Episode 58: Child Centered Divorce-Be Bigger Than Yourself

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Summary

In this conversation, Tania Leichliter discusses the concept of a child-centered divorce, emphasizing the importance of emotional regulation and personal responsibility. She introduces the Four Rs method (retract, regroup, re-script, respond) to help individuals navigate their emotions during divorce. The conversation highlights the impact of one's actions on children and the importance of modeling positive behavior. Tania encourages listeners to align their actions with their values and to choose resilience and self-compassion throughout the divorce process.

Takeaways

1. A child-centered divorce begins with personal responsibility.
2. Emotional regulation is key to navigating divorce.
3. The Four Rs method helps manage emotional responses.
4. Your actions impact not just you, but your children.
5. Self-compassion is crucial during difficult times.
6. You have the power to choose how you feel.
7. Align your actions with your core values.
8. Evaluate the impact of your behaviors on others.
9. Resilience is essential in overcoming challenges.
10. Join supportive communities for guidance and resources.

Titles

Navigating Divorce with a Child-Centered Approach

Emotional Regulation in Divorce: The Four Rs

Sound bites

"It begins with you."

"Who is watching you?"

"You get to choose."

Keywords

child-centered divorce, emotional regulation, four Rs, parenting, divorce support, self-compassion, personal responsibility, emotional maturity, resilience, co-parenting

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Welcome to the Better Than Bitter Podcast, episode number 58. This week, we are going to be talking about a child-centered divorce, being bigger than yourself, learning how to emotionally regulate and use our method, the four Rs, so you can begin to rebuild your life, have a more amicable resolution with your soon-to-be ex or ex.

and make sure you are not draining your finances or creating any type of long-lasting trauma for yourself or for your kids. So sit back and listen to this presentation, the audio version of this workshop, and please make sure you tune in to the weeks following as we continue this method of a child-centered divorce.

Being Bigger Than Yourself.

Most people said that I had the most amicable divorce that anyone had ever seen. And my secret is a child-centered divorce. I have had success in my career. I ran an ad agency for many years, and before that, I was the product of a successful dot com. But the most important thing that happened in my life was that my parents, when they got divorced,

They modeled a child-centered divorce. They modeled that we can be bigger than ourselves to be able to look through a child-centered lens and act and react in ways that are bigger than ourselves, recognizing that our reactions, our behaviors, are gonna affect people more than just ourselves.

So when I was faced with divorce and I was sitting at that counter when I was hearing those words, I want a divorce, I knew in that moment that I needed to be bigger than myself and I needed to reach a place of acceptance so I didn't ruin my kids' lives and that I didn't drain my bank account trying to fight for something that was really just me trying to get rid of my pain. So I'm going to invite you today to be part of

part one of our Child-Centered Divorce series. And that part is about being bigger than yourself. So again, this is what is so important because a child-centered divorce, it begins with you. It begins with you. It means that we need to be bigger than ourselves. It means that we get to choose how we feel. I know you might be feeling that...

You don't get to choose how you feel every day, but today I'm telling you, you get to choose how you feel because it is up to you on how you decide to think about your divorce. So divorce might be the fact that is happening in your life, but how you are thinking about it, that is what is making you feel the way you are feeling today. So the fact that you are getting divorced again, is not making you feel it is how you are thinking about it.

So we really want to be thinking about, we don't want to just survive. We want to thrive post-divorce. And to be honest, the paperwork, getting that paperwork signed, that is just the beginning, the beginning of your future, the beginning of how you're going to co-parent, the beginning of acting out that agreement. So if you feel today that you are just surviving,

And you don't believe that you have choices, this is your brain in a fight, flight, or freeze moment. It is a fact that you most likely are feeling doom and gloom because you haven't accessed that prefrontal cortex, which is the reason and the logic part of your brain. So being bigger than yourself is learning how to make day-by-day decisions.

