What if the way you're thinking about alienation is actually keeping you stuck? In this episode, discover the four mindsets that quietly differentiate alienated parents who stay trapped in survival mode from those who create the best possible future—no matter what the court or alienating parent is doing. These aren't about fixing alienation overnight. They're about taking your power back today.

 

MAIN TALKING POINTS

1. Clarity & Focus: Reclaim What Your Life Is About

• Stop living inside everyone else's head (your ex, your child, the court)
• Ask: "Who do I want my child to find when they're ready?" and "What is my job TODAY?"
• Create two columns: "Gets my energy" vs. "No longer gets my energy"
• If you don't decide what your life is for, alienation will decide for you—and it always picks fear

2. Belief & Possibility: Shift from "Is This Fixable?" to "Who Am I Becoming?"

• Stop organizing your entire inner world around whether the situation is fixable
• Make tiny belief upgrades: from "nothing good can come from this" to "I'm open to being surprised"
• Build an evidence list of times you've surprised yourself with resilience
• Live AS IF possibility exists—don't wait to feel convinced first

3. Emotional Alignment: Feel Without Indulging

• Understand the difference between feeling an emotion and indulging in it
• Use the 3-step process: Name it, Normalize it, Orient it
• Ask: "How do I want to work with this emotion given who I'm becoming?"
• Stop letting your most frightened or furious moments dictate your entire story

4. Detachment & Openness: The Three Circles of Control

• Circle 1 (yours): How you speak to yourself, care for your body, show up in court
• Circle 2 (influence): How others perceive you, whether your child feels safe to soften
• Circle 3 (not yours): Judge's decisions, ex's narrative, exact timing of reconnection

• Reclaim 90% of your energy from Circle 3 and redirect it to Circle 1

 KEY TAKEAWAYS

✓ You can't control alienation, but you CAN control your emotional trajectory starting today

✓ Stop waiting for external circumstances to change before you start building your life

✓ Your nervous system is learning from how you live—teach it that you're safe, capable, and worthy

✓ The parent your child finds when they return matters more than the timeline of their return

✓ Emotional white-knuckling (constantly checking, replaying, gripping) keeps you hostage to every new piece of information

✓ Small redirections compound: Name it → Acknowledge it → Redirect your energy to what you CAN control

✓ Living in your ex's or child's head steals your power—come back into your own

✓ Openness invites flow; clenching blocks it. Let go to let energy move through you

 

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Episode Transcript

 You are listening to the Beyond The High Road Podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 171.

 

Intro

 Hi. What's happening?

Um, so if you haven't already read  we are gonna be talking about the four mindsets that every alienated, parent, parent should, could, would help if you would develop, adopt for your own self  So I don't think I actually, I was saying, gonna say I don't have any announcements.  I do, I keep announcing it at the end of the videos, um, of the episodes. And I mean, to do it in the beginning because, because, um, so listen, on January 20th, I will be raising the price of all the packages. 

if you have been stuck, Or just sitting at sort of a plateau, or maybe you're really hurting right now and you wanna, you know, move through it and not be stuck in the same old patterns. Well, one, listen to this episode, um, because this episode really, I wanna gear this toward, this is going to be for everybody, but I wanna say that this episode specifically my, the, the parent that I have in mind when I was writing the whole episode is one that just came to me.

You know, so if like you are a new subscriber on YouTube, follower on the podcast, this. Episode is going to lay everything out. Well, not everything, but these mindsets out in a way that is simple and, , direct. And it's actually a little bit different than I've explained all of this to you in prior, .

So  there's that. And also, if you've been hurting and you want some extra help, like the episodes are great, but you really wanna take it further, then  now is the time. Will always is the time. Anytime is the time. But, um, before the 20th, set your, clarity call. Okay? And get in with me before my prices go up on the 20th.

All right? So you only have,  let's see, the seventh, 13 days. Okay. Get on it. Alright. If you're listening to this in the day it was released. Okay.

Intro to the 4 Mindsets Every Alienated Parent Should Adopt

So do you know how when you're in the thick of alienation, and I know you do, it can feel like your whole life has collapsed into this one identity of the alienated parent?

Right.  Every conversation circles back to it, at least in your own mind. every decision is filtered through it. I know that for me too, everything was every decision I made socially, financially, like where I was living or the location I was going to be in. Everything circled around. My daughter and what was happening with the case and whether I should or could, and all the things  it can feel like your entire life has been hijacked by forces that you didn't choose and you cannot control. And when this is the case, your nervous system gets stuck, of course, on high alert.

 We know that you, you know, that you cannot single handedly fix the alienation today.  but you can adopt mindsets today that change your emotional trajectory and your long game outcomes.   📍 📍 📍 So by the end of this episode, you will know the four mindsets that quietly differentiate, alienated parents who stay stuck from those who create the best possible future for themselves, no matter what the court or the alienating parent is doing.

Okay? Think of it less as changing who you are and more as  reorienting how you relate to yourself, your emotions, and your future,  even while the external circumstances are still catching.  So if you've been living in hyper vigilance, rumination, feeling cheated and powerless, having set up camp in your exes or your child's head, this episode is right up your alley.

