by Vishnu | Apr 10, 2016 | Love and Relationships
Never threaten to end your marriage.
You should never utter the word “divorce” if you’re not serious about one.
You should never call on ending your marriage for the sake of ending an argument.
I was married for nearly a decade; my wife and I would find ourselves in regular battle royals. We yelled at each other vigorously, argued constantly and found new ways to sabotage our marriage.
With each fight and argument that came up, I always took it a step further.
What would be the death knell of a marriage?
What would hurt her more than anything else?
What would take our marriage to the edge of the cliff and shatter it forever?
Divorce!
Well, at least, the threat of a divorce.
I wanted a divorce, like an immature teenager, when things didn’t go my way.
I wanted a divorce when we were at the most heated point of our arguments.
I wanted a divorce when I was angry, frustrated or had no other ammunition in my arsenal of arguments. When there were no more painful comebacks or putdowns…
“Well, if that’s how you feel about it, we should just get a divorce then…” I would nonchalantly announce.
The words always fell on her ears like I had hoped it would – to break through the noise and deliver a bombastic shudder.
The word divorce in our culture was like a bomb; it was both foreign and taboo in the Indian community. Death we could accept, divorce never. A divorce not only would end the relationship between us, but also create heartache and shame for our families.
Yet I repeatedly continued to ratchet up the threats of divorce. First I announced it as a threat, then later, a solution. If we were both so unhappy and miserable, wouldn’t it just make sense to divorce, I reasoned out loud?
Yet, each time I said it, I don’t believe I meant it. I couldn’t imagine a divorce in my life. I knew how much it would ravage both of our lives and imagined how difficult it would be to bear the emotional pains of a divorce.
The D-word became a threat and a weapon in moments of heated conflict.
Now, I realized, what I did was introduce the possibility of separation and ending into our marriage. When you introduce ideas like divorce, you open the door to the possibility of one occurring. I opened the door to options that never existed as both of us stood firm in arguments and fights.
When there’s a way out, both parties are less likely to compromise and less likely to change.
Ironically, she is the one who suggested the separation. When we met up after a 6 month break, she was certain of her decision to get a divorce.
While I paid the price of pain and sorrow over the years from the divorce, I also realize that I opened the door to the possibility to one.
I raised divorce for the sake of arguments, for the sake of momentary pleasure and to get the upper hand in a fight. I now know that the threat of ending the relationship, especially when you don’t want it to end, isn’t healthy or helpful to keeping it intact.
Lessons I learned too late:
Don’t threaten to end your marriage. Don’t threaten a divorce.
You might just get what you ask for.
For more of my writing, visit my books page here.
This article previously appeared in the Good Men Project.
by Vishnu | Apr 3, 2016 | Finance, Love and Relationships
Do you feel like your life is over?
When something, or more like someone, exits your life, you might feel like you’re on a downward trajectory to, I don’t know, the end.
I sure did. I thought it was game over. No future. No happiness. No life ahead.
I had celebrated graduations. I had celebrated my wedding. What more?
I had gloomily thought that the only next celebration I would look forward to is one I wouldn’t be here for – death.
Yes, these thoughts might have come from my darkest places in my most trying hour, but it was what filled my mind.
I was wrong.
Divorce isn’t an end.
It’s a new beginning in every aspect of your life, including, and especially, in your financial life.
If you struggled during marriage, if your divorce left you in serious debt or you even had to file bankruptcy after your divorce, you can start over.
My financial life today is 10, maybe 100, times better than it was when I was married.
I not only divorced the woman I was married to but also from my hungry and all-consuming third partner in our relationship – our home, which ate up our finances like a hungry Cookie Monster.
I divorced irresponsibility, unconscious spending and debt.
Here are 7 ways to get your finances back on track.
1) Simplify your life.
