Adversity, of any kind, rocks our foundations and forces us to look at ourselves and how we interact with the world around us. Divorce destabilises our world, erodes our self-esteem, calls into question our abilities, highlights our flaws, robs us of motivation and energy, undermines our health and wellbeing and shatters our dreams.
The emotions that surface before, during and after a break-up or divorce can be all-consuming and difficult to manage as we mourn the loss of what has gone before and contemplate the uncertainty of what lies ahead. It takes time to process what is happening and come realise that we can rise up from adversity with greater resilience, a renewed sense of purpose and a better insight into ourselves. We can re-build our shattered dreams
with a greater sense of who we are and a clearer vision of what we want our future to look like. This experience, however unwanted, allows us to break free from the shackles of compromise and gives us the opportunity to re-invent ourselves and emerge as an enhanced version of ourselves with new skills, new knowledge and new understanding.
When you are ready, here are a few ways to help you to re-build your dreams and your future:
Write a Bucket List – Often associated with long-term goals but it doesn’t have to be. You can start a bucket list with anything that you would like to do/have that will give you pleasure. It can be something as simple as buying that book you always meant to read and making the time to do it or something more complex such as completing a skydive in New Zealand. What does it for you?
Create a Vision Board – Vision boards act as a visual reminder of the life that you want for yourself. Take some time to think about the things that are important to you and then start to add images and words to your board. If you feel so inclined you can draw your own images and write the words with calligraphy pens or coloured pencils, if not, use magazines, photographs or the internet to populate your board. Place it somewhere you will see it often and interact with it as and when you want to. Life is fluid and the things that feel very important today may not feel so important 6 months or a year down the line.
Record, Release and Replace – It is easy to look back with rose-tinted glasses and convince yourself that what you had was near-perfect and irreplaceable. Take the glasses off and look again. In every relationship there will be some great bits and some not-so-great bits, record and honour the good bits and release the bad bits and replace them with images of what you want out of a new relationship. A new relationship may be the furthest thing from your mind right now but having a clear vision of what you want from a new partner will help you to recognise them when they appear and make it less likely that you will settle for something less than you deserve.
At the time of writing this Adele’s new song “Easy On Me” has just been released, serving as a gentle reminder that from a place of total devastation real beauty can emerge.
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