This is the last in my series on the Divorce Encouragist and what strikes me about her story, is that divorce for her really has been a new beginning. It’s changing the course of her life. Not only did she start relishing life after divorce , she saw the injustice of divorce and has started on the path to become a divorce coach. In fact, DE was headed off to a training course the weekend after our interview. Since this is, I believe a relatively new profession, I asked DE to explain what a divorce coach does. Here’s how she described it.
Divorce coach is about helping people through the process, helping people to set goals and adhere to them. It’s much more motivational and directional than therapy. It’s about moving forward.
I found a site, Emerge Victorious that offers divorce coach training and I contacted the founder, Sandra Dopf and I explained that I don’t have any previous coaching experience – my day job is in marketing. She explained there’s two main tracks people take. One is to help people through the actual process, through the lawyers, the litigation, the therapy, the mediation, all the guts of it. The other part is on the other end, helping people rebuild their lives.
I’m very interested in the guts part of it. I want to help people focus on their goals and not get tied up in their emotions. I’ve blogged about how people get so angry and they go into their lawyers office and say, ‘I’m so angry because he did this‘ and the lawyer says, ‘That’s terrible. Let me write a letter to his lawyer and send you a bill for $1,000.‘ That doesn’t help anything. It doesn’t help people get through the process any better. It’s counter-productive.
What I’m about is helping people have better divorces. I don’t think divorce is a bad thing. I think it’s a valid option for people who are desperately unhappy. I don’t think it has to be this ugly, messy litigation nightmare.
The Divorce Coach Says
DE is hoping to become a full-time divorce coach and I wish her luck. She so passionate about this and being able to make a difference, I think she’ll be successful. I want to check back with her in a year to see what’s happened. I’m hoping she’ll keep visiting here to share some of her coaching insights 🙂
I do think there’s a role for a divorce coach – for example, I had never heard of a collaborative divorce before I interviewed Kathleen Christensen. I think a collaborative divorce would have worked for my ex and I. Maybe if I’d had a divorce coach, she would have been able to tell me that was an option. But that’s a benefit I can see in hindsight. I’m trying to think if I would have been interested in paying for a coach going naively into the process?
A big thank you to the Divorce Encouragist (@dvrncouragist)Â for sharing her story.