How to Thrive After Divorce: A Midlife Survival Guide with Karen McMahon

Navigating the complexities of divorce can take a toll on our well-being, but it also presents an opportunity for growth and self-discovery.

In this episode, Karen McMahon and I delve into these themes. Karen is a high-conflict divorce coach and strategist who shares her personal and raw divorce story, along with the powerful mindset shifts she has learned over the past 15 years. We discuss how to move through pain, heal from the past, and continue to refine your character to create a future you love.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to navigate the emotional rollercoaster of divorce and change your interactions with your ex
• Three neutral statements that will help you communicate more effectively with your difficult ex without giving in to them.  
• The importance of self-compassion and how to avoid judging yourself for your choices.
• Why boundaries are essential in a high-conflict divorce and how to set them effectively.
• Strategies for co-parenting with a difficult ex without becoming emotionally drained.
• Tips for healing your triggers to avoid repeating toxic patterns in future relationships.
• How to use her 3 A’s an opportunity to create a life that aligns with your true self

If you’re struggling with divorce, co-parenting, or healing from a toxic relationship, this conversation will provide you the tools and confidence to start moving forward.

Cheers to finding more freedom and joy! 

Laurie

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Transcript

Laurie James  
Hey, there. It's Laurie. If you're enjoying this podcast, please don't forget to leave a review. You can simply scroll down through the apple podcast towards the end of the episodes, and it will say, rate and review your podcast, please feel free to give me how many ever stars you see fit, and I'd love to hear any feedback. Always looking for ways to improve the content. Speaking of podcasts, I will be a guest on my guest podcast at the end of the month. Her name is Kathy McMahon. She has been a divorce coach for 15 years, and her podcast is called journey beyond divorce. So tune in if you're looking for ways to regulate your nervous system through the divorce process. I have some great tips on there. Second any listeners who are healers or coaches. If you're interested in learning how you can incorporate elements of somatic experiencing into your scope of practice, click the link in my bio in the show notes, I am offering a somatic experiencing master class for coaches and healers on Thursday morning, February 27 at 9am would love to have you. And lastly, I am working on putting together a membership for anyone who is interested in somatic experiencing or nervous system regulation, it will be a monthly membership that you can jump in and out of whenever you want, and anyone who's interested in learning easy practices that you can incorporate into your life to develop and maintain a healthy and regulated nervous system, or even if you want To go deeper and heal some of your trauma, this is going to be a virtual class, so get on my email list. You can download my free beginner's guide to somatic healing, so that way you will be the first to learn about it, and that will probably be starting towards the end of March or April. And without further ado, enjoy this very rich conversation with Karen McMahon on how to move through the divorce process so you can get to a place of thriving.

Laurie James  
Welcome to Confessions of a Freebird podcast. I'm your host. Laurie James, a mother, divorcee, a recovering caregiver, the author of Sandwiched A Memoir of Holding on and Letting go, a therapy junkie, relationship coach, somatic healer and now podcaster. I'm a free spirit, and here to lift you up on this podcast, I'll share soulful confessions and empowering conversations with influential experts so you can learn to spread your wings and make the most of your second half. So pop in those earbuds, turn up the volume, and let's get inspired, because my mission is to help you create your most joyful, purpose driven life, one confession at a time. 

Laurie James  
Welcome back, free birds. Today, I am so excited to have a conversation with my guest, Karen McMahon, who is a high conflict divorce strategist, certified divorce coach and founder of journey beyond divorce. Karen began divorce coaching 15 years ago after recognizing the pain of her divorce led her on a transformational journey in to a powerful and unexpected new life. Karen leads a national team of divorce coaches in supporting men and women around the world to become clear and confident as they navigate divorce, which is a challenge in itself. Karen is also the host of the acclaimed journey beyond divorce podcast and co author of stepping out of chaos, turning pain to possibility. So thanks for being here Karen.

Karen McMahon  
Laurie, thank you so much for the invitation.

Laurie James  
I'm so excited to jump into this conversation and love our little pre convoke. So can you start with sharing with our guests today a little more about your divorce journey, and maybe share one or two pivotal points. 

