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 for women navigating life after divorce. Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast for women dealing with grief, loneliness, anxiety, anxious or avoidant attachment, and identity loss after divorce — especially when quick fixes, positivity, and spiritual fluff no longer work.
I’m Dawn Wiggins, therapist, coach, and homeopath, and this show goes where most divorce advice won’t: into your nervous system, your unspoken grief, your buried rage, and the parts of you that shut down just to survive.
Through honest conversation, somatic tools, EMDR- and IFS-informed work, and nervous-system support, each episode helps you feel instead of perform healing — and rebuild safety, confidence, and self-trust from the inside out.
You’ll hear raw solo episodes, real voice notes from women in the trenches, and intimate conversations with experts who don’t just talk about healing — they embody it.
If you’re tired of being told to “move on” while your body is still bracing, this podcast is your place to land. Your nervous system already knows the truth — it just needs a space that can hold it.
Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce
295. Day 1: Divorce During the Holidays | Nervous System Support When You Feel Like You Can’t Do This
Welcome to Day 1 of the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas...also known as the 12 days of becoming her again.
If you’re listening today, there’s a good chance part of you feels like:
“I can’t do this.”
Not the holidays.
Not the decisions.
Not the weight of doing this alone.
This episode isn’t here to convince you otherwise.
It’s here to help you understand that when you feel like you can’t, it’s not weakness or victimhood — it’s a capacity issue, not a character flaw.
In today’s episode, we talk about:
- Why feeling like “I can’t do this” often means your system is depleted, not broken
- How divorce grief and the holidays quietly drain nervous system capacity
- Why being “too strong for too long” eventually leads to collapse
- What actually increases capacity (and what doesn’t)
- A short, gentle vagal breathing practice to help your body downshift in real time
This is not a big breakthrough episode.
It’s a grounding episode.
Water.
Food.
Breath.
Connection.
The basics that matter when everything feels like too much.
You don’t need to fix your life today.
You just need enough capacity to stay present.
And today, that’s enough.
🎄 About the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas
The 12 Days of Divorce Christmas is a daily, nervous-system-first series designed to support you through one of the hardest seasons after divorce.
Days 1, 2, and 9 are available on the public feed.
The remaining days — and the full experience — live inside Dear Divorce Diary Premium.
Inside Premium for $5/mo, you’ll get:
- Access to all 12 days of the series
- Monthly premium workshops
- Deeper, steadier support when talk therapy alone isn’t enough
If this episode helped your body soften even a little, the rest of the series is there to continue that support — one regulated day at a time.
Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.
Or stay with us here today — and come back tomorrow.
Capacity builds in connection. Hugs ❤️
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.
Welcome to the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas, aka the 12 Days of Becoming Her Again. This is an opportunity for us to be together for 12 days in a row for you to have a mini transformation in a season that is really effing hard. The full 12 days of Christmas is available to our premium subscribers, along with the premium workshops that go along every month with being a premium subscriber. But for those that are not premium subscribers, you will get to do a couple of the days of the 12 days of divorce Christmas with us. Hi, love. Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorce days 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. Welcome. Let's dig in. Today is day one. And today we're acknowledging I can do this. Because most days right now, you feel like I can't frickin' do this. There is something about this that I cannot handle. I cannot stand. I cannot do. I cannot stand, right? Like how many times can we just imagine in a day we think or feel the feelings associated with I can't stand it. I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00:I used to Yeah, go. I used to say, I'm not strong enough. Like I'm not strong enough to do this.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think actually the problem is we've been too strong for too long, right? We are actually strong enough, but we've been too strong for too long until like, oh, oops, collapses around the corner. But for today, I really want to speak into the idea that when we feel like we can't, there's a lot of times that that sounds like victimhood, like, poor me, please pity me. This isn't fair. It's what happened to me, not for me, right? But what I want you to hear me say today is that when we feel self-pity and when we feel stuck, and when we feel like we can't, it's because there's some limitation in our capacity somewhere that we have not broken through or cleared out. There is some level of depletion or limitation in our body, mind, spirit that needs to be identified and moved so that our capacity can grow. That's what we do here with every tool we use. When we do IFS, we are unburdening parts. It immediately improves your capacity. When we take a homeopathic remedy, it clears energetic blocks and you immediately get an increase in capacity. Of course, these things lead to, when we do somatic releases, right, it unblocks something and then you get an increased capacity. And of course, all of those things lead to your nervous system downshifting, which leads to improved sleep, which leads to improved, you know, it's all works together to improve literally your energy and capacity. So for today, we're gonna breathe together around the idea that I can do this. We're gonna do a tiny little capacity upgrade today. Because while we're not gonna do some major massive breakthrough in this moment, what we know can ground capacity is connection with self, connection with somebody else, being grounded in our body and our breath, being well fed, well hydrated, and well loved. Right? Those things right there, safe in a moment, are um momentary capacity upgrade.
