Kristin Cogan: Grounding Tools for Co-Parenting Stress

There are days in a long custody case when the paralysis wins. You know the email is there, and you cannot make yourself open it. Kristin Cogan's first move is to take that off the list of things you are failing at, because a shutdown state is your body doing something very old and very deliberate.

Our guest this episode is Kristin Cogan, a licensed professional counselor and coach based in Houston and the founder of Imperfectly Wonderful Counseling, a practice built around anxiety and grief work with mothers and teens across Texas. She is a mother of five, and the thing that drew Lisa to her work is her focus on small wins, which maps directly onto a group of people whose big wins are controlled by a court calendar and an ex.

Kristin walks through the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise step by step, with Lisa doing it in real time, and explains why it works: connected to your senses, you are in the present, which is the one place the rumination and the catastrophizing cannot follow you. She covers rating your distress before and after so you can see the shift, adapting the exercise for insomnia when there is nothing to look at, reframing the 3am thought that you will never get back to sleep, slowing everything down as a signal to the body, and the acupressure mat some of her clients keep in the bed.

From there they get to what counts as progress. Pausing before responding to a triggering text. Three breaths before you open the email so you read it grounded. Setting the phone down and walking away, which is allowed. Kristin is warm about the people who cannot do any of it yet, and specific about how to start: two seconds is longer than a millisecond. She shares the affirmations she anchors a morning with, including one Lisa stopped to write down. And she closes on why this is not self-indulgence: children absorb a nervous system from the adult in the room, and that is where the cycle either continues or stops.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why the freeze response is your body protecting you, not you failing
• The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise, step by step, and how to rate the shift
• How to adapt grounding for insomnia when there is nothing to look at
• Reframing the 3am thought that you will never fall back asleep
• What a win looks like when the big outcomes are out of your hands
• Micro wins: three breaths before the email, and putting the phone down
• Affirmations that anchor a morning, including the one Lisa wrote down
• Why regulating yourself is the part your kids inherit

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Overwhelmed as the baseline, and what freeze actually is
4:00 The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise, walked through live
7:00 Adapting it for insomnia, and reframing the 3am thought
9:00 Slowing everything down, and the acupressure mat
11:00 What counts as a win when the big ones are out of your control
12:00 Micro wins: three breaths before you open the email
13:30 When you cannot stop yourself from answering
15:00 Affirmations that anchor the day
17:00 What your nervous system teaches your kids
18:30 Spending everything on your kids and nothing on yourself

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Kristin Cogan at Imperfectly Wonderful Counseling: https://www.imperfectlywonderful.com/
🔗 Kristin Cogan on Instagram (@imperfectlywonderfulmotherhood): https://www.instagram.com/imperfectlywonderfulmotherhood/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.