We live in extravagance. Like it or not, know it or not, we continue to spend what we have and even more so with our personal banks known as our credit cards. There are many expenses in your life that you can cut down. You don’t even know how elaborate, extravagant and complicated your life is. There are services you don’t need, monthly payments for things you don’t use and regular spending on items that don’t enhance your life.
Look around your life and look at your spending habits. Where is your money going? What can you reduce, simplify or get rid of?
2) Downsize
Since my divorce, I’ve chosen to live with roommates. Why? Because I enjoy the company and I enjoy the cost savings. I’ve also enjoyed living in smaller residences in less expensive parts of town to save money.
You might think you can’t possibly live with other people or move, but you know what? You can. It’s a little bit of personal sacrifice for a whole lot of financial freedom.
If you can’t live with someone else no matter what, then considering moving to a small place or less expensive part of town. You can cut down your living costs by 20-40% or more.
3) Cut out frivolous spending.
You’re ready to spend every time you walk into a store or every time you pass a Starbucks.
Your money/bank cards/credit cards feel like a natural part of your body, except they shouldn’t.
Spending without thinking is the easiest way to financial ruin. Do one of two things: either stop altogether so you’re not spending any money or give yourself a limited amount of funds each month to spend. If you’re beyond the limit, don’t buy it.
Spending money on things that don’t fulfill is a double negative. One, you’ll get a transitory moment of joy that you’ll forget about after you drink half the cappuccino, and two, you’ll be racking up credit card charges that will continue to keep you in debt.
If you had not planned on purchasing it when you went out, don’t.
4) Get clear on what’s important
I should have started with this step.
Why are you saving money in the first place? Why do you need to get your debt under control? What will having more money and financial freedom mean to you?
Think about this and get clear on this part.
Having no debt allowed me to start living the life I wanted. It allowed me to write and publish more books. It allowed me to take coaching courses and start coaching people. It allowed me to leave full-time employment for months or years at a time. It allowed me to travel. It allowed me to save money for retirement.
Why do you want to be debt-free? What will financial freedom mean to you? Answer these questions first! Know why you’re going to change your behavior and find some motivation to stay the course.
5) Start an automatic savings plan
The first thing you do on pay day is figure out which store to visit or what to purchase first.
Well, that’s one sure way to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous poor and infamous.
Even if you’re going to frivolously spend, at least set up an automatic savings account first so some of your funds go into a retirement account and some goes toward a savings account. After you’ve saved your money, then do as you please with the remaining funds.
This was one of the first steps I took after my divorce and I’m thankful for Ramit Sethi’s video on this topic.
6) Pay off debt – more than the minimum
I used to avoid paying off debt, thinking I was winning. The less I paid and the later I could pay it, the more I would have now.
Credit cards and banks had a laugh on my behalf because they were the ones winning.
The more I delayed on payments and the less I paid, the more interest they made.
One of my biggest debts is my student loans from law school. I had paid the minimum on this for the longest time, thinking this was going to be a lifetime payment plan. Forget that, I realized. Paying it off is doable; it just takes paying more than the minimum each month, so I’ve tried paying at least $100 more each month toward paying off these loans once and for all.
(I sure wish I had found this blog earlier by The Power of Thrift. She’s a 30-something year old lawyer who paid off law school student debt and retired. What!?!)
7) Be intentional with money
I’m asking you to do something here that I didn’t do for a long time, to be more conscious with your money. To know ahead of time what you’re going to do with it.
This might require some planning. It might even require examining and thinking about your finances each month. A little planning or a basic budget can go a long way.
Figure out what you are required to pay, budget your expenses, and see how much money you have left at months end. Buy less stuff. Don’t spend all your money! That’s the surefire way to debt and how corporate America wants you to spend your money –without thinking about it!
When you’re in debt and reeling from the financial pain of your divorce is the best time to start over. Set your finances right with these simple tips and you’ll feel happier, freer and more peaceful than even before.
Start the next chapter of your life financially-savvy and debt-free.
