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8 Ways to Help Your Collaborative Divorce

3/30/2015

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Working as a Divorce Communications Coach, I am often asked if I have any advice for people entering the Collaborative process. While having the courage and willingness to enter into honest and respectful face-to-face negotiations with your soon-to-be ex-spouse is absolutely essential, here are eight other ways you can help your Collaborative Divorce.


1. Think of the process as creating a new start:
During times of big changes and life transitions, such as the ones brought by divorce, people have an opportunity to really alter some behaviors and see things from new perspectives. Do you want to have similar communication issues in your next relationship? Do you want to continue the same dysfunctional patterns with your ex-spouse? If not, spend some time with your Divorce Communications Coach to learn new ways of problem solving, discussing difficult issues, and managing emotions. The additional skills will continue to help improve your relationships, as long as you practice them.

 2. Be Honest: Yes, I also mentioned it above, but I believe it's so important to the process that I thought I should discuss it further. Nothing can ruin the collaborative process quite like dishonesty. While hiding assets tends to be a common area people think about when dishonesty is experienced, it can come in many forms, in an attempt to influence agreements. Clients who insist on being dishonest, will soon find themselves without a professional support team. Because it’s one of the core principals everyone agrees to, when they sign on to work collaboratively, professionals will resign from teams, with clients who lack integrity.  
 
3. Do your homework: There is much to do at each meeting. When the client arrives unprepared, it can stall the process and needlessly drive up the costs. A good deal of the homework involves gathering financial records. To assist with this process, financial professionals will often supply a list of the all the documents necessary for the process. Other areas of homework may have to do with parenting plans, or gathering additional data.

4. Be Patient: While Collaborative Divorce can take time, it is generally quicker than traditional litigation. Collaborative Divorce is a process that involves many steps. All of your concerns will be dealt with, but not necessarily in the first meeting, or two.

With Collaborative Divorce there are multiple people’s schedules to consider, which can cause delays in the process. But once you have the team together, you can generally get a solid 1-2 hours work done, at a time. With traditional litigation, you get about 15 minutes on the court’s calendar, at a pace of several months apart, for each matter.

Another area where patience can be a factor is when one spouse is still grieving the relationship, while the other is anxious to move on with their life. We all move through this process at different speeds. Usually, one of the spouses has had some time to think about it and prepare, while it remains a fresh wound for the other. When this is the case, meetings can be more emotionally charged.

5. Use your team (that’s why we’re here!): A full Collaborative team is made up of six professionals. Five professionals are generally used when the couple has no children.  The team consists of two attorneys (one for each party), two communications coaches, who are Licensed Mental Health Professionals (one for each party), one child specialist, and one financial expert

One of the best parts of the Collaborative process is its incorporation of multiple professionals, focusing on what they do best.  While hiring multiple professionals may be considered by some, as overwhelming and cost prohibitive, when practiced correctly, it is often more efficient and cost effective. It is a much better use of your time and money to work with the communications coach, instead of your attorney, when dealing with emotional, or mental health issues. Financial experts make the often complex and confusing financial data, accessible, while also helping clients understand the tax implications of each decision. Aside from better use of your time and money, you will also receive more skilled and knowledgeable assistance when consulting the right professional for the right issue.

6. Seek understanding: Because you want to create the best agreement possible, it is very important to understand where your spouse is coming from and what they are really saying. The best approach involves quieting down and really listening to what is being said and then repeating back your understanding.  Trying to see the issue through the eyes of your spouse, will increase the likelihood of creating a solution that works for everyone.

7. Be solution oriented: Collaborative Divorce isn’t about winners, or losers. It is about creating the best solution for all parties. The best solution involves taking everyone’s needs into account.  When that happens, agreements are most likely to be durable and lasting.

