Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

How ya doing babe? We're on day 7 of "The 12 Days of Becoming HER Again" and it's all pretty raw.

Today we’re talking about loneliness after divorce...not as something to fix or outrun, but as something that moves in waves.

For many women, loneliness doesn’t stay constant.
 It rises.
 It crests.
 And when it hits, it can feel overwhelming.

In this episode, Joy and I talk about:

• Why loneliness after divorce often comes in waves
• How many women try to drown it out instead of ride it
• The difference between feeling lonely and being unsafe
• What actually helps when the wave rises
• Why resisting loneliness often makes it stronger
• How to stay present without collapsing into it

This conversation is about learning how to ride the loneliness wave — letting it move through you without letting it take you under.

You don’t have to force yourself to feel better.
 You don’t have to make it mean something about your worth.
 You just need a way to stay with yourself when it shows up.

If loneliness has been hitting hard this holiday season, this episode is for you.

🎄 About the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas

The 12 Days of Divorce Christmas is a daily series supporting your nervous system and your heart through the holidays after divorce.

✨ Days 1, 2, and 9 are available on the public feed.
✨ The full series is available inside Dear Divorce Diary Premium.

If today’s episode helped you feel less afraid of the loneliness — or less alone inside it — the rest of the series is there to keep supporting you.

Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.

Or stay with us here today — and come back tomorrow.

Capacity builds in connection. Hugs ❤️

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

Today's convo is about a specific kind of holiday pain after divorce...
 the Christmas cards knowing exactly how to **send you.

The smiling families.
The matching outfits.
The quiet comparison that starts to creep in and makes you feel like you no longer belong to the world you used to be part of.

In this episode, Joy and I talk about:

• Why Christmas cards trigger comparison so deeply after divorce
• How performance culture keeps women disconnected from themselves
• The grief of rebuilding your life in truth while others appear “settled”
• Why comparison pulls you off your own healing path
• What it means to shift from me vs. them to me vs. me
• Why becoming yourself can feel lonelier before it feels better

We also offer a simple, creative practice for working with the cards themselves...not from bitterness, but from transformation (well maybe a little from bitterness) as a way to reclaim your power and your perspective.

This episode isn’t about pretending the comparison doesn’t hurt.
 It’s about choosing not to let it delay your becoming.

If the Christmas cards have been making you feel like an outsider this season, come hang with us!

Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.

Or stay with us here today — and come back tomorrow.

Capacity builds in connection. Hugs ❤️

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

If you’re here today, it means your kids aren’t with you...and that absence lands in the body, not just the heart.

This episode is for the moms navigating holidays, weekends, or long stretches without their children after divorce. The quiet. The ache. The way your nervous system doesn’t know where to settle when the people you’re bonded to aren’t home.

Joy shares from lived experience what it’s like to be deeply, trauma-bonded to your children — through pregnancy, birth, illness, caregiving, and survival — and then suddenly have to function without them physically present.

In this conversation, we talk about:

• Why missing your kids after divorce can feel physically destabilizing
• How maternal bonding and trauma bonding affect the nervous system
• The urge to stay busy, numb out, or dissociate — and why that makes sense
• What actually helped during the hardest hours (movement, EFT tapping, nature, structure)
• Why “doing nothing” can feel unbearable — and what to do instead
• A simple candle ritual to honor the bond when your kids aren’t with you
• How to stay connected without collapsing or abandoning yourself

This episode is not about fixing the grief or rushing you through it.
 It’s about staying present with the truth that their bodies may be absent — but their love is not.

If you’re missing your kids today, you don’t have to disappear to survive it.
 You’re allowed to grieve and stay with yourself.

🎄 About the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas

The 12 Days of Divorce Christmas is a daily, nervous-system-first series created to support women through the holidays after divorce.

✨ Days 1, 2, and 9 are available on the public feed.
✨ The remaining days — including deeper support for grief, loneliness, and identity after divorce — are available inside Dear Divorce Diary Premium.

If this episode helped you feel less alone, the rest of the series is there to hold you through the days that follow.

Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.

Their love is not absent.
And neither are you.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

Christmas after divorce can hit your body before your mind ever catches up.

You can know logically that other people’s celebrations have nothing to do with you—and still feel the ache, the comparison, the quiet grief in your chest when you wake up.

Today’s episode is different.

This is a short quantum healing track designed to help your nervous system release the emotional charge that gets activated when you imagine other families celebrating—and then turn back toward your own reality.

Quantum healing works by bringing awareness to how your body responds to emotional contrast, then gently clearing the stored stress response without forcing positivity or bypassing grief.

