313. Divorce, Faith, and the Cost of Marrying an Under-Functioning Man

After divorce, women are often told to “step into their masculine energy” — be strong, decisive, productive, self-sufficient.

But what if you’re not choosing strength at all?

What if your body simply doesn’t expect help to arrive? And, do you know what to do about this?

In this episode of Dear Divorce Diary, we talk about why so many women feel stuck in over-functioning after divorce — and why what looks like competence is often a nervous system stuck in survival mode.

You’ll learn:

• Why safety must come before softness
• How over-functioning becomes a substitute for trust
• Why feminine energy doesn’t show up just because you tell yourself to relax
• How childhood beliefs quietly shape the partners we attract
• Why receiving help can trigger guilt, shame, or emotional shutdown
• The difference between true support and trying to be “held” before you feel safe

We also share insights from hundreds of women who’ve taken our Divorce Recovery Nervous System Quiz, revealing how most women actually feel when someone tries to help them — and why that reaction keeps them stuck in burnout.

And stay until the end for My Body Said No, where we each share a real moment when honoring a physical “no” — instead of pushing through — changed everything.

If you’re exhausted, capable, and secretly wondering why rest feels impossible…
 this episode will name what your body has been trying to tell you.

💛 Want help applying this work in real time?
Inside The Room Where It Happens (our premium Thursday episodes), we guide you through the nervous system and belief-level shifts that make softness possible again.

🎧 Links to the community, quiz, and premium episodes are in the show notes.

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.

Transcript

Safety Before Softness

SPEAKER_03 0:00

During and after divorce, it's implied that women need to step into their masculine energy, be strong, decisive, productive, and self-sufficient. And what we've started yelling from the rooftops is women aren't choosing masculine energy. We're stuck in it. Not because we crave control, but because our nervous systems do not expect help to arrive. So when there's no room to rest or receive or wait, what looks like strength in women is really actually survival mode, like in a business casual blazer. So today we're going to talk about why feminine energy feels so unreachable during and after divorce and what has to change in order to make it available again. 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. All right, in today's episode, we're going to unpack how safety precedes softness. And acknowledge that overfunctioning is not a personality trait. It's not something you're stuck with, right? It's what your body has learned if you have believed that if you don't manage everything, no one will. And relaxation feels irresponsible if you've built your life on a belief that you have to do it all. And that belief system is what we're really going to dig into. Later in the episode, we're going to talk about how overfunctioning becomes a stand-in for trust. When we struggle to trust the universe, each other, ourselves. Feminine energy doesn't magically appear because you decide to relax on a Sunday. It shows up when your system senses something solid outside of you exists to support you. So I want you to, as we're digging into the episode, I want you to count right now how many things in your life outside of you feel solid and strong enough for you to lean into. Then at the end of the episode, this is going to be good. You're going to want to stay till the end. We are doing our segment called My Body Said No. And so this is where each of the three of us shares an experience or an example of where our body said no to doing something that maybe in our minds we hadn't fully accepted or received yet. All right. Help me welcome the ladies. Good morning, Sunshines. Hey. Good morning. Ladies. Can I tell you a divorce stroke? Yes. Yes, please. These, I'm not sure they're good, but we're gonna try it. Okay. Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two hearts and a diamond, and end with a club and a spade. These are dark.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Okay, you're married about somebody?

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Okay, right, right. Why did the couple break up at the gym? This is so bad.

SPEAKER_04 3:20

They were working out! Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Oh my god. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Okay, okay, one more, one more. Oh, this is terrible. Why did the divorced woman cross the road? To get to her own side of the story. Okay. I think these jokes are not funny.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

They're terrible.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

The first one was funny though.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

I mean, every woman's gonna relate a club and a spade. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trust, Control, And Survival Mode

