The Spiritual Gift in Divorce: How to Find Your Soul Again

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Episode Description - The Spiritual Gift in Divorce: How to Find Your Soul Again

\nWhat if the most painful experience of your life could actually become the doorway to discovering who you really are? Lisa Lisser, a certified divorce coach and retired attorney who navigated the painful ending of her own 24-year marriage, shares a refreshingly grounded perspective on how to find the spiritual gift in divorce.\n\nAs Lisa explains, divorce disrupts your identity, your nervous system, and the story you’ve told yourself for years about who you are. But with the proper perspective, mindset and a few practical tools, you can turn that disruption into a transformation\n\nIn this episode Lisa introduces the concept of \"strategic empathy,\" a practical tool rooted in neuroscience for dealing with even the most difficult, high-conflict, co-parenting situations.\n\nFrom tiny gratitude practices to mindset shifts that rewire how you see yourself, Lisa offers surprisingly simple, stackable steps that can pull you out of the darkest moments of divorce. Her approach opens the door to a different kind of transformation - one where divorce becomes not just something you survive, but something that can fundamentally change how you see yourself and your future.\n\nIf you've ever felt like you've lost yourself in the divorce process, this conversation might just change how you think about what's possible on the other side.\n\n\n

Show Notes

\nAbout Lisa\n\nLisa Z. Lisser is a Certified Divorce Coach®, BeH2O® Child-Centered Coparenting Coach, and founder of LZL Coaching, where she integrates strategy with soul-centered transformation. A retired attorney with a master’s degree in Jewish education and more than 25 years of nonprofit leadership, Lisa brings a rare combination of legal insight, lived experience, and spiritual grounding to the divorce process. After navigating her own divorce, she recognized that beyond legal decisions, divorce is a profound identity shift — one that calls for clarity of values, courage, and conscious intention.\n\nLisa helps clients slow down the emotional noise, reconnect to their deeper “why,” and build strategies rooted in who they are becoming. She believes that when divorce is approached as both a practical and spiritual transition, it becomes not just survivable — but transformative.\n\nConnect with Lisa\n\nYou can connect with Lisa on LinkedIn at Lisa Z. Lisser and on Facebook at LZL Coaching.  You can follow Lisa on Instagram at Divorce Coach Lisa and on YouTube at The Divorce Clarity Studio with Lisa Lisser.  To learn more about working with Lisa visit her website at LZL Coaching.\n

Key Takeaways From This Episode with Lisa

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• Lisa Lisser is a certified divorce coach and founder of LZL Coaching who integrates legal strategy with soul-centered transformation to help clients navigate the profound identity shift of divorce.
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• Lisa describes her \"why\" as a mission to provide others with the creative communication and listening partnership she lacked during her own painful and challenging divorce experience.
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• The conversation explores divorce as a spiritual transition, defined as the process of uncovering layers of external messaging to allow one’s inner strength and core self to breathe again.
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• Lisa differentiates spirituality from religion by focusing on a universal relationship with a higher power and internal strength rather than adherence to specific religious dogmas or rituals.
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• To combat the \"dark night of the soul,\" Lisa recommends a daily practice of acknowledging simple physical truths, such as the ability to stand up and breathe, to build a foundation of gratitude.
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• The concept of \"habit stacking\" is highlighted as a tool for recovery, emphasizing that small, consistent actions eventually create a significant shift in perspective and resilience.
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• Lisa introduces \"strategic empathy,\" which involves stepping into a spouse's shoes to understand their fears—not as an act of submissiveness, but as a tactical way to move one's own issues forward.
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• High-conflict situations can be managed by grounding oneself in intrinsic personal values, using them as armor against attempts by others to cause self-doubt.
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• A successful transformation requires a shift from a \"defense\" mindset to a \"process\" mindset, where daunting tasks like legal paperwork are broken down into manageable, data-gathering steps.
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• Embracing the end of a marriage as the start of a new path allows individuals to redesign their story and open themselves up to a future no longer trapped by the past.
