Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 82. How to Heal Heartbreak & Divorce Grief in Your Life After Divorce (A Surprising Look At The Body)

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82. How to Heal Heartbreak & Divorce Grief in Your Life After Divorce (A Surprising Look At The Body) · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: High love, it's the holidays and that means you need extra support.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Producer Joy and I handpicked this episode for you at this time.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: In this episode we talk about how healing heartbreak needs to be way more than in the mind and in the emotions.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Too often we think that healing grief and heartbreak relies on those two domains, when actually it's the body that holds the biggest secrets to healing heartbreak.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Hi love, this is Dawn and you're listening to Deer Divorce Diary with my coach, dawn, where we explore the post-divorce life and you, the woman who lives it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: We cover everything from trauma during an after-divorce to feeling like a stranger in your own life and the new frontier of life as a single woman.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Cozy in for the conversations you've been longing to have about this new life.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: In this episode, I'll answer really, really big questions like how long is this heartbreak going to last, how do I stop my heart from hurting and how can I accept that this relationship is over so that I can move on.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Let's dig in.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Hi love, how's your day?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, I wish we could sit here and chat all about it and I could hear all the things about how you're doing and where you're going and what you're up to.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I think of you all the time and I'm so grateful that you're here right now.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about how to heal your heart, and there are so many cool ways to heal your heart, and we're going to dig into some really big ideas today, and so let's do it.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: First of all, let's just acknowledge that a broken heart feels like pain, pain, right A broken.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: When your heart is broken, it feels physically, literally painful, and it's so interesting how you can feel collapsed, like you don't have it, but hurting at the same time and agitated, restless, overstimulated, exhausted, hurting Tight in the chest, literally tight in the chest, right, like you can't breathe heavy, dark.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: That's all so real and there's so many great solutions that we're going to talk about and I'm thrilled about that.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: But know that the brain processes pain, whether it's physical or emotional, in the same location.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So, even though a broken heart is an emotional experience, it is painful nonetheless, and that is real and that is literal.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: And then it's going to make sense how some of the solutions have to do with the body, because you can't separate the mind from the body and that whole idea of the pain center and the brain gets activated when your heart is broken.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: So does the pain that you're going through from this divorce ever go away?
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's going to pass love, and it is so human to have the thought, what if this never ends?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: What if this never ends?
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: And I've had that thought so many times in my life about so many various pains, the ones that seem unbearable.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Right, I don't usually get that thought unless the pain is unbearable.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: But when the pain is unbearable we get terrified that we're gonna get stuck there and that there's no solution and there's no way out.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And so if you've been having that thought I know you, I see you, I've heard that thought, I've had that thought.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: It's not real, it's a lie.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: This pain is going to go away.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Now, how quickly it goes away, or whether or not it resurfaces or how thoroughly it goes away, you know you have a lot of control over all of that, but it will pass.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Love, it will pass.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: It will.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: The heartbreak will last directly proportionate to how well you nurse your heartbreak right.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: When we are injured, we need some kind of nursing, some care right, and the more we nurse ourselves and the more we allow ourselves to be nursed through this pain, the quicker you will rebound, the quicker you will heal, the more thoroughly you will heal, the more supported you will feel during your healing.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: So I want you to keep in mind that this heartbreak needs to be nursed well, with lots of love and TLC.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And so let's get into some of the strategies of how you can stop your heart from hurting emotionally.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: We're not going to stop your heart, but stop it from hurting emotionally.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So there are so many cool strategies and some of them might be a little surprising, but, because of the mind-body connection, what you think ends up being how you feel physically, and how you feel physically ends up impacting how you think and how you feel emotionally.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: So so many of the things you can do to help nurse this heartbreak are going to be in the body realm right.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So I have found that body work having someone physically provide nursing care for your body is incredibly impactful for heartbreak.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: So what do I mean by that?