Karen McMahon  
Yeah, I got married late. I was 34 and by the time my second child, my daughter, it was her two year birthday, and so we were only married like four. A half five years at this point, and we had our one physical altercation, which I started I was fully unhinged and lost, and dad looked at Dominique and told her that Mommy didn't love her, and that's why mommy was ignoring her. And it was like a last straw type thing. Before I knew it, I had I was elbow deep and making chicken soup. So you can imagine the chicken grease that's like halfway up your hand. And the next thing, I was across the kitchen, and my hands were wrapped around his neck, and I was shaking him like a bobble head, cussing and threatening him. Should he ever do that again? A moment later, his big hand was around my neck. I was thrown up against a kitchen cabinet, and rightfully so. He was like, Don't you ever effing put a hand on me again. And it was my daughter's birthday, and he swooped up the kids like two and four years old and said, mommy's crazy, and probably took them out to Wendy's or something for a birthday meal. And I went upstairs, and I looked in the bathroom mirror, and I thought, I hate you. You've become your rageaholic mother. What the hell happened to you? You need help like I so knew. I knew it was wrong with him, or I had no idea what was wrong with him. I didn't know anything about personality disorders. I knew something was very wrong with him and with us, but I knew in that moment that I was so deeply lost, and what followed was a couple of years of therapy, a couple of years of marriage counseling, a little bit more therapy. I really I'm a child of divorce, and I was hell bent to not go down that path, until my therapist said to me, you have such an unhealthy tolerance for verbal and emotional abuse that you will stay until you're dead. And this is the part that got me, she said, and if you choose to stay, you are equally abusing your children because they don't have the capability and tolerance to put up with what's going on under your roof. And that was it. I left. And after sitting on the fence as if it was an appendage for years, I was like, I am bloody off of the fence, and I am not doing that to my children. And so I actually didn't have it in me to leave for me. I didn't. I left because I knew that if I stayed, what they were learning about intimate love, about communication, about conflict, was so toxic. And so that was the beginning, and once I stepped onto the journey, it was three and a half years. It was hell. CPS came into our lives three times. I had an order of protection. The police were there. I was a fully commissioned salesperson. I lost 85% of my income. We needed an attorney to the children and a custody evaluator because we couldn't agree on anything, certainly not who the kids were better off with. And so I am a high conflict divorce coach and strategist. I have walked it, I have lived it, I have suffered it. And while it was the most hellacious period of my life, it was also the greatest gift that I was given, and it just catapulted me into needing to do this work.

Laurie James  
Yeah, and how beautiful. Thank you for sharing that, because there's a lot there, and there's so many directions we can go in from that, but just to be able to share that story is empowering and difficult. So if anybody is listening who feels like they failed their marriage because of how they showed up. What do you want to say to that person who may have had a similar moment, bigger, smaller, but a similar impact 

Karen McMahon  
100% first of all, as you asked the question, my eyes teared, which I'm divorced 18 years, and I talk about divorce seven days a week, so you really touched something in me with that question, and I think that I was so self condemning, I'm actually taking a course right now that talks about your judge, how You judge yourself, you judge others, and you judge circumstances. And I was a queen judge, and I called myself an effing idiot on a regular basis, like when I think about it. Now, it just hurts my heart that I spoke to myself that way for so long and so to the listener. We all do the best that we can. None of us step into a relationship and think, Oh, this is great. I will be diminished and abused and a doormat, or none of us make decisions to harm ourselves or our children. We do the best we can in the moment. And what I will promise you is, if you come to every. Broken moment in your life with self love and self compassion, you will heal a million times faster than if you come to yourself with judgment and criticism. And a great way of thinking about this is, if you're a mom, imagine your child, regardless of their age, being in their let's say, mid 20s, and making a bad decision, a decision that doesn't serve them well in the moment, would you speak to them as harshly and meanly as you speak to yourself? And so for me, I realized I have an inner child. I was raised by an alcoholic dad, a rageaholic mom, and issues I have so many carry on bags with the luggage that I brought into the marriage, and so the work that I do with people is all about keep the focus on yourself, because you can rid yourself of all of your luggage and live a joyful, peaceful life regardless of what anyone else thinks about the decisions that you made, or the pace that you took, or the time you know that you spent in an unhealthy situation, self love, self compassion-

Laurie James  
Which is a huge practice. It's a practice. I heard this, and I can't even remember where it came from, but I loved it, and it's super simple, but it speaks to what you just talked about, which is judgment equals punishment. So it doesn't matter whether we are judging ourselves about a situation and about how we might be showing up in a relationship or judging somebody else for what they're doing. There's punishment involved.

