Stoic Empathy: Building Strength Through Understanding with Shermin Kruse
Mastering Stoic Empathy During and After Divorce
Divorce attorney Seth Nelson and co-host Pete Wright welcome leadership expert and author Shermin Kruse to explore how combining stoicism with empathy can transform the divorce experience. Kruse, who grew up in war-torn Iran before becoming a lawyer and author, brings unique insights on maintaining emotional control while staying attuned to others' perspectives during high-conflict situations.
Seth and Pete dive deep into practical applications of stoic empathy—from courtroom strategies to co-parenting interactions. The conversation explores how intentional discomfort practice builds resilience, while cognitive empathy helps navigate challenging relationships. Kruse shares powerful examples from her personal journey and professional experience, demonstrating how these principles can help anyone handle difficult conversations and negotiations more effectively. The discussion particularly focuses on how divorcing couples can maintain their authentic selves while managing conflict constructively.
Questions we answer in this episode:
How can I stay calm and focused when dealing with a hostile ex-spouse?
What practical exercises help build emotional resilience during divorce?
How do I balance being strong with staying empathetic in co-parenting?
Key Takeaways:
Practice discomfort in safe settings to build emotional control
Use active listening and pausing to better understand others' perspectives
Remember your responses are in your control, even when others' actions aren't
This episode offers invaluable insights for anyone navigating divorce or high-conflict relationships. Kruse's blend of philosophical wisdom and practical experience provides actionable strategies for maintaining composure while building stronger post-divorce relationships.
Links & Notes
Find Sher on her website, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Pete Wright:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships from TruStory FM. What temperature does a stoic toaster brown?
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright. Today, we're talking about a concept that might seem paradoxical at first, stoic empathy. It's the powerful blend of inner strength and emotional intelligence that can transform how we handle divorce, co-parenting, and even personal healing. Our guest today is Shermin Kruse, who is a lawyer, author, and leadership expert. She has built her career around helping people thrive in the face of adversity. She's here to teach us how the practices of stoic empathy to lead to more grace, clarity, resilience when everything feels like it's falling apart. Sher, welcome to The Toaster.
Shermin Kruse:
Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here, Seth and Pete.
Seth Nelson:
Stoic empathy, Pete.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, yeah. This is a concept that you are so familiar with because you practice it every day. Is that what you're about to say?
Seth Nelson:
No, no. I was going to say I have a lot to learn.
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Seth Nelson:
Just the opposite.
Shermin Kruse:
I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that. I think you show up under extraordinary circumstances and therefore find control within you, and that is a form of a mode of control and a form of stoicism. Maybe it's just the empathy we got to work on a little bit for you, Seth, just a little bit.
Seth Nelson:
I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
Pete Wright:
This is going to be fantastic.
Shermin Kruse:
I'm a lady and I can't believe you just [inaudible 00:01:55] in front of me. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. You guys obviously did not listen to the little intro that we had before the show started. All right. What does this mean, Sher? Teach us some things. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Especially how you ended up on this show talking about stoic empathy and how it relates to divorce, and you have a fantastic... But because you have the legal background too, I think the Venn diagram of the practice and your background is going to be very, very useful for those listening to the show. Where would you like to start?
Shermin Kruse:
I would probably guess most of your listeners are parents, so I'm going to start from a parenting example and then we're going to expand from that. This is the parenting example that comes to mind. Let's say you are in the middle of parenting your child and your child is young and dependent on you. You immediately get some horrible news on your cellphone. Let's say it's news of a devastating loss or something else that is quite tragic and maybe even traumatic. You immediately become aware of the child in the room. As your emotions heighten, so does your awareness of the person in the room. That awareness, that empathic knowledge regarding the dependent young person who relies on your example, on your leadership, on your tone setting, especially with an emotional state, is it precisely what requires you from a moral perspective to find emotive control at a time when you really want to be punching a wall?
