Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 21. Take These Steps to overcome Loneliness and Build Confidence After Divorce

Transcript

21. Take These Steps to overcome Loneliness and Build Confidence After Divorce · 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: Cozy in for the conversations you've been longing to have about this new life.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, how you doing today?
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I am sitting here with my puppy in my lap and my cup of chocolate, because that is my new thing Drinking a cup of chocolate.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: It pleases me instead of coffee or tea, and it is so good to be here with you.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Today.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about feeling alone after divorce, and it's such a good topic, right?
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It's hard to feel alone when you have a puppy in your lap.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say that Let's talk about some of the questions that you have specifically asked about feeling alone.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I love it when I get to answer your questions.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So what does it mean that you feel alone?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: What does it mean to feel alone?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Well, i think feeling alone speaks so much to disconnect, right, like separateness, and I think that when we're so used to being part of a couple or a family in a particular way and we change that main way of relating to oneself wife, family, spouse.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: However, it is right And we remove that, it feels like this really intense separation.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It feels all new and different, feels disorienting.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: We've talked about that before And so that alone feeling, i think, is about the perception that all of a sudden you're separate and you're the same person that you were right a year ago or five years ago.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we're always evolving and expanding, but what I've come to understand is that oftentimes we really view ourselves too much through the lens of our relationship and not enough through the truth of who we are as an individual.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: What do I mean by that?
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I think so often we relate to our identity as our roles, versus knowing the nooks and crannies of what makes us tick as individuals.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And so there's a certain ease around identifying with roles, right, oh, i know what that role involves, but then also what makes us tick as an individual may not always feel like it squares with those roles.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: It's just these charging questions and it helps with the development, like something about that role.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: But the truth of who I am is like I don't like that right, like I don't like having to have sex whenever you want to have sex.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I don't like having to play pretend at being a perfect mom.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: I don't like having to agree in corporate meetings when I don't agree right, things about our roles that don't square with who we are.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And then what do we do with those things?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: We quiet them, we shut them down because it doesn't square with our role, and we think, oh, i must need to preserve this role rather than go further down the beautiful, amazing rabbit hole of discovering where the truth of who I am can lead me.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: So when you're divorced and you're feeling alone and you think it's because you're suddenly alone when you weren't, it's actually because you've been not following the rabbit hole of the truth of who you are for so long that you're disconnected.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: You're alone from self, right, like you have created a wall between the truth of who you are and who.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: You've been acting as if you will And it's not just you, i did it too.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And now there's not as many distractions, right, you have more time kind of on your own and you have one of your roles just went away, so there's more space to feel the truth, which is you've been shoving a lot of stuff down for a long time and that perception of separation.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: It's heavy, you know, and I think it's interesting.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: There's so much shame and maybe you do or don't identify with that, but there's so much shame.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: In this divorce phase.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: What are people going to think?
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: What are people going to think about every little thing, right, every little aspect of this?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: What are the teachers gonna think about?
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: How my kids are experiencing this?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: What is the?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: what is my ex's lawyer gonna think about?
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: how this gets framed in court?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: What is my mother-in-law gonna think about This or that, right?
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: What is so and so gonna think about this person I'm dating?
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: What is this person I'm dating gonna think about?
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Like I don't know.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of framing things and that's all shame-based framing, right?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Like when you are judging how you're living according to how somebody else perceives it.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: You're really just judging yourself and all that judgment creates so much shame and creates so much feeling alone because you are again cutting yourself off from the truth of who you are, right.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So when you feel alone, know that it's gonna be tempting to frame it around not being with people or being with people, but it's really about being with you And the rest of it kind of comes along after.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: So if you've been feeling alone, i wanna encourage you to get really curious love about all things you, all the things about you that you've been pushing away, shoving down, avoiding, denying, right, like that is our first clue.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: And the reason you feel so alone right after divorce, like I said, is because one of those roles went away and it left you with space.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So just know that that if you're feeling alone right after divorce, great, it means you're clearer about how much of you needs to step forward, right.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: So feeling alone after divorce is a great sign.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: It means you're more aware of what has been, but you've been kind of numbing it out or avoiding it or shoving it down, right.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: So no stress about that.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: The symptoms of feeling lonely are something of note, right?
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So oftentimes, when we're feeling lonely, we get into this dance of too little or too much, And by that I mean too little, like kind of meaning shrinking away, shutting down, with drawing from people, places and things, right, and maybe sleeping a lot, maybe feeling some warning signs for depression, maybe feeling restless and lethargic at the same time.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: That's a thing, right.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: That's a whole mood right there, restless and lethargic, but that makes sense, right.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: You get that okay.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: So kind of in the zone of maybe what may seem like too little right, where you're withdrawn or shut down as a symptom of loneliness, or maybe swinging in the opposite direction, where there's too much, too much of things, like maybe too much swiping in the dating apps or too much drinking, or too much like partying, specifically right, like maybe going out or over committing, like keeping yourself super busy to avoid feeling the loneliness.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a really common symptom also of feeling lonely It's just staying so busy and then crashing, you know, and you're not really feeling a lot when you're too busy or when you're crashed out, right, so it kind of feels like a nice way to keep all those feelings at bay.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So just notice, if you're in that kind of dance between too much and too little.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: The physical you ask sometimes what are the physical effects of loneliness?
