Stuck in Survival Mode After Divorce? Here’s How to Break the Cycle

5 Takeaways

• Survival mode is not temporary—it becomes a loop that keeps you stuck. The longer you stay in the fight, flight, freeze, repeat cycle, the further you get from the place you actually want to be.
• “Not now” is often fear, not timing. If you’re being honest with yourself, “not now” and “I’m scared” are often the same sentence.
• Coping habits can quietly drain your time, money, and health. Chronic stress is taking a toll on your adrenal system, your metabolic system, and your hormones in ways that eventually become impossible to ignore.
• Waiting for stability delays healing. Healing is what creates stability, not the other way around.
• Real change starts when you interrupt the cycle—not when life gets easier. When familiar coping habits stop working, you get to the point where you have to admit you can’t hold it all together alone.

Highlights

• 00:00 “Breaking Crisis Loops After Divorce
• 03:43 Exploring “Not Now” Struggles
• 09:03 Customized Healing Program
• 12:51 Women’s Health Crisis and Survival Mode
• 14:26 “Calculating Escapism Expenses”
• 20:04 Chronic Anxiety and Health Spiral
• 21:40 “Preparations for Immersive Healing Experience”
• 24:06 “Act Now: Escape the Quicksand”

Questions Women Ask When They Feel Stuck

What does survival mode feel like?

Survival mode often feels like constant anxiety, exhaustion, overthinking, and emotional shutdown. You may feel like you’re functioning on the surface but unable to move forward, make decisions, or truly rest.

Why can’t I get out of survival mode even when things look “fine”?

Because survival mode is not about your external situation—it’s a nervous system pattern. Even when life stabilizes, your body can stay stuck in fight, flight, or freeze, repeating the same stress responses.

Do I need to wait until my life is more stable to start healing?

No. Waiting for stability often keeps you stuck longer. Healing is what creates stability—not the other way around.

Full Transcript

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:01]:

Let me say something extraordinarily controversial. Most therapists, as amazing and loving and space holding as they are, suck at moving people past crisis. They let you retell your chaos, they nod and they may assign you some homework, and then they send you home to survive another week. And it’s no wonder that you have to wait, that you think you have to wait until you’re more stable to actually heal. The thing is, though, that crisis is not a benign waiting room where nothing is happening. It’s a quicksand of survival mode with no obvious exit. And it is charging your adrenals interest every single. Hi, love.

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:56]:

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 divorcee. Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce. Okay, my darlings, today we are going to discuss how staying stuck in crisis and in this sort of loop of fight, flight, freeze, repeat, fight, flight, freeze, repeat keeps people sort of never really able to get to this ultimate place where they. They really want to go. So we’re going to talk about crisis as a nervous system trap and really look at the real question behind why we say not now, right? What is the real issue behind not now and how we justify staying in the sort of fight, flight, freeze, repeat thing. And we are also going to talk about very specifically how our program moves people out of crisis immediately. Because I think it’s not enough to just say, oh, trust us, that’s gonna happen.

Dawn Wiggins [00:02:21]:

But it’s to really look at, like, how do we get women very, very quickly out of crisis mode so that they have a picture, right? What happens behind the scenes so that, you know, there’s some confidence in. I’m not gonna spend months and thousands of dollars. Wait. Okay, darlings, let’s talk about this sort of. Well, first of all, let’s just acknowledge that last last week was it last week we did a. A somatic workshop, right, for our premium subscribers was so cool. We had several women attend. We did several different sort of somatic techniques.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:01]:

It was super, super powerful. And in that meeting, one of the women and I just, she is, I would say, like someone we all hold in our hearts, right? She’s up on our board of names and someone that we just have been in the conversation with for a long time, right? She’s. She’s in our hearts. But she talked about being stuck in crisis mode and There have been many things she said in conversations I’ve had with her recently that have resonated so loudly. And I know that if she’s saying these things to me or to us, I know that many, many listeners are experiencing what she’s experiencing. And so much of this episode was inspired by her and therefore by you. You, who is listening right now. Yes, you.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:43]:

You the one with that thing right there. And so that’s the joy of being in the dialogue, right, with our listeners, is really hearing where they are and what they’re struggling with. So let’s talk about the real struggle behind I can’t do it right now. Now is not the time. Because, like, what if that’s true? What if that’s real? What if I’m in crisis right now financially, from a nervous system perspective? I don’t have the energy, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, and I have too much uncertainty and not enough support. Like, let’s talk about that cycle. What is the real question? Problem, Negative belief behind not now. What if I spend this money and I can’t show up? I can’t get to the table?

