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**This Episode is Behind the Scenes For A Reason** We tackle topics that are not appropriate for all audiences, and certainly not our parents!

If you've ever struggled with attracting the right partners after your divorce, understanding the impact of your vibrational energy might be the breakthrough you need.

This episode will give you deep insights into how attachment styles shape your dating and sexual behaviors, learn practical steps to heal ancestral shame and boost self-worth, and discover effective strategies to foster a healthy, secure foundation for future relationships.

Don't miss this enlightening conversation with Dawn & Coach Tiffini as she unravels the secrets to unlocking authentic connections and self-love – tune in now for a journey toward emotional freedom and empowerment!

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A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of forgiveness and letting go.

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Transcript

Navigating Sex and Dating Post-Divorce

Speaker 1 0:00

Dear Source Energy. Create alignment within us, between us, so that these words serve a greater purpose than our egos. Right, yeah, and so it is. In all my years as a therapist and as a woman not necessarily in that order I've never known a woman who didn't ask herself some version of how messed up am I when it comes to sex and dating. Today, we will share with you our stories about our journey with cultivating a healthy relationship with sex and dating. Hi love, welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence. I'm your host, Dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee. Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.

Speaker 1 1:18

Okay, today's episode is behind these locked doors of premium content because it is just too juicy and raw for it to be free for public consumption. I am joined today with my dear friend and colleague, coach Tiffany, hey guys, and we are going to unpack between the two of us, other than you getting to meet Coach Tiffany also. We are going to unpack so many things, but especially these three things. We're going to look at attachment style and how it relates to the way we do sex and dating. We are going to look at why it feels like you know, in the post-divorce phase, why it feels like good men aren't available and are so hard to find, and we are going to answer the question. You know how messed up am I, and I'm going to give you, you know, from my 20 years of clinical experience, what I have sort of distilled down about what's messed up, why it's messed up and how to solve it. Let's dig in, coach Tiffany. Welcome to the podcast. It's about time. I know I'm really excited to be here.

Speaker 1 2:26

So Coach Tiffany is integral to all of the programs we offer over here via the Dear Divorce Diary podcast. We have known each other for years and this year she came on the team and has completely changed my life. Like couldn't ask for a better teammate and friend. So welcome, thank you. Tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and what you love, and you know what inspired us to have this conversation today. Spin us a yarn, tell us a story.

Speaker 2 2:56

Absolutely so. I actually spent 15 years in corporate America doing finance. As a single mom, I just felt all this pressure to provide for my daughter, and so I just clawed my way up and, as she got older, started discovering that I really hated what I was doing and something about turning 40 for me. Something clicked, and I think the word that I can use is authenticity. Like everything in my life had to feel authentic my friendships, my job, my relationship, just everything. And so I pivoted and decided one day that I wanted to become a life coach and I started a program, exited corporate, opened my own practice, and Dawn and I's lives came back together in a very beautiful way.

Speaker 1 3:41

Whoop, whoop. So glad you did. And it's all those Corporate America skills that make you the missing piece to this organization. Right, because this organization is wildly creative, not so organized, but you have added buckets of organization to us. So we are so grateful and like fire, fire, fire coaching skills. You know that conversation we had where you called me one day and you were like I'm thinking about becoming a coach. I was like duh, I have a position ready for you.

Speaker 2 4:10

I know and that's the crazy part right, like when I started to do this and I started sharing this with people close to me, like hey, I think I'm going to do something crazy, everyone was like what is taking you so long? This has been in front of you for years. And so it just it made me feel really good, like I was stepping into this part of myself, that it was just kind of sitting there waiting for years.

Speaker 1 4:30

So recently we were talking about how we can do a better job with premium content. We were like, what do we need to be talking about over on the premium side, right, and this conversation about sex and dating came up and we were meeting with producer Joy and we were talking about, well, what guests could we have on to talk more about sex? And then I think I left to go to the bathroom or I don't know I squirrel a lot in meetings, right and I came back and you guys were like no, it's Dawn and Tiffany, but we've both had some feelings we've had to confront about sharing our own stories in this episode. I want to talk about that a little bit. Oh yeah, you don't have to your eyes are wide.

Speaker 2 5:11

Yeah, I mean, like, are you kidding me? So this is the scariest part of being a coach and I think it's why I waited so long. It's because, in order to connect with people, you have to be vulnerable and you have to share your story, and I think, think, for a long time, I had a lot of feelings about really putting myself out there in my story. It is scary as hell. So today is like my biggest fear realized, but I know it's something that I have to do and that I'm excited to do.

Speaker 1 5:36

Okay, I have not, like I have not kidnapped you, right, you're doing this no, no, I'm hanging out in my basement right now having coffee.