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Transcript

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The Spiritual Gift in Divorce: How to Find Your Soul Again

\nSUMMARY KEYWORDS\n\ndivorce coach, identity shift, decision making, transformation\n\nSPEAKERS\n\nKaren Covy, Lisa Lisser\n\nKaren Covy 0:10\n\nHello, and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision making so we can discover what keeps us stuck, and more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator, and arbitrator, turned coach, author, and entrepreneur. And now without further ado, let's get on with the show.\n\nWith me today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Lisa Lisser. Lisa is a certified divorce coach, a BH2O child-centered co-parenting coach, and the founder of LZL Coaching, where she integrates strategy with soul-centered transformation. A retired attorney with a master's degree in Jewish education and more than 25 years of nonprofit leadership, Lisa brings a rare combination of legal insight, lived experience, and spiritual grounding to the divorce process. After navigating her own divorce, she recognized that beyond legal decisions, divorce is a profound identity shift, one that calls for clarity of values, courage, and conscious intention. Lisa helps clients slow down the emotional noise, reconnect to their deeper why, and build strategies rooted in who they are becoming. She believes that when divorce is approached as both a practical and spiritual transition, it becomes not only survivable, but transformative. Lisa, welcome to the show.\n\nLisa Lisser 1:42\n\nOh, thanks so much for having me, Karen. I'm so happy to be here.\n\nKaren Covy 1:46\n\nI am so excited for our conversation. And I want to start with like you start with your clients with their why. What's your why? Why do you do the work you do?\n\nLisa Lisser 1:57\n\nOkay, that's a great question. And you know, not that many people ask me that. So I really appreciate the opportunity to articulate it. So my why in doing this work is my history because my divorce experience was really challenging and it was so painful. And I felt like I had no one I could turn to. So, my why is to give people going through this dysregulating experience a listening partner, a creative communicator, and someone who can help them return to their self when they might have feel like they've lost themselves.\n\nKaren Covy 2:44\n\nOh, yeah, 100%. I hear that from clients all the time. It's especially after a long-term marriage. You've self-identified as a spouse, a married person for so long. When that goes, you don't know who you are.\n\nLisa Lisser 2:59\n\nYeah. And I was married for 21 years when it started, and 24 years by the time it ended. So, I was a married person. We met in college. And so I was part of this couple, and that was my identity. And all the other parts of me, all the other roles and things I did were really bunched together, but diminished underneath this role of being a married person. And so, I needed to find a way to re-reblossom, take off those layers.\n\nKaren Covy 3:32\n\nYeah. Mm-hmm. The one thing that I really was so excited for in this conversation, because not a lot of people talk about this. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've talked about this with any of the other guests I've had on the show. And it's been over three years, and which is spirituality. You see divorce as a soul-level transformation, and you know, you integrate the spirituality into the divorce process. What does that mean for you? And how do you do that?\n\nLisa Lisser 4:01\n\nYeah. Okay. So we all have like an inner core that gets hidden and gets covered up by the layers of messaging that we've had for all the years of our lives. So maybe we have been getting a message that, you know, we're not good spouses, or we're not good at problem solving, or we're not the best parent that we should be. We should always be doing better. And so these messages tend to just crowd our heart and soul. And so what I think about when I think about soul-centered spirituality is the opportunity to uncover the years of messaging so that my spirituality can breathe again. I can connect to my inner self as well as what's outside of myself. So that's what I think about when I think about spiritual divorce, is that we're giving ourselves a space to breathe into that inner strength.\n\nKaren Covy 5:08\n\nSo how do you differentiate between psychology and spirituality? Because a lot of people would listen to what you just said, and they might be thinking, oh, that's her ego or her, like they think of they don't think of it in spiritual terms. So how do you distinguish one from the other?\n\nLisa Lisser 5:29\n\nOkay, great question.  So I am not a therapist. I took psychology in college, I learned all the words, but they were just words, really, and they're labels. Psychology is a label to the spirituality that's always existed, right? Modern psychology started in the 19th century. That doesn't mean we were people only starting in the 19th century, right? So, for me, spirituality is connecting to both a higher power and our internal power. And so what it means for me is like the transcendence and the imminence. And I I've done all this work in Jewish education and learning the core text, which is the Bible, and the whole concept that we have this power that's outside of us that creates the world, and how do we connect to the world outside of us? But also that power breathed the spark of life into that first human, and we all have that spark. So that's my spirituality.