BEYOND BIFF, WISER
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Are you feeling overwhelmed and need to regain your calm and clarity?
I recently came across a great tool from the book Good Life by Robert Waldinger, M.D., and Marc Schultz, M.D. called the WISER Method.
This technique can help you respond to difficult situations in a more mindful way by giving you the opportunity to look at the details of the situation, other people's experiences, and your own reactions.
Take a few moments to pause and reflect on the situation. You'll be surprised at how much clarity and peace of mind you can find!
Most of what I preach comes down to a simple rule: You control only one thing in your divorce—you.
For years I’ve been helping new clients in dysfunctional co-parenting relationships hold onto that precious self-control with something called the BIFF method, one of my go-to tools.
BIFF, developed by a conflict specialist named Bill Eddy, stands for Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm. It’s a blueprint for responding calmly and professionally to difficult or emotionally charged messages such as emails, letters, or text messages.
If you can follow BIFF method, you’ll make an immediate quantum leap forward in communicating with your co-parent.
But a lot of clients get stuck because they react so strongly to their co-parent’s insensitive-sounding communications that “brief, informative, friendly and firm” aren’t in their emotional vocabulary. They often ask me to write the first draft of their BIFF statements for them.
I often feel uncomfortable doing that for a client to send because a BIFF statement won’t be as effective if it’s not in their own voice, so what I do like to do instead is help them create some emotional distance from their reactions so they can try again themselves. I show them how to move away from the reactive part of themselves that is bringing up strong negative emotions and step into the best part of themselves with a clearer head that will let them state what they want the concise BIFF way instead of being paralyzed or caught up in a rant.
THE WISER METHOD
How do you give yourself the emotional space to regain your calm and clarity? There are many ways to do it, but lately, my clients have been getting great results using a tool I picked up from the book Good Life by Robert Waldinger, M.D., and Marc Schultz, M.D. The technique, which they call the WISER Method, can help you respond to difficult situations by giving you a chance to look more closely at the details of the situation, other people's experiences, and your own reactions.
Step 1: Watch
It's important to remember that our initial reading of a situation can be powerful, but it doesn’t always tell the whole story. It’s easy to see a familiar pattern playing out and not notice what’s really at issue this time—in you or the other person—missing out on valuable information. Taking a step back and observing the situation can be a helpful way to gain a better understanding and keep from responding too quickly.
I understand it can be difficult to do this, especially if you have had a long history of conflict with your co-parent. It’s easy to go into survival mode, with either a knee-jerk reaction that is usually not helpful or by internalizing a hurtful statement, which can lead to resentment and pain.
The best thing to do when you get an email or text that sets you off is to consciously put yourself in the Watch phase, becoming an observer of what’s happening inside you.
Pay particular attention to your reactions, noticing if you are at all triggered if you are feeling stress in your body, in your shoulders, if your breathing is changing, or if you have an impulse to lash out. Being able to name what is happening is a great sign that you are actively in Watching and able to observe with understanding.
Think about these questions when you are in the Watch phase:
•Did I take a break to prioritize my self-care and bring out the best of me instead of responding from my worst?
•If I paused, did I gain insight into the motivations behind my co-parent's behavior?
•If I couldn't figure out what was driving my co-parent's behavior beyond labeling them a narcissist or sociopath, did I consult a professional to help me deal with my own reactions in a more positive way?
Step 2: Interpret
The authors refer to the Interpret stage as the “filling in the blanks.”
You may well be filling in the blanks negatively about the motives behind your coparent’s statements and requests because you were triggered by their communication in the first place.
You may also be minimizing their legitimate concerns, disregarding issues that seem important to them almost without thinking—sometimes just because they’re making a big deal about them.
But if you can spend time beyond your automatic reactions and try to interpret what is going on from another perspective, you may gain a helpful perspective. Maybe the concerns they have are valid, at least for them, and they are only trying to do what they think is best. Maybe there are simple ways to address the issues.
It may be helpful to mind map this stage. You can use a sheet of paper or mind mapping software like MindNode and put the issue, such as increased parenting time, in the center of the mind map and then branch out from there, writing down all the reasons that your coparent may not agree to more time.
Ask yourself:
•What am I missing here?
•Are there other ways to interpret this situation?
•How else can I understand the situation?
Step 3: Select Options
You've watched the situation and thought about it carefully. Now, you are moving into the option stage.
The work you did in the Watch stage and in the Interpret or Understand stage gives you more options than you would have had if you reacted immediately.
It can be challenging to use the WISER model, especially at first. The compulsion to respond automatically or fight or shut down is so strong.
But if you can take a step back, you can give yourself the benefit of your best thinking and potentially open up an array of better possibilities for dealing with your situation.
When you are thinking about options, think about your goals, especially your long-term goals of making your co-parenting relationship as civil as possible.
When we slow down, it is easier for us to come back to what’s most important. We move out of our desires to lash back. To withdraw. We see that the best options usually involve a middle ground between protecting our boundaries and maintaining what is best for our child.
If, for example, the issue is trying to increase your parenting time, a strategy could be to hire a child specialist and let this person dictate a parenting schedule that would serve the best interests of the child, not just the interests of either parent.
Questions to ask yourself in this stage are:
•I am taking a long-term view of my coparenting goals?
•Have I considered a variety of approaches to achieve them?
•Have I have consulted relevant resources, such as co-parenting books and/or outside professionals, to further extend my options?
Step 4: Engage
Engaging with the other person only comes after three stages of prep work, where we can tap into the more evolved sections of our brain and really increase the chances of having less conflict with our coparent.
For instance, say your co-parent had been sending you obnoxious texts, and your response was to take a pause, say 30 days because you’d just had enough. You blocked them from your phone. You only responded with BIFF statements about scheduling issues on a coparenting app.
In that time, you went through the first three WISER steps, and you gave more thought to the situation from different perspectives.
Now you are feeling as though your battery has been recharged. You feel you can respond from a stronger and wiser place. Now is the time to engage.
Remember though, when you are responding to your coparent, to heed the wisdom of John and Julie Gottman, who preach that it is not what you say, but how you say it that communicates the message. As well as being brief, informative and firm, remember the word friendly—and even try for kind.
Questions to ask yourself as you experiment with this:
•Before I engaged, did I faithfully go through these steps or rush through them?
•Did I prepare a first draft of the BIFF statement or another type of statement designed to reduce conflict and create collaboration?
•Did I wait at least 24 hours before I engaged? If not, why not?
Stage 5: Reflect
Reflecting on the process is where real future growth can happen.
In the beginning, it is hard to keep from having a lot of conflict with a co-parent who is focusing on short-term desires rather than long-term needs and goals.
That means you are going to have to be the one who changes to make your child’s life better.
Even in a parallel parenting situation, the way you feel about your co-parent matters to your child, who will pick up on it even if it is unspoken. So the more you can reduce your own negative reactions, see your partner’s motivations in a more positive light, and provide options that are wise and creative, the better chance you have of giving your child the tools necessary to be happier in life.
Questions to consider:
•What have I gained from this reflection?
•How will I act differently next time this happens?
As they say in raising children, the days are long, but the years are short. And for a child, parents’ conflict can make painful days feel interminable. If experimenting with tools like the WISER method—even if it’s difficult at first—can help bring peace to the family, isn’t it worth a try?