Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 291. Holiday Decision Fatigue After Divorce And The Hidden Reason You’re So Overwhelmed

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291. Holiday Decision Fatigue After Divorce And The Hidden Reason You’re So Overwhelmed · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: The holidays feel like one endless string of decisions you're making alone.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Decision fatigue doesn't just drain you, it actually rips you out of your feminine energy.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: All the planning, managing, negotiating, holding it all together, it pushes you straight into your masculine and actually affects your hormones.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: It creates low progesterone, it creates estrogen dominance running the show, no softness, no ease, just that tight wired, overthinking version of you.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if you felt foggy, snappy, emotional, or even like small choices feel impossible, this isn't you feeling, it's your body begging for a different solution.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Come on in because we are gonna walk you out of the decision fatigue spiral and back into the energy and the hormones that actually support you.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, love.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: 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.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Don Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorcee.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, in today's episode, we're gonna unpack the actual hormone loop that decision fatigue reinforces.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: The, you know, moving out of your feminine into your masculine and the hormone fallout that sort of then maintains that loop.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're gonna talk about how a body stuck in the masculine can't sustain progesterone and it drains it.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when progesterone drops, estrogen steps in and what that looks like and how to break that cycle.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: We are also going to talk strategy, right?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do we get you out of this decision fatigue spiral?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna give you three very clear strategies to help slow down the intensity of the spiral that you're in and help climb back out, back into more of a feminine existence this holiday season.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then towards the end of this episode, stay tuned because we're gonna talk about how decision fatigue isn't just about exhaustion and masculine and feminine, but it's also an element of your grief process.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you don't connect these dots, it's gonna be harder to move through your grief within the context of decision fatigue.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So make sure you listen to the end so you are connecting the dots on how to get a release and relief from this grief that keeps calling to you via decision fatigue.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Darling dears, good morning.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad to see you.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, good morning.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Will you help me welcome our two new premium subscribers, Lisa and Tanya?
• 4:48
  unknown: Yeah.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hey ladies, thank you so much.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you're here.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: We get so excited, right, with premium subscribers because, well, A, then they're gonna be in the premium workshop, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a premium subscriber, not only do you get all of the Thursday episodes, which are like where we do the healing, not just learning about healing, but there are also live workshops.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So our next one is December 16th, and it's on rebuilding self-worth after divorce.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So Lisa and Tanya cannot wait to see you in that premium workshop.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: You also get access to things that nobody else gets access to.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: So$5 a month premium.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not in what are you doing, loves?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Come join Lisa and Tanya.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: We are so excited to have you with us.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: We are beaming our care bear stare, right?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: R.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let us dig into the hormone loop of decision fatigue.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is a little bit of a teaser for our Thursday episode, our Thursday premium episode, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where we are gonna have a behind the mic of the three of us talking about all the ways in which we have experienced the fallout of the masculine-feminine polarity in us being way too hustle, not enough flow in our lives, right?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's gonna be like a juicy behind-the-scenes conversation.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: But let's talk a little bit about what women this holiday season are really struggling with when the decision fatigue really jacks up the hormones because it gets us into this fight-flight, drive, drive, drive.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then we can't rest, we can't relax, we can't fall asleep right, we can't stay asleep right, we can't feel present, we can't connect with our kiddos or like the people around us because we are literally so wound up in this estrogen dominant space.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: I for one am so excited about this episode because I don't really feel like at least in my circle, that that that it's common to connect the two between decision fatigue and you how it and how it affects your hormones or the day-to-day and how your your hormones are shifted by the imbalance of your decisions.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think that we in many ways it's it's like we've been functioning like this as women for so long, it's just become the new normal.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, especially in a modern society, to just like have to push.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sort of mad about it.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we don't take care of single moms in the way, like as a society, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it it's destroying our metabolic function, our adrenals.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, it's wild.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always mind blown by how like I was married to someone who was very low functioning and I had to make all the decisions anyway.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: How isolating it felt after we were divorced, and I continued making all the decisions.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't feel I don't think I recognized how isolating it was in the marriage because I had this person to at least bounce ideas off of, even if he wasn't helping me make decisions, it was just like the validation of great job, babe.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sounds great.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's right, but then like after divorce, I continue making every single decision and it felt so overwhelming.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just remember wanting to it's so hard, I feel like, too, as a woman, trying to be the nurture and the disciplinarian.