Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 199. Why Circling Back To Your Ex After Divorce Might Be a Bad Idea? Unpopular Take

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199. Why Circling Back To Your Ex After Divorce Might Be a Bad Idea? Unpopular Take · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest fears for women who have just completed a divorce is repeating the same relationship mistakes in the future.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And if you are still hooking up with your soon-to-be ex or doing a similar going backwards behavior, you are actually reinforcing the pattern that you don't want you say you don't want in future relationships.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: You don't want you say you don't want in future relationships.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Hi love, welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave and build back your confidence.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So this episode is actually requested by one of you gorgeous listeners, and for that I am so grateful.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I think it's such a common sort of hardship to struggle to let go right and actually move forward, and there are so many ways we are used to soothing our nervous systems and our minds and, unfortunately, going back is often one of those.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: So in today's episode, we are going to talk about how all the ways in which hooking up with your soon to be ex or just not letting go right Like not exiting the group chat, not deleting the app where you're watching, whether or not he's in an Uber or armed or disarmed his alarm, or you know what I mean like all the little ways in which you still like.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Stay in it energetically, right, stay really linked in energetically.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: We are going to talk about how some of that is related to your early childhood brain map and what needs to be tweaked there.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: We are going to talk about the function of trust in terms of changing this sort of behavior pattern.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: We are going to talk about one of the skills that you really need to rehearse and practice over and over again in order to be able to move forward more efficiently, or, you know, being able to intentionally manifest something different than what you just are rehearsing.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And we are also going to talk about what addiction has to do with this habit.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So, cheers, this is a jam packed episode.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Let's dig in, all right.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: So first things first, when we are conceived in utero.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And then early children, right, young children.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Our brain maps sort of get laid down for how we experience relationships, the world around us, how we sense things, whether or not we trust, how secure we feel, sort of all the underpinnings of attachment theory, right.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: But also before seven years old we internalize the bulk of the beliefs we're going to hold about ourselves and the world and relationships, because before seven our top brain isn't online yet and so we can't resist or reject ideas very effectively.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Sure, we may throw our sippy cup on the ground and say no, but that's not actually processing an idea or belief and deciding to keep it or reject it.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So until that top brain comes online around seven years old, we're just sort of absorbing the beliefs of the people around us, and if you think about your caregiver's beliefs about the world around them, you could see where maybe there are some things that need to be reworked in your brain map, to be reworked in your brain map.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And so, based on that, if you have a really hard time letting go of your ex and you kind of keep circling back whether it's for affection or sex or money or help hanging your picture frames or whatever it is and that's not all necessarily wrong, right, but you have to notice what's activated in the behavior or not there's probably a brain map that you need to reprogram around.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's familiar to not get my needs met, right, and then you keep going back to this place where your needs weren't met in a meaningful way to get a need met right, but in a very incomplete, unfulfilling, not rewarding, shame-triggering way.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: And so I wonder have you done any journaling or therapeutic work or EFT tapping around?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: It's familiar to me on some level, on a soul level, on an energetic level, in an early childhood brain map, to not get my needs met in a meaningful way.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: This is where we use all the beautiful quantum tools to remap that early childhood brain.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It's not possible to do that through traditional talk therapy.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: So this is where going deeper, using deeper modalities like EFT, homeopathy, quantum healing, which I have recently started adding to my practice You've heard some of those tracks over on the premium side of the podcast but, like wow, we are going to start adding it more and more and more to podcast episodes.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So brain map needs to be tweaked.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Second thing is we really have to dig in to look at how much you are trusting yourself, your intuition and source, or your higher power or God at this stage of your recovery.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Right, I want you to take a look at the role that intuition, faith and rebuilding trust in self is working for you or against you.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, typically Typically when we have left a relationship.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: We are pretty mixed up about what we can and cannot trust and, in a world full of AI, a bunch of noise, everyone is trying to sell you something and most of the claims are false.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Like wow, it can feel like a lot of work to sift and sort through what is true anymore.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, we see that problem in politics and I mean just you name it right we just sort of, as a community, don't know who or what to trust, and so I just want to say to you that your higher power is never going to ask you to go backwards in that way.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Right, your higher power believes in your future in such a deep and meaningful way that even if you move forward and you're, let's say, meant to be with your ex right that will happen via your moving forward.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Let's really let that sink in.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Moving forward and letting go of the way things were is always going to be this beautiful path to the way things are meant to be, because we are always in a process of being clarified, sanctified, grown, matured whatever word resonates for you most.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Right, we're in a growth process, and so when we're going backwards, revisiting the past, we're not typically growing forward, and so I want you to trust that, if you move forward with intention and with motivation and passion, you don't have to be worried that you're going to miss something in your future that you may have screwed up in your past.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: What is meant for you cannot be kept from you, and God is not going to punish you for making a mistake.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: He is going to continue to line things up so that you continue to grow in the ways that are meaningful, according to your purpose on this planet today.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: So I want you to trust that.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I want you to trust our intelligent creator and I want you to trust your future more than you trust your past, and that is really something I want you to let settle into the cells of your body and your bones.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: By moving forward, you are not going to miss something from your past that was essential to your future.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: So just allow yourself to move forward to your future.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: So just allow yourself to move forward.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: The third thing I want to talk about today is the skill that you have to really practice.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: You got to put the reps in right for this to work, but the skill of learning how to meet your own needs, and that doesn't mean don't allow other people to meet your needs.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: That's not what I mean, but there's a difference between an I can-ness.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I can figure this out, I can soothe these emotions, I can listen deeply inside to recognize what I need, and I can reach out to someone that's a part of my future in order to get that need met and I can maybe even meet some of my own needs in this now moment.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: And so learning how to identify your needs and meet them for yourself, even if that means asking for help from someone in your you know, now, moment or future, future sort of intentional, manifested life, that's a skill, right.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I think many, many people start therapy because they don't know what they want, they don't know what they like, they don't know how to move forward.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: They feel sort of lost, they feel sort of confused or mixed up or blocked around what they truly want, and so we default then to what's familiar right.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: And so I need you to really practice sitting down and or not sitting down, right.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: You remember last week where I talked about the pillow throwing right and really banging that pillow.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: So doing things like banging pillows or sitting down with your crayons like I teach in the Post-Averse Roadmap Immersive Journaling Program sitting down with your crayons and scribbling, before you do some body scanning and some little journal prompting right or growling, or, you know, doing some things that are going to help clear the stuck energy, so that you can discern what do I need?
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: In this moment, I'm having this urge to slip and fall on my exes.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: You know what, and what is it that I'm actually calling for?
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Because somewhere along the way I discerned that this relationship wasn't in alignment for me, and so, if I'm going back, what is it I actually need?
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: That I haven't figured out how to resolve, and so I keep trying.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I keep doing that thing that's called the definition of insanity, right, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: But there is a need.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: That urge is happening for a reason.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: That urge to go back, or that urge to, you know, re-engage or stalk your ex.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: It's purposeful, it's coming from a place that has a need, and so your mission is to get in touch with that need.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Is it acceptance?
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Is it to be heard?
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Is it to be validated or loved or touched?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Or you know what is it, loved or touched, or you know what is it.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And then how can you move forward in satiating that need with your healing team, all right.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: The fourth one is a doozy loves, and it is in the realm of addiction.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: So I am convinced that anyone that has a smartphone at this point has a greater issue with addiction than he or she would like to admit, and it just sort of is the thing that came with smartphones and screens in this modern age, and more and more we are struggling to tolerate discomfort in modern life.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Right, how well do we tolerate any sort of temporal discomfort these days when you know it's always so funny when we talk with my kiddo about, like, how we couldn't pause TV or maybe didn't even have remote controls, let alone cell phones.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Right, we had.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: You know, when I was in high school, we had beepers and there were pay phones and we didn't have GPSs.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: We used paper maps.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Like it's funny.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine going back to that and how frustrated and irritable you would be, how anxious you would feel?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: And so there really needs to be this capacity to recognize how addicted we are to comfort, to dopamine.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Basically, I don't know about you, but my Instagram feed has been full of ads for dopamine addiction programs lately, so that seems to be like a new 2025 product that's coming online.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I bet there's something really beautiful to that in terms of educating our communities that dopamine addiction is a very real issue.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: That is sort of hamstringing our motivation, our capacity to heal, because oftentimes healing means processing painful things that we are avoiding, you know.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: So I want you to really think about, when you have that urge to go back to your ex, how you're often choosing that short-term shot of comfort, right, or something that you want to feel good, but very quickly after that you're probably going to feel worse and, more importantly than that, you're actually delaying the achievement of the goals.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: The things you say you want which is, you know, for most people is like happiness, love, money, you know, feeling in touch with your purpose, close relationships, right.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: But if you keep rehearsing that sort of, if you keep going for the instant gratification versus the long-term achievement or success or purpose-driven way right, you're just delaying all of that goal-oriented stuff that you're telling us that you want.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: And I believe you've had an idea right oh, it would be nice.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You've had a thought like oh, it would be nice to have a committed, trustworthy, safe relationship, it would be nice to have more than enough money, it would be nice to lose 20 pounds.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: It would be nice to have you know my kids really love and appreciate me.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: It would be nice to have a family who doesn't act like a group of crazy people.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: But there's.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: But a goal goes beyond just having a thought right.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: A goal is like no, I am choosing this for my life.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And when we rely on short-term blips of feeling good over kind of long-term consistent working, a plan right, which is sort of not really validating that there are things in life that we want, we want them for a purpose and so.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: So now I want to play around a little bit with quantum healing, because it's been such a game changer for our community so far, and I'm just going to do a little piece of treatment here, right?
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: So if there is a part that does not want to treat this issue around letting go of the ex, because that part of you is afraid that it is going to re-traumatize you around loss, afraid that it is going to re-traumatize you around loss, I want that part to consider that by really becoming a cohesive treatment team inside of you that you will feel more satisfaction and less pain.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: So I want you to get open, open.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Open to treating this fear of loss, fear of loss and super conscious.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Please treat all the parts that are afraid of letting go and moving forward, all of the complex structures, painful memories and experiences that have led to a fear of moving forward.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Do a massive change history and everything else necessary and treat until complete.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Take a deep breath, exhale and let it all go and trust that you are in the right place at the right time and you are in a beautiful process for a purpose.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: If you haven't checked out premium content yet, I highly recommend giving it a try.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: We have at this point everything from quantum healing tracks that actually reprograms your subconscious mind right there on the spot to motivational you know motivational morning meditations from me EFT tapping, guided sleep meditations at a 528 hertz so that you're healing in your sleep.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: It's really a rich, beautiful place to get better quickly.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Peace.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach, dawn.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: You can find more at mycoachdawncom.