Post-Divorce Emotions

How To Persevere In The Face Of Massive Disappointment

September 4, 2019

It happened again. He left without explanation. She fired a colleague. The weekend with your kids was a bust. How often do we have to face massive disappointments? I wager, all the time! So often in fact, it’s astounding anyone has the energy to keep going. How do you persevere in the face of massive disappointments? Below, I’ll share mine.

My wedding day bliss turned to massive disappointments more than once!

I learned to persevere, to allow love back in not by heading to shore and dry-docking my boat but by allowing myself to get back out there! To love, to enter into marriage is a public declaration that you’re willing to risk being hurt. It’s a creative, bold move. No one casually enters into wedlock. You see, I’m definitely not one to shrink in the face of being bold.

But I dislike disappointments as much as the next person so I’ve had to figure out ways to keep going.

As an actress, I’ve faced thousands more rejections than most. Judged on the color of my hair or my height or the number of wrinkles on my face, those disappointments can add up. They are personal. There’s not much I could do about my height but I also didn’t get to work opposite Tom Cruise because of it.

I’ve learned that to persevere in the face of massive disappointments, you have to be bold.

Pick up the pieces, wipe your tears, pull up your big girl (or guy) pants and get going again. It’s not easy nor is it fair but no matter what you want, you’re responsible for doing your best to get it.

If you’ve fallen in and out of love, having had your heart broken a few times, you may know what I’m talking about. It takes courage to keep going. To go online and start dating again. We hope those risks will pay off.

But what if they don’t? What if you do your best, persevere and decide it’s not worth it. That’s fine! You’ve made your decision for now and I’d tell you to try to accept it.

Unfortunately, disappointments come more often than any of us would like. Because change is omnipresent. Things change all around us all the time. And we don’t like it. I don’t like change anymore than anyone else. It can be tough to keep going. I’m in the midst of a massive change right now with my kids off to college and it is not comfortable.

Disappointments are not wrong. Change is uncomfortable.

So I get up each day and decide to feel good. (It’s not always easy.) And when I decide, I also hope – that it will feel okay to be among new people, doing new things. Sometimes it’s easier than others. Sometimes it stinks but like with falling in love, I don’t stay on shore. I get up and head out, being bold and courageous once again. Because, for me there is no other choice.

Laura Bonarrigo is a Certified Life Coach and Certified Divorce Coach. Laura’s a writer, public speaker, and advisor to those ready to move their lives forward. For empowering and practical ways to begin anew whether personally or professionally, set up a call here.

Be A Good Dad To Your Wounded Kids (Learn How To Help Your Kids Heal)

September 16, 2018

As a child, I went through my parent’s divorce. I can speak from experience about how difficult it was to watch my home break apart. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fun. And my brothers and sisters and I definitely did not want it. Saying all that, however, doesn’t mean that going forward, my life was terrible or that my parent’s divorce wasn’t a good thing for me and my brothers and sisters. It means, as a single dad, you can learn how to be a good parent to your wounded kids by helping their hearts to heal. You learn how to help your kids heal by making sure you lead the way by healing your own heart first. You help your kids heal from divorce by doing your healing process on your own.

A single dad has plenty he can do to help his kids heal and deal with the changes the family unit is going through during a divorce.

There are a pacing and a processing that has to happen as everyone catches up with the facts. Emotional resilience and stamina have to be built as a way to teach your kids not to shrink in the face of struggle. Even though they don’t want it, there are the discipline and daily rhythm needed by every teen and child. And there’s the hope and optimism that will allow your kids to believe in the institution should they want to invest their time and energy into marrying one day.

A good dad is a perfect person to help wounded kids learn these skills.

Who else is going to prove to a teenager or a child that they can learn to cope well too? However, as the single parent, you first have to figure out how to cope well yourself before you can expect your kids to believe they can as well. Which requires owning up to your own wounds.

