The TeleWellness Hub Podcast

Ep. 59 Dr. Mia Johnson's Approach to Harmonious Divorce Resolutions

• Martamaria Hamilton

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Discover the transformative insights of Dr. Mia Johnson as she joins us to navigate the intricate web of divorce proceedings and their profound effects on families. Dr. Johnson, with her rich background in real estate, counseling, and mediation, brings a unique lens to the discussion, one that is informed by her understanding of Jungian philosophy and neurolinguistic programming. Together, we unravel how divorce shapes individuals from childhood into their adult relationships, emphasizing the significance of communication and neurological processing in creating healthier dynamics. The emotional resonance of Dr. Johnson's approach is undeniable—she's on a mission to ensure that every voice is heard and every heart is understood in the throes of marital dissolution.

If the financial and emotional burdens of divorce have ever felt insurmountable, this episode paves the way for clarity and empowerment. We dissect the implications of collaborative divorce in Texas, illuminating this path as a more cost-effective and compassionate alternative to traditional litigation. Drawing from my personal journey and expertise in real estate, I illuminate the often-hidden costs of divorce, from hefty attorney fees to the emotional tax of turning legal counsel into therapists. Our foray into spousal support, property division, and the pivotal role of various divorce professionals, like therapists, coaches, and financial analysts, offers a roadmap for navigating these choppy waters with your finances—and your sanity—intact.

Strategic planning isn't just for business—it's crucial for managing the end of a marriage. Enter the paradigm of Divorceology, the brainchild of this episode, which provides a tactical framework for those embarking on the dissolution of their union. We discuss the selection of the best divorce resolution method tailored to individual circumstances, be it mediation, arbitration, or collaboration. The focus shifts to the court's perspective, especially the welfare of children, and how parental behavior can influence proceedings. This chapter of the conversation is a call to strategize, to think critically about the impacts of narcissism, and to plan with the foresight that ensures the well-being of all involved, particularly the youngest ones caught in the crossfire.

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Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Welcome back amazing listeners to another episode of the Telewellness Hub podcast. I'm Marta Hamilton, your host, and today we get to speak with Dr Mia Johnson. Dr Mia Johnson is an incredibly well-established, educated professional. She holds a PhD in philosophy. She has a master's degree in counseling, psychology, neurolinguistics. She's background in real estate, a background with a bachelor's degree in history, social science and philosophy. She's a nationally certified child custody evaluator, parenting coordinator and mediator, including certified Texas mediator. She has training as a forensic investigator and expert witness and also has earned certifications as a coach in relationships, divorce, parenting and co-parenting, anger management, neuroscience, transformation, fascination and dis. There's so much that she's done and I'm so excited that I get to talk to her because we're really going to talk about focus on divorce today. Just with her incredible background, she has a really wonderful perspective on divorce. She sees clients nationally doing consulting work and all throughout the state of Texas with doing work within child custody evaluations, and experience in counseling in the legal field is really invaluable. So I'm really excited we get to talk to her today.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Welcome, dr Mia Johnson, good morning. Good morning, I'm really excited to talk to you. As I've mentioned like three times already, I feel like, and just in my introduction because I think in our clinical background it's really rare to see someone with so much experience that really, in all aspects of what would encompass a divorce I've gotten to speak with people who do mediation or do child custody evaluations but your background in counseling and even real estate, learning about assets and really learning how to handle conflict with anger management and working as a mediator I think, having gone through divorce myself, it would have been incredible to get to talk to you just from the perspective of a divorce coach and strategist, which is the work that you do as well nationally, I think, because there's so much to consider mentally but there's also a lot going on emotionally and it can be hard to navigate. So thank you for joining and my first question for you is why do you do the wellness work that you do my first question for you is why do you do the wellness work that you do?

Dr. Mia Johnson:

I think because I've always specialized in families and when I was just a therapist well, even when I was just a real estate agent, before I even became a therapist I found a niche in helping people who were divorcing sell their houses, because there's a lot of mediation, negotiation, anger management, a lot of therapy involved, and I think that's one of the reasons why I became a therapist. In fact, I always tell people that I say real estate may become a therapist. You know, wow, say real estate made me become a therapist. And then, when I became a therapist, I did a lot of work with families. I did reunification, I did domestic violence, sex abuse. I did in-home therapy with children that had been displaced, with foster adoption. I worked in residential treatment children that you know were in situations, and I found that a lot of the times one of the major problems was they were children of divorce, and divorce brings so many aspects to it. And even in my private practice I specialized in relationships and couples counseling and, once again, a very large majority of the people that would come to me, usually at a breakup or problems in a relationship and when I would do shadow work with them, because I'm kind of a Jungian philosopher and Jung introduced the whole idea of the subconscious and what we carry with us and the stories we tell ourselves. I found that a lot of people react the way they react in their relationships because they learned things as as a child of divorce.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