Karen McMahon  
Yeah. In fact, I would say, if you look at a scale and you put judgment on one side and peace and joy on the other side, the less judgment you have, the more peace and joy you have. The more judgment you have, the less peace and joy you have. And it's really because judgment is such. I'm going to use the word catabolic. Catabolic is energy, and we have anabolic and catabolic energy. Anabolic energy is life fulfilling. Catabolic energy is actually what a cancer cell is made of. It's life depleting. Judgment is life depleting. And you know, one of the many conversations I have with people is about forgiveness, not forgiveness to stand on a pedestal and forgive the other, forgiveness of self and of circumstances, to cut the ties that keep us in judgment and in misery in some form or other of misery. So, yeah, I completely agree with you, and it's not easy.

Laurie James  
It's not easy. And I can remember judging myself, you know, of like, oh my god, am I gonna get divorced? What do I feel about divorced? I married and I made a commitment, and I committed for, you know, better or worse, richer or poor, sickness and health, but when you can no longer sustain that, we end up judging ourselves for I'm fill in the blank. I'm a bad person for getting divorce. I'm not worthy of marriage. I'm not worthy of love or whatever it is, yeah. How can that fear affect somebody's ability to heal through adivorce? 

Karen McMahon  
Yeah, so if we think about all of the difficult emotions, right? You just said a few, guilt, shame, fear, regret, resentment, bitterness, anger, disappointment, worry. I mean, we could come up with like 100 words, all of that is two things, all of that is catabolic, right? So it depletes us. Those are emotions. They serve a purpose. Every emotion is good because it informs and guides us, but the catabolic emotions when we keep them around. So what most of us do is we don't get the lesson. We don't get the guidance, but we invite them to go live in the guest bedroom and spend the next couple of weeks, months or years with us or a lifetime. And so to your point, the impact that any of these emotions have on our ability is we're living in an emotional fog. We're actually so much more in our amygdala, our fight, flight or freeze, and especially going through divorce, you are making complex decisions, like multi tiered, tangled decisions that will impact your children and your finances for the rest of your life. 

Laurie James  
Especially if you're divorcing later in life, which you know my audience tends to be midlife and beyond it can be the biggest financial decision of your life. 

Karen McMahon  
100% and if you're not tending to your emotional upset, then you're making those. In the fog. It's kind of like I am going to go do a NASCAR race on the foggiest day of the year. Probably not a good idea. 

Laurie James  
No. And we know that part of our prefrontal cortex from a somatic place, or, you know, a neurological place, our prefrontal cortex isn't fully working when we are in a threat response and when we're going through a divorce from a somatic place that is one of the most dysregulating things that we can do.

Karen McMahon  
Right? And if you're not firing on all cylinders in terms of your rational brain when you're making the most complex, long standing decisions of your life, there's an opportunity to just beat yourself up one more time. And so I do think that the theme that's coming out here is self love, self compassion. And maybe we even need to talk about, how do I love myself when I hate myself so much? Because I think that that self love and self compassion is what raises us up. You know, beyond all of that fog, and gives us the ability to engage more effectively. 

Laurie James  
Yeah, and maybe even move out of that muck, the judgment, the murky middle, and start taking steps towards becoming our best version. I always say best version, becoming a better version of ourselves and eventually, hopefully thriving.

Karen McMahon  
And I do want to speak to one other point on that. So if this is where you find yourself, be kind and gentle to yourself, the fact that you're listening to this podcast and absorbing healthy, positive messages is a step in the right direction, and noticing is just the best step. Noticing is one of the most powerful steps one can take an hour stepping out of chaos book. There's only three steps. It's awareness, it's acceptance, and it's action. And awareness is so powerful because it's kind of like turning a light on in a dark room where you've been banging against the walls for a long time. So Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we know what's wrong with him, right? You could sing that from the rooftops, coming back and as I did, looking in the mirror and starting to notice where am I mean to myself, and where are my thoughts getting away with me. But then the key is, and I hear this so often, where clients are either incapable of being present with their children, young children, and certainly teenagers who really need 100% of our attention when they want our attention, or who are so angry. 

