Divorce Can Hurt Your Health… What You Can Do About It

Can you diminish divorce’s negative impact on your health? I believe so.

Working through your emotions is certainly part of coping with divorce as well as healing from divorce. Yet, your thoughts and beliefs play an important role too. Your thoughts and beliefs can bring you down and stall healing from divorce, or they can have an awesome healing power that affects not only your psyche and spirit but also your general health.

The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own thought.

William Makepeace Thackeray, English Novelist

As Thackeray points out, how we experience the world is colored by how we think about the world. The same is true about the experience of divorce. If we perceive divorce as the end of hope, hope will become elusive.

Divorce can be a devastating experience and can leave difficult circumstances as well. Yet if we choose to think of divorce as closing of one door and the opening other doors, we will open ourselves to the hope of a better future. If we believe we can find joy, can make it as a single person, can be an effective single parent, and can still be loved by God, then we open ourselves to achieve and experience those things.

Divorce and Health

WebMD indicates divorce can have a lasting toll on an individual’s health. Not just mental health but physical too. The statistics are sobering.

But I believe those statistics don’t have to spell your future.  Why?

Because you have the God-given ability to minimize the stress toll by choosing to avoid self-defeating thoughts. I’m not talking about denying reality or living in a world of fantasy. I’m talking about seeing possibilities and prayerfully avoiding those thoughts that block your ability to find positive outcomes.

According to The Mayo Clinic, positive thinking may include these health benefits:

• Increased life span
• Lower rates of depression
• Lower levels of distress
• Greater resistance to the common cold
• Better psychological and physical well-being
• Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
• Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

So What Are You Going Do?

Can you diminish divorce’s health toll by choosing positive thoughts and beliefs? I believe you can if you are willing to try and to seek God’s help. I also believe that there are steps that can move you closer to that goal.

1. Decide that you will become aware of thoughts that frame your world in a negative way and that distance you from the reality of a loving God.
2. Ask God to help you to be mindful of thoughts that are creating barriers to healing from divorce so that you recognize them when they surface in your mind.
3. Identify specific limiting thoughts and beliefs you have about significant areas of your life right now. Focus on your thoughts about your divorce, your circumstances, your ex, single parenting or life after divorce. What thoughts are sabotaging your ability to heal?
4. Prayerfully work to replace those thoughts with new thoughts that steer you toward less stress and more positive outcomes. Thoughts that help you to see possibilities, have confidence in yourself and walk in the light of a loving God.

Life is not over because of divorce. You can heal. You can feel good again. You can even find joy.

Christian Divorce Recovery Thought for Today
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
Proverbs 23:7 NKJV

Resources to Help You… 

•  Peace After Divorce book— For focused practical and Christian guidance in healing from divorce, order Renee’s award-winning book, Peace after Divorce today.  You’ll find support for coping with divorce and healing from divorce in this remarkable Christian divorce recovery book. Learn More. (Paperback and eBook available)
  
• Children Coping with Your Divorce?:  What Parents Can Do to Help What you do matters!  Get practical strategies for helping your children cope with your divorce.  (eBook)
  

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