Do you find yourself consumed with stress and sadness while mourning the loss of your marriage?
There’s no denying that life after divorce is incredibly challenging. In fact, studies reveal that divorce is considered to be the second most stressful life event after the death of a loved one.
If you find yourself struggling with life after divorce, you’re going to want to read this. We’re uncovering eight tips for how to reinvent yourself and start over after a divorce. While these tips are not an overnight solution, they will help to minimize your stress and encourage a more positive outlook for the future.
While the road to happiness after divorce isn’t always straightforward, these tips are sure to set you on the right path.
1. Allow Yourself Time to Grieve
First and foremost, it’s important to allow yourself enough time to grieve your loss.
When it comes to a divorce, it doesn’t matter how long you were married or how troubled your marriage was. What matters is that you are now in the process of mourning the loss of a partner.
This is a true moment in life that requires proper grievances. Allow yourself time to experience feelings of sadness, anger, hope, negotiation, and confusion. These are all natural and entirely worthwhile feelings to experience.
Once you allow yourself the proper time, you can then move onto embracing acceptance.
2. Surround Yourself with Your Support System
There’s never been a more important time to surround yourself with friends and family than post-divorce.
These are the people in your life that are going to make you feel whole again. While you’re likely to shed many tears throughout, you’re also sure to experience many heartwarming and uplifting moments.
As the challenges of post-divorce weigh you down, your friends and family are going to be the ones to pick you up.
3. Get to Know Yourself Again
One of the most challenging aspects of divorce is the transition from sharing a life with your partner to spending more time alone.
While this time alone is certainly an adjustment, try to remind yourself to be thankful for this time. In times of solitude, make an active decision to cherish that alone time.
This is the time that you need to get to know yourself again post-divorce. All too often, women tend to feel that they lose a part of who they are in their marriage. When this marriage is followed by a divorce, it’s only natural for women to experience a slight identity crisis.
Use your time alone wisely and rediscover who you are. Ask yourself who you want to be, what’s most important to your happiness and what parts of your life bring you the most joy.
4. Travel
Whether you choose to escape near or far, making the decision to travel has the power to be transformative.
For the sake of your mind, it may be healthy to escape your home base and your everyday routine. Seeing a different part of the world can serve as a much-needed reminder that the world is large and the possibilities are endless.
You may choose to travel in a group to ensure that you have a support system. However, you may also opt for solo travel to present yourself with challenges and unique opportunities. Either way, travel is going to be extremely beneficial to your mind as well as your soul.
5. Do Something You’ve Always Wanted to Do
When you’re working to maintain a marriage, it’s easy to let go of some of the hopes and dreams that you had prior.
Do yourself a favor and remind yourself of all of the goals that you had prior to your marriage. Did you always dream of starting your own business? Or, what about taking the leap and planning that volunteer mission you’ve been talking about for years.
Now is officially your time to do that one thing that you’ve always wanted to do. Remember, you no longer have to abide by another person’s schedule or wishes. You are now the sole decision maker for your new life.
6. Get Healthy
If you’ve been searching for the right time to finally take your health and fitness seriously, this is it!
When you’re feeling down and that life no longer has a purpose, it’s easy to let your body and mind decline. After all, sadness is linked to a lack of energy as well as a lack of motivation.
However, it’s vital to fight through these feelings and encourage your body to exercise. Remember, exercise produces endorphins in your brain that lead to feelings of happiness and satisfaction.
When you’re feeling down, there’s nothing like those post-workout mood enhancers!
7. Embrace a New Role
Throughout your marriage, you may have been used to embracing the role of being a partner.
For many partners, as their marriage progresses, the role of being a husband or wife begins to feel all-encompassing. As a result, it may feel impossible at times to take on the possibility of a new role.
Now that that role no longer defines you, it’s time to embrace new potential roles! This could be anything from professional roles to volunteer roles as well as family-oriented roles. For example, you may find that you have more time to involve yourself in your family life including your siblings or parents.
8. Seek Help!
At the end of the day, you can only help yourself so much.
As much as you try to maintain a positive attitude and push yourself to move forward, there are going to be days that are more difficult than others. This is where scheduling routine therapy appointments will come into play.
While therapy may be a costly investment, it’s also arguably one of the most important and worthwhile investments in your lifetime. After all, this is investing in your own personal happiness and well-being.
Therapy has never been more accessible than it is today. Let’s consider that you can partake in therapy over the internet, video conference, a smartphone app and the traditional setting of an in-person appointment.
It’s also important to be sure that you have a solid understanding of how your divorce is being handled legally. This will ensure that the divorce is fair, healthy and that your well-being is considered. If you have questions about divorce and separation, visit this website to get all of the answers.
Life After Divorce: How to Start Over
Today, between 40 and 50 percent of marriages end up in divorce.
For those who have experienced divorce firsthand, many will agree that life after divorce can be messy, confusing and downright painful. While there’s no perfect solution to eliminate the pain of divorce, there are steps that each and every person can take to help minimize the pain.
It’s also important to remind yourself that this is an entirely new chapter in your life. This chapter deserves just as much attention and happiness as your prior chapter. It may be a long journey but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
For more self-help tips, be sure to browse our health and lifestyle blog!
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