There are few times in life that are more emotionally stressful than a divorce. Regardless of whether the decision was made together or not, and even despite the belief that it might be for the best in the long run, it’s still very painful for everyone involved. After all, while divorce eventually leads to a new beginning, it is also a time where much is ending. It is a time when couples are letting go, not only of each other, but of the vision they shared for their life and their future together. Understandably, this can be a very hard, and emotionally difficult process.
Sometimes, in the midst of these turbulent emotions, it is understandable to wonder if you will ever truly feel happy again. It can often be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel as we’re going through it. The good news is that you will eventually feel happier – time will help the pain to fade, and as you move from the stress of the divorce itself toward your next, new chapter, you will find reserves of strength you didn’t realize you had, and you will have new experiences that bring joy and help to heal your heart. That process can take some time, though.
In the meantime, however, there are positive, proactive steps you can take to work towards achieving happiness after a divorce. Some of those steps include:
- Cultivate an attitude of gratitude: Sometimes, after a divorce, the tendency can be to focus on all of the things you’ve lost, instead of all the things that you have, and all of the things you have to look forward to. While it’s normal to feel sadness and grief, and while it’s important to allow yourself to feel those feelings and work through them, it’s also important not to dwell on those feelings for longer than necessary, or to allow them to control your outlook and mood. Instead, try to spend even a short amount of focused amount of time each day reminding yourself of all of the things you have to be thankful for. Focusing on gratitude actually helps to change our overall perspective. It has been proven to enhance health, both physical and mental, strengthen relationship, and even promote a better night’s sleep – all of which leads to enhanced happiness.
- Give yourself grace: If you’ve been through a divorce, you’ve been through a lot. It’s understandable to feel overwhelmed, and sad, and stressed out, and angry. It’s understandable to feel grief and sadness. Sometimes, those feelings might cause you to feel less than your best, and to accomplish less during the day than you’d like to. While we never want to allow our emotions to control us, it’s also important to realize that sometimes we need to just step back and work through our feelings and be kind to ourselves. Allowing yourself the grace to have a bad day every now and then is part of the healing process, and it’s important. In the long run, working through your difficult feelings and processing them thoroughly will allow you to move toward greater happiness in your next chapter.
- Let go of your grudges: It goes without saying that the energy we spend nursing grudges and harboring anger and resentment naturally keeps us from feeling our happiest. Certainly, after a divorce, you’re going to have things that you feel angry about. If everything was perfect, and no big issues existed, you likely wouldn’t have pursued a divorce in the first place. Now that the divorce is over though, it is well worth the effort to work through your anger and your issues toward your ex-spouse, their new partner, or anyone else that you might feel angry at, and to begin to try to let those feelings go. After all, anger, resentment, jealousy – all of these feelings often cause more pain to the person harboring them than they do to the other person anyway. Letting go of anger, jealousy, and resentment means that you make room for happiness, peace, and contentment. It may take time to do so – it may even require working through your issues with a qualified professional – but it is well worth taking the time to do so.
- Rediscover yourself: Divorce can be a complex, lengthy, and stressful process. As you go through it, it can be easy to neglect yourself and your interests because you simply don’t feel that you have the time for it. After the dust has settled, though, it is important to make the effort to rediscover yourself – to nurture your interests, to remember what you like to do, and what brings you joy. Spend time doing those things – even if you don’t feel like you have the time. You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll feel happier as a result.
- Try something new: Along with rediscovering yourself comes the exciting potential to discover something entirely new about yourself that you may have never known before. It may be a new hobby or activity that you enjoy doing, or a new social group that you like being a part of. Maybe you’ll discover a love of traveling, or cooking, or yoga. You might even find a new career interest – truly, there are no limits on the new things about yourself that you might discover. Discovering, learning, growing, expanding our horizons – these are all things that make us healthier and happier individuals.
- Choose happiness: Sometimes in life, we have to actively choose happiness. We can’t wait for it to simply find us. We can either choose to remain unhappy and miserable, stuck in the same though patterns day after day, or we can choose to change our perspective. When we begin to make the conscious and repeated choice to think differently and to see things in a new, and more positive way, we begin to feel happier. Make the choice, and see the change. You deserve it.
These bits of advice might seem simplistic, but often, as you seek restoration of health and happiness and wholeness after a divorce, simple is best. Needless to say, taking these steps won’t eliminate all of your bad days or bad moods, nor will it completely alleviate the grief that naturally comes with divorce. If you continue to take these steps and make the effort, however, you will find that slowly but surely, your overall level of happiness increases each day, and that you are moving, with each new day, toward a new and brighter chapter ahead.