THRIVING TOGETHER! 5 SECRETS TO A CHILD FRIENDLY DIVORCE – May 14th, 4:30 to 6:30pm PST.
The call will be packed with great tools and information on how to parent effectively and compassionately during and after divorce and how to communicate with one’s former spouse skillfully so the children are not stuck in the middle.
To register, go to: http://www.parentingwithyourex.com/parents-teleclass/

Wishing you wisdom,

Act, Don’t ReAct. You’ve heard it before. Exercise and eat right (act) so you prevent weight gain and yo-yo dieting  (re-acting). Don’t say something (act) you’ll later regret and for which you’ll have to apologize (re-act). Walk away from the bar (act) because one more drink might have you up close and personal with a toilet the next morning (the body’s reaction).  Listen to your own intuition (act) rather than mirroring what everyone else is doing (reacting).

Then why is it so hard to apply that simple formula in the heat of an argument? Why, when a spouse, or soon-to-be-ex-spouse, employee or boss, child or parent, says something infuriating, do we instantly want to lash out and set the record straight?

The answer can be found in our desire to defend ourselves. We want to convince the other that his/her belief is just plain wrong. That’s human nature. It’s also the reason why arguments escalate and resolution becomes illusive.

But human nature can be retrained. New habits can be learned and relearned as needed. On my walk/run yesterday near Lake Michigan, I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in years, a person I’d describe as a wise sage. Her twin granddaughters are now 15 and living with her. They sounded like completely normal teenagers: moody, hormonal, and exasperating. She told me she’s had to relearn a simple principle: Close Your Mouth. She’d observed that when she instantly responded to their various outbursts, it almost never went well. When she didn’t respond until some time had passed, she was able to regroup, say what she really wanted to convey (act), rather than responding (reacting) to the often irrational diatribes typical of a 15 year old. Resolution emerged more often when she employed this simple principle she’d learned years ago.

The beauty of this principle is it will automatically build in one of the core principles of what I call Conflict as Catalyst©: Listen First. If your mouth is closed, that’s the only thing left to do! And the space it creates for you will allow you to reconnect to your intention, your big-picture goal. When you do speak/act, it will be with benefit of that reconnection and in the context of a better understanding of the other person because you listened first. You will act rather than react.

Oh, that attorney the new lawyer and I observed? The one who first kept his mouth closed, listened, and then acted? He won.

Become intentional about how you want to show up in conflict. Allow for Conflict as Catalyst© and close your mouth, listen first, and act rather than react.

Wishing you wisdom,

Action without thinking is the cause of every failure. Peter Drucker

We kicked the question around for awhile and seriously considered, “Beats the hell out of me.” Thinking that might not bring the laugh it gave us, we ended up with this: Expect change. Be flexible. Enjoy the ride.

Rarely do our major life plans follow the script we saw playing out in our early 20s. Children get hooked on drugs, or drop out of school, or turn out with just plain strange ideas about life and the color of their hair. Your church, perhaps the heartbeat of your childhood or marriage, splits over the color of carpet for the new sanctuary or the new pastor’s theology. Pregnancy becomes an illusive monthly dream. A friend betrays. Employers implement lay-offs in less than ethical ways. Your aging mom suffers a stroke and needs care in ways you can’t meet. You spend years in school and develop a career only to find out it’s not what you want to do the rest of your life. You look at your spouse one day and ask, “What was I thinking?”

Thankfully happy surprises appear along the way too or we’d all descend into the depths of depression! But the field of positive psychology provides guidance for managing when life goes off script. Accept that Change Happens. And when it does, acknowledge the hit, grieve the loss it occasions, and know–absolutely know–there’s life on the other side. You can do this on your own or with the help of a good friend. But nothing beats a skilled therapist who will bring an objectivity to the evaluation and process that close friends, by definition, will not. Find one.

At the Posi-Palooza concert I recently attended in Ft. Myers, Florida, I heard some great musician/song-writers, including Jana Stansfield, Jami Luna, Susie Hulcher, Richard Mekdeci, and Sue K. Riley. Sue Riley (pictured with me below) sang a song entitled Everything Changes, I Can Change Too and I knew I had to share it with you. Her CD by the same name is entirely focused on the theme of embracing change.

I listened to it again while making dinner last night and both laughed (dare you to listen to the spoof “Yoga Retreat” and not laugh) and cried. Mostly I smiled and felt encouraged. Sue graciously agreed that I could make her song available to you and I’d encourage you to exercise a little self-care and obtain the CD at http://www.suekriley.com/. Listen Here: Everything Changes

So whatever change you are facing, an unexpected, tragic transition or a happy surprise, Be flexible. Expect change. Enjoy the ride.

Wishing you wisdom,

Deborah Bennett Berecz

There are times in a person’s life when merely getting up in the morning is a feat worthy of a medal. Going through a divorce or caring for an aging parent or adopting a new infant mean high levels of stress hormones and little sleep.  You can barely get to all that screams for your attention. Just what you need. One more “to do.” Even the more normal routines of life can be crazy-making. I’m not immune. I value my work. But it can be stressful at times. I deal every day with great people often at their most stressed-out worst!

