Feeling Stuck After Divorce (Instead of Free)
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In the movies, divorce is usually portrayed as knock-down-drag-out nastiness, or an occasion for a huge sigh of relief.
In the real world, divorce isn’t a caricature. It’s a major life event, ushering in massive change. Everything can feel like it’s up in the air.
And that can trigger the primitive fear centers in your brain, challenging even the strongest, most confident people and their best-laid plans, leaving them feeling unsettled, anxious, and frozen in place, regardless of how amicable the split was or who initiated it.
Here are a few ideas for putting solid ground back under your feet as you navigate the divorce process and your post-divorce life.
Anchor yourself in familiar things
When you’re feeling anxiety about a divorce, or worried about your life after a divorce, it’s no secret why.
When we experience change of that magnitude, it freaks out the reptilian parts of our brain, which crave security and comfort above all else.
The path forward doesn’t even need to feel scary in order for us to start feeling anxious—just having the future feel uncertain is often enough.
Of course, divorce is a big change, and you can’t do anything about that. What you can do is feed your brain familiarity and security in other parts of your life.
This is the time to connect (or reconnect) with old friends you have a long history with, or places where you’ve felt safe, at peace, or connected with others.
In between visits with friends, return to the private havens you have inside of yourself, too. Remember that book from years ago, with the character or story that resonated with you deeply?
Now’s the time to re-read it and see what it reveals to you at this moment in time.
Look (within) before you leap
Sometimes when people are facing the uncertainty of life after divorce, they’re tempted to make other drastic life changes, too.
Some people really are super eager to get on with their lives. For many, though, this is an unconscious way to try to distract themselves from difficult feelings and find an external solution to an internal problem.
Either way, picking now to move across the country or change careers can further overwhelm your primitive brain’s tolerance for change.
Plus, when we jump away from turbulent or difficult times too fast, it can rob us of a chance to gain valuable insight into ourselves.
What can you learn about yourself from your experience of the divorce process? Or your experience of marriage? I’m not talking about practical lessons learned.
I’m talking about reflecting on your feelings, thoughts, decisions, and behaviors, and considering what those things say about what’s important to you.
What was your underlying motivation for your actions—both the ones you regret and the ones you’re grateful for? Does that reveal something about you that needs to be healed? Soothed? Challenged? Amplified?
Life transitions like divorce can be incredibly valuable opportunities to boost your self-awareness—and that’s what you’ll need if you want a more gratifying path forward for yourself than the one you’ve had.
Navigating divorce mindfully
The instability of divorce causes people to be knee-jerk reactive, have tunnel vision, neglect fulfilling activities, fixate on short-term gratification . . . the list goes on!
What all of those have in common is that they usually end up making things worse.
I usually encourage my clients to begin a mindfulness meditation practice as soon as possible during the process of their divorce. Mindfulness meditation is a way to practice being more at ease with whatever life brings your way—good or bad.
I recommend it for a number of reasons. For one, it’s a natural way to reduce the stress of divorce. For another, it helps us to tolerate, and then regulate, the strong emotions that arise.
Creating just a little space between the emotion and your reaction to it can make all the difference between flying off the handle at the wrong time, and thanking yourself later for responding with your long-term well-being in mind.
That comes in handy when you’re hearing the revelations and having the conversations that divorce often entails, whether it be with your ex, or when it’s all on the line, in a deposition, arbitration, or courtroom.
You don’t need much time to get started, and experiencing some of these benefits. If you have 15 minutes, I’ll walk you through a guided mindfulness meditation right now.
Remember to look up
As I mentioned before, fixating on difficulty during major life changes like divorce is quite natural—it’s our reptilian brain’s way of trying to keep us safe by staying focused.
Of course, the process of your divorce, and your life after divorce, do need your attention, so this isn’t entirely bad.
But when you’re only staring down at your boots all day, every day, trudging up the mountain of this difficult process, that’s how poeple end up feeling stuck, demoralized, and unhappy.
So, the tips above complement a more general one: you need to take a look around and place your current reality in context. Often.
Expand your perspective by looking back and appreciating how far you’ve come, and what new possibilities you can glimpse from where you are now, that you never could before. Journal about what is coming up for you, or paint. Or doodle.
With an open mind and curiosity about this phase of your life, and yourself, you can emerge from your divorce feeling transformed . . . but really, just returned to your strong, confident, happy, authentic self that’s been obscured for a while, and patiently waiting for you to return to collect it.
Does this approach to divorce sound good to you? Do people ever tell you that you think too much? If so, we should probably talk about my elite divorce coaching program, and get you on the express train to the life you’ve deserved, and not had, for too long.
You an also help yourself to a free download of my Setback Survival Pack, by clicking the box below or right here. It’s a set of mind-body skills that’ll help you feel more grounded, wise, and rested in the next 24 hours.
