Latest / The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast / 102. Everyone has a biggest problem - Why your pain is valid, why staying stuck is a choice, and what it costs both you and your children

Transcript

102. Everyone has a biggest problem - Why your pain is valid, why staying stuck is a choice, and what it costs both you and your children · The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into today's episode, I'd like to invite you to take a deep breath.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: To hold it for a few moments.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then to release it slowly.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: To feel yourself come back to your body.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: To lift your shoulders up to your ears.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then let them drop.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: To feel even just a little bit of the tension that was held there dissipate.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: To unclench your jaw, if safe to do so to open your hands, stretch your fingers, feel your body soften.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Even just slightly.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into today's episode, I want to give you a heads up.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be sharing some personal history in this episode, along with simply just some other insights and content that might challenge you that might even land with you as being a bit triggering.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's important for me to name that clearly at the start so that you can make an informed decision about whether today is the right day for you to listen to this.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you are in a vulnerable place right now, please prioritize yourself first.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: This episode's not going anywhere.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: It will still be here when you're more resourced and your well being comes before any of my content.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that is mentioned in this episode is suicidal ideation.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: If anything in this episode brings up difficult feelings for you, please reach out for support.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: In Australia you can contact Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: 1800 Respect is available on one eight hundred seven three three three three three three seven seven three two for support with family violence and sexual assault.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Importantly, you don't have to be in immediate crisis to reach out to those services.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to need someone to talk to.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Post Separation Abuse Podcast.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host for today's episode Danielle Black.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk to a specific person.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to the person who's listening to this podcast, the person who's in our community, the person who's looked at what I do and what I talk about and has had thoughts along the lines of well that's fine for her, but my situation's different.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe my ex is more dangerous, more unpredictable, more entrenched, or my trauma's more complex or my circumstances are harder than what hers were.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mine are more impossible.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or she doesn't really get it, she doesn't understand what I'm up against.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy for her to talk.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I hear all of that and I understand the impulse behind it, and I want to talk to it directly today because it matters.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because leaving it unaddressed does a disservice to all of us.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you've listened to any number of the episodes on this podcast, you'll know that I'm not one to shy away from challenging conversations.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Today I also want to talk about something that I see in almost every client that I've ever worked with, and that I'm not sure if I've ever covered in an episode.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a pattern that can look like protection but is actually something else entirely.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: A choice that feels like the path of least resistance, but is in practice one of the most costly decisions that a parent can make.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is going to be honest, perhaps brutally honest in parts, and some of it might feel uncomfortable.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to apologize for that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because no one's forcing you to be here.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: No one's forcing you to listen to anything that I have to say.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: No one's forcing you to be in my community, to be on the email mailing list, to join the blueprint, to protect your kids, to move from conflict avoidant to protective.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: No one's forcing you to do any of that.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is a choice.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: As much as sometimes it might not feel like a choice, it is a choice.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a choice that comes with discomfort.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a choice that comes with being prepared to feel discomfort.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And discomfort, as it turns out, is one of the most important things that I sometimes have to offer you.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: The question that I have for you that I'd like you to reflect upon as you listen to this episode and even as you move throughout your day perhaps your week perhaps your month, the question that I have for you is what are you prepared to feel?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: No one's forcing you to be here.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: No one's forcing you to listen to anything that I have to say.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: No one's forcing you to join us in the blueprint.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: No one's forcing you to read anything that I put in an email if you happen to be on the mailing list.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: What are you prepared to feel on this path of becoming a protective parent?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And, in case you're not sure, me simply asking that question, this is what coaching is.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can give advice, anyone can give guidance.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean whether it's good advice or good guidance, that's another question entirely.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no shortage of people, there's certainly no shortage of people in the post-separation space who are prepared to give you their opinion, who are prepared to give you advice.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I would suggest that there's actually very few people in this space who genuinely coach, who genuinely challenge, who genuinely encourage you to think about yourself and your situation in a different way, who gently challenge and invite you to choose a path that is not only going to lead to you becoming an increasingly protective parent and to optimize your overall outcome, but a path that will actually lead to you becoming a better version of you.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: A leveled up version of you.