The Side Effect of Divorce That Nobody Talks About (And What To Do About It)

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I bet you’re tired. Actually, I would guess that you’re exhausted. That the mere thought of opening the latest letter from the lawyer seems to call for more energy than you can summon and there is hardly enough motivation to get through the day, much less build a new life.

You’re not alone.

In fact, fatigue is an extremely common side effect of divorce. And yet nobody seems to talk about it.

Why Are You Exhausted?

The Legal Proceedings

I joked with my mom during my divorce that I had garnered enough experience to get a job as a paralegal. I was only half kidding. Even the most amicable divorce can turn into a part-time job as you assemble the necessary documentation and negotiate the details. And since most of us can’t quit our day jobs to tackle the demands of divorce, the legal process inevitably wears us out.

Emotional Processing

If you spent the day clearing trees from your land and cutting them into firewood, would be surprised at your level of exhaustion at the end of the day? Probably not. During divorce, you’re engaging in that level of emotional exertion as you face and process the emotions brought forth by the end of a marriage. Even though you don’t have the sore muscles to show for it, you’re doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Slack in Self-Care

In the first few months during my divorce, most of my calories came from Cheetos and frozen waffles. Your comfort food of choice may be different, but I bet that your diet has recently suffered. Nutrition, exercise and sleep are all important to our overall energy levels and they all have tendency to fall by the wayside during divorce.

Establishing New Patterns and Habits 

What takes more effort – completing a common task at work or performing a new and unfamiliar assignment? During divorce, very little of your life is rote and routine and almost everything is unknown and un-mastered. The brain requires more energy to lay down new neural pathways than to simply follow well-worn patterns.

 

Fighting the Un-fightable

How much time do you spend wanting things to be different? Do those thoughts change anything? It’s exhausting when you’re fighting against something that you cannot change. And yet, during divorce, we all do it.

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How to Overcome Exhaustion

 

Attend to the Physical

It all starts by taking care of your body. Make sure to add sufficient fruits, vegetables and protein to your Cheetos and waffles diet. Make sleep a priority. Find some form of movement that feels good to you right now and do it. Yes, exercise takes energy. But it also creates it.

 

Prepare For a Marathon

No, not a literal marathon (unless that appeals to you!), but a metaphorical one. The entire divorce process will most likely take more than a year. It’s not a sprint. If you start out too fast, you’ll most likely burn out before the end. Conserve your energy, take it slow and steady. Adjust your expectations as needed and make sure you have some people on the sidelines cheering you on.

 

Know Thyself

Are you an extrovert that feeds off the energy of those around you or are you an introvert, needing time alone to recharge? Whatever your personal orientation, take care to honor it. Take the time to identify the ways that you recharge and then make plugging in a priority.

 

Be Engaged 

When we’re exhausted, it’s easy to collapse and refrain from getting up. This creates a negative feedback loop, inertia keeping you disengaged and compounding your fatigue. Make a concerted effort to play an active role in your life. Let inertia work for you, motivating you to keep going.

 

Embrace Starting Over 

Starting over does require effort. And it also can create excitement (just think of the beginning of a new school year!). Capitalize on the latter by focusing on the areas that you can control. Recognize the opportunity inherent in beginnings. Put at least as much energy into creating the new as you do into dissembling the old.

 

When to Seek Help?

 

Sleeping Too Much or Not Enough

After a week of spending the entire night sitting on the edge of my bed, I knew that I needed help. Medication allowed me to get the rest I needed so that I could attend to the rest of the healing process. If you’re not sleeping or you’re sleeping too much, see a doctor. Help is available.

 

New Physical Symptoms

Mental stress can affect the body in myriad ways. In my case, the intense emotional trauma and severe lack of calories led to severe muscle tissue breakdown, which required medical intervention. Pay attention to your body and get checked out if something seems off.

 

Persistent Feelings of Hopelessness 

Exhaustion can be a sign of depression. If the fatigue resists your efforts or is accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and defeatism, make an appointment with a mental health professional. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

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The Good News…

 

Much of what you’re experiencing is temporary. The legal process will eventually be finalized. New habits and patterns will be established and able to be performed with little effort. The emotional onslaughts will be fewer and further between and you’ll get better at addressing them.

Yes, you’re exhausted. But it’s not permanent and it’s not fatal.

It’s simply the price of transformation.

 

How to Audit Your Personal Energy Budget (And Why It’s Critical That You Do)

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When it comes to your money, I expect that you have some sort of budget or at least a sense of what is coming in (and where those dollars are coming from) as well as what is going out (and some idea of what that money is being spent on). Additionally, you have learned that spending more than you’re earning will eventually lead to trouble and that to avoid this you either have to spend less or somehow earn more.

We have an understanding and acceptance that there has to be a balance between money in and money out. Yet when it comes to something arguably even more important – our own energy – we are often much more careless and frequently operating in the red.