You're probably not going to punch the wall in front of your kid. You might bluff to punch the wall, but there's a kid in the room so you're not going to do it because of your awareness. You're able to find this emotive control precisely because of your empathic connection to the child in the room. That's really the best way that I can describe the symbiotic relationship between these two things. But now, I want you to picture it's not a child in the room, because the child is aligned, their interests are aligned with your interests. Instead, imagine it's a hostile party. The example I give because it relates to my life so well is-
Seth Nelson:
On a podcast with Pete maybe.
Shermin Kruse:
Well, okay. Yeah. On a podcast with a couple of white guys talking about your sisters in Iran, and this is something that happens to me growing up quite a bit. You are without your headscarf or your headscarf is pushed back, and the morality police get in your face, and that Russian style assault rifle is suddenly in your face, and you are threatened. Literally your body, your freedom, everything about you is threatened by the woman holding the rifle. You don't want to feel what she feels. You don't want to empathize with her from an emotional point of view, but you certainly want to empathize with her from an intellectual point of view. I mean, literally imagine if you're an empath, an alien empath, and you could be reading her mind and reading her feelings in that moment, imagine the negotiating power that it would give you in an otherwise extremely powerless position.
The reality is you still need to have complete awareness of the feelings and emotions of the person you're interacting with regardless how emotionally attached you are to them and how aligned you are to them. All you need to do in order to make that happen is, A, advance and increase your empathic awareness skills, and B, advance and increase your stoicism skills so that you can modulate that emotional connection. Is that a good place to start?
Pete Wright:
I think that's a great place to start, because what you presented is a case that, on the surface, just sounds straight up like cognitive dissonance, and being able to strengthen both muscles independently to allow them to work together, I think, is a fascinating approach. First, I think let's start with the practice of building that awareness and building those muscles, because eventually, I want to get to the place where we can talk about how our emotions impact us when we are compromised in case of a divorce, when we're at our lowest point, trying to figure out how that strength and empathy balance each other. Let's start with a practice. What does a practice look like?
Shermin Kruse:
Okay, let's start with a practice of stoicism, because particularly in the context of divorce... By the way, I think these two things are equally important. I think your awareness of your ability to read the room, your awareness of the interests, emotions, and thoughts of the other people in the room are just as important as your capability to control your own emotive output, emotive response, and internal emotion, but let's start with stoicism. We'll start with that side and then we can expand to empathy. At the exercise of empathy, you could definitely just pick up Marcus Aurelius and start reading the Meditations, and that is the philosophy of it. But if you're looking for exercises, daily habits, things that will enable you in that moment, where rage, or anger, or frustration, or fear, or anxiety, or even jealousy take over you, those things should inform you but not dominate you. How do you practice that?
The stoics have a number of ways in which they teach this practice. There's a lot of habits, practices, tools in my book. Here's a couple. The first one I really like is called discomfort embracing, which is seek opportunities in a safe setting that make you uncomfortable. Now, for me, that would be something like getting punched in the face. I know that sounds ridiculous, but getting punched in the face is something that would make me deeply uncomfortable. I would be discombobulated, I would be turned twisted upside down, and I would lose my awareness of the situation, so something I've done is a lot of hand-to-hand combat. Hand-to-hand combat training has prepared me to keep my wits about me regardless of the danger, the pain, or whatever's coming at me. I'm not nowhere near the level of an MMA professional, or a Muhammad Ali, or a champ, or something like that, because those guys can take repeated punches in the face and still maintain their wits about them, which is extraordinary.
But here's what I would tell you, my partner would probably be fine taking a punch in the face. He's a hapkido champion, so for him, what makes him uncomfortable is very different than, for me, what makes me uncomfortable. The goal at the end of the day is to place yourself in those situations of discomfort for limited periods of time and safe settings so that you can habituate yourself. When the anger comes, when the fear comes, when the anxiety comes, how do I calm my nervous system? How do I extend the time from stimuli to response? How do I take a breath? A lot of that literally is just practice. For some people, that just means going to a homeless shelter and interacting with homeless people, actually talking to them. That's uncomfortable for some people. For other people, it's traffic. Maybe drive home tonight right in the middle of rush hour and let your practice be not getting frustrated, not getting frustrated at that which you cannot control.
