Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 191. Lessons Learned While Using Tinder Post-Divorce: The Secret to Turning Codependency Into Joy

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191. Lessons Learned While Using Tinder Post-Divorce: The Secret to Turning Codependency Into Joy · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: It is Christmas Eve and I am holding you in my heart.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And if your heart is feeling heavy today, I have the perfect solution for you.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Let's dig into this episode one of our best from the year where you learn how to spot joy, especially when you're feeling anxious and overwhelmed.
• 1:10
  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.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer and divorcee.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Today we have with us Heidi B.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: She is a divorce comeback coach, a certified trauma-informed divorce coach and somatic breathwork facilitator.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Cannot wait to hear more about that.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Her three-month comeback course and coaching community gives women the exact roadmap, resources and relationships they need to navigate their new normal and get your life back after divorce.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: She's also the host of the podcast Divorce Comeback Coach, which is where I met her, and she hosts candid conversations with truth talk and tips to start taking your next best steps now towards the life you deserve and desire.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And Heidi, at the end of the episode, is going to share with us a juicy dating disaster story.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: So make sure you hang in there, heidi.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show today.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It's good to see you again.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I know it was so awesome to chat with you on your podcast.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I am so glad you're here with us today.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: So, heidi, tell us a little bit of your story.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, when to even begin?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: So first things first is that back in 2015, well, probably even before 2015, I was going through life like all other people do and thinking that life was pretty good.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I was with my ex-husband at the time and we were figuring out how to move from Michigan to California for his job, and so my whole life I was in Michigan family, super close, everybody's there, friends, all the things and we moved to California and our lives started to just change a little by little by little, but I don't think enough to even really notice it until until we noticed it.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Like what I mean, like that story of the frog in the boiling pot of water, like it just incrementally gets worse until all of a sudden it's like what, what, what happened?
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and our, our story is pretty unique in the sense that I don't know that it even got so horrible that things just like boiled over and you know, things got burned or anything by that.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I think we both came to this space, in this place, where we realized this isn't where I want to be, who I want who I want to be or who I want to be together for the rest of our lives.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was so strange because when we brought up the fact that we were getting divorced, people were like what, the two of you, not you two?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Where did this come from?
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: And lots of why?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Why did you have you guys tried hard enough?
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Because, like, on paper, it looked great.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: It looked great but it didn't feel great.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: It didn't feel great.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And what I didn't realize until hindsight which I think is a little bit unique about our story is in the beginning I just thought, oh, he just didn't want to be married.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: One of the things that he said when we finally got to this point was hey, are you happy anymore?
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And I was like you know what?
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: I don't think I am, which was an unusual thing for me to say.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: I was a heavy, heavy people pleaser, wanted things to always work out, thought I was going to be married to my best friend for the rest of my life.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: He was a super fun guy.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: He was a lot of fun.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: He had a lot of hobbies which super clicked with my need for variety.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: I have a very, very high, high threshold need, core need for variety.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: So, like you guys were good at having fun together, but maybe when you were home behind closed doors, like it just wasn't clicking, it wasn't sparking.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: And I also realized after I got divorced that that part played a huge role in what had happened, because in Michigan we had a lot of friends, we had a lot of family, our place was the place to hang out with.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So I was planning all the theme parties and everybody was coming.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: It was the place to be and we were always trying new things.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: We were also at the time in our lives in our twenties where we had just popped out of the college phase again, having tons of fun all the time together, no responsibilities, and then he went to grad school right after that, and so he's in grad school.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I got a big, fancy job.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: There was lots of change.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Then we bought a house, then I got a different job there was constant, constant change and constant variety, which all seemed like fun and good times.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: And, you know, we thought we really had it all together.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And then we moved to Californiaia and because we didn't know anybody, oh all of a sudden we all we had was each other.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it was a space where you don't just kind of drive everywhere because traffic is kind of a little too much.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we stayed home a lot okay and we it was like a litmus test.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: We.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: We weren't doing new.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: The new things had halted completely.