Masculine and Feminine Energy: Why Softness Feels Unreachable After Divorce

5 Key Takeaways

1. Over-functioning isn’t a personality trait — it’s a learned survival response. Being “the strong one” or the hub of the wheel isn’t who you are; it’s what your body learned to do, often from a very young age, when it didn’t feel safe to rely on anyone else.
2. Safety has to come before softness. Feminine energy can’t be accessed through effort or decision alone. It shows up when your nervous system genuinely perceives that something solid — a relationship, a community, a belief system — exists to catch you if you let go.
3. Over-functioning women often attract under-functioning partners. A genuinely equal partner does not want an over-functioning wife, so the pattern tends to self-perpetuate until it’s addressed at the root.
4. Struggling to receive help is a measurable, common pattern. Many women feel overwhelmed or unsure how to receive help, and also feel guilty, unworthy, or even angry when someone tries to support them.
5. “Having it all” was never designed to be done alone. Women are told they should be able to handle career, family, and everything else single-handedly, but it’s not the case. Doing this sustainably requires real community — practical, ongoing support from other women — not solo heroics.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the core principles of feminine energy?

The core principles of feminine energy center on receptivity — the capacity to rest, trust, and let support in rather than constantly managing everything yourself. Feminine energy emerges specifically when your nervous system has a felt sense — not just a belief — that something solid outside of you exists to catch you. That “something solid” can take different forms: a higher power, a close friend group, family, a supportive community, or even a steady relationship with your own self-care. Trust is foundational to feminine energy — trust in a higher power or the universe, trust in other people, and trust in yourself. Lack of that trust is the primary reason feminine energy feels unreachable for so many women after divorce.

What are signs of unbalanced feminine energy?

Unbalanced feminine energy happens when a woman stays stuck in over-functioning (excess masculine mode) for too long. Signs include:

• Feeling overwhelmed or unsure how to receive help — women often avoid reaching out for support.
• Feeling guilty, unworthy, or even defensive when someone tries to support you, rather than comforted.
• Relying on external validation to self-regulate. Needing a partner or children to physically sit with you or comfort you in order to feel calm, rather than being able to ground yourself first.
• Physical symptoms of hormone disruptions, including elevated cortisol and testosterone levels, are consequences of operating in “go” mode long-term without rest or receiving.
• Isolating rather than building community. Self-isolation, even within a new relationship, is a sign that the natural human need for female companionship and support isn’t being met.

What are signs of masculine energy (when it’s imbalanced or over-relied on)?

Signs of masculine energy often look like strength on the outside, but are actually driven by survival, not genuine choice. They include:

• Believing that if you don’t manage everything, no one will.
• Feeling that relaxation is irresponsible, or that rest has to be earned.
• Difficulty asking for or receiving help, often paired with a belief that needing support means you’re failing.
• Attracting or ending up with under-functioning partners — relationships where you’re operating more like a manager, mother, or babysitter than an equal partner.
• Using control as a stand-in for safety — a pattern that can be directly linked to a childhood belief that “if I don’t do everything, I’m not safe.”
• Chronic busyness treated as a badge of honor. Modern culture often celebrates over-functioning and compartmentalizing without acknowledging the depletion underneath it.

How can I balance masculine and feminine energies within myself?

You can balance masculine and feminine energy by expanding your capacity to access both, rather than being stuck exclusively in one.

• Identify and examine the belief system driving the over-functioning. Changing your underlying belief — for example, “help is not coming” or “I have to do it all” — is some of the hardest but most essential work, because lived experience often reinforces the old belief.
• Locate the “structures” in your life that actually feel solid. Genuinely check in your body (rather than your head) on which relationships, communities, or belief systems you trust would truly catch you — and notice where that list feels thin.
• Do inner “parts” work on the protector patterns involved. Over-functioning and control are protective parts formed in childhood. Identify where this pattern originated and what sense of safety it was trying to provide, rather than just trying to suppress the behavior.
• Practice small, real acts of receiving. Honoring a physical or emotional “no” (declining a trip, asking someone else to make the effort, admitting a need to fall apart) instead of automatically over-giving.
• Build genuine community, not just independence. Healing this pattern is not a solo project; community, close friendships, and mutual support are essential to actually being able to soften.
• Learn to self-regulate before seeking outside comfort. Self-regulation and community support are necessary for healing.

How can I enhance feminine energy?

