Maintaining a Healthy Work/Life Balance During a Divorce
The alarm clock sounds – it’s 6:00 a.m. and you roll out of bed to begin your morning routine. Getting yourself and the kids ready for the day, checking for urgent business communications, and calling the plumber to deal with that persistent kitchen leak.
Heading to the office, your phone rings – it’s your family law lawyer calling with a critical news update about your divorce. You eventually arrive at work facing the same pile of uncompleted work you left on your desk last night. Your client’s again left a message about their deadlines not being met.
The mental and emotional exhaustion of divorcing is not often spoken about in a preliminary meeting between a client and their lawyer. It should be along with how to maintain focus, a positive attitude, and a need to make a relentless number of decisions until resolution of all legal issues is achieved. Your work, childcare, other regular lifestyle matters continue to grab your attention regardless of all the pressing problems relating to your family in transition.
The basis of emotional distress is the fear of the unknown. Fear as to whether financial stability is attainable when two households will now replace the family home, whether the family business can retain its independence, and whether there will be sufficient resources to support the children’s professional aspirations.
Consistency in day-to-day routines is critical to achieving a healthy lifestyle while you embark on this transformative family journey. Ensuring regular wake-up and night sleeping patterns, choosing physical activity over hours frozen in front tech devices. Scheduling routine workouts or an impromptu quick paced walk in the mid afternoon or even taking the long way through the office every hour to replenish your water bottle all offer moments of reprieve from the emotional burden of separation and warding off the stress hormone cortisone with positive moments of contentment.
Learning mindfulness, developing perseverance, and focusing on long term goals are solid tools to maintain confidence when decision making today impacts family relationships for the future. Being able to remain focused to study complex data, assess the consequences of possible choices being made today, and enduring several mediation or collaborative negotiation sessions are part of the process of planning separate lives. Mindfulness to manage painful distractions into ‘what ifs’, questioning over and over the day’s decisions, and lamenting facing being single again.
Divorces are inherently disruptive and ultimately, they will challenge your ability to remain calm and composed throughout the entire process. Work and life responsibilities only make things harder, but by sticking to a consistent routine, destressing in a healthy manner, and collaborating with your family law lawyer, you will make it through with grace and dignity intact.
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For a confidential consultation to discuss your divorce or other family law concerns, contact Lorisa Stein through the contact page, call her at (416) 596-8081 or email her at lorisa@lorisastein.com.