Success in Your Divorce is Driven by the Careful Use of your Budget (Part II)
If you are going to think strategically about your high conflict divorce, you need to plan for the long run. Many of my well-meaning clients start out strong and then run out of gas, shocked and deflated as they see one Thanksgiving pass and then another while their divorce proceedings wear on. The reality is that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and if you can accept that, you can manage your energy and time realistically and strategically to keep refueling as you go. Here’s how to pace yourself:
Managing Energy Levels for the Long Run
You don’t have infinite energy for your divorce, so playing the long game means you need to conserve your energy and use it only for getting the results you want. To start thinking about energy management, it is helpful to create an energy budget.
Creating an energy budget. The big idea of the energy budget is that you need to maintain a positive balance of physical and mental energy to sustain you through the divorce.
To make that happen, you’ll need to do three things:
Spend your energy wisely in the moment, staying focused on your divorce goals in the present and tending to them efficiently instead of procrastinating.
Build your energy reserves.
Think in advance about the twists, turns, and challenges that you will face in your divorce journey. Thinking only about where you want to end up without understanding the challenges you are going to face will only make the divorce that much more difficult. I’m not suggesting that you worry or catastrophize. Instead, stay flexible and know you’ll need strategies for handling the stress and negativity that are part of a high-conflict divorce.
How much energy do you need? You can monitor the status of your energy budget by using an imaginary energy scale that ranges from hopeful, which is an efficient use of energy, to anxious, which is not. Anxiety drains you physically and mentally, increasing your chances of not thinking clearly—which increases the odds that you will make decisions that may work against you. To keep yourself in a positive, hopeful state, at a minimum, you’ll need to develop practices that protect you from giving up your energy to anxiety. Below are some of the most effective practices I know for giving you the energy you’ll need tackle the challenges ahead.
Building physical energy. I stress physical self-care to all my clients. Basics, like eating and sleeping well, can easily fall away in a high-conflict divorce, and many of my high-conflict divorce clients do not regularly take care of their physical health. But regular physical self-care is vital for the simple reason that your physical condition has a powerful effect on how you feel, and you’ll need to feel as good as you can to make smarter decisions.
So day in and day out, be sure you pay attention to:
Sleep Schedule. Our bodies need to reset at the end of the day, and stress skyrockets when that doesn’t happen. Get the rest and reset you need by:
Going to bed at the same time each night. (Did you know Mister Rogers did this decades ago?)
Getting more than 7 hours of sleep on most nights.
Putting away smartphones and tablets at least an hour before going to bed.
Exercise. Cardio and yoga are good for stress, a major energy drain in a high-conflict divorce. At minimum:
Commit to at least three days a week of exercising during stressful times.
Aim for 30 minutes of physical activity. If you cannot do 30 minutes, do 15 minutes. If you cannot do 15 minutes, do 10 minutes. Exercising consistently 10 minutes a day is much better for your body then doing one hourlong class per week.
Nutrition. Bad nutrition wears us down. Aside from a weekly “cheat meal,” consider a healthy menu every day. I really cannot add any more to this subject than you can get from Mark Hyman, the New York Times best-selling health expert, but here’s my short answer to “What is good nutrition in a divorce?”:
Reduce protein, increase good fats (like those in olive oil, avocados, nuts, and salmon), increase veggies.
Decrease sugars and chemicals or ingredients that you cannot pronounce.
Decrease coffee (one cup of day okay, then tea).
Decrease alcohol to no more than two glasses per week on weekends.
Create the right mind space. In addition to your physical energy, you’ll need to focus on your mental energy. That can be more challenging to replenish, in at least some respects, than your physical energy. A few practices to consider.
Journaling (AKA Free Therapy). Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way got me thinking about journaling in a whole new way. Because of her, I have regularly written in a journal for years now. Doing what she calls the morning pages—three pages of handwritten, stream-of-conscious writing first thing in the morning—allows you to tap into your subconscious. Over time, this changes your perspective on issues that may be holding you back. It becomes easier to tap your own wisdom, and finally, take action on things you see yourself complaining about day after day. Maybe you’re like I was and think, “How can I possibly journal in the morning? I can barely do everything I need to as it is!” But you’d probably find a way if I said to you, “If you get up twenty minutes earlier each day, I'll give you $100. And if you get up thirty minutes earlier each day, I’ll give you $1,000 just for waking up.” Motivated by the value of the extra cash you’d probably be willing to have a little less sleep.