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: We did the big thing which was moving.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: But then, once we got settled in, we stopped changing things.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: We didn't go back to school, we didn't go to different jobs, we went to the same jobs every day.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I got heavily immersed in the fitness industry so I thought I wanted to become a physique model.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Live the California girl lifestyle.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Live up to all the California expectations of eating like all the things like.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I stopped drinking alcohol altogether, which isn't a bad thing, but I went from partying every day and making that a huge part of our lifestyle and having people over all the time which centered around a lot of drinking, to no drinking whatsoever.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Simplicity.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: To exercising a lot, a lot, and no more eating meals together, because I was on a strict diet of broccoli, strict diet of broccoli chicken breast.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: So it was, everything stopped and then hyper-focused on looking a certain way and I didn't realize what an impact that halt of in variety, which, in essence, was just this significant state of presence right, finally stopping, finally slowing down, finally spending quality time together and realizing that what we have in common is a whole lot of fun, and that's a great thing to have.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: But when you don't have the other part of it, the intimacy on a spiritual, emotional, physical, mental, all soulful level, what is actually there is just a lot of masking, a lot of I'm not actually this person, and so I think we both started to move into this space in our lives where he started going.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I kind of want to be like this and I went, ooh, and I went.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I kind of want to be like this.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: And he went ooh, so weird question.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I know this is like pre-comeback for you, right?
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: You made this massive divorce comeback and you're going to tell us the story, but if you could float back to that season where you almost started repelling each other, does that sound right?
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like magnetic.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like magnets pushing apart, pushing apart.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Do you remember at all what it felt like in your body in those moments, Like what did it feel like to be in that relationship and to have this dawning awareness?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: This is a pre-comeback right, but what did it feel like in those moments, in that relationship, in that season where you were like almost pushing apart?
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, ooh, I can actually feel it in my body right now because our bodies remember a lot.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I feel it all the way from my throat down to, let's call it like our core, like just below our belly button, because not everybody knows kind of like the chakra centers and things.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: So all of that feels immediately tight, compressed.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: I could even hunch my back a little bit, okay, like curl, curl, curl into yourself, curl in a little bit, yeah, and it's a very.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: There's just a ton of tightness.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like a squeezing of the intestines, it's kind of like a collapsing of the lungs.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: It's a lot less space.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of collapse, and I didn't realize at the time that, as my body's giving me all of these clues, signals, tons of signals.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: I had never heard of somatic practices, body-based practices, I had never heard of healing, but why would I need to heal?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: That's so good, right.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: What would I need to heal from Like no clue.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: There was ever even anything wrong, yeah.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Because, just like in the physical world, until we break our leg or have some kind of ailment, we don't go to the.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of us we don't go to the doctor.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, some of us don't skip all the checkups, do all like a lot of people for years, until something is painful.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: We don't no pain no, pay attention.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, so emotionally I had just honestly didn't.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I honestly didn't feel those things Dawn until after the fact.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And even sitting here now going back and talking about those things, I'm like, oh, that is, that's what it felt like, but I was so used to escaping myself all the time.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: It was being busy.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Always fun.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yep.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And the other thing is the job that I had at the time.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I was a full-time event planner for a corporation that planned major trips all around the world, so I was constantly traveling.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So I'm like your job was facilitating fun facilitating fun?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and then trying to live it and skip it, skip around.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I never really took time to sit with myself until that season came and we were forced to both kind of go.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, now that we're both figuring out who we are without trying, this doesn't feel fit, it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And you know what I will to this day.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I will say he's a great guy.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I'm so grateful that I was able to come to this place in this space in my thirties so that now, in my forties and beyond I'm I'm able to actually know who I am and know what I want, without the insecurities and all the external things around me really deciding for me how I was going to show up.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: So to this point right in the story.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Well, we haven't gotten to the divorce ditch yet, right?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: What happens next?
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Because so far it doesn't sound so bad Like, oh, we made this kind of mutual decision.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: There was this curling in on myself but I didn't realize just how much.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: And then what happens next?
