Episode 320: The Black Hole of High Conflict with Brook Olsen
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast
Kate Anthony
4.4 • 573 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you're stuck in endless loops with a high-conflict ex, Brook Olsen wants you to stop expecting them to change, and start changing how you respond.
Brook is a Certified Parenting Educator, Divorce Coach, and author of The Black Hole of High Conflict. In this conversation, we get real about what happens when you stop feeding the conflict, why parallel parenting is often the only way forward, and how choosing not to engage isn't weakness, it's clarity.
Plus, Brook offers a framework that isn't just theory, it's deeply practical and actionable, especially when the legal system or co-parenting landscape isn't exactly on your side.
Here's what else we get into, in this episode:
- Why disengagement is a laddered process, and how to stay in it (8:50)
- The nervous system's role in conflict and how to regulate your response (10:27)
- What conscious competence looks like in high-stress situations (28:57)
- The difference between co-parenting and parallel parenting (32:52)
- How to stop pushing back and start reclaiming your energy (36:10)
Learn more about Brook Olsen: Brook Olsen is a Certified Parenting Educator with the International Network for Children and Families, a Certified Divorce Mediator, Divorce Coach, and author of The Black Hole of High Conflict, which offers perspectives and strategies for navigating a high conflict divorce.
Brook's knowledge of how the nervous system works and understanding of the role it plays in psychological and physiological reactions to trauma, conflict and anxiety brings a holistic approach to his work with families caught in the High Conflict cycle.
Brook teaches classes in the High Conflict Diversion Program and trains instructors to teach the Program throughout the U.S. and Canada. He also leads workshops in communication for couples and is a peer consultant for fellow professionals.
Resources & Links:
Thank you to today's podcast sponsor: Our Family Wizard
Submit your questions here for possible inclusion in future Q&A podcast episodes
Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Brook's website
Brook's podcast
The Black Hole of High Conflict
Brook on Instagram
Brook on Facebook
Brook's Facebook Group for High Conflict Divorce Support
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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.
Episode Link: https://kateanthony.com/podcast/episode-320-the-black-hole-of-high-conflict-with-brook-olsen/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | for anybody that's been in this for any length of time knows that the courts, the child |
| 0:07.1 | protective services, the governmental agencies that are in this are not the answer to this. |
| 0:12.1 | And to be able to disengage from that and to start to change in a bounded way, to start |
| 0:18.4 | to create good boundaries, to reduce communications, to make communications |
| 0:23.9 | succinct and child-centric, and to start to move back into the mainstream of their life |
| 0:31.6 | is the important pieces here. |
| 0:37.0 | Welcome to the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, where we have open and honest conversations about co-parenting, separation, divorce, and the hardest question of all, should you stay or should you go. |
| 0:51.1 | I'm Kate Anthony, your divorce survival guide, and I'm here to help you navigate |
| 0:56.2 | some of the roughest waters you've ever swum in and answer some of your toughest questions. |
| 1:01.8 | I've been to hell and back, and now it's my mission in life to help you get to the other |
| 1:07.4 | side of this process with your sanity and your heart intact. |
| 1:18.7 | Hey everyone, welcome back. I am off this week to Sedona, Arizona with my Unbreakable retreaters. And I am so excited about what's to come. |
| 1:34.7 | And I will tell you all about it next week. I will report on it so that y'all can, I don't know, |
| 1:41.6 | start planning for the next one, for those of you who have not |
| 1:45.6 | been able to attend this time. But I'm excited to head off into the incredible spiritual |
| 1:53.3 | vortex of Sedona and absorb some of the incredible energy and all of the, all of the yummy goodness that Sedona |
| 2:04.2 | has to offer, as well as connecting with these beautiful women that I'm going to be spending |
| 2:08.5 | some time with when we're there. But for today, we have, today we have Brooke Olson |
| 2:15.5 | with me. Brooke is a certified parenting educator, a divorce coach, and author of the black hole of high conflict. And in this conversation, we're talking about what happens when you stop feeding the conflict. You know, I often talk about dropping the rope, right? This is a big conversation |
| 2:36.0 | about dropping the rope and why parallel parenting is often the best way forward. And how |
| 2:41.5 | choosing not to engage can offer so much clarity for you in this process. Brooke offers a framework |
| 2:49.3 | that isn't really, it's not just theory, it is practical, |
... |
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