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109. When Boundaries Fail Post-Divorce: The Art of Setting and Upholding 7 Essential Boundaries · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hi love, we are back with week two in our boundary series, and today is for the woman who is thinking about dating, or dating or Getting laid, quite frankly.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: So today we're gonna talk about boundaries in romantic relationships, no matter how close the relationship right, if it's literally just a hookup relationship or, you know, you're really looking to get experience dating or really looking to find a new life partner.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So this episode is for you if you're planning on any of those things or already doing those things, and In order to really effectively be dating or hooking up, you are gonna need to have clarity on these seven types of boundaries in order to not lose yourself in the process.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Hi love, welcome to dear divorce diary, the podcast helping divorcee's go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, don Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: In today's episode, we are gonna go through the seven types of boundaries that you need in romantic relationships, but we're also gonna take a look at where you're gonna end up self-sabotaging with boundary setting.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: We are gonna talk about why give yourself grace, culture is screwing you up and how to get back on track.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: When you blew one of your own boundaries, let's do it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Fun factoid about boundaries.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Did you know that the most common boundary you experience day in and day out is your skin?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I know, right, your skin is literally a boundary that helps Differentiate you in time and space from the rest of I don't know existence.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Right, like your skin, it holds you together.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Right, it protects your insides from the outside.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Whoo, did you catch that?
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Your skin protects your insides From the outside.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It's a boundary that just is inherent to your existence.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: That you know.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: We don't often think deeply about that, but that's literally what we are attempting to do with all these other types of boundaries is to Just have, you know, lines of demarcation that help protect our insides from our outsides, maybe our emotional, mental, maybe family, whatever it is right, but but that's what a boundary is.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: So I want you to think about that moving forward.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: It's like a great tool, right, to just think about.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, what does my skin do for me, and what would life be like without it?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Right, like what would it be like to be walking around with the body without skin?
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: That would be Hard, and that same thing about life without boundaries, right?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: So this week we're talking about romantic relationships and and we can really think that through, like on any level whether you're just like I Really need to hook up which I'm not condoning, because I actually don't think that's very wise but I want to meet you where you are and, quite frankly, like I think most of us have been there, most of us have done that, and so this isn't me saying like you shouldn't be doing that, but I think that there is oftentimes, when we're just kind of doing the hookup culture thing, we are doing far more harm than good to ourselves.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I certainly was guilty of that at certain times in my life.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So I'm meeting you where you are, but whether you're hooking up or whether you're practicing dating because practicing dating is such a cool, important thing to do right Practicing choosing rather than feeling like you need to be chosen that's what I want people to be practicing when they're dating is like really assessing, like no, do I like this person?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Like what do I like and what do I don't like, not just like auditioning to be chosen.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: That's how I used to date, right, it's like I was I Don't know on a job interview just trying to get picked, and that's terrible.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Or if you're like, no, it's, I'm ready to like date for serious and I want to find a partner.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: You know, all of this conversation we're gonna have today is really really good if you want to engage in any of these levels of Romance and not lose yourself, because I don't think I have ever met a woman going through divorce who didn't, on some level, feel like she lost track of herself, her identity, what she loves, what she doesn't love.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: You know, kind of just gave up bits and pieces of herself Little by slow, and by the end of it all just felt lost, right, and so Not losing yourself in a romantic context starts with you getting clear about what your boundaries are as you embark on that process.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So there are a lot of different ways to think of boundaries and to help us understand the concept, but we're gonna talk about a handful of types of boundaries today that help you think through the areas in your life when you have the hardest time setting boundaries and to make sure you're shoring those up.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna read to you the seven that we're gonna look at for today, right, and I want you to be thinking as I'm reading them to you which ones of these do you struggle with the most to set and hold?
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we have physical boundaries, like literal, you know, physical space between you and someone else.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Sexual boundaries what's okay and what's not okay.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Sexually emotional boundaries One of my favorites spiritual boundaries Also love, love, this one.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: It's been a massive part of my growth process Financial boundaries, time boundaries, and then non-negotiable boundaries, right?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: So physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual, financial, time and non-negotiable.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Let's dig into them one at a time, just to get some examples so you can get a feel for how this might even apply, right?
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So a physical boundary is literally a space boundary, right?
