Emotional Fitness and Your Divorce

The second step in "Fitness for Divorce" is your emotional health. Here are some things to consider:

Time Out

A divorce can wreak havoc on the body, mind, and soul. The stress of raw emotions, tight finances, courtroom drama (if you didn't choose a collaborative divorce), legal haggling, and sad children can cause your entire system to shut down. You can be left depressed and physically ill. 

Take care of yourself first. You know the plane safety demonstration with the oxygen? Put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then your children. There's a reason for that. You won't be any help to your children if you let yourself deteriorate. Steal money out of the grocery fund if you have to and live on beans! Do something to get away and remember what it was like to spend a little time in the company of someone special...you.

Laugh

When you get divorced, you may go through a time when nothing seems funny, or fun. You may have avoided your friends. You most likely have experienced a degree of depression. Now is a good time to have a laugh, to start living again. The sheer power that a good laugh has to improve your mood is incredible. You don't have to do anything too involved; the simpler, the better. Enjoy a funny movie. Read a funny book. Go to a playground. Climb a tree. Read the Sunday comics. Play with some puppies or kittens. Play with your kids. Do whatever you need to in order to have a good belly-laugh.