Divorce Grief Triggers: Why Everyday Moments Hurt So Much

5 Key Takeaways

1. Divorce grief triggers are often connected to identity loss. Many painful moments after divorce are not simply about missing your former spouse. They are reminders that familiar roles, routines, and your daily life have changed.
2. Everyday situations can trigger grief just as strongly as major events. Something as simple as shopping for groceries, preparing a meal, or seeing a familiar product can bring unexpected emotions to the surface.
3. Your nervous system may still be searching for safety. Many divorce grief triggers activate feelings of uncertainty, abandonment, rejection, or insecurity. Recognizing this can help you respond with compassion instead of self-criticism.
4. Healing requires a different response to difficult emotions. Instead of avoiding, suppressing, or escaping painful feelings, healing involves learning how to stay present, processing your feelings, and gradually releasing them.
5. Small moments can become opportunities for growth. Every trigger offers a chance to build confidence, strengthen your sense of self, and create new emotional patterns that support your long-term healing.

Highlights

• 00:00 “Emotions, Boundaries, and Healing”
• 05:57 Holiday Memories and Post-Divorce Struggles
• 06:51 Post-Divorce Holiday Struggles
• 12:00 Living in Fear and Avoidance
• 13:49 “Identities, Overwhelm, and Healing”
• 18:20 “Two Types of Hard”
• 20:54 “Getting Grounded in Aisles”
• 25:52 Codependency, People-Pleasing, and Balance
• 28:40 Old Hard vs. New Hard
• 31:46 “Grounding in Self”

Full Transcript

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:00]:

Okay, listen, none of us were truly prepared for the grocery store aisle after divorce. Like, yeah, people warn you about holidays and court and co parenting and all of that, but nobody fully pulls you aside and prepares you for a pasta sauce aisle. Might freaking take you out. So the first time you reached for family sized anything and realized, oh, it’s just me now, and your stomach dropped in a way you could still feel. And it wasn’t about him. It was that tiny, painful shift in identity realizing your life doesn’t come in the set of two packaging anymore. So if you’ve ever stood there pretending to compare marinara jars just to buy yourself a second to breathe, you’re not crazy. You’re grieving more than you ever realized.

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:48]:

Let’s talk about that.

Coach Tiffini [00:00:54]:

Hi, love.

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:55]:

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. I’m your host, Dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorce. Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce. All right, darlings, today we are going to explain why the everyday moments hit harder than the big ones sometimes. Super, super fascinating concept. And a little later in the episode, we are going to give you a sentence to say in your head that will really help soften the sting when it sneaks up on you. And that’s how grief works, right? It just really sort of like zings you out of nowhere. So we’re going to give you a sentence to really be able to ground and keep repeating to yourself.

Dawn Wiggins [00:01:52]:

Later in the episode, we are going to dig into what that moment in the grocery store aisle is most deeply about, because it’s not actually missing him. It goes far beyond that. And we’re going to help you get grounded in those moments. And if you stick with us to the end, we are going to have a segment called My Body Said no. And in the My Body Said no segment, we are going to reveal to you the ways in which our bodies have been saying no to do with the holidays, even years later, and how we are tackling those things and how you can too. So let’s freaking dig in. Also, sidebar. I know you’ve heard me say this at the top of the episode, but we are impatiently, not patiently, awaiting your submissions for our new segment on the ways that you are winning at life and divorce right now.

Dawn Wiggins [00:02:38]:

Because we are here to go well beyond naming our wounds loves. Like, when we listen to the episodes, we get really good at naming our wounds, feeling Seen, feeling heard, feeling understood. But then we have to go. Releasing them and sending us your wins and focusing on those things fundamentally helps you release wounds. So we are impatiently waiting and cannot wait to get your submissions. In the meantime, help me welcome Tifferdoodle and producer Joy to the episode. Good morning, ladies.

Coach Tiffini [00:03:07]:

Good morning.

Producer Joy [00:03:08]:

Good morning.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:10]:

Tell me the very specific reasons each of you cannot wait to get emails from our listeners about the things that they’re winning at.

