Want to Thrive after Divorce?
Life Coaching: After the Split, 6 Principles to Move Foward in your New Life
By LAURIE MOISON
SIX UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES FOR THRIVING AFTER DIVORCE
After going through her own divorce, Carolyn Ellis, Ph.D., studied coaching with Debbie Ford, the New York Times bestselling author of "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers'" and "Spiritual Divorce." Today, Ellis is a certified spiritual divorce coach. Ellis has developed success strategies she calls THRIVE. Practicing these six principles provides a way to move from merely surviving a divorce to thriving in your new life.
T—Trust.
OK. Right now life sucks. Embrace the suckage. Everything happens for a reason.
H—Honesty.
Get real with the grief. Develop a strategy for getting help with the loneliness. “Often parents keep a stiff upper lip and hold their grief in because they don’t want their children to see them upset,” Ellis said. “Modeling healthy ways to process your grief gives your children permission to feel their own pain.”
R—Responsibility.
You are in the driver’s seat and 100 percent responsible for your life, past, present and future. You are not a victim. You had some part in choosing what has happened. That means you get to chose where you go from here.
I—Integrity.
Don’t be thinking or saying one thing while doing another because every time you make a commitment to yourself and don’t follow through, you destroy your ability to trust yourself. Remember: your words are powerful. They must be in alignment with your actions, otherwise, you’re going to attract the wrong kind of people.
V—Vision.
While staying in a marriage is about honoring choices you made based on the person you were years ago, divorce gives you an opportunity to create a direction based on who you are today. So, create a bold vision and reach for what you really want.
E—Express.
This is a step is about learning to process all your emotions in healthy ways. Learning how to move emotions through you is important for your physical and emotional health. “Emotions are just energy in motion,” Ellis says. For example, on a day when life is really getting you down, Ellis suggests one way to role model healthy expression for your children is by speaking truthfully and asking for something that will help you feel better. For example, “Mommy is feeling really sad right now. What I need is a five-minute tickle fight.” After all, laughter is the best medicine and there’s nothing like a raucous tickle time with kids to remind you of what’s really important.
With 11,000 members, ICF is a network of professional coaches founded by coaches in 1992. It provides three levels of certification, coaching school accreditation, a yearly conference, a list of standards and practices competencies, a set of ethical guidelines, a coach referral service and other professional development and support for coaches. Many consider it to be the gold standard of coaching networks. www.coachfederation.org
The International Association of Coaches (IAC)
Web site: www.certifiedcoach.org/
E-mail: support@certifiedcoach.org
The 10,000 member IAC is a not-for-profit and membership-run virtual organization that was formed 2002. The organization provides four main features: (1) a Certified Coach Board administers a certification system and certifies coaches who have demonstrated specific proficiencies, passed an examination and provided recorded examples of their coach/client interactions; (2) a Coaching School Accreditation Council that reviews and accredits schools that offer training that emphasize a particular proficiency approach; (3) A Coach Information Center maintains an up-to-date database and provides the media and coaches information pertaining to the viability and benefits of coaching; and (4) a Board of Professional Review has the power to handle complaints about coaches and provide a follow up process. The Board also has the power to revoke the Certified Coach designation of a coach against whom a grievous complaint has been unresolved. A code of ethics is posted on its Web site.
Laurie S. Moison (Hall) has written for newspapers in Vermont, New Hampshire, Delaware, and Washington, D. C. Author of four books, including "An Affair of the Mind," she has lectured nationally on sexuality, forgiveness, ethics and spirituality. She can be reached at lhall@together.net.
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