How To Deal With Loneliness When You Divorce

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January 23, 2017

These 11 tips will help you escape from the isolation of loneliness after divorce.

Divorce catapults you into a stormy sea of emotions. Anger, disbelief and loneliness are just a few of the overpowering emotions you experience as you deal with the end of your marriage. Learning to deal with each of them is critical to your ability to move on, but learning how to deal with loneliness is one of the most difficult.

Dealing with loneliness is especially challenging because it’s a self-perpetuating emotion. It’s not energizing like anger so you can just work it out of your system by constructively expressing it. And it’s not like disbelief that you can conquer by consistently being presented with facts to the contrary.

Loneliness feeds upon itself. The more you experience it, the greater it becomes and the more difficultly you’ll have conquering it.

Loneliness grows deeper and more profound the more you experience it.

But feeling lonely as you deal with divorce is normal. You’re not really destined to be alone and lonely for the rest of your life – no matter how you feel right now.

“Feel” is a key word here because loneliness is a feeling. It isn’t a fact. And since it’s a feeling, you can…

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There's A MAJOR Reason 'The Divorce Diet' Sounds Too Good To Be True

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December 13, 2016

I know I’m not your mother, but you HAVE to eat.

Even though my ex-husband and I knew divorcing was the best answer for resolving our issues, actually going through and getting over it was one of the most difficult experiences I have had. The transition was so painful I sometimes wondered if I would ever be happy again. Was I losing my mind?

My misery was so profound that I plunged into the depths of depression and anxiety. I had difficulty sleeping, making decisions and eating. Honestly, I had so much trouble eating that I took the divorce diet to the extreme – I became anorexic.

When I look back at that time in my life, I feel tremendous amounts of compassion for the woman I was then.

She felt so lost, afraid, and out of control of her circumstances that I understand why she chose not to eat. It seemed like an appropriate choice.

There was the constant nausea.

There was the fear of gaining weight (and thereby becoming even more unlovable than she already felt).

There was the fear of spending money on food when there were so many other expenses breathing down her neck.

And then there was the sense of control…

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Yes, Homosexual Divorce Hurts Too (DUH!)

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January 2, 2017

Even “nice” prejudices cause more harm than good.

I’m sick and tired of all the divisiveness we’re subjected to every day here in the US. Our culture seems to thrive on the us vs. them mentality.

We see it in the way people segregate themselves into groups with a strong loyalty that often transcends logic (often referred to as tribalism). Just a few examples include the rabid nature of our 2-party political system (especially during election time); the way we root for our favorite teams; how we identify not as being Americans, but as a particular type of American (African, Latino, Chinese, etc.); and in our sexuality.

Now don’t get me wrong. I believe having a strong sense of identity is important and that challenge can promote growth. But we go overboard with it when we use our sense of us vs. them to produce barriers that prevent communication or to promote a prejudice – even when that prejudice is “nice”.

One of the “nice” prejudices I’ve repeatedly run across has to do with same-sex divorce.

The right for same-sex couples to marry in every state is still new (it became the law of the land on June 26, 2015). Many same-sex couples have…

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How To Heal From Divorce? Stop Doing This

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December 5, 2016

Not doing this one thing will change EVERYTHING!

Your logical mind knows the fact that thousands of people survive divorce every year. However, the rest of you isn’t so sure you’ll be one of them.

You’re facing too many changes, too many losses. You’re not sure if you have the strength to continue on. You’re hardly sleeping or eating and you’re afraid you’re becoming severely depressed since you’re crying all the time.

Despite what you’re currently experiencing, there is hope. And that’s what you need to amplify. But it’s hard to do that when you’re swamped with negativity. So before you can accentuate the positive, you need to decrease the depression, panic, fear, anxiety, and worry.

It sounds like a lot, but you can address all of them if you do just one thing: stop worrying.

This probably sounds both simplistic and impossible. But, it turns out that worry is at the root of all the rest of it. According to Psychology Solution, here’s how it works:

WORRY leads to ANXIETY which leads to FEAR which leads to PANIC which leads to DEPRESSION

So if you stop worrying, then you can stop the chain reaction which leads toward depression.

The first step to stop worrying…

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