I was just shy of my thirty-second birthday when I filed for divorce. The betrayal in my marriage shattered the world I knew and asked me to question everything I believed about love, identity and who I was.
Today I wouldn’t trade the woman that season created for anything. If you’re in the middle of your own divorce, here’s what helped me heal after divorce, and what I wish someone had told me at the beginning.
You Will Not Be Broken Forever
One of the first books I read after my divorce told me I would forever have betrayal PTSD. That isn’t true. Healing is a choice you get to keep making, and I have chosen to create the most beautiful life for myself, one I would never go back from.
Your divorce is not the reason you’ll never have love again or why you’ll always have trust issues. It’s an initiation. Every goddess myth carries this shape: descent, death and a return as something otherworldly.
Let Every Emotion Have Its Turn
Divorce brings up emotions that don’t match who you thought you were. Grief arrives in waves. Rage may surprise you. Disgust and disappointment can sit underneath it all.
For months, I used empathy to escape my anger. The second I felt furious, I’d think about his childhood and his perspective, and suddenly I was back in mother mode. Then one day I realized I had spent enough time understanding why he did what he did. My anger wanted me to understand what it did to me. You can understand someone’s wounds and still be furious about what they chose to do with them.
Give your emotions somewhere to go. I practiced Kali breath in my car, screaming and grunting until something moved. Punch pillows, shake, dance, write, cry in the bath. Let each feeling finish its sentence.
Reclaim Your Body
After my separation I started taking pole dance classes as a reclamation of my power and sensuality. Every night after teaching spiritual wisdom all day, I traded my flowy goddess clothes for leather and lace and climbed a thirteen-foot pole. My thighs were covered in bruises, my body got stronger, and every trick revealed another edge of myself.
Your reclamation may look completely different. Maybe you cut your hair, take up boxing, book a solo trip or finally wear the thing. The expression changes. The reclamation is the same.
Let Joy Arrive Before You’re “Done”
We imagine healing as a solemn march toward resolution, as if we must finish mourning one life before beginning another. Joy comes in glimpses during the rain, and the rain makes it more colorful.
A few months into my divorce, I booked a last-minute trip to Trinidad Carnival with my college best friend. Dancing through the streets in feathers and rhinestones with thousands of women was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. I went from crying to dancing, and sometimes both at the same time. I called it my Die, Heal, Twerk journey: I died in Egypt, healed in Bali and twerked in Trinidad.
Face the Fears Your Marriage Kept You From
During my marriage I had developed a driving phobia. Looking back, I wonder if part of me associated driving, the freedom to choose a direction and leave, with fear. After my divorce, on a trip to Switzerland, my friend left early and I had no choice but to drive alone through the Alps at night on icy, winding roads. Ten minutes in, I was belting “Un-Break My Heart” at the top of my lungs.
Divorce can reveal the parts of you that went to sleep. Wake them up.
Romanticize Your Friendships and Family
When one of my best friends went through her own breakup, she moved in with me, and for over a year we were each other’s platonic wives, starting every morning with a dance party.
My divorce also healed my relationship with my parents. Through it, I opened up to them in a way I never had before, and over time the wall between us came down. There are years of connection with my family that I now get as a gift.
Become a Young Crone
Women used to have one marriage, one identity and one version of themselves. Today a woman may experience a marriage, a divorce, a reinvention, a move across the world, a new career and another great love, all before forty. I call women who gain this wisdom early the Young Crones.
We are diffusing the judgment around divorce and beginning to see it as a necessary part of many healthy lives. And while the pain of divorce is temporary, the chicness of being a divorcée is forever.
Use This Chapter to Become Her
Being single after divorce is often a chapter you’ll only fully appreciate once it’s over. Start the podcast. Learn salsa. Move to a new city or a new country. Your female ancestors were married young and always in service to others. They’re cheering you on as the woman who changed everything for your lineage.
Eventually the question shifts from “How do I heal from what happened?” to “Who do I want to be in this next chapter?” That’s when the magic begins.
The Book I Wish I’d Had
My new book, Maybe This Love Story Is Really About Me, is the full story of my divorce, how I found my way through it and the archetypes that came alive along the way: the Dark Feminine, the Wild Woman, the Lover Girl, the Mystic, the Queen and more. It’s out December 4.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to heal after divorce?
Every journey is different, and many women find it takes one to several years. Healing tends to move in waves, and each wave passes more quickly as you let yourself feel it fully.
What are the stages of healing after divorce?
Many women move through shock, grief, anger, disappointment, surrender and reinvention, often circling back through earlier stages before integrating the experience.
How do I find myself again after divorce?
Reconnect with your body, follow what makes you feel alive, face the fears your marriage kept you from, deepen your friendships and ask who you want to become in this next chapter.
How do I heal from betrayal in a marriage?
Let yourself feel the anger and grief without rushing into forgiveness, rebuild trust in your own intuition, and get support from friends, a therapist or a coach. I share more in my guide to the dark night of the soul.
Explore my heartbreak healing course and pre-order Maybe This Love Story Is Really About Me to receive the bonus Rose Meditation. Your most beautiful chapter is already beginning, love.
Listen to the Highest Self Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.