Laurie James  
Key is when they want doesn't happen 

Karen McMahon  
That often find the time not ours, and then the key is if we can be fully present and not judge them for wanting to have a relationship with the other parent. I've seen more moms talk about how dad destroyed a relationship, and I'm like, Dad's not the one destroying it, and we slow it down and look at how there.

Laurie James  
That is super, super hard to do, because I can remember going through that phase, and it is like, and if anybody, nobody can see me right now, but I'm literally, like, gripping my hands in front of me. It is a physical sensation. And there were times I can remember it's like, I know I shouldn't say this, I shouldn't say this, and it comes out anyways, you can't help yourself to make that snide comment, you know, in front of your kids about your ex, or you can't resist like, who's your dad bringing to the party, or whatever it is, right? Like, you can't help yourself, but if we can, like, notice that urge versus just letting it happen, it's like, oh, I'm noticing I having this major urge. And can I just without the judgment and from a somatic place, like we want to slow that down, and what is it that you're feeling? And can you just stay with at it? Notice that urge. Maybe you go into the bathroom, maybe you go into your bedroom, until it passes. And if it can't, and you do say it, can you not beat yourself up about it.

Karen McMahon  
Right. Notice that too. I think that that's the whole thing. Is like, if you're aware and you still engage in the behavior. Notice what happens after you engage in the behavior. Because if you bring awareness to that too, it's just it's such a not easy, but simple pivot to simply bring awareness shine a light on and what happens is, the more we shine a light on it, and then the acceptance part is, like I did, don't call yourself an effing idiot. Be kind and gentle. Oh, you were aware, Karen, and you noticed it okay. You weren't able to bite your tongue until it was bloody. You said the thing that you didn't want to say, oh, oh, look what you did to yourself right afterwards, you started beating yourself up. Oh, this time you didn't beat yourself up. You were kind huge progress. Like, we think it's not big progress, but the more you do this, and then all of a sudden, you are down the road a mile or two, and you're like, I'm starting to feel good about myself. I don't feel like the crazy one anymore. I'm biting my tongue until it's bloody. And what am I doing? I am honoring my children and showing them a better way of behaving in the face of displeasing behavior.

Laurie James  
Right. Which is so important. But what you're also doing is you're rewiring your neuro pathways in your brain, because, as as you've said, Well, I'm assuming that you made the connection that you behaved the way you did because of the way you were raised and what was modeled for you. So how do we change that? You can't just say, I'm going to change the way I show up in my marriage. I don't want the marriage that I mean, yes, that's a start, but just saying, it isn't going to change it, right? We have to. It starts with this awareness and then making these small, little changes, and over time, then that sticks right.

Karen McMahon  
And I think it's so important for the listener to know? I'm gonna guess here, Laurie, but I got a ton of work I'm still doing, and I would imagine, oh yeah, too, oh yeah, that's why I hold myself. 

Laurie James  
I just said something really stupid to my boyfriend last night, and I apologize to him for it, you know. And it's just like, but we're human 

Karen McMahon  
100% and the truth is now this is my perspective. It's not right or wrong, it's just mine. But my truth is that until the day I meet my maker, I have work to do on healing my past and refining my character, and when that is the primary focus of every relationship and everything that I do, I have found I'm 18 years post divorce, 15 years in coaching, and my life just keeps getting more and more lovely, and there's a lot of I mean, life is hard. There's a lot of problems. I had a child who spent five years being suicidal while I was and trying to leave many times while I was building my business. So once you get through whatever crisis you're dealing with, you're stronger and more equipped. There's going to be other challenges ahead. And so when we make this our life practice of, what is my partner? What am I bringing to the table? What can I do about it? And can I be kind and self loving throughout it? To me, that's the blueprint for living your best life. 

Laurie James  
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, two other pieces that I would love to kind of touch on with you. One is the grief piece, because I don't know about you, but I know I also with the women that I work with that are going through divorce, they want to be on the other side of it, right? And it speaks to what you just said, is, if we bypass all of that grief and we don't feel it and process that grief, then it's going to just stay with us, where, if we can stay with it, and, you know, for the 2, 3, 6, months, or whatever it is, or when it shows up, and allow yourself to be sad and allow yourself to cry all of those things during the process. You know, that's another piece to setting yourself up for success. 

