In this episode, Andrew talks with Barbara about her e-book, Erased By a Narcissist, and what her seven-year high-conflict divorce taught her.
Note: This podcast was originally hosted on Barbara La Pointe’s website, which has since gone offline. I’ve reposted the episodes here so people still have access to the materials.
Transcript
Andrew Folkler: To another episode of Broken Families, where we host conversations on divorce, parental alienation, and high-conflict relationships. My name is Andrew Folkler.
Barbara La Pointe: And I’m Barbara La Pointe.
Andrew Folkler: All right. Today, we’re going to talk about, Barbara, your e-book, Erased By a Narcissist. And so could you tell us a little bit more about what the e-book is, and who is it for?
Barbara La Pointe: The e-book, absolutely, I’d love to. The e-book, Erased By a Narcissist, is one woman’s story, my story, of a high-conflict divorce with, obviously, a narcissist. And it’s for women who are about to enter on a journey similar to mine. It’s a book that was set with the intention of sort of informing women about, to get divorced, what they might encounter, what they might be getting themselves into when they go down the rabbit hole of divorcing a narcissist, which is a very specific type of divorce.
Andrew Folkler: And I guess, for those who don’t know about your story, I mean, how long was your divorce and...
Barbara La Pointe: Well, it was a lot longer than what I had wanted. And it was very quickly labeled a high-conflict divorce, and at the time, I didn’t even know what a high-conflict divorce was.
Barbara La Pointe: I didn’t really even understand the term, to be honest. But to answer your question, Andrew, it was well over five years. The total process took seven years, but the active litigation was five years. So that’s every day of my life for five years. And so in my life, that’s one thing. But imagine in the life of a child, where everything’s sort of more exponential in terms of time.
Barbara La Pointe: So if you have a seven-year-old, that’s well more than 75% of their life, five years, and my daughter had just turned seven when I filed for divorce.
Andrew Folkler: Sounds like it was immensely and emotionally taxing, that it was just draining that you would have to go through this for that long.
Barbara La Pointe: It’s common to have divorces that long.
Barbara La Pointe: But I don’t know if very many women understand that it can be years. Divorces can take years. I think I was fairly naive, and maybe other women wouldn’t be as naive as I was, but I thought we could wrap it up in a year. Something more like a year or months, not years. And also what was special, I think, about mine, is that we were often in litigation during those five years, so it was a very active legal file.
Barbara La Pointe: And I’ve gone through many, many things in my life, but this was definitely the hardest walk I’ve ever had to endure.
Andrew Folkler: Yeah, absolutely. And with that long litigation process, I imagine that would just keep raising the lawyer bill up and up and up.
Barbara La Pointe: Yes. Well, of course, the longer one is in conflict, the higher your legal bills are.
Barbara La Pointe: And if you fall into active conflict or active legal matters, like affidavits, that’s where your fees really rise. So that’s a reason why I wanted to write the book because the entire situation was devastating to me and shocking and crippling, and it was also, of course, this rippled down to my three children. So to be under such duress for such a long period of time on so many frontiers, so you meant emotional, spiritual, and then financial, and then parenting is kind of a a high-conflict file is kind of like a war, and a divorce with a narcissist is also like a war. And so a lot of warfare tactics were used against me, and it was very debilitating. And so I really felt that I did have to share my story with others so that they maybe could sort of avoid some of the mistakes I made and have better strategies to manage emotions in a war, I guess.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. What kind of tactics were used against you, then?
Barbara La Pointe: That’s a good question. There was a lot of false allegations made. And false allegations are really hard and costly to defend yourself against. So there was kind of a race to see if I could go broke basically, ‘cause my legal fees were so high.
Barbara La Pointe: And I think sometimes women start divorce and they don’t realize that they need funding to get through those professional fees until the very end. And as soon as you can’t provide funding, everything stops. And that was really hard for me because my expenses were high every day for five years.
Barbara La Pointe: So some of those tactics were keeping the pressure on so that my legal bills were really high. So a warfare tactic that happened often was keeping the pressure high on all fronts. So high on the emotional front, keeping the legal bills super high. So I had so many battles I had to fight in one day.
Andrew Folkler: Sounds like he was trying to always keep you destabilized constantly.