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what a good coach does, that's what an effective coach does.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I do.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into it.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start off by telling you a little bit more about my own story.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not to center myself, not for sympathy, that's not why we're here.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: But because for some episodes, one of the most important things that I can do before I ask anything of you is to show you some of my receipts.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing this work in some way, shape, or form for a really long time.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And before I started doing this work professionally, I was in it very deeply personally.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was living it.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: After I separated from my ex-husband, I discovered something that a lot of people discover usually too late.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that leaving does not end abuse.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: The abuse changes shape.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: The coercive control that had existed inside the relationship simply found new channels.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't yet have a framework for what I was experiencing, I didn't have the language, the vocabulary, because the word coercive control was not yet part of my vocabulary really, let alone hardly anybody's vocabulary almost eighteen years ago, meaning the system around me didn't really have a framework for what I was experiencing either.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was navigating something that I couldn't name with tools that weren't designed for it, and I was navigating that primarily alone.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: My former husband told me more than once that his life would have been better if I'd died of cancer rather than leaving him.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: As he put it, he wouldn't have to share money or our son with me if I was dead.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: He said that to me more than once, just simply as a factual statement.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when it was obvious that that statement upset me, he couldn't understand why.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: He couldn't understand why I was upset because to him it was just obvious it just made sense that of course he would feel that way.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: He refused to pay child support for ten years yes, a decade.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was too frightened to pursue it through the child support agency.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was too frightened to do a lot of things because the fear of what his response would be was a constant presence in my life.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I slept with the lights on for the better part of twelve months because I was scared of what was going to be in the dark.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I kept my phone on silent for a decade because the sound of a message arriving would trigger a full physiological panic response before I'd seen who the message was from, before I'd read any of the words.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: He would see my car somewhere, a car park, a street anywhere, and send me a message that was worded, you know, innocuously enough in the moment.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just a comment, a passing remark, but the subtext was always the same.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: The subtext was I know where you are, you can't escape me.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I developed CPTSD, that's complex post traumatic stress disorder.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I dissociated regularly.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: There were times when the weight of everything, the ongoing abuse, the fear, the financial pressure, the court proceedings later on, the impossible task of being a present and regulated parent while my own nervous system was in freefall, that often became so heavy that I reached a place that I want to name honestly, but that if the talk of suicidal ideation is going to be triggering for you, you may want to pause now.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I experienced suicidal ideation.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be clear with you about what that meant for me because I think it's important to say it accurately.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I did not want to die.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: What I wanted with an intensity that I can still remember very clearly, what I wanted was just for everything to stop the abuse, the fear, the relentlessness of all of it, the way that it seemed to infiltrate every corner of my life no matter what I did.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was overwhelmed and exhausted in a way that no amount of sleep could fix, no amount of anything seemed to be able to fix.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in that exhaustion the mind can go to places that it would not otherwise go.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm talking about this now calmly from a place of complete safety and stability.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in that place that I was all those years ago.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in that place now.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I have not been in that place for a very, very long time.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: But back then I was there, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise because I think that there may be people listening to this who might be there right now, who might have moments of that, and who need to know that someone who came through it is talking to them.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: If that's you, if you are in that place now or if you are close to it, please consider stopping what you're doing and reaching out for support.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lifeline is available here in Australia at thirteen eleven fourteen, that's the contact number.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: 1800 Respect is available on one eight hundred seven three seven seven three two.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's one eight hundred seven three seven seven three two for family violence and sexual assault support.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: There is also Beyond Blue at 130024636.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's one three hundred double two four six three six.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Those numbers are for those who are currently in Australia.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you are listening from another country, and I know we have many many international listeners who are tuning in each week, please, please consider pressing pause and reaching out to a service near you.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you are currently in that place right now that I just described, please consider pressing pause right now and reaching out for support to a specialized service near you.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be at the very bottom to deserve support.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to be struggling, that's enough.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So please do call.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: What kept me going in the darkest moments of that time was my son.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not in a in an abstract way, but in the most concrete, specific, unglamorous way.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially just the thought that if I wasn't around, that he would inevitably be with his father one hundred percent of the time.