Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

284. You Can’t Heal From Divorce Without This Kind of Forgiveness

Subscriber Episode • • My Coach Dawn • Season 4 • Episode 284

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You can talk about healing all day long…
but until you learn this kind of forgiveness, you’ll keep carrying him—
in your body, your triggers, your next relationship.

In this Dear Divorce Diary Premium episode, we get real about the difference between talking about forgiveness and actually feeling it.

You’ll walk through three powerful journal prompts that expose the exact places you’re still holding on—
and teach your body how to finally let go.

This isn’t about being the bigger person.
It’s about ending the loop.

If you’re tired of “working on yourself” but still feel the ache, this is the episode that moves the needle.

🎧 Exclusive to premium subscribers — because the real healing work deserves privacy, honesty, and depth.

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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.

Post Divorce Road Map : 21 Days of Journaling

Promo Code: MAGICDROP

SPEAKER_02:

Forgiveness isn't always holy. Sometimes it's pressure dressed up as some bullshit healing. If you've ever told yourself I should be over this by now, this episode isn't about being the bigger person. It's about being the real one. Today we're walking through three journal prompts every woman has to face if she ever wants to stop performing forgiveness and start feeling free. 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, you are going to hear me share three journal prompts with Joy and Coach Tiffany, and they have not heard these journal prompts before. They're going to share spontaneously. And I'm going to encourage you ladies to really think about anywhere in your life you might still be grappling with resentment or forgiveness, not just, you know, sort of the moment when to do with romantic relationships, right? I think your answers will be more authentic or genuine or and it's still going to connect, right? So that's my caveat up front. The three questions are going to approximately follow these sorts of topics or ideas. Number one, there's something inside of you that still hasn't been said out loud. Not to them, not even to yourself. And being able to touch that allows forgiveness to start to shift from being performative and into a possibility. And the second question is going to be in the realm of you think your resentment and your lack of forgiveness is about anger, but it's not. And once you realize what it really is, then you'll understand why you can't move on yet. And the third question is going to be in the realm of well, there's one magical unicorn question that has the power to change everything. And it's the one that shows you what your resentment has really been protecting. And so this is a like it's a big scary hairy therapy, complex, right question. And once you can sort of sit in process with this one, is the moment you will stop waiting for closure and start giving it to yourself. You ready, ladies? Yeah, let's go. All right. I don't know. Joy looks perplexed. I wish you could see us right now. She's like, shit balls. What am I gotten myself into?

SPEAKER_01:

Listen, I love a good, uh, I love a good self-reflective question, but I'm like, oh, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

All right. Here you go. So this first one, this is the opener, right? They get progressively harder, I would say, or more complex as we go. So the first one is, and you know, because anyone uh who doesn't appreciate bonus content. So I'm gonna there's there's like the question, and then there's like the context or the bonus content that goes with it, right? Okay, you're stalling. You're stalling. All right, first what does my body still want to say that my mouth never got to? So what am I suppressing? What am I repressing? What am I not fricking saying? What am I not expressing? Okay, because forgiveness cannot land in your body until the unsaid is expressed. Whether through voice, movement, writing, this one goes straight to the somatic truth. Unless we release the trapped emotion, there's no forgiveness. So, Tiffany, Joy, what is your body still wanting to express that your mouth never got to? And you know, Joy, you and I had a conversation about this on Friday because we were working you up about hot flashes, and you were like, Oh, I don't want to feel like a burden right now. And I'm like, this is not a burden, this is a joy. Efforting is not a burden, right? What's a burden is when I can't speak my truth. And so that's the heart of this question, right? Is what truth have you not spoken yet?

SPEAKER_01:

I will say, when you asked me that question, I had a physical reaction in which my neck got incredibly tight. Like I all of a sudden felt all of it right here. And that's back to being a burden. That's being not being able to take up space. My whole life, I have been up, I hear joy before I see her, and it's like that shame of my um my boisterousness, my bounciness, my literal joy. Main character energy. My main character energy, because I that's a part of my personality. And we talked about in the Tuesday episode about how I realized at one point in my story that I was the main character of my story, but I've always been. But was it coming from an integrated place or was it coming from a victim or need to be seen or need to be validated, or whatever you know, whatever unhealed part of me was reaching for that attention? I think I still very much struggle with not wanting to be a burden, making myself small when I feel like like when I'm in an argument with someone and I don't believe that my opinion matters anyway. So why should I say it? Or um that's a that's like a rooted thing for me. And um, I don't like I still, after all of the work I've done, I still don't like asking for favors. Like I get my my pits get sweaty when I need someone to do a favor that I am unable to do because I feel like I should be able to do everything. And I know it's not true. I I know that's not a God-given instruction, but I do feel like there is a shame. I still feel shame about needing help. I still feel shame about needing Dawn to repertoire what is happening from a homeopathic standpoint in her big brain, because I uh I'm on a struggle bus for some reason or another, or my kids are on a struggle bus. Like I feel like I add to people's loads instead of take off.