Barbara La Pointe: Absolutely. And it was deeply destabilizing. I mentioned false allegations, and those were deeply destabilizing and deeply wounding, and then deeply costly at the same time. So if you haven’t gone through a situation where you’ve ever had false allegations made against you, you might not know how to manage it, and I didn’t, and my emotions ran really high at the time.
Barbara La Pointe: Very high. I was super emotional. It was very, very challenging for me to manage those emotions. And the false allegations never stopped. So it took me five years to get a travel order to travel with my children. And simple vacations, to Montana for skiing. We’re not talking about taking them to Lebanon or to a high-conflict place.
Barbara La Pointe: To Disneyland. I could never get a travel order, and so that’s a simple thing that mothers might think that they could get. Because my file was so high-conflict, I couldn’t get a travel order, and I was actually accused of belonging to a cult. And so this was deeply triggering for me.
Barbara La Pointe: I was so hurt, and that hurt was so deep that it made it really hard to bring forward the skills that you need to get divorced. Skills like strategy, skills like managing your finances, skills like organization, personal skills like resiliency. The calmer you can feel, the more resilient and resourceful you can become, because getting divorced takes a lot of skill and strategy, to achieve the outcomes that you want for you and your children.
Barbara La Pointe: It’s not a passive process but a very proactive process that was why I wrote this little book.
Andrew Folkler: I imagine that with those series of allegations, it just turns into this huge smear campaign against your reputation and your name, not only with friends and family, but maybe at work as well?
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah, I had always been a homemaker, so thankfully I didn’t have to put up with that, any issues in a traditional workplace. But I definitely encountered that in the environment of my children’s school. And that was difficult, and I encountered that, a lot of gaslighting is a term that we use with narcissists, with friends and family.
Barbara La Pointe: I lost most of my friends, severed ties with my entire family, and it was people felt that they needed to take sides. I don’t know if I was prepared for that, but when it happened, I was deeply hurt when it happened. And so I had to over the years process that hurt. The other emotion that came out for me in divorce was this incredible crippling fear.
Barbara La Pointe: I was just so fearful, constantly being under attack, legal attack, private attack, and so I had to learn how to manage that fear and process that fear. And so that was another part of it for me.
Andrew Folkler: It sounds like then, being the mother at home, you would’ve probably dealt with other hurtful tactics, things like being called unemployable, for example?
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah. Well, I think this is a common strategy or tactic that high-conflict personalities or narcissists will make, where they will sort of project out, try to make it look like you’re irresponsible or unstable, or you don’t wanna work, lazy. So again, this is a lot of false allegations and gaslighting.
Barbara La Pointe: But again, if you’re not managing that, the gaslighting in a way that you can process it and release it, you can take it personally. And start to question your own sanity. Like, am I lazy or am I unstable? And of course, all of the legal combativeness is very taxing, tiring, and aggressive.
Barbara La Pointe: So it in itself is kind of ironic because it does destabilize you or it weakens you.
Barbara La Pointe: So there’s a point where you have to turn the tables on the narcissist and somehow take your power back.
Barbara La Pointe: And hopefully that doesn’t take a woman years. I mean, you want to process the situation and get on to happy life.
Barbara La Pointe: But for me, it’s taken years to do that, and I don’t think from the case studies I’ve looked at and the women I’ve interviewed that it’s uncommon.
Andrew Folkler: Yeah, definitely. I guess, so what other tactics do they use that would, in a way gaslight women and in a sense not only destabilize them but ensure that the narcissist still has control over them even though there’s a separation going on?
Barbara La Pointe: Right. And good point that the narcissist always wants the control and power. So another common tactic that we see narcissists using is she’s a bad mother or she’s not a capable mom, or she’s not a good parent. And so this is a really powerful one because it sort of hits a woman in her core, like her core identity of who she is as a mother.
Barbara La Pointe: And that one carries a lot of weight as well, when you say someone is not a capable or good parent. Of course, it’s common to get a lot of name-calling in court, but this was sort of deeper than that, and so there was allegations that I couldn’t probably properly care for my kids.
Barbara La Pointe: And so again, it was painful because that’s all I had really done throughout my adult life. So she’s a terrible mother is a tactic in the book, and it’s a pretty common one used against women.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely, and like you said, it just hits them at the core, especially for women like you, for example, who were there to build and grow the nest and make sure that the kids were taken care of.
