Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Post Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, Postseparation Parenting Coach Danielle Black. Last week we talked about the thought error that keeps so many protective parents stuck. Believing that your life will only improve when the other parent changes. Today we're going to talk about what actually changes your life when nothing on the outside does. Specifically, radical acceptance and inner emotion and nervous system capacity. They're not two separate skills, they're part of the same practice from two different angles. You can't choose peace without accepting reality. If you're still fighting what is, arguing about fairness, chasing accountability, replaying how things should be, you're not really choosing peace, but you're wanting to be right. And you can't practice radical acceptance without growing your inner capacity. Because without emotion and nervous system regulation, acceptance often just feels as though you're giving up. But radical acceptance is not resignation. It's clarity. It's saying this is what's happening. I don't have to like it, but I can work with it. And that shift is powerful. Let's talk about it in practical terms. One of your kids needs a$350 school uniform, and your ex refuses to contribute. The old pattern might look something like this you sending a message asking for them to contribute. They ignore it. You follow up. You feel angry, you document it, you vent, weeks go by, you're exhausted and pissed off, and the uniform still isn't bought. Now here's a different way of managing things. You recognize the pattern and you accept the reality. Your extra simply does not contribute for things that they should. You ask yourself, can I afford to cover this? If yes, you buy it and you move on. If no, you look for an alternative and take action. You let go of the fantasy that they are going to ever behave differently. You regulate your body, you make a decision based on your reality, and you free up your energy for what really matters your kids. That's radical acceptance. Let's make it even simpler. There are so many things that you can't control. Whether they contribute for anything financially, whether they follow the parenting plan or parenting orders, whether they communicate appropriately or prioritize the kids. They're the things that you can't control. What you do have a degree of control and influence over your nervous system, your home environment, your responses to your co-parents' messages or lack of messages. Everything in the can't control list, let it go. Release it. Everything on the list of things that you can control or influence, that's your work. Real capacity is built upon daily. It's the breathing that you do when you feel your body tensing up. It's the pausing and taking time before you reply to any message to ensure that you are responding as opposed to reacting. It's making the choice to just buy the damn uniform without hanging on to the resentment. Over time, those small practices do expand your window of tolerance. Your ex doesn't change, but you're no longer being controlled by their behavior. And your kids, they really do feel that shift. They really do feel safer. I now want to pause and acknowledge something really important. If parts of this conversation have made you feel angry, upset, or unseen, please know that that is completely valid. When you're living with trauma responses that are still active, hearing phrases like quote, build your capacity or quote, stop being reactive can sound harsh or even impossible. It can feel like you're being told to do something that you just physically can't. And that's the point. You cannot coach your way through trauma. Coaching's powerful and it's not counseling. It's not therapy. It is not a substitute for trauma treatment when that's what's really needed. Coaching is about moving forward, taking action, and strategy. It does expect that you already have a baseline level of emotional and nervous system stability, or that you're supported by a therapist who's helping you to build that. If you're still finding that trauma responses are taking over, panic, shutdown, rage, dissociation, or if day-to-day functioning feels hard, that's your body letting you know that you need some more healing first. And if that's the case, please do not start with coaching. Start with a counsellor or a psychologist who understands family violence-related trauma. Someone who can help you with tools, strategies, techniques to help you settle your nervous system and process what you've experienced in a way that is safe and supported. Coaching becomes transformative after that work has begun, when you're ready to apply new strategies and make sustained change. Trying to do that coaching work before that other foundation is in place is like trying to run before you can walk. It's not that coaching is too harsh, it's that your nervous system may need more support first. And I want to be really clear. No one is to blame for their trauma, but once we know it's there, we are responsible for healing it. Trauma doesn't have to be permanent. Those triggers that might feel like landmines right now can be reprocessed and stored differently in the brain. They don't have to control you forever. One of the most effective treatments for this is EMDR therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It's evidence-based, trauma-informed, and in my own lived experience, absolutely life-changing. I would not be capable of doing the work that I do today without having experienced EMDR. Healing is possible. Emotion and nervous system regulation is possible. Feeling at peace is possible. And once that foundation is there, or you're beginning that process