Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying

When I was a teenager, and into my 20s, my favorite movie was The Shawshank Redemption. It’s a powerful portrayal of what is possible when the human spirit refuses to be destroyed. In this movie, Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, is sent to jail for double murder. A murder that it seems he did not commit.

 

In a pivotal scene of the movie, he tells Redd, played by Morgan Freeman, that it’s time to either “Get busy Living or Get Busy Dying.” This is when Redd begins to worry that Andy is going to kill himself. Spoiler alert, he doesn’t kill himself. In fact, he escapes the prison and goes on to create a dream life.

 

What else can I write about, besides death, murder, and prison, that might make you uncomfortable?

 

Oh yeah, this article is about the big D!

 

DIVORCE!

 

During my last break up, my partner said to me “Why does it feel like I’m dying.” My response to her was something like, “Because we are dying. Parts of us are dying. The connection we had is dying. Dreams and desires are dying. A vision for a life together is dying. And we should feel it as a death.”

 

I don’t believe I was being overdramatic. This was not a divorce but it was the end of a vastly important relationship for both of us. It was my first really healthy relationship, and possibly her’s too.

 

The end of a relationship is a death.

 

Yet it’s also a birth.

 

It’s an opening, that if we choose to look at it as such, can be the greatest catalyst for creating the life we actually want. It’s an extraordinary opportunity.

 

It is painful. It is traumatic. It’s a real loss, whether we are losing a short and passionate love affair of a few months or a 40 year marriage of deep partnership.

 

And like all pain, it’s a warning sign. The body or mind is screaming “This is a problem. Something must be done.” Pain is also a deep reminder that we are alive. In a world where it is so easy to go numb, deep pain is there to ensure we know there is still life left to live.

 

I remember sitting on my bed, a couple of days after my ex-wife had delivered the news that she wanted the divorce, and going through so many fears in my mind. As I sat there I had the vision of a life that was basically over. I could see myself growing complacent and miserable. There was this idea that maybe I was going to be stuck in a retail career that I was growing unhappy in while living a life without love, sex or romance, and slowly moving towards a long slow obesity related death.

 

In that remarkable moment of staring down my fears, I woke up. I realized that I had a choice. I saw the opening. A voice came up from a place I’d never spoken to inside of me and it said…

 

“You have a chance. You can lose the rest of the weight. You can improve your social life. You can actually find love again. In fact, you can create love that is far better than the table scraps you were always willing to take. You can change careers.

 

What you feared losing the most, is now gone. What will you create in the space it has left?”

 

At that moment, everything changed. From that second, until this day, my evolution, joy, and fulfillment have grown almost daily. And it’s built upon the back of a few simple ideas.

 

1. You always have a choice.
2. Loss is there to teach you something powerful.
3. When you lose something, you get the chance to create something far more fulfilling.
4. You are not to blame, but you are responsible for your life.

 

 

When you lose a relationship, you are experiencing a death.

 

You can get busy living. Or you can get busy dying.

 

I chose to get busy living and now I’m overwhelmed with the remarkable life I’ve created. More powerfully, I’m fulfilled by helping others create a life they love. Some days I feel like the luckiest man in the world.

 

I have a client, who hired me 14 months ago, to help him win his wife back. Now, he is happily divorced, co-parenting and having the time of his life dating with the success he never imagined. He’s in better health, he got a promotion and he is now playing a band again for the first time in decades. More importantly, he credits the whole experience with helping him become a more present, loving and compassionate father to his 5 year old daughter.

 

Most of our culture wants you to hide after a divorce. They want you to go lick your wounds in private and pretend like nothing’s wrong. They don’t want to see your pain. Nor do they want to see your pleasure, expansion, growth or joy. It’s too confronting to our cultural norms and values around relationship. Too raw and wild.

 

I want you to get busy living. I want to see you in your pain, your rawness, your transformation and you’re glory. I will stand in your corner and coach you into the man that you’ve always wanted to be but had too much to risk in going hard in the direction of change. The time is now.

 

Part of my mission on this earth is to help create the life you always wanted after a major break up or divorce.

 

It’s your turn.