Andrew Folkler: You were probably doing all sorts of things that were thankless jobs. You’re out there making sure that they go through to their appointments and that they make it to school on time, they get their homework done, and that they’re growing up with the values that are important to be an adult.
Andrew Folkler: And then to come back and have someone tell you that not only was that not good enough, but then they’re saying that you did a poor job, it sounds horrible. It sounds like once those seeds of doubt creep into your mind, it just festers and grows and...
Barbara La Pointe: And it’s important, I think, to underscore that it’s not just one time.
Barbara La Pointe: So once it’s written down in affidavits, it’s evergreen. It’s used over and over and over again. So you’re seeing those type of allegations over and over again for one, two, three, four, five years. The first three years were the hardest for me. But seeing those allegations over and over and over again, it’s just really challenging.
Barbara La Pointe: And if you’re attached to those insults, if you’re attached to those lies, if you’re taking things personally, if you’re not managing the emotions that arise in that, that’s where things can go off the rails, I think. And so just back to this you’re a bad mom, this is kind of a special trait to the narcissistic personality, and it’s part of the bundle of narcissistic abuse, and it’s just something that’s special that they do, and it’s like a light switches.
Barbara La Pointe: And it has a name, but it’s kind of like the Madonna-whore complex. So it’s like when you’re married, you’re a good mom and you’re a good woman, but the minute you ask a narcissist for a divorce, you switch over and you become the enemy, and part of becoming that enemy is that you’re no longer a good woman and you’re no longer a good mother.
Barbara La Pointe: So that is that all or none thinking that happens with narcissists and divorce. So for me, and it was very confusing ‘cause I’m like, “What?” So now I’m not a good person, a good mother, and so I guess what I’m saying is it can leave the receiver of it in a lot of cognitive dissonance, ‘cause she doesn’t know, I didn’t know what was going on, and it just deepens and deepens and deepens through the system, over divorce.
Andrew Folkler: It sounds like then anything else you were told that was positive by the narcissist, you start to doubt whether any of those things were true too, right? I mean, if one moment they’re calling you a good mother, then when the separation starts they start calling you a bad mother, then, I don’t know, were any of those other good moments good moments?
Andrew Folkler: It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah, absolutely. You sort of start questioning everything, and you have a new lens that you’re looking at. So for me, I really felt like, “Who is this person? I never knew this person.” It’s like you’re in shock. You’re in traumatic shock for a long time.
Barbara La Pointe: I’ll just list off quickly some of the allegations that started off in year one and I had to live with those for five years, and even if you disprove them, they’re still usable material, and they’re still always there, and you know that one day your children might read these documents. So oftentimes men or anyone might be tempted to say things to gain custody of a child even if it’s not true.
Barbara La Pointe: But they know if these things are said, it’s going to secure custody, and unfortunately the system allows for that. So things like drinking and driving with your children, taking drugs, being part of a cult, calling the police on your wife. I had the police called on me six times in the course of our first couple of years.
Barbara La Pointe: So that’s also like a fear tactic, an attack tactic.
Andrew Folkler: And those are some really emotional things that can be thrown at you, and no normal person would ever really do that. I mean, Bill Eddy says was it one of those core behaviors of a high-conflict person is extreme behaviors that 90% of the people out there wouldn’t do.
Barbara La Pointe: And they make you feel it. They make you feel emotional ‘cause you’re constantly looking for the next attack, and then you’re reading these things, these awful things about you over and over and over again. And then you’re defending yourself to your lawyer, and you’re defending yourself to the other party and their lawyer.
Barbara La Pointe: And oftentimes that other party, if they’re narcissistic, they will attract or partner with a narcissistic lawyer, and that sort of really is adding insult to injury. And that happened in my case. So I felt like I was under attack constantly, and I was.
Barbara La Pointe: So I think that you could never imagine sort of the perfect storm that could happen when you stayed, especially if you’re the one breaking up with a narcissist.
Barbara La Pointe: Might be easier if they were leaving you. It’s just having the foresight to see down the road, through the journey that things cannot be changed easily in the system. And just how much money it actually can cost if you’re engaged into a high-conflict legal battle.
