24: Dealing with Divorce with Katherine Miller

Welcome to my podcast called you'd Must Be out of youf Mind. My name is Dr. Don Wood. Everyone has experienced some trauma at times during their life. These traumatic events and experiences create a significant impact on how your mind works on a day to day basis. At the same time creates long term effects on your emotional and physical health. It will interfere with your ability to stay present and in the moment. After years of research, I used my knowledge of neuroscience to create what I call a memory reset. This memory reset reduces and eliminates the impact of the trauma and allows you to experience peace and clarity. My podcast will share many stories of people experiencing similar symptoms to you and how their lives have been positively impacted.

By our TIP program.

I can't wait to share with you how the impossible is possible and why you must be out of your mind. And there it is.

All right, so welcome to another episode of you Must Be out of youf Mind. And as you know, this podcast always brings on amazing guests that have so much to contribute to what we currently do at the Inspired Performance Institute. And today I have another great guest who's going to really give us a lot of information, Catherine Miller. She specializes in helping people dealing with divorce. So I think this is a major issue and certainly something I see a lot of with couples who are coming in to talk to us. So welcome, Catherine, to you must be out of your mind.

Thank you, Don. What? It is a real pleasure to be here. I'm really excited about the time we're going to spend together.

Well, I'm excited about it as well because this is a topic that is so on top of mind of so many people who are struggling in relationships and. And don't know why. Right. And so you're familiar with our program and what we do now. And so it sort of makes a lot of sense as to how people are coming into a relationship with their own set of atmospheric conditions and then they collide with the other person's atmospheric conditions and before you know it, you got a storm. Right. And they never intended to. So before we go any further, why don't you tell us you know a lot more about what you do and what your practice is all about?

Sure. Well, if you let me start at the beginning. I went to law school because I was interested in justice. And I learned in the orientation week that is not what law school was going to be about. But I didn't have a plan B. So I come from a family of therapists and I've always been really interested in people. So I decided that I would focus my legal career on the intersection of the law, where it meets people in their personal lives. And that meant family law, really. So I started doing that early on, right out of law school, and wow, I was doing a lot of litigation. We had about half child welfare litigation and about half matrimonial divorce litigation. A lot of time in court. I've actually tried many cases in front of Judge Judy when she was actually sitting on the bench. But that really gives you a sense of that, of the tenor, right? The flavor of what this was like. It was really aggressive. And I thought, wow, there's got to be a way to help people who are divorcing resolve these issues without this really difficult adversarial process. And so I took a mediation training after a couple of years, and I started to try to integrate those mediative ideas of settling based on the personal criteria, what was important to the people rather than what was important to the judge. In my divorce settlements, and in every single case, I ran into the same problem, and that problem was the other lawyer. And not because they were bad lawyers or bad people, but just because we couldn't get on the same page about how we were going to help our clients settle. And nationwide, 95% of divorces settle before a judge makes a decision after a trial. 95%. I mean, that is a huge statistic, right? So the chances that we're going to settle are astronomical. And so this was incredibly frustrating for me that we had to be trying to make a legal problem out of a people problem that the people were facing, that the couples were facing. So I did that for about 10 years, and then I got divorced myself, and I had two little children. And I.

Realized that it was, in fact, just as bad sitting in the client chair as I thought it was when I sitting in the provisional chair. And so after that experience, and my husband and I settled like everybody does, and we settled in a very collaborative way. We weren't able to mediate, but our lawyers helped us settle in the conference room. We did a very creative settlement where we put our children first. And, you know, and it worked out pretty well. So after that experience, I thought, you know, I can't do this anymore. And I decided, I don't think I could be a lawyer anymore. So I quit my job and I looked around for something else to do with my life. I considered a lot of opportunities. I took another mediation training, and then somebody asked me to take a collaborative training, a collaborative law training, which is a very specific process where the lawyers are disqualified from litigating. And so everybody has to settle based on what's important to the people and stay in the room together. And when I took that training, Dr. Wood, it was like I had finally come home in my legal career that I had found a way to help people resolve conflict without going to court. And I got really enthusiastic about it. I had a new client who'd come in to talk to me the week before, and I literally called him from the train on the way home. And I'm like, gene, I just took this collaborative training. Let's do this thing. And he was like, okay.