SPEAKER_03 3:58

We are here to help you hide the body. Just kidding, just kidding, just kidding. Okay, darlings. Let's talk about how in divorce and divorce recovery, safety has to precede softness. But here's the spicy thing. We are actually like poisoning our own sense of safety by believing, like living into a belief, functioning in a belief that we probably picked up at a very young age. It's probably been programmed into us from a very young age, that we have to do it all, that we have to function masculinely during and after divorce. That even in our marriages, right? That we had to do it all, we had to hold down the fort, we had to be the hub of the wheel, you know, that no one, no one is gonna be there for us. I know I lived from that place profoundly from a very young age, that I had to be perfect and I had to do it all, and that asking for help meant that I was failing. And so something I think that's become very popular on Instagram, TikTok, uh, and and I'm here for it is the conversation about masculine versus feminine energy. But how can we ever move into our feminine when we've been living from a belief system that says, I can't trust the universe, I can't trust my husband or my ex. I can't trust my intuition because all I got is anxiety and control. I can't trust my family, I can't trust you know what I mean? Like we just we have this sort of ongoing narrative about all the things we can't trust, and then and then it becomes easier, at least in my life, I think for a long time, it became easier to feel like a martyr or a victim than it did to own that yes, I was born into a family system or a belief system in society, right, that um has played out in this way that men underfunction and perhaps they do, right? And that women have to overfunction, have to overfunction. What do your bodies say to that? What comes to mind?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

All of this comes from younger parts of us, everything. So whether you have tendencies to be a perfectionist when you were younger, and that's how you get safety, whether you feel like you need control to get safety, there's something deep down in you that felt like somewhere along the way, if I don't do everything, I'm not safe. And so then what you've done is you've then started to carry that into relationships in your life, probably with friends, family, and also insert marriage one, two, three here, right? So it's kind of like until you learn to break the cycle of what is really at the core of those behaviors, you're gonna continue to overfunction and you're also going to continue to attract men who are low-functioning men. Because a man who is an equal partner does not want an over-functioning wife. Yeah. Yeah. Mic drop. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 7:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

So it starts with IFS. It starts with figuring out where in your past this started and what is that perceived sense of safety and why you keep chasing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

I was raised with a very strong belief system, right? Like a Christian faith belief system. And I remember I was probably, I was very, very young, maybe seven, nine, twelve, I don't know, not 12, maybe seven or nine. When I was sitting at the dinner table and my before my parents got divorced, and my dad was like, okay, but like if you jump off the balcony right now, like, is God gonna save you? You're going to die. And I remember feeling obligated to say on behalf of my mom and like what she had um raised me to believe that God would save me, which is fairly ridiculous, right? But I think there's this thing that happened for me where I was given a set of beliefs that I learned but weren't integrated or embodied. I didn't necessarily capital B believe them. And I think it's been a journey from that moment at the dinner table till now for me to really be able to be in touch with an intelligent creator and feel that sense of guidance in my life and my ability to receive that guidance, trust that guidance, that it is ever coming. And I think that played out in my first marriage and even to an extent in my second marriage that I attracted men who hadn't fully come into their own yet, right? Who didn't have their own sense of agency or confidence, like inner confidence, right? And so then we end up in roles as mothers rather than like shrew. I was like a shrew mother, like not.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

And I'm laughing because I relate. I'm laughing because both of my husbands were very low-functioning men who I felt more like a babysitter and a mom. You know, especially my second husband. He was very young, he was 21 years old. He went straight from mom's house into mine. He had never operated a vacuum, he had never learned how to do it. Mine had never written a check. Yeah. Yes, yeah. Like, so I'm laughing because I'm like, oh my God, yes. Like, and I continued to attract those same types. And felt like a babysitter.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

And in my now marriage, it's been a dance, right? Of me becoming less shrew-like and more feminine and him, you know, functioning in a more integrated, grounded way. But it's been a journey we've taken on together, which is lovely. It's, you know, it's got its challenges, but it's lovely to be on a journey with somebody and recognize that we both have a part to play in the dynamics.

unknown 9:51

Yeah.

How Early Beliefs Shape Partners

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Where everything stems for me is like feeling like growing up, this very much lack of control. And so for me, it was like control equaled safety. And I have to be able to control everything because if if I don't, everything's gonna fall apart, people are gonna leave me, I'm gonna lose everything. So I learned at a very young age that I was responsible for juggling all the balls. And I feel like there were areas in my life when I was younger that this 100% was an amazing protective part. And that's what I would say to every woman out there that has these things from childhood. 100% protected you, and you have these badass parts that are beautiful. But something then shifts when you become an adult that when you continue to try to juggle all the balls, you continue the sense of control, it doesn't work anymore. It doesn't work anymore. So isolating.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

