Sol (00:01)
Welcome to Coparenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your host, Sol, founder of the BestInterest app for co-parents. At BestInterest and on this podcast, our goal is to help you find peace in the storm. Today, I'm joined by Denise and Divorce Doula. We dive into how to find your identity again after narcissistic abuse, learn how to become unbothered by, well, anything,

and understand how powerful a role forgiveness can play in your life. Let's dive in.

Sol (00:32)
Hi Denise, welcome Coparenting Beyond Conflict. It's so nice to have you here today.

Denise Kavaliauskas (00:37)
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here with you, Sol, and your audience and talk about this topic. It's really important.

Sol (00:43)
My gosh, yeah. We met through the Divorce Professionals Network. And I remember feeling really interested in your energy and your unique take on the divorce process and co-parenting. And I'd love to dive into that with you today.

Denise Kavaliauskas (00:58)
Great, I love hearing that. That's awesome.

Sol (01:00)
So first,

I understand you are a divorce doula. Can you tell me more about what that term is, what it means and what you do?

Denise Kavaliauskas (01:09)
So just like a birthing doula where a doula will walk the parents through the whole process of the pregnancy all the way to the birth of the child. That's what I do for women and men in divorce. And no matter where they come to me, so if they come to me in the beginning, before they hire the attorney, I walk them through the entire process. But mostly I get clients who come to me after they've hired one or two,

sometimes three attorneys. It's a big old mess. I call it a nightmare divorce. Even if they come to me at that point, I walk them through the whole process all the way to the end so that they get to experience the divorce results that they were seeking from the beginning.

Sol (01:47)
Now in season one, we had an episode with attorney Ron Gore. And I remember him saying that high conflict situations, that litigation never truly ends often while the children are minors. Is this true in your eyes? And how do we cope with this?

Denise Kavaliauskas (02:03)
Yeah, some of these divorces can go on and on and on. I call it the merry-go-round divorce. It's when the divorce is finalized, it's over, but the narcissist keeps dragging the spouse back into court for whatever ridiculous filing, whatever they feel like doing. And unfortunately, family law courts allow this to happen.

This is one of the biggest things that I speak out about because, it's such a scam. They know what's happening. They know that this person is just being ridiculous and filing these ridiculous filings just to keep this fight going. It's all about

energetically cutting the ties to that person. What's happening underneath the physical 3D firing, going back to court, da da da - What's happening underneath that is an energetic tie, which is what we have with these people that come into our life, narcissists, whether it's a parent or an ex or whatever, we have this energetic tie to them. So the energetic tie is to learn the lessons

Sol (02:42)
Mm-hmm.

Denise Kavaliauskas (03:04)
that we came here to learn about this situation and then move from that. Underneath, what's happening is exactly that. So I teach my clients how to, we don't say sever because it's, here's the thing that I've learned doing this for 10 years now. I'll use myself as an example. I can't cut the ties with my ex-husband. We have two children together. no way that I could sever that tie.

However, there is a way that I can release him from my world, from my energy, from my life with love and let him go.

Sol (03:34)
That's really interesting. What does that look like in practice? Is this a set of mantras? Is it something you can just say, okay, I cut the ties? How long does it take?

Denise Kavaliauskas (03:44)
It depends on the person and how ready they are to let this energy go. It's a mixture of things that I use with my clients and I show them how to use these tools. And then it's up to them to use it and to embrace it and to embody it. Ultimately,

what I teach my clients is how to rise up out of the abuser-victim consciousness. This work is done by Dr. David Hawkins. Have you ever heard of his work? Dr. David Hawkins? Okay, cool. Yeah, I love his work. That's everything that I do with my clients. He called the bottom level of the map of consciousness "abuser-victim consciousness". And when we think about it,

Sol (04:14)
huh. Yes. huh. Yeah. Yeah.

