Healing Your Heart After Divorce Meditation

When a relationship ends, your whole world can feel like it is in pieces. This gentle guided meditation gives your heart a place to rest and reset. Find a quiet spot, press play, and let yourself be guided back to your own steadiness, self-trust, and calm.

Transcript

Healing your heart after divorce.

You may be listening with a hundred thoughts still swirling,

Or with a kind of numbness that has no words yet.

You're in a tender chapter of your life where your heart is asking to be met with more care than it's ever received before.

You might be listening in the middle of a long day or late at night when the house is quiet and the pain you may still be carrying feels somehow louder.

However you're arriving,

You are welcome here,

Just as you are.

Find a position where your body feels supported.

You might lie down or sit with your back resting against something that supports you.

Take all the time you need to get even 10% more comfortable.

Add a pillow,

Loosen your jaw,

Soften your shoulders.

Begin to notice your breath just as it is right now.

Not trying to improve it or deepen it,

Simply noticing.

You might feel the breath at the tip of your nose,

Or in the rise and fall of your chest,

Or maybe for you today it's low in your belly.

Wherever you feel it,

And however it moves,

Let that be enough.

As your breath moves in its own way,

Bring your attention to the length of your back held by whatever is supporting you.

Your neck comfortable,

Held,

Your feet resting,

Perhaps with more weight on one side than the other.

Let yourself feel that fact right now.

You are being held.

Notice where you can let that support in just a little bit more.

Separating from a partner,

Divorce,

Is one of the most intense experiences a heart can go through.

It can feel like life as you knew it has been divided into before and after.

If you notice any part of you that wants to rush past that or minimize it,

You might whisper to yourself.

It makes sense that it hurts.

It makes sense that I feel what I feel.

Let that be your starting place,

Aware of all the different sensations and all the various feelings in this moment.

This time you're investing in yourself to come back to your center.

Now gently bring your awareness toward the area of your chest,

That space around your heart,

And with your next breath,

Notice what's there for you now.

You might feel tightness.

You might feel emptiness.

Maybe you feel pressure or heaviness,

And maybe in this moment you feel nothing at all.

Whatever you notice is okay.

The pain of divorce is rarely about only this moment in time.

It tends to reach back into earlier chapters of your life,

Maybe an earlier painful disappointment or heartbreak,

Sometimes into the unfinished stories of those who came before you.

You don't need to fix any of that today.

We're simply going to look with a softer,

Wider view.

Begin by imagining that behind you stands your family of origin,

The people who were there with you when you first learned what love looked like.

You might see your parents or the people who raised you.

You might sense them more as shapes or a color or just a feeling in the background.

You don't need to see them clearly.

Just a gentle sense that they're there behind you,

Looking at how some of their patterns have carried on as you get a sense of your parents or the people who raised you.

Maybe you sense them more as shapes or a color or just a feeling in the background.

You don't need to see them clearly.

It's more of a gentle sense that they're there behind you,

Looking at how some of their patterns have carried on.

Take a moment to notice how love moved between them.

Were there words of appreciation or mostly silence?

Was there tenderness or more criticism?

Did conflict get talked through or just pushed aside?

There's no need to judge what you see.

You are simply observing the atmosphere you grew up inside.

Now sense yourself as a child in that environment,

The younger you looking out at the way love was given and withheld,

The way closeness happened or didn't.

If you could express your emotions or if it was better to keep them hidden.

Just a moment here to understand what habits and ways of relating may have been passed down to you.

Maybe some of them you're feeling ready to shift,

Certain that you don't want to repeat any more of these painful patterns.

Notice how your body responds,

Even if it's very subtle.

Maybe a small shift in your shoulders or a new sensation in your chest.

Now gently allowing the image of your family to fade into the background.

In front of you now,

Imagine your former partner.

You don't need to place them close.

You can allow them to stand at a distance that feels right for you,

Far enough that you can breathe and close enough that you can acknowledge the truth that you share to life.

If there are children,

You might imagine them standing between you,

Connected to you both.

If there are no children,

Simply keep your focus on this space between you and your former partner.

Feel your feet on the ground in this inner scene.

Take a breath into your belly as if you are drawing strength up from the earth.

From this steadier place,

You might allow a few honest sentences to arise from inside of you.

Maybe not the sentences you think you should say,

And maybe not the sentences fueled by anger or hurt,

But something that feels true in your body.

Maybe part of me is still hurting,

Or I expected our story to go differently.

In my mind,

I've been blaming you for so much of what went wrong between us.

I'm going to give you a moment here if you want any of your own words to arrive as you imagine expressing them.

When you're ready,

And if it feels possible,

Let's explore another layer of truth that's also available.

There were good moments between us,

Too.

In our life together,

I learned a lot about myself and what I need to feel loved.

There were some good that came out of our time together.

You might not be ready to feel gratitude,

And that's completely okay.

You're simply allowing the full complexity of what's been real between you to have a place.

As you go inside,

As you explore what's happening inside of your heart,

Imagine saying to them,

I take with me what I have learned,

And what belongs with you,

I leave with you.

I make space in my heart to remember what was good between us.

What is yours stays with you.

What is mine stays with me.

Just notice how your body feels as you listen to these sentences.

If you feel resistance,

That's allowed.

If you feel relief,

That's allowed,

Too.

Everything you feel right now belongs.

Letting go of love has many layers of complexity.

Now,

Very slowly,

Imagine taking one small step back into your own space.

Feel the support of the ground under your feet,

A sense of spaciousness throughout your entire body as you say to yourself,

My heart belongs with me.

Getting a sense that your heart is wise,

That it has traveled through something intense,

And so it's adjusting,

Restructuring,

And finding a new shape.

You don't need to force forgiveness or push your heart to heal before you're ready.

You also don't need to close it as some form of protection.

As you look out in front of you,

Sensing the open space of your future,

It doesn't need to be clear yet.

There's a comfort in where you find yourself in this moment,

Not stuck in the past and not leaping ahead,

But right here in this moment where the next breath is,

Saying to your heart,

May I be kind to myself as I heal.

May I offer myself the same tenderness I've given to everyone else.

May I give myself time and softness as I find my way forward.

May I speak to myself the way I would to someone that I love.

Whenever you're ready,

Maybe along with your next exhale,

Slowly bringing yourself back to the here and now.

Notice the surface that's holding you,

Taking a slightly deeper breath,

Intentionally letting the exhale be slow and soft,

So that as you move back into your day or your evening,

Remember that you don't have to do it perfectly.

You only have to remember from time to time to turn toward yourself with a little more care.

Thank you for spending this time with your heart as it heals.

This time you've given yourself will support you in the days and weeks to come.

Reviews

Thank you for this constructive way to meditate about my divorce. I do wish there could have been a few more pauses in between the sentences to reflect on your concepts. But thank you, nonetheless!