The Smart Divorce Podcast

A week in the life of a Divorce Coach

• Tamsin Caine • Season 9 • Episode 2

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Do you really know what a divorce coach does, how they prepare for a meeting or keep on top of everything happening in the divorce world? In this episode, Tamsin speaks to top divorce coach and author, Claire Macklin about those and many other questions regarding her work

Claire Macklin

Claire is one of the UK’s leading Break-up and Divorce Coaches and author of "Break-up: From Crisis to Confidence", the essential guide for anyone facing a sudden separation.  Claire offers bespoke coaching to support individuals through break-up, so that they can create new and vibrant lives.  She is a Master NLP Practitioner, divorcee, and parent to two teenage boys. She is also a former solicitor. Using all of her professional and personal experience, Claire has built a thriving coaching business, helping clients all over the world to recover from break-up or divorce.

https://www.clairemacklincoaching.com

Tamsin Caine

Tamsin is a Chartered Financial Planner with over 20 years experience. She works with couples and individuals who are at the end of a relationship and want agree how to divide their assets FAIRLY without a fight.

You can contact Tamsin at tamsin@smartdivorce.co.uk or arrange a free initial meeting using https://bit.ly/SmDiv15min. She is also part of the team running Facebook group Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK

Tamsin Caine MSc., FPFS
Chartered Financial Planner
Smart Divorce Ltd
https://smartdivorce.co.uk

P.S. I am the co-author of “My Divorce Handbook – It’s What You Do Next That Counts”, written by divorce specialists and lawyers writing about their area of expertise to help walk you through the divorce process. You can buy it here https://yourdivorcehandbook.co.uk/buy-the-book/

 

To learn more about our podcast sponsor Ampla Finance – access their product guide here: https://bit.ly/3Ieqmuc
Or complete enquiry form https://bit.ly/3W4J7pz and one of the team will be in touch.


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Tamsin Caine:

Hello and welcome to the Smart Divorce Podcast. This is series nine and in this series we're going to explore what makes up the working week of various different professionals who work in the divorce world. You'll start to understand what they do, both during the time that you see them, how they prepare for meetings, and what work goes into the work of a divorce professional outside of the time that you spend with them. I'm really looking forward to some amazing clients in this series. We talked to a barrister, family solicitor, financial planner, divorce coach and really hoping that you're going to enjoy it and get a lot from it as well.

Tamsin Caine:

Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Smart Divorce Podcast, and I'm joined today by my good friend, Claire Macklin, whose book is just over her shoulder, if you are watching this on YouTube. If you're not, I'm going to ask her to tell you about her book in a bit. Claire, thank you for joining me. As always, how are you Good? How's it?

Claire Macklin:

It's really great to see you again. We've seen each other for a while so it's nice to catch up.

Tamsin Caine:

It is, and the thing I love about recording these podcasts is it does still feel like a, like a catch-up. It's gonna be. It's gonna be really good. Um so, claire, you're uh, you're a divorce coach, and we're going to talk a lot about your work as a divorce coach. Could you start off by just letting our listeners know what a divorce coach is, what they do, why and when they might need one?

Claire Macklin:

A divorce coach is somebody who helps you to find clarity, helps you to perhaps get your emotions under control, because when you're going through a divorce, the emotions can be really heightened and that can sort of fog your view of what's happening. It can lead you to make very emotional based decisions rather than ones based on, you know, information and really clear choices and so on. Um. So I help my clients to get calm, um to see clarity, to see the different options that are in front of them, to be able to evaluate those options, perhaps to be able to look at the long-term view and to be able to navigate their way through with confidence. And then I also help them to plan what life looks like post-divorce, because that's really important. You know, you can find your Lots of my clients talk about standing on the edge of a cliff and they're not quite sure what's underneath them. The future can feel really uncertain and scary, and so I do a lot of work with clients around you know what their values are and what they would like life to look like afterwards, and that's you know. We work in conjunction with people like you to work out you know the financial basis for that and what the purpose for their money is and all of those kinds of things. So essentially it's a real journey and I walk beside my clients right from the beginning, sometimes right into post divorce. You know I've got quite a lot of clients that come back every six months, perhaps once a year we have a top up session, or when they meet somebody else and they want to talk about new relationships, so it can cover all kinds of things.

