Hi there and welcome back. So today I have a guest. Her name is Julie Danielson
and she is a divorce and relationship coach. She helps women go from stuck to
thriving after divorce with her coaching and program called Get Over Divorce
Collective. She also hosts the Get Over Divorce podcast, which is awesome and you
definitely have to check it out. And today we're going to talk all about divorce,
all about coaching, and all about getting over your divorce. And with that, I want
to welcome Julie. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, Jackie. I know me too.
Tell me how you got into this, because I don't really even know the story. You and
I are former coaching colleagues from a mastermind many years ago, and we've stayed
in touch through other coaching friends. But give me the backstory of how you became
a coach and why your niche was divorce and all the things. It all comes down to I
got divorced once. And I was in therapy for a couple of years leading up to it.
But it was actually when I broke down in one of my colleagues' offices.
Like, I just walked in her office, closed the door, and started crying. And she's
like, oh, honey, you need my coach. And it is through having that coach in my
corner that really in three months transformed my life. I literally told my husband
I wanted a divorce, and I took control. And that is what coaching gave me.
Wow. How long after your divorce, meeting that divorce coach,
selling your house, downsizing all the things, lead corporate to become a coach.
Years. So I remarried, my now husband in 2010, and my husband was like,
you know, you've always talked about being a life coach one day when you retired.
Why don't you just start that now? And I said, hell yes immediately.
I will take that hall pass and run with it. So I did. - Did you start with the
specific niche of helping women through divorce immediately? - Immediately. And I also
did what a lot of people tell you not to do. I started with a program. I knew
exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted a program where I did group coaching and I
created that. It was called Thriving Through Divorce and I had that for years. It's
been successful. And then I've just kind of updated the program, refined it, and
it's now called the Get Over Dwarfs Collective. So it's group coaching. It also has
an element of one -on -one, and there's a Facebook group, and there's a program. And
so when you say a program, there's videos to watch, there's audio and modules.
Okay, that's what you mean by a program. so they're buying something they can do on
their own as well as have a community in which they can be supported. 100%.
I also have some empowered dating modules because any woman going through divorce,
even if they say, oh, I can't even think about dating, they're going to think about
dating. And rather than them do it without any tools or knowing how to navigate
online dating, I have created an online dating process that will help them be very
successful. I keep it very updated. So now marketing is my background.
One of the best things I do is help women write their profile. So whatever app
they're in, we can come up with a really good profile for her. So that's one of
the little things that I help them with. But it is about marketing yourself.
But also it's about recognizing the red flags and steering clear of those when
you're in the dating sphere. And that in -person dating, we have habits and we have
patterns that we take with us in our life. And a lot of women need to break some
of their old dating patterns, break some of their old dating habits, their
relationship habits, right? Some of that is the work that we do inside of the
collective is like identifying what are your bad patterns. - Mm -hmm.
And you're talking about things like codependence, people pleasing. - Absolutely,
attachment styles, all of that theory. - That's by me. - We talk about that, but I
would say the biggest thing that I work on with women inside the collective is
there's a lot of really smart, successful career oriented women out there. And they
think of themselves as successful. And because they see themselves as successful in
their work, they have a hard time recognizing how dysfunctional they are in their
personal relationships, because they have this one really good strength. So they focus
on that strength. And They avoid dealing with the relationship issue, but there is a
big relationship issue going on there and when they go out there to date, they're
either coming across as unapproachable, like really super hyper guarded,
and they say, "Oh, I'm intimidating to men." Well, yeah, no shit you are because
you're closed off and shut down and that's really intimidating and actually that's
something that men will avoid, right? Unless you're a narcissist. If you're a
narcissist, that's attractive because that is what a wounded woman looks like. Oh,
that's interesting. So the narcissist is attracted to the woman who is guarded.
Guarded, shut down because he knows She's been hurt, she's been broken. - That must
be intuitive, 'cause I don't think narcissists are typically that self -aware to even
see their own patterns of behavior, but it just must be an intuitive thing.
- Yeah, absolutely. - And so then they get them to let their guard down and then
they break their heart because they're involved with a narcissist. - Of course, of
course. So part of the work that we do is helping women identify these glaring red
flags not only out there in the dating world but within them because that's what
they're attracting right and they don't realize they're attracting us. A lot of these
women are putting off this faux confidence. They think that because they look
confident and they dress confident that therefore they appear confident but it strikes
differently when you're wearing it like your armor. Confidence is your belief within
yourself, that's it. It has nothing to do with what you look like on the outside.
- So talk to me about the clients that come into the collective. Are they already
divorced? Are they thinking about divorce? Are they going through a divorce?
- Everyone's at a different point, but they're all at least separated from their ex.
That is my number one criteria. They could be going through the divorce or some
women have been divorced five plus years and they haven't figured out how to process
it and really get over it. That whole healing piece, they feel guilt,
shame, blame and stuck. And stuck is - Probably the word that I hear the most is
that women feel stuck.
- And age range, have you had it from young to old? - You know, I would say mostly
over 40 and they are mostly around my age, like 50 to 60 range.
I'm 52, so maybe there's a few younger ones. I've had a few younger moms like in
their late thirties, which I appreciate as long as they come to me and they know
they want to grow. They know that they are in here for the process of growing and
changing themselves. I'm not just going to get on board and trash talk your ex
because that's not what we're here to do and it's not productive. You're there to
help people move forward in the lives in whatever way that is. - Powerfully, yeah.
