Reprogramming Our Brains (and Hearts) After Divorce

I’m in my 50’s now but back when I was in high school (aka the magical 80s!), I was lucky enough to take a computer programming class. The material would be laughable by today’s standards for certain and I can’t remember any of the programming languages that I learned, but the one ‘party trick’ that I remembered from this class ended up changing my life. Who knew?

The programming we were taught ran on different command lines of data counted out by tens. For example:

>10 PRINT “YOU ARE AMAZING”

>20 GOTO 10

>30 RUN

The second that you hit the enter key after you typed “RUN”, the words “YOU ARE AMAZING” would run over and over again on the screen. This is literally all I remember from the class. Well, that and stupid Danny G. loudly passing gas in class and then making his screen say, “SHE JUST FARTED –>”. Yes, I was sitting to his right and that little arrow was pointing to me. I hope Danny G. feels bad about that.

Anyway, it wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I started to think about that programming class again. I was working in a mid-level management position and the stress was insane – spinning many plates at once while it seemed to me that everyone around me was just trying to break my plates. It was then that I started to think of myself in terms of being “programmable.”

I would make my little ‘To-Do’ lists and I would imagine that each item had a 10, 20, 30, etc. preceding the task. When I was done writing the list I would say to myself, ‘RUN!” and off I would go! It worked for me.

I did it a lot during and immediately after my divorce. When I felt too emotionally or physically drained to get out of bed in the morning, I would ‘run a program’ in my brain. Something as simple (or as difficult, as many who have been through divorce can testify) as:

>10 GET OUT OF BED

>20 TAKE A SHOWER

>30 GET IN YOUR CAR

>40 GO TO WORK

>50 RUN

Believe me, some days it was just lines 10 and 50.

After so many days, I had kind of reprogrammed myself to do the basics and I would use the formula to tackle bigger tasks:

>10 SCREEN SHOT HIS THREATENING TEXTS

>20 GO TO POLICE

>30 FILE FOR RESTRAINING ORDER

>40 RUN

Of course, I would meditate long and hard before I ‘hit the RUN button’ on the big stuff but once I hit it….BOOM! Task executed!

Fast forward to a few years ago. I stumbled upon a TEDx Talk on YouTube given by Mel Robbins. Since my introduction to her on that life-changing day, she quickly became not only one of my favorite people in the world but also a daily staple in my life. Within minutes of watching her talk, I purchased her book, “The 5 Second Rule”.

After reading the book, I finally understood why my little programming game worked so well. I immediately replaced my ‘RUN’ program with her “5…4…3…2…1” technique. Once you read the book you’ll see not only how it works, but also why it works. Our brains are amazing!

I’m not being paid to endorse this woman, her book or her TEDx Talk. Mel Robbins has no clue that I even exist. I’m sharing this because that’s how strongly I believe in her and how she helps people achieve their goals. It’s worth the 21 minutes and 39 seconds it will take you to watch the talk and I promise you, you will look at life differently. And it’s FREE!

Here’s the TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp7E973zozc

You can find the book here: https://melrobbins.com/books/

Divorce itself isn’t easy and moving on from divorce can be even harder. But what if there were steps that we could take to help the transition into your ‘new you’ a little smoother? There are.

Watch the video. Read the book. You’ll thank me.

And Danny G if by some miracle you’re reading this…What in God’s name did your parents feed you in high school?