Producer Joy [00:03:18]:

Listen, like, celebrating the tiny wins is everything. Like it gives. It gives all three of us such a high, knowing that our listeners are noticing and letting us be in on the win and including us in their. In their vibe up, in their leveling up, right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:43]:

And it’s so momentum building, like you tell us, and then we celebrate you. And that keeps the high, like, it’s literally on the vibrational scale. It keeps the vibration going because very often we. There’s so much harder stuff than there is good stuff. And then we have trouble breaking out of that low vibe state. So when you share a high vibe state and somebody celebrates you, right? It keeps that high vibe state going, right?

Producer Joy [00:04:03]:

And it’s like the. It’s like we’re. We’re a team, we’re a unit. We’re like that. That community facet in your brain that kicks in when you get to include someone in your win and they get to celebrate you. And it’s like this cycle of circle of family, team building.

Coach Tiffini [00:04:22]:

I feel like women tend to focus way too hard, too, on the bad days and, like, the bad shit that happens through the course of the day or the triggers they experienced. And a lot of times I tell women, like, take a step back and look at how far you’ve come or look at the things that you were able to do today that you couldn’t have done a week ago, a month ago, a year ago.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:39]:

We’re so hard on ourselves, right? We could get five compliments, and one, like, you could stand to do this. And then we focus on the. You could stand to do this versus the compliments. Yeah. We have to retrain our brains, right? So when we share our wins, we’re literally teaching our reticular, activating system to look for more wins. And then all of a sudden, we see more wins and. And absolutely, we retrain our brains to be going in a different direction. So it’s literally an act of reclaiming and empowering your healing journey to email us your wins.

Dawn Wiggins [00:05:06]:

So we’re not letting you off the hook with this. Send us your email. Today, Auntie dawn said I had to send her my wins so that we can love you and celebrate you and keep the vibes going. All right, back to the episode. Let’s talk about why the everyday moments hit so much harder sometimes than the big ones. So we’re in the grocery store and Q scene, right? We’re in the grocery store. You know, you can hear the, like, music playing over the. Whatever.

Dawn Wiggins [00:05:38]:

I’m always cold in the grocery store.

Coach Tiffini [00:05:40]:

You like.

Dawn Wiggins [00:05:41]:

I’m always like, extra cold. It’s easy. I know. And I don’t know, maybe you’ve got a million things on your mind, you’re tired, you know the budget to consider whatever it is. And then like all of these feelings hit you. Talk us through it. Why does it, why does it hit.

Coach Tiffini [00:05:57]:

So freaking hard around the holidays for me? So my holidays with him looked a little bit different because he was in the military, so there weren’t a lot of Christmases or holidays that he was home for, but there was the box. And all the wives wanted to send the Christmas boxes overseas with all their favorite things in them. So for my ex husband loved the Queen Anne’s chocolate covered cherries. He was obsessed with them. And they always come out around Christmas time. So post divorce, every time I saw a box of Queen Anne’s chocolate covered cherries, I would just get this sinking feeling like I have nobody to buy those for now. And then I would think, well, who’s buying stuff for him? Is he okay? Is he like all of this ruminating shit, like, started to come up with me. And I remember still feeling like that, like two or three years post divorce where I still felt this impulse to buy the freaking cherries for him.

Coach Tiffini [00:06:51]:

And it was wild. Also, the holidays were always about our families. We lived in North Carolina. Our families both lived in similar towns right next to each other. And so I would always take my daughter up to Pennsylvania and we would celebrate Thanksgiving and or Christmas with both families, but it was only me. Post divorce, let’s talk about the fact that I was a leper to his family and I was still forced to engage. And because my daughter was so young, sometimes she wasn’t comfortable being there by herself. So she would say, mommy, can you please stay? And when I would hear those dreaded words, I’d be like, oh, my God, yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:07:31]:

Wow, I’m rocking a hard place.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:34]:

Yeah, I relate so much to that. Buying something for somebody else. Like I. If I. Because I started dating this guy right around the time of getting divorced, right. Read anxious attachment style. And I would go to the Grocery store all the time to buy things for him to avoid this exact grocery store sensation. Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:53]:

So as long as I had somebody to buy food for, I was not or like their favorite drink or whatever it was. Right. Then as long as I had somebody to care for, I didn’t have to feel that intense, like, I am all alone sensation that came down the road right after that thing crashed and burned. Yeah. And I think it speaks so much to the roles we play and the lack of identity in capital S self. Right. That we relate more to the roles we play as women. Caretaker, mother, partner, spouse, boss, sister, daughter, whatever it is.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:26]:

And then when that role is stripped, we. It see so clearly, like how much our identity is sort of built on. On foundation of sand. I don’t know. Does that make sense?

