How to end the pain of a relationship

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Along with producing many meditation CD/MP3’s, such as Meditations for Abundance and Love: Volume I Deserving and Volume II: Manifesting (available here at: http://bit.ly/meditat3), I have also written a best-selling book, The 7 Fatal Mistakes Divorced and Separated Parents Make: Strategies for Raising Healthy Children of Divorce and Conflict,  available in print or PDF  at inlovewithme.com/books,  or on Kindle through Amazon at http://amzn.to/TIRGz4. Individual chapters are also for sale on https://inlovewithme.com/books/e-book-chapters.

Here is an excerpt about how to end the pain of a relationship:

Sometimes when relationships end, it can be difficult to move forward with our lives. We may choose to stay stuck in the pain versus push through it to move forward with our lives. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I still feel angry with my child’s other parent?

2. Do I still feel very sad, like I can’t move on because I am still upset?

3. Do I still blame my child’s other parent for my pain and hurt?

man and woman on beachIf you answered Yes to any of the above, you may be choosing, consciously or unconsciously, to stay stuck. You do have to move through the stages of grief, and there is no fixed time limit for that to occur, however, where ever you are in the grieving process, this chapter will help you move forward. This place of being stopped can sometimes feel safer and easier than taking the steps to move forward. It may be unclear to you what steps you need to take. The truth is that if you are choosing to stay stuck, you are choosing to not move on from this relationship. You could also feel that you are punishing your child’s other parent. However, you are truly punishing yourself and your child by not moving forward. While it may be true that your co-parent hurt you or wronged you in some way, the truth is that you were 50% of that relationship. You now have to make a choice.  You can choose to move on to create a healthy environment for you and your child or you can stay stuck in a place of anger and pain over a relationship that no longer exists. You can be the victim, but know that victims are not healthy parents.

Shannon R Rios MS is a successful Life Coach and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She coaches parents as a life coach through her life coaching business www.inlovewithme.com so that parents can move forward and create healthy lives and relationships with themselves, their children and others. She is also the founder of www.healthychildrenofdivorce.com

If you enjoyed this article, her best-selling book on parenting after divorce and healing after divorce is The 7 Fatal Mistakes Divorced and Separated Parents Make: Strategies for Raising Healthy Children of Divorce and Conflict and can be found here: https://inlovewithme.com/books

Food and Health Issue 4: Eating and Health Go Hand in Hand

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Read First Issue Here:  https://inlovewithme.com/food-health-issue-story

Read Second Issue Here: https://inlovewithme.com/food-health-issue-2-change-course

Read Third Issue Here: https://inlovewithme.com/food-health-issue-3-completing-journey

This was a huge journey of loving myself.

happy dressWow life has changed, eating has changed and they go hand in hand.   Sometimes I fall off the wagon but each time I get back on the wagon and commit to my health, it gets easier and easier.  Eating healthier is a way of life now.  Do I emotionally eat once in a while, of course but it is nothing like it used to be.

I do not do low-fat, I have learned that the right fats are actually so healthy for our bodies.  High fat (good fat as in greek yogurt, grass-fed beef, avocado) is good for us.  This also is a new fact that we have not previously had the correct knowledge about.  It is all about eliminating the things that are not good for our bodies – sugar, wheat, processed foods and chemicals, and bad trans fats (think deep frying).    I also have started a green smoothie in the morning, while it may not taste amazing, I know my body loves it.  I find I crave sugars even less eating this healthy smoothie each day.  It also keeps me full for hours!  It has the nutrients my body really needs.

As we journey together I will share my thoughts, ideas, recipes and remedies.  Food is crucial to our health and our overall life experience.  In all my life coaching and executive coaching, food and nutrition is a large aspect.  Follow my “Love Yourself with Food” blog here:

foodblog.inlovewithme.com

 

Stay tuned for Issue 5: What Can You Do To Get Started? – Next Week!

