The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads
The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads is a weekly podcast designed specifically for fathers navigating divorce. It addresses the unique challenges men face and offers practical guidance, emotional support, and real-life insights to help dads survive — and ultimately thrive — during and after divorce.
Each episode combines honest conversation, personal stories, and action-oriented advice to help listeners rebuild confidence, create healthy co-parenting strategies, manage finances, navigate court complexities, and heal emotionally. Since launching in 2020, the show has become a trusted resource and supportive community for divorced and divorcing dads.
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The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads
284 - Your Ex Pressed Send; Your Brain Pressed Panic—Now What?
A hostile email lands. Your heart jumps. Your mind races. Before you can think, your nervous system has already decided: fight, flee, or freeze. We sit down with Joey Klein, author of Relationship Alchemy and founder of Inner Matrix Systems, to unpack how dads in high-conflict divorce can reset their bodies, reclaim their minds, and lead with calm—right in the moment it matters most.
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Hello and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today and for listening in to somebody that uh has been a guest multiple times on the show. It's been a couple of years, but I'm truly, truly excited to be talking to him again and talking about his new book. But before I uh jump in and introduce him, I just want to remind you to visit the divorcedadvocate.com website. We've got our Black Friday sale going on, 25% discount on one-on-one coaching. Check it out under the membership page at thedivorcedadvocate.com. All right, my guest today, Joey Klein, who you have heard before, is the author of his new book, Relationship Alchemy, and he's also the visionary behind the inner matrix systems. While many view relationships as something that, quote unquote, just happens to us to them, Joey approaches connection as a trainable skill set. By combining his background in neuroscience-based mental training with practical emotional intelligence, Joey helps people deconstruct the hidden patterns that sabotage their relationships. His work moves beyond standard communication tips, focusing instead on inner training. The process of rewiring the emotional loops and nervous system reactions that dictate how we connect with others. Through his books and seminars, Joey provides a blueprint for anyone looking to transform conflict into collaboration and build relationships that are not only enduring but deeply fulfilling. Joey, welcome back to the show.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, thanks so much for having me. It's fun to be here again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's uh it's been a while. It's probably been a couple of years, and we had a couple of uh great uh recordings before. One just you and I, one which was just an amazing, an amazing episode with one of my coaching clients that that you worked with and saw some immediate results. I just want to encourage everybody, you know, listen to this. Don't turn this one off. Listen to what Joey's got to say today, but go back and find those as those two episodes and listen to them. Absolutely uh amazing stuff. And and on that note, Joey, so you know, we've talked about intermatrix systems before. You wrote the book, Intermatrix Systems. You've got the new book, Relationship Alchemy. I've read both of them, both are very, very awesome. I know that that first book, you talk a lot about how it took you a very long time to write that because you wanted it to be really, really good and really, really helpful to somebody, which it it it absolutely is. What then prompted you now to write another book after it took you so long and was such a labor of love with that first one? What prompted you to get into the to relationship alchemy and write that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I jump jumped into relationship alchemy because I've been I've been training people now for over 22 years. We've had a little over 90,000 people go through our programs and trainings at this point in time. And so, and I'm in the trenches with folks. Like I still train people one-on-one today, mostly because I love it. You know, I just love the art of transformation. I love supporting people to create the outcomes that they want to create, like become the version of themselves they want to become and create the life they want to create. And it was interesting because something like 70% of people that were engaging with my company, engaging with my organization, looking for training, it was like, man, they were looking for relationship help. And over the years, as I've looked at like what does life mastery look like, it's interesting because like there's been a framework that's that's emerged. And it's like step one is really dialing in your inner inner mechanics, like state management. We all wake up to something. So if we wake up to anxiety and anger and overwhelm, like that's a particular day. If we're waking up to joy and freedom and compassion, like that's a very different day, right? If we're we're inspired throughout our day. So it's like first, it's about managing state, like training state. Second, it's about health and vitality, because if we're if we're ill, as as the saying goes, like if you're really ill, like nothing else matters but your health all of a sudden, right? You know, and so it's like dialing in health vitality is number two. And then number three, in terms of fulfillment, was all about relationships. And so it was like, oh, this is probably the first, you know, lifestyle series that makes sense to really do a deep dive in because we help people in each area of life. And then from there it's finance and then obviously, you know, career and contribution. And so for over 20 years, we've been supporting people in relationship. And so that's really how relationship alchemy came to be. It's been, you know, two decades of working one-on-one with people, supporting people to create the relationships that they want, not just romantic, um, although that tends to be a primary focus for people, but also friendships and business relationships, etc.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So so that so then you're telling me there's a couple more books in the works, huh? Is that what you're saying? With the with the financial like financial bit there. Oh, that's okay. So are you saying that there might be a couple more books in the works here with the financial and the and the uh professional, et cetera?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think we got we got probably two more down the pipe, the frameworks around building finances and like you know, financial freedom through investment income. And then the second one will be you know health and vitality. What are the core core elements around that? But relationship was like we actually had our community vote, and we're like, hey, which one do you want to come out first? Do you want to do relationship? Do you want us to do body health, or do you want us to really formalize our curriculum on money? And they were like, it was hands down, it was relationship, like it won by a landslide. So I was like, great, that's what we're gonna do first.