\n\nKaren Covy 6:41\n\nSo, you just mentioned Jewish, right? Um, again, for those listening, because a lot of people hear spirituality and they think religion, and you just said Jewish. Are the obviously the two are connected, at least theoretically, the religions try to be spiritual, but they're two different things. What's the distinction for you?\n\nLisa Lisser 7:00\n\nSo, for me, spirituality is not tied to any religious practice, right? What I just shared was a text that that helps define something that is true for every human. So, for me, when I read the first texts in the Bible, it said that God was created or man was created in the image of God. So that doesn't mean one kind of man or another kind of man, it means all humans. So it's not that I have to believe a certain religion. And that was before the  Jewish people were created in the Bible, right? So that first creation was humanity as a whole. And so I  get my language through that particular text, but that particular text became the foundation for Christianity and Islam. And other religions speak about this higher power. So, it's not about saying that I have to be religious to be spiritual. Like I don't have to follow the dogma of a particular religion in order to have a relationship with a higher power and my inner soul. So that's the difference. If it's not, it's a lot of words for something that is uh complicated and simple at the same time.\n\nKaren Covy 8:27\n\nYeah, no, that that makes sense. And I I've heard a lot of spiritual teachers distinguish this in a similar way that it's not about labels or dogma or you know what hierarchy of church you happen to believe in or follow, but it's about something deeper. Um the other thing I've heard a lot of people characterize, especially the divorce process, as a dark night of the soul, so to speak. Um how can you, if somebody's experiencing that, whether you call that an identity crisis, a soul level crisis, regardless of what label you put it on, if somebody finds themselves in that spot where they're just really down and smashed, what do they do? How can they start to regroup? Not just, I mean, we're not talking about divorce strategy here yet. We're just talking about how do they pull themselves out of the mock.\n\nLisa Lisser 9:29\n\nYeah, so a way to pull ourselves out of the mock is by acknowledging the very simplest of things. The very simplest of things. So, it might be I woke up today and I'm still here. And that you still are feeling dark, you still are in the crush of all the pressures, but my body works and I can stand up. Like that's the first thing. I mean, in in Jewish practice, there's actually a blessing to say in the morning. Um, after you go to the bathroom, thanking God for your openings and closings working so that you could stand up. And I and I once I learned, and I didn't even know about that until I was an adult, right? So, it's not something I learned as a child, it's something that I learned as an adult. And that's part of my spiritual practice every day.\n\nKaren Covy \n\nSo wow, that's really cool.\n\nLisa Lisser\n\nYeah, and I don't do it in the traditional way. There are certain like dogmas, like you have to do it in this space, you have to do it when you're outside of the room. You have to, and for me, I say every morning I wash my hands and I say I'm alive and everything is mostly working. Because even it's not always working, right? That's true. When I wake up with a migraine, I still say, Thank God that I could say thank God.\n\nKaren Covy 11:05\n\nYeah. You know, and we don't we don't tend to think of that. We forget, I mean, I do it all the time. I take so much for granted. And it's not until, you know, look, how does the song go? You don't know what you've got till it's gone, right? Until we lose something that we realize, oh my goodness, I can stand up, I can walk, I am breathing, I can, and it sounds trite, you know, when you have to go down to that level. Um, but does that help people? Is that a good starting spot?\n\nLisa Lisser 11:40\n\nI think it's a great starting spot, and it does help people. I mean, you know, there's a lot of talk about gratitude practice. And in a way, it's a gratitude practice. Um, and we have, you know, psychological evidence that, you know, writing in a journal, writing the five things you're but a lot of people feel like that's arbitrary and that's like too intentional. It's kind of fake. But when we get up and we say, okay, I can stand today, you know, even when you feel like you don't even want to get out of bed, yeah, like that can happen where you're like, I can't face another day of this. We have to say, this is another spiritual idea, like this too shall pass. Like we are in a season, we are in a season, and this season will change. And it may feel like it will never change, but there is another side. And if you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you will get there no matter how hard it is.\n\nKaren Covy 12:47\n\nYeah, I tell my clients something similar. It's like everybody thinks that you've got to do these big grand gestures, or they don't count. You've got to tackle the whole project and get it done in a day, or you didn't do anything. And the reality is that that's too much. And when you're in the thick of things, like baby steps, if you consistently do something small every day, it stacks.