Now, as a man, I get it… you’re asking me what wounds? What broken heart, misplaced loyalties or lack of self-respect? I understand none of those things happened to you during your marriage or divorce. I know. But your kids see all of these insults even when or if you don’t. They’re the boys modeling after you how to be men (to women like their moms) and the girls who will marry a man just like you. Since chances are very good that they’re going to repeat the same patterns that got you and their mother into trouble, perhaps, you’d like to help your kids heal by taking a look at what happened first? And change the course of the future?

By learning how to help your kids heal, you’re actually releasing your wounded kids from having to help you.

It’s not your kids’ job to figure out how to navigate your emotional wounds. When you set aside time and energy each week to process the experience, you can then return home and parent with greater clarity. You learn what patterns and behaviors didn’t serve the marriage. You let the emotions go while at home with the kids being a single dad because you’ve got a time and place to delve into them. When you hire a mentor, you become confident you’ll get through the process faster and easier than being left on your own to figure out. No one wants to deal with this stuff for the rest of their lives!

Your children’s wounds are hidden behind their teenage hormones, childish tantrums, and lack of discipline or drive.

As their world has fallen apart – something they never asked for – their safety and security also disappeared. They’re re-learning whom to trust. As their father, your role is to provide safety and security first and foremost. Not be their best friend, indulgent shopper or frightened adult unsure of where to go next. It’s best that as children, they don’t spend a lot of time with that part of you. Even when they know intuitively it’s there. That healing work is yours to do on your own with a mentor, a therapist, a coach. Not with your kids. Your kids need you to be their rock. To maintain discipline, safe boundaries, some structure to their day and of course, to love and nurture them.

A single dad who’s doing his healing models emotional resilience.

As you trust that you can handle the swirl of emotions – mostly anger or guilt – and deal with the things you can control moving forward, you build greater emotional resilience. Your children need someone in their lives to model this and it might as well be you. Your kids need to understand that life isn’t fair. That shit happens. And that we all need to pick ourselves up again over and over again. More often than any of us wish.

As you put your breakup into perspective willing and able to gain some wisdom in the process, you’ll be better able to share with your child how to grow stronger in the face of adversity and loss. What an incredible gift to give to a young person!

A good dad holds himself accountable for being the single parent who helps his children heal.

The more you hold yourself accountable and manage your feelings, the better you’ll be able to maintain discipline and schedules when you’re the single parent. You’ll help your child accept safe boundaries, keep time for homework or attend sports practices. And participate in the inevitable chores most kids of divorced parents have to take on.

No one likes to participate in new rules or chores especially when they didn’t want to go to a second home in the first place. A single dad, willing and able to maintain discipline earns greater respect from his kids. It’s tough to do so when overcome with guilt or shame for the changes the breakup brought upon the family.

A dad, able to process and heal, on his own without leaning on his children, gives his kids the time and space to do their own healing as well.

This can get confusing for adults going through a divorce. They don’t understand how hard it is for their kids. Most single parents are so caught up with their own pain, they forget their children come from two of you – the two of you who are fighting. So single dads bad-mouth the mothers or the kids are told way too much about the divorce case. Each parent tries to play the kids off one another and the kids, your kids, won’t and don’t want anything to do with you.

WhenI talk about this to parents, they naturally become defensive. But listen, we all make mistakes, especially when a separation first occurs. Emotions run high and a lot of stuff is said and done. Without the kind of help to put your own feelings in order, you can’t expect to be able to single parent your kids well. It’ll take way too long and you’ll do too much damage to your kids without professional help. This is how single parenting went for divorced parents way back when I was a kid. None of us got the kind of help we all needed.

Don’t make your kids do the healing that’s yours to do.

Then your kids will end up doing lots of work on themselves as they grow older and start to think about getting married themselves. Without doing your process, you set your kids up to do the healing for the entire family. That includes your work and their other parent’s as well as healing their own pain. That’s neither fair or appropriate. It calls into question who the adult is…

Since your kids are wounded… even when they hide it… helping their hearts heal is part of your role as a good dad. Or a good single mom. How to help your kids heal? Your children will need time and space to process what’s happened away from you. They will need a mentor, a coach, a teacher, a social worker, someone they can speak with each week for a period of time so they too can make sense of what happened.

