Making Time for You: How to Make Time for Yourself

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Divorce is a truly hard and difficult process that impacts many facets of life including our social circles, finances, and even our sense of identity. To adapt to this transition, it’s essential to schedule time for self-care. I say schedule because that’s just how intentional doing self-care during your divorce is. In order to have the stamina to find a new living situation, research affordable childcare, or land a new job, you’ve got to carve out time that’s just for you. 

How to Make Time for Yourself

Exercise

Move your body! Movement provides an outlet for stress and anxiety and gives a safe place for these (valid) emotions to go. In addition, regular exercise promotes healthy sleep and improves your mood. Divorce is a long-distance sport, so keep your strength by pumping your heart rate up for at least 15 minutes, three times per week. Most importantly, let go of any predetermined notion of how your body should be looking right now, and exercise for the lasting health benefits and confidence it builds.

Meditation

While it may feel daunting at first, introducing a meditation practice into your routine is a core self-care tool. Meditation can take many forms, including walking meditations, repeating a mantra, or guided breathing exercises, so don’t feel like you have to look or dress a certain way to practice. Ultimately, meditation encourages our awareness of the present moment, helping us to safely feel our bodies and provide refuge in a sea of emotions without judgement.

Journaling

Therapeutic activities like journaling is another great grounding technique to keep you rooted in the present. Gurus and scientists alike agree that writing a list of what we are grateful for — especially first thing in the morning — can instill a sense of optimism and sustain us through the hurdles of the day. Keeping a journal during your divorce can also provide catharsis in the future, a testimony to what you accomplished; your hard won freedom.

Recreational Reading

Give your brain a break from the divorce lingo and the parade of emails. Having a solid fiction book to dive into is a readily accessible form of relaxation, even for the busiest of minds. A reading ritual is just as much about the material as it is the setting, so use this time as an intentional space set aside where you can find some quiet, free of distractions.

Relaxing Bath or Shower

When depression looms, self-grooming can go out the window. Scheduling time for a luxurious bubble bath might seem ridiculous, but not if you’re serious about staying sane. Combine this time with your recreational reading, or don’t! It’s your self-care ritual, relaxation is the only requirement. Incorporating essential oil blends like spearmint, eucalyptus, and lavender are a perfect addition to soothe your sinuses. Candles make things feel official and can transform just about any space into a sanctuary.

A Balanced Diet

Stress can deeply affect your appetite, especially when facing separation. It’s important to create systems in your home that will help you eat regular meals to maintain your blood sugar level and a stable mood. A diet full of leafy greens and energy-packed fats like avocado and ghee is the most nutritious, but can be challenging to sustain. This means maintaining a healthy diet might require setting aside an afternoon for meal prep or making batches of comfort foods like lasagna that can be easily heated up when you don’t feel like cooking. Whatever your optimal diet is, try to focus on the idea of nourishment while eating instead of distracting yourself with devices and screens.

A Divorce-Free Zone

Spending social time without dominating the discussion with your divorce is not only essential for your well-being, but your friends’ as well. Divorce doesn’t need to define you, and playing the broken record of how crappy your ex is, well, crappy to listen to. Protect your social circle and make a point to be present with your friends. Using this transition as an opportunity to check out some local activities you’d normally slough off can be a great way to stay socially active; I’m talking Zumba, farmer’s markets, that Persian restaurant you haven’t tried, all of it. You’re discovering the new you after all! 


Hopefully this list not only offers advice after a breakup but gives you some blueprints on how to design your own divorce self-care routine. These rituals will serve you best if you approach them with a sense of curiosity; these practices should not be punishments. If you’d like to check out other guides on how to survive your divorce, download my free ebook here.

Making Time for You: Self-Care During Your Divorce

by |

Divorce is a truly hard and difficult process that impacts many facets of life as social circles, finances, and even our sense of identity changes. In order to adapt to this transition, it’s essential to schedule time for self-care. I say schedule because that’s just how intentional providing self-care during your divorce is. In order to have the stamina to find a new living situation, research affordable childcare, or land a new job, you’ve got to carve out time that’s just for you. 

Importance of Prioritizing Self Care

This is a marathon, not a sprint

Scroll Instagram for a few minutes and the hashtag #selfcare will have you believing it’s something you buy online; week-long tropical retreats, lavish skincare routines, pricey juicing cleanses…keep scrolling. Self-care is ultimately the choice to take care of yourself, despite the constant demands of a society that wants you to address everything else first, before attending to your needs. Each time you practice a form of self-care, you send and reinforce the message that you matter, that you deserve to feel good in your mind and safe in your body. That you are enough all on your own.

Sound Decision-making

Most of the decisions you make during your divorce will have long-term consequences. So bring in the reinforcements — all the self-care practices that help keep you grounded during times of uncertainty. As imperfect human beings, our inner world mirrors our external one. By taking the time out of our busy lives to pause before beginning yet another task sets us up for being present with our emotions, allows us to identify and name them, and with that presence we can then tap into the compassion necessary to accept them as they are. Operating from a place of self-care, and therefore, self-compassion, helps prevent you from making reactive decisions out of anger or fear. Because it’s what we do with the emotion that matters, and really the only thing we can control.

Better Parenting

You may be tempted to cut corners with your kids during a divorce, but healthy and consistent ground rules during this time is the best advice for separating with children – you’re making choices that will affect your child’s well-being, choices that can also impact your custody plea if your divorce goes to court. Establishing a parenting schedule is key to offering a stable structure your child can depend on and can help limit the cause for anxiety. Strong boundaries surrounding sleep, meals, and hygiene for both you and your family is a baseline for any positive routine. Start there, and move towards negotiating more complex co-parenting agreements from the same page.

