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) for sharing her story.
A divorce Coach sounds like a good idea if you can afford a divorce coach and the attorney. I spend $400 monthy on my therapy along during my divorce and I still pay half that to this day for ongoing therapy (My divorce was on the traumatic end of the scale, I think, but also had well-established old and unhelpful coping mechanisms to deal with).
If I hadn't spent so much time in therapy at the time, I'd have spend waaaaay more on my attorney, because she cost a lot more per hour and I needed to talk! I was better able to keep them separate because I had someone else to help "coach" me though the personal side of it. (And my blog served that purpose, too.)
Sounds like it could be very helpful, and for no more than many therapists. Of course, if you're having a pyschological crisis, I'd err on the side of a psychologist, but many people don't want or need a PhD, they just need some good advice and a confidant.
I was going to say, a divorce coach would be helpful if you didn't have friends or family members who had been through the process but then I thought even if you did, maybe those people would be empathizing with you rather than being objective and they wouldn't be helping you. But the cost could definitely be an issue.
After years of doing business coaching and then going through my own divorce last year I have started to attract clients that are going through divorce. People are being attracted to me because not only did I go through divorce, but I have come out the side being much happier and also very different personally — much calmer.
I was fortunate to come across some new coaching techniques that allowed me to accelerate my progress passing through the emotional trauma of divorce. I was able handle the current emotional reactions with grace and ease and at the same time I dropped off emotional baggage from earlier childhood. I got a 2 for one benefit. I was able to deal with the divorce more calmly and I did a huge amount of personal development work in the process that allowing me to define the kind of life I want to live and to be able to step into that right away. My healing process feels short and my former partner and I have remained friends.
I believe this process would allow the legal/logistical part of the divorce to come to close easier because there is less energy present that causes emotional reactions. Hence less conflict and an opportunity to enter into the collaborative divorce process.
Jacque
http://www.workeasy4lifebalance.com
Hi Mandy, I wish I had known about a Divorce Coach. Thanks for sharing this.
I do think divorce coaches are relatively new so there may not have been one to help you. There are baby planners now – they help you plan for the arrival of your baby, including guiding you on the equipment you need and don't need. What you'd save in avoiding mistakes would easily cover the cost of the planner.
A coaching practice is designed to assist clients with goal achievement, decision making, and life transitions. It is based on an educational model that provides an opportunity for clients to learn. The focus is on the present situation (the divorce) and learning how to approach and manage the challenges and decisions that divorce presents. Divorce is a life altering change. Having an awareness of the factors necessary for change and the various stages of change makes it easier for clients to remain calm and patient.
A divorce coach is a trained mental health professional who has been specially trained in collaborative law and who helps clients with decision making and goal setting. In a collaborative divorce, each party works with their own divorce coach to develop a plan of action. A divorce coach can help a person move beyond the high level of emotion which is often a stumbling block to resolving any divorce related issues and to focus on achieving certain goals, whether lessening the emotional harm to children or encouraging a spouse to seek financial advice in preparation for being single. The coach can also provide effective problem solving tools to reduce misunderstandings in communication and help create solutions to emotionally loaded legal issues.
My recent post How One Strategy Makes Divorce Parenting Much Easier
I have worked as a divorce coach for the last 5 years and it’s a great job. There are all sorts of divorce coaching professionals, collaborative being one. People who are not in an amicable divorce need divorce coaching as much as those going through a collaborative divorce.
Programs change from coach to coach but all coaches have much the same motivation and that is to help people throw the process and out the other side with as little emotional and financial hurt as possible.
It is a shame people do not understand that the money they spend on coaching will save them on lawyers, procrastination and anguish.