SPEAKER_00:Anything you would add, Joy? I do want to point out the hydrated, I think um minerally mineral water, not wine. Like um, there's a difference of high fluids in your body.
SPEAKER_01:Hydrated with grapes.
SPEAKER_00:Hydrated with grapes, mineral water, uh, put cell salts in your water, not tap water, not you know, like not chemically laced water, just a good hydration, not good hydration. The spirits.
SPEAKER_02:Well said. We were just giggling earlier today about I ordered these wine bottle labels for some family members that said in honor of Jesus' birthday, here's this bottle of water. We're not, that's not the kind of hydrated we mean. That's not what we're talking about here, ladies. That's not what we're talking about. Yeah. All right, so take a moment to check in. Are you hydrated? If not, fetch a glass of water. Have you had a snack? A healthy snack, right? So, and listen, my dad brought duck donuts over again this week, and praise, they were delicious. But like, have you had an actual food-based snack today? Like an apple, a banana, a fruit, a vegetable, a plant, something not highly processed, something that doesn't have seed oils in it. Like, just have you had some food that's nourishing, nourishing to your body, right? That's that's like some protein. Yeah. Do you feel like you're in your body or connected with your body? If not, we're gonna we're gonna work towards that in a moment. Do you feel connected, seen or heard with someone else right now? Maybe that's us in this moment. Does your heart feel a little more open? You're here with us right now. Or is there somebody else that you need to send a text message to and just be like, I need to feel connected? You know, that little meme with Pooh and Piglet where Piglet's like walking us alongside Pooh and he's like, Pooh, and Pooh is like, Yes, Piglet. And he's like, I just needed to be sure of you, right? Like that's right there when we feel sure of someone. It's a tiny little capacity upgrade that gives us the moment, like, okay, I can do this. I can do this. Yeah. All right. So let's take a couple of rounds of breath together. And we have an episode about this, like way far back, probably in what joy? This is like OG, Don and Joy, season one or season two.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um vagal breathing. It was inspired by a book I was reading by Deepak Chopra, where he talks about um quantum healing uh and the power of the vagal breath. The vagal breath is just a breath where your exhale is longer than your inhale, and your inhale goes down into your belly so that your diaphragm touches your vagus nerve. That is literally what cues the nervous system to say, like, oh, there's no tyrannosaur chasing me right now. So drop in with Joy and I. We're just gonna soften in this moment. Let your shoulders drop, let your jaw release. It is safe to come into your body. You can do these 12 days of Christmas, and please stay with us all 12 days so that you can get the full benefit. Let's just start with a nice big, deep, messy breath. Like I said in another episode, like you're breathing in the scent of freshly baked bread down into your belly. Let's just first start there. Let's just get one big messy breath. Just notice how that felt. A little hold at the top and then just let it out however you want to. Whatever feels good to you. Okay, just notice. Did it get stuck in your chest? Could it get into your belly? Let's just do one more messy breath, just for you to notice where your breath is right now. See if you can send it down into your belly, see if you can get your belly to go as far out. Like, show me food, food baby belly, right? Just like breathe deep down in there. Ready? Here we go. Nice big inhale. Whole little hold at the top, and maybe let it out with a sigh or like a whine or like a nice. Okay, I want you a little shoulder roll, little shoulder roll. We're just getting into the body, getting into the body. Little jaw, jaw roll, like really stretch it out, stretching out the jaw. Ow, wow, wow, wow. I can do this. I am upgrading my capacity right now by getting into my body. Maybe