Karen: There was one day where he was screaming, yelling, and cussing at me, and I remember looking at the table by the front door and seeing my car keys, and it was almost like a divine download. The children will be fine with him. We can grab those keys and we don’t have to stand here and take it. That is my memory of my first boundary.
Nancy: Welcome to the Nancy Levin Show. I’m Nancy Levin, founder of Levin Life Coach Academy, best-selling author, master coach, and your host. I help overachieving people pleasers set boundaries that stick and own self-worth, anchored in empowered action, so you can feel free. Plus, if you’re an aspiring or current coach, you are in the right place.
Join me each week for coaching and compelling conversations designed to support you in the spotlight as you take center stage of your own life.
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Nancy: Welcome back to another episode of the Nancy Levin Show. I am delighted today to be joined by my guest, Karen McMahon. She is a high-conflict, Divorce strategist, certified divorce coach, and founder of Journey Beyond Divorce. She began divorce coaching in 2010 after recognizing that the pain of her divorce led her on a transformational journey into a powerful and unexpected new life.
Karen leads a national team of divorce coaches in supporting people around the world to become calm, clear, and confident as they navigate divorce, Karen is the host of the acclaimed Journey Beyond Divorce podcast, the co-author of Stepping Out of Chaos, Turning Pain to Possibility, and creator of Journey Beyond Divorce’s exclusive Divorce 101 Strategic Blueprint for High Conflict Divorce.
Karen, welcome!
Karen: Nancy, thank you so much for the invitation. I’m excited to be here.
Nancy: Me too. As we’ve been preparing for this time together, one of the aspects we want to start exploring is the way that divorce provides a do-over. How divorce is actually a catalyst to designing our best new chapter. Before we hit record I said “Boy, the two of us can certainly speak ad nauseum about this particular angle” so I’d love to begin with giving you the opportunity to share how you came into this work from your own experience.
Karen: Yeah. I think that we all enter in divorce, heels dug in, wishing we were going in the other direction, fearing the worst nightmare outcome: overwhelmed, scared, and afraid of the foreign land that the legal process is.
I had two young children not yet in grade school and I was coming out of a pretty high conflict short, I think at that point when I first started thinking about it, we were together seven years. When I left it was fourteen. It was quite the journey to decide to leave. I was a child of divorce and I was hellbent on making it work until I realized that I could only control myself and the other half of the party wasn’t quite as committed.
My divorce journey was a three and a half year legal battle. I lived in the attic. I had walkie-talkies for my kids. The police had to come to the front door, CPS was called three times. I was a fully commissioned salesperson, lost 75-80% of my income because I was an emotional hot mess.
My then husband was so devastated that I be so angry and unhinged by it, and that went on for years. It was a very hard household to live in. It breaks my heart when I think about the children. I was a hot mess. So I engaged in all of the wrong behaviors. Three and a half years later, over the course of that time, I got into a 12-step program, I had a therapist, I started keeping focused on myself, I started stepping into the possibility that this was forming. Not an easy, pivot by any means. Then at some point, I actually really leaned into my faith and instead of praying for all the outcomes I wanted, I started praying for God’s will in his time and, just the patience, strength, and tenacity to abide. It was a real surrender for me and that was the beginning of letting go and seeing the miracles that happen when one lets go.
When I emerged on the other side, I remember calling my best friend and saying “I am so excited about the human being I have become”. Never expected anything, but really glad to be on this side of things.
Nancy: Thank you so much for sharing that. I know from my own divorce experience that so many of us wait for a crisis before we take action. Sometimes, we need a lot of time to mobilize into the action, even if we know that it’s something we need to do, or something that we want to do, even if it’s terrifying. So one of the things when you were sharing, you said, “I engaged in the wrong behaviors”. I’m curious what those were and what way in which you turned against yourself. Then how you said, then “you came to the place of surrender”. You said 12-step and turning toward your faith. What are you categorizing as the wrong behaviors? I’m curious.
Karen: Well, I would say, on a very foundational level, I was fully resistant of who my spouse was and how he showed
We would engage in blame, accusations, and raise voices. I also was incredibly boundary oblivious. So I blamed him for things that I would now take responsibility for because I didn’t know what a boundary was. I didn’t understand it.
There was one day where he was screaming and yelling. He had an anger management issue and a very nasty tongue. He was screaming, yelling, and cussing at me. I remember, looking at the table by the front door and seeing my car keys. It was almost like a divine download. The children will be fine with him. We can grab those keys and we don’t have to stand here and take it.
That is my memory of my first boundary. Which has a verbal aspect to it. I saw the keys, I was hearing him say “Wah, wah, wah, you nasty, whatever”. I just grabbed the keys, I walked out, I went for a drive, and I calmed myself down. It was an incredible aha moment where I was able to change my experience without him changing.
