#176: Facing the Fear: Conquering the Anxiety of Needing Space in Relationships

You've probably heard the saying, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger yet. When someone we deeply care about tells us that they need space or that this relationship is over, it feels less about gaining strength and more about holding on to what's slipping through our fingers in these moments. It's not the strength to endure that we need most, but the compassion to understand, the resilience to adapt, and the wisdom to know what steps to take next. Hi, I'm Stacey Bartley and I'm here with my co host and lover Tom and our daughter Brooke. I want to welcome you to a special episode of Love Shack Live where we navigate the choppy waters of relationship conflicts and emotional distance and sometimes talk about the tough stuff. Today, we are courageously plunging into a topic that stirs anxiety in many of our hearts. It's called fear, specifically the fears associated with potential needs for space, separation, and even the dreaded word divorce. It's a topic many shy away from for good reason, but it's also crucial to address address for anyone aiming to grow personally and relationally. If we don't begin to treat ourselves as the person that I can be through this space, then what happens is fear will swallow me whole. Have you ever wondered why the request for space feels like a threat? Or why the idea of separation can paralyze you? Well, I want you to know you're not alone in these feelings, and understanding them is the first step towards overcoming them when many of us will struggle with the immobilizing effects of fear that prevent us from thriving in our own lives and relationships. But confronting these fears, we can create a better experience through the difficulty for everyone included. In today's episode, we're going to explore what it really means to face our fears about space and separation and provide you with some tools. Talk about the mediation and the thoughtful conversations that can transform these challenges into opportunities for understanding and growth. Stick with us as we peel back the layers of fear and discover the opportunities for growth and connection that lie beneath your situation and circumstances right now.

Hey, thank you for coming. Welcome to the Love Shack.

I want to start this conversation today by helping us understand fear and the role that it plays on Planet Earth here for all of us humans. I always go to the thought and the remembrance of Elizabeth Gilbert talking about fear as though something that needed to come along. In the car, it could sit in the backseat, but it couldn't touch any of the knobs and it certainly couldn't drive. And I remember loving that analogy so much. But what is it really Principle like, why is it here? Why do we have to deal with it? Is it possible for us to kick fear out of our lives once and for all and just be done with it? Is there enough courage in the world where that would ever be the case? And I want you to know the answer to that question is no. Actually, fear is very principled. Like gravity. Gravity is a part of the experience that we live in. It's invisible, but it has a force with which we have to honor. There are pros to that. There are benefits to that. And there are also places that are really challenging when it comes to gravity. Albeit it is a force that we have to dance with. And gravity, when you think about it, the upside is it helps us walk on two legs as a human being. It actually keeps us on the planet Earth so that we don't just float off into outer space. But there's also some places where gravity actually helps us develop our physical bodies. We know that if we're going to develop physically, we need to do some pushups and we need to run some miles. And in so doing, it gives us that something to push against in order to become stronger and more capable. It increases our endurance. Gravity is a part of some of the challenges that we have to endure to develop physically, mentally, intellectually. And so now we start to understand fear is a lot like gravity. Fear is something emotionally that impacts us. That very much like gravity, we need to push on in order to develop emotional strength and resiliency and capacity. It helps us to develop ourselves from the emotional spiritual sphere, Much like gravity does in the physical sphere. It's here to stay. There are pros and cons to it. And what we want to talk about today is that fear is an illusion of things that are not real. It is a fear that we have to push against in order to pursue anything that we long for. Anything that we desire, anything that we want to embark on. Fear is going to be front and center. And so if we don't understand that fear is something that I need to push on in order to grow into the person I have the capacity to be. We have a tendency to see fear as real. We have a tendency to. For fear to kind of consume us. And so if we don't push with fear, then actually fear works a lot like that immobilization of my physical body. That if I'm not mobile and moving, then gravity will have its way with me. And pretty soon I won't be able to mobilize at all. And the same is true with fear. That if I won't push on fear, if I won't confront it, work with it, push on it, challenge it, then I end up becoming paralyzed by fear, and it actually grows to a place where I can't make it out of my house, I can't pursue anything. I can't believe in myself. I have a tremendous amount of doubt about me and where I can go and what's possible, and it will literally consume me. Fear is here to stay, and fear is principally here for us to essentially develop into the person that you have the capacity to be.

You said one of my favorite quotes in the beginning by Elizabeth Gilbert. Fear can come along for the ride, but it can't be the driver. I feel like so many people listening to this probably are letting fear be the driver because it's sort of a natural place for anxious people especially to be driven by fear, because that's just the force that we let drive our lives. So we can say, okay, we're not going to do that anymore. But, like, what's the first step to know that you're not letting fear be the driver anymore?

