Your Problems Are the Clues You Need to Succeed for Alienated Parents

Can I ask you something a little confronting? What if nothing is actually wrong with your life right now? Not because your situation isn't brutal. It is. Not because the courts or your co-parent are suddenly being fair or reasonable. I'm going to bet that they're probably not. But what if the very problems you're living with today are actually the raw materials for the life that you keep saying that you want? The kind of parent that you want to be, the kind of impact that you want to have, the kind of strength and clarity you wish you had 10 years ago. Today, I'm going to show you how to stop just surviving your problems and start using them to build the life and the legacy you actually want.

>> Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast [music] dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, [music] Shelby Molsberry, a twice-certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the [music] effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you. >> [music] >> Stay tuned. >> So, today I'm going to offer you a refrain that might feel actually a little uncomfortable at first, maybe not even a little bit, maybe completely uncomfortable at first. But if you let it land, you guys, this has the power to change how you experience your life, especially in the middle of alienation. Okay?

Your problems are not interruptions. They're not punishments and they're not proof that you are failing or have failed. The problems that arise in your life are the raw materials for your success. They're the seeds of your achieving your next level. And I know that that can sound almost offensive when you're in the middle of something excruciating, especially when that problem is tied to your children or the court system Um, being cut out of your child's life in a way that we all know that research shows can devastate both you and your child's mental health. But, I want you to stay with me because what I am not saying is that your pain isn't real. That was like

a double negative. What I am saying is that your interpretation of what that pain means is shaping what happens next. Right now, your life looks the way it does not just because of your circumstances. And if you've listened for a while, you've probably heard this from me. I guaranteed you have. Your life looks the way it does today because of the thinking patterns that have been running often quietly in the background. Your life is the same because your thinking is the same. And most of us don't see that because the thinking feels justified. It feels logical. It feels like of course I'm thinking this way because look at what's happening. I didn't ask for this. But, when you zoom

out, you start to see something else. Today's problems are often I want to say always, but we'll go with often, the byproduct of yesterday's thoughts. I'm not saying this in a blamey, you manifested this sort of way because that's what it could sound like. I'm saying it more in a cause and effect sort of way. The way that you've been relating to uncertainty, to fear, to control, to outcomes, this compounds over time. And then you try to fix the external situation without ever addressing the internal pattern that's actually giving birth to it again and again and again. So, you stay stuck in this loop of problem, reaction, and then more of the same problem. One of the most common ways that we

reinforce that loop is through complaining. Complaining, y'all, isn't just venting. Complaining is recruitment. It's the act of going out in the world with the intention of gathering agreement from anybody who will listen, right? For why something, our life, or our problems are as bad, as unfair, or as unchangeable as they feel. Right? And again, I'm going to keep saying this. This message today, you guys, it's not about shame. It is about noticing the function. Because every time that you recruit someone into your problem story, you strengthen your identity inside of that problem. You make it more real, more fixed, more permanent. You become the parent who this always

happens to. Instead of being the parent who is actively building something in the middle of it. So, what do we do instead? This is where it gets counterintuitive, actually, you guys. You don't just problem-solve your way out of this. You experience your way into something different. Most people are trying to think, like overthink their way into some sort of solution, while their nervous systems are still braced, still contracted, and operating from fear and/or lack. All the clinical guidance out there for alienated parents consistently emphasizes nervous system support, right? Of coping skills and your emotional regulation. For this reason, for this exact reason. Because from that

state of fear and/or lack, every solution that you find will still be infused with the energy of the problem. So, it recreates it. You recreate the problem when you're problem-solving. And I know it's not just semantics. It sounds like it, but it's really not. When you are living in the problem and looking for ways out of the problem, it is like digging yourself out of quicksand. What actually shifts things, you guys, is your ability. Are you ready for it? To detach. Not detach in a cold or avoided way, but in a grounded, regulated way. To loosen your grip on the idea that I need the specific outcome now in this specific timeline in order to feel okay. Because

as long as your body is in a state of needing, right? I need this to happen in order to feel okay to to to breathe, whatever it is, to live my go on living my life. Your nervous system will always stay activated from that mindset. Your system reads it as survival. It's even if you're telling yourself that you're living um abundantly and you're trying to do all the the uh affirmations, positive affirmations that you can, right? If you notice, from that state, those affirmations probably aren't working for you. Or you're getting very inconsistent results because you are still in nervous system activation or even maybe shutdown from that spot. And when you are in survival, survival

