Hello and welcome to Revolutionize your love life. Do you
want to know more about love relationships? What makes them
work? How to create the one of your best dreams?
Do you want to be in a really healthy juicy
love relationship? In these podcasts, we will give ideas and
practical advice to light your way. Whether you're looking for
a love partner already in a relationship, you wish could
be better or leaving one that has run its course.
There will be something to inspire empower and support you.
Revolutionize your love life is a fortnightly podcast where you
will access the knowledge and wisdom of love experts and
relationship coaches from across the world to help you find
true fulfillment in love. I am your host, Heather Garbett.
Welcome. I'm here again with Brandon Rourke cares who is
a licensed clinical mental health therapist in the US. She's
worked in the mental health field for over 22 years
in supporting now Children, adolescents, parents and families in her
clinical practice. Over 85% of her practice is focused on
supporting Children and adolescents who have come from two homes
who live in two homes and the co parents navigating
parenting from two home structures. She's an exponent and trained
collaborative divorce, therapist, and mediator and co-founder of the wonderful
organization, parent team. Welcome, Brandon. Thank you so much. Thank
you for having me Heather. You're so welcome. It's lovely
to see you. So today we're going to talk about
co parenting cycles touching on how the negative marital cycles
continue through co parenting and the importance of creating a
new healthy relationship. So the parenting can be different too.
How would you like to begin that? We could just
dive right in, I think. Yeah. And in, you know,
in, in a lot of different parts of my work.
So I work with as a therapist as a clinical
mental health therapist for Children and teens um and families
as a whole system. But then I'm also a mediator
and and work to do collaborative divorce work. So it's
outside of the courts and outside of litigation and I
help parents write parenting plans. So I guide them, um
give them a lot of education about mental health development,
right? We don't, we, we write a very different parenting
plan for a two year old versus a 12 year
old versus a 16 year old. And in that work,
I'm able to see them from day one. So sometimes
contemplative time of divorce. So they're just contemplating, maybe they've
come to talk with me. I do divorce option sessions.
So just talk them through kitchen table divorce, mediation, collaborative
litigation, all the different, you know, here in the US,
those are our terms but I think they're similar, right?
Is what, what are some of those different options? So
that's like day one they're just contemplating and I see
the right away. Right. I can see some of the
relationship cycles and the dynamics that are going on. Maybe
you have someone who shuts down, maybe you have someone
who is holding a lot of angry space in the
room. Um Maybe you have someone who has, has more
of a passive aggressive way of communicating. Maybe you have
someone who's bringing up the past a lot and struggles
to ask for what they need or make requests for
the future. So I'm seeing these dynamics through, through these
um you know, divorce options and then if they do
collaborative remediation, their whole parenting plan pro and just the
whole process of divorce. And then I also see with
co parents of the kids that I work with. So
just kind of a lot of scope and a lot
of you with the families that I work with. And
what I noticed is that even some of the kids
I work with whose parents were divorced six years ago,
seven years ago, eight years ago, if they didn't have
helpful intervention tools and strategies from day one, they are
continuing their negative marital cycle throughout the last six years.
Seven years, eight years. So nothing has changed for them
and, and what's devastating and what I see is that
oftentimes they make a decision, the best decision that they
could to divorce. Right. And have two homes hoping and
thinking that it will be better. Right. Because that's the
hope is that especially for the person who initiates it,
if you're the person who was left that feels very
different, but sometimes there's even a spark of hope and
transformation that, OK, I'm gonna set up my home, how
I want. I'm going to, you know, do the best
I can do with parenting. I'm gonna get a different
job than I always have. I'm gonna engage in things
I once loved. So sometimes there is this transformation but
then you've got this continued cycle that of communication cycle,
emotional cycle, attachments like all of these different pieces that
just continues over here into their co parenting. So these
parents are getting, they're not getting any transformational change. They're,
they're just continuing this marital piece and they're exhausted their
mental health and well being is completely taxed and they're
not enjoying parenting their child because they're fighting so much
with their co parent and their child desperately needs them
to be present. But there's so much noise in their
life over here with their co parent. So when I
get to be in those early moments with families, in
those early moments, if I'm the their mediator or their
collaborative divorce practitioner, I really try and help intervene right
away. Maybe that's they take our, we have an online
course and a workbook. But in my office, I'm, I
have like a big white board and my marker and
I'm drawing what I see and I'm saying, correct me
if I'm wrong. But can I have your permission to
kind of draw what I'm seeing going on in my
office right now? And this is similar right when people
do eft so that emotional focus therapy and really kind
of looking at what are some, where are we going?
