Divorce Advice
During divorce it is essential to acknowledge your emotions and manage your feelings in a way that helps you make smart decisions to preserve your family, important relationships, and your dignity. This section on divorce information provides tips and strategies for managing stress and coping with your divorce.
Coping with Divorce
Now is the time to take care of yourself. The emotional stress of divorce can manifest itself in any number of ways. One person might be more susceptible to illness than usual; another might find it hard to concentrate at work; you might have far less patience with the people you care about. It is critical for you to find ways to help you relieve stress and stay centered.
Strategies for maintaining your health throughout your divorce include:
- Physical activities such as exercise, yoga and meditation are excellent ways to turn off your thinking, which is typically working in overdrive (and not necessarily for your benefit) during a divorce. Bodywork like massage can also be very effective for releasing emotion and restoring balance.
- A professional therapist can help you sort through your feelings and provide a place for you to unload some of the overwhelming emotions that tend to dominate people during divorce. If powerful emotions are not directly addressed and defused, that they will manifest in other ways, often unexpectedly and sometimes destructively.
- Many communities offer divorce recovery groups, which typically provide an outlet for processing emotions and a peer group that can be a wonderful source of support.
- If you enjoy writing, journaling can be an effective way of expressing and processing emotions.
- Supportive family and friends are great resources – accept their kindness. Those who do not support your happiness but want to stir up drama are not people you can count on now. You will surely get lots of well-meaning advice. While this is informative, you are ultimately best served by listening to your own feelings and the advice of unbiased professional resources. Asking yourself, “What do I need right now?” can help you access the right resource in the moment.
Be gentle and generous with yourself during this challenging time – this is the rainy day that you have always saved for. Seek the courage to experience this painful transition as deeply as you can bear. In doing so, you will ultimately find relief, compassion and understanding.
Divorces resolved through the Collaborative Law model are less traumatic than litigated divorces, but that does not mean they are easy. Most of the legal side of your divorce requires you to make business decisions – right at the time when you are not thinking clearly. Doing your best to handle your emotions outside of the joint meeting room will result in a smoother process and a more beneficial result for all concerned.