Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce
This isn’t a breakup pep talk. It’s a full-body recalibration.
Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary—the only podcast for women navigating the messy aftermath of divorce who are done with quick fixes and spiritual fluff.
I’m Dawn Wiggins, therapist and homeopath, and I’m here to give you something the divorce advice space rarely does: real healing.
Through somatic therapy, EMDR, IFS, and homeopathy, we go deeper—into your nervous system, your unspoken grief, and your buried rage.
Every week, we hold the tension: the body-based anxiety you can’t shake; the hormonal upheaval no one warned you about; the unresolved longing for identity.
You’ll hear raw solo episodes, real voice notes from women in the trenches, and intimate interviews with experts who do more than perform healing.
Here, you won’t be asked to “just move on.”
You’ll be asked to feel.
If you’re tired of tutorials that leave your nervous system humming and your heart disconnected, hit subscribe.
Your nervous system already knows the truth—it just wants a safe space to embody it.
Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce
266. Exhausted, Angry & Over It: How To Move From Survival to Safety After Divorce
When you’re in crisis, your nervous system isn’t neutral—it’s running survival programs. Fight, flight, freeze, repeat. And when you tell yourself “not now”, that’s not laziness or failure—it’s a protective pattern your body believes is keeping you safe.
But here’s the thing: survival mode isn’t meant to be permanent. It quietly drains your energy, feeds old beliefs like “I can’t do this,” and keeps you circling the same pain.
In this episode of Dear Divorce Diary, we explore:
✨ Why the nervous system convinces us to wait until things feel calmer before healing
✨ How beliefs like “not now” or “what if it doesn’t work” keep you locked in survival loops
✨ The energetic cost of staying in crisis—and what shifts when you allow safety to be restored
✨ What happens in the very first month of our program that helps women feel grounded, resourced, and ready for lasting change
Healing isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about creating safety, updating beliefs, and letting your body remember how to release what it’s been carrying.
🔗 Doors to A Different D Word close September 20. Book your clarity call today: mycoachdawn.com/a-different-d-word-the-online-divorce-recovery-community
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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.
Let me say something extraordinarily controversial. Most therapists, as amazing and loving and space-holding as they are, suck at moving people past crisis. They let you retell your chaos, they nod, and they may assign you some homework, and then they send you home to survive another week, and it's no wonder that you have to wait, that you think you have to wait until you're more stable to actually heal. The thing is, though, that crisis is not a benign waiting room where nothing is happening. It's a quicksand of survival mode with no obvious exit, and it is charging your adrenals interest every single day. 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. Okay, my darlings, today we are going to discuss how staying stuck in crisis and in this sort of loop of fight, flight, freeze, repeat, fight, flight, freeze, repeat it keeps people sort of never really able to get to this ultimate place where they really want to go. So we're going to talk about crisis as a nervous system trap and really look at the real question behind why we say not now. Right, what is the real issue behind not now and how we justify staying in the sort of fight, flight, freeze, repeat thing. And we are also going to talk about very specifically how our program moves people out of crisis immediately, because I think it's not enough to just say, oh, trust us, that's going to happen, but it's to really look at like, how do we get women very, very quickly out of crisis mode so that they have a picture, right, what happens behind the scenes, so that you know there's some confidence in I'm not going to spend months and thousands of dollars waiting for a result. Okay, darlings, let's talk about this sort of well.
Speaker 1:First of all, let's just acknowledge that last week was it last week? We did a somatic workshop, right, for our premium subscribers. It was so cool. We had several women attend. We did several different sort of somatic techniques. It was super, super powerful and in that meeting, one of the women and I just she is, I would say, like someone we all hold in our hearts. She's up on our board of names and someone that we just have been in the conversation with for a long time. Right, she's, she's in our hearts, but she talked about being stuck in crisis mode, and there have been many things she said in conversations I've had with her recently that have resonated so loudly, and I know that if she's saying these things to me or to us, I know that many, many listeners are experiencing what she's experiencing, and so much of this episode was inspired by her and therefore by you. You who is listening right now, yes, you, you, the one with that thing right there and so that's the joy of being in the dialogue right With our listeners is really hearing where they are and what they're struggling with.
Speaker 1:So, let's talk about the real struggle behind. I can't do it right now. Now is not the time, because, like, what if that's true? What if that's real? What if I'm in crisis right now financially, from a nervous system perspective? I don't have the energy, I don't have the time, I don't have the money and I have too much uncertainty and not enough support. Like, let's talk about that cycle. What is the real question problem? Negative belief behind, not now. What if I spend this money and I can't show up? I can't get to the table?
