Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 174. How One Mother Grew Her Self-Compassion Past Divorce Pain By Altering Her Approach

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174. How One Mother Grew Her Self-Compassion Past Divorce Pain By Altering Her Approach · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hi love, it's one thing to listen to this podcast and learn about how to heal divorce-related traumas.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: It's a whole nother thing to do it.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And this morning has been a really tough, challenging morning for me, where, if I were you, I would have been cursing me because doing it in real life is tricky.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you what happened next.
• 1:12
  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.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Today was one of those days that just did not go to plan.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: From the very first moment my feet hit the floor.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: It was a rough day for my kiddo and that kind of parlayed into a rough day in general, and while nothing bad is happening, I've had to work through a lot of big, big, big feelings and I think that I want to bring this to you in real time today, because it's not easy to walk the path of deeply healing.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: The truth is is that most of society wants us to fit in boxes cute little boxes.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: We go to work at a certain time, we take a break at a certain time, we're done at a certain time Kids go to school.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: It is like everything is in like a box and we put on our armor before we leave the house in the morning so that we feel safe and acceptable and the humaneness.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: It doesn't fit into those boxes.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Our nervous system needs our attachment style needs, our needs for love, connection, needs for love, connection, belonging, true healing don't fit in neat, tidy boxes.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And in case you're ever walking around and feeling like going against the grain is too hard and you must be doing it different or not good enough, this episode is really about showing you that you are killing it and you are not alone.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Now my kiddo has been battling whatever sick bugs kiddos battle when they're elementary aged.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: But the way that we're treating them over here is homeopathically, et cetera, and so on and so forth.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Right, we use EFT tapping and we use chiropractic and we use vagal breathing and all the things you hear me talk about.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: So when we have a cold or a flu or something like that over here and we use some deep acting homeopathic remedies, oftentimes what's being healed is not just that particular cold or flu you have, but it's reaching deeper and it's healing past illnesses.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: It's healing mental and emotional pains.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It's purging inherited traumas.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And while I advocate for that fiercely amongst you and me, when it's happening with our kids it's even trickier.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And the reason I think that's the case for me is because when my kid is struggling to recover from an illness that I'm not treating the way most other people are treating it, I'm not giving her the same medications, the same things it feels my mind starts to tell me I'm different, I'm not doing it right, I'm not good enough, that I'm being judged.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: My mind tells myself these stories.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Right, they're judging me, they think we're weird, they're not going to understand, they're not going to accept what I'm doing.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And I start with all these stories in my mind.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Right, and that's part of exactly what we're working to heal.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: So this morning when she wakes up, she's missed a whole bunch of school already this first quarter working through things.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: She's had multiple different illnesses and I'm really proud of how we're handling them.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I know we are healing from an aligned place.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I know that her future self will be infinitely healthier.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I know when the school nurse listened to her lungs on Friday she said oh my goodness, her lungs sound amazing compared to a lot of the other students around here.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: But when it comes down to it and her teacher sent me an email that said she needs to make up a bunch of tests this morning and my kid woke up crying, with her pupils blown out have you ever noticed that in your kiddos?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: This is just like a little trick, and tip right Is that when they're really stressed out and their pupils are massively dilated, that's how you can know that they're probably in nervous system.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yellow, orange or red right.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: They're in this sort of vagal shutdown space, and so I could see it in her pupils.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: She woke up super stressed and she could not stop crying.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Now, for my kid, that's a win.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: She tends to internalize and suppress everything.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: She wants to please everyone, she wants to get the good grades, she wants to, you know, be accepted, and that ends up turning into a lot of internal conflict and pain for her because she suppresses so much and has a really hard time being vulnerable.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: So that she woke up this morning and was so vulnerable and so raw was actually a beautiful thing.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: But then here comes all the societal expectations cropping up.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: She's got to get to school.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: She's got to take those tests, she can't miss another day.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: What are they going to think?
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So I let her be late and I really worked through it with her.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I held her, I co-regulated, I used vagal breathing myself, I gave her a couple of homeopathic remedies for anxiety, shock and panic.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I knew that she was working through some very old stuff, that the things that were moving through her body weren't now things, they were old things.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And you know, she also still didn't feel good.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Right, her ears are still a little sore and she still has stuff we have to clean out of there.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: But she needed to go to school and so I took her to school late.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I walked up to her class and she couldn't stop crying and in that moment I had to make multiple hard choices about canceling my day, letting go of the fact that she wasn't going to go to school, the way that the teacher wanted her to go to school, and knowing that I needed to prioritize attunement to her needs and that everything else came second.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So I didn't record any episodes with producer joy.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Today I'm here flying solo, just kind of relaying to you how the morning went, and I brought her home and I let her read and I let her rest and I let her take some space to process what she was feeling.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Now I'm super blessed that I'm able to do that, but this is a theme that's been coming up a lot with the women that we coach also is.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: You know, while you're going through this most painful, challenging season of life, very, very often you don't give yourself the permission to take the time and space to process what you're feeling, to rest and to heal mentally, emotionally and physically.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I was giving a student recently some feedback that she needed to take the day off and she said I can't.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I can't afford it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: People are relying on me, all the things right.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: And when I asked her well, if you had COVID, would you take the day off?
