As a therapist, mediator, and attorney, I’ve helped individuals and couples either create a new marriage or create a compassionate divorce.
But many times when people think about divorce there is a person that feels like they’re going to be a bag lady, and there might be somebody else that feels like they’re going to lose their pants.
And as corny as it is, it doesn’t have to be this way.
There is a way to communicate about every issue that’s causing you conflict.
There’s a way to compassionately heal the pain from the past, and when you’ve done that with empathy, you have the skills to begin to create a new relationship, and you can create a new relationship with the partner you have now, because you’ll each doing your own work.
And even if your partner doesn’t do any work, if you come to your partner with your best self instead of the reactive parts that you may have been showing him or her over the years, you’re going to create a new dynamic between the two of you.
I’ve created the Compassionate Mediation® Program. It’s a six-hour video series based on my book, Compassionate Mediation: How to Add Passion To Your Marriage or Compassion To Your Divorce.
And it’s available now and it’s available at a very big discount, because I want to make this program available to everyone.
It teaches you how to communicate compassionately, how to be empathetic with each other, how to explore your options, understand your rights and finances, and truly create the relationship you desire and deserve.
Please go to CompassionateMediationProgram.com, sign up now at the very discounted price, and you can begin a six-hour series that can take you from where you are now to where you’d like to be in your relationship.
And I’ll be there to help you.
So please check it out and I hope to see you in the program. Bye for now.
Not long ago I was facing the possibility of ending my marriage. I vacillated for years, thinking that my indecision was benefiting my children because our family was still “intact.”
I didn’t have the tools to effectively communicate all that I truly wanted and needed. My husband and I did our best, but when we finally made our decision, we gave in to some of the typical adversarial divorce processes – court, attorneys, hurt, anger, sadness, pain.
Our daughters watched the proceedings, trying not to take sides and feeling caught in the middle. Their sorrow from the reflected sadness and anger of each of us definitely impacted them, and probably still does. The process went on for years, and we all suffered.
One day, as I sat in the courtroom with the man I once loved enough to promise to love forever.
I realized there had to be a better way to get divorced – or a better way to create a new and better marriage.
What I quickly discovered is working with couples is that people often give up too soon. They don’t know how to communicate with compassion and confidence, and they throw in the towel because it seems easier than staying and facing all the issues that divide them.
It’s hard work to get divorced, and the effects of it linger for lifetimes. It’s often a time of personal reflection and can be a time for spiritual growth. I’ve realized that if an individual or couple is willing to put as much energy in their own personal transformation before they get divorced, there would be many more happy intact families.
If even one member of a couple is willing to bring their higher self into their relationship, let go of the judgments they have formed about the other, heal the pain from the past, and relate from their heart, miracles happen.
They could talk about all the issues that cause conflict or pain and create a new relationship together – whether they decide to stay or go. I was able to help my clients avoid the pain and suffering my family had endured.
I put together all the education I had acquired…
As a therapist, mediator, attorney, teacher of meditation, yoga and Ayurveda, I created a process to help couples resolve conflict with higher consciousness and empathy.
I have worked one on one with clients for decades, and decided I wanted to create a program that could help people all over the world. My online course is ready now for the pubic, and I hope that you will join me in providing this process in your community.
I offer you all the information, guidance, and support I have created for my clients. You will have audios, videos, workbooks, templates, scripts and bonus materials that will provide a roadmap to lead you effortlessly in this process..
I’ll teach you the same program I’ve used to help hundreds of individuals and couples for over twenty-five years.
Imagine that in a short amount of time,
you will be able to learn all that you need to offer this system
to all your current and future clients.
If you are a therapist, mediator, attorney, coach or member of the clergy, this training is for you.
As an attorney, I didn’t like the whole adversarial process where there was a Pyrrhic victory at best – one major winner versus a major loser, with children always suffering, not matter the outcome.
As a mediator, I was frustrated watching warring couples continue their battles in my office without a meaningful way to intervene.
As a therapist, whose father was a manic-depressive who yelled a lot, I had trouble staying “in SELF” with angry clients, who reminded me of my dad and made me cower inside like a little girl, no matter how professional I tried to act.
I coached hundreds of individuals and clients to be more compassionate with themselves and each other, and gave workshops on letting go and moving on, even as I pushed myself to do more, and stayed separated for 9 years before my own divorce.
