How Getting A Divorce Can Create a Window Of Clarity For Your Life

Join us as we sit down with Founder of Reynolds Defense Firm, Dan Reynolds to discuss the concept of a "window of clarity" - a brief period following traumatic life events like divorce or arrest when people are uniquely open to making significant personal changes. Reynolds explains how trauma temporarily shatters our
protective ego shell, creating an opportunity to implement lasting change with less resistance than in everyday life. 

The conversation explores how this window can be utilized through structured coaching and curriculum to help individuals emerge from difficult experiences as better versions of themselves. Reynolds emphasizes that this window is temporary and must be seized quickly before the brain's natural defenses rebuild and the opportunity for transformation passes.

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

To learn more about Dan and Tammy and how their firm can help you, you can view their website at: https://www.reynoldsdefensefirm.com/

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Transcript

Speaker 0  00:00:32

Hi everyone. I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships here at Pacific Cascade Legal, and today we have Dan Reynolds from Reynolds Defense Firm to talk about how getting a divorce or any real sort of life changing event can occur that can create a window of clarity for your life. So first of all, how you doing today?

Speaker 3  00:00:58

I am doing well, Steve. Thanks for asking. How are you?

Speaker 0  00:01:01

Oh, I'm doing great. Uh, it, you know, it's hot, but that's okay. So, before we start talking about this, you wanna talk a little bit about yourself and, and kind of how you came to this subject? Sure.

Speaker 3  00:01:15

So I, uh, I'm a lawyer by trade. I own a law firm, Reynolds Defense Firm. And my firm does one thing. We represent good people facing DUI charges, and we are now entering our 22nd year of doing that. So that is a lot of people that we've helped over 22 years. And what I found over time, um, was that I personally, there's only so many courtroom victories that you can have before those start getting a little bit old. And I realized that the most important thing for me personally was the connection I was making with my clients on the human level and helping them through their human challenges. And that's what I found both my own personal satisfaction, but all also the pieces that made us unique as a, as a firm, because people need help with the law, but people are a lot more complex than law, right?

Speaker 3  00:01:59

They're human beings. So I always figured if we don't help 'em a little bit on the life side, maybe we're not doing as great a job as I want us to. And so, about 10 years ago, we created a life coaching program. And at the time it was just part of the law firm. And the idea was when something traumatic happens, something out of your everyday life, such as being arrested or such as getting going through a divorce process, um, everybody has a a a a shell, right? An ego shell about themselves, that kind of, it, it, it keeps them confined into who they are. It's almost their definition of their personality. And you need that. So it keeps you safe. Um, and you wanna have that. So if you start walking down the sidewalk and somebody calls you a name, you don't start crying, right?

Speaker 3  00:02:37

So it, it has a, it has a purpose, but if you ever wanna make changes in the way that you engage in life, if you ever want to make changes in how you, your thought process or what you want to get out of life, how you want to, uh, move forward, it's not that you can't do that in everyday life 'cause you can, but it's very, very difficult because you've gotta, in everyday life, you've gotta drill down through that shell that protects you and keeps you the same. You gotta drill down through that shell first and then make the change. And it's, that's why, uh, that's why it's so hard to, to lose weight. That's why it's so hard to, to, to get a new habit going. 'cause you can't, it's very difficult to, to change. But what I found is that when you go through that traumatic event again, a divorce or arrest for a little while, that shell shatters into a million pieces.

Speaker 3  00:03:22

And so it's kinda at the ground around your feet and for a short period of time you're open, then you could almost stay vulnerable or susceptible to a new way of doing things, to making changes. And what we found is that you can, you can get 10 times the change that you would normally get, interview everyday life with the same amount of effort, only because you're willing and you're open to do that. You're open to ask yourself harder questions. You're open to look things at different ways than you might not have done before. But then we also learned, and the reason we call it a window of clarity is that this doesn't last forever because this is painful. Your brain does not like pain. Your brain wants to wall this sucker off as fast as it can. And it is amazing at doing that. And what we, we found through talking to hundreds and hundreds of

thousands of people is that there will become a time relatively near in time to when an event happens that you no longer have that same ability to challenge yourself in those same ways. And so the good that we found is that whatever you put inside yourself, while this shell is open at the point that that shell seals back up, that's on the inside. And that becomes part of who you are going forward. And so that's the concept behind a window of clarity program.