- Love that. And the program is three months? - Six. - Oh, six months, okay. But the
coach that you saw many, many years ago when you were going through your, before
you actually were going through your divorce but you knew you were unhappy, that was
three months with her. - It was three months that I experienced all of those changes
that I described. In that short window, all of things happened. And I saw her for
a long time after that just very infrequently. Amazing that she changed your life
that much though. Really gave you a new lease on life in every possible way. I
have to say the thing that really shifted for me was she helped me recognize my
own power And that is what I'm here to help women really get is,
you know, get their power back, recognize that the rest of your life can still be
the best of your life. And at that point, I thought the best is over.
It's behind me. That just simply isn't true. - I agree with that. How Often in the
10 years that you've been doing this, have you had to navigate through, because I
think this adds a layer of complication, infidelity, where it's not even so much
that the person is still in love with their spouse, but they were blindsided by
infidelity and that's the thing they cannot recover from. It's common. It's absolutely
common. And I agree, there is a full added layer of betrayal that women feel like
they weren't good enough. And they pile all this on,
there's this one human on the planet who turned away from me and betrayed me.
And because of that one human, I am now not
that's a lot to unpack. Because again, you know, divorce is hard in lots of ways.
It's logistically hard if you have to sell a house. It's very hard if you have
children. It can be financially challenging, as you said. You had to downsize, you
know, when you got divorced and go and live in an apartment where you were happier
than having your big, beautiful house. So there's a lot of components to divorce.
There's logistics and there's finance and there's custody. And then there's, It's a
lot to unpack, but when you have betrayal on top of it, then you have issues of
self -esteem and trust. I think women have self -esteem and trust issues anyway.
Right. I agree with you. Like there's so much, so much. And betrayal is rampant.
Like one of the first things I like to unpack with these women is like, if a man
chooses to turn away from his wife and go and seek pleasure with another person,
what kind of a man is he anyway? Right? Because a good partner is going to have
those problems in turn towards his wife, right? And sometimes that just means he was
not the right partner for you. Or there was something else going on that needed to
be looked at as well. Right. And there's lots of women that come to me who were
the one that did the cheating. And their ex drug them through the mud by telling
the whole entire world that she cheated. But then that woman, you know,
I'm thinking of somebody in my mind who I've talking to you recently. She did it
because the marriage was bad. She felt lonely for years and not helped as a parent
and just literally abandoned is how she felt. She felt alone in her marriage and
she got a little attention from somebody at work and there she had it. Truthfully,
I think she was exploding her marriage. She was doing it out of survival, like I
can't just leave him, but I can do this and that will cause this trickle effect
that will give me the end result that I need. Yes, absolutely. Do you still love
what you do 10 years later. I love what I do and I love the women that I serve
passionately and I just learn more and more and more and you know hone my skill
and the best thing for me to see is a woman saying oh my god this helped me so
much like that to me is like gold it is literally the thing that makes me feel
like this is my purpose and it it's amazing. It's interesting how sometimes the
thing that creates the most pain in our lives or the biggest challenge in our lives
ends up being the gift that we then can share or give to someone else. So I love
that because divorce has such negative connotations, although you and I are both
divorced and both happily remarried, but divorce has such negative connotations. It's
the end of a relationship, of course, but maybe it's the end of a nuclear
You know, splitting up kids' parents, it's this, it's this, it's this. But I like
when it can be a reframe and if divorce is the only option because the relationship
was either not meant to be or has rotted out for one reason or another, that there
is life after divorce. And so you're really taking such a nice positive spin on,
yes, it feels like an end, but it really can be a beginning with a change in
mindset. I love what you said about divorce. about divorce, something came to an end
either because it rotted out or circumstance. Yeah, exactly. I do not advocate for
divorce. I'm not out there telling people you should get a divorce. If things aren't
good, just divorce them. No, like, it takes a lot for somebody to come to that
very big, deep decision. And I want no part in making that decision or helping
somebody come to that decision. So I truly only start with somebody or they don't
find me until divorce is already inevitable. - Yeah, well, I was just gonna say, but
that's a criteria for your program, which is you're not saying, come into my program
and decide if you want to get divorced. You're saying, oh no, I can't even accept
you into my program until you're separated. So you do you, you figure out you,
and then I'll help you through the other side. - Yeah. - It's such a lovely gift.
- I like to empower women around divorce because it's something that we carry a lot
of shame for. - Exactly. - We carry the burden of, oh my gosh,
it's gonna screw up our children. We carry that. And I really want to encourage
women to
race divorce as part of your freedom in this country that other countries don't
have. There's a lot of countries out there where women are not allowed to divorce
their husband, right? So, it is part of our rights and our freedom in this country
to be able to decide. And it's okay if you made that vow and stood under an arch
and you swore to your undying love for somebody, but if that person...
Julie, this has been such a good conversation. How can people find you and where
can they listen to your podcast? Yeah. They can find it wherever they listen to
podcasts and it's called Get Over Divorce. They can find me at getoverdivorce .com
and they can apply right there to have a conversation with me and talk about the
Get Over Divorce collective and find out if it's right for them. Thank you for the
service that you provide, because there are so many people out there who are
struggling in bad relationships or relationships that are long over,
but they just feel like their life stopped when the relationship stopped. They lost
their identity in it, and it's such a gift to know it's not over.
Your life's not over, your relationship potential is not over, your self -esteem is
not over that you have a whole other life if you choose it and you can help them
and I think it's beautiful. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. My pleasure.
All right, I'll talk to you later.
