You’re exhausted.

Your kids have just come back from your ex and you’ve struggled to get them to bed. You’ve dealt with the usual transition-day meltdowns, tears, tantrums, and the endless demands for comfort. You finally collapse onto the couch, looking forward to a moment of peace, when your phone buzzes.

It’s a text from your ex, and it’s filled with blame, accusations, and provocations.

You read the message. Your stomach clenches, it feels like someone’s pressing on your chest, and your head feels dizzy with the familiar surge of anxiety and frustration. Every word seems designed to push your buttons, to get a reaction.

And get a reaction it does. In a tired, angry, defensive haze, your best Yellow Rock and BIFF intentions crumble to dust, and before you know it, you’ve fired off a lengthy, emotional response. You’re defending yourself, explaining every detail, and letting your ex know exactly how unfair you feel their accusations are.

As soon as you hit send, you feel a pang of regret. You’ve just fed the fire. And you’ve wasted the time you were going to spend enjoying the latest episode of Bridgerton.

You’ve also given your ex the supply they crave from you.

Familiar scenario? I’ve been there (except that Bridgerton wasn’t a thing then.) It’s not a great feeling.

You feel like you’ve failed at Yellow Rock.

You ask yourself, why do I keep falling into this trap?

How can I consistently avoid this pitfall and stay calm, no matter what?

You need a vision to keep you anchored

I listen avidly to Ramit Sethi’s podcast, I Will Teach You to Be Rich. In it, he helps couples with their financial issues. On a recent episode, someone asked him how he stops himself from spending money on things just because everyone else has them.

Ramit’s answer: He has a vision. He calls it his Rich Life Vision. According to Ramit, a rich life vision puts you in control of your financial choices. It’s easier to stick to your guns when you know WHY you’re doing it.

In any aspect of life, whether it’s controlling your spending, starting a business, embarking on a career choice, or anything else, if you don’t know where you’re going, it’s almost impossible to get there. That’s what your vision does. It gets you where you want to go.

Imagine you have a vision for how you want to handle communication with your ex. This vision is your guiding star, keeping you on track no matter how turbulent things get. Here’s how you can create that vision and use it to transform your interactions:

Defining your vision

Your vision starts with identifying your core values. This can seem impossible if you're coming out of a relationship where your true self has been suppressed in service of someone else's ego. But remember, this is your moment to reclaim your identity and find your footing again.

Identifying your core values isn't just about picking traits off a list. It’s about rediscovering who you are at your core.

Here are some ways you can dig deep to discover your core values and create your vision:

🌟 Start by looking back at the moments you felt most alive or enraged in your past relationship.

What triggered these feelings? Your most passionate emotions—positive and negative—can tell you what you truly value.

📓 Grab a journal and answer this question: What matters most to me that I was deprived of?

Was it respect, trust, freedom, or maybe even stability? Writing helps you process thoughts that you're struggling to articulate. If you don't know what to write, you can set a timer for 10 minutes, focus on a past moment that brings up strong emotions and then just write whatever comes.

👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏻 Consider the people who inspire you.

What qualities do you admire in them? Is it their courage, their creativity, their assertiveness, their dedication to helping others? Whatever it is, it reflects the values that matter to you.

🌈 Visualize your ideal future.

Imagine a life where you're completely happy and fulfilled. What does that look like? Who are you with? What are you doing? Where are you living? Where do you go on vacation? How often? Write it out in granular detail.

This visualization isn’t just a daydream; it’s a roadmap to your deeper self. Based on your reflections, you can draft a statement of your fundamental values. This statement isn't set in stone—it's a living thing that can change as you go along.

But it serves as a North Star, guiding your decisions and interactions and keeping them in line with who you really are.

Now, let’s bring this vision to life with a practical example

Imagine your vision is to maintain a peaceful and stable home environment for your children. This vision is rooted in your core values of tranquility, emotional safety, and respect. You’ve written it down, and you revisit it often to remind yourself of what you’re working towards.

Here’s how your vision can help in a real-life situation

You’ve just put your kids to bed after a long, stressful day. Your phone buzzes with yet another message from your ex, filled with blame and accusations. Your heart starts racing, and you feel that familiar surge of anxiety and frustration.

Before you react, you take a moment to breathe deeply. You remind yourself of your vision: to maintain a peaceful and stable home environment for your children. This vision helps you see the bigger picture and keeps you anchored.

Instead of firing off an emotional response, you apply the BIFF method: Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm. Your reply is calm and focused on logistics:

"I understand your concerns. Let’s focus on the pickup time for this weekend. I will be there at 3 PM as agreed."

After sending your message, you put your phone away. You don’t wait for a reply or get sucked into a back-and-forth. You’ve handled the situation in a way that aligns with your vision, and you move on with your evening, enjoying the peace you’ve created.

Later, you reflect on the interaction. Did you stay true to your vision? How did it feel to respond calmly and stay focused on your values? This reflection helps reinforce your vision and makes it easier to stick to in the future.

Having a vision is your superpower

It keeps you focused, helps you set boundaries, and prevents you from getting sucked into unnecessary drama. Just like Ramit Sethi’s Rich Life Vision keeps him on track with his financial goals, your vision will keep you focused on what truly matters: peace, stability, and control.

Remember, your vision puts you in the driver’s seat. Stay focused on it, and let it guide you around the potholes of post-separation communication. You’ve got this. Stay strong, stay focused, and take control. You’re unstoppable.

Want to know how I can help you?

Resources

If you struggle with your feelings and reactions to people who provoke you, this fun and enlightening book helps you not just identify what’s going on inside you but also gives you tools for swerving the automatic reactions that put you in a place you don’t want to be.

So, what’s your vision?

Feel free to send it to me when you’ve created it because I’d love to read about it and vicariously revel in it.

If you need help crafting a vision, I’ve got a video that will take you through the process. Reply to this email asking for it and I’ll send you the link.

P.S.

Of course, it’s not the only time you can be triggered by your ex’s messages, but the scenario I described above can be easily avoided by turning off notifications on your phone or—even better—having a judge order that all communication be done via a co-parenting app that you check when you’re in a good place. Also, as some people will rightly point out, you don’t need to read and respond to texts from your ex right after the kids come back because there’s no emergency.

P.P.S.

Having constant reminders of your vision is a great way to keep it at the front of your mind. Whether it’s a symbol tattooed on your wrist, beautiful pictures on your walls, a mantra you say every time you brush your teeth, all of the above, and more, this will help you stay connected to your vision.