And that was. Yeah, that was In January of 2003, a long time ago. And since that time, I really devoted my legal practice to.

Helping people find appropriate out of court resolutions and divorce with dignity based on what's important to them and their children and try to keep that primary in their minds. So that was a long answer. I apologize.

Oh, no, that's perfect. No, and it's exactly like, I've gotten to know you in a very short period of time. Right. But I see why you're so good at it. Right. Because you've got that kind of mindset. It's such a caring mindset. Right. It's not that hard and tough. I'm going to go in there and beat up my my, beat up my foe. It's more of, how do we make this work? And I love that. And I can see that that's a part of who you are, which is beautiful. Right.

I really appreciate that. And I think that most lawyers go to law school because they want to help people and they want to make a good living doing it. I mean, make no bones about that, but they really want to help people and they somehow get, I don't know, convinced that this other way is the way to do it instead of standing up to that. And I think that there is a lot more opportunities than, you know, the lawyer jokes would have us think.

Right, Right. I always love the statement that Lou Holtz said, you know, the great Lou Holtz, the coach from Notre Dame, and he said, I never learned anything while I was speaking.

I thought, what a great statement. It's so true. Right. You really have to listen because you'll hear what the other side is really looking for. And if you can really listen, you can find a way to mediate it, to settle it. Because most people just want to be seen and heard.

Yes, very much so.

And if they don't feel seen or heard, that's when they get into a defensive stance. And then you go to battle.

Yeah. So is that what you have found, sort of the success to what you're doing is to be able to listen more than, than talk?

Yeah. You know, I work in, in what's called the understanding based model of conflict resolution. Understanding based model. And the premise really in a nutshell that if each, each person, everyone can try to understand the situation a little better. And, and Dr. Wood, it starts with understanding myself. Right. So if I'm in conflict with you, the best thing that I can do to start having a different way to approach that conflict is to understand where I'm coming from. Because oftentimes we are, and we react to our inner emotions. And this is really a lot what you do. Right. We have a reaction and then we, we, we get aggressive from it or from it or whatever and we are somehow being puppeted around by an internal director that we're not even aware of. And so if I can understand why I'm so upset by you, I can understand why it means so much to me to stay in the house or to drive the same car or, you know, that my kids still go to this school, I'm like, why does that mean so much to me? And where does that land in me? Right. That, that helps, that alone helps change the situation. Then I can also, we can both understand the situation. Like what's the external reality? What's in the bank? What are things worth, what do we owe? Where, what do we spend? Obviously talking in the divorce context. But this happens, this is true for any context. So I'm going to understand myself better. I'm going to understand the external reality that we both face better. And if I'm willing, I can understand you better and I can understand that you come to the conflict without mal intent against me, that you're just trying to protect yourself. You're trying to you dealing with the same things from your internal director that I am dealing with. And if we can approach each other with a little bit more of a hypothesis of generosity, you know, that the other person isn't trying to get me, is really just trying to put themselves, you know, be protective of their own needs and their own interests, then, okay, then what happens is that the, our view of the situation, which seems really locked in, can shift a little. And where it seemed that no possibility for resolution was there all of a sudden, wow. There are some windows of opportunity and that involves a lot of listening to you. Right. In my scenario here, listening to will, willingness to see the external reality, but really willingness to see myself in a different way. And, and that I think is the key to finding really excellent lasting resolution in divorce, but in all kinds of conflicts.

Yeah. And it makes so much sense that understanding is what we talk about in our program that you've experienced TIP is if you understood the atmospheric conditions of another person's life, you would understand why they do what they do, why they behave the way they behave.

Right.

They're not coming in, like you said, from that I want to get you. It's. They're running through their own atmospheric conditions. It produces the thoughts in their mind. So if they've very difficult childhood, for example, where they were constantly berated and told they were stupid, and then they get into a divorce situation, they may feel like, I've been here before, I've been constantly put down all my life.

Right.

If, if they don't see that you understand them better, they're going to take that defensive stance.

