A New Year invites fresh starts, and a refreshing way to begin each day is with Quiet Time of a spiritual nature. The purpose is singular: Stillness.

Let’s call it Divine Mediation. A daily appointment with the divine laws of the universe may be the missing event in your Google calendar. Attitude has everything to do with keeping a routine of Quiet Time in the New Year. Here are three points of to consider.

1. It doesn’t matter how long you meditate, just that you practice it daily under all conditions and circumstances. “Take two breaths and go back to sleep,” is my 5-year-old’s definition of meditation.
2. Set your alarm for a designated time for it each day. Experiment with ideal times. Drop everything at the appointed time as if it is an emergency. Driving, get off at the next exit.
3. As the daily quietude takes on a life of its own, you’ll come to rely upon it. And that will provide all the momentum and motivation you need. Trust it.

Solitude differs from isolation and loneliness. It is being alone, and it is good for the soul.

The easiest way to experience it for yourself, is to create it. Whether it is a brief time out, a moment of silence, five minutes each morning, or a regular meditation routine, Quiet Time creates room for being still and breathing.

This does not mean the mind will be still. It’s like being the eye of the tornado. Let the body be the eye and the mind, the tornado. The result is the same: physical stillness. Agitated by our troubled minds spinning and swirling, we say meditation doesn’t work. Meditation is the act of sitting still. The mind will follow, someday, or only on some days. One minute of peace in an hour of anguishing mental activity during meditation, is the gold ring on the carousel.

Beginners, here is your assignment:

1. Set a timer for a minimum of 5 minutes.
2. Sit in a chair.
3. Breathe
4. Get up when the timer goes off.

Intermediate? Try this:

1. Set a timer for one hour.
2. Find your most comfortable or favorite upright seated position.
3. Breathe, and observe.
4. Get up when the timer goes off.

Advanced? Reply here on comments below to share your routines! Try this:

1. Keep your regular daily meditation time under all circumstances if possible.
2. Find your position.
3. Breathe
4. When the meditation ends, carry on.

Do you see the common denominator for every level?

It’s simply the practice of solitude.

Share your practice here…

A Marriage Memorial Ceremony creates change immediately. Here are some of the symptoms:

• Grief relief.
• A sense of hope for a future relationship.
• Greater harmony with the co-parent.
• A sense of moving forward with life.
• Appreciation of the past.
• A sense that the children are more accepting.
• Surprising decisive actions in needed areas.
• Improved health routines.
• Unifying emphasis on what’s good for the children.
• Gratitude seeing the dating, engagement, marriage, divorce and co-parenting, as on a continuum, not at an end.
• Boost in a sense of responsibility as a parent.
• Vows from the ceremony offer guidelines to live by.
• A sense of empowerment as a single parent.
• Prudent financial decisions based on children’s well-being.
• Historical perspective on the value of the relationship.
• A new respect for your co-parent which helps children feel loved.

Add your own after-effects in a comment below.

Sudden changes are common after conducting your own Marriage Memorial ceremony. I woke up the next morning a new woman, just like a bride wakes up a married woman the next day. It seems the entire family gets a fresh start. It turns the grief tide from destructive to constructive.

1. Change Your Look

After getting a new hair style, people didn’t recognize me.

2. Share Family Photos

Even though the girls’ father didn’t attend the ceremony, he asked for a few of our family photos.

3. Humor Abounds

We had a light-hearted moment when neither of us could recall who had the girls last Thanksgiving. He’s the better cook, so he got the holiday.

4. DVD for Daughter

I left a DVD copy of it on her pillow with a note saying it was her own copy to keep. Who knows when in her life she would watch it, if ever. Her choice.

5. Easier Transitions

The family’s still in two places and yet it feels like one home.

6. Packing it Away

The ability to let go is measured by how fast the items are able to be put away at home after the ceremony.

1. I intend to give a DVD copy to the girls’ father as a Christmas present.
2. I see that the girls seem to enjoy our interactions as co-parents now, whereas before they didn’t seem to notice.
3. Some humor has crept in to our co-parenting interactions, a sign of greater respect. Remember, he wasn’t there for the ceremony. That’s why I find the changes so fascinating.
4. I’ve made a business out of this, performing these ceremonies for other people.

Upcoming: Ten Instant Results I Notice in My Children, and Ten Instant Results I Notice in Myself.