Clarity & Focus

  📍 📍 Today, this first mindset is about taking that power back. So we're, first, we're gonna talk about clarity and focus as a mindset. I'm gonna define that as holding a clear picture of what you want  rather than obsessing over what you don't want. We've talked about that in recent episodes, right? 

Which is essential because it, it like attracts like,  at the level of your dominant thoughts, whatever you're thinking the most is what you end up, we end up creating. As our result, our outcomes. It's you saying, wait a second,  I get a say in what my life is about. I get a say in what today is for 

not someday when the courts get it together. Not someday when your child suddenly wakes up and sees the full picture today.  Clarity and focus is not about having some perfect five-year plan, It's also not about never feeling lost or confused again.  It's about deciding on purpose what you are orienting yourself toward,  Even when the circumstances are messy and unresolved. So let's slow that down.  when you're living in the reality of alienation, your nervous system naturally orients towards threat, right? Your brain is constantly scanning,  what did my ex just say?

uh, , What are they posting?  Like if we're talking about your kids, if you've got teenage kids or whatever age, really?  What did my child say and what did they even mean by what they said?  what's happening with the lawyer, the judge, the gal, whoever in your case,   Without realizing it, your focus actually becomes, where's the next emotional hit come gonna come from? .  And when that is the organizing question, you end up living inside everybody else's story.

 You're living in your ex's head, you're living in your child's head. You're living in the court's heads,  court's head, or whoever else that you're anticipating their response or what's going on with them,  Clarity and focus is you stepping out of their heads and coming back into your own.

Pracitcal Questions for Clarity & Focus

So here's how that looks practically. the first question I wanna pose for you guys  actually before I even ask this question, just know if you guys are long time listeners, you know that my focus is always on you, right? This is how I learned to take my power back. What, you know, when I started this whole journey, because I truly lived inside of their heads, inside the stepmom, my ex, my, my child.

Everybody's, everybody else is except for mine, you know? Well, that was in my head, but I wasn't actually using my thoughts as my North star, you know? So when I posed this first question, just know that. Like, take it with a grain of salt because the, you'll see in a second. Okay, so   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 who do I want my child to find when they come back or when they're ready to see me more clearly? Not if they come back, not when, exactly. Not the timeline. Just if they bump into me in six months, a year, five years, who do I want them to encounter?

 

Do I want them to find someone whose entire being has been organized around anger, fear, scarcity due to monitoring texts and emails and court documents, what have you, or. Do I want them to find someone who has done their own work and who is emotionally steady and who has a life that feels grounded and meaningful and also still has space for them, for your kids to come in.

Right? You're ready for that to happen. Not that you're waiting for it, and that's why I wanted to preface this, the this first question, not that you're sitting around waiting for it, but  who do I wanna be in this time? Do I wanna fill myself up with all of this anxiety, panic, and what have you? Or do I wanna really create space for myself and for my child when they're ready to come back?  📍 📍 📍 📍 📍

Okay, so the second question is, what is my job today? This is where you'll really, um, hone in on your focus, clarity, and focus for each and every day. You can do this for the week, for the month, however, too, okay. It's not what is my job in this whole massive, unfair situation for the rest of my life, right?

Start with just, what is my job today? What do I want that to be? Maybe your job today is to keep your body regulated enough so that you can sleep tonight. Okay? I've been there. Or maybe it's to answer one email or to make one phone call that you've been avoiding been there too, or to not look at your ex's social media, your kiddos, social media, if it's activating right, or feed yourself something that isn't adrenaline and caffeine.

Your job today is never to solve alienation forever. Your job is something human sized. That's what I think all of us as alienated parents. We, we look at this whole thing as like, when is it gonna be fixed? How is it gonna end? When is it gonna end? What can I do to reverse all of this?

That's such a huge, overwhelming question or problem to try to solve for yourself, you know? So zero it in, what's my job today? What am I gonna focus on today?   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 And so the third question is, what gets my energy and what doesn't? Where are you allocating your energy, your time? This is where your focus really starts to come online,  You can literally make two columns in your mind on paper. You know me, I like when y'all write stuff down, it provides more clarity, column one. Is this gets my energy, And column two is this no longer gets my energy and you start to put things where they belong. For example, my healing, my nervous system, my physical health.

This gets my energy, okay? That's where you uh, categorize that. People who repeatedly misunderstand or dismiss my experience,  this does not get my energy in the same way anymore. Maybe there's times when  attention is needed, but not in the same way maybe that it has been.

Okay. Building skills or work or community that supports me long term.  This is a yes, It gets my energy  refreshing. The court portal or your email, 40 times a day.  This does not get to be in charge of my energy.  That's what that looks like. Two columns, easy peasy. And when you write it down, as opposed to in your mind.

It makes things ju very clear. I I still, to this day, I love getting dry erase markers or, um, window markers. You can get whatever, as long as it's not a, a sharpie and I write on my sliding glass windows, like, especially when I'm talking about columns or quadrants or whatever, organizing my thoughts

I go up to my sliding glass door and I write down sometimes with, podcast outlines too. It just helps me to get my mind organized because there's so much else that's bebopping around up there, especially when we're going through what we're going through. And when your body is in 9 1 1 survival mode, it can get really messy up there, and, uh, disorganized, you know.

