Hi, love—welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, where midlife women move beyond talk therapy to process grief held in the body, release what's braced inside, and reclaim the confidence divorce tried to steal. I’m Dawn Wiggins, therapist, coach, integrative healer, and the woman who once lay awake thinking, “I should feel better than this… but my body never got the memo.”

Toothpicks holding your eyelids open. Moving through molasses. Wired-tired even after more sleep, fewer spirals, all the supplements and rest hacks. The big scary thing is over, yet exhaustion lingers—rest lands on the surface but never reaches the cells. Why?

Because negative beliefs quietly program your nervous system to stay on high alert, and your body stays braced, unable to downshift and truly receive at a cellular level.

In today’s episode, we name the two hidden drivers of post-divorce exhaustion that won’t quit:

• The beliefs silently fueling chronic fatigue (even when life “should” feel lighter)
• The body patterns reinforcing the brace—and why gentle somatic-spiritual shifts are essential to let rest land
• Real stories of pausing to process dysregulation in real time (no performative bullshit, just remedies, tears, and grace)
• How receiving support—without apology—builds the capacity you’ve been craving

This isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about softening protector parts, reprogramming at the belief and neural level, and inviting layered homeopathic harmony to amplify your body’s natural recharge.

If this stirred something deep in your chest, join premium for $5/month: exclusive tools, our February 23rd live workshop on receiving as the key to healing, and the full ritual that makes shifts cellular.

Resources & Links:

• Free Nervous System Divorce Recovery Quiz → [quiz link] – Discover your pattern in under 2 minutes.
• Join Cocoon (free community on Heartbeat) → [Cocoon link] – Your sisters are holding space.
• Premium Subscription → [premium link] – Deeper integration + exclusives.
• Dawn Wiggins Therapy → [therapy site] – High-ticket EMDR-homeopathy hybrid sessions.

Drop a review if this resonated—it helps other midlife women find us when they’re drowning in the same ache. Send your wins—we love reading them aloud.

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 the Cocoon Community - your people are waiting! ✨

Thursday episodes are for when your body won’t do what your mind understands.

If you’re exhausted after divorce but still feel like you can’t drop the ball…
If rest makes you anxious instead of relieved…
If part of you believes that if you stop managing everything, it will all fall apart…

This episode gives you something to do in that moment.

Not a mindset shift.
Not a pep talk.
Not “just rest more.”

In this premium episode of Dear Divorce Diary, Dawn guides you through a body-based reset designed to interrupt the overfunctioning loop that so many women get stuck in during and after divorce.

Because divorce exhaustion isn’t a motivation problem —
It’s a nervous system survival pattern built on the belief:

In this episode, you’ll:

• Locate where the “I have to handle this” response lives in your body
• Identify the belief that keeps you overcontrolling even when you’re depleted
• Work with the part of you that learned effort = safety
• Practice a guided tapping sequence to test a new experience of support
• Begin loosening the reflex to chase, force, or overextend yourself

This is especially for you if:

• You’re doing everything “right” but still feel braced
• You don’t trust help yet — or feel safer relying only on yourself
• You’re tired but can’t relax
• You feel hyper-vigilant, responsible, or on edge when you try to slow down
• Coaching, therapy, or insight hasn’t translated into relief in your body

You don’t have to believe anything new for this to work.

You just need to notice what your body does when effort stops being the only way you feel safe.

🎧 Come back to this episode whenever divorce exhaustion shows up as overcontrol, urgency, or the fear that you can’t afford to stop.

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 the Cocoon Community - your people are waiting! ✨

After divorce, women are often told to “step into their masculine energy” — be strong, decisive, productive, self-sufficient.

But what if you’re not choosing strength at all?

What if your body simply doesn’t expect help to arrive? And, do you know what to do about this?

In this episode of Dear Divorce Diary, we talk about why so many women feel stuck in over-functioning after divorce — and why what looks like competence is often a nervous system stuck in survival mode.

You’ll learn:

• Why safety must come before softness
• How over-functioning becomes a substitute for trust
• Why feminine energy doesn’t show up just because you tell yourself to relax
• How childhood beliefs quietly shape the partners we attract
• Why receiving help can trigger guilt, shame, or emotional shutdown
• The difference between true support and trying to be “held” before you feel safe

We also share insights from hundreds of women who’ve taken our Divorce Recovery Nervous System Quiz, revealing how most women actually feel when someone tries to help them — and why that reaction keeps them stuck in burnout.

And stay until the end for My Body Said No, where we each share a real moment when honoring a physical “no” — instead of pushing through — changed everything.

If you’re exhausted, capable, and secretly wondering why rest feels impossible…
this episode will name what your body has been trying to tell you.

💛 Want help applying this work in real time?
Inside The Room Where It Happens (our premium Thursday episodes), we guide you through the nervous system and belief-level shifts that make softness possible again.

🎧 Links to the community, quiz, and premium episodes are in the show notes.

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 the Cocoon Community - your people are waiting! ✨

Behind the Mic is where we slow the conversation down.

In this premium episode, we speak candidly about dissociation during and after divorce—not in clinical terms, and not from a distance, but from inside our own lived experience.

This is a quieter, more intimate conversation about the ways women cope when life becomes overwhelming… and how easy it is to miss what’s really happening while you’re busy surviving.

We talk about:

• The moment you realize something has been operating under the surface
• Why certain habits, patterns, and “coping strategies” feel hard to change
• The difference between functioning and actually being present
• How the body protects us long before the mind understands what’s happening

This episode isn’t about fixing anything or tying it up neatly.

