MeetRosalind Sedacca, CCT Rosalind Sedacca is an author, an award-winning professional speaker, and Certified Corporate Trainer specializing in both communication and relationship issues. She has facilitated workshops and seminars throughout North America on creating 'conscious' relationships for both singles and couples. Based on her own personal experience, she wrote How Do I Tell the Kids about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook Guide to Preparing Your Children - with Love! This internationally acclaimed ebook provides an innovative new approach to breaking the divorce news to your children and setting the stage for positive parenting ahead. At Rosalind's Child-Centered Divorce Network parents will find resources and tools to help them create successful outcomes for the entire family in the months, years and decades to come.
"Rosalind's book is unique in that it offers parents an innovative approach to having that difficult and usually dreaded initial conversation with their children and making it as positive and supportive as possible. A parent contemplating a divorce would be well served by reading this valuable book."
Raoul Felder,Celebrity Divorce Attorney
"Rosalind's brilliant book's non-judgmental, compassionate and no-nonsense approach will resonate with all divorcing parents – even those with the most challenging relationships. It is a critical piece of the divorce puzzle, and a must read!"
Cynthia Tiano, Esq."I highly recommend this as more than a book, but a tool to assist children to more successfully navigate the disorientation and maze that comes as part of divorce."
C. Paul Wanio, Ph.D., LMFT, LMHC"This hands-on interactive storybook is a must for all parents going through a divorce. It is a step-by-step guide for appropriately including children in the process. No parent should leave their home without it!"
Sally Goldberg, PhDCenter for Successful Children
"Rosalind Sedacca has invaluable information to share with divorcing parents. There is no other book a couple needs to help them with the most difficult conversation a parent can have with a child, that their parents are getting divorced. You are VERY lucky to have found my partner in the peaceful divorce movement."
Belinda Rachman, Esq"Rosalind Sedacca has just improved the lives of countless children. I have practiced divorce law for 44 years and will attest to the importance of how children are introduced to their parents' divorce. How Do I Tell the Kids about the Divorce? gives us something simple and sound to rely upon. There is absolutely no downside to Rosalind's storybook concept. It's all good and it beats anything else that I've come across. In fact, it's great and it is definitely something that the world has needed. The book is a winner and it is also a lifesaver."
J. Richard Kulerski, Esq"Rosalind Sedacca has made a monumental contribution to self-help resources in an area that affects the lives of millions of men, women and children. After 32 years of counseling people in various stages of uncoupling, I can testify to the urgent need of a "how to" guide for people contemplating divorce. This book offers them a "life preserver." I have already referred my patients to this material and have received great feedback. I cannot recommend this book highly enough."
Beverly Gibel, LCSW, ACSW, BCD"Rosalind Sedacca's 'How Do I Tell the Kids about the DIVORCE?' is a much needed breakthrough in the emotional minefield that parents traverse when they prepare their children for an impending divorce. The template, storybook strategy sends sensitive, kind, loving and safe messages which every child needs as they prepare for the scary unknown. I recommend her book for everyone who has children and is contemplating divorce."
Jack Singer, Ph.D.Licensed Clinical & Forensic Psychologist, LCSW, ACSW, BCD
Should You Forgive After Your Divorce? 6 Steps to Releasing the Past
By Rosalind Sedacca, CCT
Forgiveness can be one of the hardest concepts to understand – and one of the most personally helpful actions to take. This is especially so for parents who have experienced divorce. If you want to move on and give yourself and your children the better future you deserve, consider the power of forgiveness!
Here are six steps to assist you in the process:
1. Be aware that forgiveness is all about you – not the person being forgiven. It does not mean you agree with or accept their behavior — nor that you will you permit it to be repeated.
2. Reflect upon how holding on to your anger has been creating continuing pain in your life. Are you filled with tension or sorrow, spending sleepless nights, experiencing headaches and other stress signals? Consider who is being more adversely affected by your lack of forgiveness. Aren’t you tired of hurting?
3. Create a list of how you were wronged. Review it again. This time ask yourself to what extent you might have been responsible for the outcome? Were you totally honest about your feelings? Did you agitate the situation with you own behavior or comments? Did you fail to assert yourself when you might have? Acknowledging your part is a step toward feeling less like a victim.
4. Focus on the lessons you’ve gained from this experience. Are you stronger, wiser, more assertive or in other ways a better person because of this relationship? Have you moved in new directions that you might never have explored were it not for the divorce? Can you see these traits as benefits or payoffs for the lessons you’ve learned?
5. Now create a second list – writing down the attributes you now have resulting from the past. Compare it with the first list. Can you see a smarter, more confident, better you as a result? Are you ready to move on and embody those new traits? Are you ready for joy and peace in your heart? Is it time to stop feeling like a victim and start acting like a victor?
6. Give yourself permission to forgive your ex (and yourself) for all the pain in the past. Sit alone, or invite special friends to join you, in a ceremony celebrating your new life. Take your two lists and burn them, tear them to pieces, place them in a bottle you throw into a river – whatever you choose to symbolize your letting go.
Whatever we focus our energy on naturally increases. Forgiveness frees you up to put your energy where you want it – on you and the future you desire. Don’t waste another minute feeding grief, pain, sorrow and the wounds of yesterday. Forgiving is healing. If for no other reason, do it for your children!
* * *
Rosalind Sedacca, CCT is a relationship seminar facilitator and author of How Do I Tell the Kids … about the Divorce? A Create-a-Storybook Guide to Preparing Your Children — with Love! For free articles, her blog, coaching services, valuable resources on child-centered divorce or to subscribe to her free ezine, go to: www.childcentereddivorce.com.
Rosalind Sedacca All Rights Reserved
2 Responses
Leave a Reply
One of the best metaphors that I have been taught regarding negative thoughts is that they are like a beach ball that you try to hold under water. It takes continuous energy to hold the ball (negative thoughts) under and eventually when they do come out…look out! We have a limited amount of attention units in our minds, no need to clutter them up with non-supportive thinking. I’ve been through the 6-steps listed in the above blog and they are ALL good. Thank you for putting them in order for the rest of us to benefit.
Thanks for your thoughts, Garnet. I like your metaphor and think it’s a great one to keep in mind. So glad you can see the value in forgiving and moving on!