Speaker 1 5:44

Life is good, it's good, it's good, yeah, okay, so let's dig in, right. This is an exciting episode. So, as we were prepping, we're just kind of talking about our own lived experiences with divorce, post-divorce, our own healing journeys and developmental process with sex and dating and all the things, and then the 20 years of clients, right, the women that I've worked with over the years and just sort of compiling a list of things. Maybe touch on that list of things. We compiled, just the things between the two of us. How does that feel?

Speaker 2 6:18

Yeah, I think. So. The things that we kind of came up with to sort of talk about today, or that we felt were themes around women and sex, are just this need, post divorce, for attention and control. It's a need to disassociate during sex, have this persona, you know, feeling like if you don't fit a certain persona, men aren't going to want you or find you attractive. And I think that then there's a lot of religious things that come into play too right, like all the shame that we felt in our childhood around things that we weren't supposed to feel and do, and so I think all of that kind of culminates post-divorce into feeling like we want to experience things that we haven't, but feeling so much shame around the process.

Understanding Attachment Style in Dating

Speaker 1 7:02

Wow, yeah, and that's certainly not an exhaustive list, right, we talked a bit about sexual trauma and painful sex, whether or not you can orgasm or not orgasm right, there are just so many things. This could be like 18 podcast episodes, I feel like. But let's dig in to the first thing attachment style and how it impacts dating and sex. And I'm just going to start with this was really sort of what drove so much of the pain that I was experiencing in the process of divorce and I've had a lot of shame about sharing this element of my story as well is that, as we were in the process my ex and I were in the process of separating and getting divorced from an attachment style perspective, I felt so scared and so alone and so anxious that one of the only ways that I was able to exit was by hooking up with somebody else, and it just allowed me to feel less panicked in that transition out. And it didn't last, of course, right, but every man I've ever dated, I told myself I was going to marry. It's like how I soothed that issue of the religious programming around. You're supposed to find that one man that God has ordained for you, and so I think the way that I.

Speaker 1 8:23

So I sued these parts of me that couldn't tolerate just a natural healthy dating process or natural healthy separation. I convinced myself that every man was going to be a potential marriage partner and that is so. Not it Like, oh Lord, have mercy. Like, thinking back about it, it's so cringe, but that was my very real lived experience.

Speaker 1 8:44

And then, you know, would very much tend to pursue men who weren't really in it or available or healthy, because I needed to convince men who were avoidant by nature, avoidant attachers. I would like, need, have this, need it felt like to convince them to love me or want me, which is so toxic. Right, it's just a setup to feel rejected and shameful over and over and over again. But that was what the very early post-divorce experience was for me. I would sacrifice sort of my own healthy boundaries and values to convince you that I was desirable my own healthy boundaries and values to convince you that I was desirable. And what that all culminated in, I would say it was probably like probably six to nine months post-divorce that I was in this really unhealthy loop and then decided I was going to spend a period of time like completely not dating anyone, so super single and just focusing on my healing journey. But gosh, it was a wild ride before.

Speaker 1 9:45

Yeah, absolutely so. I think there's so much about attachment style in there that informs the way we experience or project our sexual, sexual selves. What's your?

Speaker 2 9:58

experience with that. Yeah, I mean, I think, post-divorce for me. I was 24 years old when I went through my separation and divorce. I lived in a place where there was this crazy club scene that I'd never been exposed to. I got married very young. I was a military wife, so there were pressures with that and I feel like I had to sit in a box a lot.

Speaker 2 10:21

We were constantly under the microscope, in the spotlight. So, stepping out of that and being able to get into this persona of like incognito, where no one knew me there and you know, stepping into the club scene and just being able to realize that, you know, I was attractive and I was, you know, able to attract and control and get all of that attention that I'd been missing the past few years. And so, as an avoidant attacher, you know, able to attract and control and get all of that attention that I'd been missing the past few years. And so, as an avoidant attacher, you know I tended to gravitate towards the ones that were, you know, like the hottest guys in the club type of a situation.

Speaker 2 10:54

you know it was like a challenge for me almost, and then once somebody caught feelings, I was done with the game and I wanted to leave, and so for me, it was more about having the control to walk away, since I felt like it was forced in my marriage that I had to walk away.

Speaker 2 11:09

And so, you know, in my own life I wanted to gain some of that control back, and so I did that by unfortunately, you know, hurting some people and that wasn't great for me. It took me a long time to really work around that shame. And you know, we talked about this experience where I got called out by someone, and you know, I would try to preface these relationships with hey, this is what I'm interested in. I just want a physical connection. And I don't know if men don't hear that or they think that women aren't capable of that, but I truly was, and so when I didn't catch feelings and they did then I would get turned on. And so, you know, hearing from someone one day how I was making them feel was the first time that I actually took a step back and thought God, like I'm really hurting people.

Speaker 2 11:56

And so that kind of changed my path yeah.

