The Avoidance Trap: Managing Divorce Emotions with Dr. Michelle Maidenberg
Navigating Emotional Avoidance in Divorce
In this illuminating episode of How to Split a Toaster, family law attorney Seth Nelson and Pete Wright explore emotional avoidance during divorce with expert guest Dr. Michelle Maidenberg, a specialist in mindfulness and emotional resilience.
Understanding Values in Conflict
Dr. Maidenberg explains how our core values shape divorce decisions and reactions. Values aren't just what we claim to prioritize—they reveal themselves through our actions and emotional triggers. When two values conflict, such as financial security versus family time, the resulting tension often drives divorce disputes.
Breaking Down Emotional Avoidance
The conversation delves into how emotional avoidance manifests during divorce proceedings. Dr. Maidenberg describes various avoidance tactics people employ, from repression to distraction, while explaining how these coping mechanisms can ultimately hinder healing and resolution.
Practical Tools for Emotional Regulation
Dr. Maidenberg introduces therapeutic approaches including EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for managing divorce-related trauma and anxiety. She emphasizes the importance of finding the right therapeutic relationship and approach for individual needs.
Key Insights:
Identify conflicting core values to better understand emotional reactions during divorce
Set appropriate boundaries around communication to maintain emotional stability
Work with qualified professionals to develop personalized coping strategies
The Role of Professional Support
The episode highlights how legal counsel and mental health professionals can work together to support clients through divorce. Seth Nelson shares practical strategies for managing difficult communications, while Dr. Maidenberg offers therapeutic perspectives on processing divorce-related emotions.
Plus, the conversation explores how different therapeutic modalities—from CBT to mindfulness-based approaches—can help individuals navigate divorce's emotional challenges while staying true to their values.
This episode provides valuable insights for anyone seeking to better understand and manage their emotional responses during divorce, while offering practical tools for maintaining stability throughout the legal process.
Links & Notes
Find Michelle on her website, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube
Check out Michelle’s book “Ace Your Life: Unleash Your Best Self and Live the Life You Want”
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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'Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, is your toaster emotionally avoidant?
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 diving into the uncomfortable but essential process of facing your emotions during and after divorce. Emotional avoidance is a natural reflex when things get hard. It can also trap us in patterns that prevent healing. Dr. Michelle Maidenberg is an expert in mindfulness, emotional resilience, and value-based decision making, and she's here to help us break the cycle. Michelle, welcome to The Toaster.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Pete Wright:
I'm glad you're here today. We want to break down, first of all, what is emotional avoidance, and how does it show up during the divorce process when, as we know, we can be emotionally compromised already? What are we looking at?
Michelle Maidenberg:
So because of our human anatomy and our neurophysiology, we naturally avoid. It's just something we do because our brains are wired for safety and protection and to avoid discomfort. Now, going through a divorce, I mean, talk about there's a very famous book which is kind of known, but it's called Crazy Times. I don't know if you've heard of the book?
Pete Wright:
I've never heard of that book.
Michelle Maidenberg:
No? But that's like-
Pete Wright:
Did I write that book? I may have written that book.
Seth Nelson:
I thought it was an autobiography about your college days, Pete.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, right? But anyone who's gone through a divorce could relate to it because that's what it feels like. It's like crazy making, because you're so in and out of feelings that ebb and flows. From one moment you could feel relieved, right, because obviously you're getting divorced for a reason, to the next moment feel such grief because your formative value could be family, and you're not going to necessarily, let's say if you have kids, you're not going to see them as often as you did when you were married, right?
Pete Wright:
Can I interrupt you? You just said something that I want to make sure you dive a little bit deeper on.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Sure.
Pete Wright:
You said your formative value might be family. Can you talk about formative values and how they play into this just so we're all on the same page?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Oh, sure. Yes. Values are an integral part of our decision making and it guides our behavior. I always teach about that to my clients. That is such a key component. People argue with me that they know what their core values are, and we do value exercises, and it's amazing how, because there's values that we aspire, values that we acquire, and values that are circumstantial, and people get confused at what those are.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, I can imagine we don't even know.
Seth Nelson:
Can't people say they value the same thing, but their actions in valuing it are extremely different?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
And here's my example. Someone could say, and I was just actually listening to this podcast about employment and the different ages of Gen X, Gen Z, Boomers, and how we all think the younger generation isn't loyal and all this stuff, so this is where I got this example from, a really interesting podcast.
