When we approach divorce, the most obvious professional that we believe we must engage is an attorney. After all, the act of getting un-married is a legal event, and we want to make sure that we have correctly completed all pre-requisites for accomplishing that according to the law.
If divorce were merely a sterile legal event, with no emotional, or financial, or family ties, then the only role of an attorney would be as something of a clerk: to check procedure, ensure that all paperwork was correctly filed, and to prepare to legally dissolve the entity called "your marriage", which no longer exists.
But, divorce is not sterile. Feelings are involved. Parties are disappointed, hurt, betrayed, frightened, sad, angry, anxious, or otherwise distressed. And since we don't know how to deal with the emotional part, we tend to absorb it into the legal part. Rather than saying "I feel betrayed, and I don't know what to do with that", we say "that S.O.B. cheated, and I'm going to skewer him in court!" We expect the legal system, via a judge, to first validate our feelings; and second to 'fix' them by giving us something tangible, such as the marital assets or the children.
Once the feelings start to impact our legal decisions, we transition from using the legal profession as a compliance mechanism, to using it as a retribution mechanism. Rather than asking an attorney to make sure that the paperwork gives us a legal divorce, we ask an attorney to protect our 'rights' in the law.
Take your emotions in to the average attorney, and at best, you will find yourself paying attorney's hourly rates in order to get some emotional ranting off your chest... something you could have done for about half the price, had you gone to a licensed psychologist instead. At worst, you will stumble into one of the handful of attorneys who love to make their living off of highly emotional, combative, angry, and irrational people who cross their thresholds. Such an attorney can keep you in your emotional state, keep the conflict stirred up, and keep the fees pouring in.
You may feel a sense of hope -- a promise that if this attorney can protect all of your 'rights', then the feelings of anger, sadness, betrayal, grief, disappointment, and fear will go away. The problem is, they don't go away. Even if you somehow "won" everything in the divorce (extremely unlikely), even if you got 100% of the marital assets, the kids, and a permanent latch onto your ex-spouse's future income, you'd still be saddled with the exact same emotions that you had before. This is because those emotions do not go away by fighting in court. Those emotions only go away when you do the heart work that it requires to deal with them. And that does not happen in a courtroom... that happens in a counselor's office.
Getting through divorce is huge. It is not something to be taken on by an amateur. By the same token, there is no one single professional who can handle every aspect of your divorce. Use an attorney to help you take care of the legal part. Use a counselor to help you take care of the emotional part. Use a financial expert to help you take care of the financial part.
Use a coach to help you manage all of those parts, help you find the right professionals, and help you engage that at the right point and in the most optimum way. What you'll find is that -- when all is said and done -- you got through your divorce with more of your dignity intact, more of your heart intact, and more of your assets intact. This is the best possible position to be in when rebuilding a life of singledom, after dissolving your marriage.
Peace.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Gift of Listening
Quite often when I'm working with parents as they learn to co-parent effectively, I discover that a good many folks don't know the basics of listening.
Listening with your heart and your energy is a gift you give to someone else. It entails putting your own needs "on-hold". This not only includes the need to speak (that's the obvious one, since you cannot listen and speak at the same time), it also includes the need to "be right", the need to judge, the need to defend yourself or your image, the need to feel better about yourself or the situation, the need to be heard, and the need to correct or persuade the other person to agree with your point of view.
Listening with your whole self also includes paying attention to the non-verbal cues the other person is sending. It means engaging at a level where you can really understand them. Its objective is to fully connect with the other person, right where they are.
So, getting straight from theory, see if you can spot how the following statements put listening into a whole new realm:
"Wow! That seems really huge to you - will you tell me more?"
"What happened?"
"How did that make you feel?"
"What would you like instead?"
"Help me understand how this would make a difference for you"
"You seem really worked up over this - can you let me see why this is important to you?"
"What do you need from me?"
Remember, the gift is not in merely asking the question. The gift is in putting your own needs on hold and truly staying in the question with the other person, until you have connected on a heart level. This is not the same thing as merely allowing them to speak until they have to take a breath... and then jumping in with your own defense. If you are truly listening with your heart, you will suppress the urge to defend yourself. The gift is to make it about THEM, not about YOU.
This is more difficult than you may believe, and it takes a lot of practice.
One thing that helps during practice is quickly admitting when you didn't get it on that particular attempt.
Try this: "Oops - you started talking about something you needed, and I accidentally went to a place where I was getting defensive and wanting to point out times when I already gave you what you needed. That's not what I wanted to do here. I wanted to listen to you and hear what you really need. Can we please try that conversation again?"
Or: "Oh I apologize - I started thinking about how that particular thing made ME feel, and I really didn't want to focus on that. I would rather focus on how YOU felt. Will you please tell me that again?"
