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Right View in Divorce – Part No. 2

Right View in Divorce

By Jeff J. Horn, Esq.

The Right View in Divorce is seeing your case for what it is. Suffering begins when the case looks like everything all at once. The surest path to inconsolable suffering is Viewing your case is everything or more. Renowned comedian Stephen Wight offers “you couldn’t have everything, where would you put it all.” Combine the Right View in Divorce with Right Intention and Right Concentration and begin succeeding in your divorce.

Right View in Divorce – Stuff

One of my favorite clients named Steve called me very upset. I figured we would be talking about the fact that alimony was in dispute, the Steve and his wife had (2) very valuable homes to sell. We had a business valuation going on and we had to come up with a ton of money to pay for the daughter to continue college. I was ready for all of those topics.

I was completely Wrong. Steve was called me totally agitated by the sale of a 20-year-old Jeep. His wife sold it without telling. She forged his name and sold the Jeep for $5000. He was out of his mind about this. I agreed that she should not have sold the assets or forces name. They should have discussed the issue and come to agreement first.

What was the Right View in Divorce?

When I got a word in, I asked Steve what the Jeep was worth he said “about $5000.” We were fighting over millions and the family’s future and $5000 meant nothing. To the contrary I was delighted that an old Jeep had to be sold had been turned into cash. I could now be used to pay for their daughter’s college. And, we have leverage because the wife pulled an extremely dirty trick which we could always use if we needed to run to the judge.

The Right View in divorce means that not everything that comes into your field of vision is important or timely.

The Right View in divorce – it’s impossible to see everything at once and make sense of it. Even the brightest and most capable clients have blind spots. The lawyer’s job is to enhance the clients like you on the importance and to wall off vision from things that are distracting, damaging and cause pain.

Right View in Divorce involves looking around you.

Looking up, looking down and looking all around. What do you say? The beauty of nature? The wonder of amazing buildings engineering marvels in the forms of cars and technology? Beautiful people. You may be seeing darkness people. You may not define the inherent goodness in people is popping into your I. It is there.

If you View every interaction with other people as a likely chance for a loss for more pain and suffering you will get your wish. Everything is pain and suffering if you have the Wrong View. Right View in Divorce means looking for the glorious and the beautiful. Right View means you see freedom from pain. But now, that freedom includes freedom from a bad spouse or partner. Right View means seeing freedom to achieve your big future. Contrary to the slogan, freedom is free if embraced from Right View.

Finding Beauty – Right View in Divorce

Fine a thing of inherent and indescribable beauty. It costs nothing to see it. It may be your sleeping child. Look to the old lady that lives down the block who is full of kindnesses. Nature offers so many freedoms. A beautiful flower grows year after year. She charges nothing. A mighty Sequoia tree grows tall and sturdy. It costs nothing to watch it grow. The only question is how will you View these phenomena?

The beautiful flower may be breakfast for animals one day and be consumed. Will you mourn the loss or celebrate the Views you remembered. Can you appreciate the circle of life. Everybody has to eat. Will you look at the mighty Sequoia tree as something of beauty, part of that amazing habitat or a big piece of lumber to be chopped down and crushed.? Do you have to pick? Right View in Divorce means picking well.

Right Intention in Divorce

Clients come with the Right Intention. They want to be okay. Clients want a new life that matches up with the life they thought they would enjoy. They want a successful marriage. The vast majority of clients still want that. They want their lawyer to get them the good stuff. No one consciously wants the pain yet, conduct may cause more and more pain. Right Intention and Right View in Divorce runs into conflict with that destructive conduct. Right Intention means to optimize for yourself and for the world around you. Optimizing for Right Intention and Right View in Divorce. Intention runs into emotion and external forces.

Right View in Divorce Circles back to Right Intention

Perhaps foolishly, I impute good Intentions to people until they prove me Wrong. Most people, deep down, have Right Intention in Divorce and in life.

Charlie and Tonya – Right Intention in Divorce?

Charlie thought he was the exception. He was a very unhinged successful dentist and businessman. Charlie believed that he worked harder and smarter than anyone else. He believes that he has created all of the success enjoyed by the family. Tanya had contributed nothing. He conducted himself throughout the case accordingly. He pretended to be a victim of domestic violence. Charlie manufactured a claim that Tonya mastermined an illegal dental laboratory kickback scheme.

In Charlie’s mind, he acted with Right Intention.

Everything was exaggerated. Although rich, he operated from a place of scarcity. Anything that Tonya had was taken from him unjustly. Wasted hours exorbitant legal fees, accounting fees and child custody fees drained resources. After (2) years, the case was settled. The results were fair to Charlie and Tonya. Both presented as angry. I knew, therefore the resolution was fair. The agreement would be followed by both Charlie and Tanya. As soon as the gavel dropped Charlie went to Tonya. Charlie went to hug Tanya and Tonya. Charlie, twice the size of Tonya started to weep softly repeating to Tanya “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

In the end, Charlie acted with light Intention only after fighting himself and his wife and the lawyers and the accountant and the judges. Charlie finally let his Right Intention free. They never returned to court. We worked things out from the place of Right Intention.

Right Intention among the Eight practices, is the one least susceptible to outside influences. It derives from deep inside. Right Intention is the easiest of the practices to start with.

