Conscious uncoupling

*Warning - rather long!*

The term ‘conscious uncoupling’ was coined and created by a so-called relationship expert, Katherine Woodward Thomas, and popularised by actress, Gwyneth Paltrow, when she and her husband at the time, musician, Chris Martin, split.

The term has since become synonymous with divorce or separation where both partners accept responsibility, appreciating that they both played a role in the breakup and, in particular, are seeking to co-parent (and often co-habit) in a functional and healthy way in the future.

It is of course a modern term, which many have called New Age spiritualism, ‘woo woo’ but in essence all it is really doing is honouring the two people involved in the relationship, and their children, and breaking free from tradition, showing that it doesn’t have to be the conventional ‘split, divide, fight, hate, animosity’ trend, which many choose – often unconsciously - instead.

In essence, this process of consciously uncoupling allows couples a healing as they release a lot of very difficult feelings including anger, rage, guilt, regret, sadness, grief and unfairness, all of which could lead to the desire to seek revenge or cause harm if not addressed, and might lead to a breakdown in communication and effective relating, which has a knock on effect on the children.

It is a path which Ewan and I found ourselves treading three years ago now, not consciously initially, but because our lives are so tightly woven together into the fabric of what makes us a family, and our relationship has always been based on friendliness and cooperation. We knew that there had to be a way that allowed our romantic separation, but maintained a steadiness for the children, and for ourselves too.

Of course we didn’t intend for it to be this way, no one enters a relationship expecting it to breakdown, but alas sometimes our perspective shifts and we stumble up against our unresolved traumas and emotions and life throws curved balls and it just reaches an ending, or at least an ending in that particular way of relating. In short life changes and we change and that’s OK.

The problems arise when we resist our reality and get stuck in our often limited conditioning and programming, let alone come from a place of victimhood because of our unresolved emotional trauma. So too, when we buy into other people’s opinions and judgements, which might cause us to create imaginary stories and take a course of action which is out of alignment with our own truth.

I hadn’t realised when this journey began, how much my perspective on relationships and love was skewed by the Disney ideal, let alone societal, traditional, cultural and religious conditioning and belief systems. I also hadn’t realised how many unresolved and undigested emotions I still held, from past events and experiences in my life, samskaras then (afflictions), which created various patterns of behaviour and thinking, that didn’t always support healthy relating.

It never crossed my mind that in our quest to avoid being triggered – where those painful unresolved emotions from the past are remembered and re-felt, at least until we have digested, healed and released them - that we might enable certain behaviours and patterns of control in ourselves and others (such as co-dependency), in our quest to avoid having to go to those uncomfortable places in ourselves.

It is all too easy to blame others without taking responsibility and this was one of the many lessons I have learned on this journey. Every time that we find ourselves criticising or judging another, we can be sure that they are mirroring something unresolved within ourselves. Never is this more true than in our closest relationships, and we need to be mindful of laying into the other person without first looking honestly at ourselves and ensuring we are taking responsibility for dealing with our own emotions.

After all, emotions are energy in motion (e-motion) and need their expression. If the energy gets stuck because we have not managed to digest the emotion – perhaps we have repressed or supressed it – then we may well find ourselves suffering from physical ailments or mental disorders or have a hard time effectively relating. Emotions needs to be allowed to move through us if we are to optimise our wellbeing and experience greater harmony in our relationships.

From an Ayurvedic perspective we can take all the pro-biotics we like, but it is only when we shift our emotional state that our gut flora will positively change. Of the diet is blamed for loss of wellbeing, and while a good diet supports our wellbeing, if we digested our emotions and life experiences better, then we would digest our food better too. This will lead to improved immune function, mental stability and increased vitality.

Needless to say the body makes us aware when it is holding something that needs releasing; perhaps a skin condition or a restless leg, perhaps a twitch or a sore stomach, perhaps a headache or a dullness to mind, perhaps acid reflux or constipation, maybe a bout of anxiety or insomnia. All of these complaints are a way of the body trying to communicate with us, telling us that something is unresolved on the inside.

Whatever lays unresolved seeks expression and we will attract situations into our everyday lives which ‘trigger’ whatever it is that we are holding onto. This is the reason we experience various patterns in our lives and find ourselves stumbling up against the same old problem, whether that be falling out with the same family member, always choosing toxic partners, suffering anxiety each time we have to travel, feeling insecure at work etc.

The trouble is, when a samskara, an old experience then, is triggered, we don’t often take the time to really feel into it and process it. We might notice we’ve been triggered (and sometimes we are in it before we even notice it) but the more we begin taking time to be with the discomfort of whatever is coming up for us, and realising the value in taking this time to be by ourselves, the more we will create space and the opportunity for solitude in our lives.

This process has certainly helped Ewan and I to both value our space and the need to allow each other opportunities for solitude. This highlighted to me especially that we often need to fight for space in our lives because it doesn’t always come easily and healthy boundaries are needed to protect any space and opportunity for solitude that we might carve out in our daily lives.

