When your divorce is behind you, your life will get easier in many ways. One of the major stresses—the divorce itself—will be over. Soon there will be benchmarks where you catch yourself thinking, “This must mean I am really moving on,” whether it’s a first kiss with a new man, buying a home on your own, or even something mundane like putting up a shelf on your own in your office. With each victory big or small, you believe in yourself that much more.

For me, the friendships formed during my divorce have long outlived the divorce process itself. The women who helped me through it are still the ones I turn to. And as I face new challenges, like buying a new house this past summer or surviving a lover who broke my heart, I know with certainty that an optimistic attitude and a supportive circle of friends have made all the difference.

The journey I started the day I was pronounced divorced by a judge continues as I grow in each new relationship; take on everything from managing my financial portfolio to tightening a loose toilet handle; and look for the good in people, places, and experiences. I know the roots that have been growing these past few years are stronger than I ever imagined possible.

After I co-founded the Maplewood Divorce Club with Jill Sockwell, a support group for women in our town, I saw how the attitude we have after our breakups can determine how we move through the experience. We’re the authors of our tale. We decide how we want to view our divorce—and whether we might want to reframe the story we’ve been telling others and ourselves. I realized I didn’t want to be cast in the role of a victim who failed at marriage. Instead, I recast my tale so that I emphasized my personal growth and accentuated the positive. Here’s how you can, too.

1. Reframe Your Divorce Story

I found inspiration in public figures who have discovered opportunity within their divorces and in doing so, reframed their stories of personal challenges into success stories. One of my favorite performers, Tina Turner, could have let her story of abuse at the hands of a man she loved define her life. Instead, she found a way to move past it. When she left her husband, she was not only emotionally and physically bruised but also financially destitute. One of our greatest singers, who by then had several No. 1 hits, cleaned houses for a period of time to pay her rent as she rebuilt her career and her credit. Tina Turner’s story of abuse became just one chapter in the life of a survivor.

Lawyer and politician Wendy Davis was just twenty-one, with a young daughter, when she went through her divorce. To make ends meet, she worked at a doctor’s office and as a waitress while she attended community college. She didn’t let go of her dreams even though things weren’t working out as she planned. Later accepted to Harvard Law School and elected to the Texas State Senate, she credits her success to hard work and optimism.

Arianna Huffington could have shunned the public eye after her divorce from her husband. Instead, she reframed her divorce as a great business opportunity to create the wildly successful Huffington Post. She could have taken her hefty divorce settlement and moved to Turks and Caicos but chose to follow her passion for journalism and do what she loves, all the while enjoying the spotlight.

There are countless ways to tell the same story. As any PR guru knows, you choose which facts you lead with and want to highlight in your story. I call this the Reframe/Reclaim Technique because it allows you to retell your story in a positive way. My friend Carlotta no longer clings to her ex’s rejection like a life raft. These days, when she thinks about her divorce, or tells the story, it’s not a tale of betrayal. She notes she was married for seventeen years, has a beautiful daughter, and has been able to rekindle her love of gardening since the split. She has been embracing living on her own and doing whatever she wants. She paints the front door of her house a new color every spring; this is the year of aqua. The facts of her divorce haven’t changed, but her attitude and the way she talks about it certainly have.

2. Learn from the Past

We’ve all done it: latched on to a fantasy (marriage, baby, white picket fence) and insisted it come to fruition, overlooking warning signs (drinking, spotty employment, lack of chemistry) that stood in the way of our goal. Sometimes we want something so badly that our dream overrides reality.

As I created my next chapter, I kept in mind that one of the traps I could fall into is wishful thinking. Many of our friends remember deciding to get married despite seeing red flags. They made excuses for concerns they had, because they didn’t want to admit that there were problems. Denial looks something like this: He has a temper? He’s just under stress right now. He’s unreliable? He’ll step up once he becomes a dad. Don’t feel the passion? He’s kind and loving, and that’s what matters. Take off those rose-colored glasses before you write your next chapter.

Like all our friends in the Maplewood Divorce Club, I was determined to learn from my experiences. I didn’t want to spend my life repeating the same relationship patterns that weren’t working. I had a tendency to ignore warning signs in relationships that I really wanted to work out. This is where wishful thinking took a front seat. I would let the momentum of exciting relationships carry me along even if I had flashing neon warning signs. A red flag means stop and reassess. Now I try to be more like the bull warily looking at the red flag, instead of getting lost in the sparkly eyes of the toreador who is holding it. I learned that if I wanted the story to turn out differently, I would need to make different choices. Seeing things as they are instead of as I wished they were was a big part of this.

3. Explore New Possibilities

There’s a very good reason why we try to control parts of our lives. We want to feel less anxious. The reality is, though we may attempt to orchestrate our future so that we don’t face the terrifying uncertainty of what tomorrow may bring, we simply can’t. I learned that it can be powerful to embrace the mysteries that follow a divorce as a time to explore different possibilities. When I was going through my divorce, I didn’t know what was ahead. I just knew I was taking steps that made sense, trusting my intuition, and seeing new possibilities. I decided to give myself free rein to blossom.