I write this on the plane, returning from several days experiencing the warmth of the sun, connection with good friends, and too much food and drink. But it was more than all that. It was more than the new experiences: practice at a shooting range with a Sig Sauer 380. A crazed golf cart ride down a busy Florida boulevard. Yoga with new and different instructors. Sitting in on a jam session at a Posi-Palooza concert. Early morning curling up on a girlfriend’s bed with hot coffee and talking way too long. Those were awesome charges to my personal battery. Great fun, enhanced by sharing the experience with great friends.

Good friends are an important part of good self-care

But here’s the important part: my mind and body got jolted out of the norm. They sat up, paid attention to something different, and we hit the reset button.

As I sit here, my body jammed in my plane seat, my mind is also jammed with new ideas for better serving my clients, being a more effective Collaborative team member, and getting the word out more clearly that people facing conflicts in their families, at work or with friends have choices with tools and systems available to them. I’m ready to get back in the saddle and kick the spurs.

It’s a challenge to fit it in.  I know that. And the economy doesn’t help. But a self-care break doesn’t have to involve planes or sunny locales or significant sums of cash. It does involve going anywhere or doing anything that takes you out of your normal routine, stimulates your mind with learning or experiencing something new and allows you take a breath and reset. Do something different in the next town over. Take a tour at a glass blowing factory. Go to a lecture at a university on a topic you know nothing about. Try a different class at the gym. Visit several wineries near you and compare wines. Test drive a car you know you’ll never buy (at least not for awhile!). Invite someone to lunch you’ve wanted to get to know better. Take a class at your local community college in conversational Spanish or flower arranging or car repair. If it sounds a little whacky to you, all the better. The point is to reset and restore. We all need it regularly. (Even the hard drive on my computer decided it needed a reset on this vacation and crashed on me!)

So if you are surviving a family transition, or if you are a newly trained Collaborative Professional sharpening your skills, or adjusting to the adoption of a new child into your home, or facing the realities of aging for a loved one, open your calendar and get something on the schedule so that when you return to those challenges, you are invigorated and confident of your ability to meet them. The rigors of your current situation will not seem so insurmountable when you are recharged, reset and rarin’ to go. You can fit that in.

Wishing you wisdom,

“Once you’ve had your life burn down, it takes time to be a phoenix.” So says Sharon Stone in the Feb/Mar 2012 issue of AARP Magazine. (Okay, we’ll leave aside the discomfort I feel both reading this magazine and seeing Sharon Stone on its cover!). At the darkest moments, divorce or health issues or loss of a parent–all issues Stone dealt with over the past decade–these life transitions can make it seem like where once a life existed, now only ashes remain. A life burned down.

Developing patience in children has been a topic this week with the release of a book on French parenting, Bringing Up Bébé. But I have worked with clients who become impatient with themselves, their spouses and family and friends. They want the pain to end and the divorce process to be closed. They want their spouse to accept the end of the relationship (and sometimes want acceptance of new relationships) and they want life back to normal. All understandable longings.

But I’ve also worked with clients who lean into the transition and the pain associated with it. Who take long walks and spend time alone journaling and meditating and thinking about what’s happening now in their lives and how they want to intentionally shape the future. Who allow for what this day brings and look for the lesson they can learn from it. Who are brave enough to spend time with a good therapist to explore the meaning of this life transition and how it came to be. Who resist the appeal of blaming and finding fault with another. Who understand that the spouse they have been so hurt by, or with whom they are so angry, is also going through a challenging adjustment.

It is these “patient people” who eventually rise like the proverbial phoenix. Who seem deeply content ultimately. Who’ve been able to extend grace and forgiveness to themselves, their spouses, children and friends. Who have a certain freedom that comes from having arisen from the ashes, sprouting wings, and knowing the feeling of flying again.

How do you choose to be one of these people? How do you avoid becoming the bitter, miserable “ex” that no one really wants to be around? I think it first comes by defining the end-game. Where do you want to be two years from now? Do you want a civil, relatively stress-free relationship with your former spouse? Do you want to actually learn and grow from this major life transition? Then surround yourself by people who will support those goals. Ask friends and family to help you make this a good divorce. Choose professionals (therapists, lawyers, financial specialists) who are skilled in problem-solving and understand that there’s a future life you’re shaping for yourself and your children. Read books that support the emergence of that phoenix you can be, arising from the fire stronger, more beautiful, more alive than you thought possible. Because it is possible–with a little patience.

Wishing you wisdom,

Deborah Bennett Berecz

And since 98%–yes 98% of cases settle without the judge ever hearing any testimony or even meeting the spouses, the desire to have a judge declare one’s spouse wrong and you the wronged is almost never realized. And yet, in the traditional adversarial system, people spend a lot of time, energy and money preparing for a trial that isn’t going to happen–unless you’re a lawyer who knows better!