I'm gonna add to that. So, like, all right, we've got the ball juggling protector part, right? And then add to that my perfectionist protector part. So then, so then even asking for help or receiving help, even from you, right? Like, and I say you, like the two of you, but I really mean like the global you, because for me, from until I would say the last, you know, maybe five, six, seven years, asking for help even felt like I was failing, or not not being perfect at everything felt like I was failing. How can you ever have community or receive support or guidance or ever feel feminine if even help feels threatening, right? And so when safety doesn't come from the experience of community, from the experience of support, from the experience of, you know, love outside of what you're producing, like, gosh, that is a prescription for burnout, you know, unhealthy love, unhealthy friendships, unhealthy, you know, parenting with your children. Like, it's just a prescription for all of that to like fall apart eventually. And so I think that as women, we have to be willing to own our part of perpetuating the belief system. And changing your beliefs is one of the hardest pieces of work I think we do in the beginning. Because the belief that help is right around the corner feels so out of reach. It cre it kicks up so much cognitive dissonance, right? Because we've got so much lived data to the contrary, and the brain loves to just pull from that lived data to say, like, no, this, this, that's bullshit, Don. That belief is not true, right? And so I think to help women change their belief system is so much of what we do around here. And P.S. This is a plug for the Thursday episode because the Thursday episode, which is a premium episode, the room where it happens, on Tuesday we learn, on Thursday we apply for$5 a month. Thursday, we help you reprogram that negative belief. Because if you don't do that, and I literally ranted this to a dear friend of mine who's getting divorced, who's not in our program this weekend. It's like she's working so hard to change her life and to show up for her kids and to navigate the difficulties of divorce, but it's not grounded in a belief system that is like, I am a good person, I am worthy of love and support, I am worthy of abundance, I, you know, can be a beacon of trust and whatever for myself and for my boys. And it when you're doing this work and it's not grounded in a belief system that is affirming, you are leaking energy left, right, and center.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

And never feeling I feel like a lot of our clients also come to us and they say, Well, how do I know that I'm operating a masculine? You know, because they don't even recognize when they're doing it anymore. So for me, it's like I always ask them, like, how does it feel when somebody shows up for you? How does it feel when you get a text checking on you or somebody randomly sends you flowers? And they immediately start to cry. And that's how you know. Because when you are sitting in masculine, it's like you have a hard time receiving. And there is something that is associating with pity or guilt or shame around people showing up for you. And that is something that you learned way, way, way long ago.

Community vs Lone Wolf Living

SPEAKER_03 14:06

So, and I'm gonna add to that because you know, we've been running this quiz, right? The nervous system quiz uh is helps women identify their nervous system patterns and overlaid with their hormonal patterns and how they're actually moving through the grief process of divorce. And so I want to read to you the results that women are telling us. So this is the entirety of um the women who, which I think we're up to like 400 women have taken the quiz. So if you haven't taken it, like link in bio, um, we'll drop it in the show notes. Here's what women are saying 50% of the women who have taken our quiz say that when someone tries to help them, they feel feel overwhelmed or unsure how to receive. 57% of you, that's what you've answered. 29% feel guilty for being helped, 10% feel unworthy or invisible invisible, and 4% feel angry or defensive. So, like, wow, right? Of course we're stuck in masculine, of course we don't feel safe because we don't we we are programmed to believe that we are failing if we're generations we've been spoken into that women can do everything, and women like you can have the CEO job and the lovely home with the white picket fence and the 2.5 children and the all the things.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Well, it's just like it's it's ingrained in us to that we can do everything, and and like it's not the way we were created.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Well, and maybe we can, but not in the way that men can, right? Like maybe we can have beautiful careers and beautiful families and beautiful all the things, but it can't look the way it looks in execution, right? To have it all, we would have to have close-knit female friends and community to help back us up. We would have to have really strong support systems that have our backs. We would be able to have to humbly ask for help all the time. We would have to not be going to work nine to five because that's not, you know, however many days in the month because that's not how our cycles, you know, like we would have to do it so very differently for us to quote unquote have it all. Women were never supposed to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Something to sister wives. 100% right that beautiful community of women supporting women. That's why our program is so different.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Like that's absolutely right. The community that we built in, and that's what we're modeling, right? Like, let's just think about what before we hopped on to record this episode, and this is something we are learning to do as a team, the three of us, right? And and outside of this team in our own lives, we are learning to do the sister wives thing, right? This morning I said something to you, Joy. I said, okay, this is a purely cousin request. I said, no, scratch that. This is a sister request, right? I am gonna need you to have my back about XYZ thing in our family, right? And then Tiffany was like, oh, we're thinking about picking up this um piece of property. And I was like, oh, and my husband, we could come. The threat, you know, Joy and I could come, and my husband and her husband could help tie in the steel and then pour the concrete, and the three of us could spend time together, right? And we could like that's the thing. We have to really reconfigure how we see quote unquote having it all. And it's gotta be we, a we thing, which is absolutely what we preach in our like, right? If you're not, if you're not at our meetups, if you're not coming to live workshops, if you're not attending Cocoon Connect, if you're not in Cocoon, period, if you're not doing Thursday premium episodes, where we apply this work, where you where you really let it go deep and touch your soul, if you're, you know, like you're still approaching divorce recovery in a masculine way.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

