therapy sessions provide the guidance and support to sustain these approaches long enough to integrate them into your life. The reward is enjoying the things in your life that matter most to you.
"The real core of the work I did with Michael is seeing how I have always been looking outward to define myself. What I have found in working with him is that I already had the resources within me to actually create the changes I wanted to make. For me, this has been the pivotal change. I have to say, Michael held my feet to the fire, and that is what I really needed. He helped me get in touch with trusting my heart and moving from that place."
Steps to Your First Session
Step 1:
Consultation
Text/Call Office to Schedule Free Consultation
a. Text/Call our office to book Free 15-min. Phone Consultation to discuss your needs & determine therapy fit.
b. Office staff will Text/Call you to initiate your therapy journey.
Step 2: Register
Register Text Line
& Client Portal; Complete Forms
a. Respond to Spruce invite for text service. b. Respond to Therapy Notes invite to create Client Portal. c. Fill out forms in Client Portal. d. Notify office when forms are complete.
Step 3: Eligibility
Office Text/Calls on Insurance Eligibility; Book First Session
a. Office Staff will text or call you to discuss Insurance Eligibility.
b. Text/Call office to schedule your First Session. c. Receive a Video-Conference Link for your First Session.
Step 4:
1st Session
Create Your Personal Program in First Session
Together, in your first therapy session, we'll create a personalized program that resolves your current symptoms and explores their root cause for lasting relief & personal freedom.