mode, you do not create. You react, you grasp, you chase. And chasing is the energetic opposite of receiving. Practices like mindfulness, journey journaling, timeouts are recommended for early needed parents, for us as early needed parents, precisely because they help move you out of a constant chase defense mode and into a more receptive, regulated states. This is why acting from fear and doubt will never lead you to what you're calling um prosperity, peace, connection, abundance. They're not on the same frequency. You cannot cannot build a life of safety when your body is constantly signaling danger. So, instead of chasing the outcome that you think will make you feel better, you

begin generating the feeling now. If you believe that I'll finally feel calm when this situation resolves, then work on accessing calm in this moment before that ever happens. If you believe that I'll finally feel secure when everything changes or when this one thing changes, practice the sensation of security now in your body. Keep practicing it because the moment that you do that, something powerful happens, you guys. You start proving yourself that the feeling that you're chasing isn't actually locked behind any outcome. It's never locked behind the outcome. And when your body realizes that, not just in your higher thinking, but with the rest of your body gets that message,

then it softens. You open up. Your nervous system begins to regulate and from that place you're no longer operating from need, necessity, chasing. Instead, you're operating from desire. Need constricts. Desire opens. Need says, "It has to happen this way or I'm not okay." Desire says, "I would love for this to happen. And I can still build a meaningful life while I move towards it." That energy changes everything. When you're able to relax and stop clamping down on the the outcome that you need to happen, then things start to fall into place. Problems actually start to solve themselves when you're able to walk away from them, not ignore them, not deny them, not put them up on a shelf and

pretend like they're not there, but when you just let go, it's like when you lose your keys or you lose something of yours. You know, when you're like And I've used this analogy before, but you're like hell-bent and I do still do this to this day. If I lose keys, which actually I don't need a car key anymore. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Um >> [laughter] >> Anytime I've lost something in the past, I will look, look, turn things over, look, you know, above the refrigerator and the freezer, both under the couch. I drive myself crazy and you'll start looking in all the places, like the weirdest places and you start abandoning all of your other tasks, important tasks

sometimes. I know for me I've done that. Because all you need to do is find this one thing, right? You're just so hell-bent on getting this one thing done. Just one more like one more place that you're going to look or if it's even a task that you're trying to finish, when you are trying to control the outcome, it doesn't stop. But notice that most of the time when you're in that place, you don't find the keys or the the job doesn't get done, whatever task you're doing doesn't get done in the way that you wanted it to be done in the first place. It's more rushed and like rigid, right? It doesn't happen. But when you walk away, give it some time, maybe even forget about the keys

or the task, whatever, just for a few minutes sometimes, when you come back because you have refreshed yourself, gotten a different perspective, even by not thinking about it, but you let go of your white-knuckling, answers start to come. Clarity starts to show up for you, right? Okay. And so here's an example. Let's say you're waiting for contact. Let's ground this in your your actual world. Imagine you've been waiting for months or for years even for your child to reach out. You check your phone constantly, you replay old messages, you stalk court updates, you read every coparent email, the back and forth from it like it's a code that you need to decode.

That sounded redundant. It's something that you need to like figure out, find it the the secret answer to. Your mind says, "I'm just being a loving, attentive parent, right?" But your nervous system is in full surveillance mode. Studies show that I'm sure that you guys know this that studies show that alienated parents are high risk already for anxiety, depression, other health issues, right? Which is exactly what this chronic state of alert can create of hypervigilance. From that energy, every thought reinforces the problem. Nothing is changing. >> Oh god, I'd pay a quarter for every time I heard that. >> They'll never come back. I'm powerless until the court or my child does

something. Till something lifts, right? That's the loop though. Today's suffering is the byproduct of yesterday's thoughts. So, instead of that version, I'm going to give you a different version, that more detached version. The circumstances are the same. Your child still hasn't reached out, right? The shift though is inside of you. You stop telling the story that the only way I can feel okay is if they contact me. You start asking curiosity, if this never changed today, who am I and what is still true about me? Maybe what's true, still true, is that I'm still a loving parent. That's never changed. I can still show up with integrity and integrity. I can still build a life with

meaning even while I grieve this. And from here, you practice the feeling that you think contact will give you. So, if you are telling yourself that right now, currently, that I need my child to contact me, to reach out, to tell me they love me, or whatever it is, then you are likely the emotion that you're after there, cuz we're always going after an emotion. I don't care what we're talking about, money, um career, relationships, whatever it is, it's always an it's because of the story that we're telling ourselves, and the story you're telling yourselves is providing us an emotion, okay? So, if you believe that your child contacting you will provide the feeling of connection, feeling loved.