Andrew Folkler: Speaking of money, I imagine being a stay-at-home mom, there might have been some attack on your financial skills or anything like that, saying things like you were terrible at money?
Barbara La Pointe: Exactly, and so that one was very common, too. And so that, again, are sort of deeply wounding to one’s core or identity of being responsible with money.
Barbara La Pointe: And so since in my particular situation, my spouse was the breadwinner, it was easy to sort of do that, to launch those kind of attacks on me.
Barbara La Pointe: And it’s easy to launch attacks, launch allegations. Not so easy to defend yourself, ‘cause you’re the one running around proving this and pulling paperwork.
Barbara La Pointe: Right? It’s easy to attack. It’s just kind of like it’s easy, if you’re a bully, to be a bully, and narcissists are bullies. But...
Andrew Folkler: Definitely. Well, it sounds like what they’re doing is they’re creating these little fires, and you’re running around trying to put out the fire here and there and everywhere.
Andrew Folkler: And by the time it comes down to actually getting some work done for your case or for your lawyer or anything like that, you’re just exhausted from putting out all these fires.
Barbara La Pointe: Yes, so it was so exhausting on every front, financially exhausting, physically exhausting, mentally exhausting.
Barbara La Pointe: And what I found was, looking back, I sort of fell into a limbic resonance with the affidavits, and so I would repeat these in my head. Instead of letting them go, they kind of stuck in my physical body. So I would just have these negative thoughts that never left me, and I had to do a lot of somatic work to just stop that cycle and then prepare for the next round, so to speak.
Barbara La Pointe: So if you’re a CEO or if you’re a business person, you might already have the skills to go into the boardroom battle, and you might have the strategic thinking to do that. But if you’ve been working in a position like a teacher or a stay-at-home mom, or maybe you didn’t work at all, you might actually find that you’re lacking a lot of skills to come to the table and have equality in the conversation.
Barbara La Pointe: And I found, unfortunately, in my situation, a lot of prejudice or looking down at the role of mother. And so I just didn’t find that the conversation was equal going up against sort of a more CEO of a husband, and the lawyers are CEOs. You know, they’re all power players. And so the divorce game for me was brutal for a long time.
Andrew Folkler: I guess, what other mistakes did you make during your divorce process that if you could go back you would tell your younger self, “Hey, don’t make these mistakes”?
Barbara La Pointe: Well, now that I’m working full time coaching women in divorce, I always encourage women to get support, the support that works well for them.
Barbara La Pointe: And I probably could have reached out for a lot more support. Also too, we can choose to put our legal bills front and center, but we should be allocating a portion of our finances for that support too. So I think most times I spent most of my money on legal bills is what I’m saying. And so to me, looking back and then also looking ahead for other women, is just to remember to put yourself first and foremost, not last, I think is really important.
Barbara La Pointe: So it’s easy to talk about self-care and getting help, but how does self-care show up when you’ve made a really bad mistake? Or how does self-care show up when you’re under intense legal pressures or...
Andrew Folkler: And I imagine when you’re exhausted from putting out these fires, the self-care feels like you almost feel bad about taking a moment for yourself because there’s so much that needs to be done, or there’s even more fires to put out, you know?
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah, absolutely. So it’s a great opportunity to strengthen your commitment to self-care. And at the beginning for me, that might look like rest or a massage or something special that I got for myself after I made it through a five-day trial or whatever. But to just really prioritize yourself first, even over your children’s needs, because it’s like, goes back to the airplane mask analogy, where if you’re not in good shape, then you can’t care for your children.
Barbara La Pointe: So you really do have to put yourself first and foremost. And most of the divorce game, for women divorcing narcissists, is about getting your power back, and that can be really hard to do, even with your own lawyer. So you should feel powerful and supported by your lawyer as well, I would say.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. Yeah, so what steps would a woman who is going through what you’re going through, how would they get their power back?
Barbara La Pointe: Such a good question. Ultimately, you have to be able to stand and speak in your own personal truth, and you have to sort of shift through all of the stuff to just come to trust your own truth, no matter what’s being said about you, no matter what’s happened, no matter if you’ve made mistakes on your file, no matter if you’re scared to talk to your lawyer.