Denise Kavaliauskas (04:24)
every abuser has to have a victim. It's like peanut butter and jelly. They go together, and every victim has an abuser. Otherwise they wouldn't be a victim in this situation. So what I teach my clients is how to rise up out of the lower levels of consciousness, which is abuser-victim consciousness. How long does it take? It depends on that person. I've had clients hire me and say, "I got to do something different. That's why I'm hiring you Denise, because everything I've used,

it hasn't worked." It's up to them where they're at in their divorce process, in their evolution of discovering themselves and how to rise up into the higher levels of consciousness, what timeline and how fast that goes.

Sol (05:03)
Yeah, that sounds like it could be really challenging work to get out of that mindset. I know in this podcast we talk a lot about getting out of the victim mindset and how powerful that can be. Oftentimes I look at it from a frame of, you can't change this situation but how do you reframe how you look at it? Right? Is that some of the work that you do or are we talking about something

Denise Kavaliauskas (05:14)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sol (05:26)
beyond that?

Denise Kavaliauskas (05:26)
Yeah, there's a perspective that we view the experiences that we're having from wherever we're at on the map of consciousness. If we're in the lower levels, like most of your clients come to you in fear, they're scared, they're scared of this person, they're scared of this process, they're scared of what's happening, they're scared their kids are going to be taken away, like all the things which fear falls under.

There's a perspective of how they're seeing their situation through the lens of where they're currently at. I show them a different perspective. Ultimately what it is, is it's a different identity in them. Victim, that's an identity, right? Abuser, that's an identity. "I'm scared." That's an identity. So I show them how to look at their situation through different lenses from a different perspective.

And then that starts the wheel, going in order for them to go, ⁓ I can actually have this experience? A lot of people, they're like law, hire an attorney and the state laws and the county laws and divorce. I don't care or deal with any of those manmade laws.

The laws that I teach my clients are universal laws. One of the universal laws we have is a law of polarity, which says, if you're experiencing this horrible nightmare exit out of this relationship, and it was a nightmare in the relationship, guess what's on the opposite side of that? The peace, the love, the whole opposite of what they've experienced. So when I start to teach them all of these things that are

not necessarily seen or heard, but felt, that's when they start to go, you mean I really can have this type of an experience? Yes, you absolutely can.

Sol (06:58)
Well, that's a really empowering message. I appreciate that. You've talked about how divorce is a scam. Can you tell us more about the divorce process and your perspectives on that industry?

Denise Kavaliauskas (07:05)
Yeah.

There's no reason why a divorce should take years and years and cost hundreds of thousands or even millions. I've had a client who spent millions on his divorce. And this was after the divorce. They were already divorced. I've been doing this for 10 years. So I have a plethora of,

clients and then also people sharing their stories with me. And when you look at it and go this person, this person, this person, this person, there's a slew of people who had to hire and fire multiple attorneys and had to go through like all of this stuff to get to the end. And then

even when they get to the end, they don't feel like they actually gained anything or won. They still feel depleted and defeated and like, lost time, I lost more trauma happens in those experiences. Have you ever seen the documentary Divorce Corp?

Sol (07:58)
No, I've been meaning to watch it.

Denise Kavaliauskas (07:59)
Okay, you have to watch it. I purchased it on YouTube. That's one of the sources, but there's other ways that you can watch it. And in that documentary straight from the horse's mouth, which are divorce attorneys, family law judges. One of the lawyers says,

"I'm not saying I'm worth $950 an hour, but that's what I charge." That's a scam. That's a total scam. And then another attorney says, well, the more that we charge, the more people will pay because people think large amounts of money equals skill. That's a scam. That's a total scam. Also that documentary gives you a little bit of history on divorce. When the divorce

and domestic violence and family law courts all shifted into what they are today. So They go back to the 60s when divorce was very shameful. people didn't get divorced. And if they did get divorced, they had to prove either cruelty, which is what they called abuse, or infidelity. And if you couldn't prove those two things, you wouldn't be able to get a divorce. And divorces cost like

$400.