That's exactly right. Yeah. And, and it can happen years into the relationship. You know, you could be, you're married 15 years and something happens and, and, and the other person thinks, well, you should know this thing about my childhood because we've been married for 15 years. We dated for three years before that. It's an 18 year relationship. But you know what, it never came up. And you don't know that. And so wondering what it is that's, you know, what's up with that? What, what happened there? You know, I wasn't trying to attack you. So can I try to understand what happened for you that you thought that I was? But that's not where we go. Mostly where we go is wait, you know, how dare you attack me. You know, there's something called attribution error, which says that we judge ourselves based on our own intention. So if I hurt you, Dr. Wood, you know, I'm sorry that I hurt you, but I was coming from a good place, so I'm still a good person. Right. If you do something to hurt me, then we judge other people based on the impact of their actions upon us. So if you did something to hurt me, well, you, you must have meant that. And you know, you're, therefore you're a bad person. You're a person to be disliked or even hated because you intended to hurt me. Therefore you're bad. I'm good because I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just trying to protect myself. But you're bad because you must have intended to hurt me. I mean, and this is like the human condition, the Tower of Babel. Like, there's nothing they can do to kind of address that unless we really try.

It's similar to what I talk about with. With my wife. My wife came up in a very traumatic childhood with a very angry father. And so what I didn't understand when I first. When we first got together and got married is I could say something simple like, no, I don't like that. And she could tear up and start to cry and say, why are you upset with me? And I would say, I'm not upset at all. She'd go, yes, you are. You're getting upset with me. And I go, no, I'm not. She wasn't. She was right. And I was right. She heard that little change in my voice. Unintentional on my part. I may have just been tired, you know, at the end of the day. So my vocal cords have just got a little bit of tension in them. Right. She could hear that. Like, I was yelling, but I wasn't yelling. So she's not wrong for hearing it like that. And I'm not wrong because I didn't say it like that. But you can see how quickly you could get into a battle of, how dare you accuse me of that? And she didn't understand.

Yeah. Like, imagine it was blueberry pancakes. She made you blueberry pancakes. She's like, oh, wow. You know, I'm gonna do a great thing for Don. I'm gonna make blueberry pancakes. And, you know, you come downstairs and you sit down and you go, you know, I don't like blueberry pancakes. And. And. And she could be like, wait, I went out of all my effort, and you're being. You're mad at me for making blueberry pancakes. I mean, you could see, like, you can just get. Write the script, right? And you're right, and you're off to, like, a big fight about breaking blueberry pancakes. And. And the fact that you don't like them, I mean, which has nothing to do with her. She didn't know that. Right. I mean, I'm making that. That up, but it can be that minor a thing. So.

Yeah. I remember when we first got married, I didn't understand the extent of the trauma because I'd never seen drama like that. So to me, it was very difficult. I had to learn what she had dealt with. And to me, I got a very surfacey understanding of it. I'm like, oh, okay. I guess that would be really bad, right, Growing up. But I had no idea because I hadn't lived her life. And I could say, truly it took me a very long time to understand how dramatic her childhood was and why she'd be responding, why the way she was. Because in my mind, well, it should be over now, right? You're living with me. What are you talking about? You know, but she couldn't because that atmospheric condition kept on running for her, and she couldn't just change it because it was a part of who she was growing up. It was a very good tool to protect her. Right, from. She had to recognize when danger was coming so that she could respond. Get out of the house, get away, do something. You needed to recognize those things. So she's looking for them everywhere. Sees something little in me that has nothing to do with my intent. But she picks up on it, right? And then goes into that defensive posture.

Yeah. And if she hadn't been married to you and she'd been married to someone who took offense at that, well, she wouldn't be married to that person anymore. Because that journey of misunderstanding between people turns into resentment, turns into divorce, because it just does. Unless you really think through and own. This has nothing to do with me, and I really love this person and I want to help them, but I can't help them alone. They have to. Your wife, also to her credit, needed to be willing to make a change and take the risk of making a change, because it's hard to do that and it feels vulnerable to do something new, even if what you were doing before didn't work right.

