So you just went through a divorce. You look around the house and everything is different. Your partner's stuff is gone. You feel relieved, and yet, at times, still sad.
As you walk through the house you find something of theirs and you remember the memory that was attached to it.
Maybe it was from a time when you guys were happy together and seeing it makes you feel sad. It makes you feel alone. It makes you wonder if you did the right thing.
You are always going to have those feelings, and for a while. When a relationship ends, it's sad. It's hard. It's difficult. Especially when you know it's ending and you start to become a detached observer, watching two former-lovers slowly drift apart. The thoughts arrive.
"Wow, did I do the right thing?"
"Are we making the right decision?"
"Can we save this?"
No.
There are reasons that you've come to this. Respect them. Sit in the pain for as long as you need to. Then begin to move on.
Let's talk about how to feel better, how to heal.
Here are three things that I recommend everybody who has recently separated or divorced should do:
1. Take a vacation: If you have kids, get somebody to watch them. Have your ex watch the kids! You need a couple of days away -- preferably a week. Go on a vacation with a good friend or go by yourself. Try somewhere fun, somewhere healing.
Go to an island. Go to a beach. Do something that you love. Ski. Take a hike. Whatever the vacation is, wherever it might be -- go there.
And don't go there with the intention of meeting the other divorcees. Just go and be by yourself or go with a friend and reflect, heal and have fun. It's so important.
2. Meet new people. Make sure you have one night a week that you go out and meet new people. Whether it's a bar or restaurant, a class you may take, whatever it might be -- you need to start getting out there.
It's not about finding the next relationship. That's not important at all right now. It's about connecting with new people and having the support that you'll need to move forward.
It's so important to do this because it will make you feel free, make you feel open and help you to realize how abundant this world is -- full of interesting people that you can just have a good time with.
3. Date -- only when you're ready, and only when you've processed your last relationship. Processing a relationship takes time, and it's different for everyone.
For some of us it takes a while. Some of us aren't ready to date for a year. Some of us aren't ready to date for a month. But, you need not listen to your friends.
When people tell you to go out and "meet someone because after a breakup is the best time to meet somebody new" -- don't believe them! It's not.
You don't want to meet anybody new until you have processed the entire relationship. You want to know what happened, you want to accept what happened, you want to embrace what happened, and you want to learn the lesson that your last relationship presented you.
You want to go into the next stage of your life -- the dating stage -- with an open heart and open mind. Don't go out angry or disappointed or upset, because the law of attraction will bring you people that match those emotions.
The whole lesson behind your separation was to figure out what you did wrong and why you picked that person so you don't make that same mistake again. It's important to know the lessons of your past relationships in order to move forward into a healthy, great, new relationship.
These are the three things that I did after my divorce, and after doing them I started feeling much better.
I started looking at life with a lot more clarity and I'm feeling better about the decision that was made.
Yes, you're going to miss the person, yes there's going to be moments when you go to a restaurant and you see your favorite table or you eat the foods that you used to share. That's normal, that's natural and that's healthy.
The person that you were with, even though you're no longer with them, is still a wonderful amazing person -- just not your amazing wonderful person.
Embrace your divorce; embrace feeling single and start falling back in love with the power of yourself.