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by Rupali Grover | Mar 13, 2016 | Courage, Love and Relationships, Self Love
I was embarassed at how I easily became someone’s personal doormat.
I was 18 years old, and my mom’s friend had a 15 year-old daughter. My well-intentioned mom was pushing me to be this girl’s friend. I had told my mom that I didn’t have a good gut feeling about this girl. Of course, I was told that I needed more good Indian female friends. Like how some doormats may act, I ignored my intuition and felt like I had to just give in.
Little did my mom and this girl’s mom know, I was being used to help this girl see boys behind her parents’ backs.
My friend came from a strict Indian-American family. She would tell me how her parents treated her badly and how they wouldn’t let her do anything.
One of the traits of a doormat is that you start to feel guilty when you hear people’s pain. My guilt led me to give in to my friend’s eager requests. I ended up driving my friend around to go on dates with random boys. She used my cell phone to contact boys. She used my AOL screen names. She instructed me to make up lies to my parents about what we were doing. I had even gotten into a car accident, when she begged me to help her see a boy that she met online.
You might be thinking, “Why did you agree to all of that?” At 33, I’m thinking the same thing. Back then, I felt obligated to put other people’s feelings and needs above mine. When I was told what to do, there were times where I blindly did things to keep the peace.
One day, my mom and this girl’s mom found out about her secret escapades. Guess who got thrown under the bus? Me. To add insult to injury, this girl told the other Indian-American teenagers how I ruined her life. I thought, “I bended over backwards to help this girl feel happy. And, this is what I get?”
Toddlers can easily say no.
Why is it difficult for us adults to say a simple two-letter word?
Well, humans want to be liked by others and would rather avoid conflict. But, there’s one problem.
When we struggle to say no to others, we invite other people to walk all over us. If we are trying so hard to make someone else happy, our emotional well-being gets neglected. We may start to feel drained, resentful, and discarded by the person that we are bending over backwards for.
My story might help you recognize yourself in your own personal relationships. Are you more focused on the other person’s happiness, where you end up neglecting your own? Do you become involved in romantic relationships that are one-sided?
When we bend over backwards for others, we think that we’re winning. As you can see in my story, you end up losing on both ends. I didn’t get the approval that I craved. I didn’t get people to like me more. I didn’t look like a hero. The negative consequences of my story could have been avoided, if I just learned how to say NO.
If you struggle with saying no and are getting taken advantage of, here’s what to keep in mind.
Here are 5 steps to stop being a doormat in your relationships:
- Know that YOU matter. Unfortunately, you may have grown up in an environment where you were never told this. Doormats don’t always realize what they’re doing, because they may not know any other way of being. But, it’s never too late to acknowledge your self-worth, your opinions, your feelings and what your priorities are. When you say yes to someone all of the time, you’re sending the message that you don’t matter.
- Check in with how you feel, before you say yes to something. Doormats may be too preoccupied with how other people feel, where they forget to listen to themselves. You may say yes to something, and then realize that you shouldn’t have done that. It’s okay to ask yourself, “Is this something that I genuinely want to do? Will this honor me?”
- You can still say no, while being kind and compassionate. Doormats think that saying no is going to make them look selfish and mean. They may feel that saying no means that you have to be aggressive. You will not lose your gentle demeanor, just because you tell people no.
- You’re going to realize who your true friends are. Doormats are scared of people getting angry at them. The harsh reality is that some people WILL get mad at you for saying no. Guess what? These people weren’t your real friends to begin with. Let the wrong people walk away, and allow the right people to come into your life. You might be pleasantly surprised at learning that there are positive people that will respect your boundaries and preferences exist.
- Lastly, be gentle with yourself. You may not become the queen or king of assertiveness overnight. And, that’s okay. There may be days where you make mistakes and slip up with your boundaries. The more you practice at honoring yourself, the easier it gets.
When you start taking care of yourself, it’s a lot easier to take care of others.