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And there's a lot of shame and guilt that comes with that kind of stuff. Growing up for Example, I had a lady who had gone through the program, really, really terrible sexual abuse as a child growing up. She never talked to her husband about it because she didn't want to create a whole bunch of emotions in her. So the husband sort of knew a surfacey amount of probably what happened in terms of. Yeah, I dealt with sexual abuse as a child, but he probably didn't want to ask, she didn't want to share. And then after she went through our program, she said to me, she goes. For the first time in my life, I went home and could share what I had dealt with. And it created this tremendous bond between her and her husband because now he truly understood how. How powerful it was influencing the way she was living her life. And it was a great, powerful moment. But it's very difficult to get that communication when you're. He's afraid to ask, she's afraid to talk about it.

Yeah, I would say not just difficult, impossible. Yeah.

Yep. So you, you mentioned you came from a family of therapists, so that's interesting. So you've got a pretty good background in human behavior and understand why didn't you get into therapy? Well, probably would have been great at it.

Well, thank you. I thought I was too bossy to be a therapist. Turns out there are plenty of bossy forms of therapy, but I didn't know that at the time because my family was in the analytic variety, which is about telling me what you telling the therapist what comes to mind, not telling them what they should do. So. And I guess I also wanted to do my own thing, you know, and not try to feel like I was in competition for being the best therapist with my family of origin. My first husband was, was a therapist too, and my grandmother. So I really, I do think that I benefited a lot from their. All of their observations about the world and not necessarily knowledge of what the DSM 3, 4 and 5 have said, but that this is real sort of being tuned in to what's going on for people and how they may or may not be in control of. Of their, their thought, their behaviors and their actions.

Yep. Well, you mentioned something that I can't let that one go is you, you. You were in front of Judge Judy.

Yeah.

So tell me what that experience that was she the same as on TV as she is?

Very much so. I mean, very much so. I think that she, you know, she would take those down to the end of her nose, you know, and she wore the little collar like that. She does, you know, above the robe on television. But they didn't make Judge Judy up out of old cloth. She already had done that. And. But, you know, she's smart, she's funny. She definitely knows and knew the law. But when I was a young lawyer, she sat on the family court bench in New York county, which is Manhattan. And when I was a young lawyer, my. My boss at the time took her into the. Into the robing room, which is sort of right behind the courtroom. And he said, you know, Judy, because he'd known her from years ago, before she was a judge, when she was a prosecutor. She said, you know, Judy, you remember when you were a young lawyer and there was that one judge who just had you quaking in your boots every time you had to appear in front of him? She was like, yeah. And he said, well, that's you for Catherine.

And after that, she was nicer to me. So it really was very tolerable to appear in front of her. But I like to use that example because everybody has seen Judge Judy once or twice and knows that it's difficult to feel under that kind of spotlight in that period of time and to have that level of judgment, really. And that it's really not necessary, because if we are able to extricate ourselves from that conflict trap that we were talking about earlier and find a way to understand our situation a little better, almost always there's a way to reach a resolution that could be successful and will be a really better future than having somebody else decide about your kids, somebody else decide about your home, somebody else decide about your money. I mean, who wants that? I don't.

No, no. It reminds me, there's a judge that I know in Duval county here in Florida. He's phenomenal. He's so good. He. I knew him when he was a state attorney prosecutor, and he was great at that. And then he went in to become a judge, and he told me the story of, you know, family that came in. It was a custody issue as well. And. And he. I love the way he sort of worded it. He says, listen, he goes, I'm going to take a quick recess here, and I want you guys to go out in the hall and figure this out, because I think there's a solution here. He says, now, I know very little about your family and everything that's going on. And he says, if you can't make a decision and what's in the best interest of your children, I'll do it. He says, but I'm going to be doing it on a lot less information than you have. So he Says, if you can go out there and do that and come in and settle it, I would be thrilled. If not, I'm prepared to make the call.

Yeah.

They came back in with a decision on how they were going to do it.

Yeah. A judge up in New York would said, you know what? One thing I know is that both of you love your children. I don't.

Do you want me to decide, or are you going to decide? And, you know, I mean, that's. That's pretty stark, but it's true.

