Spirituality can take a beating during divorce. But making a path back to a spiritual life is not only possible, it can guide one to a more peaceful state of mind during an emotionally wrenching experience.
Any kind of emotional upheaval can leave one questioning his or her faith, said Christine Cauffield, Ph.D., the president and CEO of Aspire Behavioral Health, Inc. Even someone with a very strong spiritual life may begin to question it, she said. “There are faith issues that oftentimes leave one overwhelmed and feeling isolated and alone and estranged from their faith,” Cauffield said. “Most of the time temporary, but it is another loss. It’s an issue people struggle with when they are going through difficult times.”
Divorce is a time of discord and conflict, and that can pull people off their spiritual paths, said Christine Raymond,
of www.spiritonthejob.com. The time during which a marriage ends is the kind of situation in which one most needs the peace that can be wrought by faith, she said.
“When you think about all that attracts one to spiritual development — abundant love, peace of mind, goodness, healthy thoughts, a better life — the unhappiness of the divorce is the exact opposite of these good qualities. And yet, this is the time when the strength of spiritual development is most needed,” Raymond said. One of the most positive and health ways to move through a breakup is by allowing spiritual thought to offer guidance, Raymond said.
This can be achieved by reading sacred texts, speaking with people who are like-minded, spending time in deep thought, prayer or meditation. Spiritual thinking can take the place of the negative thoughts and fears that resonate during divorce, she said. “Because this spiritual thinking and living is taking priority over the messiness of the process,” Raymond said. “Having spiritual thoughts as the focus of one’s life, regardless of events, can actually set up a more harmonious order of things, encourage solutions to apparent impasses, and letting go of entrenched thinking, which helps everyone involved.”
LISTEN FOR GOD’S VOICE People generally look to God for one of two reasons when things get rough, said Charlette Manning,
www.charlettemanning.com, motivational speaker and spiritual coach. They either reach out for help or to blame, she said. “Obviously, the first thing that happens is it’s a sense of failure, so people automatically think, What did I do wrong? Why is this happening to me?” she said.
When people feel as if they have no control over how to fix their lives, they begin to try to assign blame. In doing so, spirituality is weakened, she said. “Why did this happen to you? Well, why not you?” Manning said. “Learn something from everything. Unfortunately, we learn our best lessons in pain.”
But in trying to get rid of the pain, Manning said, some may lose what will pull them out of their despair, which is spirituality. “We separate from what we know is true. And what we know is true is that God loves us all,” Manning said. “We separate ourselves from God in the moment of that kind of adversity.”
Finding the way back to a spiritual life is as easy as combining four ingredients, Manning said: forgiveness, faith, gratitude or love. Those four elements can bring about spiritual peace, she said. When Manning went through her own divorce, she said, she tried to focus on forgiveness through the process as a way to release her fear and anger. “The positive side of forgiveness, we return to love, and that is returning to God,” Manning said.
She said she feared what her future would bring, and what the end of her marriage would do to her two sons and their family unit. She tried to quell her fear by focusing on her sons, and the kind of support they needed from both she and her husband. To find forgiveness in her heart, she reminded herself that “the two greatest things in life, I created with him,” she said.