Well, the. The first thing that you need to understand is that I'm going to challenge what I believe to be true. And we are going to give you some steps in order to accomplish that. But it's not so much that you can't have fear or that you want to feel guilty or shameful for having fear. Fear is normal. Fear is going to be a part of the journey. What we want to do is realize that I need to challenge it. So if I'm afraid of this, let's step in and see what happens. Let's step in and see if my fear is really true. It's kind of like challenging it. Okay, fear. I see you. I know you. We've been here before. Let me see what happens now. And what you find is that as you step into fear and you challenge it, that it dissipates. Maybe it's better to describe it in a story. Years ago in my life, I ended up doing a workshop, and it was a ropes course. And at the end of the ropes course, we ended up doing a fire walk where they literally lay out coals on the ground and they walk you through a mental process with which then you walk across this bed of coals, and it's your opportunity to recognize and realize that when you confront fear, that you step into this place that is beyond what you thought it was going to be. Let's just say it like that, that you think it's going to go one way. And actually it opens up into a whole subset of experiences beyond what you could even fathom where it would take you. And it was in that moment where not only did I walk across the bed of Kohl's, but my husband at the time, not Tom, his name was Dale, he was on the same retreat with me. And we ended up ballroom dancing in the bed of coals. And. And it was just we. As you walk across it, then you're not afraid anymore. And then you can come back and you can imagine doing a whole lot of other things creatively in this place that typically scares us. And so fear has an elusive quality like that. It feels like there's no way it can be penetrated. And when you say, okay, but I'm going to challenge you, maybe you're right, but I'm going to challenge you, and you step in and do it anyway, then all of a sudden it tends to open up this space where you go, not only was that not a limitation that now I can see a little more clearly and I can feel and sense a little more safe in the world. And I can see all so many other possibilities and creativity to problem solve. What it is I'm confronted with that I didn't see before because of the wall of fear. And I just want you to see regarding what I said when I opened the show, Fear is that something I push against in order for me to expand who it is and how I perceive the world and my emotional strength and capacity. That's exactly what's happened. When I step into fear, all of a sudden I am expanded to a new place that I couldn't arrived at without it. So it is here to stay. We are not going to be able to get rid of fear. It is part of the world in which we live in, and it is part of being a human on planet Earth. And what we need to do is rework the way we see it. And it's scary. And then our mind needs to go, okay, it's time to roll up our sleeves and go like, this is my moment.

I also think it's the main emotion that comes up for us and drives our actions. When our partners say, I need space.

Or this relationship is over, oh, for fear.

We just want to push it down and we want to push it away, and we want to try everything we can to make it go away. The fear makes us feel all of these things and then act differently than we maybe would. If instead of pushing the fear away, we, like you said, let it come and we dealt with it. You know.

Yes, as humans, we feel a tremendous amount of fear when our desires and dreams are thwarted. And let's be honest, that's what's happening when relationships look like they're going to end. The visions, the hopes, the dreams, all that we've co created up to this moment in time, whether that's been a few months or a few decades, there's a place where this desire and dream I have within me is now being thwarted as being compromised. And it feels like it's no longer possible.

Well, and.

And you have the convergence of really two significant things. This relationship, however long, and then change, converging. And you want to talk about either avoiding fear at all costs or being forced maybe first time in a long time or first time ever turning and facing and like Stacy said, understanding and working with it rather than total avoidance of it. That's a big distinction.

Fear is the primary thing. And then it's followed by the emotions of frustration, resignation and cynicism. They come knocking for us at our door. Our frustration and our resignation and our cynicism become impediments to thinking clearly. And they start to degrade our behavior, which makes the path forward very difficult to navigate and even intensifies our fears. And so as these emotions grow, they will inevitably create a path of destruction before us and those that we say we love. And they will consume our every thought and our total energy will be lost. And all that we are becomes embroiled in this experience as the emotion intensifies. I just want to simplify this for a moment so we all know what it feels like to be there. We all know what it feels like to be consumed with the emotions that we can identify from the place of fear. And these emotions actually follow a very sequential sequence. Frustration. And frustration is feelings of disappointment, exasperation, or weariness, aggravation, irritation and annoyance. So I just want you to think about how this begins in our relationships. It starts with frustration, Annoyance, irritation, aggravation, weariness. We keep cycling through the same conversations and the same disappointments become evident. And we go round and round and round here. And then what you're gonna find is that frustration then gives way to resignation. I give up. I feel hopeless. I might also feel foolish, discarded. And I start questioning all of my decisions up to this point in time. I should have known. I should have seen those red flags. I should have known better. I should have listened to my parents. What was I thinking?

So stupid.

How could I, how could I be taken for a ride? I've been used.

Why didn't I see this coming?