Speaker 0  00:04:32

Program. You know what, I like that. And I love the term window of clarity because it sort of reflects that opportunity. But in short, you know, as I was reading kind of some of your stuff about it, it, it, it seemed to me that the opportunity is there, you know, and it starts to fade. But gosh, it can be easy to miss that opportunity.

Speaker 3  00:05:00

Oh, that is so true. Because you have clarity and you think in that moment that the clarity that you now have is gonna be something that you have for the rest of your life. I will always know this. I will always remember this. Yeah. And, and, and in that moment, you are convinced that you will. But I can tell from experience, both personally, but also through working with thousands of people, life comes back, life comes back in and fills up all those spaces that you now have the clarity for, for using. And so it is so easy to say, I'm gonna start doing this next month. I'm gonna start doing this. When everything else gets perfect in life, then that's when I'm gonna do this. 'cause now it's too hard to do something more. And what we found is that simply does not happen. I've had hundreds of people say, you know, I can't do this now, Dan, can I just do this a little bit? Maybe another month or two. I, out of all the hundreds of people I've said that to or I've heard that from, I can think of one person, literally one person that's actually done that. Because nobody wants to go back into this pain once you go past it.

Speaker 0  00:05:57

It's that sort of brain, you know, fight or flight, protect yourself like you were talking about. You know, it, it's hard to control that.

Speaker 3  00:06:07

I think that the only way that you can control it is if you have so many of these moments that you know what they're like. Yeah. And I think fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, this is one of those before and after moments for people. This is one of those moments. And you don't have that many in your lifetime, hopefully. Usually. 'cause usually these are not associated with something that's awesome. But this is one of those times where if you use it, you'll be changed. If you don't use it, well, you're still gonna be yeah, the person, but you, you lost the, the best time to make that change for yourself.

Speaker 0  00:06:41

So how do you use it? I mean, <laugh> that, that also sounds like easier than it maybe is.

Speaker 3  00:06:48

I'm sorry, Steve, I didn't quite hear what Jesus said. I

Speaker 0  00:06:50

Said, how do you use it? Use that opportunity. Have, you know, what kind of thing can you do to, to make it better to realize things and, and what kind of changes can you make?

Speaker 3  00:07:02

Everybody going through one of these challenges, these traumatic challenges, everybody has this window. So there's nothing that we are doing that creates this window for somebody. All we do is give you a path that we know works. And so instead of using your clarity to figure out what you wanna do and trying to evaluate the thousands of things that you could do, we created a curriculum, uh, that says do this, do this, do this. And in doing these things, it works. It works. We've had, oh, we, well over 500 people go through this. Western Oregon University has scientifically validated the curriculum. We believe in this, I believe it. This is at the risk of sounding a little bit cheesy. This is something that we believe very, very much in. And so I'm thrilled for the opportunity even to talk about this because this is how we help people change their lives.

Speaker 0  00:07:52

So are there specific things through the program that you're, you're hoping to achieve? You know, I know that, that, you know, in things like, um, looking at life differently or, or taking as an opportunity to, to make changes, are, are those, some of those, is that the goals you're kind of trying to, to promote with this and, and kind of get done?

Speaker 3  00:08:22

So everybody has operating systems for lack of a different way to say it, right? Your brain says, in this circumstance, I react this way, in this circumstance, I react that way. And it's all, it's all subconscious. You don't even really think about it anymore. This, the brain is amazing. The purpose of these exercises really is to get your thoughts outta your head and onto a piece of paper in a logical and progressive way. Because the more you understand what's happening and you, you get outta your head, then it, it kind of starts, it, it stops losing power over you, right? All of a sudden you can see it as a logical progression of information and process it that way. Whereas if it's in your head, it kind of all swirls around and it's kind of attached to all the other things. And by getting this out on a piece of paper, this is simply asking questions.

