Hear me speak at Cornell University where I tell my own story, and share my perspective on how to catalyze it:
We are the living proof.
About
Before the birth of our second son, I had all the things I thought would make me happy: a successful career, a marriage, children, a beautiful house in the woods, the beginnings of financial stability. I had it all, and there was still a gnawing sense of aloneness.
Coming out of the fog was a multi-year process, but the first thing that led me back to myself was mindfulness. It created the tiniest crack for reality to pour in.
Not long after, I started a leadership position as a project manager at a large university. I had just started meditating, and my amazing boss encouraged me to take a mindfulness-based meditation training and lead meditations for the university community even though it had nothing to do with my job. Through employee development opportunities, I also started doing values work, working with a mentor, learning decision management, how to work through conflict, how to communicate better, and was even trained to coach others. My job was my playground where I kept learning and experimenting, and I realized the tools I was learning had an incredible efficacy and power to help both individuals and teams maximize their growth. They just didn’t always work the same way in my personal life. It took me a while to put all the pieces together, to realize that some relationships were immune to even my best efforts.
When I finally woke up in 2018, I left with our kids, 3 grocery bags of clothes, and a package of diapers. I was so hopeful for all of us, and never saw the hurdles coming.
My own high-conflict custody trial didn’t occur until years later. Once I was in the middle of it, I found myself in a simultaneous state of overwhelming disappointment and awe over how much I felt forced to learn myself. Disappointment in systems that didn’t seem to align with evidence-based recommendations, and that I had to figure so much out in what usually felt like a vacuum. Awe that I actually managed to do it - and succeeded.
I realized the experts usually weren’t the professionals, they were often other parents - the people with no choice other than to leave no stone unturned, the people with lived experience.
I started to feel like my university job didn’t really matter. I had these skills that were superpowers - that could literally change the world: harnessing groups of people to work together and create meaningful change, partnering with others to help them recognize and access their potential. I had superpowers that I was using for everyday business initiatives, like taking a process that was done on paper and developing it in a software application. It baffled me that a job with amazing people, and an amazing culture that I used to relish suddenly felt meaningless, but I realized I was putting my skills towards the wrong initiatives, and serving the wrong population.
And that was what led me to coaching survivors of coercive control, domestic violence, and narcissistic abuse, and especially those who are (or anticipate) experiencing high-conflict divorce and custody litigation. To me, this is an area that needs as many superheroes, superpowers, and generally as many sparkling explosions of magic as possible. My approach combines education, strategy, mindset, mindfulness & resiliency work, and traditional strategic questioning-based coaching. My vision is for you to access your best self again, get heard, protect your family, and tap into emotional freedom regardless of external chaos that often feels suffocating and inescapable.
It doesn’t stop there. Imagine being part of a network of empowered and healing parents who not only “get it,” but also inspire each other and grow alongside each other in community. Who create meaningful, intentional change in our lives, and maybe when we restore our strength, focus that same laser-beam attention in our neighborhoods, communities, and systems.
Where we become the proof for each other, that not only can we survive this, but we can bloom— even in the rubble. Where through these experiences, we develop a kind of tenacity we never imagined we were capable of.
Where we become the living proof.
The biggest asset in our case wasn’t my fabulous attorney.
It was me.
My Story
In 2020, I was falsely accused of child abuse via multiple channels. It was hard to believe it was actually happening. I found myself regularly greeting Child Protective Services as they made a surprise visit. Not long after, I was served with the legal papers for what became my own high-conflict custody battle.
I remember the moment I leafed through them: walking to my attorney’s office, trying to make sense of it…an order to relinquish custody of our children and not see them for over a month. Knees dissolving, sliding down the hallway wall, next to the paralegal, trying to breathe and inhaling my mask into my mouth instead of air. There wasn’t enough air.
Over the next few months, I grappled with not being believed and with my concerns being dismissed. It felt like no matter what I said, no one could hear me. I was living in upside-down world. I was told in support groups that my case seemed grim and to set my expectations low. I found myself blankly walking through the grocery store, about to buy groceries for a child who no longer lived here. On a daily basis, I straddled terror and incapacitating grief - this living loss of our child.
Some of us stay up all night reading, searching for a silver bullet; some work with therapists to help heal past trauma; some find attorneys create a compelling argument; some seek domestic violence shelters for help with resources and advocacy. No one seemed to know the rhythm of how to cope day to day, or teach the language of the family court system, or even just know how to survive this. No one said to me, I refuse to let this horrible thing that is happening overwrite my identity. No one said, the truth becomes clearer over time - guard your energy, and don’t give up. No one said, I've been through this, and our family is okay now.
So I'd like to tell you: I've been through this, and the truth became clear over time. We had a positive outcome in our legal case that favors the wellbeing of the kids. We're all doing better than I ever could have imagined, and I now have the deepest, most unshakable trust in myself and our future.
When it was over, I finally realized that biggest asset in our legal case wasn't my fabulous attorney. It was me. Everything shifted when I started investing in myself, and realized that I was my safest asset.