Karen McMahon  
100% 100% there's no way you can go through the loss of a marriage. The saying is, you know, death is the worst thing, divorce is the second worst thing. I would say that 90% of my clients would be like, let's switch that. You know, I gotta co parent with this person. I'm triggered. I'm traumatized. It's like, this is really, really freaking hard, and it doesn't go away. Like it takes a long, long time to diminish it. And so absolutely, when we can honor the emotional toll, and not just the emotional toll of the divorce. For me, the emotional toll of the marriage, the emotional toll of my childhood that set me up to fall in love with some version of my broken Mom and Dad, and rinse and repeat, and then for some of you, and I've had a number of one client who was on her fourth divorce, right? And so first divorce is about 55% rate. Second divorce is 67% third divorce is 73% we're going in the wrong direction. We're thinking that we're divorcing the problem and then jumping back. Into the dating world and getting married. And what we're not realizing is, if I didn't heal my part, then no matter where I go, there I am. And so in the next relationship, I can blame him, and then marriage number three, I could blame him. But there's only one common denominator here, and this isn't about you being bad. It's about you healing. It's about if you don't heal and grieve and process and release, you can't possibly live your most joyful, fulfilling life because you're carrying all of that poison in your heart. 

Laurie James  
Your triggers are gonna keep showing up. So your triggers are the signals of what it is that you need to heal. Right when you get triggered, instead of, you know, going outward, like you said, turn inward, it's like, Okay, I'm getting triggered about this. What is still unhealed within me, versus, I can't believe he she triggered me and did that. 

Karen McMahon  
I have a saying, Laurie, it's not mine. It came from a healing journey I did in my 20s. And it's that every upset is a setup for personal growth.

Laurie James  
Yeah, and heard you say that before, and I love that. 

Karen McMahon  
It's really when you can start seeing the person who's upsetting you as the mail delivery person. Their job is just to hand you. You gotta trick a honey that still needs work. That's their job. So whatever they did, they called you a bad name, they didn't show up, they lied to you, they stole whatever they did. You're triggered. And their action, they're the messenger. And when you can stop focusing on them and go, Why is this triggering me so much, and how far back does it go? And how many times have I dealt with this? And what is my part that I would love to heal or refine? Whichever one it is, then they come back and they do the exact same thing, and they're pushing your button. You've unplugged the button. It's like, go at it until the cows come home. You can't bother me anymore. When I got to the point my ex husband had the nastiest, nastiest mouth, and when I got to the point where I was like, he'd be like, you're an effing blah blah, blah. And I'd be like, Okay, go. Let's go with that. Have a great day. Bye. And it was like there was nothing he could say or do, until he went through my kids, and then that was my next level of growth. But that took me years to get to the point where I was like, what else is it? What else is it? What else is it? And then once it was mostly cleared, at least in my relationship with him, he behaved exactly the same way, and it had no impact on me. That's the beauty 

Laurie James  
Well, and here's the thing too, for certain people, that feeds them when they can get a rise, when they behave a certain way, and they can get a rise out of you, that gives them energy to keep doing it. So if you have healed yourself and you're not reacting that way anymore, then that defuses them because and then they they're like, Huh, that's not working any and, like a lot of this is unconscious. This isn't a nervous system. And so sometimes they're not even aware of it, but if they don't get that charge, which then feeds their ego, their nervous system, whatever it is, then they're like, Huh, well, that's not working. I guess I gotta try something else. 

Karen McMahon  
Exactly. And it's almost like, rather than dousing their flame with a can of gasoline, you just let it simmer out. I mean, it was one of my, I think I had a couple of sayings with my ex going through the many co parenting years. Was, let's go with that. I hear you, we can agree to disagree on that. Oh, you can't, I can. So they were, like, just these little and it was these kind of very neutral statement. So I wasn't not saying anything, but I wasn't saying anything, and it was one of my favorite things, was to be able to say things without saying anything. And that way it ended, and he had no fuel to keep going, 

Laurie James  
Right. And it just defuses everything. And I think that's where people kind of get stuck, right, and that's pattern. So when we can change that pattern, and even, you know, and it's hard, but, you know, just try it, and it's just like, huh, and just see what happens. I did that a few times. And you know, if we can kind of step back a little bit and become more of an observer of what's happening, versus like, being in the mix of it, it's easier then to start seeing the patterns of your x, your soon to be x, and then you're like, Okay, I'm going to just try this one little thing differently, and I'm going to be neutral, and I'm going to, let's. See if it defuses things. Because typically people who are high conflict, who like that chaos, they feed off of, they thrive. 

