Seven Ways to Thrive After Divorce

How to Enjoy Life After Divorce

Just went through a divorce? Well, the period after divorce can be challenging as well. Guest blogger, Joan Winberg has some great pointers to help you thrive after your divorce. She has a program to offer as well.

After divorce is a very challenging and overwhelming time in a person’s life.

It’s an emotional roller coaster ride that no one wants to ride alone. It is also hard to adjust to being single again, as well as living “out of the habit” of being married, especially if you have been married for many, many years.

To move your life forward, it has to start by focusing on yourself. Use this precious opportunity to rediscover who you are. Think of this time in your life as an adventure to explore the real you.

Take a deep breath and let’s get started and say… Will the Real Me Please Stand Up!

1) Treasure Your Magnificence
Realizing you are born with “gold nuggets” is a hard concept for many people to believe about themselves. Think about how magnificent you really are! Over time, you might have forgotten your unique gifts and are only thinking of what you don’t like about yourself or your life. Set a new intention, starting today, to list all of your great qualities and read that list every day. Keep reading it until you believe it. Examples: beautiful smile, kindness, generosity, loving, caring, intelligent… keep going. Your list is endless, when you start focusing on your great qualities. Allow yourself to see the shining gold within. It’s already there!

2) Ten minutes a day can make a difference
During and after a divorce it is common to have the feeling of grieving, similar to that of the loss of someone. Many people feel the need to stay busy to keep their minds off of this stressful time. To be the best you can be for yourself and your children, it’s important to remember that you deserve to do something special for yourself every day, even if only for 10 minutes. It can be as simple as taking a walk or reading a book with your favorite cup of tea. Give yourself permission. The happier you are, the happier your family will be!

3) Learn to let go
Holding onto regrets and bitterness will only keep your life from moving forward. Is your inner voice working overtime with all the “what ifs” and “if onlys”? This is normal for a period of time, but ask yourself… are these thoughts serving me or helping me feel better? Will thinking about them over and over again change anything? To move your life forward, it is important to acknowledge your feelings and to learn from your past experiences to prepare yourself for the next exciting chapter of your life. Yes, there is life after divorce. Learn to let it go! Just, let it go!

4) Lighten-up
Life after divorce usually means added responsibilities. If you are a single parent or are now the one responsible for the once shared to-do list, how do you handle it all without being totally stressed out? To start, learn to laugh more, especially at yourself. Learn to let things go and not take life so seriously. Lighten-up!

Learn to live in the present moment. Living in the present is where all the “good stuff” in life happens. Yesterday’s worries are gone forever and tomorrow’s to-do list can wait. Think of it this way, when one is missing this moment in time, one is missing out on one’s life.
So how do we live in the present?

If you are feeling stressed, immediately leave your thoughts in your head and take off your blinders. (Blinders similar to what a horse would wear, not allowing it to see from side to side). Start to look around you. I mean really look around you. Look closely at everything. Really focus. Use all your senses! For example, if you are with your children observe them. Cherish their smiles. Give them a hug. See the true beauty of who they are and appreciate them for being a part of your life. You will start to feel your stress subside and a feeling of peace sweep over you.

To be present, no matter where you are, use all your senses to pull yourself back into the moment. Take time to appreciate all the beauty that already exists around you. You only have to be present to see it!

5) What Makes You Truly Happy?
What really matters to you? What do you feel is your true purpose in life? If someone asked you that question, how would you answer them?

Why is it so important to be clear on what your life’s purpose is? Knowing your purpose, will give you a true sense of who you are and how you are supposed to make a difference in the world. It gives your life direction and helps you make clear and easy decisions concerning that direction. It’s your compass!

Without a purpose, can your life be compared to a piece of driftwood floating endlessly in whichever direction the tide decides to take it and ending up on any beach with no will of its’ own.

When you live your life based on your purpose you are living in integrity with yourself and are in alignment of who you really are in all aspects of your life - body, mind and spirit. Take this time to focus on what really matters to you. Feel the true passions that exist in your heart and write them down.

6) What Are Your Vibes Saying About You?
Are you familiar with the Law of Attraction? Maybe you have heard the expressions, “What you think about, you bring about” or “The more attention you give to something, the more attention it will give to you.” As mentioned, when going through a divorce, your emotions can be compared to a roller coaster ride. Use this time to become reconnected to your inner awareness of who you are. Learn to be still to understand the emotions you are feeling.

To get started, check in with yourself to recognize if your feelings are of low (negative) energy or of high (positive) energy.