Um maybe that feeling of tenderness, right? Or meaning, maybe maybe it's about meaning-making. Um you can deliberately bring that into your body through the actions that you can control. Reaching out to safe people, like to other people, stable relationships, you know, or creating those. Doing a community, serving someone else, creating something that matters to you, okay? All the mental health professionals working with alienated parents, me too, repeatedly recommend social support and purpose-building activities for this exact reason. In fact, this doesn't just go with alienated parents, this goes to all uh PTSD C- CPTSD um survivors. Let's go Let's go with that.

So, you're not pretending in this scenario that I'm pointing out here, like the detached version. You're not pretending that you don't care whether your child reaches out to you or not or about your child, period. You're loosening the inner rule that says that until this is fixed, I don't get to feel anything good. You're letting go of that, letting that sort of disintegrate, break up, fall away on its own. Because you're stepping into the active role. So, that is don't chase, instead receive applied. You stop energetically chasing your child through your thoughts and instead receive those states of connection and love from what's available and sustainable now, today, in

the moment. Instead of needing it up there. Needing something outside of you to change, which is rarely attainable and never sustainable, which will always keep you in an activated state. Essentially, what I'm saying is as you open yourself up to movements, opportunities. Not that you're sitting around waiting for opportunities to fall in your lap. You're just not needing them to happen for you, right? Not grinding and mowing everything down in your way, either. Trying to make happen, because that's resistance. You ever hear people say I You know, when I say this now, I know this happens with men and women, right? But I right now in the way that I'm thinking

about it, I do often see more moms or women doing this. Or I hear them saying it. And I used to say this, too. Is if I don't make XYZ happen, it never will. Again, if I had a quarter for every mom that I've heard say something similar to that. If I don't do it, then it will never be done right. So, I have to make it happen. The idea is that I have to stay on whoever is out there and push in order to create whatever outcome it is that you want. Right? Which is resistance based in fear. It feels grandy. It feels um miserable, actually. It feels like suffering, but in the moment it feels like urgent, like you must get it done. It's a sense of control, right? It's the

fear of losing control. Fear that the outcome that you want, that you desire, won't happen. It not happening in your mind or whoever's thinking like this feels like it's just unacceptable. That can't be. It's unacceptable. It has to happen. I'm not saying it won't work sometime to time to control outside of you. I'm not saying that you don't need to exert effort to get to the life that you want. You absolutely do. But the energy behind it is going to change everything. When you're coming out it from a place of like urgent, like needing to control it, you feel clenched. Maybe your even your jaw's clenched and your stomach is sort of like mhm churning, right? Um I think the easiest way to say

it is that you're just prolonging your suffering because you're keeping your nervous system in that activated state. Opening yourself up to opportunity is setting and declaring intention. And then keeping yourself open to receiving, receiving the call, receiving the chance introduction, if you will, um with like a potential take away from alienating like a business associate or even a collaborator, opening yourself up to multiple streams of income, maybe. Whatever it might be for you. It all comes from a relaxed state. A mindset of already having. Because this, that what I'm just describing now, is the frequency of receiving. Okay? Of creation, of creating. It's not

sitting back and eating bonbons, but it's opening yourself up to the idea but it's already going to happen. It's already been written. They're already in the cards for you. And when you come at it Well, I'm going to get into this in a minute, but when you come at to at it from a place of already having, you it's it's the same thing as you see people um and sometimes it might actually be the alienating parent in your experience of them that they're just so lucky because they already believe in themselves to the point where they're delusional about it. But they're so firm in their belief that whatever it is that they want is going to happen for them. Like those alienated alienating parents

that feel like they're above the law, these are the same people. I've talked about this, I know, on an episode previous episode a long time ago. But they're so delusional to believe that whatever it is that they want is going to come to them. It's just going to fall into their lap. And you're all alienated parents, myself included, is always like scratching, you know, our heads thinking like how is it that everything comes comes so easy to them. They are like so lucky, the luckiest people around. Even though they're they behaved horribly, things keep coming to them. It's because of the energy that they're holding when it comes to whatever it is that they want

to achieve, okay? And you can do this, too. You don't have to be a quote-unquote bad person to make things happen for you, okay? We're not getting into a place of judgment here, but I know that that's a lot of people. That's how you're thinking, anyway. All right, so I have another um example here. Imagine, let's say that you have a court date coming up. You're telling yourself that everything depends on this. I have one client in mind. I had a client this one particular client in mind while writing this, and I have another one in mind while I'm saying this right now. Your nervous system feels entirely flooded, right? Racing thoughts, shallow breathing, compulsive researching,

waiting on if like as soon as an email comes in from your attorney, you're like a falcon, right? You're going to open it and see what it says and get it all done right now, right? You over-email your attorney. You doomscroll case law, maybe. You rehearse catastrophic outcomes in your head. This is all acting from fear and doubt. When you feel so urgent about it, you're trying to resolve for your uh your anxiety by controlling the outcome. You It's a delusion, again, and not not in the productive way. This part of your brain believes that you can control the outcome by being hypervigilant. But your nervous system just feels more danger. That's the only thing it's feeling right

