Coping After Divorce

Coping after divorce might seem like too much of a challenge. Divorce is a major life event, right up there at number two after death of a spouse on the Life Change Unit Scale. It is something that forces you into changes in your life, many of which you may perceive as negative. So not coping well is understandable. But there is another way.

Divorce inevitably engenders many negative emotions: anger, hurt, anxiety, sadness, disappointment, loneliness, maybe even guilt. All these bad feelings can make coping after divorce difficult, but the're just feelings. They come from our thoughts about what has happened and our judgement of the situation.

Judgement Causes Us Pain

I know it's really hard to do, but if we can just step back and look at our situation with new eyes, we will not hurt as much. The thing is when I divorced my first husband I was depressed, even though I'd left him to get away from his emotional abuse. I'd cast myself in the role of victim in the situation and so was looking at my circumstances through that lense of powerlessness and sadness. Do you see that from that position in which I had put myself, I was never going to fully recover from the emotional pain.

Reframing Eases the Pain

What I needed to do was reframe the situation: look at it from a different angle. Instead of casting myself as the victim, I needed to cast myself as the victor, making a positive choice for a better life. It's not self-delusion, it's just being a bit detached and rational, instead of being so emotionally driven. Can you see how that reframing will give you a whole new set of more positive thoughts and feelings around your situation?

Practical Tips

There are various techniques and practices that will help you to reframe your situation and therefore, not only cope after divorce, but thrive! Here are some of them:

Nurture Yourself

Do something for yourself regularly that makes you feel warm and comforted, then afterwards dwell on the positive feelings that it causes. For me this would be curled up with a good book, a hot bubble bath by candlelight, an aromatherapy massage or a peaceful walk in the countryside. What makes you feel good about the world in this way? Think about it and do those things as frequently as you can.

Assess Where You Are and Decide Where You Want to Be

Coping after divorce is made easier when you have something positive to focus on and work towards. The first step towards this is to do an assessment of where you are now in life. The wheel of life is a great way to do this and is described fully in my free special report . Essentially what you do is think about the eight main areas of your life and give each a grading of between 0 (if you're totally unsatified) and 10 (if you're totally satisfied). You will the get a picture of which areas of life have scope for improvement. The eight main life areas are:

family

intimate relationship

fun and social life

career/own business

finances

contribution to society

health and fitness

spiritual/personal growth

When you've chosen an area you want to work on you can start to imagine that area of your life as perfect. Think about it in detail and really feel the emotions of that being real. Then you need to set concrete goals with action plans to make it come true for you. You can find more detailed instructions on how to do this in my free report .