It is very true. So great advice. I love judges like that, to hear that they're willing to adapt to the situation. So we talked a little bit earlier, before we were on air about the conflict trap. Can you share? I thought that was brilliant, what you're talking about. Can you share a little more about that?

Sure. I think that all people fall into a conflict trap unless they're really working hard not to do it when you're in an intimate relationship, and certainly marriage is one of those. So I said to you, I have a couple of conflict conversations with my husband where he says something, I say something, he says something, and then I know the right thing to say. In my mind, the right reaction, right response is on the tip of my tongue, and I am so freaking right. You would agree I was right. Anybody watching would agree that I was right. God himself would agree that I was right in this conversation. I'm sure about it. But I also know that if I say the thing that's so right and that I feel so committed to its rightness about that if I say it, I can literally script out the next 20 or 30 minutes. And I know what he's going to say and what I'm going to say. And I also know that we're both going to walk away from that conversation frustrated and unhappy. And, Dr. Wood, when I say this to people, almost always, they're like. I can see them start nodding like this, you know, like, oh, yeah, I know what that's like. And certainly for my clients who are getting divorced, they really know what it's like. So if you're in that situation and you have that, oh, my God, I know I'm right, but I also know that we're going to have a big fight about it. You have a choice. And I realized a number of years ago, this is what I do for a living. Right. That even though I know I'm right, I have a choice to say something different. I don't have to say, you're right, honey. Right. So I Don't say, I'm going to give up my own sense, but I can say, tell me what's going on for you, because I don't want to have, you know, I don't want to have a fight about this. And I think I'm misunderstanding. I can say so from your perspective, blah, blah, blah, xyz, whatever it is you heard them say, whether or not you think they're right or not, I have a choice to do that and to come from a place of compassion and empathy and see what happens. Maybe we'll still have a fight, but I don't know for sure we will. And I find that when I do get into those conversations with my husband, and so I think I've mentioned before, I'm divorced from my first husband, but I've been married to my second husband for 23 years, so we're doing something right. When I have. When I do that, there's kind of like a pause and it might not be like, oh, honey, that's so you're. Thank you so much for wanting, like, right away. Like, that's not what happens. But 10 or 15 minutes later, almost always he goes, you know, I'm sorry I came across so strong. Right. And we can actually have a conversation about what really happened that is outside the conflict trap. But it's really hard to let that go because I'm telling you, even for me, I do this professionally. I've been working this trick for a long time. Even for me, I really have to work hard to let go of that right thing, you know, because I. I like to be right.

Most of us do. Right.

And so it's really hard. But I also would rather be happy. And. And so I'm willing to make that choice in that moment to see what the heck is going on for him.

It's a great point. And it's a skill you have to learn, and you have to become intentional in that skill, otherwise you'll fall back into the patterns. Right. Of wanting to be right.

And I still do that sometimes, you know, I'm not perfect. And so I'm not saying, oh, you know, the angels are going to sing all the time. Like, no, like all of us are going to have fallible moments, but just trying a different way to get out of that trap, which is trapping me not just him.

Yep, A great way to look at. Reminds me of the comedian that says, I married Ms. Wright. I just didn't know her first name was always.

So.

But. But it is one of the things that I always say to people is this is a great way to approach something. The language that you can use, because so much of it, especially even with children, is the language you can use. If you said something like instead of saying you're wrong, Right. You could say, I understand.

Right. Is there anything I could do to help you right now? Right. Because it's not admitting that they're wrong or you're right or anything. It's just saying, I understand. Because you do understand that they're having this particular opinion or thought. Right. Doesn't say you're right or wrong. Just says, I understand how you could come up with that. Right. What could I do to help you right now?

Well, I think that the words I. I can see where you're coming from is better than I understand. Because, you know, sometimes with your kids, particularly, they're like, you don't understand, you know. You know, like all especially they're teenagers. You definitely don't understand because you, mom were never a teenager. You never like. I'm like, yeah, right. But they don't see that. Right. So I can see where you're coming from is like a little. A little less kind of, you know, confrontational than I understand. And they're, you know, they're. They're willing to go like, yeah, because I'm right.

