First holidays as a single parent.
Frank Ortega, a divorce recovery coach, shows separated parents how to navigate their first holidays alone. The core idea: what you decide the holidays mean determines how you feel about them. He walks through reframing what these days should be, then building new traditions or activities that fit your life now.
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Your very first holidays, whether you're going through a separation or a divorce, are probably the absolute most difficult moments. Same thing goes. Same thing goes with the kids, birthdays, right. Or any special events that you used to attend together. It can be very, very difficult and a huge struggle. So. So in this video, I'm going to teach you how to actually enjoy your very first ever holidays, whether you're separated or divorce, because you don't have to be miserable through them. So stay till the end so that you can enjoy every single moment of the holidays that are approaching you as a single parent this year. Hey. Welcome back to the channel. My name is Frank Ortega. I'm a divorce recovery coach. And I've now helped over 1,078 individuals, which is crazy to think ever since 2001 when I started doing this, my life's purpose is to change the statistic of divorced men leading offing themselves rates. Right? And in doing that, I believe that we can change the statistic of marriages ending in divorce in the next two to three decades. And that's really what my heart burns for. Right. I also coach women, so just know I love women as well. Men and women. I just love people in general. On this video, we're going to jump straight into it. Okay? I want you to write this down. Meaning equals feeling. I need you to know right now that you've got power over how you experience these holidays. You've got a choice in the matter. There's a quote that my clients love, and I always say it, often it is that life happens on its terms, but it can always be experienced on your terms. In other words, this divorce, you may not have asked for it. This separation, you may not have asked for it, but guess what? You get to choose how you're going to experience this season. Now, here's the thing. If you're going into the season believing already, and remember I told you to write down meaning equals feeling. If you're making these holidays mean that they're going to be miserable, that you're going to be lonely, that people are going to be judging you, that people are going to be talking about you, that your life is ruined, that these holidays will never be the same again in a bad way, then obviously you're going to create feelings that are terrible and it's going to make you miserable. In these holidays. Everything that we experience is all about what we choose to make it mean. And most people don't realize that you have a choice in the matter. You have a choice. If these holidays mean that they're going to suck because they're the first ever holidays where your partner isn't around. But you also have a choice. If maybe these holidays is when you get to introduce the tradition that you always wanted to introduce into your family, that maybe your, your ex or soon to be ex didn't necessarily want any part to do with it and didn't want to implement that with the kids, these could be the holidays for that. It's completely up to what you choose to make it mean. So what we got to do is we've got to get ahead of the game. That's why I'm posting this video right now on October 12th, so you can get ready for Halloween, for Thanksgiving, for Christmas and for New Year's. Okay? So here's what I want you to do, practically speaking, okay? I want to encourage you to do this. If right now you're already looking at the holidays and you, you just, you're like, oh, I don't want to deal with them, it means that you're already attaching a negative meaning to, to the holidays. So it's good that you're watching this video because then that means that you can actually take some steps a day to prepare yourself. So by the time even Halloween gets here, I'm telling you right now, I guarantee, if you do what I'm asking you to do on this video, if you actually take these steps and you execute on them, by Halloween, you're already going to be enjoying the holidays as your very first divorce holiday. And you're not going to be faking it. It's going to be authentic. You're going to recognize that. Man, I'm going through a hard time. But you're also going to be super present in those holidays and I'm going to teach you exactly how to do that once you get a notepad. Okay? Or you can just listen to me ask these questions and your notepad could be the comments. Because I'd love to see what some of you guys are making it mean. And then I'd like to see how you're going to flip the script on that. Okay? So ask yourself this question and then write it down, whether that be on a notepad or in the comments section down below. What am I making these holidays mean about me and my kids already? This process right here is going to be a little emotional for you, but that's okay. Give yourself to it. You got to process these emotions. Write down whatever you're making it mean about you and your kids, man. It means that my kids holidays are ruined. It means that their holidays are never going to be the same again. It means that I ruined their life. And this means that I'm going to be alone. This means that I'm going to be miserable. This means that I'm going to stand out in my family parties. This means that people are gonna. Whatever it is that's going on in your head, write all of those things down, okay? As they're coming up, and as they're coming up, experience the emotions that you're experiencing. I promise you, if you go all in on that emotion, it won't last more than a minute. We've all experienced that before, right? Where you're just balling your eyes out, whether that be in the shower, in the car, and then all of a sudden it's over. And you're just like, oh, I feel good now. Feel like I got a clear head. Life's not so bad. It's the same effect that you're going to experience here if you go all in. So now that you know what you're making it mean and why