Stress and separation seem to go hand in hand. When we are stressed, taking good care of our health and overall well-being is often one of the last things on our to-do lists.
In 1967 Holmes and Rahe developed a questionnaire called the Social Readjustment Reading Scale (SRRS) for identifying stressful life events. On this scale, 43 life events are listed in decreasing order based upon how traumatic an event was felt to be by a large sample of participants. On the Holmes and Rahe scale, divorce ranks a healthy #2, with a rating of 73. This is behind only death of a spouse or child, which is assigned the value of 100.
If you are in the process of a separation or divorce, the high score assigned to stress for this life event probably comes as no surprise. You may feel you could write a book about it yourself. Mood swings, physical health problems, mental health changes, weight loss or gain and difficulty sleeping are all common manifestations of the stress of separation and divorce for many people.
There’s lots of good information available to us about stress management, with a few easy targets: regular sleep, a healthy diet, and a reasonable amount of exercise. It’s probably also a good idea not to skip that physical with your primary care physician and to follow through with any tests or referrals from this visit. Given the high ranking of divorce on the SRRS, not a whole lot more needs to happen before you find your odds of developing some sort of medical challenge within the next two years is much higher than the norm.
Advice About Divorce
You’re also probably finding that there’s lots of advice available about separation and divorce. Some of this advice is very good. Quite a number of skilled and experienced professionals in the fields of law, mental health and finance specialize in divorce. However, given the individual nature of the separation and divorce experience, it will be important for you to consider the source of any advice that you receive and possibly, too, the intentions of the person who is sharing this advice. You may find yourself with multiple, differing opinions at important junctures along your separation path. Each person offering advice may appear qualified and experienced. You may be uncertain at times what to do.
Listening to Your Inner Wisdom
Support from a mental health provider can be invaluable during the process of separation and divorce. Because one of the most important things you must do along this path is tune out the voices of others so that you can listen carefully for your own.
You may be thinking that you have no voice, that all this is happening to you, that it’s not something that you ever wanted. My response is that this would be all the more reason that you need to listen carefully for that singular voice inside of you that knows the way.
I’m talking about that little voice that represents the real you, after stripping away everyone else’s advice, standards and expectations. It’s that deep sense of “rightness” within. Even in “normal” times, hearing this voice over the noise that surrounds all of us, including our own harsh inner critic, can be difficult.
Working with a divorce coach will give you a regular time and place in your busy week to slow it all down. A place to sift through all the advice. A place to say all the things you can’t say anywhere else. A place to quiet all the noise, hear your own inner voice and, from there, act purposefully and decisively.