Speaker 3:I would challenge that way of thinking, because our program is so different, our program is so different than anything else out there. There isn't an option of you not being moved, frankly, like it's so immersive, it's so powerful because we don't just use one thing. It's not a talk therapist where you spend all this money and all this time and decades of work. It's it's literally daily, weekly, monthly, like we are in it with you and so the progress that that you would get or that will happen. There's no question it will happen.
Speaker 3:We have testimonials and documentation and like proof in the pudding right, like we have the, we have the evidence, the facts behind it. So, like my question to you is you're asking, you're sitting there asking yourself like what if I, if? What if I jump and I don't have a parachute? But like what if you jump and we all surround you and envelop you and not only do you have a parachute, you have multiple parachutes? And what if you have multiple parachutes and you land in a giant big, fluffy pillow? Like it's not what if I jump without a parachute? It's what would actually happen when you jump and you be held and you get better, so like and you get better.
Speaker 3:Like what if you jump? Because it's not a um, it's not a what if I spend this money or take this time commitment or do this thing and it doesn't work because it will work? It's what is stopping you from actually being healed in this journey.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love that, but let's be devil's advocate. Mm-hmm, I love being up so good, everything can't work for everyone, because then everything is nothing.
Speaker 3:But why not? What's to say? There's a limit, like there's only 10 people that get healed, healed a year. Like, why is there a limit on who gets healed and why?
Speaker 1:I don't think there's a limit, I think there's free will and I think not everybody chooses Right, and I think every modality doesn't work for everyone. And so just devil's advocate, right, devil's advocate, like. You know, when I started doing EMDR and people would say like, oh, that didn't work for me, like, and that was very hard for me to accept, and then I cracked the code on why it wasn't working, which was disassociation, right, and then I solved for that. And then, oh look, emdr works, but there is still, every now and then, the random person that it doesn't work for, and I get that.
Speaker 1:That's why we use like, literally like infinite modalities over here because we're going to find a modality that works for you, Right, but let's just acknowledge that people do heal on a spectrum and um that some people will make more progress than others in this program, Right, and that um that is based on a whole host of um elements and that may have to do with resource, right, Like, and whatever that resource is, whether it's time support, like brain capacity, nervous system capacity, like things do exist on a spectrum and there are a range of results, right. So so we do want, we do want this to be like right place, right time for women. But how can a woman know if, if she's lying to herself about the nervous system trap, right, and just is staying stuck in crisis mode versus no, it's time, it's time, you know?
Speaker 4:I would feel like when everything you're doing is not working anymore reaching for the familiar stuff that you used to go to and normally I'm going to from an IFS perspective. I'm going to say that those IFS perspective, I'm going to say that those things you're reaching for your firefighters. So, whether it's alcohol, it's drugs, it's sex, it's exercise, it's overeating, it's overworking on your phone.
Speaker 4:Yes, right, like you know, pick a poison, basically, and if those things are not working anymore for you and it feels like you are going to break, that is the point where you need to admit to yourself that you cannot hold it all together and you cannot do this by yourself any longer. And I think what makes us so incredibly different is that, yes, we do have group aspects of the program. However, everything is customized. Your homeopathic remedies, which there are thousands that we can pick from, are customized for you, for your trauma, for your healing journey. You know the IFS methods that I will use with you. They are customized completely for you. And where you're at in your journey EMDR, somatics every like, just every part of our program is custom made. This is not a rinse and repeat, it is not a cookie cutter program we are meeting you where you are, and that's where we start.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the cost of not starting right, Like what's the real downstream cost of not starting? And actually I want you to hear from a woman who was exactly there, right Like feeling broken, drowning in bills, terrified one more investment would break her Very real health issues unfolding and I want you to listen to what she has to say about walking through that experience.
Speaker 2:My healing journey was not pretty. I struggled, I cried, I turned to alcohol and I was even diagnosed with a thyroid condition. I was literally broken. I didn't even know who I was looking at in the mirror. Dawn, tiffany and Joy saw my tears as training and my pain as preparation. My breaking point was not the end. It was the beginning for me and although I've completed the program, I still have moments when I struggle and obstacles to overcome. But I now have the tools to work through those moments and reclaim integrated wellness. I'm still becoming, and that's more than enough. What was the hardest part for me before saying yes to a different D word? The financial commitment and the fear of what if this doesn't work.