What I thought of when I saw it, was like, okay, so what happened between that time and the way divorce is now? What happened? Well, they discovered it's a huge moneymaker, huge. And they prey on people's emotions. You'll also see in that documentary, There's a private investigator, I think he's in LA or Beverly Hills. All his cases are divorce cases.

And he even says, He doesn't use the word narcissist, which I thought was very clever, but he says, if you want to dress like a clown and you want to entertain the courts, that the courts will allow you to be a clown and entertain the courts.

Sol (09:35)
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Denise Kavaliauskas (09:37)
That's a scam. That's a total scam.

It pisses me off because in the meantime, families are being destroyed. Children are going through more trauma than ever. Parent alienation. I'm getting chills right now because all of the focus is on money. There's nothing in that they call family law courts. Best interest of the child and all that BS, which is total BS. That's just marketing crap to get to pull people into their

scam to think, "oh, child protective services protecting my child." No, they're not. And all their slogans, it's all a bunch of crap because all they care about is money. And they tell you in the documentary, the first things that we do is we size you up. The lawyers are saying this, right? "We size you up. We see what both parties have as money or investments or property or whatever, because," and this is their words, not mine.

We size 'em up to see how much we can get from each party.

That's a scam, total scam. I'm very passionate about that because number one, it's all avoidable. Every part of it is avoidable. I've helped my clients out of horrible situations. I don't do couples. I only coach my client and we've turned the entire situation around. All of that is avoidable. Spending money is avoidable. The wasted time, the parent alienation,

the trauma, the legal abuse, all of that can be avoided. All of it.

Sol (10:52)
Let's dive

into that a little bit more, because I'm curious. A lot of our listeners are facing situations like this, and maybe their ex has a high-powered attorney or a bulldog, and they are feeling scared, and they are feeling uncertain about what to do. What is your advice in that scenario? How can they drop the rope?

Denise Kavaliauskas (11:13)
So the first thing that I would share with them is just to identify how they're feeling in the moment and then get it out. I would do like a, all of my exercises are just energetic downloads. So right now what I'm getting is I would have them write it out, pen to paper, blue ink on white paper, cause there's science to the, that triggers things in the brain for them. So I'd have them write out, "I feel scared."

Whatever it is you feel scared about. And then I would help them and show them, let's go down the worst case scenario of this. This actually does happen so that they can just play it out in their head and just see it, and then ask questions based on that. Because if I feel scared about something,

how can I shift my energy to learn from this experience and feel empowered? I'd walk them through an exercise, a writing exercise, to help them identify where they're at right now and what the other possibilities are for them currently. I tell women and men all the time, you hold the cards in this scenario. You just don't know it yet, or you don't feel it because

you're being intimidated by the bulldog attorney, you're being intimidated by the laws, you're being intimidated by your ex. I also say you cannot successfully win at divorcing a narcissist from the version of you who is in the relationship with that person,

because in that relationship you were being victimized. So if you step out of that and into the divorce as the same version of you, a victim being victimized, then that's what's going to continue to happen. So really just pointing out all of these things to them to help them see "okay, so this is where I'm functioning and operating from. And then here's how I can get to the other side of that."

Sol (12:50)
You mentioned this term narcissism and I struggle with that term and how and when to employ it because I think that it does describe an experience, right? I've spoken with so many co-parents that say "my ex is a narcissist" and whenever they say that, I believe them, but it doesn't mean that we're diagnosing their ex. We just mean it's describing an experience. And yet hearing you talk,

believing that your ex is a narcissist is inherently a victim disempowering mindset.

Denise Kavaliauskas (13:19)
Yes, absolutely. I tell my clients There's a fine line between a person showing up in a way that looks very narcissistic versus a person who actually has NPD, narcissistic personality disorder.