Producer Joy [00:08:37]:

Absolutely.

Coach Tiffini [00:08:39]:

And it’s scary how it can all be wiped away in a second. It’s like you build a life with somebody, and some of our clients have built a life with somebody. Decades long.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:47]:

Decades.

Coach Tiffini [00:08:47]:

You know, I’m talking 20, 30 years. And all of a sudden everything you knew goes like quicksand. And it’s. It’s scary to how quickly everything can change. The relationships with his family, the relationships with your friends, Everything that once felt stable and like it was part of your existence no longer exists. I actually had someone reach out to us this morning in our online community, and she said, I feel completely lost without him. I don’t even know who I am anymore. You must think I’m crazy.

Coach Tiffini [00:09:15]:

And I’m like, actually I would be crazy if you didn’t feel comfortable.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:19]:

That’s right.

Coach Tiffini [00:09:19]:

Yeah. When you go through this, it feels like everything that felt safe to you is no longer safe. And that feeling of. It’s like walking down the stairs and missing a step. Right. That stomach drop every morning, like shit. The life that I built and created for myself is no longer it anymore. And I don’t know who to turn to or where to go.

Coach Tiffini [00:09:39]:

These people who looked at me at the holidays, who welcomed me into their home with smiles on their faces, whether they were fake or not, now look at me like I am the worst thing that ever came into.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:51]:

Because they saw you as the role and not as the person.

Producer Joy [00:09:54]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:55]:

Right. So it’s. It’s something that is society wide. Right. We celebrate roles versus people. What you can do for me, not who you are. Mm, mm, mm. Joy, I know you had a lot of grocery store moments when you were in your.

Producer Joy [00:10:12]:

I did. Cause my identity was him. Right. Like I was a stay at home mom. I was a stay at home wife. And so like everything I remember, like the night he left, I walked into the kitchen and this big, huge, very expensive bottle of Laphroaig was on my counter. And I’m like, like. Because everything was always about him.

Producer Joy [00:10:41]:

So going to the grocery store, I would pick his favorite snacks and I’d get his favorite foods and I would get the big bottle of mouthwash and I would do. Because everything revolved around my role as his wife as, because that is, you know, like what I was bred or designed or told to be, right? Conditioned to be. And so when he left and I would go to the grocery store, I all of a sudden, like, I don’t, I don’t know what to buy, I don’t know what to get. I don’t know. Because everything was programmed, pre programmed and I don’t need the big bottle of mouthwash anymore. And so I spent years, and later on in the episode, I’m super excited about the tools that we’re going to talk about. But I spent years with headphones in because I was so anxious and I didn’t necessarily understand what was happening, but I did not believe that I was safe.

Dawn Wiggins [00:11:49]:

It was like in the grocery store.

Producer Joy [00:11:50]:

In the grocery store, right. And so like I, I was going to run into somebody or I was going to have somebody say something. I was going to buy the wrong thing.

Dawn Wiggins [00:11:57]:

Yes, you were going to run into somebody.

Producer Joy [00:12:00]:

Right. And so, and then I start ruminating and I start perseverating on what happens when I get a flash of, you know, like I get a flash of blonde hair and oh my gosh, what am I, what am I, who am I going to see? What am I going to say? What am I going to do? Especially when I was with my children because then, now I’m not as a mother able to keep them safe and it all perception. Like I was never unsafe. Now I know that then I didn’t, my body did not. And so I continuously tried to schedule my grocery store trips around work hours. I continuously scheduled my, you know, like I would do when he had the girls, I would do certain areas, errands at certain times, visitation wise, right. And so I would do certain things at certain times to avoid running into anybody or anything. And I felt like the whole town, the whole town was constantly staring at me, whispering behind my back, gossiping, whatever the case was.

Producer Joy [00:12:58]:

So I was very, very, very aware of every time I walked into a store.