Speaker 2:I had already invested so much of myself in podcasts, late night reading and antidepressants. I didn't know how I could manage daily living costs, my attorney fees and, on top of that, a financial commitment to a different D word. I felt like I didn't have the time or energy. I was also afraid, to be honest, to ask for help, because that would mean letting go of this life I imagined and doing the interpersonal work that would one day set me free. It was what I was craving, and I didn't even realize it.
Speaker 2:What shifted for me once I was inside the program, healing in community, with deep connection, letting myself finally be cared for. I now had a group of women I could relate to and who were showing up for me every single day. I was able to take off my mask without feelings of judgment, and this allowed me to be honest with myself and put in the healing work that my mind and body truly desired. What would I say to the woman listening right now who's scared? It won't work for her. Don't stay stuck. Don't try to heal in isolation. This was the best investment I made for my personal well-being. Through homeopathy, ifs and somatic work, I was able to shed the layers of divorce grief that were holding me back from a life I truly deserved. Take the leap, ladies. I promise you won't regret it.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting listening to her share, right, because, like, for instance, that thyroid diagnosis, it's like homeopathy has a very real answer for that and we just started tackling it immediately, right, and I think that's the thing that, as women, I would like to say, the thing that brought me to my knees and said like, oh shit, I cannot keep avoiding or denying what's going on here was a health crisis, and I sort of hate that for women, that why is it that we push ourselves into our bodies, say peace out, why does it take getting to that profound breaking point?
Speaker 1:Right, but that's what happens when we stay in survival mode or crisis mode, right, is that? There is this toll that's being paid on your adrenal system, your metabolic system, and, um, I think that very, very often, this is where women end up accidentally suicidal, even. Right, because it's like they've found you know, one more. One more cosmetic procedure, one more workout workout, one more good memory, yes, one more antidepressant, right, one more happy experience with my kid. But then it's like, all of a sudden, the body is slowly wasting behind the scenes and then you hit a wall. And I'm not trying to be some type of way, it's like it happens. It happened to me. It happens to the women we work with. I see it every day in my practice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my question for the listeners would be I would love for you to just sit down and add up for me all of the shit that you are buying to escape from your life. When I took my daughter back to Fort Bragg to show her all the places that we lived in a four-year marriage, we lived in seven places in a four-year marriage because every time shit got bad we'd move and that was our new start.
Speaker 4:All the vacations we took to escape real life how much are you spending on that? How much are you spending on Botox, cosmetic things how much are you spending on that? How much are you spending?
Speaker 1:on Botox cosmetic things.
Speaker 4:How much are you spending on therapy? How much is your medication every month that you are spending for anxiety, you know? And then those firefighters how much do you spend on alcohol a week to go? To the clubs to party? How much are you spending on weed, those illicit drugs, whatever you're reaching for, all those subscriptions that are bullshit, that promise that you're going to get answers, the meditation, everything how much are you spending?
Speaker 1:to stay and how long have you been spending it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know and then we talk about the health crisis, and that's not cheap. You know, when I was going to where I had the urinary thing going on because of stress and it's so scary. I got a bill for a $7,400 CAT scan. What the fuck you know. Yeah, and homeopathy cured it.
Speaker 1:Homeopathy cured it in a couple of weeks. Yeah, yes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, $1,400 bill after insurance was said and done on something that I never should have experienced, never had to go through. That medicine couldn't give me an answer for Nobody could tell me why.
Speaker 1:I know I have spent probably hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to recover. Yeah, yeah, that sounds dramatic, but I don't think so.
Speaker 3:No, I don't yeah the testing the testing.
Speaker 1:The testing, the non-insurance covered things right? It's yeah, and I think that we're going to see this more and more and more with women entering menopause too soon. Like it's just the cascading issues, right, of multisystemic metabolic dysfunction it breaks my heart, yeah. Mm-hmm dysfunction it breaks my heart, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think also we put a lot of pressure on therapists. Like you know, that therapist is is one person for one hour a week, right, and and I think we sort of think, like we do it for our kids too, right, like let me get my kid a therapist. And then this just inordinate amount of like dysfunction, like that that therapist will. I think we put a lot of pressure on therapists. I don't think we have a clear picture of what it actually takes to really recover and heal. And I think that you know as hard as I can sometimes be on therapists because they don't move the needle, like maybe it's an unreasonable expectation, you know they don't move the needle, like maybe it's an unreasonable expectation, you know joy you were telling me a story about someone we're working with recently and yeah, so, um, yeah, so, uh.