Karen McMahon  
They thrive. Yes, so while we're shrinking back, they're thriving. And you know, to just put a bow on this, you start with awareness, and then the more aware you are, and you'll be aware of them really quickly, but the more aware you are of you, and then just creating that space, that detachment, is what I hear you talking about, a little bit space, a little detachment, and then you start seeing the dynamic change, and that's just going to fuel you in your healing. And so it's a very gentle, very long, very gentle journey. And if one is willing to stay on the path, it's got beautiful rewards all along it. 

Laurie James  
Yeah, definitely. So what's the next step after this. So you know, we're making these small, gentle adjustments as we're either going through a divorce or we're already divorced, and you know, we're dealing with kids and family, whether they're still under our roof or they're older, because even as adults, you know, we have adult kids, there's still interactions that you're going to have. In your opinion, what's the next step? You talked about acceptance. What were the three acceptance? Awareness, acceptance and action? 

Karen McMahon  
You know, the interesting thing. So there's two things I'll say. I'll talk about action for accept. So acceptance is not judging ourselves or others, right? We're back to the judge. Don't judge yourself, don't judge others, don't judge circumstances. Judgment and discernment are two very different things. If I could just say this, because I've been asked a million times, judgment is Laurie is a bad person in whatever way, whatever adjective, you know, oh, you're a loser, you're selfish, right? We put, we put a judgment on the person. Now let's say I experience that Lori isn't so forthcoming, and she isn't as generous as I would like my friends to be. Discernment is I really like Lori, and there are certain times where hanging out with her and chatting with her are great, and there are other times that doesn't work for me, and so I'm going to adjust my relationship with Lori. I don't have to say anything bad to her. I don't have to tell her. What I think is, you know off about her, I can simply discern that under certain circumstances, it's great, and others it isn't. And then I set boundaries, which we haven't spoken about. But boundaries are a super powerful tool, and so discernment is noticing something and choosing you choosing to behave differently based on whatever it is you notice that's about you and that's fine. So that's judgment. So if we have awareness, since acceptance is not judges, it's accepting and then acting. Now I find that where a lot of people get stuck is an action and there's a certain personality type. And you may find this in yourself, where, after you've talked about it and you've analyzed it, and you know what, you know, you're standing at the precipice of action, and you don't do anything. And in fact, that's often when clients will walk away from coaching because it's getting too hard, and so I wrote an article once that's been really well received, which is possibility lies on the other side of our comfort zone. So yes, you want to understand, yes, you want to accept, yes, you want a sounding board and talk it out, but at the end of the day, you have to tell him you want a divorce. You have to start researching illegal rights. You have to sit your children down and talk to them about what's going on. You have to create a shared parenting plan. So whatever that step is that you're scared to do super hard, super, super hard, and it's really scary, which is why people like you and I in their lives, so that you have somebody who's holding that safe space for you. And I think that stepping through your comfort zone, the action piece requires, I'm going to use the word faith, but for you, it might be trust, believing in something when we get to that pointing we all face, and we're talking divorce right now, but there's so many different ones. You face the unknown. There's just full uncertainty. You do not know. I used to want I have a nice, long, thin neck. I used to want to be a giraffe so I could just look around the corner and see what was happening next. So badly, but we can't. That's where you do it. Anyway. You take that leap of faith and you step through whatever that little comfort zone was. For me, my very first one was opening my own bank account. I was a working mom, and the first time I took my check, and back then one took. Up their check and brought it to the bank, and I went to a bank, and I opened a bank account, and I opened a post office box number, and I put all my mail in there. I was shaking to the very core of me that I was going to be in so much trouble, that he was going to get so mad at me, that I was going to get such a tongue lashing. But I did it anyway, and the next thing I did was I separated my auto insurance, and he raged. And I remember waking up the next morning and going, I'm still here. The sky didn't fall, the earth didn't eat me up. 