\n\nLisa Lisser 13:14\n\nYeah, it totally stacks. And that's James Clear Atomic Habits. And I am like such a believer in this work that just do one small thing to get you started. And you know, I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna lose 10 pounds the first day I start a diet, right?\n\nKaren Covy \n\nWouldn't that be great if we could?\n\nLisa Lisser\n\nSo great. It's why I think about GLPs all the time, but from there. But the idea is we have to stack the habits. And if my habit is I stack the saying that one blessing every morning just to get me started, that that has really shifted my perspective. And I started that when I was going through my divorce.\n\nKaren Covy 14:04\n\nOh, interesting. Yeah, and you mentioned something else. Um, I think it was a reference to the five-minute journal where it's the gratitude practice of every morning you write down five things, every afternoon. I don't know if you've ever done it. Like, I am big into gratitude. I love the concept, but when I had the five-minute journal, it became wrote, it became like it didn't mean anything. I didn't feel anything. What about what do you think about that?\n\nLisa Lisser 14:29\n\nSo I agree and I disagree. Like both at the same time, both and look, when you have this objective, I have to write down five things or I have to write down three things, like you start making things up. You know, you start, you know, I listen to someone who was saying, you know, I'm so glad my pillowcase is soft. Just say that. Well, that feels kind of dumb, right? You know, yeah, yes, but you know, maybe it's true, but it seems it seems trite to write something like that as you know, I don't have to find something big to be grateful for, you know. I it could be something small, but it should still be something real, you know. Like it could be like, you know, I'm grateful that I have the list about what I need to show get at the supermarket, right? Like maybe just having the list, even if I always leave it at home. But I wrote the list, so I will remember most of those things, but I'm grateful that I have that, like that's concrete about my everyday. So, is that a spiritual practice? It may not feel like a spiritual practice, but if it's a habit that you stack in order to get to somewhere else, it's a spiritual practice.\n\nKaren Covy 15:54\n\nSo, what are some other spiritual practices that somebody who's going through a divorce and not feeling particularly spiritual, what other things could they do to start to break free of all of the drama and the yuck and the muck and the and to actually get to the place where they feel joy again?\n\nLisa Lisser 16:17\n\nYeah, that's a big question. So, I talk a lot about mindset shift. Like so when we are in divorce and we're in the divorce mindset, we're in defense, and we're, you know, sometimes we think we have to be in offense in order to be effective at defense, but what if we're in process? Right? Process is different. So what's the process? Okay, so my lawyer says I have to fill out a case information statement. I look at this 10-page document and I want to vomit. So, what does it mean to be in process? It means I'm gonna look at one page and I'm gonna see what I can fill in, and I'm gonna just fill it in. And what I recognize is I'm gathering data about the things I don't know or the things I don't want to fill in. And so that is one step toward getting out of our muck and into a place of spirituality or really process, right? We're getting out of the muck and we're seeing, what can I accomplish? And then we're acknowledging, I just accomplished that. Okay. I don't have to do all of it at once.\n\nKaren Covy 17:35\n\nYou know, I think that's you make a really good point because the other thing that I see when you're in divorce, it's like there's so much, there's so much that's hard, right? And we, it's just you go from one thing to the next thing to the next thing, and it's just, oh, I've got to do another hard thing without ever acknowledging yourself for that last hard thing that you just did. Yeah.\n\nLisa Lisser 17:59\n\nI mean, so many of my clients are like, I'm always gonna be in this place, nothing has changed. And then I help them articulate, well, is that really accurate? Like, you're actually in the middle of mediation now. Things are different than they were two months ago. You know, your soon-to-be ex is actually speaking to a financial professional. Things are different, but it's when we're tied to the old narrative and we are in the mindset, we have this in-the-box thinking, that's when we get stuck. So the mindset shift is I'm gonna look outside the box. Like the story I know, the identity that I have developed for myself of being a victim or of being not able to accomplish things, it's threatened every time you accomplish something. So maybe that spiritual approach is like, I've got power inside me and I've got power outside of me. And so if I can click  into that, those two different powers, then maybe I can acknowledge that I'm actually moving forward.