now. Research on alienation and high-conflict separation shows this chronic activation can and will erode your mental health over time. Okay? So, instead, the detachment version of this is the court date is still on the calendar. It's the same exact circumstance, but you decide that my job is my inputs. It's not about the outcome. Your job is to to focus on your actions, what you're giving, putting out there, how you're supplying your attorney, how you're showing up for your visits with your child if you're having. You focus on what you can control, your documentation, your regulation practices, your support system, your sleep quality and quantity, your boundaries, also for

maybe how much you research, how much you're up until 2:00 a.m. researching outcomes, court outcomes for alienated parents like you. You practice in the detached version, you practice acting as if you are a person who can handle hard things because you can. Look what you've come through. Regardless of what the judge decides, you can handle anything that you put your mind to, right? This goes back to the capacity episode, too. It's coming from a place of faith. And so, from there, when you're have faith that whatever the outcome is, knowing that you're just let laid it all out on the table, put everything you had into it, from a place of steady, grounded, and even love for everybody involved,

then from that space, you prepare like someone who is capable and steady. You have a nervous system planned for the morning of court, maybe. You limit how many hours you spend spiraling online. You have a couple of grounded sentences ready if you need to speak it's at any of the uh pre-court events. That as if behavior does not guarantee a specific legal outcome, right? But it dramatically increases your capacity to tolerate whatever happens. And it's aligned with self-love, self-respect, and I'm gathering aligned with the parent that you always want to be. It's also aligned with the therapeutic advice to focus on coping skills, self-management, and realistic

expectations rather than clinging to the outcome that you desire, like to one outcome. So, there's one more layer here, you guys. Most of us accidentally befriend our problems. Not in a healing sort of way, but in a binding way. We obsess over them. We analyze them. We plead with them, with our problems. We fight them. We talk about them to anyone who will listen, complaining, right? And in doing that, we stay entangled. Because attention, y'all, is attachment. The more that you fixate, the more that you reinforce. A lot of what passes for coping in the alienation spaces is just actually rehearsing the wound over and over again. This is why pretty early on, I took myself off of all of the

the parental alienation, quote-unquote, support groups online, like the Facebook. No disrespect to any of them. But for me, it just felt like it was causing me to fixate on the problem instead of living the solution. Reddit, the Reddit group, right? That's there, this Reddit sub. That one, too. That I mean, there's nothing that will keep you in nervous system activation like sitting on one of those um threads, groups, subs, and constantly refreshing that feed, or or making it a habit to go there to look for all the answers, when all of your answers are always in here. And maybe that you have a coach to help you to realize those answers, to access those answers.

But most of the time, no. I would say almost all the time, the answer is not going to come from soaking yourself in every other parent's experience of this because it's only causing you to identify with the problem, which will only solidify your identity in that problem. You will be of that problem. Okay? So, a lot of what passes as coping for in alienation spaces is actually just rehearsing the wound over and over again. Meanwhile, evidence-based coping recommendations including things like mindfulness, journaling, time out, support groups, and reframing, not endless repetition of the same story. Endless repetition of the same story, it's like I just said,

is going to keep you identifying with and of the problem. So, what does it look like to shift this? It looks like letting life in alongside the problem. And maybe even questioning what the problem is for you. And stay with me because I'm going to get into that in a second. Not waiting for the problem to be gone before you allow relief, joy, or presence. Not wishing the problem away, but letting those states instead coexist. When you do that, the sting begins to dissolve. Not because you solved it, but because you stopped feeding it with constant resistance and fixation. From that softer space, new thoughts and new ideas become available to you. New behaviors become possible.

New outcomes become more likely. Not because you forced them, but because you became someone who has the capacity to hold them. And if Let me just give you a really quick recap on gaining capacity. Having capacity is really just a simple decision to have the capacity because of a greater desire, right? So, if you um currently don't have the capacity to deal with people who stress you out, well, that the sentence structure was all kinds of weird because nobody actually stresses you out. You are stressed out by the thoughts that those people should not be acting the way they are, some version of that, but anyway, let's just maybe you're telling yourself that you cannot

handle people like that, whoever that is, right? If you just decide that you can handle people like that, then you can. You will find a way because the desire to handle all the things is greater than your desire to suffer around people that you cannot change. Does that make sense? So, it's a simple decision and with keeping in mind the outcome that you will provide for yourself by increasing your capacity, making the decision to hold whatever is it coming in front of you. Like the benefits versus the drawbacks, okay? So, now I want to bring in the part that I think many of you are probably starving for. One of the sneakiest effects of alienation is that it makes you feel small.