It’s about noticing.
Getting curious.
And letting yourself hear something you may not have had words for yet.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing all the right things after divorce but still feel oddly disconnected…
If you’ve ever wondered why certain patterns keep repeating…
If you sense there’s more happening beneath the surface than you’ve been able to name…

This conversation is for you.

As always, Behind the Mic is raw, personal, and meant to be experienced—not skimmed.

💛

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 the Cocoon Community - your people are waiting! ✨

If you’re in divorce recovery and keep reaching for food, screens, or emotional numbness, it’s easy to assume the problem is discipline.

It’s not.

In today’s episode, we talk about what’s actually running underneath those patterns: everyday dissociation — the high-functioning, easy-to-miss kind that hides inside coping, productivity, and “getting through the day.” Divorce doesn’t just end a relationship; it changes how present you are able to stay with your own life.

This matters because dissociation doesn’t feel dramatic...it feels normal. And when it’s running, healing stays intellectual instead of embodied. You can understand your patterns, do the work, and still feel stuck because the part of you that needs to feel and integrate isn’t fully online.

We unpack how dissociation shows up as overeating, doom scrolling, brain fog, emotional flatness, and burnout — and why learning to spot what happens before those behaviors is often the difference between staying in cycles and actually moving forward.

We also share practical ways to recognize dissociation in real time, plus listener Small Wins, Big Shifts that show what changes when you stop managing your healing and start experiencing it.

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 the Cocoon Community - your people are waiting! ✨

If you’ve been holding yourself together because it feels like the only way to stay functional, this guided reset is for you.

Divorce anxiety and overwhelm don’t come from weakness or lack of coping skills....they come from carrying too much responsibility for too long (often without enough support).

This Thursday, Premium Healing Tool offers a gentle, body-based reset designed to help you release internal pressure without forcing calm, bypassing fear, or risking emotional collapse.

You won’t be asked to relax.
You won’t be asked to stop worrying.
And nothing needs to be “fixed.”

Instead, you’ll be guided through a slow, contained experience that helps your body learn something new:
What it feels like to let go a little without falling apart.

In this episode, you’ll be supported to:

• Stay with anxiety without fighting it or trying to push it away
• Work with overwhelm in a paced, grounded way that respects your nervous system
• Use a simple butterfly tap to reduce bracing and internal tension
• Explore—without pressure—what your system believes would happen if you stopped holding everything together
• Experience relief while staying intact, present, and in control of your own pace

This is not about calming down or making anxiety disappear.
It’s about helping your body recognize that you are SAFE TO HEAL.

Even a few minutes of this kind of contact can soften the grip of overwhelm and change how much your system believes it has to carry.

You can return to this reset anytime anxiety spikes, responsibility feels heavy, or rest feels unsafe.

Nothing needs to resolve.
Nothing needs to be perfect.
Staying with yourself is the work.

We’re with 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 the Cocoon Community - your people are waiting! ✨

Hypervigilance doesn’t come from wanting control.
It comes from realizing—often too early—that no one else was going to handle it.

After divorce, many women find themselves overanalyzing everything: conversations, tone shifts, finances, social dynamics, parenting decisions, other people’s moods. Not because they’re anxious by nature—but because their bodies learned that vigilance was the price of stability.

In this episode of Dear Divorce Diary, we name the real cost of being the only adult in the room.

You’ll hear why:

• Hypervigilance is a role your body took on when things became unstable
• Overanalyzing doesn’t calm anxiety—it quietly feeds it until it erupts later
• Control is often a substitute for safety, not a sign of strength
• Letting go isn’t about trust-falling into uncertainty—it requires somewhere safe to land
• Exhaustion, resentment, and panic are downstream effects of never being able to stand down

We also talk honestly about why healing can’t happen in isolation—and why many women have to outgrow environments, relationships, and identities that once felt necessary but now feel depleting.

To close the episode, we share Small Wins, Big Shifts—real listener moments where control loosened just enough for relief, clarity, and trust to return. Not because everything worked out—but because they stopped carrying it alone.

If you’ve been living in constant readiness…and rest feels unavailable…if your mind never fully turns off…

This episode will help you understand why—and what it actually takes to change it.

If you’re craving a room where you don’t have to explain yourself, you’re invited to join Cocoon, our free community on the Heartbeat app. The link is in the show notes.

You don’t need more control.
You need support.

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 the Cocoon Community - your people are waiting! ✨

If someone has ever told you to calm down after divorce—and it made everything inside you feel louder, sharper, or more volatile—you’re not broken.

You’re responding to a loss of connection.

In this Thursday Panel Rant, Dawn and the crew get cheeky, honest, and deeply real about why “calm down” is one of the fastest ways to shut a woman down—and why it so often backfires in relationships after divorce.

This episode explores:

• Why being told to calm down often feels like being told your feelings are inconvenient
• How emotional suppression turns into explosive anger later
• The link between anxiety, anger, and broken trust after divorce
• How gaslighting and dismissal train women to doubt their own reality
• The difference between nervous system discomfort from growth vs. true emotional unsafety
• Why anger isn’t the problem—it’s information

The panel also weaves in the concept of Martin Buber’s I–Thou relationship dynamic—reminding us that real connection requires honoring both people’s lived experience, not just managing the loudest discomfort in the room.

Because here’s the truth:
Women don’t need to calm down.
They need to feel seen, understood, and safe enough to tell the truth.

Instead of asking yourself to be quieter, smaller, or easier to handle, this episode invites a different question:

What feels unsafe right now—for me, or for them?

That question—asked with honesty instead of judgment—is often where regulation actually begins.

This is not a polished episode.
It’s a lived one.
A little ranty.
A little funny.
And deeply validating for any woman who was taught to silence herself to survive.

Welcome to Panel Rant Thursday.

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 the Cocoon Community - your people are waiting! ✨