The gift of listening is especially powerful when we are with our children. Too often, we think we are in a "teaching moment" when we actually are not. Or, what we end up "teaching" our children is that we are more inclined to pontificate than to listen to their hearts. Too often, what our children learn in those "teaching moments" is that they cannot approach their parent and share. Other times, we believe it's more important to convince our children that they must behave a certain way - not for their sakes, but because we as parents fear for our images. Guilt-ridden post-divorce parents are especially vulnerable to this particular temptation.
Imagine what it might be like for your child to speak with you, knowing full well that you were NOT going to respond with a lecture, a sweeping solution, a judgment of them or their idea or their friends, or some re-write of their perception that protects your image. Imagine how it feels to a kid to be validated and valued for their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
Divorce often exposes poor parenting habits that became entrenched during marriage. What was "good enough" when there were two parents in the same home is now not enough when parents are trying to re-build their own lives and help their children recover from a shattered family as well. You may desperately want to hear that your children are "doing fine", that they are "adjusting", that they are "happy". (And, if you are still carrying around bitterness and acrimony toward your children's other parent, you may also enjoy hearing that your children are "miserable" whenever they are with that other parent - and believe me, your children will pick up on that desire, and very likely oblige it.) It may feel temporarily good to have your children validate your needs... but it isn't very mature, and it certainly damages your children.
Better to get your emotional energy from grown-ups... and then use that energy to give your children the greatest gift: the gift of listening.
Peace.
Listening with your heart and your energy is a gift you give to someone else. It entails putting your own needs "on-hold". This not only includes the need to speak (that's the obvious one, since you cannot listen and speak at the same time), it also includes the need to "be right", the need to judge, the need to defend yourself or your image, the need to feel better about yourself or the situation, the need to be heard, and the need to correct or persuade the other person to agree with your point of view.
Listening with your whole self also includes paying attention to the non-verbal cues the other person is sending. It means engaging at a level where you can really understand them. Its objective is to fully connect with the other person, right where they are.
So, getting straight from theory, see if you can spot how the following statements put listening into a whole new realm:
"Wow! That seems really huge to you - will you tell me more?"
"What happened?"
"How did that make you feel?"
"What would you like instead?"
"Help me understand how this would make a difference for you"
"You seem really worked up over this - can you let me see why this is important to you?"
"What do you need from me?"
Remember, the gift is not in merely asking the question. The gift is in putting your own needs on hold and truly staying in the question with the other person, until you have connected on a heart level. This is not the same thing as merely allowing them to speak until they have to take a breath... and then jumping in with your own defense. If you are truly listening with your heart, you will suppress the urge to defend yourself. The gift is to make it about THEM, not about YOU.
This is more difficult than you may believe, and it takes a lot of practice.
One thing that helps during practice is quickly admitting when you didn't get it on that particular attempt.
Try this: "Oops - you started talking about something you needed, and I accidentally went to a place where I was getting defensive and wanting to point out times when I already gave you what you needed. That's not what I wanted to do here. I wanted to listen to you and hear what you really need. Can we please try that conversation again?"
Or: "Oh I apologize - I started thinking about how that particular thing made ME feel, and I really didn't want to focus on that. I would rather focus on how YOU felt. Will you please tell me that again?"
The gift of listening is especially powerful when we are with our children. Too often, we think we are in a "teaching moment" when we actually are not. Or, what we end up "teaching" our children is that we are more inclined to pontificate than to listen to their hearts. Too often, what our children learn in those "teaching moments" is that they cannot approach their parent and share. Other times, we believe it's more important to convince our children that they must behave a certain way - not for their sakes, but because we as parents fear for our images. Guilt-ridden post-divorce parents are especially vulnerable to this particular temptation.
Imagine what it might be like for your child to speak with you, knowing full well that you were NOT going to respond with a lecture, a sweeping solution, a judgment of them or their idea or their friends, or some re-write of their perception that protects your image. Imagine how it feels to a kid to be validated and valued for their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas.
Divorce often exposes poor parenting habits that became entrenched during marriage. What was "good enough" when there were two parents in the same home is now not enough when parents are trying to re-build their own lives and help their children recover from a shattered family as well. You may desperately want to hear that your children are "doing fine", that they are "adjusting", that they are "happy". (And, if you are still carrying around bitterness and acrimony toward your children's other parent, you may also enjoy hearing that your children are "miserable" whenever they are with that other parent - and believe me, your children will pick up on that desire, and very likely oblige it.) It may feel temporarily good to have your children validate your needs... but it isn't very mature, and it certainly damages your children.
Better to get your emotional energy from grown-ups... and then use that energy to give your children the greatest gift: the gift of listening.
Peace.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The "Kobe Bryant" Effect
Anyone who is familiar with professional basketball has seen what happens when the L.A. Lakers are falling behind in a clutch game. At some point, Kobe Bryant -- an amazingly talented basketball player -- will "take charge". He will take the ball to the basket rather than pass it off to a teammate. More importantly, he will draw individual members of the opposing team into a game of "one-on-one". His ability to make the impossible shot is rivaled by his ability to reduce each member of the opposing team into one single player flanked by four non-contributors.
