Dr. Jordin Wiggins: Protect Your Energy Co-Parenting With a Toxic Ex

The baiting is the point. When a co-parent pushes a boundary the court will not enforce, drops the kids' things off after being told not to, needles you in front of the children, it is engineered to spike your nervous system so you react and end up looking like the problem. Dr. Jordin Wiggins works on the one thing you can actually control in that moment: your own physiology.

Dr. Jordin Wiggins is a naturopathic doctor of more than a decade who noticed her patients' health complaints kept overlapping with coercive control and abuse, then lived through an abusive relationship herself without seeing it at the time. She now helps high-achieving people recover, using nervous-system regulation and a reconnection to their own sense of self. She and Lisa found their common ground fast: their clients are the capable, empathetic people abusers tend to seek out.

The first half is recognition. The "super traits" that make you exceptional at work and vulnerable in love, the boiled-frog way coercive control erodes you until you cannot remember what you like, and the particular shame of being the role model it happened to. Jordin explains how chronic stress shuts the body down, why reclaiming small pleasures and plain fun is part of recovery, and how much of the injustice, from the ex to a court that will not act, is real and worth being angry about.

The second half is the toolkit. Feel and finish your own feelings rather than suppressing them or projecting them (she spends real time on a simple feelings wheel, because the word she hears most is "overwhelmed"). Use the watchdog, possum, and wise owl to get back to your thinking brain. Stop overexplaining. And train regulation when you are calm, through tiny repeatable practices like a skincare routine or the lotion challenge, so that when your ex shows up at the door to bait you, you can bring yourself back down. She closes on where to find her and a worksheet to start.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why "super traits" like empathy and loyalty make you excellent at work and easy to target
• Why emotional baiting is designed to trigger your nervous system, and how not to take the hook
• The watchdog, possum, and wise owl: getting back to your thinking brain before you respond
• Why overexplaining to someone intent on misunderstanding you always backfires
• How to validate and complete your own feelings instead of suppressing or projecting them
• Why you can't control the ex, the court, or the system, and where your power actually is
• Nervous-system regulation you practice alone, so you have it when the baiting starts
• Small pleasure practices (like the "lotion challenge") that turn the stress response back down

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Protecting your energy when co-parenting with an abusive ex
3:00 "Super traits," and why capable people don't see the abuse
7:00 The boiled frog: how coercive control erodes you slowly
11:00 Losing yourself, and the shame of "you of all people"
14:00 Stress, the body, and reclaiming what you actually like
19:00 The power of fun, and forgetting who you are
21:00 A real co-parenting case: baiting, boundaries, and injustice
25:00 Feeling your feelings instead of managing everyone else's
28:00 Watchdog, possum, wise owl, and why overexplaining backfires
31:00 Completing the emotional cycle, and getting your power back
39:00 Regulation you train alone, the lotion challenge, and finding Jordin

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.