Are we stepping back into that cycle? Well, we're not
in marriage therapy when I'm working in their divorce. But
I find parents are so appreciative because they're like, yep,
that's exactly what we do or sometimes they correct, you
know, like no, actually over here, I'm feeling this way,
but this comes up and he always does this, she
always does this, she always does that. So we're drawing
that cycle. What's the negative part of the cycle? You
guys, where do we get stuck? OK. So when we
identify that, then that allows me and I ask their
permission, can I give you some ideas and suggestions and
some resources to work on your stuff in here because
they are no longer each other's person, right? They're not
doing this work together anymore because they're not in marriage
therapy. But if I can then have them go to
a transformative, more generative, you know, do the work for
themselves, like conscious uncoupling, if they're even willing just to
read the book or they're willing to get a coach
and do the five step process and do that work
and understand what am I bringing into this cycle? Then
we come together. And I say, OK, well, here's our
path over here. How can we create a new generative
transformative co parenting cycle? A new cycle that's healthy and
transformative, that's for your kids. Your kids are in the
middle of that and then let's generate this way www,
right? And we just almost think of it as like
the wheel starts turning a different way. So when they're
both willing to engage in a different way, we see
that healthy cycle start to come out and I truly
see it in my office. And what's so neat when
you have a co parenting coach is that when they
start to go back over here and they get into
that negative cycle, I early on ask them permission to
interrupt them and to point it out and I say
we're getting back into that. We're gonna, what do we,
you know, we're gonna go back over here into this
more generative transformative co parenting cycle. That's healthy, so beautiful,
so beautiful, it can make such a difference. I think
of it like turning an oil tanker. I mean, I
don't work with parents with kids specifically, but I do
work in conscious and coupling and you see, you know,
if, if you keep going that way, you're gonna end
up in the Antarctic, if you could just nudge a
little bit, you could end up in the Caribbean. Where
would you prefer to go for warmth and comfort? Absolutely.
Yeah. And I think it's, it's a whole beautiful process
because it brings so much into consciousness. It brings the
childhood patterns and the understanding of emotional relating that we've
learned from our childhood. It brings it out into the
fall so we can look and see if we want
to behave like that. Again, we can see how we've
continued to live that in our adult relationships and where
that's taken us. And then we can move from that
sort of place that really triggered place when people are
divorcing and they're, they're back to their most raw selves,
their childhood selves, their regressed selves. If you want to
say that you can bring them out of that and
they can think in a much more mature and generous
way towards the other person from a place of mutual
understanding and forgiveness even and making amends to each other,
which gives so much more resources, love, whatever you wanna
call it so much attention to the care for each
other. Even though the boundaries are different, they're no longer
each other's person. But in a co parenting way, how
they can support each other to co parent well, and
then most especially for their Children who they can co
parent. Well. Yeah, absolutely. And even, you know, when I
was working and conscious and coupling with our practical client
and noticing that sometimes, you know, when you get to
that sort of step, step four and instead, like when
things start to get really real and we are talking
about making amends and I've had, you know, had clients
say I'm, I'm not ready. Like I, I can't do
that. I can't, I can't do the soul to soul
practice and, and you know, talk about what I did
what they, you know, kind of working through that and
healing and transforming and, and when we take a moment
to pause and talk about the freedom and the transformation
that happens within this is not for the other person,
this is for yourself. So you're not carrying because when
they carry, you know, whether it's the anger, the rage,
the hurt, pain that, you know, all of those really,
all emotions are meant to be experienced in this life,
but some emotions are so incredibly intolerable for us, right?
They're so uncomfortable and so hearty and I see that
so much in divorce and, and when we're carrying that,
like it is the the vessel, right? What is that
saying? Like he erodes the container which it's in and
so it it can, it can be eroding for us
and when they can see that like when you can
release that and find some of that generative and transformative,
you know, energy and space in their life, which I
truly believe we all find, we have to have a
really good coach to help us find it and transform.
