Suzy Miller

Suzy Miller: Divorce Strategist “Let Peace Be Your Weapon Of Choice”

BIOGRAPHY

Suzy Miller

Divorce Strategist
As seen on BBC TV, Telegraph, Daily Mail etc
Collaborated with MOJ in promoting dispute resolution
“Peace is my weapon of choice”

 

Suzy has collaborated with the Ministry Of Justice in promoting dispute resolution, she is an affiliate member of the Family Mediators’ Association, has written for the Daily Mail and been featured in many national magazines and appeared on BBC Breakfast TV, Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and C5’s The Vanessa Show.

 

She is an independent ‘Peacemaker’ – not a lawyer, not a mediator – but she knows who you need to talk to when divorcing to stay on a peaceful path, and when.

 

Suzy is a ‘travel guide’ through the landscape of The Divorce Discovery Voyage, offering Divorce Strategy Sessions to help couples and individuals avoid the toxic family law-courts and to be able to access dispute resolution successfully.

www.StartingOverShow.com

www.BestWayToDivorce.co.uk

LI: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/startoversuzy

@StartOverSuzy

@sosDivorce

 

Divorce is Like a Hurricane

 

“Divorce is like a hurricane” the doctor says

To my Mother who instinctively puts hands upon her swollen belly

As if that will protect me from the storm that is to come.

 

Who will protect me?

Encased within her womb I am not immune to the storm.  

Adrenaline pumps each time the arguments begin.  

Cortisol surges with each new legal battle, sustained flight and fight response contributing to my Mother’s now heightened risk of heart disease, lower immunity, allergies.

Depression.

 

I feel another cortisol-blast from my host’s stress as surging guilt stabs like flying broken glass: 

“Will these anti-depressants harm the baby, doctor?”

 

Whilst the outer world battles the ravages of fear of financial and emotional armageddon, 

Snuggled in her womb, every biochemical and hormonal rush is transmitted Down the umbilical super highway 

With unerring precision.  

I am spared nothing.  

And we are still only in the eye of the storm.

 

For then comes the miracle of my birth. 

 

I arrive into a home where relationship disfunction is matched only by the dysfunction of the family law system 

And the chaos of my parent’s divorce 

Now manifesting as fear of poverty that makes my prospects educationally bleak;

A father I don’t yet know is absent and he tries to provide financially but at work

He’s just not the same. Productivity dips.

Debts to the divorce lawyers, how will he pay?

Mother disconnected, self-medicating to cope, 

Here am I approaching my 1001 days from conception, 

Pre-configured for a life on the edge, with a body hard-wired for action, 

Ready for fight or flight, and 

There is no off-switch for what has now become my ‘norm’.  

And I’m not yet 2 years old.

 

“Doctor, do you think my daughter has ADHD?” 

“Doctor, do I really need to medicate her?”

“Doctor, why can’t I come off the drugs you gave me for depression without feeling suicidal? Is this it forever?”

 

In the wake of the storm, I have become one more statistic.

My parents allowed the divorce hurricane to destroy the landscape of our lives, by taking shelter in the wrong places, 

By allowing their all too human fears for self preservation to overcome their intuition, 

Which must have told them in a small quiet voice that the journey they chose 

Over rough legal ground and traversing mountains of bitter recrimination, 

that I would make that same journey with them. 

But the effects would be increased, because I am small. 

An innocent. 

 

Go back to the doctor, my Mother, who gave you medication you still can’t get off to numb the emotional pain, and yet the pain is still there. 

Go back to your insensitive employers, my Father, who let you go because of  poor attendance, as visiting me was not seen as a valid reason for flexible working. 

Go back to the lawyers and the judges and the family court system and tell them how 

I have a significantly higher risk of: health problems, 

Of drug addiction, 

Of going to prison, 

Of mental illness.

Because of how my parents failed to cope with the hurricane.

 

Why did the doctor not know that numbing the pain of divorce does little to help empower action to make more courageous and less adversarial choices?

Why did the therapist not tell my mother that every attacking thought and angry word spoken or received, is pumped into the child she carries, raw and unfiltered?

Why did the lawyer not tell my mother that in a hurricane, you need to look for somewhere solid to take cover, and connect with experts who encourage waging peace instead of war?

Why did no-one show her that there is a better way to stay out of the path of the hurricane, to rebuild a life where both of my parents can thrive – not as a broken family, but as an extended family?

 

Divorce is like a hurricane.  But for some it doesn’t pass, just relentlessly rips at the fabric of human family life.  

Pumped with adrenalin and cortisol and sustained stress since my conception, 

Fed direct via the umbilical cord and then the very atmosphere I breathe for the more recent of my 1001 days;

My ability to sit still, to listen, to feel at peace – unable to naturally develop. 

 

The hurricane… has become me.

 

The link is: http://alternativedivorceradioshow.libsyn.com/divorce-is-like-a-hurricaine

 

Divorce is Like a Hurricane

 

What is your area of expertise

Empowering families to avoid the negative effects of divorce on the child – especially within the first  1001 days.

 

What innovative new approaches are you offering to this time period?

Raising the alarm on how a dysfunctional divorce / abusive family situation can lead to learning and other difficulties as a result of the child in utero being exposed to the mothers raised cortisol and other stress responses.

 

Can you offer any tools to support the viewer? For example: your 3 top tips, or a website link for more information and support?

An entire online platform offering free access to resources and guidance in the form of audio podcasts, videos, animated films and short stories. www.BestWayToDivorce.co.uk

 

 

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