Dawn Wiggins [00:13:03]:

So I love that you talked about, you used earbuds for years. Can you imagine for instance, if at that time you had had our Thursday premium episode to help ground you in that context, in that moment, in that space, right? Because our this week premium episode is gonna address this, like what is needed and what is called for when you’re attack in the grocery aisle. Can you imagine if you had had access to that then? Because you would listen to a lot of really great stuff, right? Like a podcast or 528HZ. But what if you at that time had been able to go beyond like trying to escape the sense of not being safe and instead were able to like ground in the moment into your capital S self, Wouldn’t that have been amazing? Yeah. So we all.

Producer Joy [00:13:48]:

It would have saved me a lot of.

Dawn Wiggins [00:13:49]:

A lot of extra. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we’re all sort of on the same page that the reason the grocery store is so big and scary is because our identities, for whatever reason, right? Like attachment style related early childhood experiences, like societal shaping and programming and whatnot, really shaped us to have an identity founded on somebody other than ourself, right? And so then here we are in the grocery store and our identity feels really shook. We don’t have a clear sense of self or walls of self, right. If we feel like, I don’t know, like we’re oozing, not solid, not stable, right. And I might even argue we feel young, right? Like, because if you sent an 8 year old into the grocery store to shop on their own, they would feel really overwhelmed and insecure and anxious and uncomfortable and not like they had the capacity. Right. And I think that’s a lot of what happens in divorce is it reveals the parts of us that are young and unhealed and disassociated.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:48]:

And so that grocery store aisle feels so overwhelming because to our subconscious mind, profoundly is. It’s real what you’re experiencing in that moment. So let’s go through. I have this sentence that I want you to be able to stay in your head and you could just work with the root of the sentence, right? I’m going to, I’m going to say more than one sentence, but I’m going to repeat the main course sentence many, many, many times. So this is a moment to just sort of soften through the shoulders, soften through the jaw, take a breath and just receive this. Right. When you’re in this grocery store aisle to notice. My body is simply asking for safety right now.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:28]:

And I am learning where to find it in this breath, in moments just like this one, and in the spaces where I’m learning To feel safe with myself and other women, maybe for the first time. It’s the same safety. We keep practicing together on Thursday premium episodes when we go beyond naming the wound and begin to release it. I feel so much safer when I release the wounds and in workshops where my body finally remembers what safety feels like. My body’s just asking for safety right now, and I am learning where to find it. Take a big, deep breath. Wonderful. Let’s dig a little bit deeper.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:24]:

Tiffany, if you could talk us through the deeper elements of what’s going on in that aisle from an ifs from a parts perspective, because it’s not about missing him. Right. It’s deeper than that. So talk to us a little bit about what’s going on from, like, an exile, manager, firefighter part perspective in the grocery store door aisle.

Coach Tiffini [00:16:46]:

So you’re definitely going to have, again, these younger parts. So somewhere in your backstory are themes of abandonment, rejection, not belonging. Also, like Joy said, having other people look at you, you know, feeling like you’re being stared at, feeling very uncomfortable. And so it’s basically these younger parts that are asking to be seen that are super activated. And so usually in situations like that, your manager might take over and just look at your checklist. You might have a manager that comes in and is trying to people, please. So you’re smiling at everybody. You’re going above and beyond to be chatty with people that you aren’t normally chatty with just to prove a point, to prove that you’re okay and that you have it together.

Coach Tiffini [00:17:29]:

Firefighter could say, I need to get the hell out of here now. And you might just, like, abandon cart and abort. We have.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:35]:

We have somebody who did that.

Producer Joy [00:17:37]:

Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:17:38]:

You know, it’s like, this is too overwhelming. I need to run. There’s all these beautiful layers of you. Right. And it’s kind of those parts become very activated when they don’t feel seen and they don’t feel welcome. And so we always try to push that stuff away. We always try to push away what feels uncomfortable or what feels scary. I’m really excited, too, because on our Thursday episodes, we’re going to start a segment two that’s called after the mic.

