All beginnings start with an ending
All beginnings start with an ending. That's why college graduates launch with commencement ceremonies. The first definition of the word commencement is “a beginning or a start”. And yet, commencements also honor the completion of a course of study, the conferral of a degree. The second definition of commencement is “a ceremony in which degrees are conferred on graduates.” In other words, commencements epitomize the concept of both/and - they are both an ending and a beginning. We celebrate what we’ve accomplished and then set our sights on the future. Sometimes at these moments we gloss over the hard times. And sometimes, we get mired in the ending. We get stuck in what is over and what we’ve lost. We can’t move. And then, we may judge ourselves on that inability to move forward and even question our abilities, our skills, our accomplishments, our path. Was it all even real?
These questions are real for people at many life transition points. People going through divorce, experience and re-experience endings and beginnings over and over again throughout the process. When they are first thinking about ending a marriage and considering the impact on their children and all the people in their life, when they are blindsided by a spouse they trusted, when they are in the midst of divorce and experiencing the ugliness of both the system and their soon-to-be ex at his/her worst, and then after, when the divorce is final and it feels like it really is time to move on, but the divorced person just can’t let go or open up or trust again. The feelings of endings can overpower the sense of possibility in new beginnings. What is lost is so tangible and what is next may seem impossible to comprehend.
These inflection points are where a divorce coach can be most effective in helping clients adapt to their new reality and uncover sources of meaning their clients may have forgotten.
Working with a divorce coach helps a client:
Uncover defeating narratives, and redesign their story with a new empowering message that is true and authentic
Disrupt old behavior patterns so they can pause before reacting to triggers, which recalibrates their interactions with all the people in their life
Reimagine the future in a brand new way where hopes and dreams are not limited by what was, but expand and overflow with possibilities of what could be
Become the CEO of their life, and know that they are the expert in who they are, and what they and their family need
The power of working with a divorce coach is that the divorce coach’s role is to be the client’s thought partner, to hear their voice and to reflect back both what she hears and what is left unsaid. The divorce coach recognizes that her clients are struggling with life altering issues where everything is at stake. That is real. Very real. They may feel overwhelmed and uninformed. And so the divorce coach walks the client down the path and works with her clients to ensure that they build the confidence and courage they need to ask the questions they need to ask, so they find the clarity they need, to make the best decisions for themselves and their children, to live their future lives in power and possibility.
