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
292. Behind the Mic: My Recent Miscarriage, Masculine Energy & Learning to Receive
This episode is only available to subscribers.
Dear Divorce Diary: Dedicated to Healing
Exclusive access to premium content!Today’s episode is personal, unpolished, and happening in real time.
This is the first in our new premium series, Behind the Mic—where we take you into the conversations that usually happen off-air. And this week, I’m sharing something I’m still moving through: a recent miscarriage.
Inside this conversation, we talk about how this loss collided with my lifelong pattern of staying in masculine energy—overfunctioning, overproducing, and avoiding vulnerability by handling everything myself. We explore why receiving support still feels harder than giving it, how early attachment trauma shaped that, and what happens to a woman’s nervous system and hormones when softness feels unsafe.
You’ll also hear a candid discussion between me, Joy, and Tiff about suppression, self-sacrifice, and the way so many high-achieving women are conditioned to stay “strong” at the expense of their own bodies.
This isn’t a polished teaching moment. It’s us, in the middle of it, naming patterns as they surface and practicing the very tools we teach—IFS, EMDR principles, nervous system awareness—to move through something raw and immediate.
If you’ve ever carried grief alone, struggled to step out of your masculine, or felt terrified to let yourself be supported, this conversation will land in a very specific place.
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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.
There's also a real mindfuck in it. It's like letting go to receive, right? It's like if we make hard choices around here, for me to work, air quotes, work less. What I really mean is produce less. Like, like, I don't know, produce less, right? Can we turn that producing less into more? Yes, but that's paradoxical, right? It's like I don't that hasn't fully clicked that actually when you let go and you leave space and you don't overproduce and you don't overperform, and you let the universe bring in the more, it comes. 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. So, darlings. Hello. I am getting served by the universe a massive memo about hustle and grind in masculine versus feminine energy. And I am getting served a huge opportunity to deepen my faith, to let go more, to become more in my feminine, to really learn for myself and then live out loud the embodiment of the feminine and how boss babe doesn't need to hustle and grind, it needs to receive. But can I tell you it's fucking hard? It's really hard.
SPEAKER_00:I'm like tearing up right now because like I see it all over your face, right? Like I just want to give you a big massive hug, and I'm a few hours away. Yeah. Yeah. But I just I I know you're in it, and it sucks to watch someone that, you know, like, look, ladies, like this relationship that we all have goes way beyond a team. Like these are the sisters that I haven't had. And so when one or more is hurting, it like hurts my soul.
SPEAKER_02:I this weekend, um, my girlfriend picked me up and took me to the OB on a Sunday morning, concierge vibes. Uh and you would think that the thing that I was freaking out about, well, I was, right? I was definitely dissociated parts around grief, you know, baby loss. But the thing that felt the hardest was feeling like a burden or feeling vulnerable in general. It's like I still default into wanting to have it all handled so that I do not have to be vulnerable. And I, you know, like I can't stand because it keeps me locked in masculine and not in feminine. It keeps driving progesterone down. So as much as I have worked on being open to receive, and I think I've done a dang good job of it, there's a deeper layer. Yeah. And it was so clearly tied for me, like as I was walking through this whole like especially this weekend, I would say. I used a lot of um homeopathic remedies that were about maternal support. Um, because that's what's been profoundly lacking in my life, my whole life. It's why, it's how I ended up picking the ex-husband that I did and all the things, right? But what stood out to me so much this weekend is how much my pattern of not being open to receive is about attachment trauma and never feeling seen supported or like I've mattered. Um, I heard you recently talking, Tiffany, about your daughter's um self-sacrificing part. And like as you were telling me about how you were doing IFS with her, and she was describing her self-sacrificing part and how emotional the moment was. It didn't even click for me. But then this weekend, as I was journaling, I was like, Oh, and I was thinking about when my self-sacrificing part got developed. And it's not even a memory that I have, but there's this story that I gave my little stuffed animal Toby to my aunt for her birthday. One year I was like a very little girl, and since then she's returned Toby the stuffed animal to my daughter and wrote like this whole little story about Toby's life, which is so super cool. But like, I think that's the moment where the self-sacrificing part it's like I can't handle your pain and discomfort. I need to manage your feelings because this doesn't feel safe. As a very, very little girl, I learned how to do that. I will sacrifice whatever I am needing in this moment to make sure that you are okay because otherwise that's nobody's okay. And I think that has become such an ingrained part of me. It's wild.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I remember when it first happened, like I said to you, can I call you? And you said no. Well, to be fair. But there was another part of it too that was like, okay, like in this moment I'm respecting it. And then part of me just didn't want to listen to you. I would have been like, well, what would she do if I called right now? Would she really put me in a voicemail?