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like trying to find the balance between you're grounded and I just want to love on you right now.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Having everyone tell you you're too soft or you're too hard, or it's really, really difficult to find a balance when you don't have a partner.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: A partner.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk about it a lot, I think like maybe out of resentment, or I don't know, you could just hear a woman saying, like, and then I was the mom and the dad, like Mother's Day and Father's Day, like you know, we sort of have like a tone in the voice when we talk about what it is to be a divorced woman and all the things that we have to carry.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: But then I think women don't realize the actual downstream effects that that has on their hormone cycle.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then many of us, I think, end up on a birth control pill or on an IUD or something that then masks some of that hormonal burnout or fatigue, right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: But then we're not sleeping well and we're angry and we can't shed our resentment, and we don't realize it's because we are our progesterone is tanked.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I gave Joy a dose of progesterone, like a high potency dose of progesterone this morning, and she's like, What did you do?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it like immediately downshifted her nervous system, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden she said she felt floaty, and that's the thing.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to have enough progesterone to feel floaty, to feel like progesterone is hormones it progesterone is nature's natural anti-anxiety hormone.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, it's like, okay, we can drive and drive and drive, and then we can be on a on an artificial, uh, like a birth control pillar or whatever, but it's not actually gonna replace the depleted progesterone that allows us to shift out of anger and anxiety and just rest.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've never felt more in control of my hormones since I've gone off birth control.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was somebody that's been on birth control since I've been 16 years old.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: You were scared.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was terrified.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was terrified.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and when I tell you now that I'm so in tune with what my body is doing when it's telling me what it needs, like all these things.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have cramps anymore.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I no longer know when my period's even coming unless I have it on a calendar.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not ragey, I don't feel like I want to cry, I don't want to kill everyone.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just this beautiful like experience of like, oh, this isn't so bad.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Being in dwell indwelled with your body, there like there's such a difference between, but I think it's such a and I don't want to bash modern medicine because it has its place for sure.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's absolutely right, right, right.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I also think it's such a shame that we know something's wrong.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: We don't really know what's wrong, but we know something's wrong.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: We know our bodies aren't this isn't this should not be normal.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we go to the doctor, I saw this t-shirt that says, Let me guess, I need to lose weight, I need to drink more water, I need to rest, and it's this is nor your your labs are in the normal range.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like because we go to we go to the doctor looking for solutions and help, but it's there modern medicine is missing the mark.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like instead of instead of finding the core of why your progestion's low or or or in normal range, but it's not like it's it's not right for your body, it's not right, and so they just tell you to lose weight and drink more water and give you a pill.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's so many people though that are seeking answers now, like in the circle of women that I am talking about, it's so funny once they know that like we do homeopathy and everything, or that's something that I'm into, or they go in and see like the huge pharmacy that's in my freaking bathroom.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: They have so many questions because people are so curious about it.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like for years and years, it's like my friends that have been on anti-anxiety, anti-depression for decades, and are still feeling like they're stuck in a slump or the same result.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I find it interesting, and I'll share this.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, my daughter recently tried one of those medications, and she had been on homeopathy for months, and she said, Well, you know, the site gave it to her and said, Well, this is just for sleep.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she took one pill.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I told Dawn the next morning, like, she basically came up and handed me the whole bottle and said, Don't ever let me take these again.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because she said, It makes me feel like a zombie.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I feel so foggy, I cannot, I don't feel like I'm in control of anything.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: But how how many people in society feel that way?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like these pills kind of help us.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm not slamming it because I was on it for decades, but I do feel like coming into this side of it, I feel like.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we didn't know this side existed.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't know.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, right.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel more myself than I've ever had in years since I've been on homeopathy, and I feel very healthy and very mentally strong.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we have we have a homeopathic answer for this, right?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And our Dustin Homeopathics has a product for gentle hormone support.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're listening to this and you're like, holy crap, like this is part of my story, like just send us an email, hello at my coach dawn, or shoot us a DM or like send a smoke signal.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we we do have a product that we developed that helps balance estrogen and progesterone and will very, very much help break this decision, fatigue, exhaustion, masculine driving loop.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not alone there, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's part of why we develop this product because it's just I don't think women understand it all enough.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't taken our nervous system recovery type quiz, we get into the weeds and all of this.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can find that usually in the show notes or Instagram bio.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: There are lots of places to take our oh, on our website, it's a pop-up.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely want to grab the quiz too.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's talk about strategies other than our destined hormone balance product.