Seth Nelson:
If I have this right, the concept is to practice calming techniques in uncomfortable situations. Whatever that situation is for you, which probably you're in frequently, because you're going to know like, "Oh, I hate driving in rush hour," and these are things where you're interacting with people but not necessarily on an individual basis because you've got to put yourself in that situation to practice.
Shermin Kruse:
Absolutely. It could be people with an individual basis. Let's say what makes me uncomfortable is asking for things. Let's say that makes me uncomfortable. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Every time you go to Starbucks, ask for a free shot of vanilla. Just ask for that free. It's like 75 cents. If they say no, who cares? You pay 75 cents for your shot of vanilla. It's a very minor negotiation in a very safe context. It is face-to-face. You are literally asking someone to give you something, and there's no mutual bargain situation. It's just, "Hey, it's been a rough day. I could really use a free shot of vanilla, would make me feel great." Give it a shot and see what happens if that's what makes you uncomfortable. Find that which it is, and then just the mere exposure, Seth. Certainly, you're absolutely right that you should be practicing calming techniques during those moments, but even just the mere exposure, the intentional exposure, that's why people do ice baths.
I mean, it's a big reason. There's physiological reasons for the ice baths too, but there's also... You become accustomed to the discomfort, to the point where the hundredth time we do it, it just doesn't feel as cold. Our calming techniques are less necessary the hundredth time than they were the first because we naturally adapt it to the situation. That is just one way though of practicing, and then the actual calming techniques are something totally separate, which are also offered in the book. Those are things I'm sure you guys can imagine. Take a breath, extend your response time, do not allow it to be automatic. Impose your will instead of your instinct. Be the person you want to be in that moment so that later you're not think, "Oh, I should have said this. I should have done that." Instead of whatever comes to you instinctually in that moment, resist the impulse.
Those are the practices that you want to engage in, but the next step after that would be now I want you... Now that you're comfortable with that discomfort, I want you to negotiate in it. Now that you're in it, I want you to actively confront. This Starbucks example is a great way of doing that in a small way all at the same time. There are much bigger ways, of course, to do this, and this is why a seasoned diplomat can step into a room with representatives from Israel and Palestine and somehow manage a conversation. It's extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary what they can do. But it's because, A, they read the room, they read everyone's interests, and B, they know exactly how to respond to each person to get the best deal they could possibly get that day given the circumstances.
Pete Wright:
A couple of observations. First, my experience with this kind of practice usually comes as a result of some other trauma. I had a horrible hospital experience and now I'm using exposure therapy to overcome the trauma that has come from that, or needle phobia, or something like that. I think it is really interesting that we are applying the same tools to build this muscle by invitation. I think that's an interesting thing. I also look at, when you talk about seasoned diplomats, people who are in control of that part of themselves, to be able to, let's just say, walk into a courtroom, and have conversations with a judge and opposing counsel, and deal with testimony on the stand, and all of those kinds of things that, to me, feel shocking as the non-attorney here, is just like 8:00 AM Monday morning for you guys.
I think that that leads us to the next piece of it. What happens, what does that look like when you have someone with the expertise and exposure to build that part of their muscle but they have not worked on the empathy yet? They have not worked on the part that sort of defines humanity.
Shermin Kruse:
Yeah, I love that. Well, I would say, first of all, as a lawyer, that was a practiced skill for us too, to be able to do that. Some people are better at it than others, and some people get easily thrown, and there are a lot of lawyers who will have nasty techniques to throw the other side.
Seth Nelson:
I have no idea what you're talking about, nasty techniques that throw opposing counsel off their game.
Shermin Kruse:
What? Who? No, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that.
Seth Nelson:
Never.
Shermin Kruse:
Oh my gosh, that takes me to a story. You guys don't want to hear this story, but the short version is I was one and a half months pregnant, nobody knew I was pregnant, but I really needed to vomit constantly. I was in the middle of a temporary injunction hearing and my opposing counsel was a Mongol Horde from Jenner. There was 75 Jenner lawyers with their sharp suits or whatever with my opposing side, and I was so terrified that if I sought a recess in order to go throw up, they would think they threw me off my game, that I came clean with my pregnancy to the entire courtroom and it was reported in the media. My pregnancy got out because I was like, "I'm sorry, judge, but I'm pregnant and I have to go throw up."