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: And the physical effects of loneliness?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you know I'm gonna point more to the mental effects of loneliness and then what comes with that.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: But when we're lonely, when we're isolated let me use this language when we're isolated for even brief periods of time, like true isolation, like there are TV shows built on this right Like a loan, and naked and afraid, i don't know.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: You know Like there's a whole dramatic reality TV category based on isolation.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: But it's not good, right, we tend to lose weight or gain weight or start to develop some really irrational thoughts and feeling patterns.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: You know there's been a lot of research both in the animal world and the human world when there's prolonged isolation that psychotic thoughts and feelings creep in right Like really unstable ways of relating to your environment.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: So so too much isolation, which isolation goes beyond feeling lonely.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: So let me just put that out there.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: But the physical effects of loneliness are definitely going to be there in your mind and your body, because that level of aloneness is going to create pain in your mind and in your body.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Right, sustained loneliness, it's pain, and when we feel pain in the mind, that translates into the body.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: It creates those stress hormones and stress hormones create this pain cycle in the brain.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: So, and we experience mental and physical pain in the same place in the brain.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: So just know that the physical effects of loneliness are real and the pain that you feel is legit, and it's really valuable to get to work on that, because the only thing that's going to come from, this is more suffering, right?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: And oh my word, love, you don't want that and I don't want that.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: We're super clear about that.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: So one of the key questions that you ask that is my favorite question to answer and also feels challenging to answer is what is the main cause of loneliness?
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: And you know, i've been a student of loneliness and its solutions for a long while.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I actually put out this whole like cool PDF on my therapy website about, you know, hacking loneliness.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: But I think even my understanding of it and my understanding of the solution around it has evolved over the last number of years And my belief is that the main cause of loneliness is separation from your true self and separation from your spiritual guidance, whatever that is for you, love.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: So let's call it separation from your true self and your soul and your soul's guidance, right?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: So when we are not listening to the truth of who we are, what we need, what lights us up, what is what creates joy, what inspires us, and we're not living that life, and we slowly kind of become shut off, and often in childhood.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: That's just kind of a common occurrence in childhood, because parents share their belief systems organically, of course, right, we all, as parents, want to raise our children to have a belief system and a set of values, and as parents, we pride ourselves in having a certain set of values and beliefs, and so we share those with our children, with the expectation often that they take them on right.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: But when our children take on our belief systems without questioning them, is this a fit for me?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And they just kind of blindly follow the belief systems.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: You know, there's been a lot of studies that say that children most frequently take on the political belief system of their parents, the religious belief system of their parents.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Right So, but but often, as kids, kids don't know enough to think about, well, what else is out there.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Nor do we as parents often expose them to the full menu of what's out there because, let's be honest, we want them to believe what we want them to believe.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: But where that comes to you and me, love is.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: What I was taught to believe is not what I believe today.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And man has it been a rainbow journey by rainbow.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I was picturing a rainbow as a bridge in my brain right To get from one side of that rainbow to the other side of the rainbow, from what I used to believe to what I believe today about who I am, how I am, how I show up in the world, and that journey of self discovery is everything.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: And that's what we're talking about when we say what's the main cause of loneliness and what's the solution.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: It's coming home.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Coming home, love to yourself.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And no, it is not gonna happen overnight.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And yes, it's going to be a process And yes, it means grieving more losses because you can't take it all with you into your new life.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen that meme right Where it talks about the cost of your new life is going to be your old one and you're already living out that out loud in so many ways.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: You already know very much what I'm talking of, but I really want to inspire you that this is not just lip service.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: This is not just like an idea.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: You see in a meme that you are headed for something magical.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: You are headed for something magical So long as you're clear that the magical thing that you're headed towards is you.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: You are the magic, and staying on that path is how you experience the magic.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And when you get off that path, you lose the magic.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: So the next question you ask sometimes is what happens if you're lonely after divorce for too long, and I'm not too concerned about that question.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Except the answer is when you do anything for longer, something that's suffering, you do it for longer.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Right, you're gonna suffer longer.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna be too dramatic about what comes after that, because I believe the path to the magical self doesn't have to be as long as you think it is.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: You know, is it always happening in layers and stages?
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Sure, am I still on the magical path to self, abs effin' Lutely right, like I am more myself today than I was six months ago or two years ago.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: It is an everyday journey that I'm on and I love it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I didn't always love it, right, it came sometimes in fits and spurts with anxiety about, oh gosh, you know I'm still breaking up with what other people think of me.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I was saying this at the gym this morning.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I was laughing that I wish sometimes that this was a cleaner breakup where there was no contact, this idea of carrying what people think of me, because sometimes I still text my ex not literally, right, i don't actually text my ex loves, but meaning, you know, looking at things through the lens of what you may think of me, right, worrying about what you think about what I just said eight seconds ago.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: So it's a process of really really clarifying, like I am me and I'm gonna celebrate that magic and zero effs about whether or not you approve, right, that's the magic.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: And so if you're lonely for too long after, like, you're the only one that gets to decide how long is too long, and just know that your comeback story starts now.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Right, your comeback story starts now and you don't have to keep suffering.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: So now let's talk about breast tax.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Right, let's get down to breast tax.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: How to deal with loneliness, when you're feeling alone, when you're feeling sad, what do we do about it?