You can enhance feminine energy with intentional steps:

• Start with belief work, not behavior work. Trying to “act” more feminine (relaxing, delegating, asking for help) without addressing the underlying belief that you’re unsafe or unworthy of support tends to fail — the belief has to shift first, or the new behaviors won’t feel sustainable.
• Get specific about what “safety” would feel like. Ask yourself which relationships, communities, or belief systems you’d trust to genuinely catch you if you stopped over-functioning — and if the honest answer is “none,” treat that as useful information rather than a personal failure.
• Practice receiving in low-stakes moments. Notice your emotional response the next time someone checks in on you or offers help — discomfort, guilt, or the urge to deflect is a sign of where the work is needed.
• Invest in real, ongoing community. Ask directly for support, show up for your friends, sit with people through their hard moments.
• Let your body’s “no” count. Honor your physical or emotional refusal (to over-give, over-drive, or “stay strong”) as a legitimate signal, rather than overriding it out of guilt or obligation.

Highlights

• 00:00 “Breaking Overfunctioning: Finding Trust”
• 06:06 “Breaking the Overfunctioning Cycle”
• 09:51 The Illusion of Control
• 10:41 Perfectionism, Isolation, and Burnout
• 14:06 “Divorce Quiz: Women’s Emotional Patterns”
• 19:32 “Creating Safety Through Solid Structures”
• 21:45 “Building Alignment and Starting Over”
• 25:13 “Self-Centered Emotional Reset Strategies”
• 29:09 “Identifying and Embracing Needs”
• 34:33 “Finding Connection and Support”
• 37:25 “Honesty for a Stronger Journey”
• 39:45 “Join Our Community Now”

Full Transcript

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:00]:

During and after divorce, it’s implied that women need to step into their masculine energy, be strong, decisive, productive and self sufficient. And what we’ve started yelling from the rooftops is women aren’t choosing masculine energy. We’re stuck in it. Not because we crave control, but because our nervous systems do not expect help to arrive. So when there’s no room to rest or receive or wait while what looks like strength in women is really actually survival mode, like in a business casual blazer. So today we’re going to talk about why feminine energy feels so unreachable during and after divorce and what has to change in order to make it available again. Hi, love. 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.

Dawn Wiggins [00:01:01]:

I’m your host, Dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and your say join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce. All right, in today’s episode, we’re going to unpack how safety precedes softness and acknowledge that over functioning is not a personality trait. It’s not something you’re stuck with, right? It’s what your body has learned. If you have believed that if you don’t manage everything, no one will and relaxation feels irresponsible, if you’ve built your life on a belief that you have to do it all. And that belief system is what we’re really going to dig into. Later in the episode, we are going to talk about how over functioning becomes a stand in for trust when we struggle to trust the universe, each other, ourselves. Feminine energy doesn’t magically appear because you decide to relax on a Sunday. It shows up when your system senses something solid outside of you exists to support you.

Dawn Wiggins [00:02:08]:

So I want you to, as we’re digging into the episode, I want you to count right now how many things in your life outside of you feel solid and strong enough for you to lean into. Then at the end of the episode, this is going to be good. You’re going to want to stay till the end. We are doing our best. Our segment called My Body Said no. And so this is where each of the three of us shares an experience or an example of where our body said no to doing something that maybe in our minds, we hadn’t fully accepted or received yet. All right, help me welcome the ladies. Good morning, sunshines.

Producer Joy [00:02:42]:

Hey, morning, ladies.

Dawn Wiggins [00:02:47]:

Can I tell you a divorce stroke?

Coach Tiffini [00:02:50]:

Yes.

Producer Joy [00:02:50]:

Yes, please.

Dawn Wiggins [00:02:52]:

These, I’m not sure they’re good, but we’re gonna try it. Okay. Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two hearts and a diamond and end with a club and a spade. These are dark.

Coach Tiffini [00:03:10]:

Okay. You’re burying somebody. Okay. Right, right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:14]:

Why did the couple break up at the gym? This is so bad.

Producer Joy [00:03:20]:

Why?

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:20]:

They weren’t working out. God.

Coach Tiffini [00:03:23]:

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:28]:

Okay, okay, one more, one more. Oh, this is terrible. Why did the divorced woman cross the road? To get to her own side of the story. Oh, okay. I think these jokes are not funny. They’re terrible.

Producer Joy [00:03:50]:

The first one was funny, though. I mean, a woman’s gonna relate to that one.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:56]:

A club and a space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are here to help you hide the body. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. Okay, darlings, let’s talk about how in divorce and divorce recovery, safety has to precede softness. But here’s the spicy thing.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:15]:

We are actually, like, poisoning our own sense of safety by believing. Like living into a belief, functioning in a belief that we probably picked up at a very young age. It’s probably been programmed into us from a very young age that we have to do it all, that we have to function masculinely during and after divorce. That even in our marriages, right? That we had to do it all. We had to hold down the fort. We had to be the hub of the wheel, you know, that no one, no one is going to be there for us. I know I lived from that place profoundly from a very young age. That I had to be perfect and I had to do it all.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:52]:

And that asking for help meant that I was failing. And so something I think that’s become very popular on Instagram, TikTok, and. And I’m here for it, is the conversation about masculine versus feminine energy. But how can we ever move into our feminine when we’ve been living from a belief system that says, I can’t trust the universe, I can’t trust my husband or my ex. I can’t trust my intuition because all I got is anxiety and control. I can’t trust my family. I can’t trust. You know what I mean? Like, we just.