Small in court, small in the professional's offices, small at school, right? At your kiddo's school, small in your child's story, obviously, and small maybe even in your community. And when you feel that small, you stop taking action. This was me, for sure, and actually probably still to this day at times. So, you what that does for you when you're feeling small is you don't send a message because what if they ignore me? You don't make the call because what if I sound stupid? They're just going to use this stuff against me, whatever I say. You don't start the support group, maybe, or the account, or the project because who am I to do that? I'm not ready to do something like that.

That's the idea in your brain. So, your life becomes organized around what you're afraid might happen or might not happen, right? Instead of what you actually want to create. Your life becomes organized around the very problem that you wish wasn't in your life. But, if obstacles are the raw materials for your successes, this is exactly where I want you to flip it. And so, instead of asking, "How do I fix this problem? How do I get myself out of this mess?" You want to ask yourself instead, "How do I live the solution that I wish existed in the world?" Even if my personal outcome never changes. Because then you're not just someone with a problem. You're not the parent that's been

wronged. You're now becoming and have become someone who's living in the solution. And it doesn't have to be the solution to everything. You don't have to come up with the perfect solution, but just to be a part of something bigger. Like, if there's something that you don't like in your life right now, then this right here is all the clues that you need to create meaning. Whether it's something on the small scale, like "I hate that the coffee maker takes so long to heat up in the mornings." You know? Or something much bigger, like this whole alienation as a whole, and how miserable it is for us, how it's affecting so many parents. So, not the solution to everything, but the solution to maybe

even just a tiny corner of what hurts you or has hurt you the most. Because in whatever hurts you the most, whatever feels the most negatively impactful on you, is actually revealing all of your core values. So, it's really important to pay attention to that, not the the problem and how you've been in justice, but what does it say about who you are as a person and what you stand for. That is all of the direction that you need to go create a meaningful life. Okay? And maybe create meaning for others. So, your dream might be I'm going to give you some examples now. Your dream might be I want my child to know this is an easy one and I've probably given a similar example to this, but I want my

child to know beyond a doubt that my love is true and consistent, right? That I didn't disappear, that I stayed loving even when it looked like they didn't want me. Okay? Most parents wait for permission to live that dream. I know I did. They wait for a court order, they wait for the child to reach out, or they wait for the other parent to soften. Right? Which as we all know is never going to happen. I mean as far as the parent other parent softening. It could. Who knows? It's It's I wouldn't bank on it happening. In the meantime, these parents that are not doing anything and keeping their world small, they go quiet. Not because they don't care, not for me, not because I

didn't care. It was in fact such the opposite of that. I cared so much, so deeply that I was frozen because I was living in the problem, right? But because the fear of one more rejection is unbearable or the fear of um being shut down or or or judged or humiliated by the other parent was unbearable, too. Look, it is so common that rejected parents will withdraw to protect themselves even though gentle appropriate efforts to stay present can actually support eventual reconnection. I say this because I just had uh I was talking with a a a client late last week about this very thing like oh maybe I should just step back and maybe my all my efforts are actually

placing my kids in further danger in the line of fire basically. And so he thought, "Well, maybe if I disappear, then they won't feel so pressured." And yeah, maybe that that's the case, but also remember that by disappearing, who's to say that that's not affecting your kids, no matter how they're acting towards you when they see you. They're acting the way that they're acting towards you because of the programming. But it doesn't mean internally that when you stop showing up, that that's going to immediately cause relief for them. Maybe on the external, maybe just for a minute, but on the internal, then they of course they might start to question. Who knows what they're going to

question? Oh, maybe that parent doesn't love me anymore. Maybe they really are what the alienating parent says. Who knows what's going to cause them more stress on the forefront. Instead of worrying, obsessing on that and how it's going to be received, you always want to be the parent that's aligned with your core values and what you say that you are, who you say that you are. And you continue like that for as long as the you it's possible for you, you know? And again, the capacity to hold that is really just a decision. Okay? So it's just a mindset going into it. All right. So, living in the solution sounds different. Going back to my notes and so it's living in the solution sounds like