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Because I know it didn't feel good.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: What happened next?
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: So then what happens next is we go okay, we're going to do this separation thing, and this was two months of crying on and off and maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't, maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't and at this point, one person is one day having a full-on meltdown and the other person is very certain this is the end.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And then the next day that person is very yeah, it's just back and forth.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: So much uncertainty.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Finally, we both just went like enough already, we we just we got to get a lawyer.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: So we did the lawyer thing and, honestly, it wasn't until I remember my lawyer at the time lived in my apartment building, so we both got separate apartments far away from each other.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, an hour and a half away from each other?
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because his job was actually much further away, so he moved closer to that.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: I stayed in the beach city where I loved putting my toes in the sand, and my lawyer lived on the sixth floor of my apartment complex.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Well, that's convenient.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Very convenient.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: So he came down and was kind of working on things behind the scenes and finally knocked on the door and I opened it up and he said, congratulations, you're divorced.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: And gave me a hug and gave me the papers.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: And I remember, dawn, I can feel it, I hear it comes again.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: It's this, it's these somatic pieces in our bodies.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: I remember just taking the papers, going thanks, and then feeling like my whole soul dropped to my toes, from my heart center to my toes.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: It was like in that moment it was real, this is real.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: What you chose was real.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: And now it's like me with me.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Right, Like me with me, with no other kind of distracting thing.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: To to be like an outsource, outside source of grounding or guidance, or like a role to play.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: No more roles to play.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Like just me with me yeah, I remember realizing too that that me with me moment was very depleting because for so long I had been someone else's significant other, and I call that the significant other syndrome, where all of a sudden you're just like.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know who the hell I am, because I've been someone significant other for so long that I don't know how to be me with me.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I suffered that syndrome so badly.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I remember that moment sitting on the sofa in the house we had the marital home.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: It was like this big old house and it was so quiet and empty.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: And I was sitting on the sofa and I can remember the light shining in the window and thinking like I wonder when I'll be a person again, meaning in a relationship again, and it's like I felt like I didn't count as a single person.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, which was it's so distorted, right, but that is very much how it felt for me, yeah.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Not only and beyond that for me, all of a sudden I'm holding the papers and I remember this is a silly thing.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: But my one bedroom not even one bedroom, my studio apartment had a Murphy bed that pulled out from the wall, one couch and one little table that I could eat at.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It was so teeny, tiny, but it was living in a beach town.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It was the only thing that I could.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: It was the only thing I could afford now on one income because we had dual incomes.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: We both made almost six figures.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: We were we were like living it up.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: And then I went oh my God, now everything is my responsibility.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: And I remember staring down at my blue carpet it was royal blue carpet thinking who picked this carpet?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I like what am I supposed to do now?
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember just thinking what am I supposed to do now?
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: And I sat.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I could have sat on my couch, I could have sat at my table, but I just kind of without falling to my knees because that feels very dramatic to me, I didn't, I didn't do that, but I sat down and I just put my hands over my face and I just started crying and I and I remember that part so deeply to my soul just sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, to the point where my neighbor came over and knocked on the door to check on you.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: He said Heidi, and we didn't know each other very well at that point because.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Heidi, I can hear you crying through the wall and I was like I'm so sad.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: And I remember he just like, oh, it brings tears to my eyes right now.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: He just wrapped his arms around me, wow, and he said why don't you come over to my house and sit on my couch?
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: My brother and sister are here and we're just going to watch Lord of the Rings.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: Wow, they wrapped me up in a blankie, yeah, and I still kind of had that, those moments, but I was quiet, quieter, and they gave me some tea and I just sat there and I remember not feeling anything, not hearing.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I didn't hear the movie, I didn't, I didn't hear sound.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Just in that divorce fog, just in a fog, yeah, but I felt safer not being alone.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: It was the weirdest thing.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: What a gift.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was definitely delivered it was the weirdest.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: What a gift, yeah it was definitely delivered.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: It was definite and again this speaks to the power of letting your emotions and at the time I had no clue what feeling your emotions and doing all the things and healing and the power of that but in that moment, those that release allowed somebody else to hear my pain.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about that for a minute, though, because, knowing you a bit, right, yeah, I know that to be with you is to be with.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: You're like one of these people forgive me, right, but you're one of these people that's like emanates so much joy or like is this chick for real?