Laurie James  
And you were able to make these small changes, right? Because our nervous system equates new with danger, right? Exactly. So that's what's happening. Like when you talked about I was so nervous that I was going to get a tongue lashing, you're right. Like that feeling of nervous. But oftentime we equate that nervous feeling that we have in our body with something bad, something we shouldn't be doing that. We're in trouble, you know, and that's that judgment that comes in that we were talking about earlier. So if we can from a somatic place when we need to make these small changes, can we just stay with that sensation for a little bit and let it dissipate and let it discharge from our bodies. Then the next time we need to, then do the next thing, it's a little bit easier. And then the more that we do these things, it's a little bit easier. And take breaks in between, because you know, as you know, as a coach, the small baby steps over time are going to add up to big wins, but when you do too much too soon, you're going to overwhelm your nervous system, you're going to overwhelm yourself, and that's when you revert back and then stay in that stuck play.

Karen McMahon  
I love how you just described that. I don't know that I am nearly as familiar with what goes on in my body. I'm aware of it, but you just did such a beautiful job of describing exactly what's happening. And so I think that the other piece of it, just your question was, well, what do we do next? So certainly, awareness, acceptance, action. But the other piece of it, that I think is so important, and I think really hard for us in the beginning, is creating a future self vision. You know, it's like, I can't be the rock star coach I want to be in five or 10 years. If I stay where I am, I need to keep growing so that I grow into my future self vision. When I was in my abusive marriage, there was no future self vision. You know? It was like, You're in survival mode, right? It's like, what am I doing today? What am I doing tomorrow? How do I keep myself safe? And for me, when I bring that question to clients, the first response is, usually, I got nothing. You know, I got nothing. And it's okay. It's okay to have nothing because we're simply remember, we're in that dark room. We're cracking the door open, and as you let the light of awareness, acceptance and action in, and you start thinking about, well, you know, what did I give up? I mean, it's amazing, the stories over 15 years about the passions and interests and hobbies and creativity that we're putting the back of a very deep closet and gaining dust, and it's like when you divorce, one of the beautiful things of there's so much pain in not seeing your children seven days a week, until you find the joy, and then when you have A Saturday, Sunday to yourself, and you can go to the yoga class, and you can have lunch with your girlfriend, and you can pull out whatever that hobby or creativity is, and you can go, Oh, my God, I am a human being other than being a wife and a mother. Oh, wow. I remember this person. I like this person. I want to grow this person I want to blossom like a lotus flower, that future self vision. And then you start talking, well, what else do I want to do, you know, and who else do I want to be? And and just, it's so if you go to the airport and you don't have a destination, it's really hard to know what plane together. 

Laurie James  
But here's the thing too, before you go on. And that is so true, but I want to stop you, because you talked about not having the children around and doing that for yourself, but in doing that, that is one of the best gifts you can give your children at any age. It doesn't matter if you have kids in the house, if they're, you know, in college, or they're adults showing your children how to thrive and how you have taken something that has been so painful, so difficult, and turned yourself around just like we want them to be happy, they only want us to be happy. Happy and for them to see us happy, then that gives them also permission to do what's going to make them happy in life.

Karen McMahon  
100% if you can't do it for yourself, do it for your children. Now, you said you had an adult you have adult children as well, correct? Yeah, so mine are 26 and 28 and I got divorced in 2006 so if you do the math, the three of us have been together for a long time alone, and both of them have come to me and shared the impact, watching me face trial and tribulation and overcome it. And I'm a Christian, and so everything I do is very faith based. And one day, my son said to me, I don't know that I do or ever will believe in the God that you believe in, but it is impossible for me to not believe that there's a God. When I look at your life, and I look at what you've gone through, and I look at who you are today, and it's really impacted me, mom, and I really appreciate that. And, you know, let me tell you, that washes away so many difficult, snarky teenager arguments, you know, like, it's like, Oh, my God, you're seeing me. You're hearing me. And look at this beautiful young man that I've created simply by striving to be everything I can be. And so each of you, you know, we're all born with so many strengths and talents and beauties, and if you don't even think you have anything, you're just too deep in it, and they will pop back up like spring flowers. We're all born with such a unique or justness about us, and surround yourself with people who pour into that and speak to that and see you and hear you and acknowledge you and validate you, because that that is such a gift in helping you find your way to your best life.

Laurie James  
Wow. Beautifully said. Beautifully said, so we talked about action. We talked about, did you want to go back and talk about awareness? Did you want to talk about acceptance a little bit more?

