Lisa Virtue

Karen, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come and talk to me and share with our listeners your beautiful wisdom that you have. And when it comes to this theme that we're going to go into more about high conflict relationships. But before we do that, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you came into this career and a little bit about your journey as a mentor.

Karen McMahon

Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for the invitation to come and speak to you and your listeners. And it's such a great question thinking about. And then there's my career path, and then there's my personal life path and how they literally intersected at one point. And so I'm in my early sixties. I in my twenties, I was lobbying up in Albany. I was community organizing. So I always had a heart for doing something that would change the world and help.

And so for me, what's interesting is looking at the mosaic as it comes together. So I started in my twenties doing that, and then I went into a local newspaper, and I was helping people learn how to sell ad space and, you know, and touch the listeners. And then I ended up in marketing for a little while, and then I went into real estate sales for a little while. So one would look at my path and be like, did you have any plan? Like, I was so all over the place. And. And then after I got married, my ex husband was in print sales, and so he was like, let me get you a job in print sales. And so I ended up spending 18 years selling printing. And then I got divorced.

And I was very good at selling printing. I was very good. One of the things that I would love to talk about is I was really always in my career, I was always very successful. I was a straight a student. I was an all star, a sports player. And then I was reasonably successful in everything that I did. And at the same time, I was reasonably unsuccessful in my personal relationships. And so I had a number of hard ones.

Karen McMahon

And then I got married. I thought I meant Prince Charming. And not so many years later, we brought two beautiful children into the world. And then the relationship went sideways, and it was very high conflict and very nasty. And I lost myself completely. I lost my self confidence. I lost my sense of self, my ability to speak my mind. And through the journey of a very high conflict, three and a half year divorce, I found myself, and maybe I could even say the best version of myself I had had thus far.

And so there I was, post divorce, selling commercial printing in an industry that was dying rapidly. And I remember just sitting on my couch, like, crying, like so many people I knew were living their passion. And I had no idea. I was just like, what do I do? I've got these two little kids. I'm a single mom. Printing's a dying industry. I have no idea what to do. And it's amazing how God, the universe, drops into your path, what you need.

And I crossed paths with a life coach who I supported him with organization and marketing, and he would give me an occasional coaching session. And I had a limiting belief that coaching was absolutely not something I could do because I could never make the kind of money at it that I made selling commercial printing, which one of those limiting beliefs. But ultimately, I took a leap, and as soon as I enrolled in the coaching program, they started talking to you about, what's your niche? And we had 50 people in our class, and everyone was like, I don't know. And I was like, divorce. If coaching is about transition and getting from where you are to where you want to be. I was a child of divorce. I was an adult of a very nasty divorce. I think I've been created to support people through divorce.

And if I tell you it was incredibly difficult, and yet I was in the flow of where I was supposed to be, and I felt that right from the very beginning. And so I'm very blessed to be able to do what I do every day.

Lisa Virtue

That's incredible. The fact that you took a very harrowing, conflicted part of your life and turned it into a positive is very inspirational. I think a lot of the listeners will resonate with your story completely. It's interesting because what I do as a career coach is not around so much the exit. But when people are looking to find a new job, it's typically because there is a high conflict at work or there's a toxic boss or something's going on that's really pushing them out. Right. Statistics will tell us all sorts of different numbers, but something to the tune of 75% to 80% of people leave a job because of their boss alone, beyond the culture of the company, benefits, salary, et cetera. So I would love to dig into that topic more with you today, how it applies to conflict, just in relationship in general.

So when it comes to the workplace, but also home life, where do people. When do people come to you? Is it when they're already in the thick of it or they're about to approach into it? Where are you at usually in that snare?

Karen McMahon

Yeah. You know, when I first started my business, I would say it was like a third, a third and a third before, during and post. And so now I tend to a lot of my marketing, a lot of my desire is to support people who are in a toxic marriage. They're on the fence. They think they don't know what they want to do, but they're just so scared. Such a scary, overwhelming, multidimensional transition to go through. So I would say now my preference and the majority of our clients come on the front end. And when you're entering any divorce, you really, there's a lot you need to do in the beginning, but when you're entering a high conflict divorce, how you tell your spouse, how you live under the same roof, how you communicate with the kids if the spouse is going to throw you under the bus, how you learn your rights so that you don't get a, either closed out of money if you're the lesser moneyed spouse or closed out of the kids if you were the primary earner.