\n\nKaren Covy 19:14\n\nAnd how, but how does somebody go about making that mindset shift? Because I mean, it seems easy when we're talking about it, but when you're in it, it is anything but easy. You know that. I know that from, you know, I've never been divorced, but I've been through my share of drama and trauma, right? Um, and so it's hard to see the forest for the trees when you're in that. How can how do you help people make that shift?\n\nLisa Lisser 19:43\n\nSo, what I say is just sometimes we have to do it before we understand it. Right? It's like first I'm gonna do it, and then I'm gonna understand it. So, if first I'm gonna do it is I'm gonna do this really hard thing, and I'm gonna recognize that I'm not gonna accomplish everything. And then I'm gonna understand why I took that first step. Right. So, because if you give up and say, I can never do this, I'll never be able to do this. How many of I mean, I procrastinated that case information statement for months. Everybody does. Because it's like, oh my gosh, I have to look at my assets, I have to build a budget. I have what's my kids? Like, what did I spend at the grocery store? You know, like that makes us crazy.\n\nKaren Covy 20:34\n\nWell, yeah, because and you feel so, I mean, first of all, it's a lot. And second of all, it forces you to look at a reality that you're afraid to look at because you don't want to see what it really is.\n\nLisa Lisser 20:47\n\nRight. And then I share with people, but once you actually see it, you have power. Now you know what you're spending on. You could see what maybe you don't need to spend on, and you can see what you really need to live into this next chapter. So, there's like a power. I often tell clients before they've even started the process, I recommend they look at that scary document to make it less scary. So, like what we don't know is what scares us. So the educating ourselves up, even if you've just read it, and I say, okay, you don't have to do anything. Step one is reading it, seeing what it looks like. Demystifying the process. Yeah.\n\nKaren Covy 21:36\n\nBut what about like if we're not talking about now the t case uh information she right, but we're talking about a legal document because you and I both as lawyers know that the way legal documents are written, like you and I can read them and know, oh yeah, this is blah, blah, blah. But to a normal human who reads it, they get furious. They're like, what? He said I did this, or she told me she said I did that, and that's not true. And this is, and like everybody goes crazy because the document is written, it's not written to be neutral, it's written to be persuasive from one side or the other, and so the other side goes crazy. So, how do you get someone to read something like that without losing their mind?\n\nLisa Lisser 22:21\n\nYeah, good question. Not easy. But what I do say is everyone has a story to tell. Okay. And just because that's their perspective on the facts doesn't mean that's the only story. Okay. You know, there's another, you know, practice or story about like an elephant. Okay. Elephants are very large creatures. If one person is blindfolded and put at the front of the elephant, they're going to feel the trunk. And their experience of the elephant will be the trunk. But another person may be put next to the leg of the elephant and is touching a different part. And so their perspective is different based on where they are. And so, what I share with people is that look, your ex soon to be ex is looking at the scenario from their perspective, and you are looking at from another perspective, from your perspective. And both are accurate for each of you. So let's flip the narrative and say, okay, so what facts are consistent and what analyses are different? So I try to share with them, okay. So, in your spouse's perspective, in their mindset, they are X, Y, and Z victim. And in your mindset, you can say, I can acknowledge what they're afraid of. And that will help me respond to that narrative, right? Stepping into their shoes is a way to respond, even when they don't deserve it. Like I shouldn't have compassion for them because of all these things they've done to me. But what if having strategic empathy actually can get you what you want? And that's what I talk about a lot.\n\nKaren Covy 24:24\n\nI like that idea. I haven't heard anyone talk about strategic empathy. Can you say more about that?\n\nLisa Lisser 24:30\n\nSo strategic empathy is stepping into the shoes of your soon-to-be-ex, not because they deserve it, but because when you understand or can accept a little bit of what they're going through, you can respond in a way that takes into account both of your perspectives. And so, when you are strategic about it and you do it recognizing this is to move my own issues forward, it's not because they're, you know, they're better or you feel bad for them or all of those things. It's so that you can get what you need. That's strategic empathy.\n\nKaren Covy 25:14\n\nOkay. Can I push back a little bit?\n\nLisa Lisser\n\nPlease do.\n\nKaren Covy \n\nWhat's the difference then between strategic empathy and manipulation? Because some people would hear what you're saying is manipulation.\n\nLisa Lisser 25:27\n\nOkay, so tell me more about that. Why would why do you could you hear that as manipulation?\n\nKaren Covy 25:33\n\nUm, because I guess the empathy that you're feeling, it being strategic, isn't genuine. It's just to get your to get to your own ends, right? So people say feel that way, um, that feels like manipulation.