By Board Certified Counselor
As a counselor, I offer divorce help for men and frequently tell struggling divorced dads that there is one thing in life that you can always count on: change.
Change can be a good thing when things are less than desirable in our lives or we can perceive it as a bad thing if we are at a place to where we do not want things to change.
Going through a divorce for men certainly brings about a lot of change and with that change anxiety can result.
Although change can be scary it can also be the greatest force behind our growth and development as human beings.
A wise man once said that in order to grow as human beings, we must challenge ourselves to go outside of our comfort zone. This could mean taking a job that seems unfamiliar to us or traveling to a country to see how other parts of the world live.
Going to a different place of worship instead of your own, just to see how other religions are practiced, can be extremely educational. Perhaps striking up a friendship with someone that is unique with whom you can learn from would be a great way to formulate a new relationship. Learning a foreign language or other skill that could enhance your knowledge can sometimes bring about greater career satisfaction.
The opposite of change is stagnation. Stagnation, from a psychological perspective, can be most detrimental to the human spirit.
When we stop having something to look forward to or become bored and disinterested in learning new knowledge or seeing different places, then we really make ourselves vulnerable to stagnation.
Stagnation is a recipe for isolation and dysfunction and certainly something to be cognizant of as you proceed through your divorce. It would be difficult to argue that change is not an essential ingredient in our ability to survive. Without change, we become stale.
When fathers come to me looking for marriage separation advice, I let them know that change is something that we should be constantly striving for. It is with each change that we learn something new about ourselves and develop a stronger sense of what our greater purpose is while here are on Earth.
Change can be a wonderful part of our lives as it is an opportunity to become a more enriched human being. Change can be a good source of recovery through divorce as well as an open outlet for greater things to come.
Embrace it.
Suggested Divorce Articles:
How to Recover From Your Divorce
5 Tips to Help Children With Divorce
5 Easy Tips to Live a Happier Life
Lisa Brown, MA, LPC, NCC, is a practicing therapist who helps people overcome life transitions specifically related to loss. For more information, visit her website www.counseling-helps.org.
Financial Planner
Having been involved professionally over the years as a divorce planner, over coming stress is an important part of any divorce and certainly the impact after a divorce can be profound. Many individuals both men and women make foolish mistakes during the divorce process that will impact them for years to come.