Today’s episode is meant to encourage you, and I am NOT speaking only to those facing divorce or going through a breakup. A “life of incongruence” has no bounds and most of us, at some point, find ourselves facing an inevitable transition. Because when you’re living a life of incongruence, there will be a guaranteed shift that will occur, whether you like it or not. I talk about my life of incongruence and the shakeup that followed…and boy, was it a doozy!

Welcome, everyone.

My name is India Kern and this is my very first podcast. I am a divorce recovery mentor, which basically means I help you walk through the valley of divorce, so going from married to divorce with grace and dignity. Back in 2011 I went through a pretty gnarly divorce, so I know how it is and I can help you. I give free 30 minute consultations, so please reach out to me a connect@indiakern.com or go to my website Indiakern.com. Today I want to talk about a life of incongruence or what appears is not always how it truly is. I know that I’ve been guilty of this in my life, especially in my first marriage, but let’s just talk about it for a moment. If you go to your Facebook feed or any social media, you’re going to see it all day long. People post their best self. That’s just what we do as humans. Back in 2006 when I was still married to my first husband, we made a gigantic, drastic move from Georgia to California.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the theme song of the Beverly hillbillies because honestly, that’s what it felt like. We had hit it big, we were doing well in business and it was time to get out of the small town of Macon, Georgia and move ourselves to California. So we did, we packed up everything, we didn’t know a soul and we moved our two little children. We had a nine-month-old and a three and a half-year-old all the way across the states. As soon as we got here, we bought a house and I was in charge of all the renovations, which I love. I’m an artist, so that was not a problem. But I remember one paint color in particular, Dunn Edwards decided to name the blue that I chose for the walls of my kitchen, smoke and mirrors, which ironically “smoke and mirrors” also described the state of my marriage in its final years.

Who knew a can of paint could hold so much foreshadowing. Right? And oftentimes now when I go in my garage and I see that extra can of paint, I laugh and think of the irony of it all. So let me explain myself, from the outside, we looked like we were living the dream. After we renovated house number one, we then rented this mansion that overlooked the Pacific Ocean luxury cars lined our driveway. We took extravagant vacations, sometimes on private jets, and there were trips made halfway around the world just to surf. So money was abundant. And even my husband’s wardrobe reflected a look of leisure, white linen pants, Gucci flip flops, and Gucci Fedora and even custom made dress shirts. So people looked at us, and they thought “they have it all,” but we didn’t. It was all camouflage. My husband worked like a maniac. Home became work and work became home. When he was physically present in the house, he was emotionally vacant, distracted by some sort of apple device.

We took separate vacations and that halfway around the world trip to surf was one of them. But he went alone without his family. He was running from his family and I was very lonely. So this marriage that I had at the time showed no resemblance to a partnership. Instead, there was a massive gaping hole between us and it was the space where God was supposed to reside. Instead, money, distractions, possessions were stuffed in the cavernous hole to quell any feelings of restlessness or unhappiness. Oftentimes, I asked the question to my husband, “how much is enough?” How much money do we need to make for it to be enough for you to be happy? But there was no magic number, no cap, because no amount of money would be enough. Let me just say, I do not have a problem with money or fabulous vacations, but I do have a problem when the love of money becomes the idol in the household and that is what it had become. So I was living this life of polarity. I had one foot stuck in the world of materialism and I had another foot planted in a sacred space of spiritual growth. I was looking for a home church. I had just joined a Bible study. I was hosting Bible studies at my house and my husband was throwing lavish parties that celebrated materialism and debauchery.

I was living a life of incongruent and imbalance. My husband and I were moving in opposite directions. I was moving toward God and he was moving far, far away from God. So what happens when you’re living a life of incongruence? I’ll tell you, a shakeup follows because it’s just the law of nature…it is the way God works. If you are living a life of imbalance out of whack, incongruent, something’s going to shift. And in my case, it was a very messy divorce and my world was turned completely upside down. In fact, I like to call it apocalyptic devastation, and I’ll get to that in another story and another podcast. But basically what I’m describing to you was a major transition in my life that I wanted nothing to do with. In fact, I dug my heels in and I was like, no God, this is not happening.

I do not want the change. But when you can’t do it for yourself, God’s going to do it for you. And that’s what he did. I prayed for God to not allow this divorce to happen. And God said “no” to me because he knew better than I did. There was more to my story and this breakup was not the definition of my life. And you probably are asking yourself, why couldn’t you see the imbalance and the incongruence in your marriage? And I’ll tell you why I couldn’t see all of this, all the unhappiness because of fear. Fear recoils from uncertainty. I did not want to be uncomfortable. I was living a lavish, comfortable life even though now I look back and see how unhappy I was at the time, I didn’t want the shake-up because I didn’t want the change. Who wants to change?

I didn’t want to have to leave something behind, which was the marriage in order to pick up something new, which was a happy life. So I like to refer this time in my life as walking through the valley of divorce. And if you look at the valleys of life, this is where the soil is. The richest is where the muck and mire, the manure is and you’re going to go through some crud, but during that time in that soil, it’s fertile and this is where your best growth will occur and that’s what happened to me in the valley when I was down and so hurt, so consumed by my pain, I realized there was a bigger purpose to my story. There was more to my story and it did not end here in the valley of divorce. So oftentimes I think of this and I imagine the old-timey school teachers and how they would use their pointer sticks at the chalkboard and they’re beating the chalkboard trying to beat it, beat the lesson into the kids’ brains.

As harsh as that sounds, because you know, you think of this, this situation of divorce as punishment and oftentimes I thought I was being punished by all the things that were happening to me, but if I go back to that image of the teacher at the board going, NO, this is what you need to learn, that is how God was handling my situation. He was trying to show me that there was so much more to my story, and there’s so much more to your story too, for me. I would’ve never known that I was here on this planet to help others like you walk through the valley of divorce. So let me be your guide. In closing, I’d like to leave with you some words that I feel that God could be saying to you right now – “This is all my doing.” This pain is not in vain. I you enjoyed the podcast. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out to me at connect@indiakern.com. Check out my website, indiakern.com. Thank you and have a beautiful day.