SPEAKER_02:

So, what is the thing, like for anyone who's listened to the IFS episode that Tiffany and Joy did, what is the thing that you never got to say uh in the back of the car that day? Like if you could have said anything to those people who right, both of them, because two people were in the car, the person who said the thing that hurt you and the person who didn't defend you or protect you, or say, like, hey, that's not acceptable or appropriate parenting. You need to, you know, take responsibility for this. Like, what are the things that you needed to say to those people that would help shift that pattern that never got said or never got physically somatically expressed in your body?

SPEAKER_01:

I I I really I I'm gonna have to sell a really crappy answer, but I'm gonna have to think on that because I if my daughter had said that if if if my daughter had experienced some like her, you know, like my daughter experiences her teacher not liking her, but that's like why did my mom saying that affect me so desperately when I don't necessarily like my kids all the time? You know, like I don't want my kids to need validation. I I want them to like themselves. So why did that affect me so much when at the heart of it, like I should have liked myself enough that that there is a there's a lot of gaslighting yourself in there.

SPEAKER_02:

So your kids have a parent who is consistently looking out for am I parenting in alignment? Am I creating a safe enough space? Not perfect mothering, right? But am I carrying creating a safe enough space? Am I attentive enough to their needs? Not perfectly, but again, like good enough mother stuff. Am I owning my shit when I treat them some type of way or when I drop the ball? Am I teaching them how to know themselves and like themselves? Am I helping them process through their emotions? Right. It's a very different parenting approach that creates a safe enough environment to tolerate the nuance in the context, like, oh, we don't have to like everyone and everything all the time, but I am well loved and I am liked most of the time. And it's not me that's not liked, it's my behavior that's not liked, right? It's not me that's not liked, it's my behavior. It's my mom doesn't like it when I argue without being um a team member. My mom doesn't like it when I lash out and hurt my sister. My mom doesn't like it when I write. Those are behaviors that are not liked, not me that's not liked.

SPEAKER_01:

Integrating, integrating, right? So the original question was what needs to be. What was that little girl needing?

SPEAKER_02:

What did she need to express that she never got to say? Like, I will tell you straight up some shit that I wish I could say to my mom today, but it would just cause such a kerfuffle in the family is you are a shitty fucking mother.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, yeah, I would absolutely say you're a very narcissistic mother. And that's like not the term, but like so so everything was about her, everything was it was filtered through a lens of her, right? And like I think there's a difference between integrating in self and having her have self-boundaries, uh, a world boundary, and what it was about her.

SPEAKER_02:

And so we could sort of hear in my answers and your answer, right? How that would have how this repetition compulsion, how this woundedness, how this un unexpressed pain led to picking partners that were not able to integrate our needs.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I think it was you that said you're you marry the familiar. Like say say that in the way that you said that that day, because I was just like, oh, it was like you, you know, like um the chaos in the familiar, like you it's easier to be and safer, your like your body feels safer in the chaos, uh-huh, and insecure, right? Mm-hmm. Because that's what you're used to.

SPEAKER_02:

Mind blown. Okay, awesome. So I think the one asterisk here I would put for women who are needing to answer this question what is my body still want to say that my mouth never got to? If you're journaling about your ex or soon-to-be ex, and you're journaling all the shit you want to say to him, but you haven't gotten underneath the unsaid things to your caregivers or the people who created the framework from which you selected this partner, you've not fully answered the journal prompt. So this journal prompt in and of itself is a two-part journal prompt. It's like, yes, what are all the things you never got to say to him? But what are all the things you never said to the original him, aka mom or dad or grandparent, or whoever it was that raised you that created this framework in the first place? That created or installed the repetition compulsion, right? So this is a two-part journal prompt. What does your body still want to say that your mouth never got to? Okay, tiff-tiff. You want to take the second one? Sure. All right. Our next journal prompt is what emotions, I'm sure there's more than one, are hiding under my anger that I cannot bear to feel right now because anger guards the emotions we find unbearable. Grief, shame, rejection, fear, longing, loneliness, I would add to that list. So we have to uncover the raw feelings beneath the resentment and begin to process it, to discharge it instead of suppressing it. So, what are the raw emotions under your anger that you can't bear to feel?