Producer Joy [00:04:30]:

I would challenge that way of thinking because our program is so different. Our program is so different than anything else out there. Like, there isn’t an option of you not being moved, frankly. Like, it’s so immersive, it’s so powerful. Because we don’t just use one thing. It’s not a talk therapist where you spend all this money and all this time and decades of work. It’s. It’s literally daily, weekly, monthly.

Producer Joy [00:05:09]:

Like, we are in it with you. And so the progress that. That you would get or that will happen. There’s no question it will happen. We have testimonials and documentation and, like, proof in the pudding, right? Like, we have the. We have the evidence, the facts behind it. So, like, my question to you is, you’re asking, you’re sitting there asking yourself, like, what if I. If.

Producer Joy [00:05:37]:

What if I jump and I don’t have a parachute? But, like, what if you jump and we all surround you and envelop you and not only do you have a parachute, you have multiple parachutes. And what if you have multiple parachutes and you land in a giant, big, fluffy pillow? Like, it’s not what if I jump without a parachute? It’s what would actually happen when you jump and you be held and you get better. So, like. And you get better. Like, what if you jump because it’s not a. It’s not A what if I spend this money or take this time commitment or do this thing and it doesn’t work? Because it will work. It’s what is stopping you from actually being healed in this journey.

Dawn Wiggins [00:06:33]:

Okay, I love that. But let’s be devil’s advocate. Everything can’t work for everyone because then everything is nothing.

Producer Joy [00:06:51]:

But why not? What’s to say there’s a limit? Like, there’s only 10 people that get healed a year. Like, why is there a limit on who gets healed and why?

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:01]:

I don’t think there’s a limit. I think there’s free will, and I think not everybody chooses. Right. And I think every modality doesn’t work for everyone. And so just devil’s advocate. Right, Devil’s advocate. Like, you know, when I started doing EMDR, and people would say, like, oh, that didn’t work for me. Like, like.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:19]:

And that was very hard for me to accept. And then I cracked the code on why it wasn’t working, which was disassociation. Right. And then I solved for that. And then, oh, look, EMDR works, but there is still, every now and then, the random person that it doesn’t work for. And I get that. That’s why we use, like, literally, like, infinite modalities over here, because we’re gonna find a modality that works for you.

Producer Joy [00:07:38]:

Right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:38]:

But let’s just acknowledge that people do heal on a spectrum and that some people will make more progress than others in this program. Right? And that. That is based on a whole host.

Producer Joy [00:07:50]:

Of.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:52]:

Elements, and that may have to do with resource. Right. Like, and whatever that resource is, whether it’s time support, like brain capacity, nervous system capacity, like, things do exist on a spectrum, and there are a range of results. Right? So we do want. We do want this to be, like, right place, right time for women. But how can a woman know if. If she’s lying to herself about the nervous system trap, right. And just is staying stuck in crisis mode versus.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:28]:

No, it’s time. It’s time.

Coach Tiffini [00:08:31]:

You know, I would feel like when everything you’re doing is not working anymore, reaching for the familiar stuff that you used to go to. And normally I’m gonna. From an IFS perspective, I’m gonna say that those things, you’re reaching for your firefighters. So whether it’s alcohol, it’s drugs, it’s sex, it’s exercise, it’s overeating, it’s overworking on your phone. Yes. Right. Like, you know, pick a poison, basically. And if those things are not working anymore for you, and it feels like you are going to break.

