Accepting Divorce and Moving On: Learning How to Surrender

Last month, I found myself outside of the car rental station at Love Field in Dallas, Texas, sweating profusely (thank you 100+ degree temps!) and my eyes welling up with tears from anxiety of a last minute change of plans. 

A mix up of dates on my end, coupled with a supply and demand issue on their end, equated to not getting the car without a giant price tag and a 4+ hour wait. 

The planner in me had been so fixated on getting to Austin in a rental car, that my tunnel vision of how it “should” be kept me from seeing another possibility, and how being open to getting there another way could actually be even better than the one I had planned. 

Life is much the same. At an early age, we begin writing the book of our life, planning out the way we think life should be: 

Go to college, meet the love of our life, land our dream job, get married, buy a house, have babies….

You know, checking all the boxes. 

Sound familiar? 

Then along comes something that throws your perfectly planned life off track. 

Insert the D word.

None of us plan on getting divorced (otherwise why the hell would we ever get married?!) but then you find yourself smack dab in the middle of this chapter that was never supposed to be there. 

Your once-predictable book has taken an inconvenient turn and now feels like an unsolved mystery. What now? 

I know, I get it. 

When I found myself there in 2017, it was hard to see how this Unplanned Chapter could lead to anything good, let alone exciting.

Even though I was the one who chose to leave, it did not make the reality of my failed marriage any easier. For me, it meant moving back in with my parents. It meant parenting my daughter 50/50. It meant hitting rock bottom financially. It meant rebuilding and restarting my life. Not exactly where I saw myself in my mid thirties (or ever!)

It wasn’t until I changed my mindset that I began to see the bigger picture of my life and how things have always been working for me, even when I couldn’t see it in the moment.

I found that the key to stepping forward into my future was found in surrender.

Surrender in not needing to control the book.

Surrender in knowing that I am always being divinely guided for my highest good.

Surrender in being open to my life playing out a different way than I had planned.

If you’re finding yourself in the middle of your Unplanned Chapter, please know this is not the end. When you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to believe how the most exciting, juicist parts of your book are still yet to come…but I promise you they are.

Accepting divorce and moving on takes may seem like a challenge, but taking it one day at a time is the key. So how do you get to a place of acceptance and learn to surrender? 

1. Take the time to grieve.

Grieve the life you thought you would have with your ex. Grieve the way you thought your family would look. Processing this grief will help you unchain yourself from the past so you can step into your new chapter.

2. Remove the shoulds.

Don’t get caught up in comparing yourself to where you are, to where you think you should be. Remember that this is your journey. You’re not behind. You’re right on time.

3. Surrender and trust that you’re being divinely guided can be developed by looking at your past.

Call it your spiritual breadcrumbs. While divorce may be the biggest life adjustment you’ve ever had to make, this is not the first time things have not gone your way. Think back to your closed doors of the past and how they ended up working out for the best:

• That dream job you had your heart set on rejects you, so you apply to another company you never would have considered and they offer you 20% more and a corner office!
• The house you got outbid on led you to purchase another home across town that ends up being next to your future best friend.

The more evidence you can give your brain, the more you will begin to trust you will be ok here too.

Relax and be assured that your story is unfolding exactly the way it should. It may not look how you had planned (because it never does) but eventually you will be begin to see how this unplanned chapter has leads to the best part of your book.