Pete Wright:
It's weird, because I thought you only listened to our podcast, but this is good, it's newer horizons.
Seth Nelson:
Right, I'm branching out. So they said someone could say in the workforce, "I value my family, and that's why I work late, work on weekends, because I want to provide and I want to move up the corporate ladder, so to speak, so that I am sacrificing today to have more later or even provide more today," where someone else can say, "I value my family, and I want to spend more time with them now, so I don't work weekends, I don't work after hours, I don't respond to emails during dinner, because I'm in the moment. And I understand that that might sacrifice financially or my professional growth, which might then not give everything that I might want to give to my family," but they both value family, but it's dramatically different in how they exercise it.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Well, there's this, so again, I'm going to challenge you on that.
Seth Nelson:
Notice how I said it to someone else's podcast, Pete, that way it's not my fault?
Pete Wright:
Some other horseshit podcast. Just like ours.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah. See, if you came to me with that, I would dig deeper, because when you're talking about financially supporting your family, that is derived from a different value, actually, and that could be safety, that could be wealth. There's so many different values encompassing financially supporting your family, right, so it's really what actions do you take on a daily basis to lean into those values. And like you said, from person to person, that could definitely differ. It's not the same across all people, right, but it gives you a guide to action so when somebody says, "This is my formative value," I said, "What actions are you going to be taking on a daily base to lean into that particular value?"
Because if you're, again, driven by financial means, that could take away from you actually leaning into your family value. So it's important to weed that out. It's important to weed that out, and it's a little bit complicated, so people get confused. I'll give you a really good example. People will say to me, "Well, people who," because I say gang members, they're like, "well, violence is their value." I go, "No, actually not."
Pete Wright:
I saw Fast and the Furious, it's family. It's always family.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Community. It's about community. If you really unpack that, it's really about community, it's about connection. So that's the means by which they accomplish it, but that is not their core value. It isn't.
Pete Wright:
Well, and to Seth's example, it's the same thing. You could be somebody who says, "Oh, I value my family, so I quit my corporate job and I work from home, and I just wanted to be here for my family, but then I'm always in my home office and my door's always closed because I'm always working, even though I'm at home." That also, you could use the language around valuing family as a core value, and then your daily actions don't necessarily line up to that.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Right. And there's pain in values and values in pain.
Pete Wright:
Oh, well, was that a fortune cookie that I just read? What is that? What does that mean?
Seth Nelson:
I was like, I just did Uber Eats and my Chinese came early.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Well, I'm circling back to what you asked me about divorce, because this is a really important one, okay?
Pete Wright:
Yes.
Michelle Maidenberg:
So there's such an ebb and flow of emotions that come up when you go through divorce, like I said before, and it's going to cause you to emotionally avoid. And what does emotionally avoiding mean? It could mean a lot of different things. It could mean repressing your feelings, it could be dismissing, it could be denying, it could be distracting from, and I could go on and on. There's all different mind games that we play in order to avoid our emotions. It's very hard to be in the present moment. It's very hard to accomplish what you want to when you're, again, shut down, essentially. So when we are in distress, it pinpoints to a value that's being rubbed up against. And if a value is rubbed up against, we are going to feel distress.
Pete Wright:
Wow, yeah.
Michelle Maidenberg:
That's like the rule of thumb.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right, even if you aren't entirely sure what your values are day to day, when they're tested, you will know.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yes.
Seth Nelson:
So if you have a person who's going through a divorce, because I really want to focus on the divorce process in talking about this, because the lawyers speak a foreign language, the legalese, as much as we do our best to break it down, people are scared about their finances. And I'm not even going to talk about kids, because we have so much kid stuff, but we have a lot of listeners that don't have kids, because I think it all relates.
So examples that I see where people get really upset, rightfully so, is there's a ton of attorney's fees. And I talk to clients all the time, like, "I'm responding to what your soon-to-be former spouse and their lawyer are doing. We've offered to settle this issue. They don't want to settle. Instead, they want to go hire an expert to do whatever experts do, an appraisal, evaluation, reviewing documents, a vocational evaluation, all this stuff, right, social investigation for kids," and rightfully so, they're really upset. And what value do you think that is rubbing up against? Is it I want this to be done so we can move on and have some peace? Is it I don't understand why we're spending money on all this stuff, but I have to defend myself. If they're going to get evaluation, then I need evaluation. Can we, the lawyers, agree on a joint, like how does all that play in?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, so there's a couple of things that you talked about. Number one, a lot of fear comes up in the divorce process on so many multiple levels, right, because there's fear, again, of financially how is somebody going to support themselves? Again, you're also reconsidering and reestablishing new roles, like who's going to take on what, let's say, and how is that going to look? Listen, people even have pets. It's negotiating around pets, it's negotiating around kids, it's negotiating around real estate, it's negotiating-
Seth Nelson:
I've gone to trial over a dog.