In all that time, I knew there had to be a better way to communicate and to heal relationships before, during and even after a divorce.
I have learned and practiced Internal Family Systems Therapy for almost 30 years. I was honored to learn from its founder, Richard Schwartz, Phd.
In his review of my book, Compassionate Mediation® for Relationships at a Crossroads: How to Add Passion to Your Marriage or Compassion to Your Divorce, Dick wrote: “Linda Kroll is a master at lifting couples out of their narrow protective perspective. They then learn the larger lessons from their relationships and proceed based on the best interests of all involved. This is relationship healing at its best.”
I also spent five years at the Chopra Center in California, where I studied with Deepak Chopra, David Simon, davidji, and Claire Diab, to become one of Chopra Center University’s 350 Master Teachers in the world.
I merged my legal training, mediation certification, IFS therapy, and spirituality to create the Compassionate Mediation® Process, which I would love to teach you so that together we can help change the face of divorce – one heart at a time.
Do you feel that your life is filled with what you truly want and need – or have you been living without your desires being met?
Here is a simple five-step process to help you receive MORE of what is important to you.
REMEMBER what you want and need.
Know you DESERVE to have what you want and need.
Learn how to ASK for what you want and need.
Be WILLING TO RECEIVE what you truly want and need.
Stay GRATEFUL for what you have .
What DO you want and need in your life?
What do you need?
When we are born, we are our natural and true SELF. We know instinctively how to get our needs met. When we are hungry or wet or tired, we let our caretakers know. And if our needs aren’t met, we complain, fuss or cry. When we are fed, dry and rested, we were usually a joy to be around, utterly adorable and totally loved. If only life after infancy were so easy!
Somewhere along the way, usually by the time we are two or three, we begin to lose sight of what we truly want and need, and even what we feel. We learn at a very early age that some behaviors get us more love and attention than other behaviors. If we are angry, we don’t get as much positive feedback as when we are pleasing. If we are sad, we may not be as cute as when we are happy. If we are scared, we may be perceived as too demanding or too weak, so we are exhorted to act brave or strong.
So we start to exile those feelings of anger, sadness or fear, and manage our lives by trying to be pleasing, happy, or competent. And this is even if we grew up in the best of homes. However if there is any dysfunction in our families of origin (and there usually is), then we may forget what we truly want and need because being a caretaker and a giver becomes our role in life. We lose sight of what is true inside of us in order to project an image that we manage to maintain.
What do you truly want in your life?
It may seem easier to know what you need because without your basic needs met, you may not survive. Every human being needs food, water, shelter. Did you put down love, affection, nurturing touch? These are what we needed as infants in order to survive and thrive. If infants are deprived of touch, they cannot mature
Although we have our basic needs, it is often more difficult to state what you want. As you answer this question, did you have a difficult time remembering? If so, try to go back in time to when you were young and carefree. What did you want then? Did you want to have fun? Did you put that down on your list?
What else do you want? Respect?
How much of what you wrote was material in nature – a new car, a new house, a new job?
What feelings would be associated with having those things you want? Success, financial freedom, a feeling of competence?
Think back, or free associate, or listen to what other people say and if you want what they want, write it on your list. “I’ll have what she’s having” (When Harry Met Sally) doesn’t mean that you are jealous or envious. It is a recognition that there are other ways of being and feeling that you would want to experience as well.
What stands in your way from getting what you want and need?
Even if we are lucky enough to have an idea of what we want and need, most of the time we see that we don’t have it. Why not? What are the circumstances in which we find ourselves that keeps us locked away from our true desires?
Is it external to us? Other people? Our jobs? On some level, our external reality is a mirror of our internal landscape. If we are balanced, peaceful and centered, our lives reflect that. If we are out of balance, unfocused, chaotic, so is our life. Which comes first?
We tell ourselves that if our lives were different and the people in our lives were different, then we would be different. However, as we learn to shift the pattern of our internal landscape, our outer world will reflect our healing and growth. Then the situations we are in will transform and we will set the stage for different kinds of relationships.
Either the people in our lives will change as we do, or we will learn how to let go and make room to attract healthier people into our lives.
Do you feel you DESERVE what you want?
Deserve-ability is often an issue for most of us. Usually, again, by the time we are two or three, something has happened to us to give us a message that we are not lovable, not worthy, not good enough.
