Divorce in a pandemic : Some Revelations and Realizations
Tags: Divorce, Self Compassion, Meditation, Mindfulness

This year has been the most defining year of my life. I separated from my former partner last year and for the first time in my life I found myself living alone in a new city. I have learned so much and grown from pillar to strength while going through one of the most painful phases in my life. If this year has taught us anything ,it’s that it’s important to pause and reflect in life. In my opinion, it is as important as chasing our goals. What is pausing and reflecting and why don’t we do it more often? Self reflection is hard work and puts us in very uncomfortable spots. Coupled with the fact that it is not normalized we find it hard to self reflect. Below are some beautiful realizations I have had during my period of self reflection. Apologies in advance, if it comes across as pedantic.

Mental Health Care is the most underrated part of our lives. I have learned to treasure it and take care of it on a daily basis.

is the most underrated part of our lives. I have learned to treasure it and take care of it on a daily basis. Meditation is absolutely life changing. It taps into our supremely strong inner self that we do not give enough credit to. It also calms our minds and enables us to live our life to full potential. I urge you, if you have not tried it to please try it.

is absolutely life changing. It taps into our supremely strong inner self that we do not give enough credit to. It also calms our minds and enables us to live our life to full potential. I urge you, if you have not tried it to please try it. Our emotional range is very complex and beautiful. We feel guilt, anger, grief, isolation, self-pity, pride, joy and the list just goes on. I have learned that every single emotion is very important and being mindful has helped me develop self awareness about these emotions and thus enabled me to control and manage them well. Mindfulness should be a daily practice of our lives and I practice it every single day. Mindfulness and self awareness is also key to success in social and professional lives.

is also key to success in social and professional lives. Gratitude is a wonderful thing to practice too. It can be challenging initially since we always have a negative bias and we focus on what we don’t have. But gratitude helps us appreciate life more. We owe it to ourselves to appreciate the wonderful things we are blessed with and the amazing things we have achieved in our life. It is important to not seek constant external validation which is a huge source of disappointment. If you practice gratitude you will see the amazing things about yourself and you won’t seek that constant validation from anyone else. While I drink my coffee every morning I list 3–5 things I am grateful for that day and during the course of time I have realized in spite of having my heart broken in million pieces I have so much to be grateful for.

is a wonderful thing to practice too. It can be challenging initially since we always have a negative bias and we focus on what we don’t have. But gratitude helps us appreciate life more. We owe it to ourselves to appreciate the wonderful things we are blessed with and the amazing things we have achieved in our life. It is important to not seek constant external validation which is a huge source of disappointment. If you practice gratitude you will see the amazing things about yourself and you won’t seek that constant validation from anyone else. While I drink my coffee every morning I list 3–5 things I am grateful for that day and during the course of time I have realized in spite of having my heart broken in million pieces I have so much to be grateful for. Self Compassion is another beautiful concept I wish I had learned earlier in life. We are our worst critics. We judge our fears and mistakes and our inner dialogues are marred with harsh judgements and dismissiveness. We tend to be harsh on ourselves and sometimes it pours on to others, understandably so. One of the achievements I am really proud of this year is that I learned how to practice self compassion. It was very challenging but I forgave myself for my mistakes and stopped judging the thoughts in my mind. I show myself more respect now and this has made my ability to love others infinitely high. You can’t pour from an empty cup. It is important for us to fill our cups first if we want to be there for our loved ones during tough times. I have also seen unexpected progress in other areas of my life. I listen better to people and this is a huge factor in the relationships one has in life. My professional and personal relationships are more deeply connected due to this. Self compassion is truly beautiful.

is another beautiful concept I wish I had learned earlier in life. We are our worst critics. We judge our fears and mistakes and our inner dialogues are marred with harsh judgements and dismissiveness. We tend to be harsh on ourselves and sometimes it pours on to others, understandably so. One of the achievements I am really proud of this year is that I learned how to practice self compassion. It was very challenging but I forgave myself for my mistakes and stopped judging the thoughts in my mind. I show myself more respect now and this has made my ability to love others infinitely high. You can’t pour from an empty cup. It is important for us to fill our cups first if we want to be there for our loved ones during tough times. I have also seen unexpected progress in other areas of my life. I listen better to people and this is a huge factor in the relationships one has in life. My professional and personal relationships are more deeply connected due to this. Self compassion is truly beautiful. Anger has been the bane of my life since I can remember. This is deeply tied with ego. Anger and ego are necessary evils. Evils that when tamed and controlled well can serve its purpose. I have learned to understand my triggers and prepare when Mr. Anger surfaces. Controlling emotions and not letting emotions control us is the key to living our best lives. This takes effort but not impossible to do.

This year has been very difficult to millions of people around the world. Let us pause and thank each other for being in each other’s lives and let’s not take anything for granted.