How did I miss it? Why am I so stupid? And I want you to start to see what happens. You know, the fear starts to actually implode on ourselves. It's. It's a place where all of a sudden I start to become very doubtful about me, about life, about relationships, about the whole thing, about my very existence on planet Earth. And I'm completely consumed by it. And then finally this turns to cynicism, which makes it its appearance and it literally takes over the entire experience. This cynicism is suspicion. It's distrust, it's scorn, it's contempt. It's like, how dare you? Oh, I see who you are. Oh, all that you are crystallized for me in a single moment. And I see you now, the monstrous bastard or bitch that I missed. But I see it now and I will never retreat from this. Cynicism always takes me to an image of like, think of like cold, dark, outer space, like it's desolate, there's nothing there, there's no life happening. The black hole that you're stuck in this place of cynicism. And what's so interesting in this experience of fear is it's like consuming you is you're just so sure you're right, you've got it all figured out. And now I need to protect myself and. Or I need to attack and make you pay in order to right the wrong and correct the fairness, equality here in our relationship. And what's so interesting when you think about this from a co creation perspective is everybody's thinking that. And so now how you behave dictates how I behave and what's okay for me to do. And then how I behave dictates what you can do and behave. And on and on it goes. I'm not even discerning whether this is something I want to do or I'm going to feel good about later. It's not anything that I decide is within my character or not. All of a sudden I start showing up in ways that are literally so outside of the person I want to be and the character that I want to provide for the people around me. But I justify it because look at what they're doing. So says everybody. And now we have what I call a crescendoed shit show. And what is at the heart of that is our lack of knowing and understanding about the principle of fear and the role that it plays in our lives. Instead of knowing how to push and work with it, what we've done instead is let it consume us and take us for a ride. Understanding, let alone uncovering your best next steps, which is what you really, really need at this point. And this is why we don't see great examples of better outcomes when it comes to love breaking down and dissolving. Because we become mired in the fear that we don't know how to push against.

No question. And I think this is why this is so challenging. Because, I mean, heck, we know from doing this, what, almost, what, 11 years now, most people that we talk to don't even have a positive example of a relationship. That's when it's going well, that's inspiring, let alone a good version of when it doesn't go well, that it is able to be dissolved. So you're bumping up against some very, very strong societal norms. So it's going to make it very challenging for us to get our arms around, like, could we step into this very difficult place and really have it go well, as difficult as it is, or. Or is that just total bs? No, it's not. But it's going to require to do things differently than what you've done.

The important thing to know about fear is that it will grow if it's not challenged. Just as if we never move our bodies, the immobility grows and we become unable to move at all. We can become paralyzed and unable to mobilize emotionally, and we can become immobilized and unable to move physically. And these two forces run concurrent within myself as a being that thinks and feels. And so it's important for us to understand that these are forces that reside within us and that we need to accept and allow and understand them. Yes, I can shake my fist at fear and gravity, but I probably would do better and be better served if I would learn how to work with them and understand them for the principles that they are. They both have the capacity to help me become stronger, more resilient, more safe in the world in which I live in, both within myself and in the world at large overall. But because I don't challenge them or take them on or work with them, what I'm left with was being run by them and then, you know, shaking my fist at the world in which I live in, as though I'm a victim of this whole thing. So it's important for us to understand that it grows if not challenged. It's okay if you don't know how to dance with it. That's okay. That's why we're here. That's why you're listening to this conversation, this is also why in relationships, which is the most terrifying journey. Why? Because it's the least talked about. It's the least of the the quadrant, which I call wealth, health and relationships. You think about the instruction, the learning, the lessons, the principles that rudder those experiences in relationships. There's so much bullshit out there and we don't talk about the principles and the skills that really matter.

Yeah, usually on the relationship part of that triangle you just referred to, it's just a fairytale part that everybody seems to take well.

