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
270. Married to Grief After Divorce — Breaking the Addiction
This episode is only available to subscribers.
Dear Divorce Diary: Dedicated to Healing
Exclusive access to premium content!For many women, divorce grief doesn’t just fade with time — it loops. You revisit the what-ifs, you cling to the ache, you replay the story until it feels less like healing and more like obsession. In this subscriber-only episode, we dive into why grief after divorce can feel like something you’re “married” to and what it really takes to break free.
Inside this episode:
- Why grief sometimes becomes an identity you can’t shake.
- How the looping “obsession” keeps you tethered to the pain.
- What it takes — from nervous system support to trauma-informed tools — to finally loosen grief’s grip.
If you’ve felt secretly bound to your grief, know this: you’re not broken, you’re caught in a pattern that can shift. Take the Divorce Recovery Nervous System Quiz to discover how your nervous system type feeds the loop — and get tailored practices, resources, and episodes that help you move forward with confidence.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn
Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)
Instagram: (@coachtiffini)
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.
Post Divorce Road Map : 21 Days of Journaling
Promo Code: MAGICDROP
Some people hide their lovers, but you love hide your grief. You sneak off to visit it when no one's looking. Your chest aches, your throat tightens and for a moment you're not numb and you tell yourself it's about remembering. But the truth is you're also addicted to the hurt. It's like grief is your secret lover and you're not sure who you'd be without it. And this week on Dear Divorce Diary for subscribers only we're talking about the way grief can feel addictive and what it takes to walk away from the one thing that helps you feel alive.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
Speaker 1:Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
Speaker 1:One of the things we talked about when we were getting ready to record this episode is this idea that we've run into that grief actually doesn't get smaller necessarily as life goes on, but that life gets bigger. And as life gets bigger we perceive that the grief is smaller, but for very, very many women recovering from divorce in a modern age, that doesn't seem to be happening, and it sometimes feels like the grief is looping and that it's something that you're getting stuck in or maybe addicted to, and so we're going to witness the woman today who is in this process, and by the end of the episode, I believe wholeheartedly that you will understand why you're stuck in this and what needs to shift in order to help your life grow bigger around the grief, even if it doesn't grow smaller. Hi, ladies, good morning. We talked a little bit about that the circle of grief staying the same, but the circle of life growing bigger. How does that feel to each of you as you feel into that idea?
Speaker 2:I like that analogy because I feel like that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 1:I like that analogy because I feel like that's exactly what it is Like an absence is always an absence no-transcript.
Speaker 1:When I say perspective, I mean like, literally, the size of something seems to change, right, like I think about the voids that I've experienced in my life. Yeah, the bigger life gets, right, the less profound those voids are, but there are definitely some that I do feel like I've never not felt them, sometimes more than others, but with a very full life, right it's, it doesn't feel so big or so much, yeah, and so we've all sort of whether we've it's something we've we've experienced, right, I know we've all experienced in our own ways sort of being stuck in a grieving process and we've seen women get stuck in a grieving process and it can be painful to watch, right, to even watch someone get stuck. Let's talk a little bit about how. Going back to the pain, right, that interesting loop that we do where we go back to the pain, it's like a repetition compulsion, right. It's like I can't figure out how to solve this and I'm going to keep going over it and over it and over it, searching, searching, searching for an answer.
Speaker 1:And I think that does happen with death, right, where it's like you want to bargain, like you want them to come back. Or it happens with women reviewing like what could I have done different? If I could only have done something different. You know, yeah, talk about, you know just sort of your experience of witnessing that inside of yourself or somebody else where it's like looping to try to find peace but it never comes right. The loop never brings peace or it never brings release.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of women try to grab for the things in the marriage that were right, to sort of like justify things. I don't know. Like a lot of times when women are looping that I see they're not looping on everything that went wrong, they're looping on everything that went right, and then they're getting stuck in that. Well, maybe if I just would have went to therapy, or maybe if we just would have given it another shot, or we would have went on a vacation or we would have moved across the country or something.