Like there's this lightness in people. There's this, ah, I
mean, I felt inexperienced. I'm wonderful friends with my first
husband. Like, I mean, it's just like we're, we're generous,
we're kind, it wasn't always that way. But when you
can find that is such a different space and place
to walk in life, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah. And
I liked what you said about the self and the
self forgiveness that the self understanding. That's why I behave
that way. Oh, goodness me, I could see why I
was needing to protect myself and I can see the
effect of that on the other person and on my
Children and I make a promise to myself. I'm never
gonna do that to me again. And the concomitant it
won't happen to them or them. Right. Yes. Absolutely. Mhm.
So if you got sort of fundamental prevention and intervention,
things that you can put a spanner in the works
early on, how can we spin it? So they start
the ship starts turning that way. Yeah. Well, in our,
you know, Jen and I, when we created parent team,
you know, we had done collaborative divorce together. That's how
we had met, we were mediators and had done a
lot of this work and she's um she's a financial
professional. But I, she's always like, I think I was
meant to be a therapist. So she's kind of, you
know, not a trained therapist but incredible with people. And
we just noticed there, the resources that were out there
for co parents, a lot of the feedback we got
from, from parents was that they felt shame, they felt
shame after they were doing some of these interventions or
um you know, workshops are different, their classes and things
like that. So we're like, oh no, this is the
last thing you need, right? I mean, I went through
a divorce and I had people in my life who
shamed me and family members. Who should I was like
that. What do we, we hold people with care when
they go through loss, when they move someone through death
and our brains experience very similar neural patterns when we
go through divorce. But what do we do? People pick
sides? They, they just get, you know, those layers of
support around us, sometimes humble. So we just really wanted
to wrap around them and you know, through working with
hundreds of different families, we put together sort of these
six modules, right? In our workbook. And our course of
first starting with, what's that, that support for the individual,
right? So the support for that individual which can be
conscious and coupling and then we have some layers of
different tools to care for themselves. Talking about, you know,
wise mind and making decisions with your best mind and
just some different intervention tools there. And then, you know,
we have a module that's really talks about how to
talk with your Children. And even if you got divorced
two years ago and you have the conversation with your
kids, maybe it was when you were driving to swim
practice or something like that and you just blurted it
out in the car that you know, your other parent
and I are getting a divorce and it wasn't done
how you wanted it to be done. The beautiful thing
about Children and teenagers and the developing adolescent brain is
that we do have the capacity for resiliency, the ability
to spring back to rebound when we have intervention, support
and help. So if parents sit down and say we're
gonna have a redo of that family conversation we never
had or we know it was really hard when we
were fighting in the kitchen and you overheard your parents
and I about getting a divorce and we never addressed
that. We kind of just stepped into the whole process
and yada yada and now or two years later, let's
have a conversation. We wanna hear how that was for
you. And we want to say that we're sorry as
parents that we weren't able to take the time right
then to do that, to have that important conversation. So
we coach parents through that piece and then some of
the really big ones are creating a communication roadmap. So,
really tangibly like, what do you need in communication? Because
oftentimes in my co parents that I work with and
I love this because I always point it out for
them. It's, you have one co parent who wants all
of the information. OK, let's say they have shared parenting
time and like one parent wants every detail. How did
this go? How did the da da da da da
that right? They want everything and the other co parents.
Like, I'm good. I just want a parent in my
own home. I'll give you the updates. Like the really
important ones like medical academics, you know, some of the
big stuff, but I'm good. Like I, I don't need
the four page email and I don't wanna write the
four page email. So you often get parrots just like
we often have two very different parents in households. We
have more of a authoritarian parent, right? Like do it
because I said so lots of limits and boundaries, not
a lot of warmth. And then we have a more
of a permissive parent. We all fall on the spectrum
somewhere, right? But a permissive parent, tons of warmth, lots
of, you know, but not a lot of limits and
boundaries. So we get these setups and it's helpful when
I just validate that for parents, you're so different. You
grew up in different homes, you're different people. But here's
the deal. If I'm your kid and my curfew in
your house over here is 10 p.m. and I don't
have a curfew in your house over here. Like, what
time I need to be home at night? That's too
hard for me. And I'm gonna find my way as
a teenager to get real slick in there. Right. I'm
gonna find my way to, to be sneak. So if
I'm your kid, what I need from my lens and
that's why I always tell parents, you know, I'm gonna
listen to your side, hear your side and try as
hard as I can to understand your side, but I
am not gonna take your side. I'm gonna take your
kids side because that's why I'm here is to help
you see through your child's lens. So those are a
lot of the intervening tools which is through the child's
lens. What does this feel like for me if I'm
allowed to go to, you know, soccer practice or football
practice over here in this household? But this household doesn't
take me or let me go. What? That's like, what's
that like for me as a kid? Right? And so
there's so many different layers like that when the two
households are so incredibly different. So a lot of my
work is to bring them, you don't have to do
things the same, you're two different people. But can we
bring more to center based off what your kid feels
in this. Not because you two don't want to do
it like the other parent or because you don't know.