\n\nLisa Lisser 25:53\n\nOkay, so I'm gonna push back on that. So that life is about communicating, reacting, responding. Okay. So, if you simply if you react to this very um this narrative that you totally disagree with, that then you're gonna be aggressive and you're coming at each other. You're both coming at each other, right? Okay, we have mirror neurons. So, what that means is when one person pushes, the other person pushes back. But if one person is gonna show empathy, then there is a greater potential of their co-parents also showing empathy, right? So, it sounds like it doesn't make sense, right? But it behavior based in science, okay? So, it's not manipulation so much as recognizing that we're humans and we're playing to all of our human needs. I am not doing this only to get what I need because that won't work. We need to see where we have a shared purpose. So, what is your greatest fear? Your greatest fear is not having enough money. Well, that's my greatest fear, too, right? So, how can we align our decision making so that we both have what we need to move forward? So it's not uh I have to get it all and you have to get nothing. It's I have to get enough and you have to get enough. That's strategic empathy. And if I know that you are in fear of not having what you need, then I can speak in a way that acknowledges the fear, and that might surprise them that you're actually acknowledging the fear. And then saying, Look, I share that fear, and so this is what I propose. So again, you might be with a person who just wants to punish you and just wants, you know, that happens in high conflict all the time. And so grounding in your values, getting set on you have inner value, like we are all created with intrinsic value, even just having that mantra every time someone comes at you by saying, I have intrinsic value, I am worthy, and nothing you say changes that. And frankly, much as I hate to say it, you have worth too.\n\nKaren Covy 28:28\n\nYeah. What you're saying reminds me a lot of Bill Eddy, who I know you're familiar with. Um, he's for those in the audience who might not have heard of him, he is a lawyer and a therapist and a mediator. He wrote extensively about many books about high conflict, high conflict people in litigation, in divorce. And he astounded me. I've gone to dinner with him, I've met him in person, and his level of empathy for the person who everybody is calling the narcissist, the bad person, is just mind-blowing. I mean, it's not for him, it's he understands what they're going through, and it but it's not manipulation. He genuinely feels for them.\n\nLisa Lisser 29:15\n\nYeah, yeah. The thing about that is as a mediator, that is a great skill because you're having empathy for both people and that's essential. As a person who is part of the conflict, it can feel dangerous and risky to have empathy for your co-parent. It could feel really dangerous, like you don't trust that they're ever gonna have empathy for you. So, what that's where strategic empathy comes in. Like giving yourself permission to strategic empathy is about giving yourself permission to have empathy for the other person so that you can acknowledge what's going on and move forward.\n\nKaren Covy 30:08\n\nBut then how do you because a lot of times, especially in a high conflict situation, you're right. I mean, you're right not to trust your spouse. There's a reason you don't trust them, right? So, how do you have that strategic empathy, but yet still keep yourself safe?\n\nLisa Lisser 30:26\n\nRight. So that's when you're grounded in your values, right? You start out by saying, these are the values I am going to hold on to as my grounding force and my armor because I know that I value peace, I know that I value self-control, I know that I value um communication. And if I value all these things, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to move those values forward. And so, and when someone tries to tell me that I'm not valuable, I'm gonna go back to those values. So, it's value and value and really sit in my strength so that someone who's been making me doubt myself for my whole life, I am going to decide that that's no longer my story. And that's a hard thing to decide. But if you're if you keep telling yourself, I have intrinsic value, I have intrinsic value, some of these mantras, if they become rituals, just like a practice, like mantra, ritual, practice, they're all different words for the same thing.\n\nKaren Covy 31:42\n\nYeah. What what's interesting about that. You just said something, you said, I decide. Most people, this is where identity and decision making intersect, because most people will say, that's just this is just how I am. This is who I am, right? And they don't see that they're able to make a decision. So how can you help someone like that differentiate between who you are as a human and you know what you will allow, what you value, what you do?