It is learning about how to look through a child-centered lens when all you want to do is react. So we are going to teach you today about this child-centered lens. I want you to picture what it might feel like to be a child on the receiving side of all your actions, reactions, and behaviors. Would you react the same way? Would you maybe

pause a little longer before you react. How would you consider the impact if you were looking through that child-centered lens? How do you believe that a child might be impacted by your actions, reactions, and behaviors? And to be honest, most likely your children, if you have them, they are. But metaphorically speaking, even if you don't have children, being able to look through that child's lens

to measure the impact of your behaviors, to measure how your reactions might affect people bigger than yourself. So, a child-centered lens means that you need to start by learning how to emotionally regulate. And that is what I'm gonna teach you today. So this process is what we call the four Rs. The retract, the regroup,

the re-script and then respond. So retract just means that before you jump in and react to something, pull back and press pause. You don't need to respond right away. Once you begin to regroup, which is the second R, you begin to evaluate your thoughts and feelings. Again, it is not

the circumstance of what's going on in your life that's causing you to feel. It is how you are thinking about it. So when I am regrouping, okay, or when you are regrouping, you need to be thinking about what is the thought that's making me feel this anger, this resentment, this bitterness, the maybe low self-esteem, the self-doubt, the hopelessness.

What is that thought that's making you feel that way? Or what are the thoughts? There could be many. So you have the opportunity to re-script. If you believe that you don't have the capacity to make a living to support yourself, that is just your thought. You do have the capacity to earn. We just need to decide and figure out what that capacity is. Everybody has the capacity to earn. So being able to re-script that,

to say, I do have the capacity to earn, I just need to rediscover what that might be, that is gonna create a totally different feeling from I don't have the capacity to earn, I won't be able to support myself, I am going to be destitute. Those are all thoughts, they are not facts. So being able to evaluate those thoughts that will make you feel differently, that's the re-script. Let's re-script those thoughts, let's...

Change the thought patterns that we continue to have on repeat right now and re-script them. Because when you re-script them, you will respond in a way that's going to get you that result that you're looking for in your life. Okay, your actions and reactions, your behaviors, that is gonna what, that's what dictates those results, those outcomes.

So understanding what's important to you and working backwards from that clarity around what you want your future to be, how you want to feel when you wake up every day, what you want that result to look like, then you need to show up in a way that's going to produce that result. And when you want to show up in that way, you have to determine how you're going to feel and what those thoughts are that are going to make you feel that way. So the four Rs are really important. It's helping you manage that reactivity. It is teaching you how to emotionally regulate.

Take a step back, get out of that fight, flight, or freeze mentality. So getting clarity again on what is important in your life and making sure that you are showing up in a way that's gonna produce those results. So you need to press pause before you pass pain because by trying to stick it to them, the person you're only sticking it to is you.

You are going to continue to suffer. So you need to ask yourself that question every single day. Is this action or a reaction? Is it going to feed the fire or is it going to end the suffering? This has to be bigger than you. You need to be able to look at this from the top down. What does it look like if you had your head above the clouds, looking down?

Look through that child-centered lens. Be bigger than yourself. What does that bigger story tell you? So, what a child-centered lens is not. I'm not telling you to be passive. I'm not telling you to ignore your needs. And I'm not telling you to stay quiet. Or I'm not trying to tell you to try to keep the peace when you are just trying to express yourself. But what I am trying to tell you

Is it that you don't want to act, react, and behave in a place where you are living in a place of emotional reactivity? So, what a child-centered lens is, is it is emotional maturity. It's personal responsibility, taking responsibility for your own actions, reactions, and behaviors, and learning how to intentionally regulate. It is coming forward with confidence and being assertive.

But more importantly, self-compassion. Self-compassion means treating yourself as if you were talking to a friend. Don't talk to yourself in a way that might be compromising, or maybe you are creating a lot of self-doubt for yourself. You would try to encourage your friend. You would give them the courage to move their life forward in a productive way. So I want you to talk to yourself in exactly the same way.

So emotional maturity gives you that power. The brutal fact is, it is time to grow up and put your big-boy or big-girl pants on. Okay. Stop living in this place of blame. Take responsibility for yourself and learn how to emotionally regulate. You can do it. You cannot fix pain by inflicting pain. You just can't.

So I want you to pause and ask yourself this. When you are reactive, is that the person that you wanna be? Is that the model that you want to set for your kids? Is this the feeling that you continue to have? Do you want that feeling to continue? Or do you wanna wake up feeling better every day? I want you to evaluate the impact of your behaviors.

your actions and reactions. Again, be bigger than yourself. Evaluate the impact of what you are doing every day. Think about this major question. Who is watching? Who's watching you? Think about your behavior. Think about someone watching you. How would they look at that behavior? What do you want them to learn from you? What do your kids, what are they going to learn from you?