Choosing a New North Star

Okay.  Clarity and focus doesn't mean that you never spiral. It means that when you notice yourself spiraling,  now you have a place to come back to because you've organized this for yourself. You can say, okay, I see what my brain is doing.

You've heard me talk about this before. It's trying to keep me safe by scanning for threat  And also, what did I decide this day is for? What did I decide this season of my life is about? Because here's the hard truth and the beautiful truth.  if you don't decide what your life is for and what it's about, alienation will decide for you. 

You know, it will always pick fear, scarcity, and reactivity as your north star.   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 Clarity and focus is choosing a different north star. Maybe your north star now is being a safe, steady presence first for yourself and eventually for your child.

Or rebuilding your sense of self and identity outside the role that has been forced upon you. Another example is living in a way that feels congruent with your values. No matter what your ex is doing,

you do not have to wait for anything outside of you to line up. before you do this, this is what a lot of people think. Well, I'll just wait until when this happens, then I'll get organized, then I'll blah, blah, blah. Don't do that. focus yourself now. Get clear on where you're going and what you want now, not waiting for everything else to, fall into place.

Okay? You can begin orienting in that direction today, right now.  Okay, so here's a little reflection for this mindset.   📍 📍 📍 📍 If I stopped letting my ex, the court or, and or alienation decide what my week is about, what would I choose to make important? Just sit with that. You don't need the perfect answer. 

You just need a slightly more pointed answer than the one you've been living by.  Once you're even a little bit clearer about what you are, about what you want to be about, focus becomes so much easier, right? Clarity becomes easier. You can spot where your energy is leaking and you can gently bring it back home.  From there, the other mindsets, belief and possibility, emotional alignment, detachment and openness. Have something solid to sit on. Okay? They're not floating out in space. You're not floating out in space. They're anchored to who you are and what you've decided this life is for. Okay? So clarity and focus come first. 

Belief & Possibility

📍 The second mindset that I'm offering for you guys to adopt here is belief and possibility. The mindset of belief and possibility. Um, before your brain jumps in with, oh, great, now I'm supposed to think positive, while my life is freaking blowing up around me. I wanna be really clear. This is not about you pretending that alienation is okay.

It's not about bypassing your grief or telling some glittery story that you don't actually believe. Belief and possibility. The way that I'm offering it here is about the stance you take toward your own life. It's about how you orient yourself inside a situation that you did not ask for and would never have chosen.

When alienation hits, it's very easy and understandable for the mind to go to. This is it. Nothing good can come from this. You know, nothing will ever be enough. It's too late. I've missed my chance. All of that kind of stuff, Those sentences can start to feel like fact.

You might even notice them running in the background. When you wake up, when you're driving, when you're at the grocery store,  they become, they become the air that you breathe, the lens that you see through.  📍 📍

Belief and possibility is about gently asking, are these the only stories available to me about my future? This is not about forcing yourself into some opposite extreme.  Like going from everything is destroyed to everything is magical, you know?

Yay. It's about opening the window just enough to let in a little fresh air.   📍 📍 📍 so let's bring this down to the ground from, is this fixable? To who am I becoming through this?  Okay. One of the sneakiest traps in alienation is organizing your whole inner world.

Around one question.  Is this fixable?  Is my relationship with my child fixable? Is the court situation fixable,  kind of like what I was just talking about a couple minutes ago, right? Is their opinion of me fixable?  The problem with that question is that it hands all of your power to other people's decisions and timelines.

Your ex, your child, the judge, whoever the play major players are in your situation, your circles,  Suddenly, they're the ones that decide whether you get to live a meaningful life or not  believe in possibility.

Invites a different question.   📍 📍 Who do I get to become through this? No matter what they choose  that question does something very different inside. A person's body inside your body. Inside my body, for sure.  It doesn't erase the grief. It doesn't deny the injustice, But it does invite you into participation instead of just bracing for the next blowup. 

Okay? Suddenly, you're not just a character in someone else's story, you're the author of your own responses and future,  

so now we're gonna talk about tiny shifts. When people hear belief, they often think they have to leap  all the way from despair to some shiny, confident version of themselves, right?

It's not how this works. That's not how I'm offering that this works can work for you. Belief and possibility is usually a series of small, very earnest upgrades. And what you tell yourself like   📍 📍 from nothing good can come from this. to. I don't see how anything good can come from this yet, but I'm open to being surprised.

Okay, that's one.   📍 Another one is from I'll never recover from this to Right now it feels impossible and I'm willing to keep discovering what I'm capable of   📍 from This ruined my life. Alienation ruined my life. They ruined my life. to this has impacted my life in ways that I never wanted and I still have a say in what I build from here.  Notice you're not lying to yourself. We're not pretending it doesn't hurt. We're simply loosening the grip of never, always, and it's just over. That loosening is where possibility lies for you.

So an evidence list for possibility, if your nervous system has been marinating, in worst case scenarios for a long time now, possibility might feel fake. It did for me in the beginning, especially when I was trying to get myself out of the darkest hole and look to where other people might have gone from, and they're in my mind, less dark holes.

You know, it felt ridiculous and impossible, and why even try, So let's work with your brain, the way it actually works. I want, you to think about an evidence list,  not evidence that alienation is fair because it isn't,  evidence that you as a human instead, are capable of more than your current story gives you credit for.