a little stretch up, big up with the arms, big round with the arms, like just really coming home into your body to be connected with yourself, connected with us. You can do this. All right, let's do three rounds of vagal breath. It's like nothing. It's hardly any skin in the game, right? So we're gonna do a deep inhale into the belly. We're gonna hold for a couple of beats, and then we're gonna exhale for longer than you inhale. I'm not even gonna count it out because I don't want to stress you out with you trying to match my count. Trust your body, trust your response. Make your exhale longer than your inhale. Okay, joyous. Let's do this thing where scale of zero to ten right now, before your three breaths. Okay. What's your level of tension in the body? Zero to ten. Level of tension in the body currently. Mine's higher than I want to admit right now.
SPEAKER_00:I would say, um I am gonna put myself back in the season that this would have been a lifeline for me. And it would have been like Yeah, yeah, but really high, right?
SPEAKER_02:But but literally right now for you. So, listener, like pick your number right now, level of tension in the body. I'm gonna give me a six right now. It's higher than I'd like. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I'm I'm probably about two or three. I feel pretty um rejuvenized cut coming off the weekend, right? Like it's um I haven't been around my children enough to get jammed.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. All right, so you're two or three. I'm like a five-six. Let's do our three rounds of vagal breath. I'm gonna sort of like pretend I'm not recording a podcast episode right now, so I can just do it, which probably means I might not facilitate or guide as well as I may normally do, right? But I want this real pre and post. After three good vagal breaths, does the number move, right? Okay, so loves, you are gonna take a deep inhale into the belly, you are gonna hold for a couple of beats, and then you're gonna do a nice long exhale. I trust you to have sovereignty over your body, you can handle it. You don't need me to count it out for you. Ready, set? Let's do it. Okay, I snuck in a fourth breath. And on the fourth breath, I shifted.
SPEAKER_00:I saw you I saw you yawn. Yeah, that's right. That's how you know the downshift is how you know. Yeah, that was that was on the fourth breath. Which I did not know until we started doing these exercises that yawning is a nervous system response. So if you're yawning, listen to your body.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it can be more than one thing, right? Because I have this happens with a lot of male patients, they yawn while being vulnerable, and it's actually a sign of some nervous system activation, right? One way or the other. It's interesting. So is it in that when they express the thing, then they downshift, or is it they're expressing the thing and they're activated? I don't, I don't know. Be it, it's an interesting thing to study, but a lot of men yawn when they've said something vulnerable. So it is, it's a nervous system sign, right? Yeah. Okay, loves. What are you noticing in your body? There's another one. When Joy popped in with her little cues, I was like, oh, she's got us. She's got us. That was awesome. I definitely am more like four five now instead of five, six.
SPEAKER_00:Excellent, excellent. I could like, I think if I were just to like walk outside and get some sun on my face, I might just like lay down on the ground. Just completely yeah, I feel pretty good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, darlings, what we want you to hear is yes, this shit you're doing right now is hard. And in many ways, there are elements of it that you can't yet do. That's true. Like you can't yet emphasis on yet. And when you feel like you can't, what you need is a capacity upgrade, not a radically different change in your circumstances. You need a capacity upgrade, and this is how you do it. Today we're keeping it basic: water, hydration, food, connection, embodiment. That's your mission. We love you so much. Peace.