You can change the way your children view love and marriage.

Kids who are given a chance to process are better able to get on with their own lives. Their schoolwork stays stable or perhaps even improves. They’re not so prone to risky behavior. Instead of confusing the role of relationships, they don’t try to use sex to get the kind of attention they actually need from their parents. The negative statistics for kids whose parents divorce are not good. (And I don’t recommend you go seek them out.) Instead, I suggest you shore up your homefront by controlling the things you can control: your healing and time and space for your kids’ healing. And you get to work learning how to be a good single dad.

What wounded kids want from their dads:

All I ever wanted from my dad (whom I rarely saw per the way things went back then) was a warm connection, support, and to know he loved me. Not seeing him meant he wasn’t my disciplinarian. But because I heard so many bad things about him, it was really tough to connect. Today, things are very different. We look down upon parental alienation. We encourage co-parenting and equal parenting time. Kids are more comfortable going back and forth between homes and many more families are separated.

But what hasn’t changed over the course of modern-day breakups is the wounding kids have because of the loss of their primary family structure. They are afraid of the institution of marriage. Young adults are cynical about the romance of true love. They mature with the idea that sex is the be-all and end-all of intimacy. And all too often, they re-create the very patterns and behaviors of their parents’ marriages that ended in divorce. Those negative statistics are there as well – I call divorce a generational disease. And as such, we, as those going through the experience, need to do our healing process first so as to help our children. That’s what I call being a good dad to your wounded kids and helping their hearts to heal.

It Won’t Suck Forever. 6 Signs You’re Actually Moving On From Your Divorce

August 9, 2018

Getting over a breakup is never easy. But I promise it won’t suck forever. It does suck for quite some time, however. That pain is usually covered up by this acute anger or fear or depression. It often feels as if you’ll never make it through this stage, doomed to deal with your breakup for the rest of your life. But despite the worry or tears, there are several signs that show up when you’re actually moving on from your divorce. These are the signals you want to know about. They’re proof your getting over your breakup and that a good life after divorce will happen.

How to get over a breakup when you still love each other.

This is that suck forever feeling. The obsession over whether or not you’ll ever move on. But in reality, you may always love each other. Even just a little bit. After all, there was something in them that made you want them in your life, to begin with. When they get into your heart, they often own a piece of it going forward.

So when you still love each other, it’s hard to know what to do after the breakup. You’ll search around for meaning and experiment with dating. You’ll do your best to forget about them and wrestle with tons of sadness and guilt. You’ve lost someone you’ve grown accustomed to even when or if the relationship wasn’t healthy or easy.

Life after divorce is filled with growth.

Growth isn’t always fun. It’ll often feel as if you’re never going to move on from your divorce in the midst of the emotional hit. Eventually, however, you’ll begin to calm down and embrace the changes going on.

Signs you’re actually moving on from your divorce:

Slow down and breathe. Way too often in the midst of the anxiety, we literally forget to breathe. Now, I’m not the best silent meditator in the world but I can walk. And, I do a lot of walking! Simply moving my body, lifting weights, walking, getting on a bicycle helps me move that anxious energy. Slow down and walk to calm your body and relax your thoughts.

Manage your thoughts. When you’re able to shift that anxious energy toward a calmer feeling, you may or may not actually like it despite what you’re declaring to anyone who’ll listen. Some people keep the anxiety going not because they like the anger or worry but because they don’t realize they can control their thoughts and feelings. You can and you must!

You will know that you’ve turned the corner of your breakup when you can slow down and breathe, and manage your thoughts. These are welcomed signs!

How to deal with a breakup.

Start with a good attitude. I often use the term perspective when discussing the experience of divorce. The stages you go through are rather universal. Sure, you have your own personality and story. But, for the most part, the perspective you need is not personal at all. Your attitude and how you handle what you know and what you’re doing is.

When you’re able to get some perspective on this modern-day rite of passage, you’ll be better able to stop the stress you’re experiencing. When you can hold the experience with optimism and courage, you’re on your way toward healing your life after divorce!

