If you’re the man who wanted to keep his marriage and fought for it but it still ended up in divorce, chances are parts of your life got shattered. When I look at my own situation I lost many things - my wife, my best friend (also my wife), my kids ½ the time, half of the ‘couple friends’ we had, my in-laws, my house, a lot of money, and more than half my things (although I really didn’t care about those at that point.) But, those types of losses are to be expected and par for the course. What was far more damaging to me was what I lost in myself.
I lost my motivation, my raison d’être, my confidence, and even my belief about whether or not I was a good person. And the damage wasn’t just emotional, you could see it physically. For a while, when separated, I lost 40 pounds– that wasn’t a good thing, people at work were speculating that I had cancer or some other terminal disease because I looked so ill. I didn’t try to lose weight, I didn’t really want to lose weight but when my then wife asked for a separation I went into full crisis mode. I lost my appetite, I was sleeping only three to four hours a night, I’d take walks starting at 4:00am and walk 7 to 12 miles before my day started. My world was shattered and the pieces of it could be seen everywhere.
Depression. Don’t be afraid to call a spade a spade. I was clinically depressed. I was emotional and spiritually broken, my body was malnourished, I was an insomniac and to top it all off I was ASHAMED that I was headed toward divorce. I really felt like I had failed at life. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t work and couldn’t see a way out of the darkness. The most insidious thing about depression is that often times you don’t even know your depressed. It starts as just an off day but over weeks, months and years can spiral into an emotional shutdown followed by inaction and procrastination that snowballs into an unbearable, ever-present anxiety that takes control over every aspect of your life. Essentially everything about you is in crisis mode all at once.
Don’t get me wrong, this will be a tough time in your life. In my case, it is still the hardest and most painful time I’ve endured. But it’s not meant only to be endured. It’s an opportunity to grow and thrive as a human being and a man. So first things first. You have to get the wheels back on the cart and get it moving in the right direction. Here are the five big pillars I’ve found that help establish a base and begin your journey to healing. I discovered that these were key to my healing by analyzing the things I wasn’t doing or wasn’t doing enough of. I took those things and flipped them around to make them positive and easily actionable. The best way to remember these is to use the acronym SEEMS (sleep, eat, exercise, meditate, socialize.)
Sleep. This is number one, and is more important than the other four pillars. If you aren’t sleeping, your toast. Sleep deprivation has a whole host of negative consequences – all backed by science. Without it we lose our mental acuity, our judgement, our willpower, our ability to recover and heal physically, and our positivity. In short, if you aren’t sleeping your life will get exponentially harder and suck more than you already think it does. If you aren’t sleeping well try the popular DIY methods – don’t eat/drink for two hours before bed, no screens or TV an hour before bed, no caffeine after 12:00pm, no phone in the bedroom. After that you can try melatonin (easy to find at any grocery store) or do a two week ‘reset’ by taking one Benadryl every night before bed for two weeks. If your sleep doesn’t improve go to a doctor. I even did a sleep study and found that I have severe sleep apnea and I’m now rocking a CPAP machine.
Eat Better and Stop Drinking Alcohol. What you eat and what you drink is only second in importance to sleep. When we go through a traumatic or stressful divorce it’s easy to starve ourselves or overindulge with comfort foods or totally numb out by drinking alcohol. Eating healthy is simple, but not always easy. Both food and drink are readily available and socially acceptable coping mechanisms. And I did plenty of this on and off before, during, and after my divorce. What I’ve realized with alcohol is that even just a beer or two a night is enough to cut the edge off the anxiety and pain. Just enough so that you don’t actually have to deal with your feelings, your situation and what to do about it. In other words, it’s a crutch that millions of us use to AVOID our problems and our responsibilities. And most importantly our responsibility to OURSELVES! Over eating and drinking to cope is not doing you any favors in the long run. Clean up your diet and you’ll began to feel more mental clarity. You’ll also feel more emotions and if you haven’t dealt with those emotions before it can be a bit overwhelming. Don’t despair, this is actually a good sign and part of the healing process.
Exercise. Assuming you’ve gotten the sleep and eating patterns in a good spot, add exercise into your plan as it provides many benefits to recovery. There are hundreds of studies on the benefits of exercise from releasing endorphins (more effective than antidepressants), to cardiovascular health, longevity, and perhaps most importantly self-esteem and confidence. In addition to that, exercise releases energy. I’m not talking about energy in the form of calories or fat burned (although that’s a benefit too.) More importantly is the spiritual and emotional energy that you can move and release with intense exercise. Don’t get me wrong, walking is great, but walking is not enough to move this type of deep, trauma-bound energy. As men we need a challenge, a competition or in some cases we just need to hit something (I’m talking punching bags here – not people.) Lifting weights, sweating and grunting it out, hitting the heavy bag, or even just intense yard work can really change your mood (I regularly use logs and firewood for weights.) And when you’re in a better mood you are better able to cope with the stresses of your life. And let’s not kid ourselves, if you’re gonna be back out in the dating market it doesn’t hurt to be in better shape.
Meditate. When you get divorced you have to think about and acknowledge your part in your story. What did you do that led you here? That’s accountability. This type of deep thinking over months and many walking miles is what led me to meditation. Meditation comes in many forms. For many of us – myself included – in started in terms of prayer. Me praying to understand why this was happening, what the lesson was, and if I was going to be OK. Along my healing journey I also experimented with guided meditations (Insight Timer is a great app, there are many others so pick your favorite – Headspace, Calm, YouTube etc.). Guided meditation was great to listen to during my walks and also got me out of my own repetitious cycles of negative self-talk. You’ll notice as you experiment with different modalities of meditation that you’ll feel the need to switch it up at times when you feel that your current method no longer serves you or you aren’t receiving the same benefits you once did. This is ultimately what led me to attending meditation classes and eventually getting certified as a meditation facilitator. So whatever method of meditation you choose there will be a benefit. Where the first three pillars focus primarily on the body with benefits to the mind and spirit, meditation focuses on the mind and spirit with benefits to the body (i.e. lowering stress and anxiety on a physical level.). And remember, a sound mind is equally important to recovery as a healthy body.
Socialize. People need people. As men we are raised and trained to ignore our feelings and suffer in silence – whether that’s scraping your knee on the playground as a kid or playing an entire hockey game on a broken foot to prove you can handle it. Now I’m all for endurance and perseverance, but what I noticed in myself and others is that during a divorce many men suffer in silence – or they cope their way through with booze and dating. In my quest to heal I attended meditation sessions, alternative energy workshops and divorce group classes all in an effort to feel better emotionally. The thing that was glaringly obvious was that these classes had almost no men in them. Woman naturally gravitate towards other woman to discuss and work out their problems. Men are trained not to. So make an effort to call your friends and plan some activities that don’t solely revolve around drinking. Go for a bike ride, play a pick-up game of basketball, or go axe throwing (if you haven’t tried that you should). During these make an effort to let your friends know how you are feeling. It’s not an easy thing to do, but you’ll be surprised how many of them share the same insecurities or issues in their own marriages and, like you, have just bottled all that away.
So to recap, when going through a separation and divorce you are in crisis mode. We’re talking emotional, mental, and spiritual trauma that can lead to a host of physical ailments and unhealthy coping mechanisms. The main point here is that you can’t shut down – because believe me – you’ll want to. You have to reestablish a solid base on which to rebound, grow, and thrive. Begin with the basics, the pillars – SEEMS – Sleep, Exercise, Eat Better, Mediate and Socialize.
There are many other aspects and modalities to healing but when in crisis you have to triage aspects of your life. Following SEEMS will put you in a better position to navigate through the rough waters and into a better place.
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