Coach Tiffini [00:18:04]:

And this is going to offer these raw peek behind the curtains of Joy, dawn, and myself in our current life now, things that we’re still dealing with, things that we still feel triggered in sometimes, and how we kind of work through it many, many years post divorce and post separation. Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:18:20]:

Because the difference between naming the wound and releasing the wound is being Able to tolerate staying with it and responding to it differently. Right? And so, yeah, that’s what’s so exciting about. Because, yeah, you know, historically, if you were in the grocery store aisle and you wanted to distance yourself from that pain, you would use all these strategies that the parts have, right? To distance from the pain. But healing is about being able to sit with it for a moment and release it or shed it or put it down or unburden yourself from the pain, right? It’s like, I want us to do an email series where we talk about the two different types of hard, right? Where we have the old way of hard, which is when we’re just stuck in it, and we’re either, like, stuck in the heart or, dare I say, spiraling downwards in the hard. And then there’s the new kind of hard, where we’re improving our capacity to feel it and release it. And it’s hard to release it, right? It’s hard to unburden. But it’s a different kind of hard that gets lighter and lighter. Lighter because you’re spiraling up, right? And so it’s like, can.

Dawn Wiggins [00:19:19]:

Can you ask yourself, am I doing the old kind of hard right now when I’m staying stuck in the hard, or I’m spiraling deeper into the hard, or am I doing the new hard where I’m releasing and unburdening? Because the reality is, is the reasons we panic in the grocery store, the reasons our parts panic is because they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the confidence. You don’t have the confidence in yourself that you can handle it, and you don’t have confidence in your path or your journey or your healing process that you’re going to be able to have what you want in the end, right? And so it’s from this place of feeling inadequate or insecure, like, I can’t have what I want, or I don’t have the strength to face this, or I don’t have the confidence to move through it, that we panic. Because panic really comes from a feeling like we don’t have the resources. There’s not enough of something.

Coach Tiffini [00:20:07]:

I would love to tell everybody out there that listening to our podcast is going to magically heal you in 30 days or less, right? Like, we would love to have those disclaimers, right?

Producer Joy [00:20:15]:

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Coach Tiffini [00:20:17]:

Yeah, but. But it goes beyond that. So, like, to all the women that are, like, hanging out in the outskirts, right? Like, it’s like, only, right? Like, you’re back there and you’re Listening to us on the pod and you’re. You have the awareness to kind of know what’s going on. Take it a step further. Join our online community. Join premium. Come into our workshops.

Coach Tiffini [00:20:36]:

Come into our divorce program. Like, that’s when all of this will really start to change for you.

Dawn Wiggins [00:20:41]:

The new kind of hard.

Coach Tiffini [00:20:42]:

Yes, like, the new kind of hard. The difference is now you have us and a community of other women to hold you through that. That’s the difference. And that’s where change starts to really start to shift.

Dawn Wiggins [00:20:54]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So when you’re in that moment in the aisle and you need to get grounded, right? That’s the thing that the Thursday episode is going to help you do. But let’s talk about. Let’s name what it is that needs to happen to get grounded in that aisle. So you’re having a spiritual breakdown near the beans, right? And you’re like black beans or kidney beans or pinto beans, I don’t know. And so what needs to happen is the ability to witness those parts that are using those strategies, right. The manager that Tiffany talked about that goes to her checklist or the one that starts overcompensating by, you know, talking to somebody about beans awkwardly, Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:29]:

Or the firefighter, I remember who it was that ran out on her cart, it’s Karen from menopausal of lounge. She tells this story post divorce that she literally did that. She left the cart in the grocery store aisle and ran outside and got in her car. That was. That was her firefighter part, right. That did that. And I think it’s a really, really, really common story. So when you’re having that spiritual breakdown near the beans, the goal is to take a breath, to be in your body, to feel in your body, right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:55]:

And to witness those parts of you and those strategies that are going on. And that’s. We’re going to walk you through in the Thursday episode is the ability to get in touch with and witness those parts so that they can feel seen, heard, and supported. So there’s more resource. Okay, so let’s dig into our holiday season 2025 version of my body said no. Right? This is a segment we’re going to do more and more. My body said no. I think there is so much of My body said no going on for women day in and day out of life.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:25]:

But we override the body, right? We override the body and we just push through. And that leads to disassociation. It leads to more suffering for longer. It’s. It breaks down the process of healing, right. When we ignore the body saying no, it actually interrupts the process of healing when we override. And so we’re going to talk about the ways that our body said no lately. Bonus points if it can have to do with the holidays and the ways we’re honoring our bodies and we’re doing it differently right now.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:55]:

