Women, Divorce, and Halloween – Spooky!

For many women in divorce the idea of wearing a costume and going trick or treating brings back childhood memories of walking through the neighborhood on crisp autumn evenings, collecting bags filled with treats, and then sitting on the living room floor sorting out favorite candies.

A few years ago, the Saturday before Halloween, I was invited out with friends and had to wear a costume. Since I didn’t have one, they insisted I stop by their home early in the evening and they would have something ready for me to wear.

Then I realized something spooky. Many us were married to a spouse who was in disguise, who hid his true self behind a mask.

But even more frightening was that many of us began to wear our own disguise, especially if we were in emotionally (or physically) dangerous relationships. We disguised our feelings and our thoughts to keep peace and to protect ourselves. We believed this would keep us safe, but we were wrong. And we began to disappear.

It takes tremendous courage to take off our mask and see who we really are.

The Trick is to trust how we truly feel and what we instinctively know. And the Treat is that we will rediscover our authentic self.

Then we can dress ourselves, not in disguises that hide us, but in costumes that reflect our genuine self. We can delight in the glitter of our costumes and enjoy how cool we feel when we spin and our cape twirls out around us.

We all have the power of Wonder Woman, the grace a Princess, the ability to transform like a Butterfly. My costume that Saturday night was Spider Woman. In many Native American traditions, the spider is a reminder that we are the weavers of our own destiny, and we have the ability to weave together the past and the future and create delicate, yet extraordinarily strong threads that sparkle when touched by the sun.