Claire Macklin:

Um, but very solution focused. Um, very concentrate on you. So put yourself at the center of your life. Um is is the focus really. There are lots of points actually at which coaching can be really really helpful. If you feel like everything's out of control, um, if you feel like, um, your emotions are really up and down like a roller coaster, um, if you feel that you're stuck, that you can't see the options and choices ahead of you, um, if you're stuck with communication, perhaps with your ex partner, um, if you are feeling panicky all the time or anxious all the time, if you are finding that you keep changing your mind, perhaps around what you want, what your priorities are, and you're finding that really difficult to perhaps communicate with your solicitor. Those are some of the things that I can help you with and that might be kind of flags to think well, maybe I need need a little bit extra help and support with working through those things.

Tamsin Caine:

Yeah, I like that, and so do. People often come to you right at the very beginning of their divorce journey because was me?

Claire Macklin:

I'm on the phone to you, yes absolutely, and I have increasing over over the years I've been doing this increasing numbers of people who and I think this is possibly because divorce coaching is becoming so much more well known you know increasing numbers of people who come to me before they go to a lawyer or solicitor because they're not sure whether they want to stay in their relationship or whether they want to leave, and absolutely that's something that we can explore and I've had lots of clients in that position. Sometimes they stay and then we talk about how they could perhaps communicate more effectively within the relationship, how they could use conflict as an opportunity for growth perhaps. Or if they choose to leave, then we talk about how they can tell their partner that that's what they want and what their intentions perhaps are for going through the process. It means that you can start that process off being really clear about where you want to get to and who you want to be in that process, and I think that's really important. Yeah, absolutely.

Tamsin Caine:

The thing I really love about you and and and this is one of the things that I mentioned, your book when we first started and it's one of the things that I love about the book is it's so practical. It's like, and, and you're very empathetic, but it's not, oh, never mind, it'll all be okay. It's like do this, do this, do this, and that's that's sometimes what you need, isn't it?

Claire Macklin:

yeah, I think you know there's a difference between sympathy and empathy and, and I think that's what you just highlighted you know I don't see it as my job to.

Claire Macklin:

If my clients say sitting, you know, using an analogy they're sitting down a really dark well, it's cold, it's wet, it's horrible down there. It isn't my job to climb in and sit in there with you. It's my job to climb in and bring a ladder, show you how to climb up the rungs so that you can, you know, emerge from that well and back out into the sunshine. So, yes, my book's full of strategies you need, you'd need, a journal to go alongside my book, um, so that you can write, you can think about the things that I, you know that I suggest you, you, you consider there are loads of different exercises in it, and from very practical things like breathing exercises, imagery exercises, but also, you know, exercises to help you really think about, for example, the things you're afraid of and what you could do to try and mitigate those fears. So it's practical but also sort of emotional at the same time.

Tamsin Caine:

Absolutely, yeah it really is. It's fantastic, and if anyone listening is going through divorce and wants to get a hold of Claire's book, I'm sure we'll be able to put the link in the show notes so that you can get that ordered, because it certainly is a good thing to read to get some seriously good, practical tips. So what I wanted to talk to you about today was what your week looks like. So I know that we've kind of said you deal with people at all sorts of different points in their journey and you help them with all sorts of different aspects of their divorce. So is there a normal?

Claire Macklin:

working week for you? Really interesting question, um, I mean, there are things that are the same every week, but in general I would say that my diary is absolutely varied. Um, there are no two weeks that are ever the same, because there are no two clients that are ever the same. Um, so I was looking at my diary this morning in sort of preparation for talking to you and thinking my goodness, and I wrote down a list of all the things that I'm doing this week, and there's a huge amount of things. You know. This week, for example, I've got um 18 hours of face-to-face work with clients at all different stages. So just looking at my diary now, you know, this week I've got I'm looking at working with clients who are right in the early stages.