For so long, I lived in my masculine, right? And it manifests in different it manifests in your body. Like if you are living in your masculine for so long, like your hormones are shot, your cortisol is shot, my my testosterone is off the charts. Like it's it presents itself. Like you can't live that way long term and have zero effects on your body because it's just not sustainable.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Whole preface with it takes a village. Like, how long has that quote been around? And how often do we live like that? We don't, right? The only time I have lived with the it takes a village mentality is when I was a military wife. And the men would go to war and the women would all gather at each other's homes and we would cook for each other, we would do activities with the kids, we would raise our kids under one roof. Um, it is, it's like sister wives without sharing the husband, right? But there's something to that, but then it's like there's something then that feels like in our world, it feels like we have to isolate ourselves, and that is not how we were designed to navigate life even day to day. Like it's not, even if you are in a relationship that's new and you're starting to isolate yourself, which is you and your partner, that is not a natural normal part of life. We're meant to have female community and companionship and friendship. And if you are not stepping into all these things that we're offering, you are missing out on a massive piece of healing.

Receiving Help And The Quiz Results

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Right, which takes us to like thing number two, right? To really be able to feel a sense of safety and for your nervous system to perceive that it can downshift, for you to be able to experience feminine energy, you have to have a felt sense. A felt sense, not a thought sense, right? Of there are solid things outside of me that have my back. Solid structure. Outside of me that have my back. So I want you know when you're listening right now, and I sort of teased this at the top of the episode, like how many things outside of you feel solid right now that it feels like not you think, not you hope, but like if you dropped into your body, you knew those structures would catch you. So for example, do you believe your higher power or intelligent creator would catch you? Do you believe your friend group would catch you? Do you believe your family would catch you? Do you believe that your workplace would catch you? Do you believe your current relationship with your own self-care, your nutrition, your exercise, your sleep, would it catch you? What are the structures that you currently have in your life and will they catch you? What I know to be true is all of that starts with the universe will have my back, and I have to be willing to hear and act in the direction the universe is guiding me. It starts there. And if I can't hear that, I have to get in touch with it. If I struggle to believe that, I have to examine why. And then everything else can be built upon that. And anything built less than that is literally like being on a hamster wheel of healing. It's like running endlessly without actually getting anywhere. That's a spicy thing to say, but I it needs to be said.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

And I would say that for me, I want to know what our clients believe in when they're stepping into our programs. I don't care what it is if you believe in God or you're Hindu or you're Buddhist or you're just Mother Earth and universe. Or even if you come in and you tell me, look, I'm I'm really trying to reconcile my relationship with a higher power right now, but I'm curious or I'm hopeful because at some point that is going to be part of the framework that you build to walk yourself into the next chapter of your life. And we talk a lot on the pod about low vibe state, you know, and so it's like if you you might look around and say, Well, no, Don, my friends wouldn't catch me, my workplace wouldn't catch me because you're not living in alignment at a high vibe state. But understand that you can start over and you can build a new framework piece by piece of a career and a friend group and a religion or a higher power that feels more authentic to you. So no matter where you're starting this process at, even if you feel like you're at rock bottom, you can start putting the pieces back together and move into alignment.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