SPEAKER_00:

It would definitely be like feelings of abandonment, like that fear of being alone, fear of not being good enough, of not being prioritized. Those were some of the things that I think was a constant theme for me of like the constant knowing of like, am I really important enough to be chosen?

SPEAKER_02:

So there are moments on the podcast where you are really filtering through how much am I gonna say about this particular topic? So without t talking about what the topics are, right? What does your body say when we approach some of those things associated with these emotions of abandonment or um not being good enough? Like, how do you know when those feelings are being activated in your body, the ones that hide under your anger?

SPEAKER_00:

I start to dissociate while we're having the conversation. Like right now, I had a ringing in my left ear that was super loud that was trying to drown it out. Yeah. And so it's still very much there under the surface. Like the anger and everything that I was pissed off at with my ex and still might carry a little bit of it. It's it's not there a lot anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

But no, I can imagine like when your daughter is have yeah, when your daughter's having a hard time, I think it's probably hard to not do that. That's triggering as fuck.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. That's really difficult. Um, so yeah, there's a there's definitely things I would say to him that I feel like I would love to say, but am not going to. And so for me, yeah, when we start to touch some of those subjects where it's like I feel that rawness, it's like I go right back to being the age that I was when I started feeling these things. Like I can see her, I can see the environment, I can see the settings, I remember the feelings in my body. Like all of it is so insanely familiar to me around feelings of, do you see me? Am I important enough? You know, all of those types of things.

SPEAKER_02:

And so, what is your process that you do now when you are able to identify those feelings, or you hear the ringing in your ear, you start to disassociate, and you know, like, oh, there is a part of me right now that needs to express, needs to feel, needs to feel held and supported by me, self, maybe my team, right? Like maybe I ask um to be witnessed also. What do you do in those moments now? How do you hold space for those feelings so that they can come instead of disassociate?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so for me it's physical movement. So I will either go out in nature. Um, I'll even um when I'm in extreme situations where I feel like I can't move because I tend to go into freeze mode when I dissociate. So I will actually just take an object and pass it back and forth between my left and right hand, like playing catch with myself because it's activating that other part of the brain that's making me stay present.

SPEAKER_02:

MDR training to toss the ball back and forth to clients. Yeah, so I would keep a spishy ball in my desk drawer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so it definitely helps me, but it reactivates that part and doesn't allow me to shut down. I'm super, super aware when I'm dissociating now. Whereas before, like it was a journey, like I knew something was just it's almost like my brain is going offline and it starts to get very foggy and then it just snaps, and like I don't hear what's going on around me. Like I can hear your words, but I'm not processing what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that's really good. I think so many women relate to that. So also I want to dispel one little myth here. Like, I don't know, is it a myth? It's like a it's a thing we've started saying as a culture, and I don't like it. But we talk about needing to regulate emotionally. And I think too often we've confused. We need to like generally regulate our nervous system so that we feel safe enough to discharge emotionally, to feel, to process, to discharge emotionally. We don't need to regulate emotions, we need to discharge them in a safe way. Maybe sometimes we need to be able to regulate emotions, but generally, like if we just keep regulating them, it's like we're just trying to control them. We're not actually processing them or unburdening ourselves, right? Emotion has like this natural rhythm. It has to come in and it has to fully go out or discharge. Am I making any sense? Or am I just sounding like I'm throwing like jargon at people? But like when you eat a meal, you have to digest it, metabolize it, and poop it out. Like it literally has to be discharged, right? And if you didn't discharge your food, it would build up in your body and there would be downstream consequences. The same is with emotion. So when we keep just trying to manage our emotion, it keeps it circulating in the system rather than fully discharging. So I hear you're like aware of the dissociative process, and then you start to regulate your nervous system so it feels safe enough to stay in your body. But then there still are steps that have to be taken in order to feel or release what feeling got triggered there or witness your parts. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you've taught us how to recognize how you recognize when those feelings below there are asking to be felt. You've taught us how you sort of facilitate safety in your body so that you can feel them. But then what is your process for unburdening those emotions or actually feeling them with the depths of them? And I relate to what you're describing because I tend to be so disassociative with those vulnerable feelings. And so very recently I um, you know, had to visit my mom and it was so hard. And had I not had my remedies with me, I think I would have found it very, very difficult to actually fully access the feelings. So a lot of times for me to even fully access them so I can unburden them, I have to get really like weirdly somatic, like vocalizing, like growling, grunting, kicking, rocking. Uh, you know what I mean? Like I have to use a lot of out-of-the-box like somatic tools to be able to feel as much as I possibly can, unless I have remedies with me to be able to push it up and out. Sometimes, well, in that weekend, I did reach out to someone and I did like narrate through my pain and what was triggering it and what was going on. And I was like, I feel like, you know, I just need someone to tell me whether or not I'm being crazy, and you know, and in that being witnessed, right, it did help me tap into the feelings more in that connecting, right? And not for the purpose of like wasn't that I needed validation per se, but it was like I didn't feel safe to feel the feelings until someone told me I wasn't being a bad girl or something like that, you know. And so, you know, how do you get yourself to that place, Tiff Tif, where you can actually feel an unburdened process?