Dawn Wiggins [00:05:30]:

We have this sort of ongoing narrative about all the things we can’t trust. And then it becomes easier. At least in my life, I think for a long time, it became easier to feel like a martyr or a victim than it did to own that, yes, I was born into a family system or a belief system in society, right. That has played out in this way that men under function, and perhaps they do, right? And that women have to over function, have to over function. What do your bodies say to that? What comes to mind?

Coach Tiffini [00:06:06]:

All of this comes from younger parts of us, Everything. So whether you have tendencies to be a perfectionist when you were younger and that’s how you get safety, whether you feel like you need control to get safety, there is something deep down in you that felt like somewhere along the way, if I don’t do everything, I’m not safe. And so then what you’ve done is you’ve then started to carry that into relationships in your life, probably with friends, family, and also insert marriage, 1, 2, 3, here. Right. So it’s kind of like until you learn to break the cycle of what is really at the core of those behaviors, you’re going to continue to over function and you’re also going to continue to attract men who are low functioning men. Because a man who is an equal partner does not want an over functioning wife. Yeah, yeah.

Producer Joy [00:06:59]:

Mic drop.

Coach Tiffini [00:07:01]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it starts with ifs. It starts with figuring out where in your past this started and what is that perceived sense of safety and why you keep chasing it. Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:20]:

I was raised with a very strong belief system, right. Like a Christian faith belief system. And I remember I was probably, I was very, very young, maybe 7, 9, 12, I don’t know, not 12, maybe 7 or 9 when I was sitting at the dinner table and my. Before my parents got divorced and my dad was like, okay, but like, if you jump off the balcony right now, like, is God gonna save you? You’re going to die. And I remember feeling obligated to say on behalf of my mom and like, what, she had raised me to believe that God would save me. Which is fairly ridiculous.

Producer Joy [00:07:56]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:58]:

But I think there’s this thing that happened for me where I was given a set of beliefs that I learned but weren’t integrated or embodied. I didn’t necessarily, capital B, believe them. And I think it’s been a journey from that moment at the dinner table till now for me to really be able to be in touch with an intelligent creator and feel that sense of guidance in my life and my ability to receive that guidance, trust that guidance that it is ever coming. And I think that played out in my first marriage and even to an extent in my second marriage that I attracted men who hadn’t fully come into their own yet. Right. Who didn’t have their own sense of agency or confidence, like inner confidence. Right. And so then we end up in roles as mothers rather than like shrew.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:54]:

I was like a shrew mother, like, not.

Coach Tiffini [00:08:57]:

And I’m laughing because I relate. I’m laughing because both of my husbands were very low functioning men who I felt more like a babysitter and a mom, you know, especially my second husband. He was very young. He was 21 years old. He went straight from mom’s house into mine. He had never operated a vacuum. He had never learned how to.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:16]:

Mine had never written a check. Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:09:18]:

Yes, like, so I’m laughing because I’m like, oh, my God. Yes, like, and I continued to attract those same types and felt like a babysitter.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:29]:

And in my now marriage, it’s been a dance, right, of me becoming less shrew, like, and more feminine and him, you know, functioning in a more integrated, grounded way. But it’s been a journey we’ve taken on together, which is lovely. It’s, you know, got its challenges, but it’s lovely to be on a journey with somebody and recognize that we both have a part to play in the dynamics. Yep.

Coach Tiffini [00:09:51]:

Where everything stems for me is like feeling like growing up, this very much lack of control. And so for me, it was like control equaled safety. And I have to be able to control everything because if, if I don’t, everything’s going to fall apart, people are going to leave me, I’m going to lose everything. So I learned at a very young age that I was responsible for juggling all the balls. And I feel like there were areas in my life when I was younger that this 100% was an amazing protective part. And that’s what I would say to every woman out there that has these things from childhood. Women 100% protected you and you have these badass parts that are beautiful. But something then shifts when you become an adult that when you continue to try to juggle all the balls, you continue this sense of control.

Coach Tiffini [00:10:38]:

It doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t work anymore.

