Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 25. You Submitted Questions, I Answered (Please Send More!)

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25. You Submitted Questions, I Answered (Please Send More!) · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, this is Dawn and you're listening to Dear Divorce Diary with my coach, dawn, where we explore the post-divorce life and you, the woman who lives it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We cover everything from trauma during and after divorce to feeling like a stranger in your own life and the new frontier of life as a single woman.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: We're cozy in for the conversations we've been longing to have about this new life.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, what a fun day we have planned today.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I have compiled a handful of questions I've gotten in my messages.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: They're, on the surface, unrelated to one another, right, but I'm just going to share my answers with you, so like as though we're just hanging out having a cup of tea.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Today I'm on Chai and chat, So no one specific talk topic.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to get busy answering really regular questions that people have as they move through their day and happen to have messaged them to me.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Cool, all right.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: So first question I got, i'm going to read to you what they sent Today, as I was cooking dinner, i asked my oldest to run vocab words with my youngest.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: He starts reading the definition and I start smiling because it reminded me of this joyful moment I had with a friend back in high school, and I think to myself do I explain it to them?
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: They could never understand.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: How do I go about explaining my joy to someone when I had this experience?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: So there's so much about this question that I love, and on the surface it's like it's a throwaway moment, right Where you're moving through life and you catch a spark of joy, and it's wonderful and you want to grow it, because why else would you want to share it with someone other than you want it to be more, you're like, i feel this joy and I want to share it with the person that I'm with and I want this joy to grow.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So here was my response about that moment is no, you don't explain it to them.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: You don't explain it to them, you sit with it and you allow yourself to feel it and you revel in it and you allow it to pull your vibration up.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Right, because, especially, you're sitting there, standing there, making dinner, doing all these things, and maybe they're not that joyful, but all of a sudden you receive this gift of joy and our temptation.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Because, man, friend, are we tempted to explain ourselves to other people?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: We want them to get us, and is there some value in being validated by the people we love, sure, but more often than not we're too reliant on it for us to feel joyful.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: And then, in the attempting to explain ourselves, it breaks down, because there's not always going to be agreement, we're not always going to agree, we're not always going to get it.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And so, should our friend have gone and tried to explain this joyful moment to her kids, she might have lost the joy in doing it, because in the explaining of it and them looking at her like mom are you kidding me right now?
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Then it would have probably taken something from that joy.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: And so my urge to you, my offering to you, is let it be enough to catch that spark of joy and ride it, because then, if you ride that spark of joy, what happens next is you're feeling happier, and then you get an impulse to do something even more happy, and then, before you know it, this night that started with dinner and vocab words ends in dance party, pillow fight with your kids, and you just had the best night of your life when you thought tonight was going to be so hard because you had to do all of the adulting.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: And that's really what I want to encourage you to do is to when you feel those joyful moments, relish in them.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Don't worry about explaining yourself, and let's take that a step further.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Don't ever worry about explaining yourself, love, ever.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: We explain ourselves far too often, and it's because we want to feel joy.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: We explain ourselves because we think that in people feeling how we feel, or seeing what we see, or thinking what we think, or believing what we believe that it is going to be better That's not always true.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: More often than not, when we explain ourselves, what we really end up doing is defending, and defending comes from a place of scarcity, lack, anticipating rejection.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: There's not enough, not enough approval, not enough understanding, not enough of liking me, not enough joy, not enough right.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: So I have to explain to you why.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Why, if you would just give me yours, we could have more.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no love.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Just let yours grow.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So the next time you catch that spark of joy, rather than explain, just relish it and then keep going and notice where that joy adventure takes you and where you turn a night of adulting into a pillow fight or something like that.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So the next question that I got is actually related to this, and I think you're going to love this next question because it's, it's just so right.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: The question is, if you had to give it a percentage, what would you say?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the majority of your day is devoted to?
