Sometimes we all feel like victims. I was reading an article about victimhood being the curse of divorce recovery. It made me pause. I don’t like the judgment in the word “curse.” In every divorce there is plenty of blame to go around. Many people feel like they are the victims of their ex-spouses. Many people feel like their lives, their divorces, happened to them, and that they were bystanders to the process. Candidly, being a bystander, is actually, taking a role, even if that role is passive. What divorce coaching uncovers underneath all the layers of negative experiences, is a desire to be agents in our lives. Nonetheless, sometimes, in the exhausting mess of what feels like an interminable divorce process, we give up. When the future we have imagined disintegrates before our eyes, it is easy to feel like the victim of our circumstances. We are grieving an imagined future and feel it has been stolen from us. Of course, we can feel like victims.

Don’t get me wrong, in many situations, one spouse victimizes the other, through verbal, financial, emotional or physical abuse.  It is real and it happens. However, it is what we do next that determines how we identify ourselves. What we do and when we decide to take our life back is what gives us the power to rewrite the story so we can stop being the victims, and instead, become the heroes.  

In these scenarios, a divorce coach can be an essential partner to move a client through their story from immobile victim to action-packed hero. The divorce coaching method enables coaches to walk our clients down the path toward reclaiming their narrative, rewriting their story and building positive forward motion. 

The coaching questions we ask are not judgmental, they are thoughtful. And they invite you to go deep. Here are a few examples of how a divorce coach can gently, but firmly, support a client with questions that tap into vulnerability and build awareness and strength: 

• What do you gain by remaining a victim? How does this move you forward? How does it hold you back?

• How might being a victim absolve you of responsibility? What would it look like, feel like, to take responsibility? What could you take responsibility for?

• What are you afraid of? What new opportunity might you discover if you let go of this fear?

• How does living in “what you think should be” versus “what is” serve you? What would make you excited about creating a dream of what “could be”? 

The last question encourages the client to acknowledge what is, and exercise the power to create something new and better. This is the ultimate goal of coaching.  And that’s what I mean by coaching to freedom.  As a divorce coach, my success happens when you succeed in unlocking your inner strength, taking control of your narrative, and creating your own unique, personal, and positive future.