Nancy: Yes. I love that you shared that. You know I have very similar experiences. I actually thought that having no boundaries was what made me exceptional at my job. Having no boundaries in my marriage is what really ultimately sunk me into silence and into being willing to tolerate the intolerable and accept the unacceptable.
In a lot of the work I do with people around boundaries, it’s always mind blowing for people to realize that your boundaries don’t need to be verbalized. The boundary is between you and you. Having that download, immediate insight, and courage to grab the keys, and leave.
I love the way you said “my first boundary”. I write about my very first boundary in my book, Jump and Your Life Will Appear, which is my trajectory of leaving my marriage, deciding that I’m going to have no contact and hitting send. Then even enduring all the emails coming back, the voicemails escalating, and all of it, just staying in the place of no contact because it was up to me to hold it. Not anybody else. So I really appreciate hearing what you’re sharing.
Karen: I think that we probably both talk about boundaries so much and it’s when you’re coming from being a recovering codependent, a recovering people pleaser, from our own dysfunctional family of origin, and I just didn’t know. It was such a moment of empowerment, right? I think my whole life, if I was upset, somebody was the cause of it, right? If I needed something to change, somebody needed to change so that that would happen. So I gave all my agency away over and over throughout my many relationships.
Certainly I would say I used to be really proud of not only being low maintenance, but being no maintenance. You attract people who don’t want to give you anything and don’t want to care for you at all. That was a really big aha, but that boundary piece invited in this new experience of empowerment and there was so much that I could do to manage my circumstances, regardless of how my spouse chose to be.
Nancy: Absolutely. I so appreciate what you’re sharing here, being able to move out of that place of victim mode. Being able to move out of the place of blaming, recognizing that boundaries are not about anyone else doing anything different. That is what moves us into taking responsibility and ultimately into our self empowerment.
Karen: Freedom and liberation are really beautiful, a beautiful depth of love in any relationship, intimate or otherwise while having these boundaries. I think that I’m always talking to my clients, not only about their own boundaries, but about, the gift of teaching your children what a real boundary is. We can break great chains, empower, inform, and guide them in brilliant ways just with that one skill.
Nancy: Absolutely. In my divorce, because I didn’t have kids, I wasn’t in the position of needing to model for others in that way. I’m curious if you’ll speak to what it was like for you to experience the shift in yourself and also recognize that you were sending a message to your kids. That you were modeling what you chose to model for them.
Karen: Yeah, as I got healthier and certainly, three and a half years later, once I left, which was amazing. Literally the day I moved out and moved into my little barn from this finished attic, finished basement, English tutor, gorgeous home, castle of the neighborhood to this little barn. I felt so free and so excited. And of course when you’re in a high conflict situation, there’s often survivors guilt because the children are still dealing with that household and the chaos. My ability to help them not focus on dad, but focus on what they felt, what they experienced, what they did, what they would have liked to do differently, and how they could actually learn and grow through all the complications of this co-parenting and two different parents with different approaches. I think there is so much there for parents if they would look at it from that vantage point as opposed to “oh, your father or your mother” that is so the wrong way to go.
Nancy: I’m curious what you would say is, in your experience, the number one fear or the number one reason why people think they can’t move toward divorce?
Karen: Well, I happen to specialize in high conflict. So it’s definitely a little bit of a different answer. I think that when you’re coming out of a very chaotic marriage with someone who typically has trauma, addiction, alcoholism, neurodiversion, or a variety of mental health issues, they can be hard to be in relationship with.
Often, those individuals attract the people facing codependent individuals who, we’re the doormats we give, and we give, and we give, and then they’ll wear the martyr walking around all angry and frustrated that nobody’s giving back, but we can’t receive because we have no ability to receive.
So we give, and give, and blame everybody. I think that the biggest fear is going toe to toe with what seems like a bully. In my experience, he had anger management, and I did experience him as a bully, but I wasn’t seeing my part in the dance. Once I saw my part in the dance, he actually got smaller.
He wasn’t this big bad bully. Because I became a grown woman again. Maybe for the first time, I grew into everything that I could be. So I would say, one of the biggest fears, is the fear of going toe to toe with somebody who you have a power imbalance from. I think the second greatest fear is there’s just so many stories out there. So the fear of stepping into a process where you really for me, I thought I was going to use every penny and those are really our two most important assets in many ways, so there’s so much.
People so often come to me, I do a “Should You Mend Or Should You End” clarity call and people come all confused and they’re actually not confused at all, and one’s right. Once we can bring that down here and put them in a safety bubble, they actually know it’s scary, it’s uncertain, and it’s a new land. But nine times out of ten, they’re actually not so unclear.