Seth Nelson:
Wow. You started that by saying no one knew about it, so that's an odd way for your partner to find out on the news.
Pete Wright:
Ouch.
Shermin Kruse:
I mean, my husband knew about it.
Pete Wright:
Yes. Okay, that's fair. Glad we got that. We fully litigated that point. I'm really glad we got to the bottom of that.
Shermin Kruse:
This explains Shermin's divorce right there and then. Yeah. Okay, so empathy awareness. Okay, so here's where I want you to start. The most important place for you to start is to conceive of empathy as a [inaudible 00:16:18] of emotional attachment. On the one hand, I want you to picture emotional empathy. Your child is shot, you are in the ER, your child is bleeding out. You feel pain. Your body, your nervous system, is physically experiencing pain. Not the same pain as being shot in the abdomen but you are physically experiencing pain. That child's pain is in your body, that is emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy would be you are that child's surgeon. You need to operate on the child, and therefore you need to be aware of how they're hurt, where they're hurt, and also, because you're a responsible surgeon, who hurt them? Because if it was your partner who hurt them, you can't release them back to that partner because you would be a horrible doctor. You have to care, but you can't get emotive about it.
You can't feel the pain in the same way, it's going to get in the way of your operation. This, this is the spectrum of emotional to cognitive. Very rarely are we entirely on one side or the other. Almost in every situation, there's a little bit of each. Think about entering a conversation, an uncomfortable conversation with the person you're in divorce proceedings from or whom you have divorced, and you enter it expecting one thing. You're expecting them to be really difficult, let's say, and they're surprisingly flexible that time, so you let your guard down, you ease a little bit. You allow yourself to become a little bit more open and a little bit more vulnerable because of the way they have interacted so far in that conversation, or you've been fooled so many times that you keep that guard up the entire time. You were deciding how much emotional openness, connection, and vulnerability you have, but you are also listening, because if you don't listen, if you judge that interaction purely based on your prior interactions or what your assumptions are, you're just going to miss information that would be helpful to you.
Just like they can diffuse you with a kind word, you too can diffuse them with a kind word perhaps in that moment. It depends. You got to be able to read that person. As far as those skills are concerned, the skills we work on are things like active listening, pausing. Pausing is a big one. A lot of times, we get really caught up in saying our piece and we forget the other person doesn't care. They really just care about saying their piece and feeling better about themselves, so really what we have to do is we have to diffuse them and listen to their piece. The more information we have at our disposal, the better. Very rarely in a moment of heated discussion does information being given to the other side land in the way that you want. It's up to you to allow that to happen on your end. You can't control the way they do it on theirs.
Active listening, pausing, another tool we use is called affect labeling, which is looking for a particular emotional response and then literally, just without judgment, labeling it. That's a way of diffusing someone's emotions. Anyone who's been through therapy has done this. You're talking to your partner and you're just like, "Okay. Well, it sounds like you're angry." For some reason, that diffuses the anger a tiny bit. It doesn't make it go away but it brings it down a notch. It's just one technique that you can utilize to control that conversation and bring awareness to yourself about the other person's state.
Pete Wright:
Okay, let's bring this into the divorce process, because the people who are listening to this largely, people who are, at some point, in the divorce process. They're listening to this show because they don't understand the legal process and they want to hear from us how to best ease the challenges of their divorce, and being able to relate to one another as they transition from divorcing spouses to a new world of co-parenting demands all of the skills that you have parsed for us so far. I'd love to hear how you see these principles apply toward just individual human beings trying to make good in the world when they are not good in the world.
