I have recently focused my Life Coaching practice on Divorce Recovery for Women.  This is an area that I know very well as I was divorced last year after a three year separation.  It is always easier to look at divorce in hindsight when the pain and fear of the initial stages of divorce have passed.  The lessons learned by using your divorce as a catalyst for change can create new possibilities for creating a new life but first you must get through it.

I can tell you that your fear can sabotage your ability to both handle your divorce and heal yourself.  When we listen to that voice in our head that says," How can I go on?  How will I manage?  Will this ever end?  I am afraid of the future?  I am afraid that I will lose my children" you begin to believe it and it runs your life.  Fear is a natural response to the grief associated with divorce but we must learn to not succumb to it.

Look at yourself.  What do you know to be true about yourself in terms of your strength, your resources and all the positive traits that you have exhibited in your life? Look back at your life and recount all the things that you have accomplished, the things that you overcome and the things that people admire about you. What are all the things that you have done right in your life?  Have you weathered other storms in your life and come out okay?  What have you accomplished in your life?

The mind chatter that accompanies your divorce is just that: mind chatter. It is not you.  It is fear and doubt that spring up whenever we are challenged by life's circumstances. a divorce is a major loss, a death of a way of life.  As such, it involves highly specific stages of grieving that include, denial, pain, anger, bargaining,  depression and finally acceptance.  Know that you will go through these stages and knowing that you will come out at the other end in a state of  acceptance with a renewed sense of self and life.  It is part of recovering from a divorce.  Don't beat yourself up when you are experiencing these feelings.

But don't let fear make you into someone you are not.  Acknowledge that you are afraid but know that an emotion like fear is just that: an emotion. It is not who you are at your core.  Fear can used to your benefit.  Recognizing fear as a clue that you are facing a new landscape can prepare you fort the work that needs to be done.  Fear and doubt arise when we encounter an unfamiliar and completely new landscape.  They clue us into the fact that we find the unfamiliar scary.  Remember other times in your life when you were initially afraid of the unknown?

Acknowledge your fear  as a sign that you are going to  be changing.  Call upon all of your strengths and talents that you have always demonstrated in your life. Remind yourself of your power and your greatness. Connect with the person that has triumphed over adversity in the past.  Remember who you are at your core.  You will get through this just as yu have gotten through other bad times.