Tag: #growth

5 Ways To Ensure You Will Have A Happy Life After Divorce

Thinking about your life after divorce all while getting a divorce can be a sticking point for some people simply because they just aren’t sure what their life will “look like” after divorce.

Here’s 5 things to keep in mind so that you can have a meaningful life after divorce:

Life after divorce item 1: Think about your emotional stability…if you wanted the divorce or not, you must face it head on.

Divorce is tough and whether you are going through it or are already past it, your emotional stability is of vital importance because you might tend to be somewhat touchy after going through an emotional ordeal. Keep in mind that your life after divorce can be great but you must admit that you will go through (or have gone through) a trying time in your life. Admitting this and facing your situation is important to your emotional stability and critical to you having a happy life after divorce.

Life after divorce item 2: Look at the bright side, having a life after divorce could be a new start for you!

How may times in your life do you wish you could have just started over knowing what you know now? If you answered “many”, don’t worry, that is a common thought most of us have. Having a positive mental attitude about your new beginning will make a huge difference in how happy your life will be after divorce. Life after divorce can be fantastic and it can also be very tough if you don’t remain positive about what’s ahead of you. Look at the glass as being “half full” and realize that, in order to be happy after divorce, you must take advantage of the opportunity to get a fresh start!

Life after divorce item 3: Surround yourself with people you like in your free time.

Too often times people start new relationships with just about anyone because they are lonely while getting a divorce or after getting a divorce. Sparking a relationship, romantic or friendly, with anyone and everyone who will spend time with you can contribute to unhappiness in your life after divorce. Stop and think about the people that you spend time with and ask yourself, “Once my emotional turmoil has ended, would I really want to keep the relationship going with this person?”. Life after divorce is tough…so, when you’re deciding about divorce, going through one, or already have been through a divorce, make sure that you carefully choose who to spend your time with or you may fall into more negativity in your life after divorce.

Life after divorce item 4: Make it a point to spend time doing things that you like to do every week.

Make sure that you spend time enjoying your life after divorce – don’t forget to ‘stop and smell the roses’. Some people vent, work, go into hiding, or just plain go haywire after getting a divorce and their subsequent life after divorce isn’t as healthy as they would like. At least once a week, take the time to go and do something that you really enjoy doing…it will help you deal with your life after divorce in a more pleasing manner.

Life after divorce item 5: Set specific goals and implement a plan to achieve those goals.

Life after divorce is a tumultuous time. In order to make sure that you feel good about yourself and enjoy the feeling that accomplishment brings, think about a goal or set of goals that you’ve always had but never attained. Then, prioritize those goals and devise a plan to obtain them, one by one. Implement each plan and be happy (in fact celebrate) once you’ve reached your goal. Your life after divorce will be better and healthier if you take this concept to heart and follow it.

Visualizing your life after divorce (and thinking about what your life might be like after divorce) is a sound and logical thing to do. Your life after divorce does not need to be a continuation of the pain you might have gone through or are currently going through.

Life after divorce can be extremely liberating if you act based on logic plus positive emotions rather than negativity. If divorce is eminent or you’ve already been through divorce, take the time to actually plan your life after divorce.

Death Can Trump Life

It’s my 38th birthday and instead of celebrating my mind is clouded with rhetorical questions. Do you ever ponder the meaning of life? Why are we here? Perhaps these questions surface when we receive news we’d rather not receive, the passing of an parent, a sibling, a friend’s spouse who died for the wrong reason. I did not even believe it myself when others tried to justify the news by saying this is the circle of life.

I don’t make it a habit of reading the obituary columns in the newspaper but occasionally I read about strangers. Many have experienced a long and full life, contributed to society in a meaningful way, were visible within their community. I think how proud their family must be, I also imagine the hurt and grief they are experiencing. I read about the 42-year old father who has succumbed to cancer and leaves behind a wife and two children and I wonder how this is fair. My heart aches when I read about the young child tragically killed in an accident as my eyes fill with tears.

I’m no stranger to death. It does not scare me and I deal with it in quite a weird way. I do however find death emotionally overwhelming. It is hurt, compassion, sadness, pain, empathy, love all rolled together that hits like a tsunami, in waves over a period of time.

I’ve lost high school friends to accidents, drugs, and disease. I’ve seen first hand the impact on a family when their young son took his own life. Like so many others, I have said goodbye to relatives only after they have gone.   

Before now, I bet young people seldom thought of death, they were too busy living life as if they are invincible, surfing social media and following the new trends. Older people tend to prepare for death and accept the event as a natural and inevitable occurrence. Experience and reality have tempered their emotions. The grief and hurt is still there, so is the reflection on the positive aspects of the individual’s life. For some, their biggest worry is if they will fulfill their purpose. 

Maybe this aging process will help me to become less sensitive to the loss of not only those I love, but to those I have only read about in the newspaper. I am thankful my fear of death is more than offset by my passion for life. So it should be. 