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, that makes sense. Every time, well, when I was reading Intermatrix, and I still use your systems that that Ryan has trained me on as as well. I always thought, yeah, this would be like perfect segue into relationships and how to build better relationships. So I think that's perfect. And on that note, so you talk about like the nervous system hijacked, right? Many of our listeners, many of the dads are right in the middle of high conflict divorces. And you talk about the how like like you said, your day starts off and stress can hijack your nervous system and just completely throw off your day. Can you explain what is physically happening to a dad's brain when he when he does something like opens a hostile email from his ex-wife? Or and and then also more importantly, talk about how he can reset that reaction in real time so he doesn't say fire back a response that he's gonna regret.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00:So, you know, the what a lot of people don't understand is our core nervous system is actually not hardwired for us to thrive in life, right? It doesn't actually care if we make more money or have peace and tranquility in our life or you know, wonderful relationships. Like it's really a threat-based system. And so all your nervous system cares about, and and this is everybody, like this is just thousands of years of the nervous system coming to be the way it is today, is it does two primary things. It's like, let me find a threat, and then how do I avoid that threat? Like, and it's basically in that base programming all the time. And so what happens is it's like you open up that email, like you were talking about earlier, and we see the email from you know, the the ex or you know, whoever we're separating from, whatever it is. And what we don't realize is, you know, immediately our nervous system, our unconscious self, looks at that and identifies it as a threat. And then for most people, where the where they go is their their attention or their focus goes on to the past, the things that have happened, the things that they're unhappy with, the current challenges or struggles that are going on. And then the mind starts looking for a way to eliminate that threat. Now, the problem with this is we get hijacked, right? We get our fight or flight systems turned on. And so now our entire focus is on the bad thing that's happening, the bad things that have occurred in the past, and then that naturally has the mind start to extrapolate the bad things that will most likely occur in the future. And then the brain goes into the mode of called eliminate the threat. And so the challenge here, though, is it's trying to eliminate two things. Number one, a threat that hasn't occurred yet, because we start extrapolating into the future, like, oh my God, the money I'm gonna lose, and I'm not gonna get to see my kids, and I'm gonna be alone, and you know, I didn't, I don't deserve this, and so on and so forth. And so we're focusing on something that hasn't even occurred yet. It's in the future. We're usually anticipating something bad occurring. And so we can't actually solve for that. And so then what the mind does is it focuses on the challenges that are currently going on, and it's usually focused on some element of circumstance that we can't control. And so the way we mitigate this is very counterintuitive. Step one, we actually need to do nothing but acknowledge the emotional state that we're in and that our nervous system is essentially hijacked, that we're in a fight or flight response as opposed to a parasympathetic response, right? We're inside of an overactive sympathetic response as opposed to parasympathetic response. And when we're in fight or flight, we lose cognition. Like our prefrontal cortex just behind our brain, you know, it completely shuts down. We have no access to critical thinking, creative thinking, and intuition, which are all key for being able to problem solve and produce the best outcome possible, especially if you're going through a separation. And so first step is going, man, in this moment I'm angry, I'm resentful, I feel anxious, I feel upset. Like literally acknowledge the emotion and the energy that's present. Step two, acknowledge, like, hey, my nervous system's hijacked. I'm in a fight or flight response right now. And my only job is to center myself, not tend the situation, not write the email back, not think about a response, not extrapolate in the future, but literally turn the nervous system down. So, like in the inner matrix, I go deep into the four-sided breath and the mechanics of that. Box breathing, if people know of like the yogic breath of box breathing, can also work where you just focus on your breath. You just take that nice, subtle, slow, deep breath in through the nose, slight pause hold at the top, exhale out the nose, slight pause, hold at the bottom, and you repeat that cycle of breathing until you feel your nervous system relax, you feel the body relax, and you feel yourself back in center. Then from there, you want to create an anchor in the future. And what the anchor needs to be is the future reality you want to create, both inside of the experience you want to feel. I want to know joy, I want to know inspiration, I want to know love, and also the results you want to get, the amount of money you want to make, the time you want to spend with your kids, the connection you want to foster, and then work toward the outcome that you want to fulfill and create. Because if we're outcome focused in a very clear and specific way, then we're not gonna get hijacked inside that fight or flight response. And so, like that's that the initial step is to not tend the situation, which is counterintuitive because we have this impulse to solve for something. But the thing is, if we don't first align ourselves, we're not in the right state of mind or presence to solve for anything. And then usually this is where a fight and argument and so on and so forth is going to ensue.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Okay, that makes sense. And so it's kind of uh you you talk about it between calming the mind and training the mind, right? The first step is calming the mind and just getting yourself into a state, and then the second part is being able to take that to the next level, which is training the mind then to be able to deal with whatever it is you're dealing with, correct?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I would add one element, I would say it's calming your nervous system, it's centering your emotions so that you can regain access to the mind, which has been hijacked by the emotion that we're feeling. And so it's like, you know, as I always say, train align and rewire, like calm the emotion, train the emotion, rewire the brain, and then condition the nervous system to function from a love-based state as opposed to a fear-based state. So a lot of people they try to, you know, calm the mind with the mind, but you actually have to calm the mind by centering, calming, and stilling your emotions, which is where the breath comes in.
