103: Staying Mentally Healthy in Your Remarriage

Brian Mayer takes a look back the best episodes on The Remarried Life podcast that will help you to stay mentally strong in the face of the difficult and complex new life in your remarriage and blended family.  We hope you enjoy today’s message.  For more information and additional resources please visit our website at http://www.theremarriedlife.com Today's Goodies Let’s face it, staying mentally strong in today’s world with everything that comes at us can be difficult.  Unfortunately gun violence feels like it is on the rise and that we now wonder is any public place safe.  It is things like this that when we add to the grief and loss of divorce and the anxiety over stepparenting and blended families that it makes perfect sense that we can gravitate toward things like depression and anxiety.  While there are certain actions and behaviors and strategies that can make life in a blended family better, it really starts with your own mental health.     Did you know that almost 7% of adults will have a depressive episode in any given year.  Bipolar depression which can swing from great highs to great lows can affect almost 3% of the U.S. population.  Anxiety is the most common mental illness in the U.S. affecting about 18% of the population.  Now it could be actually argued that everyone has anxiety but of course it only rises to a problematic level in some.  If you have listened to the podcast for any length of time, you know that starting with ourselves is probably the most important thing you can do, so today we are going to take a look back at some of the episodes that can help you to stay mentally on track as the insanity swirls around you.  Session 6: The Stigma of Divorce  - Things like feelings of failure, feeling less than you are, and feeling different are all things we talked about in the episode.  The overarching theme though is that this is normal and everyone experiences these things especially in the beginning.  Session 11: Trusting Yourself After Divorce – Really enjoyed this episode with Carmen Roman, fellow podcaster who talked about the experiences we gather through divorce, walking through the grief process, working past the milestone events the next year, among many other issues.  Session 19: Have You Healed From Your Previous Marriage  - We take a deep dive and look at the grieving process and the stages involved.  The stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance, and Forgiveness.  The stages aren’t linear and there is no perfect timetable.  We all move at different paces for sure.  Session 32: Learn How to Forgive  - While forgiveness is certainly an action, there is also a huge mental health component to it.  Forgiveness especially for the one holding the unforgiveness can lift an emotional burden that is being carried around.  Forgiveness though is a process and it doesn’t mean you trust again but just that you work to open back the lines of communication and repair the disconnect.  Session 40: Introduction to Mindfulness Session 41: Individual Mindfulness Exercise Session 42: Couples Mindfulness Exercise – In these 3 episodes we take a break from the usual strategies and tips to take a breath for us individually and as a couple. Being mindful is the art of remaining in the present moment non-judgmentally.  It can create peace, and calm and a more loving connection.     Session 56: Projecting Past Hurts onto Your Partner – This episode is all about getting in touch with your mental state when it comes to the connection between your past and your present.  It is very common to be completely unaware that something that is happening in the present in your relationship feels worse than it really is because it is triggering a memory, a though, or an emotion that is connected to something that happened in your previous relationship.     Session 93: How to Reframe Your Mind Toward Your New Family – We talk in this episode about how our brains are somewhat wired to what is called a Negativity Bias.  This means that we will tend to look more at the negative in situations. This really goes back to earlier times when are brains had to be alert for danger regarding say other animals.  We developed a rapid flight or flight response.  Unfortunately this can get activated very easily if we are not careful in simple conversations with our spouse.     Resources: Links to The Episodes are Above   Thanks For Listening! With so many things that take time in our lives, I more grateful than you know that you took time to listen to this podcast episode.  If you liked this episode and believe that it would be beneficial to a friend, family member, or colleague, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. The Remarried Life Facebook Group is a community of people just like you who get and give support.  Please join today!  ​ As always remember that marriage is not something you have, it is something you do.  Talk to you next week unless you are binge listening in the future in which case I will talk to you in about a minute!  Take care.