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In Hollywood, staying married for ten years is a long time. Think Kim Kardashian’s 72 day marriage, and you will realise Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s decade-long union seem like forever. But that’s not what has got the world talking. In announcing their separation, the Iron Man actress chose the headline “conscious uncoupling”. Yes, you read that right.
With those two words, the internet went crazy. Despite how natural it felt to Paltrow (and perhaps Martin), telling the world that you’re conscious of your own divorce seems like a pretty silly thing. For starters, is there ever an unconscious uncoupling? What does conscious uncoupling even mean? Paltrow seemed to have read our minds and attached a lengthy article on the entire process. Her gurus, Dr Habib Sadeghi and his wife, explains that conscious uncoupling is finding “wholeness in separation”, and “finding the ability to understand that every irritation and argument was a signal to look inside ourselves and identify a negative internal object that needed healing.”
In our words, conscious uncoupling means that Paltrow and Martin do not blame the other for the divorce, and they will always look to the other as close friends - like almost every other couple in Hollywood. Except perhaps Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, but that is another story. Nonetheless, a divorce is a divorce, but Hollywood never fails to surprise us.
To read more about the announcement, visit www.goop.com/journal/be/conscious-uncoupling.