Karen McMahon  
Well, acceptance is pivoting from the judgment so the discernment is, I'm accepting my circumstances, or who this person is, without judging them. The discernment is I'm accepting and I'm pivoting as takes care of me. And so if we don't accept, and I'll just say this very simply, I always have this conversation where someone will say, I can't believe my husband went out and stayed out when he promised me he would come home and he did a, b and c. I can't believe it. Has he ever done that before? Oh my god, constantly for the last 15 years. And then there's silence. And I'm like, so what part of it? Can't you believe he shouldn't do that? That is an example of not accepting. We all start there. Right? We all tell our spouse how they should be, what they should do, why they're wrong. When you wake up one day, and my saying to clients is, you married a giraffe, they're not waking up a zebra tomorrow, they're waking up a giraffe. So when we begin to say, oh, okay, I know this person. I know their propensities, I know their good stuff, I know their bad stuff. What if I stop acting like I'm surprised and angry and reactive, because I don't have to be, because I know it's coming, because I know who they are, and now that I'm in acceptance, what happens Lori is this choice opens up if I believe that, Oh, He only says nasty things to me because, you know, I could be a little bumbling myself. I'm not accepting that he's abusive, so I have no choice to do something about the abuse. The minute I can say my spouse is verbally and emotionally abusive toward me, and he gets triggered when a b and c happens. Now I have choice. Now I can make decisions about me behaving differently, me setting healthy boundaries, because I'm not just aware of it. I accept that it is. I'm not accepting the unacceptable behavior. I'm accepting the fact that he has unacceptable behavior, and now I can do something about it, because I'm not rushing it under the rug and saying

Karen McMahon  
I don't know what's wrong with him, right? Or I can't believe that this happened again for the umpteenth time, which we've all done. I'm like 100%

Karen McMahon  
For years, many of us, we have awareness, acceptance, action. That's the stepping out of chaos book and then working on your future self vision is going to give you a destination to shoot for. 

Laurie James  
Yes, I love that. I love that. That's all wonderful advice. So as we are coming to a close here, what's a confession that you'd like to share with our listeners that maybe we haven't touched on yet?

Karen McMahon  
I would say for the longest time, what my spouse thought of me, what my family of origin thought of me, what everybody thought of me, really ruled my life. I would say a recovering people pleaser, co dependent and perfectionist. Those are probably my top three, and for many years, I lived more like the tail wagging the dog, because what they said, I took to heart and I believed, and it's a very, very hard way to live. And once people say negative things about you, unless they're saying them in a very loving, constructive way, it's just bullshit. I raised my kids on what comes out of your mouth is all about you, and what comes out of their mouth is all about them. You don't have to worry about that that's across the street. Don't go clean in their side of the street. But if you're going to go back at them, because my son would go back at my ex that way, and I was like, Okay, so now that's your behavior that speaks about you, and that really helped me go okay if I just focus on me, but I had to also love myself enough to stop being a people pleaser and a co dependent. I had to dig deep enough to know that I was fully worthy of love and acceptance, and I had to do a lot of inner child work in order to be able to then not care well, because those are habitual things that we do because we needed to people please when we were children to feel safe. In 12 step programs, I learned that the very coping mechanisms that we intuitively just pick up as children to stay safe are the same behaviors that will attract and harm adult relationships. 

Laurie James  
I think we're going to end on that note, because that is so true and spot on. So Karen, thank you so much for being here. How can people find you? And do you have a freebie that you want to share before we sign off here? 

Karen McMahon  
Yeah, Journey Beyond Divorce is the company. And so the journey beyond divorce podcast and our website with the same name, and we like to offer a Rapid Relief call, and you can go to rapidrelief call.com and so if this conversation has struck you and you're in any stage of divorce and yearning for some support, it's a free coaching call, you will walk away with a lot of value and a really good experience of how we work. So I've got a team of coaches. It may very well be me, but it may not. And yeah, so please sign up a session. 

Laurie James  
Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here, Karen. I so appreciate and I know our listeners are going to get so much out of this conversation. 

Laurie James  
Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a Freebird. I'm grateful to be in your ears and hearts. If you're interested in becoming a free bird, I'd love to support you. Please check out my website at laurieejames.com to learn how we can work together, or to sign up for my newsletter so you can receive tips on how to date and relationship differently and ultimately, find more freedom and joy in your life. If you found this podcast helpful, please follow or subscribe, rate and review and share it with friends so they can find more freedom in their second or third act also. Until next time.