Going through a divorce can be an overwhelming and emotionally draining process. But once the legalities are settled and the dust starts to settle, it’s essential to take proactive steps towards rebuilding your life and starting fresh. In this article, we’ll cover 10 essential steps to take immediately after a divorce, helping you navigate the transition and create a new beginning after divorce.
From re-evaluating your new life, focusing on self-care and seeking proper support to taking care of your emotional well-being and establishing a support system, these steps are designed to help you navigate the post-divorce landscape with confidence and empowerment. It is now time for you to focus on regaining control of your life but also to position yourself for a brighter future.
Begin by addressing critical legal and financial tasks such as updating your name, changing your address across documents, closing joint accounts, adjusting beneficiaries, and revising your will or power of attorney, so your new life is legally and financially aligned.
It’s natural to feel lost or uncertain after a divorce, but remember that this is also an opportunity for personal growth and a chance to redefine yourself. By taking these essential steps, you can rebuild your life on your terms and move forward with confidence.
It’s also important to recognize that divorce often triggers a profound grief process, similar to mourning a loss, with emotions like anger, loss, and loneliness needing acknowledgment and healing
Divorce may be the end of one chapter, but it’s also the beginning of a new one! Let’s explore these 10 essential steps and embrace the fresh start that awaits you.
How to Strategically Rebuild Your Life After Divorce
1. Why You Need a Divorce Coach or Therapist After Divorce:
Your divorce doesn’t “end” when you sign the agreement (nor when it’s court ordered). Your divorce journey actually only starts now, and your greatest focus now needs to be on YOU: how you act, how you feel and the decisions you make. Many things can come up for you that could have been set aside or suppressed during the challenging negotiation period of your divorce.
Seeking professional support after a divorce can be beneficial for individuals navigating the complexities of emotions and aftermath of such dramatic life changes. The Irooze app contains a divorce directory where you can find a wide range of different divorce coaches you can talk to about your situation. Talking it out is a healthy response to divorce which invariably allows you to start over in the right frame of mind.
2. How to Build a Strong Post-Divorce Support System:
All too often, people tend to turn to their friends & family to dump all their stress and repeat the same stories to each person that will listen. This is not ideal as this negativity could strain your relationships, nor will it be productive in helping you move forward. They may love you and want to help, but the time will come when they will get fed up after being involved in the same conversations on a consistent basis. It is highly recommended that you ask your close network to ensure that you eat, sleep, shower and smile 🙂
And leave your serious conversations for the professionals.
3. If new issues come up between you and your ex, try to stay out of court and seek professional advice:
Now that you are divorced, it is best that you settle any further issues out of court. A divorce mediator can help you at any time. They serve as a neutral intermediary, aiding both of you in resolving conflicts amicably.
If you are having an individual issue with a situation, Divorce Coaches are known to be a great resource for venting your frustrations with the aim to help you analyze the situation, seeking clarity in what is important and providing you with coping strategies or fresh perspective on the best way to handle the issue.
Parenting Coaches are also fantastic resources to help you co-parent when possible, or help the two of you co-exist when there is too much stress between the two parents.
4. Allow time to just BE:
Now that the “papers” are signed, it is time to just BE. Allow yourself time to heal and grieve. Soak it all in. Don’t make any big decisions. Allow your mind and spirit time to process and adjust to all the changes and new considerations going on in your life. When things feel overwhelming, repeat this mantra: My mind is calm. I am at peace.
5. Let Go of Blame to Move Forward After Divorce:
Now that the storm has settled (hopefully for a significant time), you will have time to think and reflect. Be aware that this quiet period could bring about thoughts of regret for things you said or actions you took. Pointing the finger at your ex, blaming or accusing them of past events will not support your healing. Additionally, it is common to relive the stories of what your family lawyer said or did not say in court or while negotiating.
All of it is in the past, as such, it is best to keep it there. Bringing it back to life will only cause you anxiety (and further legal expenses). Therefore, stop living in what happened yesterday. Focus on today, and aim for tomorrow.
6. Develop Healthy Coping Skills for Life After Divorce:
Divorce can feel like the end of the world at the time, even though it may ultimately lead to healthier and happier directions in your life. When faced with divorce, it’s crucial to learn coping skills to navigate through the process, acknowledge your emotions, and transform pain into strength. Coping mechanisms such as emotional regulation, engaging in enjoyable activities, practicing mindfulness, and more can help you manage the intensity of divorce and begin anew.
