Ep. 140 – Getting your Power Back

Jeff 00:00
Hello, everybody. Today we’re going to be talking about taking your power back or not giving your power away at all. Welcome to Episode 140. If you’re ready, let’s get started.

Doreen 00:21
are you ready to create a life that’s better than ever before? We are Doreen Yaffa and Jeff Wilson and we are here to give you the strategies you need to create the life after divorce that you deserve, and desire. As partners both in marriage and coaching, we use our expertise as well as our own personal experiences to help you make the next chapter of your life the best chapter. Hey, Jeff.

Jeff 00:52
Hey, Doreen. How are you?

Doreen 00:54
Great. How are you?

Jeff 00:55
Excellent. Excellent, beautiful day out today.

Doreen 00:58
Yeah, it is. It’s starting to get warm here in Florida.

Jeff 01:04
I don’t know last night, it was a little chilly when I walked the dogs in this.

Doreen 01:07
Definitely. It’s like cool today.

Jeff 01:09
Yeah, it’s beautiful out. So anyway, we’re today we’re gonna be talking about your power.

Doreen 01:14
Yeah.

Jeff 01:15
What do we mean by your power?

Doreen 01:17
Well, I guess we can jump right into it.

Jeff 01:20
Let’s jump into it.

Doreen 01:21
Let’s jump in. So I think what we’re referring to is so many times when the clients are going through divorce, they end up really focusing a lot of time and energy on their ex. What happened to them what they did to them, what, how they were wronged by them, how this is unfair, you know, all of this energy really focused in on that. And the concept that we’re talking about today is basically why would you let the person that you probably like least in the world, at least at this time, on some level, have that control over you, right, to be able to get you into a place where you’re so focused, and your energy is really just predominantly there? Yeah, you can see the clients that are that are having this issue, right?

Jeff 02:19
Well, because I think that when you say focused in on that person, that someone in your divorce, I think what you’re talking about is the effects that you’re letting them have on you. And usually, they’re not going to serve you they’re negative effects, and bad attitudes and overwhelming anger. And you’re letting them take control of your happiness, you’re letting them take control of your, of your future.

Doreen 02:49
Yeah, and if you have a, you know, I just want to suggest also, if you have a good legal team in place, if you feel like you’re represented well. That is your lawyer’s job to really focus in on the issues of the divorce and what that looks like. So that part of it, the legal part of it, you should feel confident in your team, your legal team with regard to how you feel yourself and the thoughts you’re having that might have you focused on your soon to be ex, or your ex if you already went through the divorce. That’s something that you got to do your own personal work on, right. Because we only have so much energy in a day, we only have so much time, we only have so much thought power, we only have so much ability to be able to move forward and to spend our energies in a way that’s going to help us to be the best person we can and to accomplish our goals. So when you’re spending your time over there on that other person that number one you can’t control. Number two, you divorce for a reason. Number three doesn’t serve you. It’s really a huge waste of energy and time.

Jeff 03:58
I think that most most out there, know that divorce can be a trying time, it’s known fact. And any worthwhile goal is going to have trying moments we talked about failure and how failure can be good and it’s a learning lesson. In martial arts, we used to teach the the theory of 10 feet tall and bulletproof. So you’re 10 feet tall because you’re looking at the outcome you’re looking at the final goal, all over the crap, you’re seeing over all of that to the better day, and bulletproof meaning that the digs, whatever is bothering you, whatever your ex is saying to you or doing to you whatever negativity or your approach with on a daily daily basis, bounces right off because you’re negative bulletproof.

Doreen 04:53
Yeah, I do find that at least from my own experience as a lawyer clients that focus in on their soon to be ad because it takes away from our ability as lawyers to really work with our clients on presenting our case and looking at the legal issues and coming up with our arguments, because they’re so focused over there, that we can’t focus over here, we spend less time focusing with them on what really is going to make a difference. You know, one of the fundamental things I learned as a very young lawyer was to always know your arguments to always present your case. And even if the other side, you know, try to put a ruffle in that tried to get you off your focus, to stay focused on your case, and assume is the same sorry, the same is true with our clients. You know, focus on yourself, focus on what you cannot change is you don’t want to focus there. You want to focus on what you can change, and really understand what that looks like the things that are going to bring you, move you, even excite you, to the to developing to being to becoming this amazing. Next chapter person in your life is all about where you put, you know, where you’re gonna focus.

Jeff 06:12
Yeah, where your thoughts are, yeah. And also not to that we’re going to ever promote, or coach or revenge or wanting to hurt your ex. But they always say that success is the best revenge. And when something happens to negatively, and it does not affect you, and you say doesn’t bother me on bulletproof, it bounces right off. It almost will upset them even more, that it didn’t bother you.