I'm going to be the parent who reaches out anyway in a gentle, regulated, and consistent way, even if I don't get a response right now, even if they push me away, they tell me to leave, whatever it is. That might look like a birthday message that simply says, "I'm thinking of you today. I love you. No need to reply. No pressure here. I just want you to know that you're always on my mind, but especially today." Whatever. Um or a short note on a holiday. I just came off doing the one in how to reach out episode, so some of these are going to sound similar, but on a holiday maybe it sounds like, "I hope today holds at least one peaceful moment for you." Depending on the

history and the dynamic of the relationship, I also don't want you to like put your idea of what might be going on for them onto them, you know, because that's only your idea. So, maybe it's just that I hope today holds peace and joy for you. I love you. I'm here. Yada yada. No pleading, no defenses, no I wish I could hug you because that's just going to that's leaning on that, right? No attacking the other parent or your child, obviously. I'm sure that you know that. Just quiet, steady proof. Saying I was here. I stayed loving. I stayed safe. Like being a safe, consistent, reliable source of love. So, you're no longer just hoping that one day that they'll know that you loved

them. They'll realize one day. Instead, you're documenting that love through your actions now. Okay? This has always been a a known, at least for as long as I've been in alienated, and the one consistent thing I hear is for us to be consistent in whatever that is, dripping love, you know? A continuous, steady, slow drip of love. No expectations, no leaning, no needing them to behave a certain way for that drip to continue. Um all right, so I've got another example here. Creating your own your own love. Maybe our fear is is that they're being told that I abandoned them, that I didn't try, right? This is very well common. Living in the solution could mean creating an actual trail of evidence

that tells a different story. Some alienated parents and advocates that I know have um myself included, have used social media, blogs, even journaling, right? Letters that you don't send or that you do send, it just depends, as a way to speak, to voice their enduring love into something tangible. And also, in doing that, they find community, create community in the process. Hello. Look what I'm doing here with you guys. Maybe it's this the community that we have here. We're not in constant communication as far as this, but I I I feel you guys communicating with me. Well, certainly whenever you comment on um Spotify or YouTube, you know. But I feel you communicating with me

just as I'm speaking with you. Because I know I know the energy. I know what you guys are going through. There is community here. And you can create that, too, in any capacity that you want. So, that might mean opening a private or a public account, right? Either way, where you regularly post letters, memories, or messages to your child. You know, in fact, I was looking um at a previous client's Instagram the other day. And she's got a few different accounts, right? And her her personal account has gone to doing just this. She posts a simple picture in in the Instagram post. And I know many of you probably already do this. Then she writes these beautiful love letters to

her kids, you know? Not blaming, not anything, just speaking her experience. She's very raw, very vulnerable about her, not about what was done to her, you know, but about who she is and the mom that she will always strive to continue to be, and what have you. The love that she has for all of her children. She really comes at it always from love and openness to them, for them. A groundedness for them. So, that's something you can do. Nothing attacking, nothing litigious. Just a consistent record of I was here. I thought of you. I kept growing, and I kept loving, no matter what. This is the slow and steady wins the race, right? This is a marathon. It's not going to be some

instant gratification where all of a sudden they see one or two or 10 of your posts, maybe even 20, and they come running back to you. That's not why you're doing it. You're doing it to show love, to be and live experience your solution from the problem that you began with. If you're craving love now, feeling their love, then you love them. That's part of the solution. That's it. Because anytime you're needing something for somebody else, how do you supply that to yourself and into them? So, one day your child might find that. They could. And that's the whole point of doing it. It's just to continue to drip the love in any way that you can think of doing it. Without, of course, overstepping.

Um even if they never do, you will have lived You will have lived as the solution to the story that you disappeared. Right? That's the That was the fear to begin with. Oh, they're going to think I disappeared, that I abandoned them, yada yada yada. No, you've been living. I There's another um mom who I've She's never been a client, and I've actually never met her in person, but I see her on Twitter X all the time. I mean, several times a day. Encouraging other parents, alienated parents, and also writing these love notes, short, you know, Twitter style, to her son. I admire her so much, and I love her consistent This is a perfect example of dripping love, consistently dripping love.

When you do this, you stop rehearsing instantly. You cease rehearsing some speech that you'll give them one day. Then you start speaking that love right now in a form that can outlast the season. It's staying power. All right, two more short segments to go. Um my next example is building what you wish you had. For some of you, the bigness is not just personal, it's more collective. Your dream might sound like, I wish there had been a space for me in a community and a a safe place for me to not feel crazy. Because in in the regular community, everywhere else, my life felt crazy. I had nobody that I trusted, but I felt safe around, right? Another thing that it might sound like is, I wish

professionals actually understood alienation. The judges, the the doctors, the some of the counselors that aren't feeling system treated. Another gripe that I hear all the time is or often is that, I wish there were advocacy organizations that truly get this. I wish there was more financial support, you know, all that kind of stuff. Anything that's acting as the barrier, you can turn this into your purpose. Okay? So, living the solution might mean starting support group that you wish had existed for you. Even if only three people show up at first, whether it's online or in person or whatever it is that you're doing. Or joining an existing organization and adding your

voice instead of waiting for someone else to fix the system. >> [sighs] >> You guys, if there's something that you're griping about, you go to sleep thinking about it, you wake up thinking about it, God, why isn't there this? Go create it. This will create meaning in your world, or at least try. That you can never fail. The only failure is you sitting at home or wherever you are griping about it as opposed being the problem, identifying as the problem, with the problem. And then you are literally co-creating the problem. Instead, go find a solution for it. Use that as your raw material, as your data, and start get to work, you know? In whatever capacity that you possibly can.

