5 Hopeful Moving-On-With-Life-After-Divorce Quotes

Sometimes being a champion in your own life needs more inspiration than what you can muster up on your own. After a traumatic experience like divorce, when your life needs a hero more than ever, self-motivation can be tough to generate. But take heart. The sages of life’s messy, confusing, spirit-stunting events have come up with a wellspring of moving-on-with-life-after-divorce quotes to re-energize your journey.

Divorce, even when necessary for the hope of happiness, leaves a lot of discontent in its wake. If you are going through or have gone through a divorce, you know how unpredictable, weighty, and defeating the aftermath can be.

But chances are you also know that people do get through it. And many end up happier than they have ever been.

So let’s recharge your positivity with these 5 moving-on-with-life-after-divorce quotes:

1. “The most beautiful people I’ve known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.” – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

   I’m starting with this reflection by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for a couple reasons.
   
   First, Kübler-Ross encapsulates in one sentence the essence of the journey of divorce. There is the struggle. There is the loss – of dreams, of promises, of friendship, of marriage, of family.
   
   I’m starting with this reflection by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross for a couple reasons.
   
   First, Kübler-Ross encapsulates in one sentence the essence of the journey of divorce. There is the struggle. There is the loss – of dreams, of promises, of friendship, of marriage, of family. 
   
   And there is the resurrection, if you will. The turning skyward from the depths of pain and unknowing and ascending with focus, not only away from the darkness, but toward the light. 
   
   The other reason I am starting with this quotation is that Kübler-Ross is responsible for defining what we have all come to know as the five stages of grief. 
   
   Coaching someone through the functional and emotional stages of divorce would be incomplete without the incorporation of grief. It’s a journey that weaves its way through the entire experience of divorce. 
   
   And divorce grief is unlike bereavement or any other kind of grief. 
   
   The model of grief defined by Kübler-Ross runs parallel to the journey of divorce. There is the initial denial, then anger, bargaining, depression, and, eventually, acceptance. 
   
   The stages don’t necessarily flow linearly, but they do flow toward eventual acceptance. 
   
   What a beautiful expression of accepting your own struggles and losses and finding a way to transform them into something wonderful.

2. “Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.” – Roy T. Bennett 

   Divorce is the epitome of struggling through an undoing in an effort to rebuild your life…with wings. It is, in many ways, the consummate test of your determination against the weight of negativity, destruction, and loss. 
   
   If you’ve ever picked up an injured bird, you’ve probably marveled at how lightweight it was. Those wings that dance on air are finessed in their unique gift. 
   
   But they can’t be weighed down and still fly. 
   
   And so it is with your spirit and your life. 
   
   Whether or not you wanted your divorce, your determination to soar on clouds of happiness and success depends on unburdened wings. 
   
   Think of it as jettisoning heavy cargo from a plane in an emergency. Whatever doesn’t serve your highest good has to go.

3. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” – Mahatma Gandhi

   There really is no moving on with life after any kind of loss without forgiveness.
   
   Interestingly, the heaviest weight that will keep you from flying is lack of forgiveness. 
   
   All the moving-on-with-life-after-divorce quotes in the world will sit in a holding pattern until you decide to forgive. Your ex. Yourself. Anyone who may have hurt or disappointed you. 
   
   Forgiveness in the context of divorce can be extremely difficult. No matter who has done what, both parties have contributed to what is now seen as a loss, failure, and devastation.
   
   The negative energy of divorce can weaken the spirit. But forgiveness infuses positivity, freedom, and hope. It makes room for what can be instead of tripping over the archives of what was.
   
   It takes incredible strength to stand up to harms of the past – especially those self-inflicted – and say, “You’re not the boss of me!”

4. “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” – Toni Morrison

   So the process is over. The ugly battle over assets and custody, the blame, the packing, the standing on a precipice staring into a wall of fog. It’s all over. Legally, anyway.  
   
   Anyone who is awake through something so difficult knows the real work is just beginning. You may not have a spouse to answer to now, but you do have someone who has been waiting patiently for you. And, yes, it’s you. 
   
   Even if you have children to care for, you also have yourself to care for in a new, liberated way. What is your vision for this new self? How will you own your new self and the destiny you are now in charge of creating? 
   
   At the moment you decide to take ownership of yourself – divorced, forgiving, forgiven – the moving on will begin.

5. “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.” – Brené Brown 

   What a perfect place to close. 
   
   You are standing in a position of choice. What you deny or give away in the form of blame will remain out of your power and prerogative to change. And, ironically, it will continue to cling to you, like a barnacle that serves no purpose. 
   
   Your story, in a sense, will always own you. 
   
   But own your story with acceptance and responsibility? 
   
   Now it belongs to you. It’s yours to use as you will. 
   
   You can learn from it. Grow from it. Inspire and teach others because of it. And you can change the narrative for the sequel…and write the ending you have always dreamed of.

Coming full circle with these moving-on-with-life-after-divorce quotes, there is a sixth stage of grief that melds perfectly with the challenge of moving forward.

Finding meaning, as the culmination to the journey through grief, gives movement and momentum to acceptance.

Meaning isn’t always obvious. Most of the time it has to be created from a merging of experience and positive intention.

The magic of finding (or creating) meaning from your loss is that it extends an invitation. And it gives you something worthwhile to live into.

I’m Dr. Karen Finn, a divorce and life coach. If you’re tired of struggling with life after divorce and would like some support, you can join my newsletter list for free weekly advice or you can schedule a 30-minute private consultation with me and together we can begin putting together a plan for the next best steps you can take to start feeling better.

Looking for more information about how to start over after divorce? You’ll find what you’re looking for in Life After Divorce.