Okay? You can do this in a journal prompt I would offer, Or just mentally.   📍 📍 📍 📍 As you listen, ask yourself three questions here. When in my life did something eventually move or soften even when I was sure it never would.

When did things get better? When I thought that they wouldn't?   📍 When have I surprised myself with who I have become on the other side of something brutal? And the last one is,   📍 what skills, strengths, or insights do I have now that I didn't have before?

All of this,  You are not the same person you were before this started.  There are muscles that you didn't even know that you had, that you only discovered because life asked things of you that you never expected.

This is not about romanticizing your suffering. It's about refusing to erase the strength, the depth, and the wisdom you have developed along the way. That is evidence for possibility. Here's the piece that really matters.

The mindset of belief and possibility is not just a feeling, It's a way of showing up instead of waiting around to feel convinced you can start experimenting with living as if some kind of possibility exists for you. Now, this could sound like   📍 📍 📍 if there were even a small possibility that my relationship with my child could soften over time, how would I treat myself today?

Okay. Even if there was a possibility. '  cause so many of us will unknowingly punish ourselves, either because we feel guilty about, or have regret about something that we should or shouldn't have done back in the past. But also sometimes we unknowingly punish ourselves. And, um, I talked about this before as far as like, we, have this loyalty to our pain more than the loyalty that we could have to creating a new future and readying ourselves for our kids to return when they're ready.

You know, that was redundant, but you know what I'm saying? We will punish ourselves and say, there is no possibility now we shut ourselves down, which is survival, brain talking. But the punishment, how you're, the quality of your life in the meantime is awful,   📍 📍 📍 So how could you treat yourself beautifully today and with respect and love and all the things today?

Just because, because you, that's the kind of parent that you know that you would wanna return home to. You know what I'm saying?   📍 📍 📍 If there were a possibility that I could build a life that feels like mine again, what is one small step that I could take this week? Okay. That's another one.   📍 📍 📍 And the other question you can ask is if there was a possibility that my nervous system could feel safer one year from now, what am I willing to explore?

And honestly, your nervous system, you can, regulate your nervous system. it doesn't have to take a year. I'm just offering the year as just a marker because we're starting the new year and what your life could look like in, in January of 2027. You know, it's just an easy way to market,  but you can.

For sure start to feel safer and, and, and send messages to your nervous system. Today, if you are in survival mode, you can start to feel safer much sooner than a year. Okay? Um, especially if you're working with me.   Notice that we're not promising specific outcomes. I wanna say we, I mean you and I. Okay. We're not predicting timelines.   📍 📍 📍 We're asking, you are asking, I'm asking if there were amazing possibilities ahead. How might you act today? How might I, if you're posing this to yourself, how might I act today?  📍 📍

And then you wanna let those actions that you come up with, see the ground you're standing on. Okay. Because very often when people talk about hope, what they're really doing is waiting. Waiting for the judge, waiting for the email, waiting for the apology. Waiting for your kiddo. I'm supposed to say daughter.

Not everyone's got a daughter, but waiting for your kiddo. Waiting for the, you know, all the things.   📍 📍 Belief and possibility in the way that I'm using it here is not about waiting, it's about orienting. It's about, well, we're, we're gonna talk about next as alignment.   It's you saying I'm gonna keep showing up in ways that line up.

Forgot that I wrote it this way here with the future that I would love to participate in. Even if I can't see exactly how we get there yet.   📍 📍 📍 📍 So your reflection for this mindset. What belief about my future have I been rehearsing on repeat, and how is it shaping the way that I show up right now?

You don't have to judge your answer. It's really important that you don't judge your answer.  You don't have to force yourself into a different belief today. Just see it,   📍 📍 and then if you're ready, you can ask, is there a slightly truer, slightly kinder belief that a willing to experiment with instead? 

Okay, that's it. That's belief and possibility. It's not a command to be optimistic, it's not an order to just think positive, It is just an invitation to stop handing your entire future over to the most fearful story in your head, and to start participating in the version of you and the life that you wanna grow from here.  📍

Emotional Alignment

. Next segment is emotional alignments. This is the third mindset where things get really intimate. If clarity and focus about what you're orienting your life towards, and belief and possibility were about   📍 how you're relating to your future. Emotional alignment is about how you're relating to what's happening inside of you right now. 

 

Alienation is a nervous system event just as much as it as it is a legal or relational event. Okay? Your body carries it, your sleep, your digestion, your breathing, your ability to concentrate. They all get recruited into this experience.  so it's, I'm sure you're painfully aware of that, so it's completely understandable if you found yourself swinging between numbness and overwhelm,  either trying to shut down your feelings or swimming in them for hours, days, or weeks.

Completely understandable. Emotional alignment is not about feeling good. It's not about forcing yourself into gratitude or peace when that's not actually what's happening for you .Emotional alignment means I am willing to meet what is true in me then choose how I want to work with it in a way that supports a life and the relationships that I care about.

It's about bringing your emotional world into relationship with your values and your long game instead of your emotions running the entire show or being shoved into a closet.  Have you guys heard my story or my, uh, comparison to feeling your emotions?