Coach Tiffini [00:09:03]:

That is the point where you need to admit to yourself that you cannot hold it all together and you cannot do this by yourself any longer. And I think what makes us so incredibly different is that it. Yes, we do have group aspects of the program. However, everything is customized. Your homeopathic remedies, which there are thousands that we can pick from, are customized for you, for your trauma, for your healing journey. You know, the IFS methods that I will use with you, they are customized completely for you and where you’re at in your journey. Emdr, somatics. Every, like, just every part of our program is custom made.

Coach Tiffini [00:09:40]:

This is not a rinse and repeat. It is not a cookie cutter program. We are meeting you where you are and that’s where we start.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:49]:

So let’s talk about the cost of not starting, right? Like, what’s the real downstream cost of not starting? And actually, I want you to hear from a woman who was exactly there, right, like, feeling broken, drowning in bills, terrified one more investment would break her very real health issues unfolding. And I want you to listen to what she has to say about walking through that experience.

Testimonial Audio [00:10:15]:

My healing journey was not pretty. I struggled, I cried, I turned to alcohol, and I was even diagnosed with a thyroid condition. I was literally broken. I didn’t even know who I was looking at in the mirror. Dawn, Tiffany and Joy saw my tears as training and my pain as preparation. My breaking point was not the end. It was the beginning for me. And although I’ve completed the program, I still have moments when I struggle and obstacles to overcome.

Testimonial Audio [00:10:49]:

But I now have the tools to work through those moments and reclaim integrated wellness. I’m still becoming, and that’s more than enough. What was the hardest part for me before saying yes to a different D word? The financial commitment and the fear of what if this doesn’t work? I had already invested so much of myself in podcasts, late night reading and antidepressants. I didn’t know how I could manage daily living costs, my attorney fees, and on top of that, a financial commitment to a different D word. I felt like I didn’t have the time or energy. I was also afraid, to be honest, to ask for help because that would mean letting go of this life I imagined and doing the interpersonal work that would one day set me free. It was what I was craving and I didn’t even realize it. What shifted for me once I was inside the program, healing in community with deep connection, letting myself finally be cared for.

Testimonial Audio [00:11:57]:

I now had a group of women I could relate to who were showing up for me every single day. I was able to take off my mask without feelings of judgment. And this allowed me to be honest with myself and put in the healing work that my mind and body truly desired. What would I say to the woman listening right now who’s scared it won’t work for her? Don’t stay stuck. Don’t try to heal in isolation. This was the best investment I made for my personal well being. Through homeopathy, IFS and somatic work, I was able to shed the layers of divorce grief that were holding me back from a life I truly deserved. Take the leap, ladies.

Testimonial Audio [00:12:48]:

I promise you won’t regret it.

Dawn Wiggins [00:12:51]:

It’s so interesting listening to her share, right? Because like, for instance, that thyroid diagnosis, it’s like homeopathy has a very real answer for that and we just started tackling it immediately, right? And I think that’s the thing that as women, I would like to say the thing that brought me to my knees and said, like, oh, shit, I cannot keep avoiding or denying what’s going on here was a health crisis. And I sort of hate that for women that why is it that we push ourselves into our bodies, say peace out. Why does it take getting to that profound breaking point? Right? But that’s what happens when we stay in survival mode or crisis mode, right? Is that there is this toll that’s being paid on your adrenal system, your metabolic system. And I think that very, very often this is where women end up accidentally suicidal even, right? Because it’s like they found, you know, one more, one more cosmetic procedure, one more workout, one more.

Producer Joy [00:14:02]:

Good memory.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:03]:

Yes. One more antidepressant, Right. One more happy experience with my kid. But then it’s like all of a sudden the body is slowly wasting behind the scenes and then you hit a wall. And I’m not trying to be some type of way. It’s like it happens, it happened to me, it happens to the women we work with. I see it every day in my practice. Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:14:26]:

My question for the listeners would be, I would love for you to just sit down and add up for me all of the shit that you are buying to escape from your life. When I took my daughter back to Fort Bragg to show her all the places that we lived in a four year marriage, we lived in seven plus places in a four year marriage because every time shit got bad, we’d move. And that was our new start. All the vacations we took to escape real life, how much are you spending on that? How much Are you spending on Botox, cosmetic things? How much are you spending on therapy? How much is your medication every month that you are spending for anxiety? You know, and then those firefighters. How much do you spend on alcohol a week to go to the clubs, to party? How much are you spending on weed, those illicit drugs, whatever you’re reaching for, all those subscriptions that are bullshit, that promise that you’re going to get answers, the meditation apps, everything. How much are you spending.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:27]:

To stay.