So, stop waiting for somebody else to fix the system. Okay? And that's what I'm saying. There are peer groups, advocacy organizations, and peer-like communities forming exactly always for this reason. You know, just like I said, sketching a nonprofit, the outreach project, training, or the resource page that's been living in your notes app maybe for years, or maybe just living up in your brain. I wish that I had this. The possibilities are endless, you guys. Whatever you are seeing as a problem right now, then you become the bridge and live the solution instead of identifying with the problem, like I've said 10,000 times during this episode. When you take this mindset, this approach, then

there aren't any more problems. There are obstacles that you are destined to overcome, that you are destined to live solutions for. Your world becomes so much less scary and uncertain, dark, gloomy, um dangery, dangerous, >> [laughter] >> and much more calm, stable, predictable even, when you live in the solution. It's everything. This is the one thing that what, you know, as alienated parents, this is the why we suffer. This is why we have foggy brains and can't think clearly. Our attention span is is goes lower, depression and all the things, because we're stuck in these mountains behind these mountains of problems that we're trying to solve for, like like that we need to problem-solve.

And coming from there, like I said in the beginning, the fuel that's running you is going to run out because it's all fear. It's all based on needing a specific outcome. Instead, when you live, experience solution, you're coming from a much different energy, which is sustainable for much longer periods of time. It's open. It's collaborative. It's creative, innovative. It comes from a different source than you grinding and trying to think overthink. Okay? >> Okay. >> So, it's like the spring, the natural spring of information and energy when you're coming from the detached loving place, which I know it sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but anyway. All right. So, every

organization that you see today, right? Every article, group, every resource started, like every solution out there, started with somebody like you and me, right? Whose pain hurt so much they couldn't bear to let it end with them. That's how I started this podcast. That's exactly how I started this. I was like, "I do not want one more alienated parent to live this misery like I'm living it." I felt so isolated and alone and in the dark as far as answers and uh direction on how I could start living life again. There was nothing out there then that I found, you know? I was like, "I don't want anybody to suffer like this anymore. Nobody should suffer like this." So, then the podcast was born,

you know? And 4 years later, here we are. So, it's the same thing for you. If there's something that you're dissatisfied with in your life, don't complain about it. Don't go out there trying to recruit people into jumping on board the misery bus with you. "Oh, you've got to understand this is the most miserable predicament that anybody could be in. This is so wrong. La la la la la." You're only contributing to the problem. You get me? Like you complaining about your problem and how it's so wrong and there's no way to overcome this and yada yada yada. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't impact anything. It's just actually putting more money, more energy into the bowl of the problem, the

well of the problem. Be the solution. Live the solution. Start speaking solution. Anytime you hear yourself complaining or wanting to recruit people on to believing in your problem, you're you're keeping yourself stuck. Instead, stop yourself. Be onto yourself. Catch yourself. Because the more that you speak about all of that, the more that you speak it over your life and the more that you will identify with yourself as always having that problem. Don't do that. Not unless you really are committed to having this problem. You know? That's a that's the best way to continue having a problem or having going on living the misery that you're living now is to keep talking about it.

To keep giving it energy. All right, I've beat that in. >> [laughter] >> So, this is what it means to think, act, and be bigger than the problem. Your ex's behavior is not the ceiling of your potential. The court's decision, the judge's decision, is not the definition of your power. It says nothing about your power. Your child's current perspective about you, about y'all's relationship, is not the final word on who you are as a parent, as a mom or a dad. Okay? Remember that. So, this is the last part. I want to walk you through a very simple exercise that you can do right now. If it's safe, you're not like driving or, you know, whatever. You're in a stationary position, close your eyes if

you want. Um step one is to name the dream that's underneath your problem. This part's really important, you guys. I hope most of you stayed till the end. Name the dream underneath your problem right now. So, not I want to win this motion. I want my ex to stop. I want you to go deeper. What is the dream that your problem is highlighting? Is shining a light on. Okay? So, it might be I want a relationship with my child that feels safe and true. Maybe another one is that I want to know that I use my pain for something bigger than me. You know, that this wasn't all for nothing. Maybe it's I want parents like me to feel less alone. That was mine. What when I finally got to it. It took