Whenever Kobe Bryant can succeed in this strategy and suck the opposing player into taking him on single-handedly, then most of the time, Kobe wins.
What does this have to do with divorce?
Only this: there are two possible ways to re-structure your family and move on with your post-divorce life. One is to engage a team full of people - professionals, such as your attorney, your therapist, your accountant; as well as non-professionals, such as your best friend, your sister, or your golfing buddy. Each of these team members has a role to play, and each can and should be trusted with specific aspects (notice I did not say "all") of your divorce experience. The other way to re-structure your family is to take on your soon-to-be ex-spouse, one on one.
This can happen in several ways. You may be hiding your head in the sand, hoping that all the divorce madness will go away if you don't acknowledge it. Don't seek for attorneys, don't address the emotional issues, pretend your children are "just fine".
Another way to play one on one is to hire an attorney with the hope that they will "fix everything", and protect you from getting ripped apart in the divorce. This is often the kind of attorney that you will later complain is unresponsive to you, doesn't answer your phone calls, or do what you ask them to do. Well... why would they, when you did not develop a professional relationship with them in the first place?
Like Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers, there can be times when it appears that two teams are on the court, when in actuality, their team power has been nullified.
And just like any team opposing the Lakers, if you attempt to go one-on-one in your divorce, you will probably lose. And by "lose", I don't mean the opposite of "win". Nobody "wins" a divorce. Nobody. By "lose", I mean to forego so much of your personal power, your dignity, your family, your emotional support, your financial control, that recovery from the devastation requires years - and perhaps even a lifetime - of rebuilding.
What can you do instead? Engage with the professionals in your divorce. Don't hand it all off to an attorney and say "wake me when it's over". Make your attorney a partner in the divorce process from the beginning. When interviewing prospective attorneys, steer clear of the ones who say "leave it all to me". As appealing as that sounds when you are overwhelmed, it will come back to haunt you later, when your attorney drives off with your divorce and you are no longer in control. You want to start right off with an attorney who engages as the legal expert, but who leaves you clearly in charge of the divorce itself.
Likewise, engage with a counselor or therapist from the start. There is simply no way you or your children can reasonably expect to get through this without some massive emotional upheaval. So recognize that you will need someone who is trained to listen, to provide support and counsel, to guide you and your family as you move into the next phase. Start right out with this person so that you can take advantage of their guidance before you make costly mistakes that will be much more difficult to fix later on.
If you can find a good coach to bring all of these pieces together, you will be light years ahead. During divorce, you are resource-depleted. You have neither the time nor the wherewithal to sort through all of the free advice coming at you; likewise, you may find it overwhelming to attempt a search for professionals that you know nothing about. However, a good coach can listen to you, hear the major elements of concern, and then recommend several professionals for you to choose from. Along with a recommendation, you should expect a good coach to tell you why they recommended that particular professional for you, as well as give you a list of questions you can ask, and the types of answers you should listen for, in that initial interview, before you sign a contract or pay a retainer.
A divorce coach is no different from the coach of any other team. Their job is to bring all of the players together, to optimize performance of each one to bring about a common goal. They can select which player needs to be in the game, and when. They can call the plays, while also leaving the ultimate decisions to the ones actually out on the playing floor. Most importantly, they can prevent a "Kobe" on the opposing team from engaging you in a deadly one-on-one match, that you will ultimately lose.
The best way to get through divorce is the most peaceable way. When a good coach is optimizing a professional team on your behalf, it not only brings the divorce conclusion around more quickly, it also minimizes the individual one-on-one conflict along the way.
Peace.
Whenever Kobe Bryant can succeed in this strategy and suck the opposing player into taking him on single-handedly, then most of the time, Kobe wins.
What does this have to do with divorce?
Only this: there are two possible ways to re-structure your family and move on with your post-divorce life. One is to engage a team full of people - professionals, such as your attorney, your therapist, your accountant; as well as non-professionals, such as your best friend, your sister, or your golfing buddy. Each of these team members has a role to play, and each can and should be trusted with specific aspects (notice I did not say "all") of your divorce experience. The other way to re-structure your family is to take on your soon-to-be ex-spouse, one on one.
This can happen in several ways. You may be hiding your head in the sand, hoping that all the divorce madness will go away if you don't acknowledge it. Don't seek for attorneys, don't address the emotional issues, pretend your children are "just fine".
Another way to play one on one is to hire an attorney with the hope that they will "fix everything", and protect you from getting ripped apart in the divorce. This is often the kind of attorney that you will later complain is unresponsive to you, doesn't answer your phone calls, or do what you ask them to do. Well... why would they, when you did not develop a professional relationship with them in the first place?
Like Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers, there can be times when it appears that two teams are on the court, when in actuality, their team power has been nullified.