I'm not gonna tell it today 'cause I'm, I'm on a time thingy, but I should one day again, give you my analogy. Actually, I think I got it from somebody else about shoving your emotions in the closet instead of inviting them in to stay another time, but, um,   📍

Feeling vs. Indulging

feeling versus indulging.

This is an important segment, you guys because, because, ,  let's start with a distinction that can be qui quietly, actually just hugely life changing. There is a difference between feeling an emotion and indulging in it. I'm sure you guys already know that. Maybe you don't. I don't know. Well, actually, you know what, the first time I heard my coach told me about indulgent emotions, I was like,  what?

Why would anybody wanna indulge in negative emotion? But we all do it. Don't even realize sometimes when we're doing it 'cause we just think it's like, it, it, it's like a fact that you must feel it. Like everybody would feel it, you know?  Anyway, feeling an emotion looks like noticing it in your body.

Naming it. This is grief, this is anger, this is terror.  Allowing it to be there long enough to understand what it's asking you to see. That's why emotions are there. Okay? Because it's asking you to notice it. That's why we feel the vibrations inside of our body. It. It just wants to be noticed, acknowledged, felt for a minute or two named,  Indulging in an emotion. Looks like rehearsing the same story on loop for hours. Or even minutes, feeding it with always and never thoughts, staying in it long after the message has been delivered because it has become a familiar place to live.

Okay. I've talked before about how many alienated parents end up living in anger at the X. . Contempt for the new partner or resentment for the system. Okay. Or resentment at the system. With the system.  And sometimes for good reason, right. What's happening is unfair and sometimes can be many times outrageous.

.   📍 📍 Emotional alignment asks, is the way I'm relating to this emotion helping me or is it quietly draining me and keeping me tethered to a story? I don't actually wanna keep living it.  In the that feeling cheated story about the park where I was, you know, in a supervised visit, there was a moment when I realized it was a few episodes back.

The judgment I had about the stepmom felt so true and so real, and so like, empowering, right? Until it became clear how much of my peace it was costing me.

The emotion wasn't wrong. Of course, there was hurt, there was envy, there was protective mama energy, right? Mama bear energy. That was of course there. But the way I was indulging in kept me locked into a role that I definitely didn't want. It wasn't, it was definitely discomfort and not the kind of discomfort I chose, you know, uh, not consciously anyway, until I un chose it consciously.

That's the kind of shift I'm offering to you.  📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍

3 Steps to Bringing You In Alignment

Here's a simple structure and a sample structure actually to work with a emotion that doesn't require you to fix anything but does invite alignment. so step one is to name, name it, pause, and actually name what you're feeling.

This is grief. This is, you know, grief is actually not an emotion. grief is sort of the umbrella where all of the emotions sort of live under, okay, this is grief, this is rage, this is jealousy. This is fear about something in the future. Putting words to it helps the, your brain. I, most of us know that that's what we're feeling and we don't always feel like we need to label it.

That's how I was anyway. Like, I don't, I know what I'm feeling. I'm feeling it. I'm, I'm fucking feeling it. It's awful, you know? But it helps your brain to move from I am this feeling like this is, this is me. This feeling is me to, I am noticing this feeling, becoming meta on yourself and you ruled into the energy side of you.

Like I was talking about the 99% energy episode. Okay, so it's you're that, you're noticing it, you get some separation from it.   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 Step two is to normalize instead of immediately judging the emotion, acknowledge why it makes sense. Of course, there's grief here, something precious has been interrupted.

Of course, there's anger. A line has been crossed in my mind. Of course, I feel jealousy when I see someone else doing the things that I want to do with my child. Of course, there's jealousy, You aren't signing a lifelong contract with a feeling. You're just letting your nervous system know you are not crazy for feeling this.  📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍

Step three is to orient. Now comes the alignment piece. Okay? Ask yourself, given what I care about my own wellbeing, my future relationship with my child, The kind of human I'm becoming. How do I want to work with this emotion? How do I wanna work with it?

Sometimes that might mean letting the tears come, right? Giving yourself 10, 20 minutes to fully feel whatever emotion you're feeling under the grief. Sometimes it might mean channeling anchor into a conversation with a professional. Some sort of somatic outlet also walk movement, like a breathing exercise or two, a workout.

All of those things are great when you're in survival mode,  and then lastly, it might mean redirecting yourself from a mental story back into your body.  And actually this should, this is the one that I really want to stress, is instead of paying attention to the story that you have going, looping in your brain and finding evidence and other stories going back in your past,   📍 📍 drop into your body.

What does this feel like in my chest, above my throat, my stomach, my head? Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it swirling? Is it bubbling? Is it just hard and tight? What is it?  That is why those, sensations are there so that you can just notice them,  like develop a relationship with them and also master recognizing, discerning between which emotion?  Oh, right. This is anxiety because I feel it here and here and it's kind of, it can be different for different people. people feel it different ways. ,  The more that you align yourself with your emotions and knowing what is going on for you, saying it out loud, the more that it becomes your default.

