When you're newly divorced, we work hard to find ways to step back from whatever is happening so we can soothe our emotions into objectivity so they don't run helter-skelter. You might lose yourself in the degree of guiltiness or hurtfulness if you don't. The snapshot of that "perfect marriage" you once held has been torched out of you and you're feeling guilty about it. And the responsibility of the kids is overwhelmning. Well, your kids have to have your complete attention.

You will benefit both you as well as your children if you can get in touch with your feelings as they are now; if you can decide if they are subjective (my suspicion!) and how to move them over to the objective side.

Your ex is armed with the information about how to get your goat and they will use it to hurt you. There's only one way to change this scenario: move the goat! Here's how.

The "goat" is all of your less-than-wonderful feelings. Your ex knows how to trigger them off in you. You lived with her/him and there is no way to avoid her knowing your secrets. Too late. The "goat" is out of the bag! The only way for you to keep from reacting in the way your ex expects you to act is for you to change.

If anyone can bring you a hurt of any kind, he brings you a gift, an incomparable gift, a perfectly adjusted opportunity. He isolates one of your weaknesses so that you can correct it. He, or a similar agent, will come again and again until his offering ceases to hurt you. "Opportunity", by Will Levington Comfort (1878 - 1932)

When you get triggered in some way by your ex, this is life offering you an opportunity to change. It is a gift, nudging you to make a correction. A good tool to see what is triggering you is this:

1. Can you describe the feelings that arose. How does your throat feel? Your abdomen? Your head? Sit with all the feelings you are feeling and then ask yourself this question.

2. " What is an earlier memory I have of experiencing these same feelings?" Your mind will try and play tricks on you, but my experiences is that the first idea that comes to your mind is the one you want.

3. Look at what is happening in the memory that came up. Where are you? Who else is there? What is happening? How do you feel? Do you recognize the same feelings that got triggered when your ex mouthed off? Great!

4. Repeat again "Can I think of some memory that goes back even further when I felt this exact sense?" Usually, the first idea that comes to your mind is the one you want. 5. Keep going back in time to an earlier memory. If you can't do this all in one sitting, do it over the course of a few sessions. Ultimately, you can take yourself back to the initial experience you have that is just like those with your former spouse, and this time, you'll see the real beginning of your feelings and not just the triggering agent. You've been re-creating this series of events over and over to teach yourself this lesson.

Once you identify the source, you will recognize that you are more than likely a very young individual yourself at that first feeling experience, and that you made a decision based on the fact that you were dependent on the adults involved in your source situation. You more than likely made a decision that saved your life at that time. Good for you. Now, ask yourself if you, the adult, would like to make a new decision based on all you've unfolded since you were that wee, dependent child?

This new decision is how you will think and act the next time your ex triggers you off with his/her words. You have a tool that allows you to react in a new way. You have moved the goat and she/he can't find it anymore. Your feelings will have become objective and you'll be able to set a wonderful example of reasonableness for your children.