The term “divorce” means both the end of a marriage and the beginning of a new life. When a couple gets divorced, both partners will have a more or less negative mindset, and some may even get caught up in a spiral of negative emotions, resulting in a long-term negative mindset. The negative mindset of divorce can lead to many problems, such as emotional fear, negative life, lack of concentration at work, and pessimism about the future. If this continues, the consequences can be unimaginable. So we need to adjust our mindset to get out of the shadows as soon as possible so that we can embrace a new life.
After a divorce, you need to do the following three things:
1. Try to divert your attention and try self-referencing to adapt your body and mind to the current situation;
2. Accept the fact that you are divorced and avoid being alone to reduce your sense of loss;
3.
Next, the specific details of the method will be elaborated and related suggestions will be given, and I believe you will get what you deserve.
Shift your focus and try self-referencing to adapt your mind and body to the present
If you’re in a negative state of mind after a divorce, you must be holding on to the failure of your marriage and can’t let go of the past. The first thing you need to do is to take your mind off of the situation, so that you don’t have time and energy to think about these negative things.
There are several ways to do this: goal shifting and self-referral.
1. Goal shifting.
Men and women after divorce need to shift the emotional disappointment of their marriage effectively. When you are in a bad mood, you need to get yourself moving and doing things. When you have nothing to do, you’re ruminating and dwelling on more negative emotions, so we need to distract ourselves and shift our focus to target things.
The diversion can be a hobby (fishing, hiking, painting, reading, aerobics, etc.); a busy job (if you don’t have one, find one); or a more relaxing pastime (singing, traveling, listening to music, etc.).
This will distract you from your frustration and allow you to relax and unwind in time. This requires you to be proactive, not reactive, because the only way to make a difference is to make it yourself.
2. Self-suggestion.
There are two types of psychological suggestion: “self suggestion” and “other suggestion”. The most suitable for divorced people is “self-referral”, because some emotions are hidden from others. The positive psychological suggestion can help us to eliminate tension and anxiety and build an optimistic and positive mindset.
For a specific application of “self-referencing,” try smiling in the mirror, cheering yourself up, saying something positive, or suggesting that you need to go for a walk when you’re depressed.
In the beginning you may feel uncomfortable and like you’re fooling yourself, and then you need to take a leap of faith and say, “I need this! I can’t be negative anymore!”
If you do this for a long time, you will have subconscious “self-reference” that will lead to a positive mindset.
In short, when you’re emotionally distraught after a divorce, you need to shift your focus to other things and give yourself more positive self-references so that your mind and body can adapt to the present.
Accepting divorce and avoiding solitude to reduce psychological loss
When a marital relationship ends, many men and women develop an emotion that is embedded in loss, avoidance, reluctance to accept reality, and so on. The divorced person will gradually move away from social circles and start to prefer solitude, confining themselves to a more closed living space to heal alone.
Such a solitary approach to healing is not effective in practice, and sometimes it can even deepen the sense of loss and create unnecessary stress in the mind. It’s better to be social than to heal alone, and let your friends and family help you get out of your depression.
Human beings are social creatures, and we all need to interact and communicate with others. As Aristotle said, “He who does not participate in society is either a beast or a god.”
For divorced people, the reluctance to communicate is understandable, as people tend to “think quietly” when they are depressed. The first is that the person who is in the middle of the process is the one who is in the middle of the process. There are two ways to prevent psychological disorders: finding someone to talk to and participating in group activities.
1. Find someone to talk to. The right way for divorced people to relieve their worries is to find a friend or relative who knows them better and confide in them about their unhappiness and tell them how they are feeling at the moment. By doing so you will release the repressed emotions inside you, thus soothing your mood.
2. Participate in group activities. When you are depressed, you can also participate in group activities, such as friends’ gatherings, various group activities, and group recreational activities that can soothe your body and mind. In short, when you are in a bad mood, you need to participate in more group activities, which is extremely important to alleviate the feeling of psychological loss.
Do a self-review, learn self-awareness, and develop a positive mindset
Once you’ve adjusted to your current situation and have a lighter sense of loss, you’ll need to start developing a positive mindset. There are two major tasks that divorced people need to accomplish in order to develop a positive mindset: self-examination and self-awareness.
1. Self-review.
The requirements for self-examination are: to face the gains and losses of the divorce courageously and not to avoid the problems; to maintain a neutral and objective attitude and to look at the past from a spectator’s point of view; to get to the bottom of the problem, not to make excuses, and to be solution-oriented.
The process of self-review: first, think about the main reasons for the divorce and the details of the marriage, and analyze the root causes of the breakdown of the marriage; second, review your own plans for your marriage and determine what you have gained and what you have lost. What did you lose? And give yourself a comparison of the results achieved; Finally, start planning for the future, listing the things you need to change and the goals you expect to achieve. You can start with your current weaknesses and make changes to become as good as you can so that you can better accomplish your desired goals.
2. Self-awareness.
Self-awareness refers to the insight and understanding of oneself, which includes self-observation and self-evaluation. Self-observation refers to awareness of one’s perceptions, thoughts, and intentions; self-evaluation refers to judgment and assessment of one’s thoughts, expectations, behaviors, and personality traits.
In real life you may think you know yourself well enough, but in reality it’s just what you think. You have trouble getting out of a divorce because you are pressuring yourself to think about the failures in your marriage, not about the good things that happened and the rewards it brought you.
You need to focus more on your life in the moment and on yourself than on the divorce. Self-awareness requires you to find your strengths and weaknesses; when you can build on your strengths and continue to improve your strengths, you can improve your weaknesses in parallel; proper self-awareness can overcome some unrealistic ideas and enable you to understand yourself fully and find the right aspects of your life.
Finally, when you’re done with self-review, you find a goal to work toward; when you’re done with self-awareness, you know how to get there; and when you’re done with both, your mindset starts to morph and you start to become positive and optimistic.