Divorce is devastating. Whether initiated by you or something you tried to prevent from happening, the end result is the same.  A relationship you had expected and planned to be part of forever has died, and the immediate months or even years after divorce can be much like grieving a death. Similar to the experience after the death of someone you love, you have to heal your heart before you can ever really move forward after a divorce. Healing your heart is a necessary part of the journey.  Often divorce comes through like a hurricane or a tornado, ripping apart your life and your emotions, smashing and lifting everything that happens to be in the way – leaving you with an emotional life that barely resembles the one you had before.

Healing your heart will put you back in touch with your hopes, your dreams, and your passions and repair the damaged trail that the storm may have left behind.  Here are a few tips to get you started in healing your heart and recreating the life you deserve…

Take Responsibility for Your Own Healing

Everyone handles the emotions associated with divorce differently. It’s important to know, though, that you will never be able to move forward if you don’t forgive yourself and your former spouse. The healing process is your responsibility which means you can’t blame anyone else for it – no matter what your former spouse did or didn’t do! In fact, the more you continue to blame your former spouse, the more you hand over your happiness, your power, and the freedom to heal your heart to someone who cannot help you move on. Harboring anger and resentment will actually prevent healing, and cause you more pain.

Healing Starts Internally

Divorce causes many painful emotions and many women attempt to ignore them in an effort to hurt less. Most of the time, however, ignoring these painful emotions causes us to look outside ourselves for relief. Unfortunately, your relief and healing must come from within. To heal your heart and move on with your life, you have to look within yourself and if you resist doing this you cannot heal. Each of us has our own understanding of what it means to heal, and we must define healing in our own terms. As part of your healing process, be sure to get the support you need, either by working with a coach or surrounding yourself with other like-minded, positive people who will support you in your journey to heal and not allow you to remain stuck in your divorce story.

Live the Life of Your Dreams

To start to heal your heart, it may help you to recognize that your divorce actually gives you a new opportunity to reclaim the power and joy that being a woman gives you. Whether or not your divorce was your choice doesn’t matter any more. Regaining your faith in life itself gives you permission to create and live the life of your dreams. What does that look like?

As we head into a new season in the next few weeks, be sure to make peace with your past so that you can move forward into your future. Understand what gifts the relationship gave you, and look at your divorce as the gift of a new beginning. It’s a beginning that opens doors to discover the real you! By regaining your self-love, self-respect, and self-confidence, you find yourself.

Living the life of your dreams is possible when you discover and believe in yourself again. It is never too late to begin your journey!

Colleen Bushby, Lifestyle Transformation Coach and founder of SavvyDivorcedChicks.com, empowers and supports women to be ‘better, not bitter”(tm) in their life after divorce with her weekly “Taking Bock Your Power” free call series, Coaching Programs, Blog, and Radio Show. Ready to Live, Laugh, & Let Go? Go to www.LiveLaughLetGo.com for all the exciting details!