subject: Your Post Divorce Self-Discoveries Are Awaiting You [print this page] Your Post Divorce Self-Discoveries Are Awaiting You
One day in her second post-divorce year, Janet Coleman saw an ad for someone to do floral arranging, something she had always dreamed of doing. Weren't people always telling her how wonderful she was with flowers? "You have no professional experience; you haven't a chance," she told herself. But she could not let go of the idea. She reread the ad "Well, all the florist can say is no," she told herself. "And I need to find a job."
Janet had never considered herself a saleswoman, but she surprised herself. "Well, if you're nothing else, you're determined," the florist said. "I'll give you a tryout."
The following year, the florist promoted Janet to store manager. When he retired five years later, Janet opened her own business, catering to wealthy clients, hotels, and embassies.
Your pathway out of divorce will begin like Janet's with a combination of openness to change-a willingness to try something unthinkable in other circumstances, like applying for a job for which you have no qualifications-and raw, aching need. These elements, which rarely coalesce at other points in your life, can come together quite frequently in your early crisis years.
These new pathways most often begin with a self-discoveryyou find you can run a home or a business competently. And often, like a stone tossed in a stream, the self-discovery has a rippling effect. It begins to influence the kind of people that are drawn to you, the opportunities that suddenly open up for you, and the skills you develop, not only career wise but personally.
Of the three groups to emerge at the two-year point [of a study of divorce], the largest and most successful was composed of men and women who had embraced this window of change. They learned new things about themselvesI can excel in school or job, I can raise my child aloneand these discoveries provided the basis for a new identity.
Maybe new' identity is not the right word. Self discovery starts when you give yourself permission to be yourself. This mental assent unlocks the treasures that were in you all along.
Let me give you an example. Have you ever decided on getting another car and as soon as you made up your mind to get the car you started seeing that car everywhere? Were these cars always there? Did you just suddenly become aware of them? You had been passing these cars all along you just hadn't made a conscious decision to act upon the desire you had for that car.
So change your mind about yourself and your abilities and you will discovery the real incredible you that was there all along.
Copyright 2011 Danielle Wise All rights reserved. You are free to use this article in part or full provided you include the author bio and a live website link.