Claire Macklin:

Um, there are I've got a client who is really concerned about children, so we'll do a lot of talking about parenting and co-parenting, parallel parenting, all that kind of thing. Another one who is, I think, three or four years post divorce and we're looking at where she wants her life to go from here. Um, I've got another client this week who is dealing with a very high conflict, narcissistic ex-husband. Um, and that's that's been ongoing for a couple of years, um, and then I'm talking with a dad later this week who is concerned about the amount of contact that he's able to have with his children, and so it's massively, massively varied. Oh, and another client tomorrow from the States who wants to talk about new relationships, boundaries, green flags, red flags, that kind of thing. You know she's had a couple of years post our work together, so it's massively varied in terms of clients. But behind that I've also, you know, I've got another phone where I've got WhatsApps coming in from clients on and off emails coming in that I respond to.

Claire Macklin:

So not all of my coaching is one-to-one. Across Zoom or in my coaching space. I do quite a lot responding to emails, whatsapps, and I'm really aware things happen between sessions. Divorces don't fall neatly into the time when we have a session on a Monday morning and then our next session. So that's part of the service that I provide is kind of that all round. You know, something happens. You can message me and I'll get back to you as soon as I can with some suggestions how you might look at it differently or what you could possibly do. So yeah, so that's kind of the client facing stuff.

Claire Macklin:

And then I do webinars as well. So sometimes I've got, you know, a couple of hours blocked out to plan a webinar and then presenting a webinar Really enjoy doing that, because that enables me to reach people who perhaps, you know, can't afford to invest in one-to-one coaching. So you know, I know it's expensive, it's not within everybody's budget. So I like to do some things that I can, you know, say to people. Look, if you can't afford to have one-to-one coaching, then there's also this you know, take a look at all these webinars. I've got a big library of webinars that I can point people towards.

Claire Macklin:

And then sometimes I get messages from clients I'm no longer working with. I had one this morning from a lady who I worked with for about a year and a half. Really difficult divorce, very difficult. It's happened again. But she sent me a picture of herself outside her new front door with her new heart-shaped key ring, just moving into her new house. So I was like, yes, so it's really lovely. I build up a real relationship with my clients when I work them one-to-one and it's so lovely to hear from them a year, two years, even three years down the line with sort of how life has turned out for them, and that is so rewarding.

Tamsin Caine:

Yeah, that's that's the bit, isn't it that, that you kind of go oh yeah, they've got their butterfly wings and they're, and they're in this new world and it's so great to see clients.

Claire Macklin:

It really warms your heart, doesn't it? And it puts a smile on your face and you hear this is what it's all about.

Tamsin Caine:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is why. This is why we do this work is to get people out the other side in a positive space. Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Your, your work is as as crazily varied as mine. Is what? What does it look like for somebody coming to work with you? How does how does that? How does the process begin? What do they need to do? What do they need to bring to you?

Claire Macklin:

so, um, I always start with talking to people first. You know, like I'm saying understand, this isn't, this is a real investment in yourself. So, um, I always talk to people for, you know, a good half hour, sometimes a bit longer, um, before they kind of sign up for for sessions. Um, we talk about what their main challenges are, what their main concerns are, and I, you know, I give them strategies in that call as well. So you'll take some value away from that, even if you don't move on forward um. And then we have um sessions. Generally, I see people once every two, three weeks, sometimes even longer, sometimes shorter.

Claire Macklin:

It's really flexible, it's very bespoke tailored um. So you know, the service that I provide is really based around what you need and what you need right now. So there's no kind of program as such. I couldn't say in session one we're going to do this and in session two we'll look at that, in session three we'll look at this, because it's very responsive to where you are right now, what you're feeling right now, what's happening in your world right now. What's happening in your world right now?

Claire Macklin:

I suppose one of the key things that comes up a lot is helping clients, or helping my clients move from feeling like it's happening to them to feeling like they have choices and control and that they're being proactive and they're able to take decisions. So that's, I suppose that's. If there's anything that characterizes everything that runs through all my coaching work, it's that it's about moving from feeling like you're a victim to feeling like you're not just a survivor but a thriver. Yeah, and then you know, every client's journey is so very different. Some clients will work with me for a year and a half, other clients four months. Some clients will just have a one-off session. You know something very, very focused, you know. So it's so varied.