Perspective includes objectively recognizing the situation you’re in. Owning your part in the breakup. Doing your healing work not just saying you are as if intellectually understanding it means you’re body, heart and mind are healed from the trauma. You want to feel at peace with where you are in the process.

Perspective helps you avoid Post-Traumatic Divorce Disorder™… the sticky, horrible sense that your life will always be about your divorce. It’s important to grasp this not because I want to make your day worse but because without the awareness that divorce is something we do and therefore something we can do well, the longer you will remain stuck.

It won’t suck forever.

Most of the time, the tension of the negotiation or litigation is so difficult that people are willing to throw in the towel and stop the fight. It takes real time to wrap up a life that wasn’t working. Way too often people in negotiation feel as if they can’t handle the tension and fighting when they’ve no idea how much they’re capable of tolerating and getting through. They underestimate their own emotional resilience.

You see, very few people truly want to fight with a former lover. I notice that the negotiation and fight often come up when people aren’t emotionally ready to move on. No matter what they’re saying. Unaware of the hidden patterns, they’re afraid of who they’ll be after the marriage. They’re unsure about their future security, financial well-being or the relationship with their children. So they hang on using the other parent or the ex as a familiar connection.

No one can tell you how long to fight or what you should fight for. That includes your attorney, dad, children or your ex. This is a deeply personal decision. However, you also need to know when enough is enough. When the fight and the attorney fees have become a distraction from the very life you claim you want to create. Often times the fight is simply fear of letting go.

You will know that you’ve turned the corner of your breakup when you can trust that your life will become better and accept that you have to do it without the person you’ve been accustomed to. These are welcomed signs!

Life experience is not all about making mistakes.

It takes a while to create a better life after divorce. The gestation period to create the very life you claim you want takes longer than falling in love. It’s harder than giving birth. It costs more than starting your own company. Okay, I’ve taken a little creative liberty here but you get my point. It doesn’t happen all at once or right away. Nor will it show up the way you imagine.

The emotional growth you have to go through doesn’t look like the fantasies you held onto to get out of your marriage. The tricky thing is that emotional growth gets disguised by falling in love or moving or getting a new job. In fact, all of those things are helpful but none of them are what makes a better life. Many complicate your life instead, ratcheting up stress levels. Usually, those first few romances fall apart making things more confusing or upsetting.

Compassion helps because you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. Do your best to accept that fact. Learn to watch yourself go through the things you go through so you don’t beat yourself up. You will know that you’ve turned the corner of your breakup when you allow yourself to make the mistakes you’re inevitably going to make and accept all of them. These are welcomed signs!

Getting over a breakup will not take forever. Nor does it have to suck! You do, however, have to give yourself the care and attention required to do your divorce better. And when you do, your life will get better. I am not a big fan of watching people mess things up over and over again. I created my online group programs precisely because too many people make the separation process harder than it has to be. You don’t have to! Learn more here.

Laura Bonarrigo is a Certified Life Coach and a Certified Divorce Coach. Laura’s a writer, public speaker and the founder of doingDivorce™ School an online coaching program for those ready to shed the pain of divorce. For empowering and practical ways to lose the identity of your past, visit www.doingDivorceSchool.com.

The 5 Things You Yearn For Most During Your Separation Or Divorce And Ways to Get Over Missing Them

July 17, 2018

It doesn’t really matter who wants to end a partnership. Endings are hard. We feel the effects of backing down, getting out, and leaving our commitments whether it be to an organization like a company or employer or a family unit. We do not like change. Change brings with it a lot of feelings – feelings that catch many of us off-guard. We miss our kids, our friends, our routines, the lifestyle. One of the hardest parts about separation and divorce is accepting all the changes and feeling the emptiness that separation brings with it. I know you’re yearning for the things you miss. Here are the 5 things you yearn for most during your separation or divorce and ways to get over missing them.

Things you yearn for most: missing your children

You may have been the most absent parent around but when it comes to being forcibly separated from your children, you’ll find the emptiness really difficult. Your children are a part of you and I’ve yet to meet a parent going through separation or divorce who has an easy time letting go. Our need here is primal, not personal!