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that is obligational.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: What percentage of your day is obligational?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And then they go on to say I've been thinking about the things that make me happy and fill my cup, and there's definitely not enough of whatever those things are, and that there's an understanding that life does have obligation.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: But maybe our relationship with obligation is wonky, right?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: So my answer to how much of my day is spent with obligation is very, very, very little.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And the things that are obligatory, like washing the dishes or taking my kid to school, or saying prayers at night with her, or doing the laundry, those things that are adulting I only do them in ways.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say it only let me not make it so black and white because, girlfriend, i am not perfect.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I rarely do them in a way anymore that is not inspiring.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: So let's say it's bedtime and I'm going to put my kid to bed and we're going to do prayers, and what started as a nighttime gratitude list has turned into this very rigorous kind of five prayer system, six prayer system, something like that.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Right, and there are some nights where I'm like, uh, here we go, which, that is the sound of obligation.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And so then I go oh wait, i'm gonna go find some inspired way to do this.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And so then, when it's time to say the third prayer, i will wrap it or sing it in opera style or in spoken word, or try to say it backwards.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I will make it so silly that all of a sudden we're all giggling.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And it's the same with laundry.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I will really turn on the music or focus on washing the load.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: That I know makes me feel so good, like specifically washing my comforter And then going to bed with a clean comforter and it being so crisp and it smelling so right.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: It pleases me so much.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And now I'm doing the laundry and the comforter smells so good, it's so clean, that I'm like, ooh, okay, i'm on it Or I'll weave in other fun things.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: So the key is twofold.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: It's really living in a way where you followed your soul's path right, meaning my job isn't work because I'm obsessed with it, my family isn't work because I'm obsessed with them.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I love the life I have created And what I want you to hear about that is not.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I know where your brain just went.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Your brain went to vote on.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: My life isn't that great.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I just got divorced, i know, but you know how I got to this life that I'm obsessed with was via getting divorced.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I am only you, a fraction of a moment ahead of you, that's all.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I am no different than you.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I am a fraction of a moment ahead of you And, in nonlinear time, i'm not even ahead of you.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: You're just not getting all in your head about obligation.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: It means following your inspiration, following your passion.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It means not telling yourself you can't, and only believing you can and moving so fiercely in the direction of I can that you only have one place to end up, which is the place where you can't.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And then, yes, you will have a handful of obligatory things left and you will have the option to learn how to play through them.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Now I am coming to you saying this to you, relatively new to that part, literally, this time last year, i was like I'm not going to be obsessed with you, you saying this to you, relatively new to that part, literally, this time last year, i experienced way more obligation than I do this year.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: And that is to say to you, this process is ongoing and it just keeps getting better.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I just keep getting happier, which is amazing.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And every time I run into some sort of thing and I remind myself that something about this thing is leading to me being even happier, i automatically get happier.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And so it's a process that you are in and you have just been birthed into that process and it is amazing And I believe in you and you believe in you or you wouldn't be here.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So let's take all that belief and let's just funnel it into this unbelievable life that you are building that is not full of obligation, that is full of passion that you are obsessed with.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: The next question that I got this week was about a kiddo.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: So this question is my kiddo has really been struggling going to school every day and has been crying a lot, and there's not a clear solution.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I scheduled them for a counseling appointment.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: What else can I do?
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: This question has so many layers and I love it.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: And it's so hard to be a mom and to watch your kiddos struggle with negative emotion And I know you do such a good job of holding space for them until you can't anymore and then it boils over, and I know that because we're all people and that's how I people.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I people that I can hold space for so much negative emotion until I can't, and then I gotta go, and in the past I might have exploded about that or something else, and anymore I just give some early warning signs and then say I need a moment and excuse myself.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: But I know that mama's heart thing and how hard it is to just watch your kid suffer, and so I have a handful of things to say about this.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I love the well-intentioned decision to send your kid to counseling.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: That is a boss move right there.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: There are some caveats, though.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: When you're sending kids to counseling, i really want you to know what they're doing in counseling, because if they're young kids and they're doing play therapy in person, that's amazing.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: If they're doing virtual counseling, where they're just talking about the problem more, that's less amazing.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: And especially because kids are really good at catching sparks of joy And sometimes, when they come home from school and it's time for counseling, they're actually at a better part of their day.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Sometimes They're feeling better, Their day went better than they thought it was going to, and then you send them to counseling to talk about the painful thing, and that's exactly the opposite of what we want to do.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: We want to ride waves of well-being.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: We want to ride waves of well-being And we want our kids to ride waves of well-being.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: And so if your kid is going to counseling, i want it to be very strategic, i want it to be interactive, i want it to be intentional, i want it to be masterful.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I want it to either be play therapy or EMDR or something tactical where there is EFT tapping or something that is transformative for your child.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I don't want you or your child in counseling where you are only talking about the problem.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I want you to be in spaces, in healing spaces, where there is transformation occurring and there's a clear path to that transformation.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, i want your kids to have places where people just listen and attune and hold space.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: That is so valuable.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: But it's not enough.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: They need tools too, because when we give them tools, they feel empowered, and that's what we want.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: We want them to feel like they are empowered to decide how they're going to feel.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: But would they need our help in learning those tools?