Yeah, very good. So I'm sure you use these kinds of techniques with your own children, right?

Yeah, I. And I found them to be really effective, especially reflective listening. Right. So if they're telling me something, I remember a number of years ago when my dog, one of my daughters, was in middle school, she was having a terrible time with one of her friends, and she came home and she was in her room and. And I thought, something's going on with her. And I knocked on the door and she told me about this thing she was all upset about, and she was in tears. I'm standing in the door, she's across the room and on her bed, and I'm like, you know, I'm going to come in and give you a hug. And she's like, no, you can't come in, you know, because what do I want to do? My instinct was, how dare that little twerp hurt my child? Right? I'm going to come in there and sweep her nastiness away and, you know, engulf my daughter in a hug of love, and everything's going to feel better. And I'm going to feel better because I'm going to have made it better. She was like, no, you're not making it feel Better like that. So I stood in the doorway for 20 minutes and I talked to her, and I just reflected back to her what she was telling me. This is really painful. This is. In this way, in this way, in this way. And, you know, and I don't want to do that because it may hurt me. When somebody hurts your child, it's the most painful thing. And then she said to me, all right, you can come in, but you can't sit on the bed. You can sit on the chair. So I came in and I sat on the chair, and we continued this very painful conversation. And then she said, all right, after another 20 minutes, she said, you can come sit on the bed, but no hugging me. Wow. And finally, after another 20 minutes, a full hour, she goes, all right, you can hug me now. But she really, really wanted to be heard, and that was the most important thing. And the hug, that was a nice little icing on the cake. But I wasn't going to make it just go away with a hug. And so that was a really important lesson for me as a parent, that. That they, my children, need to have their experience and not have their experience devalued or wiped away by my desire for their. Not for them not to be in pain.

That's fascinating that you do a course on that for parenting, right? To be able to have the ability to not go, how dare you talk to me like that? Because that's what a lot of parents, right. Would go to immediately, like, you're disrespecting me.

Me.

Right. But you recognized it as her need to be heard, right. And that's probably the fact that you could do that was giving her a tool as she grows older, right. To use in any other relationship that she has, she has the right to stand up for herself. Right. And state she wants.

Right.

Not getting pushed around.

But it's the hardest. The hardest thing when you are a conflict resolution professional or any professional, I think, is to take the skills that you use very effectively at work and use them at home. Because at home, we're all parties to the conflict, right? Those are the most difficult places to bring those skills out. Because the same feelings, the same impulses and the same inner damage that all of our clients and our patients and our customers have, we also have. And to have a little sort of white, like, angel on your shoulder saying, you know what? Now shut up. You're not going to say that you're going to do this other thing as if you were your own client. That's the hardest thing to do.

It is what they say the hardest line to walk is the line between success at home and success at work.

Yeah, very.

What was really hard when you're dealing with your own children. Right. To even be able to keep that. Because it's a lot easier to. To do it when you're working with a client as opposed to working with your children.

Absolutely, Absolutely.

A lot of personal history. Right. And then you can easily get bruised and hurt or feel disrespected as an adult. Right. Yeah, but parents learn this.

Yeah. Because those connections go so deep into your, like, deep past the conscious mind. Right. With your own children, your own spouse, your own family. Whereas at work, not so deep.

Yep, that's true. Yep. Well, the judge said, I don't love your children.

Exactly.

That's really good. So tell me about one of those cases that you had that you say was an amazing. Just a turnaround on what you did. You just didn't think this was going to be successful, but you turned it around. Can you think of a case like that?

Sure. I mean, I don't. I mean, I just. I can think of cases that got turned around, but I don't think it's about me turning it around. I think it's that I give the people the space to turn. To turn it around. Yeah. I mean, I had. I had a mediation a few years ago where they. They came to me two weeks for mediation, two weeks after finding out that the husband was having an affair, and he'd had an affair 10 years prior. And they'd agreed to stay together under the condition that this would never happen again and happened again. And.