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Acupuncture massage, specifically cranioceramassage, but many types of massage will help with heartbreak.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Yoga, especially yoga in person, with an instructor who understands heartbreak.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Their trauma-informed yoga is having a moment love and it's going to help so much with healing heartbreak.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Let's see acupuncture yoga, massage, reiki all of these types of body work help heal at the intersection of the physical pain and the mental-emotional pain, and it's so powerful and it is that literal, hands-on care from those healers that is going to help support you and heal you through it right.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: This is like if you sprained your ankle, how you know how bad would it hurt, how long would it last.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Well, it depends on how well you nurse it right.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: If you sprain that ankle but you immobilize it like you wrap it and you, you know, put ice on it and you take some pain meds and you don't put too much pressure on it, it's going to heal much faster and it's not going to hurt as bad.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing with your heart love.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about what kinds of treatments can you provide to your mind bodies, to that you can stop feeling so much pain?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about some other awesome things that you can do to nurture and nourish your heart through this.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: So Arnica is a homeopathic remedy for physical pain, but it's very effective for grief.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: So a little bit of Arnica, dandelion tea is rich with antioxidants that support the heart, so that is a great useful tool.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: There is a supplement from standard process called Cardio Plus, and it is a brilliant heartbreak supplement.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: You often have to get it through a provider, but sometimes you can find it on Amazon.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I'll link it in the show notes Cardio Plus.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I've taken this on and off the last couple of years of my life because I've only just learned about it, but it is so powerful for healing heartbreak.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And then also, essential oils are a really lovely and certain crystals really help support the heart as you're working through things.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: So I've used many young living essential oil blends to help with healing heartbreak, especially grounding essential oils like cedarwood, and they have a great new blend called Inner Child.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: That one really helps with raw, raw, raw emotional stuff Rose quartz and what is.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: There's a beautiful green one, I can't remember right now, but there are crystals that also help having those nearby and having them clean and all this stuff just provides this nice nursing care for heartbreak, right.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: So body work supplements being tender allows you to really like stem that flow of pain that you're experiencing.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I think that this is why therapy feels so good when you're going through heartbreak too, because when you're heartbroken you're not nursing yourself very well, right.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: You're like just collapsed, and so when you can sit with your therapist and she can just hold space for you and you know there are plenty of times I've had clients who come to session and literally all they do is cry the entire session.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: That's OK, that's OK, and it's not a waste of time and it's not a waste of money.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It is exactly what is needed in that moment.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: So if you have done that or you find yourself doing that, just let it be love, because it's going to help.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It's going to help reduce that pain in the long run.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So when you're working on healing your heart, you're also working on accepting that your relationship is over.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And that can be really hard and oftentimes people don't know how to accept when a relationship is over and they keep kind of ruminating on what was, what could be, if they only, if I only, if only, if only right.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And so I think moving through that, needing to accept that our relationship is over, calls for you to get curious about why this is unfolding in the way that it is.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: It calls for you to be kind of open, open, open, open, open to the idea that you're being funneled in a very important and valuable direction, and it's an interesting thing to take a look at.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: What have the prayers of your heart been over the last couple of years?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: What have you been praying for?
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Have you been praying for peace, or love, or healing, or, um, you know what have been the deepest desires of your heart that you've been asking God or the universe for?
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Because somehow, in the unfolding of all of this, you're being funneled in the direction of exactly what you prayed for.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: And so getting really curious and open-minded and considering the idea that everything is working out for you, even though it's coming through this heartbreak, kind of helps nudge you in the direction of accepting right.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: So if we go back to the sprained ankle, if you sprain your ankle and you refuse to acknowledge that it's sprained and you keep driving on that ankle I don't literally mean driving, I just mean like pushing hard on your body it gets worse, not better, right, it keeps hurting and you keep not healing and it keeps being unbearably painful.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And so we tell ourselves like, well, I can't rest because I have to pay the bills and I have to take care of the people and I have to go to work and I have to do the things, and I have to wash the dishes and I have to rip it.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we have to just say like, oh, I can't keep standing on this ankle or else I'm going to do really cause damage.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I'm never going to get better.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: So sometimes it's like coming to that place of like fuck, I guess I have to let go or else I'm going to suffer endlessly.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I don't want that for you.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So I want you to get super curious, as you're working through acceptance, about what is what the bigger picture is.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: What's the bigger picture here?
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: The next piece of this is something that's so deep and it's it's about coping with loving someone that you can't be with.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: And when you're healing your heart, figuring out how to cope with loving someone you can't be with is, I think, one of the trickiest things of life.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: And well, let me, let me say that differently.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: It's been one of my trickiest things of life because we tell ourselves, if only we want to fix it.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: We want to fix it, we want to solve it, we want it to be different, and it's hard to accept.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: It's hard to accept that someone we love so deeply is not a great fit for us, for me, and so my journey to cope with loving someone I can't be with has been, layer after layer after layer of surrendering and accepting that there is more love for me available deep inside of myself and with other people than there are with certain people whom I just can't be close with because it's not available.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: And so that process of surrendering and accepting has been really so much of my work, and it's been because I've gone through those phases of anger, rage, resentment, frustration, longing, grief, sadness, why, why it's not fair, victimhood, right, I have gone through all of these things and still sometimes, sometimes daily, find my mind looping about why, and so I keep coming back to the mat to look at how I can heal my heart, how I can expand my heart, how I can seek those spaces and relationships with people where it feels so delicious, how I can forgive myself and others even more.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: These are the tools that I have used over and over, day after day, deepening my love for myself, my self-acceptance, because that's what gets triggered right when you love someone that you can't be with.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: It's like why am I not enough?
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Why am I not worth it, why can't they just, why can't they just right?
