Can grace be applied in Family Court?

Following the 2025 spring Faith in Business retreat, which profoundly challenged and inspired its participants to focus on exploring the application of grace in business. I was inspired to consider the application of grace within the Family Court system.

Although I am not a religious person, I do believe in a higher divine power. For the purpose of this blog I will refer to it as the great Divine.

In my experience, having worked in a paralegal capacity, a court coach and McKenzie friend with clients, people often feel that they are trapped, forced and dragged through the court process, as did I. It may feel to them like a continuation of their past trauma or abuse and this may even be what is happening.

Mediation, restorative justice and conflict resolution often won't work, because typically one person has instigated the legal process from a great place of fear and hate with a need to be right. Mediation, restorative justice and conflict resolution can only succeed when both parties are willing to accept that multiple truths can exist simultaneously and so they often fail, even though courts are now insisting that all couples try to resolve the matter out of court before making a hearing. Although this can be devastating and unthinkable to be in a room or a zoom call with an ex that one has only just managed to escape from perhaps from domestic violence. The suggestion of conflict resolution, or mediation can further traumatise the victim and increase their vulnerability.

Participating in court processes is itself torturous, overwhelming with bureaucracy, and with judgement and time theft. Oftentimes what is on the line is children being removed from the primary carer (often the victim), or continued contact with an abusive parent. Piled on top of this, a high percentage of people have neuro diversities such as Dyslexia, ADHD, Autism etc. This can make the bureaucratic process ten times more traumatic. If you haven’t experienced the Family Court System, take yourself along to the publicly available Family Procedure Rules or Practice Directions, that are ‘designed’ to assist people through the process! It’s a joke. Even the most trained legal professional struggles to understand or search for advice. It is akin to reading a stereo manual in Mandarin for a non-speaker, expected to jump about between sections to find answers and of course it is often updated.

Many times, an already abused parent who has tried to escape their ex, will struggle with depression through a court process, with high anxiety levels, difficulty in focussing, breathing, speaking without crying. They are living in sheer terror of their children being taken away or abuse continuing. This is why mastering the art of finding Grace in every single challenge and hurt that the experience throws at you is essential to put into practice. This does not mean simply accepting the situation and surrendering it all to the great Divine without action. There has to be action in a mandatory legal process, or there are severe consequences. Grace is far more practical and strategic. There are processes to letting go and training practice to be able to take adversarial action with compassion and grace. Especially as legal counsel is often focussed on the fight and right and wrong and winning and losing.

This is why I am so passionately ‘disinterested’ in working in an adversarial position and do not wish to become a lawyer or barrister, because I believe that what is missing from the system is compassion, grace and forgiveness. It may seem counter productive to focus on these qualities during an adversarial process, but I believe and have witnessed first hand, time and time again, how it has brought freedom to people that would otherwise feel oppressed. I have also witnessed miracles, with cases being dropped mid-hearing (almost unheard of in family courts). Positive results are not without a lot of meditation and mastery of our own mindsets.

I offer digital courses and a book soon to be published, for any litigant’s in the family court. Whether they are litigants in person or have legal counsel, they can use my courses to help them better understand the perplexing process. People need support and if they are willing to put in the daily practice of Grace, they can achieve surprising results and expand their hearts further than they could imagine.

Blame is a cultural foundation for the court process.

How do we find grace and forgiveness with an angry person blaming us for everything they deem wrong or unfair in their life and how do we forgive someone for taking us to court or being a dart board for their hate? When hate and blame are directed on to us, our natural human reaction is to get defensive and blame back in defence.

Victims are also blaming

So, firstly we need to re educate ourselves on blame culture. My opinion is not a popular one. Society is keen to help ‘victims’ of abuse. This means people need to identify or be identified as victims. A victim’s narrative in its simplest form is, that ‘another person did or is doing something to cause them pain. Therefore, they are a victim of another’s behaviour or actions’.

However heartless it may seem to say, victims are also blaming. I tell my clients that if they want true freedom they must shift the need for the other to be blamed or for ourselves to be validated. In order to accept full accountability and responsibility and to not rely on those things but to shift our emotions to one of freedom and forgiveness. In a blame mentality we are not reliant on the great Divine or our internal connection to it. We are reliant on the other person changing, or for a wrong to be made right, or the past to be erased, in order for us to feel better.

We don’t have to condone bad behaviour to accept it with grace. When we are desperate and in pain, where is our connection to the great Divine? Usually, outside of ourselves. We are searching for answers in desperation. We look for validation and support from lawyers, solicitors, charities, friends, family and unfortunately and oftentimes also from our children.

In the process of seeking validation we are steering ourselves to the inevitable experience of being judged.

Whether a litigant is a claimant or respondent, both are judging the other and measuring their validity and truth against each other.

The Truth is…many truths

In the family court process there are two adversarial truths, well actually many truths if you count all the legal professionals, witnesses, extended family members and any children involved. Therefore, the adversarial process is already fraught with conflict in the face of many truths existing simultaneously.

Correlation between Judgement and needing approval

I ask my clients to contemplate what the ultimate goal is from the judgement that their heart desires. It is always the same answer, approval and validation that their truth is correct and righteous. However, in opposition to this they want freedom from being judged. We can’t have any of those things if we seek them externally from others.

I ask my clients if they would be willing to explore where this deep need for approval and validation comes from. When they do, they inevitably discover that this deep need for approval and longing for validation comes from childhood or past experiences stemming before even meeting their adversary and that the feelings of not being enough, of being criticized and judged were there to begin with. These past experiences form our internal critics, abusers and judges, which we first need to become free of in order to change our outer world reflections and experiences.

Approval is given to the self. This is a practice of reprogramming the mind and retraining our nervous system and therefore habitual behaviour or blame. In this complete allowing of ourselves just as we are, with all our feelings and messiness. In so doing we instantly declare to the world that we don’t need external judgement, because we have just validated ourselves completely as perfect human beings. With no measure against other people’s truths, just our own in our own right. We are allowed to own our truths as perfect for us. I have seen miracles happen in the family courts that astonish solicitors, with cases being dropped out of the blue and it always correlates with one litigant having a profound shift within them where they drop all need for approval and therefore judgement from others, because they have allowed the presence of the great Divine to fully approve of them.