And I, I, I don't need to bang against coaches, but here's what I've seen be true. In the time that we've been on online and babe, we've actually surpassed 11 years. When the coaching industry blew up, the easiest place to step into was that of relationships. Why? Because everybody can think that they're good at relationships. Based on what my own experience, however, you see a lot of different conversations happening. You don't have to be a financial planner. You don't necessarily need to know a lot about body mechanics, but the good ones do know the mechanics and the principles that rudder it, as opposed to just spouting off a bunch of love advice and relational advice based on their own perspective. And it's important that if you are seeking somebody to guide you on this journey, that you do your research and vet them out and know that they are rooted in principled skills and not somebody just spouting off a bunch of advice that they don't know other than their own perspective and experience. Because there's a lot of shit out there and there's a lot of things that are being said that quite frankly creates more fear because that's what's easier to market. People will respond in fear long before they'll respond in principles. And so now I've got you. You're going down a place that is not going to help you improve and become better at this. Actually, it's going to make you reliant and dependent on me for the long haul. And quite frankly, I think that's sick. Anyway. That's just my own soapbox. Let's turn the corner. I think you've got a pretty good handle on what fear is and even why we're talking about it. It's a principle that we've got to get good at, especially when it comes to love, because love and relationships is the most emotional journey you're ever going to take in your whole entire life. And so fear, the emotion of fear is going to play the biggest role in your life here in this, yes, it has a bit of a role in your wealth and in your physical health. But this space of relationship is so emotional. It's very easy to have fear take you on a journey that you really don't want to go on. So the first thing I'm going to give you is a tactic and tool for managing fear. Is it's important for you to realize that when fear strikes and what we want to do intuitively is spin up, freak the hell out, react, we need to slow down and pause. And that's exceptionally counterintuitive. But again, what you're doing is you're pushing against the force of gravity. Against the force of fear. If I were working with gravity and I wanted to get a movement in my body so that I didn't injure myself, what would I do? I would slow down and be exceptionally intentional with the movement. Same, same. If I want to manage fear and begin to push with it, I must slow down and become exceptionally intentional with what I'm going to do with it. I need to be patient, and I also need to seek understanding instead of to react to it all while taking steps to face off with my fear. I know it's there. I don't have to freak out. I'm going to slow down and be intentional, and I'm going to work with it. Because I know now that this is a moment for me to push and expand myself. And so I don't want to get hurt, I don't want to get injured. So I'm going to be exceptionally intentional about that. And the first thing that I notice with fear is to remind myself of all the places that I've been successful or courageous with myself in the past. And now I'm going to step in and I'm going to share with you a piece that we teach called Six Steps for Building Courage. Now, I know we're talking about fear and we're talking about courage, but I want you to see those two things come together because managing fear is an opportunity for me to build courage. That's where courage comes from. If we think about the firefighter that's rushing into the burning building to save the poor dog and the little child that's asleep in their bed, right? Or the person who can lift a car off of somebody who's in a car accident and they rush in and lift the car and save the person, or somebody who plunges into the cold, streaming water and rescues the person who's on the verge of drowning. And yes, that's courage. But what I'm talking about, when we think of courage are smaller acts of courage, where just getting out of the bed today is courageous. Just facing off and getting on with my day and taking a step into doing another day is an act of courage. Or maybe sitting with my thoughts and allowing my emotions to come up is an act of incredible courage and bravery. Essentially, courageous acts happen every single day in your life that you just don't give yourself any credit for. Because an act of courage is anytime I feel uncomfortable or afraid and I go anyway, is me challenging fear in its small and big ways. And every time I do that, I develop more courage with inside of myself. And so the easiest way for us to start working with fear is slow down, be intentional, and then actively and intentionally pursue the building of courage by just simply challenging the fear in its smallest form. And we can begin by doing this by just thinking about all the ways that I've already been courageous. Like, sometimes showing up and having a conversation about something that you've not wanted to talk about is courageous. Perhaps you listening to this podcast right now is courageous because you've not wanted to talk about fear or divorce or even contemplate this idea. But yet here you are, a beautiful client of mine that says, I don't want to do mediation, and I'm making all kinds of excuses for my first appointment because I'm so afraid. And then she finally realizes that if she would just attend, she doesn't have to talk, she doesn't have to ask questions, she doesn't have to do anything. It's a tremendous act of courage for herself. And when we start to think about all these small places, I want you to write them down. I want you to recognize and realize that you've been so courageous in your life in so many different places. Every time you have a conversation, when your armpits are sweaty, or every time you ask for something that you been putting off for a really long time, or anytime that you ask or not ask, but you go for something that you've wanted to do in a long, long time, those are all incredibly precious acts of courage. And in this act of courage, it can just remind you that you're a lot stronger and more capable than you believe yourself to be. And then the next thing you want to do is intentionally think of places where you know you need to go and things that you want to pursue, but what stops you is the fear. Okay, great. We can work with that. Just make a list of all the fears that you have, like Write them down, confront them, name them, see them, confront them, and then decide one simple thing that you can do to challenge them. And then what you think is going to happen as a result of challenging them. I always go to Babe, the workshop that we did at Beautiful Minds where we did this exercise of courage building. And we asked the participants, we laid out an exercise for them and we said, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to line you up in two lines and you're going to face each other and all you're going to do is look into each other's eyes for 60 seconds. And everybody went, what? What are we going to do? These are strangers. No, we're not going to do that. That's the same. Yeah, yeah, actually we are. And so I want you to get your journal out right now and I want you to write down all the things that you're afraid of. And then I want you to write down all the things you think are going to happen as a result doing this. And they did. And then we did the exercise, which is what I want you to do. Whatever that is in your life, like in the case of several of my clients, I want you to think about a conversation you want to have or something that's knocking on your door that you're afraid to step into. Write down everything that you're afraid of and what you think is going to happen if you step into it. And then we step into it. And in the case of this beautiful precious souls that were in our workshop, we stepped into the exercise. They indeed line up in two lines, looked into each other's eyes for 60 seconds. And what was interesting is they didn't want to stop.

Yeah. Because each person just moved after 60 seconds, moved down one. So it wasn't just 60 seconds. It was, I think probably like 10 minutes of that. So it was 10 one minute sessions of that exercise.

And when we called the exercise good, people were like now hugging and holding hands and there was a lot of magic, tremendous connection. And so when we get in the room then, and we ask them to pull out their paper and review what it is they thought was going to happen on the front side of fear, and then what their actual experience was on the backside of fear, they started to say things that were really surprising. I thought that people were going to judge me by the way that I spoke, and yet words were never exchanged. I thought people were going to see less of me. I thought that people were going to not accept me or reject me or.

Maybe I thought people would be afraid if I showed emotion because it, it's actually oftentimes can be a very emotional experience, even though no words are being said.