Speaker 1 11:58

Yeah, yeah, I love when we get those wake up calls, right. You know, as we were talking about this, we all, we both have all these cringe moments, but I I don't like today I don't have any regret, right, there's none of it that I regret. I feel like I grew up in this household where I had one parent that was very rigidly religious and there was so much shame about sex. I don't know, I don't know very many people who have had open conversations about sex in their childhood. I have one dear friend who had boatloads of that. Her mom was a sex ed teacher. But I feel like that's like my kid growing up with a therapist.

Speaker 1 12:33

We talk about everything, yeah, but there was no sort of healthy conversation growing up with a parent that was really rigidly religious. But then I had another parent that was like there were playboys around all the time right, so it was a lot of mixed messages about sex and I just think that I was super shut down and really afraid, like all that programming about like sin and hell and sex and marriage and all that like it has taken me a long time to unwind all of that and so I sit here today, no regrets, I know I am well loved by a loving source creator and in my post-divorce era I learned a lot about sex and other things and tried a lot of things that I had never had the courage to try in any other context of my life and while I am not advocating for that, I definitely we will talk about this throughout the episode right when I think there's a lot of misalignment.

Speaker 1 13:26

there there's a lot of pain that drives right these strategies. We're using these adaptive strategies to try to cope with and compensate for the pain that we're in. I don't have any regrets.

Speaker 2 13:37

I think you probably would say the same thing yeah, yeah, no, absolutely not. I think, looking back, are there cringeworthy moments? Oh my God. Yes, like there's parts of me that are like oh my God, did I really do that? But coming out of it now the place that it's brought me to, the things that I've learned I'm thankful for all of those experience that I had, no matter how cringeworthy or embarrassing or horrific they were.

Speaker 1 13:58

Yeah, so both of us sort of have this attachment style lens we can look through to see how it's informed, the way we dated, the way we sexed, the way right, whether it was anxious, avoidant, disorganized actually really more to a disorganized attachment style because I can push and pull like a champ. But this is to say, right, that as long as that attachment style stuff is activated, it's really hard to have a healthy relationship with dating or sex, because it's going to, it's going to trigger all of our deepest vulnerabilities, right, all of our most catty, wampus behaviors.

Speaker 2 14:36

Yeah, absolutely oh yeah, like I was a mess. That's pretty much what it was. I mean, when I was in that state of mind, it's almost like I was dissociating, so much to the point where, you know, I was a prowess baby, like I had a whole other. You know, there weren't a lot of people who got my real name. I mean, that's the level I was at. I just didn't care and because of my avoidant attachment style like I would for lack of a better term I would get off on being able to have that power and control over men. That's what I thrived off of, because in my entire life I didn't feel like I did. I mean, we had.

Speaker 2 15:11

I always knew that my mom would talk to me about things, and so would my dad, and they weren't together growing up. They split when I was a baby, but they did a great job of co-parenting me. But anytime we had conversations about sex and dating, they were both very open with me, but I think it was. I was able to come to them when I started having sex, you know, to be able to have those conversations, but it still wasn't comfortable. They still weren't offering me the kind of advice and guidance that I needed as a young adult to be able to navigate, especially post-divorce, and I certainly wasn't going to tell my mother and father things that I was experiencing and be like, hey, is this okay?

Speaker 1 15:43

There's a part of me that is so. I don't want to say envious, that's not right but like wow, almost admiring your journey and your path with sex, because that's a level of freedom that I've never had. Right In my marriage I struggled with low sex drive, so much sexual repression. I had chronic UTIs when I was in college and in my first marriage and I now know from a homeopathic lens that those chronic UTIs are about suppressed anger, suppressed rage, suppressed shame, a lot of religious shame. So there's a part of me that's like damn girl, like that's sounds, sounds cool, you're cool.

Speaker 2 16:20

Yeah, you know, looking back at it, like I said, it's um. It was an interesting journey, for sure.

Unpacking Attachment Styles in Dating

Speaker 1 16:30

So let's talk for a moment about if we haven't addressed those attachment style pieces that caused all this very fascinating behavior we did right. I picked up a couple of STDs after getting divorced, like, oh man, you know all the things. If we haven't addressed those attachment style things right, how does that impact the type of men we're attracting? What would you say about that?

Speaker 2 16:58

of men were attracting. What would you say about that? Oh God, I realized that when I was at my peak of just in the shit I don't know how else to describe it but when I was this alter ego, right, this person that was really feeding into my avoidant attachment style of challenge. That's all it was about was challenge, and then I'd get bored and move along. When I actually tried, like there, it was almost like I would have these awakenings where one day I would wake up and say you know what, maybe I want to do better, like, maybe I'm actually craving a partner in a relationship. So then I would actually go on a date with somebody that was a really like. They were just really good men, and it's like they could see me coming a mile away, and I would get the same loop over and over.