A few examples of low energy that will keep you stuck are stress, fear, resentment, and a sense of lack (lack of time or money). Examples of high energy that will move your life forward are joy, abundance, happy, love and compassion.

If you are having feelings of low energy, how can you help yourself shift to feel more of the high energy?

One way to help yourself shift is to be thankful for what IS working in your life right now. By focusing on the positive, you will start to feel yourself shift to the higher energy instantly.

7) Be True To Yourself
During and even after a divorce, we are often filled with doubts. We question ourselves about what is right, what to do or how we feel. Should I or shouldn’t I?

It seems difficult to make a decision. Listen to your heart. What feels right? What doesn’t feel quite right? If a situation does not feel right, honor your resistance by pausing or waiting. Sometimes waiting is the best thing to do. By waiting you may have allowed the situation to unfold more easily without having to worry!

If a decision feels right, usually that means you are heading in the right direction. When we listen to our hearts, we are in integrity with ourselves. When we are in integrity with ourselves, we learn to say NO more easily.

Has this ever happened to you? You are asked to be on a committee or to volunteer for something and you say “yes”, even though you know it will make your schedule even tighter or you really don’t want to?

How do you stop this from happening? Next time you are in this situation and you are ready to say yes … STOP! Take a breath or even take a step back (this action will prevent you from saying yes). Pause! Thank the person for thinking of you, but let them know you will have to check your calendar and get back to them. When you do have time to think about it, focus on how you are feeling. Are you excited to participate or do you feel some resistance? If in a day or two you are still feeling doubtful, realize the timing may not be right. If you are feeling excited, say “yes” and have fun!

In summary:
Divorce is not easy or fun, but realizing you can and will make it through this time of your life is the first step.

To survive and thrive after divorce requires support and tools. It is a major transition in your life. Why do it alone?

Are any of the following concerns keeping you awake at night or distracting from your everyday routine?

- Will I always feel this lonely?
- I can't seem to get out of my own way. I feel stuck. I need help setting goals for my new life.
- I need to find a new career or go back to work, but what do I really want to do? I've lost my purpose in life!
- How do I deal with stress and the feeling of being overwhelmed as a single parent on a daily basis?
- Dating again? How do I get start? How do I attract the "love of my life" into my life?
If you have any of these concerns, don’t wait or rely on chance that your life will get back on track or that will you feel happy again after divorce. A good plan for action can make a big difference. And, it’s tough to do it alone.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-intelligent-divorce/201309/seven-ways-thrive-after-divorce

The Emotional Fallout of Divorce and the 5 Stages of Relationship Grief

Andrew Lawes knows how you can hit bottom after a divorce. But he’s here to tell you how to survive.

I remember when I found out my marriage was over. It sent me into a downward spiral; a drink-and-drug-fueled period of bad memories and even worse situations. I didn’t care—the pain inside me was too raw, too visceral to cope with. Blacking out and forgetting was better than dealing with the crushing reality that the woman I loved no longer shared the same emotions.

Maybe you are experiencing this situation right now. Maybe you are also struggling to cope with the fallout of divorce, and are engaging in some questionable activities. Maybe, like me, your days have become about existing, rather than living. You don’t know when the pain will end. All you want is for it to go away.

There is no timescale for how long it takes a broken heart to heal. Sometimes it can take days; other break-ups can take months or even years to overcome. There is no secret cure; all you can do is continue living.

As a man, my mentality is the same as most other men: there’s a problem; how can I fix it? How can I save this relationship? The truth is that, most likely, you can’t. Nobody walks away from a marriage without an awful lot of thought. When the conclusion they have come to is that it is over, there is very little you can do.

The Kübler-Ross model of the Five Stages of Grief can be applied to the end of a relationship. Although nobody has passed away, you still need to grieve. The death of a relationship; the ending of a future you had planned out; in many ways, it is harder to handle than death. At least there is finality to death. With heartbreak, there is no finality. There is no clean break. You can’t help but wonder “what if…?”

The five stages of the Kübler-Ross model are: Denial; Anger; Bargaining; Depression and Acceptance. Each of them apply to the end of a relationship equally as much as the grieving process:

Denial – “This isn’t happening” “Don’t be silly, it’s just a row. You’ll feel different in the morning”

Anger – “Why are you doing this to us?” “What have I ever done that’s so bad?”

Bargaining – “I can change” “Please, let’s work through this”

Depression – “It’s all my fault” “I don’t blame them for leaving”

Acceptance – “It was over; it has been for a while, I just couldn’t see it”

All of the above are phrases I’ve used during the period after a break-up, and I suspect I am not alone in that. I have used them to highlight how the Kübler-Ross model of grief relates to the end of a relationship too. Now, it isn’t as clean-cut as I’ve perhaps made it appear. You may get to the Bargaining stage and then slip back to Denial. Depression and Anger often overlap; especially in men, who generally display signs of depression differently to women. Indeed, the first four stages can be a nightmare to work through, and there will be times when you feel you will never get past it.