Yeah, I was gonna say we did this in the Option Institute and everyone began crying like within the 60 seconds of staring into another person's eyes. Because when is the last time you've looked into someone's eyes for that long? Probably a lot of times never.

You know, and certainly with a stranger, probably never.

Yeah, yeah.

But it really allows you to see humanity like you're looking deeply into another human's eyes. It's an experience that you can't really explain unless you've done it.

I say eyes are the window to the soul.

Well, and I want you to see that this also is principled. That I can't do anything to you, that I'm not doing to myself. That there is an aspect of humanity that connects us all. And so as we reflected on this experience, we started to debunk a lot of unfounded fears. And there was a tremendous amount of courage and a sense of well being that came out of that. And babe, do you remember the precious little. I think she was 80 years old. And when we came back the following week after giving them this courage building exercise, she proudly stuck, stood up in front of the class and shouted, I've done all 18 of these. Do you remember? And she was so proud of herself because once she realized that she didn't have to be afraid anymore, she just wanted to challenge this one and this one and this one. And she started challenging her fears and knocking them over like dominoes. And. And she was just blossoming in the front of the room. She had gone in one single week from being somebody who was terrified of life and love and living to a person who was just like, and I did this, and I did this and I did this. It was just such an incredible moment for all of us. And that's it. Like, the process is write down your fears and then challenge your fears and then write about what happened actually and debunk some of those unfounded fears. And then celebrate your growth and choose a word that actually acknowledges you for the progress that you've made. Her name was Vera. And as Vera stood in front of the word, she was celebrating what she had accomplished and all that she was feeling now in this newfound place of challenging fear. And I just want you to see the gift that fear is in our lives, that without fear we couldn't have this experience. It's principally that when I push against my Fear. I will see, know, and understand that I am so much more than I believe I am. I will see, know, and experience that the world is a very safe place, and that the only thing that makes it scary is that I won't challenge this concept I have of fear, and that actually the world is a very beautiful, safe place to be. Fear grows if it's not challenged. It's so important for you to understand that. And so if you need to get help and support when facing fear, and many of us do, I'm going to the treetops of Sonoma to do seven zip lines and do some rappelling. And I know I'm going to feel afraid because that's what fear does. And yet I don't want to do it by myself. I want to have a guide. I want to have somebody that helps me step into it slowly, intentionally, so that I can truly reap the reward of challenging my fear on the backside. And I want you to know that that's an option for you as well in this relationship space, that if you're realizing that you are stuck in fear and it's paralyzing you, then it's okay to get help and support in order to challenge some of those thoughts, feelings, and emotions that I know on the front side feel exceptionally real. And sometimes we just need some help and support in saying, how do I do this safely? Where's the skills? Okay, tell me how to do this, and then know that I've got your back as you challenge it. And so this. As we wrap up our episode, we're going to step into a conversation about mediation and litigation. I get this conversation a lot because I am a divorce mediator. And it just seems appropriate, as we're already in the conversation of challenging our fears, to talk about it here, because it's something you're probably thinking about. If by chance you're in a place of space and separation. I want to provide you with some information to just think about, because I want you to be informed. I want you to be knowledgeable. I want you to be in the know and not tumbling in fear. And when we challenge our fear, that's exactly what it will give us. Knowing an experience that I can hang my hat on and that I have a rooted place to stand in. Okay, so I just want to give this to you as we wrap up here. Mediation versus litigation. Let's start with the mediation side. Relatively speaking, in comparison to litigation. It's a very young field. It's only been on the planet. I don't know 50 or 60 years compared to maybe thousands of years for law? I don't know. That's not a very accurate number. I know. I just know that the legal system has been on the planet a lot longer than mediation has. Bottom line is a mediator's job is to be a neutral party, facilitating a conversation around feelings and facts. There's an important distinction there. Lawyers don't deal with feelings, they only deal with evidence. Mediators deal with feelings and facts, meaning that as this neutral party, they can also talk about, typically, emotions and helping us get to an emotionally safe place as well as a factually based place. Their job is to create the best possible outcome for the family system. So this means that they don't represent any one person in the conversation. They actually represent everyone. Their job is to make sure that everyone has a new beginning that is sustainable. Ideally, there is no winning or losing side because the mediator, along with you and your partner, are a team that then take us to a place, to the other side of transformation. We're all on the same team. And that's really important that you understand that the good job of the mediator just to break it down, to be neutral, to get everybody emotionally and factually and financially to the other side of transformation, and to make sure that everyone has a new beginning that is sustainable. Long story short, and that means not only you and your partner, but if there's any children involved, also thinking through the best