Speaker 3  00:09:06

Many of the exercises are just asking you questions. They're asking you, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? And so everybody who goes into this is gonna start wherever their brain's at. And so we've had, we've had folks from, uh, 18 years old to 77 years old, and we've had everybody from students to bricklayers to doctors, to dentists, to teachers, to across all demographics. And the reason it works literally for everybody is because it doesn't assume anything. It says, who are you and who are you now? And once you know who you are now, then you ask questions about who I wanna be and why am I doing things in this way? And once you understand who you are, that's your start. Is this, the choices that I want? Is am I where I wanna be in life? And if the answer is yes, great, but if the answer is no, if the answer says, Hey, I want to use this opportunity to become a better person, it talks about different areas of life and how would you like to be in this area of life?

Speaker 3  00:09:59

How would you like to be in this area of life? And it starts, so I use the word mindset and mean mindset means a bunch of different things to a bunch of people. But if you're trying to make a decision, should I have ice cream tonight? <laugh>, okay? Your brain is gonna process that in a way where you're gonna have six different people look different, different voices saying whether you should get that ice cream right? You're gonna have the indulgent grandparents say, oh, you deserve the ice cream. Right? You're gonna have the, the dietician that says, are you crazy? This is the worst thing you could do. And and sooner or later you're gonna make your own decision. Do I eat the ice cream or not? It's a fairly just a silly example. Yeah. But mindset is essentially strengthening those voices, right? Those perspectives that advance you along the path that you want to be going down. But it's an intentional thought process to do that rather than just let those voices talk and, and not having any way to, to make an objective decision for yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 0  00:10:52

Well, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting because I was an <inaudible> and as working with lot, a long, long time with, and like, you, it, it, it's, it just feels, I mean, I don't know this, I didn't write this down before, but it just feels, this is kind of like an attorney preparing for a trial. You, you're sort of getting the evidence, you're getting it down on paper, you're getting it, you're, you're, you're getting the questions, you're writing them down. I mean, you're forcing yourself to be inward looking. And then how do you get the best result

Speaker 3  00:11:32

And the magic about right now? Right. The magic is that you are willing to ask yourself those questions. Yeah. And in everyday life, it's, these are usually hard questions to ask yourself. And usually you don't frankly wanna know the answers because if you do the answers, you'd have to take action. So you, you kind of hide from yourself on this. Yeah. But Steve, you're, you're so right. It's, it's, it's strange to talk about your, your brain in the third person, right. But your brain has a function. And that function is to keep you safe and safe in your brain's mind in, in, in the biological evolution of your brain, right? Safe means the same. Safe means whatever I was doing yesterday since I'm still alive today must have been good. And that's why people stay in, in dead end jobs or, or horrible relationships much longer. And everybody from the outside says, why would you do this? Well, the brain is saying, good job. You're still alive. Right? You're still safe. It goes all the way

back to the caveman days, right? Where if you go left out of the, the cave and you don't get eaten, well you go left. 'cause the right might have the same root tiger. Right? So go left every time. Right. That's biological

Speaker 0  00:12:35

It, it's funny because the, it feels like you're kind of working with both sort of that conscious brain and then the subconscious brain and and they aren't, they aren't always in syn.

Speaker 3  00:12:49

Oh, the subconscious brain is, is a four letter word, and I won't say it right. That's a, it's a, the subconscious is incredibly pervasive and amazing at keeping you alive and in exactly the same posture that you were in last week. Yesterday, last year. Um, and so you're taking on this biological, uh, powerhouse, right? I'm putting the kinda the back of my head, like subconscious someplace. Um, but you're taking that on when you're saying, I want to do more or I want to be better, or I want to grow or evolve or change. Um, and frankly, most people lose that fight in everyday life. Yeah. That's why this trauma is such an opportunity. I personally believe, oh, I don't wanna, generally speaking, I can look at the worst things that happened in my life. And with the benefit of hindsight, I can say those were the best things that ever could have happened to me.