Producer Joy [00:15:28]:

And how long have you been spending it? Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:15:32]:

You know, and then we talk about the health crisis and that’s not cheap. You know, when I was going where I had the urinary thing going on.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:38]:

Because of stress and it’s so scary.

Coach Tiffini [00:15:41]:

A $7,400 CAT scan. What the. You know.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:47]:

Yeah. And homeopathy cured it. Homeopathy cured it in a couple of weeks. Yeah.

Producer Joy [00:15:52]:

Yes. Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:15:53]:

$1,400 bill after insurance was said and done on something that I never should have experienced, never had to go through that, that medicine couldn’t give me an answer for. Nobody could tell me why.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:04]:

I know you are. I know I have spent probably hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to recover.

Producer Joy [00:16:11]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:12]:

Yeah. That sounds dramatic, but I don’t. I don’t think so.

Producer Joy [00:16:15]:

But, you know, I don’t. Yeah. I don’t.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:17]:

The testing, the testing, the testing, the. The non insurance covered things. Right. It’s. Yeah. And I think that we’re going to see this more and more and more with women entering menopause too soon. Like, it’s just the cascading issues. Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:33]:

Of multi systemic metabolic dysfunction. It breaks my heart.

Producer Joy [00:16:40]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:42]:

And you know, I think also we put a lot of pressure on therapists. Like, you know, that therapist is. Is one person for one hour a week. Right. And I think we sort of think like we do it for our kids too. Right. Like, let me get my kid a therapist. And then this just inordinate amount of like dysfunction like that, that therapist will.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:06]:

I think we put a lot of pressure on therapists. I don’t think we have a clear picture of what it actually takes to really recover and heal. And I think that, you know, as hard as I can sometimes be on therapists, because they don’t move the needle, like maybe it’s an unreasonable expectation. You know, Joe, you were telling me a story about someone we’re working with recently.

Producer Joy [00:17:27]:

Yeah. So. Yeah. So there’s a woman who I’ve come along the side and I’ve been in the weeds with her. Right. And she’s a patient of Dawn’s homeopathy. And she called me in crisis yesterday because she is going to a talk therapist. And the talk therapist is local.

Producer Joy [00:17:50]:

He’s very well respected. He’s very well equipped. He is. Is kind of like the go to marriage therapist. And she called me and she was hysterically crying because, you know, she used the phrase, he opened this closet, and it’s like Monica’s closet from Friends, where you open the closet and the things just start pouring out. And it’s like coming in her dreams and it’s coming as she’s working and, like, all these things, these, these.

Dawn Wiggins [00:18:20]:

She’s recovering memories. Yeah.

Producer Joy [00:18:23]:

That have been, like, so suppressed deep inside her. But homeopathy is, like, releasing. So she goes to the. To the talk therapist and sits on his couch and he opens this closet. And then he says, oh, I’m booked for the next three weeks. Come back then. And so meanwhile, she’s just left holding all this stuff that is falling out. And so, you know, I’ve been.

Dawn Wiggins [00:18:47]:

She has obviously us as a team. Yeah. Which is amazing.

Producer Joy [00:18:50]:

Right, right, right. But traditionally, like. Or, you know, like, if. If she wasn’t with me, if she wasn’t with Don, like, if she wasn’t with us, and then what would she have. Like, she would literally be holding all this stuff. And she has three children and is. And is married. It’s like all these things without the immersive support that.

Producer Joy [00:19:11]:

That we offer. And it’s heartbreaking because how often do those situations happen without.