Too often we beat ourselves up during divorce wondering why or how we could have let these important relationships wane over the years. I find these thoughts impossible questions to answer with comfort. Instead, I recommend feeling your feelings without the need to make them more than they are.

In other words, just miss your kids.

Feel the feelings that go along with the yearning for someone. Understand what it feels like to take the first step and rebuild your relationships with your children. On your own without their other parent in your lives. Do your best to show up for your kids when you’re with them without making things worse by asking them about their other parent. Stay on your side of the street without needing to compare lifestyles.

You will long for seeing them and then, over time, you’ll become as comfortable as they will with the new routine. Life will settle down. It’s up to you how long this process takes and what you’ll do with your children when you have them. It’s best to focus on those thoughts and find the answers you can live with.

Things you yearn for most: longing for your old lifestyle

The routines, friendships, status, and material items you once took for granted will loom large in your memory as you step out on your own. In fact, too many people remain married in unhappy relationships precisely because of material needs and benefits. I don’t blame them! It’s way easier to stick to your corner of a mansion or have an affair than willingly walk away from an easy life.

So when lifestyle changes happen whether you were the one who asked to leave or you were forced out, the struggle will have you pining for your old ways. It’s not easy. This is where comparing your new lifestyle with theirs seeps in all the time.

First-hand experience

My lifestyle dramatically changed once my children’s father and I divorced. I recreated my profession, moved uptown, and had to return to school. My kids and I felt the transition. The vacations and clothes shopping shifted from high-end stores and resorts to online sales and visits to family. These kinds of changes may or may not build character. Regardless, they’re felt physically and emotionally.

With lifestyle changes, the routines you once kept, the friends you once had typically go away. It’s not easy to show up at the same country club charitable dances with a new lover on your arm. You shouldn’t expect to be greeted kindly while your ex is there socializing with your old friends. Do that once and chances are, you won’t be eager to do so again.

Ways to get over missing them: new friendships

Instead, look for new friendships and events that will help you redefine who you are today. We cannot go back. My coach says, “yesterday is as over as WWII”. It’s much easier to strike out on your own and find new people to socialize with, new events to go to, and to create new holiday memories than it is to try to keep up the old ways. New people bring with them new conversations and experiences. It’s going to feel odd but by doing so, you create something wholly your own.

Today, my children and I share holiday and vacation memories that are uniquely ours. I have an entirely new group of colleagues and friends that I adore (and wouldn’t trade for the world). And my lifestyle is getting closer to where I like it to be. I may or may not have more character, but what I do have is the ability to walk through my home with my head held high. And that lifestyle choice is priceless.

Things you yearn for most: feeling safe and protected

On a primal level, we all need to feel wanted, safe and protected. It’s a feeling that comes with our DNA genetic coding. It’s the experience of nurturing our kin and keeping our families, communities, and countries (our tribe) together. All of us have this in us.

So when you’re family or your relationship ends, you most likely will have moments of intense sadness and feelings of being cast aside. You will probably ache for safety and protection, long for someone to hold you at night (and may start sleeping around just to get physical touch). You will think there’s something wrong with you when that’s the furthest thing from the truth.

Feeling safe and protected is also rational.

We create safety and protection by choosing a good place to live. We know how to select healthy people as friends, and to abide by community standards and state laws. Safety is something we create for ourselves moment by moment. The need to stay safe is also in our genetic makeup.

As you go about recreating your routines, stay tuned to the intuitive hits and gut feelings about where to live, the kind of furniture and even the bed you buy for your new home; pay attention to the things your new group of friends does to entertain themselves and don’t be afraid to move on if they’re doing things that threaten your sense of security. The failure to protect yourself and your kids as you recreate your life aren’t left to chance. You’re the one who has to put a sense of safety front and center.

You know what you need. Trust your gut and make sure your new life has a foundation that you can build on.

Things you yearn for most: missing sex

Yep, you’re going to miss the ease with which your relationship afforded sex (when it did). You will have less sex with a committed partner at first unless you jump into another relationship right away. No one (except your ex and your kids) would blame you if you did!

