How to Keep your Heart Open through Divorce

When going through divorce it’s very difficult to see the bigger picture of how life will play out afterwards.  It might seem that you can’t be fully open to any possibilities or happiness through this transition, but that’s not quite true.  You can find happiness during this process and learn how to not only love yourself but others as well. 

“The best advice to build your emotional resilience while going through divorce.” says Ray Fisher, a Philadelphia-based therapist.    

Fisher suggests this practice of building emotional strength can be done through the following four basic steps:

1. Build your self awareness
   Get into the mindset of identifying the problems you come across, trust your intuition more and build reasoning and logic into your daily life. When something emotional comes across your path, you can then reason with your mind to see if how you are reacting is logical in the situation. When you have control over your emotions you have control over the situation and how you respond.
   
   
2. Be empathetic towards yourself and others.
   Allow yourself to make mistakes, feel emotions and go through the stages of divorce.  When people want to help you, try and be open to their help if they are someone you feel you can trust. Allow yourself to be proud of the little steps you take towards creating emotional strength.
   
   
3. Stay patient through the process of divorce and the inevitable emotions.  
   There may be sadness, anger, hurt and jealousy but also you may also experience a new found happiness, joy and interest in things that you may have not paid attention to in the past.  It’s normal to feel a range of emotions through this process.
   
   
4.  Sit in silence without any distractions.  
   With so many ways to lose focus - TV, apps on your phone, caring for children and preparing for a divorce can cause you to be easily pulled in so many directions.  But an important part of building emotional resilience is to be able to turn that all off, even for just a few minutes a day.  Creating mindfulness during stressful times is key to successfully working through a divorce.  

These four steps can seem impossible when first starting out, especially after going through a huge life transition.  But by building self-awareness you can work through the hard emotions that come with divorce.  You don’t have to have all the answers to every problem that arises. Sometimes it is helpful to seek advice about what to do through relevant online articles and source. There are also always professionals who have experience dealing with all different cases that are unique to each person’s journey through life after divorce.  

Always remember to take it easy on yourself.  Divorce is a process and not a race to the finish line.  When you take time to build your emotional strength, you will see other parts of your life that are strengthened, too.  Relationships take time and work, of course, but work on caring for yourself first.  You’ll soon notice that loving yourself will allow love to thrive in your other relationships.