There's a very fine line. And In most of these high conflict cases, what's happening is it's two wounded people who fell in love and got married and had kids. And so now one of them is exiting the wounds, but they don't even know it yet. They're like, 'I want growth. I want something better. I've outgrown this relationship or this person.' Well, what happens is, the person will just call them a narcissist just for the conversation. All of their abandonment

wounds start to come up. Also narcissists are famous or infamous, I should say, for punishing you. I'm punishing you for leaving me or going along with this divorce. Everything is aimed towards punishing you. That's why the kids and the money are the first thing they go after.

So yes, there's a fine line between somebody showing up that way and maybe it's their wounds that are showing up and they show up narcissistically, versus an actual person who has this personality disorder.

Sol (14:27)
Sure, well, I mean, if your ex is punishing you, that's a really challenging situation to feel empowered in.

Denise Kavaliauskas (14:35)
Yeah, it can be. Well, let's look at it. This is what I would say to my clients. Let's take a step back and look at it as a scene. It's playing out in front of you like a stage, and you're you're playing your part. They're playing their part. All of the characters are in their roles, so to speak. And now let's look at how

Sol (14:36)
So what do do?

Denise Kavaliauskas (14:55)
you can from this point forward, experience something different versus what you've been experiencing this whole time. And that is a hundred percent possible for you. So that's where I would start to show them.

Sol (15:07)
Beautiful. Now I know you offer a framework, the four pillars of healing. Could you tell us more about that and how it works?

Denise Kavaliauskas (15:14)
When I initially started coaching back in 2016, my adult daughter came to me,

my daughter's been through a lot of trauma, she was reading a book called the Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz.

In that book, he talks about the three keys to healing, which is: forgiveness, truth, and love. I think that's the three that he talks about. I added one, which is trust.

Cause one of the biggest things of coming out of these types of relationships is how do I trust again? How do I trust my own instinct? How do I trust myself that I'm going to make a good decision this time and not end up in the same thing as last time? Trust is a huge factor. And those are the four pillars that I walk my clients through.

Sol (15:51)
Absolutely.

Denise Kavaliauskas (15:55)
How to heal because ultimately, that's what's happening. It's this big giant wound that's coming up to the surface and it hurts and it's shitty and it's painful and you just want to end it, get rid of it. But what needs to happen is a healing of this. And so the healing takes love, it takes forgiveness, it takes truth. In the book, he

gives the metaphor of an open wound. If somebody gets burned on their skin, truth represents cleaning the wound. So if somebody has third degree burns, they're gonna pour something on it and initially it stings, it hurts, but what it's doing is it's helping it, it's healing it. That's how he describes the truth.

Sol (16:31)
And tell us more about forgiveness. Is that forgiving yourself? Is that forgiving your ex? How does that work?

Denise Kavaliauskas (16:37)
Yeah,

It's all of it. Actually, that's what my certification is up here. I'm a certified advanced Hoʻoponopono practitioner. Have you ever heard of Hoʻoponopono? In Hoʻoponopono, he talks about the forgiveness. How do we forgive?

Sol (16:46)
I sure have, yeah.

Denise Kavaliauskas (16:52)
It's four mantras: I love you, please forgive me, thank you, I'm sorry. You can use them in any shape or form. Forgiveness, the I'm sorry part, is so important because if we're walking around with these grudges, if we're walking around in this energy of like, you did this to me, or da, da, da, da,

then we've actually created an internal prison for ourselves. When we forgive, it's ourselves and the situation. And I tell people, it's not that you're going into forgiveness of this person or the situation, like, it's okay that you treated me like this. It's actually, forgiveness is letting it go. Letting it go.

So when I look at my past and my ex and all the crap that we went through, when I let him go, it opened up freedom inside of me. He no longer has control over me. He no longer has power over me. I get to be free. So that's why the forgiveness piece is so important. So when I got certified, I learned all these

different modalities that you can use inside the Hoʻoponopono. There's tapping, there's writing. The forgiveness is so important because you can't walk through this new storyline without the forgiveness piece in place. It doesn't work that way.