When you start valuing yourself, you will attract others in your life that value you.
* Rupali Grover is a licensed clinical professional counselor with 11 years of experience working with children, teenagers and adults. Her writing has also been featured on BrownGirl Magazine, Elephant Journal, Introvert Dear and Highly Sensitive Refuge.
by Vishnu | Mar 5, 2016 | Love and Relationships
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by Vishnu | Feb 7, 2016 | Love and Relationships, Visualization
Imagine you wake up one day and meet your dreamy lover.
She’s smart. Funny. Interesting. Educated. High-achieving. Focused. Resilient. Easy to talk to. Down to earth.
Yes, I believe in the power of intention and the power of manifestation, but never have I seen it work so powerfully as it did late last year.
So, now that I’m “over” the whole divorce thing, healed from the past, fixed thanks to therapy, reconnected with spirit, and in alignment with myself, I felt that there was no better time to meet someone new.
Of course, most people meet someone new by going on a dating website.
Or letting their happily married friends set them up.
Or showing up at a gathering with like-minded people, etc, etc.
Naturally, I did what I do best – I wrote.
So I wrote and wrote and wrote about this ideal, dreamy lover.
I described the most “perfect” person I wanted in my life. I didn’t do this once, but several times over the course of a couple of months. I tried to get as clear as I could about who I was looking for.
And through a series of events, the internet and Skype, I found myself mesmerized by a Goddess!
She was enchanting, she was brilliant, she was funny, she was a doctor, she was Indian, she had a similar background, she volunteered, she was hard-working, ambitious and, oh yeah, did I mention? Gorgeous.
And she appeared to me as an enchanting Indian princess. She was like Freida Pinto, Amala Paul, and Priyanka Chopra all rolled into one.
How was this happening, I wondered.
I thought the Gods must have opened up the heavens to bless me with this attractive, talented and intelligent woman.
We emailed, we spoke, we chatted, we Skyped. I was swept off my feet and in a dreamy daze.
I heard wedding bells every time I saw her text on my phone.
However, let me break the bubble of this love story and bring us back to reality. It didn’t quite work out.
In all of my visualizations and in my writing, I had missed something important.
I forgot about the stuff that matters most – values.
See, I had forgotten my own advice to stay true to what really mattered in relationships – values that you both hold dear.
This is where we differed significantly.
She valued her career, her industry, her achievements and everything that her hard work had brought her. I’m not saying that her values were wrong.
They just didn’t fit with mine.
We each saw the world very differently.
Many of the things I valued are internal – compassion, simplicity, freedom and spirit.
While I don’t look down on her values (her values are her values), I had to really come to terms with the fact that this couldn’t work. As alluring as her achievements were and as beautiful as she was and as thrilled as I was, I knew that this romance wouldn’t last long.
I share this story with you for two reasons. One, to show you that visualization works. Two, to show you that if it doesn’t work exactly the way you want, you can work on getting clearer about YOUR dream guy or woman.
Here are 5 quick tips on how you can visualize a dreamy lover. (And even better, a free visualization worksheet you can print out and use to manifest your dream partner.)
1) See.
I want you to imagine as clearly as possible the kind of partner you’d like to have in your life. You might think about the physical appearance, height and clothing of this person, but I urge you to go deeper. Think about their voice, their demeanor and their personality.
Think about their qualities, their values and how they make you feel. Yes, it’s all imaginary, but the more real your imagination, the more likely you’ll see someone like this materialize in person. Feel free to consider the type of work they do and the field they work in.
The sky’s the limit with visualization – allow your mind to see as much detail as you want.
2) Feel.
Once you’re done seeing this in your mind’s eye, feel what it would be like to have this person show up in your life. Go through all the feelings of the excitement you’ll experience upon meeting and being with this person.
Now experience how it would feel to meet and spend time with your partner. Capture those feelings of joy and excitement with this person who will soon be showing up.