Doreen 06:42
I think that’s true. I mean, certainly, like you said, you don’t want to promote that. And you certainly don’t want to be thinking, Well, I’m just going to not let this affect me so that it bothers you know, your ex more.

Jeff 06:58
But I think I mentioned it, because I want to give you any reason you can come up with to have control over your thoughts. You know, whether it’s, Hey, I’m going to teach them that this isn’t going to bother me, hey, it’s not going to bother me because I’m gonna have better results, or my future is gonna look beautiful, because so I’m gonna have these kinds of thoughts. But whatever the reason is, don’t let them get to you.

Doreen 07:23
Yeah, it’s easier said than done.

Jeff 07:24
It is.

Doreen 07:26
But I do think that best, I don’t want to use the word revenge, but the best thing that you can do is to put that energy into yourself, right? And to just start to move on. Again, it’s it’s easier said than done, right?

Jeff 07:42
Yeah. It’s easy, but not simple.

Doreen 07:45
No, it’s not. So what are some tips maybe on getting there?

Jeff 07:49
Well, I think one thing that we always promote is to take a deep breath and slow down,

Doreen 07:55
Yeah, I think to slow down first, and to even recognize that you’re doing this. Awareness. I think awareness is key and most of what we teach, but the awareness of hey, how much time am I spending on focusing over there? Like, what does that really look like? I mean, even if it requires taking out a piece of paper, or using your phone, your notes and your phone and just really think about it, like, start to note it down. Because you may be amazed at what it looks like. And it may bring that awareness that you need to say, well, what am I really doing here? You know, I think that the second thing I would suggest is get a coach, you know, if it’s if it’s not a life coach like us, you know, maybe there’s some other coach that you could look at, potentially, like a friend, somebody that maybe you could talk to as a confidant if they have, you know, the background and the personality to be able to assist you. But I think that coming from a coach’s perspective as we are having that neutral person who you know, can really talk to you in a safe place and help you to really work on your awareness and your focus. Why not? You know, why not give yourself the benefit of that.

Jeff 07:59
Awareness. Another thing that you have promoted before, which is very smart, is what would you say to a friend that comes to you with the same issue? If you are coming to your friend out of love and kindness in what’s in your friends best interest? What recommendations would you say to your friend? Oh, he’s a jerk. She’s a jerk.

Doreen 09:36
It’s true, if your friend was concentrating on her ex or his ex? What would you tell your friend? You know what? Because you know, it’s amazing to me, and it’s sad that many of us treat ourselves so much worse than we would even treat a stranger, let alone run ourselves or harder. Well, that’s what I’m saying like, you know, we don’t give ourselves a break. I think that’s another tip is give yourself a break. You know, this is a trying time, like you said, this is probably one of the most trying times, most of you will go through subject to, you know, a death in the family or someone you love or a sickness, but this is up there. And so give yourself a break, you know, realize that you’re having thoughts, and maybe you’re focused on your ex too much. But that’s okay. Like, it’s not something you want to beat yourself up about. It’s something you want to just be aware of, and then figure out how to move past that how to shift your thoughts over to what’s really going to make a result because, you know, our thought work goes like this. If you’re focused on your accent, the thought is, I don’t know, pick a thought. Yeah, okay, whatever, he or she is a jerk. And that’s stemming from a circumstance, maybe they sent you a text, maybe the kids told you something, or maybe you found out something and so whatever generated that thought, then will result in your feeling, which probably would be one of two, I’m just going to mention, but it could be many anger, sadness, will be probably up there. And then that anger or sadness will promote you to some, an action, which could be more digging, more learning, more focused on your ex.

Jeff 11:31
And I’m gonna text back.

Doreen 11:32
Right, could be anger by lashing out, communication that’s negative, now you’re spending all that energy and then the result is, you’re no, you’re more, you know, you’re concentrated on your ex, you’re further away from your own focus, you’ve spent all that time whatever that time is, you can equate it to minutes, hours even, I mean, we have clients that are so obsessed, that it’s hours that they spend just really focused, that the result is you’re getting nowhere fast, right? You’re not healing.

Jeff 12:03
Good things are gonna be worse. You know, he’s gonna come back even angrier than you’re gonna be angrier. And it’s, a straw that keeps on growing on that camel’s back. You know, the other thing I recommend is, you know, if you were if you have children, think of yourself as a mentor, you know, what were your kids want to see? What would you want your kids to see?

Doreen 12:23
Yeah, I think that’s really important. Because you know, children, whether they hear something or they see something, even just the act of texting, kind of with an angry face or something this morning, I was on my computer, and I was writing a client and, what did you say to me? You said that something like I can always tell when you’re..