Sol (18:02)
Yeah,

well, it's even given away by our language. We talk about holding on to grudges, right? If you're holding on to, that means it's something that's inside of you. When you release it, you're giving a gift to yourself. When you're forgiving, you're forgiving yourself and you're giving a gift to yourself because you're letting go of the past.

Denise Kavaliauskas (18:07)
Mm-hmm.

Right, exactly. And it's so freeing. It feels so good to just let it go. And so now when I'm talking to people, I get to share my experience from a place of empowerment. Lived through it, survived it, thriving after it, versus that heavy feeling of, I'm gonna tell this story again. people will feel that energy. They'll pick up on that energy and

that's just more of that energy being spread out, which is not helping anybody to feel that way.

Sol (18:48)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sol (18:50)
As a co-parent myself, I know how difficult communication can be. That's why I created Best Interest, the co-parenting app that uses advanced AI technology to automatically filter out all negativity, promoting positive communication and helping you create a healthier environment for your family. Try it now and get with code Beyond10. Link in the show notes.

Sol AI (19:12)
And now, back to the show.

Sol (19:14)
We also talk a lot about communication in these situations. There are different perspectives around how to deal with a high conflict co-parent and how to engage. What are some of your recommendations? Do you suggest parallel parenting or are you more into collaborative? What is your perspective?

Denise Kavaliauskas (19:33)
The way that I share with my clients about how to communicate, it could be when you're dealing with somebody who wants to argue and they're aggressive about everything. It's very hard to get through to that person, but there's other ways to get your point

to paper again. I call them energetic letters. And in the beginning of this energetic letter, you're just gonna let everything out towards this person. You're not going to give this to anybody. You're just going to express it. And pen to paper is how we get it out of our head, out of our bodies, onto the paper. So I tell my clients, you want to call him or her every name in the book? Do it. Get it out on paper. And then,

when you're done, when it's all out of you, you draw a line on the paper and this is like drawing a line on the sand. Like this is a boundary line. "From here now," and this is important, "I'm only available for..." instead of saying I'm not available for anymore. We want to give the universe clarity of what I'm available for. "I'm available for

respectful interactions. I'm only available for..." and you just list it out because the communication piece, that's just the physical part. What to say, what not to say. All of the unseen things behind the scenes, I guess you could say that need to happen first in order for that physical communication to come out clearly, respectfully, and then receive that respect.

Because if we go in and "so my ex is such a fucking..." and "I need to say this, I need to get it off my chest." Well, that's just going to make more conflict and turn out even worse. I was just trying to get my point across. I was trying to be nice. Yeah. But in your head, you were telling him or her off, right?

Sol (21:08)
Yeah.

Denise Kavaliauskas (21:08)
That's an energy.

Sol (21:09)
Yeah. And communicating from a place of trigger is never a good idea. It's so important to slow things down and take a breath and then just communicate from a calm place when you're calm, even if it takes 24 hours and a jog around the block.

Denise Kavaliauskas (21:21)
Absolutely.

Right. Yes. And that's the exact word that I use is calm, confident and courageous. So yes, calm energy, confident energy, and then being able to say the things that you need to say or get your point across with them being heard.

Sol (21:40)
Yeah, talking about communication, of course, I think about the BestInterest app. And I know you use the term unbothered as a state of being that brings you peace. That resonates a lot because that's part of what the purpose of the app is, is that it can get you to a place of feeling unbothered by your ex because you aren't receiving that.

toxic communication from them. You're just receiving what you need to know in order to be a good co-parent, which gives you that buffer that you can get to a place where it doesn't phase you.

Denise Kavaliauskas (22:08)
Yes.

Yes, that's the key.

Sol (22:14)
Can you tell me

more about what is that unbothered state and how it can help co-parents?

Denise Kavaliauskas (22:19)
took me my healing journey to get to that place and that space inside of me to be unbothered about my ex.