Dawn Wiggins [00:19:21]:

Oh, I think every day. Every day. Right.

Producer Joy [00:19:24]:

And without the tools to help process and the. And to write. You know, God gave us the. The gift of dissociation. But, like, without looking back, you don’t. It doesn’t move out of you. Like, you. You just.

Producer Joy [00:19:40]:

We’re trained as a society to dissociate and then move on. Right. Like, that’s not actually helpful. And so it’s. It broke my heart. And, you know, we. We definitely gave her some tools and things to do and. And checked on her this morning, and.

Producer Joy [00:19:58]:

And everything is, like, moving, but then she has to dissociate. She can go to work and she can handle her kids.

Coach Tiffini [00:20:04]:

Right.

Producer Joy [00:20:04]:

So it’s just like that constant checking in and looping in and like, okay, let’s. Let’s make sure that it’s. You open back up the closet because you can’t just keep that door closed because you don’t ever move. And she is having physical symptoms. Like, that was her breaking point of coming to dawn because all those physical sympt Just start it, it’s, it’s literally starts hurting your body and you have hormone imbalances and you have chronic pain and you have constant chronic anxiety. And you can only take so many pharmaceuticals before you start having repercussions from all those, you know, so it’s just, it’s like a spiral.

Dawn Wiggins [00:20:48]:

So let’s talk about like day one, month one, right? Like let’s give a very structured, strategic, behind the scenes look of what does month one look like? Like, how can women have a perspective for how month one is going to get them grounded in a layered way?

Producer Joy [00:21:07]:

We literally hit the ground running. Like we, you meet with dawn, you get your first phase of homeopathy, you get your first ifs. We want to get the, the first phase or the first level immediately because we value your time, we value this program, we value your, your money. Like, we want to get the ball rolling.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:40]:

And we’re only happy when they’re getting results, right? So yeah, I, I, and like the women that have already enrolled, right, they’re already started, their one on ones are already booked with me. Their homeopathic consult, right, Is already booked with me before open opening ceremony, right? So they’re gonna have their remedies and process before opening ceremony, which I like, I like everyone to have their remedies in process because then you’ll experience opening ceremony differently. I looked in our little EMR that we use yesterday because somebody had a question, like one of the women had a question for me and already producer Joy has uploaded. Well, Tiffany has uploaded the completed paperwork for me to work from. Producer Joy has already uploaded their individual human design charts and natal birth charts. Like, we are such an immersive, thorough, whatever, right? So, and then open ceremony, in and of itself, it’s four hours long. You leave there shifted, grounded, connected, feeling a sense of, okay, these are the women I’m going to travel with. So it feels safe to reach out in the middle of the night when I need something, right? There’s a depth that we go to.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:49]:

Day one, week one, right, where you’re already coming into that, having moved energetically because of the remedies, because of our initial intake, and then going deep very quickly, which might scare the pants off of you, but that’s what it takes.

Producer Joy [00:23:05]:

Yeah, we’re definitely, we definitely push outside of your comfort zone. Because there’s no, you don’t grow inside your comfort zone. You don’t, there’s not deep penetration training, healing while you’re in this nice little like we, we, we do gently nudge you a little bit more out of your comfort zone quicker than, than you would expect. But it’s so, but like, this past cohort has been such a beautiful experience in terms of like, when you see a woman reach out and then the community that comes behind them and supports them and, you know, like, it, it really is magic when, and you, and you would never, you know, like, you would never necessarily interface with that person.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:51]:

In the real world.

Producer Joy [00:23:52]:

Yeah, right. Right. And it’s different walks of life, different experiences. But it’s so beautiful how we hold each other and you’re just held and seen.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:06]:

So from our experience, if you are waiting for crisis to pass, you are probably going to be waiting a very long time and paying a very steep toll. So doors close September 20th. Either send me a DM, my Instagram handle is on Wiggins, or book your clarity call today. The link is in the show notes. And let’s tackle the leap that gets you out of the quicksand today. Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by My Coach Dawn. You can find more at mycoachdawn.com.