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And I think something that comes to mind is definitely around what is your level of comfort with physical touch, right?
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: What feels good to you and what doesn't feel good to you to do with physical touch and proximity?
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: I am a close sitter and a close talker.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I will, completely unconsciously, if we meet in real life, which I hope we do one day I will be all up in your grill and that's just kind of how I function, right?
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: But you might not be comfortable with that at all.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And so having an awareness of what feels good to me in terms of that, and can I express that to the people that I love so that I can feel at ease in my body, right?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And so that's an example of a physical boundary.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Do I like holding hands?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Do I like sitting close?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Do I like snuggling?
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: You know how many people don't like snuggling.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: It's a very real thing I experience in my practice all the time.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: They just need that space, right, and so being able to express that early on is so important.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Sexual boundaries oh, this is a juicy one, right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: So it's not just like what you like and don't like in sex that's a huge part of it but it's also being able to express those that matter so so much, and this could do with, like when you're ready to have sex, your favorite positions to do with sex, how you like to be touched or not touched sexually.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: There's so many things to do with sex that need a lot of clarity on your part, and then the ability to express those things.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: That's what creates really magical sex life, is the capacity to be vulnerable and just feel really, really safe in sexual spaces, and so the more we can kind of embody our own confidence, our self-awareness, and express what we want like.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: That's where sex becomes really, really mind-blowing.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: All right, emotional boundaries these are a lot more personal responsibility boundaries around.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: My feelings are mine to process and manage and your feelings are yours to process and manage.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Would you believe that in 2024, I still get couples in my therapy practice that say things like well, if you loved me, you would blah, blah, blah.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Right, that is still a thing people believe is appropriate and works right.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And so that line if you loved me, you would do what I want you to do is a violation of really like an emotional boundary right.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: It's a manipulation in order to get you to do something rather than deal with my own feelings of disappointment or anger or frustration or whatever it is right.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: So when you fight or when you disagree about something and somebody is upset, it's the idea that you're gonna own your upset feelings and you're gonna process those and you're gonna stay in the conversation in a meaningful, productive way and not weaponize your feelings, not take them out on somebody else, not expect somebody else to fix them for you.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: So this emotional boundary one is really a lot about victim consciousness, right.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: A lot about codependency, a lot about I want to love you well, but I can't do your internal work for you.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Make sense, okay?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: The next one is a spiritual boundary.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: This one is, like ironically, really fundamental for me, because one of the things that went sideways in my first marriage was I was on a spiritual journey, right, and for my ex-husband he was very clear about the religion that he had selected in his life and that was a lifelong commitment for him and that was a non-negotiable for him.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to be on a spiritual adventure and that became a fundamental issue for us.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And so spirituality for me was something over the years that I wanted to have ultimately right dug into and explored.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: And it hasn't been a short process, it's been a long process.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And so I also experience in my practice a good deal of women who have felt like they have had to hide their spirituality from their partners or boyfriends or whomever right, because there's been some level of embarrassment or shame or fear that they were going to get rejected and maybe they wouldn't.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe they wouldn't right, but we have to have the courage to embody our own spirituality and to live that out loud and not hide it from people, because so much of boundaries is about healthy self-expression.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: That's certainly not all of it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Right, but it's a huge part of it.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And so being able to be clear about where you are spiritually and what your spiritual needs are, and then maintain those, regardless of how the person you're dating feels about that right, and then also being able to accept whatever their boundaries are about all these things as well.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: All right, financial boundaries.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Love this one, because I think, as women, this is one of the areas that we tend to give up our own power the most, and that's not across the board.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I certainly do not mean to paint with a broad brush here, but I think more often than not, women have less financial confidence than men.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I, and my love language is to remind you of your personal power.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So financial boundaries are one around, not just around.