It was also a case where they both earned money, but the wife made more money than the husband did, which is, I think, for many people of, you know, of a certain generation, that was never the expectation, regardless of the reality. Right. And, I mean, there was a lot of hurt and there was a lot of anger, and we made it through the mediation, and, you know, there were some, you know, a lot of argument. And ideally, you wouldn't start mediation with that much sort of friable energy, having that recently to, you know, to a real hurt, betrayal. But they were like, particularly the wife was like, we're getting through this. I'm done with this. So anyway, we got through the mediation, and it was difficult, and they argued about it, but we reached a resolution, and then they signed their agreement. And then in order to actually get divorced, you have to sign some additional papers. And so they came back in maybe six months later, so they'd gone through this divorce and signing the settlement agreement and maybe two and a half, three months, very high like this. And then. But they were always able to treat each other respectfully, even though there was a lot of hurt and a lot of anger and a lot of, you know, that's. You think that's going to happen? No way. After what you did to me, you know, that kind of thing. Right. You get the picture. Six months later, they come in to sign the papers and, you know, we do. And I'm sitting, they're sitting there with me in the conference room. They've signed and I, and I. And I want to tell them, Dr. Wood, how even though this is really difficult, I was really impressed with how they managed to treat each other with respect during this period of time. So I started out and I said, you know, I know this is really difficult and painful, but I just want to know that. I really feel that you both treated each other. And the wife cut me off and she said horribly. And she put her head down on the table, like on her, on her arms, and she just burst into tears. And, and, you know, here I had thought that she had done such a great job of working through her anger to reach a resolution in a really remarkable way. I mean, I've done thousands of these things, Dr. Wood. I don't remember. Everybody's like this. Right. And. And yet her own reflection on how it had felt for her was really, really remarkable. And, and so that's, that's one experience that's always stuck with me.

Yeah. Because her perception. Right. Was she was filtering through her perception.

Of how it had gone.

And so that's how she felt about.

Exactly. But even though through those feelings, she still had been able to access her core values, which not everybody can do now. A lot of people will feel that their emotions are sort of their truth, if that makes sense to you. Right. So if I feel this, if I feel this angry and hurt you, you must deserve it. And therefore how could I treat you with respect because I feel so angry and so hurt and therefore you must deserve it. Which goes back to that attribution error I was talking before and another case that I did recently where it was a post divorce case, meaning the people had been divorced for about 10 years and they had some parenting issues that had come up and they'd been really at odds with each other for that entire 10 year period. I mean, arguing, disagreeing, and it was really. And some things had changed and they had to redo the parenting agreement and they changed states. And so it was different laws that applied. And because of that conflict dynamic and that conflict trap, every session, we had to take a step back from where we ended the previous session. And so it took a lot longer. And one of the lawyers called me and was like, catherine, she's going to litigate. I mean, he represented the former wife. She's going to litigate. She should litigate, because we're never going to resolve this. And I said, well, I actually think that they can resolve it in this mediation if we give them enough time to do it. And he said to me, and this is a friend of mine, you know, I didn't take this too harsh, what I'm about to say. He said, you know, Kathryn, you think you're so great. You think you can solve every single case, and you know that, but I don't know if this one's going to be able to solve. And I said to him, you know, I don't think I'm so great, and I don't think that I can solve every single case. But in this particular case, I think both these people really want to resolve it in mediation. And even though it's difficult and even though it's challenging and even though the dynamic between them is difficult and it's slow going, because they both really want to, I think they can, and they did. It took a long time, much longer than you would necessarily have thought it should or would take, but they were able to reach a resolution in the mediation session with the support of their attorneys and a mediator, of course.

And it's working. And that is why I say, really, if the people want to find a way to do it, but even though it's hard, then they almost always can with help. And I just want to say one thing before we get to the end, because a lot of times people are like, well, how can it actually be different? We can't even talk to each other in the kitchen. We can't even be like, hey, can you pick up Junior at 10? You know, and resolve that successfully? So how in God's name are we going to be able to sit in a room and talk in a different way that reaches a resolution? But it really is helpful to have. Have the.

Help of a trained mediator or trained attorneys who can help change that conflict dynamic and have a more successful.