Barbara La Pointe: And I had lots of moments where I would see my lawyer call, and I would honest go right into anxiety. It was that anxiety-ridden for me at times over the last seven years. So practice speaking your own personal truth, even when it’s not welcome. Practice rejecting peer pressure. And just to give an example of that is, you have to, as a mom, and this is just my view, do what your gut is telling you, and do what you think is best for your children, and parent in a way that’s authentic and true to you.
Barbara La Pointe: So there’s no Band-Aid cure. There’s no one prescription that’s gonna be the perfect solution for you. So that’s the path that you as a mom have to carve out, which takes and calls forward a lot of personal strength. Courage is key, and then personal empowerment to speak your truth to powerful people, to powerful systems.
Barbara La Pointe: Speak your truth to your children, and that starts with speaking your truth to yourself. So it’s a lot of processing really.
Andrew Folkler: I imagine boundaries as well. Setting up those boundaries and not giving in to other people’s opinions or the gaslighting that’s being thrown at you.
Barbara La Pointe: So boundaries, that’s another really good one.
Barbara La Pointe: And boundaries is key. And so I ask clients now to imagine, just imagine waking up one day and having an entirely new boundary. It’s almost like growing a new body part. And so yes, women might have to create new boundaries through this process, and I did. And you might have to strengthen boundaries that are a bit wobbly as well.
Andrew Folkler: Yes. If you could go back to your younger self before you entered that journey of divorce, what else would you say? I mean, so speak your own personal truth. Set up your boundaries. Was there anything else that you would say to that younger version of yourself?
Barbara La Pointe: I think looking back, if I had to describe myself, I probably would’ve always described myself as a spiritual or faith-based person.
Barbara La Pointe: And what I came to see was when all that fear showed up for me in the divorce process, first of all, the fear of being single or being without my husband and fear of new family unit, and then the fear of being in this war, I had to call on trust and faith that things would work out. And then I realized that my faith was maybe not necessarily faith in God, but just surrendering and letting go.
Barbara La Pointe: That was really hard for me to do. I wanted to control everything, and when you go into divorce, so little is in your control. So it’s a process of learning what you can control, what’s within your control, and what’s not, and everything else, you surrender. That took me about five years to learn to surrender.
Barbara La Pointe: So as you surrender, you expand, and as you expand in your empowerment, you come to surrender. So those are another probably few golden nuggets that came up for me. And it was actually the alcoholic’s prayer, and I don’t remember what it is, but I know you’ll know, Andrew, ‘cause you know everything is that? The serenity prayer.
Andrew Folkler: No. What oh, serenity prayer. Gotcha.
Andrew Folkler: God give me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, God give me the strength to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Might have botched that a little bit, but...
Barbara La Pointe: Close enough.
Barbara La Pointe: And most people know that prayer, and it’s such a great sort of prayer to bring with you into family court. The wisdom to know the difference, really learn how to control what’s in your control, and surrender the rest. Family court’s just a beautiful place to do that. The other exercise that I did with myself, when I felt like I was out of control, which women feel when they’re in these situations, was I just made a chart, and I just went, “This is what’s mine, my part, and this is what’s theirs.”
Barbara La Pointe: And to me their or his, whatever the pronoun is. This is mine, and this is theirs, and it helped me to sort of separate that out and gain clarity. So when we gain clarity, it just brings so much more peace.
Andrew Folkler: So one common mistake, I know you and I have talked about this a lot in previous episodes, is that a person will only look at the good in a toxic partner, and they will try and reason their way through it, or try and even emotionally work through it to try and keep the relationship together for all these reasons that we know are not true.
Andrew Folkler: They’ll say they’re gonna try and keep it together for the kids, try and keep it together for the good times. We’re fighters. We love each other, but we just have our moments. Whatever the reason is. But they’re further digging themselves into a hole with this toxic person.
Andrew Folkler: How did you come to realize that you were kind of in that situation, and what would you say to people who are trying to make those justifications?
Barbara La Pointe: I think when you’re in a situation like that of abuse, intimate partner violence, narcissistic abuse, sometimes you take it all on, and you wanna try and change.
Barbara La Pointe: You’re holding onto that one little good part of that person that you love, or that you loved, and you’re trying to change that person. And so you stay in the vortex of abuse. But if you can just realize that you cannot change that person, it gives you so much more freedom to let go. And I think that was a big pitfall for me too, is that I wanted to say that this is wrong and this is right.