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: You're literally that kind of a happy woman, and I really want to point something out right here for for our listeners, because even in your unhealed kind of pre-comeback state, you still attracted that gift, right, you still, and you allowed it in.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: You didn't say oh thanks, but no thanks, because I think so much of what women want to manifest in their lives is that kind of giving and receiving of love.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: But you got to be ready to let it in, you got to be willing to receive the gift when it gets, when it shows up on your literal doorstep, right.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And I think there's something to be said there for your way of moving through life.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Heidi is one that seeks joy, that seeks fun, that recognizes a gift when it shows up and receives it, right.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: So I sort of teased for our listeners that there's a very simple tool that you use constantly in life and it's called joy spotting.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about why you love joy spotting so much and how maybe you think it's influenced the path in your life.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: This is so good and thank you for all of that, because I've worked really hard on receiving, but I have never witnessed it free healing, but for her to have you point it out and realize that it actually was there all along.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: And another thing about that yes, all along, yes.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And another thing about that, I think, is to remember that we can receive, not by being a perfectionist or performing or trying to be something we're not, but in those real, raw, vulnerable allowing, allowing, still allow.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: We can still receive.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: By just being where we're at and showing up where we're at, you can still attract and receive what you need.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: So I think that's beautiful.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: But let's fast forward to months later, months later, months later, months later, with this, the, you know before, that resulted in many, many times on the what I call on the bathroom floor moments.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: For anybody that can relate, it's that crying, it's that I don't know where else to go.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: I, it's the.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: It's this deep.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: It it's that crying, it's that I don't know where else to go.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: It's this deep.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: It's a divorce ditch, it's hopelessness.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to get myself out of here.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: So I'm just going to keep reliving this groundhog's day of pain every day, just praying.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I would pray that it would pass, please pass, please pass, please pass, just pass.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: And I would just lay on that floor and wait it out and cry it out and numb it out, and cry it out and numb it out.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: And it was this vicious cycle of numbing and crying, and numbing and crying, and numbing and crying, until one day I was laying on the bathroom floor and I literally heard a voice and it's like get up, get up.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: And I feel like it came from inside of myself.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Right, you didn't like hear it in your ears.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear it?
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I didn't hear it.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: In my ears it wasn't like.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Jim Carrey's voice of God, or whatever.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And you know, and some people, some people say they do hear that Right.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: So I just want to be clear Mine wasn't that, but it was this internal loud, get up.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: And it said get up this internal loud, get up and it said get up get up and go find your joy get up and go find your joy.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: It was very clear, very, very, very clear.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And I went what?