Furthermore, we have to be conscious of misguided feelings of guilt and perceived selfishness that may arise when we take time for ourselves, this because our society celebrates selflessness – it seems odd to me that we are encouraged to give ourselves away to others. It is important that we give time to just be, on our own, following our joy, otherwise we can end up frustrated and resentful, blaming our partner unnecessarily.

This pattern certainly showed up in mine and Ewan’s relationship and it took a good while to put better boundaries in place in my life and I am sure they could be tighter still. This highlighted our threads of co-dependency, which fascinated me, simply because our way of being in a relationship can be normalised to the extent that we do not appreciate that these patterns of unhealthy relating exist in the first place.

And it was only as we began to release those threads that the fabric of our relationship began to change, a loosening here, a letting go there. Of course this breathed air into spaces that were held tight, which were creating so much of the friction, frustration, resentment and discomfort in the first place. In many ways our friendship has deepened through all this, just by letting go of our grip and being a little more respectful.

What I also didn’t appreciate was how much we buy into the illusion of good/bad, right/wrong and how this perspective causes so much of our suffering. It was all too easy in those earlier days especially – but again there are layers - to consider that Ewan and I had somehow failed, or that we should have chosen differently.

I beat myself up for a good while as I fell into feelings of regret and blame – if only I had seen those supposed red flags and made different choices way back then. I was angry and rageful not only at myself but at Ewan too – why had he not realised, why had he let us walk this path, why had he done what he had done etc.?

These feelings led to a momentary depression, as I got stuck into thinking I should have known better and struggled to appreciate that it was always meant to be this way. This state, albeit painful at the time, helped to re-highlight that we are the creator of our own suffering in the way we give value to certain thoughts, forgetting that there is always a different perspective if only we can let go of our egoic mind’s obsession with making things concrete and ‘right’.

The idea of having failed or being a failure is just a thought. It is up to us to choose whether to buy into it or not. This isn’t to say the thought won’t be there, it will. But that we can take a moment to notice it and challenge it and shift the perspective into something more positive.

Because it is all too easy to tell ourselves that we are free agents who could have chosen path B instead of path A (or indeed path C), that we should have seen those red flags and known better somehow, but there really is no evidence to support this belief. It is just a thought we want to believe. At the end of the day, we chose A because of all the causes and conditions leading up to that point, and we couldn’t have chosen otherwise. 

None of us could possibly choose anything but what seems like the best option available to us at the time that we made the choice Plus we have to remember that that decision was made based on all the various causes and conditions in the background; psychological, physical, emotional and otherwise.

In short, Ewan and I were always meant to tread this path together. This realisation was huge for me, So too reframing ‘failing’ by remembering that there is no perfect, no happy ever after, that this is just the Disney conditioning, which so many compare their lives against. Being human is painful and life is full of suffering. To believe otherwise just sets us up for more pain and suffering.

Letting go of the idea of perfection is one of the hardest things for so many of us as our programming (educational, religious etc) encourages it, and yet it can be one of the most positive things we can do for ourselves, setting ourselves free from our negative emotions, especially around failing, shame and disappointment.

So too letting go of the notion that there is something wrong with us that needs fixing or changing. It doesn’t. We are perfectly imperfect in our essence and all we need to do is let go of anything which tells us otherwise. This is the path of yoga and healing – there is nothing to fix or add, just a whole heap of false beliefs and negative thinking to let go of for us to recognise our inherent innocence.

I was reminded again how easily we project and judge in others the stuff we need to look at in ourselves. Which brought me straight back to the illusion of free will. This being the fact that we cannot choose anything but what looks like the best option available to us at any one moment in time, based on the various causes and conditions at that time, our psychology, mental/emotional state, and our samskaras again.

Thus, if we truly see through the illusion of free will, then we stop judging ourself and others for our/their choices. Admittedly we might still grieve various choices we have made – and grieve I most certainly did – but we are free from the belief that we or they could have chosen to do anything differently in the past.

And we also stop believing that we could make the wrong choice in the future. We begin to realise that we can only make what looks like the best choice from the options that appear to us. And it will always be this way for everyone, because it couldn’t be otherwise, and that is OK. What we might call failings, mistakes or wrong choices could then simply be called learning.

Which leads me to another learning, or understanding. That while we live in a highly structured and ordered universe, there is what we might call a little bit of wiggle room. This wiggle room is what we call consciousness and it is consciousness which sets us free – and this of course is the path of yoga in its quest to reduce our suffering by creating clarity and Reiki too, in raising our vibration and increasing consciousness – Ayurveda also is a path to greater consciousness.

Thus, while all our thoughts and behaviours arise based on what’s happened to us previously – the causes and conditions of our lives – when consciousness becomes aware of itself (when we become conscious then, in that wiggle room, the space that sometimes arises between cause and effect), it can transform thoughts and behaviours which otherwise wouldn’t occur.

I suppose what I am saying is that in this wiggle room, we have the opportunity to become conscious of our thoughts and behaviours and to change them. Thus our consciousness is not just a witness to the unfolding of our conditioned thoughts and behaviours, it actually becomes a source for transformation of old and often unhelpful patterns (samskaras), by reflecting itself to itself.