me years and years and years of going round and round and round identifying and being the part of the problem. Right? If you're not working towards a solution, then you're part of the problem. It's just the way it is. Right? And that's I was not working towards a solution for a very long time. Years and years. Six, seven, eight years. Long time. And then then I finally realized that what it was that I wanted and that was my first coach that ever helped me realize this is I underneath all of it is that I just didn't want anybody else to suffer the way that I was. You know, I wanted to be a a resource of goodness and stability and wanted to be an example of what's

possible for other alienated parents so that y'all felt a lifeline. You know? Because that wasn't available to me. That's going to bring me to tears to think about that because it's true. It was so strongly that I wanted to be that lifeline because I felt so deprived. And so in that right there, that that was I was like oh, okay. Well, then I'm going to be part of the solution right now. I didn't have it, but I can I can supply it. And that also gave me purpose. Gave me meaning. You know? Okay. So, say it to yourself. All right? So, go What is your dream? Say it to yourself. Declare it for yourself. The dream underneath of This is how you say it. Use these words. The dream underneath

all of this is then say what it whatever that is. Step two is to ask, "If I were already living inside of that dream, even if my external facts, circumstances all look the same, what is the one thing that I would do today, starting now?" If you were already the parent that your child feels safe with, this is another way you can ask, "How would you behave differently right now? Would you send one small calm message instead of staying completely silent if this is you? Would you begin documenting your love rather than keeping it locked in your head? Would you start building a life that has meaning outside of court all the court proceedings so that when your child does look back, they see a whole

growing human, growing parent, not just someone who's been frozen in pain? If you were already someone contributing to better systems and more support, what would that version of you do? Would that be to start one small support group, email one organization and offer to share your story, draft the outline of a project that's been tugging at you? What? Whatever that is, now step three is choose one action that feels one size bigger than your fear. Doesn't have to be 10 sizes bigger, just one size. Because in the beginning, I was just talking with an old friend of mine yesterday. It was my birthday yesterday, you guys. But anyway, we were so going back and forth Facebook messaging and uh

an old buddy of mine in um in Austin. And he was like, "It took a lot of guts, a lot of bravery for you to go out there and start speaking." And I was like, "Yes, it did. >> [laughter] >> It did. It took a lot of guts in the beginning. But it also would have taken a lot of guts to not do it. You know, it was really scary to go do that the the first move. But, I didn't go on day one when I decided to do the podcast or when I decided to even become a coach, which was before the podcast date, right? When I decided to be a coach, I didn't go that day and announce the podcast out to the world and start just putting myself out there. I didn't do all of that. It happened it accrued over time.

Things sort of compounded because I built systems. And like for the first one act that I took that first step, that was a smaller one. It was like one size bigger than my fear, right? Not 10 sizes. That's what I'm saying. So, just it's action on top of action and on top of action is going to create your system, build your system out for you. And you're going to It's also going to build safety around you by doing those small actions. Which will Yeah. Anyway. You might still feel scared. You might still worry you'll be ignored or that you'll be judged. And I I have to say I think both of those things will happen. If you're going to put yourself out there and not everybody is purposing

themselves to go and help the world, you know? And that is fine. You can do things in your own community and your own family, whatever it is for you. It's all okay so long as it holds meaning for you, you know? But, I will say that as far as you're worried to be ignored or judged, I'm going to guarantee you that both of those things will happen. >> [laughter] >> So, just accept it. Expect it. That you will be ignored. And you will be judged. But, that's okay. Whoever's ignoring you or judging you, maybe those aren't your people. Or if they do, maybe What who It's okay. Let them do that. Okay? So, you do it instead as the person you are becoming, not the person that your fear says you are.

Don't listen to your fear when you're going to take the actions. Don't They're not Your fear doesn't define you. Not if you don't let it. Okay? That's what it means to live in the solution. You're no longer just sitting in front of the problem waiting to be chosen. You're co-creating with your solution. Okay? Every time you take one of those actions, right? You send a signal to the world, but also to your own nervous system. The message that you're sending is that I'm not just someone that this happened to. I am instead someone that creates. I'm someone who builds on what I've been given, and then I create more as I need, as necessary for me. I'm going to work with whatever

is put in front of me, and also I'm going to go and create what I need to create. Okay? You are creator. Remember that. You're not just at the effect of the world not if you don't want to be. That identity, who you're becoming, that is something that no court, no ex, no temporary season of alienation can take away from you. Okay? That is all my friends. That was way longer. I thought that this episode was going to be the way that I wrote the notes was going to be like 30 minutes lickety-split, and that was much longer.