Have you ever placed a plant in a window and neglected to turn it for a period of time? If so, you’re familiar with that asymmetrical appearance that occurs as the plant resolutely grows towards the light. In plants, this behavior is called phototropism, one of many innate growth mechanisms that dictate how the plant changes in response to its environment.
We aren’t as beholden to the sun, but we have our own tropism that determines our growth:
Credotropism – growth towards belief
Just like the sun directs the shape of the plant, your beliefs govern the shape your life takes. Especially after something as difficult as divorce.
In a series of studies, teachers were given false information about a class of average students. When the teachers were informed that the students were of below average intelligence, the students performed poorly. When told that the students were brilliant, the same students scored high marks.
The teacher’s belief guided the growth of their students.
Just imagine what your own beliefs are doing for you.
Do you want to find a way to feel better? Live better? Be better?
It all starts with your attitude.
Are you looking at your divorce as the worst thing to ever happen to you? Are you fixating on your ex and what they did to the family? Are you focusing on what you have lost?
I get it. I did it too. It’s all but impossible to not spend some time in that negative mental space. After all, you’re mourning the loss not only of what was but also of your imagined future. You may be dealing with limited exposure to your children, a loss of financial security or the brutal reality that you have apparently been replaced.
And you can certainly stay in that negative headspace, building your beliefs about your life’s derailment and its associated casualties.
Yet in doing so, you will most certainly continue to steer your life into that dark tunnel.
Credotropism. You grow towards your beliefs.
It’s true that your hands are somewhat tied right now. You can’t simply turn back time and restart a path where the divorce never happened. You can’t pretend that the negative effects aren’t real and live as though this never occurred.
And you can’t snap your fingers and suddenly find yourself moved on (I know, I tried).
But you can start by believing that it is possible.
You don’t need to know how you’re going to rebuild your financial security to believe that it is possible.
You don’t need to how your children are going to be okay in order to have confidence that it will transpire.
You don’t have to know how you’re going to find love again to believe that it can happen.
You don’t need to know how you’re going to be happy and fulfilled to trust that it can occur.
It all starts with your attitude. Your conviction that you can.
Because you will grow towards whatever you believe.
Make it worthwhile.
Thanks! Had not previously heard of Divorce Force before. In our local divorce support group many members have drank deeply from the pitcher of koolaid that has the book The Secret in it.
I have read the book and watched the movie. It did assist me in resetting my negative thoughts after my initial separation. I needed it.
I am also an atheist, so seeing the Credotropism article referenced here was a useful way of packaging the paradoxes of my nonbelief with my belief or knowledge of what works for me.