By the end of this track, many women notice:
 – less heaviness in the chest
 – a softening of comparison and loneliness
 – a calmer, more grounded nervous system
 – more space to meet Christmas Day as it actually is

No fixing.
 No reframing.
 Just relief.

Press play when you’re somewhere quiet and let your body do what it already knows how to do.

Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.

Capacity builds in connection. Hugs ❤️

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

Welcome to Day 3 of the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas...also known as the 12 Days of Becoming Her Again.

Today we’re talking about one of the hardest moments after divorce: going to the holiday party alone.

The explaining.
The questions you don’t want to answer.
The way your body tightens when you walk into a room where you used to belong as part of a couple.

For many women, this isn’t just social anxiety — it’s identity grief.
 You were someone’s wife.
 You had a role.
 You had a place.

And now you’re figuring out who you are without rehearsing strength or pretending you’re fine.

In this episode, Joy and I walk you through how to prepare for being single at the holiday party in a way that actually supports your nervous system — instead of leaving you depleted before you even arrive.

We talk about:

• Why your brain naturally rehearses what you don’t want to happen
• How that rehearsal increases anxiety and self-protection
• A simple journaling practice to shift from fear to preference
• How to decide how you want to feel — without trying to change other people
• Practical grounding tools you can use before and during the event
• What to reach for when you feel yourself starting to disappear

This episode isn’t about performing confidence.
 It’s about staying in Self.

You don’t need the night to go perfectly.
 You just need a way to stay connected to you while you’re there.

And we’ll walk you through that — step by step.

🎄 ABOUT THE 12 DAYS OF DIVORCE CHRISTMAS (WITH CTA)

The 12 Days of Divorce Christmas is a daily, nervous-system-first series created to support you through one of the hardest seasons after divorce.

✨ Days 1, 2, and 9 are available on the public feed.
✨ The remaining days — including deeper grounding tools and preparation practices — are available inside Dear Divorce Diary Premium.

Inside Premium, you’ll get:

• Full access to all 12 days of this series
• Episodes that help you regulate in real time (bathroom breaks, car moments, before-you-walk-in tools)
• Monthly premium workshops for grief, anxiety, loneliness, and identity rebuilding after divorce

If this episode helped you feel more prepared, more steady, or less alone — the rest of the series is there to keep supporting you through the moments that don’t get talked about out loud.

Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.

Or stay with us here today — and know you’re not doing this wrong.

You’re learning how to do it as you.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

Welcome to Day 2 of the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas...also known as the 12 Days of Becoming Her Again.

Today we’re talking about something no one prepares you for after divorce:
 when the house is too quiet.

Not peaceful quiet.
Not restful quiet.
The kind of quiet that feels heavy, deafening, and impossible to sit in.

When the house feels too quiet, most of us instinctively want to:

• distract
• dissociate
• get busy
• scroll
• eat
• spend
• numb

Anything to avoid being alone with the silence.

But today, Joy and I offer a third option...one that doesn’t involve running away or forcing yourself to sit still and “process.”

We talk about why:

• Silence after divorce can dysregulate your nervous system
• Stillness isn’t always calming when you’re grieving
• Many women forget how to play, make noise, and take up space when they’re alone

And then we invite you into something different.

This episode is about:

• Using sound, volume, and movement as nervous system medicine
• Reclaiming your right to be loud in your own home
• Releasing stored emotion through music, voice, and play
• Reconnecting to parts of you that were silenced — as a child, as a wife, as a woman

This is not about being productive.
 It’s not about doing healing “right.”

It’s about aliveness.

If the quiet has been breaking you, this episode will help you meet it differently — with energy, humor, and permission to be big.

🎄 About the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas

The 12 Days of Divorce Christmas is a daily, nervous-system-first series designed to support you through one of the hardest seasons after divorce.

Days 1, 2, and 9 are available on the public feed.
The remaining days — and the full experience — live inside Dear Divorce Diary Premium.

Inside Premium, you’ll get:

• Access to all 12 days of the series
• Monthly premium workshops
• Ongoing support for grief, loneliness, anxiety, and nervous system overload after divorce

If today’s episode gave you even a small sense of relief or permission, the rest of the series is there to keep walking with you — one day at a time.

Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.

You’re not meant to heal quietly 🔊

Capacity builds in connection. Hugs ❤️

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

Welcome to Day 1 of the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas...also known as the 12 days of becoming her again.

If you’re listening today, there’s a good chance part of you feels like:
 “I can’t do this.”
Not the holidays.
Not the decisions.
Not the weight of doing this alone.

This episode isn’t here to convince you otherwise.

It’s here to help you understand that when you feel like you can’t, it’s not weakness or victimhood — it’s a capacity issue, not a character flaw.