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm not going to bail him out when he's short on his car payment this month.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: It's not just about rescuing the person you're dating.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: It's about I want you to look at how willing you are to be rescued financially, because women who have made choices to become financially rescued has often been where things started to go sideways in terms of the sustainability of this relationship.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Right, because once you feel like you've accepted financial rescuing, it changes the dynamics in the relationship, and I'm not talking about receiving financial help, but rescuing right, feeling like you can't do it, feeling like you need to be rescued or else not being tapped into your own personal power financially, and then, once you're accepting financial help, that has that rescuer vibe to it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Now this relationship, the power dynamic shifted, follow me, the power dynamic shifted and then comes all this stuff about guilt and what I own, what I don't know, oh, an obligation, and just like that, all this toxic stuff got in there.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: So, being really clear about financial boundaries and what that looks like and what help you're willing to receive versus what rescuing you're craving, right, and just really understanding yourself well in that space, I think that I would be shocked if there were a woman out there listening to this episode who didn't have work to do in that particular arena.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: The next one is a time boundary.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I do think this is one that is very hard to maintain when you're early dating because it's so fun, right, and you're getting swept up in it and you just want to do all the fun, delicious things, and so I think it's very common for us to start to surrender bits of our time which were probably the bits we were using for self care, right, like when you're early dating, probably your time to meditate or workout or those types of things.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: If you notice that those are some of the early things that you let go of time with your girlfriends or time doing hobbies that you love, just notice the more that you are surrendering your time boundaries, or expecting him to surrender his time boundaries, that those are rev flags, right.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: And then, finally, non-negotiable boundaries.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: For me these there are obvious ones, like addiction, and I don't necessarily mean substance use.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about addiction, right, which is continued use despite negative consequences.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: It's like a real kind of down and just like hot and quick definition of addiction continued use despite negative consequences, which I think puts a lot of us square in the in the crosshairs, right, because how many of us continue to scroll on Instagram, despite negative consequences?
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: So you may look at that definition for your own life for fun.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: See, there's a little bonus for you.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: But also obviously non-negotiables around things like abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, all those things right.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: I want you to get clear on these for yourself and define them.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I really want your self care boundaries to be non-negotiable boundaries Also.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: I don't want this just to be about obvious.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: You know red flags like which, had I done all this work before I got married, right?
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Guess what Things would have turned out very differently.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So not just about the obvious ones, but about your own self care boundaries.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And I don't mean self care about spa day and getting your nails done.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: That's not the self care we talk about around here, right?
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about real taking care of your mind, body in meaningful ways.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I would love for those to become non-negotiable for you, and so, obviously, when you add relationships to your life, something has to flex.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: But I don't believe that this has to be a this or that scenario.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I believe that when we intend to take care of ourselves well and when we intend to be in a healthy relationship, that there are ways to manifest both of those things, and so we have to become non-negotiable and very disciplined about our own boundaries and trust that a really good relationship for us is going to feel easier to maintain those self care boundaries and be building this relationship at the same time.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Right, and certainly examples of that would be when it'd be great if you meditated together or went to church together or exercise together, that you did these things together, not meaning, oh, I do this because you do that, right?
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: But like just joining these self care processes.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I think that's some of the best ways to be able to maintain those non-negotiable self cares, and also, you don't have time to spend together, right?
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So those are our seven types of boundaries we're talking about for today to do with romantic relationships in general.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Now, there are some ways in particular that you are likely to self-sabotage, which is completely human and normal.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: So no big deal, right?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: But when we plan for something and we have, you know, a thought-out way that we're gonna respond to it, then we are far more likely to get back on the horse and and execute effectively, right?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: So one of the first things that is gonna be a place of self-sabotage when it comes to boundary sending and then maintaining them is gonna have to do with your attachment style.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness We've already talked about that, right?
