"Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."
Albert Schweitzer
Staying healthy is life's best defense!
Ok, one word of warning here, I'm going to get just a little bit spiritual on you now. But let me define what I mean by spiritual before I lose you. I found it summed up nicely by Leo Booth, author of "The Wisdom of Letting Go".
"Spirituality is a healthy relationship between body, mind, and emotions that empowers choice, responsibility, and change."
Religion is something else entirely in my opinion. I'm not going to get into religion at all here, but I am going to discuss spirituality in the sense of maintaining your body, mind and emotions through what may easily prove to be the most stressful, emotionally trying time of your life.
When I first became a father, the first weeks after my daughter's birth were exciting, terrifying, stressful and overwhelming. At times, I wasn't sure I'd survive the addition of a newborn to our home. Looking back on it now, I wish someone who had been down the road before would have simply sat me down and said "Look, trust me, the sleep deprivation will end soon, you'll get your feet under you and figure out how to handle things, and soon life will be wonderful again." As I was going through it, I couldn't see beyond those first sleepless nights, the times when the baby cried and couldn't seem to be comforted, all the absolutely normal parts of the experience that I just had to get through. When my second daughter arrived on the scene a few years later, the experience was much easier to handle because I could focus on the good times ahead, instead of dwelling on yet another night of interrupted sleep.
When my marriage melted down, I was lucky enough to have a close friend who had walked a path very similar to mine, who cared enough to share his own experiences with me, and to help me focus on life beyond divorce. I want to do the same for you with this section. I want to help you remember to take care of yourself, and to show you how you can keep yourself as emotionally and physically healthy as possible, because I absolutely believe that the stress of divorce can ruin your health if you don't keep it under control. You may be in a situation where the demise of your marriage may be the best thing that has happened to you since the day you said "I do", but even in that extreme situation, you are almost certainly going to feel a great deal of emotional pain. And if you're in a situation where the end of your marriage feels like the end of the world, you are going to have to take some action to keep yourself from suffering any more than you have to as you pass through this difficult stage of your life.
If you'll allow me one small diversion at
this point, I'd like to recommend a book that I really enjoyed, and
that really helped me on my own personal journey. Lance
Armstrong wrote a book, "It's
Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life", which is all about
his own battle with cancer and his return to cycling. I know
this may seem a bit strange to recommend at this point in this web
site, but trust me, this book will certainly help you put your own
problems into perspective, and to see how returning to good health
helped Lance get his life back on track. Trust me, this one is
one you'll enjoy.
There are several immediate steps that you can take right now, that will begin to get focused on maintaining your mental and physical health through this difficult period in your life. As we continue on with this section, we're going to start by helping you keep your body in shape.
Related reading material
Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends
The Four Levels of Healing: A Guide to Balancing the Spiritual,
Mental, Emotional, and Physical Aspects of Life
