Episode Details

Need Help Calming Your Nervous System?

Try our Guided Divorce Meditations, created specifically for the moments when divorce anxiety, anger and overwhelm are taking over.

Use them before responding to a triggering text, before a difficult conversation, before court, before mediation—or anytime you need help getting out of your head and back into control.

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High-conflict people—and especially manipulative, narcissistic exes—can have an incredible ability to get inside your head. One text, one email, one strange interaction at school pickup can completely derail your nervous system if you let it.

And during divorce, that matters.

Because when you are already emotionally exhausted, stressed, angry and running on fumes, that is exactly when you are most likely to make a bad decision. You fire off the text. You respond to the email. You call your attorney while completely dysregulated. You snap at your kids. You take the bait.

In this mini episode, Andrea talks about what happens when a high-conflict ex triggers you and why your first job is not to win, explain, defend or react. Your first job is to recognize that you are triggered and give yourself a grown-up timeout.

And that is where STFU comes in.

No, not that STFU.

This one stands for:

S — Stop

Recognize what is happening before you react.

T — Take Space

Get out of the immediate situation long enough to regulate yourself.

F — Find Your Goal

Ask yourself what you actually want to accomplish in that moment.

U — Utilize a Resource

Call a friend. Talk to your therapist. Go for a walk. Fold laundry. Clean the kitchen. Listen to music. Or use one of our Guided Divorce Meditations to help calm your nervous system and move through the anxiety, anger and overwhelm before you do something you regret.

Andrea also talks about splitting, a manipulation tactic often seen in high-conflict dynamics. Splitting can push you away from the very people who are trying to support you—your friends, family, therapist, attorney or partner. And when you are already worn down by divorce, it becomes even easier to start taking your stress out on those people.

That is exactly why emotional regulation matters so much during a high-conflict divorce.

The goal is not to never get triggered. You will.

The goal is to catch yourself before that trigger starts making decisions for you.

And if you are in one of those moments wh