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Articles and Blogs
Our articles and blogs dive deep into the emotional reality of conflict separation, exploring the pain, fear, and growth that come with co-parenting, rebuilding after loss, and learning to love again. Through honest reflection and grounded insight, we unpack the hidden patterns and emotional triggers that shape how you think, feel, and respond during and after separation.
These writings explore what it means to raise children between two homes, to face the uncertainty of new relationships, and to navigate the complex layers of identity that form when love, family, and trust have been tested. These writings aim to help you recognise your emotional triggers, understand your behavioural responses, and uncover the internal representations you’ve built from your past experiences, the mental and emotional filters that shape how you see the world, others, and yourself.
By bringing awareness to these patterns, you begin to shift from reactivity to regulation, from fear to understanding. Our goal is to help you find calm through the chaos, rebuild emotional safety, and create relationships, with your children, your partner, and yourself, that are rooted in awareness, authenticity, and growth.
Emotions and nervous system
This category explores how high-conflict separation affects your emotions, body, and nervous system, why anxiety, tension, and exhaustion linger long after the arguments stop. Discover how chronic stress and false allegations keep you stuck in fight, flight, or freeze, and learn trauma-informed tools to calm your system, rebuild safety, and respond with awareness instead of reactivity. Healing begins when you reclaim the calm conflict once took.
When Our Values Become Expectations
Let’s be honest here, if you hold certain values really high, you get frustrated when you feel others do not uphold them. I just bought my Jeep Wrangler and put the money down, and I’m still waiting a week later for the keys. Even though they need to do a service, the parts are there, and they want to get that finished and get a second key cut. My value is: get a product to a customer as soon as possible. It also doesn’t help that companies like Amazon get you a product prett
Andrew Jaensch
1 day ago4 min read
The Father Duck and the Forgotten Masculine
Today I was travelling through Ashton, like I do most mornings after the gym. The Adelaide Hills, clean, fresh air, that sharp kind that wakes your lungs up. It was a beautiful day with a bit of rain hanging around, those light showers that make everything smell new again. As I came around the twisting roads, I saw two adult ducks crossing with their ducklings. I slowed right down. And in that moment, something simple, something primal unfolded. The mother duck held back, kee
Andrew Jaensch
5 days ago3 min read
Get Used to Uncertainty: The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
I get that separation is a serious topic. Most people going through a conflict separation have a whole list of people telling them, “Do this,” “Do that,” “If you don’t do this, you’re screwed.” One of the worst things I have ever heard from a coach was the line: “You’re screwed. You need a great lawyer.” WTF Those words send shivers down your spine. They make you think there is no possible solution to the predicament you now find yourself in. They shut down the belief that an
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 193 min read
The chess Board of Family Court.
I know it's hard to look at the positives during a high-conflict separation where your very character seems to be attacked. Or maybe you made some mistakes in your past that you’re not proud of, and now it feels like all your old history is being dragged back up again, no matter how much self-work you’ve done. I’m here to tell you that you’re not being judged for who you truly are by the other side during a conflict separation in the family court system. You’re hearing the na
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 174 min read
Break the Loop: A Fast Way to Calm Fear-Based Thinking After Separation
For those repeating the same fear-based thoughts after separation, stuck in negative self-talk and anxiety loops, I want to give you a very fast way to bring your mind back into your body and the present moment. We can talk about getting out in nature, box breathing, yoga breathing, vocalising, or writing your thoughts down. All of those are great. But in the early stages, when you’re trying to solve a problem you’ve never faced before, with no memory or reference point to gu
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 102 min read
Seeing Beyond the Lines: How Our Internal World Shapes Our Separation Journey
We often find ourselves in situations after separation that no one ever taught us how to handle. The problems that come with conflict separation are ones we’ve never faced before, so we panic. But here’s where it gets interesting. The way we see the world, our internal representation of it, is how we create our strategies of protection. There was a study carried out on kittens raised in the dark. One group was shown only black and white vertical lines, while the other was sho
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 92 min read
How Emotional Stress Impacts the Body, Mind—and Your Career
It is often overlooked just how much emotional stress during high-conflict separation can impact not only our home life but our career and professional reputation. Whether you are an employee or a business owner, separation stress does not stay neatly in a box labelled personal life —it seeps into everything, including your work. When we remain constantly focused on the negative—on the injustice, the betrayal, the fear of losing our children or our security—our body responds
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 56 min read
Food, Mood, and the Fight for Regulation
Oh, how nice it feels to eat a slice of cake when the world feels like it’s falling apart. Or to bury your face in a tub of ice cream after yet another heated exchange with your ex, or after walking out of court feeling like your voice wasn’t heard. That instant rush of sugar feels like a warm hug—dopamine surges, and for a moment, the pain softens. But here’s the thing: it backfires. That feel-good moment comes at a cost. A high-sugar, highly processed diet doesn’t just affe
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
Emotional Regulation Through Movement: More Than Just “Go Exercise”
So, you’ve heard it all before. “Get off your ass and exercise, it’s good for you.” They all say it. You already know. But honestly, if you’ve ever tried to lift weights at the gym after not seeing your children for a week or more, it can feel like everything is pointless. That emotional lasso wrapped tight around your chest just doesn’t want to loosen. Here’s the thing—just like doing a job you hate, forcing yourself to do something you don’t enjoy, even if there’s a financ