Pete Wright:
That was the only issue left was the dog. But how do they deal with the fear? Let's just focus on the fear, because the fear can manifest itself in different ways. So someone's fearful about X. How does that come out in the divorce process? And what can we do as lawyers, and what can our listeners do as clients, help get past this issue in a more streamlined, cost-effective way?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Well, it goes back to values again, it really does. It's the fear gets evoked because of something that's important to the person, whether it's financial stability, whatever it is for them, whatever their core fear is. And that is typically not just stemming from today, that's stemming from childhood, adolescence, et cetera. There's a lot of people I work with, for example, who, going through a divorce or went through a divorce, and they grew up in a certain way, let's say they with a single mother or whatever the case is, and it does, for whatever, evoke a lot of feelings that came up for them.
Pete Wright:
And those feelings are generational feelings of fear?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Pete Wright:
And I want to make sure I understand what you're saying, because I think what I'm feeling is that the experience has root in core values you may not understand about yourself that are running into conflict with each other. Because I may say I value family, and I want to come up with a plan for my kids that is sound, and I want to come up with a plan so that my former spouse has a place to live and can sustain themselves, and I want all these things to be under the core value of family, and then I also get the bill, and it turns out I have a core value protecting my own sustenance and my own ability to sustain myself that is even deeper rooted than my value of family.
Michelle Maidenberg:
I'm going to summarize that in what the quandary that comes up all the time, a conflict in values.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, okay.
Michelle Maidenberg:
That's what it comes down to. It's when two core values are in conflict with one another, that's when we get distress.
Seth Nelson:
So how do we get through that as clients or lawyers helping clients get through that?
Michelle Maidenberg:
It's really helping them to identify what those two core values that are in conflict with one another. When they're able to see that, because most people, they throw the baby out with the bath water, okay, because it's too painful, right? Because if it's a decision between vanilla and chocolate ice cream, it's easy, but most of our decisions are between these really core values.
Pete Wright:
Well, yeah, Seth just said that, right? If you're going to court and the only issue is the dog, that's core-value based, right, Seth? That seems like people are dealing with a conflict in what they value, and they're using you as a tool to figure that out?
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely, but what I was saying, and this is how I explain it, so let me just maybe ask it this way, if you think this is a good way to do it. I've talked to clients for years. They're like, "What can we do?" And I said, "I can do a written offer that you sign, because that ultimately is putting forth what your goals are," and by goals, we're really talking about what you value, right? So I will say, "Let's put a offer in that says X, Y, and Z. It doesn't matter whether it's amount of alimony you're willing to pay, how you're going to divide up assets," and I said, "because if you do that, that's showing them what you're willing to do right now, it shows them that obviously you don't want to spend more money on this because let's settle, and then it's up to them on how they respond. And if we don't get a response, then you have some choices," and I lay out what those choices are.
"We go to court and argue about it. If they go to court, we can say, 'Judge, I don't want these assets. I don't care what they value them at.' A court's not going to make you take an asset. We could say, I mean they can, but, 'Just divide it.' And the other side's going to say, 'Well, I don't want it either,' and then the court's going to say, 'Sell it,' but you've got the risk of the other side arguing, 'No, give your client, Mr. Nelson, the asset.' And if they're going to give my client the asset, and that's a potential outcome, well, then I have to value it, because if their value is unreasonably high, you're now getting hurt financially, so it's a lot of balancing act there.
Pete Wright:
Well, it sounds so much like the trick where you don't know how to make a decision, and so you flip a coin and you call heads is one, tails is the other, and you get heads. And all of a sudden you realize, oh, I know what I wanted all along, it was tails. You don't know until you're confronted with that decision. What you described, Seth, is something I could say, "I don't know how I feel about it until you tell me how ridiculous I sound."