places to support the children as a whole as well. Again, it's about getting the whole family system through the process of transformation. The cost for doing this is about 2,000 to 15,000. And you might go, wow, Stace, why the huge gamut? Well, because everybody's circumstance and situation is different. Some people don't have investments or pensions or some people don't have children. Some people come in with an idea of what it is they already want. They just need to hammer out a few details. Some people come in with businesses to sell and be evaluated and invest. And so it can become more complex the more children and the more assets and liabilities that you have. And so most mediators will do a free consult, just like lawyers do, and tell you what it would be to mediate the whole process going forward. Another critical point that is intentional about mediation, typically for most mediators, is that money is addressed before child custody. And I think that's important because then children can't be used as pawns in the conversation of money. Also, mediation sets the stage and the tone of future decision making between the couple and the mediator along with the couple, create a plan that is submitted to the judge so you have all your options on the table about writing out what works best for the family system. We make the choices, we make the decisions together through mediation, and then that's submitted to the judge for approval also. There's room for emotional support and understanding. And there's a lot of teaching in my mediation, and I hope in most mediations, that's been my experience. Thankfully, that's how I was trained. But that's also where I'm impassioned, is that along the way, we want to learn relational skills and principles as we go. We want to get complete with some of the emotional stuff that we need to understand, and that can be part of the mediation process as well. Mediation is also very private and confidential. There is no public record of mediation. There's nothing other than the divorce decree or the resolution plan itself that's submitted to the courts for public record. Okay, so that's mediation. Places where it doesn't work is everybody needs to have a working acumen of conversation. Everyone needs to be able to come to the table with the ability to not only problem solve for themselves, but problem solves for their partners. If I'm in a place where I'm trying to get somebody to pay or get the maximum of what I can at the expense of someone else, mediation will not be a good fit for you. It will not be a place that will serve you getting through this in the best way possible. So litigation does have its place. But if you are in a place where there's conversations that can be had and trust and respect and love to a small degree going back and forth that I can see the needs of my partner as important as my own, mediation can be a really great option for you. In litigation, on the other hand, the job of a lawyer is to maximize the benefit for his or her clients by pursuing what the law will allow. So it doesn't really have anything to do with what's beneficial for the family system as a whole. I'm here to represent the interests of my clients. That's under the law. I can get you this. I can maximize this. This is what you're entitled to under the system of law, and that's what we will pursue. They're not really concerned about how this is going to affect your partner on the backside. There's not a lot of conversation for the emotional aspects of this journey. It's very much based in evidence and facts and what they can create as far as a case to propose to the judge. The cost for this starts at about $40,000 and can go upwards of $150,000, sometimes even more. And the key point here is the judge will make the decisions about what will govern the couple and the family system after the evidence has been presented by both sides of. So everybody needs to get a lawyer. Everybody needs to have representation. Each side is essentially advocating for what everyone is entitled to under the law, under the guise of the law. And then the judge will take this information into account and will make the best decision possible based on the information presented. So you've lost a lot of options there to create and contemplate how it is you want to interrelate as a dynamic in a family system. If we have to step into litigation, okay, in this process, children are very often used as pawns for financial gain as well. They don't handle the money and the assets and the liabilities. You know, usually custody, spousal support, and all of that is navigated in one conversation. In fact, you might have 30 minutes in court for each. Well, I'll. I'll give you an hour. Let's go. Generous. Let's say each side has an hour, which is very generous in a court of law. And in. Within that hour, each person has their points that they make and their evidence that they propose and they tell their stories. And then at the end of those hour or two, being generous, the judge will make the determination about how that will roll forward, and then that is written into law, and the couple and the family must abide by that law. You are in contempt and can be held accountable, penalized, et cetera, for that. Again, there's no room for emotional support and understanding. Court hearings also are open to the public, and financial submittals are also a part of public record. So those are some things to know about that as well. Now, it might sound like I'm really banging on litigation, and I'm really not. There is a place for litigation. However, it would behoove you to consider mediation as a primary option first. And then if you fall out of the mediation process, litigation is always there to support you. Because the better option for the family system, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, financially, is the lens, in my opinion, of mediation. However, if there are addiction issues, mental health issues, domestic violence issues, then litigation is your route. It is going to be your best option. Mediation will not serve you in those places. I just threw a whole lot out there. Anybody want to say anything about this?