There's nothing better. Okay, Joy, your brain is like steaming. I am so curious to hear what you're digesting.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

I was just like what as she was as Tiffany was speaking, like I'm like, that's fire, like right there. That's the magic of it. Like if your friend group, if your community, if your family, like if the people that you were attracting wouldn't catch you, then you need to be able to look in the mirror and ask yourself why this is what I'm attracting. Like, what is it about me? And it's just I I just was really into what she was saying.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I love that. I love it. We talk all the time about clearing space, making room, and again, not cutting people out overnight, but taking a really hard look at are when you spend time with XYZ people in your life, do you leave feeling full and supported and seen, or do you feel leave or you leave feeling depleted and completely just worn out and sucked out? Um, that's a huge thing. So I think that it's it's about finding the people. It is about finding the people to build your tribe that feel really good. And that includes family.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Because this is like it's a contextualized, nuanced thing right here, okay? Because let's go back to the quiz takers who some of them feel unsure how to receive, some of them feel, you know, unworthy of receiving, some of them feel guilty for receiving, right? If we still struggle to feel worthy of receiving and we are hanging out with people who are loving on us, we actually might leave feeling worse than better. We might feel better hanging out with people who are energy sucks. This is a tricky, tricky, tricky spot because it's like if you are still trapped in the belief that you are not worthy or help is not coming or you have to do it all, you are not gonna leave social situations where people love on you feeling better. You're gonna leave feeling guilty or stressed or questioning your identity or your worth.

Redefining “Having It All”

SPEAKER_00 26:21

I think that the vibe shift and the vibe state starts to change. You know, we talk about the blue balloon exercise all the time, and the very last question that I pose is hard for women to answer in the beginning because it talks about after I'm feeling triggered, what do I need to return to a sense of self-energy? And so many women want to give me external validation things instead of what do you need correct? What do you need to bring yourself? Not what can he do, or what can your children do, or what can your friends do? It's what can I do to move myself into a space where I feel like I'm calm.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

I wasn't feeling very good yesterday, and I was looking for my to my children or my husband to make me feel better. Like just sit beside me, just touch me, just like have because instead of doing what I needed to do, I was looking for them seeking their barring their energy to make me feel better. I think I do that more than maybe I should. I think there's a beautiful aspect of community, but when you're relying on that to center to ground you, you know what I mean? Yeah. So I was just like picturing yesterday, like when she was talking about that. Like, uh-huh, uh-huh. I was like, oh, mm-hmm. I did that literally 24 hours ago. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I think too, our capacity, okay. I'm gonna say it because here it comes. Here's what all this is gonna tie into all the shit that is going on in my brain right now. Get ready. Okay. No, but it's like if you continue to seek those forms of external validation and you continue to say, I can't receive from anybody around me, it's because you have not yet learned to receive yourself. You have not yet learned to love yourself or support, receive love from you. The self-love, the security, the self-confidence. It's not there yet. So how can you expect to receive from others when you yourself don't feel like you can receive and fill yourself? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Yeah, it's such a journey. But like if I'm listening, then I say to myself, like, okay, ladies, you just said we have to be open to receive, we have to do it in community, we have to support each other. And then you're saying, okay, but wait, you have to be able to support yourself. Which is it? Rigid independence or is it community? I I would anticipate that at the start of this journey, I would be really confused about how those two things can both be true at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

But it I mean, it's both. It's yeah, I encourage both. Right. It's being able to receive a compliment and know it's true and do the work to get to be able to attract the people that you know that beautiful expression to straighten a woman's crown. Right? Like, um the kind of woman who straightens another woman's crown. Right, because nobody like healing is not it's not hard, it's not like a straight line. Like you don't get to or a straight climb, you don't get to go straight up, like it's a it's a go up and then you come down a couple of feet and then you go up ten feet and you come down five feet and you go up ten feet and you come down one feet. Like it's a journey. And so being able to be rooted and seated in yourself and attract the people that are gonna straighten your crown. So when you are wobbly, you can reach out and be like, I'm a little wobbly today, and I could use someone to come sit with me while I have a cup of tea, or hey, will you go on a walk with me? Because I need vitamin D in the sunshine, but I am a little wobbly and I don't want to do it by myself. So like it's both.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

So let me put the finest point on it all, right? Because so much of this is about learning to identify what we need, being willing to ask for it, being willing to receive it, right? So there's this tiny little nuanced piece, and Tiffany's gonna be able to put the IFS language to it, right? But when, for instance, we're in a spot where I want something outside of me to solve it for me, right? Whether it's like I wanna, I wanna overfunction so I can feel in control or or I want my kids and my partner to fill me up when I don't feel like filling myself up, right? It's that I don't, it's that little sliver of I don't want to do it.