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, but it's usually not my client being ridiculous, is what I'm saying, and the hypothetical I'm setting up is the client who just wants it done and they're tired of spending fees. So you can put forth an offer, the other side does not have to accept it.
Michelle Maidenberg:
If you're really thinking about the core values, and again, when you're negotiating, you want to think about the core values of the other person, I can't say how pivotal that is, because it's going to help the negotiation process.
Seth Nelson:
Right, but sometimes the value, as expressed, isn't what we would call a value. Sometimes they like the fight.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Oh, I know.
Seth Nelson:
They want the drama of the divorce process. They want to go tell all their friends they're the victim and look at what, and no one sees the offer we sent over. And the offer could be simple, "You keep the dog, I keep the dog or we give the dog away, your choice, I'll do any of those," but they're saying, "No, I want to value the dog, and I want you to keep it." And you're like, "Okay, I'm happy to keep it," and then but now I got to go to my client and say, "Okay, they're going to value the dog." If the judge comes back and says the dog is worth $10,000, when we know that it should only be $100, do you want to go argue about that?" And I'm using the silly example as a dog, but call it a house. That could have hundreds of thousands of dollars of swing on an appraisal. So, you know, I hear you. I would love to be able to say, "What's your values on the other side? Let's try to work those values out."
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah. The other thing that I do in a situation like that, what I do is I do this chart, which really allows somebody to see the significance that something has in their life and how much they want to negotiate. So like with the dog, I would do four quadrants, and I would do advantage of keeping the dog, disadvantage of keeping the dog, the advantage of not keeping the dog and the disadvantages of not keeping the dog, and I would also quantify each one, and then I would do cross quadrants to add it up. And it really gives you a lot of information too, because sometimes, again, it's more about the fight than it is about the actual ...
Seth Nelson:
Item-
Michelle Maidenberg:
Thing or whatever.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. That's right.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, or the item that's being, yeah. So it helps to weed out is it emotion based? What's going on for the person that's causing them to feel so drawn into this specific position? And I do that a lot, and it really helps people understand that better for themselves.
Pete Wright:
Okay. So let's say we're working through this process, we're in the middle. For people who are listening to this show, they're listening to the show because generally they're provoked in some way by dealing with the legal process, usually provoked in the form of anxiety and uncertainty and doubt and ...
Michelle Maidenberg:
And fear, yeah, and fear.
Pete Wright:
And when they are confronted, and fear, right, and when they are confronted with those feelings, and yet the process requires them to keep moving forward, what do you do to help people sort of self, I don't want to say self-soothing, that doesn't sound right.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Self-regulate.
Pete Wright:
Self-regulating, that's much better. That's better. Yeah. What tools do you put into place for people who are listening to this who have to go sit down and talk to their lawyer, and stay grounded when their lawyer is speaking legalese and using language that can provoke, if they don't know what it means, provoke fear and uncertainty and doubt?
Michelle Maidenberg:
I love to use EMDR.
Pete Wright:
Oh, sure.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, EMDR is eye movement desensitization reprocessing. I use it a lot, especially with clients who are going through a divorce process. I use it on multiple levels. So I'll use it for them formatively about what values it's rubbing up against for them, and also I do a flow back to understand the connection and association that they're making in their brain that's causing them distress or whatever the case is. I also use it for stress management and relaxation because the bilateral stimulation, using our senses, really helps to regulate the body and the emotions. And then what I also do, which has been so helpful, is I'll use a regulatory type of protocol. So let's say somebody's going to trial, or somebody is meeting with whatever and they're extremely distressed, because I hear this all the time, "I don't want to fall apart. I don't want to cry. I want to look strong. I want to feel strong in the moment," and some people are so fearful of that because they're so emotional.
Pete Wright:
And they don't know what's going to make them triggered, right, when you're in that environment?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, exactly, it could be a question that they're asked. And a lot of people feel very betrayed, I want to say that too, for various reasons, not necessarily because of infidelity, it could be whatever. So I help them, actually, I do this exercise where I have them go through the process by which they would wake up in the morning until the end of the trial, and it's not how they think they're going to be, but how they want to be. And we talk about both body, mind and speech, expressive language. And that, I could tell you, it has helped so many people.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, especially for trial work. I think that-
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, well, even mediation, even mediation, because people are also fearful of the mediation process too.