Dawn Wiggins [00:10:41]:

So isolating. I’m going to add to that. So, like, all right, we’ve got the ball juggling protector part, right. And then add to that my perfectionist protector part. So then, so then even asking for help or receiving help even from you, right? Like, and I say you like the two of you, but I really mean like the global you, because for me, from until I would say the last, you know, maybe five, six, seven years asking for help even felt like I was failing or not not being perfect at everything felt like I was failing. How can you ever have community or receive support or guidance or ever feel feminine if even help feels threatening? Right. And so when safety doesn’t come from the experience of community, from the experience of support, from the experience of, you know, love outside of what you’re producing. Like, gosh, that is a prescription for burnout, you know, unhealthy love, unhealthy friendships, unhealthy, you know, parenting with your children, like, it’s just a prescription for all of that to, like, fall apart eventually.

Dawn Wiggins [00:11:52]:

And so I think that as women, we have to be willing to own our part of perpetuating the belief system. And changing your beliefs is one of the hardest pieces of work I think we do in the beginning because the belief that help is right around the corner feels so out of reach. It kicks up so much cognitive dissonance, right? Because we’ve got so much lived data to the contrary. And the brain loves to just pull from that lived data to say, like, no, that’s bullshit, Dawn. That belief is not true. Right? And so I think to help women change their belief system is so much of what we do around here. And ps, this is a plug for the Thursday episode, because the Thursday episode, which is a premium episode, the Room where it happens on Tuesday, we learn on Thursday, we apply for $5 a month. Thursday, we help you reprogram that negative belief, because if you don’t do that.

Dawn Wiggins [00:12:45]:

And I literally ranted this to a dear friend of mine who’s getting divorced, who’s not in our program this weekend. It’s like, she’s working so hard to change her life and to show up for her kids and to navigate the difficulties of divorce, but it’s not grounded in a belief system that is like, I am a good person. I am worthy of love and support. I am worthy of abundance. I, you know, can be a beacon of trust and what I whatever for myself and for my boys.

Coach Tiffini [00:13:16]:

And it.

Dawn Wiggins [00:13:17]:

When you’re doing this work and it’s not grounded in a belief system that is affirming, you are leaking energy left, right and center and never feeling.

Coach Tiffini [00:13:28]:

I feel like a lot of our clients also come to us and they say, well, how do I know that I’m operating a masculine? You know, because they don’t even recognize when they’re doing it anymore. So for me, it’s like I always ask them, like, how does it feel when somebody shows up for you? How does it feel when you get a text checking on you or somebody randomly sends you flights hours and they immediately start to cry? And that’s how you know, because when you are sitting in masculine, it’s like you have a hard time receiving. And there is something that is associating with pity or guilt or shame around people showing up for you. And that is something that you learned way, way, way long ago.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:06]:

So and I’m going to add to that because you know we’ve been running this quiz, right? The nervous system quiz helps women identify their nervous system patterns and overlaid with their hormonal patterns and how they’re actually moving through the grief process of divorce. And so I want to read to you the results that women are telling us. So this is the entirety of the women who, which I think we’re up to like 400 women have taken the quiz. So if you haven’t taken it, link in bio, we’ll drop it in the show notes. Here’s what women are saying. 50% of the women who have taken our quiz say that when someone tries to help them, they feel overwhelmed or unsure how to receive. 57% of you, that’s what you’ve answered. 29% feel guilty for being helped, 10% feel unworthy or invisible and 4% feel angry or defensive.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:06]:

So like, wow, right? Of course we’re stuck in masculine. Of course we don’t feel safe because we don’t. We, we are programmed to believe that we are failing.

Producer Joy [00:15:20]:

If we’re generations, we’ve been spoken into that women can do everything. And women like you can have the CEO job and the lovely home with the white picket fence and the 2.5 children and all the things. Well, it’s just like it’s, it’s ingrained in us to that we can do everything and, and like it’s not the way we were created.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:48]:

Well, and maybe we can, but not in the way that men can. Right? Like maybe we can have beautiful careers and beautiful families and all the things, but it can’t look the way it looks in execution. Right. To have it all, we would have to have close knit female friends and community to help back us up. We would have to have really strong support systems that have our backs. We would be able to have to humbly ask for help all the time. We would have to not be going to work 9 to 5 because that’s not, you know, however many days in the month because that’s not how our cycles. You know, like we would have to do it so very differently for us to quote unquote, have it all.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:26]:

Women were never something to sister wives. 100% right.

