Divorce Story: From Anxious & Overwhelmed to Confidence & Joy – An Inspirational Journey of Recovery

Dawn Wiggins:

Today I am talking to Heidi Bee about her divorce story. She is a divorce comeback coach, a certified trauma-informed divorce coach, and a somatic breathwork facilitator. Her three-month comeback course and coaching community gives women the exact roadmap, resources, and relationships they need to navigate their new normal and get their life back after divorce. She’s also the host of the podcast Divorce Comeback Coach, which is where I met her. She hosts candid conversations with truth talk and tips to start taking your next best steps now toward the life you deserve and desire.

So, Heidi, let’s start with you telling us a little bit of your divorce story.

Life Was Good Until the Move

Heidi Bee:

Oh, my goodness. Where to even begin? It was 2015, I was going through life like all other people do and thinking it was pretty good.

I was with my husband at the time, and we were figuring out how to move from Michigan to California for his job and our lives started to just change little by little by little. I didn’t think enough to even really notice it until suddenly we did.

We both came to this place where we realized, “This isn’t where I want to be, who I want, who I want to be, or who I want to be with.” It was so strange because when we brought up the fact that we were getting divorced, people were like, “What, the two of you? Where did this come from?”

On paper, it looked great but it didn’t feel great. One of the things that he said when we finally got to this point was, “Hey, are you happy anymore?” And I replied, “No, I don’t think I am.”

Heidi’s Divorce Story: From People Pleaser to Homebody

I was a heavy people pleaser who wanted things to always work out, so this was unusual for me. I thought I would be married to my best friend for the rest of my life. He was a super fun guy and he had a lot of hobbies, which clicked with my need for variety.

Dawn Wiggins:

And you guys were good at having fun together, but maybe when you were home behind closed doors, it just wasn’t clicking.

Heidi Bee:

That’s exactly right. After I got divorced, I realized that part played a huge role in what happened. In Michigan, we had a lot of friends and family, our place was the place to hang out and we were always trying new things. We were also in our twenties, and we were having tons of fun all the time together and had no responsibilities.

Then we moved to California and because we didn’t know anybody, all of a sudden, all we had was each other.

Life is Change

Heidi Bee:

Once we got settled in, the variety stopped. We didn’t go back to school. We didn’t go to different jobs. We went to the same jobs every day.

I got heavily immersed in the fitness industry. I thought I wanted to live the California girl lifestyle, and I became hyper-focused on looking a certain way. I didn’t realize what an impact stopping, finally slowing down, and spending quality time together would do.

We realized that what we have in common is a whole lot of fun. Fun is a great thing to have, but when you don’t have the other part, which is intimacy on a spiritual, emotional, physical, mental, and soulful level, there is a lot of masking.

Losing Attraction to Husband

Dawn Wiggins:

If you could float back to that season before your divorce story started, would you say you almost started repelling each other? Does that sound right? Like magnets pushing apart? Do you remember at all what it felt like in your body in those moments? What did it feel like to be in that relationship and to have this dawning awareness?

Heidi Bee:

I can actually feel it in my body right now because our bodies remember a lot. I feel it from my throat down to my core.

All of that feels immediately tight and compressed. I could even hunch my back a little bit.

Dawn Wiggins:

It’s almost like you can curl into yourself.

Somatic Practices

Heidi Bee:

Yes, there is a lot of tightness. It’s like a squeezing of the intestines or collapsing of the lungs. It’s a lot less space. And I didn’t realize at the time that my body was giving me all of these clues and signals.

I had never heard of somatic practices or body-based practices.

What are Somatic Practices?

Dawn Wiggins: For background, before we get into it, somatic therapy practices focus on connecting the mind and body to heal trauma and stress.

Through gentle movement, breathwork, and awareness, these practices help release stored emotions and tension.

It’s a holistic approach that encourages you to reconnect with your body in a safe, supportive way.

Heidi Bee:

Just like in the physical world, unless we break our leg or have some kind of ailment, a lot of us don’t go to the doctor. Until something is painful, we don’t pay attention. So emotionally, I honestly didn’t feel those things, Dawn, until after the fact.

Who Are You Really?

Heidi Bee:

I was so used to escaping myself all the time. I never really took time to sit with myself until that season came and we were forced to both kind of go, “Oh, now that we’re both figuring out who we are without trying, this doesn’t feel right.”

To this day, I will say, he’s a great guy. I’m so grateful that I was able to come to this place in my thirties, so that now in my forties and beyond, I am learning from my divorce story. I’m able to know who I am, and what I want without my insecurities.

Dawn Wiggins:

What happens next? Because I know it didn’t feel good. What happened next?