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And so there's so much there about accepting myself and accepting them, and to do that we have to unhook all this judgment, and to unhook all the judgment.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I've had to take a look at long-held beliefs, long-held ideas that I used to believe in that I've had to let go of, about what people should or should not be.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: You know, we hear people say things like children shouldn't be abused and mothers shouldn't do this, that or the other Spouses shouldn't cheat, and all these statements.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: They're statements of belief, right About how things should or shouldn't be and, quite frankly, they're not real.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: They're not true, because the reality is is these things happen.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: And so, because they happen and because I believe that I can live a fulfilled and happy and loving, peaceful life, regardless of my circumstances, then that becomes my mission To surrender those judgments and to find a higher way of living and loving.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And it's been quite a quest and it drives me.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: It drives me and it's why I'm here on the mic with you today, because this constant kind of passion to find love and acceptance and peace, regardless of my circumstances, is what inspires me to share my journey.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: So if you relate to loving someone you can't be with, like, oh, girlfriend, I'm with you, I'm with you and that journey may be long, but there is an answer and it's delicious, like I am so much happier today than I was 10 years ago.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I was in prison 10 years ago.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: I was agitated and angry and anxious and I am so much less those things today.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: So that path is a path of wellness and it is beautiful and it just keeps giving back to me as I stay on the path.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: So, keep the faith, keep the faith and so all along that path, it's about opening my heart right.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: How do I open my heart after this divorce?
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a gentle process of staying on the path, of just being that being the intention.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: You know, you may have heard me say before that After I was divorced and I was in the group therapy and Alenon and individual therapy and personal development workshops and all the things I would ask people do you know anybody who really had a successful relationship?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And I was like on this quest for understanding whether or not a successful loving relationship was possible, and because of that space I was in, I think I was surrounded by a lot of people who were equally unsure and I wasn't getting a lot of answers that I loved.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I kept setting my intention on finding that thing, finding a space where loving, committed, healthy, whole relationships were possible and available and I just decided that I wasn't going to stop until I got there.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: And so the how to opening your heart after divorce, I really think, is just setting that intention that you're going to get there no matter what, and there's no time stamp on it, there's no due date, there's no.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I've watched myself and other people do this, like need to be married, by need to have children, by need to be at this weight, by need to have a new job Right, like when we set these time stamps on things and then it makes us neurotic and agitated.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: So, as long as your intention is to be able to open your heart after divorce, it doesn't matter when, doesn't matter how you, you will find the ways, you will stumble across them and they will come from the sometimes places that you didn't expect.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And that's part of the part of kind of the beauty of it all.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Right, like when you set the intention, the solutions are going to come to you and you don't have to overthink it and you don't have to get anxious about it.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: The solutions will come because it is your deepest heart's intention.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Now there are some people who are not yet divorced and they are conflicted about the whole thing still and they want to know what happens emotionally after divorce, because they're trying to figure out, you know, is it worth it?
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Is it the right choice?
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Should I stay or should I go?
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Did I make the wrong decision?
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: All that stuff, right?
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: That conflicted thing?
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: And the truth is, we know that.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: The truth is that after divorce some things get better and some things get worse, some things get clearer and some things get muddier, and that's just a very real path of deconstructing your life as you know it to construct a new one.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: And sometimes the reason it gets harder is because we're still trying to hold on to old pieces and we're trying to pull them forward into a new life and they don't fit right anymore and we sometimes try to insist on them fitting.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And you know we have a hard time having faith through the process.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: And so I would say, emotionally after divorce there's a huge release and a huge freeing, and then there's a really big challenge to one's faith.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Right, divorce is a faith walk that I'm going to.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to stick with this decision and I'm going to walk in faith that it is the path that I'm meant to be on and I'm going to embrace the path and I'm not going to doubt and second guess and make myself miserable, beating myself up over whether or not it's going perfectly, or you know it's hard, it's hard for my children.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: It's okay, I'm going to walk this path.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I'm going to walk it in faith, believing that I'm on the right track.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: And no, it's not going to be perfect along the way.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: It's going to be messy as fuck, and that's okay.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: It's more than okay.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It is the journey of the Phoenix rising from the ashes.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Right, that Phoenix is not cute when it burns down and it's reborn.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: It's not cute, but through that growth process, oh man, it becomes stunningly gorgeous.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And that is the path you're on, right, you are moving my love from not cute to stunningly gorgeous, and I am here for that journey with you.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And so, as you're wondering how to regain your happiness after this divorce, you're doing it.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: You're doing it.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: You're on the path to tapping into the truth of this path, the truth of who you are.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: You are getting to know yourself better.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: You are focusing on healing this heartbreak.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: You are focusing on finding your way.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: You are focusing on building a life that you can love, that you are passionate about, where you feel loved and accepted by yourself, by others and by your future partner.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And just know that your happiness after this divorce is inevitable so long as you remain committed to knowing and loving yourself deeply.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Because the only thing that is going to come with knowing and loving yourself deeply is other people knowing and loving you deeply, and with that comes happiness and joy and freedom and peace and abundance and all the things you're looking for.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: So you are on the right track.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Trust that and just keep following the clues.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Love, keep taking a step, keep reaching out, keep using a tool, keep you know taking an action.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And take something from what you heard today and put it into action.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: It's not enough to just hear right, we do have to take action.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: It's not enough to just hear these words.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: They create a spark, but then you got to do the thing to really grow into it, to really learn from it, to really have the experience of it.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: You learn through experience more than we learn from listening.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Listening plants a seed, but then doing the action allows the seed to take root and to grow.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: So take some action from what you heard today and then trust that action.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I love you so much and I cannot wait for you to heal this broken heart so that you don't have to be in so much pain anymore.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Peace, dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by MyCoachJohn.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: You can find more at MyCoachJohncom.