I don't think too many people are really aware of mediation process. We don't hear a lot about it. I think what you said there, the most important thing that I heard is much easier to start with mediation. If it doesn't go well or doesn't work, then yeah, you can step into the legal process very rarely. You correct me if I'm wrong, babe. Would one start in the legal process and then if not, then go, well, go to mediation, you know what I mean? So start with the, the most opportunity and let's see what's possible. And then you always have the legal process to fall back onto. But if you start there, most likely you're going to end there. And yeah, we don't, you know, it's not designed for what we would feel is some really, really important components when you are going to end your marriage and your relationship. It's the emotional and how about the children not being used as weapons but for their true well being? How are we going to navigate this now going forward? Those things just, there's no fault. It's just not part of the consideration of the process.

Well, and one of the things that I want to say is that if you choose to work with me to even back the train up a little bit, let's say we're not to the place of divorce and separation yet, Stace. So thanks for this information, I appreciate it. It makes me feel a little more comfortable and helps me navigate my fears a little bit. But I'm not there yet. I would say bravo, because if you choose to work with us, here's what's going to happen is we're going to take you through the principles to practice and learn in your relationship right now. And if by chance you need to step into the mediation process, we just continue the journey that we've already started. Because everything that you've needed to know on the front side of attempting to save your relationship will be every skill that we're going to use through the mediation process and beyond. One of the things that caused me to do the work that I do right now is, is a mediator, a mediator not doing the work that I do Today I saw people come through the mediation process once, twice, three times, thinking, who is helping these people get better at this? Where are the relational skills and principles that people need to understand? It's not a problem that they are getting a divorce. The problem I see is that there's no mentorship and learning and practice. There's no place to go to get better at this, to prevent them from becoming exceptionally better at love as they Go right. That to me was like the light bulb moment. The light bulb.

Everybody who is not learning these skills is just going to create the same version of what they had with a different person. Because you are half of the relationship that gets created. You are what you bring to the table. Yes. So if you don't acquire more skills or you know, learn how to emotionally regulate, learn. Learn how to have an argument that is effective. Learn how to ask for what you want at a hundred percent. Learn what to do when your needs are not being met. If you don't know those things, they're not just going to magically happen because your partner is different. You're going to still have the same skillset. You're just going to be doing it with a different person. And likely the same problems that you ran into in the first marriage are going to happen in the second. And we don't want that for you.

Different flavor, same outcome.

Yeah. Well, and if we really kind of dovetail that into the principles of how we heal as a human being, then this starts to make a lot of sense too. Not just because you're doomed, but recognize and realize that as a human being, we're going to find ourselves in situations and circumstances that kick off old traumas, old wounds, difficult emotions, fear. And it's in those moments that we have the opportunity to learn how to do it differently. So we show up differently and that's where healing happens.

I just want to give a little bit of tough love, which is not something I do very often. I'm normally the sensitive, soft one.

Brooke has just lost her entire fan base here on Love Shack Live.

I just want to say that the point of life is not to find a person who's going to, you know, keep a mental tally of all your triggers and make sure to never do that. Number one, that's not realistic. Number two, that's not an environment where you will be challenged and grow. And number three, triggers are a message for you. They are not a message for other people. We are not supposed to keep track of other people's triggers. Yes. We're not supposed to trigger them intentionally. Like that would be malicious if you did that intentionally. But I don't keep a mental tally of everybody I know's triggers. Not because I'm a bad person, just because I keep a mentality of my own. And that's enough. We're, we're, we're not trying to have a trigger free universe.

That's silly.

But the point of all of this, the point of relationships, the point of connecting with another human is to learn how to live with your triggers and potentially heal them so they're not a problem anymore. And that is only work you can do. I feel like there are a lot of people who are breaking up with their partners or going and trying to find a new relationship where they're not going to be triggered. And that is really not the point of any of this. Triggers are just like fear. You have to learn how to live with them, how to work through them, how to push through them. And that took me 37 years to learn. Like, oh, wow, I'm not supposed to be trying to manage my partner to stop myself getting triggered. I'm supposed to be working on those things internally so that maybe they're not a problem for me anymore, you know?

Well, and as I like to say, and I love that you said that, Brooke. That's so awesome and so spot on. And here's the thing. We don't have the emotional, mental, intellectual bandwidth to keep track of everybody's triggers even if we wanted to. There's no way that's. I can barely manage my own, let's be honest, right? Like, this is a full time job. So please me. Having to manage yours is a complete overwhelm and it feels unfair. And in relationships, that's where we start to go. This is so unfair. Why do I have to do all this work? I manage me. This feels so unfair. I also want to touch on the the flip side of that. Has anyone that's listening to my voice right now found themselves in a relationship that was so easy and yet you couldn't have been more dissatisfied? Anybody? Like, I've been in a relationship where this man would have hung the moon for me. Like, he would have done so much, but there was nothing for me to push against here.

Well, I was just gonna say it's why nice guys finish last. It's not that women want bad guys. It's that a relationship does not work if everything is done for you and every next move is calculated and they're like, okay, I'm here. This is exactly what I know you want, and this is what I know you need. There has to be a give and take and there has to be figuring stuff out between the two of you.

