Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 325. Divorce and the Death of the Future: Grieving What Was Supposed to Be

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325. Divorce and the Death of the Future: Grieving What Was Supposed to Be · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: All right, darlings, at the top of this episode, you are going to hear an intimate conversation the three of us had in person last week.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was honest, emotional, and it shaped everything you're gonna hear in today's episode.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: From there, we get into a deeper question underneath divorce grief.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: If something ended, did it still matter?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about grieving not just the life we imagine for ourselves, but also for our kids.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we close with why healing this particular kind of grief rarely happens alone.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the way we heal it over here may actually matter just as much as what you lost.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dig in.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, love.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Don Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorcee.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna go straight into bullshitting.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't plan a bullshit.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: We got to spend time together.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: We did get to spend time together.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it was magical.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was so much fun.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: We hung out for an entire day last week and it was the best.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: We all just got very quiet.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh shit.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: But we got really quiet there because actually on our hangout day.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So like it was intense, yeah.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like we worked on some shit.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was basically like we we interviewed a new coach because we're growing.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Holy crap.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: We did biz planning and all sorts of stuff.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: We caught it personally, but then we like talked about ourselves and our relationships and how to go further and deeper and wider.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a lot, and it was so good.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we had so many breakthroughs, but it was hard.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, we spent a whole day together and it was magical.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we all left feeling.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know, how did you guys leave feeling?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: What did you what did you leave feeling?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, in transparency, it I it was a lot of emotional work on my part, and I left feeling exhausted.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Not not in a bad way by any means, because I do think that there's beauty in it, but like just drained because when you do that really deep hard work and you know, like it's it's work.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's the the title of the thing.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's the work.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I literally like you know, we had pizza and watched TV and went to bed early.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, literally, that was my accent of my evening, right?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tiffany Honey.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I had all this beautiful time, I think, on my drive home, and I remember leaving there thinking to myself, I've never felt closer to these two women.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like that Friday for me, it went to another level of trust, it went to another level of transparency, it went to another level of everybody, all three of us stepping up, taking accountability, owning our shit, figuring out where we're going as a group, um, how magical this journey is, like all of that.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just left there feeling like holy shit, what a day.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that was effing magical.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Echoed.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Halfway through Tiffany's drive, I called her to have the meeting after the meeting.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was like in summary, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: In summary, tell me all the ways you're proud of us.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was happy to do that.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Happy to do that.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's one of the things that makes us so special and so different, is because I I can almost positive Tiffany and I have never, either one of us have ever worked as a job in a place that not only holds you accountable for the bullshit, but also extends grace and transparent and authentic.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so when one of you asks me a question and I answer honestly, and then we dive into okay, but what's really behind that answer?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's what makes our women and our listeners appreciate the authenticity on our part.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like we come to the table, not just hold you accountable to come to the table.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Does that make sense?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I believe wholeheartedly, and man, we are like in the weeds about not the episode, but uh we cannot guide women beyond where we've been, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're talking about facilitating secure attachment styles and growth without borders, and you know, to have like a like to have what's it called main character energy in your own story and to have the things that you want and to believe that you can have them and to have the safety and the security and the abundance, we can't take them further than we've gone.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, the bar is high because I want us to be able to guide our listeners to the moon and beyond.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so we're gonna lead by example.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I echo joy because in corporate it was very performative, right?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was an alter ego, I was boss bitch, and so I was told by my bosses you go into a room, you say what you need to say, you know, and everything was so performative, and it's everything that Dawn does not want in this business.