So where does this discussion of death take us? It could be to the end of a journey, or the beginning of a new one depending on your beliefs. If you were to have a tombstone, what would it read? Here we are back to the question, what is our mission, our purpose, our goal in life? One accolade might read, “Here lays an honest person who cared about the people around her, respected others and made a positive difference in the lives of everyone she encountered.” If we envision how we want others to remember us, it might provide a valuable compass to aid us down the path of life.

In a perfect world, perhaps caring and understanding might extend well beyond our community and our country. Imagine a common bond based on a desire for truth, justice, peace, and mutual respect. 

We can’t do a lot about death. We can very much impact life – our own and others.

The Power of Positive Thinking

Throw away those negative thoughts, they are blocking the positive things that are to come!

When most people think of positive thinking, they imagine something flowery and nonrealistic. It’s true that our moods are greatly affected by the way we see things, but positivity isn’t just about sitting around thinking happy thoughts and skipping through fields of flowers on sunshiny days. Positive thinking is about embracing the reality of our situations and deciding to make the best of them instead of making excuses or dwelling on past failures. I had a conversation about this topic with my other half as he tells me often that I am so optimistic in situations.

Last night I challenged him to look at things in a more positive light instead of instantly thinking negatively. It is my belief that positive thinking is the root of a positive lifestyle. And many people don’t realize that the negative thought patterns that they create will multiply the more they think about them. I know he doesn’t wholeheartedly agree but just the simple fact that he will give it a try makes me love him even more.

In an effort to prove my opinion that our mind creates our reality; think about a time when someone spoke to you about a car that they wanted that you weren’t really familiar with or a TV show that was recommended to you. After the conversation about the car or the tv show, I can almost guarantee that you began to see that car or that TV show often and almost everywhere.

Why do you think this is so? I believe that this happens because your mind has just become aware of that car or tv show. So just think, if your mind becomes aware of prosperity, living a good life and abundance due to your positive thoughts then that is what you will begin to see in your reality.

Simply put, the mind is like a computer. The information that you put into it, it will be output in your reality. And it will continue to be output as long and you continue to input said information, ie. positivity.

Positive thinking won’t solve every problem that you have in your life, but it will help you deal with the things that you can’t avoid and reduce stress in your daily life so that you are more likely to be productive even when the ‘going gets tough’. Believe me, it took me a while to adopt this mind set and to believe it myself. I was one of those people who thought that I truly got the short end of the stick in life. While I never truly experienced lack, I always had nagging thoughts that bad things were just always occurring in my life. Once I began to meditate, I shifted my thoughts to more positive things to release those negative thoughts that would arise. And then my life seem to change course. Now that’s not to say that I don’t have bad days, or that I don’t experience setbacks from time to time but it just goes to show that I have the ability to choose what my mind processes to produce positivity in everyday life to be able to more easily handle those bad days and focus on the positive aspects of any seemingly negative situation.

Stay positive!!!

Legally Single…

I rarely read the newspaper, involve myself with reality TV or watch the news. The world could be ending, but I’d be enjoying life and not even aware. Today an article popped up that maybe I needed to see. The headline read: Kim Kardashian West Asks Judge To Be Declared Legally Single Amid Kanye West Divorce.

I’m feeling this Kimberly!!!

I read through the article and felt a sense of familiarity to a statement that Kim made. Once upon a time co-parenting and the happiness of my kids was also a priority. And then one day that dumb fucker made me almost revisit a place I promised myself to never go again.

I replay that day in my head a lot. My peace was disturbed, my space was invaded, I felt disrespected, manipulated and backed into a corner for the absolute last time in my life. I was ready to choose violence over my freedom. And oddly it wasn’t my kids that changed my mind.

I always attribute a big life changing situation to a person or people. For example I purchased my home to provide my kids with a nice and beautiful place to live, and to one day inherit. I went to college to establish a lucrative career to be able to take care of my Mom and later my own family. I’ve never really just done something or reacted a certain way depending upon how it would affect just me.

This particular day I couldn’t even cry in that moment no matter how furious I felt. I opted to not put that asshole on a t-shirt for ME. Because for once I was happy. I was in a good place in life. I was/am deserving of the love I found and have. And I wasn’t going to give this idiot the pleasure of allowing me to take him out of his misery simply because I was “violated”.

After that I gave up the thought of co-parenting and doing all I could to make my kids comfortable and happy through the devastating event of divorce.

Welcome to Jumanji kids…aka Life.

Shit isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Just like people you love die, so does the relationships of people you love. Sometimes the people are true adults and it’s easy and the kids are able to experience that continued happiness. And then there’s times where both of the people aren’t adults and the best thing they can do is to disconnect and allow each other to take advantage of the space and time to “grow” with the situation as well as grow up.

This was me choosing ME. If I could do the day over again I wouldn’t change a single detail. It was needed and necessary no matter how stressful it was. I felt like it was a test. And I feel that I passed regardless of my current circumstances. Today I’m accepting because of my decision I won’t have a break, I’m a damn good Single Mother and money is tight as hell. But it won’t be like this always. It’s a temporary situation.

Now let me check our state and see if I too can ask the judge to declare me legally single amid my divorce 😉