9. The Court Date You Can’t Stop Thinking About - Breaking the Anxiety Spiral

There is something that sits in the back of the mind for many mothers who co-parent with someone unpredictable or high-conflict: That court date you can't stop thinking about, or the custody review, or the mediation, the evaluation, or the email that might come at any moment. This kind of stress is not theoretical, it's not just anxiety. It's your nervous system responding to something with real weight, and you are not overreacting. Your body is responding to something that really matters.

This is the transcript for Episode 9.

Most people never have to walk into a room where decisions about their child will be made by people who do not know them

So if your heart races, or you can't sleep, or your mind loops worst case scenarios, that doesn't mean you're unstable or dramatic. It means your nervous system is preparing for a possible danger. Your body is trying to protect you.

So how do we live with that? The goal is not to stop thinking about court. The goal is to not let your body stay in alarm mode all day, every day. Because court stress is physical - the tight chest, the shallow breathing, the muscle tension, the mental looping (that was the worst for me) and the emotional exhaustion. Your nervous system is operating like you're in a battlefield, even while you're making dinner, or playing with your child, or trying to sleep.

So we work with the body, instead of fighting it. Here is one small shift that helps: When your brain starts spiraling into future outcomes, ask, "what is the next small action that keeps me okay right now?"

Not the whole case, not the whole future. Just the next tiny grounding step. Examples of this are:

• drinking water slowly and feeling that sensation in your body,

• sitting on the floor, feeling the floor against your sit bones,

• breathing out longer than you had breathed in,

• stepping into another room for 30 seconds,

• placing your feet flat on the ground and pressing firmly.

  
  

So not productivity, not strategy, physical regulation. Clarity returns after the nervous system softens, never before. Now here's something I learned over time, and I'm hoping will help as that's the whole point of this podcast:

"All the hours I spent rehearsing arguments in my head, all the possible outcomes I imagined, all the mental preparation, none of it EVER matched reality."

The judge never ruled the way I expected, not when I was hopeful and not when I was terrified. Sometimes the outcome was better, way better, sometimes different, sometimes surprising, sometimes very unfortunate, but it was never any of the exact versions my anxiety had been running. And so I realized the anxiety tries to prepare us for a future that does not exist, that will not materialize. The mind creates vivid movies of what might happen, and how we should react if that happens, and what's going to happen next. But those are not reality and might never materialize, they are fear simulations. And when we live in those simulations, we exhaust ourselves before anything has even actually happened.

Now, I remind myself gently, "I don't have to predict the outcome, I only need to stay steady enough to walk into it." My strength is not in controlling the future. My strength is about staying rooted in this moment, right where my feet actually are. The future will come and you will meet it when you're there, not before. All I was doing by running scenarios in my head was ruin the quality of my experience in the present. You will meet the future when you're there, not today.

If you're carrying a court date in the back of your mind, I see you, been there. You're a mother protecting her child in a system that is heavy, brutal and very imperfect, while still trying to parent, love and whole daily life together. And that deserves respect. Your only job today is to stay intact.

You're doing better than you think.

If this has helped you, move on to Episode 10. Trauma Triggers in Everyday Moments - When Your Body Remembers Before You Do.