Divorce Actually Helps You Discover the I of You

Divorce can be a time of great challenge. Because of all the emotions it stirs up, it’s a lot like a fast stir of vegetable soup: all the veggies come up from the bottom and swirl helter skelter in the broth, round and round the whirlpool you’ve created. Divorce is like that. Round and round the whirlpool with nothing to hang on to, lots of advice (that you’d rather not listen to), and a great deal of insecurity and indecision.

And like our soup, over a period of time, things begin to settle down, rhythms establish themselves, systems are developed to make our daily doings a little easier, and we get comfortable with this new lifestyle and have begun to develop the virtues and skills to step up to the challenge.

If you are an old hand at being divorced as I am, you can look backwards and see the patterns so clearly. When you’re new at it, it all looks like bubbling vegetable soup! What I discovered about myself through the process of divorce is what I’d like to share with you in this article in the hope that you’ll begin to see some of the way-markers and develop some confidence in yourself. I’ve found that learning is always so much easier with a guide.

If there was such a thing as a competition in life – such as Life versus You – and you adopted the habit of seeing life’s experiences as such, you’d get much more mileage out of what you now call problems or challenges. If you saw these challenges as a "What the heck am I supposed to learn about myself now?," you’d get more quickly to the learning and solve the problem more easily.

Let’s suppose that all of these challenges are designed as learning tools so that you can figure out who you are, dig deeply into the wellspring of your own intrinsic nature, and bring up the very thing that will solve the problem. That would make you one heck of a source, wouldn’t it? That would allow you to display self-sufficiency. It’s one of the cheapest schools you can attend, this school of Life. The lessons come, you look inside yourself for the answers to the problems, you bring up from inside yourself whatever it takes to "patch the holes," and you end up with whatever gpa you’ve earned! Couldn’t be any more handsomely designed. Convenient, inexpensive, instantly at hand. Who could ask for a better idea?

What it takes to adopt this kind of a mindset is to switch your focus from you looking outward to you looking inward. There is a whole world inside yourself that changing diapers, wiping snotty noses, fixing lunches, washing clothes on the weekends, dashing off to work after you drop the kids at school – all those jobs you are tasked with that keep you looking outward. If you can retrain yourself to look within, find out what the lesson of the day is, bring up the answer while you are wiping the noses and washing clothes, you and your children will benefit from your learning.

I’ve heard in a sermon that while Jesus was carrying his cross, he fell face down in the dirt three times, but every time he stood up, he was a full body length ahead. Your emotional challenges and problems, courtesy of life and your divorce, can move you ahead too if you will look within for your answers. You will discover a you who has tremendous capabilities and skills beyond what you currently recognize. You can destroy your sense of insecurity and indecision. You will develop strong mental muscles and because of this; you won’t need advice from others, and you will become a strong parent for your children. They deserve as much. And if you learn how to do this, you can teach your children to see the things that happen in their lives as a lesson to be learned that will help them to unfold the wonders of their own individuality. Wow! Can you see our world’s paradigm switching from leaning on others, entitlement, toward enjoyment and self-sufficiency. Now, aren’t you glad you’re divorced?