Food and Health Issue 3: Completing the Journey

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Read First Issue Here: https://inlovewithme.com/food-health-issue-story

Read Second Issue Here: https://inlovewithme.com/food-health-issue-2-change-course

However, my journey was not complete there.  A couple years later, in my early 40s I started having terrible hormonal imbalance.  I had symptoms of memory issues, heart palpitations, night sweats and terrible mood issues (especially if I relapsed and ate wheat).  They were bad enough that I went to a doctor that specialized in bio-identical hormones.  He said my estrogen levels “were alarmingly low”.  So I went on estrogen replacement therapy. Take a pill, right?

In my mind, I knew this was not the right solution.  I knew that once again there was still an underlying cause.  When I sometimes forgot to take my replacement, my symptoms were worse!  That scared me.  I began to research again.

freedigiitalphotos.net Carlos PortoThen one day a friend recommended I go to the Green Herb in Wheat Ridge CO (http://www.thegreenherb.com/).  They did a blood test and discussed Candida overgrowth with me.  It made so much sense.  At that point my body was so sensitive I could hardly drink a glass a wine before going into a bad mood and feel completely unbalanced.  And I can assure you this reaction to alcohol had changed as I had gotten older.  I also knew I was truly addicted to sugar, I loved to eat sugary foods.   Candida overgrowth also leads to hormonal imbalance.  I had all the symptoms.   I also was tested by another Chinese medicine doctor who did a stool and saliva sample.  He also confirmed the high level of candida in my body, along with inflamed intestines.

I then started my 30 day candida cleanse and this changed my life once again.  My mood was so much more regulated (this eliminated wheat and sugar completely).  I did not even eat fruit for those 30 days.   It is amazing how we have become so desensitized to the true taste of off with all the fake sugars we have and the sugars like high fructose corn syrup in so many of our foods now.  I think of sugar as poison, as it is poison to my body.  And WHO wants to eat poison???  Has it been challenging? You bet! I was a sugar addict.  Has it been worth it? 100%.  Because I am worth it!  I stopped taking my hormone pills and my night sweats reduced greatly (except once I started to eat sugar again).  I would notice they would return….hmmm….hormones and sugar…..connection!

Stay tuned for Issue 4: Eating and Health Go Hand in Hand – Next week!

Food and Health Issue 2: The Change in Course

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Read the first issue here: https://inlovewithme.com/food-health-issue-story

change in courseAt this point three four things happened that changed the course of my life:

