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
274. The Lies Denial Tells You: When Feeling Numb Keeps You From Healing After Divorce
Denial isn’t just pretending things are fine — it’s the story your nervous system tells so you don’t have to feel the full truth yet.
In this episode, we talk about how denial shows up in subtle ways:
...staying busy so you don’t feel,
...justifying behavior that hurts you,
...and, convincing yourself “it’s not that bad.”
And why breaking through it isn’t about shame — it’s about safety.
This is one of those episodes that’s worth hearing again, because the moment denial cracks, real healing begins.
💛 Join our Cocoon community using the link at the very bottom and code MAGICDROP to download your Post-Divorce Roadmap and enter our weekly Magic Drop giveaway — we’ve already had two winners!
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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
Hi, love. We're doing something a little different for the next few weeks while we work behind the scenes on some really exciting things for you. But here's the fun part. You're getting double episodes, both Tuesday and Thursday, totally free, getting to try premium for free for a few weeks. And we're going to revisit some of the most powerful dear divorce diary conversations from the vault. The ones that hit a little differently once you've lived in this post-divorce life a little longer. And if you haven't joined us yet inside Cocoon, it's our free private community. Use the coupon code in the show notes, Magic Drop, to grab your spot. We're currently, for a short period of time, gifting access to our post-divorce roadmap where you can download that immersive journaling program. And then once you're in there, you can participate in our weekly Magic Drop giveaways. We've already had two winners, so what are you waiting for? All right, let's get into it. Here's one of those episodes that still holds the truth every time you hear it. Today we are talking about denial because there is a correlation between self-honesty and success. And unless you're willing to take a look at where you may be in denial, you are never going to have actual control over your life. 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, Don 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 the pros and cons of denial, how to recognize if you're in denial, and what to do about it once you figure it out. We're all there a little bit, right? So again, there's a correlation between self-honesty and success. And so I know there's this big, beautiful life that you envision for yourself that you want to manifest. And that's just not really available if you're in boatloads of denial. So let's dig in. So there's definitely a benefit to being in denial, right? What's that thing they say that ignorance is bliss? And that's true. I think there are moments in life where it's a very useful tool in order to not have to feel so much and not order to have to tackle so much at once. But there's this reality that when you're in denial, it's not sustainable because eventually you're going to repeat the mistakes of the past. They're going to start playing out over and over again. And it's always going to feel like things are happening to you. And so if you want to take charge of your life and you want to start intentionally manifesting, you can't be functioning in boatloads of denial because eventually it's going to bite you in the arse. So, what are some of the hallmarks of denial? Like, how do you know if you're in denial or not? And I especially think it's hard to know because when you're coming out of a marriage, you're getting, first of all, you're getting feedback from so many people, right? People are giving you unsolicited advice. They're telling you how you should or shouldn't do it. Your ex had lots of opinions, and maybe you've lost track of what's true for you anymore. And so I think it can be hard to tell if you're in denial. And I think a lot of times denial is we like it, right? It's this cozy blanket we wrap ourselves in when we're feeling overwhelmed. And this is certainly a season of overwhelm. So I recommend using the cozy blanket sparingly, but taking it off intentionally, you know, to strategically build the life of your dreams. So, some ways that you can kind of this is like a short checklist. So take a deep breath and just check in with yourself. Do you feel like things are often happening to you? That you kind of get blindsided by stuff, like, and then another thing happened and another thing happened. And I just don't understand where is all this coming from? When it rains, it pours. Do you feel helpless or like a victim of circumstance? That is a hallmark of denial. Do you ever find yourself blaming other people for your current circumstances? And then because he did this, then I had to do that. Because she did this, that was why I ended up doing that. Right. So anywhere you're using blame language, that's a hallmark of denial. Consistently manifesting the opposite of what you say you want. That's a big one, right? I think that manifestation has become such kind of a popular trending tool for healing and recovery. And so if there are things that you're wanting to manifest, but you find that you're often getting the opposite results or you're struggling to feel successful in your manifestation efforts, that's a sign that there's some denial going on. And here's a big one, and maybe the one that hurts the most. Do you break commitments with yourself, right? In one feeling state, do you feel massively motivated and you make a commitment with yourself to do with maybe booking an appointment, going to the gym, what you're eating, what you're thinking or how you're speaking, right? Beliefs about yourself, uh, affirmations, right? Do you make commitments with yourself when you're in one feeling state? And then when you're in a different feeling state, do you find yourself breaking those commitments, not following through with the things you told yourself you were going to do? That is a good sign of denial. And so here's this checklist, right, where you can check in with yourself about how honest or transparent you're able to transparently you're able to see your true self. If some of these resonated with you, that you feel like things are happening to you, that you sometimes blame, find yourself using blame language when you're talking with people, that you're manifesting the opposite of what you say you want, and that you break commitments with yourself. Now it's time to sit down and say, like, what's underneath all of that? In what ways am I not able to actually see myself clearly? And what's at the root of denial is often it's a it's a sign that there's something we don't want to take responsibility for. There's some level of commitment, a little bit of commitment or accountability that we're avoiding that feels too heavy, too hot, too much, too overwhelming, too out of reach, right? There's something that feels too hard to take responsibility for. But it's not true. It may be a lot, it may be hard, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it, and it doesn't mean that you can't. Oftentimes when we end up breaking through denial, it's not through some means we chose. Oftentimes it's where the universe somewhat somehow like hit us upside the head with the truth, and we're like, ah, crap. Right? It's hard to get the courage to choose to move out of denial on your own. And it is definitely more painful or uncomfortable in those early moments where you're struggling or wrestling with God to accept certain things about yourself. There's a lot of shame that comes up, so much shame when we really look at ourselves clearly. I could tell you story after story after story about places where, gosh, when I got honest with myself, I was like, ooh, that's not a hot look. But each time I choose to do it, I like unlock a new level of power inside of myself. I unlock a new intentionally manifested goal. I gain access to something that I say I wanted, and it becomes mine. And that is through looking at myself honestly and tackling the things. It's definitely not comfortable, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. In today's episode, we talked about the pros and cons of breaking through denial, understanding what the risks and the consequences are if you don't, and went through a checklist of how you can identify whether or not you or how much you are actually in denial. If this episode helped you, I would really love it if you would go to leave a written review in Apple Podcasts. It makes such a difference to us when you can leave a written review. It really helps people find us and to know whether or not this is going to be a helpful content for them. And um, gosh, it just makes a difference in my life personally, too. So if this was helpful for you today, please go leave a review. I love you so much. Peace.
