Did you feel shame about getting Divorced?
Did you blame yourself and/or your ex, wallowing in negativity that builds upon itself, feeling depressed, angry, and resentful?
Or, did you accept that you may have made some bad choices, but you’re a good person, who will move forward with a positive mindset?
We’ve posted before on the topic of forgiving your ex (here and here, for example), but it’s also important to forgive yourself. This post from over a year ago suggests reframing your thinking to not see Divorce as a failure. And along those lines, here’s a piece from Therapist Virginia Gilbert arguing that the presence or absence of shame has a powerful effect on how quickly you’re able to thrive post-Divorce.
Gilbert says that you have the ability to control whether you feel shame or not through the way you think about your Divorce. Among the positive thoughts she suggests you focus on are:
- I’m making the most of a bad situation
- I will accept the things I can’t control, and will focus on the things I can
- I will model resilience and empowerment for my children
- What others think of me doesn’t matter; what I think of myself does.
Gilbert cautions that it takes time and discipline to fight our natural instinct to think negatively, and suggests making a daily practice of setting your intention to swap out bad thoughts for good ones.
Virginia Gilbert, MFT, specializes in high-conflict Divorce, intimate partner betrayal, and love addiction. Her main website is here.