I was a child of divorce in my teenage years. Of course my parents were very I always tell people I was raised by Ward and June Cleaver very like. We never saw them argue, we never saw them fight. We didn't have any idea they were getting a divorce until the day they sat down two weeks before my high school graduation and announced the house was sold and they were getting a divorce and where each of us was going to live. And in that moment in time I experienced what it was like to have your entire world just pulled out from underneath you. And I saw that in so many people in their relationships later on in life that they had abandonment issues. They had. You know the way they learn to deal with things, whether they would withdraw or whether or not they would constantly be after the person to talk, to talk, to talk.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

And if you put two people together one who has an abandonment issue and feels like they need to reconnect, and then the other person who maybe was in a more violent situation or in a different situation. They need time by themselves to be able to process before they can talk, and a lot of times you need to bring their stories together and make them understand they're not abandoning you and they're not, you know. I mean, that's not what's happening. You need to see things. We tend to see things as we are, not how things actually are, and so bringing that, that concept, to people to understand that, you know, we're not only concerned with how you see the world there's a million tests for that, you know. There's the Myers-Briggs, there's things like that but it's also how the world sees you and how do you communicate.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

That's why neurolinguistics is one of the most important things that I ever learned, because it's about communication and neuroscience. Like, how does our brain process information? How does our brain, you know, take you know, and how does our brain, you know, take you know? And when you can get people to understand, you know, like when I'm with a couple and they talk, I usually let one person talk first and then they say everything. But my rule is is the other person can talk until they're done, and they'll get done and I'll see, I'll be watching the other person and I'll see them starting to get reactive, like you know, and I'll go not your turn, you know and then when I'm done, I'll say to the other person because they're ready, they've been ready to respond, and that's the problem with most people at some point in time particularly with people that we have had repetitive conversations, like children and husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends, things like that we stop listening in order to understand and we start listening in order to respond.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

And so I'll turn to the other person and they're ready for me to go. Now you tell me your side and I go. What did they just say? And now they're struggling because they're going like you know, like, oh, you know, and then they'll start saying what they think the other person said. The other person will start blowing up like a blowfish and you'll go, you know, and when you're done, you know, you say you turn to the first person and you know they go.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

I didn't say that and I'll go, but that's what they heard and I think that's the most important thing to cut off communication. That can happen in divorce. Right, there's a lot of conflict leading up to it. Perhaps, and it's interesting, before we hit record, you know you started sharing just about how divorce is really the first step, especially if there's children involved. It's just and the and the emotions that get involved and, um, well, I appreciate you sharing your background. Uh, that's something new that I learned, I know.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Just as as connecting as colleagues, I've always really just admired your work, your passion for the work that you do and hearing you share a little bit about your own history and and the why of of the work that you do, just really committed to the experience that other people have, knowing exactly what it's like. For when you experienced your parents' divorce I brought a whole new light to the child custody evaluation work and other work that you do. I wonder, in your experience then you've seen kind of the breakdown in communication? You have that background in neuro-linguistic programming, you've done child custody evaluations and you've seen in real estate even you know selling of the home and different logistics that come up. What would you say are some of the most common misconceptions that people have about divorce proceedings, specifically, that you encounter in your practice?

Dr. Mia Johnson:

I think one of the most important is that somebody has to win and somebody has to lose, and it has to be a battle, and you know like one of the first steps, of course, is to figure out how are you going to do it. And then the next most important step is the attorney that you choose, because you want somebody who's experienced in divorce, in custody, in family law, somebody that you know. Sometimes people say, well, I have an attorney, I've dealt with them for years. Really, have you been having a divorce every year? Mm-hmm, and they'll go well? No, but they handle like my business. Okay, well, that's not the attorney. You know that might not be the attorney. I'm not saying that attorneys that do other things can't do, but family law is a specialty.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Yeah, no, I like that you bring that up, yes it is.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