Cause like I said, there was a lot of trauma and drama when I was in the relationship. It was all about how can I save us? How can I save our family? How can I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the things. And I was so invested in keeping us together, not knowing keeping us together is, is toxic. So to get to that place of unbothered for me and for my clients, it's that healing and getting, like we were talking about-

"I love myself so much that I'm going to do this X, Y, and Z to get out of this relationship and to free myself from this person. I love myself so much. I'm going to do the forgiveness work, even though it feels crunchy. I'm going to do it anyway. I love myself so much that I'm going to speak truth about what I've been through from a place of empowerment and not a victim mentality."

Here's the ultimate thing: the narcissist, they're gonna do what they're gonna do. They're gonna be who they are. They're not gonna change. And we don't have control over them. We only have control over us. So when we feel that freedom, when we feel that love for ourselves, when we're speaking truth and when we trust ourselves, just like the Mel Robbins, let them, let them.

I let my ex be who he is and say what he wants. He wants to say things to our adult children? Okay, That's his perspective. My ex is still calling names. calling me names.

I left him 13 years ago, our kids are in their 30s. That's okay. Cause now the kids see the truth and I'm comfortable with it. If that's who he wants to be, it doesn't bother me.

Sol (23:50)
Yeah, it's almost like it gets boring, the conflict. Yeah, you're like, I've seen this before. ⁓ I know gaslighting is something that is such a hook. What do you do when your co-parent is lying to you? Do you defend yourself? Do you defend the truth? What do you do?

Denise Kavaliauskas (23:54)
Yeah.

Yeah,

It depends on the situation. Yeah, defend yourself, but in a way that your voice is heard, not in the instant, "you're lying. That's a lie." Because again, they're going to, to do that. They're going to make up lies or blame you. That's the other famous one: "It's your fault. It's your fault that I'm whatever. So when the gaslighting is a

constant.

Confusion is the first line of abuse. Get the victim confused because that makes them controllable. So when we have these experiences and I know without a shadow of a doubt, I know what I saw. And then somebody tries to gaslight you and say, no, you didn't, no you didn't.

When that happens in these high conflict divorces, it's important for that person to just know their truth, even if they have to write it down, to stick to their truth.

At the end of the day, it's important for you to know what you know and not try to convince somebody else of what you already know. That's just going to cause more conflict.

Sol (25:04)
Yeah, and a fight you can never really win. We don't know for sure. I've heard experts on both sides of this topic of whether or not the narcissist is aware of what they're doing when they're lying. takeaway I have is that oftentimes, there's so many layers that they're not even fully aware of what the truth is, that there are parts...

In parts work, there is a strong part that's preventing them from being able to fully accept the reality that might have them be seen in a certain light. And so they may not even really know what is true. So when you jump in and say, no, that's not true, you're you're fighting a battle that's just unwinnable. you're fighting.

Denise Kavaliauskas (25:42)
Right. And there's phrases

that you can use like, "I know what I experienced, I know what's true for me. I know what I experienced in this" versus what they're trying to convince me of. Because you're right. If they're in that delusional space where they've been doing this for so long since childhood and they were raised seeing parents gaslight or they were gaslit by parents then

it's almost like a normal behavior, a normal reaction. So it's important I know what my truth is. And also, this is in the book, The Mastery of Love. When you get into a relationship with somebody, why are you trying to change them

into how you want them to be? Let them be who they are. Reading that over and over created such freedom in me to let my current husband, be who he is. I'm not trying to change him. I already tried that the first time, it didn't work. And also with my ex-husband, just to, again, let him be who he is. Let him play out his character here on earth in that human...

Let him just do it.

Sol (26:40)
Yeah, and letting go, letting them be who they are is a way that we can free ourselves and free up so much energy.

Denise Kavaliauskas (26:49)
Absolutely. Yes.

Sol (26:50)
Now I understand in your own life, you now have a new partner and things are looking up.

Denise Kavaliauskas (26:56)
Yeah. So June will be six years that we're married, but we've been together for 10.

