Training the Nervous System: Why New Strategies Matter After High-Conflict Separation

It’s going to be uncomfortable, like leaning over a sitting on herself and feeling that discomfort right up to your upper abdomen. BUT, working through our discomfort is where we actually grow. It’s where we become more grounded internally, more secure in our own ability to handle uncertainty, and where we develop new strategies that truly serve us. These are not strategies to manipulate an outcome.

If you manipulate for outcome, you're still not developing strength in uncertainty. Being honest.

Most people feel, and from what I read and see so much in the new-age woke agenda, that if you follow a certain course, you’ll get what you want. But this still ties our internal calm, peace, and groundedness to external outcomes, rather than focusing on what we truly want to accomplish: internal stability and emotional security.

I recently spoke to a client this morning, and for all the reasons known by everyone, and out of respect, I’m not going to name names. So let’s call him Mister Business.

Mister Business is a high-functioning man who has just been through the family court system. Unfortunately, the experience of a high-conflict separation and the emotional toll of it have left him second-guessing himself and losing centre, relying on old strategies to handle co-parenting with someone who seems to want control and applies pressure for what they want.

And fair enough, we are all entitled to ask for what we want.

The asking isn’t the problem.

The other person isn’t the problem.

Not even what they ask for is the problem.

The real issue is the belief that somewhere deep down, Mister Business still thinks he has to fix it. That somehow he is still the problem. At leat thats the way he sees it. (we'll talk about how that generalisation is another problem later)

After months or years of character attacks, scrutiny, and hyper vigilance, it’s no wonder he still feels like he must fix things that have nothing to do with the court orders or his children or a relationship that has ended.

The uncertainty shows up as endless internal questions:

What if I don’t do what they want me to do, even though it’s not in the orders?What if it gets used against me later?

What if…

what if…

what if?

And so he tries to fix it in the same way he tried to fix things in the marriage, by explaining, by maintaining constant communication, by trying to make his former wife understand his logic, and that it’s not in the orders so he shouldn’t have to do it. Over and over and over. The same pattern. The same strategy.

And why does it keep happening? It's not because he doesnt have balls, forget that marcho BS. "If you think being mean is a trait of masculinity than you have been taught wrong, or you are using a pattern that you believe works but actually creates compliance through fear, not love".

Because his former partner gets the same results every time.

Because he keeps using the same strategy.

His nervous system still reacts the same way it did years ago. No new strategy has been implemented or validated long enough for him to trust that another way works. And that is scary.

But this isn’t about “not texting back.” It’s not training the nervous system to stay quiet just so he doesn’t have to do something. It’s training the nervous system to feel safe, safe to protect himself, safe to not succumb to demands, and safe to tolerate uncertainty that is outside of his control.

His mind explains over and over why he shouldnt do it, as if giving himself a pep talk to take actions that never seems to follow. Instead of owning his truth.

The more he continues with the same strategy to fix a problem that was never his, the more he validates the other side’s behaviour, proving to them that their demands and pressure still work to get a response or an outcome.

This is about distinguishing the line between his problem and her problem, without adding any extra stress to his former partner. It is not about being mean. It is not about rejecting communication. It is about acknowledging communication that has nothing to do with his former partner’s or his children’s safety.

He is doing all the right things, but his hyper vigilance around making mistakes has nothing to do with reality. There is no guarantee that even if he does everything perfectly, it will bring the result he wants, to protect his children and himself.

We are not responsible for the actions of another. We see this all the time. We see people ask, "Why did this happen to me, what did i do wrong" and when another is actually abusive while calling us the problem we try to fix it, we give into demands, we loose ground and loose centre and validate their strategy. Sometimes its easier to just let them to move on, but sometimes we need to say,

"I matter in this equation and i'm aloud to protect me"

The urge to fix a perceived problem because of a future, imagined outcome is real. But we do not train the nervous system through thoughts alone. We train it through actions that validate a new method, actions that prove it is safe, and actions that confirm a new strategy works.

That is where real change begins. Actions