Speaker 2 17:39

You know, I don't think you're ready for something like this. I don't think you're. You know, and and they were right, they were totally right, but I wasn't recognizing it in myself and I kept thinking you know, but I have all these things to offer. Why aren't you interested in me? But it's because everything that I was doing that was coming out as an avoidant attacher, because they were in a healthy, secure, healed place. It's like they could. Just they saw me coming and they knew it wasn't good and I didn't understand that until I was able to move into a healthy place that I could do the same thing. I could tell a mile away whether a man was truly ready to be with me or whether I was going to be interested in him. It's almost like the vibration right, like when you're operating at a higher level vibration. You can recognize bullshit in your life and you're not going to let it in.

Speaker 1 19:37

I don't think I was even attracting right, like I don't even think I nailed any first dates with those types of guys. I think I was just like a hot mess, express man well understand.

Speaker 2 19:47

I was on a dating app, so all they were getting was a picture and what I wanted to tell them, and then we were literally meeting the next night.

Speaker 1 19:52

So yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. Okay, so that's interesting. Right, that a dating app? Right, because it can influence what you initially attract. But then that's interesting.

Speaker 1 20:07

So, yeah, I don't think I could tolerate really authentic love from people. I think I felt I didn't see this about myself. At the time. I had a therapist that said to me Dawn, you keep waiting to be chosen because you don't feel good enough about yourself to realize that you can do the choosing. And it was like so profound what she said to me, but it's like I couldn't even process it. It's like what do you mean? I get to choose? I've never been able to choose, just so disempowered and so insecure.

Speaker 1 20:41

And I think that sort of became my North Star in my healing journey. Moving forward was getting to this place where I get to choose how my life unfolds and who I date and who I love and who I give my time and energy to. But, man, that was a journey and, yeah, I think that feeling like I could choose was something so foreign that I was always attracting people who weren't going to choose me, like they were going to choose anything and everything else. Everything was going to be more important than meaningful connection. I wasn't available. I wasn't available for deep, meaningful connection. I was so insecure.

Speaker 2 21:21

Yeah, and I think that you know people that are coming from a secure attachment style or a healed position. They sense it, they know it when your walls are up or when they're getting this knockoff version of yourself. You know knockoff version. Wow, that's good, I like that.

Speaker 1 21:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So right, from a law of attraction standpoint, we know this is true. That from a quantum physics standpoint, we know that like calls to like, we know that everything we live in a vibrational world and that the place in which we are vibrating is indicating what we are calling to us and what we are pushing away from us. And so, to the women who are struggling to attract partners who are respectful or good communicators or vulnerable or authentic or open or committed or whatever, right, there's something to be looked at there around your own vibrational reality and to shift that so that you just naturally right, it doesn't need to be so hard, it's like just naturally being able to attract. And I think it's interesting.

Speaker 1 22:25

I think we both had periods of time where we're single or celibate or whatever. And I I think that you know the guy that I started dating after I took a year off. It still was messed up, like. It still was very, very messed up, right, but I was feeling so much better. I had spent a year focusing on myself and doing therapy and working, working so many different angles in my own recovery process, and I felt good, you know, like I felt so much more stable, but then started dating and it showed me all the things that were still unresolved Right and so. But that was good too. That was good training grounds, right.

Navigating Self-Discovery After Divorce

Speaker 1 23:04

I was in therapy and I was dating and I got to address all those things and I still got to explore into other facets of my sexual self, right. That was really where I sort of unlocked so much of my sexual self in that relationship. And also, he had a daughter. I had been diagnosed infertile, right. He had a daughter. So I got to, you know, play around with all these maternal feelings I had inside of me. So there were so many beautiful moments. It was a deeply painful relationship. It ended horribly but it ended thank God and you know. And then I got to do a little more work right and clean up my vibration even, even even more, which was a beautiful thing. Would you learn in your post-divorce singleness about vibration and dating and attraction?

Speaker 2 23:51

I mean, I think that you know we had talked about during that time. There was a someone that I had been having just a physical relationship with and I was very upfront again about you know what it was and what it wasn't. And so when he got to the point where he caught feelings usually men would just leave right, like I never had to worry about seeing them again, addressing them again. I was the perfect ghoster and this guy just decided to take me on. So he had sent me a four page text message about how I was the most cold hearted person that he had ever met and that I was never going to find love. I would never know love if it hit me in the face and like all of these very vulnerable things that I'd always felt about myself.

Speaker 2 24:34

And so it hit me, and then I decided to really take a step back. And so, after I received that text message, decided to really take a step back. And so, after I received that text message, I actually was celibate for six years. I was celibate and sober and like what I learned myself, what I learned about myself through that journey then coming back out of it is that when and I wouldn't date too much during that time, but when I would go out on dates with people, they were higher quality people and because I wasn't getting physical with them right away, I was actually examining do these men fit in my world, Like, can this be a potential partner that I could see?

