Wisdom, Compassion, & Courage…Oh My! | RU006

Hello, and welcome to Rediscovering U where you will find valuable insights, support and education to help you move through the difficult and often painful process of divorce with grace and courage and hope, and find the ultimate gift of rediscovering yourself. I'm your host, Barb Greenberg, award winning author and founder of rediscovering you. If I'd had access to a resource like this during my divorce, I would have not felt so isolated, I would have made much better decisions, I still would have breathed for that for so hard for so long. And I wouldn't have eaten so many boxes of macaroni and cheese. When women heal. Families heal. When families heal communities heal. When communities heal, the possibilities are endless. Let's get started.

Are you sometimes just totally overwhelmed with all the changes divorce brings into your life? Are there days like you just don't even want to wake up, you just don't want to get out of bed because there's going to be something else you have to deal with that you've never dealt with before. That's another change. No fun. I felt like that all the time. And then there'd be periods in my journey in my divorce where like, everything would settle. And I'd go, Oh, it's over. The changes are over that. There they came again, another another batch of them. And I go, Oh, no more. But eventually, things settle. The changes have changed. And you've created a new space for yourself. And which is good, which is good. I was talking to somebody the other day and she was talking about business. It was not about divorce. And she said, you know, things, sometimes they feel impossible until they get done. And I think that's what happens to us too. It seems impossible. And then it gets done. We do it.

And then I was sitting I turned on the TV. And there was an ad for the movie The Wizard of Oz. Again, on TV. I'd seen that a like a gazillion times. And I love the movie. It's just the sweetest movie. And Judy Garland singing Somewhere over the rainbow who doesn't love that right? And then I realized, oh my gosh, this is a story about change. I don't know how many times I had to see it till I realized there was and if you're not familiar with the story, it's about Dorothy and she's living her Kansas life or normal Kansas life. And she happens to be in her farm house. And a tornado comes tears the home from its foundation spins it around a drops at funk place that's very unfamiliar that she never expected. And for divorce, sometimes it happened suddenly. It's like you feel like you're blindsided. All of a sudden boom, Something knocks your next you apart, knocks your life apart. And for others. You may feel like you sense that there were clouds gathering on the horizon. extra stress, something's not right. You can feel something's happening. And then rush it comes and blows you blows you awake Lola's, your home away, and you end up somewhere totally unexpected going. This is not how I expected my life to be. This is not where I thought it was going to end up. This was not how it was supposed to, to go. My future was not supposed to be here and this wherever I am. I don't even know where I am yet. And so it's interesting. The first thing Dorothy does, after her house was sunk. lands. I don't know if you could remember. But she opens the door to see where she is. And that takes a lot of courage. But if she doesn't open the door, the story ends. There's no story. And that's our first step to your first step to my first step was to, to see where I was open the door, take a step forward. And the step might be to have a cookie or to call your attorney. You never know what the first step is. But take that first step because like Dorothy, you're pretty courageous kidright.

This next thing is she has her sweet little dog named toto and so she has this little dog he's with her all the time. And in Latin total toto means like whole or complete. So she has everything already with her on her journey. Need. And so do you. Just kind of wonderful. Sometimes we forget that we do though. I certainly did. And then I'm not sure where the Munchkins fit in this in this version of my Wizard of Oz. But I, he might have an idea for Munchkins. But the Good Witch Glinda, the Goodwitch does point her to the road to take her home. Because that's all she wants, she wants to go home. And Glenda says, here's the yellow brick road, just follow it, you'll go to the Wizard of Oz, he'll give you everything you need, so you can get home. So off she goes. And of course, she finds her way, the Scarecrow, which is the wisdom, the brains and the wisdom, the Tin Man with a heart and compassion, and the lion who has more courage than he realizes he has. And so she needs all those, those fellows companions with her on this journey. So just want to share a little bit about each of those characters, the Scarecrow what to say about wisdom, and knowledge. And I think most of us have heard that, quote, knowledge is power. And then what happened is one day I understood or read, I read somewhere that understanding has more power than knowledge. Hmm. And I thought, well, yeah, understanding gives its like a deeper layer level of, of knowing what's going on and why things are going on. But it's easy to find knowledge, you know, you just Google, it's easy, you can find things like that.

But understanding it's not so easy. And I think I was very surprised when I realized that my divorce led me to a lot of understanding, it forced me to understand more about myself more about what I believe more about my situation more about who, what I could be and what the future might hold. And it turns out, you and I were on that classic hero hero wins journey, where you're pulled away from something that's familiar, you go into a dark space. And then you can come back with all the knowledge that you find there to help heal yourself and to heal others. So believe it or not, we're on a classic hero's journey, just like Dorothy is Who knew, right. So the Scarecrow Oh, and then I was thinking about wisdom. And I had an aside that, you know, the wise old owl, so I checked out owls. And it turns out that owls can see in the dark, which is something we learned to do than the start time, we can see things. And I also learned that they have a third eyelid, which is a little weird, but it cleans out it makes sure the owls eyes stay clean, so it can see more clearly. And isn't that wonderful? So with this understanding and knowledge and this wise owl, we are reminded, or you are reminded I am too that we can see in the dark when we need to. And that we always have a way to clear our vision. So we understand what's happening. So a couple other things about understanding and be wise to be wise about be wise about your your emotions, be honest about how you feel, fake it till you make it does not work in the situation. Be wise about how you spend your energy. Positive energy is much more effective and powerful than negative energy in every situation. And have you ever had this example, somebody will say to you to say no, no, no, no, no, a bunch of times and see how you feel? And then say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. To yourself a bunch of times, and see how that makes you feel. And you can tell the difference. And then I had a friend she said, you know, it takes the same amount of time to drive yourself crazy about something is to actually look at the situation and see what you can do to fix it.