I want to acknowledge that doing it differently takes capacity. And the journey of healing really is the process of unburdening parts hearts, which expands our capacity. Right. Shedding painful layers. We’ve been carrying around, like, literally, like Scrooge with his. His chains and his weights and all that crap, Right? It’s like the process of healing really is unburdening all those weights we’ve been carrying. It increases our capacity and. And then we rise, right? And we can.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:20]:

We can face things and do things differently. And I know all of our favorite tools to unburden are things like, for instance, homeopathy, ifs, emdr, somatics, you name it, Right? But yeah, let’s talk about the ways we. My body. My body said no. Who wants to go first?

Coach Tiffini [00:23:36]:

This past weekend, I had brunch plans with somebody, and I just woke up that morning feeling like. Like I just did not feel like I had capacity to hold conversation or be social or have the energy to really even put on makeup or actual pants. I basically. Yeah, actual pants instead of my yoga pants that I’m in all the time. And so I just. I felt that wave of guilt for a split second, and then I just sent a text and said, I’m so sorry, but I’m not feeling well today.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:08]:

And my body says no reschedule.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:11]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:12]:

Amazing. Can we talk about a recent awareness I had that if a restaurant is serving brunch and it doesn’t have sourdough, it’s missing the entire plot. That’s. That’s how I feel about. That’s how I feel about brunch. It must have.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:25]:

I know where I’m taking you for brunch when you visit me. Absolutely. Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:30]:

Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:30]:

For sure. Yeah. My body says brunch is a thing.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:35]:

Yeah. Like. Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:36]:

I live in a southern mountain city where brunch is part of religion. It is like breathing air.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:42]:

Oh, wow.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:43]:

And people get really into it. And if you don’t have reservations on Sunday, you’re not getting into brunch anywhere here.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:48]:

Wow. That’s intense.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:51]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:51]:

Okay.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:51]:

But it’s so much fun. I love it.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:53]:

Yeah, I love that. Well, well done. Honoring your body.

Producer Joy [00:24:59]:

Dawn, I really love your breakdown earlier this morning when you talked about self energy versus narcissism. You know, like what the breakdown of this, of the stages of. Can you tell our listeners that? Only because I think it really helps put. Because as women we are kind of shamed for having our our own needs and our own desires for listening to our body. Right, right. And so like I really love the way you broke that down and explained the difference.

Dawn Wiggins [00:25:28]:

Yeah. So this is borrowed from Lori Gerber. She is our in house dating expert. She was historically the dating expert for like mash.com and Zoosk and JDate and in our 12 month healing container a different D word. She is our in house dating consultant that the women in our program get to work with at the end. She has been a guest on the podcast several times. She’s a friend. I’m on menopause love lounge with her.

Dawn Wiggins [00:25:52]:

So I got this from her. But she describes that when you are in a relationship and this could be a friendship, it could be a family relationship, it could be with a spouse or partner, that when you solely care about the other person’s experience of the relationship and you are not able to consider your own needs or your own perspective or your own identity or your own experience of it, it that is codependency. When you are in a relationship and you mostly care about the other person’s perspective and you struggle to care about your perspective, but maybe you consider it sometimes that is people pleasing. When you are able to be in a relationship with someone, anyone, and you are able to dance between I care about my experience of the relationship and yours, mine and yours, mine and yours. And we can’t actually multitask task. Our brains actually can’t hold multiple things at once. We do switch between subjects. So it is a dance of I thou, I thou, I thou, which many historical philosophers and psychologists have written about over the years.

Dawn Wiggins [00:26:58]:

But this is not a new concept. That is the healthy balance we are looking for in relationship that I take turns caring about my experience and your experience in the relationship. But if you are someone who’s in relationships and you mostly only care about your experience of it, and you only sometimes care about other people’s experience of it, you are selfish. And if you are in a relationship and you solely care about your experience and you don’t really care about the other person’s experience, that is narcissism. And so there are a lot of ways to analyze narcissism these days or selfishness or codependency or people pleasing, right? But I my body said no. This weekend to some things too, specifically about the holidays. Because I am so used to taking ultimate responsibility for the people who are selfish or narcissistic in relationships and don’t really give much credence at all to my experience of the relationship. And I’m used to overcompensating for them a lot.