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: And it stopped.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: It's, paused me in my cry, Stopped your scroll.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Whoa, whoa, okay.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: And I felt like I had no choice.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Dawn, yeah, whoa, I've never heard Dawn.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I was like, okay.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Whoa.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I've never heard that before, never heard that voice before.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Go find your joy.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Get up and go find your joy.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Go find it, it's somewhere.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: Like a hidden treasure.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I felt like oh my.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: God Like a scavenger hunt.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: So, mind you, I lived on the beach in California.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: You don't need one to do this, but that's what I had at the time, and I had walked that path hundreds of times, okay, hundreds of times.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love going there, but this time was different.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: So I'm backing up in my chair because I'm doing the motion.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I literally got up, I put my shoes on and I just walked out my front door and I remember thinking I don't know where I'm going, but I'm going to look for joy, I'm going to look for it.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I'm supposedly I'm supposed to find it.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: And so what I did was I started looking for joy, and I call that joy spotting.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I went out with the intention of finding joy and at first I thought I was supposed to find my joy.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Mine.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is a juicy discerning, like a nuance.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, carry on, this is a juicy nuance.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: So I thought, oh, I have to find my joy.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Where does X mark the spot?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And I was first just looking, looking, looking, looking.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I didn't really find a spot that said dig here, here's your joy, Come get it.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: I started noticing joy in the things around me.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I started noticing, I started spotting.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Joy spotting Could be like a little kid giggling right.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Yep, I remember these people having drum circles.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I remember a puppy on the on its leash.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: It's like bearing witness to joy.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: It's like becoming aware of joy, witnessing joy all around you, yeah, and then being able to like let it in or go for it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: I felt like it was.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I felt like it was just supposed to be a reminder that it's it exists everywhere all the time.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: It exists everywhere all the time.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: And I almost think of it like a little pouch where I was like collecting oh there's one, oh there's one and filling up my little pouch or my little backpack.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: And this little backpack was just going to stick with me and the more that I could collect, the more that I knew that it actually was here.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: And if it was here, if I could see it, I knew that maybe I didn't feel it right now, but I can have it.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't feel it right now, but I can have it yeah so all of these people and things are existing with joy.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: It can be for me too.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is so, so, so powerful, because you know, whether we're talking about reprogramming the subconscious mind or we're talking about law of attraction and manifesting, there is a difference between operating from a place of scarcity, like I don't have joy, I don't have love, I don't have love, I don't have peace, I don't right.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And this like I'm going to go on a walk to try to feel less anxious, or I'm going to go on a walk to try to feel less depressed, versus I'm going to go on a walk to find joy, to find peace, to engage in the solution versus ruminate on the problem.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: To engage in the solution versus ruminate on the problem.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: It's such a powerful shift that was handed to you in the bathroom on the floor in the ditch.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, I love how you just said engage in the solution, because it really is.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: It was a choice that day.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: I never gave myself the choice or the permission to choose it before, but for whatever reason, it took this moment of this deep sorrow to unlock.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like that movie Inside Out, right when it's like joy, joy, joy is the star, joy is the star.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: But then really sadness does something to ignite and engage.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, but that's true, Like if you let yourself, if you let yourself feel and we had another expert come on a couple of months ago that talked about uncertainty and just being willing to literally wallow in the uncertainty of grief Eventually, what happens is what happened for you.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, oh my gosh, I love uncertainty now.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I used to hate it.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: But I love it now because the more that we do it, the more it expands our capacity for discomfort, for uncertainty, and then it feels like it's not that big of a thing anymore.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: It feels like, oh, what's going to happen in this moment?
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: What's going to happen?
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Right, Uncertainty is the grandest adventure it's the place where all new things unfold, and so without it, there's nothing new to unfold, right?
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah life becomes boring and bland, and yeah so joy spotting one of the most.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: It's like the simplest tool that can change everything yeah, well, and the other thing too is I remember having these thoughts of I guess this is it, this is it for me.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be sad forever and'm just going to have to learn how to cope and move through life being sad all the time, because once you get divorced, I guess this is what happens you're in a ditch, you're down and out and there is no more joy for you.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I literally I bought into that belief.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I bought into that belief for months.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, for months.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, I would ask people does real life exist?
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Does real love exist?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Does real love exist?
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Does real?
