Your marriage has ended. You are trying to let go and move on with your life. If only the painful memories of the past few years and the joyful memories of what used to be, would stop haunting you. Like a ghost, the thoughts creep into your head unexpectedly to knock you off balance. You feel fine one moment, and a total mess the next.
The emotions we feel after a
divorce; are very much like the feelings we experience after the death of a close loved one. Several weeks or months after the divorce is final, you may feel as if you have cleared out all the emotional junk. Then, one day, you find yourself on the kitchen floor, sobbing uncontrollably. You don’t want your spouse back, but you are missing what you had envisioned your life was going to be with him or her. It’s the death of a life that is no longer a possibility… at least
not with that person.
Because you have been feeling strong and confident over the past few weeks, you may tend to look at this “breakdown” as a setback. I want to assure you that you are not going backwards. It is unrealistic to believe that your healing is going to take place in an straight, upward slanting line. Healing is more like a spiral or a wave. Don’t admonish yourself for “losing it” over a memory of what used to be, or a
vision of what could have been. This is a normal part of the healing process. You will experience ups, downs and plateaus. Be gentle, patient and loving with yourself through all these emotions.
One of the most important things you can do to facilitate healing, is to listen to, and embrace every one of your feelings. If you’re feeling angry, allow yourself to be angry. Punch pillows, sit in your parked car and scream out your
frustrations at your ex. Take the necessary safety precautions, but smashing some glassware against a wall can be very liberating. Writing a letter to your ex that you will burn or shred can help release pent-up emotions, or give you the closure you may think you need.
Post-divorce, it is common for us to fill our days with activity from sunup to sundown. This enables us to stuff down our feelings because we simply don’t have time for them.
Keeping ourselves too busy to feel anything, can and usually does, backfire. When we stifle our painful feelings, we also bury our joy. Weeks or months of ignoring our emotional needs will lead to feeling overburdened, resentful, and burned out.
You can interrupt the busyness habit, if you make a conscious effort to slow down. Talk a little slower. Drive a little slower. Eat a little slower. Take 5 - 10 minutes every
morning and every evening, to just sit quietly. If you have to, lock yourself in your bedroom. Set a timer and ask your kids to give you 10 minutes of uninterrupted time. If your children are not old enough to understand that concept, get up before they do in the morning, or wait until they go to bed at night. Use that time to get calm and peaceful. Just sit quietly. Do not engage with any thoughts. Sometimes it helps to have a prayer, mantra or an
affirmation that you can repeat to yourself during that time or throughout each day.
Someday, in the not-too-distant future, you are going to notice that the feelings of anger, grief and confusion rarely surface any more. Until then, like a surfer on the ocean, ride the waves when the ocean is rough and enjoy the peace when the water is calm. You can’t control the frequency or the intensity of the waves, but you ARE in control of the surfboard.
Kind Regards,
