dealing with divorce

I’m a big believer in filling your virtual self-care toolbox with as many strategies as possible. Different situations call for different approaches and some situations call for pulling out every trick and technique available.

Divorce is often one of those situations that calls for utilizing every conceivable tool: counseling, medication, exercise, supportive structure and people, mindfulness, intentional socialization, support groups, good nutrition, sleep.

And journaling.

I find that journaling is often misunderstood, seen as a self-indulgent activity that fosters wallowing in misery or perceived as an activity that requires a certain aptitude for writing or reflection.

But those misconceptions could not be further from the truth. Journaling is perhaps the single most powerful tool that you can use to resolve negative feelings that arise from divorce while fostering attitudes and perspectives that will serve to amplify your happiness and well-being.

Not convinced yet? Here are twelve reasons you should add journaling to your post-divorce toolbox:

Letting It Out Is the First Step Of Letting It Go

Divorce often hits like a truck. A truck that’s towing a whole trailer full of negativity – anger, fear, sadness, shame, guilt. And it’s easy to take the position of denial; turning away from those feelings and shoving them down. But that approach only works for so long. Because the only way to release those feelings is to first face those feelings.

A journal is a safe place to purge those intense emotions. It will not judge you or shame you. The page will absorb your tears and accept the pressure of your angry hand. One of the early benefits of journaling is found in the release. Just by letting it out, you’ll find that you’re a little closer to letting it go.

With Each Exposure, the Pain Becomes a Little Less

The more we do something, the easier it becomes. And that’s as true for working through painful emotions as it is for learning to play the piano. Journaling is great for repetition. You’ll likely find that you naturally revisit certain topics or themes that are particularly difficult or distressing for you. With each go-round, the emotions involved become a little less piercing and a little less scary. You’re teaching your brain that you’re strong enough to face it and tough enough to move past it.

Your Journal Will Never Judge You

There is so much blame and shame associated with divorce. It’s often perceived as occurring because of some character deficit and those of us in the trenches are often showered with “shoulds” and assumptions, especially when it comes to getting over it. And being the recipient of society’s rotten tomatoes wears thin.

It’s easy to turn the judgment inward, feeling broken or defective because the process is taking longer than imagined or because the bad moments still arise. And judgment is contrary to healing. Your journal will never shame you for missing the ex that mistreated you. Your journal won’t tell you that you should be over it and reentering the dating scene already.

Your journal will simply listen as you say what you need to say. Not what others want to hear.

Exploring All Sides Provides Perspective

When you write about a situation, you naturally circle around the topic, exploring different ideas and possibilities while challenging assumptions. This investigative quality helps to introduce some rationality into the hotbed of emotion while providing some distance from the pain. In time, journaling through divorce helps you to see the picture bigger and decide how you want this chapter to fit within your life’s story.

The Act of Writing Facilitates Processing

It’s so easy to become stuck during divorce, negative thoughts circling around each other like a rabid dog chasing its tail. If applied correctly (see description at the end of this post), journaling discourages rumination and aids in the processing of emotions and situations. It is possible to process without journaling, but seeing your thoughts and goals in writing is extremely powerful and encourages a more rapid and thorough healing.

A Record of Your Feelings Allows You to See Your Progress

Healing after divorce is often slower than we would wish and certainly much less linear than we would like. When you only consider how you feel from moment to moment or day to day, it’s difficult to see your progress and it’s easy to become frustrated and defeated.

A journal provides a record of your progress. It allows you to turn back to your early entries and compare them to your current thoughts. And this juxtaposition is often encouraging, as you realize just how far you’ve come.

Seeing Your Problems Encourages Finding Solutions

Journaling serves as a brainstorming activity. When you explore your problems without concern of censorship or judgment, you often arrive at solutions that were elusive before. Additionally, journaling helps you to become aware of cause and effect patterns in your life. And once you recognize the connection, you can alter the pathways.

Journaling is Accessible

Many tools to help at the end of a marriage are expensive in time and.or money. Journaling is a welcome exception. At the very least, journaling requires no more than a pen and a notebook. Those couple dollars and the commitment of a few minutes a day can literally change your life. There’s literally no excuse.

Writing Your Thoughts Reconnects You With Your Intuition

For many of us, divorce causes us to doubt ourselves and our own perceptions and conclusions. Perhaps you were played for a fool by a cheating spouse or discovered that the marriage you had was far from the one you thought you had. Journaling encourages you to listen to your inner voice. To respect your intuition and trust your gut. It is a powerful way to reconnect with your core self and while teasing out the noise that comes from outside.

Journaling Fills the Void and Encourages Healthy Coping

There will be moments when you’re in crisis. When the tears threaten to drown you and the anger threatens to ignite. It’s easy to turn towards unhealthy coping strategies – alcohol, drugs, isolation, excessive sexual escapades, etc. But if you’ve developed a habit of writing, your journal can become your refuge, your sanctuary in the storm.

Rewriting Your Story Gives You Opportunity

You’ve already created a narrative around your divorce even if you’re not aware of it. Journaling is an opportunity to be intentional in the story that surrounds your divorce. It allows you to rewrite the situation, thereby changing your assumptions about it. The words you say to yourself have power. Use them wisely.

Journaling is Empowering

Finally, there is nothing like the feeling of picking yourself up by your own bootstraps. Journaling is a process done for you, by you. And when that effort results in reduced pain and increased happiness? Well, that feels pretty darn amazing!