And just like any team opposing the Lakers, if you attempt to go one-on-one in your divorce, you will probably lose. And by "lose", I don't mean the opposite of "win". Nobody "wins" a divorce. Nobody. By "lose", I mean to forego so much of your personal power, your dignity, your family, your emotional support, your financial control, that recovery from the devastation requires years - and perhaps even a lifetime - of rebuilding.
What can you do instead? Engage with the professionals in your divorce. Don't hand it all off to an attorney and say "wake me when it's over". Make your attorney a partner in the divorce process from the beginning. When interviewing prospective attorneys, steer clear of the ones who say "leave it all to me". As appealing as that sounds when you are overwhelmed, it will come back to haunt you later, when your attorney drives off with your divorce and you are no longer in control. You want to start right off with an attorney who engages as the legal expert, but who leaves you clearly in charge of the divorce itself.
Likewise, engage with a counselor or therapist from the start. There is simply no way you or your children can reasonably expect to get through this without some massive emotional upheaval. So recognize that you will need someone who is trained to listen, to provide support and counsel, to guide you and your family as you move into the next phase. Start right out with this person so that you can take advantage of their guidance before you make costly mistakes that will be much more difficult to fix later on.
If you can find a good coach to bring all of these pieces together, you will be light years ahead. During divorce, you are resource-depleted. You have neither the time nor the wherewithal to sort through all of the free advice coming at you; likewise, you may find it overwhelming to attempt a search for professionals that you know nothing about. However, a good coach can listen to you, hear the major elements of concern, and then recommend several professionals for you to choose from. Along with a recommendation, you should expect a good coach to tell you why they recommended that particular professional for you, as well as give you a list of questions you can ask, and the types of answers you should listen for, in that initial interview, before you sign a contract or pay a retainer.
A divorce coach is no different from the coach of any other team. Their job is to bring all of the players together, to optimize performance of each one to bring about a common goal. They can select which player needs to be in the game, and when. They can call the plays, while also leaving the ultimate decisions to the ones actually out on the playing floor. Most importantly, they can prevent a "Kobe" on the opposing team from engaging you in a deadly one-on-one match, that you will ultimately lose.
The best way to get through divorce is the most peaceable way. When a good coach is optimizing a professional team on your behalf, it not only brings the divorce conclusion around more quickly, it also minimizes the individual one-on-one conflict along the way.
Peace.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Book Review - "The Power of a Positive No"
“The Power of a Positive No” by William Ury
William Ury is the co-author of the “Bible” of negotiators, “Getting to Yes” (written along with Roger Fisher); and also authored the follow-up book “Getting Past No”. Ury writes that this third book, “The Power of a Positive No” is the final element of the trilogy. By applying the understanding presented in these three books, negotiators of all stripes are able to bring disputing parties together into agreement.
In daily life, we all understand the need for boundaries. We also instinctively realize that in order to protect our boundaries, we must learn to say “No”. “No” is a necessary tool. However, this creates a dilemma for relationship. How do we maintain a boundary space between our Self and Others, while remaining linked to that Other?
Enter the technique of “Yes! No. Yes?” Ury presents this series of responses as the powerful way to say “No” (maintain a boundary), while still preserving relationship.
Here is how it works: your “Yes!” represents your values and your fundamental character. It is rooted in the unchangeable features that make up what you are. It emphatically states what you stand for, and what is immovable in your life. It may be important to you to say “Yes!” to integrity, honesty, love, kindness, generosity, or hard work. It is where your purpose, passion, and personal vision live. It is expressed with exclamation because it is just that bold and meaningful.
Your “No.” represents your boundary. It stands for what is not okay with you, or what you will not do, allow, or agree to. It affirms your right as a human being to make autonomous choices. It is stated with clarity and straightforward expression, without any extraneous explanation or excuse. It is a simple statement that preserves your self-respect as well as the dignity of the Other. It treats all parties with a clear, concise, specific line over which you will not cross.
Your “Yes?” represents a reaching out to the Other. It proposes an alternate plan, one that will not violate your values or vision, but extends connection to the Other in order to preserve relationship. It places value on both your own personal identity, while still valuing the needs and wants of the Other.
Your “Yes?” is freely given, no strings attached. You will not back off from your “No.”, you will not renounce your “Yes!”, but the “Yes?” is an offer. It is put forth to the Other as an invitation – and it is entirely the choice of the Other whether they will accept your “Yes?” offer, decline it, or make a counteroffer. If they make a counteroffer, then you can start all over again with the “Yes! No. Yes?” technique. If the counteroffer does not violate your “Yes!” or your “No.”, then you have agreement, and both your Self and your relationship is preserved and strengthened.
William Ury presents a wealth of examples from everyday life, as well as from his extensive experience as a negotiator, to demonstrate this technique. In his book, he breaks out each of the elements of the “Yes! No. Yes?” tool, and carefully tutors the reader in how to be effective at each step. A good portion of the early chapters is dedicated to helping the reader identify and clarify their values, so that they can be quite solid in the expression of their “Yes!”
