7 Ways to Stifle Healing from Divorce

Yikes! A few years ago I broke my foot. Suddenly my plans for the next several weeks were brought to a halt. Okay, you’re hearing about my broken bone situation because it pales in comparison to all the ways divorce can bring abrupt and prolonged changes to a person’s life.

Divorce slams the brakes on the dreams you had when you got married. Divorce shifts your now and your future in a new direction. You may find yourself overwhelmed with change.

Life may feel crazy for a while which is normal when your life faces a huge change of course. You may feel numb, relieved, dazed, angry or sad.  Allow yourself to accept these feelings and process them in your own time.

Yet, how you handle the changes brought about by separation and divorce will have a huge impact on whether and how quickly you heal emotionally.

So, if you’ve been dealing with your emotions for a while and now seem to be stuck not moving forward with healing from divorce, you may want to figure out why.

Here are seven stumbling blocks that can keep you in pain and block your ability to effectively move on with your life.

7 Ways to Stifle Your Healing from Divorce

1. Freezing Up. Feeling numb is normal for a while but you don’t stay there forever. If you find yourself unable to function seek help.
2. Looking Back. At some point, your thoughts need to shift from the past and what might have been to the present and the future. Focusing on the past keeps you from looking forward and creating a new present and future.
3. Daydreaming but Never Acting. Daydreaming is good but you have to act if you’re going to create a positive new future.
4. Making Impulsive Decisions. Emotionally made decisions are rarely sound. Decisions made from anger or frustration tend to backfire.
5. Avoiding Reality. Working, drinking, sleeping or simply running from reality gets you nowhere good.
6. Blaming. Even when you’ve been wronged, blaming others for your situation keeps you from focusing your attention on what you can do to make your life better.
7. Wallowing. Wallowing in how you’ve been done wrong may feel justified. Wallowing mires you down and keeps you from acknowledging and acting on the control you still have in your life.

Stop!

If you’re sabotaging your own ability to get over the pain of divorce stop and think about what you are doing.  If you can’t stop self-defeating behavior on your own, get help.  Make a choice to deal with divorce in a way that has a better pay-off for your life.  You’ll be glad you did!

In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

Ephesians 6:16 NIV

If you’re ready to get serious about healing from divorce join a Peace after Divorce Workshop.  You’ll find a step-by-step experience that nurtures and supports healing from divorce and moving on to a positive life after divorce.

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Renee’s blog posts every Friday at 6 AM.

This post first appeared in this blog on September 11, 2015.

Peace after Divorce has been recognized as an exemplary Christian book by the Illumination Book Awards.