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
The Blocks We Build After High-Conflict Separation and Relationship Trauma
The mental blocks we form after high-conflict separation and relationship trauma often go unseen — sometimes for years. They are not always obvious. Most lawyers, therapists, counsellors, even those who work day in and day out through the family court system, miss these deeper wounds — wounds that become so intertwined into our minds, our bodies, and our nervous systems, that they start to feel like a part of us. They sink in like parasites, embedding themselves into how we t
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 55 min read
Co-Regulating Emotions in Intimate Relationships
Babies are not born with a fully formed sense of self. In the earliest stages of life, there is no distinction between "me" and "you." They perceive themselves as one with their caregiver and their environment. It is only through time, repetition, and emotional mirroring that a child begins to recognize their individuality. Through this co-regulation with a nurturing adult, a baby learns to soothe, to feel safe, and eventually to develop a separate and stable sense of self. B
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 53 min read
The Roles We Play – Emotional Survival and Patterned Behaviour
From the moment we are born, we begin to learn how to get our emotional needs met. As children, we instinctively observe and remember: What behaviour brings comfort? What expression gets us picked up? What words make someone listen? Whether it’s a cry, a tantrum, a silent withdrawal, or a charming smile, these responses begin to shape the strategies we carry into adulthood. A child who throws a tantrum and gets the toy learns that heightened emotion brings reward. A child who
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 43 min read
Regret Over Reaction, Understanding Guilt, Shame, and Misalignment
Guilt and shame are heavy. They creep in after we’ve acted in a way that doesn’t sit right with us, after we’ve raised our voice, pushed someone away, said something we wish we hadn’t. These emotions often hit hard in relationships, especially when we're under pressure or already stretched thin. But here’s something worth sitting with: those behaviours might feel natural in the moment, but they’re not random. They come from somewhere deep, patterns, conditioning, survival res
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 44 min read
Food, Mood, and the Nervous System: What You Eat Shapes How You Feel and set of your triggers.
When navigating prolonged stress, especially in the context of high-conflict separation, it’s easy to overlook how much your diet influences your emotional and physiological resilience. But the nervous system doesn’t operate in isolation. It’s deeply connected to your gut, your hormones, your blood sugar levels, and your daily nutritional inputs. In high-stress environments, the right foods can support calm and clarity, while the wrong ones can amplify anxiety, worsen brain f
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 47 min read
What Happens in the Body When the Sympathetic Nervous System Is Activated
When you're under high stress, especially the kind that comes with high-conflict separation, the sympathetic nervous system shifts your body into a state of survival. It’s like a silent alarm system going off inside you, designed to keep you alive in the face of perceived danger. The system tightens, contracts, and reallocates your body’s resources to prepare you for one of four survival strategies: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. In this state, the brain signals the adrenal
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 42 min read
The Boiled Egg Principle – Patience, Power, and the Family Court
With so many uncertainties after separation—and especially during family court, it makes perfect sense that you want to control whatever you can. Constant emails to lawyers. Trying to control how much time you have with your children. Fixating on money, accounts, calendars. With so much out of your hands, the mind and body start hunting for any sliver of stability. And where there’s none, it tries to create it. But here’s the truth: that kind of control often isn’t about logi
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 43 min read
When Conflict Makes Us Shrink
Separation, especially the kind that drags you through the fire of family court—can make even the strongest, most self-assured person feel like a shadow of who they once were. When every part of your life and character is put under a microscope, it's no wonder so many of us start to shrink. We lose our bravery, our confidence, our voice, and even our intelligence. It can feel like our passion disappears, like the very light inside of us dims. After separation, and particularl
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 33 min read
The Programmes We Run After High-Conflict Separation
What we perceive that we need will dictate the actions we take. Those actions are filtered through programmes wired by our past experiences. Like most people, we stick to a set programme that once worked for us. With memories wired as patterns, the more we access them, the stronger the neural pathways become, reinforcing our belief system. Patterns of behaviour that get us what we want, whether through positive or negative actions, become ingrained simply because at some poin
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 32 min read
Anger After High-Conflict Separation: Protection or Suppression?
There is a misconception about those who appear solely angry after high-conflict separation and the exhausting family court process. What we see on the outside, and what we feel on the inside, may not be “just anger.” More often, it’s a transition from one emotion to another, a way of coping with grief. Anger gives us a sense of power where other emotions may not. But here’s the problem: while anger can make us feel strong, it often leads to poor actions if we are not self-a
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 22 min read
Recognising your emotional triggers and unmet needs
One of the most disorienting parts of navigating a high-conflict separation is the internal chaos that follows external control. It’s not always the explosive moments that destabilise us, it’s the subtle ones. The stonewalling. The unanswered message. The legal document that twists your truth. The drop-off that leaves your child emotionally raw. You feel the pull, not just in your thoughts, but in your body. Your stomach drops, your chest tightens, your mind races. You’re no
Andrew Jaensch
Nov 24 min read
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