I’m a big believer in having intimate relationships. For men, intimacy gives them a chance to feel loved and wanted. For women, it provides safety and security never mind a good time. So I’m not advising you to stay home and sulk. However, saying that, most of the time, during separation and divorce, those first relationships do not last and simply create more heartache. They’re usually filled with angst, guilt, frustration because they are not what you’re used to. And they usually cause a lot of drama with your family and friends as you’re all getting used to all the changes.

Ways to get over missing sleeping around

Some people wrongly think that sleeping around or experimenting with new ways of doing it are the answer to the loneliness and their primal needs. Life becomes quite titillating for awhile. There are secrecy and a big turn on factor. Again, perfectly fine as long as you realize the multiple partners and experimenting are a distraction from the pain you don’t want to feel.

When the novelty wears off, usually, you’ll settle into your new lifestyle omitting the group sex and multiple partners for something more familiar and long-lasting. It’s then that you’ve got a chance for your sex life to normalize and improve. You’ll know how to maintain romance because chances are it dwindled during your marriage, and you’ll be grateful for the person in your arms – all recipes for a satisfying and long love life.

Don’t worry about missing sex. You’ll find your way back to it if you want it!

Ways to get over missing feeling loved and wanted

Usually, women won’t have sex without feeling loved and wanted. Many women don’t sleep around. Many won’t, it’s completely off their radar in terms of healthy relationships. Feeling loved and wanted is underneath most men’s craving for sex as well. We are only human after all.

We yearn for feeling loved and wanted. It’s all over us. We all long to greet a new lover. (When we find one.) This is natural, normal and definitely missing when you first separate and divorce. Sometimes it may take years of healing to allow someone new into your heart.

I see this over and over again with my clients and students as they struggle to find ways to get over missing feeling loved and wanted. I myself had to take a long break from dating before I could trust myself to let someone safe in. Decide what works for you. But don’t think for one moment that you’ll get used to being single. You will but there’ll always be a tinge of wanting love in your being.

When you do decide to let someone in, you risk all the things you’re afraid of. Vulnerability will be present. You’ll worry that they may hurt you, especially if violence has been a part of your past. Be tuned to your intuition and wisdom. Pay attention to your kids’ safety, your own heart. And yet, know that the feelings of love, safety, and protection are primal. There’s no escaping these very basic human needs.

Sex and intimacy feel good. That doesn’t mean you won’t hold all your concerns as equally valid. Both are valid and true. It just means you’re wiser and more experienced, ready to trust yourself and move on after your separation or divorce to the things you yearn for and are allowed to have.

Things you yearn for most: a great life.

It’s your responsibility to decide what you want and to go out and get it. So, I invite you to discover my divorce school. I teach a select group of people how to safely go through their separation and divorce so that they don’t repeat the patterns and mistakes of their past. This curriculum-based program is for those who want to understand this modern-day rite of passage.

If You’re Sick Of Feeling Miserable About Your Divorce, Here’s How To Stop Thinking About It

July 13, 2018

The biggest struggle when getting over a breakup or a divorce is the ongoing, non-stop, obsessive thinking loops that keep us worried and feeling miserable about the state of our lives. Of course, you do your best to stop the nonstop inner noise. But the self-criticism, the anger, and the nonstop, internal fighting with your ex are almost impossible to turn off. Are you sick of feeling miserable about your divorce? Here’s how to stop thinking about your breakup for a while. All of it… the good, the bad, the ugly.

What is all this thinking about anyway?

Obsessive thinking loops are just that – thoughts that go round and round your head filling you with miserable feelings. We all obsess about getting over a breakup or a divorce. You work super hard to figure out how to move on after your divorce even when you’re the one who wanted it. Of course, you’re doing your best to deal with your breakup no matter how much it hurts. No one blames you for trying. It’s just much harder to stop thinking about it than we realize.