In the middle chapters, he illustrates the “No.” statement with multiple examples – each demonstrating the principles of firmness, respect, conciseness, and clearness that he espouses. The final chapters provide a multitude of ideas to creatively extend the “Yes?”, as well as how to respond to the Other when they accept your “Yes?”, or when they return with a counteroffer.
This book is highly recommended, not only to alternative dispute practitioners, but to anyone who negotiates in everyday life. If you can fog a mirror, you need this book. It will improve the quality of all of your relationships, both the ones that you have opted into for the joy of it, as well as the ones that you are bound to by necessity or circumstance.
Peace.
William Ury is the co-author of the “Bible” of negotiators, “Getting to Yes” (written along with Roger Fisher); and also authored the follow-up book “Getting Past No”. Ury writes that this third book, “The Power of a Positive No” is the final element of the trilogy. By applying the understanding presented in these three books, negotiators of all stripes are able to bring disputing parties together into agreement.
In daily life, we all understand the need for boundaries. We also instinctively realize that in order to protect our boundaries, we must learn to say “No”. “No” is a necessary tool. However, this creates a dilemma for relationship. How do we maintain a boundary space between our Self and Others, while remaining linked to that Other?
Enter the technique of “Yes! No. Yes?” Ury presents this series of responses as the powerful way to say “No” (maintain a boundary), while still preserving relationship.
Here is how it works: your “Yes!” represents your values and your fundamental character. It is rooted in the unchangeable features that make up what you are. It emphatically states what you stand for, and what is immovable in your life. It may be important to you to say “Yes!” to integrity, honesty, love, kindness, generosity, or hard work. It is where your purpose, passion, and personal vision live. It is expressed with exclamation because it is just that bold and meaningful.
Your “No.” represents your boundary. It stands for what is not okay with you, or what you will not do, allow, or agree to. It affirms your right as a human being to make autonomous choices. It is stated with clarity and straightforward expression, without any extraneous explanation or excuse. It is a simple statement that preserves your self-respect as well as the dignity of the Other. It treats all parties with a clear, concise, specific line over which you will not cross.
Your “Yes?” represents a reaching out to the Other. It proposes an alternate plan, one that will not violate your values or vision, but extends connection to the Other in order to preserve relationship. It places value on both your own personal identity, while still valuing the needs and wants of the Other.
Your “Yes?” is freely given, no strings attached. You will not back off from your “No.”, you will not renounce your “Yes!”, but the “Yes?” is an offer. It is put forth to the Other as an invitation – and it is entirely the choice of the Other whether they will accept your “Yes?” offer, decline it, or make a counteroffer. If they make a counteroffer, then you can start all over again with the “Yes! No. Yes?” technique. If the counteroffer does not violate your “Yes!” or your “No.”, then you have agreement, and both your Self and your relationship is preserved and strengthened.
William Ury presents a wealth of examples from everyday life, as well as from his extensive experience as a negotiator, to demonstrate this technique. In his book, he breaks out each of the elements of the “Yes! No. Yes?” tool, and carefully tutors the reader in how to be effective at each step. A good portion of the early chapters is dedicated to helping the reader identify and clarify their values, so that they can be quite solid in the expression of their “Yes!”
In the middle chapters, he illustrates the “No.” statement with multiple examples – each demonstrating the principles of firmness, respect, conciseness, and clearness that he espouses. The final chapters provide a multitude of ideas to creatively extend the “Yes?”, as well as how to respond to the Other when they accept your “Yes?”, or when they return with a counteroffer.
This book is highly recommended, not only to alternative dispute practitioners, but to anyone who negotiates in everyday life. If you can fog a mirror, you need this book. It will improve the quality of all of your relationships, both the ones that you have opted into for the joy of it, as well as the ones that you are bound to by necessity or circumstance.
Peace.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Thinking the Unthinkable
Recently, a fellow blogger friend of mine and I had an exchange that sparked a conversation.
In his blog, he spoke of some of the things that he had experienced in his divorce. Things that seem outlandish to anyone who has never actually experienced them for themselves. We talked about the many times that he had been blind-sided by the antics that his wife engaged in, all in the name of "divorce war".
And, as you know, it's my passion to help people avoid such wars.
And, as most people realize, one way to avoid war, or even one skirmish in it, is to see it coming, so you can prepare for it. Yet, as I remarked to my friend, it's often frustrating in my line of work to warn someone who is smack-dab in the midst of the skirmish of an impending attack... and hear them respond "Oh, my spouse would never do that!" It happened often enough, that when my friend made mention of it as we commented about his blog, I realized it was time to think this through some more. If I could not learn a way to help my clients understand and get past their blindness, I would be doing them a disservice.
So, I thought about what causes a person who is going through divorce to get taken by ambush by the shenanigans of their spouse. And I am talking about the stuff that happens often enough (sadly) that it's easy for those of us who are familiar with the course of divorce to predict with pretty fair accuracy when then next stunt is going to get pulled. When you know what to look for, you can see it coming for miles.