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: love exist.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Does real love exist?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't until I got that download and that's why I'm so passionate about sharing it and the powers of joy that we just get to be start being intentional about what we want in our lives, about our desires, that this is a big part of the comeback is getting relentless, getting fiercely committed to whatever it is that you feel like you lost, whatever you feel like you lost, now you get to reclaim it again, rename it, reclaim it, own it, create it for yourself.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: But it has to be this moment of okay, I have decided that I'm going to take it back.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I'm going to whatever it is you, if it's your voice, I'm going to take my voice back.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take my, my power back.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take my peace back.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take my clarity back.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my finances, my independence, my joy, like whatever it is right, whatever it is you feel like is missing.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: So tell us more about how you work with women to help them right, claim the thing that they feel like is missing.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: First of all, when I after I kind of got through all of that, those types of things, I decided to reclaim just some sense of growth, some sense of self.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I started going to women's events and I started meeting people again and I signed up for a workbook.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: I just got a random workbook online from this woman.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: That was like hey, if you don't really know what you're doing with your life, like maybe get this workbook.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: It was a $300 workbook and it gave me something to tap into.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: To focus on, to work towards.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because I didn't know at that time what questions to ask myself, where to go for growth and development and so much of this.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I say divorce recovery is truly, truly self-discovery.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's what this whole unpacking is.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: It is really really uncovering and discovering who you actually are, not who you've been being, who you actually are and who you want to grow into.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: And sometimes we don't know who that is.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: I get so many of the women in our comeback course and community who are just like I have no clue who that is.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: And it's like it's okay, cause we're going to get into our bodies, we're going to do some breath work and somatic practices.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: We're going to stand side by side wherever you're at on your journey.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: We're going to come together.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: We're going to ask the questions.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: We're going to answer the questions and the answers to those questions which are completely individual, by the way.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: There's no right or wrong answers.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: It's Dawn has her answers, heidi has her answers.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Everybody has their answers, and those answers specific to you are going to guide you to your next best steps, and so it's really just this safe, safe, safe, community and collective To explore.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: To get curious, that's right.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: To try on some things, that's right.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: And release.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Release all the things that you've been being, or that haven't been serving you, and sometimes we don't know that until somebody else goes.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: I'm releasing this this week and somebody goes.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I needed to release that too.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you don't realize it.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't realize it until it unlocks.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about how somatic, how breath work helps people release.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: It's so powerful.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I'd love to have follow-up combos, right, about more about that.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: But describe how breath work is so powerful, right?
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, because people think of breathwork.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I think they think of like box breathing and like breathing in a bag.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, like yeah, yeah.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I was the biggest skeptic to breathwork that you've ever met, so I went on a 12-month journey to become a coach.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, and that was part of the journey itself was doing breathwork yeah.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Part of the journey itself was doing breathwork.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: But for the first eight weeks I turned off my camera and I refused to do breathwork.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I was like I'm not doing this.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: This is so scary to me, I don't want to be out of control.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I didn't like it.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: People were having these major vocal releases and other people were just crying In the classes.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in the classes I was like what is this?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: This is not?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Nope, nope, nope, nope.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: And then, finally, I had a week where one of our mentors said there will be tools that are very unfamiliar and probably uncomfortable for you, but until you try these tools, you'll never know if it's maybe the one or two or three avenues that you need to get what you need right now, just like you and just like me, right, resist using the tool.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: that is probably the answer.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Right, why do we do that as humans?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Why do we ask for a solution and then like the solution shows up and we're like, nope, that's not the solution I want?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Isn't that a funny thing we do.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: It's hilarious, it's hilarious and so sad at the same time, because our brain, our busy brain I call this sometimes mean girl mode Our busy brain goes into mean girl mode and sometimes just safety mode.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: It's trying to protect us from things that we don't know.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: So if we don't know something like breath work, I've never done it.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: I've maybe seen a documentary on Wim Hof where he's like breathing, breathing and people are like losing it and people are jumping in cold plunges and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I don't want any of that.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not realizing there are so many different, very soothing ways to go about breathwork and there's many different types of breathwork.