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: The mere thought of that was intolerable to me, and that was enough.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was just enough to keep me moving forward.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to share with you a specific moment because I think it captures something that I probably haven't been able to articulate in any other way.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: There was a moment when I was at a very low point.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was living in a small house with a courtyard garden.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Ash was really young, just a toddler.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: We were outside playing with bubbles, just the ordinary kind, the kind that you blow through a little plastic wand.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the way that the light was hitting those bubbles, the colours, the way that they drifted.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Ash's excitement and laugh and just his joy in that moment.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: The particular joyful, you know, just uncomplicated smiles and laughs that small children have before their world starts getting more complicated.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that I was smiling.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I had tears, but I was smiling.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I made a decision in that moment.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not a really big dramatic one, honestly.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: It just felt like a small, small one in the moment.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I made a decision to move, to get up, to start running around the courtyard with Ash, chasing those bubbles.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that movement of some kind was important for me to get back to a place mentally, emotionally, psychologically where I needed to be.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: So there's me running around a small courtyard chasing bubbles with my toddler, tears streaming down my face, because I understood instinctively that movement was the thing that my body needed then, and that staying still staying still was in some way, shape, or form going to make things worse.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was going to keep costing me.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the beginning of a very deliberate path forward for me, not a quick fix, not a transformation, but a slow, methodical, often uncomfortable process of doing the things that the research and the evidence said that would help, and trusting that process even when I wasn't sure if it was working.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: I actually ended up joining a gym.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I created a cardio and weight schedule, and I kept it even on the days when I didn't want to.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: I actually remember, you know, Ash was in the care of his dad on this particular day.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was my birthday, and I went to the gym on my birthday.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was just part of my routine.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I found a psychologist who specialized in EMDR.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is a trauma-specific therapy with a strong evidence base, and I did that work consistently.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I explored essential oils and the science behind their effect on the nervous system.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I worked with beliefs, affirmations, and thought work actively, deliberately, not as some kind of spiritual, you know, bypass, but as a practice of redirecting my brain.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: My brain that had learned to catastrophise everything as a survival strategy.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I did everything that I could find that had any credible evidence behind it, and I did it because I decided that my son and my life were worth the effort.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to say something here about medication, about antidepressants.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I tried them at my doctor's recommendation, and they made me feel terrible.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not better, not stable, just terrible in a way that I can't really describe.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I ultimately stopped taking them under medical guidance and decided to put all of that energy into those other interventions instead.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not saying that that's the right decision for everyone.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Medication, including antidepressants, can be genuinely helpful for many people, and there is absolutely no shame in taking them.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Part of the work that I do in coaching is helping clients come to the decision about whether or not they want to pursue the medication pathway.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Many clients are actually concerned about whether or not them taking medication is going to negatively impact their case in some way, shape, or form if they're in the court system.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that is something that I have a lot of experience unpacking with clients.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's important for me to say here that antidepressants are genuinely helpful for many people.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is no shame in taking them.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, what I'm saying is that for me, the non-pharmaceutical path was the right one.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was the one that I pursued and it worked.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly, imperfectly, but it worked.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to say something here about the concept of being, quote, healed, because I think it can be one of the most, you know, in many ways, damaging concepts in the wellness and recovery space.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't actually believe that full healing is a destination that anybody should be aiming for.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that there's a finish line that you cross after which you're just sort of done from I don't know, feeling discomfort from things being hard, from being quote unquote triggered.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the pursuit of complete healing, particularly as a goal before taking any other action, so before advocating for your kids, before dating, before building something new, that in many ways can actually become its own form of avoidance, a way of staying in a familiar discomfort, in many ways what could be described as a comfortable discomfort, a comfortable discomfort that's familiar, rather than stepping into the uncomfortable discomfort of growth.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: What I aimed for before I started dating was not to be fully healed, but rather it was to be functional, to be regulated enough often enough, to be capable of showing up for another person in ways that I wanted to be shown up for.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: That for me was a far more achievable standard, and I think just a far more honest one.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the frame that I want to offer you for the rest of the episode.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that every person alive has a biggest problem.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: The specific content changes, the scale varies, but the structure is pretty universal.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is that there is always something that is the most pressing, most painful, most consuming thing in a person's life at any given time.