Oh, she was right. That means I shouldn't do the drama part so much anymore. Except that's kind of fun, right? Anyway. So this, Dorothy and the Scarecrow go together because the Scarecrow decides he wants to braid and that the Wizard of Oz can get him a brain. Isn't it interesting that we think we need somebody else to give us Things that we already have. So off they go. And they bumped into, of course, the Tin Man, who, again, is so compassionate, but he doesn't realize it. So he wants to go with them, so that the wizard can give him a heart. So it's really interesting compassion. There's a wonderful book about compassion that I'll put in the class notes. And of course, I forgot the name right now. Self Compassion, I think it's called self compassion. Because we're really good about being compassionate with ourselves, but with others, but not so much with ourselves. So the simple definition, I think, for self compassion, is just accepting yourself the way you are. flaws and all. You're not supposed to be perfect. None of us are perfect. I know. It's frustrating, right? Especially if you're having a bad hair day. But that's, that's the least of our worries, right? And I know it's a simple, it's a simple explanation, just to be kind to yourself. But simple does not always mean easy, right? And just to accept yourself the way you are flaws and all. And it's simple, it sounds simple. But it's not always easy, because we have these habits that are sometimes very challenging to change. A bit that I want to date myself, but there was used to be a cartoon called Popeye the Sailor Man, and he was a sailor, and he ate spinach. And he would always say, I am what I have. And I just let that makes me smile, because that doesn't seem so serious is like, Why did you come? And really nice, I don't know if I could do that. But, you know, if I just say, Yep, I am what I am.

And then there's a wonderful quote by Pema Chodron. And it's about your heart, which is filled with more compassion than we realize. And she writes, When you begin to touch your heart, or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, and vast and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space there is for you, for all of you. I just, it just makes me feel so reassured that our hearts are huger than we ever imagined. And there was always compassion and love waiting there for us. And studies show that the more compassionate compassion, you show yourself, show to yourself, there you go, the more compassion you show to yourself, the less anxiety you will have, and the less dissatisfied you are with your life, which makes sense, right? And we tend I love this one, we tend to believe that being hard on our selves makes you more effective. But it's I was brought up that way if you're going to do it, do it right. But it's being gentle with yourself, when you're down or frustrated or scared. That's what makes you more effective. You're gentle. And you know what? If it's worth doing? No, you don't have to do it, right? If it's worth doing, it's worth doing. And when you do it enough times, maybe you'll get it right. But I just love that piece about to be gentle with yourself, especially when you're challenged.

So Dorothy and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man as they go, and of course they beat the Cowardly Lion, but of course wants courage and he never realized he was brave. And I wonder if somebody had told him once that he wasn't so he believed them and never realized who he really was. I think that happens to all of us. And you already have more courage than you realize. Some days simply getting out of bed takes courage or contacting your attorney or your financial planners, especially if your financial planner, if like you can barely make ends meet. That's like a really uncomfortable phone call to make but a really important valuable rate phone call to me

because things can change. When you make that phone call. It takes courage to speak your truth without having a meltdown. That took me a while. It takes courage to trust things will move forward even when you are not sure you can see where you're going. And if you have children, it takes courage. Often it takes courage to called parents, and to face what the future will bring takes a lot of courage. So Dorothy has now connected with her with all these wonderful qualities, wisdom and compassion and courage. And all this time, she's wearing these really cute shoes, those ruby slippers, and they give her more power than she realizes she has. And that is very interesting. I think we all have more power than we realize we have we have those shoes. They might not be ruby slippers, they might be hiking boots, running shoes, flip flops, those three or four inch heels that are like, whoo. But I think sometimes they end up in the back of our closet under an old pair of jeans with jeans or something like that. Or you're just so exhausted. You just don't have the time to look for them. And then she has the Wicked Witch to contend with who says, you know, just give me the shoes, then I won't bother you anymore. It is what this shoe is that I'll leave you alone. But this Dorothy do that. No, she doesn't. And neither do you. You don't give away that part of you. That sparkles. That has strength that gives you power that makes you unique. Sometimes I think we think we did, but we did. Because it's very interesting.

There's a spot in the movie where the Wicked Witch is going to bend down to take the shoes from Dorothy. As she bends down. There's an tries to touch the shoes. There's a giant spark. And she can't, she cannot take Dorothy's ruby slippers from her. And guess what? Nobody can take that power from you. Nobody can take that strength from you. It is yours to keep always. And then someone mentioned. There's the man behind the curtain. That's the big one. Oh, my gosh. And he's very his voice is very sure of itself, and loud and strong and powerful, a Great and Powerful Oz. And what Dorothy does is she steps behind the curtain. She moves a curtain aside. And once you see what's behind the curtain, you realize that that voice that you've been listening to that powerful, I know exactly what you need to do. And you need to do this and that and that. Oh, yeah, maybe not. Maybe that's not the voice I need to listen to because there's nothing real behind there. Because and once you see that, you can't unsee it. So what voice Do you listen to? You listen to the voice within you. That doesn't mean you keep you don't stop searching for education, information, insights, and listen to those voices. But you can be very discerning to and figure out which voices are true and which voices are not true. And usually the really loud scary ones were the true ones. So you get to learn to trust yourself your voice. And I think what happens is, you know, he Dorothy is told she needs to click your heels three times together and she will magically be transported home to herself. But you know, if you already have that compassion, courage, wisdom, if you already have that unique power that the shoes represent, that give you strength that gives you your unique self. Then all you have to do is choose choose to go home. Choose to go follow your heart. Find your spirit, listen to your voice and reconnect to yourself and you will find your way home. It won't be the physical spot that you imagine that it will be the home. That is your heart. That is the unique and precious.