It's a specialty and you want somebody that is. Um again, collaborative law, collaborative divorce is not as big in Texas as it is around the country, but it is so important because the average cost of a divorce starts at about $15,600, and that's if you don't have children. It bumps up to and keep in mind, these are averages, okay, it bumps up to about $23,600 if you have children, and that's if nobody argues. Just the retainer for the attorney alone can be around $8,000 for each party. So you're already up to $16,000 right out of the gate and it's a retainer. It's not a payment, it's a retainer. That means it goes on the books and every single time you contact your attorney, every time you call them, every time you send them an email, no-transcript, and so when you spend your time talking to your attorney about who did who wrong and what did they do, that's the most expensive therapist you will ever find in your entire life and it's not what they're trained to do in your entire life and it's not what they're trained to do, you know. So it's important for you to deal with. The more you can hand your attorney out, like I said in one of the things I wrote for you. You have to think of your attorney as the captain of the ship. They're the one who's going to steer you through the legalities. They know how to talk to the court in a language that the court understands. Attorneys don't handle just one person at a time, so they don't always remember all the details, they don't always. So the more that you can do ahead of time the emotional part if you really have a lot of unresolved anger, bitterness, whatever it's good to talk to either a therapist who's versed in relationships or divorce, or a divorce coach.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

I'm a member of the National Association of Divorce Professionals and we have a network where, if I get a case where I believe that maybe they have more money than other people, or maybe they have side businesses and everything, I will reach out to a financial analyst to do a financial autopsy and, having that done, they can then take what they find to their attorney, and financial analysts cost a lot less per hour than an attorney. You know, and the same thing with you know discussing what you're going to do about the house, because I've seen people go into court and go to multiple court appearances about you know. We need to sell the house. I don't want to sell the house, you know, but knowing ahead of time what the details, what the house is worth, what you need, I've done cases where one person was aborted, the house in the divorce.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

However and this is something that a lot of custody evaluations wouldn't pick up, because I have a real estate background, because I have a real estate background, I will see one person take the other person off the deed but no quick claim deed was ever filed and the way the divorce read you get the divorce if you do this. If you don't do this, there's no contract. There's no contract unless there's consideration. That's one of the first things that you learn in real estate. So if someone says that, yes, you can have the house, but you must refinance in X period of time and you don't refinance, you don't automatically get the house because there was a condition.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Because there was a condition. Yeah, no, I'm sure your background in real estate has a huge, you know, just influence on your ability to see the bigger picture in addition to the children. Because you mentioned earlier the cost of divorce, assuming everything is agreed upon, assuming it's not complex with, you know, finances or children. So you know, if you don't mind, I'm curious, you know, when it comes to negotiating something like the spousal support or child custody arrangements, I know those typically can become, even in my therapeutic, in my clinical work as a therapist, having people who have gone through divorce already or going through divorce and bringing up their concerns over their child custody visitation, spousal support what kind of recommendations do you have or what's your approach with that? Because there's a lot of people out there that maybe never even considered that there are outside coaches or child custody evaluators. So can you talk to us a little bit about what that looks like?

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Well, first of all, spousal support is not a given in Texas. What they look at is the length of the marriage. They look at the economical situation. They look at the roles of the people in the marriage. If you have been married less than 10 years, there will not be spousal support as a rule. However, a backdoor to that is that if you have been a stay-home wife and that's the roles that you and your husband have chosen you can have but again, it's all in the wording you can have your attorney ask for a maintenance amount to be given until you are able to get what you need to be employable. It's not really a spousal support, but it's just to make sure that you're compensated for the fact that you were a stay home. However, you now have to go out and earn a living and it enables you to have a little bit of time.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

When I work with young couples who are about to get married, because I'm a big proponent of prenuptials, a prenuptial can cost you $2,500, and then the expense of divorce is unnecessary If you sit down, and I always say it's much better to make a prenuptial while you like each other than it is to litigate a divorce when you're not liking each other so much. But I think that and advice that I give to young women, especially nowadays, because a lot of women you know say, well, I want to be a stay-at-home mom and raise my children and I go, that's great, and I think that's wonderful, and if your husband's willing to support you in that, that's great. But while you are home, learn how to do something, Because all marriages end, whether it is in divorce or death, and someone can walk out the door. My brother walked out the door one day for my uncle's funeral. My other's brother went to work. They were both. My brother was in his early 20s, his brother was almost, you know, in his late 30s and they never came home Because they, you know. My brother died in a car accident, his brother died from a fall and again, you know, for people, a lot of people say, well, I don't want to talk about that.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Well, not talking about the possibility of death, not having a will because you don't want to think about the possibility of death, is the same thing as not having a prenuptial about what you're going to do and when anything ever happens, there's so many people involved. We have insurance professionals, we have bankers, we have investment people, we have financial auditors, we have lawyers, we have you know, there's a difference between parenting facilitation and parenting. You know, like a parenting coordinator, A parenting coordinator has virtually no power. All they do is act as an enlarged therapist, but anything that comes up they're not allowed to testify to. So if you have a high conflict case, what you're looking for is a parenting facilitator. Because a parenting facilitator, because a parenting facilitator is allowed to testify as to what they find. So even that distinction, because sometimes attorneys will say, well, I think we should get a parenting coordinator, and they come to me and I'll look at the case and if it's high conflict, I'll say I think you need a facilitator, not a coordinator.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