Nancy: Hi, it’s Nancy interrupting my own show. I’ve got a lot of exciting things coming up in 2024, including a brand new book. Plus, a group coaching opportunity, unlike anything else I have ever offered before. To make sure you are in the know, pop on over to my website now and sign up for my free weekly newsletter at nancylevin.com/newsletter so you don’t miss a thing. Okay, back to the show.
Nancy: I’ve coached over the years, plenty of people who ask “Should I stay or should I go?” and really, that’s not the question, because it really is about, “Can I really step into the fullness, the wholeness of who I am, the truth of who I am?”. To at least be able to begin there.
Karen: We think that we don’t trust them, which we may not. We equally don’t trust them.
Nancy: Everything you’re talking about was the situation with me and my marriage. Very, very, classic narcissist and empath if you will, people please or peacekeeper, all of that. He knew how to fight dirty and I didn’t even know how to fight. For me, like you said, coming toe to toe, I really had to learn how to resource myself to be able to come into that kind of a conversation. It’s one of those things where it’s like catch-22 in some ways. I wouldn’t have learned, what I learned unless I have the experience, even though the experience was hell all the way through in my divorce mediation. Being able to stand up for myself financially, not having stood up for myself, all of that, it’s a lot to learn all at once. I would also say it’s a lot to learn when we put our trust in lawyers and don’t necessarily stand our own ground.
Karen: It’s so interesting. I’ve just been crafting this presentation that I’m going to do to family law attorneys. It’s so interesting that the first thing you think about is “I need an attorney” when you’re coming out of a high-conflict divorce. So many of my clients have found the bully attorney. Then they find themselves sandwiched between the bully soon to be ex and the bully attorney. I often will talk about “Slow it down”. First of all, you want to understand what you’re getting into. Secondly, how are you choosing this person? This is your first really important relationship after deciding to divorce. The first thing we want to start doing is doing things differently, the more familiar it is, the more wrong it is. We want to find that unfamiliar so that we know we’re heading in the right direction and then you want a team.
I so often talk about, I have two sisters one was all about me and what I needed and never bash the ex. The other one was more angry at my soon to be ex than I was. I would find myself defending him to her and I was like “Okay, this isn’t working for me”. So finding the healthy support team on a personal level, and then finding a divorce coach or a transition coach who can really come along with you because it is one of the most multi dimensional transitions that we’ve ever seen in a lifetime.
I’ve spoken to people and when you lose a spouse it’s devastating, it’s heartbreaking. For those who especially fight conflict, you’re divorced, you’re still dealing with this person for the rest of your life, plus you’re dealing with how they deal with the kids, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, you lose friends, you lose in laws, and all this. It’s so important to have somebody who can come alongside you and be that sounding board, that reflection, that support for you to strive to do your best.
Nancy: I agree. I’m curious for you, as you embraced the process of your divorce and as you emerged from your divorce, unrecognizable, which I certainly did too. What have you been able to do post divorce that you didn’t know was possible prior to that? Whether it’s elements of desire and vision that you’ve brought to fruition. What would you say actually came to life because you were able to embrace divorce?
Karen: It’s a really interesting question. I would say on a very foundational level, I live in peace. I live in peace regardless of my finances, regardless of my relationships, regardless of the election, regardless of what is happening in my life. When I was going through my divorce, in my first 12-step program, my girlfriend joined and they said the word “serenity”, and I remember leaning over to them and going “What does that mean?”. I came from chaos. I, as a single woman, I lived in chaos, and then I married into chaos. So finding my way to my center. For me, I think the reason that I’m in such peace is because I’m so comfortable with myself and because I’ve learned who I am.
We’re all a work in progress. I’ll be doing this work until the day I meet my maker. But I’ve learned so much about the good, bad, and ugly of who I’ve been designed to be. I think that the biggest change is that I navigate life and especially uncertainty and difficulties in a very different way than I used to.
I’ve learned that I have a heart of service and that my only job in the world is to be loved with every human being that I run into. And that is my mantra. When I don’t know what to do, my mantra is just be loved and rest fall into place. It might be more of an esoteric answer. I was always very successful professionally, so I love my divorce coaching business and my team of coaches and my clients. I love my podcast. I love what I do, but that’s the doing. I feel like the biggest change is how I choose to be involved.
Nancy: How do you notice that you approach or navigate relationships differently post divorce? I don’t mean necessarily intimate partnership, but how do you notice that you navigate and relate to relationships differently?
Karen: I think one of the things Nancy, that I realized was that I probably spent a lifetime of not feeling seen and heard. I felt very unworthy with every man I was ever with. I left home at 19 and got married at 34, so do the math, I was always the lucky one. I think my best example is my children. It is so important to me to ensure that they always feel seen and heard by me. It’s equally as important to set boundaries and let them know when I’m available and when I’m not. In doing that, I would say, I feel blessed to have a very broad and deep circle of friends who I know incredibly well.