Jeff 12:45
You had this big smile on your face. And I can always tell when you’re emailing a great thought or something about something good because of your look on your face.

Doreen 12:54
Yeah. So the kids recognizes.

Jeff 12:56
Yeah, they’re so smart.

Doreen 12:57
They pick up on the subtle things, they pick up on your vibe, your energy, you know, everything that you’re doing, so whether you’re talking to them, and they’re hearing it or they’re seeing how you are, you know, when you’re like focused on your ex, and you’re really like you’re losing your power that’s going to show in the way you present to your children, which you want to potentially think about as what lesson can I also teach my children from this divorce? Right? It might be a lesson that people don’t always get along. But that doesn’t mean they have to hate each other. It might be a lesson that even if you disagree with somebody, you can come from a place of love and kindness, even though you disagree. That old saying, you know, let’s agree to disagree. You can teach your children that not all marriages end up like the stories that they teach our children that we read the happily ever after. Right? That the reality of life is that sometimes people do drift apart. And you know, that’s just a life lesson.

Jeff 14:04
I was gonna say it’s not a divorce lesson. It’s a life lesson.

Doreen 14:07
It could be that you’re teaching also that focusing on yourself and putting your energy into the things that are really going to change you like taking that time and going to the gym or creating a resume, because you want to get a new job, like all that energy that you can be putting into something positive that they will then see. But the most important person that needs to see it, is you.

Jeff 14:30
Yeah, and I think that’s another great tip. You just said that if you’re feeling stressed and angry and you want to choke somebody out. Go to the gym.

Doreen 14:40
Let’s not talk about choking people out that’s a martial arts.

Jeff 14:43
Look for a different way to get rid of the stress, workout. You take a yoga class, stretch I mean go for a walk. You know when you do that and come back. Typically, you know we have a theory in the in the martial arts. It’s the called the shoe rack theory. You know, you leave your shoes in the shoe rack back. And what happens is when you take off his shoes, you put them in the rack. You leave all your worldly troubles in the shoes. And after an amazing martial arts class, you go back. Wait, where did all those troubles go? Where does all my problems? The shoes are different because they’re not filled with problems anymore? Heaviness. So do the same thing to your to yourself, and what a better benefit to not only get two benefits of a great workout, but also the benefits of stress relief.

Doreen 15:28
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, though, there’s this almost like, I mean, I guess we could probably Google it and figure it out as well. But you know, when you’re focused on something negative about somebody, you know, or like the anger, and oh, I’m going to show them and I’m going to do all these things, it kind of makes you feel good at the time. You know what I’m saying it has like that, I don’t know, like adrenaline, you know, it’s negative. And if you feel like you have a purpose in doing it, but truly, there is no purpose in doing it. It’s really, again, this whole episode is about getting your power back, not letting someone that you don’t want in your life on that level, to have that power over you that they get to make you feel an act in ways that you’re not going to likely be proud of right.

Jeff 16:21
And just the opposite is true when you are in control of your emotions. And you choose how you want to feel at this time. And the feelings that you want coincide with the goals and the life that you want after divorce are very, very empowering, right?

Doreen 16:41
When you gain your power back absolutely right. Look, it’s not easy going from, let’s say you’re dealing with anger or sadness, just to the negative emotions that we commonly see with our clients. It’s it takes time. Right? It takes time, but through the awareness through understanding these little lessons about like getting your power back, and like slowing down and doing the breathing and what we call reverse engineering your goals, putting your time good doing things that are towards your goal, even when you don’t want to because your primitive brain comes in and say, No, I really don’t feel like going to the gym today, I don’t feel like working on my resume, I’d rather focus in on this angry text war that I’m in right, knowing that that’s your primitive brain, and not letting it take control of you, like all of these things together as what we, we hope, will provide you insight on how to move sooner than later into a next chapter. Because the bottom line if you are in divorce, right, or you just finished divorce, the divorce is what it is, is a fact. Right? It’s what we call in therapy, I’m sorry, therapy no. In coaching, it’s what we call the circumstance, right? The circumstance being the facts. So that would be the facts. I’m going through divorce is a fact if you are going through a divorce, or I just got divorced. So what you do with that, and how you think about that. It’s tough, it’s tough. It takes time, it takes commitment, it takes awareness, it takes, you know, slowing down it takes it takes all the things right.

