No one goes into a marriage, ever expecting that it won’t last. The whole point of getting married is that it was forever.
So when things do not work out as you had planned, there can be so much to grieve, and so much to deal with on a practical level that you find yourself in a big mess, months down the line.
In this article, we cover four topics that you need to tackle one-by-one, in order to move on from divorce and find inner peace.
Nothing about this process is easy. But everything about this process is worthwhile.
Forgiveness
One of the first and hardest things that you have to do on your road to finding peace after divorce is to forgive your ex-partner.
The very idea of having to forgive your ex could fill you with so many emotions including rage anger and sadness.
But what can help is reframing the way you think about forgiveness. Forgiveness at its core is not about saying that what happened, what the other person did, and how they made you feel is ok.
Forgiveness is making a decision not to let those things hold you back anymore. Forgiveness is you claiming your happiness, and not letting historic actions that you can’t change, hold you back from living your life.
There may also be other people in your life that you need to forgive, even though it wasn’t them that you got divorced from. It could be family, it could be friends, it could be people in professional positions that were involved in your divorce.
You may have been let down by many people, in many different ways, at the time you felt you needed them the most. These actions, in a similar way to the actions of your ex-partner, could be holding you back and preventing you from finding inner peace.
In the same way, you have to do with the actions and words of your ex-partner, you must make a decision to no longer let these things bother you, no longer let these things get to you, and no longer let these things steal your happiness.
Granted it is very easy to say, and a lot harder to do. But forgiveness will be critical, on your journey towards finding inner peace.
Life Is Suffering
When one aspect or many aspects of your life do not turn out how you plan it can be very difficult. In many ways, in our culture, we’ve been conditioned to believe that life is good, and if life is not going well, then it is our fault and it’s up to us to do something.
On one hand, whilst the sentiment that taking action to make changes in your life when you are not happy with your life can be a very positive approach, the idea that life should be good can be the cause of much mental illness.
Historically, for our ancestors, life was not necessarily good. Life was not easy. Life was very hard. That’s not to say that they weren’t moments of happiness and enjoyment and immense satisfaction from surviving against the odds, but there was an acceptance that life is hard.
If you can deeply integrate this understanding that life is hard, and life is suffering, then the processing of your divorce will be simpler. This is not to diminish the tragedy of your divorce, or suggest that it is not a significant event. It absolutely is.
But when you have an expectation that life is suffering, the hard things that come up, are just that. They are hard things that you need to work through because that is what life is about.
There is a lot less baggage attached to that perspective than to an alternative perspective, you might be holding whereby you are expecting that life should be good and easy. With this perspective, you are doubling up on your level of pain. You have the pain of your divorce, and you have the pain of realizing that life is very difficult, when you feel like life should be very easy.
By accepting that suffering is a normal life event, you will be freed up to process your divorce without the additional baggage of trying to grapple with the fact that the divorce is causing you pain, and that life is not supposed to be painful.
Taking The High Road
If you can manage to forgive your ex-partner, and come to the realization that life is suffering, you will be in a position to take the high road, in your post-relationship dealings.
Grieving the breakdown of an intimate relationship is made all the harder by having to process the practicalities of separating your life, and separating your possessions, and separating your previous relationships.
If you have been seriously hurt by your ex-partner, then the concept of taking the high road, in your post-relationship dealings, could be very confronting.
When we suggest taking the high road, it is not a suggestion motivated for the benefit of your ex-partner.
Though that is the end result of this suggested approach, the core mechanism at play is the benefit you will get, from making a conscious decision to act in a way consistent with your advanced moral principles.
It is about building strength and resilience, and confidence in yourself. That’s about proving to yourself that you can act in ways that align with your values, regardless of the intensity of feeling, regardless of how much everything inside you is telling you to pick up and run the other way. You are proving to yourself you’ve got the strength to act how you would like to act as a human being, regardless of how you’ve been treated.
It is a very advanced principle, and one that many are never ready to embrace, but those who do are richly rewarded.
If you need assistance working through some of the practicalities of your divorce, an experienced legal expert can help.
Discover Who You Are Again
When you get married much of your personal identity, merges with your identity as a couple. In some ways this is good, and it’s a positive sign of investment in the relationship. In so many situations people are so determined to preserve their individual identities, but they never give their relationships a chance.
But following a relationship breakdown, you must go through the paper process of disentangling your personal identity, your personal values, and your personal preferences, from those that you held as a member of that relationship.
Though this process is not without pain, it is deeply rewarding, and this next step is something that can bring you a sense of joy and satisfaction that you forgot was possible. You have a chance to tap into things from your childhood, and your earlier life, that you may have had to put aside for the sake of your relationship. There may be a lot of things about you, and the way you like to exist in the world, that you had to change, in order for your relationship to survive.
Without the constraints of that toxic relationship holding you down any longer, you are now free to explore and connect with all those things that make you who you are.
Conclusion
The four processes outlined in this article will not be simple to achieve, but they will give you a sense of inner peace that you thought was not possible. Though divorce can be the hardest thing you have to go through, it can be the greatest gift.
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