Tamsin Caine:

Yeah, it's hard to kind of go. This is, this is what I do. I think there are divorce I hope I'm right in saying I'll probably get an onslaught of emails after I've said this, but I think there are divorce coaches who do have a quite a sort of specific program that they, that they work through and and they cover different aspects of divorce and it. I think it is about finding the person that that you kind of relate to and that you feel that you because it's a very trusting relationship, isn't it? This one is a coach and the and the coachee yeah, absolutely.

Claire Macklin:

You know that rapport between coach and coachee is so, so important. You know it's about trust. So you know people will tell me things in our sessions that they may not have said out loud before, that they may not have even really allowed themselves to even think before, and so there needs to be that sense that I'm holding that safely for them. You know it's confidential, you know, unless, of course, they tell me something that I have to by law report. Um, you know it's confidential, it's. It's a safe place for them to explore things with somebody who's impartial, who doesn't know their ex-partner, who doesn't know their children, who doesn't know their ex-partner, who doesn't know their children, who doesn't know their friends. And that aspect of it is hugely important to me that trust part of it.

Tamsin Caine:

really important Absolutely. How do you so obviously your clients see what they see in front of them? How do you prepare to to see a client but whether I don't know if this is different for someone you've never met before or for somebody you've been working with for a while? So what's your, what's your preparation, what's your process?

Claire Macklin:

great question um, for the sort of 20 minutes before a session I'll spend. If it's's a client that I've been seeing for a while, I'll go back through my notes and I'll remind myself what we looked at last time, exactly where they are on their journey. In the old days, when I first started, I could remember each client really clearly from one session to the other, but now that I've got kind of you know, maybe 30 clients at a time I just look to remind myself, remind myself what their children are called, you know that kind of thing. But then I do this kind of little ritual and I stand in front of my mirror and I actually talk to myself. I practice what I preach. I talk to myself about how I have all the resources that I need to remind myself to put on my listening ears.

Claire Macklin:

Um, and you know, I remind myself that, um, you know I'm, I'm here to get into my client's map of the world. This isn't a place where I tell you what to do. This is a place. This is a place where I come alongside you and we explore this together. Um, so I I stand front of the mirror and I remind myself of all of that and then I do some breathing and then I'll stand up and I'll stretch my arms and I bring up myself and put my shoulders back, and then I feel ready. So it's about stepping into that role. That place.

Tamsin Caine:

Yeah, putting yourself in the place where you're completely present for your client. I like that.

Claire Macklin:

I like to call it. I'm clean. You know I'm clean of my own stuff before I go into that session?

Tamsin Caine:

Yeah, I love that. I had a friend who used to have a ritual which involved putting lipstick on, but it was. If I do this, I then become the person who who's there and present and ready to receive what that other person has given me. I think that's. I think that's really interesting. And so, not wanting to be the person who's in the well with the client, to use your analogy not kind of sitting there with them, how do you unpack after, after you you finish working with a client in that particular session, because it's really important for us in in both of our work that we we don't carry everything, yeah, with us into our lives. So how do you go about?

Claire Macklin:

doing that? No, that's a really important thing. So again at the end of the session, I have another little ritual where I'll stand up, I'll stand up, I'm gonna do.

Claire Macklin:

I'll stand up, my shake, shake off, you know, the session, and then I will. I'll go out of the room when I place the door on the session and then I usually make myself a cup of tea or I, you know, sit down for five minutes and just breathe it out. But, um, I'm also quite something that you learn as a coach is to kind of disassociate yourself so I can step away from the content um of the session. Um, and I also have regular supervision for myself so that I have somebody. If there's something worrying me, I can go and talk about it. Um, so I have supervision, sort of every six to eight weeks for myself anyway, with a supervisor, and I also have um a fellow coach that I go to sometimes for specific um supervision around um clients who are in domestic abuse situations as well. So I go to somebody that I see as a peer expert on that to talk about that as well. So, and I also do loads and loads and loads of reading, you know, around the subjects that I coach around all the time.