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: So there's something called integrative breathwork, which you can do when you get a heated email at work, when you're driving down the road when supper is boiling over and your kids are screaming and you just need to regulate in that moment so that it doesn't build up resentment and pile up and then make you have this massive explosion.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Then there's meditative breath work, where we can go and we can get these deep, deep parts of us Old stuff, Old stuff and sometimes and sometimes honestly Dawn.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: It feels really gentle, it doesn't feel crazy or wild or overwhelming at all and sometimes it feels like a really big cry and sometimes what I can relate it to is I used to do a bit of running, like half marathons and stuff back in my twenties, and sometimes with the right, with a different intention, it can produce like what runners call the runners high right, where you're like, I want to breathe today with the intention of energy, with energizing my soul.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: So it really is a safe practice, um, that you get to cater towards your own body with whatever it's holding.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: And whatever it's calling for that day, whatever it's calling for that day to breathe in a specific way that's built for your body, that day with an intention, and just let things be lighter.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Let things be lighter or more peaceful or more energized or release the trapped traumas in your body.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: It just depends on the person and the day and the space they're in and the intentions that they have.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: But I've come to realize it's something that has created the most access to the truth within myself.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Breathwork has created the access to the truth within yourself.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: That's so beautiful.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, we could talk all day long.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Our stories have so many parallels.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: It is so fun to talk to you.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: You are such a ray of sunshine but we want to hear your delicious dating debacle stories.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I'm never going to tell them how they can find you.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Cool, cool, all right.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: So there's not just one.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I'm going to kind of compartmentalize all of these because I think now that I'm on the other side, I can really laugh at myself, and this is a perfect example of why we do the healing before we dive right back into relationships or external things outside of ourselves.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: So as soon as I got divorced, I had this mentality.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I was like the tiger woman at work, climbing the corporate ladder.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I was like I'm gonna be a workaholic and I'm gonna show him that he lost the greatest thing he's ever lost and I'm gonna hit Tinder hard.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't know what the app was, but I grabbed my phone and I was like I'm getting on this swipey app, this looks fun.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: I grabbed my phone and I was like I'm getting on this swipey app, this looks fun.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: And I made a profile and I started swiping, swiping, swiping.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: And before you know it, I had all these dates with all these people and all of them were a bust.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: All of every single one of them was a bust, and the joke with my coworkers was Thank God, though right.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: But but and I was smart about it I would go out on these dates.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: But I would send my you know my, my location to a friend of mine who was local.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: I'd tell people when I was coming and going.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that you didn't get kidnapped.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: That's right, exactly, exactly.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: But the joke was, heidi, you're not allowed to swipe anymore on people with food names or animal names, so I was dating people like the name was like Alfredo and Bear.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Bear was.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: this guy's name was Bear and this guy's name was Alfredo, and so they were like no more pasta names no more animal names whatsoever.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: And eventually the tenderness faded out because I realized I need to do, I need to really focus.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were, you were having like a rich experience in other places, right, but it's like that's how you cope for the season.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Oh man, oh man.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I mean just some of the silly conversations we had, some of the things that I saw in their homes.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Like I can't believe I went to other people's houses and saw the things that I saw Weird, weird, strange things that would make a girl want to run out.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: But at that point I was just like this was all pre-COVID right?
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I feel like somehow after going through COVID, we all got smarter about things.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: It's like we went to some sort of university for TikTok university, maybe right For those three years.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: The decisions we made pre-COVID are not the decisions we would make today, heidi.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Exactly, it's very much true, very much true.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, tell us where our listeners can find you.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, so everything is under divorce comeback coach.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: So divorce comeback coach on Instagram on Tik TOK um podcast is everywhere Divorce comeback coach um divorce comeback coachcom is the website.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: So I love it.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Easy peasy, right is everywhere.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Divorce comeback coach um divorce comeback coachcom is the website.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: So I love it.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Easy peasy, right, yeah In the space.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: I love to hear from people.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you so much for your time today, for sharing your light, for helping women find their own comeback, for helping them find the truth inside of themselves.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I enjoy so much, um, watching your Instagram stories where you have these like little snippets of just kind of grounding moments of peace and inspiration you truly like to be with you is truly to like feel better in life.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: It's your.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: You just shine so bright.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for I receive all of that.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: You are a true, true treasure and delight as well, Dawn.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Well, let's plan a future, get together, and I certainly want to encourage our listeners to go find you on Instagram and all the places.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, dear.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Divorce Diary is a podcast by MyCoachDawn.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: You can find more at MyCoachDawncom.