SPEAKER_02:Got it. And that's where then we start talking about the breath. Like the breath is a is a tool. That's an a training tool that you're utilizing in order to take that to the next level. So and and what I'm getting at is I want to I want to talk. So I'm I'm we're trying to try to set this up a little bit so that we can get into the relationship alchemy and then how guys can start to utilize some of this stuff. Again, guys that that are listening, go back. We talk about the intermature system and some of this stuff in really more detail. Actually, even better, go to intermature systems.com and get into Joey's systems and get in immersed in this because there's not a better system that you're going to be able to get involved with and learn for regulating that your nervous system, dealing with your emotions uh as you go through this. And it's an important, important tool. But what I want to do, and the point I was I was making, Joey, is then why is it important then for uh for for the dads then to not only just do something maybe like trying to get into a zen moment or calm the mind, but actually start to train your nervous system.
SPEAKER_00:So if we don't train the nervous system, what we're essentially gonna do is we're gonna operate on autopilot. And when we're operating on autopilot, the what I call the ghost in the machine is gonna take over. And so we all have what I call our inner matrix, which is our you know pre-programmed emotions and thoughts and nervous system impacts that have gotten wired throughout our life. And so what happens is an event happens. Like let's say we're going through a divorce, you get that email that you talked about, that's like a trigger event. Well, what it's triggering, triggering or activating isn't current emotions. And this is where people, you know, make a mistake is they think that, like, oh, I feel emotional because I'm going through this circumstance or because I got this email or my significant other did this thing to me. But the reality is the event that's occurring in the moment has activated a pattern dynamic in our unconscious self. I call it the ghost in the machine, a pattern dynamic in our inner matrix. And that emotion that we're feeling is actually a past emotion, meaning the conditioning of the circumstances from our past is where we learned that emotion. It's where that emotion got got anchored and sort of like trained, ingrained within our nervous system. And so an event happens, we feel angry. The mistake is people go, oh, I feel angry because this and that's happening. It'd be more accurate to say this is happening and it's activated the pattern that's been dormant in me called anger, and it's been there for decades. And now it is active and it is awake and it is driving my behavior. And so if we try in that moment to tend the situation while we feel angry or resentful or sad as an example, we're relying on our past intelligence, which is where all emotions were trained and conditioned in the past, to manage our present circumstance. And so if we do that and we allow that to continue happening, we're gonna recreate past events again and again and again, and we're going to miss out on the future that we could design and create for ourselves. We're not gonna be able to create new circumstances if we rely on old information based on old pattern dynamics from those emotions that got anchored in the past. And so when we learn to train the nervous system, we're retraining those old pattern dynamics. So it's like instead of being past focused, we get future focused. What's the vision of the relationship I want to have in the future? In two, three years from now, after I'm through my divorce as an example, what's the relationship I want to have? Or if I'm in a relationship that's a little bit challenging, well, if I were to design the relationship I aspire to and I get future focused on the relationship that's possible for me, there's a 90% chance that you could actually start showing up differently from the inside out and learn some skills and some tools and some tastics and some tactics and actually create that vision of relationship with the person you're currently with. But we have to get future focused and future driven in order to do that. And then we have to train or retrain our nervous system, our emotions, our thought strategies, and our nervous system to align with who we want to become as opposed to who we've been. So we have to retrain those dynamics.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So let's talk about that a little bit in the context of maybe a relationship alchemy with uh like with our ex-spouse, right? Because that's that's probably the the first one that we have to deal with in going through in going through a divorce. And obviously, if we are going through or have gotten a divorce, we don't want to have that same relational dynamic that we've had with them that has maybe led to the ending of the marriage, and we want to change that. So we maybe want to change that toxic relationship into maybe the best we can describe it is uh is a is a is a like a functional business partnership, right? Where we can where we co-parent or parallel parent with that parent. But the you know, the first how what is the first step that we can take in changing that dynamic when the other person is like you're not in a partnership anymore, they're not on on board, right? Like you talk about in the in in your book about how maybe the person might be on board, uh might not be on board, maybe you bought them the book, maybe you're doing it together. This person is like completely living a different lifestyle. Like, let's talk about what's the first step in in just even trying to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. The first step is is what I call absolute ownership. And so what I mean by that is if you if we pay attention and you think about the ex, like matter of fact, people could do it right now. Like, think about your ex. And what I would say is write down the emotion that you're thinking about your ex, like what's the first emotion people feel? What would you say it is? Right, cringe. Yeah. Does that say that one more time? I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I say like right. Like usually you think about the ex it's like yeah, it's like anger, resentment, rage, right?
