A life challenge can be stressful—whether it’s due to illness, job loss, financial worries, or the death of a loved one or of a marriage.

If you’re facing a difficult time, consider the following.

1. Step up your self-care. Major changes are physically and emotionally taxing. You need self-care now more than ever.

Divorce and bankruptcy, neither decision is easy to make. Both divorce and bankruptcy may change your personal and financial life in a big way. If you’re planning to file bankruptcy and divorce at the same time, then it can be a bit tough for you to decide. Most people feel confused about whether they should file bankruptcy before or after getting divorced. Well, you must take the decision after considering all the financial obligations that you and your spouse have.

Let’s face it, life doesn’t always work out how we planned. No one in their right mind enters into marriage believing they will get divorced… Stress and its accompanying emotions like fear, anxiety, and confusion are common on the roller coaster ride of divorce. It’s when those feelings and more, like anger, revenge, or overwhelm cloud your mental judgment, that big problems can occur. Unfortunately making decisions based on emotions can have dire consequences to your family, your finances, and your future.

If you are drowning in papers then your financial life may be out of control as well, because how you do anything is said to be how you do everything. If your “organizational system” looks like this photo … well enough said.

enough of the pleasures and the pains that each season brings, another is waiting around the corner, and just as seasons come and go, so do the challenges of life.

Divorce is one of those life challenges that happens in every season and to get through it with the best possible outcomes it’s my belief that it’s best to seek support. Please don’t do this alone. Proper support may not only change your legal and financial outcomes, but also the emotional memories that you carry forward from it. There is no need to add suffering to an already painful situation and you are not weak because you seek help, rather you show strength and wisdom in that choice. How can you be a source of strength for your children if your own foundation is not standing solid?

I believe that the majority of people in our country still have a long way to go on achieving the knowledge necessary to attain financial literacy and financial well-being. Most of our schools still don’t teach basic financial education lessons, let alone financial courses. We send kids off into the world with the knowledge that we as parents learned along the way, and for many of us, that wasn’t much.

Does divorce do irreparable damage to a child? While opinions vary widely, as noted in the following quotes, much depends on the parents.

Recovery is often associated with overcoming addiction. However, for those dealing with divorce, recovery is their reality as well. So, if you’re dealing with the emotional turmoil of divorce, rather than focus only on what is being lost, try to anticipate positive things that may be gained.