We recently connected with Peter Fabish and have shared our conversation below.
Peter, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
A lot of my resilience comes from having had a difficult childhood. I lost my mother to suicide when I was 11 years old. This resulted in losing relationships with her entire side of the family. Like many households in those days, we did not talk about this or work through it as a family. It wasn’t until later in life that I worked all of this through. But I think surviving a parental suicide helped me to become resilient as an adult.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My partner John Hoelle and I started Conscious Family in 2014 because, as family lawyers, we saw the damage to families (especially children) that occurs in litigated divorces. We have a process that takes families from the decision to divorce, through reaching agreements in mediation, to preparing all of their pleadings. All without having to hire lawyers. Most of our mediators are attorneys (the sole exception is supervised by attorneys). But we don’t represent either party. We act as neutrals, helping parents to get through the divorce transition at a fraction of the monetary and emotional cost to their families. I personally do this in large part to help the children of these families avoid the trauma I experienced as a child in a broken family. We are currently in the process of expanding into Denver and beyond. All of our mediations can be held over zoom if people live outside of Boulder.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
As a traumatized child, I learned to be very aware of people’s emotions and reactions. As a child and young adult, this was a survival skill. As an adult practicing mediation, it hugely enhances my ability to track my clients as they go through a highly emotional process, and to help them through it. I would say other qualities I developed as a result of my background are a lot of depth and empathy for people going through big struggles. I have no problem sitting with people who are highly emotional and on “emotional tilt,” and helping them to ground and think clearly about important decisions and disputes. I have a daily meditation practice that also helps me to stay grounded in these situations.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
We are always looking to collaborate with therapists, who are often the first people to find out that a couple is moving toward divorce and need help. Also real estate agents, who strangely enough also are often the first to learn of this. Also financial advisors, school counselors, teachers, school principals, clergy…anyone who is likely to find out that people they work with are contemplating divorce, so they can tell them about what we do. I want this, again, so people can know there is an alternative to either (1) lawyering up; or (2) trying to figure out divorce all on their own. Around 80% of divorces in Boulder, for example, are done “pro se” (without lawyers), and those people are left without any professional guidance to navigate the highly complex arena of divorce. We have seen many instances of really bad decisions being made by spouses in those situations, largely because they simply don’t understand the law or the legal landscape of divorce. Often they will make poor decisions that are based on bad reasons, such as guilt (e.g., they feel they are at fault for the divorce). Those decisions in particular can result in misguided parenting plans, which then negatively impact the children. And also poor financial decisions, which impact the affected parent for years to come. We want to help as many people as possible to make good decisions, after being informed by one of our attorney/mediators of the law and their rights. Even though we are neutral as mediators, we make sure that everyone going through our process has all the information they need to make good decisions. We also work hard, when necessary, to correct for power imbalances in the couple, and gently help people to make decisions for the right reasons, so they don’t end up regretting the choices they made while they were compromised in the highly challenging time of going through a divorce.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.consciousfamilyfirm.com We are in the process of upgrading this website, to be completed over the next few months. But it has lots of info about our firm.
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/consciousfamilyfirm/events/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterfabish/ This also is badly in need of an update.
Image Credits
https://theheadshotgal.com/ Liv, The Headshot Gal
