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
249. When You Know It’s Over but You Stay- The Divorce Dilemmas No One Talks About
🎙️🎇✨SUBSCRIBE TO PREMIUM TO HEAR ALL EPISODES HERE✨🎇🎙️
If you've been strong for everyone else and crave a space where your truth isn't too much - come exhale with us in our exclusive online community and receive the Loneliness Roadmap for free. Join here ✨
*************************************************************************************
Have you ever felt sure your relationship is over, but just can’t seem to leave, and then wondered what’s wrong with you for staying?
If you’re quietly battling the should-I-stay-or-should-I-go debate or feeling trapped by the complex realities of divorce, you’re not alone. All those well-meaning voices telling you to “just leave” or “do what’s right for the kids” rarely acknowledge the real safety fears, financial worries, or emotional roadblocks that keep you frozen in place.
In this episode, you’ll learn why “Should I stay or should I go?” is the wrong question for people in your shoes, discover how to recognize and support the protector parts of you that are keeping you stuck (without self-blame), and get practical strategies for caring for yourself—body and mind—until you really are ready to take action.
Let this episode be your permission slip to stop beating yourself up and finally start building the clarity, self-belief, and inner safety you need—press play now to learn how to navigate the messy middle of the divorce process with self-compassion and renewed strength.
Journal Prompts:
- "What part of me is afraid to leave?"
- "What is that part afraid will happen if I leave?"
- "What part of me is afraid to stay?"
- "What is that part afraid of if I stay?"
- "How can you choose to stay, without disappearing?"
Post Divorce Roadmap - 21 Days of Guided Journaling
Join The list for A Different D Word, our personalized healing program.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dawnwiggins/
On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com
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.
Click HERE To Attend Somatic Workshop For Releasing 'What Could've Been'
You already know it's over. The clarity is there, but the action is a different story. You're not staying because you're weak. You're staying because the path forward feels a little impossible right now. For some reason. It's unsafe or it might hurt your kids more than it helps. So this episode is your permission slip to stop asking why am I still here and start asking what do I need to feel safe enough to leave or to stay without abandoning myself? 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:When we were planning this episode, we really were talking about all the nuanced ways in which. Should I stay or should I go is not the best inquiry. Love, because it's not like life is not that clear cut, right. So in today's episode we are going to talk about how should I stay or should I go is the wrong question for where you are in the divorce exploration process. We are also going to talk about the very many reasons that people stay for the kids, and we're going to look at the costs and the benefits of those things and help you cope with it in the meantime, right. And then we are going to look at the ways in which your body is storing what you can't express when you are in a very real reality of needing to stay, and how to work through those things while you're in the staying phase. Let's dig in. Okay, should I stay or should I go? Screw that question, throw it out. So, in the context of all the tools we use here on the podcast, I want you to ask a new question and it's an IFS question, right which is which parts of me are asking to stay and which parts of me are ready to go.
Speaker 1:Now, very often, when we freeze or we get stuck in indecision or internal conflict is because we have parts that want to go one direction and parts that want to go the other, and then we are literally in internal conflict where we then shut down or freeze from a nervous system standpoint. And so when we start to get in touch with which parts of me are saying it's not time to go yet. I don't feel safe to go yet, whether that's from a legal perspective, from a financial perspective, from a physical, mental or emotional health perspective, from the capacity of I don't have enough resource for my children yet, like, whatever the reason is which parts of me are identifying. Actually, it's on some level, in some way a safety issue for me to leave right now. But then you have parts who may feel completely unsafe staying, and that's a funny thing Funny is not the right word there, right when some of your parts don't feel safe going and some of your parts don't feel safe staying, and that's what causes this sort of complete freeze or collapse experience. And so really getting clear on those parts because once you get clear on those parts, then we can start to give those parts what they need in order to mobilize or to feel like they can get their needs met or take action or feel safer or whatever right. We can get you unstuck and moving forward. So staying does not mean you're broken. It means that there is a protector part that is still in charge, that is calling the shots, that is saying, nope, we do not have the necessary resources in place in order for this to be a safer, healthy decision to move on. So hello, protector parts, welcome to the chat. Thank you for keeping us all safe in the way that you do and talk to us about what you need, right?
Speaker 1:Okay, there is some journaling that you could do here. That would be very, very, very beneficial, right, and it's this idea of and I'll put these in the show notes but what part of me is afraid to leave and what is it afraid? What is that part of me afraid will happen if I leave? Now, you probably need to ask this question a number of times, because there's more than one thing, right, and then, what part of me is afraid to stay and what is that part afraid will happen if I stay? And so, once we start to get clarity on these issues, then we have sort of a roadmap forward for how to start meeting those needs a little bit at a time and coping with the messy middle. When it's not, you're not there yet, right, you're just not there yet.
