The emotional, financial, psychological and legal aspects of the process are enough to overwhelm even the most independently minded, strongest kind of people. Add the possible weight of children’s wellbeing, work stress and other everyday stuff and it’s not difficult to see how easy it could be to slump into defeat and despair.
Many people going through a divorce will work with the likes of attorneys and finance professionals for the legal side of their process and lean on friends and family for emotional support (if they have that option).
There is, however, another resource that many people don’t know about and don’t consider when going through a divorce: A divorce coach.
This is someone who brings a little bit of everything to the table to ease your transition. They will be able to assist with the emotional side of things, as well as organizational strategies, motivation and clarity at a time when it’s needed most.
In this blogpost, we’re going to take a closer look at what a divorce coach is and how you can benefit from hiring a divorce coach to be by your side during this journey.
What is a Divorce Coach?
First things first, it’s important to understand what it is you’re getting when you sign up with a divorce coach. Divorce coaches are not your lawyer, they are not your therapist and they are not your friend. Instead, a divorce coach is a professional that is educated in legal practices and empowerment coaching that will help you to keep your ship steady on the rough waters of your divorce journey.
Many divorce coaches have gone through divorce themselves, which means that they aren’t just guiding you using their expertise, but their own experiences too. A divorce coach isn’t there to make the decisions for you and they certainly aren’t there to tell you what to do; they are there to empower you to take on these challenges yourself and to help guide you in your decision making process.
Your divorce coach will create a safe space for you in which they will help to clarify your goals and outcomes of the divorce journey. They will help you to communicate, negotiate and plan interactions with your spouse for the best results. The ultimate goal is for a divorce coach to assist you to get to an agreeable outcome, while decreasing harmful conflict and increasing meaningful collaboration with your spouse.
There are many different types of divorce coaches out there. Some might specialize in family conflict and resolving co-parenting issues, others might focus more on how you can move on from your spouse in the future; some are highly certified and others are more holistically minded. It’s important that you know what you are looking for in a divorce coach before you start working with someone.
The Benefits of Hiring a Divorce Coach
There are a huge number of ways that a divorce coach will help you during a divorce, but these are the most outstanding benefits that you’ll experience:
Reducing conflict and trauma
There’s no way around the fact that divorce is incredibly emotional and when we are emotional, it’s hard to say what we mean, organize our thoughts and much more. A divorce coach is there to help you to process these emotions and help you to learn coping skills while equipping you with the right regulation tools. This helps to ensure that your divorce proceedings don’t spiral due to emotional conflict.
Reducing the conflict in your divorce is one of the best ways to reduce the traumatic effects of the process on you, your partner and your children. Being in control of your emotions helps you with negotiations and leads to better decision making.
Help with collaboration and co-parenting
Children are often the most traumatized party within divorce proceedings, as they see their family unit disintegrate in clear view. However, there are ways to go about your divorce that will help to lessen the stress and trauma that your children are exposed to. Working together with your soon to be ex (if possible) is the best possible scenario for your kids.
A divorce coach will first help you in the way you communicate with your children and tell them about the split. They will then work with you to create a co-parenting plan with your spouse in a way that will suit the needs of your children depending on their ages and requirements. They take the unique factors of your family into consideration and will help to give you options and ideas to tailor a co-parenting plan that works best for all parties.
They will provide you with the information and skills that you will need to stick to the co-parenting plan with as little conflict as possible. A divorce coach will give you feedback, advice and the necessary tools to ensure that you have a healthy transition from married to co-parents.
They Will Refer Other Professionals
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, a divorce coach is not a therapist, lawyer or finance guru, but a little bit of everything and can help guide you through the divorce process. However, they are highly experienced within the industry and they will know who the best professionals are, should you need them. Divorce coaches will assess your needs as they work alongside you and refer you to specialists that will benefit you on your divorce journey. They take the stress and anxiety out of having to find the right specialist to suit your needs and will have suggestions on hand for you to reach out to.
Help You to Set and Achieve Manageable Goals for Life After Your Divorce
It’s important to have a goal to work towards during the divorce process, but it’s only detrimental if you set a goal that is almost impossible to achieve. A divorce coach is there to help you outline what it is you want to achieve after your divorce and the clearest path that you can take to get there. They will ensure that you don’t set yourself up for failure by taking on more than is achievable, which will just add to the stress and trauma of the divorce itself.
For example, many people want to get into shape after a divorce but set a goal such as losing 10kgs in a certain timeframe. While this may be achievable for some people, it simply isn’t viable and a divorce coach will help you to set a goal, such as running your first half marathon, and put in the parameters that will help you achieve this – with the added benefit of losing weight and becoming healthier on the way.
Of course, this is a very straightforward example and most divorce coaches will work with you on emotional goals, career goals and much more during this process.
Provide Structure and a Timeline
At Naked Divorce, we have a number of incredible programs that have been designed to specifically help you through the divorce process and into healing in as little time as possible. The biggest issue with going to therapy for divorce trauma is that there is no timeframe. The longer you are there, the more money you are spending and with little end in sight. Getting over a divorce with therapy alone can take years.
When you hire a divorce coach, you know that they will put a structure in place and work towards your ultimate goal of healing within a certain timeframe. They might have specific programs to follow, or can even offer amazing retreats like our Clarity Retreat and Recovery from Divorce. These retreats take you out of your triggering environment and focus on proactively helping you to heal quickly and effectively.
The Divorce Journey at Naked Divorce
There are three main parts to any divorce process: Deciding, completing and resolving. At Naked Divorce, our Divorce Journey program has been specifically created to help you get through all three of these core parts in a healthy and trauma-free way. Here’s how this works:
Get a Divorce Coach for Your Journey
As you can see, there are many reasons why you should hire a divorce coach to help you navigate the waters of a turbulent divorce. At Naked Divorce, our Divorce Angels are here to help you through the toughest times and to guide you to a healthy and successful post-marriage future.
We have a number of different programs and courses that are guaranteed to help you through your divorce and alongside our qualified Divorce Coaches, we ensure that you will come out stronger on the other side.
Book a session with a divorce coach with Naked Divorce today.
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