I had to start again too
I'm Sam, a qualified coach who knows first-hand what it's like to start again after divorce. I've navigated the uncertainty, rebuilt my confidence and worked out what I wanted from life when everything changed. Now I work with women in midlife who are ready to find their feet, rediscover who they are and create a future that feels right for them.
When I went through my divorce, it wasn't just my marriage that changed. My expectations of the future changed too, and I found myself having to make decisions about my life that I hadn't expected to be making.
At the same time, I was raising my daughter and navigating changes in my working life. There were plenty of practical things to deal with, but there was also the much bigger question of what I wanted my future to look like.
And that wasn't always easy to answer.
Life rarely goes quite to plan.
I've had a varied career in communications, PR and marketing, experienced redundancy three times, moved into freelancing and trained as a coach.
I've had to reinvent parts of my life more than once, sometimes by choice and sometimes because circumstances left me little alternative.
Those experiences have taught me that starting again can be uncomfortable, frustrating and occasionally rather liberating. Sometimes all three before lunchtime.
They've also taught me that we're often far more capable of change than we realise.
Why I work with women after divorce
One of the things I found most interesting about starting again was how much of the experience was about identity.
After years of being part of a couple, you can find yourself questioning things you'd never really thought about before. What makes you happy? What do you want to do with your time? What kind of life do you want to create?
These aren't always easy questions, particularly when you're also dealing with the everyday realities of divorce.
I trained as a coach because I wanted to work with women navigating significant life changes and give them the opportunity to think about what they wanted next.
Today, I focus on women going through divorce or rebuilding their lives afterwards, particularly those in their forties and fifties.
I bring both professional coaching training and personal experience to our conversations. I won't tell you what decisions to make or pretend there's a simple answer to everything.
But I will ask questions, challenge some of your assumptions and encourage you to consider possibilities you might not have given yourself the chance to explore.
A little more about me
I live in Hertfordshire with my teenage daughter.
I'm a big believer that midlife can be a time of opportunity, even when it hasn't arrived in quite the way we expected.
And I know that the prospect of starting again can feel very different from the reality of doing it.
If you're wondering what comes next, I'd love to hear from you.