Speaker 1:Anytime we're putting things into a binary context like stay or go, for instance, cookie or no cookie, should I eat the cookie or should I not eat the cookie we end up typically feeling like we're in a no-win situation. Somebody gets disappointed inside of us, right? Like either I'm withholding from myself or I feel trapped or shame about the decision that I make, because half of me is disappointed in the choice and half of me is relieved. So really reframing this question, moving it out of the binary space, moves it into a place of gray where we can really tease it apart and meaningfully address, identify and address our nuanced needs. And that is a beautiful conversation where we can support ourselves in so many better ways, right, more enhanced ways. So this is a fantastic journaling activity to do to help you get more clarity and more safety and to help just feel more peaceful inside right, to stop being so hard on yourself, stop beating yourself up so much and to feel like there's something you can do, because I think so much of this phase feels like you're helpless, hopeless and stuck. And the more you do this type of journaling, the more clarity you will have on steps you can take, and I think that often in and of itself provides boatloads of relief.
Speaker 1:All right, let's take a look at when we savor the kids, how that tends to lead to abandoning self. But there is a solution. There's always a solution. Right. It does again. Anytime things feel binary, we're missing something. Right. There is a perspective that's missing because there's almost always infinite options right that we're just not aware of, and so when things become very binary or black and white, we're missing pieces.
Speaker 1:So there are a lot of very, very valid reasons to stay for the kids, and I actually, spicy take right have heard way too many Instagram accounts in the course of my career say that we shouldn't stay for the kids because we should leave and model for them, fighting for what's right and setting boundaries and all of those things. And while that is true for some women and some families and some children, sometimes there are limiting factors for whatever period of time, and it's not the best choice to leave because of whatever the circumstances are. So that could have to do with messy custody battles, financial instability, health instability, that you're just not in a place financially or from a resource perspective, and resources can be a lot of things Resources having enough sleep on a regular basis. Resources having enough money, resources having enough health. Resources having enough support system you know like people to pick your kids up from school and this or that right. Resources in a lot of different formats.
Speaker 1:And so your fears about having to parallel parent or time share, your fears about finances, your fears about having enough community support. Those are real and they need solutions. And there are times that we're like, screw it. Those are real and they need solutions. And there are times that we're like, screw it, I'll leap and the net will appear right, and there are times that you're not there yet, and we need to really be able to identify the difference between those things. However, when we stay and we're doing it because we don't have enough resource yet right we need to really take a look at the ways in which we might be showing our kids self-abandonment or normalizing dysfunction, and I think there is a middle ground there where we can do better at taking care of ourselves. We can do better at breaking dysfunctional patterns or habits, even though we're in the phase of staying for a period of time right.
Speaker 1:So it's not. Let's stop calling it staying for the kids right, because all of the TikTokers and the Instagrammers that are saying stop staying for the kids. Your kids deserve to see a healthy, loving relationship, right. That's oversimplifying the complexity of these issues, so we're going to call it from here on out. We're going to call it staying until you have enough resources and self-belief that you are ready for a life that's safe and yours Resources and self-belief, and self-belief PS is a resource in and of itself, right. And so when we leap and we don't have enough belief yet, things can really disintegrate, and so belief is part of that readiness process that I can do this and I believe in myself enough to take this leap, and then I will be okay. Right, so self-belief is its own resource. You're not staying for the kids, you're staying until you have enough resource and you believe that you are ready for a life that's safe and yours Okay.
Speaker 1:So what does it look like in this phase of staying and this could be a journal prompt, right? What would it look like in this phase of staying to choose to stay without disappearing? How can you choose to stay without disappearing? So I think, very often what happens is we end up having to build energetic walls around ourselves when we're staying right, because we're in an environment, we're sharing energy with someone that it doesn't feel safe to be sharing energy with, and so then we end up shutting down to a certain extent to try to cope or survive, and that does become disappearing and self-abandonment, and so we need to look at all the ways in which you can still feel and process and ground and express and receive from your support systems without disappearing. That's really where we look at making sure you're talking about these things in a productive way, not in a venting way necessarily.
Speaker 1:What's the difference between productive and venting? Productive is in a way where you are feeling the depth of your feelings in an effort to let them come, so you can let them go right. Sharing in a way that's helping you process emotionally, which means I don't see a lot of women doing this, because when they're talking to their friends, they're stuffing their emotions and they're sharing the story, because women who are really feeling the depth of what they're feeling if I'm calling you out right now, love, let me hold your hand while I do it so often I watch the women I love, the clients I work with even try to cry faster or less to not be a burden to the woman that they're sharing with. So how many times in your life do you catch yourself trying to cry faster, meaning get it all out in a hurry, or cry less and pack it back up quickly, or not cry at all because you don't want to be a burden or be too much or too intense, or you don't even you don't want to feel, right. There's something you don't want to feel, and so when you're sharing with your support systems in a productive way, it is to feel the depths of what there is, to feel so that you can let it come, so you can let it go. When you are retelling stories about what your soon-to-be ex is doing from a place of venting, you are not processing, you are reinforcing, right? So if you're staying right now, please, please, please, be emotionally processing and purging what's going on, be in good, good, good therapy or coaching, be doing IFS work and be doing so much somatic work. So in the summer, I think it's easier to do somatics because we just tend to be more physical and we tend to be moving around and going outside and doing all the things and sweating and all the stuff, versus in the winter, where we're just a little more still and maybe a little more isolated. So just keep in mind, right, whatever season of the year you might be listening to this, make sure you are moving your body to get the stagnant energy and suppressed emotion out.