My husband was a huge part of all of the marketing that I shared, how to have a healthy relationship after the crap that I've been through. How am I even doing this? Cause honestly, I didn't even know. I was just learning as I go and sharing those experiences. So yeah, I live a magical life.

We have an amazing relationship. All of our kids get along. We're together for vacations, holidays. And to be in a relationship where have a man who's taking care of me versus the past one where I was the one always taking care of him.

Sol (27:32)
I'm so glad to hear that and I'm sure the the Denise of the past that was facing an uncertain future would have been really happy to see where you are now.

Denise Kavaliauskas (27:42)
She wouldn't have believed it. She was like, there's no way. There's no way. But it's great.

Sol (27:47)
It's so

relatable and I love hearing stories like yours speaking to listeners that are earlier in the process of healing. It is a long road and yet divorce does change you and we have the opportunity in this painful process to create a new life for ourselves and just to have hope that it does get better.

Denise Kavaliauskas (28:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, and it absolutely can, if we allow it, yeah.

Sol (28:12)
Great, well I'm gonna jump into our lightning round now. And so how this works is I'm going to read off a few fill in the blank questions and you can repeat after and then fill in the blank. Are you ready to go? Okay, the Family Court system is designed to....

Denise Kavaliauskas (28:15)
Okay.

Sure.

Keep you fighting.

Sol (28:28)
Yeah. ⁓

Denise Kavaliauskas (28:29)
Totally.

Sol (28:30)
The most expensive emotion you can bring into a divorce is...

Denise Kavaliauskas (28:34)
Fear.

Sol (28:35)
Tell me more about that.

Denise Kavaliauskas (28:35)
When, my clients come to me, they're scared. They're scared of the threats that they've heard. They're scared my money is going to be taken away. My kids are going to be taken away. I'm scared of this next step that I have to go through, which is actually being forced, right? I have to hire this attorney. I have to dish out all this money. I have to do this. I have to do that. And they're petrified. And that fear is going to make it such a mess.

Because when we're stepping into this from an energy of, I'm scared out of my mind of this person, of the threats, of the system, because also the whole divorce system is created to keep us intimidated, right? We think, the lawyer has more power over the judge. No, you hold all the power, but it's designed that way to keep us intimidated and feel powerless. So,

when we feel powerless, we're scared. say that. Yeah.

Sol (29:23)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And the family court

system, like you said, it perpetuates this model of fear. You have to be afraid. We might take the kids away from you, right? Like terrifying. Okay, next question. You know you are becoming unbothered when...

Denise Kavaliauskas (29:38)
when it just rolls right off your shoulder, when you're like, ⁓ he or she's playing their game again. Like a replay that you're seeing from the football game line, you're seeing it played out again. You're like, yeah, I know that happens. yeah. Just totally unbothered. It's a feeling.

Sol (29:52)
A narcissist loses their power the moment you...

Denise Kavaliauskas (29:56)
Know yours. The moment you know your power, it all crumbles. It all crumbles down. What a beautiful sight.

Sol (30:03)
I love that. Children don't need their parents to be perfect. They need their safe parent to be...

Denise Kavaliauskas (30:09)
present.

Children feel this energy too. They feel the scared energy. They feel the safety. They feel this energy. And so when a parent is present, they feel that mommy or daddy is here with me right now. And that makes them feel safe and secure.

Sol (30:21)
Hmm.

I just want to echo that message so much how important it is to just be present with our kids and learn tools that help you get away from the conflict and the day to day so you can be present with your kids. Cause that's what will create the lasting healing.

Denise Kavaliauskas (30:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, absolutely.

Sol (30:40)
Okay, next one. The biggest lie your attorney might tell you is...

Denise Kavaliauskas (30:43)
That you need one. There's so many times that you you don't even need one.

Obviously there's good lawyers out there. But sometimes you think you need, and the society has taught us, oh, go hire a lawyer, but sometimes you don't even need them.

