Podcast: Living Passionately During a Divorce with David Romanelli

by | Oct 9, 2013 | Podcast, Wendy Hernandez Blog

Podcast: Living Passionately During a Divorce with David Romanelli

Episode 6

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Disclaimer: The materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only and are not to be considered a substitute for professional legal advice or a consultation with a lawyer.

1. The Family Law Tip of The Week (1:21)

Wherever you are, a judge will be issuing minutes in your case. In those minutes, there will be deadlines. You have to meet those deadlines or you could easily mess up your case.

The big question for you is this: “From what day do you start counting for purposes of calculating deadlines?

If you are in Arizona, take a look at Rule 81 of the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure. The date of entry of judgment is the key date. This is the date the judge’s clerk files the minutes (minute entry) with the clerk of the court. This date can be found in the very upper right hand corner of the first page of the judge’s minutes.

If you are not living in Arizona, check your local rules.

2. David Romanelli – Living Passionately During a Divorce (2:17)

Not only is David a yoga teacher, but he the author of “Yeah Dave’s Guide to Livin’ in the Moment,” he has another book coming out next year, and he is the founder of “Yoga and Chocolate,” “Yoga and Wine,” and “Yoga for Foodies.”

(4:00) David lives his life passionately, whether he is doing yoga, teaching yoga, or teaching people to savor chocolate during yoga classes. Because David lives passionately, Wendy decided to talk to David about living passionately during divorce (and in general).

(5:03) As far as health goes, you can have a healthy life and diet, but if your soul is not engaged and if you are not enjoying your life, who cares how healthy you are, how your body looks or how much money you make? Passion helps us feel a sense of purpose, and it helps us feel excited to wake up in the morning. According to David, feeling passion and having a sense of peace comes first. That is where we should start.

(6:07) A lot of people going through divorce are not in the greatest place in life, especially if they are potentially facing the loss of a child. Wendy asked David if there is a place for passion in the life of someone who is going through a difficult process like divorce.

Give Yourself a Great Moment Every Day

(6:44) For a person going through this process, David suggests starting with giving yourself one really great moment every day. Just give yourself one moment, preferably first thing in the morning. Make the first moment of your day a beautiful moment as best you can. Don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking you have to go on a diet or travel around the world.

(8:12) Being healthy and being on the road to being happy can be overwhelming. Create one really profound moment in your day. Start there.

(8:29) Instead of going straight for the coffee pot or for the e-mail inbox, get connected to the earth. There’s a great quote: “Adopt the pace of nature. Nature is our greatest teacher.” Get grounded. Do a meditation. The first moment makes all the difference.

The Pain Chamber

(9:15) With regards to the person who is in deep pain and wants to do nothing but sleep and be alone–David calls this “the pain chamber.” David talks about this in his yoga classes in connection with “love:” National Geographic did a study of people who were newly in love. According to the study, the brain chemistry of these newly in love people resembled people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then, people who were taking substances to regulate the brain chemistry were studied. The researchers found that taking a substance to regulate brain chemistry makes it harder to find love and to sustain love.

(10:29) That is what the yogis, poets and romantics have been saying for thousands of years. If you want to have love in your life, you are going to have to feel pain. Sometimes we go through pain as humans. If we really want authentic love in our lives, we are going to have to go through pain.

(10:59) So, David’s advice to someone who is really experiencing pain is to know that they are not alone. At any given time, there are millions of people on earth who are going through the same thing. It always gets better. If you allow yourself to feel it and not resist it, the quicker you move through it. Something like yoga can help you move through it in a more peaceful way.

The “BFD” Mantra

(11:47) There are little things that you can do to live more passionately during divorce and in general. David has a simple mantra. He calls it the “BFD Mantra.” That stands for Beautiful, Funny, and Delicious. What this means is everyday if you can have a beautiful, a funny and a delicious moment, that is a great place to start to create more passion.

(12:27) Beautiful- This can mean stopping to take in a full moon or a beautiful sunset.

Funny-laughter is so healing. It is always really healthy if you can laugh, especially at yourself. Being able to laugh it off is a gift you can give yourself.

Delicious – everyday you should have some really delicious treat that you savor and gets you slowing down and appreciating life. It could be a piece of exotic chocolate or a sip of wine.

Having Passion vs. Living Passionately

(13:56) When Wendy asks if there is a difference between having passion and living passionately, David says you have to learn to integrate passion into your life. For example, there is a trend in yoga right now where you see all kinds of people that can do every yoga pose, have taken hundreds of hours of yoga workshops and are wearing fancy yoga clothes. But then, you see these same people in the parking lot after yoga totally freaking out.

(14:30) What good is all that yoga if you can’t apply what you’ve learned to the chaos of real life? Integrating your passion into your life and keeping that feeling with you are separate skills.

Take that feeling you have and keep it with you! If you are having a stressful moment, you can do a meditation, sit down, lie down or take a minute to breathe. The great yogis are not the ones who can do all the moves, but the ones who are going through serious stress but are staying with their breath.

Stressful Moments in the Courtroom

(15:28) Wendy asks David about stressful moments in the courtroom and what can be done during horrible courtroom moments. David’s idea (from Dr. Andrew Weil) is to focus on conscious breathing during times like this. The effect that the breath has on the mind is the effect that a mother’s voice has on the baby. There’s nothing else that has that same soothing impact.

(16:32) No matter where you are, the breath is a great tool. You just inhale everything that is good – the love, the peace, the trust and the faith. You exhale all the stress, the tension, the bad vibes, and you just get it out of you.