  1.  I decided that even though (due to working on my own and the high cost of health insurance) even though I did not have the insurance to pay for it, I would go to an infectious disease specialist.  Everyone recommended that I do this.  At this point I was continuously running a low grade fever and had to take ibuprofen to get through life.  This doctor did his tests, looked at me and said “sometimes we just never find the cause of the issue”.  I honestly could not even believe what I had just heard out of a DRs mouth.  FU was literally my response as I walked out of his office that day.  I left his office enraged, with a new purpose “I was once very healthy, I WILL FIND THE CAUSE OF THIS”.  I wanted my life back.  If medical doctors could not find the cure, I would!  This experience was the driving force to me finding health again.  I set an intention that day and things began to shift.  Tell ME sometime can’t be done and watch me prove you wrong!  I forgive that doctor for his ignorance about food and health, he did not even question me about what I was eating.  Do you know most medical programs do have nutrition on their list of areas they train doctors in?  To me that is like not training them how drano affects us if we drink it.  Food can have the same effect.   I also must truly wonder why we do not as a society demand that this is part of our Doctors training program?
  2. The next event was that I decided to take wheat out of my diet for three weeks.  The “gluten fad” as it was called (3 years ago now) was just starting to really gain momentum.  I figured trying it could not hurt.  This alone did not fully cure my physical health issues.  However after two weeks of no gluten, I noticed that my mood was markedly improved.  As I was nearing my 40s my PMS and perimenopausal symptoms had become worse and worse.  The fact that I mentally felt better caused me to be curious.  I remember googling “mood and wheat”.  Wow, I found so much!  This was a random discovery but assisted my mood immensely.  At that point it was sadness that really improved and I felt more balanced.  Later I have noticed a marked increase in my frustration and anger when I eat wheat now.  Amazing.  We know wheat is related to inflammation in the body and if your body does not feel good, your mind does not feel good.  This journey of eliminating wheat has been a challenge, I was addicted.  I first did gluten free but after I realized all the sugar and other products in some of that food, I have pretty much eliminated all those products as well.
  3. The third thing that happened is I traveled to Thailand and went to the Doctor in Thailand.  I had heard there were good doctors in Thailand and since I had no health insurance I thought I may as well go there and pay less for my services while in Thailand. Truly at this time, I was not feeling that well at all but I knew I had no infectious diseases, had been on antibiotics and was still feeling terrible.  However I had planned this trip to Thailand and felt such a pull to go there.  Working with coach he ordered me to book the ticket (we both knew I needed to go).  I was not feeling well and dwelling on it just made things worse. I loved to travel more than anything so I knew that even if I was alone in a foreign country it would still be better then being alone in the US.  And a heck of a lot more interestingmedical stethoscope isolated on white close up.  I had found Yoga Nidra (a meditative yoga) that I could still do.  I downloaded all the meditations I could find, and literally did Yoga Nidra and took my ibuprofen to survive that 20 hour trip.
    The doctors in Thailand gave me prednisone because at that point I was even broken out in hives all over my body.  The prednisone worked wonders (shutting down my own immune system) and I was able to feel better and even do yoga again.  When in Thailand “by chance” I met Eddie Bower at a yoga class in Chaing Mai.  Eddie had written the book “Life After Bread” and is a holistic health practitioner.  She looked at me and said “I can tell you are gluten intolerant”.  I was still struggling at this point with eating gluten as I was so addicted to it, I was still eating it in some cases, especially now that I was feeling better with the prednisone.  But of course once the prednisone wore off, my symptoms returned.
  4.  The fourth piece and crucial piece.  Once I returned to the US, I started to think “they shut off my immune system and I felt good”.  I started to do more research and was pretty sure that this issue I was having was due to something with my immune system.  I also started to link this to my intestines as they are such a large part of our body.  And as I found out, 80% of our immune system lives here!  At that point a final important piece of the puzzle showed up.  I (who professes to not watch hardly any TV), was looking at the TV guide on cable (due to living with a  roommate in the mountains of CO that needed cable).  I saw the words “health and arthritis” and it was a PBS special.  It was then I was introduced to Brenda Watson and her renew life products. She was the one that taught me that our intestines comprise 80% of our immune system.  WHAT?  Why had the doctors never told me that?  She talked about her timed release probiotics that brought back our good bacteria after we hurt our intestines with years of processed and unhealthy foods.  I ordered the probiotics that night.   It was then, along with reducing my wheat intake into my body, that I slowly started to regain my health.   I also eliminated dairy which many natural health practitioners recommended.  I am so grateful for all the clues I was provided and the people out there who truly care about our health.   And truly we have to love ourselves enough to stay on this path of finding what is right for our bodies and provides optimal health for us.  Doing these things helped me immensely and I was able to live my life fully again.

Stay tunes for Issue 3: Completing the Journey – Next Week!

Halloween and Family Traditions

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Happy Halloween!