Building External Structures Of Safety

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Right. I don't want to, I don't want to. I want to be live, I don't want to be capable.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

Yeah, yeah. I want to escape, I don't want to transmute. I want to numb out, I want to avoid work or effort, I just want it to be done for me. And there is a time and a place for that. And I right, and I was just reading this super in the weeds, but I was just reading this article this morning about AI and the Garden of Eden. Fascinating, right? I know, so good. I know I wanted to send it to your husband, Joy. Um, but it's like part of our thing to do on in this life is work, right? Yeah, and anytime we try to escape work, it's like we want to be God rather than be human. And we are human, we are not God, and it's freaking fascinating, but we do spend a lot of time in life trying to circumvent quote unquote the work. And I think when we do the work in alignment with how the intelligent creator created it, it's a lot easier. It's when we resist, right? Where it actually creates separation from ourselves when we don't want to do the work, it's like, no, I I'm self-abandoning, right? I'm self-abandoning right now. And um, yeah, and it ends up downstream being problematic.

unknown 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Which is sort of say that the women, the women in our program now, because we're into month four of twelve, and even the women that join our three-month program, by the end of the three months, they get so good at starting to spot cycles. They get so good at understanding why they keep reaching. They get so good at figuring out this is why I can't receive, this is what is blocking me in my healing. And having the container and the space to do so and to get that feedback, it it's just it's key. It's like just this warm, squishy place to land while you're trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Well, I think because once you can start to connect those dots, right, everything feels possible. All of a sudden, that's the thing about ownership, right? When I own my healing journey and then it's not dependent on access from someone else, that shit's empowering. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have to rent my, like, I don't know, I don't have to be wealthy or I don't have to know the right person. You know what I mean? Like, I just yeah, when I start to connect the dots, I can be, I can do healing all the time if I'm willing to face myself and work through some things like damn, you can you can have whatever you want, you know, like give or take.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Yeah, it's empowering not having to be perfect. It's empowering to be able to be like, oh, well. I messed up. I'm gonna recognize why, I'm gonna recognize how, and I'm gonna pivot to own that and not do it again.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

That's been a journey for me. The not being perfect thing has been probably one of the hardest journeys. So painful. I would just like to call out, right? How I sit before you today is not the woman who sat before you when she was getting divorced. Like, nope.

unknown 34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

And it's maybe for me, it's been able to be asked like for help and also like female companionship and friendship, because that never came easy to me. I was like, I'm a lone wolf, I can do it by myself, I don't need anybody. And I have carried that like a freaking torch through most of my life and caused a lot of destruction along the way because of said thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

Ladies, can I use this moment right here as a segue into my body said no? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

Yes.