Conscious uncoupling by its very nature has gifted Ewan and I this opportunity. Being self-reflective, we have tried to become increasingly conscious of our actions and behaviours, which have led to disharmony in our relating, and do something about them – not only by attempting to trace them back to source, but by catching ourselves before we run down the same old road and then inevitably hit up against the same old blocks. It is this process that has allowed us to positively change things.

Thus – and as I wrote earlier - while we might not be able to choose our reactions in any given moment, when we notice ourselves being emotionally triggered (because we have hit a samskara), we can try to remember to pause, breathe and reflect before we act or speak. Over time, this helps us to choose whether to believe our thoughts and feelings and challenge them so we can choose differently if necessary.

And in this way, we are more likely to allow forgiveness and compassion to arise spontaneously, because we are ‘seeing’ (perceiving) differently. We are also more likely to relax and open to reality as it is, rather than resisting it. Realising all of this was helpful, especially the recognition of the way in which we exhaust ourselves and create yet more unnecessary suffering because of our resistance to forgiveness.

Yet forgiveness is key. It is what truly sets us free. When we are stuck, then we can be sure that there is some stubborn unforgiveness lurking in there somewhere; some unresolved emotional stuff that prevents our expansion. By its very nature, if conscious uncoupling is to set us free, then forgiveness and letting go are both needed. Otherwise we stay trapped In our victimhood, which serves no one, least of all ourself. 

As Carolyn Myss writes in her book Anatomy of Spirit:

 “Forgiveness is not the same as telling the person who harmed you, “it’s okay”, which is more of less the way that most people view it. Rather, forgiveness if a complex act of consciousness…that liberates the psyche and soul from the need for personal vengeance and the perception of oneself as a victim. More than releasing from blame the people who caused our wounds, it means releasing the control that the perception of victimhood has over our psyche”.

But really one of the most valuable lessons I have learned from this journey, is not to care about other people’s opinions or judgements because then we may try to follow a path that isn’t right for us, which ultimately creates conflict between head and heart.

For example, there are people in Ewan and my life who were keen to see us separate. It would appease their understanding of how life should be lived when two people romantically split and they couldn’t understand our hesitation in doing so. But what they haven’t realised is that in their quest to be ‘right’, their interference created more disharmony for Ewan and I.

I suddenly realised how poorly placed these people were to judge, because for the most part they didn’t have children and had no real understanding of the woven nature of our lives, both of us self-employed and working around home schooling our children, admittedly with much valued support from grandparents. We are not living conventionally and for those individuals to apply their conventional perspective was unhelpful and limiting.

The last time that this happened, which created quite a schism and a questioning of our approach, and a hardness to arise between Ewan and I, we really had to dig deep into all of the above. And I was reminded how sometimes we have to be taken to our very edge before we can let go of the way we are told life has to be lived. It is in this letting go that freedom arises, but it is not always an easy process and generally involves a forgiveness first.

There is usually no forgiveness without rage, and we may have a tendency to look outside ourselves for change. I fell into this trap, of thinking I needed to make an external change to appease what I was being told by others. This caused a deep dive to practice and a sense that I needed to let go of some old stubborn unforgiveness that was creating mental rigidity and disharmony.

As often happens an external event happened which caused me to soften and to shift my perspective and as a result I was able to truly let go of my stubborn unforgiveness. I had held onto it for quite some time and the letting go that accompanied it brought with it a wonderful wave of compassion and gratitude, quite unlike anything I had experienced previously.

This internal shift to greater vulnerability in its open heartedness positively changed things, not least internally, but externally too. Mine and Ewan’s relationship found greater cohesion, independence, love and freedom. It was a blessed relief after a period of inner turmoil, like a part of us had died and we had been gifted a new beginning.

Throughout all of this communication has been key. I cannot stress this enough. We have both been encouraged to communicate honestly and openly. We have both learned – and no doubt will continue learning - that without effective communication we can easily fall victim to confusion or imaginings, both of which can lead to toxic and unhealthy relating.

I am reminded time and again that there are many different perspectives, that we do not all see the world similarly, that in the most part we are all living in different realities simultaneously. We have to remember that we are all seeing through different lenses based on what has happened previously, let alone our conditionings and level of consciousness in any one moment.

I share in the hope that it might help you if you are stuck in your relating, to offer you the possibility that there is always another way, which doesn’t have to be based on what you may have experienced previously or what others may tell you.

Not to say that it is easy, but no path is easy and no doubt Ewan and I will encounter more obstacles along the way. But it is an approach that does what it says – encourages greater consciousness in our uncoupling, which gifts the opportunity for healing and increased self-awareness, and ultimately greater stability and indeed love for the family.

I am eternally grateful to my extended family for their unwavering love and support as Ewan and I have trodden this unconventional path. I am also extremely grateful to Ewan for his love and support and indeed courage in walking this path with me, and to our boys who ask us to go deeper still and remind us that there is always a more harmonious and loving way.

 Love Emma x