Seth Nelson:
Well, of course, but the difference in mediation and trial, if it's being explained properly by their counsel, is mediation, you never walk out of mediation worse than you walk in. And the reason you never walk out worse is you walk in without a deal. The worst thing is you walk out without a deal. So you have some decisions to make at mediation, and if the other side puts forth an offer, you can accept that offer, which might not be a good offer or a reasonable offer or an offer that is in line with your values or with the court or any of that, but that's a decision you make. But you're not worse off because now you've made the decision, because you said, you know what? I'll take this bad deal because I don't want to continue to litigate. You, in your own mind and your values, traded one thing for another. At trial, you don't get to make those decisions, and at trial, you are literally put on the stand and asked questions and wait for it. You're judged. That's what the judge does. The judge judges.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, there's a real chance you'll walk out with a worse situation than you walked in.
Seth Nelson:
Well, you might walk out worse, you might walk out better, but the process of sitting on the stand, being asked questions, and knowing that somebody who's going to make the decision is evaluating you as a person, as truthfulness, as everything you do in the courtroom, if you make faces, and they're the ones deciding your financial aspect when you walk out of that courtroom, if you have children, like everything, and they're human and can get it wrong from time to time. That's why we have the appeal process, but very stressful.
Michelle Maidenberg:
But the preparation, because when we're preparing somebody, if you think about it, it's preparing both their body and their minds, it's like a mind-body experience, and it helps really to ground them and to really keep them in a state of regulation and a window of tolerance, and that is so extremely helpful. And of course, I teach them skills and tools to decrease anxiety and to re-regulate if they get dysregulated.
Pete Wright:
So one of the things we talk about with some frequency is this idea of trauma and the process of going through trauma. Sometimes it's the trauma that led you to a divorce, sometimes it's the divorce process itself that is traumatic, maybe lowercase-T traumatic, and from my knowledge, EMDR is often used in trauma therapy. It's used to help people kind of integrate after a traumatic experience. Can you talk just a little bit more specifically about how that works for individual brains? And if somebody's listening to this, and I think this is traumatic, I need to go through this process, what kind of resources do they look for?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, so I'm the client in saying, "Hey, I think I need this eye movement thing that I heard on the podcast," and I sit down at your office. What physically happens? What do you put me through?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, so I'll talk about two cases that used EMDR, and it's been so helpful. One was a very high-profile case. I can't even say who it is because people would know. And it was a female who, yeah, very blindsided, huge amounts of money was at stake and so forth and so on, and a lot of betrayal in the relationship.
Seth Nelson:
So she comes to your office to do this therapy. What physically happens to her?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah. Well, she found the actual bilateral stimulation so helpful just in terms of her body, really helping her to be grounded, especially in moments, because she went on trial many, many times. So that was really helpful. She almost begged me, please turn on the machine, turn on the machine.
Seth Nelson:
So how does the machine work? That's what I'm asking.
Michelle Maidenberg:
So we use our senses. So there's, again, eye movement, which is again, visual. We could use earphones, which is audio. We could use vibrations, which are these little tactile, which is touch. And typically we use two modems. I like to use, again, if somebody's in office, I like to use the eye movement and also the tactile vibration. Again, I do it online a lot, I do a lot of remote sessions, so I'll just use the eye movement, which is, according to research, the most effective, and it works beautifully online as ll when I just use the eye movement. But again, if you know anything about polyvagal theory, et cetera, it really helps. And we don't understand exactly why it works, but it helps to de-lodge any type of stimulus that's kind of lodged in our prefrontal cortex and our amygdala, and our amygdala is our feeling center. That's what, again, puts us into fight or fight. It really can-
Pete Wright:
Can hijack us in those stressful court situations.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, our nervous system, and again, we don't know exactly why it works, but we know it works, and I see such tremendous movement. When people are going through these distressing moments, there are, for example, you might be working or you might be married or divorcing a person who is very difficult to deal with. They may have some narcissistic personality traits, they may have avoidant personality traits. There's a lot of things that come up that cause a person to get divorced. Obviously, that hasn't been working for them. There could be a lot of, like I said, betrayal on multiple levels. It could be financial betrayal, it could be infidelity, it could be whatever. So there's always at least little T's when somebody's going through a divorce. I have yet to meet anybody that is, you know, there's a lot of relief that goes on for people because sometimes they've been in the situation for so long, and sometimes they're activated all the time and they're not-
Pete Wright:
But relief doesn't equal healthy, right?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah, it's not healthy, and they're not being their best self. Divorce brings out the worst in you, right?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah.