Like all of these things are vital. So we do a lot in that front end.

Lisa Virtue

Makes a lot of sense. Well, I'm glad to hear, I don't know if you support men and women, what? Your breakdown? Yeah, both men and women. It sounds like maybe there's been a cultural shift, too, where people are recognizing it earlier than when they're in that situation, and it's already taking a turn. I think that's happening in the workplace, too, a lot now people know what signs to look for, like, well, this is not where I want to continue to be. I'm not going to put up with it maybe as long as past generations or people used to. So I see that a lot with my clients as well, and trying to create that strategy of, I don't want to rock the boat because it's my salary and my paycheck, but how do I stand up for myself in a way that feels empowering but also not going to break relationships around me or tear that bridge down right when they need a referral for the next job or whatever that is. So it sounds like, yeah, a lot of similarities with those relationships.

Karen McMahon

I was this, this morning before we got on, I was working on doing a boundary boot camp and the concept of boundaries. And your question is a good one. Like, do people notice sooner? And my experience is if you come from a chaotic, dysfunctional household, you naturally see what other people see as unacceptable, as normal. And so you have a much higher pain tolerance for disrespect, abuse. And you also may have a very low skill, ability when it comes to managing conflict. And so you might get really scared and shut down and get quiet and shrink back, or you might get really reactive and not think before you speak. And so all of these things happen. So I think that whether it's marriage or the workplace, the people who exit more quickly and perhaps more gracefully are those who come from healthier families, who know the difference, and so know, like, this isn't acceptable.

Like, you don't get to talk to me. I don't care how much you're paying me. You don't get to speak to me that way or treat me that way.

Lisa Virtue

Yeah, yeah. It's funny you say that, because I come from a very high conflict family dynamic as a child, and I was one of the first to exit jobs that were toxic. Although I was at a company for a very long time, they kept giving me opportunities, so I kept staying, knowing it was a pretty toxic environment, very political. Um, and then, of course, you find the golden nuggets within it, and you can say, oh, well, I'll keep it up for this, or it's for my family, or, you know, all these things that are similar when it comes to divorce for the kids, I'm gonna stay here for the kids. You say that about a job, too. Gotta stay here to pay my mortgage, like, for the kids. Right. Very similar mentality that can go in it.

Um, but I think what happened for me was that I also knew that if I kept staying there, this was during the pandemic when everything just went upside down. And if I had stayed there, I would have snapped. I would have said things that I didn't, couldn't take back. And so I finally was in a situation where I could say, I've got to just go. I've got to just be gracious while I still can be, and then leave. And that was a situation where I was one woman on the executive team, and about 50% of us were women at the time. And every single one of us, except for one woman who stayed, left within the nine months after I quit. I was the first one, and there was a little domino effect.

Most people were looking for another job, and then once they got the job, they exited. I just. I had to leave. This is how I ended up in coaching, which was a huge blessing for me. But just knowing that there can be signs and some people can leave, and some people have to stay for whatever reason, or, like you were saying, maybe they're not even recognizing it as quickly as others.

Karen McMahon

Yeah, I definitely think belief systems right so when you grow up, I mean, you're saying you did, too. So when you grow up in peace and calm and emotional intelligence, you have a very different set of beliefs. Even if you don't write the subconscious beliefs, we don't actually know. They're driving our life. And yet, when you grow up with conflict or hostility or the wide range of dysfunction that we may grow up in and in today's society, alcoholism, addiction, and all of the mental health issues. And so I have clients who, you know, growing up in a. In a high conflict household doesn't mean somebody's bad. Typically, there's addiction, alcoholism, there's mental health issues, there's trauma issues.