SPEAKER_00:Maybe unworthiness, maybe shame or guilt for something I did. And it's like, boom, there's an emotion there. The key is to to to have the courage to go, I'm not feeling this list of things because of anything that has to do with my ex. Because like maybe I haven't talked to him in a year. Maybe I haven't been, maybe we haven't lived together in six months, right? Maybe we're co-parenting, but I haven't seen him in two days. But I'm sitting in my house and I think about my ex and I feel anger, I feel resentment, I feel rage, I feel unworthy, I feel shame. I feel all these emotions show up. Whether we like it or not, that's us with ourselves. That has nothing to do with the ex. It has nothing to do with the past, the circumstances that happen. And so like the real courage is going, man, these are my, these are emotions I'm feeling, and these have 100% to do with me, not my ex. And I'm going to be responsible for them and I'm going to retrain them. And how do we know that we've nailed it? Is we can think of the ex and we feel compassion. We can think of the ex and we feel love for them. Because at one point in time, you probably did love them, right? Like something changed there. Can I think of my ex and just feel peace within myself or centered or a sense of acceptance? And so that's the first order of business. Because if we don't do that, then your past relationship is going to define your future relationship. Because that anxiety and that rage and that resentment and that fear and that insecurity doesn't go away because you get into a new relationship. The pattern dynamic lives in your unconscious self, it lives in your nervous system. And so if we don't retrain it, we're going to take it into our new relationship. Like not only are we not going to transform our relationship with our ex potentially, which is very important, especially if we're co-parenting or in a situation where we have to continue interacting with them. But more important is if we take those pattern dynamics into our next relationship, it's going to limit what's possible. So step one is always ownership. This is my emotion. These are my experiences. Let me dial myself in. 90% of the time, if you don't enroll the other person and you actually just evolve who you are being with yourself as you interact with them, that is all that it takes for a relationship to transform.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So yeah. So you talk about that radical personal responsibility all the time, which is which is really, really important. And one of the things we talk about here in the community as dads is we need to, as dads and as the leaders of our family and as men in general, take that first step to that radical personal responsibility in starting this process ourselves, right? Like we're responsible for doing that. A lot of us that that show up in this community, that's uncomfortable. It's something that we haven't done. A lot of us are codependent. That's why we, you know, why probably, I know it wasn't in my in my circumstance, one of the reasons why our relationship failed. And so uh so talk a little bit about you, you you touched on it, this idea of the emotional mirroring and how important that is, particularly, you know, with the X, right? So with the X, that can be helpful and it can move a relationship. But also I feel like that could be have an even an even greater impact on your relationship with your kids. Because like if as a dad, you're stressed and anxious maybe about custody or whatever's going on with with the kids. The kids know it without you even saying a word. So can you explain this idea of the the emotional resonance and and and how best a dad can stabilize his own energy, then being which is then going to lead lead the rest of the family and and and the kids, particularly in any given day. I've seen this, this was a hard one, this was a hard reality for me, Joey. Was I started to realize and how I showed up in the morning with my daughters, first thing was going to set the tone on how we were going to have the the rest of our day was going to transpire.
SPEAKER_03:That's that emotional resonance.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%.
SPEAKER_00:Like you make a great point, right? So it's like, you know, I think a lot of what people don't understand about resonance or you know, law of attraction, it's like like emotions, they live by certain rules, right? They play by certain, you know, dynamics, if you will, just like there's the law of gravity. Like you jump off a house and think you're gonna fly, you're probably not gonna fly, right? You're gonna fall. Like you're gonna adhere to the law of gravity whether you think they exist or not. And so if we break down emotion in a practical way, if I show up and and I feel agitated or angry, you know, which is uh completely reasonable if we're managing a difficult situation, by the way. But if I feel angry and I'm driving in a situation and I wake up, I go through my day that way, and I'm at, I'm taking the kids to school from that place and I'm thinking about my ex as an example, or to your point, we're having breakfast together, or I pick them up from school or spending the evening together, like that anger is going to put out an energy, it's gonna have an impact. And even if I don't say that I'm angry and I try to hide it, the emotion is still there. And the thing is, we have what are called mirror neurons in your brain. And so your kids are receiving the signal from you that you're angry, even if they don't know to call it anger. And what happens is your brain goes into an immediate defense mechanism, which then shuts down things like vulnerability and connection and authenticity and all the things that we obviously want to know with the people that we love and care for the most. And so what we don't realize is the signal that we're putting out there is being received by the unconscious of other people's minds and brains as though we are a threat, and they immediately go into a shutdown process, fight or flight, fight, flee, or freeze. And so if we can get good at training our own capacity for managing state, and even though difficult situations are going on, we can show up with the kids and hold a place of compassion or a place of feeling acceptance within ourselves or love for the children, or just a general sense of I feel love with myself. It's like all of a sudden we show up with the kids and they're like, oh, I feel safe with this person. I am safe with this person. I want to talk to them, I want to communicate with them because their brain through the mirror neurons is receiving the signal that that it's like, hey, okay, everything is safe, everything is okay. And so emotion and the energy we carry is the first form of communication, right? Because that's the first signal that we're receiving from the from from each other's brain. And then from there, it's like body language and positioning and the words we communicate and all the other stuff. And you can't say the right thing to cover up a fear-based emotion. Like I can't say the right words to cover up the fact that I'm angry or that I'm agitated or that I feel sad or I feel ashamed and things of that nature, because that's the communication that's going to come through. And so if we get good at being, you know, again, we're never perfect, like you don't have to always be in a love-based state, but from a neurological reality, if we understand how to drive from the love-based state 90% of the time, and then 10% of the time we notice we've come off center and and be able to hopefully readjust and get re-anchored to that love-based state, we can trust ourselves in in all our situations and to navigate the situation in the best way possible.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So, you know, that's it's important to emphasize, I feel like to the guys, in doing this work that you're describing, sometimes I'm gonna call it the sacrifice myth. The the dads get divorced, they might have all of what you describe some anger, or or like for me, there was a lot of shame and a lot of guilt around this, and they start living entirely for their kids. And I know that I did this, I didn't want it to be super dead. I almost killed myself doing it. And you weren't about this idea of living for others, and and so talk about why this that that martyrdom is actually dangerous for our child children that we're trying to protect because it's not it's not conveying to them, like you said, there's it's they're gonna they're gonna figure it out, like they're gonna get that feeling, whether you're saying it or not.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%. And I think the key that we want to remember is, you know, it really is like the way we learn as human beings is very monkey see monkey do, especially when it comes to our children. And so if we show up and we make our lives about our kids or we go into that martyrdom reality, what we're teaching the kids to do is live for other people. And like none of us want that for our children. And so we need to live for ourselves first because that's where we're gonna find our own vitality and we're gonna find our own greatness, we're gonna find our own empowerment, and we're gonna find the best version of ourself. And when you are living the best version of yourself, you have the best version of yourself to give to other people. And so other people are actually gonna receive a tremendous amount more from you if you are taking care of yourself and living the best version of yourself, as opposed to if we're running on empty and we're giving them the leftovers, we're giving them what we have left to give. It's like they're getting 10 or 20% of us as opposed to that 110% that we're all capable of giving. And when you show up and you make sure you're putting yourself first, you live for yourself first, you take care of your needs first, then all of a sudden you're able to give all the extra and all the abundance to other people, that's where you're going to give everything to your kids. And they're gonna also learn from you by way of that example to live for themselves, fill their tank, and then you know, be with other people, not to live for other people.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Is there is there something, is there a skill or a tool or an exercise that you could share with the dads that they could do with their kiddos that would help them to demonstrate this? I think we're talking, you know, we're talking generally about emotional resilience, right? Is there something that that they can that they can do with them that might not only model it, but that would help them to include their children in the whole the whole concept?
