Hello and welcome back to the Post Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, Danny Alblack, and as always, I'm really glad that you're here with me. If you've been listening to our recent episodes, you'll know that we've been exploring the power of the mind and how our thoughts, emotions, and nervous system responses can shape our experience of post-separation life. Today, we're going to take that conversation a little deeper and talk about what is often referred to as the invisible work, post-separation, the kind of growth that isn't always obvious from the outside, but can completely change how we show up in our post-separation journey. My one-on-one coaching work with clients aligns with a three-step process. I've spoken about this in previous episodes. It's what I refer to as the three steps to protective parenting. This is also something that I unpack in the blueprint, and it was in many ways foundational to the creation of the blueprint. Briefly, step one is about knowledge and understanding, learning and understanding what our children need, understanding family violence dynamics, gaining insight into our co-parents' patterns of behaviour and parenting capacity, and also understanding where we stand legally. Step two is growing our inner capacity, doing the emotion regulation work, the nervous system work, and mindset work, all of which helps us to stay steady even when the things around us are anything but. Step number three is advocating for ourselves and our children, bringing the knowledge in the inner steadiness from step one and step two together, so that we can stand firm under pressure from others, whether that's pressure from the other parent, from friends or family, or even sometimes from our own legal team. All three steps matter. But step two, the capacity building piece, is often the step that's missing from conversations about the post-separation reality. In my professional experience, as well as my personal lived experience, we can have all the knowledge in the world. We can know what our kids need, we can understand the evidence base. We can know what coercive control looks like. We can understand our legal rights. But if our nervous system is dysregulated, if we're flooded with fear or panic or exhaustion, it becomes impossible to use that knowledge effectively. Capacity is the bridge between knowing and doing. Recently a client said something to me that really touched me and perfectly captured what capacity building looks like in real life. After one of our recent sessions, we were DMing back and forth in our online community platform. And for those of you that don't know, that's part of a coaching package. Whenever a client signs up for a package with me or one of my team, they have access to our stronger, braver together community that comes also with an app that you can have on a smartphone or other device, and that enables the client to privately direct message their coach. So in this situation, this particular client and I were DMing back and forth after a recent coaching session, and I'd like to share with you a snippet of one of the messages that she shared. Quote, when I said today about changing and feeling different, I think I need to add how scared I was back then. I remember you helping me to draft a message and it took me hours, maybe days, and sleepless nights to actually send it. And now I'm nowhere near as scared as I was. I just respond now. If you tell me my draft is okay to send, I'll just send it. This is the invisible stuff I want to be aware of and to share. That is the invisible work right there. When we first started working together, every communication with her former partner felt terrifying. Every word felt like it could be used against her. Her body responded to each message as if it were a direct threat. Heart racing, stomach in knots, sleepless nights. And that reaction made perfect sense because it came from years of being conditioned to expect attack or manipulation. Her nervous system was still deeply wired for survival. But over time, through consistent support, one-on-one coaching, help with drafting messages, help with understanding what messages need to be responded to, which ones don't, and if it does require a response, how to best go about responding, along with reminders and guidance on regulation practices, breathwork, grounding, in a capacity building, going for a walk, getting fresh air. Her body has begun to learn that not every interaction requires the same level of emergency response. Now, when this client drafts a message, she's able to take a breath, check in, and send it. That doesn't mean that she's become robotic and that there's never any nerves. But being able to send a message without dwelling on every single word, without rewriting and rewriting and re-editing, and needing to soften it, and needing to reread it and edit it again, just to make sure that nothing's going to trigger her former partner. That's not part of what she does now. That might sound like it's a small thing, but it's actually enormous. It represents a significant shift from fear-driven reactivity to calm, grounded agency. And it's that shift that allows her to apply what she knows, the knowledge about her kids and what they need, and what she needs to do as a protective parent. So the knowledge from step one to then being able to advocate for her kids, step three, advocating for herself and her kids with increased clarity and steadiness. The reason that this can be called invisible work is because it often doesn't look at all dramatic from the outside. It's not a big court event. It's subtle. It's an internal recalibration that happens quietly over time. It's clients that I work with checking in with me via email or direct message with an epiphany that, hey, I just realized. That message didn't impact me the way that it once would have. And that was what I experienced on my own journey as well. It wasn't this massive life-changing event that led me to notice that there had been a shift within me. It was reflections after the fact. Just that subtle awareness of, huh, that message really didn't bother me that much. A while ago, that would have had me in a really dissociated panic state. Wow, I'm making progress. Internal recalibration is subtle. It can be noticing that you don't cry or get stressed out or get into a dissociated state after every message. Or noticing that you're able to take a breath before responding, maybe waiting hours or days before responding to something that might once have sent you spiralling, feeling as though you had to respond immediately. Or that your heart doesn't race as fast when you see a notification pop up on your phone. Those small moments are actually evidence of massive nervous system change. They're proof that your body is learning safety. And that really is the foundation for everything else. From a scientific perspective, what's happening here is neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire through experience. When we practice grounding, affirmations, visualizing, simply pausing before responding, we're teaching our brain and body new pathways for safety and regulation. I find that with my clients that strengthened even further with one-on-one coaching, because they also get to benefit from co-regulation with their coach. The more we practice, the stronger those pathways become, until they become our new default. It's a bit like strength training, but for our nervous system. And just like physical strength training, the results can be really slow and incremental at first until suddenly, one day, you realize you're doing something that used to feel impossible, like sending a message without feeling panic. Or reading a legal letter and staying calm, or setting a boundary and not collapsing afterwards. That's capacity building. That's the often invisible work that changes everything. So when I talk about protective parenting being a three-step process, this isn't a made-up bullshit model. It really is a map. Step one gives us knowledge and understanding to make informed decisions. And that's actually a key part of the blueprint. It's full of evidence-based, research-based knowledge about what kids need post-separation. Step two builds the inner capacity to stay steady and grounded even when things in our world are unpredictable and uncertain. Step three is about being able to advocate, to stand firm, to lead with clarity and conviction, and to protect ourselves and our children effectively, even when we're feeling resistance or pressure from others. If we skip step two, the whole thing collapses. And this is why I'm so passionate about helping protective parents to grow their emotional and nervous system capacity, because that's what makes everything else sustainable. If today's episode has resonated with you, I encourage you to take a few moments to reflect on some of your own invisible shifts. Is there anything that feels different now compared to six months ago? Or even a few weeks ago? Is there anything that no longer sends you into the same emotional spiral that it once did? Those are the signs of real progress, even if nobody else can see them. And if you're interested in more support in building your own inner capacity, stay tuned. Soon I'm going to be releasing some guided affirmation and relaxation audios designed especially for parents on this post-separation journey. Because when we strengthen our capacity, we're also strengthening our ability to protect ourselves and our kids. Remember, your mind can be your safest place to return to, even when everything else feels uncertain. Until next time, take care of yourself. And I'll look forward to chatting with you again soon.