Like, there are all these things that are just human, which is one of the things I try to bring to my industry, because there's a lot of nasty narcissist statements out there. And the truth is, there are some very displeasing people that we need to boundary ourselves from. But when you grow up in high conflict, there's a lot of beliefs that you don't even know are driving your life. And. And I. My children are in their mid to late twenties, and I feel like they have so much more emotional intelligence than I had in my late thirties, early forties when I entered my divorce. I just didn't know until I knew. And then once life throws you that kind of a monkey wrench, whether it's career or marriage, you have one of two choices.

You can get better or you can get better. You know, you can grow through it, or you can just slug through it and then find yourself in the same position.

Lisa Virtue

So, yeah, it's. It can be so complicated, can't it, for people, emotionally, mentally. Like you said, it's not necessarily that there's any one bad person. And, you know, and maybe even the organization is great for some, but it's not the right fit for others. And so finding that right fit can be very taxing. A lot of hard work, very draining. So how do you approach when someone is at that space of making a decision, should I stay or should I go? How do you work with them through that? What are your tips for people?

Karen McMahon

Oh, yeah, this is interesting because you and I are probably having the should I stay or should I go? Conversation from. I didn't think about that until just now. I tend to talk about should you mend or should you end.

Lisa Virtue

Oh, I like it.

Karen McMahon

Yeah.

Lisa Virtue

Yeah.

Karen McMahon

And if there's ever any doubt, because it's marriage and there are often children involved, I encourage people to stay and work on mending, but in a different way than a marriage counselor might suggest. And so the last thing you want to do is have regret. And I would imagine the same thing with the career, right? Like, it could be golden handcuffs. There's so much good about it. Should I really leave? Am I going to, like, kick myself a year from now? And with marriage, what I say is, look, if you want to mend your marriage, let's spend some time looking at what you brought to the table, like, what is in your luggage and what hasn't really served the relationship. And if he or she notices a difference, like, when you change, there's a ripple effect. The world around you changes now, they may get nastier, they may run away. They may look in the mirror and start doing their own work.

You can't control that. My audience always wants to control the other person. It's like, Karen, my boundaries aren't working. How do I get him to X, Y and Z? And it's like, no, no, no, you're in the wrong neighborhood. Stay on your side of the street. And so when we work on that, the beautiful part is someone could say, okay, I'm going to commit to six months of mending. And at the end of the six months, they know themselves better, they're less reactive, they're better at communicating. They've begun to learn how to set boundaries so they're brilliantly along the path, even though they haven't stepped onto it yet.

So now you step and you go, okay, he or she is just. They're not changing. I'm even less likely to put up with it. Okay, let's pivot. And how do we do that? But now they're, like, in a much better place. And I don't know if you would say something similar, but in high conflict marriages, I have a free program. Evict your spouse from your head. Reclaim your mental space.

And what happens is we lose ourselves. Like, we literally stop thinking about our priorities, values, beliefs, even perspectives. And when something happens, my first thought was always, how's he going to look in? How's he going to react to it? And how do I react to what I believe he's going to do, which is like, how do I tie myself into a pretzel and still live? And so that's a big part of it.

Lisa Virtue

Very similar at the workplace. Absolutely. And I do see that. I love what you're doing with your clients, because that work, that internal work and our personal work, I always say, lead with that first. Right. If something happens, like, first point the finger and say, what was my role here? Where was I to I blame? But really, where was I responsible for some of the outcomes of what's going on? And then doing that work to make sure the theme isn't us first, right. That happens a lot at workplace because people will jump around different organizations and they're constantly hitting the same issues. But a lot of times in our culture, we blame everyone else, right? Our problems.

So doing that work is really impactful. And then once you do that work, if it's still happening, like you're saying, like, okay, now you look and say, well, look, I can be very authentically honest to say that this was not my doing and this was, this is external. And then being able to work through, like, okay, now there needs to be some kind of exit. Something needs to change. I can't continue to do this because now you are hitting your head against the wall. Um, yeah, I see that. The workplace, for myself, that's happened in the past, um, doing. Working with coaches, doing a lot of that intrinsic work, and sometimes just having a neutral party to talk to and be able to talk through that, that doesn't.

