When Elizabeth Cohen got divorced in 2009, she was “so pissed.”
“I felt angry, scared and overwhelmed,” the Columbus Circle clinical psychologist, who had been married for seven years, tells The Post. “I had to let the anger move through me.”
So she took up kickboxing — and, as she blasted Rage Against the Machine and Marilyn Manson, she pretended her ex was the punching bag.
“I allowed my body to imagine stomping, kicking and pushing him,” she says, adding that he put her through “absolute hell.”
Today, the 43-year-old mother of two is in a calmer place. She wants to help fellow divorcees get there, too, by providing them with the kind of resource she sought in vain: her new split-specific counseling program, Afterglow.
Launching Sunday, the workshop draws from Cohen’s own “excruciatingly painful” divorce, and provides the one thing she wishes she’d had during her ordeal: a guided community to help people sort through the magnitude of their grief.
Her program, which starts at $697, helps patients through different types of therapies — everything from trauma-based coping strategies to meditation to, yes, cathartic workouts where you pretend to wail on your ex (known as “somatic therapy” in shrinkspeak). Participants also get access to video courses and a closed Facebook group where they’re encouraged to seek and offer each other support for as long as they’d like.
Cohen, who has married again, is so pleased with the program that she’s “actually feeling grateful” for her divorce.
“I found what I was put on this earth to do,” she says, “and kicking out my ex-husband is to thank.”
Here, Cohen shares an exclusive preview of her favorite — and most useful — Afterglow exercises for working through the end of a marriage.
Be picky about your support group.
No stranger to talking about feelings, Cohen turned to loved ones to help her through her split. But she found that some were more harsh than caring.
She’d tell people “what a jerk” her ex was, how he was depressed, disengaged and even left their young daughter unattended. “I was basically a parent to him, too,” says Cohen. Still, “I’d get things like, ‘I can’t believe you’re getting divorced.’ ”
“We all have naysayers, and they can often be those who are closest to us. The trick is to ask yourself, ‘Why do I keep going back to them?’ ”
Cohen advises avoiding the topic of divorce altogether when speaking with cynics. But if that’s not possible, use positive words to describe your experience — for example, say “I’m glad it’s happening because I’m learning a lot about myself” — “so they don’t take the bait and go down the negative spiral.”
Set something on fire.
Nine years after her divorce, Cohen was struck with a pang of heavy sadness while celebrating her daughter’s 11th birthday with her ex.
“I realized that at one point in my life, I did want this, and I can’t deny it,” she says. “I was still grieving the loss.”
When heartache hits, Cohen says to write down all the dreams and fantasies you had for the life you imagined with your ex on a piece of paper. Then, light the paper on fire and let it fly up and disintegrate.
“It’s a cathartic ritual,” she says.
Target bad patterns — then break them.
When Cohen jumped back into the dating pool, she was pleasantly surprised.
”I remember the first person I ever kissed after getting divorced. I was like, ‘I actually like this,’ ” she says.
But it didn’t take long before her new crush started acting like her ex.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m attracted again to the same person with the same problems.’ ”
In order to break toxic cycles with partners, Cohen developed the Relationship Pattern Excavator. The goal of the exercise, below, is to help patients identify bad habits and repeated mistakes, so they can figure out how to avoid them in the future.
It’s a heavy activity, so afterward, make some time for self-care: Go on a dream date with yourself, buy yourself a bouquet of flowers, and write yourself a love letter.
“It helps you realize what you should be getting, how awesome you are and what you deserve,” says Cohen.