Speaker 3  00:13:44

Yeah. Because I had that moment and I had to change and I chose to change. Right. Not that I would wish them on, on anybody, but at the same time, in order to become the next level of human in, in order for you to evolve into the better self that I think that everybody has the potential to be, you have to use the moments like this to do that. And um, I can't tell you how many people have said to me over the years, this is the best thing that ever could have happened to me. Yeah, yeah. With the benefit of hindsight, because they needed this and they were stuck in life and they knew it.

Speaker 0  00:14:20

So what, what sort of, you know, actions or studies or ways going forward through this, do you, do you kind of work with, um, is it, is it, do you guide it along? Is it self-guided? I mean, how, how does it get kind of started and what maybe what sorts of things are you asking yourself?

Speaker 3  00:14:47

Um, so renewal clarity is a four or eight week curriculum. Um, and so it's a a in that respect, a self-guided program. And if person gets a week of work at a time, we don't give you all of it. 'cause you're gonna look ahead and then you're not gonna do the stuff for today. So get a week work of time and you spend a little bit of time every single day working on it. And then once a week for the first four weeks, we have an assigned coach that has a, a telephonic coaching call with you and it's a one-on-one call. And our coaches, we require coaches to be licensed professional counselors, but this is a coaching relationship and it's different than counseling. So just real briefly, coaching is designed to help a person take this moment in life and get the absolute most they can get out of it. Counseling is a much longer term process and I'm a huge fan of counseling, but in my experience there's only so much benefit you can get outta counseling in a very short period of time. Whereas there's a tremendous amount of benefits you can get outta coaching in that same period of time. So this is coaching that counseling, but I still want our coaches to be counselors just 'cause I wanna have experts in this conversation. 'cause sometimes this can go pretty deep.

Speaker 0  00:15:45

Yeah. That it, it sounds like, you know, this kind of thing from our perspective, the family law perspective, it sort of works in that because, you know, a divorce is a, is a set amount of time and it's not, it's not a forever thing. And there is that kind of intense period almost. It feels kind of like a DUI that that you, you can be focused on getting yourself to make good decisions. And some of those decisions, at least in family law, we'll probably have to do with your divorce case.

Speaker 3  00:16:28

Oh, without question, it's gonna have to do with your divorce and what you want out of life going forward. But it's also gonna help you deal with the fact that you're going through an emotional turmoil. Right? You're going through a, a very, very, very difficult time. And, and what we've found is that it's very easy to start spinning and just having those same thoughts going in your head. And very rarely does spinning go upward. It usually goes downward, right? It usually pulls you

someplace where it's not good. And window of clarity gives you something positive that is good for you, that is going to do good. It gives you that positive place to focus your energy and, and it helps you get through what can easily be devastation Yeah. As far as your, your self perception because everything's changing, right? So this helps you get outta your head and figure out who you wanna be.

Speaker 0  00:17:17

Yeah. You know, it's one of the problems that we've run across, you know, and it's, it's just like, I think you said normal, it's subconscious Is in something like this suppressing your accountability. Is that part of what you guys do to try to, you know, help, help realizing and maybe promoting your own accountability in all of this?

