SOS online magazine March 09 Issue
March 4, 2009 by Suzy
Information for divorce and breakup
Inspiration for Starting Over
shared stories
Francine Kaye is known as ‘The Divorce Doctor’ on Channel 5′s ‘The Wright Stuff’ but she has had personal experience at the sharp end and understands what her clients are going through.
Francine provided a relationship workshop at SOS on 15 March which was free to our visitors.
See more about our speakers at SOS including Francine’s workshop here:
See other personal stories here:
free mini book download
7 ways to leave your lover: breaking up without breaking down
sos-7-ways-to-leave-your-lover-breaking-up-without-breaking-down-april-091
sos village information
What is ‘financial mediation’ and how can it help keep us out of court?
Listen to Val Rush interviewed about financial mediation here:
sos village inspiration
A tough divorce experience led Kirsten Gronning to become a coach to help others in her situation, and then to help create the Breakup Angels who will be attending SOS. Breakup Angels is an innovative organisation providing personal relationship support and help, information and advice to men and women in the UK and overseas who are affected by relationship breakdown – before, through and after separation and divorce.
See Kirsten’s personal story here…..
sos live event news
What business can I start whilst holding down a day job and children?
How would you like to introduce your friends to beautiful shoes, healthy chocolate and save them money on their bills – and earn money at the same time?
Well it seems that you can. Read our article on Shoe Queen, Xocai Chocolate and Utility Warehouse here….
financial surgery
Free financial surgery at the Starting Over Show – see who was there and what they were offering
diary of a sole parent
short film: a visual taster of the Starting Over Show March 2009
Click here to see our short film about the March 2009 SOS event: this is the short film we made just prior to the event …
networking links
Wikivorce forums packed with useful advice and guidance
Other great resources for starting over
Need word of mouth recommended professionals to talk to? Free access via CertainShops – professionals online
Promotions:
The Shoe Queen Stunning Sale is causing a frenzy,don’t forget to call 01342 824871 to make sure we have your size!
Why make a will? Or update one due to a change of relationship status?
C.J.H. Consultancy Services can help
In partnership with:
Starting Over Show www.startingovershow.co.uk All the things you need to know about breaking up and starting over in one SOS Useful Information Honest Communication Personal Transformation Starting Over Show is part of Certain Shops Ltd. Tel: 0208 8167281 Textphone 18001 0208 8167281 www.certainshops.com Registered in England & Wales Company no. 5685386 VAT no. 880175810 Registered office North Park Lodge South Street East Hoathly Lewes E Sussex BN8 6DS
a taster of what awaits you….
March 2, 2009 by Suzy
… when you visit Starting Over Show on Sunday 15 March
Soundtrack by Tankus the Henge
Introduction to the Starting Over Show
January 20, 2009 by Suzy
Sunday 15 March 2009
Starting Over Show – Barcelo Brighton Old Ship Hotel
www.startingovershow.co.uk
We are creating a hub of information and inspiration for the benefit of everyone who has ever needed to start their life over again. This resource is the creation of Suzy Miller (as featured in August edition of Eve Magazine), who has drawn on her own personal experiences to create the Starting Over Show.
The event will include a free workshop by Channel 5′s The Wright Stuff relationship coach Francine Kaye, a free legal surgery, an Indulgence and Wellbeing area, and a talk and book signing by Anna Pasternak (Daisy Dooley Does Divorce).
A relationship break up can be the perfect time to make positive changes whether that’s starting up the business you always dreamt of, getting your pension sorted, or losing weight and taking more care of your health.
The Starting Over Show, taking place at the Barcelo Brighton Old Ship Hotel on 15 March 2009, is the first UK event to help people bounce back from relationship break ups and life crises. But through our website at www.startingovershow.co.uk we are able to offer support all year round.
Just like at the live event, we are creating a safe haven in which soon-to-be singletons can take professional advice to build the confidence and skills they need to go it alone, supported by our resource site www.sos-village.org.
The access to skilled professionals, information resources and shared experiences via our blogs and comments, will also be valuable to anyone facing redundancy, retirement, bereavement, or just stuck in a rut.
So access our site now for free and take those first steps in starting your life over – or giving it a bit of a shove in the right direction!
