Rebuilding Your Foundation

Maybe you’re here feeling exhausted.
Like you’ve just climbed a mountain, but you’ve finally reached a decision point:

Separation

Perhaps it’s been a really long road. Or maybe it came quickly, but with enough impact that you’re left trying to catch your breath. Regardless of how and when you got here, there’s a good chance you are experiencing complicated and sometimes contradictory emotions:

Wherever you find yourself on the emotional spinning wheel, you probably feel like you are being asked to make important decisions before you are emotionally ready.

There are many resources and supports out there. Here are some words we hope will inspire you:

“Never cut what can be untied.” 

Ropes can make knots and knots are useful – think fishing, rappelling, rope ladders and bows. Learning to tie shoelaces is one of our early achievements. When we marry, we “tie the knot”.

On the flip side, when we are anxious, we can feel all “tied up in knots”. The hangman’s noose is a knot. The Gordian Knot symbolizes an intractable problem. And most parents have struggled to get knots out of long hair.

If you’re going through a separation, chances are you are feeling some knots in your stomach as you face important decisions about your future. Do you “cut and run”, or do you do the work of untangling what might feel like an impossible and painful knot? 

You are not alone. 

Family relationships are complicated, beautiful and puzzling - like knots and the complex arrangements of rope that create them. So while you might be feeling “knots” in your stomach right now, you can get through this difficult time with resilience and hope. Maybe those knots will turn into “butterflies” as you find your way into a future that you hadn’t planned, with opportunities for self-discovery along the way.  

As a divorce lawyer and mediator, I meet courageous people every day who find ways to untie rather than cut their connection, and who regain their sense of self (and worth) in a difficult time. 

You've got this!
Jacinta Gallant, Creator of Our Family in Two Homes

Never Cut What Can Be Untied is from Joseph Joubert (1754)