How do clients typically come to you? Would you say that it's through the attorney recommends that they go speak with you, or are you available for anyone who's saying, okay, I might be going through a divorce, I need to go talk to somebody, because typically, you know, I'm learning so much in this conversation, not realizing how many people can be involved. Typically, you think just your mind goes to an attorney, right, but it's really clear to have the clear distinction that an attorney has their role, as do other people have their unique roles as well. So can someone come to someone like you first and kind of sift through a plan? I mean, what would be that initial step?

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Yes, they would just contact me and we would just basically get like a little bit of background and then have a consultation and figure out, okay, what's in your best interest. You know, like, where's the conflict? What are we probably going to have to focus on more? Is it money? Is it children? Is it, what is it? Is it your assets? Is it the house? Is it, what is it?

Dr. Mia Johnson:

And I think, again going back to misconceptions of divorce, people sometimes, in the midst of the emotion, forget that it took two people to make children. Midst of the emotion, forget that it took two people to make children. You know, and again, texas is not a 50-50 state, whereas a lot of the country is. They go in with the premise of 50-50. Texas does not necessarily do that, but a collaborative divorce strategist encourages that that. You understand that. You know it doesn't matter. You know that your relationship didn't work. Things are not promised. You know you're not promised someone's love for life. You know people grow, people change. You know what you want at 20 isn't necessarily what you want at 40. When you're buying a car, you ask a 20-year-old what kind of car do you want? He goes I want a Maserati. Okay, well, now you're 35 and you've got three kids, do you think a Maserati is going to work for you?

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Gray divorce is on the rise. Gray divorce is over the age of 50. Now you probably have. If you don't currently have children in college, you have had children in college. Then there's also the educational aspects. Um, women's cost, women's, you know living, you know ability, usually goes down by 30 percent, whereas a man's only goes up by maybe 10 percent. And the way that a lot of people, you know they'll go into court and they'll say I can't afford, especially when there's an extended family.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Where the problem usually rises is where one or the other party gets involved with someone else, if they get seriously involved or if they get married. Well, now they have another family they have an obligation to and they have a new wife, girlfriend whatever, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever. And you have to deal with the dynamics of. You know I've run into this before where a client would just go ballistic because the father had primary custody and he was remarried and she had three daughters of her own, and so the seven-year-old hearing the other girls call the mother mom, occasionally she would call her mom and the biological mother would go ballistic, you know, and unfortunately, involve the child. She's not your mom, you can't call her mom. I'm your mom and everything. And you know, again, that's something that you have to deal with. You know, you have to explain to them. Well, they are their stepmother.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Right, that emotional aspect that you mentioned, that sometimes the emotions cloud people's process, and when it comes to the children and and the dynamics, well, because they feel like they're being replaced and they don't.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

And and again, um, there's a lot of uh, people that you know come in as a second person involved, like the new wife or the girlfriend or whatever, and they think somehow that they can be involved. Sometimes you have to sit down with them and go look, you're not the baby mama, you're not the baby mama, you know. And so, primarily, these discussions need to be had between the baby daddy and the baby mama. You know, you're welcome to have your opinion, but your opinion should never be expressed to the baby mama, right, talk about it all you want to the baby daddy and him to decide how he wants to handle it. And unfortunately, you know, when they get with the new person, sometimes they they like the new person and they're mad at the old person, and so they're not as respectful they should be, and that runs into a lot of emotional issue.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Um, as far as the attorneys are concerned, um, sometimes they think that a divorce strategist is somehow taking something away from them, and it's not. It's actually saying look, you're the captain, I'm your first mate, I'm going to take all of this stuff off your plate and I'm going to make sure that the client gives you what you need in order to go in and do what you went to school for. This is what we went to school for.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Right, yes, exactly Because I was going to ask what are some examples of positive outcomes that you've seen? You know, maybe clients, if you can share just briefly just kind of an experience, maybe a case where there was a lot to kind of work through and you know how you see things resolved Just to bring people hope. You know, on the, how you see things resolved just to bring people hope. You know, on the other side, when working with a divorce strategist, how do you see lives improved?

