Coping with Life After Divorce
Oct. 28, 2019
Divorce is an agonizing experience. Determining and your family's new life in the weeks and months after the divorce can be a real challenge. Then when you add life's everyday stresses to the mix, it can seem completely overwhelming.
There are several approaches you can take to establish some stability in your post-divorce life, and a few life components to focus on to pull you through the tough times.
Set a Routine. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day. Make it a point to write in your journal every morning. End the day with a ritual, be it reading, music, or a good cup of tea.
Exercise Daily. You don't have to go crazy and sign up for a gym membership. Try walking for 30 minutes a day around the neighborhood. Take the stairs at work. Park in a parking spot far away from the entrance. Try ten pushups. Try five, or one. Do something.
Don't Isolate Yourself. Make time to hang out with friends. Grab a drink, take in a movie, have a cigar, go golfing. Call your family, volunteer, get coffee at a coffee shop and strike up conversation with strangers. Connect with someone every day.
Do Something New. Always wanted to learn French? Buy a program and do it. Never been hiking in your state's national park? Go do it. Always wanted a tattoo? Give it a try! (Just start small!)
Travel. Do a small road trip. Pick an attraction about 2-4 hours away and go on a tour. Take a friend if possible. Explore a distant brewery, orchard, theater, park, beach, forest, river, or city.
It can be overwhelming to deal with the big life changes divorce brings, but don't sit there in a trance. If you don't know where you're going, be careful or you just might wind up there. Get out there and experience life! Surround yourself with people that are positive and support you and encourage you to be your best.
This is the first day of your new life, a blank canvas that you can make into whatever you want. You don't have to be superman. No one is asking you to become a soldier of fortune, or an international man of mystery. But you owe it to yourself to take the reins of your life and create the environment and the enjoyable path that you want it to take.