Barbara La Pointe: And this should be this way, so... But really, it’s amazing how little you can change. The only thing you can really change is in here, in yourself. And so that’s another reason I guess I wrote the book was you’re going into a big, vast wilderness when you enter into family law.
Barbara La Pointe: There’s lions, and there’s bears, and there’s tigers, and you’re scared, and there’s not a lot you can change. You can’t really change the system. You can’t really change lawyers. You cannot change your narcissistic partner. You can just change how you respond. Sounds so simple. So if we can let go of what’s right and what’s wrong, and just stop making those labels, it goes so much more smoother.
Barbara La Pointe: The other thing I learned at the very, very end was what you give power to has power over you. And so I kept giving my power away. And when you become conscious of that, you can begin to sort of take your power back.
Andrew Folkler: Those are two very powerful insights. Especially that last one, what you give power to has power over you.
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah. And honestly, I see this as a theme. I was actually with a client this morning, and I said, “What was one thing that could just work out and just change for the better? One thing that could really empower you.” And she said, “You know, if I could get my power back.”
Andrew Folkler: And I imagine that first step to getting your power back is that awareness, and I really think your book will help promote that awareness and therefore help that woman who’s going through this high-conflict divorce, and they’ll be able to then walk through that roadmap that you’ve presented to reclaiming their power.
Barbara La Pointe: Absolutely. Even if you just come to know the tactics that I outline in the e-book Erased By A Narcissist, then you can recognize them when they’re happening in real life, and you can just step back and observe instead of being inside the drama of it all.
Andrew Folkler: And to kinda highlight something that Carrie Gour said in our last episode, where she said that it’s very common to see high-conflict people following the same strategies, the same tactics.
Andrew Folkler: And like you were saying, once you know the tactics, once you know the playbook, you’re able to then recognize that it’s not entirely personal. That it feels personal because it’s what they’re saying to you, and it feels personal because they’re attacking your weaknesses and your inner self.
Andrew Folkler: But if it weren’t you, it would have been someone else, and their secrets and their weaknesses. And so their behaviors are, in a way, kind of textbook. It’s just something that once we know about it, once we know how to work with it, we can apply like the BISS strategy, for example. We can apply other strategies that you’ve mentioned in your book to work through these conflicts, and like you said, take back your own power.
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah. Absolutely, and then you can go into offensive mode. Be a little bit more offensive rather than always running in defense mode. You can become a little more strategic. You can become a little more empowered. You can make better choices in the process. It’s not an environment that, excuse me, allows for a lot of mistakes to happen.
Barbara La Pointe: So I don’t think there’s a large margin where you can make mistakes and recover easily. You have to really take one right step at a time. So the more calm, resourced, and grounded you are, the better able you are to do that. And it’s not personal. Such a good example that you just said, and we also use that example in Inherited Family Trauma.
Barbara La Pointe: That actually... a parent would still parent any child probably in a similar way, not just necessarily because it was you.
Andrew Folkler: Yeah, absolutely. Well, so here’s a big question for you, and I think it ties in with the e-book a lot, is what can women do to lead a better and more fulfilled life, whether either during this process or even after when it’s over?
Barbara La Pointe: Oh, I guess every woman has to carve that out for themselves. But for me, the path is about being authentic, living in your own personal truth, and staying grounded in your own power. So to me, those are the three magical keys that start opening doors to enjoying life, personal fulfillment, actualization of dreams. So that’s what I’d say to all women to do.
Barbara La Pointe: I think women traditionally have been trained to let our power go, and we’re such powerful creatures, women.
Barbara La Pointe: We might as well use our power instead of relinquishing it to others.
Andrew Folkler: I think you are right in the sense that there is a strong cultural dynamic that encourages women to give up their power.
Andrew Folkler: And as we progress more and more into a more equal society, at least hopefully, as we progress into a more equal society, we’ll really be able to see each other as either partners and equals rather than through a hierarchal system.
Barbara La Pointe: I agree. The key for me is empowerment, and that is really what the focus of the book is, the intention, and that’s the focus of my practice.
Barbara La Pointe: And I see that that is a area of need with women leaving abusive relationships, too.
Barbara La Pointe: Empowerment how can we step into empowerment?
