When your divorce was finalized, did you sit down and think to yourself, “WTF! I’m divorced!! So, what do I do now?” As previously mentioned, an assignment I give to every client and even every person I meet for a consultation is the Best Life Post-Divorce exercise. I ask my clients to write on paper how they see their lives 1-3 years after divorce. Another one for 5-10 years post-divorce and some for into their retirement years.
It may seem a bit woowoo or fluffy to some but there is actual psychological and physiological reasons why I ask people who are starting to think about, in the middle of or just outside of having gotten divorced to imagine, to dream just a little and write out their future best life.
I acknowledge how difficult imagining a new life and the possibility of a great new life in the near future may seem so far from where find yourself right now but it’s in the present you will need something to look forward to in the future.
As you go through each step of your divorce, I know the weight feels heavier and sometimes, you may just want to give up. One of the reasons why the Best Life exercise is so important is for these exact moments. You see, when you sit and allow for yourself to feel what may feel like joy and hope something physically changes in your body. In the exact moment you allow yourself to feel happy, you just got a spike in dopamine. With this instant change, your vagus nerve, or your fight, flight, or freeze trigger just let go of the death grip it has been in since you started your divorce process. As your vagus nerve starts to disengage from the stress and soak in some of the happy feels, your cortisol level just went down. The more you allow your vagus nerve to disengage, the clearer your thoughts will become. As your thoughts become clearer, the easier it will be for you to make decisions regarding your divorce. The need to disengage or disassociate is no longer as strong as it once was. All because you were thinking about what life will look like when you are living your post-divorce best life.
Will you take the brave step today, whether you are going through a divorce or not, imagine for a moment what your best life in the near, mid and long term futures look like. Connect with us and share with us how you imagine your life to be and if you are willing, we can help you map out the steps towards creating your new best life and truly living it.
Next week on Build Your Foundations, we will discuss what it means to discover your strengths. We hope you will join us and be a part of the conversation as we continue in our One Year Journey series.
The One Year Journey is currently available for those who are at a crossroad in their lives and are ready to launch into a year-long intensive series of one-on-one coaching to help you go from not knowing what may come next to becoming your best self and living your best life.* We are also very excited to share that Group Coaching and Support will be available in the near future.
* There is no guarantee of becoming your best self and living your best life. Foundations Divorce Solutions and Foundations Coaching Group will help guide our clients through the journey, but the change will happen if and when the individual does the hard work themselves. The results will not be an overnight transformation. This process will take at least one full year and as the tools learned are implemented into a daily practice, change will continue, and growth will continue to happen.