Heidi Bee:

We decided to separate. This was two months of crying on and off, asking ourselves, “Maybe we should. Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we should. Maybe we shouldn’t.”

Finally, we both decided enough already. We got a lawyer. And after it had all gone through, the lawyer finally said to me, “Congratulations. You’re divorced,” and he hugged me and gave me the papers.

I remember just taking the papers and feeling like my whole soul dropped to my toes. From my heart center to my toes, in that moment, it was real.

Losing Yourself to Find Yourself

Dawn Wiggins:

I remember realizing that too. You just feel, “It’s me with me.” 

For so long, I had been someone else’s significant other and all of a sudden you’re just like, “I don’t know who the hell I am. I don’t know how to be me with me.” I felt like I didn’t count as a single person.

Dealing with Loneliness

Heidi Bee:

All of a sudden, I was holding the papers, and I remember being in my studio apartment – as that was the only thing I could afford. And I went, “Oh, my God. Now everything is my responsibility.”

I remember just thinking, what am I supposed to do now? I sat down, and I just put my hands over my face and I just started crying.

And I remember that part so deeply in my soul. I was just sobbing, sobbing to the point where my neighbor came over.

He said, “Heidi, I can hear you crying through the wall.” I remember he just wrapped his arms around me and he said, “Why don’t you come over to my house and sit on my couch? My brother and sister are here and we are about to watch Lord of the Rings.” They gave me some tea, and I just sat there. And I remember not feeling anything and not hearing. I didn’t hear the movie.

Dawn Wiggins:

You were in that divorce fog.

Emotionally Letting Go of Someone You Love

Heidi Bee:

This speaks to the power of letting your emotions. During my divorce story, I had no clue about the power of feeling your emotions. But in that moment, that release allowed somebody else to hear my pain.

Dawn Wiggins:

Yeah. So let’s talk about that for a minute. You’re one of these people who emanates so much joy. I think so much of what women want to manifest in their lives is that kind of giving and receiving of love, but you have to be ready to let it in.

You have to be willing to receive the gift when it shows up on your literal doorstep.

Heidi seeks joy, seeks fun, and recognizes a gift when it shows up and she receives it.

There’s a very simple tool that you use constantly in your life, and it’s called joy spotting.

Allowing Yourself to Receive Love

Heidi Bee:

Thank you for saying that, because I’ve worked really hard on that process of receiving. We receive not by being a perfectionist or trying to be something we’re not, but in those real, raw, vulnerable moments.

We can still receive by just being where we’re at and showing up where we’re at. You can still attract and receive what you need.

There were many times when I had what I call “the bathroom floor” moments. It’s a divorce ditch. It’s hopelessness. I would pray that it would pass.

I would just lay on that bathroom floor and wait it out and cry it out. One day I was lying on the bathroom floor and I heard a voice. It was an internal line saying, “Get up and go find your joy.”

It paused me in my cry. I stopped and thought, “Whoa. I’ve never, ever heard that voice before.”

Dawn Wiggins:

“Go find your joy.”

Heidi Bee:

“Get up and go find your joy.” Go find it. It’s somewhere, like a hidden treasure.

Finding Joy

Heidi Bee:

I got up, put my shoes on, and I just walked out my front door to the beach. And I remember thinking, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m gonna look for joy. I’m supposed to find it.” So I started looking for joy, and I call that joy spotting. I went out with the intention of finding joy. I started noticing it in the things around me. I remember people having drum circles, a puppy on its leash, and roller skaters playing disco music and dancing around this beach path.

Dawn Wiggins:

It’s as though becoming aware of joy and witnessing joy all around you allowed you to let it in. It’s a reminder in your divorce story that it exists in the world, everywhere all the time.

Reprogramming Your Subconscious Mind

Dawn Wiggins:

Whether we’re talking about reprogramming the subconscious mind or we women are talking about the Law of Attraction and manifesting, there is a difference between operating from a place of scarcity.

Scarcity is: “I’m going on a walk to try to feel less anxious” versus “I’m going on a walk to find joy.”

You have to engage in the solution versus ruminate on the problem. It’s such a powerful shift.

Heidi Bee:

I love how you just said engage in the solution because it really is. It was a choice that day. I never gave myself permission to choose it before. But for whatever reason, it took this moment of deep sorrow to unlock.

Dawn Wiggins:

I’ve talked before about uncertainty and just being willing to wallow in the uncertainty of grief. Eventually what happens is what happened for you.

I Love Uncertainty

Heidi Bee:

Oh, my gosh, I love uncertainty now. I used to hate it, but I love it now because the more that we do it, the more it expands our capacity for discomfort. Then it feels like it’s not that big of a thing anymore.