Practices in Divorce

The practices workaround in the circle. Although we start with Right View there is no requirement to work in order. You may find that Intention is strong. The Right Intention is your guiding light. You may need to work on your other practices to put it to work. Like Charlie, you may have a voice in your head saying do Right by your spouse and children. You may have the other boys speaking from fear and scarcity. The other voice telling you the Right Intention is to protect yourself at all costs. The other voice telling you that Right Intentions get you nowhere.

You have been a good person.

You always acted with the Right Intention and yet not screwed over and over again. Enduring the hardship of a break up after challenging times in your marriage you need to cut it out and look after number one. It is quite natural to have these thoughts and to have these thoughts and supersede Right Intention.

You maintained Right Intention. The reward is carrying Right Intention in Divorce into your big future.

Right Concentration

When the whole world is out to get you, it is reasonable to be paranoid. That is the old line. We get what we Concentrate on. If you believe you are a victim. You are victims. The more you Concentrate on victimhood the longer you stay in victimhood. Your lawyer’s job is to get you to Concentrate on the Right things at the Right time. Every part of your life is exposed in divorce. Concentrating on everything all at once ruins even the strongest minded.

When I can get my client to concentrate on the really big stuff

like child custody and alimony, the lower “value”higher emotion items become less important. Once I have alimony, custody, real estate, retirement accounts and business assets under control, I can let the leash out a little bit. If there is still a lot of psychic energy needs to be expended, let it be spent on some low value items.

Right Concentration means using good energy on good things, avoiding spending bad energy but if it’s there and going to the exercise that it be on low value items.

Gerald and Jennifer were divorcing.We agree to agree on everything. We will only have the judge decide the corporate stock issues. We kept working on settling other things. The emotions flying in the court and respondent assets case led into our discussions on the easier items. Things finally broke down when Gerald demanded that if Jennifer is getting the rowboat he wanted the rowboat oars.

The lawyer’s job in Right Concentration is to refocus the client.

Spend your energy wisely whoever gets below both that’s yours. Whoever gets the dining room table get’s the night there. Love that patio table? That’s the patio chairs and umbrella.

Magic Devices

It is no secret that focus can be hard to come by. We hold magic devices in our hands. These devices may soon be embedded in our brain. The designers of these magic gadgets, some people call them phones, want your attention. They’re willing to take it all in little tiny bits of attention. This is a new phenomenon in the human experience. In just a short amount of time, humans went from hieroglyphics, to dynamic oral storytelling and history to the Gutenberg printing press to the tweets, Snapchat and tik-tok. Our brains evolve around learning through participation in small groups of humans.

History and story was blended together and passed along. You would have to sit to pay attention to the storyteller to become indoctrinated in your try. I am not in any way advocating for a return to tribal living. I want freedom for you. Tribal living offered certain freedoms but nothing compared to the freedoms available to you now. To the contrary, you have freedom to concentrate and freedom to not concentrate. Handing all of your powers to the magic gadget means you are chosen to not count. Taking time to stay away from inputs such as social media worries of Outlook paid on the boat and write the.

Wrong Concentration in Divorce

Wrong Concentration means accepting inputs that have nothing to do with you and letting those shape your emotions and decision-making. Humans have only so much bandwidth. We can only process and prioritize so much information. We can process and per our ties an enormous amount of information but not nearly as much information as available to you at the flick of a finger to the magic gadget.

Iphone : the magic gadget because it has magical powers and magic is an illusion. Magic tricks stimulate our wonder and gives us a dopamine hit. But we know it is not true. Would you really let a magician “saw” your daughter in half? Of course not and of course that’s the tantalizing effect of magic. Scrolling through voluminous posts and messages is like going to a little magic shop.

You might even be the one called up by the musician to be sought in half. That’s the equivalent of getting a few likes or comes up for comments on something that you posted. When you want and divorce and family law matter you will be especially vulnerable to distraction. Pain has a way of pushing us away. Right Concentration means walling off distraction. It does not mean there will be no pain. It does not mean you need to dwell in and surround yourself with the pain.

Right Concentration in Divorcemeans avoiding Wrong Concentration.

Concentrating on your bitterness and disappointment. That is warm Concentration. Concentrating on getting even is Wrong Concentration. Concentrating on long Speech and your own Action is Wrong Concentration. Right Concentration means doing your best under the circumstance. It does not mean striving for perfection. It does not mean beating yourself up if you get off track.

If you’re concentrating on negative feelings. Stop it. Right Concentration in concentrating on good feelings seeing beauty even as half of the beauty has been consumed by Adia.

Right Concentration means focusing on the practices that make you feel good. That helps you steer away from anger and disappointment. Right Concentration means enjoying the class to learn every day. Concentrate on a daily practice of learning by reading something thoughtful, not social media posts. Right Concentration and learning – – – listening to something beautiful and inspiring music and or audiobook or podcast interview or talk to someone who fills you with knowledge and challenges you . Learning to practice and expanding your joy and freedom is the Right Concentration.

This is post 2 of 4 on the Right Ways to Divorce. Each of the (8) Right Ways takes only (5) minutes to absorb and a lifetime to master!

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