Speaker 1:Like just looking for that magical thing that would end the pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know they're like maybe we would have been able to make it. So I think there's a lot of women out there dealing with the what ifs, for sure of you know, and then can I go back, and that's hard. And then also when you have an ex who will not stop communicating with you and I'm not talking about in the co parenting sense but, an ex that starts leaving little breadcrumbs along the trail.
Speaker 2:Like I miss you, I want to see you. Like that kind of shit, like that, can really get in your head. I want to see you like that kind of shit, like that can really get in your head Like post separation, like I was in that loop because he continuously during the separation wanted to try and try and reconcile, and so I was dealing with trying to live my own life and and then feeling this overwhelming sense of guilt that I have a partner that wants to reconcile and I can't make myself do it.
Speaker 1:That's probably.
Speaker 1:I would guess that there are a number of women who have experienced that.
Speaker 1:Maybe and I don't think that's talked about very much, right Women who have a partner who wanted to reconcile Good point.
Speaker 1:What if grief sometimes becomes an identity because we can't find anything to unhook the pain and it's like, in living in the grief, we're searching for somebody to validate or acknowledge or to be the key in the lock that allows it for release, right, and I think, especially with divorce and with a lot of instances when grief feels so unfair or so out of control, right, it's like does it become an an identity to a certain extent? Because we're really looking for and maybe it got collapsed with childhood stuff, right, where we were kids and we needed somebody to validate or identify or recognize what we were suffering or struggling in, right, and maybe grief becomes an identity because we are really looking for someone to say, hey, it's, it's okay, or you're not crazy, or let me hold you while you, right, like there's something we're seeking that we haven't gotten yet, and so then we take it on without realizing it and we get stuck in this loop of searching for this relief in the form of I don't know how does that land for you ladies?
Speaker 3:Yeah, if I'm stuck in the, if I'm grieving that I'm feeling something, that I'm at least I don't want to say alive, because I don't think that that translate very well but if I'm feeling, don't want to say alive, because I don't think that. That translates very well, but like if I'm feeling, something that was feeling and that I'm not just right, I'm not just fading away Like I'm floating away into what if I don't?
Speaker 3:yes, untethered that is the word that I'm trying to find I would be. I'm tethered to something, and it might not be great, but at least it's something. And if I let go of the grief, then what? What is left, cause I don't have him anymore, so I don't have the role, the identity right, the tether, the.
Speaker 1:I've said that a lot in life. Right, I feel untethered. I don't say it really anymore. I can't, even now that I'm saying it out loud like when's the last time I said that. But I did say that a lot in the past feeling untethered.
Speaker 2:Well, you take on this identity right. So it's almost like when people ask you about yourself when you're married, you always identify as a wife and we see that on instant handles all the time. Like someone will have a wifey mama, like whatever right Roles, so it's like the first identifier. So it's almost like when the roles are reversed, then in your divorce, do you feel like that has to be the thing that you carry? Oh, I'm an ex-wife, I'm a divorcee. Like that kind of becomes one of the things that defines you. And I always remember when I was like struggling in the dating world too, like I would go out and literally spill everything on the first date and it was horrific, like it's so cringy to look back on that and I'm like, oh my God, like actually said that shit. Yeah, I did, and no wonder I scared a bunch of people away because you know it was a lot to put on somebody. But it's like I became so rooted in my trauma being who I was.
Speaker 1:I didn't know how to stay outside of it. Oh God, and it was so cringy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so cringy. Yeah, I relate to that, right. Spending years like rehearsing to people the ways that I had been wronged in life. Oh man, I relate to that, right, yeah, and it is so super cringy, but thank God for progress, yeah, yeah. So that is to say, right, you're not alone, like we've done all the cringy things, friends, yeah. And so then what is it that keeps us looping, right then? What is it that keeps us looping around?