When you act, react in that way. I want you to list out three specific values that resonate with you around this concept of who is watching. What's valuable to you? Do you want the people who are watching to see someone who is calm, collected, mature, and has their big girl or big boy pants on? Or do you want somebody to look at you to be like, they're off the fricking rails.

They are so bitter, they are so resentful that they can't even see straight. Look what they're doing to their kids. Look what they're doing to their family. They can't even show up for work without people running away because they're so bitter. Think about the impact of what you're doing and then align your actions to those values. So this is a time for you to grow and learn.

Because this might be new to you. When you are dealt a hand that is unexpected, it is an opportunity for you to embrace the resilience that you are going to need to move through this process. And when you grow, it means that you begin to understand what your triggers are. And when you understand what they are, you can do that retract.

You can do that, regroup, re-script, and then respond. So practicing those four Rs is an opportunity for you to grow. And to be honest, when you master this, when it becomes second nature, boom, you are going to have different results in your life. So your regulation is

their safety, your kids' safety, your friends' safety, your co-workers' safety, your family's Your regulation is your future. Those attacks and threats, if you keep throwing them out, they're only going to be met with attacks and threats. So I want you to ask yourself, do you want to stay bitter, stuck, angry, resentful, miserable, self-conscious, anxious, insecure?

Or do you wanna be better? Centered, resilient, grounded, self-compassionate, confident, courageous, hopeful. What sounds better to you?

So guess what? You get to choose. You do. This is your choice. A child-centered divorce, it begins with you. So, in summary today, I want you to practice the 4R method. I want you to pause. I want you to ask yourself, understand the impact of what your responses, your actions, your reactions, your behaviors, are they impacting

people outside of you. Remember, who is watching? What is that model you are trying to be able to show others, to show your kids, to show your friends, your family? How do you want other people to view you in this process? Don't you want to model that good behavior? Then I want you to align your actions with your values. What do you value?

What do you value in terms of how you want to be seen from the outside in? How do you want to feel about yourself? And align your actions with those values. Lastly, the trigger response result, okay? Look at your triggers, figure them out, because once you recognize what they are, you can retract.

You can regroup, re-script, and then respond. It's very important to identify your triggers.

So if you've enjoyed part one here of our Child-Centered Divorce Method and you want to finish this off with part two and part three, you can go ahead and join our Divorce Companion membership. It gives you access not only to our support circles that we have online, no matter where you are in your divorce process. We also have a men 's-only support circle, but it gives you access to our resource library, articles, and webinars.

courses, tools, and templates, which are amazing. This course is going to be out there for you within the platform. So again, looking forward to all of you participating in our divorce companion program. And for a limited time, we are offering one month free. So if you go ahead and use that coupon code B2B.

DC26, you will get one month free, and you can see what it's all about. Join our support circle, get access to our resources, and we will enjoy connecting with all of you. This community is going to grow, hopefully to be the biggest divorce community out there that is positive and wants people to be able to express their wins.

and be able to conquer their challenges and obstacles along the way. So again, I'm Tania Leichliter signing off. I hope to see all of you in our community.

Thanks for tuning in to Better Than Bitter, navigating an amicable divorce. Whether you are at the beginning of your divorce journey, midway through, or even done, we want the stories from our guests to give you hope that an amicable resolution is possible. If you'd like to dive deeper into today's episode, check out our show notes for a full transcript, reflections, and links to learn more about Better Than Bitter's coaching courses,

and how to connect with our fabulous guests. If you're ready for more support, you can head over to betterthanbitter.coach. Daily, you'll find details and additional information on our five-step game plan multimedia course, our one-to-one Zoom coaching, group coaching, monthly memberships, events and retreats, and a whole lot more. Plus, we've got a ton of free resources, like our monthly newsletter,

our private Facebook group, Instagram channel, and a library of articles and free webinars to help you along the way. When you go to our website, you'll be able to schedule a free 45-minute breakthrough call. Remember, we're here to help you reach an amicable resolution. Find your courage and believe in your brighter future because you know what? It is possible.

At Better Than Bitter, we measure success by what we give and not by what we get. So let's change the divorce dialogue together. It's time to be better than bitter.