Right. If, if someone was raised in a really authoritarian
home and that's all they know and they wanna wash
and repeat because that's what they know. Then we just
need some parent coaching or you have a permissive parent
who doesn't set any limits or boundaries and this parent
over here is going like, well, you gotta set. So,
you know, they just need some parent coaching to help
understand what that's like through their child. But and that's
just wonderful because that will give the the child some
security if there can be some sort of harmony between
the parents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I want you to
say some more about your book because I, I've seen
it and it's just amazing. So tell me more because
that is a, a really fundamental piece. I know you've
got interventions when you're in the room. And now I'm
thinking, well, what about this wonderful resource? Tell them more
about that. Yeah. Thank you. So parent team, we have
a workbook that's called keeping your kids out of the
middle. Um And there's also an online video component to
it as well. So if people are more, they wanna
listen. Um and it's six modules. So it's six steps
and it walks parents through those pieces of taking care
of yourself first, talking with your kids about divorce, creating
a co parenting communication, road map. And then also a
lot of just tools and strategies around. How do we
set up two homes? How do we talk about extracurriculars?
Because ok, we just decide kiddo can do this. But
did we talk about what's the exit plan if they
hate it? Right. If they don't want to do the
activity anymore, we've got to have a plan because one
parent might say, ok, cool, you're done. You don't have
to do it. And the other parents like no, we
committed and paid for it. And now you have parental
conflict which in two homes it can be exacerbated. So
we have all of these and then each module because
I'm, you know, a therapist and more of the mental
health side and the parenting and developmental needs of kids.
I talk about parenting components. Jen has a component that's
a financial component for co parents. So she helps co
parents set up, you know, what, what are some of
those things where that you're buying double of? And it's
just too expensive. Parents can't afford this. So she really
helps organize. What are the things that are in one
home, the other home? What goes back and forth? How
does it go back and forth? How do we not
have kids going back and forth and walking back and
forth if they live really close to their other home?
So there's always a financial component and then a parenting
component in our workbook. Um, and the neat thing too
in the United States is that there's a exit quiz
at the end and then they have a certificate of
completion which satisfies a lot of, it's different in every
county, but like in our county, it satisfies the co
parenting class that many co parents need to take, um,
if they're within the court system. So that's kind of
a neat piece. Um, but it's really meant to be
an intervention tool from early on. Right. So if lawyers
have these in their law offices, we had, uh, last
month we had a law firm reach out and order
just a ton like boxes of the workbooks because they
wanna have them and give this as a gift to
their clients early on to help make an impact for
their families, which then inevitably makes the lawyer's job a
little bit easier too because if there's less conflict and
they can kind of do their job advising them of
the law and helping them with agreements. Right. Then many
lawyers appreciate that as well. Yes, because part of the
education process is already done for them. Right. Ah, that's
wonderful. Is there anything else you would like people to
know that we haven't covered in our two podcasts? Um,
I think just, yeah, the, the work, I think people
understanding and knowing and hearing more about collaborative divorce and
what is that is important. I've talked a little bit
about it. But collaborative divorce is a divorce process that's
really based in dignity and transparency and privacy. So it's
a private process that is legally binding. It's practiced in
every state in the United States. It's practiced in Canada
and it's also practiced in 24 countries around the around
the world. But a lot of people don't know about
it or there might be like fragments of it or
pieces of it. But collaborative divorce is where you have,
it's an interdisciplinary team or multidisciplinary team. So you have
legal, right? So the legal components that need to be
cared for, but those lawyers are trained and practicing in
collaborative divorce, which is very different than litigation. Um in
litigation. It's about negotiating and fighting and winning, right? And
they're very good litigators are really good, they're good at
arguing, they're good at building a case, they're good at
that. However, in my lens with working with families for
over 20 years, the impact on the little people, the
impact on Children, the little ones that are, have no
power in this process have no control is, is really
astounding. And so when you have collaboratively trained lawyers, they
really look at this work with that family system, they
still advocate for their client and, and they still talk
with their client about the laws and ultimately their client
and the other client are the ones who make the
decisions in the agreements with a lot of support and
a lot of creativity, it's not a judge, it's not,