Speaker 2 25:12

So my friends would always call me the one date wonder. Because you know, and I remember having this friend tell me one time, like your expectations are way too high, Like you need to lower your standards if you want to find somebody, and I remember thinking like that is such bullshit and I will never do that, because I knew what it was like to go through a divorce and I didn't want to have to experience that again, and so no.

Speaker 2 25:32

So it was like I want to make sure that the next person and I think what I can tell you is that during those six years I fell in love with myself, like I spent so much time with myself in my own company, discovering things that I loved. And I think also what women do that's a huge mistake is, when they meet men, they almost mold to what these men are into. Like they never like they never invite men into their world. You know it's always about oh, you like football, oh god, so do I.

Speaker 1 26:04

So now I'm gonna buy 50 jerseys like it's just isn't that a julia roberts movie where she always orders eggs based on how the guy orders eggs and she never. It was richard gear. Is it richard gear and julia?

Speaker 2 26:17

is it runaway bride? Yes, okay, but it's kind of like during those six years that I spent by myself, I really discovered who I was. So I figured out that I was dating differently. When men were asking me what I wanted and what I was into, I actually knew I wasn't just trying to please them. It's like no, I'm standing on my own side telling you who I am and saying like I know it's enough, but you might not be enough for me, type of a situation. So choosing to being chosen right, Like that whole dynamic shift.

Speaker 1 26:50

Gosh, I just really like you. I love that. He said to you you're never going to find love. And he wasn't wrong, right, like in that version of yourself, you weren't going to find love. And then you proceeded to find love within yourself. And then then, right, it's like wow, that moment with that guy was such a gift.

Speaker 2 27:11

It was, and I remember seeing him like he lived down the street from me and it was like a couple of years later I saw him at the gas station and I wanted to thank him. But I knew, like him, seeing me would probably be too hurtful, and so I didn't approach him. But I sat there and I just thought God, like I hope he knows how much he shifted, my course you know just in the way that he spoke to me.

Speaker 1 27:33

Well, I mean, have you ever heard that saying that for some people you're going to be a gift and for some people you're going to be a trigger, and both are medicine?

Speaker 2 27:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:41

That's right, Like he was working out his own shit with you. Yeah, so fun side like side journey here. So when my longest post-divorce relationship ended before my now husband, it ended so horribly right. But you'll never guess who drove through the night to come help me move out of that guy's house.

Speaker 2 28:04

It was producer joy, oh, my God Okay.

Speaker 1 28:10

Producer joy lived in South Carolina and I lived in South Florida and she drove all night. She had a newborn. She left with her husband. She drove all night to help me move and we had never. It was like the first time we met?

Speaker 1 28:17

I think no it was the second time we met right, we'd only met once before because Producer Joy and I, though we're cousins, our families were estranged because we have really sexy backstories. By sexy I mean toxic, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's just sort of a fun like way backstory that has to do with how, dear Divorce Diary, this podcast was born. Yeah, out of toxic love comes purpose from the pain. Right, here we are.

Speaker 2 28:47

Yeah, beautiful things.

Speaker 1 28:48

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about. So what is wrong with us? Right, like what is wrong with us and how fucked up are we? Pardon my F-bomb, and whether your issue is gosh and I didn't even touch on this, right, but like you know whether your issue is gosh and I didn't even touch on this, right. But like you know whether your issue is, your ex had sexual issues, right? Certainly, my ex was addicted to porn and gosh sex was such an issue, right, but meanwhile I had low sex drive.

Speaker 1 29:14

Whether you struggle to enjoy sex, whether sex is painful or you can or can't have an orgasm, or whether you're addicted to sex, or whether you know you've dabbled in sex in ways that you're ashamed of.

Speaker 1 29:28

I have so many clients that have so many just, colorful and beautiful sexual stories about you know, ways that they've sought to reclaim their sense of self and their identity, right, whether it's modeling, posing nude photos, stripping, certainly, all the way up to and through right, like prostitution or prostitution light.

Speaker 1 29:50

There are just so many things as women I think we've experienced and we say to ourselves, whether it's like a menage a trois, like just things, right, that we've all explored into and felt shame around. And am I normal? Do other women do this? Or I know other women who do this and I judge them. We have just so much judgment and shame and confusion and secrecy about sex, and so how messed up are we so, in kind of pondering that I really have, I think, a beautiful, beautiful answer. That has come as a result of my journey as a homeopath, and what I want to help women hear today is that so much of what you experience in your sexual self as being quote unquote messed up, it's not even yours. It's inherited, ancestral, generational trauma and disease that has landed in our bodies and we're now sort of paying the toll.

Speaker 2 30:43

When I said this to you earlier, tiffany, you were like yeah, and you had some reflections on your own lived experience, I mean yeah, basically it kind of brought up this feeling of like shame, but like also feeling like I did feel connected to certain members of my family, because the way that we are there's almost like I feel like I'm in a family full of avoidant attachers on one side of my family where everything was very focused on the physical, how you looked, how you presented yourself, almost just like a status type of a thing that I think I carried with me into adulthood. I mean, fun fact, I never saw myself getting married like ever.