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I have had to completely change the way that I do life, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and do work because it's like stop performing, right?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like just say the thing.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, it's it's taken me a while to be comfortable enough to be able to come to the table and just be like, whoa, like just gonna lay it all out there.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But also the stuff that we teach, like, does this shit work?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, does law of attraction work?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Does homeopathy work?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Does EFT work?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know, whatever it is, right?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, does it work?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and I any decision we make organizationally or relationally, it it for me it has to pass through the filter of does this match the belief system and the the structure that we teach?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are we living wholly by our own values and guidance system?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we are, right?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we are evidence that not only does it work, but this is how it works, and yeah, it's sticky, right?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: But growth is like that's it.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so rewarding, so rewarding.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for being with me on Friday.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was magical.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so today we're talking about grieving the life you imagined.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh for me post-divorce, what happened and how this played out for me was I really had a crisis of believing that love existed.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And while I was busy making new relationships and friends in the healing spaces that I was, you know, attending, I started asking everyone if they knew anyone who had a successful marriage and if true love who it actually is what brings us together, yeah.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Does it really exist?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was really having an existential crisis about does real non-performative, right, authentic, abiding, like monogamous love, is that a real thing?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so the problem for me, and and then as I was going through all of that, like, does this thing that I believed in that I went whole hog in, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like I, when I was very young, made my young self a promise that I wouldn't get divorced because that's what I went through as a kid with my parents.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then I did.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was sure that marriage was gonna keep me safe, and it did not, right?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so this thing that I went whole hog in, if it didn't even exist, I was angry.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was resentful at myself, my parents, God, you know, the people who sold me on the institution or the journey or the whatever.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I was, I think, even to an extent, experiencing disgust or contempt for marriage, for what I was how I felt lied to or betrayed about what it was.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think when we talk about grieving the life that I imagined, grief can take on many, many, many forms.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: It often does not just look like sadness, right?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it looked like contempt.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and to believe in a different future, first I had to find some sense of security, and we will talk about later in the episode how that played out when I started dating.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I wonder for you ladies, Joy, when you think about your separation, and Tiffany, when you think about divorce, was it the person or the people you grieved most, or the future you thought you were losing or walking away from?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, I grieved mine was mul multilayered because I not only did I grieve the life that I thought I had, I grieved the person I thought I was, or the marriage that I had thought I had, but I also grieved the person the person that I thought I ha was was probably a a um a big identity.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think we see that a lot in our women is the identity of the stay-at-home wife barefoot pregnant in the kitchen.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was my life.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: I had three babies at once, right?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: So and he worked and I stayed home and I did the diapers and I did the cleaning and the cooking, and I had this role and I played it very well, and I was very Instagram about it, you know, like look how my cute her bow matches her dress, and like how look how much he loves me, and it was just very curated.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: So people, so I believed it, right?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like I believed the lies that I was telling myself, and so I grieved um very, very deeply the life that I thought I had.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So for Tiffany, the question is did you grieve more the person or the people in the loss, or the life that you had imagined that you were gonna live into or live out the life you were walking away from?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was definitely the life.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the person.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, if I if I knew, right, and I asked my clients this all the time, would you knowing what you know now, or knowing what you even knew a year or two into your marriage, would you still have chosen this person?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them say no.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um when they get down to the nitty-gritty of it, right?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I wasn't grieving him, but I was, you know, I just felt like my life had a lot of purpose, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was a military wife, I was a platoon lead, meaning that when the guys were um at war, I had a group of women I was responsible for.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like we were moving up through the ranks.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was there as his support.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was his anchor.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I had nothing for myself.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't want me working.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was staying at home with my daughter.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And when I walked away from all of that, I was like, who the fuck am I?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't even know who I am without being this military wife.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I would tell people that, yes, I'm a military wife and you know, my husband's away at war.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there would be like this old, like you imagine these 90s pinup girls or 70s pinup girls, you know, like cheesecake girls, like their husbands were gone at war.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's what our lives were like every day.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like we lived very much a different life than anyone, and nobody else could understand what I was going through other than the women that I was surrounding myself with.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted that life.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I wanted to continue living as a military wife that was serving my country alongside my spouse.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when that fell apart, all of my identity was gone.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't even know who I was, and I think that's why I went so so far back into a place of self-destruction because I was so hurt by everything that had happened to me that I continue to hurt myself and others for quite a long time.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Tiffany, I have a question.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: As you were talking, I really like, did you grieve the life that your daughter was supposed to have?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because I did.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like I grieved the dad that wasn't gonna be there in the micro moments.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: I grieved the the you know, like the family that my daughter my daughters deserved, and I grieved a lot of that for them.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know if I had really sat with me, but definitely for them.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I would say I guess yes, because I had to start working.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like right after we separated, I had to stop working.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd gone from being a stay-at-home mom to putting her in a daycare, and I was pissed about that.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was upset about that.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted her to grow up on military bases.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted us to be able to travel.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted her to grow up in this bubble where she was being exposed to culture and different things.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted us to have free health care, like all these things that the military made so easy for us.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now I knew I was gonna have to fight tooth and nail for everything, and that made me incredibly angry.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't it interesting how grief is rarely sadness?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's so many other things.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's panic, it's anger, it's shock, frozenness.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So much resentment and grief.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's fascinating.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: What's that saying that like I sat with my grief long enough to realize it was anger?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so interesting in the lost places when we when the roles shift, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: When suddenly the ways in which we were experiencing our purpose or our identity evaporate, right?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely tripled down on work.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Tripled down, right?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's when I very shortly after getting divorced, opened my own practice and also had chronic illness.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that consumed a lot of my attention.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was literally in pain, not just emotional pain.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was in so much physical pain, which was emotional pain, like it was the same, but I was in so much pain that I think it allowed me to even maybe not, I don't know, focus sometimes on the grief.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I think back to questioning whether love existed, how many people I would pull?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I would go to an Al-Anon meeting and I would say, like, tell me about the couples you know that existed.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I was really trying to figure out if the life I had built for myself, like what was real and what wasn't real.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what you alluded to, Joy, right?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Not just the life I thought I had, right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when you find out, like, oh, uh, you know, and we hear women ask this, like, did I even matter?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Did I even matter?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: You start dissecting every conversation, every picture, every family memory, vacation, like you're like, yeah, trying to noodle out what was actual fact.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just grieving the life I imagined in the future, right?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the life I imagined in the past.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, was this even real?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Fascinating how we define what's real.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, and it's funny to think of the some of the homeopathic remedies I get all excited about, right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like homeopathic hydrogen.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do I exist?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think I've been asking myself that question until I started taking hydrogen, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like, gosh darn it, I exist.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it's so interesting how much we allow our roles and other people's view of something, or like whether or not something went well to define whether or not it mattered.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you say that again because I think that's so on point.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like why does our pain not always also justify our existence or something mattering?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like the amount to which this hurts actually indicates how much it and I and they mattered, right?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: But we often only count things that matter when we can reflect back on them with joy and feel success around them.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is hugely problematic when we think about our existence and what has mattered in our lifetime.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: So many women ask that question.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Did it matter?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Did it matter?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Was it for nothing?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Was it for nothing?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that right there is a meritocracy, right?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where I it only mattered or only counts if it was if I deem it to be meritus.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not what it means to be human.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: But when we live in a culture that celebrates a particular type of like only how it looks and not, you know, yeah, what it's overcome.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Joy, going back to what you said, and you asked me when you're asking me that my wheels are granny because he wasn't home.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't a present dad because he was always away at war.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: So how could it work in the URL?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: But my resentment came from, well, great, now he's not gonna be around, and now I can't be around for her either because now I have to work.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was like there was this fear of my child having no one.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what lengths am I gonna have to go to to put food on the table?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like when, you know, she's used to me being around all the time, you know, like how is that happening?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so it it really blew up our entire life and our ways of doing things and all of that.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So through all of all of that questioning that I did where I was asking people if love existed, I took myself off the market for a while.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I do not belong in the dating scene, right?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I made a deal with myself for a year I wasn't gonna date anyone or have sex with anyone, like nothing, like go and try.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it was very, very good for me.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that year later, though, I started dating someone from Al-Anon and told myself that because they were in Al-Anon, that that made them like a safer person who's quote unquote doing the work, right?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh Lord have mercy.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's very cringy in my body when you say that.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, right, like from a law of attraction standpoint, like here's your sign.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had not started studying the law of attraction yet, though, right?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would say that there were certain parts of my grief that had healed, but I had not truly solved the for the feeling secure yet, right?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had not truly solved for feeling secure, maybe a little bit more secure, but like not enough to go back into dating without that anxious attachment style, right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I still was waiting to be chosen.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I still had an anxious attachment style, I still did not have true confidence.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: There was still a part of me that was trying to um be completed rather than feeling complete and a whole person on as as myself, right?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was still looking for my missing pieces in another person rather than feeling like I was complete on my own.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that clearly the fact that I didn't fully deal with this underlying can I trust love?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Can I become love before I go searching for someone else to fill it for me was hugely problematic when I started dating again.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that just led to another really horribly failed relationship that ultimately led to producer Joy coming to rescue me, which is an essential part of the timeline.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: But which then ended up playing out even in our relationship, right?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like wanting us to rest, like wanting each other to rescue each other over the years, right?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Around the missing pieces.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like until you can really own this piece about owning love, like becoming love, becoming aware of one's wholeness, becoming aware of one's who I am is enough, and there's nothing missing in me, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Until we can believe that about ourselves and our intelligent creator, like, man, it creates a junkety dating story.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to ask you two.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think actually has to happen internally before someone can imagine a new future?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: For either of you, what do you see as you know, what women need to do internally before they can really picture a new beautiful future?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: What I'm gonna say is like super cliche, but I like I want the women to really sit with it because it's kind of it's currently I've I've spoken about it before on episodes, but it's like my current season and cur current um layer to be able to back is like trusting yourself.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: But like that's it sounds like such a like the Instagram trust yourself before you right, right.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like genuinely sitting with yourself and trusting your decisions and trusting the the Lord.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: to provide but not just your needs but your wants and like I like it's I God is you know God is a giver of good gifts and He I can quote all the things but is it indwelled within me to be able to sit on a sofa with these women and and receive the love and the trust that they have for me right like it's it's deeper than trusting yourself to keep you safe at night like it's deeper than that it's trusting integrated cellular level that I am held that you are held that you were seeing.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah can I tell a dumb story that highlights that like please from last month so my husband daughter and I went on to you know we went out of town for a few days last month and our pet sitter ended up hospitalized and so Joy comes to work most days right not on the weekends but and so she was there to sort of back up stepping in with the pet sitter but then we called my dad to ask if he could take if he could split the remainder of the shifts with Joy because Joy was going to end up having to come or her husband was going to have to come late at night or on the weekends or whatever.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we called my dad to ask to fill in the gaps of the shifts and he was like well I guess if I have to like really truly like begrudging and so then I had to just so I let him do it anyways and then sat with Joy like immediately stepped up and was like of course no problem right but that I had to sit with that and then last week I asked you Joy how did it feel to step in?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Did it feel hard did it feel burdensome?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Did it feel whatever ladies please hear what I am saying what Joy is saying is about being able to trust that love exists, love is real, you are worthy of it you can have it includes can you let your cousin pet sit without feeling guilty or like a burden that's what you're talking about.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Can it be indwelled?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Can you sit on the sofa with Tiffany and I and receive the love that we are pouring into you Joy or vice versa right or the love that any of us are offering one another can you receive it without feeling guilty without doubting it's security it's that right like okay Joy fed the pets but is she secretly saying what my dad said well I guess I'm gonna have to trusting it's security can you think of an example recently Tiffany where it was hard for you to trust the security of love in your life yeah probably you know and this goes back to the person closest to me that's you know ill right in my family.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's more of me being able to speak up and trust that that person was going to receive me in the way that I needed to be received and was able to kind of walk with me on that journey instead of feeling rejected or feeling like even if they hadn't answered in the way that I needed them to, that that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them and being able to kind of walk away from that.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I watched a reel over the weekend and it was amazing.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like I got goosebumps over it but it's a guy that's talking about the fact that when we grow up with families where there's inconsistent parental love or inconsistency we learn that we are reliant on other people's oxygen.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that looks like in relationships, right?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like every like you need that text from him to feel okay and then you can exhale.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: You need him to smile at you or to hug you or whatever or in dating you need that guy to swipe right on you you know like whatever it is.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like it talks through the fact that everyone is equipped with their own oxygen tank and it's like super important to learn how to use yours first.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the airplane thing right but it's so true.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like sitting with yourself like you have to love yourself.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I never loved myself for a really long time and I can come on here and say that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: So how the hell was I ever going to find a dating partner, a partner when I didn't know what my unique edge was like what made me lovable like the things I loved about myself and that's why I kept accepting this crap of breadcrumbs over the years from these guys because that's all I felt like I was worthy of.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I hear women say that all the time you know like I don't feel like I'm worthy of anything else you know and then boy but when he texts me that dopamine hit you know comes in.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: When I started really realizing what made me lovable why I loved myself why I was worthy and that the things that I actually deserved and started putting all of those pieces together then I was able to step back in my life and say if he doesn't answer the text or if he swipes left or if he whatever like I just didn't care anymore.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like when guys would ghost me like when things would happen I would just say to the universe well guess that dodging a bullet for that for whatever reason yeah you know and just knowing that there was something greater out there than what was right in front of me at the time.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you think needs to happen internally for a woman before she can imagine a new future the inner child work is crucial.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: The IFS work is crucial.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you are continuing to seek external validation with overusing tools or you know drinking or you know sex or whatever numbing things you pick whatever you're not you're not there.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah you're not there.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't sit with yourself and feel peace if you cannot sit in a room with yourself for 10 minutes and the thoughts don't invade you and just overrun you like that's an indicator to me that you don't feel safe with yourself.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well this is the gap right because we can all we can all sense desire right I desire just because I didn't believe in love doesn't mean I didn't desire it, right?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we all can like list all of our desires.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would like a loving husband, a jet, a oceanfront mansion, a job that I love whatever it is, right?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like I desire all these things but do I believe that they're possible and it's that early childhood stuff that tamps down diminishes or destroys our capacity to believe in safety wellness lovableness whatever it is right or worthiness and that early childhood stuff that tamps down that belief and then and then you're sitting with all this desire with not enough belief and that creates an unbelievable amount of internal tension.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I know for me the way that I have fulfilled that over the years has often been overreaching particularly in the realm of um probably buying things right like oh I'm gonna try to I'm gonna have this thing this particular car or this particular house or this particular experience or a billboard in Times Square that will prove something or show something versus just feeling so quietly confident and comfortable.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah that inner child art childhood work is where that belief gets reinstalled or or repaired or I don't know how would you say that?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah restored yeah it's like restoring like you're figuring out who you are in the process like it's connecting all of the dots of who you are your self-worth all of that it points out like you're essentially being able to give yourself all the things that you didn't get back then and it definitely helps put the pieces back together.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can remember dating too and I would leave dates thinking like is that it like is this am I ever going to find somebody that because my thing was great conversation.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a very intellectual and I am energetic and I love to talk and I'm like I'm never gonna find somebody that can keep up with me conversation.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're so Gemini I am I'm like chatty Kathy like and I want to talk about everything and so it's like I I go out with these guys and they were just like super low vibe, low energy, you know and they just the conversation sucked and I'm like I can't do this.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I think that's why again I stayed single for so long over the years because I just couldn't find what I was looking for.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: But there was something out there that told me it it was out there.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I knew what I wanted was out there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't always believe that um but then I knew like it was always going to be out there and even when I'd have my friends that would call and bitch to me about their marriages their husbands their boyfriends whatever I was like well that's them you know what I mean like I've been in those relationships and situations before like it's different.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah I think that for me just realizing that it is out there and I'm not settling and that's the thing like if you settle then how do you know that there's nothing else out there but I watch that all the time like let's just highlight this moment right here like if you've if you've not attended to anything else we've said in this session like this moment right here time and time again I watch people quit I watch them quit I watch them quit healing I watch them fall into self-pity and say I shouldn't have to keep working this hard why is it so hard I am so tired of this I am so tired of it I'm so tired of it I'm so tired of it I watch people quit moving towards alignment and then feel bitter about why they don't have the thing that they want and I watch them stay with the thing that is familiar and I watch them quit the thing that requires effort or is hard.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the bulk of the people we work with right but the people who quit that's it ultimately like there is some amount of effort that they are not willing to put forth in order to have the thing they say they want and like I get it it's but I think that too often we become victims of our current dopamine lifestyle I want the thing from Amazon to solve my problem and alignment is a lifelong journey.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Let me say it again for the cheap seats alignment is a lifelong journey.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we could call healing a lifestyle I think that's what religion is trying to be right a space where people are in pursuit of alignment although I think in religious spaces that is often not what is happening which is the challenge.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the idea behind it right is that we have spaces where we gather and we pursue alignment in a group which brings me to a conversation that was going in our different D word thread this weekend because I think I don't think strike that shit from the record I know that when we gather in groups of people who are actually pursuing alignment in grounded capital T truth oriented ways shit happens faster.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Security is restored that inner child shit just starts to shed and we feel more powerful faster.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to read something that somebody said in the thread this weekend she said so let's give context someone posted an article about how people who say they were born in the wrong era so if you're a listener who has said before she feels like she was born in the wrong era, send me a DM at Don Wiggins right I want to hear from you and I'm gonna send you this article.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to personally send you this article the article was about for people who have said they thought they were born in the wrong era, that is not, it's not a time phenomenon it's an attachment style phenomenon longing for closeness and connection that is hard to experience in a largely digital very disassociated age of people where we are just so so very separated from one another.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: The article everybody loved it one of the women in the group was like I'm gonna send this to everybody I know we will email you the article it's on our list of things to do.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you're not on our mailing list please be on our mailing list and send me a DM and I'll send you the article but after everyone in the group read the article someone responded with this I was definitely skeptical when I talked to Don the first time about healing in a community with strangers.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: I changed my thoughts on that very quickly between a different D word and the retreat I just went on I am now a firm believer in healing and community and here's the kicker guys I just editorialized.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm being 100% honest I think that is what I miss most about my life pre-divorce not him but the community I had to walk away from and that's the thing right this path of alignment this grieving the life you imagined the life you thought you had historically the life that you thought you were going to have in the future the identity that you were experiencing through roles through other people trying to complete you or validate you those gaps have to be filled through your own coming home to self and through in the reflection of other people who can abide in a secure fashion and that happens in groups and communities of people who are pursuing alignment in truth filled ways in authentic ways in ways that are not performative.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we do over here.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: So hard plug if you are not in cocoon yet scroll down to the show notes and you know download the heartbeat app, join cocoon our community, get plugged in, participate in something, go to attend a cocoon connect with Tiffany, become a premium listener where you get to hear us go deeper and talk about things you know behind the mic, deeper shit about our own journey, stuff that belongs behind a paywall because it does it's not for gen pops consumption tools that we post every Thursday right$5 a month you are you get the premium episodes you get live workshops with Tiffany you get swag that's not available anywhere else you get early notice of things uh so that's our premium listenership but get into cocoon where you can be a part of a group of people who are reaching for alignment in a deeply meaningful way.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies would you add anything to that so on that note we want to shout out the women that have joined us recently in our cocoon community so we want to um shout out Anna Crystal Kristen Emily Tracy and Melissa thank you ladies for joining also when you read their names like ladies what is the path that brought you to us like you're people with a backstory and a lived experience and pain and I want to know we want to know so when you join Cocoon definitely Tiffany always sends a DM one by one we want to dig in with you we want to know what's your backstory how'd you find us what perfect ordering of events brought you here now what perfect ordering of events brought you here now and how can we walk that out with you because alignment is a lifelong journey and we're here for it.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: We love you so much peace diary is a podcast by MyCoach John.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can find more at mycoachjohn.com