Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

My fabulous yoga instructor also believes that everything is connected.  We start every class by working on our feet.  Why?  Because the health of the feet controls the rest of the body.  I certainly found that out when my knee problem cleared up once my sore toe resolved itself.  My yoga instructor believes that misaligned feet create a domino effect on the rest of the body, just as healthy, well-aligned feet are the building block for a healthy body.  It's like dominoes, one piece affecting the next.  I know, my yoga instructor should meet my dentist.  Anyway, from our feet, we work our way up to the hips, the low back and then the shoulders.  Everything is interrelated.

That's how it is here in the Trenches.  Everything is interrelated.  Certainly, in a purely mechanical sense of things,  you never settle property without also settling support, because the property a party possesses is a factor in determining support.  The amount of time a parent has with their child may affect child support.  Those things are not about which I speak.

The interrelation I'm talking about is far more subtle. I firmly believe that how well and how quickly people recover from divorce has to do with how involved they are in the process itself.  I don't think it matters whether a client wanted the divorce or not.  What matters is how connected they are with the process.  How do they work with their attorney?  Are they involved?  Are they interested in what is going on?  Now, there's a fine line between being interested and involved and being controlling.  Being controlling is not being involved; it is being separate and apart from the process and manipulating it to an end which was predetermined before becoming involved in it.  Not the same, and not healthy.  Interest equals curiosity and investment.  It's knowing what you know and what you don't, and working with a professional or two or three to learn.  Involvement is doing the hard work of focusing on future goals, asking the hard questions, gathering the information and thinking about solutions that work for them and their family.  If this sounds like the collaborative process, that's because it is.  It is also mediation, litigation, and negotiation.  They call the stages something different in each process, but in their somewhat different forms, they are all present.  Why?  Because it works.  Believe it or not, it is the process that helps the healing.  Huh?  The pain of the divorce process is connected to getting past the process?  Of course it is. Why else would all the stages be the same?  Here in the Trenches.