Review from Judi Hollis, Ph.D, New York and Palm Springs, latest book, “From Bagels to Buddha: How I Found My Soul and Lost My Fat.” http://www.judihollis.com

“After more than forty years as a licensed Marriage, Family and Child Counselor (MFCC),  I’ve just had opportunity to witness one of the most moving and touching declarations of love and commitment ever.  It was a “Marriage Memorial Ceremony” conducted by Pamela Henry, owner of Soul Custody, at the Spiritual Treatment Center in Redlands.  This memorial to her own recently ended marriage is under the auspices of “Soul Custody” a new grief tool to help people hold on to love, joy, and commitment while also leaning in to the pain and remorse of letting go.  Since Pamela does not want to take others anywhere she is not willing to tread, she instituted this first ceremony as a memorial to her own marriage, walking in a white lace cowgirl wedding dress that still fit before us all into the sunlight of contentment around pain.  Two of her three children were there to watch short clips of the video of her covered wagon wedding  in a Montana pasture.  She then read some powerful writings of her own regarding the marriage. She spoke to the 20-year journey she and her children’s father had taken with continuous counseling and spiritual guidance making their love work.  And when it was time to face who they’d grown into, that they’d become fully whole individuated beings, they decided to separate with love and continuing mutual support for their children.   We all danced through our tears and knew that Pamela and their children were definitely all right.”

— Judi Hollis, Ph.D, http://www.judihollis.com

Friends going through divorce mean well. We share our pain and experiences. We want to validate each other. We want to listen to each other. And we need to be conscious of what we say to one another, about each other’s co-parent in our lives. Deep down there can be a part of us that feels shame it did not work out. It may not even be deep down, but rather right on the surface. It also can drive us unconsciously do say things that deepen the shame.

You know that line of thinking that, “I’m allowed to comment on my relatives, but you are not?” If a co-parent needs to express negative aspects about a co-parent, the same rule applies. It is better to remain silent than even nod, let alone fire off your own perspectives, opinions, and especially jokes, about our friend’s co-parent. Otherwise, our divorced friends actually can feel worse because secretly it pains them that you would criticize also. Worse, this is your children’s father being spoken about. What if the children heard it?

I had a terrible experience yesterday when a friend said something that I went to sleep on without examination, and it woke me up in the night in a bucket of tears. It was a joke, but what pained me was the nature of the joke had to do with my co-parent’s age. I hope he lives a long, healthy life, so that my children have their father as long as possible. Did I say this to my friend? No. There’s a secret code among divorced women that you’re not allowed to violate the (socially deviant) code of never saying something nice about our co-parents. Because if you do, somehow it comes across as you’re betraying the whole point of why we all divorced.

My message here is: Keep quiet, find a new language among divorced friends, and use it. Maybe next time I’ll practice that. You know there will be plenty of opportunities ahead. Divorce — the socially acceptable anti-social behavior.

I just had the best hair cut, style and color of my 46 years. I think it had something to do with the footage and photographs of my hair styles over 20 years living with my co-parent. It’s taken me four years after the divorce to even get a real haircut, let alone the best look ever. The point is, I’d kept my hair the same, minor variations of color, for two decades. I’m not sure if I would have even noticed had not the memorial ceremony caused me to take a good look at myself through the scope of the marriage and family prior to divorce. My hair has come of age. I’m no longer trying to hold to the past by holding onto my hair. The ceremony invited me to move forward, even with my hair style. By the way, I feel and look younger, and I feel and look more mature at the same time. That’s how every co-parent can feel about him or herself. Don’t get me wrong: I took care of myself during my marriage. That’s not the point. The point is, it was time for a change. The marriage memorial ceremony was the transition that motivated the change.

Soul Custody began as the title I gave a journal as I wrote my way through healing from the divorce between my parents when I was a child. I sought to “gain custody of my own soul,” recalling how desperately I sought out who was right — the Truth between my parents’ polar opposite viewpoints on everything. I grew up wanting to be a lawyer thinking I could end their conflicts, which lasted well into my adult years, until they just didn’t speak anymore. I came to the conclusion that everyone has his or her own truth. What was missing from the equation, was mine.

I vowed never to get divorced. So when I met the man I wanted to marry, I performed a divorce ceremony on him to get it out of my system before we were married. Divorce would not be an option. We worked hard on our relationship for two decades of our lives, and we worked even harder on parenting. Two months after our 16th wedding anniversary, the divorce was final. I stood at a fork in the road with only two prongs: Repeat the third generation legacy of divorce on my mother’s side (she was 42 with three children, too), or repeat the third generation legacy of divorce, leaving a new legacy behind. I only had role models of what not to do, and this was enough to form a template for what to do.

