Going through a divorce or break-up can have a detrimental impact on your mental health. Your sense of self and identity are affected. The foundations of your life rocked. You may feel grief, disappointment, loneliness and fear, which can very quickly manifest into anxiety and depression. But there is a way through it.
You can build your resilience to help you navigate the road ahead and limit the impact of your break-up on your mental health.
First, it is essential to get your foundations right.
The right foundations
Heartbreak is exhausting. You’ll be constantly stressed, running on adrenaline and stuck in one of the four main stress responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn.
Taking care of yourself becomes even more essential during this time. A great place to start is ensuring you meet your basic needs, including your physiological needs like food, water, shelter, sleep and exercise, as well as your psychological needs like safety, love, and belonging.
Get these sorted first. Then, start layering on things you like to do, not what you think you should do. Thinking about what makes you happy and doing more of it can be highly effective.
Think it is self-indulgent? Then, you need to do it more.
What is resilience?
Resilience is not about strength or being fixed in one place. It is about having the mental, emotional and behavioural flexibility to adapt and cope with change – the good and the bad. Being resilient does not make you immune to suffering, stress or pain, but it does help you navigate these periods and use them as opportunities for learning and growth.
5 steps to build resilience
1. Emotional awareness
Our emotions tell us all we need to know, but they can be overwhelming and confusing. The art of managing them is learning to label and understand them and what they are trying to tell us.
This can be challenging, especially if you are trapped in an overwhelmed stress response, but tapping into how you feel can help you see what you need. A tool, such as the emotional wheel, can be helpful here.
Once you are comfortable naming and accepting your emotions, gently explore what they are trying to tell you and how they make you feel. Learning to identify our emotional responses means we can focus on the things that make us feel good and positive. And do fewer of the things that have a negative impact on us.
2. Creating connection
It is so important to feel connected to others, to have meaningful relationships and social bonds and to feel that we have a place where we can be our authentic selves—a place where we belong. This makes us happier, gives us a sense of purpose, and is essential for our well-being.
But you need to find the right people. You need to learn who the vampires (the people who drain you) are and who the radiators ( who lift you and warm your heart) are in your life. And then spend more time with your radiators.
3. Healthy thinking
How do you talk to yourself about yourself? What stories and self-beliefs do you hold? Are they negative or positive?
We often find we have years of unhelpful and harmful chatter in our minds, telling us the same narrative over and over again – I am not good enough, I am stupid, I am ugly, it’s my fault. The list goes on.
It’s time to break those patterns. Spend time tapping into what you say to yourself and look for patterns and themes. You may surprise yourself at how many negative beliefs you have. Then, challenge your thinking—ask yourself, “Is that true? Is it 100% true? How can I look at this differently?”
Switch up your thinking to something healthier.
4. Finding meaning
Understanding your meaning is a fundamental human need. It helps anchor us, giving us a sense of purpose and direction. And it starts with self-awareness. Who are you? What are your values? What are your strengths? What are your passions? What do you want to achieve in life?
Spend some time (there are loads of free online tools to help) exploring who you are and where you want to be before setting some achievable goals that work for you.
5. Feeling gratitude
We spend so much time looking at things we haven’t done that we forget to celebrate what we have. So start by being grateful for who you already are and all you have achieved.
Why not make a reverse bucket list honouring all your successes so far or get into the habit of noting three things to be grateful for at the end of each day? They don’t have to be big, power-ballad moments—the simplest things in life have the most impact.
Building resilience takes time, consistency, and commitment, but the results can be tenfold. Learning to ebb and flow alongside life changes can help you manage stress, bounce back from adversity, and understand and gain strength from challenges.
How to begin
But where to start? Especially when everything feels so uncontrollable after a breakup, so here are three top tips:
Go at your own pace – think marathon, not sprint
Get your foundations right
Practice gratitude daily so it becomes a habit.
The rest will follow.
Learn more about Kate’s work supporting clients and divorce coaching at Stowe.