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now this matters because of something that I hear regularly.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: The story often goes that my situation's too hard, my trauma's too complex, my ex is too dangerous, too entrenched, too resourced, I can't do what Danielle talks about because my circumstances are different.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And underneath all of that is kind of this vibe of I can't do hard things, or to link it back to something that we mentioned at the start of the episode, I don't want to feel hard things.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is where that question of what are you prepared to feel?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: What level of discomfort are you prepared to actually sit with and grow tolerance for?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's where that question becomes increasingly relevant.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that we need to challenge.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think it's true that you can't do hard things.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've already done extraordinarily hard things.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're probably doing some pretty hard things right now.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think that surviving what you've survived and continuing to parent and work and function in the middle of what you're navigating is one of the hardest things that a human can do.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that you are capable of hard things.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's already established.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: So what I would gently and directly suggest is the question isn't really whether you can do hard things, it's probably more so a question of what is the hard thing that you are choosing?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: What is the discomfort that you're prepared to feel?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the reality staying where you are is also hard.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Being conflict avoidant and staying with arrangements that are not appropriate for your kids you know, let's not kid ourselves, that's also hard.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Complying with a former partner who uses compliance as a confirmation of their control, that's hard.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Watching your kids navigate a situation that you actually have the capacity on some level to challenge, but you've chosen not to challenge it, that's hard.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Living with the knowledge on some level that you're not doing the thing that you know needs to be done, that's pretty fucking hard.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I should know.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that was ten years of my journey.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: My biggest problem could have been staying stuck in everything that came with that.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or it could have been trying to find a way out of the dark.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I chose the latter, not because it was easier, but because the hard of staying stuck, of staying still, was costing me more than the hard of moving forward.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake, there is always a trade-off.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: So as well as inviting you to think about what are you prepared to feel on this journey, are you actually prepared to grow your tolerance for doing hard things, your tolerance of discomfort?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I would also ask you to reflect on what are you trading here and what are you prepared to trade off?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, staying conflict avoidant, agreeing to things that you know are not right for your kids, that does come with consequences.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is still a hard thing.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: You are still trading something, and you will always have a biggest problem.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, which biggest problem are you choosing?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm going to mention something that I see in a lot of the parents that I have worked with over the years.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to say that this is not a conversation with which I want you shaming yourself.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, with anything that you ever hear me say, please don't use it against yourself.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't ever use coaching against yourself.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to make you feel bad but I am here to make you feel seen.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that feels pretty fucking uncomfortable.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to feel seen clearly, accurately, and honestly, even when it is uncomfortable.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not just some rando on the internet with an opinion about post-separation parenting I'm a coach.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know what is possible when you have access to good, effective coaching.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And feeling seen is part of that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Being willing to view yourself and your situation through a different lens that's part of that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And again, sometimes it's deeply uncomfortable.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's a pattern that can present itself as protective parenting that's actually conflict avoidance.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that it can be so hard to name is that conflict avoidance in the nervous system of someone who has experienced coercive control or is still experiencing it, it's not weakness or laziness or a lack of love for their kids.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, the conflict avoidance is a survival response.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fawning.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're thinking about our nervous system and survival responses, fight, flight, faint, freeze, fawn.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Fawning is the impulse to placate, to comply, to make yourself small in order to avoid escalation.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: The escalation that experience with someone has taught you will come in some way, shape, or form.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is a recognized nervous system response to a sustained threat.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's adaptive.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's adapted over time, it kept you safer for a period of time in conditions that genuinely warranted it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that that fawning response, like all survival responses, they don't automatically deactivate when the immediate threat changes.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: The survival responses keep running, and in a post separation context, it can look a bit like this a parent who knows genuinely in their body at the level of instinct that certain care arrangements are not right for their kids, who can see the impact on the kids, who understands intellectually that the care arrangements reflect the other parents' demands or needs or you know emotions, their loneliness, or desire to maintain control or to punish rather than the children's needs, and who agree to it anyway, or maintain it anyway, or choose not to challenge it, because the alternative, the inevitable conflict, the inevitable escalation, the potential litigation, potential court proceedings, potential cost, the fear of what the other person will do on some level to the nervous system feels unsurvivable.