It doesn't feel judgy, right? It doesn't feel like someone's looking at you and going, yeah, a performance review, very judgy. I get a lot of clients that come to me and they're like, okay, I need to talk through this performance review. I'm like, great neutral party here. I don't know if it's legitimate or not. We're just going to talk through what you believe and your beliefs and how your perspective is on it versus a boss will always come at it with a very biased view. Right. Just like in a marriage, I'm.

Karen McMahon

Exactly.

Lisa Virtue

I'm married. It can be very much like, oh, well, give me authentic feedback. Now, do I really want authentic feedback?

Karen McMahon

Well, and an interesting thing, I had a client come to me and she said, my husband said, I am so judgmental, and I've been working with her for a couple of months and she certainly didn't. And I've got plenty of judgmental clients, you know, and we started talking about it. I ended up writing a blog post on it because what came up was the difference between being discerning and being judgmental, and. Which is huge. So it's discerning to say, my workplace feels unhealthy because a, b, and c occur and it's out of alignment with my integrity versus my boss is an asshole. There's a bunch of jerks. And when you're looking at yourself. Right.

I think that's what you're saying is as coaches, we're able to help people discern what are your strengths and weaknesses. Nothing's bad, nothing's wrong. But we all have places. We're human, so we have places where we can grow and be better. And the thing you think is the best, like, your perfectionism may be one of the areas that you actually need to grow because it's not serving you. And so, yeah, I love talking about the discernment of it.

Lisa Virtue

Yeah. That along with the boundaries that you mentioned earlier, I'm so powerful, and I do see a lot of people say, oh, well, so and so would say this about me. And do you agree with that? You know? Well, yeah, but I wouldn't tell them, this is what happens in these relationships. Right. That are so personal. Well, I do want to work on that, but when I start to have a conversation with my spouse or with my boss or with my colleague, now, it turns into kind of feels one sided or it feels that you are being judged because they've got their own reason behind that or their own bias.

Karen McMahon

Which is so interesting. Right? Because it's like it actually diminishes being honest and self reflective. If the person that you're doing that with is going to be like, yeah, which is why it's your fault or why you're bad or why you're wrong, as opposed to what a coach would do, which is, wow, that's a phenomenal insight. And, you know, and what can you do do about that? And how can you grow through that? Which is, like, such a safe, non judgmental, beautiful place to grow.

Lisa Virtue

Yeah, totally agree. So as far as it comes to high conflict relationships, just in general, what are their takeaways and advice? We've touched on some boundaries. Getting a neutral party to help work through our own needs, making those decisions.

Karen McMahon

If I could. One of the questions I'm often asked, which I think is really helpful, is, what is a high conflict personality? What does it look like? Because as I said earlier, everyone thinks everyone's a narcissist and all this stuff. So the truth is, we're all raised in whatever culture we're raised. I was raised in an italian family. If you walked into a holiday, you would think we were all screaming and yelling at each other. But it was just part of the passionate, fiery culture of what I was raised in. So for me, when I talk about high conflict, if you have somebody who can't take responsibility for anything, so they're always blaming and accusing and never owning their part, that's going to be a hard person to work with or live with. If you have someone who has a creative revision of history.

And so what you remember things, and the way they remember things is completely different to the point where you're, like, wondering if something's wrong with you. If you sit down and have a conversation and that person can't hear you or see you or empathize with you, that can often be a high conflict person. And so a lot of times when you've been in these situations for a while and you're an open minded individual, there's an understandable self doubt that begins to grow. Like, maybe. Maybe it's me, you know, and the whole gaslighting thing, that can happen. And so it's really helpful to take that step back. And again, if you can do it without judgment, like, what do I know? What have I been experiencing that's going to really help you? As opposed to someone who might be a big personality, who might just, you know, take the lead more often. And there are plenty of leaders wherever, you know, I would question how good of a leader they are, even if they've made their way, way up the corporate ladder.

