What Does A Divorce Coach Do?
The coaching industry has boomed since I first started coaching in 2000, and now you can find coaches in every niche from health, relationships, mindset, and of course, divorce.
As a divorce coach, I work specifically to help my clients move through heartache to divorce recovery and into their happiest new lives.
It's essential to end a relationship well. Otherwise, you take the emotional baggage and inner unconscious blocks about love with you, which will prevent you from creating your happy future! And that's where I come in.
In all the steps below we use whatever is coming up for you in your divorce. It can be all/or a combination of the following:-
- Dealing with betrayal, disappointment and new partners
- Co-parenting and the challenges that brings
- Moving out of the family home
- Dealing with the divorce process
- Divorcing a narcissistic ex
- Fears around financial uncertainty
- Transforming depression and sadness into happiness and new beginnings
- Regaining confidence, self esteem and mojo
- Lack in clarity and/or dealing with anxiety and stress
Here's my 5 Step Approach To Divorce Coaching
Step 1: Creating Emotional Safety
When clients come to see me, they're often experiencing a gamut of complex emotions from anger, resentment, confusion, and heartache. My job as their coach is to empower them to use these painful emotions to facilitate positive change. Creating inner emotional safety and a power centre, that you can keep coming back to as your source of wellbeing and nourishment makes a big difference.
In the first instance, I support my client in navigating and soothing difficult and overwhelming emotions. Often, there is a temptation to ignore, deny or suppress painful emotions with work, drinking, over-eating, constant scrolling on our screens, or even using a healthier fix such as exercise.
So the first step is teaching my clients how to self-soothe and re-orientate themselves in their emotional power centre.
Step 2: Finding Empowered Meaning
The next step is supporting my clients to find empowered meaning from their breakup and divorce. An essential part of divorce recovery is learning to recognise the things that 'Trigger an Ego Reaction".
Divorce is a time of uncertainty and conflict. Naturally, this means your Ego and Inner Critic go into overdrive, massive reaction often based around fears and concerns about money, being ripped off, who will keep the home, how will you split custody of your children? What about new partners? Worries around financial security and whether we will ever fall in love again can lead to overwhelm and too many disempowering thoughts and beliefs.
The Ego is best described; as the part of our conscious mind that we identify with as "the Self," whose primary role is to keep us safe and secure.
Any behaviour from others that feels like a threat to your Ego will inevitably push your emotional buttons. Phrases like, "Why's he doing that to me?", "If they ever loved me, they wouldn't do that!" or "I don't recognise this man anymore!" are all too common with my clients. Coupled with "What's wrong with me?" "I'm not enough" and "No one will ever love me again"! All of these questions are coming from a disempowered Ego. I teach my clients how to recognise this voice, step back from it, and find empowering meaning.
When you find empowered meaning and take responsibility for how you may also have contributed to the breakdown of your relationship, even if it was unconscious, that is when you reclaim your power and move from heartbreak to divorce recovery and beyond.
Build a better relationships with yourself first, and then watch the magic that happens.
- Maxine Clancy
Step 3: Detoxifying the Ex
Detoxifying the Ex is one of my favourite parts of the healing process.
This is when I help my clients see how their False Love Story has perpetuated and unconsciously co-created their relationship breakdown. Everyone has a false story around their lovability and worthiness to be loved. It usually occurs as an 'inner wound' in childhood, which creates a false belief, such as "I'm not enough", "I'm unloveable", "I'll always be on my own" or "It's not safe to be me" (there are at least 12 false love stories).
Discovering your false love story is your path to freedom and happy future relationships. It helps you to find self-forgiveness, compassionate kindness and to let go of your Ex.
"Detoxifying your Ex' is a unique process I take my clients through as part of the Divorce Detox Method.
It's within your power to slay the false beliefs and stories that limit your happiness and create new ones that empower you to live the life you want.
- Maxine Clancy
Step 4: Embodying Self-Love
Now my clients are well on the path to healing their divorce, our focus is on embodying self-love and a sense of self that is integrated and whole, so you show up in life as an empowered adult.
An essential part of this is developing self-awareness and new relational skills in the following areas:
- Self-validation, appreciation and witnessing.
- Learning to identify healthy feelings and needs, and setting healthy boundaries.
- Loving, honouring and accepting all parts of self, including body image, sexuality etc.
- Identifying areas of shame, low self-worth and false beliefs.
- Discovering your voice, inner guidance and living as your authentic self
- Reclaiming your power
Make the promise to yourself to never dismiss your intuitive knowing.
- Maxine Clancy
Step 5: Love (& Life) Re-Imagined
In this part of the process, I support my clients in bringing together a new vision for love and life where they're consciously creating from an empowered, healthy sense of self, orientated in the belief that they are worthy of love and can be their true authentic self.
I use specific techniques to help my clients create their life from the inside out, teaching them to to listen to their inner guidance and soul's desires.
Whatever you are going through, you are not alone. In many instances, myself included, divorce can feel like the worst thing that has happened to you. My job as your coach is to support you in shifting perspective so you can see that divorce is happening for your growth and in can be the best thing that ever happened for you.
- Maxine Clancy