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And there's gonna be a lot of answers to this, right, so I'll give you everything I've got.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: But we understand that the path is to yourself.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: That's kind of the clear big picture goal is for you to find a path back to the heart, to come home to you and that magic that is inside of you.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: But sometimes we get to that goal by being with others, right?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And so when I was in the early, like acute, stages of post-divorce life, i did, kind of organically, what I think is often advocated for, which is saying yes, right, like engaging in a lot of places that are going to be for you And I just knew I wanted the solution so bad, i wanted answers, i wanted solution.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I did not want to suffer And I was at a space in, i think, my reproductive life that I was like, well, if I want even a shot at having a kid, like I need to get on with the ceiling process because there is a timeline here.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: So I think that probably helped motivate me.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: But I went to individual therapy, i went to group therapy, i went to Alamon, i went to personal development workshops that happened in ballrooms of hotels.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Like I went all in on all the things because I wanted to get to the bottom of it And I think what I want you to hear is that each of those places I went to to heal was really bringing me home to myself.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Right, it was a self-discovery process And, yes, i still went out and partied sometimes And I took a dating hiatus for a while.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: But then, you know, like I went through a dating phase And, yes, i went to concerts and I started a business and I networked and I, you know, like I lived life outside of those healing spaces.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: But those people I met in the healing spaces became dear friends and they became lifelong dear friends, right, and that whole process just got kind of woven into my life And those are the people I had fun with And those are the people I spent my Sunday afternoons with, or Saturday morning brunches or whatever right, because then healing wasn't just something that I did to deal with pain, but it was with people who inspired me, who nourished me, who nurtured me, who felt good, you know.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: So I really think that there are a few things I said here Say yes, like get involved, go do things.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And maybe for you that's not like 82 types of therapy because that's me, i'm 82 types of therapy gal But maybe for you it means you know playing softball or taking that Zumba class, or you know joining CrossFit or playing the clarinet I don't know right, but like all of those things that are self exploration, maybe it means getting involved in the PTA at your kid's school, or I don't know.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: The key is to fall if your intention is to get un-lonely right And you've heard me say today that getting un-lonely means getting in touch with the magic inside of you then you're gonna get urges.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: So hear this right, you're gonna get urges, ideas, inspired ideas to do things, to try things, to explore things.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden, something will show up in your newsfeed, or you'll see a bulletin board, or you'll see a billboard or you'll you know.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Whatever Things are gonna cross your path and it's gonna spark something inside of you.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And your job is to say yes to the spark, because sometimes the things sparks and they're like, oh you know, i can't afford it, i don't have time.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Your job is to ignore all of the resistance or to like, breathe it away, right, sage it away, sing it away, i don't care.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: And to lean into the spark, because the spark is exactly the magic that I said is in you, right, it's an impulse of magic showing up to help you across that rainbow.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: So I want you to say yes to the things that you get inspired to do.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So you know, i got inspired, for instance, to go to an Alenon meeting and then, when I was sitting in the parking lot of my first Alenon meeting, i thought I was going to pee my pants.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I was terrified.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: But participating in Alenon was a game changer for me in a lot of ways in my life, like long-term.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I still use it today, day in and day out, gotta tell you and, and?
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: so You're gonna get a spark, and then you're gonna feel like nope, can't do it right, and it's gonna be for whatever reason.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So I want you to push through that moment, though, because the spark is the thing to follow.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: The fear is not the thing to follow, and if you do this enough times love, oh man, oh Man, oh man, oh man you're gonna a woman, you're going to find yourself home and you're not going to be alone, and you are going to be in touch with so many wonderful things about yourself, and All the things we talk about here on the pod, and all the things that you Google and all the things that stress you out are going to start to come into alignment, because what heals loneliness Coming home to you is what heals all of it.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: It's what helps you attract the right next relationship, it's what helps you attract the right next job, it's what helps you attract the right next Parenting technique.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: It's what helps you attract the right next Fill in the blank, whatever your blank is.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: So this topic is like the key to all the topics Which I love, and I'm here for you and I believe in you and I know beyond a shadow of doubt that you were born to be magic, and the fact that you Feel like shit right now has nothing to do with how magical you are, and you are a handful of inspired choices away from realizing what I mean.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: And You listening to this podcast is no coincidence.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: It's part of it.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: It's part of the somewhere you got a spark of an idea right to That led you here, and that's how this works.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I Love you so much.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Peace, dear divorce.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Diary is a podcast by my coach, john.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: You can find more at my coach Johncom.