SPEAKER_01:100%.
SPEAKER_00:So like the way I always say it, and and we have families engage the work together often. Matter of fact, like if you're 13 years of age to 18, you come free with your parents to all of our trainings because we want the whole family to be inside these dynamics, you know, because then all of a sudden there's common language. We understand how to interact and work with each other. And it's like a game changer when we have a playbook, right? And what I would say is there's not like one specific technique or tactic, but it's it's really commit to training yourself and then share that with your kids. Like it's as simple as that. Train yourself, develop the competency. And depending on their age, like when they're younger, like let's say five or six or seven, like if you just train yourself and develop the competency, you won't even need to teach them because they'll copy it from you, right? Which is pretty cool. If they get a little bit older, and if you want to accelerate the process, demonstrate it, but then also just teach them what you've learned to do. Teach them how to do that which you do. And so, like the ways that that I often train people is it's like, hey, first we gotta we gotta learn the skill of emotional sensitivity, which very few people have. Like most people live with them stuff every day. Like I was just on a on a call like earlier this morning with a client. You know, he's got children, he's got a beautiful wife, he just remarried, right? They're they're 14 days fresh into their new marriage, I think, right? And he's like, I'm like, how do you feel? And he's like, he's telling me things that are happening. Well, my business is doing that, and I've got a lot happening, and you know, I'm not able to hit my marks. I said, Yeah, but how do you feel? I asked him this a dozen times. He never once named an emotion. And so then I start giving him the emotions. I'm like, man, I bet you feel anxious, I bet you feel overwhelmed, I bet you feel a bit un insecure. He's like, Yeah, that's it. Those are the emotions, right? So, although we live with ourselves every day, it doesn't mean we know ourselves. My master used to say to me, my martial arts master used to say, Joey, you're always going to be the hardest person for yourself to see. And that's 100% true. And so if we look at emotional, like actual training, training, aligning, rewiring, emotion, thought strategy, nervous system, step one is training emotional awareness and sensitivity. Step two is training our relationship to our emotions. Step three is learning to center fear-based emotions. Step four is activating love-based emotions that we want to leverage and feel and share with people in our life and make those a reflex. And then step five is build out the mental framework and the environmental components, people in our life, where we live, how we live, what we're doing, to reinforce that. And so it's like when I'm like if you're working with your kids, it's like ask them, hey, how do you feel? Let them share. And then acknowledge, hey, it's okay that you feel that way. Like I want you to know that's a normal human emotion. I want you to know you can speak to me from that place. You can communicate to me what's going on. And I'm not going to judge you. I'm going to accept whatever's there. It's okay to feel those things, right? Help them become aware and sensitive to what they feel. Help them acknowledge and express the feeling and the emotion. And then show them, hey, did you do you want to know how to center that? Do you want to know how to calm that down? Well, acknowledge how you feel. Now go ahead and teach them how to breathe properly to manage their own nervous system and then show them how to redirect. And so it's like you're going to be able to train your kids to the capacity in which you train yourself, no more or no less.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's uh that's great advice. You know, this is stuff that if we didn't have a parent or somebody in our life in our childhood or early adult life that has spent time talking with us about this stuff, we just have no idea. It's like the first time you step into a gym. You could just step into a gym, you have no idea what everything is, how to do it, how it relates with your body parts, like anything. It's just like you have no idea. So I that's why I love what you have done in breaking this down. Like I said, I I to this day use the meditations, I use the foresighted breath. I talk with my daughters. We implemented stuff years ago. We call it a feelings check-in, right? So you you talk about that, and we'll do it usually like around dinner time, and we'll say, hey, let's just do a feelings check-in. How are you feeling? And then, you know, in the beginning, it was some of the some same stuff you talk about, like, oh, they talk about their day and this is happening and da-da-da. And it's, you know, it was teaching them to say, you know, are you feeling excited today? Are you unhappy? Are you sad today? Were you joyful today? Like talking more about the feelings that you're that you're having around that so you can identify because like I had no idea how to do this. And it took, you know, I've been, you know, decades later until I did training with uh one of your trainers, Ryan, and and did some of the work until I really figured out how to do this. And my life was being, you know, up and down on that, on that, you know, on that ocean liner, up and down just based upon the emotions, right? So that's what that that's what I love about this this whole system uh in and what you guys do. And it's and it's really simple, guys. When you when you get into it, it's it's it's uh maybe a little bit scary, right? Because you're starting to learn and deal with these emotions. But but once you do, I tell you, it's it's actually been remarkable with my daughters, Joey, to to see their ability because once you know how to do this and and you train it, to watch them be able to then tune into this stuff at a much earlier time in their life than than I was able to. I have such high expectations for them and the relationships that that they have, but also the relationships that they're gonna get into as well. And so that's why I want to emphasize with with the guys that it's incredibly important. It's not, you know, it's it's not a selfish thing to do. It actually is the most important thing that you can do for your family is learning what Joey is teaching with Intermatrix Systems, learning about your emotions and channeling and training what to do with them because it's going to have the greatest impact on your your kids and your family in the future. And I can attest to that having done it and worked through it myself. So that wasn't really a question, it was just more of a uh just just reiterating that what you teach and and what is it's is probably one of the most important things I would say. We talk in the community, dads, like you need a you need a divorce attorney, you need a divorce coach, you need a maybe a therapist. But if if there was one thing that you were gonna spend money on, I would say do this because this is gonna get you through all the other stuff. It's gonna help you make better decisions with your attorney, with your ex, with your kids, everything else. And and so anyway, that's let's get to another question. But I just want to say it is absolutely awesome, dude.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome, dude. Thank you so much for sharing all that.
