| Life After Divorce: Ten Tips To Help You Cope When Life Falls Apart | |
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Three and a half years ago my world fell apart. My partner of ten years left and (exceptionally) quickly was with someone else.
Time stood still that summer. There were moments I found it hard to breathe as I struggled to keep up with the speed of the world I knew changing dramatically around me.
A good friend said to me, ‘Laura, you’re strong. You’re gonna fall down hard but you’re going to get back up and be stronger than ever. Ask for help, get support, take each day as it comes. You will be ok’.
She connected me to a counsellor who was incredible and helped me massively. I was scared and had no idea what to expect the first time I showed up at his office in Shoreditch. I walked in, said hi and cried for forty minutes.
He said ‘you needed that didn’t you?’ I did.
Life after divorce or separation
Throughout my life, I’ve had a gift for putting things into perspective and seeing the good. No matter how small and far away it seemed I could always see a flickering light at the end of the tunnel. I knew I was going to be ok one day. This comforted me as I navigated my way through the next days, weeks and months.
I ate self-help books and saw my interest in spirituality grow. I started questioning what I was here on this earth to do and it dawned on me it wasn’t what I was doing in a marketing job for a big brand in the city of London. F
For some, it is, for me, I felt there was something else and the universe had sent this breakup to shake me to my core and wake me up to the wonderful life I was meant to be living.
Change your life after divorce
It was Rebecca Campbell’s book ‘Light is the New Black’ that made me think about my purpose. I knew I loved people and was able to help people. Strangers often opened up to me and felt comfortable in my presence. I have a deep intuition and empathy. I’ve always been a dreamer and enjoy blowing the roof off limitations and thinking big.
My eyes were wide open at this time and I saw signs everywhere pointing me to where I am now. A belief coach, helping people connect with themselves, believe in themselves and live big, empowering them to embrace their uniqueness and supporting them on their journey. Everything does happen for a reason and I chose to use the pain I felt to grow, to get super strong, create a life I love and help others do the same.
Drawing from mine, my friends and clients experiences, I’ve created a simple ‘thrive guide’ to help you cope when your world is upside-down and you don’t know where to begin to piece it all back together. Believe me, it hurts, it’s confusing, you may feel lost but this is your time, to embrace the change, to release what wasn’t working and to build the life of your dreams.
Here are my top ten tips on how to survive life after divorce and cope when life falls apart
One, go easy on yourself
When relationships break down it’s difficult not to obsessively replay what happened, wishing for different outcomes and feeling that you’ve done something wrong. Everything in life is a lesson or a blessing and usually, even the lessons turn out to be blessings in disguise when we reflect on them years down the line. Take your time to process, to heal, to be, take the pressure off. This is part of your journey and one day you’ll understand why.
Two, feel your feelings
All our emotions are there to help us. Anxiety and sadness are just as important as happiness and joy. They make us whole. The more we push down uncomfortable feelings that we’d rather not have the deeper they go within and they will surface again one day. Feeling all the emotions that arise and acknowledging them is the only way to release them and to start the process of healing.
Of course, life gets in the way and we often have to put on a brave face and head off to work or smile for the kids. When you feel those uncontrollable emotions bubble up try to create some space for yourself and allow them to do what they need to do.
Three, stillness is your superpower
We spend a huge part of our lives rushing around ‘doing’, constantly ‘doing’. It’s only in the ‘being’ that we get clarity. That we hear our intuition and inner guidance that is always there to help us.
Spending ten minutes a day simply ‘being’ is where you connect with yourself and allow your inner strength to grow. If you can, meditate. If you’re new to meditation there are many free apps such as ‘Insight Timer’ and ‘Headspace’ with a brilliant guided meditation to help you get comfortable ‘being’.
If this is still alien then simply sit or lay down, put a timer on for ten minutes and be with your thoughts, the simple act of stopping is pure gold for your soul. The more you do this the easier it becomes.
Four, find your fuel
Connect with what it is you need to make you feel good, to fill you up, to light you up.
Self-care and self-love are crucial for happiness and even more so when you’re going through a challenging time.
Sleep, eating nourishing food, people, alone time, music, laughter, being creative, exercise, meditation are all great things to fuel and energise.
Get very aware of what it is you need. Keep it simple so it becomes as much a part of your day as breathing vs a chore you resist.
Five, get help
You don’t have to do this on your own. Sure, there’ll be days you want to close the door and shut the world away. Many of them.
This is helpful to recoup after stress, trauma, shock but once you feel you can do reach out to a loved one to talk through what’s going on.
And for an unbiased sounding board, seek professional support (the Stowe Divorce Directory can help) to help you process your experience and start to focus on the life you want when you merge from this challenging time.
You may find that during this time friends fall away and that’s ok, everything in life is temporary. The ones meant to hang around will.
Six, nature is your friend
One constant that will always, always be there and always help you feel better is nature.
Getting outside, breathing fresh air, walking, running, sitting on a beach or next to a field full of trees.
Even in a city, there is nature to be found. And even in the busiest of schedules, there are moments to get air and connect with the things more powerful than us.
Seven, practice gratitude
Focus on the good and the goodwill grow.
Spend thirty seconds as part of your morning or evening routine writing down three things you are grateful for.
Some days this may be tricky, other days there’ll be a stream of gratitude flowing out of your pen.
Do this for twenty-one days and it will become a habit, physically retraining the brain for positivity and building resilience for the challenges you face.
Eight, be present
We spend most of our lives in the past and in the future. If we’re feeling low and depressed we may be stuck thinking about things that have happened, things we can’t ever change. If we’re feeling anxious we are often worrying about what’s going to happen. And 90% of the time what we worry about doesn’t ever happen.
This is a huge drain on our energy and we miss the magic of the moment we are in. The present is where we’re supposed to be, nothing else is real.
Practice being here now and problems start to shrink. In the core shaking moments of our life, we are often more present than ever. It may not feel comfortable to stay in that space but this is where you feel most alive.
Use this time to be aware and notice where you are right now, you’ll be amazed at what you’ve been missing.
Nine, always believe the best is yet to come
Living with the faith that something brilliant is about to happen actually makes it happen. The ‘law of attraction’ means that the energy we put out into the world comes back to us.
Of course, there are days we want to give up. We feel we don’t have the energy to be positive, we’re overwhelmed with life and sometimes all we need is to retreat. That’s ok.
When you find yourself in a spiral of negative thoughts break the cycle by asking yourself out loud ‘what wonderful thing could happen?’ This small shift in energy could be game-changing.
Ten, dream big
I’m a big believer in the power of visualising to create the life you deserve. When we go through challenging times and life isn’t panning out as we’d hoped this is a great time to wipe the slate clean and create the movie of your life.
If you jumped five years from now what would you love to be living? If you dream small, life becomes small it’s only in those moments we allow ourselves to be free, dreaming limitlessly that we start making it real and live big. Chose a day every month (the New Moon is a great one) to write down your dreams and intentions of how you’re going to bring them into reality. Use this as a log over the year to check in with how far you’ve come. It’s your life, you are in control of how you feel. You have the strength within to thrive.
It’s time for life after divorce The Secret Inspirer specialises in supporting people to believe in themselves, believe anything is possible, step the other side of fear to all the juicy stuff and build resilience to thrive in a chaotic world.
If you have any questions or would like to get supported to thrive on your journey please get in touch: laura@thesecretinspirer.com , www.thesecretinspirer.com or call +44 07900 903054
This article originally appeared on the Stowe Family Law Blog. Please click here to visit the website. Would you like to submit an article? Email info@divorcedparents.co.uk
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