I don’t know about you, but I find that whether it’s the way God designed me, or the growth through my divorce. I have a special gift of inviting people to get deep and vulnerable quickly. That’s where I like to go. So no matter who I meet, whether they’re sitting next to me on an airplane, or when I’m taking the train, I engage in really lovely conversations and I choose to make sure people feel seen and heard.
Nancy: Share with me a little bit about the way that you work with your clients.
Karen: I have a team of coaches and we always invite people to grab on a call with us. It is our tribe, if they’re not interested in that thing, but it’s an opportunity for anybody to whose stuck to join us in a one hour conversation, get some new perspective, enjoy sounding articulate in what they’re saying. You know, there’s no such thing as being stuck so really to help them find their path and begin to move forward. When people work with us, each situation is unique. It’s not like I have this 12-point system that we bring you through, but we meet you where you are and in the course of working with us, there is a lot of self-reflection. There’s a lot of skills.
Many people come to us where their communication is very you oriented, very conflict averse. So teaching our clients about negotiating, about communicating, about boundaries, and about owning their part is all part of it. Then we’re very skilled in the legal process so I can speak to somebody and hear what’s going on with their custody battle and talk to them about whether or not support like attorneys for the children, or custody evaluators, or financial forensics, and all of those players. We not only support them deeply on the emotional and interactive part of it while they’re still maybe living under the same roof, but also the landline that the legal process often feels like.
You’ll have primary caregivers who are so heels dug in about their spouse having any custody and being able to tease that out, get them on their own accord to realize what would be best for the children and how to move into something that’s fair and reasonable. And so all of these conversations over the course, it could be a couple of months or a couple of years, really move them in the direction that they want to go and getting healthier and more confident.
Nancy: Yeah, when I was going through my divorce, I was actually going through my coach training certification at that same time. I also had a divorce coach with whom I worked with. For me, one of the biggest and most significant shifts, and this sort of goes back to what we were talking about around blame, being the victim, and taking responsibility was that I was the breadwinner and I kept using language around, “I had to give him this, or I had to sign over this, or I had to, I had to, I had to”. When I got to the place of recognizing I made a choice, I signed my name. I said yes. Once I was able to step into the seat of responsibility, everything changed around my own relationship to my own personal power. That has been such a significant lesson I learned that has served me a millionfold since then.
Also realizing the ways in which we are so accustomed when we are people pleasers, peacekeepers, conflict avoiders, when we don’t want to rock the boat, we are so accustomed to giving our power away to someone or something else. What a gift in the process of moving through a divorce, what a gift the opportunity to reclaim our power really is.
Karen: That’s so beautifully said. I I have a series online during the Un Divorced podcast. It’s called Voices of Celebration with four dozen former clients. They each tell their own version of the story that goes like this “I was scared to death, it was one of the 10 worst experiences of my life that was totally against me, then I reached on the other side and I was empowered, and I was taking responsibility for myself. I was seeing the possibility of the best of my life being”. I think that when you do it well and you have healthy support, I will say, I won’t say always, but I’ll say almost always works out.
Nancy: Yeah. Do you experience clients who have trouble asking for help when they come to you or by the time they come to you they’re okay to be asking for help and receiving help?
Karen: I think that the resistance is less about asking for help. I do find that when the going gets tough, there’s a signal of clients who bail and I have followed a number of those clients. I have one fellow who I was working with a year or two into my journey back in 2010-2011, he was doing great, he bailed, it took him years to get back on track, and I recently reached out to him, I saw he got remarried and he’s in a really good place.
If I had a message for listeners who are going to be walking this path “It gets hard and it requires courage, it’s easy to just blame the other person, walk away, and find another man or woman with the same face, or a different face on the same person. That’s the easy thing, to look outwards and blame them. The courageous thing is to look in the mirror. When you do shadow work, so look at all of your both bright and shadow sides. Own them, define them, love them, and in that very hard and very courageous work is a gift that keeps giving.
Nancy: Beautiful. Karen, how can our listeners be connected to you? What’s the best way?
Karen: If you’re on the precipice, we have a free Rapid Relief Call, you can go to rapidreliefcall.com and book a call. Have a breakthrough and some guidance for moving forward Journey Beyond Divorce podcast is a great place to listen. I interview experts around the world and um journeybeyonddivorce.com is my website. Thank you so much.
Nancy: Thank you, Karen. Thanks so much. And to everyone listening, I’ll be back again with you next week.
Nancy: Thanks so much for joining me today. I invite you to head on over to nancylevin.com to check out all the goodies I have there for you. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a rating, and a review. I’ll meet you back here next week.