with a counselor, therapist, psychologist, then coaching can be the rocket fuel, the structured, forward-facing, evidence-based path that can help you to build the strategy and the kind of life and parenting environment that your kids actually need. So if you've been listening and thinking, I really want to be there, but I'm not there yet, that's okay. Start where you are, get the support that you need and come back to coaching work when your body and your mind are ready for the next steps. Because coaching is not about shoving down and just pushing through trauma. It's about building what comes after trauma. Before we finish up today's episode, there's something else that I really want to speak to because I know that a lot of you are probably thinking it. You're probably thinking so what are you saying, Danielle? They just get away with it? And you know what? In a way, yeah, they do. Because here's the really unpleasant, uncomfortable truth. There is often nothing that you can practically or reasonably do to make them change. You can send all the perfectly worded messages in the world. Quote the parenting plan or the parenting orders, threaten consequences, get worked up and pour your energy into quote holding them accountable. And they don't care. If they cared, they would have paid for the uniform by now, or stopped doing whatever it is that they shouldn't be doing. Coaching helps you to redirect your resources, your time, money, emotions, energy, all the things, toward what's actually going to make a difference for you and your kids. Constantly trying to hold your ex to account is really not a good use of resources. It doesn't encourage them to change, it often just fuels more conflict. And this often results in inadvertently exposing your kids to more tension that they shouldn't have to carry. Now, to be clear, this doesn't mean that you stop documenting. Documentation is often still very essential, especially if you think that you might one day need to vary the parenting orders, or if there are regular breaches that could become part of future legal proceedings. So yes, you're documenting what happens, but you're making an effort to no longer engage emotionally with what's going on. Radical acceptance isn't about ignoring breaches of court orders or pretending that everything's fine. It's about recognizing that documentation is for your records and future reference, not for daily reactivity. And just to be clear, nothing in this podcast is legal advice, nor is it a substitute for legal advice or for individual coaching specific to your circumstances, situation and needs. Please always seek professional guidance tailored to your specific situation. So again, radical acceptance is not letting them off the hook. Rather, it's getting yourself off the hook. It's freeing your emotions and your nervous system from that constant cycle and loop of outrage and exhaustion. It's saying I see who you are and I am fucking done trying to make you someone else. Because here's the reality your ex is still not going to pay for the uniform. They're still going to be late. They're still going to breach parenting orders or not abide to the parenting plan. They're still going to play their games. And you can either keep living in reaction to that, or you can make the choice to drop the rope and move on. And moving on doesn't mean that you approve of their behavior. What it means is that you've stopped investing your peace, your sanity, and that of your kids in something that will never change. And when you do that, when you finally let go, it really does feel incredible. Like taking a deep breath after years of holding on to tension. It doesn't change the fact that your ex might still be an entitled asshole. But they're going to be an entitled asshole whether you send another message or not. So you might as well choose the path that feels better for you and your kids. Over so many years of doing this work, I've spoken to so many protective parents who are so focused on the injustices that they find themselves talking about it constantly, sometimes even in front of their kids. And I get it, you're angry, you're tired. And it's not fucking fair. But that ongoing commentary that I can't believe what your father did this time or oh he still hasn't paid for this can create enormous stress for our kids. It can pull them into adult conflict and loyalty binds that they're not equipped to manage and frankly shouldn't have to. Most children still love the other parent, even if that parent has been abusive or neglectful in some way. When we project our outrage or talk about injustices in front of them, we inadvertently make them carry the weight of adult pain, and they can start believing that they have to choose, and that's not what we want for them. Radical acceptance, dropping the rope is how we protect them from that. It's how we start to break the cycle. When you stop fighting a battle that can't be won, you create space for something even bigger, even more important that can be built. Peace, safety, connection, and genuine emotional stability in your home and in your kids' hearts. Your children have two parents. One may always create chaos, but the other one, you can create calm. That's protective parenting and that's inner capacity. We release what we can't control and we focus on the things that we can. If you're ready to take this work deeper, module sixteen of the post separation parenting blueprint walks you through all of this step by step. Remember, building your capacity is what actually changes your life. So much of everything else is just noise. Thank you so much for being here with me for this episode of the Post Separation Abuse Podcast. I'll look forward to chatting with you again soon.