Speaker 3  00:17:42

I think personally, if I'm going to be from the outside looking at any relationship, there's gonna be things I did right. And things I didn't do right. All the way through in, in a DUI contest, in arrest, arrest context, same thing, right? Sometimes we have people who just wanna blame a police officer Yeah. And won't own and they can't own anything that says, okay, I could have done something different. And in my mind, those people have created themselves as victims. And although I will respect all day long that that's the way that they feel. You don't wanna be a victim in anything. 'cause victims don't have any power. And that means that the, if the same thing happened tomorrow, you would do exactly the same thing and end up in the same place. And that's not what anybody wants. What you wanna be able to do is take an objective, look, figure out what parts you could have done differently and own it and say, okay, next time I'm gonna take the benefit of this lesson and learning and I'm not gonna be that person again. And that empower that gives you power as a human being because it's easy to just throw up your hands and say, oh, woe is me. But that doesn't do you any good. And everybody knows, doesn't do any good. Might feel good for a little bit, but sooner or later you need to pick yourself up off the ground. Right. You have to, to be able to move forward with life. And, and if that's what you're referring to on the accountability side, then I would agree a hundred percent. Yeah.

Speaker 0  00:19:00

So let's say I'm in your class or in in the class and, and I come to you and I say, Hey, hey Dan, Dan, I, I just hit a wall. I mean, I I can't do it. I can't do it anymore. What can you tell me?

Speaker 3  00:19:15

So our coaches are fantastic and they, uh, are all less professional counselors. They've all had five or more years of experience helping people. Um, and they have come across this time and time again and, uh, in our professional careers outside of window clarity, and of course with window clarity from time to time, the secret, I believe the secret in that moment, the, the key in that moment is to slow down and do the next thing. Do the next piece. Don't be overwhelmed by this big wall of things coming at you. Understand that sometimes your, your progress is a step. It's not a thousand steps. I think everybody has a core of greatness inside them. I truly believe that. But over time, you know, life kind of just dumps stuff on top of that core, right? And, and you kind of forget who you are sometimes if you hit that wall, understand that that doesn't change the fact that you are an incredible human being Underneath understand that this just means there's some layers of stuff there that you need to scrape off. Take that step right? Take that step and believe that you are worth it because you are and believe that life will get better because you have the opportunity to put your thoughts into what needs to happen. And in my own personal experience, improvements then happen as well.

Speaker 0  00:20:38

You say, you know, this is self-guided, so can it, it sounds like it's not like one size fits all. And, and, um, so it it, you don't have to necessarily, you know, oh, I need to hit check this box because maybe that's not a box that makes a difference so much to making me better than others. I mean, so I, I like the fact that it, it seems like it's flexible, but it still makes you, I mean it's like going back to law school. It makes you study <laugh>.

Speaker 3  00:21:13

It does make you study, it makes you think about things that you don't normally think about because everything's on an automatic automatic spin, right? Automatic cycle. You just, if you think through why you do that, then you can ask yourself, do I wanna do that the next time? Right. You can break that automatic pattern. Uh, as far as it being flexible, it is a curriculum-based program. So the idea of week one is week one. Week two is week two for the first four weeks. We give

people a chance to decide in the last week if they wanna participate for another four weeks. And 90% of people do. Most people do. But the reason we ask it that way is that I want this to be a person's choice. So they get to choose in the beginning, is this what I wanna do? And then they get to choose midway through, is this giving me what I think I want?

Speaker 3  00:21:55

Is this giving me, am I feeling better about myself? And the second four weeks is designed to be more flexible, to look back at the first four and say, Hey, what worked for me first four weeks, try these things, right? This is the try it second four weeks. There's still a curriculum, there's still guidelines, but it also asks you to, to evaluate what, what did I get outta this? How do I wanna keep going forward with life in the second four weeks? There's two coaching calls instead of four. So there's a coaching call every other week. 'cause we don't wanna get people addicted to coaching <laugh>. We wanna get people to be able to move on their own two feet and move forward with life. And so how are you responding in between these sessions? How are you using the tools you got in the first four weeks?