In today’s episode, we talk about:

• Why feeling like “I can’t do this” often means your system is depleted, not broken
• How divorce grief and the holidays quietly drain nervous system capacity
• Why being “too strong for too long” eventually leads to collapse
• What actually increases capacity (and what doesn’t)
• A short, gentle vagal breathing practice to help your body downshift in real time

This is not a big breakthrough episode.
 It’s a grounding episode.

Water.
Food.
Breath.
Connection.

The basics that matter when everything feels like too much.

You don’t need to fix your life today.
You just need enough capacity to stay present.

And today, that’s enough.

🎄 About the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas

The 12 Days of Divorce Christmas is a daily, nervous-system-first series designed to support you through one of the hardest seasons after divorce.

Days 1, 2, and 9 are available on the public feed.
The remaining days — and the full experience — live inside Dear Divorce Diary Premium.

Inside Premium for $5/mo, you’ll get:

• Access to all 12 days of the series
• Monthly premium workshops
• Deeper, steadier support when talk therapy alone isn’t enough

If this episode helped your body soften even a little, the rest of the series is there to continue that support — one regulated day at a time.

Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.

Or stay with us here today — and come back tomorrow.

Capacity builds in connection. Hugs ❤️

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

After divorce, many women aren’t just grieving...they’re carrying too much in their nervous system.

Too much responsibility.
Too much self-doubt.
Too much pressure to hold it together.

That load doesn’t live in your thoughts. It lives in your body.

In this episode, Dawn guides a somatic practice that blends EFT tapping with IFS-style parts work to help the nervous system release what it’s been holding. This is not about insight, fixing, or doing it right. It’s about staying in the body long enough for real relief to happen.

The focus is simple: meet the overwhelmed part with compassion, let go of what was never meant to be carried alone, and restore capacity one layer at a time.

If this created even a small shift, there are three ways to continue:

• Take the Divorce Recovery Nervous System Quiz to understand how your system is organized after divorce and where it’s getting stuck.
• Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium for deeper nervous system support, guided practices, and behind-the-scenes conversations.
• Join the Cocoon Community for ongoing (free), structured support that integrates somatic work, regulation, and real-life healing.

This isn’t about becoming stronger.
 It’s about carrying less.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

The holidays can make everything feel heavier — especially when you’re freshly divorced or still deep in the weeds of it all.

In this episode of Dear Divorce Diary, we talk about three hidden patterns that often stall divorce healing and leave women feeling unsafe, unmoored, and scattered, even when the marriage is over and you’re trying to move forward.

This conversation is a teaser for Season 5 - can you believe it?!- where we’ll spend six weeks breaking these patterns down and showing you how to work with your nervous system instead of fighting it. We talk about why anxiety can increase after divorce, why many women feel foggy or shut down, and why “just pushing through” rarely helps during already overwhelming seasons like Hanukkah and the lead-up to Christmas.

If you’re listening while navigating the holidays and wondering why things still feel so hard, this episode will help you understand what’s actually happening.

And if this season already feels like too much, stay close. Our 12 Days of Divorce Christmas series starts next and is designed to support you through the moments that tend to hit the hardest.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.

Today’s episode is personal, unpolished, and happening in real time.

This is the first in our new premium series, Behind the Mic—where we take you into the conversations that usually happen off-air. And this week, I’m sharing something I’m still moving through: a recent miscarriage.

Inside this conversation, we talk about how this loss collided with my lifelong pattern of staying in masculine energy—overfunctioning, overproducing, and avoiding vulnerability by handling everything myself. We explore why receiving support still feels harder than giving it, how early attachment trauma shaped that, and what happens to a woman’s nervous system and hormones when softness feels unsafe.

You’ll also hear a candid discussion between me, Joy, and Tiff about suppression, self-sacrifice, and the way so many high-achieving women are conditioned to stay “strong” at the expense of their own bodies.

This isn’t a polished teaching moment. It’s us, in the middle of it, naming patterns as they surface and practicing the very tools we teach—IFS, EMDR principles, nervous system awareness—to move through something raw and immediate.

If you’ve ever carried grief alone, struggled to step out of your masculine, or felt terrified to let yourself be supported, this conversation will land in a very specific place.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyCoachDawn

Instagram: (@dawnwiggins)

Instagram: (@coachtiffini)

On the Web: https://www.mycoachdawn.com

A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

Support the show

Join Cocoon VIP - "The Room Where Support Without Guilt Happens"

For just $5 a month, you can access all thursday eps where we apply the concepts we cover on Tuesday. You will also be invited to attend monthly live workshops with Coach Tiffini and other exclusive content. Can't attend the live workshop? No problem! You'll get access to all the recordings plus handouts that help you DO the healing work you need!

Real Conversations. Real Regulation. Real Relief.