All right, just doing a second one to get a little bit ahead. I don't know why it's cropped again, because it's saying it's high def and landscape. So if that's not right, you might want to change it. Maybe it will not matter with the green screen. I'm not sure, but this is part three, the communication secret that can make or break your family law case. Just waiting again for the timer to start to make sure that I am not sorry, missing out on anything. Oh, she got water. Okay. Welcome to the Stacey M show for another week. No, scrap that. That was terrible. Hi, welcome to another episode of the Stacey M Show. So if you've been following along the past couple of weeks, we have a bit of a five-part series to help you in your family law case, just some tips and tricks. these tips and tricks you can use in any day life. It doesn't just have to be family law related. Most examples are family law, but I'll try and use different examples as well. But this week I'm introducing you to the slow method. So, you know, communication is probably the reason why you possibly end up getting divorced. So it's either probably not enough communication or you're not communicating effectively. Again, I'll go into this in my program. I'm just trying to give short bursts of information for you so you can hopefully have a little bit of knowledge. But communication is massive. It's not just in a divorce. It's in everyday life, how you communicate, your body language, the tone that you say things. So, so many different things. But today I'm just introducing you quickly to the slow method. So what the slow method is, is S stands for stop. So before you hit send, before you make that call, before you react to anything, stop. L is listen. So what is actually being said? What's behind the words? What's your response? So we know that sometimes when we put things into words, we interpret it differently to how it was meant to be. I know sometimes I can be really short in my responses, that it's not necessarily me I'm trying to be rude. It's that I'm super busy. And if I don't respond now, then, you know, I might not respond. And I communicate that and my team know that, you know, so, you know, some people might get offended because you don't put hi, hi Stacey in an email. Sometimes I will literally just respond without saying hi. And I don't have an issue with receiving the same. A lot of the time I'm responding just because I have too much to do and I need to get that response out or responding from my phone. I don't want to keep texting things or whatever it might be. But my team know that if I respond without a hi or something, I try to be very mindful to do that. It's not being aggressive. It's just simply I'm trying to respond to something. But we know that interpretation can be really different as well. You know, there could be You know, it may have meant to have been received in the way it was intended, so to be really rude or abrupt or toxic, but sometimes we interpret things in writing. That's not quite what it was intended by the person that was sending it. So listen. O means observe. So notice if you were triggered by that response or that question or whatever it might be. check your stress level so were you okay with um receiving that text or that phone call did you start to to peak um and consider the timing um on the context of it as well so were you about to go to bed or did you just wake up in the morning was it in the middle of the day before school pick up, that can make a difference as to how you respond to something as well and possibly even interpret it. You might be so tired in the afternoon that you're reading something and sometimes you even read it wrong. So you might be reading words that are not even there. I know that's something that I've definitely done in the past as well. And W is write. So try and keep everything as professional as you possibly can, especially in your separation. Try to keep emotion out of it. I know that's very difficult to do, but if you put emotion into it or really aggression into your divorce, you will be paying more in legal fees, I can guarantee it. Try and keep a clear paper trial of anything that it might be, whether that's, you know, at work, at home, in your divorce, you know, whatever it might be. It would be simply writing questions down to things. It might be, you know, such and such. was late or did not show up to pick up the kids or whatever it might be because guarantee that your memory will probably fail you when you need uh to um like communicate what has happened so um that is what slow stands for um so there are different types of communication channels as well so we have email we have text we have phone calls Some of them are appropriate for certain things. Some of them may not be. So I know in, for example, in law, a lot of our stuff is in writing. It's either letters or it's in emails. Consider what it is that you are trying to communicate and whether that needs to be put in an email. So trying to think of examples so it might be um oh I don't know I couldn't have a you know it might be communication to your lawyer with with questions or responses it might be sending an email to your ex if that's their preferred method to say hi I like to catch up to discuss um you know our property settlement outside of our lawyers or to discuss the kids or whatever it might be that might be better said in an email so consider what's appropriate for an email text messages so determine whether what you're trying to communicate is suitable for a text So you might only want a text for emergencies for the kids, perhaps. Or you might want to quickly confirm something. So yes, I can grab the kids tomorrow. Or yes, that's fine if we stop a day. Yes, I can pick them up from sport, whatever it might be. That's probably more appropriate than sending an email. And text messages are usually short. So if you have something really long to communicate with, text message probably isn't it. An email would be much more suitable. And then there are phone calls as well, or you can even FaceTime, Zoom, You know, that might be for emergency only. I know I'm not the biggest fan of picking up my phone. Everybody knows that. I don't have voicemail on my phone because even if I did, I would never check it. My phone is usually on D&D. a lot of the time as well um people know that I'm probably not even going to you know if someone is repeatedly calling me then I know that okay I need to to answer that that phone call whether it's my kids or family or work or whatever it might be um but you might want to keep your phone calls for emergencies only um and I usually when I get phone calls from certain people that triggers me to go okay there's something wrong because you don't usually call me so determine what a phone call is suitable for um you know it might be I don't know, just something that you can say better than you can write perhaps. I know that that is something as well. You can communicate something better with words while you're speaking than what you can try and put it into words in a text or an email. So email, text messages, phone call, really decide what your appropriate method is when you are communicating. And obviously there's a whole pile of communication issues things as well which again is covered in the program but they're just some little quick things and obviously everyone's communication style is different as well everyone's conflict style is different there are so many things that are outside of the legal realm that all come into play with a separation and again it's not just in a separation you can use these in everyday life as well but um you know just tighten them back to a family law separation because that's mainly um what