Speaker 3:There's a woman who, um, I've come along the side and I've been in the weeds with her Right and she's a patient of Don's homeopathy homeopathy. And she called me in crisis yesterday because she is going to a talk therapist and the talk therapist is local, he's very well respected, he's very well equipped, he is kind of like the go-to marriage therapist. And she called me and she was hysterically crying because, you know, she used the phrase he opened this closet. And it's like Monica's closet from Friends, where you open the closet and the things just start pouring out and it's like coming in her dreams and it's coming as she's working and like all these things, these memories.
Speaker 1:She's recovering memories.
Speaker 3:Yeah, coming as she's working and like all, these things, these, these recovering memories that have been like so suppressed deep inside her. But homeopathy is like releasing. So she goes to the to the talk therapist and sits on his couch and he opens this closet and then he says, oh, I'm booked for the next three weeks, Come back then. And so meanwhile she's just left holding all this stuff that is falling out. And so you know, I've been, she has obviously us as a team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is amazing, right, right right, but traditionally like, or you know, like, um, if, if she wasn't with me, if she wasn't with don, like if she wasn't with us, and then what would she have? Like she would literally be holding all this stuff and she has three children and is and is married. It's like all these things without the immersive support that that we offer. And, um, it's heartbreaking, because how often do those situations happen without? Oh, I think every day every day.
Speaker 3:Right and without the tools to help process and the and to right. You know, god gave us the the gift of dissociation.
Speaker 3:but like without looking back open you don't, it doesn't move out of you, like you. You just, we were trained as a society to dissociate and then move on Right Like that's not actually helpful and so, um, it's. It broke my heart yesterday and you know we we definitely um, gave her some tools and things to do and and checked on her this morning and everything is like moving, but then she has to dissociate. She didn't go to work and she can handle her kids Right. So it's just like that constant checking in and looping in and like, okay, let's, let's make sure that it's you open back up the closet, because you can't just keep that door closed, because you don't ever move and she is having physical symptoms Like that was her breaking point of coming to Dawn, because all those physical symptoms have just started.
Speaker 3:It's, it's literally starts um hurting your body and you have hormone imbalances and you have chronic pain and you have constant, chronic anxiety and you can only take so many pharmaceuticals before you start having repercussions from all those you know. So it's just, it's like a spiral.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about like day one, month one, right Like. Let's give a very structured strategic behind the scenes look of what does month one look like? How can women have a perspective for how month one is going to get them grounded in a layered way?
Speaker 3:We literally hit the ground running. You meet with Dawn, you get your first phase of homeopathy, you get your first IFS. We want to get the first phase, or the first level, immediately, because we value your time, we value this program, we value your money. We want to get the ball rolling.
Speaker 1:We're only happy when they're getting results Right. So yeah, I. I the women that have already enrolled right. They're already started. They're one-on-ones, are already booked with me. Their homeopathic consult right Is already booked with me.
Speaker 2:Before open opening ceremony Right, so they're going to have their remedies in process before opening ceremony, which I like.
Speaker 1:I like everyone to have their remedies in process because then you'll experience opening ceremony differently. I looked in our little EMR that we use yesterday because somebody had a question, like one of the women had a question for me and already Producer Joy has uploaded well, tiffany has uploaded the completed paperwork for me to work from. Producer Joy has already uploaded their individual human design charts and natal birth charts. Like we are such an immersive, thorough, whatever right. So, and then open ceremony in and of itself, it's four hours long. You leave there shifted, grounded, connected, feeling a sense of okay, these are the women I'm going to travel with, so it feels safe to reach out in the middle of the night when I need something right. There's a depth that we go to day one week, one right, where you're already coming into that, having moved energetically because of the remedies, because of our initial intake and then going deep very quickly, which might scare the pants off of you, but that's what it takes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we definitely push outside of your comfort zone because you don't grow inside your comfort zone. There's not deep penetrating healing while you're in this nice little like, we do gently nudge you a little bit more out of your comfort zone quicker than you would expect, but, like this past cohort has been such a beautiful experience in terms of like when you see a woman reach out and then the community that comes behind them and supports them and you know like it.
Speaker 3:It really is magic when you feel seen by and you and you would never.
Speaker 1:You know like you, would never necessarily interface with that person in the real world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Right, and it's different walks of life, different experiences, but it's so beautiful how we hold each other and you're just held and seen.
Speaker 1:So, from our experience, if you are waiting for crisis to pass, you are probably going to be waiting a very long time and paying a very steep toll. So doors close September 20th. Either send me a DM my Instagram handle is at Dawn Wiggins or book your clarity call today the link is in the show notes and let's tackle the leap that gets you out of the quicksand. Today. Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach, john. You can find more at mycoachjohncom.