While your body is in fear… the limbic system… that part of us that relates to all things reptile (yes, think crocs and lizards) has its own wiring. It’s a deep, internal part of our neurology. It also reacts when our lives are in danger. Getting over a breakup or a divorce brings with it enormous change. Change is life-threatening to our limbic systems. So, it makes sense from this point of view that you’re having a tough time turning off the nonstop obsessive thinking loops. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to do so without some outside help and self-awareness.

How to stop being sick of feeling miserable.

Help doesn’t have to come in the form of medication, drugs or even a good cry. Help comes with perspective and new, better coping skills. And then, over time, an acceptance that life is changing and you’re going to have to change too. It’s almost as if you have to let go in the midst of the fear and trust that you’ll be okay. (You will be okay even when you don’t believe it.)

Without the willingness to feel all the feelings and be open to change, you’ll, unfortunately, remain obsessed and unable to cope with your break up. If you’re sick of feeling miserable about your divorce, here are some ways to stop thinking about it for a while.

Think about something else instead of being sick of feeling miserable.

Soooooo much easier said than done! (Haven’t you been trying to do this all along?)

Well, consider this: if your child was ill and needed your immediate attention or your parents needed you at the hospital, I bet you’d forget all about yourself and your breakup almost immediately. You’d put your attention on someone, something else wouldn’t you? You would take action to help those you love immediately.

In fact, if your parents or your children need your help, you would forget about yourself. Instead, you would focus on them and the things you can control. You’d do your best to help. You’d show up ready and able to lend a hand. When others need us, we show up.

Feeling miserable about your divorce, choose to take action.

The best cure for feeling miserable is taking action. Walk outside. Go to the gym. Chop wood. Clean your house. Get into motion and think about taking care of yourself instead of allowing your thoughts to go round and round.

When we’re miserable or obsessed with certain thoughts, it’s tough to shift gears and focus on new things. Getting into activity helps. It may also help you become healthier (and who doesn’t want to become a little healthier or fitter after leaving a relationship?) Activity helps feelings move through our bodies. We are feeling animals and those feelings need to be expressed not repressed and shoved down.

When you move, you help emotions move through you instead of being pushed down and made stagnant. You’ll begin to feel better simply by getting into motion. Then the motion begins to feed upon itself and before you know it, you’ll be running marathons, dancing the tango and getting into the best shape of your life!

Sick of feeling miserable about your divorce? Surround yourself with other people.

Running marathons and learning to tango may not be for you but both have something in common. Both experiences force you to surround yourself with new people. People who are counting on you, who can help you learn a new skill or help you get into better shape.

Surround yourself with new people who never knew you as a couple. That is perhaps, the best thing you can do for yourself.

Not feeling up to meeting new people? Of course, you don’t!

That lizard part of our brains wants us to hide when we’re not feeling good about ourselves. But here’s the thing, when you hide and avoid making new friends or taking action or caring for someone else, your mind plays tricks on you. It’ll say some horrible things about you while you sit there trying to become comfortable with your loneliness or boredom. And, the worst part? You’ll believe it!

Then six months will go by then a year, two years. Before you know it, you’ll look back and several years will have gone by and you’ll still be sitting there feeling miserable about your divorce or breakup!

We all do it.

Everyone getting over a breakup pulls in and wants to hide. We all feel miserable when we start comparing our lives to other people’s lives. (Or when we compare our lives to the ones we used to have. Ouch!)

So, do me a favor. Well, actually, do yourself a big favor… go do something that scares you. A little (no burning buildings please.) Head outside and say hello to a neighbor, head over to the local YMCA and join a team. Take a new class. Begin getting outside and exercising your body. Even when you don’t want to and you won’t want to! Expect not to want to. Be prepared to feel really awkward and embarrassed. Perhaps even afraid.

It’s okay.

You are okay.

You are even safe.

It’s not easy to get your body moving or to focus on something else but it is doable. (Yoga anyone?!) The idea is to get out of your own way and out of your own head. To focus on the things you can control and excel at! Choose to have small wins and to take easy steps. In general, surround yourself with other people also working toward a happier future. And know, the more you take these actions, the easier they’ll become!