I’m excited to share something with you today to help you start thriving through (or after) your divorce/separation!
While I was going through a very toxic divorce, I actually nearly ended my own life. Thankfully I was not successful but afterward, I realized quickly that I had hit rock bottom. The next day, I actually realized that I was at a breaking point, it was either completely change everything or stay where I was and end up worse off. I began implementing things that I had learned from my experiences in the past, diving super deep into getting professional help and started researching things on my own. I did so much research and used all of that to implement my own program to get myself through my experience of divorce.
As I implemented these things into my life, my career started thriving, my life started thriving, I was able to focus on my kids and be the best version of myself for them. My children are thriving and super happy and I fell in love with myself again. I even found myself in the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in. There are so many things that happened to me as a result of implementing a few basic things into my life to stop struggling with the divorce process, and truly, truly thrive through it.
I’m here to tell you that even though divorce (separation) can be one of the most traumatic experiences of your life, there IS hope and I found the way that you can quickly and efficiently bounce back with some super simple actions. I’m going to share those actions with you.
I wanted to share a testimonial from one of my clients Heather Keller, she said:
“I would definitely recommend thrive factory that anyone who’s experienced a divorce or separation, Jen provides valuable resources and each week asks us to think about how we can make small changes that will contribute to our thriving instead of just surviving. She is very warm and welcoming in the video meetings which helps put me at ease being around people I don’t know and who don’t know my own personal situation. She gears the conversation to fit many different situations since not all divorces are the same and she’s supportive of each participant, she really and truly wants each one to grow and succeed, offering lots of tools and help along the way. I’m so glad I participated.”
Now I want to teach you about a piece of what I’ve done to make these huge transformations from helpless and terrified during a divorce to completely thriving through and after. What I’m about to share with you is a small piece of the what I have done (and teach my clients to do) to get their desired outcome from divorce and truly thrive!
So What Is It!?!?!
Well, the one small piece that I’m talking about here is VISUALIZATION!
I’m going to get a little nerdy on you; our brains literally control what we pay attention to. We go through our daily lives, processing millions of pieces of information. We only pay attention to (or absorb) certain pieces of that because our brains have a subconscious that filters things through. That subconscious basically says “oh, you’re interested in this!”, “oh, that doesn’t seem important to you”.
The journey through a rough experience, such as a bad marriage or the trauma of a divorce can rewire our brains in such a way that we live below our desires and true potential. Therefore, we have to take control and rewire our brains. We rewire our brain by growing new neurons and strengthening the connection between our existing neurons. There are types of wiring that exist in our brain that connect things together through experiences, memories, and thoughts to tell us what to focus on and what to pay attention to in our lives.
You get to look at life in one of two different ways. You can look at life as either it’s happening to me or it’s happening around me and I get to react. When you look at it as it’s happening around me and I get to choose how to perceive it and react, then you’re going to live in such a better place and you’re truly going to thrive.
We have to strengthen those bonds in our brain in order to look at life in that way.
Think of the wiring in your brain as a type of muscle or bond; the more you do something, the more you’re strengthening that bond. Every time you practice these exercises that I give you, you’re going to be wrapping a layer around a wire that’s just going to create more and more strength in the bond or muscle. In comparison – if you have a piece of toilet paper you could just very easily pull it apart; it’s not a very strong bond. But if I take a piece of toilet paper, and I start wrapping duct tape around it and then another layer of duct tape and then another layer of duct tape, it’s eventually so strong that you can’t pull it apart at all. That’s exactly how you create rewiring in your brain to go from thinking around the traumatic experiences to completely rewired and just thriving and going beyond surviving the experience that you’ve gone through. I’ve heard stories that many professional athletes use visualization to improve their performance on the field! It works!
I’m going to show you two of my favorite things that are super simple and easy that you can start doing right now to use visualization to rewire your brain:
1 – Affirmations
The first thing that you can start doing right now to start rewiring your brain and start thriving through your divorce or separation is to start saying affirmations every single day. Affirmations are basically a way that you’re rewiring your brain by training it to think a different way. It’s very, very easy when we go through a divorce or separation, or even a traumatic experience in our life, to start thinking negatively and really start the whole “woe is me” and life is happening to me thinking. It becomes scary; there’s so much fear, right? Affirmations are something you will want to incorporate into your daily routine, either morning or night. Set yourself an alarm for when you might have a free minute to repeat a few sentences to yourself! Do these every single day with that alarm until they become habit for you. When it’s time to do your affirmations, you could just read them, say them out loud, or even do a dance while you say them (lol); it’s completely up to you and your comfort level.
What I’ve learned is that when you start doing this and making a habit out of it, everything around you changes, you start to truly believe it and you start to pay attention to the opportunities that are in your life that allow you to start making these things in your affirmations come true. It’s not magic, it’s brain science! You’re doing these exercises much like if you want to get abs… you can’t do one stomach crunch one day and then another 30 days later and look down at your shining six-pack! You have to go out there and you have to keep doing those exercises over and over until your abs form into the washboard you desire! I want to give you an example of what those affirmations might look like; here are some of my favorite affirmations for someone that is going through a divorce:
You can tell yourself,
- I am a good person with a lot to offer.
- My heart is healing.
- I am confident and strong and improving my life every day.
- I can handle this.
- I have an opportunity now to create the life I want.
All of these are so true, whether you believe them or not. I guarantee you when you start implementing this into your daily practices that you’re going to start not only believing it but seeing it too.
2- Journaling For Visualization
Another one of my favorite things that you can start doing right now is journaling. You don’t have to be a writer, you don’t have to write pages on these, you can literally just fill in the blank or you could even just think of your answers and not write anything down. The point here is that when you start reconnecting and rediscovering yourself, you’re going to start empowering and rebuilding those confidence blocks that you need to really step into a thriving mode. There is so much more to all of this which I will be teaching in something coming up shortly that I will give you guys access to. But for now, I’m just going to give you a little taste.
You really can’t get anywhere until you start rediscovering who you are, what you need, and what you desire. Here are some examples for journaling prompts:
- My perfect life a year from now would look like:
- Lessons I learned from my most recent relationship are:
- If I could have the perfect day, it would be:
- You could write a letter to yourself for a year from now about how proud you are of where you are a year from now. (This is creating another visualization of where you’re going to be so that you can start working towards that person)
- Currently my greatest fears and worries are:
A lot of people ask me why people hire a divorce coach?!
I want you guys to know that when you’re going through a life-changing event like divorce, having an experienced knowledgeable sounding board and support in place will ensure that you will make the smartest decisions for your family and your future. As a trained coach, I help you understand and cope with the wide range of emotions that you are experiencing while at the same time helping you strategize the necessary steps to move through the divorce process and prepare for your life beyond divorce. Coaching is an action-oriented process designed to help you make changes in your life that enhance your coping.
I am so excited to teach you what I started doing every single day that changed everything for me in the form of a really simple, easy-to-implement routine. I’m going to share that with you guys in the next video. If you’re excited to hear more and want more information on what’s coming next, be sure to say “Thrive” below.
Now, I’m going to invite you to comment below one of your favorite affirmations as you say it to yourself that I’ve shared with you today or make your own up.