you know, lawyers making those decisions. So it's, it's empowering
the two individuals. So through that they learn how to
communicate, we model how to communicate as professionals. It's a
ton of support. So they each have a legal advocate
or lawyer. And then within collaborative, there's these two beautiful
roles of neutral professionals. So Jen, my partner, she is
a neutral financial professional. So she deals with the numbers
for the family and I deal with the mental health
components, the communication, like a communication coach and also help
parents and guide them through their parenting plans. There's one
other professional who's called a child specialist and her role
or his role is beautiful because it's the voice of
the child. And we always say Children have a voice
in this process. They do not have a vote. We
don't put Children in a position to make adult decisions
about their parenting time, but we absolutely listen to them
and what they need. So she meets with the Children
and then we all come together and we meet together
and we help them and I think some of them,
the misconceptions out there is that people have to get
along to be able to do collaborative and that's not
true. I've had very difficult cases where they did not
get along at all. Um some really intense cases and
even cases with mental health components um substance abuse, independency,
domestic violence. But because of the amount of support and
control we have over the process as a team, we're
able to help navigate that. And it's the team that
collaborates, it's the team that's collaborative. I always say we're
collaborating for you behind your backs. We as professionals, right?
When we're in our wise minds, because we're professionals, not
that we don't get triggered. But, you know, we're, we're
there advocating and looking out for their family system. So
we're really collaborating, sort of holding space and containing for
all that's there. And you know, it's practiced in 24
countries. So the International Association of Collaborative Professionals I AC
P is um you know, sort of a um association
that houses a lot of the professionals all over the
world. And you know, some people are part of that,
but some people are just practicing too. They don't have
to be part of I AC P. But that's one
area of people like, oh I wanna learn more about
this. They can learn more, they can also find me
and ask me questions. I'm a trainer for collaborative. So
I train all over the place um and train profe
lawyers, financial professionals and mental health professionals, how to do
this work because it's just I feel like there is
a new current coming, right where families do wanna do
things different, they do want new tools, they do want
support and intervention versus a fight because that the weight
on people is just too much when it's such high
conflict. There's that horrible word acrimonious. There's the contrast, acrimonious
or amicable. It's like there's nothing else in between and
you can have a collaborative which can be and encapsulating
of acrimonious and encapsulating of amicable. But actually, there's some
sort of agreement that's held and validated by both sides
without a sense of failure or shame or blame. This
is just the best for you and the best for
your Children. And that just feels like such a gift
to the future. Yes, I mean Jen and I talk
about our, our lofty goal, right? With our dream is
that divorce is not an ace anymore. That in, in
two generations, in three generations, the way and the impact
and the intervention that we can support families, there will
always be divorce and that's ok because that's the best
decision for some I've been through a divorce. There's no
shame. But the way that we walk through divorce can
be changed and divorce doesn't have to be an ace
anymore. We can create, right? We can just like all
the other household factor, a household dysfunction factors on that.
Ace ace questionnaire, we can do things different and that's
our dream. That's our hope. That's why we're doing this
work is that in two generations and three generations, can
it not be an ace anymore? An adverse childhood experience?
Mm Beautiful. And how can people get in contact with
you if they want to work with you or get
information. Yeah. Or just, um, our workbooks on Amazon. So
if they find, you know, um, keeping kids out of
the middle and then if they wanna contact me, they
can just go to our website, which is www dot
parent and then Team te am.com and, um, and they
can just email us hello at Parent, team.com. But there's
two TSP epa rent and then Te am.com an important
distinction. Thank you so much, Brandon. It's been wonderful speaking
with you. You too, Heather. Thank you for having me.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Revolutionize Your Love life. I'd like to know what has
been your biggest takeaway from this conversation. Do take a
minute and share this with us and visit us on
our Facebook page. You can connect with me personally on
my email at Heather at Heather garber.com. If you can
think of someone who will benefit from listening to this
podcast, please do share it with them. If you have
any feedback on how I can improve it, please do
reach out to me as I'm always keen to learn
more. Thank you so much again for listening and we'll
meet again on the next episode of Revolutionize Your Love
life.
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