Working With Me As Your Divorce Coach

31 Jan

Written By Sallyanne Hartnell

A DIVORCE COACH…

I’m one of those people who no-one really wants to need.

And who no-one realises they need, until they are in the overwhelming emotional crisis that is divorce.

So… WTF is a divorce coach and what does working with me involve?

WHAT I DO

Put simply, I guide and support WOMEN & MEN during and after separation and divorce with all the non-legal aspects of the divorce process:

Money & finances - getting it sorted during and after divorce. How you’ll fund the rest of your life.
Life direction & goals - what do you really want your life to look and feel like?
Work & career - do you need to change or modify how and where you work now you’re flying solo
Successful solo and co-parenting - managing your parenting relationship with your ex-partner (and his / her extended family). Being the best parent you can be.
Effective communication - with your ex-partner, your kids, your professional support team, your friends and family.
Living and parenting arrangements - where will you live? How will that work for you and your kids?
Supporting your children through divorce and beyond
Self-love and care - making sure you take care of yourself as a priority, so you CAN fly solo.
My clients are supported to create the BEST possible outcome after divorce, the BEST VERSION of themselves and their newly separated family.

With my support you will answer for yourself the FIVE big questions that are brought up by divorce:

1. Will I be OK?

2. Will my kids be OK?

3. How will I manage financially?

4. How (the F%$#!!!) will I co-parent with my ex?

5. WTF do I do NOW I’m single? What’s NEXT?

Divorce is tough. It’s painful & confronting. It’s overwhelming.

I help my clients overcome the overwhelm, get a clear idea of where they are and most importantly, where they want to be AT THE END of the process. Then together, we set out a clear plan with achievable steps, to get there.

I empower clients to look to the future – to define their best scenario, their “best divorce” and best life – at a time when it is often so difficult just to decide what to make for breakfast that day. I’m there every step of the way.

As my client, I am your:

OBJECTIVE GUIDE & STRATEGIST – someone who has experience and compassion, but who can see the situation with objectivity, leaving your well-meaning friends and family to be just that – friends and family. Helping you build a strategy for navigating your way to the best outcome for everyone involved.

SOUNDING BOARD – someone objective to bounce ideas off and share concerns with. Someone safe to confidentially vent to, while at the same time, committed to moving you forward.

CLARITY CONSULTANT – helping you sort out what most needs attention, what is noise, where to focus your energy, what’s next on the to do list and to make sense of the jumble of thoughts, feelings and emotions that can be overwhelming.

ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER – holding you gently, lovingly but firmly accountable to what you say you most want, and what you need to do to craft their best life post-divorce. Basically, I don’t let you talk yourself out of moving yourself forward, building your best life, achieving your goals for yourself.

COMMUNICATION COACH – helping you get clear on the message you want to communicate, and the best way of achieving that with clarity. Communication with your ex, your kids, your other support professionals, your family. Clear. Concise. Effective.

SUPPORTER & CHEERLEADER – encouraging your action and celebrating your achievements. I am on your team the whole way.

WHERE COACHING FITS:

Clients typically work with me at a couple of points in their journey through divorce.

1. In the early phase…When they are contemplating / discussing / have just decided to or are newly separated.

This is a time when you are in shock, pain and grieving, in a vulnerable and extremely emotional state, overwhelmed by the enormity of separation and all the decisions that need to be made. Needing support to clear your head, communicate clearly and calmly and make well thought out, objective decisions. These decisions have long term impact – emotionally, physically, financially – on you, your ex-partner, and your children. Support to gain clarity and objectivity is crucial.

2. The second most common point clients seek to work with me is once they are through the formal, legal process of divorce. Often feeling a little battle scarred or weary, still in a highly emotional state, sometimes angry, usually grieving, feeling vulnerable and unsure but needing to look at what comes next.

Where will I live? How will I manage financially?

How will I juggle work?

Do I need to retrain or change my work / career to support myself in a solo capacity?

How will I utilise the money from my financial settlement?

How the hell will we communicate to co-parent?

How do I best support my kids?

How can I be the best parent I can be as a single mum / dad?

The coaching process supports you to define how you want your life to look and feel not just in the immediate, short term but the future. I encourage my clients to look to the END POINT of how they want their life to be in 5, 10, 20 years’ time and we work backwards from there, setting an action plan with me supporting, guiding and cheering you on the whole way

One of my clients described me as her “…cheerleader… full of beautiful empathy…riding along in the side car, scarf flapping in the wind…”

The coaching process is collaborative and client driven. While I’ve been there and done that when it comes to divorce, re-establishing a solo life and successfully sustaining a co-operative co-parenting relationship with my ex-husband, I don’t necessarily have all the answers for my clients. BUT… I believe THEY DO. My role is to help them find their own answers and guide them towards the life they most want to create for themselves.

HOW COACHING HELPS

Divorce Coaching with Reflect helps clients, their kids, and their professional team including lawyers.

“Thank you for helping me keep my sanity while I’ve been on this rollercoaster” – Suzanne

“I cannot stress what a game changer your coaching was to me. Thanks again. So happy to be on the other side of all the difficulty and feeling very grateful for the positive emotional and financial place you left us in.” Jess

COACHING HELPS CLIENTS

I call it “overcoming the overwhelm”.

For many clients, either in the middle of divorce, dealing with lawyers, their ex-partner, negotiating financial settlement, parenting agreements and arrangements or freshly emerged from the formal process, it can feel completely overwhelming.