And just like financial debt is stressful and unsustainable, energy debt causes us to operate below our ideal and can even lead to an energy crisis and total breakdown. When we’re drained, we’re irritable, easily overwhelmed and have trouble making good decisions. And when we’re not at our best, we struggle to take care of others, so balancing energy in with energy out is especially critical for those in a caregiving role.

Self-care isn’t selfish. It’s imperative.

A personal energy audit is about becoming aware of where you’re allocating your limited energy and how you’re reviving yourself. Once you’ve taken these simple steps, you’ll be well on your way to a balanced energy budget.

The 7 Steps of a Personal Energy Audit

1 – Make a list of all of the things you do that require energy. The big-ticket items will probably come easily. To help think of the others, scan through a typical day and consider if each activity leaves you more or less energized than before. Pay special attention to your “plugged-in” activities such as television and social media. We think of these as restorative, but are they for you?

Build this list over a period of several days. Are you spending energy thinking about a loss in your life? Giving energy to a toxic person? Delivering energy to something or someone where there is nothing to show for it? Be honest with yourself. After all, you have to recognize it before you can change it.

Instead of a list,  you can create a simple pie chart that illustrates what percentage of your energy is currently being allocated in each direction. This visual can be helpful to highlight any possible imbalance.

2 – Make a list of all of the things you do that provide you with energy. To help you think of ideas, reflect back on a day when you felt especially energized or contemplate what you would do with a full day by yourself. Add things to the list even if you’re not currently utilizing them. Don’t get confused between physical energy and emotional energy. You may find that something like a walk leaves you energized even though it requires the burning of calories. If you prefer a visual, this information can be displayed in a frequency chart.

3 – Start by looking for overlapping items. These are key because they operate at close to a zero sum game, both requiring and providing energy. Make note of these. If you’re so inclined, the information up to this point can even take the form of a Venn diagram.

4 – Next, consider your expenditure list and rough percentages dedicated to each item. Are these areas where you want to spend energy? Is there energy being wasted? Are their items you can eliminate or reduce? Can you shift some energy from an area that is only an expenditure to one of those that overlaps with the deposit column? You only have a finite amount. Don’t waste it.

5 – Look at the list of things that give you energy. Are there more areas that you can add? Are there any you can increase in frequency or duration? Strangely, we are often resistant to the very things that restore our energy. Try adding structure in the form of a schedule. Or, promise yourself that you’ll do five minutes of the activity (this works great with exercise) and then give yourself permission to stop at that point. You’ll probably find that you wish to continue. Additionnally, simply being conscious that these activities help to restore your energy balance may lower the initial resistance to action.

6 – Be mindful of the “Starbucks Effect.” Just like small expenditures of money can slip through our fingers without much conscious thought, small amounts of energy can be allocated other directions without our intent. And these small leaks can add up. Before you spend energy on someone or something, ask yourself if it is a worthwhile investment.

7 – Aim for an energy surplus or balance. If you add something to your expenditure list, either cut something else out or add find a way to “earn” more energy. Build your reserves in the easier times so that you can pull from your reserves during the difficult periods. And when the hard times do come, make a conscious effort to rebuild your energy at every available opportunity. Think of it like uncovering the coins beneath the couch cushions. Every little bit helps.

Over time, this conscious spending of your energy becomes habit and the periods of total exhaustion will be fewer and further between. And once your energy is going towards the things that directly benefit yourself, others or the world, you’ll find a sense of peace and well-being that comes from being your authentic self.

 

 

 

The Side Effect of Divorce That Nobody Talks About (And What To Do About It)

Posted on by stilllearning2b

When I was a kid, my mom used to joke that she wished she could bottle my energy up and sell it.

When I was getting divorced, I wished my mom had managed to bottle up some up that childhood energy. Not to sell, but to use myself as sort of a vitality self-transfusion.

Because, goodness knows, divorce is an energy vampire. Here’s what you need to know about how to recognize and handle the fatigue that accompanies divorce. And if you figure out how to bottle youthful energy, please let me know!

Mommies Are…

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I test drove motherhood this week.

I was one of 18 chaperones on a three-day trip to Savannah with over 200 8th graders.

I love these trips, but they are such a shock to my system as I go from no kids to being completely responsible for a group of 16 and sharing responsibility for the others.

My days started with me trying to grab sips of coffee while I made the rounds, making sure students were awake and appropriately dressed, administering medication and giving sage advice to address the issues that arise overnight when you stick four teenage girls in a room together.

Breakfast, usually my peaceful time in front of the computer, was taken standing up in the lobby of the hotel so that I could direct the girls and strive to keep their voices at a semi-reasonable level. I think I managed two bites of hot oatmeal before it congealed.

Through the day, I lugged a large backpack filled with their medications and the day’s schedule. I was nurse, tour guide and counselor in one. I made sure that sunscreen and bug spray were applied. And then reapplied. I cautioned them about the effects of the overconsumption of sugar and the need to bring a jacket. I even found myself repeating the dreaded mom words, “Just try,” at the limited bathroom opportunities.