Tamsin Caine:

So I keep myself very educated um around it all it's my next question because I was going to ask how, in financial services, we have continuing professional development, we have to log a certain number of hours for our institutes in order to keep our and designations that we can use, and I and I wondered if you have a similar thing, if you do, if you do similar, similar sorts of things as a coach, and it sounds as though you do yeah, so I do.

Claire Macklin:

Coaching, um, as you probably know, isn't regulated at the moment in the uk, so there's no requirement as such, but I believe it's really important. It's really important to keep your professional development going. So I've got I've got books next to me at the moment that I'm sort of on the go with. So at the moment I'm halfway through this book, which is brilliant it's not you, it's um about heathens from narcissistic abuse, by Dr Romani um Dervisala or Dervisula, not quite sure how to say that's huge.

Tamsin Caine:

That looks very hefty tome it's.

Claire Macklin:

It's very easy to read and it's really really good. Um, I'm also dipping in and out of parenting apart by christina mcgee at the moment, which is also really good, um, and I'm also, um you know, I have supervision for myself and I'm also doing a course on providing therapeutic supervision for family lawyers at the moment nearly finished that um in london, so I read books around that as well, around supervision and supervisory sort of skills for reflective practice, all of which are really helpful um in my work as a coach through divorce as well. So, yeah, I mean it's one of my values anyway is that constant learning, exploration, development, um, so I'm always reading something. Try not to do it last thing at night reading about divorce, last thing at night.

Tamsin Caine:

It's probably not Not a thing to go to bed with, that is it? No, I try and keep books about divorce out of my bedroom. Yeah, I do generally, although I did, I can't remember what it's called and I can't see that far. Um, there was a book. There was a book that, um, that one at the divorce book club did, which was a fictional book about divorce, and I did read that and I was a bit like I don't really know what I'm doing.

Claire Macklin:

This is not the plan it took me quite a long time doing this to really give myself permission to spend part of my working day reading, because I love reading and I read a lot of novels as well, and so reading for me is like a real joy and I really love it. And so I've had to. I've had to change, shift my mindset on reading as part of my work, and in my previous career I didn't really have to do that in the same way. Um, so now I, you know, I spend an enjoyable hour a day or so reading, and it's part of my job, which is great yeah, I think you're right, and there it.

Tamsin Caine:

It takes a lot to keep up with everything there is going on in the divorce world, and those of us who work in in any of the professions involved in it do spend a huge amount of time immersing and this is a word that Phil O'Connor, who was my mentor when I first started doing this work, and Phil O'Connor used to say immerse yourself in the world of divorce, and sometimes even it's it's reading through case law on Twitter and I'm not a lawyer, but sometimes the decisions that are made and the things that happen in the court are important for us to know about and understand, and even like going through twitter and looking at what the family lawyers are posting about and what people are saying. You know, it's all kind of that keeping up to date so that you can do the best possible job that you can for your clients, isn't it?

Claire Macklin:

yes, exactly, and also so that you can I mean I, I see lots of changes happening at the moment in the divorce arena. There's lots of innovation happening, there's lots of really new exciting collaborations happening, and without keeping on top of all of that and sort of being very aware of it, you, you know, I want to be part of that. I want to be part of that innovative drive to make divorce better for people, to reduce the stigma of it and to help people realise that they can do this in a different way to how it might be represented or might have been represented in the past by the media and so on, and I want to be at the forefront of that. So, doing things like this, you know, talking to you, being on podcasts and networking with lawyers and other financial advisors and other people in the divorce professions that's another really important part of my week as well.

Claire Macklin:

So regularly have Zooms with lawyers and people like you, um, you know, then there'll be drinks evenings with law firms and um oh, and journalists, of course, as well. So that's another big part of of my week. Often, you know, last week I spent, um, I spoke to a journalist about an article that's hopefully going to come out in um Prima magazine, I think. In the summer I spoke to her, put her in touch with a couple of my clients who were happy to speak to her, you know, and all of those things as you become more well known.