Living an Authentic Life and Passionate Living

(17:06) Wendy asks David whether someone has to be “real” or authentic to truly live a passionate life. In his new book, David writes a chapter on honesty. According to David, honesty is like green juice for the soul. Sometimes it is hard to stomach (being honest), and sometimes it is easier to lie, but at the end of the day, honesty/authenticity is healthy.

(17:56) If you are not being authentic, nothing else will be properly enjoyed. David thinks authenticity and passion are one in the same.

Re-Discovering Passion in a Relationship

(18:21) Wendy asks on behalf of the person who fell into a life before s/he knew it, is in a rut, doesn’t know what s/he wants, doesn’t know who s/he is nor whether or not s/he wants to be married:

(19:17) How can passion be found again in the relationship? In giving his answer, David talks about a book by Phil Jackson, the coach of the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, called the “Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success.” In the book, Phil talks about how he integrated ancient traditions into coaching all these young athletes. He talked about getting these people to work for something greater than the individual statistics. When the people worked for something greater, they felt this high, this incredible bond and they excelled.

(20:18) So, number one, it is great for a husband and wife to think in terms of teamwork. We often get stuck in our own egos and in the things we want. David believes that a healthy relationship has to be kind of an ego-less existence.

(20:45) Teamwork is number one. Get out of your head. When you are in your heart, it is much easier to love.

(20:54) Meditation is incredible. There are great tools that can be accessed easily that are game changers. Phil Jackson had people like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant meditating before really stressful games. For a couple who is going through strife in marriage, if they have the wherewithal to do meditation, it can be really healing.

(21:43) In some situations, one of the partners doesn’t even want to go to counseling. It would be difficult to get someone like this to sit and meditate. If this is the case, David thinks the first step is to think about what you can offer to the other person. You have to give what it is that you want.

(22:24) In a marriage, first think in terms of giving before thinking about receiving.

(23:13) If one person doesn’t want to mediate, consider that so much is about emotion, energy and how you make people feel. How you make people feel is so much more important than what you make them think about. If you can bring a peaceful energy or peaceful emotions to a relationship, it is going to be very impactful. Oftentimes we overuse the intellect, and we bring stressful emotions to a situation. If you want to increase your power, your potency and your ability to connect with someone, you have to think less and feel more. Yoga and meditation can be really helpful with this.

Re-Discovering Who YOU Are and Finding Your Passion

(24:11) For the person who doesn’t know who s/he is at a certain point and wants to figure that out:

(24:21) David thinks this is a very normal feeling. A lot of us feel locked out of our own being and body. To help with this, start with one thing. Start a habit. When you wake up, do something soulful–something like reading something good, listening to some music, or lying down on the floor. This is the first step in getting to know yourself.

A New Passion in an Old Relationship

(25:32) If one person in a relationship decides to go on a quest to discover themselves, they should still play as a team with the other partner. It is teamwork. By working together, you can tap into a greater energy.

(26:21) Communication is really important. Communicate why you are loving what you are doing. It doesn’t mean the other person has to do it. Share the gifts of your passion and don’t make it a private thing where you go into “la-la land”. Also – be attentive and listen to what your partner’s interests are. Being able to do this is a gift.

(27:14) For people who are married, busy with work, busy with kids and busy with running around, David has ideas on keeping passion alive. David believes it is really important to make time to communicate. If you can’t communicate, why be married?

When Love Turns Off

(28:20) One of the interesting things about love is that you can’t control who you love. If you turn love off, it becomes really hard to turn it back on. If you are in a relationship where there is still love, talk about it. Do something different. There are studies about how when you do a unique activity (like going on a roller coaster), it releases hormones that lead to attraction, even with a long term partner.

(29:19) In her work, Wendy often sees situations where partners have been married a long time (or not a very long time at all) and one of those people is complaining that they can’t get the love back for the partner. In the context of this, David talks about “crusties” – people who live on the streets in New York City, but they have dogs that are beautiful and happy. These dogs remind him how we forget sometimes that dogs are not meant to be coiffed and are accustomed to being in nature and in packs.

(30:39) David thinks of these dogs like love. We coiff love, and we want it to serve us when it’s convenient. The truth is that love is not always convenient. It can be painful. It can lead us into situations that don’t feel good, but that is how we learn. Love is its own intelligence. The only choice we have in life is to trust love. If we block or resist love, it is a very unhappy existence. Love is like the NYC dogs – it can be feral, not convenient and dirty. Love can leave you places that don’t feel good, but we have to trust it.

Take a Chance

(32:15) In closing, David talks about a story in his new book. When he was in high school, he was very dorky, but there was this girl at the gym who was very pretty and who he wanted to talk to. One day, he walked past 39 empty stationary bikes to the corner right next to her. After 10 minutes, he finally started talking to her. He was surprised to learn she was very nice, and they actually became great friends.

(33:08) This is a lifelong lesson that sometimes we just have to take a chance. Sometimes we get scared. Self-doubt is its own kind of slavery. It is just as painful as physical slavery. You are the only one who can free yourself. Sometimes, you just have to bust loose and go for it. Playing it safe is not so comforting for your soul.

(34:04) Taking a chance is one way to ignite passion!

(34:22) You can find Dave at yeahdave.com. Sign up for his blog there. FYI – David has in home retreats, guided meditations, and one-on-one coaching. His e-mail is [email protected].

3. Thoughts From the Life Coach (36:25)

Today, James riffs on NOT giving away your power. Nobody can make you less of anything. Your power is your own. Your thoughts are all that matter. It is your choice to keep your power or give it away.

Power on, friends. Power on!

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