Www.startingovershow.co.uk
All the things you need to know about breaking up and starting over in one SOS
Useful Information
Honest Communication
Personal Transformation
information for divorce and breakup, inspiration for starting over
January 7, 2009 by Suzy
shared stories
Anna Pasternak (Daisy Dooley Does Divorce) reveals her own `starting over’ experience
“The sense of failure was all consuming. Marriage was the first thing I had ever failed at in my life and it hit me hard. But actually, it was the making of me…..”
See other personal stories here:
free mini book download
7 stages of relationship breakdown recovery
click here to download pdf: sos-7-stages-of-relationship-breakdown-recovery-april-09
sos village information
Listen to our podcast of an interview with a collaborative barrister
Elissa Da Costa: Barrister, Mediator, Collaborative Lawyer
sos village inspiration
Wikivorce was created by Ian Rispin, a man going through separation and divorce who couldn’t accept that divorce needed to be quite so confusing, so damn difficult, deeply painful and horribly expensive. “When I entered the wonderful world of divorce I found it to be a confusing and scary place where people spoke a goobledegook language and advice was either hard to come by or very expensive. This was a great challenge at a time when my life was in turmoil….”
Read more about Ian’s journey to create the UK’s most popular divorce forum here:
Art Psychotherapy – how can that help us cope with the trauma of relationship break down?
sos live event news
Award winning storyteller Madeleine Grove is performing at the Starting Over Show
Stories speak to us in a direct way – we absorb truths, teaching, and healing effortlessly when we hear a story. That’s why the great teachers have always used them.
See how stories can heal adults going through painful emotional change…….
legal surgery
Free legal surgery at the Starting Over Show
Living hand to mouth whilst waiting for a financial settlement?
diary of a sole parent
short film: a starting over story
networking links
Wikivorce forums packed with useful advice and guidance
Other great resources for starting over
Promotions:
The Shoe Queen Stunning Sale is causing a frenzy,don’t forget to call 01342 824871 to make sure we have your size!
Why make a will? Or update one due to a change of relationship status?
C.J.H. Consultancy Services can help
Starting Over Show www.startingovershow.co.uk All the things you need to know about breaking up and starting over in one SOS Useful Information Honest Communication Personal Transformation Starting Over Show is part of Certain Shops Ltd. Tel: 0208 8167281 Textphone 18001 0208 8167281 www.certainshops.com Registered in England & Wales Company no. 5685386 VAT no. 880175810 Registered office North Park Lodge South Street East Hoathly Lewes E Sussex BN8 6DS
Happy Xmas 2008
December 23, 2008 by Suzy
A Xmas card that moves!
SOS meets the Nutcracker
Happy Xmas from Suzy Miller and the Starting Over Show
Starting Over by Anna Pasternak
October 30, 2008 by Suzy
For me, part of the thrill of getting married was the relief of never having to go on another date. Thank you, hubby, from the bottom of my heart that I do not have to fire up my married friends search engines for “eligible” or “available,” nor suffer the angst of “will he call or won’t he?” A trip to the altar in a family tiara put paid to that. Or so I thought. Yet three years after I threw my bouquet in the air, as if celebrating a win at sports day, I was poised to go frog kissing. Again.
I think that’s one of the most daunting things about Starting Over. Your belief that you had reached the cosy domestic destination of commitment and compatibility and had laid that anxious, unsettled, always-searching-for-him-or-something-better part of your life to rest. Then there is the sheer disbelief to surmount that it didn’t work out and you have to go out there all over again. Dating Groundhog Day, only this time you are older, wiser, cynical and tired.
Oh and emotionally you feel not just bruised but broken. Yes, divorce can literally break a woman’s heart. American research published in The Journal of Marriage and the Family has revealed that women who divorce are 60 per cent more likely to develop heart disease in later life. Men showed no increased risk. Maybe because men tend to boomerang into some grateful bints bed just to prove that they don’t have a problem, whereas women tend to take longer to break through the ice of our own shock and feel our feelings. And there is nothing like the end of a marriage or long relationship to unearth buried emotion with volcanic force.