Speaker 1 31:22

Oh interesting.

Speaker 2 31:23

Yeah, I thought that I was going to end up as a single mom with a girl, which I did, but I was going to be living in New York City in the studio apartment and I was going to be a writer Like that was my dream. And then, you know, when I lost someone that was super significant in my life, it's almost like I was on this path to prove that I was going to be the good wife and I was going to be the domestic one, and so I felt like I was stepping into it, my marriage, under a mask, like I was trying to be someone I wasn't for so long. So I think, when I ended up busting out of that, I think part of it, too, was like being able to accept that there's messy shit in there and that all of this stuff that we did and experienced it isn't necessarily bad. It's just what we had to do to work through the journey. And I think what women need to understand too, or that I needed to understand, is that you know, fast forward.

Speaker 2 32:15

Now I'm in my first healthy relationship I've ever had. You know, we've been together over four years. I have moved to a secure attachment style now. I've learned to trust. I've learned to love and be vulnerable and open up.

Speaker 2 32:28

But when you meet that person, that shit is scary, and so then I entered into therapy yes because, over the course, like I was single for 10 years before, I met my partner now, and so meeting him was the most amazing thing for me. However, that's when everything else started to bubble up and I realized all of this unresolved things that I had inside of me that I had to continue to work through in order to feel safe in a healthy relationship.

Healing Relationships and Self-Discovery

Speaker 1 32:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. So little history lesson, little history. Tangent, right, is that in the study of globalization? So let's rewind time to the late 1400s, when ships started crossing entire oceans to visit other continents. In addition to sharing and trading goods with other continents, we also traded diseases, and so so much of like how we developed and evolved as humans has been affected by globalism in the earliest terms of it, right, when we finally crossed continents or crossed oceans. And so it's really interesting to study health from that sort of global, holistic perspective, because what we understand is that, over the centuries, as venereal diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis entered our bloodstream, they affected our genetic code and how disease manifests in our bodies, and so I want so many women to start to understand that the things that they feel shame around are truly generational, ancestral energies that you have inherited, we have inherited from the generations that came before us, and this is one of the reasons that I am so obsessed with homeopathy, because it has the capacity to free us from that history right.

Speaker 1 34:30

I have recently sort of put two and two together and started talking about EMDR in the nature nurture debate. Right, like, how messed up am I, tiffany? In the nature nurture debate. Emdr helps so, so much in clearing the lived experiences from our nurture experience, right. The stuff that we experience from our caregivers and from our friends, family, loved ones, our marriages, our dating experience, right. Emdr helps clear. That type of therapy helps clear so much of what we've internalized as negative beliefs about ourselves. But homeopathy clears the nature part of it, right, the inherited generational shit that ends up being manifested as sexual dysfunctions. I hate to call it that. What can we call it instead of sexual dysfunction, adaptive sexual strategies.

Speaker 2 35:21

Yeah, there you go. I love that.

Speaker 1 35:24

Yeah, but it's interesting, right. I do think that all that inherited stuff, it creates misalignment, right, it creates misalignment, it creates energy leakage in our body, mind, and it causes disease, and so I want everybody so badly to be freed of that. I have these big, big dreams in the world that wouldn't it be amazing if every single woman who listened could be men who listened to Dear Divorce Diary were able to be touched by homeopathy and bilateral stimulation? Right, it's the idea that our bodies were designed to heal themselves and if we can just find the thing that helps create, that unlocks, right, whatever has the energy stuck in our bodies. Like, such freedom is available to all of us.

Speaker 1 36:07

If you had stopped, for instance, right that day that guy said you know you're never going to find love and you let that define you. Like that's it, you would have been stuck. But that's not true. There is such freedom from all of these issues available to us and the journey is fraught. It's sort of like Frodo with the ring in the in the Lord of the Rings any Tolkien fans. But like, such, delicious things are available as a result of the journey.

Speaker 2 36:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1 36:36

And it's no good to feel all sorts of shame about yourself while on the journey, not useful.

Speaker 2 36:42

Yeah, I mean it's, you know, fucking messy, but it.

Speaker 1 36:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:49

What's the?

Speaker 1 36:49

alternative right, isolation, suffering shame.

Speaker 2 36:55

Well, and I feel like if I hadn't have gone through that journey, I would have never been able to work through this transformative part of myself, to be able to heal and be able to actually experience a healthy relationship, and now from this healthy relationship place.

Speaker 1 37:08

And now from this healthy relationship place. It's delicious, right Like yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 37:16

It's like I've never done so much work on myself since I have at the start of this relationship.

Speaker 1 37:24

That's interesting yeah.