Producer Joy [00:16:31]:

That beautiful community of women supporting women. That’s why our program is so different.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:37]:

Like that’s absolutely right. The community that we built in and that’s what we’re Modeling, right? Like, let’s just think about before we hopped on to record this episode. And this is something we are learning to do as a team, the three of us, right? And outside of this team, in our own lives, we are learning to do the sister wives thing, right? This morning I said something to you, Joy. I said, okay, this is a purely cousin request. I said, no, scratch that. This is a sister request, right? I am going to need you to have my back about XYZ thing in our family, right? And then Tiffany was like, oh, we’re thinking about picking up this piece of property. And I was like, oh, and my husband. We could come.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:12]:

You know, Joy and I could come and my husband and her husband could help tie in the steel and then pour the concrete. And the three of us could spend time together, right? And we could, like, that’s the thing. We have to really reconfigure how. How we see, quote unquote, having it all. And it’s gotta be we, a we thing, which is absolutely what we preach in our right. If you’re not. If you’re not at our meetups, if you’re not coming to live workshops, if you’re not attending Cocoon Connect, if you’re not in Cocoon, period, if you’re not doing Thursday premium episodes where we apply this work where you. Where you really let it go deep and touch your soul.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:52]:

If you’re, you know, like, you’re still approaching divorce recovery in a masculine way.

Producer Joy [00:17:58]:

For so long, I lived in my masculine right. And it manifests in different. It manifests in your body. Like if you are living in your masculine for so long, like your hormones are shot, your cortisol shot. My. My testosterone is off the charts. Like, it’s.

Dawn Wiggins [00:18:16]:

It.

Producer Joy [00:18:17]:

It presents itself like you can’t live that way long term and have zero effects on your body because it’s just not sustainable.

Coach Tiffini [00:18:29]:

Whole preface with it takes a village. Like, how long has that quote been around? And how often do we live like that? We don’t. The only time I have lived with the it takes a village mentality is when I was a military wife and the men would go to war and the women would all gather at each other’s homes and we would cook for each other, we would do activities with the kids. We would raise our kids under one roof. And it is. It’s like sister wives without sharing the husband, right? But there’s something to that. But then it’s like there’s something then that feels like in our world, it feels like we have to Isolate ourselves. And that is not how we were designed to navigate life, even day to day.

Coach Tiffini [00:19:08]:

Like it’s not even if you are in a relationship that’s new and you’re starting to isolate yourself, which is you and your partner, that is not a natural, normal part of life. We’re meant to have female community and, and companionship and friendship. And if you are not stepping into all these things that we’re offering, you are missing out on a massive piece of healing, right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:19:32]:

Which takes us to like thing number two, right? To really be able to feel a sense of safety. And for your nervous system to perceive that it can downshift for you to be able to experience feminine energy, you have to have a felt safe sense, A felt sense, not a thought sense, right? Of there are solid things outside of me that have my back, solid structures outside of me that have my back. So I want you know when you’re listening right now, and I sort of tease this at the top of the episode, like how many things outside of you feel solid right now that it feels like? Not you think, not you hope. Like if you dropped into your body, you knew those structures would catch you. So for example, do you believe your higher power or intelligent creator would catch you? Do you believe your friend group would catch you? Do you believe your family would catch you? Do you believe that your workplace would catch you? Do you believe your current relationship with your own self care, your nutrition, your exercise, your sleep, would it catch you? What are the structures that you currently have in your life and will they catch you? What I know to be true is, is all of that starts with the universe will have my back. And I have to be willing to hear and act in the direction the universe is guiding me. It starts there. And if I can’t hear that, I have to get in touch with it.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:23]:

If I struggle to believe that, I have to examine why. And then everything else can be built upon that. And anything built less than that is literally like being on a hamster wheel of healing. It’s like running endlessly without actually getting anywhere. That’s a spicy thing to say, but it needs to be said.

Coach Tiffini [00:21:45]:

And I would say that for me, I want to know what our clients believe in when they’re stepping into our programs. I don’t care what it is. If you believe in God or you’re Hindu or you’re Buddhist, or you’re just Mother Earth and universe, or even if you come in and you tell me, look, I’m really trying to reconcile my relationship with a higher power, right? Now, but I’m curious or I’m hopeful because at some point that is going to be part of the framework that you build to walk yourself into the next chapter of your life. And we talk a lot on the pod about low vibe state, you know, and so it’s like if you. You might look around and say, well, no, Don, my friends wouldn’t catch me. My workplace wouldn’t catch me, because you’re not living in alignment at a high vibe state. But understand that you can start over and you can build a new framework piece by piece of a career and a friend group and a religion or a higher power that feels more authentic to you. So no matter where you’re starting this process at, even if you feel like you’re at rock bottom, you can start putting the pieces back together and move into alignment.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:51]:

There’s nothing better. Okay, Joy, your brain is, like steaming. I am so curious to hear what you’re digesting.

Producer Joy [00:23:02]:

I was just like, as she was, as Tiffany was speaking, like, I’m like, that’s fire, like right there. That’s the magic of it. Like, if your friend group, if your community, if your family, like, if the people that you were attracting wouldn’t catch you, then you need to be able to look in the mirror and ask yourself why this is what I’m attracting. Like, what is it about me? And it’s just. I just was really into what she was saying.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:32]:

I love that.