I swear the girls knew the moment I stepped into the shower at the end of the long days as the phone would start to ring as soon as I applied the shampoo to my hair – the hotel equivalent of calling “Mom” across the house.

By the time all of the girls were settled in their rooms, I would collapse, exhausted.

Yet unable to sleep.

The details of the days are tiring, but it is nothing compared to the weight of responsibility that motherhood, even of the three-day variety, holds. I saw potential dangers lurking around previously harmless corners. Every stranger was a threat, every body of water a potential drowning and every curb provided an opportunity to fall. At night, I found that I could not enter deep sleep, as I was constantly listening for the kids.

 

 

When I was a kid, the pastor at my church would call all of the children up to the steps in front of the pulpit for a brief children’s message embedded within the larger sermon. One year when I was about four, the pastor celebrated Mother’s Day by beginning with the prompt, “Mommies are” and then holding out the microphone for the kids to complete the sentence.

The first few shares were your standard:

“Mommies are nice.”

“Mommies are pretty.”

“Mommies are gentle.”

And then the microphone was put in front of me. My contribution on that Mother’s Day?

“Mommies are tired.”

 

Yes, they are. Motherhood is a job with the biggest responsibilities possible and no time off. Motherhood is a job that, just when you think you have it figured out, your kid enters a new phase; you’re in perpetual training. Motherhood is a job that requires that your own needs are neglected so that your offspring’s needs are met.

It is tiring.

But is also rewarding beyond belief, as reflected in the faces of the moms as they reunited with their kids at the end of the trip. I’m sure they enjoyed their three days of peace and quiet but they were thrilled to see their kids (even stinky, cranky, hopped-up-on-sugar kids:) )again.

As for me, I enjoyed the test drive but this particular model is not for me. I’ll stick with teaching!

Happy Mother’s Day to all you tired mommies. I am in awe of what you do every day.

Mommies Are Tired

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I test drove motherhood this week.

I was one of 18 chaperones on a three-day trip to Savannah with over 200 8th graders.

I love these trips, but they are such a shock to my system as I go from no kids to being completely responsible for a group of 16 and sharing responsibility for the others.

My days started with me trying to grab sips of coffee while I made the rounds, making sure students were awake and appropriately dressed, administering medication and giving sage advice to address the issues that arise overnight when you stick four teenage girls in a room together.

Breakfast, usually my peaceful time in front of the computer, was taken standing up in the lobby of the hotel so that I could direct the girls and strive to keep their voices at a semi-reasonable level. I think I managed two bites of hot oatmeal before it congealed.

Through the day, I lugged a large backpack filled with their medications and the day’s schedule. I was nurse, tour guide and counselor in one. I made sure that sunscreen and bug spray were applied. And then reapplied. I cautioned them about the effects of the overconsumption of sugar and the need to bring a jacket. I even found myself repeating the dreaded mom words, “Just try,” at the limited bathroom opportunities.

I swear the girls knew the moment I stepped into the shower at the end of the long days as the phone would start to ring as soon as I applied the shampoo to my hair – the hotel equivalent of calling “Mom” across the house.

By the time all of the girls were settled in their rooms, I would collapse, exhausted.

Yet unable to sleep.

The details of the days are tiring, but it is nothing compared to the weight of responsibility that motherhood, even of the three-day variety, holds. I saw potential dangers lurking around previously harmless corners. Every stranger was a threat, every body of water a potential drowning and every curb provided an opportunity to fall. At night, I found that I could not enter deep sleep, as I was constantly listening for the kids.

 

 

When I was a kid, the pastor at my church would call all of the children up to the steps in front of the pulpit for a brief children’s message embedded within the larger sermon. One year when I was about four, the pastor celebrated Mother’s Day by beginning with the prompt, “Mommies are” and then holding out the microphone for the kids to complete the sentence.

The first few shares were your standard:

“Mommies are nice.”

“Mommies are pretty.”

“Mommies are gentle.”

And then the microphone was put in front of me. My contribution on that Mother’s Day?

“Mommies are tired.”

 

Yes, they are. Motherhood is a job with the biggest responsibilities possible and no time off. Motherhood is a job that, just when you think you have it figured out, your kid enters a new phase; you’re in perpetual training. Motherhood is a job that requires that your own needs are neglected so that your offspring’s needs are met.

It is tiring.

But is also rewarding beyond belief, as reflected in the faces of the moms as they reunited with their kids at the end of the trip. I’m sure they enjoyed their three days of peace and quiet but they were thrilled to see their kids (even stinky, cranky, hopped-up-on-sugar kids:) )again.

As for me, I enjoyed the test drive but this particular model is not for me. I’ll stick with teaching!

Happy Mother’s Day to all you tired mommies. I am in awe of what you do every day.