Speaker 2 37:27

Because my past relationships are people I would try to date. It was either accept me for who I am or F off, like I'm done, I'm not changing. This is who I am. In this situation, I don't know, like I don't know what switched in me, but it makes me like. This is the person that makes me want to be my best self and sees me for who I am, like all of my mess, all of my vulnerabilities, and still loves me in spite of all of these things.

Speaker 2 37:54

And so it's just kind of like I don't know. I mean, I remember the exact moment that I met him, that I knew my life was going to be completely different, and I've never felt that way, like where you always said that you felt like every person you went on a date with could be the person. I've never felt that, except in this one instance, when I met the person I'm with now.

Speaker 1 38:15

Well, I would say the same thing about my now husband. Now, it just happened very differently for me, right, it's like I was willing to attach to anyone who would choose me, but that wasn't like actually choosing. I wasn't actually choosing them either. Right, what I was choosing was to be attached. It was to not be alone. That's what I was choosing. It was like you could have swapped anyone out, right. And so my now husband it's like, oh gosh, he's got issues, right. Um, I've got, we've got issues, but like it's worth it. It's. It's like, okay, there are issues, like who cares, it's worth it.

Speaker 1 38:53

I love you Like. You're who I want to spend my days and my nights with. Right. You're who I want to have these issues with. Yeah, it's like and listen, I didn't even do a great job of choosing him. It's sort of like God knocked. It's like our daughter chose us. You know what I mean. It's like God was like knocked me on the head with an anvil and was like okay, infertile lady, you're not infertile anymore. Here's your sign that this is who you're supposed to choose. Yeah, so I had to learn to love with my flaws, love myself with my flaws, love other people with their flaws, and to cultivate intimacy over time and appreciate that the intimacy is what feels so good. The closeness, the unconditional acceptance is what feels so good and so safe and so secure.

Speaker 2 39:43

And it is and I'll tell you in past relationships like having that unhealthy relationship with sex where you feel like the only thing that is keeping a man's attention is your looks and your sex life right Like so it's like kind of stepping into this other side of it where you know, all of that kind of melts away and so the thing that makes you fall in love with this person is the fact that they're your best friend and, like you said, you can't imagine your life with anyone else and sort of being there. And it's again. It's not perfection, right, it's like iron, sharpening iron, like it's very heavy at times and it's very intense, but it's because I never allowed myself to move through this phase of healing with anyone else, because I just fucking gave up every time because I didn't care about the actual person, you know and.

Speaker 2 40:30

I didn't care enough about myself to move through that part of my life.

Speaker 1 40:41

I was like well, they don't accept me, Okay. Next, I remember in high school dating this boy that lived in Miami. It was very exciting. I lived in a rural island right and he lived in Miami.

Speaker 1 40:49

It was very, very yeah, we like we would sneak to miami to go to the club. Gosh, what a wild life I've had, like I don't know anyways. And so, uh, I remember we hadn't seen each other for like days or a week or whatever. And I remember saying to him like oh, I lost a pound and I'm more tan and right, like already packaging myself in that way, like, oh, that poor, sweet teenage girl who, just, I only saw my worth as what I looked like, yeah, so what would you say to the woman? I'm going to ask you a big, deep, wide question right now, right, oh, okay, what would you say to the woman who just heard you say, heard me say in different ways, that we didn't know how to fall in love with people, right?

Embracing Self-Discovery Post-Divorce

Speaker 1 41:36

What would you say to the woman who came out of a marriage who was like, no, I loved my husband for who he was? Maybe she's not used to looking at it through this lens of are you sure? Because anytime we use control as a modality, right, like, control is the sort of the thing that we've used to manage our nervous systems, to manage our emotions. Anytime there's this massive attachment style thing going on, whether it's an anxious attachment style or an avoidant attachment style. It's a really good flags that you probably don't love your spouse or ex-spouse as much as as intimately as you think you do. What would you say to that woman who's just sort of like what? I don't? Could this be true about myself?

Speaker 2 42:21

Yeah, and I think what's interesting is that some of the clients that I coach post-divorce, when I ask them those heavy questions of thinking deeply and reflecting deeply, when was the first sign that something might have been off or not quite right? And at first they'll say nothing, nothing, nothing. But then, when they've actually reflected, I find it interesting that almost all of them have said prior to the marriage or in our dating relationship right, oh my God Like.

Speaker 2 42:48

And I have a great relationship with my ex-husband now, we have a great friendship, but shit, we were a walking red flag together and we knew that. And even my daughter will say to us now like mom, you guys are so different. Like we were. I would encourage you to really look at the girl that you were, or the woman you were when you chose that partner, because, coming from a place of wanting to be loved, wanting to be idolized, wanted to be paid attention to all of those things, and I don't know how many women have a healthy attachment style this is another point in their 20s or at the point where they're considering marriage. I don't think a lot of them do, and so I think that choosing a partner when you're kind of misaligned because either society tells you that's what you need to do or you're having family pressure or you're looking for something to fill a void I think that post-divorce you can really take a look back and then there has to be forgiveness for yourself and forgiveness for that woman that made the choice that spiraled your life out of control, but understanding that you don't ever want to feel that way again.