Psychological Well-being

A self-care regiment prevents catastrophic thinking, helping you stay grounded throughout the divorce. This entails the ability to flex those strong boundary muscles, especially if you’re still having to cohabitate with your soon-to-be-ex partner. As traumatic arguments may arise during this time, it’s necessary for your psyche to have a plan of action to cope. This doesn’t mean turning to a bottle of Proseco or editing your Bumble profile. Instead, focus on nurturing yourself by having multiple self care methods in your tool shed and ask for help when you need it.

Physical Health

Self-care involves taking care of your physical self as much as it does your mental. By eating a healthy diet, getting sufficient rest, and exercising at least three times per week, we can prevent our nervous system from hyperactivity, or getting stuck in a constant mode of flight or fight. A hyper vigilant nervous system is in a state of reactivity, rather than response, and remaining in this condition for too long can lead to stress-induced symptoms like inflammation, GI tract issues, skin rashes, or auto-immune system flair-ups. 


Performance at Your Job

Making time for your self care in your off hours immeasurably paves the path of least resistance during your work hours. If you’re feeling tired from a lack of quality sleep or suffering from a lot of negative internal rumination, it will ultimately show up in your interactions and relationship with your work. By taking the time necessary to practice self-care, you’re reinforcing your ability to compartmentalize the divorce from your employment. This can prevent you from emotionally spiraling and threatening your job security when you surely need it most.

Quality of Your Relationships with Friends and Family

Now’s the time to restrict who has access to you. If you have toxic family members or friends who feed on drama, a solid dose of distance during your divorce can prevent unreliable points of view from clouding your judgement. If you’re around people who push you to be a better person, you will be. If you’re around a cohort who deal with their emotions using drugs, alcohol, and risky sexual behavior, however, the consequences can be disastrous to your divorce proceedings and custody plea. 


Hopefully this list not only offers advice after a breakup but gives you some blueprints on how to design your own divorce self-care routine. These rituals will serve you best if you approach them with a sense of curiosity; these practices should not be punishments. If you’d like to check out other guides on how to survive your divorce, download my free ebook here.

Building Your Divorce Team: Role of the Therapist

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In the inaugural piece that launched the Divorce is Not for Sissies series of blogs, I shared with you that divorce is going to be a difficult and potentially traumatic event in your life, affecting every element of your being. So, how can you champion the divorce process to minimize its adverse consequences? 

The first step is to build your divorce team.

You may think the most important professional for your divorce is your lawyer. WRONG. Your attorney is not going to provide emotional support, help you figure out how you got here, give you guidance on your financial future or help you determine the optimal settlement, provide information and assistance on being an effective parent to your children, help you sell your home or refinance your mortgage so you can keep your home. Your lawyer, should you choose to work with one, will charge you over $300 per hour and that will quickly add up to tens of thousands of dollars. Lawyers are trained in the law, period and most only focus on “winning” cases in court. Seeking an attorney’s guidance for anything other than filing paperwork through the court system or preparing for hearings or trial is just throwing money away needlessly. Even if your divorce isn’t ultimately resolved in the courts by a judge (or equivalent), represented negotiation involves your attorney talking to you, your spouse’s attorney talking to him or her and then for them to talk to each other to then come back to talk to you about what they talked about. No joke. And then you spent $50,000 or more so you could get to a settlement that could have been competently worked through for much, much less, resulting in an outcome that would have left you better off both financially and emotionally?

As you prepare for or respond to a request for divorce, think about the myriad of ways your life is going to be impacted.

Let’s start with emotionally and psychologically. If you can’t deal with your thoughts, feelings and emotions, how well do you think you’re going to do managing every other aspect of your divorce—legal, financial, social, parenting, and more? You may be anxious, confused, depressed, feel guilt and remorse, be conflicted, confused, overwhelmed, may question everything, including your own sanity and ability to function. You may be thinking—isn’t that what family and friends are for? They are, of course, a key component to getting you through all of this, but they will not be able to provide you with the objective and expert assistance that a trained therapist can provide. Also, your friends and family are going to get sick of your story and woes. Yes, they are concerned and want to support you, but If you want to maintain these relationships, don’t overly burden them with your misery.

A trained therapist who focuses on separation and divorce is your best resource for dealing with the pain of divorce.

She will understand what kind of support is needed during separation and divorce and bring to the surface the underlying fears and worries that are holding you back so you can effectively address them. A good therapist can help you process your grief, create strategies for maintaining your emotional heath, examine what led to the end of your marriage, and give you the confidence you need to find a new, healthier relationship. Part of the healing process is to create a new vision for your future and a therapist can help you explore the possibilities and create a plan to realize your goals.

How do you find a good a good therapist?

You can search the Psychology Today Directory, ask friends and family, your marriage counselor, or your primary care physician for recommendations, and attend divorce support groups and educational events. MeetUp and Eventbrite are great sources for these kinds of groups and events. Vesta Divorce can also be a great resource and their divorce concierge may have recommendations for you.  Once you’ve identified a few potential therapists, meet with several before selecting the one you want to work with. Many will do a complimentary phone or Zoom consultation.

You won’t regret having sought the support of a trained therapist who specializes in separation and divorce but you may very well regret the pain and struggle that you endured without one.