If you think back, there is some event or situation in your life, by the time you are two or three, and another one by the time you are 8 or 10, in which you came to feel or believe that you were less than…..bad, unloved, unlovable.
Sometimes the event can be as benign as the birth of a younger sibling. When I was two, my brother was born and my parents left me for two weeks in the care of an aunt and uncle. That was many, many decades ago when women were kept in the hospital for two weeks after childbirth. My father had to work late nights and couldn’t take care of me, so my aunt and uncle were enlisted for the job.
My mother had lovingly made plans for me. Her brother, my uncle, had always wanted children and had been trying for years to conceive. Several years later they adopted one. My aunt never really wanted to have children and was very cold, distant and uncomfortable. My uncle worked all the time, and I stayed with my aunt, who left me outside to play on my own.
I still have memories of being outside on the curb looking at the rows of houses that all looked alike, feeling lost and scared and probably very sad and angry at being abandoned. But my parents weren’t around, and there was no one to tell. But somehow in my bed late at night, when I would have run into my parents’ bed if I had been home, I sat alone and afraid in the dark.
And I think I decided then, though not consciously, that I would do everything in my power never to be abandoned again. I would be sweet and loving and adorable. I would never show them how angry I was – or how sad and scared. I would be so lovable that they would never want to leave me. And so my codependency was born. Other times in life can be more damaging. Many of us have suffered abuse of some kind. Either screaming and yelling to undermine our self esteem, or actual physical or sexual abuse that makes us question our own sense of value and worth.
Are there any areas in your life of which you are ashamed?
Even if the abuse is due to the perversion of another, there is still a sense of shame attached to the victim. Sometimes as adults, we don’t remember the actual instances themselves, but we have unexplained fears, needs, compulsions.
And if we do remember, even if we intellectually know that it wasn’t “our fault”, our self esteem and self worth are affected for decades. We should have known to tell someone, we think. We shouldn’t have allowed it. We should have put a stop to it. We should not have enjoyed it.
Often we need therapy to help us let go of our erroneous self conceptions. If we don’t believe that we inherently deserve to be happy and prosperous and have what we need and want, then we won’t.
Again, our external situations are often mirrors of our internal reality. If we don’t feel we deserve something, we won’t have it. Once we know that we deserve to have our needs and wants satisfied, then we can take the steps to attain that goal. The inner knowing is the first step toward manifesting that reality.
Your thoughts are your prayers. Your thinking are the brush strokes on the canvas of your life. To change your reality, you change your thoughts.
You may need help on releasing some negative and self destructive thought patterns to enhance your knowledge of your innate deserve-ability.
Can you forgive yourself?
As you let go of self judgments and criticisms, you open the way to forgiveness.
Only by forgiving yourself for choices made, roads not traveled, actions taken or avoided, can you open yourself up to the possibility of new life experiences.
You did the best you could with what you knew at the time. And every experience, no matter how negative it may be perceived, is what made you the person you are today and brought you to this moment in time. And in this moment, you have the power to go forward with a new vision and clarity.You can hold on to your out-dated vision and version of your self, or you an open to your true Self and allow your soul to shine.
Can you forgive others?
Even if we manage to forgive ourselves, forgiving others is more difficult. We may feel that forgiving is condoning, or that we are letting someone off the hook too easily. We do let someone off the hook, but that someone is ourself. Hanging on to anger and resentments just poisons the mind and spirit of the carrier.
Anger is appropriate when your boundaries have been violated. It is how we learn to recognize our boundaries review who we are in the constellation of our world. But resentments fester and corrode our spirit.
As we forgive another, we let ourselves off the hook. We are free to use our energy in ways that bring us joy.
We may need to do some work to acknowledge our feelings and release them. But once we do, our lives can be transformed.
How do you ask for what you want and need?
Once you know what it is you truly want and need, you have to work through your issues of deserve-ability BEFORE you ask for them. If you don’t believe you deserve to have them met, the way you are asking may sound like a demand, a nag, or a threat.
When you are centered in the truth of your own value and self worth, you ask from a different energy. You put out what your wishes are in a way that comes from a heart-centered place. You are not blaming, not judging, not demanding. You clearly state your feelings, and then you allow someone else the respect to respond the way they need to.
You don’t have to save them from their response. You don’t have to protect them from your needs and wants.