3) Write.
Now put all the pieces together and cement this visualization through a writing exercise. You can do the exercise first, or you can do it after you visualize it. Either way, there’s something magical about writing about your dream partner on paper. It takes the abstract and makes it real.
Write down the exact type of person you’d like to see in your life. I’ve made it easy for you and put together a worksheet that will walk you through this writing process. It’s the exact process I used when I visualized this dreamy woman who showed up in my life.
Here are the questions and the prompts on this two-page worksheet. Print it out, fill it out and make a practice of doing this for a month. Check out the last question also to help you address any internal blocks that might prevent you from meeting this person.
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4) Do your part.
Now, this isn’t magic per se or some kind of hocus pocus. I’m not going to talk about the law of attraction or any such thing. I’d like to think of this process simply as cultivating your energy and turning your subconscious thoughts into reality.
Doing your part means doing the writing and the visualization exercises.
It also means doing your part in getting out there, being available to meet people and taking concrete steps toward opening your life to a relationship.
Finally, doing your part means improving yourself, working on your inner and outer selves and being connected to your personal growth. You’re going to attract the person of your dreams only when you’re putting out the same energy in life as he or she is.
5) Welcome.
Once you’ve completed the visualizing and done your part to meet new people, get ready to welcome this wonderful person into your life.
Don’t run away from good things. Yes, it is entirely possibly that your dream partner will show up and that you did your part by manifesting them.
Yes, this manifestation is partly through your mind and vision, but you’ve also likely been doing the work to attract this person. You’ve been doing the work to become the best and highest version of yourself.
Don’t push this person away and don’t run from him or her. Give the person a fair shot. See if the man or woman you dreamed up is the real deal. If yes, celebrate. If not, go back to the drawing board and clarify your visualizations even more.
To download the Dreamy Lover worksheet, print it out here: ManifestDreamPartner.
For my books on attracting your dreamy lover, check out Love After Heartbreak here and Does True Love Exist here (affiliate links) I wish you manifest your dreamy lover today.
by Vishnu | Jan 24, 2016 | Love and Relationships, Self Love
“…the search for the perfect person to ‘fix’ us is one of our biggest psychic wounds, and one of the ego’s most powerful delusions…” Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
Are you having difficulty finding Mr. or Ms. Right?
Have you spent years, decades even, looking for that dreamy, ideal person who will complete you and make you whole?
If you’re like me, you’re probably dreaming up this man or woman who will uncompromisingly love you, heal your wounds and be your emotional soulmate.
Each of us desires this “holy relationship” and seeks a partner who will love and complete us.
I’m guilty of this.
Friends and family of late have been introducing me to women whom they say are “perfect” for me.
I’ve chatted with some, emailed a few and even met a couple, but each encounter has ended quickly.
I’ve found faults with every one of them, and have come up with reasons why each person will not do.
I don’t know if I was looking for a partner as much as I was looking for a savior.
Marianne Williamson’s book, A Return to Love, was my wake-up call.
Marianne Williamson, a spiritual teacher and author, points out that we are being delusional when we seek this ideal or “perfect” relationship. These fantasy notions of the ideal person are nothing more than our ego at work.
While we seek wholeness and love, our fantasies of the ideal, in fact, separate us and prevent us from having the love we desire.
What your ego is doing when you seek this special and magical relationship is arguing that the love you need must come from someone else and that only one special person can fill the deep hole in your heart.
This thought comes from a belief that you’re separate from love.
The desire for that one special person symbolizes the separation and the guilt you feel because of it. In search of love, you separate yourself from divine love. You separate yourself from the love within.
You don’t believe that everything you have and need is already within you – so now you have to seek love. This is the separation.
“This is why so much anger is often aroused in our closest relationships,” Marianne writes. “We’re projecting onto someone else the rage we feel against ourselves for cutting off our own love.”