SPEAKER_02:But you know, no, no, and that's a good point. Like it was a mid the middle mid-morning work morning, right? Like, um, was it Tuesday?
SPEAKER_00:And the lock in, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Right. I had to lock in. Right, but locking in was not the right choice. That was I did, I locked in, right? And that was the choice I made. And so within the context of that choice, that's what I did. But that wasn't the right choice.
SPEAKER_01:I hugged you, and then you and then I got wobbly, and then you c right. So, like, I haven't hugged you since. I don't want to make you wobbly when you need to dig in. But also, like I I think that there's yes, I think that there's time and space for you to dig in, but there are some you know like to go down to to put your head down and get stuff done. Um I don't know where I'm going with this. Um But I think that's the default around here is to put your head down and just get stuff done?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. We're all very masculine in that way. Like we're all hustle and grind. And I even said to Dawn, like last week or whatever, like all this stuff that you're going through and you share enjoy, you share with stuff, like we share stuff together. Yeah. But there's stuff that I still don't share. There's stuff that I still keep inside, which sucks because I feel like you guys, vulnerability-wise, are coming to the table much harder than me. And I don't think that's fair. It's not a good dynamic. And so for me, it's like I'm trying to push myself to say, look, like, there's some stuff that I'm comfortable talking about in the group and the team, but then there's other stuff that I'm just coming in and just saving face and acting like I'm okay, which let's be honest, we all know when each other's not. So like I'm sitting here suppressing when really it's like I need to say, hey, like this happened last night or this morning, and I'm feeling some type of a way about it.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting concept to think about suppression as masculine.
SPEAKER_03:Oh. Have we ever talked about that? No. But also That's so right, though. That's so true. Right, right. Yeah, if you're in our masculine, go to war, right? And you suppress to go to war. Uh-huh. Yeah. Whoa. We're supposed to feel, we're supposed to flow.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I'm wondering too, like, when I would get those adrenaline rushes in corporate, when I would be running companies and going in and running these big meetings and things would get crazy and I'd be the one to diffuse. Like, I literally sit back and I think to myself, how either number one dissociated was I during all of those times, and number two, like that inner badass part, like she was in there and she was in there a lot, and it would give me like this fake adrenaline rush. But afterwards, I remember feeling so depleted. Like it would never give me the energy I needed. It would just feel depleted, and I think it was so performative.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think, like, I don't think it's that we're supposed to like divorce ourselves, lol, of our masculine. I think it's that because of the attachment trauma, the early, early childhood stuff, right? We ended up stuck in a gear. And it's not even just early attachment trauma, it's our society. Our society does not value the feminine. Our society celebrates, and I think this is like a World War I, World War II issue where we sent women to work and we never brought them home. And then feminism took root and it and we fucking ran with feminism, and feminism is a crock of shit. Like, are we worthy as worthy as men? I would argue maybe even more so, but we are not equal. Like, we are not supposed to be the same. We are as worthy, but we are not supposed to be the same. And it literally kills us a little bit at a time to try to be equal with men. We were meant to be very, very different. So I think we sent women to work in World War II, we launched feminism, and then and then we had like the boomer parents who were not emotionally available on any level. And um, here we are, we have our generation that is like a a generation of women who are so suppressed and repressed, we are locked into our masculine and unwinding that is a profound mission. And then, like, you know, because uh this whole thing that I'm sort of facing about pregnancy loss and being 45 and like the thing I'm trying to do to have a baby at this age, it's like obscene or absurd. I don't know, anyways, but I'm gonna do it so, but like when you think about how we as a society value women past 45, like I guarantee you if we went and polled women who were 50, 60, 70, 80 and asked them how valued they feel in our society, like once you are not young and beautiful, how valuable do you feel? What role do you feel like you have in this society? I would guess we would all have answers that would be like, it's not good. Um, and so I just think there's this thing that as women, it's such it's time to rise into our femininity in such a profound way. But then we're all so depleted on a cellular level, like, and this is why we have started creating the products that we have. And it's just I was talking to ChatGPT this weekend, and I was like, if it's taking this level of rehabilitation of my own endocrine system, like how many women in the world are gonna need this level of support with these types of products that we're developing, right? And Chat was like, it's not thousands, it's not hundreds of thousands, it's hundreds of millions of women. We're all so depleted.