Speaker 3  00:22:33

Are they working for you? And our coaches are amazing at personalizing what needs to happen, right? Their job is to hold you accountable for what you say you wanna do, but also to encourage you for doing something that 95% of the population in the world never does. You're asking yourself, how do I become a better person in a deliberate fashion? And that could be both very hard and incredibly rewarding. And our coaches have the compassion than the insight to be able to say congratulations and good job. Um, and they can say, okay, you need to work. It sounds like you need to work more on this part rather than this part. So let's focus on this. Let so absolutely they can help you personalize the curriculum on the what pieces are the most important for you. Yeah.

Speaker 0  00:23:15

Gosh, we're almost blown through all or 30 minutes, but I got one more question that, that, you know, I it's, it's something we ask a lot in, in divorces of our client and I, and I don't know if it's part of this program or it, it may be as pathetic to the program, but you know, what, you know, is part of it trying to figure out what your ultimate goal is.

Speaker 3  00:23:46

It absolutely is. In fact, we have a series of what we call goal matrix. So a 10 year goal matrix, right? Who do I wanna be in 10 years? 10 years is a long time. You can be anything in 10 years. So it kind of takes the pressure off. So then who do you wanna be 10 years from now? Give us these different categories of life. Who do you think you are gonna be then? And it doesn't have to be right, it doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, it almost certainly won't be because there's gonna be a whole bunch of things between now and then. But the thing about life is if you don't start towards a destination, you never learn that. That's not the right one. You never get the opportunity to then pivot. And so we have a 10 year goal, uh, we have a five year goal. We have a three year goal, one year goal. So we break this down over the course of the, of the curriculum into what do I need to do this month. Uh, so we start with this huge, you know, 10 year goal that's, that's way out there. But then over time, who is it? And how are you going to do the things that, that move you forward in those pieces? Um, the idea is to train you and help you learn how to break something that's big down into bite-sized pieces.

Speaker 0  00:24:45

I, I gotta say, I love that you see so many sort of these goal setting things. Start with the one year goal.

Speaker 3 00:24:55 Ah,

Speaker 0  00:24:56

And once we, and then it's like, uh, then and then it's, it's like you don't really know where you're going. Now. You're just sort of wandering through the, you know, woods

Speaker 3  00:25:06

And you're saying, can I do this in a year? And you stall yourself out. Yeah. 10 years you can do anything. The pressure's off.

Speaker 0  00:25:11

Yep. I like that. I like that. Okay. We are bad out of time, but before we do go, I really would ask you to tell people who, who are watching or are going to watch this, how they can get ahold of you if they have more questions or if they wanna maybe get involved in this.

Speaker 3  00:25:32

So we have a website. The website is window of clarity.com. So window of clarity.com. And in on that website you can certainly learn more about the program itself. You can hear some of the success stories from people who have gone through the various curriculums, the divorce curriculum, the DUI curriculum. So hearing those success stories is, it's nice. It kind of helps you understand, hey, I, I'm not any different than this person. This person rocked this. And it gives you a way that you can both sign up if you choose to sign up, but also gives you a way to ask questions if you would like to ask questions. And so that's, uh, that's the best way to get in touch with the Window Clarity Program about, uh, a couple years ago now, 3, 4, 5 years ago now, we separated the Window Clarity program from my law firm. So it's its own business now. It's itself of people left and right. Uh, it's wonderful. Our coaches are fantastic. Our team is great. That website can both answer your questions, but it's also the starting point to move forward to.

Speaker 0  00:26:23

I love it. Wow. Well, we've blown through 30 minutes, but thank you really, Dan, thank you so much for being here today to talk about, you know, in our family law case, how a divorce could create this clarity, this window of clarity where you suddenly it's your opportunity to get to really expand and get better and doing it in a way that it's complex, but understandable even to, you know, someone like me. So that's a good job. Thank you for doing it. It's been my pleasure to talk to you, Steve. You take care of yourself. You take care of yourself too. And everyone else, thank you for joining us today. If anyone has any further questions on today's topic, obviously you can get ahold of Dan as, as he talked about. If you're like me and you forgot everything, you can post it here and we can get you connected with Dan. And so until next time, stay safe, stay happy, and be well.