SPEAKER_00:Like I love hearing when people take the work like yourself and implement it with the kids and and hear the difference that it makes and and so happy for you. That's that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, okay, so let's talk about a couple a couple of other things. I I I still wanted to talk a little bit about this relationship alchemy and kind of in so one of the things in in the book that I read, you talked about unmanaged expectations destroying relationships, right? And in divorce, one of the things that that that we often expect that we don't realize is fairness and the family court system can rarely be fair, uh, especially to dads. Uh, how can a dad manage his expectations during this process uh and and to protect his mental health when the system itself, so now we're not talking about another person, but we're we're talking the system itself is acting irrationally.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, 100%. Like, and as you say, it's a broken system. So, you know, it it starts with with exactly that, right? Accepting that it's a broken system. Because if we if we kind of go into it understanding that, like already that starts to inform our expectations, that like fear may not be what happens here, or what what's equal may not be what happens here. And so the thing is that we want to remember is anytime we feel pain, so like the emotions we were talking about before, you know, if I feel anger or if I feel resentment or I feel shame or I feel sad, what that tells me, as I always say, emotions are there to inform where we are at. They are not there to inform what we should do. And so if I understand, if I go, man, I feel really disappointed, I feel really sad, or I feel really angry, that's telling me that there's some expectation that my mind is holding that's going unmet. And so when it comes to expectations, there's a couple of things we got to remember. First and foremost, we want to come from our place of personal power. And our place of personal power lies in two key things the actions that we take and the way we respond to the environment, to the to the situations, to things that happen. And where we're gonna fundamentally lose our power and where we're gonna disempower ourselves is where we make ourselves responsible for other people's emotions, where we try to control the behavior of other people, or we try to control what happens, like the court system, right? And so if we can remember those two key things going into the process, through the process, and after the process, I can control my actions and I can control how I'm gonna respond to situations, that immediately is gonna calibrate us in an empowering way. And then from there, it's expectation management. So if I feel a fear-based emotion or a painful emotion, I go, man, I feel really sad. What's the expectation that's going unmet? Sadness is always linked to the absence of something. I'm not gonna have as much time with my kids. I'm going to, you know, have to live on less money than I, than I than usual, right? Whatever the expectation is, right? It's like name the expectation that's going unmet. I'm supposed to be living on what I've always made. I'm supposed to keep more of my money. I'm supposed to be with my kids 100% of the time. Well, if I hold the belief that I'm supposed to be with my kids 100% of the time, well, every time that goes unmet, we're going to suffer. And so from there, we can calibrate the expectation. We can go, listen, I have a commitment to love and to feeling, you know, joy in my life. And I have a commitment to being in a great relationship with my kids and managing my ex in a in a good way. And so this expectation that I'm supposed to be with my kids 100% of the time, I've got to change that. I've got to be with my, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make the best of the time I have with them, and I'm gonna make it quality time so I can still achieve everything I want with them. And, you know, their their their mom or their dad or the other person deserves time with them too. And so it's like, it's like I'm not saying that's what you should adopt, but the point is once you identify expectations as being unreasonable because of three key things. Either the other person's not willing to meet the expectation, the environment doesn't enable us to meet the expectation. It's not possible, right? Or maybe we're unwilling to meet the expectation. That's what makes it an unreasonable expectation. It has nothing to do with it being rational. And that's where a lot of people make a mistake when it comes to managing expectations, is they think it should be a rational process and it's just not. It's like, is the other person capable and willing? No, they're not. It's unreasonable. I got to change it. Am I capable or willing? Like I might be capable of being with my, I might be willing to be with my kids 100% of the time. Court system might say you only get half. So you might be willing, but you're not capable of doing it, right? And so it's like, do I have capacity and willingness? If there's a no there, time to evolve that expectation. And so, you know, or maybe the circumstance doesn't enable us to meet it. So we want to evaluate expectations and then start to align the expectations, define them in a way that we can not only live up to them, we can uphold the expectation. The other person can uphold the expectation, but it also is driving us toward the vision of the life we want to create, who we want to become, the way we want to feel, and the outcomes that we want to generate. Expectations are not about the manipulation of the other person. A lot of people, they look at expectations and they kind of try to leverage expectations to get another person to do what they want. And that's a misuse of expectation. The point of expectation is it's almost like our playbook at the end of the day of how we're gonna operate and how we're gonna invite other people to operate with us and uphold that standard so that we become the version of the person we want to become. And again, the expectation is serving the outcome result we want to get.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that because you talk about having your life vision in place and knowing what that is. Uh, and you talk about this in the book before you can have a relationship vision, right? And we get lots of times, I was guilty of this too. Dads that rush into a new relationship, right, during a divorce or post-divorce. What are three questions that dads can ask themselves first? And are uh, or no, let me let me put it this way. What are what are three questions a dad must answer for himself around this life vision first before let's say downloading a dating app or even starting to go on another day?
