Divorce, anxiety and panic attacks are close bedfellows-there’s no getting around that. You’re launched on an unpredictable, emotional roller coaster ride. Your soon be ex’s reactive trance has stripped all compassion leaving you with a racing heart, waking in the night, sweaty palms, foggy thinking, nausea- feeling like you’re under attack,questioning your mental health, fear that you’re losing your mind? Check, check and check.

We have no good pattern either for being divorced or for dealing with divorced women. The end of a marriage, whether by divorce or by death, is an event to mourn, but the community is not sufficiently sensitive to the divorced woman's need for a mourning ritual and for grief support.

This blog outlines the emotional stages of divorce from denial through acceptance.

As brutal as a divorce can be, my divorce was a journey of transformation. Interestingly, it was much like walking the Camino de Santiago. A pilgrim sets sights on arriving at the end goal, some with life learnings that are invaluable, transformed by pain and hardship, touched by love and kindness. This was the hope and expectation for my marriage.

The first and most important tool to surviving and thriving through a divorce is to practice radical compassion. Nobody plans on getting divorced when they marry. As humans, we intuitively internalize the disappointment when divorcing. The very experience threatens our identities which activates our fight and flight response. That old reptilian brain will go to any length to protect us, hijacking our higher self. That means, if our fight and flight response run wild, we wind up saying and doing things, which we will regret. Practicing self-compassion when I wanted to act out against myself saved me. Learn about how to notice and regulate those feelings. Practice pumping the brakes of that wild puppy part of your brain. If you do not have the tools, get thee to a therapist and a class! I went to workshops almost every other weekend.

If this is your first Christmas alone, you might be asking yourself: Does divorce in the holidays ever get easier? Will it feel like this every year? The holidays are a painful time following a divorce but you will soon discover that you are more resilient than you ever knew. Letting go of old traditions paves the way to create new traditions and you will eventually find joy again in the holidays. This is how I found mine.

If your marriage was rocky prior to COVID-19 you are likely struggling to survive the conflict, with loneliness that comes from living with someone you do not connect with, while worrying that this will never end. This generation has never had a situation this global and yet this restrictive. Spending 24hours a day together is stressful for a healthy relationship, but if you add job insecurity, health worries, caretaking when someone is ill, and little change of scenery for activities or other influences, it can be the death of a marriage.

Have you ever had one of those days where you struggle to keep your eyes open? Even while someone is talking to you or you are doing something that requires you to be alert? My sleep suffered greatly during my separation and divorce, a time when the nervous system is on alert.