8. Take Care of Yourself: I can’t say this enough, “Take care of yourself”. Divorce is one of the most emotionally stressful experiences people do. Stress and anxiety release chemicals in your bloodstream that are really useful when you are in real danger, but damaging for your mind and body when you cannot release it. Therefore, I cannot recommend enough that you find ways to take care of yourself during this time. Some great ways to care for yourself are: Exercise, get plenty of sleep, use your support system to vent (don’t use your kids), meditate, practice mindfulness, spend some time in the sunshine/nature, and eat healthy.

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10 Ways to De-Stress

3/8/2015

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Life is filled with stress. Some of it can be helpful in motivating us into action, but when stress becomes chronic, it can have negative long ranging affects upon the body and mind. Mental conditions that are associated with chronic stress include: anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse. Chronic stress has been known to affect most every body system. Symptoms of stress in the body can include: skin rashes, high blood-pressure, cardiovascular disease, and gastrointestinal diseases. Chronic stress can weaken your immune system, as well as increase the frequency and severity of any current physical, or mental conditions. So, with that in mind, here are 10 useful ways you can de-stress.

10 Ways to De-Stress
  1. Exercise: Exercise has been shown to help lower stress levels and helps the body in a multitude of ways. Feeling stressed? Take a walk, a jog, a bike ride, a swim, dance, play a sport, punch a bag, do some yoga or pilates. It doesn't matter so much what you do, just do something to get your body moving, regularly.
  2. Hang out with Friends: Humans are social animals and as such, we need regular contact with other people. Social connection is one of the more robust factors in longevity and life satisfaction.
  3. Laugh/Smile More: "They" say that laughter is the best medicine. Laughing does wonderful things for us, including strengthening our immune system, giving us a boost of energy, and decreasing subjective pain sensations, while also decreasing the effects of stress on the body and mind. Researchers found that smiling offers much the same benefits as laughter. One added benefit people get from smiling is that others consider them more attractive, than non-smilers.
  4. Deep Breathing: There is more to deep breathing, than simply breathing deeply. Also called belly breathing, abdominal breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing, deep breathing allowing for full oxygen exchange. This practice has the benefit of slowing your heartbeat, as well as lowering and/or stabilizing your blood pressure.
  5. Listen to Music: It's been shown that listening to classical music can lower your blood pressure and decrease stress related hormones in your blood stream. Additionally, if you listen to any music that you love, your brain will be bathed in feel-good chemicals, such as dopamine.
  6. Engage in a Craft: The repetitive motion of crafts like knitting, sewing, and making jewelry have been know to soothe anxiety. In addition to the repetitive motion, craft work involves keeping your focus on the here and now process, allowing you to let go of distracting or distressing intrusive thoughts.
  7. Mindfulness: Practicing mindfulness involves actively focusing your attention on the present moment, while taking a non-judgmental stance regarding your thoughts and feelings. Becoming both the observer and the observed. Most stressful thoughts involve reliving past events, or worries about the future. Mindfulness instantly brings you to the present, leaving those stressful thoughts behind, for awhile. Even practices of eating mindfully have been found to be beneficial.
  8. Practice Gratitude: Gratitude is the feeling and expression of appreciation for what you have, instead of what you want. Practicing gratitude can increase your personal feelings of abundance, support, and positivity. Practicing gratitude can also help decrease feelings of loneliness, and jealousy .
  9. Distract yourself: Distraction is especially useful when combating negative ruminations that cause stress. Studies show that if you can distract yourself your two minutes, at the onset of the rumination, you can effectively stop the rumination. Also, having at least a two minute distraction allows your body to process any stress related chemicals and get back towards baseline.
  10. Have a Hobby/Geek out on something: Could be thought of as a more formalized version of distracting yourself. Most hobbies involve some concentration and focus, many also allow you some freedom of self-expression, which can also be personally rewarding. Geeking out on something generally involves getting deeply involved with some topic and learning as much as you can about it. Both allow you to focus on something other than stresses, worries, or ruminations for a time.
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    Neil Liebert, MFT

    Psychotherapist
    Divorce Communications Coach

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