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's fantastic.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of the answer.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: But also there's a behavioral part, right?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Where we have to start functioning differently.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have to start letting it seep into our bones that the way we're approaching decision making, the way we're approaching life, it's through a lens of masculinity that we can drive, we can push, we can overperform.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And none of that is feminine.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk a bit about how we can literally strategize and shift how we make decisions so that they are actually nurturing to our body, mind, spirit, and not depleting, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing let's talk about is we very often when we're making choices, we're trying to figure out what the right choice is.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: What's the right thing to do?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: What's the right thing?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you had a dollar for every time you heard a woman say what's the right thing to do, like we would all be retired, yeah?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like we could retire all the women.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, yeah, uh, we could set up a trust fund, anyways.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: So the new question we need to we need to ask ourselves is what is the kindest choice for my body right now?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I can go, go I can I I'm speaking more into this on our Thursday episode premium episode, but just a snippet is like I know that I have I'm I struggle with ADD, I struggle with people pleasing, I struggle with very hard things that homeopathy is is you know, we're working on homeopathically, but in the interim, I have really started kind of owning what is mine to take care of and what is my husband's to take care of.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, like him asking me what the weather's like when I'm working.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: So he's expecting me to stop what I'm doing to look up the weather when he is capable of doing so.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: So like strategy going into just clearly giving guidelines of what I can do and what you can do.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like my children, my children are the same way, mom.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: What am I supposed to do for homework?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I guess you should go look on your agenda, you know what I mean?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like being being able to kind of reprogram my family from relying on me to handle everything.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's that should not have ever been my role, and that's what I kind of trained everybody to do because I was so in the need to be relevant and control all of that.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: So just strategy for me is saying, Okay, well, I guess you can handle that.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Damn, what's the kindest choice for my body?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's retraining everybody else around you, too, right?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: I remember post-divorce, I had a lot of decision fatigue around the holidays because when I would go home to Pennsylvania, both me and my ex's family were in the same town.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had all of these decisions to make around how am I gonna split time?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how are they gonna see my daughter?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, when they invite me to stay, or my daughter says, Mommy, I really want you to stay.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was hard because the kindest thing to my body would have been like, uh no.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't do that a lot then, and so I let a lot of boundaries be crossed.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of conversations came up that should have never happened.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I tolerated a lot.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I tolerated so much just to keep the peace between families.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then there just came a day when I just didn't anymore.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I said, no, I I don't have to do this anymore.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to do that anymore.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to sit at your kitchen table and hear you, you know, give your little jabs and your passive aggressiveness.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want to do that shit anymore.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started making very clear boundaries around what the holidays looked like for me so that they weren't a time of stress anymore.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: They were actually a time that I could literally enjoy.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: I post divorce was absolutely the queen of not of trying to make the right choice and not the kind choice for my body.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that is why I ended up with cluster headaches for 15 years, why I ended up developing rheumatoid arthritis in my early 40s because I chronically focused on the right choice versus what my body was screaming for.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I know all of that was born out of attachment, wounding, and abandonment and all of the things, but it has been such a transformation to be able to honor my body.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, post-divorce, I quit my job, and that's when I opened my practice because my body was asking for rest and I couldn't give it what it needed when I had to punch a clock for somebody else.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, that point of divorce and owning that decision was such a profound, like sort of line of demarcation in my own healing journey.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, in as much as I was so lonely and all of my attachment wounds were flared, and I was having such a hard time being alone, and I was estranged from several family members and whatnot, it was like in that quiet space where I didn't have all the other people to consider, I could actually sit with what is the kindest choice for my body.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I did a lot of yoga and a lot of beachwalking and a lot of resting and probably a lot of bedrotting, honestly, um, on top of all those things.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: But it was when I started to really taste what health could be, and those were very early post-divorce days, and I still default, like my default, and y'all are watching me struggle through this right now, but is to hustle and grind and not to do what my body is asking for.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I really want to be of service to everyone else.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: That is my default.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is a trauma-based um response, and I still catch myself doing it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And as a team, we've talked about recently, right?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: How to sort of renegotiate how our business, our workflows, so that I can hustle and grind less.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Cause that's it's it's my go-to.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, this question, what's the kind of choice for my body?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: I am owning it for myself as well.
• 20:47
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me, so talk a little bit um about reducing the invisible decisions.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how are you making decisions differently to prioritize kindness for your body instead of other people's comfort?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of telling people no, and that is a very hard thing to do for me still.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've gotten so good at it, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: There are lots of places where I can do it, but I am very, very quick to assess like what your experience of this relationship is and to want to prioritize your experience of this relationship over mine.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's beautiful.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't dislike that thing about myself at all, but it's when I do it to the detriment of my body, like when my body starts breaking down, that's when it's out of balance, right?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I very recently had to tell a couple of returning clients that I could not see them and I had to refer them to Tiffany, and I have asked Tiffany actually to change some of our workflows.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there are just there are things to reduce decision fatigue, literally, right?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Tiffany, can you hold these questions that you ask me every morning?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Can you hold them for one meeting so that we can sit down and have one meeting where I answer all of your questions so I'm not having to, you know, receive that inbound thing.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and context shift and and make more decisions, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like let's make a little tight space where that happens.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: What else?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, similarly, like bouncing stuff back to my husband has been really, really important.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think that he avoids his own feelings around abandonment by wanting to please me, but in wanting to please me, he's sort of always asking for the next order.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I want him to be a general and not a not a soldier, you know.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, like bouncing back to him, no, you're the general, you can make decisions.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've been doing that with both of you a lot more lately.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, nope, I trust your decision making.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and that comes with knowing that not every decision any of the three of us make is gonna always be spot on.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like very much better to empower you to make the decisions.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is the same thing with our kids, to empower them to make the decisions and then just walk through when mistakes happen or or things happen, right?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just walk through that together.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, cool.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: I posted this thing to my stories recently, actually, that when we teach kids about the mistakes we make, it makes them less anxious and stronger decision makers.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: When we don't tell them or teach them about our everyday, daily mistakes, it fuels anxiety and fear-based living and this sort of perception that they have to be perfect, or like, you know, so it creates like performance anxiety and whatnot, right?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: So what a gift to just make mistakes together as a team or as parents with our children and just like be open and vulnerable and honest about it all.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like relinquishing control is how I don't have to make so many invisible decisions.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Asking for what I need, being willing to ask for help and receive help.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot say enough about how many women just really feel like a burden when they receive help and it and it keeps us stuck in the masculine, you know?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it does.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: I talk to my daughter about that all the time.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like about, and it's I never I feel like a lot of parents are conditioned too to say, well, if we educate them, they won't make the same mistakes as us.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I never went in with that mindset.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: My thing is I'm gonna educate you and share so that you see witness in the moment so that when you do fuck up, we're right there together.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like you know that you can come to mom and talk about it, and it's not like you're so ashamed.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot eliminate mistake making.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: That is how we learn and grow, right?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's about I want you to see how I respond to making a mistake.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to see me treat myself with love and respect when I make a mistake.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to see me also grow from it, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I want you to see me treat myself with grace and love and respect when I make a mistake.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: This is like a um this is like a soapbox for me, equipping other rather than control, like equipping my children to make mistakes, own their own themselves, um, because I can't control everything.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like so they're gonna hear things that I don't know about, or they're gonna do things that I don't know about, but giving them the safety of nobody's perfect.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't expect them to be Jesus.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: I expect them to be accountable.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's like my it's I will die on that hill.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: My my my sub box.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the decisions that we've automated where possible.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, sort of standard responses, because decision automation, I think sometimes is a shortcut when you are because this process we're just discussing, like giving up control, empowering the people around us, like that we didn't just come to this overnight, right?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: This was like a pile of work.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, first things first, right, like destined homeopathic hormone support blend.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Second thing, right, like start surrendering control and asking what's the kind of stretch for my body.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Third thing, like be willing to receive help and let go of that burden issue, right?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And let's talk about like automated decisions, the things that it's like I'm not negotiating this.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like like for the holidays, like buy 10 points and every time you little baby poinsettas, and anytime you go somewhere, you just did points at done.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like not having to make unique gifts for every person, like that kind of thing.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like um, like what thing can you just like wash or repeat?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Whether that's like meal planning.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like for now, it's like, nope, actually, we eat the same meal five nights a week.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are some things that are very real, like where we can reduce decision fatigue for the short run while we get our, you know, endocrine system and metabolic system like just more balanced.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Any hacks like that that y'all did during recovery, I definitely will do the eat the same meal all the time to reduce.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: I will also sometimes skip dirtying dishes because it's less less washing or you know, I don't know, like I'll wear the same outfit multiple days in a row.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you could call that depression, and maybe it is a sign of you know, there's depletion happening, but like I will do that consciously because I don't it reduces the decision I have to make of what to wear in the morning and then it reduces how much laundry at the end of the week.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: So there are seasons where I will just do these things that you know they're definitely signs of depletion.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Great, I'm working on it, I'm actively in solution, but like this is what I do to reduce decision fatigue.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not responding to every text message as it comes in, like waiting until the end of the day and responding to them all then, right?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like batching behaviors, right?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that I'm not constantly having to shift my brain and be responsive.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I will very often leave many, many tasks until after I've showered or the next morning or where I'm fresher, right?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like just not expecting my body to do the thing when it doesn't have the energy to do it.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: How about y'all?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: In my in my healing journey, I went through seasons of saying no, like I said no to everything, like parties, get togethers, just because I was so depleted and I was so trying to find what was right for my body and this new era of always pleasing everybody, but like also you can't pour from an empty cup.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: And my cup was so empty and so dry for so long.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, real, you know, like being very aware of my capacity, being very aware of being able to be on, having to go to all the parties and do all the get-togethers and all the cookie exchanges and all of the gift exchanges and all like you're constantly on, and not necessarily performative because I do, you know, like your people are your people for a reason, but when you're constantly having to have conversations, update, you know, like where are the kids?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: How are they handling this?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: What are you doing, like what are you doing?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and then the pity looks of like, oh, and it's like it caused it, it's work to maintain your vibration in yourself, no matter how lovely the people are.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're coming from a loving space, hopefully, but so I did a lot of saying no.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: I did a lot of um homemade gifts instead of purchase gifts because I enjoy creating.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would do, you know, like um, I don't know, like homemade coffee syrups or whatever, whatever, you know, whatever my my Instagram had given me that week or whatever.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because it was l easier for me to stay at home in my little bubble to create a gift than it was to go out and think through what would this person enjoy?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: What right, decision, decision and being in public.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't avoiding public, but it's it's extra energy spent, right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um 100%.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: What are what are some of the other things that I did?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was very intentional.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: I tried to be very intentional, is a good way to put it.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say that, Joy.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just started assessing everything and everyone around me.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell women all the time, like, they'll say, Well, I went out with a friend and then like I came home and I just felt depleted.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then that's not the right friend right now for this season.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like you should be spending time with people who are bringing your energy levels up, who you leave feeling full instead of depleted.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and sometimes there's just certain friends that don't fit into this season of your life because all they want to do is trauma dump their shit on you, or you know, they want to pull information.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I could always tell the friends who genuinely were asking questions because they cared and who was just nosy.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and like that would kill me.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for me, you know, also one of the biggest decision-making things is like I feel like women feel like because they share a child with somebody that that person gets a free pass to text them about whatever, whenever.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a time right after my divorce where I was like, if it is not about our daughter, we do not need to speak about it, you know, and there are specific apps that the court can order that they can give you where you have to communicate through an app, right?