It just, you do it without even realizing that you're doing it. I do this all day long throughout my day. I say it out loud too because it helps to process. So, um, if you live alone or even if you live with somebody so long as you're okay with, you know, just airing whatever's going on in your head out. Um, I, I started doing this 'cause I had a pig   📍 📍 📍 for.

eight years. And I'd read somewhere that they like when you just talk to them, you know, and sing to them and do all the things. Poor her. She had to hear me sing.  But anyway, that's how I started it. And then I realized somewhere along the way that it was actually regulating me, regulating my nervous system truth, talk things out.

And so I've still kept it. It's been two years since she's passed, but it doesn't matter. I still talk all the time out loud. My neighbors probably think I'm crazy, but that's okay because I'm regulating myself. I'm fine with it, you know? So anyway. what does this feel like? My chest, my throat, my stomach.

 Other times it might mean noticing that you've slipped into indulgence. Okay. Replaying the same scene for the 40th time. Right. And choosing to gently interrupt that loop, not because the emotion is bad, okay. But because the loop is no longer giving you anything new. We've heard this story before. It's like a tape that you press play on.

And then rewind and play and rewind and play, right? That's the word. Rewind. It just goes over and over and over.   📍 📍 emotional alignment is asking, what is this feeling for right now? Is it pointing to some boundary that I need to create for myself, a need for me, right, or grief that needs witnessing some emotion under the grief umbrella that needs witnessing?

Or   📍 📍 am I just reinjuring myself by thinking the same story, repeating the same story in my head? Okay,

What Are You Feeding YOur Nervous System?

so another way to think about emotional alignment 

is to look at what you're feeding your nervous system all day long. You're feeding it with thoughts, images, conversations, content you consume, right? The way that you talk to to yourself when you're alone, you know? And like your inner dialogue,   📍 📍 ask yourself, if my nervous system is learning from how I live, which it is, what is it learning from the way I've been speaking to myself lately? 

Is it learning that I'm unsafe everywhere all the time? Because that's what might be going on in your brain.  

That you're powerless, effective, or permanently too much, or not enough, or is it learning that even in this brutal season, that there is someone inside of you who is willing to sit with you, to listen to you and to care for you.

Emotional alignment also doesn't mean that you never have harsh thoughts.  It just means that you don't let them be the only ones in the room or in your brain.  Okay? You can start introducing truer kinder alternatives.  📍 📍

Like, this is hard and I'm proud of how I'm still here.   📍 📍 I don't have to like this feeling to be willing to feel it. You don't have to like it, but just be willing to feel it because all that can happen is a vibration that you feel in your body.  The problem is when the story comes in in your brain and people believe that they have to entertain those stories, but you don't, you don't drop into your body and just feel it, witness yourself, be the watcher of you,

and be inside of you feeling the emotions.   📍 📍 I can be devastated. The last one is I can be devastated and still take one small step today that supports me.   📍 📍 📍 📍 so your reflection for this mindset, for this one, perhaps you pose a question like, what emotion have I been living in lately? Almost like it's my home base. And what is that emotion quietly training my body and brain to expect.  📍 📍 📍 📍

Okay. And then follow up question to that, , is there a slightly more aligned way that I could relate to that emotion without denying it, but also without letting it run my life?

You don't have to come up with a grand plan. Even noticing,  oh, I've been living in simmering anger rage, maybe, or I've been living in dread, is a form of alignment actually, because once you see it, you have options.  Then you can decide. Today, I will still feel my anger and I will also give my nervous system one experience of safety or care.

Okay. You don't have to indulge in it. You can just notice it, feel where the anger is, find it fascinating, like how it actually feels inside of you, and then you experience the the pain or the anger or the emotion that you're feeling in an entirely different way than maybe you have in the past where you're in entertaining stories.

That is the painful part, like I just said. Okay. Okay, so

today I can still feel my anger and I'll also give my nervous system one experience of safety or care that may be a walk, a bath, a grounding exercise, or a small piece of joy that you don't have to earn. working with your inner world in a way that supports who you are becoming  instead of letting your most frightened or furious moments dictate the entire story. Okay? So don't let your emotions dictate you. Instead you align with them and you di direct the cruise ship.

Mindset 4 - Detachment & Openness

You are the director of it. So,   📍 this is the segment four. This is the last segment, you guys,, this mindset is detachment and openness, and it's really the hinge that lets all the others three do the work. Okay? If clarity and focus is about where you're pointing your life belief and possibility about how you're relating to your future, and emotional alignment is about how you're relating to your inner world, then detachment and openness are about how you're relating to everything that you cannot personally steer.

Your ex, the courts, your child's current stance, other people's opinions, the pace of it all, all of that, okay? After alienation, it's so easy for your entire nervous system to lock into one mission, right? Give my child back, fix this, make it stop. Kinda like I was talking about in the way beginning, right?

On one level,  of course it does. This is your child. This is primal,  But here's the quiet cost.  When your whole being is wrapped around a specific outcome on a specific timeline, that depends on other people's choices, you emotional state becomes hostage to every new piece of information.  

One small sign of warmth for your child, one extra text, Your whole body searches and you can breathe again. Anybody experience that one cold comment, one social post, one corp decision, you crash and you feel like you're starting over from zero. It's up, down, up, down.

Constant rollercoaster, detachment and openness are not about not caring. ,   📍 📍 They're about refusing to make your ability to live, to feel, to build anything totally dependent on those external swings.

