The 5 Rs of Relationship, Recovery and Resilience
In addition to my day job running a family law practice, practicing law and managing my own family, I am exploring the launch of a new series to promote personal and relationship growth and healing for those involved in divorce and family law issues as well as others struggling with these issues. This series will incorporate a mix of healing modalities (meditation, mindfulness, compassion, nature, and yoga to name a few). I will be using my 23 years of practice and expertise in divorce and family law to offer my personal and professional insights to these issues and will be bringing in experts and friends to talk with me on these topics. A glimpse of that new series is available now on my YouTube channel, where I am honored to introduce my dear friend Vanessa Kelly, a meditation teacher and certified yoga instructor.
The framework for personal and relationship growth and healing in this new series is something that I have contemplated frequently in my law practice and that I have previously explored in a number of blog articles that can be found on my law firm’s website. In this new series, I will go deeper in exploring what I have isolated as the 5 foundational principles of this recovery and resilience plan; or what I call the 5Rs. Here is a quick look at the 5Rs.
RESOURCING
These are the things we give to ourselves to help us connect to our inner wisdom and personal truths. They are the things that make us feel grounded, safe, regulated and whole.
Resourcing is necessary to make changes, face hard truths and feel hard feelings. Resourcing is extremely important in a divorce, in facing hard relationship issues or in looking inward at difficult truths or personal traumas.
The pillars of resourcing are quiet, rest, nourishment, movement, connection, nature, therapeutic support, boundary setting and personal joy
RESONANCE/REGULATION
Emotional regulation and the ability to hold and feel our feelings is what is needed to have healthy relationships with others (this includes asking for what we need in relationships and being able to handle not having our needs met, setting healthy boundaries, and avoiding unnecessary conflict). Emotional regulation takes us out of fight/flight/fawn/freeze mode and helps us make good decisions, manage stress and assert personal agency.
Tools of regulation involve movement which resets activation or dysregulation and helps us down-regulate our emotions. Techniques of meditation and mindfulness (including R-A-I-N, breathing exercises, etc.) help us regulate our nervous system and get grounded and present.
READINESS/RESOLVE
Getting ready to make major life changes or make decisions requires resourcing and regulation and is a necessary step in resilience and emotional recovery. These tools help you access your intuition and the thread of your own truths and needs.
RE-FRAMING
The stories we tell ourselves and how we frame situations determines whether we feel empowered or disempowered, whether things feel possible or impossible and help us to create open-minded thinking and decision-making.
RECOVER/RESILIENCE
Working through the above Rs is not with the goal of avoiding adversity, but rather having resilience when adversity or difficulties arise. Resilience is the goal. Resilience is the ability to have consistent emotional recovery and is necessary to have personal growth and relationship repair. Emotional resilience requires us to feel our feelings and face difficult things and to learn how to come through the tunnel of our feelings or activation faster and better.
I hope you all enjoy the launch of this new series and I am looking forward to receiving your feedback on whether you would enjoy more of this content from me in the future. Be well.
Georgia
Contact Georgia Fraser, Esq. at Fraser Family Law Office LLC for help with your family law or divorce issue. 609-223-2099.
