3 Coping Strategies to Deal with Divorce
Divorce is a huge stress and, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 117,000 California residents experienced it last year alone. But the worst thing is that people often don’t realize how stressful this experience can be.
Although there are few studies on the subject, there is research that proves a correlation between living through a divorce and premature death. And that doesn’t even the mention the tremendous mental trauma that divorce deals to children.
All in all, avoiding a divorce might be impossible, and sometimes breaking off the relationship is the healthiest thing you can do. However, when you do take this step, you also need to find healthy and effective ways to cope with it. This will help you reduce the stress of the experience and minimize the trauma.
Switch from ‘what’ to ‘why’ when dealing with your emotions
When going through a divorce, you are sure to feel a lot of negative emotions and managing them might be next to impossible, especially where you have good cause. However, it is also absolutely necessary that you don’t let those feelings consume you and rob you off your rationality.
If you can’t beat those things, you should change your focus. Therefore, the next time you feel a wave of anger coming, make a conscious effort to think about why you are feeling it. The point of this mental exercise is to stop focusing on what you are feeling, which is anger in this case, and make your brain rationalize why you are feeling it by analyzing the situation. This won’t make the anger go away, but it will help you keep your cool and make it easier to break out from the red haze that can cloud your judgment and force you to make mistakes you will regret dearly in the future.
Dissect your worst fears (and find solutions)
One of the ways in which stress of the divorce shows itself and undermines your mental health is by making you ruminate on possible bad outcomes of this ordeal. Stress means depression and depression means that it is physically difficult to get your mind off imagining the worst. The solution is not trying to focus on the positive, but to embrace the negativity and defeat it with clear logic.
Therefore, sit down and write down all the worst possible things that could happen. Next, start dismantling them one by one. Are you afraid of the lengthy legal process that is divorce in America? Research methods by which you can achieve a quick divorce in California. Are you worried that you will lose your kids? Study child custody regulations and then read some parenting tips for good measure so you know how to build a strong bond with your children post divorce.
Tackle your worst fears one at a time. This way, you will know that even if those things do happen, you will have a plan of action on how to deal with them. This will also take your mind off the worrying.
Dream of the future
The problem with extremely stressful situations is that they activate your “fight or flight” instinct and literally force your mind to focus on the now. Making an effort to think about the future can help you overcome this problem or at least mitigate it.
Therefore, you should make it a rule to spend a few minutes a day drawing up plans and dreaming about what you want your future to be like. Don’t think about your partner, the divorce or the immediate issues you are facing. Instead, let your mind wander and think about where you want to go from there and what exactly you want to see in your future. Consider it a meditation exercise.
Article written by Jane Koval
This article was written by the guest author listed at the end of the article.