Sol (30:58)
Yeah, I like to be very cautious about anyone that any professional that tells me that I need them. ⁓ And that applies to attorneys as well.

Denise Kavaliauskas (31:06)
Right.

Right. It's also really codependent to hire the attorney straight out the gate and being scared because energetically what we're doing is we're handing over our power to the attorney and saying, here, you take care of this. Just like in the relationship, there's so much with domestic violence, all of these types of relationships are very, very codependent. So it's, "I'm going to hire the best attorney.

There he's gonna, she's gonna take care of it." Well, that's me just stepping back and going, "you run my life. I'm not gonna run my life. You do it." It's codependency.

Sol (31:38)
Mm hmm.

Yeah, you take care of the problem. Mm hmm. Okay, next question. Peace isn't a destination. It's a...

Denise Kavaliauskas (31:42)
Right.

It's a feeling. Anybody can have it at any time. It's actually a decision to make of yes, I want to feel this.

Sol (31:52)
Love that. You can't control the storm, but you can control...

Denise Kavaliauskas (31:56)
yourself. You can control yourself, how you show up, how you respond, how you reply, how you answer emails. You can control you and how you feel.

Sol (32:05)
Your future self is thanking you for...

Denise Kavaliauskas (32:08)
your past self. Everything that we've been through in the past was like, before you get on stage, you rehearse it, you practice it. And so now because of that experience, I'm so rehearsed and I practiced it so much.

Sol (32:21)
Yeah, that's a great perspective and it's a perspective I hear a lot from people who have come out of the other side of especially a high conflict divorce is that it has a way of growing you and changing you and you can't necessarily see that while you're in it. But at the end of it and in the future, you'll look back and you'll say, gosh, you know, I really appreciate the person who I have become and I'm so glad

Denise Kavaliauskas (32:36)
Right.

Sol (32:45)
that I went through all that. In fact, I'm even glad that my ex did that to me or, whatever you might say.

Denise Kavaliauskas (32:51)
Absolutely,

yep, I do, I say that too. Yep, I'm grateful for all of the experiences that I had with him because it made me who I am today and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Sol (33:02)
Hmm. I love that. Now to close us out, let's speak for a moment to a listener who might just feel really extra stuck in their co-parenting chaos. What is one actionable step that they can take today that will start turning things around?

Denise Kavaliauskas (33:17)
Kust close your eyes and just sit where you're at and get comfortable. You can put your hand on your stomach or your heart.

and just breathe intentionally in through your nose,

out through your mouth,

and just get real calm and present in this moment and steer your thoughts and your focus and your attention to just inhale, exhale. And to do that for a few minutes and to get really present, really calm. And then that's the beginning. That's where you wanna start to navigate from that point to what the problem is.

Because when you can feel that calmness and that stillness and that peace and actually touching your body, then you can get so super present and so like, I like this feeling. So how can I walk through this situation or this scenario feeling peaceful, having peace in it and exiting this as quick, easy and cheap as possible.

Sol (34:15)
Heh

Denise Kavaliauskas (34:15)
That's where I would start.

Sol (34:16)
Great. Denise, thank you so much for being on the podcast today and sharing your wisdom.

For those listeners that would like to learn more about your work and connect with you, where can they find you?

Denise Kavaliauskas (34:27)
WinningYourDivorce.com. That's my website, has all the social medias, everything is there that they can get in touch with me. And it has a Work With Me tab, so the different ways that they can choose to work with me.

Sol (34:39)
Great, thanks so much and have a wonderful day.

Denise Kavaliauskas (34:41)
Thank you.

Sol (34:43)
Thanks for joining us on the Coparenting Beyond Conflict podcast. To support our show, subscribe or leave a rating. Links for all books and resources mentioned on appear in our show notes or on CoparentingBeyondConflict.com. See you next time.

Sol (35:01)
The commentary and opinions available on this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only, and not for the purpose of providing legal or psychological advice. You should contact a licensed attorney, coach, or therapist in your state to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem.