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
364. One Day, This Could Be You | What Building Secure Attachment Actually Feels Like
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Secure attachment isn't a feeling you suddenly arrive at.
It's something you build.
It's discovering that you can be overwhelmed, uncertain, emotional, imperfect... and still let yourself lean on other people.
In this week's After the Mic, we're reflecting on what happened during our annual A Different D Word retreat—not because we want you to wish you had been there, but because we want you to know what's possible.
We talk about what it was like to be held by a room full of women while also holding space for each other. How healing changes when it happens in relationship instead of isolation. And why the deepest transformation often comes from experiencing something your nervous system has never had before.
This isn't an episode about having the perfect weekend.
It's about what happens when women practice trusting, receiving support, repairing after hard moments, laughing until they cry, and discovering they don't have to carry everything by themselves anymore.
If you've ever wondered what practicing secure attachment actually feels like...
This conversation is a glimpse.
You can't think your way into healing 🥵 You have to practice your way there 👭If you're ready for the next step, learn more about A Different D Word and apply here ✨
Welcome To Dear Divorce Diary
SPEAKER_01Hi, 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.
Setting Up Post-Retreat Reflections
SPEAKER_01Are you ladies ready to spill the tea on what retreat week was like for us after the fact? Bring it a full circle. We shared our pre-retreat thoughts and feelings. These are our post-retreat reflections.
SPEAKER_00Everybody asked me what it was like. Like my friends, you know, and like my fan band, they were like, how was it? And like the only words I can use is like fucking magical. Like that's all I can come up with for words.
SPEAKER_01That's it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's all I'm telling everybody. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Magical.
Teamwork That Felt Like Magic
SPEAKER_01What was the magic for you personally?
SPEAKER_00I feel like it was a lot of things, but it boiled down to the way that we worked as a team, the three of us. It was so cohesive. We were so on. We were so in tune with each other, so supportive of what each of us needed that weekend to support and be able to hold space for not only them, but each other. And I think that we had these beautiful moments as a team where we were also away from the group that really solidified our connection, vulnerability, closeness, experience, like all of the things, right? We've been cultivating. Yeah. So like for me, it was like holy shit, like there, I just felt incredibly seen held. Like felt like I could also support you guys. Like I felt so much in self the whole weekend. You know, the other piece for me, and I talk about this going back to Myrtle, you know, Myrtle was, you know, Myrtle held close to 15 years of my life. And so going back there. Yeah, right. Like going back there last year, the first year we had the retreat, I I purposely went a little bit before too, because I felt like I there were things I needed
Myrtle Beach As A Healing Place
SPEAKER_00to process. Um, but this year it felt completely different and it shifted the way that I viewed it there. Um, and saw it as a place of like, you know, this place healed me. It contributed to a big part of it. And I wrote an email about that last week, too, to our online community about how impactful that was. And so to know that that city that healed me also has an impact on other women's healing and as part of their chapters is so incredibly special for me. Like it's just like fuck, like it was so it was so good. And I found myself again not being in such a hurry to leave this time and escape. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We did that totally differently this year, right? Like hung together the last morning and packed it up together, and yeah. Yeah. Your Myrtle Beach container, your divorce container, you got to share it with other women. Also, yeah, you got to
Leaving With More Ease This Year
SPEAKER_01share your container. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool if you think about it.
Premium Subscription And Where To Listen
SPEAKER_01You can access the full episode by becoming a premium subscriber, which is just five dollars a month. Scroll down to the show notes and click the link where you'll get your very own individualized RSS feed for your podcast app. You can find more at mycoachdawn.com!