Andrew Folkler: I imagine absolutely. I imagine, say, a woman leaving an abusive relationship, there’s so much healing that needs to be done. Where should they turn to find that healing?
Barbara La Pointe: I think to allow yourself the time, the time that it takes because it is a journey. But you have to turn inwards. You have to turn inside for it and then supplement that with the resources that are right for you. And also, it’s a great opportunity to develop your intuitive voice because your higher knowing and your intuitive voice can guide you through this wilderness forest of divorce.
Barbara La Pointe: So if we’re cut off from that, we’re cut off from a lot of our personal power. I truly believe that was my greatest ally. I don’t think I would have made it through with my children and my finances and my home and reached some of my goals, I didn’t attain them all in divorce, if I wouldn’t have followed my intuition. And a lot of times I followed my intuition, and others around me didn’t appreciate my choices, even my own lawyer.
Barbara La Pointe: But I followed my gut, and that didn’t lead me astray.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. One thing that’s coming to mind for me, at least in respect to what you’re saying, is you have to treat it like a metamorphosis process. You’re entering in the fray, and you’re going through all these struggles, and you have to do what you think is right.
Andrew Folkler: And it’s gonna be very much like the cocoon around a caterpillar. When a caterpillar goes into a cocoon, its whole body gets dissolved into goo. It just doesn’t just turn into a butterfly instantly. And so there’s that process of slowly, slowly changing until finally you break out of that cocoon, and you’ve taken your power, and you’re able to take flight as a reborn person.
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah, it’s a beautiful metaphor.
Barbara La Pointe: And you’ve kind of got to do your stuff, and you’ve got to move through it before you can get to the next part of your journey or your next chapter where you take flight as a butterfly. So you have to put in the personal work, the spiritual work, all of the work to get through the storm before you can blossom again to whatever that looks like for you.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. So you’ve mentioned doing somatic therapy, for example. There’s also journaling. We’ve talked about meditation in the past. And there’s therapy and counseling for those who wish to seek it or coaching as well.
Barbara La Pointe: There’s solution-focused coaching where you start to look forward, and it really opens up possibilities for you, like what’s possible, and it opens you to that miracle that you want to receive or to spots where you’re blindsided.
Barbara La Pointe: So solution-focused coaching is more forward-orientated. And there’s also just beginning to implement a gratitude practice in your life at a time where you might not feel very authentically grateful. And there were times like that for me when I would open up a $10,000 legal bill and have no food, and I didn’t feel very grateful.
Barbara La Pointe: But even in those very dark times, if you can just start slowly, three things that I feel grateful for today. And then lastly, I would suggest mindfulness. So because we’re so worried about outcomes in divorce, what’s gonna happen? If we can just stay mindful to the present moment, it can deliver us so much more.
Barbara La Pointe: So a mindfulness practice, even a little one.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. I imagine the mindfulness practice will help people just in general stay mentally present during these conflicts, during these moments where their narcissistic ex is trying to start and instigate these different problems or starting these fires that they have to put out.
Andrew Folkler: And you’ll feel more in control with that mindfulness than without it.
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah. It’s really interesting that we’re back to this word control again because when you have a mediator or arbitrator that you don’t like or they don’t like you, you have a legal bill come in that you don’t want or you can’t afford, or someone said something negative and damaging about you, or you’re in a boardroom working out an agreement that it’s not going well, all you can do is just turn inward, become mindful of that moment that’s showing up for you.
Barbara La Pointe: So it helps you to surrender by calling in that energy of mindfulness. And then we start building a different energy dynamic of gratitude, peace, and things start getting better. We start looking more at what we’re creating, and creating better things with each positive thought.
Barbara La Pointe: It’s hard to grasp onto a positive thought at times when you’re not mindful.
Andrew Folkler: But the practice itself will help them ensure that they are able to at least help emotionally regulate throughout these challenges.
Barbara La Pointe: Yeah, it’s deeply emotionally regulating because you slow down. And a lot of this conflict and trauma and conflict, it’s got you on fight or flight mode, and you’re so sped up.
Barbara La Pointe: So when we become mindful, we can actually slow down to make better choices for ourself.
Barbara La Pointe: We really, honestly, we slow down to go fast.
Andrew Folkler: Tortoise and the hare and the hare after all. Slow and steady, you’ll get through it.