Pattern to the. To the negotiation where both people can be heard and both people's views and needs and goals and heart can come into the room without being. Without the other person trying to erase it. And that really makes a Huge, huge difference.

Oh, for sure. This almost reminds me in law enforcement where they do training for officers in crisis intervention. And so if whenever anybody is dealing with a mental health issue, right. And they have to call law enforcement so their child's out of control or something's going on, they're getting violent, I always say, make sure when you call 91 1, you ask them to send a CIT officer because that officer comes in with a specialized training and typically law enforcement want to come in and arrest that guy. Right. And take him down because he's violent. The CIT officer comes in for resolution to make him feel safe. And the difference between those two situations are so dramatic on the outcome for the family and for that individual. So as an example, I have some people, I know their son is a paranoid schizophrenic, and they had him in a home, and he seemed to be doing well in the home, but for some reason he got very scared about something and he started to act up. So they call and surprise him. Because this institution is supposed to be knowing how to bring these kinds of officers into these situations. The regular officers came in and immediately escalated it. And then he picked up these, like, little, look, look like ninja stars and started to threaten them with it. Well, then they tased them and, you know, it became an ugly mess. But you see the difference between a CIT trained officer who's going to come in and say, I'm here to help you. How can I help you? You, Right. As opposed to, I'm here to arrest you. You know, I've heard them in situations say, we're not here to arrest you. We're here to help you. Right. We can see you're in distress, so we're just here to help you get through this. And they talk to them in that kind of a tone, and it totally disengages their fear, which is what they need. And, you know, I know it's a little kind of different, but you're also seeing people in their worst moments when they're stressed out. Right?

Yeah.

And to be able to do what you do right, you know, is remarkable.

Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting thing. Chris Voss wrote a book called Never Split the Difference, about what he calls tactical empathy that the FBI uses in hostage negotiations. And I interviewed Chris on my radio show, Divorce Dialogues, and you were a guest also about the similarities between divorce and hostage negotiations. And actually, I think international relations or they're really the three areas that I can think of where there's no escape. There's no way to really walk away from that situation anyway. You know, you can't walk away from Hustler's negotiation. You can't walk away from a divorce because you can't be like, you know, never mind, I'm going to get my divorce from somebody else. Like, true. Like you can in a business negotiation. This house doesn't work out, you don't like my terms, I'll find another buyer or find another seller. You know that there's, there's those opportunities. Not in divorce, not in hostage negotiation. You're like, never mind, we're just going to go negotiate with a different hostage taker. And same thing with international relations. Like, okay, we'd rather have another neighbor. Sorry, you don't. Right, exactly. And so you have to reach a resolution, and finding one that meets the needs of all parties in order to get through as peacefully as possible, regardless of the situation is really an important thing. And because our very identity is at stake in, in these kinds of negotiations. Right. So our identity as a, an American or whichever nationality we, we believe in, our identity as someone who's taken a stand for something for whatever reason, or our identity of who we are and how we came to this and our, and our good intent and all of that.

Yeah. Well, these have been great pieces of advice. So if anybody is listening to this, looking at, you know, hopefully not, but if you are and you're looking that you need to talk to somebody, you can't talk to anybody better than Kathryn Miller. She's amazing and what she does, and she's so good at it. If people need to get a hold of you or want to talk with you, you know, I know you have your own radio show as well, so can you tell people how to start listening to you? And, and, well, if they want to.

Get in touch with me, then they should go to our website, which is Miller hyphen law.com Miller hyphen law.com and you get our phone number there or fill out a contact form, and we'd be happy to talk to you. Or if you want to listen to divorce dialogues, you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or on the podcast website, which is divorcedialogues.com beautiful.

And as you know, you know, our goal of the Inspired Performance Institute is try to help you not get into a divorce. But if we can't get you through that, and you do need one, like I said, I can't recommend anybody better than Catherine and what you, what you do. So it's been amazing. Having you on. You've provided some amazing insight to people. I've learned a lot as well. So I appreciate you coming on to the podcast.

Oh, my pleasure. It's been so much fun.

Very good. So thank you, everybody, for listening to another episode of you must be out of your mind. And there it is.