This is a great guest post by author, speaker and life coach, Jeff Brandt. Brandt, who realized several years ago that he wasn’t over his own divorce offers advice and power moves for getting over your divorce. Love this!
Power Moves For Getting Over Your Divorce by Jeff Brandt
Divorce Myth #1: The Myth About Recovery Time
Ever wonder why some people recover quickly from their divorce while others take years? Some never recovering at all?
Here’s the #1 obstacle to recovering fully from your divorce: Denial. Plain and simple. You haven’t gotten over your ex. The thought of them haunts you day in and day out. You tell your friends, “I am soooo over her…,” but you can’t go 10 minutes without thinking about or mentioning your ex.
Here’s a story from my own divorce experience:
I was married in June, 1995, divorced in December, 1996. Although I wasn’t the one who wanted a divorce, I felt I had done a reasonable job working through my feelings before, during and after that experience. In 2008, 18 years later, I was having a beer with a friend one evening after working out who was also divorced. Sandra summed up her marriage and divorce in about 6 sentences, very matter-of-factly. After 5 minutes of listening to me tell my story, complete with arms waving and raised voice, she looked me straight in the eye, interrupted me and blurted out, “Listen to yourself…YOU’RE STILL ANGRY!”
In his book Man’s Search For Meaning, Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl describes how he was able to survive the Auschwitz death camps in Nazi Germany while most around him perished by identifying a new meaning for his continued existence. He essentially reframed his reason for living and was thus able to avoid dying a horrible death in the gas chambers. He concluded that people are driven primarily by a “striving to find meaning in one’s life,” and that it is this sense of meaning that enables people to overcome painful experiences.
The point? Despite your ego’s repeated attempts to convince you otherwise, you and you alone are in complete control of how you choose to interpret your divorce experience. And the sooner you choose acceptance, the faster you’ll recover and get your life back.
Here are a few of the ways to accelerate your healing:
1. Become willing to FACE truth and reality (not your version of it)
2. Become willing to LET GO of blame and anger (it’s a reflection of you!)
3. Become willing to ACCEPT the fact that you’ll never be completely over your ex (nor should you be)
4. Become willing to ADMIT that you and your ex are perfect (you’re imperfect human beings, like all of us)
5. Become willing to FOREGO the comfort and perceived security of waiting for things to change and take action now (the longer you wait, the less likely you ever will)
Want to really start feeling like your old self again? Try these action steps, which I like to call Power Moves:
Power Move #1: SURRENDER to your current situation free of guilt and shame
Power Move #2: ADMIT to your role in the divorce and the good qualities of your ex and the happy times in your marriage
Power Move #3: SHIFT your mindset from victim to victor
Power Move #4: CHANGE your words
Power Move #5: FILL your emotional void
Power Move #6: AVOID leading with your wounds
And always remember this quote: “What you resist persists, what you look at disappears.”
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This post is an excerpt from my digital program titled Divorce Healing Blueprint, in which I dissect the 8 biggest myths about divorce recovery. We break down the barriers to getting over your divorce by identifying where you’re stuck, understanding why you’re stuck, and showing you how to get unstuck so you can get your life back NOW!
For more information on this product, and other products designed to help you get unstuck in life, please visit my website www.getunstuckseries.com.
Jeff Brandt is an author, speaker, and life coach specializing in helping people get out of the ruts we all find ourselves in and live the life you were meant to live. Jeff’s highly acclaimed first book, Beware of the Therapist chronicles his divorce journey from devastation to destiny.
Ellenor Davis
Awesome article, good tips and informative advices. Thanks for sharing, many guys will find this very useful.
Josh
Jeff, the anger is so easy to hold onto when you’re the one walked out on. I know the feeling all too well. I have only been separated about 8-9 months as of writing this comment, but after about 6 months I came to the same conclusions as you have here and was instantly better ever since. Forgiveness is definitely for the forgiver, not the other person.