You can read the full article at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/j-richard-kulerski/what-do-divorce-lawyers-d_b_1252868.html. If out-of-court processes such as Collaboration and Mediation are what divorce lawyers are choosing for themselves, maybe it’s the right process for you as well.

Wishing you wisdom,

Deborah Bennett Berecz

I read Rob Bell’s letter to his church of 10K+ members, Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids. It was his last message to the church he founded but was leaving this month, January 2012. He wrote about the grief he and the church were going to feel:

“any change, even if it’s good, is always a form of loss, and loss must be grieved. that’s the only way it works. stuff it, deny it, repress or suppress it and it will come back to haunt you, it will lurk in the shadows and it will resurface later.

your grief then, is a sign of health. it demonstrates an awareness of your interiors, your heart, and your desire to face and embrace what’s actually going on inside of you.”

I encounter genuine bravery from my clients who choose to embrace and process the grief and anger that accompanies every divorce. The people I’m privileged to work with in Collaborative law and mediation have chosen not to deny it (“I never really loved him/her”) or give in to the fear (“I was scared so I withdrew all the funds in our savings account”) or seek to punish (“S/He wanted this divorce and I’m going to get everything I have coming to me”).

Instead they bravely “face and embrace what’s actually going on inside.” It’s not easy. It’s not done artfully or gracefully at times. God knows I was not always those things in my own divorce! But my clients work with professionals who understand the importance of not suppressing the pain and who help guide them to and through that scary place. Divorce coaches, financial specialists, Collaboratively trained lawyers, child specialists and therapists. My clients, so worthy of admiration, take responsibility themselves rather than looking for a gladiator to charge in, take over, and do the hard work for them.

If you choose Collaborative process or mediation, it may be harder work. But the potential for this miserable business to “come back to haunt you…lurk in the shadows…and resurface later” is substantially lower because you’ve been willing to confront it, deal with it now. I call that “Good Grief.”

Wishing you wisdom–and a good grief,

Big surprise: the world looks different through each protagonist’s eyes. Listening to the first story, it’s convincing and compelling and must certainly be correct, right? But then you hear another participant’s views. And his or hers is equally convincing and compelling and feels true and correct.

I’ve mediated or collaborated on hundreds of cases. Sometimes, when listening to the perspective of one spouse, I’ll wonder if I can even like the other party! He or she must just be awful. And then I have my individual consult with that other party. And this story is equally painful and compelling and I feel empathy for him or her as well. Had I heard it first, I may have questioned my ability to be neutral in the other direction!

So I’ve learned. I don’t judge and I no longer feel the need to determine where the real truth lies. One’s truth is one’s truth. Valid, compelling and true–for the speaker. The other’s viewpoint is equally valid, compelling and true for him or her. More arguing about a past event is unlikely to convince the other that his or her viewpoint is not valid. So where do you go from here?

A sign of maturity is the ability to make space for another perspective. To understand that just because the other sees the situation differently does not mean that either of you is wrong. So rather than insisting that your version of events is the correct and true one, ask this question: Given that we each feel the way we do about the past, how do we shape the future to maximize peace for our own sanity and the well-being of our children?

Peace feels better than being right any day of the week.

So what’s on your reading list?

Wishing you wisdom,

Deborah

“Children will do best if they know that their mother and father will still be their parents and remain involved with them even though the marriage is ending and the parents won’t live together. Long custody disputes or pressure on a child to “choose” sides can be particularly harmful for the youngster and can add to the damage of the divorce. Research shows that children do best when parents can cooperate on behalf of the child.”

Assisting parents in cooperating with one another is the goal of the Collaborative Process and Mediation. If you are facing divorce, with all the accompanying fears, distrust and anger, you and your spouse can still process through such challenging emotions without destroying one another–and thereby your children. It’s just a matter of connecting up with the right resources. Learn all you can about litigation, mediation and the Collaborative process. Then ask, which one would allow us to achieve the goals identified by the Am. Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry? This organization’s full fact sheet can be found at http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_divorce.

Wishing you wisdom,

Deborah Bennett Berecz

Collaborative Lawyer and Mediator

Grand Rapids and St. Joseph, MI

“Bottom line in all cases is this: It’s a crap shoot the moment you
walk through the courthouse door with witnesses instead of a settlement.
Settlements are managed certainty based on the best guesses of the
parties who ought to know them.  Trials are the judge’s best guess
with a lot less time spent on your particular case than the parties
have spent. Logic mitigates towards settlement as most likely to
produce a result a client will be satisfied with, given the alternative.“  John Mertz

So true John. Settlements are “managed certainty.” Will it be a perfect outcome if you and your spouse settle? No. What you will have avoided however, is the “crap shoot” of submitting control over the most important decisions in your life to a stranger in a robe. Why does s/he know your children or finances or needs better than you and your spouse? It’s harder work now but you may also avoid turning into those people who find themselves back in court every two or three years because the battle just won’t end.

You deserve better. And so do your children.

Wishing you wisdom,

Deborah