Self-Receiving And Internal Grounding

SPEAKER_03 34:40

Okay, so uh if you've been on our email list for a while or you've been part of our community for a while, this is like longtime listener status shit right here. When I got divorced, I joined a women's therapy group. I did this professional professional development workshop, went to Alan on. Like I was childless, right? So I just fully immersed myself into all things healing. And I moved into a duplex by the ocean. It was like one block off the ocean. And my dearest friend, whom I was in group therapy with, moved into the other half of the duplex. And so you've heard me mention her. She's done a little cameo in like one of our Mother's Day episodes or something like that. I've written about her in some of our emails, our older emails. Maybe we should like, I don't know, fluff one of those and send it again. But her and I have just done life together for the last, I don't know, like I guess 16 years, right? And I've been to her daughter's weddings and, you know, vice versa. Like we helped raise each other, like when Grace was born, she lived right next door, like all the things, right? We've just done all the things together. And yesterday she came to visit me in South Carolina. And she, so I had her sit on my closet floor with me. I don't know why that felt important, but like we just sat on the floor together so that when I sometimes I sit in there maybe like process a feeling or feel a feeling, so then I could like picture her being in there with me when she's not here, you know, because she doesn't live next door anymore. But that being in a therapy group together, being next door to each other, it has been such a profound sense of support through all of this healing work over the years. So I promise there's a punchline other than get you some community, preferably ours. Um but I took the day off on Friday to go pick her up from the airport and to go to her grandson's to second birthday. So delicious. Got to help set up for the party. Grace made the banner, like it was such like a family, you know, friends are our chosen family community moment, right? Um, but then as we were leaving, they were like, okay, we're gonna see you again this weekend, right? And I was like, no, nope. I have no plans to drive back from where I live in South Carolina to where you live in South Carolina. And historically, that would have been very hard for me. I would have really felt obligated, like I needed to do the driving. And she flew in and she, you know, but like I literally my body said no. Like, there is not space for me to maintain alignment in my life and do the drive again. And so they came and sat on the floor of my closet with me, and that's the point here, right? My body said no, I would have historically felt guilty for doing so, and then I would not have had the experience of having this soul that has meant so much to me in my home because I allowed her to to effort.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Yeah, wow, okay. Where have your body said no lately? There is someone in my life that I'm very close with that recently got a health diagnosis, and so we're about to embark on this journey together. And during a recent phone conversation, this person said to me before we got off the phone, I'm gonna just, you know, I I need you to just be strong through this entire thing. And so we got off the phone, and I immediately thought, no, I I don't want to have to do that. And again, this goes back to the masculine feminine energy. Like, I don't want to do that. Everything in my body said, I am so tired of being strong. I am so effing tired of being strong through everything that I've gone through, and I don't want to do it anymore. And so the next time I had a conversation with this person, I said, Look, we're about to go on this journey together, but I need you to understand one thing. There are gonna be days when I'm gonna need to break down, there are gonna be days when you're gonna need to break down, and we just have to be able to be a hundred percent honest with each other and give each other space to do that because I'm not walking on eggshells around this situation. It is what it is, and it's gonna be what it's gonna be. And that person was super receptive and said, you know what, that sounds absolutely perfect, and so here we go on a journey that feels really, really good, and not like I have to hold everything together.

unknown 39:10

Right?

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Never have a need or to never or to have to be strong is to deny our humanity, our base the basic thing that separates us from AI, right, is the humanness of it, the connection, the humanity, the colors of living. Yeah. What you got, Joyce?

SPEAKER_01 39:32

I have been on a journey of understanding my nervous system, my commitments, my you know, like I I go, go, go a lot. I've got three children, I'm active in my community, you name it, it is on my radar, my schedule. And so I've been um I said no to to a trip, which is I don't think I've ever ever done before. And I'm still kind of in process about it because it's a recent no, but I have uh I have my my children out of school for a week in February, and so we always go do something, and I recently have said no. Like it doesn't align with my financial goals, it doesn't align with the trying to abide in my home, it doesn't align with my nervous system and rest, and so my body said no, and I'm I'm stepping into it, and it's been a part of my identity. So there's been it's multi-layered.

SPEAKER_03 40:38

This isn't like a Yeah, it's your body said no, but your mind is still catching up.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Yeah, yeah. Right. So that's my my burnout. I'm saying no to being burnout anymore. I would like to not be burnt out anymore.

Ownership, Imperfection, And Growth

SPEAKER_03 40:51

Or feeling behind all the time, right? Versus spacious. Yeah, that's hot shit right there. Okay, darlings. So clearly the answer is be part of our community if you have not yet. joined Heartbeat. Link is in the show notes where you can be a part of our community, where you can be in the room where it happens, which is our premium uh podcast feed where we actually apply the things we learn on Tuesdays. We do the things on Thursdays. You can subscribe to Premium Inside of Heartbeat. You can attend our completely free Cocoon Connects inside of Heartbeat. You can chat with the other women you can be part of our Magic Drops, which is our monthly biweekly giveaways. There's so much happening in our community. And if you are not there, you are missing building the feminine elements of releasing your masculine overfunctioning. So we cannot wait to see you there. We love you so much.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Peace Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by MyCoach Dawn. You can find more at mycoachdawn.com