SPEAKER_00:

I think I've been imagining myself from an IFS perspective at like little parts of me. And so, like, there were years when I described to somebody the other day that there is a really dark part in me from when I was younger that when I first started doing IFS, I imagined her as the girl from the ring with like no face and like the stringy hair, right? Like she was so like I couldn't access her. And so now I completely see her differently in my little school pictures and things like that. Like she's the girl with the the pigtails that aren't even and like just the the cute stuff. So a lot of times I will if I don't if I feel like the emotion is too hard to access, I will access that younger part of myself to start caring for her, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. And does that help the emotion come downstream?

SPEAKER_00:

It does. It does. And a lot of times I do reflectiveness through journaling. Like I used to write a lot, like a lot, a lot, a lot. And I used to write a lot of poetry. And I I will say this, I remember, this was probably one of the most associative times in my entire life, a moment that I can remember, where I was a really good writer. Um, and my instructor said to me, Hey, like, I love your poetry. Why don't we enter you into a statewide contest? I ended up winning a silver award for my poetry portfolio that was then fucking published and my parents read it. Oh Lord. And that to me, I was probably 16 years old. I had to travel to the state capitol, I received an award publicly, like it was great, but it was published, and I remember my mom's reaction, and it was almost like she had been slapped or stung or something, like there was this underlying emotion of like, I never knew you felt these things, and I don't know what half of this even means, and that made me just feel like so misunderstood in a way that like I felt super close to her, but at the same time, there had always been a disconnect out of protecting her from my own intimacy, largeness, right? I didn't want to be another thing to add on to the pile of shit that like she was dealing with in life, right? So like that's when it started to hit me, and so in times when I can access those inner parts of myself that needed to be seen, felt, understood, loved, like all of the things like that's kind of where I step into from a forgiveness perspective. That's beautiful. Can we read your poetry?

SPEAKER_02:

Do you still own it? I have it. I still have it. I would love that. I want to witness your poetry. It's yeah, I'm sure it is, right? But listen, my kid started writing poetry on her bathtub. She asked for bath crayons recently uh for her birthday. She's writing poetry in her bathtub, and a lot of times it's dark, like not super dark, but I can definitely hear where she's at or what she's grappling with. And I'm so grateful for it. But like, listen, it takes a really emotionally mature parent to be able to tolerate feedback and whatever. And I just don't think the parents of our generation were that, right? They just weren't. Um bless. And so when I read her poetry in the bathtub, it helps me see how much she's suppressing being a good girl in her day-to-day life, right? I can see the gap between the good girl that she's attempting to be and what she's really feeling in her quiet spaces, which then allows a conversation, right? And a remedy prescription. Um, but it allows for a conversation about like, hey, you know, you didn't tell me you were struggling with this thing. Like, let's talk about it. For her to be witnessed, right? So I would love to witness your poetry. Thanks. Okay. I don't know who wants to tackle this third one. It is certainly the most complex. Ask and all raise hands. And I think, and I think that it's one that is um it's got some mental gymnastics to it that I think is really hard for a lot of people. So we're just gonna shoot and then we can unpack it together, okay? All right. What part of you still want something from the person or people who hurt you? What part of you still wants something from the person or people who hurt you? And maybe more importantly, this is bonus content to the journal prompt, right? And maybe more importantly, fears that you can never get that need met from anyone else, including yourself. So it's like, what do you still, what are you still pursuing from the person who hurt you? And talk to me about the fear or the negative belief that you are afraid you can never get that need met from anyone else, which is why you still so urgently pursue whatever that thing is from that person.

