<p>What happens when your or your spouse/ partner’s, I DO, becomes, I DON’T</p><p>I see many people in my practice that become stuck – stuck in anger, sadness, and doubt when facing this life alternating event in their lives. But just like everything in life there is an opposite faction as well. Those that move forward, with courage, determination and a sincere effort to work with their spouse or partner even if they are the ones left behind.</p><p>I love this quote by Nelson Mandela, “May your choices reflect your hopes not your fears." Fear is a natural, powerful emotion. It can be debilitating or it can be the impetus for one to overcome their fear(s).</p><p>I know for me when I have been faced with devastating, life alternating events (and there have been several); I have been plagued with self-doubt. Negative emotions that have left me feeling powerless, vulnerable and completely paralyzed, with seemingly no positive alternatives moving forward. </p><p>Looking back at those times, caught up in the depths of my own drowning emotions I recall what I did do become unstuck. I consciously decided to not react or act on my emotion but to move, sometimes painfully slow, towards what I knew in my head to be the right thing to do. Not based on what I was feeling but based on the ‘voice’ in my head telling me what to do.</p><p>I am not trying to say it is easy…but by not acting on emotion I could clearly see that responding, moving, accepting did not have to be driven by the way I was feeling. It became easier and easier becomes ultimately we know what we need to do, but often ‘feel’ that we can’t.</p><p>How does one not merely ‘survive’ a break-up? First and foremost it’s pushing through the self-doubt, the anger and resentment and believing that all of our life’s experiences bring forth life lessons </p>