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What does journaling look like?

Journaling can take many forms – public blog or private diary, handwritten or digital, one sentence or long-form, daily or as-needed. Play around with the options and see what works for you.

My personal favorite form is one I developed during my own divorce. It consists of three sections – past/pain, present/problem-solving and future/hope. Read more about this structure here. I find that this format provides a balanced blend of purging the negative emotions, processing the situation and documenting the areas of gratitude and hope.

Need help getting started?

In my complete and self-paced Thriving After Divorce course, I provide 84 different journal prompts in the three-section structure described above that are specifically designed to help you move through divorce. Along with the prompts, you will receive inspiration as well as a multitude of ideas that you can add to your personal post-divorce toolbox. You’ve put your life on hold long enough. Start living today!

We make sense of the world through stories.

I grew up in a church with a very talented pastor. Although I hated sitting through most of the Sunday morning service with its words that were meaningless to me at the time and the repetition that dulled my senses, I always looked forward to the fifteen minutes that held the sermon.

Because it wasn’t a lecture. It wasn’t a speech.

It was a story.

Sometimes the story came straight from the scripture, the language massaged into a more modern vernacular and the characters brought to life.

But more often, it was a story straight from the pastor’s life. And as his words flowed, rising and falling as they filled the sanctuary, my mind would begin to process and anticipate and question. Although he was the only one speaking, the story created a dialog. We were not merely listeners; we were participants.

Every Sunday, I would travel with the pastor’s words. I would straddle the place between his story and my own. Pulling pieces from my own experience to make sense of the one he was relating. It always felt as though he was speaking just to me because every narrative spoke directly to something I could understand.

Because that’s what stories do.

One of the greatest gifts of stories is that they are inclusive. By their very nature, they invite everyone in by weaving a narrative that everyone can follow. A good storyteller can make you feel like a first-time father even when you’re a little girl or put you in the shoes of a desert nomad when you’ve never left your hometown.

Because even though the details of the stories differ, gifted storytellers understand that the threads creating the stories all come from the same cloth. All stories – from Dr. Suess to Dr. Martin Luther King – speak of struggle and triumph, love and loss, growth and stagnation, adventure and return, creation and destruction, hope and despair. And above all, the triumph of the human spirit and the importance of building relationships with ourselves, others and the world as a whole.

I heard a wonderful interview on NPR the other day with the noted storyteller Mama Koku. The show’s host asked her if it was difficult to craft a story for children that touched on difficult topics. “Not at all,” Mama Koku responded. She explained that most stories use allegory to tiptoe up on more challenging topics and that children are experts (even better than adults) at reading the subtext and pulling out the deeper meaning. She discussed the stories of Br’er Rabbit, which are based upon slavery and used to pass along the message that even those that appear powerless often have more power than they realize.

And stories often have more power than we realize.

We have evolved to remember through stories. Scientists have found that people can remember many more facts when they are woven into a story than when they are delivered in isolation. The best teachers know this, telling tales about their subject matter. Creating characters, action, crisis and resolution.

But our brains don’t only yearn for stories to help us remember.

Stories also help us understand.

Our brains hate isolated pieces of information as much as someone with OCD despises an unfinished puzzle. Our minds demand that the new information be placed within an existing narrative framework. We want to understand.

And the narrative we choose changes our understanding.

You can see this play out every day if you’re observant. Listen to a segment on MSNBC about some recent event. And then watch the complimentary segment on Fox News. The event is the same, but the narratives create very different meanings as causes are assigned, language is chosen and the story is fleshed out. You can see it in your friends and acquaintances and how they view similar life events through very different lenses. Maybe you can see it in yourself and your siblings, the narratives you crafted above yourselves as children following you into adulthood.

Stories provide clarity.

It’s difficult (if not impossible) to see ourselves or a situation we are involved in with complete clarity. We are simply too close to gain perspective. Sometimes it’s easier to see yourself in a reflection.

Much like Mama Koku uses her voice to tell children how powerful they are, use your story to tell yourself how powerful you are.

Your story matters.

First and foremost, it matters for you. Do you continue to weave tales from the threads of past traumas? It’s easy to do. Whenever I sense a distance in my husband, the first yarn my brain spins is one of abandonment. It fits the current information into an old template. An incorrect template. And simply by choosing a different narrative, I can change my entire viewpoint and settle my panicking brain.

Do your narratives place you in a victim role? Do they speak of bad events pummeling your helpless body like meteors falling to earth? Or, do the stories you build around life events view struggles as obstacles that build strength even as they build tension?

Your story matters.

You cannot choose what happens to you. But you can chose how you view it and, in turn, how you respond. Zoom out from the bad event. How do you want that to fit into the bigger picture? What purpose will it serve? What lessons will it impart? If it was a children’s tale being delivered by Mama Koku, what core truth would it reveal?

Your brain will choose a narrative regardless of what you do. But don’t you want to have influence over the choice? After all, it’s your life you’re talking about.

Your story matters.

Perhaps more than you even realize. Because even without intending to, we pass down our stories to our friends, our families. Our children.

And much like the small version of myself learning about the nature of the world and my place (and power) in it from the hard pew of my childhood church, your story is teaching those around you.

Yes, your story matters.

Make it a good one.

12 Reasons to Journal After Your Divorce

Your Story Matters

dealing with divorce

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