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The Quickest Way to Begin Trusting Yourself Again After Divorce

Trusting ourselves to have healthy relationships in the future is hard after divorce. Understanding why things happened a certain way is not always possible.

If we do not know why something happened how can we know it won’t happen again?
 
Penelope (a client, name changed) wondered, “How did I fall for that guy? Why did I trust him?” “My friends didn’t trust him, but they never told me! When I asked them why, they just said you were so happy, and we didn’t want to ruin it for you!” 
 
During our session, we talked about how her decisions were made from a place of kindness, generosity, and goodness inside of her. This did not melt away Penelope’s concern.
 
“If that is so, how do I stop from ending up like this again?” “How can I ever trust myself?”
 
We talked about how mindfulness, in a compassionate way, of what we are thinking and feeling leads to clarity of mind and with clarity...
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Adopting a New Decisionmaking Style During Major Life Transitions

Life transitions evoke intense emotions. This intensity of emotions can influence us to increase the pace with which we are living and the speed with which we believe we need to make decisions.

Living between the big stages or transitions, our pace for making choices reflects the quality of stability we feel in that period. Our pace is made up of a healthy rhythm of using both the rational and emotional sides of our brains.  The healthy rhythm is characterized by mindfulness and intention.

During major transitions, most of the different areas of our life are impacted. Divorce, beginning a new career, moving to a new part of the world, becoming a parent, all instances in which so many different aspects of our lives are impacted. These changes have different effects in the diverse areas of our lives.  We may experience vastly different emotions at once. This may feel exceedingly uncomfortable. It's normal to want to get out of the period of discomfort. If moving past the...

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Three Steps to Communicate Better as Coparents.

“We aren’t married anymore, why are we having the same arguments we had when we were married?”

One of the hardest tasks for separated parents is to redefine their relationship and to create new, more positive, communication patterns. Enlightened coparenting makes, what seems impossible, intuitive.

         Katherine and Niko have 2 young children, are recently divorced, trying to coparent, and need to learn how to stop fighting about parenting.  Their arguments had escalated when they came to see me for coparenting coaching. Over the course of 3 sessions we worked together through the 3 steps to communicate better as coparents.

The Story of Katherine and Niko

         Katherine and Niko had been together for 15 years and married for the last 12 years.  They have a 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. The previous year, Katherine decided that she no longer wanted to be...

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The Enlightened CoParenting™ Philosophy

Enlightened Coparenting is a child centered, family centered, developmentally optimal coparenting approach. The model aims to improve the relationship between coparents, to deepen the relationship between parents and children, and to help parents begin the process of healing and improving their relationships with them selves. Adopting the enlightened coparenting method is meant to take place, when possible, before, during, and after divorce in order to increase the quality of life for your children and for you.

The Enlightened CoParenting Model is a model that takes into account that parents went into their marriage believing it would last forever.  They had children and made a commitment to offering them a healthy family in which to grow and flourish. The model is a non-judgmental effort to enable families to emerge from divorce happy and whole. Life and relationships are challenging.  Many unforeseen circumstances may arise to erode the couple relationship.  When...

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THE SIMPLE GUIDE TO MAKE A SMOOTH EMOTIONAL SHIFT

SHIFT from BEING STUCK to MOVING FORWARD In 5 Steps

Divorce.....

IT IS A TRANSITION PERIOD, which all of life kind of always is, regardless of divorce.  This is because CHANGE, being the only constant, is always directly underfoot.

THE SENSE OF the earth moving beneath our feet may never feel so speedy as it does for a person going through divorce. 

AS WE FIND OURSELVES  CONSUMED BY uncertainty, moving anywhere feels. dangerous. Staying right where we are with our feet firmly planted feels like the only option or, at the very least, the easier option. During the toughest of divorce times one extra difficulty leaves us wondering if this slight burden just might be the proverbial straw to break our back.

We stay stuck at different times in our lives because it  is, in some way, adaptive for us.  It gives us the sense of obtaining something we long for yet, consciously, we may not know what. We each have reasons that cause us to choose not to move...

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Simple Strategies to Avoid Creating a CoParenting Catastrophe

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Modern day family life is more complex than ever.

        Contemporary families are different in many profound ways from traditional families that existed decades ago.

Each family is unique and what works for one family is much less likely to work for another in our modern family structure. It is more important than ever for divorced parents to be able to work together cooperatively.

Families need more customized solutions for their divorce and coparenting and to engage more creative problem solving to address the complex schedules, demands and problems parents and children face in these unprecedented times.

Employment

In most two parent families and, especially in coparent families, both parents work. That has become obvious but what is less realized or acted upon is that more parents have opportunities to work from home or have flexible schedules for at least part of the time. It is important to consider these options on the part of both...

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What is Enlightened CoParenting™ ?

Among the many challenges of building a new life post-divorce, one of the most difficult is the concern, anxiety, fear, and sadness we feel regarding our children. 

We thought we'd be married forever.

In the beginning, that old life is the only one we can imagine.

What we fear our future holds is not the life we planned on for ourselves or our children. 

Yet we have and intend to keep doing our best!

I encourage you not give up on your dream of a happy family life. Instead, I would like you to consider re-imagining it.

I have helped thousands of individuals and families through divorce.

I have been by their side as they moved from uncertainty and heartbreak to hope and renewal.

In order to reach more families, I created the Enlightened CoParenting™ method, a step by step approach to realizing the benefits of healthy coparenting.

What Is The Enlightened CoParenting™ Path?

 A  coparenting method that:

  • Makes it possible to have a healthy...
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