I can’t promise you extra money in exchange for putting in regular journaling time. But I can attest to the powerful clarity and emotional release that this practice will bring. Over time, the difference in your divorce and life will be priceless!
Visualizing (AKA Planning the Life You Want). This practice is really just a shortcut to your dreams, and it’s especially good for people who, shall we say, do not fully believe they deserve or can have the life they want.
Here is how to do it. At least once a week, dedicate at least 15 minutes to thinking five years into the future. Imagine the life you want then, in movie-like detail. Where are you living? What are you doing? Who and what is around you? Immerse yourself in a vision of that life, and then rewind the movie and travel back to the present, seeing all the things you’d have to do to achieve that goal. Imagine this reverse journey in as much movie-like detail as possible. Do you see your face in this visualization? How does it look? What color is the paint in your new apartment? What type of dog would you have, if you always wanted one? You get the point!
When I did this, I saw myself as a writer, and my visualization practice made me realize that I was closer to my dream than I thought. I could put the writing I do as an attorney in a new context and see it as an important step in the process. The same sort of thing happens for many of my clients. They can see not just their futures but their current lives in an inspiring light. Their dreams seem possible and within reach. After visualizing about writing and other dreams, I will say that doing this really does work. If you want to have the life you want, start visualizing now. If you’d like to try it, googling Maxwell Maltz or The Success Principles will point you in the right direction!
Meditation (AKA Mind Resetting). The way I see it, a meditation practice is designed to give you space between a stimulus and a response so you will not be so reactive. It is also designed to reset the mind. Starting a meditation practice can be daunting, but the rewards are tremendous. An easy way to start is through guided meditation. (Google “five-minute meditation” or “10-minute meditation” to find a variety of free recordings.) Don’t get too hung up about how long you meditate. If you’re new to it, start with five minutes every day. When you can do that comfortably, increase to more. I would rather see you do five minutes every day than 10 minutes two days a week. The idea here is to develop a consistent practice. It will change you energetically, and that will change the nature of any conflict you are in.
Divorce is hard work, so having these mental and physical practices allows you to have more energy and be more resilient which are two qualities you will need if you are going to go the distance.
Time is not free.
Time Budget. A high-conflict divorce can take years to resolve. And even if you do resolve it, you can have a cold war for decades. Knowing this, it makes sense to guard your precious time as much as possible. Time is not renewable, it is invaluable. It is very hard not to overtax your time budget in a high-conflict divorce. There is much to do to properly prepare for divorce even if you are the most efficient litigant with the most efficient attorney, but you can likely be more efficient than you believe with your time if you use the following practices.
No Response for at Least 24 Hours. Many clients can fall into “tit for tat” text or email exchanges with their spouse, exchanges that go nowhere except into a downward spiral that is hard to pull out of. Instead of firing off an immediate response, if you are triggered even a little by your spouse’s missives, do not respond for at least 24 hours. Also, I do not suggest asking your attorney to write your emails or texts for you, though in the beginning, it may be helpful to ask your attorney or a divorce coach to give you a model for how to respond to conflict in a way that is useful and consistent.
No Friday Email Forwards from Opposing Attorneys. A particular type of attorney deliberately sends aggressive settlement letters or other demands on Friday afternoon. Naively, thinking I was being a good attorney, I would forward those messages to my clients. But I learned the hard way that that is just what the other side wants. They want you to have all weekend to stew, become irrational, and overreact—it weakens you and makes their job easier. I am chagrined to say that it took me years to realize this, and as soon as I did, I stopped those Friday forwards. Now if I receive a late-Friday message from opposing counsel, I hold onto it until Monday. And if I feel triggered by the content, I usually wait at least a week so I can send my client not just the opposing counsel’s message but also a copy of my written response to it, along with a video explaining my thinking on their missive and my response. This lets my clients see things more holistically rather than being driven by their gut reaction and emotions. If your attorney is still caught up in forwarding emails from opposing counsel on Fridays, please tell them to stop. Everyone will be calmer, and by not dealing with opposing counsel over the weekend, you can get much-needed renewal and rest.
In summary, to have a successful divorce, you’ll need to take steps every day to manage and rebuild your mental, physical and emotional energy so you will not be overtaxed by the demands of the divorce. At the same time, think of your time as a precious commodity and don’t let the other side manipulate you into throwing it away on anger, worry and acting out. Every minute you spend reacting or allowing yourself to be emotionally manipulated is a minute you can’t get back.
Keep breathing. Pace yourself. And know that the work it takes to do that is worth it. Taking control of your energy and time budgets is one of the most effective ways I know to keep your divorce goals within reach.
