You can spend money to “treat yourself” to a spa day or a new outfit, but that is not necessary for self-care. When you are separating or divorcing, take advantage of your off-duty time to develop new self-care habits. Give yourself some time to adjust to all the changes while developing some new self-care practices.
Mental Self-Care
Mental self-care will help you think more clearly, focus, concentrate, assess, plan, manage time, remember, and make decisions. This is important as you work through your legal divorce process. Here are some examples:
1. Avoid people who make you feel bad about yourself. Unfortunately, many of your married friends will feel helpless when you suffer. It makes them feel better when you ask for help or support, because they’ll feel less helpless. Tempting as it is to isolate, no matter how awful you feel right now, reach out.
2. Don’t be afraid to say “no,” to new obligations or requests when you don’t feel up to it. Don’t be worried about letting someone down when you cannot do more than you are already doing.
3. When you have negative thoughts, look for evidence to refute them. Any self-critical thought, or one that includes the word “should,” is a red flag! Speak to yourself as if you were speaking to a good friend.
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