we're about So trying to respond as neutral as possible. Now, this can also maybe come off as being really blunt and rude. So sometimes there might just be no win whatsoever. And it doesn't matter what you say, how you say it. It might just be taken out of context. And you know what? That happens. Just... let them what just they you can't control someone's response so if that's what they've determined you just let them go it's not worth your energy to get into an argument over something that they've misinterpreted so you could try to maybe say hey no that's not what I meant this is what I meant if it still escalates um I would probably just walk away from it and go look I'm done I'm yeah I'm not wasting energy on something that I don't think energy needs to be wasted on so Um, to use some examples, so the classic school pickup, it might be that you are always late. Uh, so, uh, you know, you might want to take a little bit of a less aggressive approach. So it might be, I know pick up a code at four thirty instead of three thirty as agreed. Uh, or you might want to go, I know pick up the code at four thirty instead of three thirty. Is everything okay? The kids might have been picked up at four thirty instead of three thirty because there was an accident on the road or they broke down or they had a flat tire or they were stuck in a meeting and their boss made them leave late, whatever it might be. Don't assume that they were late because they didn't want to be there for the kids or whatever they were what they were doing for. don't just get don't let your mind get carried away with potential responses because that will probably also anger you so um take the benefit of the doubt was everything all okay yep sorry I was late I you know there was an accident on the road and I couldn't get through all the traffic was really bad I didn't allow enough time I'm sorry I make sure I leave enough time next time you know it might be no worries just give me a call so the kids aren't waiting for an hour you know so something like that which takes a little bit of a less aggressive approach so you might be trying to plan a holiday and you might be wanting to type you're being completely unreasonable about christmas so you might be your first christmas as a separated couple and you're trying to work out what is happening and that could be coming across aggressive assuming you don't have orders in place obviously for the kids So you might want to consider a response. Go, look, I propose discussing the holiday schedule for December. You may be comfortable doing that face-to-face. That might be done by an email. That might be done by the phone. Probably wouldn't be texting something like that. Here are some possible arrangements. Or you might not even want to go that far. You might just want to say, look, I'm proposing and discussing the holiday schedule for December. Can have some time on the phone or face-to-face to discuss that. So that is, again, it's just de-escalating a situation where especially if it's a first Christmas, you really don't want to make that Christmas probably any more difficult than what it probably is. You know, the Christmases after that will probably get a lot easier, but that first Christmas especially you want to try and it's not going to be normal, but you don't need to have any more conflict there. If there isn't conflict, you don't want to create that conflict and you don't want any additional conflict if there is conflict. So again, just consider choosing your words. If you are blunt in responses like me sometimes, maybe a phone call might be easier. So you know how you work and you know how your ex works or the other person works. Again, this could be in a work situation. So it might be your boss or it might be an employee, depending on what it is. So consider that as well. um if oh so organization so trying to keep whatever your communication is organized so if you have emails you might have different folders for different things uh read receipts I don't often use them if someone sends me a read receipt or wants a read receipt from me I never send it so um you know you might want to put that on there but I know I never um I just ignore it but um you know you might want to start a communication log as well saying you know try to speak about the the december holidays he she was really aggressive in their response so I stopped you really don't want to have to keep getting the lawyers involved in decisions that you can make together and again as I said There is so much more than just the legal side of a separation. You have communication styles or different conflict styles or just so many different things to be taken into consideration. And that's why I'm trying to give you information that is outside of law and also trying to um have this in my program so it's mixing that holistic side of things together with the law because whether you like it or not they go together and I don't think being a lawyer is just enough uh anymore we definitely need to take into consideration different styles of people as well uh you might want to create templates So if there is a text message or an email that you're sending very often, you might want to make a template for that. So it might be, there could be things about scheduling things. So you might have, you might not have an agreement and get along pretty well. There might be a standard template that you use, or it could be just like a calendar thing with where the kids are or what their sport is or something like that. It might be a template to discuss payments for things. So like a recurring payment, perhaps, or just an update in general. So creating those templates can save you time as well. Remember when you send things. So you may want to create a boundary where you only send something between business hours. So nine to five. You probably don't want to be sending a text message at eleven o'clock at night about December holidays or something like that. That's probably not going to be very well received. So maybe consider only sending things during business hours. So kind of like that nine to five figure. If you have received something and you are triggered, try and wait twenty four hours. Sometimes you might not have that opportunity. But if you have received something, do your absolute best to not respond straight away. get up, have a cup of tea, depending on what time it is and where you're at when you get that, but do your absolute best to not respond to that trigger. Because again, if that's that aggressive approach, your legal fees are going to start to skyrocket because all of a sudden you can't communicate with your ex and it's all been done through lawyers, which is going to cost money. So just think about that. So again, I know what we're discussing is you know might seem like common sense or something that we have discussed before but I really can't over emphasize just sometimes these little things can make a really big difference in your separation or in life in general so Hopefully there are some tips in there. If you've had great luck with any of those tips, I would love to hear your stories. And I think this is the third one. So we have two more to come in relation to kind of trying to help you through that family law situation or life in general. And yeah, we get just hoping to provide you with that information. that you can use just in your everyday life to hopefully just make things a little bit easier for you. But I think that's about all I have. You know, if you want to check out more, you can check out my website or if you want to join my program, Empowered Separation, the links will be below as well. Otherwise, thanks for another great episode and I will catch you next time. See ya.
