In a post entitled “Conscious Uncoupling,” Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin announced on her website goop.com that their marriage was coming to an end. Yes, the world is wondering what went wrong, but we’re really all wondering, what the heck is conscious uncoupling?

At first glance it just seems like one of the many Paltrow-isms that this chic trendsetter has coined, or just another buzzy Hollywood term, but if you look deeper, you’ll see it’s actually a real process.

Dr. Habib Sadeghi and his wife Dr. Sherry Sami, explain conscious uncoupling as this:

A “conscious uncoupling is the ability to understand that every irritation and argument (within a marriage) was a signal to look inside ourselves and identify a negative internal object that needed healing,” they write. “From this perspective, there are no bad guys, just two people. It’s about people as individuals, not just the relationship.”

Katherine Woodward Thomas, a Los Angeles therapist and author who actually named the process, explains it as a way to end things honorably.

“I’m a fan of marriage, but I recognize that most people in their lives will have two to three longtime relationships — which means one to two breakups,” she stated in an interview. “And so we need to learn how to do this better.”

Thomas has also been vocal about her beliefs that the idea of lifelong partners comes from back in the day when life spans were much shorter than they are today.

And in this time of sadness, one can always count on Twitter for a ray of light and bit of snark:

Fair warning: Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin are breaking up, so now Coldplay songs might be a little slow and self-indulgent.

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) March 25, 2014

My face when I heard that Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin broke up pic.twitter.com/VaEchdLZeW

— Darth Vader (@DepressedDarth) March 26, 2014

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have split up. There must have been trouble in Para-Para-Paradise.

— Daz Gale (@dazgale) March 25, 2014

Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin have separated in a hand-crafted artisanal farm-raised braised conscious uncoupling, $38,000 from Tiffany.

— Ali Davis (@Ali_Davis) March 25, 2014

Whether you think Paltrow and Martin’s way of ending their marriage is a bunch of New Age baloney or just a ploy for publicity, you have to admit, it’s pretty refreshing they aren’t trashing each other to the press, especially since they have kids together.

Image via YouTube