I realized that a big part of the problem is that there is cognitive dissonance for a divorcing person, between the married life that they once knew, the marriage partner that they once knew, and the life they are transitioning into presently. I wrote about this in a guest blog on my friend's site (see www.thepsychoexwife.com).
But mere understanding is not a remedy in and of itself. So, I also tried something new with one of my clients today, and asked her for permission to share how it worked with my readers.
As she and I spoke, I heard the classic sounds of "oh, my spouse would never do that!" In her case, the words were not exact, but the overall gist was the same. So I said "will you take a short walk with me?" She looked puzzled, but agreed.
We walked down the hall of my building and out onto the sidewalk. Across the street a man had just parked his car and was hurrying into a nearby building, carrying a briefcase. I asked my client "do you recognize that man?" She replied that she did not.
I asked her "what do you know about him?"
"Only that he looked middle-aged, seemed to be in a hurry, and was carrying a bag."
I thanked her for trusting me, and said "Let's go back inside." After we returned to the office, I explained: "Someday in the future, you will see your husband somewhere, a random glimpse, and it will occur to you that you know longer know him. He will seem like a stranger to you. You will hardly know more about him than what you know right now about that man on the street. It will probably even feel strange and quite distant to recall anything about him. That's the destination of this part of the journey for your brain. Can you imagine that happening?"
She struggled for a moment, but finally mentally merged the image of the stranger on the street with an image of her husband. I prodded her: "Imagine that all you know of your husband is that he is middle-aged, seems to be in a hurry, and is carrying a bag. Keep that picture in your mind until it seems real to you and not merely imagination."
I was really glad she was able to trust me! Finally, she nodded.
And I said to her: "That man you are picturing right now, that total stranger who merely looks like your husband... that is the person you are divorcing. You know no more about him - his intentions, his cares, his drives, his plans - than you did about the man on the street. From this point forward, you simply have no way to predict what he will do."
Now, I may have overstated the magnitude of the situation, to make an impact. But finally, it got through. My client needed to understand that the man she was divorcing was not the man who had bought her flowers, rubbed her feet, or gotten up early to make the coffee.
One need not transform their soon-to-be-ex into some demon, nor resort to paranoia, to avoid the surprise attack that can take place in divorce war. As I mentioned in the other blog post, we must always hope for the best behavior, of both ourselves and our divorcing spouse. But, to avoid a prolonged, painful, scorch-the-earth war, we must also prepare for the worst. And step one in that preparation, is to trust your coach when he or she tells you "oh yes, your soon-to-be-ex spouse would do that."
Peace.
In his blog, he spoke of some of the things that he had experienced in his divorce. Things that seem outlandish to anyone who has never actually experienced them for themselves. We talked about the many times that he had been blind-sided by the antics that his wife engaged in, all in the name of "divorce war".
And, as you know, it's my passion to help people avoid such wars.
And, as most people realize, one way to avoid war, or even one skirmish in it, is to see it coming, so you can prepare for it. Yet, as I remarked to my friend, it's often frustrating in my line of work to warn someone who is smack-dab in the midst of the skirmish of an impending attack... and hear them respond "Oh, my spouse would never do that!" It happened often enough, that when my friend made mention of it as we commented about his blog, I realized it was time to think this through some more. If I could not learn a way to help my clients understand and get past their blindness, I would be doing them a disservice.
So, I thought about what causes a person who is going through divorce to get taken by ambush by the shenanigans of their spouse. And I am talking about the stuff that happens often enough (sadly) that it's easy for those of us who are familiar with the course of divorce to predict with pretty fair accuracy when then next stunt is going to get pulled. When you know what to look for, you can see it coming for miles.
I realized that a big part of the problem is that there is cognitive dissonance for a divorcing person, between the married life that they once knew, the marriage partner that they once knew, and the life they are transitioning into presently. I wrote about this in a guest blog on my friend's site (see www.thepsychoexwife.com).
But mere understanding is not a remedy in and of itself. So, I also tried something new with one of my clients today, and asked her for permission to share how it worked with my readers.
As she and I spoke, I heard the classic sounds of "oh, my spouse would never do that!" In her case, the words were not exact, but the overall gist was the same. So I said "will you take a short walk with me?" She looked puzzled, but agreed.
We walked down the hall of my building and out onto the sidewalk. Across the street a man had just parked his car and was hurrying into a nearby building, carrying a briefcase. I asked my client "do you recognize that man?" She replied that she did not.
I asked her "what do you know about him?"
"Only that he looked middle-aged, seemed to be in a hurry, and was carrying a bag."
I thanked her for trusting me, and said "Let's go back inside." After we returned to the office, I explained: "Someday in the future, you will see your husband somewhere, a random glimpse, and it will occur to you that you know longer know him. He will seem like a stranger to you. You will hardly know more about him than what you know right now about that man on the street. It will probably even feel strange and quite distant to recall anything about him. That's the destination of this part of the journey for your brain. Can you imagine that happening?"