If you are looking for guidance in learning new coping skills, consider exploring our Divorce Directory for support and resources tailored to your needs.
7. Avoid hanging on to desperation:
If you’re finding it hard to let go of certain emotions, such as anger, sadness, depression, anxiety, and resentment, you may not be able to open yourself to the possibilities of a fresh start. Those emotions may even drive you to seek to reconcile with your spouse. You may find yourself desperately begging for forgiveness and doing many things to ensure the relationship works out.
The fear of being alone and also the feeling of uncertainty can make one desperate, causing us to feel powerless and helpless. If you know that divorce is the right choice for you but you struggle with lingering feelings and desperation, reach out for support. A divorce coach that can guide you through the entire divorce phase and help you gain clarity and inner peace.
8. Work together to focus on children:
When there are children involved, it is essential that every decision made is in the children’s best interests. Divorcing parents must work together to provide what’s best for the children. Remember that co-parenting effectively and successfully is a long-term endeavor. Children will have a lot of big life changes to adjust to, and may experience their own emotional turbulence during this time. Putting the children first will ensure a peaceful, collaborative, and child-centered approach toward divorce, hopefully easing the impact of the situation for them.
9. Don’t rush into a new relationship:
The fear of being alone can make people who just went through a divorce jump into a new relationship. Divorcee’s often use a new relationship as a way to cover up or avoid the emotions they are currently facing, which doesn’t usually work. Those feelings will remain there until we are ready to face them. Before thinking about going into a new relationship, take some time to heal from the pain, grief, and loss.
Take the time to get to know yourself outside your former marriage, date yourself and learn from the lessons of your previous relationship before embarking on another. So don’t rush. The right person will come along when you are truly ready and able to sustain a healthy relationship.
10. Self-Care Tips for Emotional Healing After Divorce:
Taking care of you, your mental health, your body, and your emotions is one beautiful and important way to start over after a divorce. Do things that make you feel good, that give you comfort and joy. There are a variety of self-help books online that talk about how to effectively navigate life after divorce. You can use them to find the support you need to move on. You could also join communities, divorce-recovery programs, or engage in activities that you love and enjoy doing. Also, remember to eat healthy and spoil yourself. Know that you will get through this, you are strong and not alone.
Most of all, stay hopeful. Even when it feels like you haven’t achieved anything tangible yet, you shouldn’t give up hope. Try to stay positive and hopeful while putting in the efforts to wade through the challenges. The divorce journey has no specific time frame, everyone moves through it at their own pace. Slowly, with every step forward, you will begin to notice positive changes in your emotions, your outlook, and your zeal to build a life worth living.
Life After Divorce: Key Insights for the Future
One thing that we need to get in touch with if we truly want to move on after a divorce is our emotions. Divorcing usually causes significant emotional turmoil that when not acknowledged and addressed properly can lead to depression, unhappiness, and the inability to develop the strength for a fresh start.
Our spirituality specialist at Irooze, Pushpinder Singh provides deep insight as to how one can free up the mind and welcome the inner strength to move on after a divorce. Here are his thoughts on how we can see our emotions not as something to be “controlled” but rather allowed to naturally balance themselves:
There is a common saying that “We need to control our Emotions”. This proverb isn’t precise. It’s just like one wants to control the flow of the Sunlight or the sunlight itself, which is not possible. When emotions are flowing within oneself, one can majorly become a witness to them. If a person wanted to do something about it, then one should have managed them before itself, through Mindfulness and Spiritual practices. This flow of emotions is like a flow of the river that cannot be stopped and controlled completely, but it can be managed.
Though it can be suppressed and controlled to a minimum extent. Hence through spiritual practices, if one already has attained a sufficient amount of Patience, Humility, Joy, etc. then these emotions will automatically control negative emotions like Ego, Anger, etc. when such a kind of triggering situation occurs while one is restarting life after divorce.
Learning to keep the emotions OUT of your decision making process is key to an easier post-divorce life.
Here’s a great tip that was suggested by our Founder, Ravit Rose:
It is best to treat your divorce like a business. For instance, if you are to go into a business meeting and something your boss says or does doesn’t sit well with you, are you going to freak out, yell and scream and be hysterical and put on a whole big show? Likely not. Divorce is the same thing. Keep your cool. Vent behind closed doors. Do not give away your power.