You are entitled to your wishes, your desires, your opinions, your feelings. If you don’t validate them for yourself, no one else can do that for you.
You can ask without expectations that the other person will automatically comply just because you’ve asked.
You can ask knowing that the other may need time to think about your request and then more time to consider whether they wish to fulfill it or not.
You can ask with clarity, not having to couch your words in defensive posturing so as not to make someone else uncomfortable.
You can ask to take care of your own needs and wants, rather than keeping still so as not to run the risk of offending someone else.
You can ask knowing that if you are asking for too much, someone can tell you, and you can adjust accordingly. You can apologize, you can reframe or rephrase your request, or you can ask someone else who might be more able or willing to comply.
If you ask knowing that you deserve what you truly want and need (as long as it is respectful of others and does not infringe on their rights or harm them in any way), then you can ask without expectations, judgments or blame – of yourself or another. Its a palms up way of communicating.
Are you willing to receive or are you only comfortable giving?
If you have learned how to take care of others in order to feel loved, it is often difficult to shift roles and learn how to receive. We feel more in control when we are giving. We feel less needy. We don’t have to be grateful to someone else.
I’s hard to allow someone else to give to us. We feel like we “owe” them something. We don’t know how to let it in. We are worried that we have to immediately reciprocate. We believe that getting our needs met is selfish.
If you can’t let yourself receive, you may still have some issues of deservability to work through. Go back to that step and do some more work to remove another defensive layer. As you peel back the layers on the onion of your psyche you can release more defenses and masks. You can retire some of those managers and release those exiles and come from your authentic self. And the joy of doing that work – and it is sometimes work – is that as you grow and heal and mature and blossom and become more authentic, you attract healthier and more authentic people and relationships into your life.
Are you grateful for what you do have?
No matter what are individual circumstances, there is always something or someone for which to be grateful. The more we can learn how to acknowledge the small miracles, the larger ones we will manifest.
Even your problems can be viewed as opportunities for growth and change. Be grateful for all that is part of your life, because that is part of the larger plan for your spiritual growth.
In any given moment on every day, stop and acknowledge your many gifts and blessings.
See how much of what you want and need you already have. Know how much you deserve them.
And whether you remember verbally requesting them or not, on some energetic level you did ask for them. That’s why they are there.
Know that you have the ability and power to manifest your heart’s desire, your innermost truth and to realize your every potential.
Remember what you want and need, know you deserve it all, learn how to ask for it, be willing to receive it, and always stay grateful.
Whether you decide to stay or go, you have to get to a place of compassion. You have to get to a place where you
can really relate to each other with respect, with kindness, with empathy,
where you really listen to what’s underneath the anger that your partner might be showing you.
You really understand the hurt and the fear and the sadness, and
you really open your heart to empathize even if you’ve done it many times before.
As you give empathy, it enriches you no matter what your partner is going to do.
Compassionate Meditation® is helpful even if it’s just you who learns this process.
I have shared this process with an individual who’s come to my office confused about what to do to help their relationship.
I’ve shared it with couples that, one wants to stay and the other one wants to go. And that happens a lot of times.
And I’ve used it in mediation for divorce as well.
The first step is to come from your BEST SELF.
The second step, create a compassionate relationship. Practice the miracle of empathy, where you start talking about what you want with “I” messages instead of talking about your judgments with “you” messages.
Being able to talk with empathy means you have to have the five steps to receive what you want and need.
And those 5 steps are
you have to know what you want and need.
You have to know you deserve it.
You have to be willing to ask for it and
ready to receive it and
stay grateful.
So know what you want. Know you deserve it. Learn how to ask. Be willing to receive and stay grateful.
And that’s a process because many times, we’re in a relationship and we’ve spent our whole relationship taking care of other people. So we’ve lost sight of what we want and need.
Go back to that first step and nd out what makes you happy, and do that. Fill up with self-love, and then you’ll be more loving.
Take those five steps and you’ll begin to think about what it is you want and share that with your partner instead of what you don’t want.
I wrote the book to help you – Compassionate Mediation® for Relationships at a Crossroad: How to Add Passion to Your Marriage or Compassion to Your Divorce.
Compassionate Mediation® is a transformational process of conflict resolution that will help you add passion to your marriage or compassion to your divorce. .
Get your FREE CHAPTER of my award-winning book, and learn how your own SELF care can help you communicate your needs with courage, confidence and clarity.