SPEAKER_01:

I actually have a real-time example of this.

SPEAKER_02:

Bring it.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I don't know if our listeners know my story to the depths, but my husband, I'm gonna do a brief, brief, brief, brief because it explains what's happening. My husband basically confessed to living a double life, never being faithful, having all these addictions, like he was front-facing, he was loving and devoted, and but behind closed doors, away from you know, whatever, he had all these addictions, other women, all all these things. So we of course, when he told me everything, I kicked him out. We did, we went our separate ways pursuing divorce. He in turn realized that he was actually really fucked up and did a lot of really amazing trauma work and and um healing work himself, right? Fast forward, he moves back home, we heal together, all this. Um but it's been years in which we both have individually dove into why am I the way that I am? How, why, how, what's my motivation between this? We did a lot of healing work independently and together, a lot of trauma work, a lot of homeopathy, like all the things, right? Yesterday, literally this is it's been years. Yesterday, I got a text message that triggered me, and I said the thing out loud, and I needed him to apologize. I needed him to feel shame and feel guilt and feel bad for how I felt. And it's fascinating to me that I still sometimes default to needing him to feel shame about his decisions because that makes me feel better. It makes me feel validated, it makes me feel like, you know, him acknowledging that how how hard I've worked to heal this marriage and how hard I've worked to heal myself, and how, you know, I mean, it's like very validating to me for him to feel awful, which is not like that's not that's not the goal, that's not the part, right? Right, right. So, but it was literally happened yesterday where I was just like that's an amazing example.

SPEAKER_02:

So, what is the thing that you that some part or parts of you are afraid you can never get that need met from anyone else or from yourself? Most importantly from yourself, right?

SPEAKER_01:

I think a part of me feels like if I were to not search for that, that a part of me would disappear. I don't know how to say that differently. Um if I let it go, if I stop pulling for it, then part of me, that part of me that I'm so proud of, the the woman who fought to become a completely different person and rooted and grounded in self, it disappears because then it's no longer if I let if I let it go completely, then that part that part of me disappears. Whoa, I just got emotional saying that out loud. I hadn't really so powerful.

SPEAKER_02:

So I have two things. One was in the realm of feeling like, would I ever feel a sense of like provision or safety in my marriage? Like, would my husband be able to provide and protect me in a way that I was craving so profoundly for so many years? And I would very often realize, like my ex was an addict who was never safe, right? Like drinking and driving, all the things. Like there was just a constant perception of threat or like danger or something bad was gonna happen, right? That's like the the cycle or the pattern that I chose, like uncertainty, insecurity, danger, you like just a lack of real stability, right? And in my now marriage, that was so, so, so much better, but we still were so both so immature and dysfunctional when we got married. There was still so much work to do. And so there was just this level of he was not yet fully in this place to be able to provide and protect in the way that was going to be good for both of us, right? But very often I would be so hard on him rather than just saying, like, I can facilitate provision and protection while he's on his journey. He it doesn't have to come from him. It comes from the universe, it comes from me co-creating, it comes from us working together, it comes from collaboration, right? I would put so much pressure on him to fix the insecurity that lived in my body. And that was really a journey of me taking ownership for what I wanted to create for myself and not beating him up over him not being there yet. And he's gotten there and it's beautiful, but wow, that was a journey. And it was a lot of having to surrender, surrender, surrender. Like that my security doesn't come from other people, it comes from a very strong, grounded faith and a nervous system that can perceive safety in the world, right? Because my nervous system was always stuck on a very like high strung, like not feeling safe ever. The second thing that I still think that I grapple with, and I wonder how many people would relate with this, but I would, I really struggled to let go of resentment type things with my mom because how do you ever replace a mother? You can't, right? Like you can't. There's a soul tie there, there's a contract there, right? That that's just so like profound. And so I've really had to get in the weeds of the story that I tell myself about what a mother is or what a mother is supposed to be, because I think if you look out in the world, like probably they're all like half of the mothers are not ideal, right? Like if you look according to the bell curve, right, half of the mothers are not ideal, the other half are. Like some version of ideal. And so a mother is a conduit. But if God's promises are true, then I can get those maternal needs from many, many places in life. But I still often will remain guarded or too self-reliant or not wanting to be a burden with the women in my life. And so that protects me from having to really be vulnerable or go and say, like, I'm a mess today. And right, like, I don't know. So I think there's this, I want it to come from my mom so that it can be easy rather than me having to confront the places where I still guard my heart because I don't want to feel like a burden or like a mess or like a whatever.