You will.

When you reach the stage of Acceptance, that is the moment you will start to live again. The thing is, you can’t wait around for the acceptance of the situation to come—that isn’t how it works. Acceptance isn’t a moment when you suddenly become fine with what’s happened, and waiting for that moment makes it much more unlikely to come.

What you need to do is focus on yourself. Look at the aspects of your own life that you are unhappy with. Maybe you feel like you have let yourself go physically. Maybe you feel like your life has become mundane and routine. These are all things that you have the power to change, so do it! Sign up to a gym; take up jogging, work on your physique. If your life has become boring, make more time for the things you enjoy, and take up new hobbies. Become the man you’ve always wanted to be, and you’ll find that acceptance of the divorce comes so much quicker.

It is important to reflect on why the marriage ended. In the immediate aftermath, people always tend to blame the other party, but there is always fault on both sides. If you can begin to understand why the relationship failed, then it will leave you in good stead for the future. Hard as it may be to believe right now, one day, you will love again. When that day comes, be the man you’ve always wanted to be. Learn from the mistakes of relationships past.

You may think you can’t get through this time, but you will. Sometimes, good things have to fall apart so better things can fall into place. Focus on yourself, and improving your life, and I promise you will be happy again.

Source: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-emotional-fallout-of-divorce-and-the-5-stages-of-relationship-grief/

How Long Does "Typical" Divorce Recovery Take?

If you're not moving beyond your divorce, you may be doing something wrong

One of the most common questions newly divorcing people have for me is, "how long will it take before I'm over this divorce ordeal?

My answer is always the same: "How long it takes to "recover" from a divorce depends on a number of factors, including how long you were together, how good the relationship was and how committed you were to your spouse, whether the divorce was a surprise to you or not, whether you have children together, whether you or your spouse are involved in a new relationship, your personality, your age, your socio-economic status and on and on.

I liken the undoing of a marriage to trying to disentangle two trees that have grown next to each other for years. The more intertwined the root systems are, the longer it will take for the trees to go their separate ways.

In addition, grief has a life of its own and you are done* when your grief process is done, and not a minute before. There is no magic formula and no way to get through your grief on the fast track. But you can do things to slow your process down, which I discuss below.

*(I'd like to qualify this statement by saying you're never completely "done" grieving if you had a sincere love and attachment to your spouse. By done, I mean recovered to the point where you are no longer weighted down by thoughts and feelings about your spouse or your marriage and the pain of the split is a distant memory.)

While no one can tell you exactly when this will be, I can tell you there are things you can do to make the process harder, and there are things you can do to ease the process. I've created a chart so you can see the difference by comparing actions side by side.

Top Ten Don'ts for Divorce Recovery

1. Don't ask for help and try to do it all alone
2. Don't talk about your grief/feelings
3. Count on others to tell you what you need (don't be in your own power)
4. Stick your head in the sand and hope it will go away
5. Pretend you're fine or try to hold it all together
6. Be upset with yourself for "still" feeling bad, sad, scared or angry
7. Try to push your "negative emotions" away and be only in better feeling emotions
8. Don't accept your new reality and move on
9. Don't trust that things will work out
10. Be a perfectionist and think you mustn't make any errors

Top Ten Do's for Divorce Recovery

1. Ask for help & let help in
2. Talk about your grief with others
article continues after advertisement
3. Get as much information as you can about the divorce process
4. Face each obstacle as it arises
5. Let others know when you're not feeling well
6. Allow your feelings to come to the surface
7. Allow yourself to feel whatever you feel
8. Accept your new reality and move on when it's appropriate to move on (this doesn't mean you have to like it!)
9. Have trust/faith that things will work out
10. Be willing to make mistakes (mistakes are going to happen no matter how well prepared you are - it's just part of the process

While I know there are more ways people have to impede or improve their recovery process, this list gives you a general overview of the do's and don'ts as well as the reminder that you can get through it but you'll need a good set of emotional and mental "tools."

I will add a note here also to those may be beyond the time it "should have"taken. If you are three or four years post-divorce and you find that you are not letting go, my best guess (without assessing you personally) is that you are practicing one of the top 10 "don'ts and that you don't have adequate emotional support.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/contemplating-divorce/201004/how-long-does-typical-divorce-recovery-take