SPEAKER_00:I love this question. This is so important. Take a year before you jump into a new relationship minimum. But anyway, three things. So as I kind of spoke of earlier, I'm a life mastery guy. Like I want to train people inside of not just nailing awesome relationships, but truly designing each element of life so you're mastering life and your version of that, right? And so as I talked about earlier, step one, who do I want to wake up to each day? What's the energy that I want to embody and drive with? Do I want to drive inspired? Do I want to drive with passion? Do I want to drive with conviction and empowerment and love? Like, what's the energy as yourself that you want to bring to each day? So that's number one. Number two is hey, what is the, again, like what like what level of vitality do I want to be in with my body? Am I taking care of myself? Like, what's my vision for body health? What's my vision for relationships, friendships, family? Yes, also inclusive of romantic relationship, but what's the vision for the relationship matrix that I want to create for myself? Like, what does that look like out, say three years, five years from now? And then finally, what what level of you know financial abundance do I want to be in? What is my career vision? Like really stop and think about each of those components and what is the vision that I have for what I what with the specific outcomes results I want to see happen in each area of in each of those areas of life out three to five years. Like that's the first question is what is the life that I'm aspiring to build? Because if you don't know the life you're aspiring to build, you have no way, you have no context for evaluating is the person I'm dating a potential fit for my current and future reality or not? We're just kind of shooting blind and and and you're just guessing, which often doesn't turn out well. So number one is what does the vision for my life look like that I want to build out, say three years from now, five years from now, both in terms of the person I want to become, who I want to become, and the life I want to create. And then number two is ask yourself the question, what emotion am I driving with on a regular basis now? Like, like if we're honest with ourselves, we go, what is my primary driver? If the primary driver is fear-based, you're still inside of anxiety, you're still inside of anger, you're still holding resentment, no go. When your primary driver, if you can say, hey, what is the primary driver I'm executing my day-to-day life from? And majority of the time you're joyful, you're passionate, you're inspired, you're there we go. That's number two. What is my primary energy that I'm driving with? And if your state, if the primary energy of who you are living as is actually joyful, inspired, you know, you know, passionate, loving, et cetera, then you're ready to get into a relationship with somebody who's gonna meet you there. Because if you're not there and you're driving with anger, resentment, depression, you know, whatever that might be, sadness, well, that's the person you're gonna hook up with. Like that's who you're gonna attract because that's what those emotional dynamics connect with. Like you don't see joyful, passionate people hanging out with angry, cynical people. Like it's just a miss, right? And then the third question would be what do I feel when I think of my ex? And so, kind of like we were talking about earlier, when you can think of your ex and you can feel acceptance, you're good to go. When you think of your ex and you feel love and compassion for them, you're good to go. If you think of your ex and the resentment rumbles up, anger rumbles up, that's what gets activated. We got a little more work to do before we move forward.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And what I love about all of this is all everything from the triggers all the way on, we are in control of, right? It's identifying data about us. And data about us helps us to make changes for in and make changes in ourselves that impact the world around us, right? So while we're going through this difficult and challenging time, one of the most difficult that we're gonna experience, we actually do have control of the outcomes that we want to see, whether we recognize it or not. And that's part of this training system that that that you talk about and getting in getting into. And so, and and I just wanted to I just wanted to emphasize that with with with the dads, because uh I often say, hey, this is an opportunity for you. And lots of guys, dads like, what in the hell are you talking about? This is an opportunity for me. Like, this is an opportunity for you. You're awakened now to everything that Joey is describing to you that you have not had control over before. Now, if you you're being forced to have to address that stuff, these emotions, these triggers, like they're all coming up, man, and they are not gonna go away. Right? So, so now is your opportunity to tune into them and and do something about them. So let's um let's finish up. We're we're we're almost out of time, but the the last one, I know this is a big one with with guys, and and we've actually started a sister podcast about dating about after divorce. How do how and and I think you hit it on it mostly with that with that second part of of what you just talked about, creating that light vision, but how do how do dads identify those hidden patterns in our nervous system that were the the patterns that attracted us to our ex that we don't want to repeat and attract that same person the second time around?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it goes back to kind of the beginning of our conversation today, right? Because the ghost in the machine or those unconscious hidden pattern dynamics that define the outcomes in our life that we don't want and we can't seem to overcome them, they are always anchored inside of emotional patterns at a core. And so if we're if we develop that awareness sensitivity in our day-to-day life, and like we just go through life and we pay attention, you know, you think about your ex, you go to work, you're doing your things, you're hanging out with the kids. And if you're just checking in, like, you know, we have a we have a training we do where you just it's five seconds, right? Five, 10 seconds at the most, you just tune in three, five times a day and you go, hey, in this moment, how do I feel? You tune into your nervous system. Where's my nervous system at? And if you go, man, I feel a little sad. We want to lean into that, which is counterintuitive to what most people do, which is they want to get rid of it as fast as possible. And a lot of us have unconscious coping mechanisms so we don't have to manage or deal with those painful emotions that we feel. Like some of us will drink, we'll