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now I understand that feeling, I lived that for a decade.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: I remember exactly what I told myself while I was doing it.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want to offer you, and that is that agreeing to arrangements that don't serve your kids in order to avoid conflict is not protective parenting.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's conflict avoidant parenting.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that that distinction matters is not to shame you for where you are or for any decision that you've made, but rather it's because you cannot make a conscious informed choice about something that you have not named accurately, about something that you are choosing not to acknowledge or recognise.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what I want to invite you to sit with is this What's actually your number one priority?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is it protecting your kids genuinely, which oftentimes really does mean doing things that are hard and might feel frightening and uncertain?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is that your number one priority?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or is the number one priority avoiding the discomfort of conflict of court of your former partner's response?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are you willing to feel?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to choose as your biggest problem?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be honest with each other and with ourselves.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those two priorities protecting our kids or being conflict avoidant, those two priorities oftentimes are actually mutually exclusive.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot be primarily committed to avoiding conflict and primarily committed to being a protective parent at the same time.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: One of those things is ultimately your actual number one priority.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And your behaviour, not your intentions, not how you describe yourself, your actual behaviour, your actual choices, your actual actions, that will tell you which one is your number one priority.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm not saying any of this to shame you, and I certainly don't want you using this conversation against yourself.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also not saying that litigation and court is always the answer, it isn't.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that every family arrangement that involves significant time with both parents is wrong, that's not correct.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: But what I am saying is be honest about why you've made the choices that you've made.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Was it because arrangements genuinely served your kids?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it actually because it was the path of least resistance?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because those are very different choices with different implications and they deserve to be made consciously rather than by default.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing about conflict avoidance in this context.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: It actually doesn't eliminate having a biggest problem.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: It just trades one version of it for another.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you avoid conflict, you might avoid the acute discomfort and cost of court proceedings.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: You might avoid escalation for a bit.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: You might for a little while avoid being the target of your ex's anger.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: But you're not going to avoid the dysregulation of your kids who are stuck in arrangements that don't serve them.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to avoid the ongoing pattern of complying with the demands of someone who interpret your compliance as confirmation of their ultimate control.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to avoid the erosion of your own capacity to parent in a way that you want to parent and that your kids need you to parent, to make the decisions that your kids need you to make, because those decisions have been preemptively traded away in the service of keeping the peace.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to avoid those thoughts at 3 AM.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Those thoughts that say, I know what really needed to happen here, and I didn't do it.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And your children won't avoid it either.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: There is a version of the future in which they're old enough to understand what happened and to ask why.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: To ask why you made the choices that you made.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that again for you to be shaming yourself to use it against yourself or to scare you, but I say it because I think it's actually worth sitting with.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because the kids who need protection are real people who at some point in time are going to get to an age where they're going to have their own accounting of things, where they're going to want answers, where they may actually hold us as parents accountable for what they experienced.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake, you still have a biggest problem.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you're choosing which one it is.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want to close this section again with a question rather than a statement because I think questions reflecting on things is ultimately more useful.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do you describe yourself as a parent?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: What's the identity that you hold about yourself?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: If I asked you if you truly believe that you're a protective parent, what would you say?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think most parents in our community would say yes, and I believe that they mean it, I believe that the intention's genuine.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: But identity and behaviour have to be congruent for the identity to be real.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is, they have to align, they have to match up.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't actually describe yourself as a protective parent and consistently make choices that prioritize your own emotional comfort over your kids' needs.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those two things held simultaneously produce a kind of self-betrayal that can accumulate, that your nervous system keeps a bit of a ledger on, that shows up as the low grade, persistent, unresolvable distress of a person who knows somewhere deep down that they're not actually living in alignment with what they say they value the most.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I know what that feels like because I was that person for longer than I would care to admit.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm not judging you for being in it.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you to see it clearly.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because seeing it clearly is the first thing that has to happen before anything else can.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to take this opportunity to name something that is one of the most genuinely difficult aspects of the coaching work that we do here at Danielle Black Coaching.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to name it with care because I know that it might land hard for some people who are listening.