Coach Tiffini [00:23:34]:

But we talk all the time about clearing space, making room and again, not cutting people out overnight, but taking a really hard look at. When you spend time with XYZ people in your life, do you leave feeling full and supported and seen or do you feel leave or you leave feeling depleted and completely just worn out and sucked out. That’s a huge thing. So I think that it’s. It’s about finding the people. It is about finding the people to build your tribe that feel really good. And that includes.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:06]:

But I want to make it asterisk there. Okay. Because this is like, it’s a contextualized, nuanced thing right here. Okay. Because let’s go back to the quiz takers.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:20]:

Who.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:21]:

Some of them feel unsure how to receive. Some of them feel, you know, unworthy of receiving. Some of them feel guilty for receiving.

Producer Joy [00:24:29]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:30]:

If we still struggle to feel worthy of receiving and we are hanging out with people who are loving on us, we actually might leave feeling worse than better. We might feel better hanging out with people who are. Energy sucks. This is a tricky, tricky, tricky spot because it’s like if you are still trapped in the belief that you are not worthy or help is not coming, or you have to do it all, you are not going to leave social situations where people love on you feeling better. You’re going to leave feeling guilty or stressed or questioning your identity or your worth.

Coach Tiffini [00:25:13]:

I think that the vibe shift and the vibe state starts to change. You know, we talk about the blue balloon exercise all the time. And the very last question that I pose is hard for women to answer in the beginning because it talks about after I’m feeling triggered, what do I need to return to a sense of self, energy. And so many women want to give me external validation things instead of correct. What do you need to bring yourself? Not what can he do or what can your children do or what can your friends do, it’s what can I do to move myself into a space where I feel like I’m calm.

Producer Joy [00:25:56]:

I wasn’t feeling very good yesterday and I was looking for my, to my children and my husband to make me feel better. Like, just sit beside me, just touch me, just like have. Because instead of doing what I needed to do, I was looking for them seeking their, barring their energy to make me feel better. I think I do that more than maybe I should. I think there’s a beautiful aspect of community, but when you’re relying on that to center to ground you. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I was just like picturing yesterday, like when she was talking about that.

Dawn Wiggins [00:26:29]:

Like, uh huh huh.

Producer Joy [00:26:31]:

I was like, oh, I did that literally 24 hours ago.

Coach Tiffini [00:26:37]:

I think, to our capacity. Okay, I’m gonna say it because here it comes. Here’s what all this is gonna tie into. All this shit is going through my brain right now. Get ready. Okay.

Producer Joy [00:26:46]:

About ready to hurt my feelings, Tiffany.

Coach Tiffini [00:26:48]:

No, but it’s like if you continue to seek those forms of external validation and you continue to say, I can’t receive from anybody around me. It’s because you have not yet learned to receive yourself. You have not yet learned to love yourself or support, receive love from you. The self love, the security, the self confidence, it’s not there yet. So how can you expect to receive from others when you yourself don’t feel like you can receive and fill yourself. Does that make sense?

Dawn Wiggins [00:27:21]:

Yeah. It’s such a journey. But like, if I’m listening, then I say to myself, like, okay, ladies, you just said we have to be open to receive. We have to do it in community, we have to support each other. And then you’re saying, okay, but wait, you have to be able to support yourself. Which is it rigid independence or is it community? I would anticipate that at the start of this journey, I would be really confused about how those two things can both be true at the same.

Producer Joy [00:27:51]:

But it. I mean, it’s both. It’s.

Coach Tiffini [00:27:53]:

Yeah, I encourage both, right?

Producer Joy [00:27:56]:

It’s being able to receive a compliment and know it’s true and do the work to get to be able to attract the people that, you know, that beautiful expression. Straighten a woman’s crown, right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:28:17]:

Like the kind of woman who straightens another woman’s crown, right?

Producer Joy [00:28:22]:

Because nobody. Like, healing is not. It’s not. It’s not like a straight line, like you don’t get to. Or a straight climb. You don’t get to go straight up. Like it’s a. It’s a go up and then you come down a couple feet and then you go up 10ft and you come down 5ft and you go up 10ft and you come Down 1ft.

Producer Joy [00:28:37]:

Like it’s a journey. And so being able to be rooted and seated in yourself and attract the people that are going to straighten your crown. So when you are wobbly, you can reach out and be like, I’m a little wobbly today and I could use someone to come sit with me while I have a cup of tea or, hey, will you go on a walk with me? Because I need vitamin D in the sunshine, but I am a little wobbly and I don’t want to do it by myself. So, like, it’s both.