Tamsin Caine:

You know, what's really great is I was once chasing those journalists and now they're starting to come to me and that's because you, that's because I keep myself, um, you know, aware of stuff and I comment on things and I talk to people, and that's that's as important a part of this job when you're self-employed, I think, as anything else yeah, absolutely, totally agree with that and I'm with you just starting to get journalists coming to me, which is which is a real privilege, because then you can you can talk about, because whilst when you're at the beginning of a divorce you would go and see a divorce solicitor, a family solicitor, you don't necessarily go and see a divorce coach, even though that might be the best plan, you don't necessarily think that it's essential to have a financial planner involved in what you're about to do, whereas if you've got anything that's vaguely complex, you absolutely do need these other areas of support.

Tamsin Caine:

And I think the more we talk to journalists, the more we get our work out there and and in the public eye and and normalize it, the the better. I think, the better the divorce world will be, and I think it will make it easier for people to divorce, hopefully without the courts. Um, so much because it takes so long to to go through the courts.

Claire Macklin:

It's such a drawn-out process yeah, it's so drawn out and it's so stressful, um, you know, and and there are long periods of time when nothing seems to happen, but the anxiety levels are still very high um, you know, you're kind of waiting and you're in limbo and yeah, um. So, yeah, I'm absolutely the the team approach and I think that's one of the biggest innovations I've seen in the last seven years since I set up my business. You know the team approach where we're working together around cushioning around the client so they've got the right legal support, the right emotional support, the right emotional support and the right financial support and whatever other support they may need. Around that, you know, perhaps there's parenting support and mortgage advice. There are all sorts of things around the edges to make sure that people are getting the right advice from the right people and that that actually can be cost effective as well.

Claire Macklin:

Yeah, so I think you know that's a whole. That's a, an education piece that I've. You know I've been banging the drum about that for so long, but, um, you know, now there are lots of innovative things in the pipeline that are really bringing that into reality, which is just really, really exciting. It's really exciting to be at this point in time. I think, think, yeah, you know talking to people about developing those new services that we can offer.

Tamsin Caine:

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right In terms of when a client's working with you. How do you know when you've come to the end of your work together?

Claire Macklin:

That's a really great question, isn't it? It's an intuitive, feeling thing. I think Clients come to the point where you've talked about their values. You can see them starting to live them. They really begin to fly, spread their wings. They really begin to fly, spread their wings.

Claire Macklin:

Um, you know, I the whole basis of my coaching it's not a very good business plan or business model is to make sure is to is to build my clients up so that actually they can take off and they don't need me anymore. They might want to sometimes pop in for a catch-up session or or some them become friends. You know we then go out for coffee and we meet up on the weekends and things sometimes, but the whole basis of my work is to enable people to not need me anymore. And so you get a feel and the client knows as well you know. So then you know we'll have a conversation about where do we go from here and sometimes they'll say, well, I'd like to check it in a while, and that's fine, and they leave it very open. You never do it. I'm never interested in doing a hard sell on anything at all, um, but it's a it's, it's a feeling thing. You can sort of feel that people are ready. I can't quite explain it, but it's a feeling.

Tamsin Caine:

That's the. That's a good explanation, because that sounds like it comes from both sides. It's a feeling from. That's a good explanation, because that sounds like it comes from both sides. It's a feeling from both of you, rather than you going, but that's enough, now Off. You go, yes, we're finished now, yeah, and they're kind of like left going. Oh, I don't feel like I'm finished, I'm not ready yet. I don't need my reins on.

Claire Macklin:

Yeah, and so sometimes it will do a kind of tapered kind of ending. So it might be that maybe we don't have sessions anymore, but perhaps we have a call once a month for the next few months just to check in, make sure everything's okay. You know, and I create things for people. Sometimes you know a different service. I'll create it and say well, how about this? Should we try that? Um, and that's, that's another of the beauties of being self-employed. I think you can. You can create something bespoke for a particular person and that they might need yeah, so it it really is.

Tamsin Caine:

It's it's what you need as as somebody going through divorce and in that, in that place, and I think, I think it's massively and massively important and it is hard to put your hands on. But having that emotional support, almost you're the kind of forward-looking, planning version of it. It's not therapy, it's not backward looking, it's not what's happened to you, it's it's where are we, where are you going next? And it's about kind of looking forward to this next chapter, even if you're not looking forward to it yes, exactly, and I mean, sometimes we do.