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that the family court system does not pause for trauma.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Proceedings are initiated on timelines that have absolutely nothing to do with the state of your nervous system.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Legal deadlines arrive whether you're regulated or not, documents need to be filed, responses need to be drafted, mediation happens, reports get written, and the person who's asked to show up for all of that is in many cases someone who is genuinely, significantly, legitimately traumatized.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very real and brutal reality, and I am not minimizing it.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And here is the and, which is often part of our coaching.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma can be a description of where you are, or it can become your identity.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: It can become an identity that exempts you from doing anything about where you are.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And those are very different things with very different outcomes.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with clients where at almost every suggestion, every tool, every strategy, it's met with some version of I can't, I'm traumatized.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's work with your communication with your former partner.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I'm traumatized.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's prepare you for mediation.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've given in to everything that he wanted.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm traumatized.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at what's happening with the parenting arrangements.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can't challenge that, I'm traumatized.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now I say this with genuine compassion.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma is real.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: The nervous system state that produces the I can't thoughts and feelings and somatic responses in the body and the action or the inaction and then the inevitable results of that, all of that's real.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when, quote, I'm traumatized becomes the answer to everything, it's actually shifted from a description of a genuine constraint into a story that your nervous system is using to avoid the additional discomfort of doing hard things while it's already dysregulated.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the trap is that the story feels true.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not false.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a fabrication, it's also not laziness.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's the nervous system doing exactly what a nervous system shaped by sustained threat does.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: It identifies the path of greater safety and it resists deviating from that path with a lot of force.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: The I can't is not always a statement of genuine impossibility, but rather it's a statement of the discomfort of doing that thing feels unsurvivable to my nervous system right now.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's important information, but it's also not the final answer.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important that we're clear about what is meant when we're talking about capacity building because I think there's a version of it that sounds like get over it and perform that you're okay.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not what I mean.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Capacity building is not asking a traumatized person to show up as though they're not traumatized.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not asking you to perform emotional nervous system regulation that you don't have.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not expecting you to function at full capacity in impossible circumstances.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, it's building the regulated moments, however brief, however imperfect, in which something useful can actually happen.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be fully healed to send a careful strategic message to a co-parent.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be fully healed to prepare one answer to one question that a family report writer is going to ask.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be fully healed to take one small action that moves you one step further to where your kids need you to be.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, you need five minutes of enough regulation to do the thing, and then another five minutes for the next thing, and then another couple of minutes for something else.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's what capacity building is.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a total transformation, it's not a total recovery.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, we're talking about micro moments of function strung together over time that gradually expand the window of what's possible.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the identity work, the question of who you are as a parent, of what you actually stand for, of what you're willing to feel and do and not do in the service of protecting yourself and your children, that's what gives those micro moments direction.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be fully regulated in every moment to know what it is that you actually value.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you do need to know what it is that you value to have something to regulate towards.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma and the symptoms that come with that is information about where you are.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not the verdict on where you can go.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Relevant to this conversation about growing capacity is AI Danielle.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: She's not just there as a thinking partner for difficult decisions to help with responding to co-parenting communication to unpack a chat that you've just had with your lawyer.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: She's also there for the ordinary moments.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's also there as a capacity building partner.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: She's there for before a conversation that you have with your lawyer or before you're ready to sit down and prepare a response to a message from your co-parent.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: She's there for when you want to regulate prior to a changeover.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: But she's also there for the morning when absolutely nothing's wrong but you've got a spare three minutes.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or the evening after a hard day when you just need something to settle your nervous system before bed.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: She's there to guide you through a breathing practice, to help you work through what's happening in your body, to use the steer response framework, or simply to be a calm, informed presence when you need one.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: She can help you to prepare and become grounded before a coaching session.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: She can also help you to debrief.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: After a coaching session.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things are capacity building work, including regulation in quiet moments when nothing wrong's actually happening.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is what can make the activated moments more manageable.