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: So I talk to my daughter so much about what we think is what unfolds, and so it's okay to feel upset about things and it's okay to noodle through what to do about things we're upset about.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: But then at some point because as humans we get addicted to stress hormones, we get addicted to sympathy.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: We get addicted to you know, we do the path of least resistance.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: So if I can get you mom to just sympathize with me rather than me having to put in effort to raising my own vibration, i might just do that, you know.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: So we have to give them the tools so that they can really have the experience of raising their own vibration.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And when I tell my daughter oh, notice how you just argued with me about X, y and Z and now your mood sucks.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Compared to 15 minutes ago, you were literally happy And then you picked this argument and now you feel crappy.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Notice that right.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So I want your kids to be learning really powerful tools about how they can work with their own thoughts and feelings and moods, about how they can hold space for negative emotion.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: But they can also let it go, about how they can visualize a powerful, amazing, magical future.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: And they can get busy at putting that into action.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: And I love teaching parents how to help their kids process negative emotion using EFT tapping or crayons or bilateral tapping like what happens in EMDR.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I love putting these tools in your hands so that you can help facilitate those moments, because it's so powerful to be able to do it in the moment that it happens so powerful.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I love that for my kid because she's a very creative kid.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: When she's really struggling, i just sit with her and hand her some crayons and a piece of paper and she colors and colors and colors, and I just sit next to her And eventually she regulates what she's experiencing emotionally, she neutralizes, and then she has room for a giggle or a joke or a positive idea.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So what is that thing?
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: What is your kid's zone of genius where they can feel what they're feeling, work it through and then come back to neutral, positive, because that's what it's all about.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, even better, what's your thing?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: What's your zone of genius where you can do the thing and then come back to neutral, positive.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Is it writing?
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Is it music?
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Is it exercise?
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Is it?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: what is it?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Do you have?
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you tried EFT tapping and had that same experience?
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: So that's it.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Is it painting or drumming, or you name it, play with it, play with it.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And this is such a cool thing because when we see it in our kids, what's in their zone of genius, what inspires them that helps them process their emotion?
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: We have the same answers inside of us, but sometimes we get so disconnected from them because our childhood was so long ago and maybe it wasn't super ideal, or maybe it was, but what helped you work through your emotion then is very likely still what will help you work through your emotion now?
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: The next question that we're going to chat about is maybe the most fascinating one, and it is Dawn.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: How do I be close with someone who I don't agree with and, even more importantly, who doesn't agree with me?
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: How do I be close with someone I don't agree with?
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Oh man, this question is like for all the all the beans.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: So what I love about this question is first, let's take a step back from the binary idea of right and wrong, because agreement presupposes that there is a right answer and a wrong answer, and I know that there are many things in each of our lives that we are really hella convinced that there is an absolute and clear right and wrong.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: And for the purpose of this conversation, i just want to offer that maybe throwing out that idea helps us love each other better And the better we get at loving each other perhaps creates less of the behaviors that we deem as right or wrong.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Now I'm getting expansive AF when I'm sitting here saying that right, because I'm thinking, if we become a planet of people who prioritize being close with and loving each other well, regardless of whether or not we agree on right and wrong, isn't a pile of people who love each other well probably less likely to be doing things that are hurtful or painful or detrimental or whatever?
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: So I just want you to kind of look at the, the mission of this conversation and not get bogged down in the binary agreement of a thing being right or wrong.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: So now imagine if you, this person whom you love so much that you want to be close with, imagine if you could remove this topic of disagreement and it just wasn't an issue like.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Imagine an entire relationship with this person where that issue of agreement never gets activated and you just go on and you do life together.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with that?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Well, it may still resurface because you may people different, you may life different, right, you might want to talk about different things, or you might make different decisions about your kids, or you might, you know, want to make different plans on the holidays or whatever it is.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: You might not always see eye to eye, and so what if you could let that go?