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: She said, of course, and I think that that gives us a clear picture into how we function that if society gives us permission to take the day off, we feel validated to do so.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: But we have a very hard time validating ourselves to take what we need to truly and fully heal.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: And so I know that very, very often when I was early getting divorced, I had all those same fears finances and time and letting people down and needing to really make sure that I was keeping all the balls moving at down the field at all times and that felt absolutely unbelievably impossible because it is impossible.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: So, you know, we walked back down the hallway and I said to the beautiful woman at the front desk like well, human doesn't fit in a checkbox today.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: So we're going to go home.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, ask her teacher, you know how we can work it out or whatever.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And so I let her come home and she pulled it together and it took a couple hours and I took her back.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: I still don't know how she's doing or how it's panning out, but I know that I was sitting with a lot of stories that were playing out about how our family is going against the grain of the typical way of dealing with illness, mental illness and physical illness and I have no idea what people actually think when they see me, you know, talking about homeopathy and EFT tapping and all the things.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I'm an Aquarius rising means that I am always going to be sort of ahead of the curve or against the grain.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do things differently than most people do them.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: That is part of my purpose here on this go round right, and I have to learn to accept that and get comfortable with it, or else it's going to be very, very painful.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: But rather than shut down today, right, I continue.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I knew that what I was doing was in the best interest of my kiddo and I knew that I had a lot of stories that were coming up about whether or not I was doing a good enough job and enough people's eyes.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And I just want you to hear me say that, love, if you are truly doing your best to be tuned in to yourself and to your kiddos, if your goal is to be 1% better each time you try, if you are truly prioritizing healing in a deep, meaningful way, if you are choosing to tackle things and if, at the end of the day, you are prioritizing accepting yourself versus getting external validation, I don't care how well it's going in the meantime.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: If your goal and your priority is to deepen your faith, to deepen your love and acceptance of self, to deepen your capacity and your skill to feel uncomfortable feelings and to process those things, if your overarching goal is to heal your traumas and to reclaim your personal power, love, you are doing it so well.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: And in the meantime, when you feel wobbly and awkward and uncertain and your mind starts telling you that other people are judging you for how you're doing it and whether or not you're okay.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And you know you don't feel like Okay, it's uncomfortable, it's uncertain.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, as I was chitty chatting with my girlfriend this morning, she's like I think that you know, when we get like we're crossing the river, we're crossing the river, right, we're trying to tackle some big goal, we're crossing the river, we get halfway through the river and it's so hard and it's so overwhelming.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: That's oftentimes where we get stuck and we shut down and we just do what's easy, and what's easy isn't always what's right.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: And so this is just a moment of encouragement to you to take a deep breath, to trust your journey, to trust your path, because that's what's missing in those moments is trusting yourself so fiercely that the path you're on may not be popular, it may not always feel good, but in the big picture, what it delivers you is personal power, and from a place of empowerment, you are unstoppable.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: From a place of love and self-acceptance, you are unstoppable.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And people are going to criticize right, there are going to be criticisms for your ex, his family, whomever.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Right, like you are going to get criticized along this journey and we have to be stronger than that.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And so I see you.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I know that, if you listen to this podcast, that you are seeking to do things in a big, bold way and you are tackling things that are uncomfortable and uncertain, and I want you to know how proud I am of you and how challenging I know it is.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: We don't have to get it perfect.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It's not about perfection, it's about accountability and, at the end of the day, today did not go to plan.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I did not record perfectly curated episodes for you.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: My kid did not show up at school at the proper time.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know what she's going to look like when she gets home, but it's okay.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: What we prioritized was connection and healing and our nervous system wellness and that attuned attachment style piece to help provide her with that long standing, um, secure attachment style.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I will tell you that my kid was born with all sorts of vicarious trauma.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: She was conceived at a time where I was still pretty traumatized.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: She inherited all the generational stuff from all the family lines and my pregnancy was really high risk and we went through some stuff, and so she, even though she was born kind of, you know, without any of this being her fault.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: She's had layers of stuff to unwind and heal through, and on the way back to school, I sort of read her the riot act for a minute, right, because we study and practice the law of attraction and we also study and practice the Bible.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: But you know, she is facing some self-esteem stuff and, at the end of the day, we also have to be accountable, for we can't expect other people to love us better than we love ourselves.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm going to love her all the time, no matter what, but she also has to come to the table and be willing to accept things about herself that she struggles to accept as well.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: That's our responsibility as wild women who run with wolves and intend to claim our power is we have to claim our power, and at 10 years old, we have to be having that conversation, my daughter and I, because whoa heading into middle school, right, it only gets harder.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So I want to encourage you, mama.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: You are doing it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: You're doing it big and beautifully and messy and uncertainly, uncertain-tint-ly, and I'm so proud of you, so, so, so proud of you, and if you ever just need to send me a DM that says I just need you to know it was one of those days.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I will receive that DM with open arms and I will hold space for you.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: In the meanwhile, did I tell you that I am, for three months, giving away the Post-Divorce Roadmap for free?
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: The Post-Divorce Roadmap free.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: The post-divorce roadmap is a 21-day immersive journaling program.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: It has mirror messages and a specific playlist that helps balance your brain and it has a little journaling tutorial where I teach you some of the tips and tricks to help really be able to process your emotions while you journal.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: It gives you specific prompts and specific tools to use to help do somatic journaling.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: It's a whole immersive thing, love.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: It's so amazing.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: It's usually $33.33.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: And for three months, starting today, it is completely free with the coupon code that is in the show notes.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Why am I giving you this thing for free for three months?
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Because I want your email address so we can take this conversation over there Totally transparent.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Check it out If you have not already done the post-divorce roadmap.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: The people who completed the journaling says it is absolute game changer in terms of creating stabilization, self-awareness, starting to do somatic processing in the body and really just getting grounded and on the right track.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: So check it out.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Link is in the show notes.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: There's a coupon code there for you.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to send you an email.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Peace Dear.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Divorce Diary is a podcast by my coach, dawn.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: You can find more at mycoachdawncom.