\n\nLisa Lisser 32:19\n\nSo, it's like, I think what you're saying is when someone says that's just how who I am and how I am, like their people are defining themselves by their traits, right? Or by their story, right? It's their story. Um, and so sometimes I challenge them on that. I say, so how is that going for you? And you know, that that's a rough thing to have to say, but it's a simple question. So if this is how you are and you're not gonna change, then how why would you expect anyone else to change? Right? And the only person you have control over is yourself. So, if you're sticking to that story that this is just who I am and how I am, then things are not gonna get easier, right? You're always gonna be in conflict. If your value is, I need to reduce conflict, I've got to get rid of conflict in my life, then you're gonna have to shift your narrative. Reducing conflict in your life is not being stuck in a story of who you are. And it's not easy. I'm not saying that's oh no, it takes practice because you could be going along and it could be working, and then all of a sudden something happens, and then you're back to square one. You're not really back to square one, you're back to square three, right? It feels familiar, but you also recover from it much faster.\n\nKaren Covy 33:45\n\nYeah, I've heard people talk about that. That, you know, it the more you do it, the faster you recover. And that's really the game. It's shortening that time so that when something happens, you're not in a tailspin for a week, it's five minutes.\n\nLisa Lisser 34:02\n\nYeah. But getting there takes time. Getting there takes time because maybe you're not in a tailspin in a week, you're in a tailspin for three days. It still feels like forever. But then you'll be in a tailspin for one day, and then you'll be like, oh, that was different. And now you'll start recognizing that there's been a shift. I'm not talking about a change, I'm talking about a shift and a transformation.\n\nKaren Covy 34:27\n\nSay more about that transformation, because that's where I wanted to get to, especially, you know, the spiritual transformation that happens as someone goes through divorce, if they allow it, because I don't think it's a guarantee. It's got to be something that you're letting happen or seeking to have happen. Right.\n\nLisa Lisser 34:44\n\nWell, so spiritual is a really interesting word because it could feel really woo-woo, it's like spirits and ghosts and God and all of that. And many people don't have those beliefs, right? It's okay. But we are all human. And when I talk about spiritual transformation, I'm talking about just having an identity shift that lets you know that it doesn't always have to be this way, right? That's the identity shift and that's the transformation. If I have been stuck in a story that says he is always gonna treat me like this, and I have to bring in the big lawyer, I have to bring in the shark, then you're gonna definitely have a fight because that's the story you're telling. But if you have an identity shift that says, I am gonna be grounded in my values and I actually value peace, how do I get that? You know, how do I stay at peace? If it means I have to like listen to sound meditations 10 hours a day, I don't know if I could do that, but three minutes isn't bad, right? I can um, but again, it's about doing this um mindset shift story redesign, and then transformative experience. So, like each thing is like a step stacking a habit in the process.\n\nKaren Covy 36:17\n\nOkay.\n\nLisa Lisser 36:17\n\nThe idea of habit stacking transforms you. You go from a person who never exercised to a person who shows up, and yeah, and maybe that's another piece of the transformation is that you're finally showing up for yourself and you're noticing that things are different.\n\nKaren Covy 36:34\n\nYeah, that is so important. Lisa, I have loved this conversation, it has been very transformative, I think, and hopefully to those who are listening too. But let me just wrap and say if you had one piece of advice to give to someone who is in the beginning, early on in their journey, and not feeling all very spiritual at all, um, what could you tell them that would set them on the path of using this divorce as a method to transform who they are rather than destroy who they are?\n\nLisa Lisser 37:12\n\nSo, I think what I would say is that every beginning is another beginning's end. So, you're starting a new path, which means you're closing the door on something else. And so you can transform your future by saying goodbye to the old story. And for me, that's really spiritual because it's telling me that I'm not trapped. And if I'm not trapped, then I am outside of that box and I have so many opportunities. So that's my spirituality. It's an openness.\n\nKaren Covy 37:51\n\nI love that. I love that. Lisa, if someone has listened to this and been transformed by this conversation and wants to learn more about you or wants to work with you, where is the best place that they can find you?\n\nLisa Lisser 38:03\n\nSo, the best place to find me is at my website, lzlcoaching.com. And on that website, I have a link for a free 30-minute consult so we can talk and there's no commitment. We just talk about what's going on in your life, where you are struggling, and how you can move forward. And that's the best way to find me.\n\nKaren Covy 38:26\n\nI love that. And for thank you so much for being here. This has been, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you. And for those of you out there who are listening, who are watching, if you've enjoyed this conversation, do me a big favor give this episode a thumbs up, like, subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and I look forward to seeing you all again next time.", "type": "text", "version": 1}]}], "direction": null}}