Dawn Wiggins [00:27:52]:

And so this weekend my body said no to having our family Thanksgiving in the place that we’ve been having it for the last couple of years because it’s not enjoyable, it’s awful. And my body said no. And I all of a sudden mustered up the courage to tell the person who typically hosts it that I am pulling rank. I didn’t say it like that. And relocating it to our home where it will be more grounded, warm, inviting, stable, where I can be, you know, in self energy rather than having to disassociate to escape how uncomfortable it is at this other person’s house. So my body said no and I honored it and I made the phone call and I said to the person, I’m going to make this uncomfortable request and my heart is going to race while I do it, but I’m going to do it anyways. So thank you for listening. And it was received and it’s fine.

Dawn Wiggins [00:28:40]:

And is there going to be some discomfort maybe in the unfoldment? And that’s the difference between old hard and new hard, right? So, and this is what I think is really, really important for people to understand because old hard is. It’s hard and I go and I disassociate or I suck it up or I push it down and I power through. But I have now disconnected from self and I’ve used old trauma patterns. New hard is I break the cycle and I feel a little anxious or uncomfortable doing it. But it’s while I’m holding space for those parts of me to feel seen, heard and understood and I make, I forge a literal new synaptic pathway in my brain for the new way and build confidence towards that new way. So yes, both ways are uncomfortable, but one keeps us entrenched in the old trauma patterns and one builds the scaffolding and the infrastructure for independence, autonomy, interdependence. Actually not even independent interdependence, right? Receiving new love, receiving support, initiating support for and with myself, right first and then being able to receive it from other places. So yeah, my body said no, I love it.

Producer Joy [00:29:44]:

And the immediate pushback and shame and the response, but able to stand in that and stay in self without going small or without retreating it, understanding that that’s their. That’s their stuff. That’s not yours. You don’t do anything wrong by requesting that change of venue. You know, I thought that was a really beautiful breakdown.

Coach Tiffini [00:30:08]:

And also expect people that you’re setting these boundaries with to not receive it well.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:13]:

Right.

Coach Tiffini [00:30:14]:

In this case.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:15]:

Yeah. In this case, it did go well. But I can tell you there are other people in my life where it would not have gone that well.

Producer Joy [00:30:21]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:21]:

Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:30:22]:

And we have some clients that’ll text me and say, hey, I set that boundary. Now this person is pissed off or they went off on me. Well, yes, that is going to happen. And that is a hundred percent okay.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:31]:

Yep. Yep. And that’s where we have to hold lots of space for our own nervous systems and our parts of self. Right. Our managers, our firefighters, our exiles. We have to love them well so that they can feel that they are worth that boundary setting.

Producer Joy [00:30:46]:

Right. And they are safe to feel it. They are safe to. They’re not actually in danger or on fire.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:55]:

We really are just all sweet, like little girls and boys running around pretending to be adults. Yeah. And healing really is the process of integrating all those young parts. Right. And feeling actually grown. And it’s an incredible relief. Yeah. We would love to hear your versions of my body said no and I listened.

Producer Joy [00:31:18]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:19]:

So send us some examples. Send us a DM with my body said no. Send us your wins, send us your joys. Send us your breakthroughs. Like, let’s freaking not just talk about healing. Let’s heal together. So take these steps. Like.

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:32]:

Right. Join us. Join us in doing the behavior of healing. Because it’s more than just. Yeah. Yeah. Hearing and.

Coach Tiffini [00:31:40]:

And a new year is coming. Do you want to be in the same spot a year from now, or would you rather be someplace magical? Right. No.

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:46]:

100%. 100%. Yeah. So. But it’s really. Can you let it in? Right. Can you let it in? Can you do the new hard versus the old hard? Yeah. All right, we’ll see you in on the Thursday premium episode where we help you get grounded in self when you’re in that grocery store aisle and can’t wait for it.

Dawn Wiggins [00:32:04]:

Love you so much.

Producer Joy [00:32:05]:

Peace.

Dawn Wiggins [00:32:13]:

Dear. Divorce Diary is a podcast by My Coach Dawn. You can find more at mycoachdawn.com.