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So, knowing that, because your brain map is oriented around either an anxious, avoidant or disorganized attachment style, think about how those moments in time, for instance, for me as a disorganized, anxious, now secure, right.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: But back then, that setting these boundaries, if I perceived that they were gonna cause the relationship to end, they were gonna be that much harder for me to maintain or sustain right.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: And so really understanding how my attachment style and my boundary setting fit together so that I can think through Before I roll out this boundary, I can really move through the process of well, based on my attachment style, where am I likely to have this go wrong, right, and where can I plan ahead for that, so that when I'm confronted with this that I can address it.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: So, for instance, remember that story that I told you many, many episodes ago about how when Brian and I were dating and we were having sex one day and I had to pee and it was so hard for me to say it out loud and then I ended up running to the bathroom and getting the shower, crying and dissociating.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I laughed today.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: So that is a great example of how I kind of gotten clear for myself about sexual boundaries ahead of time and known that my need to please and for you to validate me and for me to not feel anxious and insecure and all that kind of way right.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: If I had gotten clear about that upfront, then when that moment had come, it would have been a lot easier for me to say like oh sweetie, I'm so sorry I gotta run to the bathroom, I'll be back right.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: But because I hadn't gone through this clarification process for myself, when it came up it felt like impossible and like I was in quicksand in the moment that it was happening, right.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: So that's a really great example for me of where my attachment stuff really got in the middle of being able to have healthy sexual boundaries and caused a lot of drama in the relationship, probably for a few days, if not weeks, right, and so this is just an example of being aware of attachment style and boundaries ahead of time.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: The next thing where you're likely to self sabotage is to do with not having done enough footwork before you're going to roll out the boundary right.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: So not just oh, I need to look at these seven boundaries and and see where I'm good at them and where I'm not and where I need to set some.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: But also, each time you're going to set a boundary, there's an amount of being able to hold the line and take responsibility for your own responses to boundary setting and boundary maintenance that you're going to have to do behind the scenes, and if you haven't done that footwork in advance, then you're likely to not hold your own boundary and relapse right In a future episode.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: We're going to have a checklist for you to help you do that, that pre work, so that you'll know that when you're setting a boundary, that it kind of checks all the boxes so that you're going to be able to effectively maintain that boundary.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: We're going to help you with that down the road.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: But know that when you're setting a boundary there is some pre work that has to be done around taking responsibility for your responses.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: That will make it far more successful if you do that responsibility work ahead of time.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: The third place you're likely to self sabotage is just by being in denial and falling into some victim consciousness.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: For me, poor him, oh, that was just a one off making excuses, kind of being in denial about where things are problems, and that's all kind of codependency behavior, right, like, not like just wanting to keep the peace and wanting things to just kind of hum along and not wanting to cause problems, right, that's all like, just really kind of codependency and just the kind of by be stuff and so denial and victim consciousness.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Poor me, poor him.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: That's what I really want you to be on the lookout for it, because it's going to sabotage your boundaries most of the time.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about all right.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: You've maybe sabotaged your boundary and nine times out of 10.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: My advice to you would be no big deal, love, give yourself grace.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Nobody's dying here.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: You tried to set a boundary and it didn't go well because, quite frankly, boundary setting is messy and it takes a lot of practice, and it's some of the emotionally hardest work we can do, intellectually hardest work we could do, right, it's literally rewiring our brains.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: It's got to do with our attachment styles 100% and so most of the time, I would say no big deal, you're going to screw it up from time to time.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: It literally we don't make progress without practicing and practice is never perfect, right.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: So the whole point of it is just to practice and get better over time.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: However, something that I've been seeing happen on the internet is this give yourself grace culture, and while I am thrilled that we have gotten to the place in popular culture that we can acknowledge that we are way too hard on ourselves and that we need to do a much better job of not shaming ourselves and not shaming other people, that is 100% true.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Sometimes, I think the give yourself grace culture is not serving you because it's missing step two of give yourself grace.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: It's don't beat yourself up, but also do better.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: It's don't beat yourself up, but also get back on the horse and be consistent, because consistency is the only way you're going to get results.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: So I just want you to notice that if you have, you know, sabotage your own boundaries, or it was hard and it didn't execute the way that you intended, no big deal.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Give yourself grace, but don't fall, and this is, in general, about your healing process.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Don't fall into that give yourself grace culture where you allow it to then excuse you from continuing to take action.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Cool, good chat, all right.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: The third thing that I want to talk about here is about how to get back on track once you know that you kind of blew your own boundary right, because that's a real thing, it happens.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: It's not the end of the world, but it's so important to get back on track, and I think, in order to do that, we can't take the same approach the second and third time that we did the first time right.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Let's say, you intended to set a boundary, and it was a time boundary, and you said I am going to spend the night at my own house.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: You know, five nights this week and I'm going to get to the gym three times this week and this is my time boundary to do with, you know, having that non-negotiable kind of intentional self-care and you didn't do that.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't want you going into the next week and just saying like, okay, I'm going to try again, because, while, yes, I want you to try again the following week, I want you to do an analysis of where it went wrong and why right, not just I'll do my best and try again, without doing a deep dive and autopsy on the boundary failure, because when we don't learn where things are malfunctioning, we're not implementing anything to change course and nothing changes if nothing changes.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: So I want you to sit down with a mentor or a trusted friend or somebody.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I want you to pull our checklist that we're going to give you a couple of weeks from now.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I want you to, you know, pull up the boundaries book that I recommended.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I want you to get really clear on why didn't you spend all those nights in your house, why didn't you make it to the gym, why did you cave, love, what was going on, that you got some sense of urgency or some sense of I don't.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: It's okay if I let it go this once or this twice.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: What happened there?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: What are your underlying beliefs that allowed you to change course when you got clear for yourself ahead of time?
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: These are the things I need to do to maintain my walls of self, to maintain my identity, my integrity, my wellbeing.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: What happened in that moment that it malfunctioned?
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And once you've reviewed what happened what negative belief got in there?
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: What attachment related issue got in there?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: What victim consciousness thing got in there?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: What piece of denial got in there then you can take action to address that thing, because just saying I'm just going to do it again next week, it doesn't actually address the thing that caused the sabotage.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Right, and that taking clear action steps to heal the thing that caused the sabotage is how you're going to get back on track.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: When a boundary got blown, make sense, all right.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of like kind of detailed stuff about how to boundary, and if this feels in the weeds for you, no big deal.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I want you to stick with it, because every time you listen to a book on boundaries or listen to an episode like this, something's getting in there, right, you're going to hear a little something that's going to the next time you go to do it.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: It'll be fresh in your mind.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that I'm working on this week is in parenting my daughter rather than giving her negative feedback, I said to her the other day.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I said, kiddo, I'm having a hard time balancing my negative feedback and positive feedback with you.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: What do you suggest?
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And she said, well, you could try giving me tips and tricks rather than negative feedback.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, okay, I'll try that.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: So it's great strategy from her, right?
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: So this morning I fussed at her because she was being too loud while her dad was asleep, and I thought, as I was washing the dishes, I heard myself and I said ah, dawn, instead you could have turned to her and said sweet girl, I really love it when you are aware of your surroundings and considerate of other people.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: It makes me feel so proud of you.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: And you know, notice when you're not doing that and when you could do more of that.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Right, that would have been a totally different way to deliver that I didn't do it, but because I had done this, I had had the self-awareness that I was giving her too much negative feedback because I had had the conversation with her, because I'm holding myself accountable for it.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I heard it and I thought of it right after the words came out of my mouth.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: But that's how change happens, right?
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: It's like we put a plan together.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: We forget the first time, maybe we forget the second time, but by the third time we're like, ah, we're catching it in real time, right, and so that's what I want you to think about.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: This Repetition is the key to learning, and every time you hear a different angle of something, it's, you know, reprogramming your subconscious mind a little bit at a time, putting that good information in there, and then, every time you use a tool, it really helps that information integrate and take hold and take root.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: So, a little bit at a time, with the boundaries, now we are going to do our Getting Unstuck segment.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: So this week one of our listeners, mae, writes in and actually our conversation started with her saying how grateful she is for me and the podcast, and that just feels so good.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: She says as women, we need to come together to help each other.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: It's moments like this getting divorced that help us look inward and now take the time to grow spiritually, mentally, and love ourselves.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And so I just love, mae, that you shared your words of affirmation, because those words give me life.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I am so grateful for your gratitude.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Right, it's gosh, it's really powerful.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: And so, as we were chatting, she shares.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: She is working really hard on getting rid of obsessive thoughts, thinking about her ex, stop creating stories in her head that might not even be true, and how to have clear direction and not get confused in the process because of the obsessive thoughts.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And the example that she gives of an obsessive thought she has frequently is if he said he cares for her, why did he leave and what is he doing in his new life?
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: And then she starts imagining him with his new girlfriend, mae.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: This question has so many layers to it and we probably won't tackle them all in this segment, but let's talk about if he cares about me, why did he leave?