SPEAKER_00:

Does that make sense? So there's there's been this theme in my current relationship, off and on over the five years we've been together, that I still have this thought around I have to do things on my own. And he's told me several times, like you have to get out of your head that you're not alone anymore. You're not on this journey, like I'm right here with you. And that's a really hard concept for me to kind of grasp. And so one of those areas in particular has always been my daughter. I've always been fiercely protective of her when it comes to anyone. I've always felt like it's my sole responsibility to provide for her healing, be her everything, like do all of the things. And I very, very ever rarely let people get close to her in the capacity that she probably would need. So yeah, right. So like last week we had an issue where she was just having a really bad mental health day. And normally what would happen in those, you know, spaces is that it would just be me and her tucked away in her bedroom having conversations. And then I would just fill him in later on whatever happened. But I actually decided, you know what, I'm gonna do something different. So I went upstairs and I told him what was happening, and I said, I really need you to just come downstairs and just be present. Like I don't care in what capacity, but I just really, really am feeling like both of us are needing you in this moment. And so he literally did not say a word. He walked into her room. I laid on one side of her on the bed, and he laid down on the other side, and he just held her and she just sobbed. And he was able to say the most beautiful things to her. He was holding my hand the entire time, and that is the first time that her or I, I feel like, have ever felt safe enough to feel like we are so seen in that moment and just supported, and we're not being judged, and it's not like I have to protect all of this from the world. It's like we're having a really hard moment, and I need this person that I love so deeply to see it and experience it with me and just be there with me through it. And it was a very profound moment. And I told him after, like, I don't think I've ever been more in love with you than I was in that moment, like ever. Because that's exactly what both of us needed in the moment. But what I am learning in this stage of my life is that I have got to got to got to let my walls down. It's just gotta like I have the self-awareness to know if somebody is vibrationally not a match for me, or if they're not safe, or if I'm not safe. But in these settings and situations when my body is just reacting and saying I have to have the walls up and I have to keep soldiering along alone because that's what I've always done, and it's always been this way, and I don't know how to do anything else. Like that is now bullshit in my world. And so I'm really, really challenging myself to in the moments where I want to lean out, I am making myself lean in and seeing what that feels like.

SPEAKER_02:

That's so beautiful and so powerful. It's hard to do it differently, it's hard to break the pattern. Yeah, that's where all the next the things that you've been calling on, the things that you've been manifesting, that's how it comes, right? So often we pray for the things, we manifest the things, and it's so hard to let it in because we have to become a different version of ourselves in order to receive all that abundance. Yeah, yeah. And so it's hard for us to trust that if we put down the old behavior that's protected us for so long, that what we're gonna do is we're gonna let in new abundance that we've been calling, but we have to put down the old thing in order to receive the new thing. And that energy exchange is profoundly powerful, but it feels it feels in the meantime. Yeah. So for recap, the three journal prompts that any woman who wants to invite in a letting go and release of resentment has to be able to sit with an answer is number one, what does your body still want to say that your mouth never got to? And that is both to your ex and to anyone else that hurt you through this divorce process, but also to your original caregivers that set the framework for which you attracted this particular partner in this particular relationship or attachment style pattern. Number two, what are the raw emotions that are hiding under your anger that I cannot bear to feel right now? And I would say, in addition to that, is like, what is your plan to create a safe enough environment in order to be able to feel those feelings and process them? Which is why we advocate for group work and why we love a different D-word, because it's such a wraparound container where you have support available to you 24-7. And that's the type of container, right, where we really feel safe enough to start feeling supported and seen. And the third question is what part of me still wants something from the person who hurt me? And maybe more importantly, how, you know, where do I fear that I can never get that need met from anyone else, including myself? Which is not true, but that's how it feels. So those are our three powerful journal questions that if you can sit with and feel into those and answer those honestly, you will then be well on your way to breaking the pattern and calling in forgiveness and letting go and being freed from resentment. It's not going to happen all at once, but right, this is the massive shift that needs to happen. Thank you so much for trusting us alongside your healing journey. We love you so much. Peace.

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Divorce Recovery Maven Dawn Wiggins

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