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Hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life.
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I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe.
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Hi everyone. I've been doing a little thinking today about, you know, this is episode 54 already, and I was thinking back to while I was going through my awful, horrific, toxic divorce, and some of the ways that I was able to survive it, and the things that I relied on within myself, and my path to God and and all of that, I just started to reflect today a bit, and I just wanted to share a few things that I thought were significant and things that I kind of wanted to acknowledge.
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So, you know, like I've said in earlier episodes ago, my ex husband really, truly set out to destroy me on every possible level, and I really had to do everything that I could muster and think of and pray for and beg God for and find strength and resilience through to survive it. I mean, look, if, if I unalived myself, I think my ex husband would have danced on my grave. So, I mean, that's how bad it was. I was at the depths of despair. And it was, it was just horrific. I mean, I could really go through all the details again, but I don't think you want to hear it at this point. But anyway, one of the things that really guided me as it turned out, and I would say it took about maybe six months or so, but you know, of repeated prayer and my spiritual baths and crying into the water until there were no more tears left for hours. I think it took about six months before I finally started to hear God talking to me in my spirit. And you know, the thing that was so crazy to me was, and I've mentioned this before, like a long time ago, in earlier episodes, I cried every time I prayed to God, and I didn't know why I was crying, but you know, it finally came to me and occurred to me that I didn't feel worthy of God. And I don't know where that came from, but it was just that was the first thing that came to mind that I said when I was praying, and immediately after I said that to him, I heard in my spirit, of course, you're worthy. You're my child. And that was the first pivot that I remembered experiencing, because, what do you mean? God was talking to me like, when does that happen?
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I guess when you listen, when you start to listen, that's when you hear His voice. And I never did that before, but I was in such a state of despair and such a state of desperation, and I didn't know where else to turn.
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I mean, nobody I knew, no human that I knew had gone through what I was going through. They may have gone through their own brand of horrific divorces, but nobody I knew knew exactly what I was going through, and the only one to turn to was God, because God knows all and sees all. So that was like the natural place for me to go to seek help and and guidance, because I was I was lost, I was really at the bottom of the barrel, and I needed a lifeline to help me to get out and to heal and all that. So I will say that as I developed a relationship with God, my faith started to grow, and it got to a point over time. This was not overnight, but over time, my faith started to get so strong that I think a lot of my confidence and a lot of my strength grew from an unwavering sense of faith, I realized and I had confirmations along the way, and things that God had said to me in my spirit that made me rely on my faith even more. So, you know, I would say it was a maybe three. Three and a half years, I think at this point of my intense healing journey, and I'm still on it, I don't know that you ever really complete a healing journey, because as long as we're living on this earth, there are things to heal from.
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But what I would say is, is that my faith never wavered once I got to that point, it never wavered. After that, and through every struggle and obstacle and lesson and challenge, it never wavered. So I was solidifying my relationship with God, my sense of faith and just trust. My trust in him was so strong. I just, I don't know, I kept getting confirmations by things he would put in my spirit. I would see the manifestations of things that came true in my life that you know, were direct relations to the things that I would pray to God about. So I was really starting to feel more empowered, because I saw what God was doing in my life. And it's it's hard to explain to other people. If somebody doesn't believe in God, or doesn't have a relationship with God or anything like that, you can't talk to people about this.
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They think you're crazy. You it until you've been through a catastrophic event in your life and you turn to God and you pray and you listen and all of that stuff. It's like nobody could understand. But I'm here to say that you know, developing a relationship with God is truly what saved me from this divorce that was meant to destroy me.
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And what I realized about solidifying your faith is that you can never be broken again in that way, like you can't go backwards, you can't go to like, ground zero again, and you never need to repeatedly heal the same wound again. So you'll definitely be tested. I was definitely tested along the way.
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It was kind of like, Are you sure you really healed that wound? Are you sure you really healed that wound? So you keep having to repeat lessons, but they're never from where you left off it. The way it was described to me was, and I think I mentioned this before that, you know, you climb a mountain, you get to the top, and you know you've accomplished so much, but then the next lesson is like the foot of the next mountain ahead of you. So you know you still have to learn the lesson, but you learn it from a higher perspective. So I think the universe and God always tests us just to make sure that we are as healed as we intend to be for that particular lesson. And what I found was that I kept passing the test. I was so focused, I was so diligent, I was so determined that I just, I just kept, you know, facing the fire and whatever the wound was, or the trauma or the issue or the insecurity or whatever it was, I just went straight into the fire and and I just faced it and learned whatever I needed to learn from it and moved on to the next one. So but the whole point is to spiritually stretch ourselves. So whatever it is, it's like, you know, we're here to grow and evolve and change and become better versions of ourselves and all of that. So you know, to the extent that any of us are connected to Spirit, God, the universe, whatever you want to call it, you know, we either get the lessons or we don't, and then we have to repeat them all over again. So I personally found that, you know, I'd rather spend the time and the effort and the energy just facing everything that I needed to face so I could be the best version of myself who wants to keep repeating those lessons. I mean, talk about pain, you know.
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And then the other thing that came on the other side of faith is gratitude. And gratitude is it's like, the more you are grateful to God or the universe or Creator Source, however you call it, I call it God, however grateful you are. It's like, the more you get. So. If you appreciate things, you know, it's just like a person, you know, I'm always very aware and cognizant that that I need to be thanking God for everything that he's doing in my life and at any point. Because, you know, just as easily as he giveth, he can take it away, right? So I'm always very conscious of showing my gratitude to him, and just like with why my life so anyway, so faith and gratitude are one area, but then there's another area of hope and resolve, and I think they all kind of work synergistically, because I had to have hope that things were going to get better for me at some point, and until my faith kicked in, All I had was hope.
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And so that was really important, because you want to believe that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. You want to believe that things will turn around, or I'll get the strength to do X, Y or Z, or whatever it was, hope is a is an important element in surviving a divorce like that, and resolve was just, I don't know. I just wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna let him ruin me. It was just that was it. I was determined. I was laser focused. And as much as as he wore me down, he didn't break me and I that was where the resolve came in. I was not going to put up with that. I was not going to allow it. So I had to do everything I could to make sure that I survived and I came out on the other end of this. So I think the whole combination of faith and gratitude and hope and resolve are major things that help you survive a toxic divorce that is just like, like the whole bottom comes out from under you and you just don't know what's going to happen next, but there's always another Hit coming, because that's what covert narcissists do so anyway, I would love to hear from you guys and get some feedback and input what it's been like for you and your toxic divorce, and how you're surviving it, or how you did survive it, or, you know what worked for you and and you know how You managed to get out of it. So you can go to my website, pod page.com/the, music of life. You can give any kind of feedback or comments or voicemails or anything like that, and I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. You.
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Marc, please join me every Thursday for a new episode. You can reach me at my website, which is pod page.com/the, music of life, and you can find all of my social media platforms on my website, so that would be Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook. Thanks again for listening. I'll catch you next time you.
