Aid Your Divorce Recovery By Choosing the “Write” Tool

Devastating, all-encompassing, overwhelming and even traumatic.

These are just some of the words that describe the divorce process. It is, without a doubt, one of life’s greatest challenges and most difficult transitions.

Getting on the other side of the entire emotional ordeal (which starts well before and ends well after the legal proceedings) can take years.

There are definitely things you can do to speed up your recovery, and things you can do that will prolong the pain.

In this column, I will focus on one of the best tools for healing I know of: Writing.

There is relatively new scientific evidence that shows how writing actually moves the activity in the brain from the amygdala (where fight, flight and freeze live) to the pre-frontal cortex where higher functioning resides. Time still has to pass in order to heal but there’s no question that writing can make the healing happen faster and on a deeper level.

Each month, I’ll have a prompt for you to write about. Of course, you can write any time about anything but my hope is that I will help move some of the discomfort through your system. Here goes:

Write for ten minutes or less on the three aspects of your divorce that have been the most painful. List what happened and then write about why it was so upsetting to you. Write about how others were impacted but do your best to keep the focus on yourself. Finally, write about a time in your life when you felt similar feelings. See if there might be a connection. Once you have finished writing, take a minute to meditate on how you might heal from these events.