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“More fundamental than religion is our basic human spirituality. We have a basic human disposition towards love, kindness and affection, irrespective of whether we have a religious framework or not. When we nurture this most basic human resource – when we set about cultivating those basic inner values which we all appreciate in others, then we start to live spiritually.” Dalai Lama
Going through divorce gave me a great opportunity to practice being more spiritual.
Love
One of the best ways to get through the emotional trauma of divorce is to practice loving ourselves and loving others even when their behaviours may not be loveable. It is very easy to get caught in the trap of being angry at our ex, but the only one this really hurts is us. The energy of anger is in our body and what we really want to cultivate in our body is the energy of love. The more I learned to treat myself with love the better I felt.
Kindness
My partner Milo was unhappy and he decided he wanted to leave our relationship after 18 years. I was absolutely devastated and I couldn’t imagine how I could live without him. I had to ask myself; “was this a good enough reason to not treat him with kindness?” My answer was NO. He was making a decision as to what he thought was best for himself and what would bring him happiness.
To be kind to myself I needed to let go of my emotional ties to Milo, to do anything else would only create suffering within myself. We are unkind to ourselves when we continue to insist being attached to someone who no longer wants to be with us.
Affection
Going through my divorce I reached out to a lot of friends who expressed their affection for me. I was very hurt and at the same time I was very grateful for the support that I received. It made me so much more aware of how important it is to show my affection for others. Even if showing affection is in small ways like going for a walk or making time for a phone conversation when I am busy.
What is one thing you could do to practice more love, kindness an affection in your life?