She struggled for a moment, but finally mentally merged the image of the stranger on the street with an image of her husband. I prodded her: "Imagine that all you know of your husband is that he is middle-aged, seems to be in a hurry, and is carrying a bag. Keep that picture in your mind until it seems real to you and not merely imagination."
I was really glad she was able to trust me! Finally, she nodded.
And I said to her: "That man you are picturing right now, that total stranger who merely looks like your husband... that is the person you are divorcing. You know no more about him - his intentions, his cares, his drives, his plans - than you did about the man on the street. From this point forward, you simply have no way to predict what he will do."
Now, I may have overstated the magnitude of the situation, to make an impact. But finally, it got through. My client needed to understand that the man she was divorcing was not the man who had bought her flowers, rubbed her feet, or gotten up early to make the coffee.
One need not transform their soon-to-be-ex into some demon, nor resort to paranoia, to avoid the surprise attack that can take place in divorce war. As I mentioned in the other blog post, we must always hope for the best behavior, of both ourselves and our divorcing spouse. But, to avoid a prolonged, painful, scorch-the-earth war, we must also prepare for the worst. And step one in that preparation, is to trust your coach when he or she tells you "oh yes, your soon-to-be-ex spouse would do that."
Peace.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Random, and Completely Unrelated...
In my life prior to becoming a divorce coach, I was involved in the aerospace industry. It was a great, rewarding, and joyous career, and I am thankful for it. Today's blog has nothing to do with divorce. It's just a little blurb I wrote a while back, after I had learned to fly. Read on:
=========================
Peace.
=========================
Recently, I was given the opportunity to finally learn to fly a real airplane. After years of collaborating with pilot review teams to develop cockpits, I was finally going to learn firsthand what it was like to truly use my product. Up until this point, I had spent countless hours “flying” our test cockpits in the simulators. But the many pilots on my test teams insisted over and over that I could not know what it was truly like, until I had truly flown.
They were right. And so, after finally learning to fly for real, I realized that there were some important life lessons that went along with the flying lessons. At least, this is what the experience taught me:
- You can control a simulator with millions of lines of code and control laws and rules and logic statements. You don't control real flight: you surrender to the laws of nature (gravity, Bernoulli's principle, physics) and the airplane flies itself. If you hit turbulence, have a cross-wind, get out of trim, or slightly "off-course" you inspect, adapt, and correct. If you over-correct, you inspect, adapt, and correct back in the other direction. You are never "perfectly" on... except for a teeny instant when you are going past 'perfect' on your way out to the other side of the pendulum. And that's okay.
- When you sit in a simulator, you feel NOTHING. This is because there is nothing at stake. If you crash, the dome goes black and the technicians will tease and harass you a bit. But you have never left safe, secure, terra firma, and somewhere, your brain knows that. When you sit in a real plane, you feel the wind, the surge of forces against the controls, the pressure of the stick and the rudders; you feel the force of gravity as you lift off... you feel twice the force of gravity as you make a steep 60-degree angle turn and it pins you back into your seat. You feel a thrill of watching the altimeter zip past 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000 and you look down at tiny little roads and trucks and houses and lakes. You feel a twinge of excitement and panic as you realize you are high up in the air. You feel your "oh s***" moments when you realize you didn't pull your nose up correctly and you just lost 200 feet of altitude. You FEEL it ALL. You are taking a risk to live a reality, and somewhere, your brain knows that.
- You cannot make an airplane take off. You just put all of the elements into place and it will take off when it's ready. You point it into the wind if you can... you give it all the speed you can... you pull back and give it all the lift vector that you can... and then you surrender and let the natural laws do what they will do. You cannot make a simulator take off. No matter what you do, you will just be sitting there, in a dome, strapped into a seat that a lot of people spent a lot of time and a lot of money to make *look* just like you are flying. But no matter what, you will always just be sitting there.
- Flying an airplane is ALL IN. From the second you strap into the seat... you push all your chips to the middle and play hard with all you've got. If you're not prepared to do that, you don't get in at all. There is no halfway. There is no control-P to pause it. There is no withholding a portion; keeping one leg on the ground; or being wishy-washy about your commitment. There is certainly no "pretending to fly" or "wearing a mask" of flight. It is undeniably, unshakably R.E.A.L.
- Off the ground is off the ground. If you're going to fly, you may as well soar all the way to the stratosphere (well, allowing for equipment limits, but you know what I mean). It is no scarier or riskier to fly at 5,000 feet than at 1,000... so why needlessly limit yourself? Fly higher!!!
- Most of the joy of flight is paying attention to what is going on outside the airplane... not what's going on inside. So... break away from the control panel as often as you can, learn to *feel* your way so you don't have to constantly monitor your instruments and gages -- and look out the window and enjoy the amazing view!
Peace.