Your ego tells you that the special person will heal your pain. The movies, the media and advertising reinforce this message – that there’s someone out there who will heal you and make you whole.
The reality of the matter is that you – and I – don’t “need” someone else.
You believe you’re not whole when, in fact, you are.
You think you’re not enough when, in fact, you are.
You don’t feel you have enough love within when, in fact, you do.
“Special love is a ‘blind’ love, seeking to heal the wrong wound.”
Our ego, in its lost and confused state, asks, “What can I get?” instead of, “What can I give?”
The ego blinds us and “…seeks to use other people to fulfill our needs as we define them.”
In our search for a special relationship, we are continually fearful because we believe that if we get too honest or too vulnerable, the special person will leave.
We try to become people we’re not. In the process, “we’re actually fostering our own self-hatred and lack of self-esteem.”
You can transform your views of relationships by adapting what the Course in Miracles describes as the “holy relationship.”
“A holy relationship starts from a different premise. Each one has looked within and seen no lack. Accepting his/her completion, (s)he would extend it by joining with another, whole as himself/herself.”
The holy relationship is a friendship. It is a relationship of support, forgiveness and healing one another.
Instead of being a relationship in which we expect our partners to be a certain way or to never press our buttons, the holy relationship drops judgment, gets rid of any personal agendas and shares pure love between partners.
“We love purely when we release other people to be who they are.”
Instead of changing someone, extend love and compassion to them. Love them fully for who they are today.
A holy relationship allows you to be yourself, wounds and all.
A holy relationship is “a common state of mind, where both give errors gladly to correction, that both may happily be healed as one.”
Your goal in a relationship is not to find someone who will heal you and change your life. Your goal isn’t to find someone who will take away the pain and fill the hole in your heart.
This is a romantic notion, perpetuated by storybooks and movies. Think of a relationship as a school for love.
What if our relationships brought our pain to the surface?
They would demand that we use all of our human skills to cultivate “compassion, acceptance, release, forgiveness and selflessness.”
Don’t expect or desire a relationship that will take away your pain. Don’t expect a perfect person who is “complete” or “finished” in his or her growth.
Marianne orders us to stop glorifying romantic love.
“We seek desperately for love, but it is that same desperation that leads us to destroy it once it gets here. Thinking that one special person is going to save us tempts us to load an awful lot of emotional pressure on whoever comes along that we think might fit the bill.”
Think of a relationship as an opportunity. As learning. As a school to expand your heart and become more loving.
When you’re learning about and removing the obstacles that prevent you from loving yourself, you won’t have to harp on someone else. Instead of finding ways to change someone else or fix someone else, you have the opportunity to work on yourself, heal yourself and love yourself.
You don’t have to find a perfect person – any person can be your spiritual teacher and lesson.
Instead of looking for love and blocking love when it shows up, we need to work on ourselves.
Working on yourself means loving yourself. It means “…learning how to support another person in being the best that they can be.”
“Partners are meant to have a priestly role in each other’s lives. They are meant to help each other access the highest parts within themselves.”
How do you do this, you’re asking?
To change your perception of relationships, Marianne suggests in her book, A Return to Love, a twofold process of noticing and prayer.
1. “I see my error or dysfunctional pattern.”
2. “I ask God to take it from me.”
When you’re asking God, you are committing to the choice to let healing occur on your own.
This means the choice to make a change in your life.
You have the power within you to make the changes, to heal yourself and love yourself.
Instead of replaying past events or continuously reminding yourself of emotional wounds, actual change occurs because of decisions on your part – the decision to heal and the decision to change.
Marianne concludes by saying that you have the power to reprogram your emotional computer.
You can establish a new pattern of thinking, a new way to respond and a new way to live.
Your own healing is available to you through the choices you make.
Underneath your pain, suffering and wounds lies your true nature.
You can return to love by making the decision to do so.
To pick up a copy or A Return to Love, click here.
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