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: The repetition of that thought, right, why it keeps coming up, and then visualizing what he's up to and what he's doing and what he's not doing.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: So you know I could speak here to how the reason our mind has repetitive thoughts in the first place is because there's something that it hasn't healed from, there's something it's struggling to understand or make sense of, there's something it hasn't fully processed, there's something it's trying to warn us about to protect us from future danger, right.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: A lot of times the mind is like making sure before we have fully resolved something that's like ah, you know, you might be in danger.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: There are times where someone it is possible that someone can care and they can leave.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Both things can be true.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I think that part of the work that we do in the season is to kind of do that autopsy on the relationship, on how I showed up in the relationship, how he showed up in the relationship, and start to understand those layers so that you don't make that mistake moving forward.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I think that's what the mind wants to caution you about, right Is not getting hurt again, and so it's kind of obsessing over the details to understand where you went wrong so that you don't have to feel this kind of rejection and pain again.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: But there's another piece, right, that if he doesn't want to be in the relationship anymore in a meaningful way, right, if that's the choice he's made, be so often Seek to get that validation back.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: We want that external validation so badly because it feels so empty or wrong or unsettling without it, right.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: And then picturing him with the next person just grows that even larger.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And so there's this idea that when we expect validation from people outside of us greater than the amount of validation we are willing to give and receive ourselves, that that really goes against the laws of nature.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Right, that we are designed to be deeply in relationship with ourselves, deeply in relationship with a higher power and then deeply in relationship with other humans Not all the other humans, because we're not meant to deeply connect with every other human necessarily.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Right, but I really believe that there's a strong correlation between how deep our relationship with self has been, how deep our relationship with a higher power is, and how we've been codependently reaching for external relationships to fill the hole that we just haven't learned how to fill for ourselves yet.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: So that's one piece, may I know you're already on the journey to filling that hole with who you are and who you are in God's eyes, like I know that that's work you're already doing right, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: And then the other pieces and I know you know this too love is that there's some trauma processing to be done.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And I think that because I know you know this because I know that you're working to get in with a therapist and to process it, that those repetitive thoughts are most often evidence that there is some level of trauma processing that needs to be done and that until we do that work, it's not gonna be easy to get free from those repetitive intrusive thoughts.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: So I want you to think of, for those listeners who are still struggling with repetitive intrusive thoughts, I want that to be the clue to you that you're like ah shit, dawn says I have to trauma process this piece.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: And so what do I mean by trauma processing?
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I mean going in and doing the subconscious work of shifting the negative belief into a positive belief, whether you do that through EFT tapping, emdr therapy, homeopathy these are just examples, right?
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: What are some other ways that are out there?
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: There's a modality called TIR.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: There's a modality called brainspotting.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Some of them are free, right?
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Eft tapping is completely free.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: There are so many tappers out there In fact we're gonna talk about that in the next episode.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: They don't have to be expensive, they don't have to be super sexy, right?
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: But it's consistency over time and it's making sure you're addressing those places and spaces and understand because connecting the dots that those repetitive thoughts are something that needs to be appropriately processed.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I just heard Jordan Peterson talk today about if there's a repetitive thought you've had in the last 18 months, that's your subconscious mind telling you to address something.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And he talks about if you can invite yourself to dream about it, because there's a link between EMDR therapy and REM sleep and dreams, right.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: So it's the idea if you can invite yourself to dream about it and you can more fully process it in your sleep.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know what his advice would be to do that, but I'm just connecting the dots for you that repetitive thoughts are signs that our memory processing got stuck and that the memory didn't go back to long-term storage the way that it was meant to, and get filed properly.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: It's staying fresh in our minds.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: It's staying like a fresh wound in our minds saying you know how?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: In episode 100 we heard John say time heals clean wounds.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: That repetitive thinking is a way of that wound, saying this wound is not clean and it needs proper care and attention before the wound can heal and the memory can get encoded in long-term memory storage as though it happened when it happened rather than it feeling so fresh all the time.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: So May the long story short is I know you're working on this and I know you're taking all the steps.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: You need to Trust that.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I call this part of the process the messy middle.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: When people know that they've got stuff they need to work on and they come into the office to see me and you know, the first half dozen sessions they're just freaking messy.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: It's like it all almost gets harder before it gets easier.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Sometimes awareness is not enough, right, we've got to actually take the steps to clean those wounds.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: So the messy middle is what it is.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: That's where you just like, make sure you get extra rest and drink extra water and say, like screw it, it's just messy right now, but it's to serve a purpose, so that a few months down the road we have a much lighter load, a much cleaner, clear path and it's so much easier to move forward.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: You're right on track.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: I believe in you.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Peace, dear.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Divorce Diary is a podcast by my Coach, dawn.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: You can find more at MyCoachDawningcom.