Detachment in this context is I will not clinging to outcomes. I cannot directly control.

 Openness means I'm willing to stay available to connection, to repair, and amazing all the amazing outcomes in the future, even if they don't look the way that I pictured and even if I don't know when or how they might show up. Detach and open is present, but not clenched.

Your 3 Circles of Control

Now I want you to picture three concentric circles.  📍

Okay. Circle one is what is truly yours? Okay. This is the circle where you have real agency. You might not control the results, but you absolutely control your side. Circle one are things like how you speak to yourself, how you care for your body and your nervous system, how you present yourself in court and in reports.

The tone and the timing, and the content of your communication with your ex their team professionals, whoever else how you choose to respond or not respond to extended family. The boundaries that you set and the behaviors that you tolerate. All of those things are in your control. No one can actually make you think, speak or carry yourself in a particular way.

Here, you know this, there may be pressure, fear, strong emotion. Yes. But you still have a say over how you show up. This is where your leverage lives.  📍 Circle two. Is what you can influence, but not fully control. Right?

In this circle lives how others interpret your words and actions. How professionals, gals, or judges perceive your presentation. Whether your child feels safe enough right now to hear your side or softened toward you. Okay? And how extended family members, your parents, and who ever else integrate the information that you've shared.

And here I'm talking about like when they don't understand and all the things you know, you can increase the likelihood of certain outcomes by the way that you show up, right? I feel like I'm stating the obvious here. You can definitely increase the likelihood, you can be clear, you can be grounded, regulated, and consistent.

. You can choose the language that reflects your values, not anybody else's. choose the language that reflects you, but you cannot climb into somebody else's mind and dictate how they see you. You know this, But when we're in survival mode we forget that because your amygdala, your the fear center will shut down your prefrontal cortex.

It'll numb it so that you actually don't have access to the quote unquote common sense information that you do already know. Okay? Everything seems a little bit irrational, but it feels rational when you're there, you know, in that moment. .  📍 Circle three is obviously what's not yours to run. the judges, if you're even going to court right now, but the judge's internal world, your ex's private narrative and choices.

What your child says to others when you're not there. What they think. The exact timing and form of any future reconnection. You don't have control over that none of us do. Okay? They've got their autonomy, we have ours. Doesn't matter how old your kiddos are, but if we're dealing with alienation and what they do is up to them, right?

Um, and yeah, I'll leave it at that. These are the things that your nervous system desperately wants to control, because they matter so much, right? But they're not actually yours to run.  And I know you know that. It just sucks sometimes, right?  All right, let's talk about reclaiming your energy.

Detachment is about discerning which circle something belongs in. That's what detachment is, just discerning. All right? Was, is this something I have control over, is something I can influence? Or is it something I have no control over? Right? Which circle does it fit into? Um, and then reclaiming your energy from the outer circles. 

📍 📍 You can literally say to yourself, I keep trying to control A, B, C. Right? But that actually lives in circle two or three.  What lives in circle One that I'm willing to tend to instead.  For example, I can't control how the judge reads this report, but I can control how clearly, calmly and truthfully I present myself. Okay? Another example is I can't control what my ex posts. You know, on social media, but I can control whether I spend the next two hours doom scrolling it or use that time to take care of my nervous system, my work, my home, however, okay?

Last example here is I can't control if my child answers response, whatever, But I can control the tone and content of what I send and who I am becoming in the meantime, not acting reactively, but instead  I can just control the love I send their way. And that's all that matters. Like, to me, the rest of it is not my business  how can I love big, huge today?

, if me and maybe my child, if it's appropriate for my plan, you know, moving forward, um, and whoever else is in my life,  When you pour 90% of your life force into circle three, you will feel powerless no matter how capable you actually are.

Detachment is you bringing that power back to circle one and the parts that circle Two where your influence is real.

Emotional White Knuckling

Now we're gonna talk about emotional white knuckling. most alienated parents know emotional white knuckling, we know it well.

Constantly checking for messages or court updates. Reading between the lines of every word, every post, every text. You know how that goes?

Replaying interactions, trying to locate the one move that would've made everything different. That reverse history tightening around what if it never gets better? What if I miss my one shot? Detachment doesn't tell you don't care. It asks, can I care deeply without gripping so hard that I can't breathe, move, or live today?

 

, You can picture your love for your child as something that you hold gently close to your heart, Not something that you clamp down on with a fist. love is  open, expansive,  not restricting.

That's how I think about it. The love stays, the longing stays. What loosens is the demand that everything unfold on your exact schedule and your exact format or else.

It's that demand that all of us have held onto at one point, That shreds us so I'm gonna offer you guys a simple sort of re release and redirect practice that sort of expands on what I was just talking about a second ago. But you wanna name, like, let's say you're trying to, you know, that your brain is trying to offer you ways to, control circles.

Three item. things that are outside of your control,   📍 📍 📍 you wanna name it. for instance, I keep trying to control how quickly my child comes back to me.   📍 📍

📍 Acknowledge the wish, then that's your step two. Of course, I wish I could control this. Of course, I want this to go differently. I love my child. Offer yourself some understanding, some compassion, and then you want to,   📍 📍 📍 step three is to release and redirect.