Like a really good leader inspires and gives their staff or their family right, whatever it is, the ability to swim in their gifting and have some flexibility. So boundaries, I would say. I would say that the key things from my perspective is making sure that you are actually own the mental space between your ears, that you are thinking your thoughts, that you're clear and rooted in your values, your beliefs, your priorities and values. Work is fabulous to do. It can be someone's north star. And then I think boundaries, if you've been raised without boundaries, it just seems like a foreign language. And yet boundaries are beautiful. They're not steel walls, they're more like garden gates.

And it gives you the ability to be safe, be free. And I think most people don't realize that the first boundary starts with you. And so often my clients will be like, she made me feel, he made me do. It's like, did they have a gun to your head? Because if not, nobody actually can make you feel, or do you know that it doesn't actually work that way. And once you can own that, my feelings, my thoughts, my actions, you are beautifully liberated to go out there and find healthy ways of being.

Lisa Virtue

Yeah, 100%. That is something that I work a lot with my clients on, too, is creating boundaries for what kind of work do you want to do? And what kind of job do you want? And then in addition, now you look at, okay, now, what kind of culture is the right fit for you to thrive in that area? I've seen this a lot where people, they start to doubt themselves because they're in this high conflict relationship, or they have someone that's just berating them or nitpicking for whatever reason. And so going back and looking at the data and the facts of, and reminding yourself of your own power, like, oh, this is why I got here in my career. This is what I've been doing. Or your relationship, like, oh, yeah, I am. I need to build that confidence because I am great. Especially if you're trying to leave and go find a new job all of a sudden that brings up a ton. And I'm sure the same with marriage.

Well, if I get divorced, but I want to be with some, like, I want a partner in life. Like, oh, your confidence gets so shot right in those transitionary chapters in our lives. And so being able to do that work of reflection and looking back and reminding yourself of where your power is so important, what did they say?

Karen McMahon

Where the mind goes, your energy flows and so mindset. I think for all of us, no matter what healing modality or what area of coaching we do at the center is, our mind is so powerful and yet so easily manipulated in some ways. And so getting crystal clear on who you are and what you want and what you stand for is always such a beautiful place to start.

Lisa Virtue

I completely agree. I love it. Oh, Karen, I could talk to you all day about this, but I bet I let you get going soon. So how can people get a hold of you?

Karen McMahon

So my company is journey beyond divorce. I have a podcast. We do specialize in high conflict divorce. Our website is JBD for journey beyond divorce. JBD, divorcesupport.com. and I have a number of different things that people can do. I have how healthy is your relationship? Quiz. And I have my newest is a mini course on, uh, reclaim your mind, evict your spouse from your mental space.

And people are raving about that. And I would say to your listeners, uh, while I refer to spouse, if that's you, you know, pop on over and. And it's a free course, uh, and, uh, take it, because it really points to the mental distortions that we develop about ourselves that come from being in contact and relationship with unhealthy people, and that's how we lose ourselves. And so podcast and those two free resources are a great place if people are interested.

Lisa Virtue

That's beautiful. Thank you so much for those resources. And I highly recommend it because it doesn't have to be just about your spouse. Right. It can be that boss or someone else in your life taking up your headspace.

Karen McMahon

I will say the one thing that's interesting is many of my clients who, or in high conflict marriages and divorce typically have that domino effect where they're like, why is my whole life falling apart? And it's like, it's not. It's coming together. Now you have to leave your job because you didn't just have one high conflict relationship, you had more than one. And you may find that, too. And so what's really interesting is how you do something, is how you do everything. And so, you know, if you're in one high conflict relationship, you may be in more than one.

Lisa Virtue

Yes, I do see that often. I say coaching pairs very nicely with therapy. We talk about how to get to the next steps and moving forward, and therapy can evaluate the past and help you through that. So, yeah, most of my clients end up having more than one thing happening in that transitionary state, for sure. So if you need someone to talk through the job search side of it when you're getting through this high conflict, I'm happy to be that person. And Karen can help you navigate the divorce and any high conflict relationship you might be trying to break free from.

Karen McMahon

Yep.

Lisa Virtue

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Karen.

Karen McMahon

Thank you. Thanks for having me.