Dr. Mia Johnson:

I think it's combination of you know I mean really all of my background, you know goes into that particular process, because I've I've been a therapist, I am a negotiator, I am a mediator and people often say, well, are you an optimist or are you a pessimist? I said no, I'm a realist. I said there's a difference. I said I mean, there's some things you can be optimistic about, but if it's not real, then you're going to put yourself in a corner. There's things you can be pessimistic about and then you can give up things that are entitled to you If you're dealing with a relationship that has been one-sided. You know I hate the word narcissist.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Narcissist is a psychiatric evaluation, but I hear people all the time it's like, oh, I'm in dealing with a narcissist and I always attract narcissists and I go what do you think? They have a telephone book with your name in it. I said if you're dealing with people who are narcissistic and have narcissistic tendencies towards you, I said it's because you're sending out some kind of message that you know, because we teach people how to treat us, and that goes back even to the day that you start dating. You know, if you put up with something that you don't like and you don't address it. Then you're basically saying is yeah, that's OK. And really you know, people ask all the time like what's one of the major causes of divorce? And people go is it infidelity, is it children, is it money? No, it's communication. You can solve everything if you can communicate. You know, because even married, happily married people in the same house don't always agree on how a situation with a child should be handled.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Right, right.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

It's not conflict that can be toxic, it's actually can be productive if there's the correct communication skills right right, and so you know, the one thing about being a divorce strategist is that even though you can do all of the things involved, you can't do all of the things at once. If you're the strategist, you can't be the custody evaluator. If you're the custody evaluator, you can't be the therapist. You know, and you have to really stick to those lines, cause I get a lot of times I'll do a custody evaluation and then afterwards one, or sometimes both of the parents will say well, can you continue to see as enough to say, no, I can't. I said because my role ended when I turned in the evaluation.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Yeah, that's good to point out, because I didn't realize. I mean, it makes sense. You know, within therapy sometimes you can't have dual roles, but I could see how it's important to be really clear and defined, especially when it comes to a legal proceeding and divorce, to have that clearly defined role If someone wants to connect with you for a consultation or just to. I love that you said that people consult with you and you see what's in your best interest, because I could imagine that's where you can also see what's the best role that you could be, what's the best way, your favorite way for people to connect with you.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

They're welcome to email me. The name of my LLC is Virtually Mia LLC, so I have an email address that's miajohnson at virtuallymiacom. But I have several branches of the different things that I do when I'm working with a couple that hasn't quite made the decision what to do. I have a company that's called 911 Relationship Rescue. I also just started a new division which is called Divorceology, and that's where you actually sit down with a strategist and decide which way do you want to go? Do you want to do mediation? Do you want to do arbitration? Do you want to do how do you want to? You want to be collaborative and at that point in time, depending on the circumstances, I will suggest to them that.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Okay, then I think you should talk to, because there's so much involved. There's insurance, there's equity, there's 401ks, there's college tuitions in the future, there's children go to like a private school there. Who's going to pay? Who's going to decide what curricula activities, who's going to pay for the you know the things that they need for the sports, for the curriculum activity. These are all details that you don't want to fight about in court because it's expensive. You want to have come to some kind of an agreement before, and if you absolutely can't come to an agreement, then you take it to a judge. People think that judges don't care. No, judges do care, but they're always, always, just like a custody evaluator they're always going to put the best interest of the children. They don't care about you, they don't care about him, they don't care about all the wrongs that have happened and everything else. Now they care about what's in the best interest of the children, and children deserve to have a relationship with both parents, unless there is a reason why one parent is not healthy for the child.

Marta Hamilton (TeleWellness Hub):

Yes, well, dr Meehan-Johnson, before we recorded I had mentioned we might need a whole series, and I'm realizing for sure we do Just from this conversation. We really do Just on a variety of topics. I might post a questionnaire to see what people are interested in, because things like divorce and narcissism that you brought up, I think that that comes up a lot, and even just looking and diving in a little bit further into that aspect with the children, I think would be really wonderful. But thank you so much for for joining us and being a part of our wellness.

Dr. Mia Johnson:

Thank you.