When I left my husband after fifteen miserable months of marriage – I knew with gut-wrenching clarity on my honeymoon that I had not married my soul mate (aka the right man for me) – I went home to stay with my mother. For weeks I lay on the bathroom floor, literally too humiliated to move. I sobbed so much I broke tiny blood vessels beneath my eyes and some days I hyperventilated as I couldn’t breathe. I just couldn’t stomach my stupidity. That I had been so hung up on the wedding, that I had over-looked the marriage. I was more in love with my Italian crystal tiara, than the groom at the altar. How could I, the bright girl with the University degree and promising professional future, have got my personal life so wrong?
The sense of failure was all consuming. Marriage was the first thing I had ever failed at in my life and it hit me hard. But actually, it was the making of me. I didn’t settle for less than my heart’s desire – and wreck not only my life but my poor ex’s – I had the courage to get out. And with that move came a growing awareness of a stronger sense of self. Knowing what or whom you don’t want is not just part of discovering what and whom you do want but who you are. I know it’s a cliché that you tend only to grow through adversity but it’s true. Crippling disappointment and aching pain force you to grow up. To get real about life; that it isn’t some ruddy fairy tale and that happy ever afters aren’t inevitable.
Yes, Starting Over isn’t easy but nor is settling in an unhappy or suffocating situation. And the greatest gift of Starting Over is the burgeoning belief in your self that you can survive. Three years ago, I was left a single mother to a 2 year old. (My relationship after my marriage didn’t work out either despite the birth of our daughter. That’s not uncommon, apparently. Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that 39 per cent of all marriages are remarriages for one or both parties – and 60 per cent end in another divorce.) We weren’t married but we were in a committed relationship. Or so I thought. Anyway, after he left, I used to lie awake at night paralysed with fear about my new sense of responsibility. Not just caring for a child on my own but having to shoulder the running of the house alone. I live in an old cottage in the country and didn’t even know how to light a fire. Or re-set the central heating. Or pay the Council Tax. I was a domestic cripple. I remember when the boiler broke down, trying to find the oil tank in the garden in the night with a torch to read the oil levels to an emergency plumber on the phone and wanting to lie down on the damp ground in my nightie and scream. But I coped because I had to and along an arduous way, I acquired a whole new set of skills. Lighting a fire now? No problem. Surviving Starting Over makes one feel invincible. Fewer life scenarios hold fear because you’ve been to rock bottom and eventually climbed out and that is utterly liberating.
Of course to get to the safe place of feeling secure within oneself as a single person and not part of a couple takes time. So much more time than you initially imagine. According to some sources, it takes half the length of the time the marriage lasted to recover. Grief, shame and regret aren’t linear. They tend to erupt when you least expect them. Two months after my daughter’s father left, our sixteen year old dog died and I didn’t stop crying for three weeks. The sense of loss and the intense heavy pain in my stomach wouldn’t lessen, whereas for the month after my ex left, I never shed a tear.
Finding your separate identity is a lonely business. Your friends get compassion fatigue as their lives move on. And so must yours. Then, one day, when you least expect it, you realise that you, too, are sick to death of your sad story. When you’re bored by your own drama, you know that you’ve taken a quantum leap in healing. You’re not obsessed (as I was for years) by what you see as the failures of your past and you suddenly see the promise of a fresh future. You start living for today, as opposed to regretting your past. You forgive the most important person in all of this – your self – for the part you played, the decisions you took – and you realise that how people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours.
Starting Over is about realising that the clouds will pass if you don’t try and chase them away. And the silver lining is that along the way you discover who you really are. Not who you were. I’ve left and I’ve been left, so I’ve Started Over twice and I feel twice the woman that I was for it. I’ve learned that empowering strategic spiritual tension whereby you hold on to yourself and let go at the same time because we can’t predict the future. But endings can only mean one thing; new beginnings.
(Anna has based her popular novel ‘Daisy Dooley Does Divorce’ on her own life experiences. Read about the book on our book review page, or click this link to buy the book now:)
A gathering of current and potential exhibitors
October 14, 2008 by Suzy
We braved the traffic on a bright October morning to get together and talk about how we can make the Starting Over Show a fantastic event for our visitors on 15 March 2009. The story of the day is best told in images….