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: What if you could say it's okay if we don't always do everything together, or it's okay if we do it both ways, or it's okay if I say this is how I'm gonna do it and I love you so much for the way that you do it, because all the ways matter.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: See, what happens when we need agreement is we get scared.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: We get scared that we're wrong, or we get scared that something bad is gonna happen.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And I just want you to notice that, when you think about wanting people to agree, how you get scared And maybe, sure, you get angry.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: But really I think the anger is just the surface to the fear the fear that we're not gonna be close, the fear that something bad is gonna happen, the fear that we can't be or you're gonna hurt me, right, if we're not in agreement.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid you're gonna hurt me, but what's actually doing the hurting is the need for agreement.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Because if you could accept yourself without needing someone to agree, and if you could accept their self without needing to agree with them, all would be well.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: And now I know your brain wants to say to me but Dawn, it's not right, i can't accept because it's wrong.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I know, i hear you, i hear your brain, i hear your brain.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: You are powerful and you are mighty And maybe that's true.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: But also, could you try it in a way where you just can trust that Most people most of the time mean well, most people most of the time mean well and mean to love you well, even when your ex-parents from Lord Knows What Place, or your you know mother-in-law says just let him sit on a pillow in the back seat of the car.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Right, when people suggest really ridiculous things to you about how to raise your kids and you're like that's just not right.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Um, can you see past the choice they're making and to see to their heart that they mean to love well, they mean to be well, they mean to just be happy, they mean to do the best they can.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: We all mean to do the best that we can.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And just notice that if you could let go of the right and wrong part, there would be less power struggle, less fighting, more joy, more goodwill, more giving each other the benefit of the doubt, less misunderstanding, less control, less perfectionism, less anxiety, because so many of the thoughts we think and so many of the anxieties we perseverate on never, ever, ever, ever happen.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: And so so much of our needing agreement is about trying to control a thing and prevent a thing, rather than focusing on feeling good leading to good intuition, focusing on feeling good leading to good relationships that are good containers to raise healthy children right.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we try to control things into right order rather than loving things into right order.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: So I just want you to notice that when we don't agree, it's an opportunity for us to figure out how to better accept and love ourselves in one another, so that we can love each other rather than control each other.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: And that feels so good and it's a process.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: It's such a process And in many ways it's really all just kind of clicking for me and is something.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: It's a mission.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I've been on and I'm still on places where I'm unhooking my own judgment, where I believe a thing so passionately and when you don't agree with me, me being tempted to be like, oh no, maybe I should soften it, maybe I should not say it so clearly or so much, maybe I should shrink so that you will like me as much as you did 10 minutes ago, mm-mm.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Nope, it's my job to like me, and it's my job to be convicted about what I feel and what inspires me, and it is my job to live my life in a way that is so inspiring and so playful and so joyful that, of course, you like me, but not because we're in agreement, but because I'm joyful and because it feels good to be with me.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: And so that's the shift I'm opening you to, in letting go of the binary idea that there's a right or wrong there, for we need agreement to be joyful this idea that being joyful leads to enjoying each other and loving each other well and not controlling ourselves into falsely curated happy places.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Right, it's like if I can control everyone around me and I can control all the variables, then I can feel good.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Well, how often does that happen, love?
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: You know how hard it is to control all the variables in your life.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: It's impossible, because all you do then is like turn on the news or show up to your kid's school or flip open Facebook and all of a sudden, you've not controlled all those variables in your upset.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Again, right, so it's so much better to transform the parts of your heart that are anxious or not accepting of yourself or others than it is to try to spend a life controlling all the variables.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: So how did you like this podcast episode where the people sent me the messages and I answered the questions?
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It was very different on this end, but I love it and I'd love to know what you think and I'd love to know what questions you have.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: So send me a message and give me your feedback, because I'm here with you and I wanna continue in this conversation with you and I love you so much.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Have an awesome week.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Peace, and so the offender is now frame open.