you're already kind of hesitating on these holidays and just not really looking forward to them, I want you to go ahead and flip the script on it and ask yourself this question. What do I want this to mean? What do I want my first Christmas alone with the kids? To me, whether I have them on the 24th or not? If you don't have them on the 24th, that doesn't have to mean that you're missing out. What if that just means that you now get to invest more time into the families that you want to invest into? Maybe you get to go to a party that one of your friends was always having a get together. Maybe there's a church event that you always wanted to attend but you couldn't because your other partner always made plans on that specific day and now you don't even got the kids. So guess what? You can go experience that day in your. On your terms. And then when you do get your kids, you can be strategic on how do I want to enjoy these holidays? What do I want these first holidays by myself to mean? What do I want these first traditions with my kids, just me and them, to be. If you can get ahead of the game on this, I'm telling you right now, the past two years, I've helped people do this, enjoy their holidays. I've helped them enjoy their holidays. I started, I think, doing this in October 2021. This is one of the first lessons I ever coached on it's how to enjoy your holidays as a single parent, your first holidays as a single parent. It's all about what you're choosing to make it mean. Most people aren't intentional about the meaning that they attach to to these days. So the default meaning is, I'm going to be alone, I'm going to be miserable. It's going to be the worst time ever. My kid's life is ruined. And obviously, if those are the things that you're entertaining in your head, you're going to have an extremely terrible experience throughout the holidays. So how about we get intentional these holidays and we choose what is going to make it what we're going to make it mean. And we decide that, hey, you know what? This guy on the Internet is right. Life might happen on its terms, but I get to experience it on my terms. So Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, I'm going to be intentional about how I experience these holidays. And this is why this is so important as well. Okay? I know you're going through a hard time right now, but you got to remember your kids childhood is still in your hands. Give them the Christmas that you wish you always had. Maybe you can look back at this season just like I can look back at 2019. Maybe you can look back in 2023 and be like, man, it's one of the best Christmases I ever gave my kid in the hardest season of my life. I gave them one of the best Christmases. And I'm not saying gifts or anything. There was one year where I actually, I was living at my parents at this time because sold the mobile home, moved in, was saving money so I could build this house. And so I was living with them. So we had Christmas over there. Me and my daughter were staying there and I told my parents, hey, have her sleep with y' all tonight. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna climb out of the upstairs window and I'm gonna run across the roof of the house and then I'm gonna jump off of was pretty, pretty wild. I was dedicated. I went all in. And then I'm going to open the back door and I'm going to put her gifts there and then I'm going to run out. And so I did that and I set my phone up to film and I got it all on video. I'm going to actually look for that video and if I have it, I'll put it at the end of this video so that you can watch a reaction. And it was one of the coolest experiences that I've ever done. And guess what? I got to do that as a single dad. One of the coolest moments that my daughter will probably always remember is it happened as a divorcee, it happened as a single father. You know why? You know why that happened? Because I got intentional about what I wanted those holidays to mean. So don't just be passive on this, be productive on it. Be intentional with these seasons. And I promise you, if you find out what you're currently making it mean and then you say, hey, what do I want to make it mean? You start brainstorming and you put your attention on that. I'm not saying you're not going to grieve during these holidays, but what I am saying is you might have some moments of grief, but you're going to have so many more moments of gratitude and deep appreciation during these holidays. And it all happened because you took your focus off of what could be and you switched it to what it can be. If you get intentional and you started asking different questions, I hope this blesses you. I hope you do what I'm asking you to do and challenging you to do because I'm telling you, your holidays, your kids holidays, they deserve it. So if you like this kind of content, make sure that you subscribe to the channel. I'm going to be looking to post a lot more YouTube content. Want to make sure that I'm giving a lot more free help. And if you like this type of stuff and you're saying, hey man, I like the way you think, I'd like to ask you a lot more questions and, and talk more about my specific situation. You can go down the link down below and go to the conquerors.community link and you can join my private coaching community where I am the most active and you're going to have access to support calls. My whole, all my coaching material on how to let go of your ex, how to create your own closure, how to stop wanting your ex. Allergies are terrible. Over here in Texas right now, gonna have access to all of that and then how to win in co parenting and how to win in court. And I would just love for you to be a part of that community so I can get to hear your story a little bit more and be able to speak into your life. So if that's something you want to do, it's all about naming your own price. So you get to pick which price you want to invest into your future. Choose that option. It's all the exact same access. Right. And so I'd love to see you in there, but for now, I'll catch you on the next video. God bless you. Did you hear that? Yeah. Did you see that? What?
