Divorce is hard. Life transitions are hard. Honestly, just being a human being is hard work sometimes.
When you are going through a divorce, it is easy to put yourself at the bottom of the list. There are legal decisions to make, financial questions to answer, documents to gather, children to care for, work to manage, and an entirely new future to think about. But caring for yourself is not a distraction from the divorce process. It is one of the best ways to prepare for the life you are building after it.
In this episode of Forward Facing, Hastings Shadmehry Family Law founding partners, Andee Hastings and Mali Shadmehry, talk about what self-care actually means during divorce and why it needs to begin long before the divorce ends.
Why Self-Care Matters During Divorce
Self-care is one of those things we all know we are supposed to do and somehow still neglect, especially when life gets hard. And we are not just talking about spa days and bubble baths. No shade on spa days, of course. Take the bubble bath, too. But fundamentally, you cannot pour from an empty cup.
Divorce is taxing emotionally, mentally, and physically, sometimes in ways you do not fully recognize while you are in it. Stress affects your physical well-being, how you interact with the world, and the decisions you make.
At the same time, you are walking into the unknown. You are:
- Learning new concepts and working with new people
- Making financial decisions
- Developing a new circle around you
- Learning how to trust your attorney
- Changing the way you interact with someone who used to be on your team
Preparing for the Battlefield
Mali often thinks about divorce as preparing for a battlefield. If you are walking onto that battlefield, you do not want to show up exhausted, frazzled, and unable to think straight. You want to feel confident, brave, powerful, and prepared for what is ahead. Self-care helps give your mind and body the peace, organization, and power you need to stay present and make smart decisions throughout the process.
At Hastings Shadmehry, we have always said that part of our job is to bridge the gap between emotion and business for our clients. We know you are exhausted. We know your brain may be on overload. We also know that divorce requires important decisions at exactly the time when it may be hardest for you to make them. That is part of why you have an attorney.
As attorneys, our job is not simply to draft documents and show up in court. We want our clients to be mentally strong enough through this process to work with us to envision what their new life is going to look like. Sometimes that means seeing things our clients simply cannot see yet.
When Your Attorney Can See What You Can’t Yet
Andee recently had a former client come back to her with post-judgment issues. This was an intelligent, high-functioning professional woman who had gone through a divorce she did not want. When she came back, she thanked Andee for the way Andee prepared her for everything that would be coming at her, for continuing to inform her during the divorce what she would need later in the process, and for building protections into her documents that the client had not been clearheaded enough to recognize at the time. She told Andee, “I did not realize how broken I was until I got out of it.”
That experience is not about intelligence, strength, or resources. Divorce can overwhelm anyone. Sometimes taking care of yourself also means surrounding yourself with people you trust to help you see what you cannot see yet.
Build Your Village, But Be Picky
You need a team around you during a divorce, both professionally and personally.
Your Professional Support System
Ideally, we like to see our clients have:
- A good lawyer
- A good therapist
- When their financial circumstances call for it, a good accountant or CPA
Even if you have never routinely used therapy before, this is a huge life transition. Having a place to process the emotional side of it can make an enormous difference. It can also help you use your legal team more effectively. Your therapist is there to work through the emotional pieces with you, while your lawyer focuses on the legal strategy and financial aspects of your divorce.
Your Personal Village
Then there is your personal village. Divorce can feel incredibly isolating, especially when you do not want to burden your friends or tell your family everything that is happening. The people closest to you, though, may already know more about what you have been experiencing than you realize, and they may be able to provide support you did not know you needed.
At the same time, you have to be careful about who gets that access. The wrong friend can make an already difficult situation worse. We have seen friends become overly involved, encourage drama, spread gossip, or keep a client focused entirely on everything that has gone wrong. We have also seen incredible friends show up for clients, attend meetings, help collect information, and provide exactly the kind of support that person needed.
This is a transition and as you march into your next chapter you are deciding who you want by your side and, sometimes, who you need to leave behind. Surround yourself with people who empower you and help you feel like the version of yourself you have been waiting to become, rather than people who keep you backwards facing and dwelling in the past.
Not Everyone Needs Access to Your Story
That same selectiveness should extend to how much of your divorce you share with the rest of the world. Social media is not your friend during a divorce. There is an obvious legal reason for that because what you post can become evidence, but there is a more personal reason too.
This is a sacred time for you. This is your heartbreak, your pain, your battle, and your story, and not everybody deserves access to it. When the wounds are still wide open, you may not even be in the right mindset to decide what you ultimately want other people to know.
Be thoughtful about:
- What you share
- Who you share it with
- What your children may overhear
You can always choose to tell more of your story later.
Learning to Set Boundaries
For a lot of people, divorce is also the first time they really begin practicing boundaries. Maybe you had a relationship where you depended heavily on your spouse’s judgment or where the two of you had established roles that shaped how you moved through the world. Separating yourself from that dynamic mentally can be incredibly difficult, even when the divorce itself is relatively amicable.