Speaker 1:This sort of idea of being addicted to or over-identified with grief. And I think it says a lot about how we heal or don't heal as a collective culture, especially here in the West, because we do heal when our pain is witnessed and not in a surface way. We heal, we release, when our pain is held, deeply held and deeply witnessed. And so we talk a lot about trauma here on the podcast or in popular culture, on the tiki-taki right. And trauma is what happens in the brain, happens neurobiologically, when something is too much, but that's only half the ingredients. Too much, but that's only half the ingredients, right, it's something is too much to process and there's not enough support while processing or experiencing it right. So there's a too much component to trauma and there's a not enough component to trauma, right. And so it's like okay, with time, perhaps we have this idea that time heals clean wounds, as producer Joy likes to remind us, but not just time alone healing wounds, right, but clean wounds. So let's say we have time and time to process the too muchness of a trauma, right.
Speaker 1:But I think what very, very many of us miss in our Western culture is the not enough part, right, which is the deeply held and witnessing part, where our nervous systems feel safe enough to feel seen, heard and held. And that doesn't just happen, right. There are conditions, as we've talked about, that allow our nervous systems and our parts of selves to feel safe, to feel seen and held. And that's when that repetition, compulsion, that grief loop, that identity, can finally release or start to shift or create an opening, right. So if you're someone who relates or resonates with this idea of grief becoming an identity or of doing the cringy shit that we've talked about, like you know where you're meeting people and you're telling them your entire trauma story, gosh, I think that we were doing all of this, though, before, like, right, this was pre-COVID, before trauma was such a popular conversation. But anyways, before trauma dumping was a thing right.
Speaker 1:But if you relate or resonate with some of this it's really important to take a look at have you looked at your grief through the lens of trauma? Because I think very often we talk about grief as grief and we don't necessarily talk about griefs as trauma, but very often it is both things and they're collapsed together and the reason the grief is stuck is because of this neurobiological picture that happens when there's too much to process at once and not enough intimate support, intimate attuned support in the experiencing of it. Can you two think of some moments where somebody, like where you, you were able to feel so held that somebody, something shifted or something released? It happens a lot on accident when we give remedies, right.
Speaker 2:But but at other parts of the story you know, like just in your journeys in general, where and other parts of the story you know like just in your journeys in general, where something felt so, I think, even with EMDR, with Dawn, like I remember, one of the pivotal moments for me in EMDR is when Dawn would just kind of like look in the camera and she would say I'm so sorry that this happened to you, because nobody ever had.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think, to the woman who has spent her marriage never getting an apology, knowing what's been going on under the surface, knowing who they're truly married to and never having that person say, I'm fucking sorry. Like that's hard, and I think a lot of women deal with that. They're never going to get the apology, they're never going to get the closure they're seeking, and that can keep that loop open too.
Speaker 3:That's very, very, very on point, Tiffany.
Speaker 2:And if I would have waited, I would still be waiting 14 years later for the apologies that never came for the closure to my story.
Speaker 3:So I had to make my own closure yeah.
Speaker 2:I had to come to peace with it myself, because I was not going to get that from the other person.
Speaker 1:I think that is the thing that often is the key in the lock right Is some sort of acknowledgement that it's that, yeah, when we feel and it's almost not the it's not words per se right, it's a vibration, it's a it really is.
Speaker 1:It's a vibration. That's the key in the lock. It's a vibrational match, right when the that's attunement, when we talk about attachment styles and safety. Right, it's a vibrational match that allows that key to open that lock, to finally release or put down or move forward. And that is what we do in EMDR. Right, we reprocess things. But I think when people have said that EMDR didn't work for them, it's because it wasn't something about it wasn't vibrationally attuned enough to unlock the lock. Yeah, so it didn't quite reach deep enough.
Speaker 3:When someone can hear my story and not judge and just be safe and just hold my hand or bring me a coffee or bring you know, like do something to make me feel like it wasn't something for me to bear, like it's not that I wasn't good enough because that was traditionally my story, like wasn't good enough for my parents, wasn't good enough for my you know what I mean. So like when someone would hold space for me of and treat you like you mattered. I'm really, yes, I'm really sorry this happened to you. It, it shifted something, and let me kind of just be in the space Now. I I was going through everything with Dawn by my side and so, like she sent me EFT tapping videos right away. So I was doing all of that in the process of grieving. There was never a real cavern of space of me dealing with the grief and working through it. So that's why I think that there is a beauty to being able to come alongside a woman. I think it creates safety right.
