Divorce Recovery “Mindset Option” No. 1: What do you mean by “the hard work is just beginning”?

Active or Passive: What will you choose?

After the divorce is final, you find yourself in the proverbial “And on the way.” As corny as that phrase may be, it is accurate in describing the basic mindset choice all divorcing people must make: (1) Should I take a passive role in my recovery, take the hits, and let time heal the pain? ? Or (2) should I take an active role and overcome all the obstacles and problems that prevent me from finding satisfaction in my life after divorce?

It is not easy to choose the healthy and happy path for your life after divorce. But the passive alternative, while easy to do, will bring you a lifetime of unfulfilled expectations and regret. The choice is yours. What will it be?

Our culture tells you to be passive

The dictates of our culture are transmitted to us primarily by our family, friends, loved ones, teachers, coaches, religious leaders, television, and movies. The constant message we get tells us to take the passive route as there is nothing you can do to heal the pain except give it enough time.

My sister in law took the passive route. Several years before he met her, he divorced her. Her husband had been having a very public affair with a friend of my sister-in-law. She was mortified. Whenever she mentioned her ex in casual conversation, she always had something cynical or critical to say about him. She wouldn’t let it go. She never had another long-term committed relationship. Twenty-five years later, she died of cancer. If time healed her wound, certainly 25 years should have been enough. she was not

The traditional prescription of passively doing nothing and letting time heal the trauma does not work. The trauma just sits deeper and deeper inside us and then seeps out to the side when something happens that triggers the pain and fear from the past.

The Alternative Path: Be an Active Participant in Your Recovery

Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t magically materialize on the dining room table ready to be served. A lot of time and work is spent on the preparation of the traditional autumn festival.

Likewise, successful recovery from divorce requires time, work, and preparation to attack and dissolve your reluctance to let go of the pain of divorce and attachments to how life used to be.

This reluctance is primarily an emotionally based resistance to change.

Emotion-based resistance can arise from various sources. For example, fear, loss, grief, anger, resentment, collapsed self-esteem and self-confidence, shame, failure, dashed dreams, and dashed hope are just some of the issues that keep you from have a satisfying life after divorce. These problems will not magically resolve themselves or go away on their own.

Therefore, you need a plan of attack designed to dissolve each source of resistance. What works initially with this type of resistance to change is empathy followed by a structured way of facing the fear of an unknown future, identifying the real losses suffered, and then dissolving the anguish over what was really lost. Relying on time alone to accomplish this is insane.

What “active” options do you have?

Two common ways people take steps to address these issues are divorce support groups and counseling. While both are better than the passive option of letting time heal all, neither support groups nor therapy provide the action needed to dissolve resistance.

A better active option is to tailor your work to the specific divorce-caused “hurdles” you have to deal with. This can be done by working with a divorce recovery coach.

So what is the point?

Passive is easy. Active is difficult.

However, if you want to recover from your divorce and the trauma it caused, you need to take positive steps to resolve the specific issues caused by your divorce. These problems will not solve themselves. You need to take control of your future by actively dealing with the current damage your divorce has caused.

The alternative? You risk waiting 25 years for them to “fix” and ending up wasting the rest of your life like my sister-in-law did.