binge watch, you know, Netflix, we'll we'll surf on the phone, we'll scroll social media, we'll work ourselves to death, all that kind of stuff. But it's like instead you got to do the opposite. You go, man, in this in this moment I feel sad, that's okay. And literally just be with the sadness. And when you just sit with it and you do what I call follow the emotion, we do this a lot in one of our trainings called evolution. You follow the emotion, not for a long time. I'm just talking three to five minutes, but you just be with the emotion, you sit with it, you follow the emotion, you're gonna think about a person in your life. It's gonna take you to a member a remembrance of some past event. You're gonna start paying attention to things that you know occur to you to do, and they may not and probably aren't gonna align you with vision, right? So it's like get sensitive to the emotion and then pay attention to where does that emotion bring you? Does it bring you to the past? Does it bring you to some person in your life? Do you think about some challenged situation in your life? Are you anticipating something bad happening in the future? And then it's just analyzing it, assessing it, not dwelling on it, not trying to pick it apart, not necessarily determining where it came from because I was four and my mom and dad did this to me or whatever it is. It's like, no, no, that's what's running in me, right? If we catch it real time and are do real-time check-ins throughout the day, we're gonna realize what's driving us. And it's not what we often think. And then what we can do from there is start to address it against our vision if we formulate that. We can go, hey, will this pattern align me with vision? Is that taking me to who I want to become, the person I want to be, the man I want to become, and the life I want to create? If it does, keep doing it. If it doesn't, it's time to find that way to center and start rebuilding or start training the dynamics that are going to take you there. And so it more of us in the an assessment and execution process relative to how we want to perform, as opposed to a dwelling process and then sort of overanalyzing by way of looking at the past.
SPEAKER_02:Right. It's I think that's an important distinction for the dads listening. This is not this isn't therapy, and it's not talk therapy, and you're not unpacking a bunch of stuff. And actually, I I don't want to get into the therapeutic discussion, but you don't have to do all that stuff, right? Like this is what we're this is forward-looking, this is retraining. Yeah, maybe it's important to do that stuff, and maybe there's some places and some some necessity around that. There's nothing wrong, uh, nothing bad about therapy. But but this is what will take you to the next level. This is what's going to move you in the direction that you want to move. You're controlling this. Again, we go back to you have control over this. You haven't known it your entire life, probably, like, like I didn't. We don't know this. It's not something that we're taught in school. It took Joey decades to learn all of this, and then put together a system around this that that helps everybody to to figure this out now. But then once you do it and once you realize it, it is absolutely amazing. And and so it and and the the results that you get in such a short period of time, and just go to the inner matrix systems. I think you've got the testimonials up on this on the site still with with inner matrix. I know I get the the the emails with them periodically as as as well, but the the results are quick, right? This isn't something you're doing, uh something you got to do over and over, right? Just like exercising and maintaining a healthy lifestyle if you want to be healthy, but but if you have quick and immediate results around that. And on that note, then Joey, so how can people find the book, buy the book, but also you have your power series that that go on regularly, you know, all across the the country. How can they find more information on that and really get dialed into and involved in the intermatrix systems community?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 100%. So the three best places to go. Number one, if you want to grab relationship alchemy, we also have some free complimentary bonuses connected to that. If you buy the book, you just pay shipping, we'll give you the book for free. You can do a complimentary training, ghost in the machine training with one of my trainers, and we'll help you discover your ghost in the machine. It's a three-hour course that we're going to take you through. Normally people pay a thousand bucks for it. We're just giving it to all your peeps for free. Complimentary, just to kind of get them rolling and hopefully we can give them some support in their in their process as they're kind of moving through the spaces in their life they're moving through. And so that's a great, great place to land, joeyclein.com, J O E Y Y K-L E I N dot com. And they can sign up for that. It's the first thing they'll see. Second place, innermatrix systems.com. You can get a complimentary session with one of my trainers. You can order the inner matrix there. And then the third place, if you just want ongoing tips and tricks, if you connect with me on Instagram, the real Joey Klein, they can sign up there. And I'm always giving little tips on how to manage relationship, life dynamics, things of that nature.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Okay, so I'm gonna encourage every dad listening, all three, like get on, and and especially that first one. Oh my god, that is an amazing offer. I didn't know that you were gonna extend that. So dad's and and and how do they do that? So if they want the book, they can order the book where, and then they'll be able to get a the the consultation about the I love the name too that goes through.com joeyclein.com. Okay. Yeah, that's 100%.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, it's joeyclein.com, jo-e-i-k-l-e-in- dot com.
SPEAKER_02:Perfect. Joey, hey, it's always a pleasure. We we've knocked out an hour and I could talk with you about this stuff for forever, but I sincerely appreciate what you've done and what you've put together. I think it's life-changing for uh for people that get involved. I know it has been for me. I know that there's other people that I've returned referred to some of your trainers that have had life-changing uh experiences with with that. So you're you're a blessing. I sincerely appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03:I appreciate you sharing your wisdom with my audience today.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01:It's a it's a it's an honor to be here, and yeah, look forward to doing it again soon sometime.
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