Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 43. Lift Your Post Divorce Depression & Build Confidence Faster Through PLAY

Transcript

43. Lift Your Post Divorce Depression & Build Confidence Faster Through PLAY · 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, today is a long overdue topic that we just do not talk enough about anywhere in the healing spaces, and that is fun.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I want you to consider this pod episode a prescription, where I am insisting that you go get way more doses of fun in your life And, dare I even say, find ways to have fun while healing, because loves we are our most authentic, truest versions of ourself when we are playing and we are having fun.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: So how can we say that we are healing from these relationship wounds and healing from our traumas and claiming our authentic selves and getting to the root of our feelings of worthiness or unworthiness, when the reality is is we are most in touch with our true selves when we are playing and having fun.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: How can we do any of this healing work without emphasizing fun, fun fact, talking to you about these things is, like, so fun for me.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So and that's what makes it, that's what makes my whole life's work so magical for me is where I understand that talking about these things isn't necessarily as fun for you.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: It's so fun for me and that is the beauty of being in touch with the truth of who we are is tapping into what is so beautifully true about you and then living deeply into that gift, because the world needs you, right?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: So this, in this now moment, i am having so much fun talking to you about fun, and I want to know what's fun for you and I want to encourage you to do that fun thing way more often.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Now, let me qualify that a little bit.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I don't mean fun to do with your phone typically, unless it has to do with, like, watching Lulu the pug, whom I follow on Instagram, you know that kind of thing or watching your favorite comedian.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I don't mean fun necessarily to do with drinking, although it could.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: But, right, i want you to consider fun in ways where you are really present in the moment, and and so I'm not, it's not all or nothing, right, i'm not saying no drinking, no substances, no phones.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Watch Lulu the pug, watch your favorite comedian, find a shaman and consider doing a mushroom trip.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Right, i'm all about exploring into the spaces and trying things, definitely exploring to the places and try things, but I want you to be aware that I don't necessarily mean party when I say fun.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily mean no amount on a phone screen.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, binge Emily in Paris, but then also go climb a mountain or bake a cake or get some mad libs.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: When's the last time you did a mad lib right there, hysterical, you know.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Play with puppies and go on.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: What are those dates where you go on and they're really fast.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: You know, gosh, i'm having a total great speed dating.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you, producer.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Joy.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Do things that are silly.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Put on your favorite 80s music and dance until you're blue in the face.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Put on leg warmers while you do it you know what I mean.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Like just let go and be free.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: See if you can have a cartwheel contest with your kid in the front yard.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Do the things where you're like really living out loud and playing.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I think some of this takes some practice, because right now you're really attuned to feeling sad and to grieving and to having a lot of people tell you you should heal your gut and heal your central nervous system and heal your trauma and that you shouldn't date until you've done those things.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And all of that feels like it sucks the fun out of everything, on top of your exes being a dick and your kids are out of control and right.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: None of that is fun, except what if some of it could be Right.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So I really want to encourage you that when you are picking spaces to heal, in that you consider having fun while you're in them.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I want you to be able to laugh when you're talking about divorce.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I want you to be able to like full blown giggle and if sometimes that's because you made a dark humor joke, great, that's part of it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Right, if you notice that in healing spaces you're having a hard time letting loose, like with body movement or just feeling free to.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I talked about this with EFT tapping.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Why do we, why do we feel so awkward about EFT tapping when really we should be like I don't mean should delete that from the record We could be giggling about how silly we look while we're tapping and healing, right.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: So more and more and more of this conversation about healing really needs to involve laughter, joy, play, and just this week I joined Noom.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Have you tried it before?
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: It's a, it's like a.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Would you call it a weight loss app?
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: It's really.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: It probably is a weight loss app, but they use mental health and psychology in order to do it, and they've gamified part of it so that you know when you pass a quiz, you feel good and you earn coins and whatever.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: And so they figured out how to put fun into the process of weight loss And like why?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Because it works.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: When we're having fun with something, we're way more likely to stick with it, and when something feels good, we're more likely to come back to it.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: And so I think that's why we laugh a lot on this pod, and I think that's why we don't talk as much about divorce on the pod and we stay really focused on the solution, because when we're in the darkness, so much we It's, it's heavy and it's too much right.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I remember when I was really in the thick of divorce healing in the early days and I was going to Alenon and then afterwards I would recommend other people to go to Alenon and I would get the feedback like Don, i hate going to Alenon because it's so heavy there, and you know that's not wrong, and I've had clients at times go to certain support groups where it's even heavier than even Alenon, right?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: and those support groups exist where they're just really really kind of heavy, very like trigger warning content, and there's nothing wrong with any of that.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I love Alenon, i swear by it.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: The 12 steps are a very powerful form of healing that I find a lot of alignment with yoga and with Christianity and you name it right, it's just all spiritual concepts that are really, really valuable.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: But it has to be in balance, right, it has to be in balance.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And so fun was such an important part of how I conceptualize a different D word, the membership that's launching soon, because in order to feel good about ourselves, in order to feel deeply worthy, we have to be tapped into that.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: We have to be tapped into that And I can see in my own journey how, you know, early on, like in the very early post of war space, i definitely was leaning on partying for my fun, but I was also leaning heavily on the beach and being in that space, and I was definitely leaning heavily on laying in bed with girlfriends, like you know, laughing about random stuff, like just really kind of soaking in that girl time and being silly And and that over time I've gotten better at things and feeling freer.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I think that fun is something for me that I've been focusing on a lot more this last year in general, because I'm really good at being serious.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I've got like we got to get serious.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I've got that thing really handled.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I've got that on lock.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: But playing is something that I want to emphasize even more because I understand that it's foundational to all of our positive manifestations.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: It's foundational to really enjoying this one life that we have.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: So as I move through my day now, i think to myself like well, it would really feel good right now And I really feel strongly about I use this skincare because I have fun doing it, and I make these foods because I have fun doing it.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Or I listen to this music because it's like injecting fun as much as I can into every piece of my day And a lot of the things that we do for fun.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I think we worry about what other people will think if they see us doing it.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: The other morning I was out front with the dogs and I was running through some yoga poses in the front yard with my ass facing the street and the neighbor walked out and was like what are you doing?
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And I was like what are you doing?
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yep, yep.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I was just doing that in the front yard.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I asked, facing the street, and that that's the thing is the more we do, it love.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I was having this conversation with producer Joy this morning.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: We can't get better at having fun without doing the fun.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: We can't get better at not caring what people think about us while we're having the fun until we do the fun, while we practice not caring about what people think about us.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Right, it takes action in order to really internalize it and internalize the benefits around it, and so I want you to think about, moment by moment by moment, how can you play a little more?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: How can you weave joyful things like gratitude and silliness and happy music and just silly stuff into your day?
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Right, and maybe you already have a good chunk of that.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Maybe you know I'm a big fan of sharing a meme shared with the between the best friend.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: That that is joy.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: You know, having a delicious piece of food, that feels like fun, great, making up games with your coworkers like do it Please love, play, play, play, play, play, play as much as you can and know that that is going to do as much or more for your healing than any of the deeply technical things that we talk about on this pod.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Play fun.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: It is your life's mission to create and be tapped into what lights you up specifically, and please, please, do not compare what is fun for you with anybody else.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: If having fun for you is crocheting, then that's the thing.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: If having fun for you is gardening, then that's the thing.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: But you got to give yourself permission a to explore and b to latch on and not let go of the thing that is fun and joyful for you.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Not only do I give you permission, but I'm writing you a prescription.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Go do it.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Peace Deer.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Divorce Diary is a podcast by My Coach John.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: You can find more at MyCoachJohncom.