Here is an excerpt from my Amazon best-seller, The 7 Fatal Mistakes Divorced and Separated Parents Make: Strategies for Raising Healthy Children of Divorce and Conflict (available at amazon here: http://amzn.to/1b1I1Ok or on my website here: https://inlovewithme.com/books/)

Effective-Parenting Strategy #2: Develop New Traditions

shannon jessieChildren love traditions, big and small. Nineteen years after leaving my family’s home, I still love to get fish fry on Friday nights because that is something that my family did many Friday nights as I was growing up. It was a happy time because the workweek was done and Mom did not have to cook! Halloween is one of my favorite times because every year I would get dressed up and we would go to my Grandma and Grandpa’s; it was so fun! Halloween is still my favorite holiday. It is time to think about what you want your new family to look like. In this new family, you can create new traditions with your children. Ask your children what traditions they enjoy from your past family that they want to continue. Make sure that between the two co-parents, you carry on these traditions when possible. Please, avoid fighting about who gets what holiday or event. Just know that as long as your child is able to participate in the traditions, they will be happy. Take this opportunity to develop traditions you may not have been able to engage in when you were married. After my parents divorced, my dad and sisters always went and cut their own Christmas tree for dad’s house. My mom has asthma so we could never have a real tree in our home when my parents were together. Together, my dad and sisters created a new tradition for their new family.

Think about the things you would like to do and then create traditions for you and your kids around them. One colleague of mine said his kids always bring up the times that they went camping. He said he really did not have much money but it was a tradition so they did it every year without fail. His children, who are now older, bring it up as one of their most fun memories. Of course, children have the best memories if they have fun while doing the activities. Other cost-effective ideas are game night, pizza night, movie night, etc.

DSCN1950A Healthy Alternative!

I recently attended a wonderful seminar by JJ Virgin she taught a lot of great health ideas.  With Halloween just around the corner, one idea she had was to pay your kids for at least some of their candy.  Of course, this is to limit their sugar intake which we know is so harmful to us and our kids.   She also suggested handing out eye patches or other non candy items.  Have a wonderful Halloween with your children!!

You have a choice

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You have a choice in how you move forward in parenting your child and how you react to your child’s other parent. Remember, no one else can ever truly make you angry; you make a choice to become angry. This gives you a lot of power. If you choose not to react angrily to something your child’s other parent says, in effect, you win. Their goal might be to make you angry and if you make another choice, they have not accomplished their goal and you win. Remember to “take the high road.” It will pay off.

I believe that all we have is the present moment. If we are thinking about the past or worrying about the future, we are not living to our full potential. What this means is that right now, in this present moment, you can decide to make changes in your life and to do it differently.

Declare the past complete and choose to leave it there. At this point, nothing can be done and it is only wasting energy to focus on it. Begin to live today using what you have learned from this book. Put one or two things into practice right now. You can make a choice to do it differently, for your child’s future.

Your child’s future is being created right now, in this moment, with the choices you make. Please look at your choices as not about you and your ego, but see them as being about your child and your family you now have with your child. I truly know you have done your best up to this point and now with this knowledge, it is time to make even better choices. Life is too short for anything less.

The decisions you make each moment with your children and how you choose to act will impact these huge life goals in your children’s lives. Know in your heart that you have the ability to make new and good choices every moment. You are strong and powerful. Your children are counting on you as their guidepost in life to make decisions that will provide them with the opportunity to be the happiest and most productive adult possible. I know that sometimes this can feel like a very scary proposition. You are not alone in this journey.

My encouragement to you is to heal yourself and believe in yourself. Taking care of you is the first step to really taking care of your children. I know you are already a good parent and have what it takes to be the best coparent you can be. Being a parent is the most important job in the world. It is how we treat our children that will determine the fate of the world. What do you want our world to look like in 20 years? 50 years? 100 years? I encourage you to take a stand for yourself and your child right now, begin your healing and begin the journey of life. You can choose to make choices that create hope for your children and for our world.

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Shannon R Rios MS is a successful Life Coach and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She coaches parents as a life coach through her life coaching business www.inlovewithme.com so that parents can move forward and create healthy lives and relationships with themselves, their children and others. She is also the founder of www.healthychildrenofdivorce.com

If you enjoyed this article, her best selling book on parenting after divorce and healing after divorce is The 7 Fatal Mistakes Divorced and Separated Parents Make: Strategies for Raising Healthy Children of Divorce and Conflict and can be found here: https://inlovewithme.com/books