Monday, August 4, 2008
The Way It Looks To Them
The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I received from one of my clients (used with permission):
"We continue to struggle with my stepson's relationship with his mother." [the court had awarded primary custody of the 15-year-old boy to the father, two years ago; the mother agreed to shift custody because she recognized that the boy needed to be with his father more once he entered his teen years; this e-mail is from the boy's stepmother]. "We try to explain our values to her, but she still thinks she can make up for abandoning her son by buying him off. Now she has promised him a car for his 16th birthday, after we told her not to. We are still recovering from the cell phone fiasco she started when she bought him his own cell phone. It's impossible to enforce the court order restricting her phone calls when he has access to his own phone. We try very hard to teach our son to resist all these materialistic bribes, but he's only 15. He's really confused because he seems to think that love equals stuff. How do we help him see that phones and cars are not love?"
Sounds quite innocent, right? Someone in a parental role, hoping to rear their child with solid, respectable values.
Here is what that 15-year old boy hears:
"Your mother doesn't love you."
"Your mother has abandoned you."
"Your mother doesn't want you to interfere with her selfish, materialistic life."
"Your mother is a bad person, and if you accept these gifts, that makes you a bad person, too."
"You should not want to contact your mother."
"You cannot have a relationship with your mother, and also have a good relationship with your father at the same time."
"You are bad person if you want a cell phone or a car."
When I informed my client of the messages she was sending to her step-son, she vehemently denied it. "Oh no," she said, "I never ever say these things around him."
When I explained to her that these were the messages he was receiving, whether or not they were what she intended to send, then she returned to her original position: that the mother had abandoned her position as parent. My client then wanted to know how she could convey "the truth" to her step-son in a way that "wouldn't damage him."
What I said to her, I say to all parents, step-parents, grandparents, and any other quasi-parental role: it is not your job to make sure your child knows "the truth" about their other parent. There is simply no way you can do this without damage. Even if there were a way to do it without damage, it is still not your job.
Even if the child seems "confused." Not your job.
What is your job? To let that kiddo know that YOU love them, support them, will be there for them, no matter what. That's it. You can tell them YOUR feelings ("I love you"), YOUR intentions ("I will always have your back"), and YOUR commitment ("I will never abandon you"), but you cannot tell them someone else's. Don't even try.
The interesting thing is, if the parents, step-parents, grandparents, and other quasi-parents will just do this one thing - their own part - the kiddos grow up healthier. They own their own "truth", and they can handle it... in large part because of the gift of emotional health given to them by grown-ups who were secure enough themselves to do their own job.
Peace.
"We continue to struggle with my stepson's relationship with his mother." [the court had awarded primary custody of the 15-year-old boy to the father, two years ago; the mother agreed to shift custody because she recognized that the boy needed to be with his father more once he entered his teen years; this e-mail is from the boy's stepmother]. "We try to explain our values to her, but she still thinks she can make up for abandoning her son by buying him off. Now she has promised him a car for his 16th birthday, after we told her not to. We are still recovering from the cell phone fiasco she started when she bought him his own cell phone. It's impossible to enforce the court order restricting her phone calls when he has access to his own phone. We try very hard to teach our son to resist all these materialistic bribes, but he's only 15. He's really confused because he seems to think that love equals stuff. How do we help him see that phones and cars are not love?"
Sounds quite innocent, right? Someone in a parental role, hoping to rear their child with solid, respectable values.
Here is what that 15-year old boy hears:
"Your mother doesn't love you."
"Your mother has abandoned you."
"Your mother doesn't want you to interfere with her selfish, materialistic life."
"Your mother is a bad person, and if you accept these gifts, that makes you a bad person, too."
"You should not want to contact your mother."
"You cannot have a relationship with your mother, and also have a good relationship with your father at the same time."
"You are bad person if you want a cell phone or a car."
When I informed my client of the messages she was sending to her step-son, she vehemently denied it. "Oh no," she said, "I never ever say these things around him."
When I explained to her that these were the messages he was receiving, whether or not they were what she intended to send, then she returned to her original position: that the mother had abandoned her position as parent. My client then wanted to know how she could convey "the truth" to her step-son in a way that "wouldn't damage him."
What I said to her, I say to all parents, step-parents, grandparents, and any other quasi-parental role: it is not your job to make sure your child knows "the truth" about their other parent. There is simply no way you can do this without damage. Even if there were a way to do it without damage, it is still not your job.
Even if the child seems "confused." Not your job.
What is your job? To let that kiddo know that YOU love them, support them, will be there for them, no matter what. That's it. You can tell them YOUR feelings ("I love you"), YOUR intentions ("I will always have your back"), and YOUR commitment ("I will never abandon you"), but you cannot tell them someone else's. Don't even try.
The interesting thing is, if the parents, step-parents, grandparents, and other quasi-parents will just do this one thing - their own part - the kiddos grow up healthier. They own their own "truth", and they can handle it... in large part because of the gift of emotional health given to them by grown-ups who were secure enough themselves to do their own job.
Peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)