Claire Macklin:

Sometimes we do look backwards, but we look backwards in order to move forwards. So, you know, we might be looking back over the relationship that has finished and asking questions like you know, what patterns did I follow in that? What were the things that made me vulnerable to this, or what mistakes do I feel I made along the way? What would I like to do differently next time, what have I overcome and how can I learn from it? You know, so it's very much looking at what's happened in the past in order to think about how you want to be different potentially in the future. Is there a pattern you'd like to shift? Do you want to be like a totally different person in your next relationship? You know, now I've done that myself in my own life, you know, looked back over the my two marriages and thought how did I behave in that? Are there common patterns there that that has similar outcomes that I didn't like and don't want to repeat, and how am I going to be different in any new relationship?

Tamsin Caine:

um, and that's really lovely work to do with people, that's that's real growth work and, um, things that that can shift lives, that sounds incredibly difficult to do, as as a like feeling as though I was the recipient of those questions, to to kind of think about where I might have gone wrong. That feels like a really tough thing to do. Does it take time to draw those things out of people?

Claire Macklin:

I think you know if you go in the strength with those questions yeah, then they sound really challenging, but very often what I find is people are really aware of the patterns that they follow, so they'll say things like you know. This always happens to me, or I know that I'm doing this over and over again, or I know that I tend to be a people pleaser, for example. And you know, people know themselves, and I think that's one of the things that I come from in my coaching is that my clients know themselves. They are the person who is the expert about themselves. They know their own selves and their subconscious will throw things up when it's ready to deal with them. Believe that too. So you know, know.

Claire Macklin:

If your subconscious is saying to you I've always been, I've done this loads of times in my previous relationships and the outcome has been this and I really don't like it. Then you can start gently asking some of those questions. Can you describe that pattern to me? What does it look like? What would you, how would you like the outcome to be different? I wonder what small shifts you could make in order to change that. And then you chunk it down and then it becomes a bit more manageable, not so scary still sounds pretty scary to me if I play 21.

Tamsin Caine:

How easy is it to ask yourself those questions? Because you said this, this is, these are things that you consider yourself and I know from my work a lot of the questions, a lot of the difficult but kind of moving forward financial questions, I can't ask myself. I need to find another financial planner to come into my world and and ask me those questions. So a lot of financial planners have their own financial planner because, despite the fact we know stuff, can't do the work for myself yeah, and there is some of that.

Claire Macklin:

I mean, I do a lot of journaling, do I do? So I do ask myself a lot, of, a lot of these questions, but I also work with coaches who are able to see things that are in my blind spot. Perhaps you know, we all blind spots about ourselves. They will notice something. So after I left my second marriage, I saw a really brilliant coach, for I think I saw her for over four or five months to think about exactly what I've just described how I want to be different next time and what I want my life to look like and how I want my life to be really aligned. So we did a lot of work around that. So I think you're right sometimes we need somebody from the outside to ask us those difficult questions in a very kind and loving and supportive way.

Tamsin Caine:

Yeah, absolutely it's. That first question might give you that answer, and then it's not until you get to the third or fourth or sixth that you're actually getting kind of deep into the yeah to the soul, opposed to deep into the kind of into the real person uh, yeah, I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine who's a coach, um and um.

Claire Macklin:

She was asking me I can't remember exactly what the question was, but I kept saying I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And she said, claire, you do know you really do know.

Claire Macklin:

You just need to listen to yourself and hear your, hear your intuition talking and I think that's something that that's something that comes up a lot actually for my clients. You know there are. There are often gut feelings, things we've stamped down, suppressed, and once and if we start listening to those gut feelings and those those little kind of like um moments, that's when we start really getting in touch with ourselves and who we are deep down yeah, absolutely you don't.

Tamsin Caine:

You don't want to be working with someone who lets you get away with they don't know and it sounds absolutely well. It sounds mean, doesn't? It sounds awful, but it's. That's like you said. That's where you grow, that's how you change, that's how you stop following the patterns in the future exactly, and there are nice ways to ask, to probe that.

