Self-Discovery Post-Divorce

If you're struggling to figure out who you are after a divorce, this is for you. Hi. My name is Rachel Havocost. I'm a writer and mental health advocate. I've been in therapy for 19 years for my own mental health, and I have a master's in psychology. And everything I do is in service of helping one person feel less alone. So I got divorced during the pandemic, and after I got divorced, I went through an identity crisis. I felt like I didn't know who I was as a single woman. I didn't know who I was as an unmarried person.

I didn't know who I was just as Rachel as a 30 year old woman. There were so many things about my identity that felt like I had completely just lost who I was. And so there was a long period of self discovery. So during this period of self discovery, there were a lot of different things I did or tried on or experimented with to try and figure out who this. Who this version of Rachel was going to be. So this was one of my favorite things. One of my favorite things I did was I took myself on solo dates.

So I read the artist's way by Julia Cameron when I was living in Los Angeles after I got divorced. And if you've not, if interacted with this book and you're a creative person or you're, or you're in therapy for any reason, I highly recommend it. And she talks about these artist dates, and I kind of adopted that to just solo dates. And basically what it is, is I would take myself out on a date as if there was another person there. I would go out to dinner with myself. I would take myself out to a paint and sip.

I would take myself to the movies. I would take myself on long walks on a Sunday with no destination and just the purpose of wandering around and seeing what I would see. I would take myself out hiking or camping, and I did all these things for a few reasons. One, it allowed me to figure out what I liked and what I didn't like. When I went to a restaurant by myself for the first time, I was like, I don't have to order based on what my partner might want. I don't have to order with the concern of someone else judging me for what I'm ordering.

I can literally order whatever I want. And so I had to actually ask myself, what do I want to eat? What actually tastes good to me? And I tried new foods that I'd never tried before. And I also found out there were certain hobbies I did like or did not like I got to try new things. I got to try old things. And it helped me kind of figure out, again without the pressure of, what's someone else gonna think if I like this or don't like it, what Rachel actually likes and doesn't like. The other thing going on solo dates allowed me to do was spend time with myself.

And the more time I spent with myself, the more time I spent with my own thoughts, my own emotions, how I responded to the world. And so I just started to learn more about how I engage with other people, with strangers, with different environments, and I got to learn more about myself. And so I found that going on solo dates was a really powerful way for me to figure out who I was and also just get more comfortable being on my own. And it was a really wonderful exercise in independence and identity and self discovery.

Hopefully, that was helpful. And if you want more tips on ways to find yourself, let me know, because I am full of them, and I will see you all next time.