In a fragile, highly emotional and vulnerable state, you are expected to make huge decisions that have long term ramifications for you, your kids, your family, your life. All without much objective support.

Coaching helps clients pause, look a little longer term, think about their options (ALL of them), consider the implications of their decisions and actions and make less emotional, more considered decisions. It is something I wish was available when I divorced. I needed caring but objective support; someone to bounce ideas off and guide me to think longer term. Some decisions I would still make as I did. Others, I believe I would choose differently if I’d had someone professional and objective who had “been there, done that” to workshop my ideas with.

It is incredibly difficult to be objective and look long term when you’re angry, hurt, vulnerable and overwhelmed and so concerned about just getting through, and easing the pain – your own and that of your kids – as quickly as possible. Friends and family are well meaning but often either don’t know what to do or say, have no experience and are not able to be objective.

Working with me helps my clients through this…overcoming the overwhelm.

COACHING HELPS KIDS

My greatest concern when I divorced was how it would affect my kids. There is a vast amount of research that suggests 1. the first three years is vital for kids to emerge well-adjusted and minimally affected, 2. that kids are LEAST affected by divorce if they are shielded from conflict and if their parents can communicate and co-parent amicably.

Coaching helps clients get clear on what are wants vs. needs, what their priorities are, what their non-negotiables are and where they are willing to negotiate or compromise.

Working with me helps clients communicate calmly and clearly with their co-parent, establish common routines and a framework that best supports the kids and a “NEW FAMILY” approach. It supports clients to keep the best interests of their children uppermost by letting go of past stories, anger and bitterness, and co-create something new that fully supports the children to have a positive relationship with BOTH parents.

In higher conflict situations, coaching helps my clients to accept what is and is not “their” part of the story, what they can and cannot control, and to set clear, firm boundaries while still supporting their children to have a full and loving relationship with their other parent. Coaching helps clients let go, heal and then keep separate their past relationship and their parenting role, becoming the best mum or dad they can be for their kids.

COACHING HELPS LAWYERS

Coaching clients are clearer about what they really want, have a longer-term view of settlement / financial / and parenting arrangements… are clearer about the long term outcomes they want for themselves and their family. They are less reactive, calmer in their communication – with their ex-partner and also their legal team – as they have the support of their coach working with them in the background.

Coaching clients are better emotionally supported so tend to look to their lawyers for their LEGAL needs – using me as their coach for the non-legal, practical and emotional support they need – freeing their legal team up to focus where they are most qualified, and do their job more efficiently and effectively.

Coaching supports lawyers and ADDS to their ability to work in best service to you as a client achieving a better, more collaborative, less emotive result.

WILL COACHING HELP ME?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t know where to start or where best to focus your attention, can’t see a clear path forward, let alone have a clear vision of how you want your life to look and feel after the divorce is finalised, coaching can help.

If you want to create the best possible divorce, with the least conflict, you want a clear plan and support to guide you step by step, coaching will absolutely help you.

You are…. Feeling overwhelmed by the divorce process and unsure of what your next steps should be. Stuck or uncertain about how you want your life to unfold after your divorce. Concerned about or feeling unable to co-parent effectively with your ex. Worried about the impact of your divorce on your kids.

You want to feel… calm and confident. Certain of your direction. Clear on your goals and what your next steps should be. In control of your solo life. Empowered and inspired.

You need clarity & support with…

· The non-legal aspects of divorce

· Money & finances

· Life direction & goals

· Successful solo and co-operative co-parenting

· Effective communication with your ex-partner

· Organisation / admin for your legal meetings (& life in general)

· Work & career as a single person / parent

· The juggle of solo life

Coaching can absolutely help you.

CHALLENGES & BARRIERS

WHAT ABOUT THE $$$$$? Coaching actually SAVES my clients time, emotional energy and therefore MONEY. Being clearer on wants, needs, priorities and non-negotiables saves precious time in coming to agreement. Time is money.

Clients believing they only need ONE professional on their team and relying on ONE service provider for everything. Lawyers are experts in law. Many too are well versed in supporting clients emotionally during the process but their expertise is THE LAW. Divorce is primarily an EMOTIONAL crisis with financial & legal consequences. When you are navigating divorce and a family law issue, you absolutely need expert LEGAL advice. You also need expert emotional, practical, communication and organisational advice. That is where coaching helps.

Once the formal process is over, the role of the lawyer is too. Clients need guidance beyond this, in order to rebuild and refresh, and create their best life afterwards.

Clients who want a WIN-LOSE outcome. If you are resistant to change, positional, holding your own ideas and opinions, and not willing to consider more deeply how YOU might change to move yourself forward, coaching is not for you.

Clients unwilling to DO THE WORK, and who choose to stay embedded in the story of their relationship breakdown; who choose to remain in a space where they continually tell themselves they are the victim, giving up their agency / control to the “other” most notable, their their ex, the lawyers, the court system.

To be coachable, you must be READY to move FORWARD and to DO THE WORK necessary to leave your old story behind and create a new one for yourself. It’s not easy and you need to be READY to do this. Everyone comes to this place at a different time.

WHO I WORK WITH

You are….

At the beginning of your divorce journey or recently (or not so recently) divorced or separated 
Feeling overwhelmed by the divorce process  
Feeling stuck & unsure after your divorce, thinking WTF do I do NOW? 
Ready to reclaim your self-trust and rebuild your self-belief 
Ready to take control of your life direction 
Committed to creating the best divorce and life afterwards
Ready to do the work.

You want to feel…