Shermin Kruse:
Here's the thing, when it comes to conflict, especially conflict that requires ongoing cooperation, that's what makes this really challenging. It's not like you got into a fight with someone on the street and then you get to walk away from them. It's more like you get into that fight and then you have to actually engage in a task together, except that task is raising a child. It's not like just moving a box. The reality is that the conflict exists, the ongoing relationship exists. Oftentimes, when we're in the midst of the conflict, we tend to forget about the ongoing relationship. We focus too much on that particular conflict and winning that conflict instead of being in control of the overall process that involves the joint activity. A lot of times, it's just a form of having that recognition, that no matter what happens in this particular situation, I have to have an ongoing relationship with that person.
That ongoing relationship might mean that I compromise right now. It might mean that I don't because this precedent is really important. No part of me is urging compromise so that you could preserve your relationship, rather maintain that awareness the whole time. This is not going to end here. Just because I've said my piece and I feel really good about the way I said it, I don't win. That's not the way this works. This works if I can control this dynamic, so my goal isn't to win this conversation. It is to control this dynamic. How do I do that? I read this person. I interpret where they're coming from. To the extent they're angry, frustrated, anxious, or afraid, I address that. I diffuse it. The whole time trying to be as much control of my own anger, frustration, anxiety, fear, which is there rightfully so, allow it to inform me without dominating me.
Don't snap, don't react. Never react, always respond, and then remember, you cannot control what they do. No matter how you move, or how you think, or how you act, you cannot control other people, because while you are in control of yourself, even in moments of high levels of emotional distress, they, too, are in control of themselves, or not. Either way, you don't control them. You can influence them. Once they have acted, that action doesn't reflect on you, but the way you respond does.
Seth Nelson:
That response is what I was going to just really focus in on, because just controlling the dynamic of that conversation and changing what your goals are. When I first meet with clients or touch with clients, my question is, "What are your goals for this conversation?" A lot of them don't even know, and this isn't going to be a combative topic or a conversation. Now, I'll certainly tell them things that they don't want to hear because Florida family law is awful, and the facts don't line up with the law and it's not necessarily fair, and the real world doesn't match up with the legal world. But when I add those conversations, most people will start telling me about their spouse. I'm there to talk about them and their goals. I changed that dynamic of that conversation. I think about my clients when they are responding to OurFamilyWizard messages, or text messages, or emails. Quite frequently, it's about trying to get their point across, and when we can work with them on how to phrase things differently, it really changes the dynamics.
It gets rid of some of the power that people have had over one another or people have allowed to have power over themselves when you respond differently. When they do, the opposing party, let's say the other side, freaks out because they're so used to getting the same response from what they do. When they get something different, they don't know how to handle it, and it really changes that dynamic. That is another way, I think, to practice what we're talking about in real life forms, where you're going to be in it and maybe you need help with your lawyer or your mental health professional and learning how to communicate better to protect yourself and get comfortable so you can practice, so empathy in real time.
Pete Wright:
That is something... I mean, we've sort of talked around that on the show in the past. This whole idea that if you're not aware of your own emotional baggage, you lob a little of it on every message you send to your former spouse. Everything is just bursting with the energy of the feelings that you have for them, the emotion that you have for them against them in their face, even if you're not using the words of that emotion. It sounds so much like part of the effort here is to say, look, I can take the emotion out of the messages that I'm sending and still be understanding of their experience at the same time.
Shermin Kruse:
The understanding does not equate alignment or agreement. It's just information. That's all it is. That information is a tool that's at my disposal, and I'm going to utilize that tool at the end of the day to achieve a result that I think is just, but to your point... By the way, I love both of those examples. They're so fantastic. This whole idea of the response is in your control, what they say is not, therefore pause, think. Email is a great opportunity to do this. If you don't think email conveys tone or text messages convey tone, read some Jane Austin, because they do. The written word has incredible power to communicate tone. Incredible. I'm telling you, even just feed your email to ChatGPT and say, "Hey, does this sound a little hostile? How would you tone it down?" or, "Hey, does this sound a little weak? How would you strengthen it up?" because some people struggle with that confrontation. Other people are very angry. You got to know what your own...
