Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce
We are on a journey to get into the nitty gritty of divorce recovery and reveal why your divorce healing journey is still not working for you–even after you’ve tried therapy and read all the books.
Let's transform your pain into strength and take charge of your own narrative. Now’s the time we reclaim your healing journey–and why exactly we struggle to not only heal from past traumas but move beyond them to the ultimate goal: inner peace. That is real self-empowerment, and this is Dear Divorce Diary.
I’m Dawn Wiggins, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and EMDR specialist. I draw on decades of experience to help women navigate the emotional rollercoaster after ending a marriage. Using a little bit of science, a few alternative remedies and emotional release techniques, a whole lot of love, and zero BS, we step out of the victim mindset and into building a new life after divorce.
We emphasize nuance because overcoming challenges after divorce means questioning everything that got us here and using your divorce as a springboard to a better, more resilient (and certainly happier!) you.
On Tuesday, we have our listener segment called: "Getting Unstuck," where we anonymously unpack a difficult situation a listener is going through in their divorce healing journey.
And, on Thursday, we explore a "Hidden Healing Gem," which is a healing product or process we've tried and tested personally and/or professionally and are sharing our results and observations with you!
We cover essential life after divorce topics like grief, anxiety, codependency, loneliness, boundaries, nervous system health, attachment styles, the Law of Attraction, and homeopathy.
Join us twice a week as we go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave, and rebuild your confidence.
Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce
228. Divorce’s Quiet Pain 💔: Asking for Support Without Feeling Needy (Send this episode to your bestie)
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Have you ever felt surrounded by people, yet completely alone in your divorce?
Even if you’ve got friends checking in or family around, that silent ache you feel—the one nobody asks about—can make post-divorce isolation feel insurmountable. When you’re barely holding it together, asking for support feels impossible, but the right kind of connection could be exactly what restarts your healing and brings you back to life.
You’ll walk away from this episode with practical steps to break the paralyzing silence, discover how to ask for care even when you’re overwhelmed, and learn how to create a feedback loop of love and support—without needing the perfect words.
Listen now to learn simple, actionable ways to reconnect with others and finally get the check-ins you need to feel seen and supported.
Loneliness Roadmap on HeartBeat
Post Divorce Roadmap - 21 Days of Guided Journaling
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A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, 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 building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.
it's the silence. We recently asked you to name one part of divorce that hurts the most but often goes unseen, and one of the things we heard was the check-ins that never come, the overwhelming emotions. No one asks about the silence, silence. So today we're talking about the deep isolation of divorce and how asking for what you need can feel impossible when you're already caring too much. But what if communication doesn't have to be perfect to be powerful? 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. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to ask for what you need. When it comes to this, you know, breaking the silence piece, because divorce feels very lonely and just staying stuck in that isn't going to serve you at all, right. So we're going to cover why divorce feels so lonely and how to move through that. We're going to look at how overwhelmed hearts really struggle to speak, but how taking a small step can actually shift so much and how creating a feedback loop of love is really important to getting unstuck and getting grounded and being connected right. So, first things first. Divorce is a crowded kind of loneliness, you know what I mean. Like you may have friends and family and coworkers and kids and all the things, but still feel completely unseen. And that's because people really struggle to know how to show up for you, right, think about when someone passes away or when somebody gets divorced or whatever it is right. And it's just like we often don't know what to say or how to show up for people. And then it feels awkward. And then it's like, ah, and you just, you know, awkward turtle producer Joy would say awkward turtle, awkward turtle, and you probably don't have the energy or clarity right now to guide people, and so the silence just grows. Right, but your pain is valued and your needs are not too much. Your needs are your needs, right. And so how can you ask for your community to help you change that right? And I think that's the piece is really just doing this thing that Gerda if you've ever, you know, read some of my emails or this, or that you've heard me talk about Gerda, who was my post-diverse therapist Love her so much, she told me right while I was going through divorce. She said go towards the love you want, dawn.
Speaker 1:And when we're hurting and when we're shut down and when we're overwhelmed, we're often waiting for people to sort of draw us out of all of that and that matters and that's important. But sometimes we have to break our own sort of functional freeze state right by going towards the love we want, and that often means asking for the thing that we're looking for. If you're anything like me in a post-divorce phase, you want people to read your mind and I don't blame you, but sometimes we just have to tell our people hey, hey, right, I don't even know how to guide you most of the time, but if you could check on me, that would matter. And so I acknowledge that most of your communication right now, because you're in emotional survival mode, is just really related to getting through the day. Right, producer joy and I often talk about that's next week's fire. I'm putting out today's fires, right, it's like literally like one fire at a time, and I don't want to talk about next week's fires this week.
Speaker 1:But even when asking for help may feel exhausting or unsafe, right per our episode on why your nervous system interprets speaking up, as you know, dangerous behavior. But avoiding the ask doesn't protect you, it isolates you further. And so healing starts when you can name even the smallest need, like, hey, can you check on me once a week? That's not needy, that's human. And so I wonder who in your current phone list, in your contacts list, right? Three people who you could say could you check on me once a week? Even if I don't respond, even better, if I don't respond, check again. Right, because that's the reality is that sometimes all you want is for somebody to check on you.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, when people check on you, you want to flip them the bird and say like, obviously I'm not okay, obviously I don't know what I need, obviously I can't even respond to you right now, right, and so maybe you even just send them this episode and say could you listen to this episode for me, because it says the thing that I haven't been able to say that extra checking and then not taking it personal when, if they check on you, you don't respond. Right, because it's just that overwhelming. But the thing is, is that when people check on you and it's hard to respond, even just saying it's really hard to respond right now really is massive growth for you, right? Because the thing that we struggle with is just saying the thing, just saying the truth. Thank you for checking on me. It's really hard to respond right now. Just taking that step right breaks a pattern in your nervous system and moves you in the direction of health. So the idea here is ask three people to check on you, tell them that you might be an asshole about responding, but then challenge yourself to respond with something authentic in that moment of time. Now, heart-centered communication is not about saying the perfect thing right From your loved ones who you're asking to do the checking like let them say it wrong, who cares? Right? Because the point is is it's not about saying the perfect thing, it's about staying in connection, and we can't be connected if we're not being authentic, right. So, reassuring your loved ones. Just show up right, just stay connected with me and tell these people that you trust.
Speaker 1:I may not always have the words, but I want to feel close. And if I don't hit, reply right away. Keep reaching out. I may not always have the words, but I wanna feel close. If I don't reply right away, keep reaching out. That's how you co-create a feedback loop of love, one where your needs are heard, your space is honored and your healing doesn't happen in a vacuum. You can use these words right, write them down, text them. I may not always have the words, but I want to feel close If I don't reply right away. Keep reaching out. That's a feedback loop of love, love and that's what you need right now. That is medicine, it's medicine, it's medicine, it's medicine. So that's your homework. Ask three people, borrow my words, send them this episode if you need to. You are pure magic. I love you so much. Peace, dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach, dawn. You can find more at mycoachdawncom.