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like it takes such a long time for nervous system recovery if you're not actively in healing, right? So, like for me, without the tools, like I still had tools and it still took me a long time. I mean, I sit here and I think, I wish I'd be retired if I had money for every time that my current partner has asked me, why do you still feel like you're so alone in this? Like, why do you not understand that you have a partner? And it is taking him years to get through to me that way to even chip away at what I have going on, because I've just always been conditioned to not 100% rest on the laurels because then once I do, then the other shoe's gonna drop and everything's gonna go to shit.
SPEAKER_02:Like feeling like something's chasing me.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah, like never feeling like if I look away for one second and trust that everything's gonna be okay, the universe is gonna come crashing out and be like, Well, you're fucked.
SPEAKER_02:You know what I mean? Like conscious. I don't think it's like a conscious thing I do every day. I think consciously, like, I plan my day around spaciousness and playing yacht rock and I don't know, have a having a delicious, healthy meal and connecting with my people and like building a business I love working in with the women I love, you know. Like I think consciously that's what I do, but it's like very low hum in the background.
SPEAKER_00:It's the whispering parts, the parts that are still whispering, like she's still hanging out. It's just a matter of on the days when I feel emotionally depleted, I might tend to listen to her a little bit more than I would when I'm not so much in self, you know. So, and I think work doing this type of work, and like I watch other women that are in the mental health space that I know personally be depleted in their personal lives and how much it affects them professionally because they can't show up every day, either one or the other, you know. It's it's definitely interesting to kind of see how all of us as a team work together when all of us are very we we do carry a lot of masculine energy and we're all very hustling grind type women.
SPEAKER_02:And I think if it's all three of us, it must be most of our listeners.
SPEAKER_00:It has to be. For sure. I feel like we attract a lot of that. Like we just attract a lot of women who are the hustle and grind badasses that are just tired. They're just tired.
SPEAKER_02:And like it hustle and grind doesn't just mean work, like you know, um, you can hustle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, everything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's about driving, performing, it's about self-sacrificing, it's about not honoring what's good for your body.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I feel like it took me a long time to step into my feminine, and even like I remember friends would be shocked when they find out that I would lay in bed on weekend nights and watch Hallmark. Because but that was my jam. Like, that's what I wanted, you know. Like I was the badass, but then in my private life, the things that I pined for privately were like those beautiful Hallmark moments in towns, and I wanted somebody to just like fall in love with me and see me. Yeah, you know, like grow snowballs with. Yeah, like I just had a very soft side that that did not make an appearance. She she makes an appearance now. I would say I'm like 40, 60. Of like, she's making an appearance 40% of the time. I would love to like switch that, and I still have to actively work on it, but it's something that I actively have to choose every day to lean into being a nurturer and in the feminine and all of that.
SPEAKER_01:I think that takes knowing yourself. Yeah. It takes knowing yourself and letting go of the control, letting go of the that masculine part of handing it back to whoever is needing you to be the masculine, whether it's your child or your partner or whatever. It's like setting expectations and rules and boundaries, whatever you want to call them, on yourself and those around you to maintain that vibration or maintain that decision or maintain that level of femininity and softness.