Speaker 2 43:58

You want to pick from a healthy place, right, and I think a lot of women beat themselves up and there is this theme of guilt and shame around. Why didn't I see this? Why didn't I understand this? But then when you really reflect back, it's there Like it's all laid out, like I've never talked to a woman that said that everything was perfect from A to Z. And one day my husband woke up and said he didn't love me. One day he woke up and said he didn't cheat on me. And I'm sorry I or did cheat on me. I'm just saying, like my point is, when people step out of a marriage, it is the result of a breakdown that has been happening for years. It is not a sudden decision that people wake up and just decide that they're going to have an emotional affair or physical affair. But a lot of women are willing to admit that to themselves.

Speaker 1 44:53

And they want to ignore the signs because they don't want to have to go through the messy shit to fix it. Well, I think there's also this piece about self-awareness and self like relationship with self, right? If I don't know and love myself deeply, how could I know and fall in love with someone else deeply? Right? I think that there's so many ways that we live for others, we live for our kids, we live for our jobs, we live for some algorithm version of who we're told we're supposed to be, and all of that causes a divorce from self right.

Speaker 1 45:29

Very early on, yeah.

Speaker 2 45:31

And I'll tell this story and I've I've put it on my social media content, but it's like I remember post-divorce I had gone to breakfast at Bob Evans with, like, one of my friends and the waitress came up to me and asked how I wanted my eggs and I literally had a mental breakdown and started crying because I didn't know how I wanted my eggs and my first thought was if I don't even know how I want my eggs, how the hell am I going to figure out the rest of my life?

Speaker 2 45:52

Because so many people and women, especially when they leave their marriage, they don't recognize themselves. They don't recognize themselves physically or mentally. And so it's very curious when you're starting to work with women as clients post-divorce, in those very early stages, when you're asking them well, what do you like, what do you enjoy doing? And they just look at you or they try to say something about their kids because they don't know who they are anymore, and you can't think that a good man is going to want to come into your life in that moment when you're still trying to figure yourself out.

Speaker 1 46:25

Gosh, it would feel so good if they did, though it would, because it would fix all the things.

Speaker 2 46:30

But thinking about it now, like in, you know, when I was healthy and healed, I could see those bullshit men coming a while away, those fuck boys, whatever you want to call them right. Like you just recognize them and you're like, like I didn't heal myself to end up with this clown Like I'm good, yeah.

Speaker 1 46:47

So in today's episode gosh we've gotten to meet Coach Tiffany and hear so much of her sexy backstory. Thank you, tiffany, for so much of your vulnerability today. We have talked about how our attachment style impacts the way we do sex, the way we do dating, the way we see ourselves. We've talked about vibrationally who we're attracting in the dating world. So if dating is feeling hard to you right now, it's just a good sign that it's time. It's time to do some good, deeper work.

Trusting Your Journey to Self-Love

Speaker 1 47:16

And we've talked about whatever shameful thoughts you have about what is wrong with you, or you know how messed up are you to do with sex and dating, that a lot of it isn't even yours love.

Speaker 1 47:27

It's ancestral, generational shit that's sort of landed in your body, and this is your sign to start getting it out in whatever way feels good to you, right? I happen to think that homeopathy is the most efficient way. It's the quickest path from A to B right without having to suffer too much in the middle. And so if any of this conversation resonates with you today, or if it's brought up any other questions you have about your journey with sex or love or dating, tiffany and I would love to hear from you. Feel free to send us a DM or an email. We'll have, obviously, ways to contact us in the show notes. But just know that whatever journey you've been on, whatever messiness you've experienced like, we are here holding a candle in the window for you. Like your, you know, creator, source, source, energy loves you. We love you. You are worthy of love and belonging and it may just be time to get more clearly on that path to loving yourself.

Speaker 2 48:31

Tiffany, anything you want to add on that path to loving yourself, tiffany, anything you want to add, just to tell everyone out there that again, yeah, wherever you're at in your journey, that's exactly where you're supposed to be. You know, my tagline is always trust your journey and I truly, truly believe that, and it's embracing every messy part of yourself and being at peace with it and just using that momentum to take you to the next step and when you're ready, you'll know. You will truly, truly know in your heart when you're ready.

Speaker 1 48:59

Yeah, If you want more of Coach Tiffany in your life, we will be enrolling a new cohort of our 12-month-long group coaching program a different D word in the spring. So just put that in the back of your head. All right, Love you so much. Peace, Dear Divorce. Diary is a podcast by my coach Dawn. You can find more at mycoachdawncom.