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: AI Daniel is available to everyone who visits the website.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: However, the public-facing version of AI Daniel has capped messaging.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: For those who are members of the Blueprint, you have unlimited access to AI Daniel, and you also have access to module 16 in the Blueprint where the capacity building work lives in full.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: The neuroscience behind it, the frameworks, the practices, the research on why the quiet daily practice matters as much as the crisis support.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Again, nothing that I've said here today is designed to shame you.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not the conflict avoidance section, not the trauma as identity section, not inviting you to think about what you're prepared to actually feel, not the question of what's the hardest thing that you're picking, what's your biggest problem and what the trade-offs are.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Please do not be using anything against yourself.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: If something's landed uncomfortably, if you're feeling seen in a way that is a bit uncomfortable, I'd invite you to sit with that discomfort rather than dismiss it.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because discomfort is often the first sign that something has landed with you that has an element of truth to it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd invite you to consider that I might just know what I'm talking about.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of the episode I told you that I get it.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: I really do get it.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that that's clearer now, not because I want anyone thinking that my story is worse than theirs or harder than theirs or more valid.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is absolutely not a trauma competition, but rather because I've been in rooms, internal rooms, the kind that exist in your own nervous system in the middle of the night that I think maybe some of you probably recognise.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it's like to be genuinely frightened, to feel controlled in all the ways, including financially.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: To have the sound of a message notification dismantle your capacity to function entirely, to sit with a toddler blowing bubbles and smile through tears because the alternative is giving up, and giving up is something that you just can't do because that little person needs you to stay.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: I stayed, I moved, I built slowly, very imperfectly, with setbacks, with a lot of days that probably looked nothing like progress, and I'm here.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not perfect but here.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Something that I can guarantee is that no matter what you choose now or tomorrow or next week or next month or next year, something that I can guarantee is that you will always have a biggest problem.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: We all will.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: The question is what version of that problem that you choose to carry?
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going to choose a biggest problem that keeps you small, that keeps the peace at the expense of your needs, your children's needs, that lets the clock run while you wait to feel ready?
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to choose the biggest problem that feels hard in a different direction?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: The problem that asks something more of you, that asks you to feel an unfamiliar discomfort.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest problem that when your kids are old enough to look back at this time, you can tell a story that you're genuinely proud of.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: You get to choose.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every day you get to choose.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you are in the middle of navigating a stressful, challenging separation, if you've got children, maybe you're even in the court system, and if you don't know where to start, the post separation parenting blueprint is where I'd send you.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's built exactly for this, for the parent who's in it, who's trying to function, who needs knowledge and capacity and the ability to advocate effectively in a society, in a culture and a system that was never designed to make it easy.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find more information about the blueprint on our website, Daniel Blackcoaching.com.au And something more that I'd like to share with you about the blueprint is something new that is going to be launching very soon for blueprint members.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Blueprint Radio.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a private audio channel that is going to be living exclusively inside the Blueprint.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in the Blueprint Radio episodes, we're going to be going somewhere that we can't always go in this podcast.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere that's deeper, more specific, more nuanced.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Blueprint radio is made for those who are already inside the work.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a member, you will be able to find it soon.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: You'll receive an email about that when it's there.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not yet a member of the Blueprint, this is just one more reason that the Blueprint keeps becoming something that I'm genuinely proud of and something that I absolutely recommend to everyone who is navigating post-separation parenting.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: Also a heads up: the cost to join the Blueprint is going up on the 13th of May 2026.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've been thinking about joining us, now is a great time.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if connecting with me or another coach on the team also feels like a right next step for you if you want someone in your corner who understands this space from the inside, we are here.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: My team and I are here for you.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you can find more information about one-on-one coaching, including the ability to book your first call with the coach of your choice.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can find that information on our website, Danielblackcoaching.com.au.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in addition to that, you can also sign up for our email list if you'd like me in your inbox every now and then.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Please do sign up.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love for you to become a more involved part of our community.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being here with me for this conversation.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I value your time and I deeply appreciate that you are making space for new ways to look at yourself and your situation.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Please never underestimate how important that is.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: Please never underestimate how significant it is that you are prepared to challenge yourself, that you are prepared to feel and sit with discomfort that feels a bit unfamiliar and that can make you feel seen in not always a fantastic way, but that ultimately is moving you forward to something better.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is moving you forward to optimizing the outcome for yourself and your children.