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have a dear friend who's going through a divorce, and her Soonabe ex just recently moved out, and um they have three kids and they moved out into a one-bedroom apartment.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, What's his plan?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do I like I guess I need to let him stay the weekend at our and I was like, no, right there, right?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: She started going in decision-making mode, trying to solve for him that he made this XYZ decision, and I'm like, cut it right there, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also where you could see, like, oh, also now she's not gonna have her kids some days, and maybe they just have to sleep in the living room, or I don't know, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be whatever it's gonna be.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: But A, she doesn't have to solve it, but B, she'd rather focus on helping him solve that than sit with the empty house.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like the decision fatigue and the driving comes from running away from the grief, which is our final sort of talking point today.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about this, right?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is that sometimes we choose decision fatigue because we're running from grief.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because every choice we make is like an echo of like, no, it's different this year, it's different this year, it's different this year.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like your nervous system caught between belonging to a past life and trying to build a new one and not wanting to just sit in what there is to feel and to process it.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so then sometimes we drive into this decision fatigue to escape the thing that we don't want to feel.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a huge price to pay, right?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because you are gonna have this very real hormonal cascade that is going to further interrupt your overall health and wellness.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: We can't run from grief forever without there being a massive consequence.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: So the better choice is to sit with what you're feeling, do some journaling, do some breathing, and just feel.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of women too in this season, they're so lonely that they don't want to say the wrong thing or say the no's because they don't want people to leave them because then they feel like they're gonna feel more alone.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where I am here to tell you that weeding those people out of your circle and getting uh just a few people in your circle that are literally like these beautiful balls of energy in this season is gonna make you feel so much better.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: I always found that I could tell because if I felt more lonely in a room than I felt by myself, and that was a majority of the time post-divorce, where I would just feel more lonely being in the room with a hundred people than I did at home by myself.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: They were the wrong people, they weren't seeing me, you know, they were just seeking information.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: And listen, if you if you if our listeners out there are feeling like they don't have people, like let me be your people.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not playing such a hype woman.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be like I wanna I wanna hype you up, I want to hear your wins.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like I want to be the that people is like shout out to the um Lisa and Tanya again because they made a choice.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: They're a choice.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I want to be we we literally live to be your people.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: So um I'm super excited and I want to hear all about your wins.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, send them in.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Homework, homework.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you are not sending us your wins, you are not fully leaning in to your own healing and recovery.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say that absolutely, right?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there are examples where that is not the case, but like there is a way to heal that is well-rounded, and then there's a way to heal that's not, and celebrating your wins and being celebrated and being open to receiving us celebrating you, that is one of the key things we see women really struggling in ourselves and the women we work with, being open to receive love and support.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so just the simple act of sending us a voice note about your wins and letting us celebrate you is absolutely taking steps about being open to receive.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's cueing to the universe.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: I am ready to receive more and better than what I have had.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: So please, please, please do not skip that step.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is your homework for this week.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: Email us at hello at my co sean or send us a voice note at Dawn Wiggins on Instagram, and we are gonna celebrate with you.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: We are gonna share your win on the podcast.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: It can be anonymous, totally anonymous, but be in this part of the healing process because it's far more essential than you realize.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: I wish you guys could see me because I'm doing like a little jig.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like just a little habitance.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, make sure to catch us on our Thursday episode this week where the three of us, it's gonna, it's a new, it's a new type style of of episode that we have not done before.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Behind the Mic, where we're just literally shooting the shit about something active that we are, you know, dealing with in our personal lives.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, you know, different, vulnerable, but so often we notice that we are having these really powerful conversations when we have not hit record, and that's dumb.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: So check us for the Thursday episode where we do a behind the mic, the three of us, talking through what's real and what's good in life right now.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: We love you so much.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Peace.