Speaker 1:Now in this week's Thursday premium episode if you're a premium subscriber we're going to talk about a somatic exercise I have never talked about on the podcast before. That is essential for women who have stuck anger, rage, shame stuck in their body. Right, I'm going to teach you a new somatic exercise that is so, so, so powerful. That will be in this week's Thursday episode. So make sure you are moving your body, you are vocalizing, you are doing IFS, you are being seen, you are expressing, you are going to the depths of your emotions. You are ideally taking homeopathic remedies because they will expand your capacity and shore up your energy gaps while you are having to share space with someone that doesn't feel safe to you. Right? Never seen anything move faster than a combination of IFS, homeopathy and somatics, really to help people expand their capacity so that they can be ready to leave right. So this is the direction I want you to be looking is how can you take better care of yourself so you're not modeling or normalizing dysfunction or self-abandonment? Okay?
Speaker 1:Third thing we already started to unpack I blended our three things together the somatic toll of staying too long. Right, when you stay too long and you're not doing the somatics, what does that end up looking like? Okay, every time you feel like you have to swallow something because you are hanging out with your soon-to-be ex or because you're sharing space with them, right, we know that that turns into hip tightness, tmj, it turns into UTIs, yeast infections, it turns into low libido, constipation, like you name it. Right, we start to see these physical symptoms expressed in the body. And so when you have nervous system backlog right, you have so much shit you have not expressed or processed, because every time you override your truth, your body stores the receipts.
Speaker 1:Right, we have to make sure that we are really looking at expressing that truth, not with him, because that's not productive, right, because it's like running into a wall. How many times do we want to do that? Because that hurts, right, but the alternative isn't just to suppress it. We have to look at where we can validate our own truth in a nuanced and contextualized way so that we are not shutting down or bypassing, right, while you are living with him. So that means things like yoga, humming music, you know, singing those songs at the top of your lungs. It means all those things that I said before about IFS and homeopathy and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:Right, it means really claiming that while you're in a phase of staying does not mean you're in a phase of numbing or suppressing or zipping it up or pushing it down. Those two things cannot coexist, because you will end up leaving with not enough health resource right, where we said, like you need enough resources in order to leave. Financial health, sleep, childcare. You need enough of all of those resources and if you suppress while you're there, you are going to end up coming from behind with regards to health as a resource. You will have this nervous system backlog and, as women, because the way we live in a modern society is chronically taxing to our adrenals. Ps, our adrenals sit right next to our kidneys, which is what leads if you've ever had issues where you pee a lot in the night or when you get stressed you pee extra, or chronic UTIs or these types of things right, kidneys are directly tied to boundaries and adrenals.
Speaker 1:Okay. So when we have adrenal fatigue because, as women, we are working, we are mothering, we are maybe mothering our soon to be exes you know like it's it's, we have too much on us, we're not living in the rhythm of our cycles, we're not living in the rhythm of our femininity, we're living in a hustle culture as women, and so then our adrenals get very, very taxed and fatigued, which then takes a kidney hit right. So now we're not filtering our blood effectively. And then when we hit things like menopause, menopause is coming too soon, where all of a sudden perimenopause is happening in our early 40s, which should not be a thing, but it's because the adrenals were meant to be the buffer for women approaching menopause. But our adrenals are shot, so we're falling into menopause early.
Speaker 1:We're needing bioidentical hormone replacement therapy All because, right, our nervous systems are so taxed because we have been suppressing our truths for so long. It is all interconnected love, and we're going to do an episode on this sooner than later. But mental health is hormone health and we have solutions for all of that over here. So it's really, really exciting. We have new solutions we haven't talked about yet for hormone health and overall adrenal support and mental health. So there is a somatic toll for staying too long if you are not using these tools. So there has to be this understanding that if you're going to stay, which is very, very often the right choice for a period of time it's with this caveat that you are going to use these somatic techniques so that you are reclaiming your truth on an hour by hour basis. So make sure you check out Thursday's premium episode for this somatic tool that we have not talked about before. It's very, very exciting and something you can absolutely do from the safety of your bedroom.
Speaker 1:I want to do a listener shout out to Anne Hyowdy. Thank you so much for being a premium subscriber. I would absolutely love for you to send me a DM in Instagram. My handle is at Dawn Wiggins. You have the most beautiful name and I would love to know more about your story and the path that you're walking. Name and I would love to know more about your story and the path that you're walking. So if you are listening to this episode, shoot me a DM and wave hello to me and producer Joy, sending you so much love. Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by MyCoachDawn. You can find more at Mycoachdawncom.
