Spirit, Conflict, Litigation
I remember the first time I hired an attorney, at the very start of my divorce. I was on shaky ground - mother of two young sons (one still in diapers), on feeble financial footing, and afraid. This was not a friendly divorce, as much as I wanted it to be. I was going to need legal support. The team I hired was strategic, smart, no-nonsense and ultimately, successful. From the moment I hired them to the moment we signed our settlement, they taught me many lessons about how to handle litigation, and how important these skills are to our financial well-being. Not just our financial well-being, but our overall emotional and spiritual wellness.
When conflict escalates to this level and the lawyers, judges, and the rule of law become involved in our personal and financial lives, the ego is profoundly triggered. Divorce, failed deals, neighborhood disputes– so many of us will find ourselves in a situation where the external forces of law and government now decide the outcome of our personal conflict.
How do we negotiate the fears, hold to a boundary, and tame the ego through this challenge?
Accept Death.
When we are facing litigation or any high conflict, it triggers our deepest fears related to survival. That fear will weaken the quality of your response. When we are in fear states, the brain is hijacked; our ability to discern, respond, and strategize is reduced. When you feel the sensation of fear arise while reading a legal document, take a moment and breath. Slow down the fight or flight response. Once your nervous system is in relative equilibrium, envision the worst-case outcome from the legal matter at hand.
Whether it is a deal where you could lose all your capital or something with a legal consequence, imagine it going horribly wrong. I have found this to be incredibly helpful, because even the worst-case scenario is one that, in the deepest way, I am able to internally accept. The spiritual practice of looking at our biggest fear directly in the eyes is a form of medicine that helps us to sharpen our responses and discernment. The strongest warrior is the one who has accepted death with peace.
Keep It Sweet.
In high-conflict situations, your opponent might be even more hijacked than you are. The more aggressive the opposite side is, the more afraid they are. Our primal brain is trained to respond in kind (an eye for an eye) with equal or augmented aggression. If you can learn to control this response, you will begin to gain a strategic advantage: a calm mind. If you are the recipient of a legal attack, take a moment to be in a meditative, insightful state of mind.
Look at that person as if you are looking at their soul from the sky. How afraid are they? Take it a step further, and see yourself wishing that person well. Tell them you hope the case goes smoothly for them. This kind of reverse engineering, based in compassion, helps you to move forward from a perspective of strength.
Sharpen Your Teeth.
That being said, don’t be afraid of conflict. Conflict is embedded within our social connections, and while you can accommodate and try to please and offer compromises, we can’t actually avoid it. Disagreements, tension, and conflict are a natural part of the wider web of experience. Knowing when to hold your boundary and create a potential conflict is part of the true path, and it’s a powerful tool to use with respect. Women, in particular, are culturally conditioned to avoid conflict yet sometimes it is required; to change companies, to change laws, to change family systems, to change our own lives. Keeping your energy ready to hold your boundary, with clarity and a bit of “tooth,” is also a spiritual practice.
Learn to Dance.
Working with attorneys is a dance. One of the most important things I have learned is to talk less and let them lead. You are paying them by the hour, so garner as much information as you can from them by not interrupting. Have your questions listed in advance so you can run through them efficiently. If you disagree with the strategy, make sure you say so. The attorney often leads the strategy but there are moments when they will depend on you for clear direction. Understand your attorney’s personality/dance style, and adjust yours accordingly.
Where there is wealth, power, and risk, the shadow side of disappointment, betrayal, and mistrust is always present.
Over time, my fear of litigation has lessened as I have come to realize it is an inevitable aspect of a successful career. In an attempt to settle into a resolution, and to avoid disappointing others, we may compromise our truth and our worth to keep the pathway smooth. Women tend to do this more than men, but we are all vulnerable to compromising our truth for peace.
There is a cost to this. While there may be a temporary resolution, it might only represent buried weed seeds. Discontent can go dormant and then germinate in multiple unwelcome, messy, and destructive ways. Discontent and conflict that is fully faced can often yield unexpected gifts; maturity, seasoning, depth, sobriety, and wisdom. And sometimes discontent leads to a deeper knot of disagreement and confusion - connections are broken, the lawyers are called, and you are now in litigation.
Either way, if you expect gifts, you will receive them.
I’ve walked the litigation path multiple times in multiple situations. The personal and professional challenges are profound. Accepting the flares of conflict with the peace of non-attachment is a source of deeper power. As I have learned to thicken my skin, sharpen my teeth, and hone my perspective to a cosmic one, I have come to appreciate the moments of litigation as times to strengthen and thrive. Next time you are confronted with a high conflict or a legal situation, look at it as a benevolent curriculum of life school. It’s a new syllabus, but I promise you it can be a good one.
PS — Most Important! Learn how to read a legal document. If I could repeat this sentence ten times so you would really hear it, I would. This is a skill that is rarely taught but you will need to know many times over your lifetime. While integrating the spiritual lessons of conflict, do yourself a favor and buy a book and train yourself in legal language, conventions, and terms.
Sylvia Benito is a portfolio manager with 20 years of experience in managing family office investments. She has worked in various capacities in wealth management, from hedge fund analyst to CIO for family offices and ultra-high net worth individuals, managing $1B in assets.
She is also an indigenously trained shaman. Sylvia connects consciousness to capital by bridging the traditional world of investing to the alignment, awareness, and transformative purpose of wealth.
With fluency in the languages of money and energy, Sylvia is a sought-after international speaker with an extraordinarily rare range of mastery.