Dawn Wiggins:

Uncertainty is the grandest adventure. It’s the place where all new things unfold. And so without it, there’s nothing new to unfold. Life becomes bland.

Heidi Bee:

The other thing, I remember having these thoughts of, “I guess this is it for me. I’m going to be sad forever and I’m just going to have to learn how to cope and move through life being sad all the time.”

I had believed that when you get divorced, you’re in a ditch, you’re down and out, and there is no more joy for you. I bought into that belief. I would ask people, “Does real love exist?”

I Take My Voice Back

Heidi Bee:

It’s powerful in our divorce story when we can start being intentional about what we want in our lives, about our desires.

A big part of the comeback is becoming fiercely committed to whatever it is that you feel like you have lost. Now you get to reclaim it – whatever it is. I’m going to take my voice back, I’m going to take my power back, I’m going to take my peace back, I’m going to take my clarity back.

Dawn Wiggins:

Yeah. My finances, my independence, my joy… whatever you feel is missing.

So tell us more about how you work with women to help them.

Heidi Bee:

First of all, I decided to reclaim some sense of growth and a sense of self. I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but I started going to women’s events and meeting people again, and I signed up for a workbook.

Find Yourself

Heidi Bee: 

I didn’t know what questions to ask myself so I knew where to go for growth and development. And so much of divorce recovery is self-discovery.

That’s what this whole unpacking is. It is uncovering and discovering who you actually are – not who you’ve been – and who you want to grow into. So many of the women in our comeback course and community who say they don’t know this about themselves. But I say to them, “We’re going to do some breathwork and somatic practices. We’ll stand side by side. Wherever you’re on your journey, and we’re going to come together.”

We’re going to ask questions. There are no right or wrong answers. And those answers, specific to you, will guide you to your next best steps.

It’s this safe collective to explore and release all the things that haven’t been serving you.

Breathwork

What is Breathwork?

Dawn Wiggins:

Let’s talk about Breathwork. So, breathwork is a therapeutic practice that involves conscious control of your breathing to promote emotional, mental, and physical healing.

By focusing on deep, rhythmic breathing, you can release tension, reduce stress, and reconnect with your body.

It offers a calming space for healing and self-awareness.

Heidi Bee:

I was the biggest skeptic to breathwork that you’ve ever met. So I went on a twelve-month journey to become a coach.

For the first eight weeks, I turned off my camera and I refused to do breathwork. It was so scary to me. I didn’t want to be out of control. Then finally I had a week where one of our mentors said we had to accept the tools that were very unfamiliar and probably uncomfortable.

Dawn Wiggins:

Isn’t that interesting? I see this all the time when women come in. Their divorce story is about struggling or suffering and they resist using the tool. Why do we do that as humans? Why do we ask for a solution and then the solution shows up and we say, “Nope, that’s not the solution I want for our divorce story!”

Heidi Bee:

It’s hilarious and so sad at the same time. I call this mean girl mode. Yeah, our busy brains go into mean-girl mode. It’s trying to protect us from things that we don’t know.

Different Types of Breathwork

Heidi Bee:

But now I know there are so many different, very soothing ways to go about breathwork.

For example, integrative breathwork, which you can do when you get a heated email at work, when you’re driving down the road, or when supper is boiling over and your kids are screaming. It’s when you need to regulate at that moment so that it doesn’t build up resentment and then make you have this massive explosion.

Then there’s meditative breathwork, where we can go and get to these deep parts of us. Sometimes it feels really gentle and not overwhelming at all, or it feels like a really big cry.

Breathwork, with different intentions, can produce a runner’s high. You can say, “I want to breathe today to energize my soul.” So it really is a safe practice that you get to cater towards your own body with whatever it’s holding and whatever it’s calling for in that moment. It allows you to breathe in a specific way that’s built for your body that day.

It depends on the person, the day, the space they’re in, and the intentions that they have. But I’ve come to realize breathwork has created the most access to the truth within myself.

Dawn Wiggins:

Breathwork has created access to the truth within yourself. That’s so beautiful. I love that. Okay. We could talk all day long about your divorce story. Our divorce stories have so many parallels. It is so fun to talk to you. You are such a ray of sunshine. How can people find you?

How to Contact Heidi Bee

Heidi Bee:

The Divorce Comeback Coach on

• Instagram, and
• TikTok,
• my podcast is everywhere and
• Divorcecomebackcoach.com is my website.

Dawn Wiggins:

I love your divorce story. Thank you, for sharing your light, for helping women find their own comeback for helping them find the truth inside of themselves.