The upheaval of divorce is like an earthquake. And if you don’t have a disaster plan, surviving well is less likely. Both of us had a clear idea on how to proceed: We knew if we could keep our focus on the children, we could spare them what I refer to as “excess trauma.” As best we could wrestle through issues, every decision ended up being what we thought best for them, even when we disagreed.

Four years after the divorce, I noticed that there seemed to be no context for our history together as a couple and as a family. I also felt past the adjustment to a new life of two homes and co-parenting. It felt time for closure and preservation. I created and performed my own Marriage Memorial Ceremony to honor the marriage and our children’s family life during the marriage. 

And now, I want to help you create yours.

I officiate Marriage Memorial Ceremonies for divorced couples and their children so that they can experience closure and begin their new family life with integrity. I help them celebrate the life of the marriage and the early family life. Parents and their children can gain a healthy perspective and create a new family foundation for the future.

Soul Custody’s mission is acting in service of the family, establishing a new tradition in our society for the way divorce is finalized. By memorializing the life of the marriage and celebrating the children who come from it, Marriage Memorial Ceremonies provide closure for a divorced family. The ceremony restores the family to a sense of wholeness for the longer journey ahead of co-parenting.

As the officiant of your Soul Custody ceremony, I am: a mother of three children, co-parent, writer, journal writing coach, family disaster planner, and former journalist. I earned a certificate in Early Childhood Education from the University of California Riverside Extension, and I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Telecommunications and Film from San Diego State University. I’m preparing a series of Soul Custody page-a-day books for future publication:

Soul Custody – The Voice of a Divided Child

Soul Custody – Daily Meditations for Single Mothers

Soul Custody – Daily Meditations for Single Fathers

Soul Custody – Daily Meditations for Co-Parenting

Soul Custody – Daily Meditations for Children of Divorce

 

1. What is a marriage memorial ceremony exactly?

When a person dies, we sometimes refer to the memorial service as a celebration of life. When a marriage ends, it is cause for celebration of the life of the marriage. Divorce is a death in the family. And one of the greatest losses is not taking the opportunity to remember and regard the love first bringing the couple together. Stories over decades can vanish if a marriage is simply evaluated by its end. Yet, when we call upon these joys, it can heal the heartache caused by the oversight of them.

 2. What is the purpose of a Marriage Memorial Ceremony? 

A Marriage Memorial Ceremony pays tribute to a person’s marriage after legal divorce, when the time feels right. Its purpose is to provide closure for a marriage just as a wedding forms one. It honors the good in the relationship that first brought you together. It allows for memories to be preserved in the proper perspective for parents and their children.

 3. Who is this for?

Divorced parents, no matter how long ago the divorce was finalized, individual parents, children with or without their parent(s), and parent(s) with or without their children. The other parent does not have to cooperate with or agree to the ceremony. Some children might not either. The ceremony is for the people who want one.

4. How is this different from a divorce ceremony?

There are divorce parties, divorce ceremonies, and then there are Soul Custody marriage memorial ceremonies. The difference is that the first two celebrate the divorce, while Soul Custody celebrates the marriage and family life it created. This isn’t a platform for rejoicing over divorce or congratulating oneself for leaving the person. It also isn’t meant to put the past behind or “get over it.” It is meant to reshape the way the marriage is perceived.

 5. How do I know if this is right for me or not?

This is not for you if you are in the throws of legal battles, fighting over the custody of the children, in bitter arguments in front of the children, angry over financial arrangements, and still long for the person. Soul Custody requires a referral from a counselor to consider your request for a ceremony. It’s that powerful.

 6. How do I know if I’m ready?

If you’re looking at these FAQs, you are ready to consider.

 7. What do you offer?

Soul Custody offers tiers of marriage memorial ceremonies to consider. As your officiant, I offer choices for the creation of the ceremony and I officiate the actual ceremony itself. 

 8. How can I justify this expense?

No justification necessary, only comparison: The expense for a memorial service after the death of a marriage and its family life deserves the same consideration as when we pay for a memorial service after someone has died. Divorce is a death.

 9. I’ve spent enough money on divorce. Is this affordable?

Within the tiers, you can select which level of ceremony you prefer. Keep in mind, such a ceremony may save you money on lawyers and counselors because of the harmony it can produce between divorced parents.

10. Isn’t this an attempt to rekindle the flames?

Reconciliation is a possibility, but not the aim of the service. However, imagine the other person running in to stop the marriage memorial ceremony from taking place. Imagine the person having the ceremony deciding to run from the altar with a change of heart. These are humorous possibilities just as they are in weddings. If you get back together, your ceremony fee is fully refundable. That’s a lifetime money-back guarantee. If you are 90 years old and re-marry, you’ll get your money back.