SPEAKER_02:There's also a real mindfuck in it. It's like letting go to receive, right? It's like if we make hard choices around here, for me to work, air quotes, work less. What I really mean is produce less. Like, like, I don't know, produce less, right? Um can we turn that producing less into more? Yes, but that's paradoxical, right? It's like I don't that hasn't fully clicked that actually when you let go and you leave space and you don't overproduce and you don't overperform, and you let the universe bring in the more, it comes. And I have seen that every step of the way. Like, I tell this story many times on the podcast, probably in the earlier episodes, where it was more top of mind for me. But years ago, I took my hands off my book, meaning like my calendar of patients. I would used to like when somebody canceled or rescheduled, I would immediately try to fill the spot. And now I just anytime there's a cancel or reschedule, I'm just like, what else? The universe is gonna create my book exactly the way that it's meant to be. There's gonna be gaps where there needs to be gaps for my mental health. There's gonna be spaces for someone who needed that appointment to just pop in. And it is the coolest thing to watch how the universe will take a hole and either fill it or not fill it on my behalf or the behalf of somebody who's in crisis. It is the coolest thing. And we're just talking about doing that next level, next level, next level. Um, really co-creating with the universe, co-creating with each each other, letting go of things that are harmful to receive more things that are abundant. But man, that control, that thought that we can control it better is so sneaky.
SPEAKER_00:It is. And I'm just sitting here thinking, you know how they always say that nice guys finish last, right? I feel like in my mind it was always the feminine girl finishes last, right? Like she's the one that's gonna be taken advantage of. People think I'm too nice.
SPEAKER_02:Well, right, I I do think that the nice guy finishes last because he's not in his masculine, and so he fucking does. But the nice girl also finishes last because it's not about being nice, it's about being fire and flow and fierce, right? Woman is fierce, she creates like literal human life in her womb. Her gut, her instinct, her intuition are like direct bat phones to an intelligent creator. Fierce woman finishes first, not nice girl, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Um but there's a level, right, between fierceness and softness, stepping over, and I always was the one that stepped over. Yeah, into masculine. Yeah. Yeah. Even the stories I would tell people. Like masculine, correct. Well, I'll tell you I my tattoo on my back, perfect example. So I got my ex's name tattooed on me. Don't ever do that, ladies, but it's there. So when I went back in to get the cover job, um, I did a lot of research on it and I realized that I wanted tiger lilies on my back. And tiger lilies have always been my favorite flower. Well, the meaning of tagger lilies is I dare you to love me. And that is on my body. That's we're covering it one more time. No, we might. I don't know how else I'm gonna cover this one. It might just be a big black blob. But that's what the significance of a tiger lily is is I dare you to love me, and that's how I felt. Um, there's a lot of things. Can we switch that to like I dare you? Like, I dare you to love me. Like, like meaning, you know, in the pop in the affirmative. I didn't see it as an affirmative, but yeah. Right. But like there's a line too that always used to, it just used to crack me up, and me and one of my best friends, we would always go back and forth on this because it would just make us laugh. But it's from the Adams family, and it's at the very end where Wednesday went to summer camp and she She brings this guy home and he's so in love with her. And and he's like, But what would you do if you found this guy that worshipped the ground you worked on and adored you? And she looked at him and she's like, I'd pity him. And that's how I felt. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, over the years, is like, boy, if you get locked in with me, like buckle up. Um, yeah. Cause it was gonna be a ride and probably not a great one. Being with you is the best ride. I feel that way now. I didn't feel that way before. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So today we are recording this podcast with me in bed. Yeah, Dawn's in bed right now. She's all snuggly. Yeah. Uh and my mission as the visionary CEO is to lead from a place of embodied feminine fierceness. And I am stepping into it messy. I am still rehabilitating this meat suit I wear. Um, and I'm doing it with all the tools that I offer the two of you in our community, and to teach you everything I know. And I promise you, we are ahead of the curve over here. Like, we are ahead of the curve. The things that we are offering are things you will only will only gain popularity like years from now, right? We are early, we are early on scene, which is very cool. Um, but before things become popular, you know, sometimes they're hard to grasp.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think that the biggest testament over here is the fact that, you know, we have pillars. We have IFS, we have homeopathy, we have all of these pillars and beautiful tools that we believe in. But I think the biggest testament is that we use them in our families. I do IFS with my daughter, I treat my family homeopathically, you know, I I treat myself homeopathically. These are things that I believe in that transform so black and white, night and day.