Yeah. Is it really a nice guy or is it a guy that's trying to do all the emotional work for everyone that's lost themselves and because they're so eager to please someone else? And on the inverse, are there girls that are so pleasing and showing up and know you're not women. Every need. So it's not about guys or girls. It's about recognizing you're not supposed to meet everybody's need. And if you do, that's not going to work either. Those are the big lessons that we are learning as we dance with love and relationships about ourselves, about each other and about life. So it's not about pleasing, it's not about blaming, it's about recognizing and realizing. My triggers are going to come up, fear is going to set in and then what do I do next? I hope after lift listening to this podcast episode, you're going to go, well, I'm going to get Stacy's downloaded six steps for building courage and let me start to work with a little bit of fear right now, intentionally, slowly, courageously, because that's where we need to begin. I want you to understand and know that you are so much more capable than you believe yourself to be and that the world and relationships and love are beautiful places and spaces to be. Even though you might be going through a difficult time and that this difficulty, if you will turn and face it, you will do things that you thought you would never do, you will courageously step into learning places and spaces and things about yourself and others and love and life that you never thought were even there. And that on the backside of this, even though it wasn't easy, as many of our roadmappers and our clients say, the journey was so well worth it. In fact, one of our clients just said on our call yesterday, I'm going to send that guy that had an affair with my wife a thank you note. Because the gift that he's given me and my family and my wife is irreplaceable. And those are the things that we don't even imagine in this place of fear and in these walls and spaces where we feel like we're so stuck and we have no options we couldn't even imagine. Kind of like me stepping in and looking at a bed of coals, wondering how in the world I'm gonna just get across it and then realizing not only can I get across it, I can dance in it and so can you. So if right now you're finding that you need some help and support this, we've got options for you. The options are you can join an lil session 11 limbo session for 35 bucks. Best deal on the planet right now. Second thing you can do is get into a roadmap, a 30 day roadmap where we'll walk with you for 30 straight days. And give you what it is you need to know in order to navigate not only fear, but life for the rest of your life. You can also join the Better Love Club. It's a place that we come together, meet once a week. We have a men's group, a women's group. We have a Wednesday Wisdom. There's a lot going on in there, as well as a lot of fun and connection and community to help us all face the fears that confront us every single day. And then inside of the Better Love Club, you can also have the option of working with me privately. And so there's a lot here for you. And to explore them all, you can go to staceybartley.com all of the options of Work with Me are there under the Work With Me tab. I'd love and be honored for Brooke and I and Tom to mentor you on this ever so important journey that is sure to transform and change your life. We'd love to support and be a part of your story there. So I guess it's time to have a little fun. And on this fun journey, I decided the best piece of fun I could give you was to encourage you to get the download the Courage worksheet and start building courage. Because what you're going to discover is that you're braver than you believe, stronger than it seems right now, and more capable than you could ever imagine. You're going to need to muster up some courage to push on with your fears and to actually see the truth of who you really are. And again, this could be a cycle. You're so much more than you know you are. So get the courage thing. And for a little bit of fun, pick one thing on that list, go through the exercises and do it. And you're going to be like Vera going, hey, my gosh, look what I did. This wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be. Check this out. I see. I understand. I know. And I believe in so much more than I thought. On the front side, I'm adding it.

To the separation bundle. So if you download the Courage.

Wow. The separation bundle all of a sudden got better.

Yeah. So I'm just adding the courage worksheet to there. So you'll get the meditation, you'll get some text messages, and you'll get a guide on separation, which has some of the things that we've mentioned in the show today.

And how do people get that?

Brooke stacybartley.com forward/ bundle.

Yeah. So as we wrap up, we got a song for you. Of course we Always do. Today's song is a song by Katy Perry and her song titled Rise. I loved it. Really resonated with me today because I thought, isn't that what we do when we're confronted with fear and fear is saying, it's not possible. Turn back, Stop. You're not capable. You're not good enough. You can't do this. It's terrible. Why did you even try? You're such a fool. She says, I still rise. So when the vultures are all circling, she says, I will transform, I will rise. I will continue this journey. I will face my fear and I will survive. And I thought, well, that's. That's kind of perfect because that's kind of what we're talking about here today. I want you to know that regardless of where you are today, you have the power and the ability within you to rise. What you might need is just somebody to hold your hand while you do it so that they can remind you that you are so much more than you think you are. You are so much stronger than you believe yourself to be in this moment and to give you some resourcing and some skills and some principles to help you remember your own solid ground. Because you can rise too. I know you can. Check this song out with all of our whole playlist on Spotify on our. On our podcast. Whoops. Stacybartley.com I'm laughing because I so want this message I'm trying to give you penetrate through this dang microphone that. That separates you and me. I want you to know that this is true, this is so possible for you. And I forgot all about the website. So stacybartley.com on our podcast page has the song as well. Listen to it. Maybe it will be yet a confirmation of what I'm saying to you today. And I'm trying to communicate to you in my words through this podcast. And you know, there's a lot of great music on there too, so could be a great Spotify playlist. I don't know. I'm just throwing out some ideas here. Thank you so much for spending some of your day and your time and your life moments with us. Brooke, me, Tom, it's always such a delight and a pleasure. We love doing this podcast. If there's ever an episode or a conversation that you would like to request we have here or you want to share some of the things that this podcast has contributed to your life, gosh, would we love to hear those stories. Don't hesitate to reach out to us. We look forward to being back here with you again next week and build some courage. Face those fears between now and I see you again. Bye for now.

All right, it's time to leave the Love Shack. But before we part ways, we want you to know our door is always open and we'll leave the porch light on.

Ready?

Ready to welcome you back whenever you need a dose of relationship wisdom. For more resources and tools, Visit us at love shacklive.com to dive deeper into the topics we've explored and find additional support for your relationship journey. Stay connected by subscribing to our podcast. Thank you for being part of our Love Shack Live community.

Sam.