I have been thinking of purchasing a happiness diary for a while now until I finally decided to do it. Today while filling it in I stumbled upon this Socrates quote - „The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new“ and it hit me. I have spent so much time and energy getting angry in my relationship so far. Until I started this diary I've been frustrated with my relationship, work, you name it. I was too busy fighting the old and this had a negative effect on my mood.

My relationship has not improved since I have this daily habit, but the way I look at it has. Knowing that it‘s just a matter of time to exit this „lesson" (the way I look at it to keep positive) I don‘t get angry so often. I try to look with humor at situations in which I would have been extremely pissed off only a month ago. And this gives me peace of mind. I do think very often of the „new“ - my beautiful happy life after divorce. The more small actions I take and the more consecutive I am in picturing happiness (the new), the better I feel in the current situation.

All of this is not to say that the situation has improved, but the way I look at it and react to it has improved significantly. The latest and very powerful tool I received from a session earlier this week was on how to control the way my brain reacts to things. A Harvard graduate in Psychology and Neurology (Let's name her Jane) was saying that to help our brain produce more oxytocin and lower stress is to ask a simple question when a stressful situation - Is it dangerous? And by dangerous it meant life-threatening. The moment the answer is „No“an automatic reaction happens in the brain according to Jane and the brain calms down instead of going into distress.

As someone on a journey, even after being convinced that I made the right choice to ask for a divorce in the coming months, I have still been questioning occasionally this decision, mostly because of fear. This week on top of my daily happiness habits, I also asked myself „Is it dangerous to get a divorce?“. The answer is "No". I felt enormous relief looking at it from this perspective. What I've learned in the past months on my journey back to me and growth, is that it‘s the little steps and tools which help us change and grow. Our mind adapts quicker than we think. Coincidentally or not I have received through different sources a lot of tools on resilience and mental health. I'm so grateful to have learned about those methods and I'm looking forward to continue sharing them with you.