SPEAKER_02:Um that, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I was laying in bed with my husband last night. We were having our normal fight. Same fight, same fight we always have. And I was like channeling my inner Tiffany. And I was like, there is a part that is inside of my husband that is so freaking sneaky, and it sabotages this moment every single time we have this fight. And I kept telling him, Okay, you could press play on the show we're watching, but then I was like, no, no, no, no. Until I talk to this part tonight in IFS, right? Like, until I just like have words with this part tonight, like, we are not shutting this down. And so then um, I was like, What feeling are you avoiding feeling? Because I was like, How do I access this part? He doesn't know how to access it. It's like late at night, and I'm so tired, right? And all the things. And I'm like, what feeling are you avoiding feeling? And from the conversation we had had earlier, he's like, Well, I guess happiness. Happiness is what I'm avoiding feeling. And so then I asked him to butterfly tap, right? I started started self-administering EMDR, and he couldn't get there. And so then I was like, I need you to get up and walk and pace while you tap. You are someone who moves, your job moves, like you're a mover, you're someone who needs to analyze something and walk around it five times to understand it every. I just need you to walk and butterfly tap, and then hot damn within one set, he was dropped in and he processed things. I have never heard him process before. It was unbelievable. It was pitch black in our room and he was pacing around butterfly tapping, talking to his two, there were two blended parts. Yeah, we use this shit at home, right? Yeah, and it's what makes and you know what I was one of the things I was thinking of, like, ladies, find yourself a man that will choose healing. Like, if you don't choose a man who will choose healing, you've got nothing. Nothing. If he can't heal, if he can't choose to heal himself, what is he gonna do for you? Like, what could he possibly give you if he can't choose wellness? Nothing. Like, yeah, my husband and I are not perfect people. We are in this messy human thing with you, like doing the deal. But like, we choose healing. And if like I can't tell you how many women we've talked to and their partners, you know, and like the guy, some of the guys I picked after getting divorced, like they couldn't choose healing, right? Like, and if you cannot choose healing, then the only thing you are gonna offer me big picture long term is destruction.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, destruction. I agree. And it's difficult, right? Like, you know, my partner now, like he was married for you know, with his ex-wife for 15 years. He was never committed to anything like that, you know. Um, coming into this relationship with me, it's like um he's started using tools, right? He's yeah, like we're we're having these very deep conversations, and you know what? They're not always comfortable, you know, they're not always comfortable, but he's doing it and he's putting in the work. And so I'm here and we're working through things together. And you know, it is it is difficult, but again, if you have a guy that's willing to go there with you and not just and and that was me in past relationships, take me or leave me. If you don't fucking like it, I'm not changing, you know, and that was who I was before, that was the caliber of men I dated before. Um, this is a whole new, whole new thing um of like eye-opening for both of us to both own our own shit and be accountable. Because I never was willing to admit that before either. I'm never wrong.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, and and the whole thing, right? Men are designed to provide and protect. And when they're not living in that, provide and protect. And by protect, that means treating you like a woman and not a man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_02:And so when women, when men are not living in alignment of providing and protecting, that distorted energy can be incredibly destructive to their to their success and wellness and ultimately to ours, right? I that is my new gold standard, is for men to provide and protect. And protecting me means treating me like a woman, not like a man, not like your equal. I'm not your equal. I am your superior, fierce, like conduit for all of creation, muse. And that is the standard of care that I expect now. I dare you to love me.
SPEAKER_00:There you go. We're gonna tag it. I'm gonna make t-shirts.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, so good. So good. Let's see what you got. All right, darlings. So curious what everyone feels about this new format we're gonna do from time to time behind the mic.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, let us know how you like it.
SPEAKER_02:Let us know. Yeah, like your feedback is invaluable. Okay, love you. Bye. Bye. Bye guys. You can find more at mycoachdawn.com.