I can't know what your individual listener struggles are, but again, you have to be aware of your own state, and then you have to be in control of your own state, and then you have to adopt tools to modulate that state in your communication and let everything else go. It is beyond your control. The reality is justice is not always served. What you can do is you can control yourself, and you can influence the situation through that control and the understanding and thereby maximize the likelihood of achieving the correct result. Doesn't mean you'll get the right result. Perfectly nice people end up in concentration camps. There are horrible things that happen to people in this world. At the end of the day, you can choose to look at a beautiful sky or not, and especially when you're going through all that conflict and you're with the kids.
Because not only does it show to your spouse, you guys, it also shows to your kids, and they can't help but interpret it as targeted towards them. They feel it. People feel hostility. Even just when I'm in the car and someone is angry because they're in rush hour, I feel that hostility impact me. If I can give that person a more peaceful, or beautiful, or engaging, or connective experience, why wouldn't I? I'm the adult, I'm in control. Remember that, too. It's not just the former spouse. It's also the current partner, or your kids, or even people that you work with. You take that baggage with you throughout your life, so the more you can be aware and in control of it, the better off you are.
Seth Nelson:
I think also, Pete, this focuses in on some things from in the courtroom or in your deposition because you are going to be being attacked in those situations by opposing counsel. Part of that, to be really divorce-focused on that, is slowing down, breathing, thinking about the question you're being asked, and understand that it isn't personal though it feels deeply personal. I mean, I always joke with my spouse that half of the people involved in my cases hate me and the other half love me. The opposing party does not like me at all, and they take it very personal. What they don't realize, if they would've hired me, I would've been asking the questions to the other side. I ask the same questions no matter who's on the stand, who I represent, in a sense.
Pete Wright:
You're just a walking, talking template of divorce, is what you're saying.
Seth Nelson:
That's right, which is how you always describe me as.
Shermin Kruse:
Love it, love it. That's what your gravestone will read, by the way. Your gravestone will read, "Herein rests walking template of divorce."
Seth Nelson:
Yes, walking template of divorce.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that's it.
Seth Nelson:
But what I've worked with some clients to do is to think of yourself as an actor or an actress and you're playing the part of a person getting divorced, but just that little psychological game of playing a role instead of it being you helps people calm themselves. It's just a little mind game that you can play with yourself. The reason I'm familiar with this, it was actually a study that my father did, blessed be his memory, that he did a study for Disney, a psychological study. As you know at Disney World, they all have... It says "cast member" on their little name text. The reason for that is they had high turnover, because at Disney, you're not allowed to have a bad day. You have to have a magical day, so they had a lot of turnover because the pressure was to always be happy, always be smiling.
But when they taught them, "What you're going to do is you're not the ice cream man today, you're not the woman making balloon animals today. You're an actor playing the woman making balloon animals. You're the actor playing the ice cream man," their turnover went down. Their satisfaction of their team members went up because they were playing a role, and therefore they didn't have to be happy. Just the role had to be happy.
Pete Wright:
That's fascinating.
Seth Nelson:
That also can help calm yourself. Maybe if you can get to that calming sense, then you can really practice stoic empathy and make your life just a little bit better when you're going through difficult times.
Pete Wright:
That actually allows an interesting transition, Seth. We've talked about building the practice of both of these muscles, integrating them, what it looks like. But as we get toward wrapping up, I wonder, Sher, if you could talk a little bit about what it looks like using these tools after divorce, because it's one of the things that we know is... It's a time in your life that is filled with potentially great exuberance and also great uncertainty about identity, and sense of purpose, and trying to figure out where you fit in the world, in your social circles, in your professional circles. How do you look at stoic empathy from that perspective?
Shermin Kruse:
Yeah, I love that so much. This wraps your question, Pete, around Seth's comment as well. If you guys are utilizing the role-playing technique that Seth explained, it enables us to explain this in a good way. That form of adaptability is beautiful, and powerful, and also extremely dangerous, because you can really disassociate from your real self. I would say, do exactly what Seth says. Take that pause. The role though is your true self. It's not someone else. In other words, what I want you to think is, in this moment, I want to show up in a manner that aligns with my values, with my morals, with my ethics, and with the person I want to be, as opposed to just aligning with the anger or the fear that I feel, because outside of the courtroom, we don't have to answer the questions.