When you’re talking to your ex or STBX (soon to be ex), refrain from being a bottle of emotions that just explodes when you speak to him/her. Keep your emotions in check. It may not be obvious or easy if there is a whole lot of stuff going on. But, your outcome will always be better when you detach yourself from your emotions when you’re in front of them. Keep the logical conversations active. Ditch the rest.
Starting Over After Divorce: First Steps to Take
Restarting life alone after many years of doing things with your partner can be very challenging. However, it’s something you need to adjust and adapt to, and once you do, you will be able to tap into the abundance and joy that life after divorce has to offer. Pushpinder Singh shares 5 tips and recommendations on how you can move beyond the pain to step smoothly into your new life. Read on to find out:
A person who restarts one’s life after divorce expresses one’s pain and emotions in words. This pain is primarily a doing of Attachment. The couple were attached to each other and abrupt detachment after a conflict in between them created pain within both of them. Usually, people try to run away from this pain by diverting their attention and focusing on something else. This tactic acts like escapism which increases the pain further. Somewhere this method is an outcome of Western understanding of Human Psychology.
Challenging Western Psychology: Understanding Emotions and Mental Health
Western understanding of human psychology is extremely limited and somewhere naive. The source of human psychology hides in understanding human emotions, and the West’s understanding of human psychology is still living in the dark ages when it comes to understanding human emotions. That is why, they have not yet found any kind of cure to Mental Health related issues.
In fact, the source of mental illness is the Mind constantly revolving around the past and the future tense controlled by negative emotions, which keeps on creating a chain of thoughts. Western understanding has not even found out how thoughts arise from within the mind in the first place, then how could they find out a permanent resolution to mental health-related issues, if they have not yet understood the source?
There are five direct methods to get rid of the pain that a couple needs to go through after separation, and these five methods need to be used sequentially.
1. How to Manage Overwhelming Emotions After Divorce.
Usually, people commit the blunder of getting into relationships immediately after a breakup thinking that this process will give them relief from the pain that they are going through. This is where they commit a huge blunder and multiply their sufferings. I know very well that in the start there is a huge uncontrollable emotional void within a person, and that is why a person starts to wander around in search of relief out of desperation. But one needs to understand that the process of healing oneself is a bit long and it does take some time. That is why suppressing emotions through morals and principles is the primary method because in the start a person who is suffering has almost no control over one’s emotions.
2. Addressing the pain by staying and witnessing or observing the emotion that is causing the pain through Meditative and Spiritual practices. After all, meditation is all about increasing the level of observance within oneself.
3. Channel Divorce Pain into Creative and Healing Outlet
Let it be a poet, an intellectual, an artist, or a compassionate warrior. A creative Mindset is always a doing of pain and suffering in one’s life. Any kind of positivity within one’s life is a doing of negativity, if there is no negativity within one’s life, then what would a person transform into positivity? After all, it’s negativity that transforms into positivity. It’s just like the relationship between fire and light. Light is a creation of fire, until and unless one burns in fire, one cannot become the light for the world. Just like the Sun, for the sun to provide the world with its light, it has set itself on fire and hence it is burning itself.
4. Fulfilling emotions while redirecting them
A person cannot understand emotions until and unless one feels the emotions by fulfilling them. When a person starts to understand these emotions that are causing suffering, that’s when one becomes capable of transforming these emotions and one’s life from negative to positive.
5. Innocent Children are the most powerful source of fulfilling one’s sweet emotions
After all, when Mother Nature gives the gift of a child in a human being’s life, Mother Nature is actually giving a human being one more opportunity to re-live one’s childhood once again through the child. Nature gives a human being one more opportunity to refresh one’s innocence through the innocence of the child. That innocence, which could have been snatched away by the atmosphere that one was living in. Hence co-parenting and reliving one’s childhood by spending time with the children would be the best medicine that one could receive. Who knows, the experience of that innocence can once again unite the couple for the betterment of everybody.
Life after divorce can be beautiful when you tap into your inner strength, learn to relish the strength in your emotions, and cultivate renewed hope. If you’re ready to take those steps, Irooze has a base of experienced post-divorce specialists that you can find in our divorce directory. You don’t have to live in guilt, hurt, and hate after a divorce. We can help you build a new, fulfilled and happy life. Take the self-assessment to help us connect you with the most suitable professional who understands your challenges and gives you customized guidance for your next steps.