Claire Macklin:

I don't know, you know, so I will say things like if you did know what, might you know that often releases a lot of things.

Tamsin Caine:

Really, if you did know what, would it be amazing, amazing. That has been such an interesting conversation. I think the way as a you know this, I think the way you do is amazing. Um and um. I am delighted that so many more people are working with divorce coaches and there are so many more available. Um, because it's uh, it's so useful to people who are going through divorce not to be leaning on their solicitors for the sorts of work they are doing, because it's that they're absolutely the wrong. People's listeners are fabulous at telling you all about the law, but they're not. They're not trained to deal with people's emotions and shouldn't be, shouldn't have that on on them. So is there anything that I haven't asked you that I should have asked you?

Claire Macklin:

I mean, the only other thing that I was thinking about this morning really was kind of outside of work, you know. But outside of work, who am I interesting? You know, I was thinking about all the things I do outside of work and you know, I'm really active and I love playing Scrabble and I do a lot of spinning and I walk my friend's dog and, you know, I think that kind of feeling of being proactive, being in control, having options and choices, I take into my outside of work life as well, in terms of, you know, teaching my boys by example, um, you know, um, showing them what it's like to take responsibility for your own stuff. Um, you know all of those things. And I look around me and since my second divorce, I've, you know, redecorated pretty much my whole house and just do my bathroom at the moment.

Claire Macklin:

Um, and you know, life is always changing. That's one thing that I think a certain life is always changing. Life's always going to throw you curveballs and it's about how you deal with them. That's what really makes the difference. Yeah, curveballs, and it's about how you deal with them.

Tamsin Caine:

That's what really makes the difference. Yeah, absolutely right. It's interesting how you say about your weeks, not just your work. There's so much more going on and I think the thing that probably we have in common is we live the work that we do because we've been there. We live the work that we do because we've been there. We we might not have the identical, same divorces, any of our clients, but we can empathize because we've lived it. We've been there with single parents, we've done that bit, and so we can empathize. We do get it and we get how hard it is to juggle working full-time and making tea and doing the washing and going to supermarket and and still having a life yourself and still not being just the person who does the work in front of you. Uh, thinking that's really important. It was something that, um, I'm talking about this with somebody the other day and I can't remember who. Who it was about how you are, not your job.

Tamsin Caine:

Johnny Wilkinson does a podcast, johnny Wilkinson, from a number 10 rugby player for England. I think it's called who Am I? Anyway, it's a podcast well worth listening to, but he talks about you know, I've just described him to you as the number 10 for England. He's an ex-former rugby player. He isn't that apt. He is lots and lots of other things.

Claire Macklin:

We all play lots and lots of different roles.

Tamsin Caine:

I'm a coach.

Claire Macklin:

I'm also for some lawyers I'm a reflective practice partner. For my kids I'm their mum. For my husband I'm his fellow co-parent. You know, for my friends I'm a friend. For my parents I'm a daughter. For my all and my brother I'm a sister. You know we have all those different roles and they're all merged and you know, I think, where I'm at right now in my life I feel like am there are core things in me that I bring to all of those? Yeah, absolutely.

Tamsin Caine:

Thank you so much for joining me today, clara. I really enjoyed that conversation. Anybody who wants to get hold of Clara work with her, read her book. We will put all Clara's contact details in the show notes so that you can get hold of her.

Tamsin Caine:

Thank you very much hi, and I hope you enjoyed that episode of the smart divorce podcast. If you would like to get in touch, please have a look in the show notes for our details or go onto the website, wwwsmartdivorcecouk. Also, if you are listening on Apple podcasts or on Spotify and you wouldn't mind leaving us a lovely five-star review, that would be fantastic. I know that lots of our listeners are finding this is incredibly helpful in their journey through separation, divorce and dissolving a civil partnership. Also, if you would like some further support, we do have a Facebook group now. It's called Separation, divorce and Dissolution UK. Please do go on to Facebook, search up the group and we'd be delighted to have you join us. The one thing I would say is do please answer their membership questions. Ok, have a great day and take care.

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Tamsin Caine

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