We can just walk away. Outside of the courtroom, it's a very different dynamic and a very different reality, but it still translates to what it was like inside the courtroom. Think of it, I used to know a lawyer that called it the Oreo cookie. The Oreo cookie, you have the two cookies on either side and then you have the creamy filling. Actually, the most important part is the creamy filling. There's the signal, the stimulus, the question during a deposition or the attack from your spouse, and then there's the creamy filling, and then there's the response. You guys, the creamy filling is the most important part. You can't forget about the creamy filling. It's not an afterthought. It is actually the whole point of the Oreo cookie, and therein lies you, your will. In that moment, connect to who you want to be and never ever compromise that.
We don't want to allow our desire for victory to compromise that, nor do we want to allow our anger or our fear to compromise that. That authenticity, it'll follow you post-divorce. It'll follow you into work, and it's damn hard. Half the time, I can't do it. It's much easier to just be adaptive. For me, I grew up in Iran when outside the home, you had to be a good little Muslim girl, and inside the home, you were making whiskey in your bathtub, so it was a very adaptive society and I learned very quickly to survive. But at the end of the day, in order to maintain my authentic self and still survive, I had to always be aware of how I wanted to show up in a particular setting, and be intentional about that, and mindful of the fact that it morphs. It's different. What it was yesterday is not this. We don't have a constant sense of self that we carry with us. What we do have is our willpower. That, we carry with us, so choose and be intentional.
Pete Wright:
That's lovely. That is a lovely way to wrap up this conversation too. Sher, thank you so much for introducing this concept and introducing your wisdom to us. The book is pretty fresh. Stoic Empathy just dropped a little while ago.
Shermin Kruse:
Yeah, just dropped about a month ago, and you can get it anywhere that books are sold.
Pete Wright:
We will definitely have the links, or you can start with the links in the show notes right on this show. But where else would you like to send people to learn more about your work, the kind of work you're doing, the consulting you're doing, and your wisdom?
Shermin Kruse:
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Really, more than anything, I urge folks to pick up the book right now. The primary work I'm doing is mostly for corporate-speaking roles, so it's probably not going to apply to most of your audience, but what I would love for you guys to do is to pick up the book or to listen to the podcasts. I've been on hundreds of podcasts and there's a lot of advice there. Obviously, tune into this incredible show, How to Split a Toaster. Listen to this one, spread it around, and really just remember that, at the end of the day, while you cannot control everything because there is a world outside of you, you are also in control of certain things with divinity. The lack of absolute power does not equate to powerlessness. Find that power, zero in on it, focus on it. If I can help you in any way to do that, I would be honored. The book is called Stoic Empathy.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, on that book, by the way, you got to read between the lines, because as all good writers do, they bury things within their writing that you have to pull out. There's a recipe for making whiskey in the bathtub.
Pete Wright:
Hidden, hidden in the text. You have to know it's an Easter egg.
Shermin Kruse:
You have to listen to it backwards. You have to buy the audiobook.
Pete Wright:
You listen to it backwards.
Shermin Kruse:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:38:18] audiobook and listen to it.
Pete Wright:
Well, this has been great. I appreciate anytime we can invite somebody on it who teaches a new concept, and a new way to mine for a lovely metaphor in a way to accept how we relate to the world around us, I think, is just magical, so we sure appreciate you doing this. Don't forget, everybody, head over to howtosplitatoaster.com. Send us those questions. Just push the button that says, "Hey, I got a question for the show," and we'll answer it on an upcoming Q&A episode. The questions are piling up, and there are some good ones in there that I think are going to make for a meaty show, so get them in there, howtosplitatoaster.com, and we appreciate you for that. Now, it's time to end the show. On behalf of Sher Kruse and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright. We'll see you next time right here on How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your Relationships.
Outro:
How to Split a Toaster is part of the TruStory FM podcast network. Produced by Andy Nelson, music by T. Bless & the Professionals and DB Studios. Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce & Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing, legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce & Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