You Do Not Have to Respond Immediately
One of the biggest things we tell clients is also one of the simplest: you do not have to respond immediately.
You may receive a text or email that makes you angry, scares you, or makes you feel like you need to defend yourself right away, but you need to give yourself time to think. You should consult your attorney. Then you can decide whether the conversation actually requires your participation at all.
Mali recently had a client experience during a meeting. The client’s ex kept texting her, asking her to come over and do something she did not want to do, and the client did not know how to respond. Mali asked her a very simple question: “Well, do you want to go do those things?” The answer was no.
Instead of responding in the moment, they waited until the meeting was over. The client then told him that she did not want to do what he had asked, but explained what she was open to doing. Afterward, she looked at Mali and said that was the first time she had really spoken up for what she wanted.
Building “Mind Muscle Memory”
Boundaries can feel uncomfortable when you are not used to having them. Mali describes building them as “mind muscle memory.” You have to consciously ask yourself:
- Do I want this?
- Do I want to have this conversation?
- Is this conversation toxic?
- Do I actually need to engage?
With repetition, those decisions begin to feel more natural.
Those skills also extend well beyond the divorce itself. You are learning how to identify what you need, communicate what you want and what you do not want, and eventually create healthier relationships in the future.
Take Care of Your Body and Find Some Glitter
The mind, body, and spirit are connected, and when you are going through a major transition, that is the time to dig in and give your body some nourishment.
Get Back to the Fundamentals
This does not mean you need to completely reinvent yourself overnight. The fundamentals matter:
- Getting your SLEEP
- Getting fresh air and daylight
- Eating food that nourishes you
- Finding ways to move your body
Maybe you work with a personal trainer and create a new routine. Maybe you take a class, play tennis, golf, or find something physical that is also social. Maybe all you can manage right now is a ten-minute walk in the morning.
The point is not to create some huge production around wellness or reinvention. A few minutes here and there still count, and when you have been living in a state of chaos, even a little structure can help bring some peace back into your life.
Everything in moderation matters here too. We have all known somebody who gets divorced and suddenly decides they are going to run a marathon. Having personal goals is fabulous, but we are looking for balance. We are trying to start filling up some buckets that may not have been filled for a long time.
Find “The Glitter”
That includes the things you do simply because they make you happy. Mali calls it finding “the glitter.”
Difficult relationships and difficult seasons have a way of making us let go of things that used to bring us joy. We hear clients say all the time that somewhere along the way, they lost themselves.
Maybe you used to paint or loved photography. Maybe you enjoy:
- Gardening
- Coloring
- Working puzzles
- Playing pickleball
- Simply sitting outside with your dogs and watching the sunset
Those little things can change over time, too. For Mali, some of that glitter comes from growing and repotting succulents or practicing bodybuilding poses – because she enjoys being in her own little zone. This does not need to accomplish anything for anyone else. It can exist simply because it brings you joy in that moment.
Taking 30 minutes to do something that brings you joy is also a way of focusing on something you can control. Those small pieces begin to become bigger pieces. You start seeing that you are capable of making decisions for yourself and creating a life that feels like yours again. Sometimes it is in the deepest trenches that new things start sprouting. If you give them enough space.
Keep Looking Forward
There are going to be things during a divorce that you cannot control, and there are also going to be things you are terrified might happen.
Walk Through the Worst-Case Scenario
One exercise Mali uses with clients is to ask them to tell her their absolute worst-case scenarios:
- What are you afraid your spouse will do?
- What are you afraid will come out?
- What happens if the thing you are most afraid of actually happens?
Then she and her client walk through it together. Often, once a client understands what that worst-case scenario would actually look like legally, some of the fear loses its power. There may also be things your lawyer can help you control that you did not even realize were options.
We think about divorce and family law in ways you are not accustomed to because you do not do this every day. We have seen these patterns before. Sometimes the best thing you can do about the things you cannot control is give them to your lawyer and let your legal team help you understand what comes next.
Remember That This Is a Moment in Time
A lot of people go through divorce in survival mode, and it is very easy to get pulled down into what your life looks like right now and forget that this is only a moment in time.
Self-care begins before the divorce ends. The routines you create now can become part of your new life. The boundaries you set can influence your future relationships. The people you surround yourself with now can influence the person you become next, and the hobbies and little pieces of glitter you nourish may become parts of yourself you carry forward.
In those moments of extreme stress and anxiety, try to refocus on the entire point: figuring out what your life is going to look like after this. You can envision your future while you are still moving through your present. That is what it means to stay forward facing.
A Self-Care Check-In
When you are in the middle of a divorce, it can be difficult to remember the fundamentals when your attention is being pulled in a dozen different directions. We created a simple Self-Care During Divorce Checklist based on the ideas Andee and Mali discuss in this episode.
Keep it somewhere visible and use it as a reminder to check in with your support system, your boundaries, your physical health, and the little things that bring some glitter back into your life.
If you are considering divorce or navigating a family law matter in Georgia, Hastings Shadmehry Family Law can help you understand your options, protect your interests, and begin thinking about what comes next.