I realized that during my marriage, I often felt I had little free time to try anything new. After my divorce, when I didn’t have my son with me because he spent half the week with his dad, I decided to do things I had never done before, including rock climbing and surfing. When I went climbing the first time, I was afraid of how I’d feel once I reached the top and looked down, but I wound up feeling safe in a study harness, and having fun.

It was the same with surfing. I was at the beach with my family and decided to take my first lesson. I always loved the ocean and wanted to experience standing up on my board and riding a wave. I surprised myself by riding a wave by the end of my first lesson. I signed up for six more on the spot. Surfing felt intimidating but being a little scared and trying it anyway felt exhilarating.

This new energy and confidence helped me tackle the many challenges my divorce presented and gave me faith that new and exciting things I couldn’t even imagine were around the corner. I’ve always had a plan, and taken deliberate steps to reach my goal. After my divorce, I learned to loosen my grip.

Regardless of how your divorce story is unfolding, you can still give it a happy ending. I agree with social researcher Brené Brown, who says that when we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, “we can write our own brave new ending.”

I found that the day-to-day tasks I dreaded weren’t necessarily the most difficult. They were simply the ones that I had told myself for years and years I couldn’t do, and I believed that to be true. They were the ones my husband used to handle that now I needed to take on or delegate.

I still remember how great I felt the first time I changed a lightbulb in my kitchen after my separation. A simple task? Yes, you’d think, especially for the daughter of an electrician. But for whatever reason, I had always relied on roommates or men to change the lightbulbs for me. I knew I wasn’t the first woman to worry about getting electrocuted. I got confirmation from my dad that all I had to do was turn off the light switch before screwing in a new lightbulb. My other fear was using the wrong wattage. He explained that modern fixtures have a maximum wattage rating label that says what that limit is. It’s visible inside the fixture. It sounds so silly, but just having my dad reassure me about what to do made me feel better. I stopped wishing I had a handyman around. Now I’m handy. I even changed the brake light on my car. My dad got me a toolbox and is always getting me new tools for it. I am no Bob Vila, but it’s a start.

How we recount the story of our divorce matters because the stories we tell ourselves have power. They influence our actions and our self-image. To see two very different tales that women told themselves after they were abandoned and in pain, consider two stories that will be familiar to many: Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston, who made headlines for years after her husband left her for his costar, and Miss Havisham, the unforgettable jilted bride from Charles Dickens’s novel Great Expectations.

For years during and after her divorce, Jennifer Aniston was cast by the media as the spurned woman who couldn’t make a romantic relationship work. She spoke openly about the challenges of having her divorce play out in front of the world and struggled to rise above the fray. Rather than criticize her ex publicly, she spoke of wanting to grow and said she was grateful for the chance to rediscover herself. She was also determined to make a different choice from her mother, who had been angry and bitter after her own divorce. In time, the actress moved gracefully past the press’s unflattering portrayal. She gave her divorce story a happy ending by learning about herself, seemingly keeping a positive attitude, and making peace with the experience.

Miss Havisham, the jilted heroine in Great Expectations, tells herself a very different story. Heartbroken and humiliated after she is left at the altar and defrauded of her fortune, she never again ventures outside her home. She leaves the wedding breakfast and wedding cake rotting on the table. Even the clocks in the mansion are stopped at the exact time she received the letter from her fiancé calling things off. She stays stuck in a bitter place, never again making herself vulnerable to another relationship, or even taking off her wedding dress. That one disappointing man who left her shapes the rest of her life . . . because she lets him.

I hope you discover, as I did, that you’re the author of your tale. You decide how you want to view your divorce—and whether you might want to reframe the story you’ve been telling yourself and others.

While I was racking my brain about how I could have a flexible job that allowed me to earn enough money without the grueling hours I’d had at the ad agency, a little side gig selling jewelry provided an answer. Fate stepped in, as it likes to do, and put me in the home of Robert, a local top-selling real estate agent who happened to have sold me and my ex our house many years earlier. I was working a Stella & Dot jewelry party for Robert’s wife, who enjoyed hosting get-togethers. I interacted with the guests, styling them, and ultimately sold quite a bit of jewelry that evening. This did not go unnoticed by Robert as he passed by the women gathered in his dining room.
The next day, Robert invited me out for pizza to make a pitch. He talked about his real estate business, the schedule flexibility, and how he thought this could be the perfect next step for me. “After all,” he said, “what’s the difference between, ‘This necklace looks great on you’ and ‘This house looks great on you.’” I was convinced to give it a try. In about a month, I got my real estate license, after logging seventy-five classroom hours and passing a state exam. I started working flexible hours near my home with unlimited income potential. Now, several years later, I’m not only able to support myself but I was able to save up enough money to buy my own house.

After you separate, you may need to go back to work or enter a new field because it provides a higher income or a flexible schedule, health benefits, or the ability to stay close to home or not have to take business trips. Keep your mind, your eyes, and your options open to see what job leads come your way, whether they’re from your cousin, a neighbor, a former coworker, or a college friend you have reconnected with on Facebook.