Jeff 18:18
Yeah, I mean, another thing that I know you and I do a lot that I recommend everybody out there is getting a book or reading self help books, listening to tapes, watching videos of you know, not just our podcast, of course. But there’s we are in the information world right now you can Google anything you want, when you say how do I have a better attitude? How do I stay focused on the positive, you can Google anything, and you will find so many ways of self study, whether it’s getting a book, a tape, a podcast, whatever it is, but if you just sit there and don’t do anything, what’s the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So if you want to change you want to do something different and take care of number one, that’s your power back get your power back, you have the power to do it.

Doreen 19:14
Well I, in something else, I think is a good thing to think about also is you know who is around you, like there might be people in your life that are that you, there are people unfortunately in this world that focus on the negative and they almost get pleasure, in a very sick kind of way over other people’s misery. And so they feed on that and when they feed on that they tend to poke you on it and push you on it and probe you on it, too. Oh, look what he did or you know, a you’re gonna let him get away with that. Those types of things and you know, so be aware of that, because you may have to revisit The relationships that you have that maybe need to be distanced on some level.

Jeff 20:06
Yeah, no, I thought of that when I was talking about, you know, what would you say to your friend? And I’m like, Oh, what if one of those friends is that type of person? Yeah. Be very careful. Yeah.

Doreen 20:15
Like, I think that, you know, we’ve talked about this so many times, but that divorces, or anything that Hitchin hits hard, like, this is a really good time to do a inventory of your lifel, inventory of your life as to where you live, what you look like, you know, how your health is, what your career is, what’s your relationship with your children, with your family? Who are your friends? What are you focused on? What is your future look like? I mean, we can go on and on.

Jeff 20:42
Sounds like another podcast.

Doreen 20:44
Could be another podcast. So yeah, so look, power, you have it, you possess the ability to create the life that you really, truly dream of that you want. It just takes the focus, the commitment, the telling the primitive brain to stay quiet to go away, and really thinking with your, your smart brain, your prefrontal brain, how do I get there? What do I have to do? What is the message that I want to tell, you know, my future self, how to be, how to act today?

Jeff 21:22
Those are great questions. And I think that we would love, love, love, love, if you would reach out to us. And let us give you some of those answers. If you don’t know how to begin, you don’t know where to start? Reach out to us. Right?

Doreen 21:36
Yeah. And, you know, staying on the subject of your ex, because that’s where we started getting your power back. It could be also that you have maybe it doesn’t just have to be your ex. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of clients that are focused on what the court has done. You know, maybe it wasn’t such a great result. Maybe you went to try on the court got it wrong, right, or the court had discretion, legal discretion and decided some, you know, particular issue not in your favor or something that you perceive now in your favor, and you’re really focused on that, but you can’t do anything about it. Maybe the appellate time has lapsed. Maybe the rehearing time is over. Maybe you’ve looked at the cost benefit of moving up to the next level in the court system to root to basically take a look at what the trial court did. point being that, you know, that’s another area that I see clients focused in on. Look what happened to me, Look what I got to blame the lawyer. They blame the lawyer too. Yeah. Well, yeah, that happens quite often, where the lawyer gets blamed, you know, the system gets blamed. It’s not a perfect system.

Jeff 22:46
I think the bottom line from that, yeah, the bottom line is taking responsibility for yourself. Like we said, In last week’s episode is taking ownership taking responsibility of yourself. And that’s going to give you the power back, right?

Doreen 23:00
Yeah, last week, we spoke about owning your part in the divorce in the breakdown on the marriage, right. And these are all, you know, just coupled together, will just again, get you to the next level and get you to getting through the divorce recovery process. Right.

Jeff 23:18
On your next life.

Doreen 23:20
After divorce. You know what, it’s amazing, though, when I been doing this almost three decades now. And I see I run into clients, you know, here and there in town. We’ve lived here forever. And it’s one of the most beautiful things. And I think, why I feel so honored to do what I do as my career which is, you know, as a lawyer and a life coach is run into somebody at the supermarket, and I can just see that they’re in such a better place. They look better, they seem happier. And when I asked them and talk to them, you know, nine times out of 10 and I want to say closer to 10. They do find that peace again. They do find that direction. So you’ll get there.

Jeff 24:05
Amen.

Doreen 24:05
Amen.

Jeff 24:06
Well, until then, have a nice week, everybody. We’re looking forward to talking to you again next week.

Doreen 24:11
All right, everyone, enjoy the week.

Jeff 24:23
You have the vision of what you want your life to look like after divorce, but maybe you just don’t know how to get there. So if you’re ready to take control of your life and want to find out more about our coaching, visit us at lad-coaching.com. That’s LAD as in lad-coaching.com.

Doreen 24:45
Until next time, have an amazing rest of your day. And remember, yes, you can…

Doreen & Jeff 24:51
Have an amazing life after divorce.