Barbara La Pointe: One right step at a time.
Andrew Folkler: Absolutely. So Barbara, if people wanted to get your e-book, where would they go to get that?
Barbara La Pointe: You know what? At a certain point I said, “Why am I writing this e-book?” And the e-book was written to give tremendous value to women. So it’s entirely a free download, a PDF download on my website, barbaralapointe.com, and you can download it for your phone, you can download it for your computer, and it’s completely free.
Barbara La Pointe: So it’s hopefully a valuable gift to others. It definitely is. And I’d love to hear from people what their experience is with it.
Andrew Folkler: It definitely is, and I’ve read it a couple times and it’s a very powerful message, especially when you go into depth on the six tactics that the narcissist uses against you, especially in litigation.
Andrew Folkler: And there’s so many other little insights in it that are just kind of trickled in that can really help you find that emotional clarity and that emotional stability so you know that you’re not alone in this journey.
Barbara La Pointe: So good. You’re not really meant to go alone, be alone through divorce. Thanks for reading the book, Andrew.
Andrew Folkler: Oh, absolutely. No, it’s a beautiful story, and I think that, at least from my understanding, as human beings, we learn best through stories. And through stories we’re able to drop in these little pearls of wisdom into the narrative, and then what that allows us as human beings to do is kind of experience someone else’s story through empathy.
Andrew Folkler: And by doing that we’re learning the wisdom of somebody else without having to go through that harsh trial and tribulation. Rather than we’re sharing those experiences and not only do we feel more connected as people, not only do we feel like we understand each other better, but as a person going through this chaotic thing that we call life we’re better able to navigate our own experiences because we can look back at the experiences of others and say, one, “If they got through it, I can get through it.”
Andrew Folkler: Two, “If they got through it this way, I can replicate that and go through it that way.” And three, “If they have not gone through what I’ve gone through but it’s something similar, I can find my own way to forge forward.” And that really is the power of stories. I mean, as human beings, we’ve been telling stories for hundreds of thousands of years.
Andrew Folkler: Probably since our inception, we were painting on rocks, we have been carving in rocks, we’ve been writing on parchment, all the way up to the present. Now we have movies and all sorts of things. This is a story in its own right. This entire episode is an episode about one woman’s story, as you mentioned.
Andrew Folkler: And that is what really helps us grow as people, grow closer together, and grow more in tune with the world around us.
Barbara La Pointe: There’s a really neat woman in my circle, and she says, “Stand on your story, not in it.” And so by sharing and telling our story, we can witness, and it is very empowering. And I agree.
Barbara La Pointe: It’s important to tell our stories.
Andrew Folkler: Right on. I guess, do you have any closing statements, Barbara? Any last pearls of wisdom? I’m asking you the same question that we ask our guests. Any last pearls of wisdom?
Barbara La Pointe: I guess divorce, pearls of wisdom. Divorce is a journey, it’s not the destination.
Barbara La Pointe: So all the other pearls of wisdom are in that little precious e-book.
Andrew Folkler: All right, well, you definitely have to go onto Barbara’s website and download it. We will include that down below and in the downloadable document. And all right, and that is all we have time for today. Once again, everyone, thank you for taking the time to be with us.
Andrew Folkler: And if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our channel, either on YouTube or through our podcast, the various podcast streaming services. Don’t forget to use the downloadable document below to help summarize everything, and you can share that with your loved ones and help them deal with these challenging traumas, high-conflict people, and really high-conflict divorces.
Andrew Folkler: We also will include a link below for Barbara’s e-book, Erased By a Narcissist. Be sure to download that. Give it a read. It’s an incredibly empowering story. Barbara, if listeners wanted to reach out to you, what would be the best way to do so?
Barbara La Pointe: Barbara@barbaralapointe.com.
Barbara La Pointe: Or check out my website, barbaralapointe.com.
Andrew Folkler: Sounds good. And if you’d like to reach out to me, feel free to email me at startnow@andrewfolkler.com. As always, thank you for taking the time to be with us today at the Broken Families podcast, where we discuss and help you find solutions to divorce, parental alienation, and high-conflict relationships.
Andrew Folkler: Have a wonderful day, everyone.
Barbara La Pointe: Thanks, Andrew.