Speaker 1:It's like, oh, I know what to do, this is what, right. Like I know what to do, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's like a very you're not alone, You're not, you're not, I've got you, you know.
Speaker 1:It helps that controller manager feel like there is something to do and that whatever the thing is to do will work Right, so yeah it creates the safety.
Speaker 3:I know I've I'm my controller manager that way before, but that's so accurate Like I was controlling it at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean I think that's like so much of like been subconsciously my approach right, Like oh, if I have enough tools I can stay in control, but it's like the trick.
Speaker 3:And yeah, you said that once to me and I was like, oh, you're like there's always a solution. I've never thought of a problem and not automatically assume there's a solution, and so that was just like that, right there, that's the key. It's like acknowledging the stuckness or acknowledging the grief. Okay, Cause there is a solution to, to, to the, there is a bridge to the other side. Yeah, you don't have to live in this cavern. Yeah, you don't have to live in this cavern, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not a magic solution, and I think that that's the beauty when women come to our program and they get a deeper peek into our lives on the daily, because we do share stuff that we're going through. And just because we're standing on the quote unquote other side of this shit doesn't mean that we don't ever fight with our partners or we don't have really bad days or we don't want to go at our kids Right Like that's not what that means, but what it means is like yeah we feel safe to feel beautiful toolbox, yes, like we have this beautiful toolbox of stuff to help us through that.
Speaker 2:So I always tell my clients it's not about perfection.
Speaker 2:You're not going to get to the other side of this and never experience a trigger and not be a human, that's right, correct, but like for me, someone that was literally triggered 95% of my day with like screaming, ruminating thoughts down a rabbit hole for me to be able to sit here during the course of my day and the triggers are now mere whispers. Like that's beautiful. Like that is a beautiful place for me to wake up in the morning and not feel that initial pit in my stomach of anxiety at what fresh hell is awaiting me today, because I knew I couldn't handle it on my own.
Speaker 3:Every day wasn't safe. There was never a day safe, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:So to the woman who has been secretly addicted to grief, or it's become her identity, or she's stuck in the loop, right. And maybe it's morphed right, I know mine morphed. It morphed from you know sort of the story about how I ended up divorced and all of that pain, into including things about my childhood, as I you know, because it does get all collapsed together, right. And so to that woman, I want you to really consider whether or not the tools you're using are trauma informed, right, and if there's enough resourcing and support in your life right now to feel safe enough to feel seen, to feel held, to feel supported and unhook the trauma that's causing that loop. Would you, ladies, add anything to that? There's always a solution.
Speaker 2:I just go back to feeling like divorce is the symptom. There's always a solution. I just go back to feeling like divorce is the symptom. So I feel like there is a comfort in holding on to that grief, because when you actually let it go and you feel what's underneath all of that, yes, that's where the work begins, because every client that we work with it starts with a divorce and then it goes back to childhood and it goes back to that cycle and being able to correct those cycles and identify and having that beautiful self-awareness. So being stuck in grief is your body's way of protecting the system from feeling anything that's underneath of that.
Speaker 1:And that is where you stay stuck.
Speaker 1:Beautifully said. If you haven't taken our nervous system quiz yet, this is a great time to do that, because so much of this looping is sort of wound up in your nervous system patterns and your hormones and the intersection of sort of these three things right Like your grief, your hormones, your nervous system. So strongly encouraged to check out the nervous system types quiz. If to check out the nervous system types quiz, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the show notes the link is right there it takes about two or three minutes and you will get your results in the results. It's also going to give you some things to do about that, right, because there's always a solution. So it'll give you either an episode to map back to or a blog post or a hormone guide you can download. There are a lot of resources on the back end of you taking that quiz. Thank you so much for being here. We love you so much. Peace, dear. Divorce Diary is a podcast by MyCoachDawn. You can find more at mycoachdawncom.