Dawn Wiggins [00:29:09]:

So let me put the finest point on it, all right? Because so much of this is about learning to identify what we need, being willing to ask for it, being willing to receive it, right? So there’s this tiny little nuanced piece, and Tiffany’s going to be able to put the ifs language to it, right? But when, for instance, we’re in a spot where I want something outside of me to solve it for me, right? Whether it’s like, I want to over function so I can feel in control, or I want my kids and my partner to fill me up. When I don’t feel like filling myself up right, it’s that I don’t. It’s that little sliver of I don’t want to do it right. I don’t want to. I don’t want to be accountable. Yeah, I want to escape. I don’t want to transmute. I want to numb out.

Dawn Wiggins [00:29:59]:

I want to avoid work or effort. I just want it to be done for me. And there is a time and A place for that. And I. Right. And I was just reading this super in the weeds, but I was just reading this article this morning about AI in the Garden of Eden. Fascinating, right? I know, so good. I know.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:18]:

I wanted to send it to your husband, but it’s like part of our thing to do on in this life is work, right?

Producer Joy [00:30:27]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:28]:

And anytime we try to escape work, it’s like we want to be God rather than be human. And we are human. We are not God. And it’s freaking fascinating. But we do spend a lot of time in life trying to circumvent, quote, unquote, the work. And I think when we do the work in alignment with how intelligent creator created it, it’s a lot easier. It’s when we resist. Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:52]:

Where it actually creates separation from ourselves when we don’t want to do the work. It’s like, no, I. I’m self abandoning. Right. I’m self abandoning right now. And. Yeah. And it ends up downstream being problematic.

Producer Joy [00:31:08]:

Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:31:08]:

Which sort of say that the women, the women in our program now, because we’re into month four of 12 and even the women that join our three month program by the end of the three months, they get so good at starting to spot cycles. They get so good at understanding why they keep reaching. They get so good at figuring out this is why I can’t receive. This is what is blocking me in my healing and having the container in the space to do so and to get that feedback. It’s just, it’s key. It’s like just this warm, squishy place to land while you’re trying to figure it out.

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:46]:

Well, I think because once you can start to connect those dots, right, Everything feels possible all of a sudden. That’s the thing about ownership, right. When I own my healing journey and it’s not dependent on access from someone else, that shit’s empowering.

Producer Joy [00:32:02]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:32:05]:

I don’t have to rent my, like, I don’t know, I don’t have to be wealthy or I don’t have to know the right person. You know what I mean? Like, I just, when I start to connect the dots, I can be, I can do healing all the time if I’m willing to face myself and work through some things. Like, hot damn, you can, you can have whatever you want, you know, like, give or take.

Producer Joy [00:32:26]:

Yeah. It’s empowering not having to be perfect, to be able to be like, oh, I messed up. I’m going to recognize why, I’m going to recognize how, and I’m going to pivot to own that and not do it again.

Dawn Wiggins [00:32:45]:

That’s been a journey for me. The not being perfect thing has been probably one of the hardest journeys. So painful. I would just like to call out, right. How I sit before you today is not the woman who sat before you when she was getting divorced. Like, nope.

Producer Joy [00:33:03]:

Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:33:03]:

And it’s me being. For me, it’s been able to be us, like, for help and also, like, female companionship and friendship. Because that never came easy to me. I was like, I’m a lone wolf. I can do it by myself. I don’t need anybody. And I have carried that like a freaking torch through most of my life and caused a lot of destruction along the way because of said thoughts.

Dawn Wiggins [00:33:27]:

Ladies, can I use this moment right here as a segue into my body? Said, no.

Coach Tiffini [00:33:31]:

Yeah.

Producer Joy [00:33:32]:

Yes.

Dawn Wiggins [00:33:32]:

Okay, so if you’ve been on our email list for a while or you’ve been part of our community for a while, this is like long time listener status right here. When I got divorced, I joined a women’s therapy group. I did this professional. Professional development workshop. Went to Al Anon. Like, I was childless, right? So I just fully immersed myself into all things healing. And I moved into a duplex by the ocean. It was like one block off the ocean.

Dawn Wiggins [00:33:57]:

And my dearest friend, whom I was in group therapy with, moved into the other half of the duplex. And so you’ve heard me mention her. She’s done a little cameo in like, one of our Mother’s Day episodes or something like that. I’ve written about her in some of our emails, our older emails. Maybe we should, like, I don’t know, fluff one of those and send it again. But her and I have just done life together for the last, I don’t know, like, I guess, 16 years, right? And I’ve been to her daughter’s weddings and, you know, vice versa. Like, we helped raise each other. Like, when Grace was born, she lived right next door.

