Should I Talk To A Professional?
Everywhere I turn there are new kinds of professionals offering services to divorce clients, often as part of a “team” approach. Here is a sampling:
Therapist, Individual, Marriage or Family
Co-Parenting Coach
Certified Divorce Coach
Career Coach
Life Coach
Attorney – Divorce, Real Estate, Wills and Trusts
Mediators, Collaborators
Accountants
Realtors
Certified Divorce Financial Analyst
Mortgage Specialist
Professional Organizer
Health and Wellness Coach
Nutritionist
Needing the services of even one professional can be an overwhelming proposition at any time of life. The hiring of anyone for anything is a significant transaction, so hiring someone to help you during a time of crisis is an even more daunting process. Retaining a divorce attorney alone takes a dramatic leap of faith for most people. That decision, made under the stress of crisis, combined with the payment of a significant retainer to a stranger (however highly recommended), can send many people into a tailspin.
But wait, let’s back up for a moment: it’s safe to say that many people’s marriages become “irretrievably broken” because they didn’t use a professional early enough on to support the marriage, to fix the tinier cracks before they became chasms. The reluctance to hunt for and meet with a therapist or other professional can be exhausting, and also financially frustrating; who wants to pay strangers to fix personal problems? Yuck.
On top of all of that, how can anyone be expected to “trust” a “professional” whose self-interest in getting paid is part of the very foundation of the relationship? Divorce professionals have a very visible vested interest in selling their services to you, right? How can you let yourself feel comfortable volunteering to subject yourself to their influence? The idea of asking a professional whether you need a professional might feel ridiculous in the first instance; of course the professional is going to say you need them! They want you to hire them!
With all of these barriers to seeking any professional assistance whatsoever, why is it still worth your while to try, just once?
The answer is simpler than you might expect.
Talking to a professional, even one time, will allow you to analyze your own situation better.
You are the best judge of what you need, once you have the right information and perspective on what a professional can and can’t offer, and how you feel after talking to one. The act of Interviewing a Professional, listening to what s/he has to say, asking questions, pushing back, all of that dialogue is a refining process for your own executive functioning, your own decision making about what you do or don’t need. It’s not about what they can offer you, it’s about your reflection and your decision-making around what you need. The act of deciding that you do not need or want to hire a professional can be as clarifying and empowering as the decision that you do.
As a consultant, I meet plenty of potential clients who don’t need me for more than a little education, an overview of the divorce process, and the different kinds of dispute resolution that are available. Once armed with that concrete information, they are able to carry forward with little or no professional assistance. And that can work well for all of us. An empowered person is a better, higher functioning potential client. And don’t we divorce professionals want the most empowered, high functioning clients possible? Isn’t life easier when potential clients feel less victimized by the need to hire a professional? Doesn’t that dynamic improve communication and decision-making on both ends of the transaction?
Picking up the phone to talk to a professional is not a commitment to hire them, or anyone. Instead of thinking about hiring a professional, let’s just start with having a single conversation. Have several single conversations with different professionals, taking them one at a time, just to see what the impact on your own thinking can be. You may or may not end up hiring anybody, but your own mind will be served. You may end up deciding that you need less or more than you start out believing, but until you ask, just once, how can you know what will or won’t serve you?
Which professional has been your best investment for transformation? Let me know in the comments below.