Michelle Maidenberg:
So it really helps when you're using these types of treatments, particularly when this modem specifically, because you're really using your senses and it's really we regulating your body and your mind.
Pete Wright:
Okay, so you do this. So somebody's listening to this, they don't have access to you, what is the set of specialties that they're looking for with their therapists to be able to help them do this?
Michelle Maidenberg:
You know what? It really has a lot to do with the relationship with the therapist, so I can't say that enough, because you have to really speak to somebody who you trust and you feel is really helping you. And I do a lot of different types of treatments. I do CBT, which is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I do ACT, which is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. I do a lot of mindfulness-based therapy. I sprinkle a little bit of IFS, which is Internal Family Systems. I do a lot of different types of treatments. So EMDR is not necessarily effective for everybody. It depends on, again, and the therapist themselves, if they're skilled therapists, they get to give you that feedback and guidance on what would be the most effective treatments for you. So it depends on the client, what they're coming in with. I'm working with somebody else right now, and unfortunately the person that she was married to is very difficult, I mean, extremely difficult. We see, she'll read me texts, passive aggressiveness and blatant aggressiveness, and it's really hard to listen to sometimes, I have to tell you.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, like you're saying, we're all our worst selves in the process, right?
Michelle Maidenberg:
Yeah. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
And we deal with those text messages in Our Family Wizard messages all the time. And we work with our clients on how to check Our Family Wizard once a day, take your time to respond, get yourself in a good place, make the expectation that when you open hit, there's going to be all of these bad names and things they're going to say that aren't true about you, but consider the source, and let's move on and just respond to what you need to. So yeah, absolutely, that's really difficult.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Another very important thing, setting boundaries, setting appropriate boundaries. I can't say that enough.
Seth Nelson:
Right. That's when I advise my clients, and we've talked about it before, Pete, I've talked to my clients, I've talked about it before, Pete, on the show, right, your phone is there for your convenience, not to have someone have a window, so turn off your notifications and silence your phone. You just solved that problem, and you don't have to respond, so no, this is really good stuff.
Pete Wright:
I think so. Michelle, the material is great, and I'm proud to be corrected that EMDR is not the only thing. And I think to your point, having that relationship with your therapist is really important, and honestly, let them do what they need to do to help you, because you're not a therapist. If you're going into support, let them do what they think is best. Where could people learn more about you and your work? What do you do you want to plug?
Michelle Maidenberg:
So the best is my website, which is Michelle Maidenberg, my first and last name, Michelle is with two L's, Maidenberg is M-A-I-D-E-N-B-E-R-G, .com. And it has I'm a Psychology Today blogger as well, so I write a lot of articles all the time about a variety of different topics, mindfulness based, family based, et cetera, self-help based, so that's a good way. I also have a book, which is called Ace Your Life: Unleash Your Best Self and Live The Life You Want. There's a full chapter on values in there. There's a full chapter on how our mind works, and it's predicated on acceptance, compassion, and empowerment. I talk about the barriers to each, and also how to integrate that in your life, and how to be your best self at all times despite what you're going through, so yes, it's a roadmap.
Pete Wright:
I'm telling you, Seth, that values conversation, that may be the biggest thing I take out of this conversation of everything else.
Seth Nelson:
Oh yeah.
Pete Wright:
There's new stuff in my head from that. That's really great, Michelle.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. No, the values thing is really good.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Well, I have to tell you, I use it in my everyday life. It is kick ass, let me tell you. It works.
Pete Wright:
It makes me want to write a manifesto. It feels like my next step is a manifesto.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, but you could probably put it on a sticky note, Pete, you know?
Michelle Maidenberg:
That's funny.
Pete Wright:
Michelle, thank you so much for being here, for joining us for this.
Michelle Maidenberg:
Thank you.
Pete Wright:
And thank you, everybody, for downloading and listening to this show. We sure appreciate your time and your attention. Don't forget, you can send us questions. I see it in our rundown, that Listener questions episode is creeping up, creeping up on us. It's going to be a doozy, so get those questions in. Visit howtosplitatoaster.com, click on the button that says submit a question, and ask your question, may it please the court? On behalf of Dr. Michelle Maidenberg and Seth Nelson, Esquire, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright, Podsquire, America's favorite divorce podcaster, and 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 and 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 and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