Dawn Wiggins [00:34:33]:

Like, all the things, right? We’ve just done all the things together. And yesterday she came to visit me in South Carolina and she. So I had her sit on my closet floor with me. I don’t know why that felt important, but, like, we just sat on the floor together so that when I sometimes I sit in there, maybe like, process a feeling or feel a feeling so then I could, like, picture her being in there with me when she’s not here, you know, because she doesn’t live next door anymore. But that being in a therapy group together, being next door to each other, it has been such a profound sense of support through all of this healing work over the years. So I promise there’s a punchline other than get you some community, preferably ours. But I took the day off on Friday to go pick her up from the airport and to go to her grandson’s to second birthday. So delicious.

Dawn Wiggins [00:35:27]:

Got to help set up for the party. Grace made the banner like it was such like a family, you know, friends are our chosen family community moment. Right. But then as we were leaving, they were like, okay, we’re gonna see you again this weekend. Right? And I was like, no, Nope. I have no plans to drive back from where I live in South Carolina to where you live in South Carolina. And historically that would have been very hard for me. I would have really felt obligated, like I needed to do the driving.

Dawn Wiggins [00:36:03]:

And she flew in and she, you know, but like, I literally, my body said no. Like there is not space for me to maintain alignment in my life and do the drive again. And so they came and sat on the floor of my closet with me. And that’s the point here, right? My body said no. I would have historically felt guilty for doing so. And then I would not have had the experience of having this soul that has meant so much to me in my home because I allowed her to effort.

Coach Tiffini [00:36:39]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:36:39]:

Wow.

Coach Tiffini [00:36:40]:

Okay.

Dawn Wiggins [00:36:41]:

Where have anybody said no lately?

Coach Tiffini [00:36:44]:

There is someone in my life that I’m very close with that recently got a health diagnosis. And so we’re about to embark on this journey together. And during a recent phone conversation, this person said to me, before we got off the phone, I’m going to just, you know, I need you to just be strong through this entire thing. And so we got off the phone and I immediately thought, no, I don’t want to have to do that. And again, this goes back to the masculine, feminine. Like, I don’t want to do that. Everything in my body said, I am so tired of being strong. I am so effing tired of being strong through everything that I’ve gone through.

Coach Tiffini [00:37:25]:

And I don’t want to do it anymore. And so the next time I had a conversation with this person, I said, look, we’re about to go on this journey together, but I need you to understand one thing. There are going to be days when I’m going to need to break down. There are going to be days when you’re going to need to break down. And we just have to be able to be 100% honest with each other and give each other space to do that, because I’M not walking on eggshells around this situation. It is what it is and it’s going to be what it’s going to be. And that person was super receptive and said, you know what? That sounds absolutely perfect. And so here we go on a journey that feels really, really good and not like I have to hold everything together.

Producer Joy [00:38:02]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:38:02]:

To never have a need or to never have to be strong is to deny our humanity, our base. The basic thing that separates us from AI is the humanness of it, the connection, the humanity, the colors of living. Yeah. What you got, Joyce?

Producer Joy [00:38:23]:

I have been on a journey of understanding my nervous system, my commitments, my, you know, like I, I go, go, go a lot. I’ve got three children, I’m active in my community. You name it, it is on my radar, my schedule. And so I’ve been. I said no to, to a trip, which is, I don’t think I’ve ever, ever done before. And I’m still kind of in process about it because it’s a recent no, but I have, I have. My, my children are out of school for a week in February, and so we always go do something. And I recently have said no.

Producer Joy [00:39:07]:

Like, it doesn’t align with my financial goals. It doesn’t align with the trying to abide in my home. It doesn’t align with my nervous system and rest. And so my body said no. And I’m. I’m stepping into it and it’s been a part of my identity. So there’s been, it’s multi layered. This isn’t like.

Producer Joy [00:39:31]:

Yeah, it’s.

Dawn Wiggins [00:39:31]:

Your body said no, but your mind is still catching up.

Producer Joy [00:39:34]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:39:34]:

Yeah.

Producer Joy [00:39:35]:

Right. So love it. That’s my, my burnout. I’m saying no to being burnout anymore. I would like to not be burned out anymore or feeling behind all the time.

Dawn Wiggins [00:39:45]:

Right. Versus spacious. Yeah, that’s hot shit right there. Okay, darlings. So clearly the answer is be part of our community. If you have not yet joined Heartbeat, link is in the show notes where you can be a part of our community, where you can be in the room where it happens, which is our premium podcast feed where we actually apply the things we learn on Tuesdays, we do the things on Thursdays. You can subscribe to premium inside of Heartbeat. You can attend our complet completely free.

Dawn Wiggins [00:40:20]:

Cocoon Connects inside of Heartbeat. You can chat with the other women. You can be part of our Magic Drops, which is our monthly bi weekly giveaways. There’s so much happening in our community and if you are not there, you are missing building the feminine elements of releasing your masculine over functioning. So we cannot wait to see you there. We love you so much. Peace.