I'm setting this down for now. Could be the one way that you do it with the energy I free up, I'm choosing to. And then that's where you can say either regulate your body, show up to a b, c task that you wanna do, that you've already,

decided you wanna allocate your energy towards, maybe it's to reach out to a supportive person, prepare yourself for the contact that you do have, whatever it is. I'm setting this down for now and with the energy that I free up, I'm choosing to do blank. 

This offers your brain by doing this, it offers your brain something else to do. It is, it's a redirect. It's kind of like redirecting your 4-year-old to some another task, right? Let's not draw on the walls. Let's go over here. I don't mean to infantalize you, but for the, this part of the brain, , it's a really helpful way to deal with it.

Is just Name it, acknowledge it. Redirect.

So that's the attachment in practice. Okay. Not one big moment, but many small redirections. . Alright. Openness.

 Staying available to goodness happening in your life or creating goodness in your life, really, if detachment is the loosening, openness is the softening.  openness says, even without gripping the outcome, I'm willing to stay available to connection and goodness. It might look like answering your child's short, awkward message with steady warmth instead of a flood of explanation or  a question like a probing question, like, why are you acting like that towards me?

Which is very defensive in the minute it doesn't ever really turn out well. Right? Just instead, steady warmth and love their way, lightness, openness,  another way that you can do this, it might look like is

allowing yourself to imagine your child as a conflicted human, someone who's experiencing inner conflict, not the enemy, not the permanent enemy which if you have a teenager or an adult child, then that might be your story right now. Okay. And maybe even I'm younger than that. Um, another way is staying willing to learn and get support even about your own patterns without collapsing into shame.

 

And then one of the other ways is letting your life be more than just this one story,  So your life can be, instead of making it so finite, this is the rest of my life. Maybe it's this AND, I'm experiencing alienation ant I also, I'm creating blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Even if it's small things, you know, you joined an art class or you started a new relationship, you made a new friendship, or reorganizing a room. You know, those little baby steps towards creating a new life will add up when you keep, you know, when you keep adding on, but also when you keep, committing yourself, recommitting yourself to you and openness to possibility in your future. Right? Okay.  📍 📍 So, letting your life be more than , just this one story   📍 📍 so that when your child does step toward you, they find a parent who is alive, grounded, and emotionally available.  Openness doesn't guarantee specific outcomes. In fact, the opposite. It simply means you are not living in permanent bracing, clenching, needing, uh, clo closed offness,  openness is, is inviting it all in and still having, specific goals.

Like you, you are allocating your time and your attention, all of your focus towards creating something new in the future. And I really want you always to be specific about that, about what that is for you and specific about maybe more than one thing, but one main thing. And then you want to allow the openness to direct you so that you don't hyperfocus on that and lose sight of all these other opportunities that might be plopping themselves in front of you along your way.

you task yourself to do, have, create purpose, develop your purpose, and then you stay open. Smell the roses along the way, okay? Even while experiencing grief.

Reflection Question for a MIndset of Detachment and Openness

So,   📍 📍 📍 your reflection cue, this is the last part of this,   📍 what is the one thing? This is what you ask yourself.

What is the one thing that I keep trying to control that is honestly not in my hands? And if I gently set it down, even for today, what could I do with that energy instead that actually supports me or my future relationship with my child? that's the first part of it. And then .  📍 Where am I willing to stay open? Not to one particular outcome, but to being surprised by my own capacity, by new forms of support and how my story might continue to unfold. 

What I, and by really what I. I am capable of creating in my future.   📍 📍 detachment and openness do not mean that you care less. They mean that you  refuse to abandon yourself while you care. You refuse.  That's one thing that I've said to myself. I don't over and over and over again for a long time, so I refuse to treat myself this way anymore.

Like if I'm talking terribly to myself or if I say something sort of judgy or bullying or punishing, I'm not doing that anymore. That's what I say to myself. We're not doing that anymore. I refuse to abandon myself while I even care for her, for my, you know, for my daughter or for whatever is going on with me.

I, I'm not going to, dis myself, bully myself in the process because there's no upsides to doing it, you know?  And that is ultimately what gives you the steadiness to hold clarity, possibility, and emotional alignment over your long haul. 

The openness and the detachment, like just allowing , your grip to free up, you know? Allows energy to start flowing through you when you are clenching down and needing something to happen. And obsessing and looping on why it didn't happen yet and how things have changed. And oh my gosh, they didn't call me back, but we were just doing so well and now they haven't called me back, or they didn't recently, somebody, one of my, um, clients said, you know, they didn't give me their address.

They haven't given me their address, and I just don't understand. Why don't they trust me? We've made so much progress, blah, blah, blah. And when you're clenching to that, you shut down, you stole your energy inside, you're essentially blocking yourself. So when you open up to all the possibilities and just trust that things will start to flow, when you do let go of it, things will happen At whatever pace they are, you invite, flow into your life, in a replenishing energy into your life.

Okay, so that's all I have for you. It is Wednesday, so I gotta go get this edited and published for you guys to listen to. Okay? So, I'll see you next week. Take care.

 Thanks so much for listening today. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more, please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Also, for bite-sized clips and tips, be sure to find me on TikTok or Instagram. See you next week.