Parenting After Divorce: How to Stop the Cycle & Support Your Kids (Even When It Feels Impossible)

5 Key Takeaways

1. Successful parenting after divorce starts with shifting from fear to intention. What you focus on is what you attract. If you’re constantly rehearsing the fear of repeating patterns while parenting after divorce, you’re keeping your nervous system activated in fear, which becomes the world that your children live in. Instead, acknowledge the fear, feel it, release it, and then refocus on intention: “I am going to heal, and I am going to be well.” Your fear means you’re paying attention, but now it’s time to channel that awareness into abundance and love, rather than letting it perpetuate the very patterns you’re trying to break.
2. Slow down and create space for emotional expression to support your children’s needs. One of the most powerful things you can do in parenting after divorce is reduce over-commitment to activities and focus on somatic tools that help both you and your children feel and discharge emotions from your bodies. Techniques like EFT tapping, butterfly tapping, throwing a pillow, humming, and ear massages help with expression — allowing feelings to move through rather than getting stuck. When you’re navigating a divorce, remember that saying no to extra activities isn’t a bad thing; it’s creating the space your family needs to actually process what you’re going through together.
3. Effective parenting after divorce means understanding that traditional approaches often aren’t enough for deep healing. Therapy is a tool, but it’s not a complete solution as most therapists aren’t deeply enough trained in the layers of what true wellness requires. True transformation in parenting after divorce requires a layered, tailored approach that might include homeopathy, somatic work, addressing metabolic health, and even understanding genetics. If you’re feeling like you’re hitting your head against a wall with no progress, you likely need a different approach, not more willpower.
4. Practice curiosity instead of judgment. When you’re parenting after divorce and your children trigger you, they’re often tapping into your own unhealed pain. It’s hard at the time, but that trigger is information, not a failure. You cannot heal from a place of judgment — not of yourself, your children, or what’s happening to you. Getting curious about why certain behaviors or situations trigger you, and responding with compassion rather than reactivity, changes everything for both you and your kids in the parenting journey. Remember: when you’re angry and it’s actually fear underneath, that shows you where healing needs to happen.
5. Progress, not perfection, is what helps children feel safe and loved. In your parenting after divorce journey, you need community with three pillars: support, accountability, and wisdom — people who can lovingly point out your blind spots. Surround yourself with people who offer compassionate support. Never take advice from someone who doesn’t have the thing you want; if your current support system isn’t helping you move forward, something is missing from your approach. Remember: your children don’t need you to be perfect; they need you to be healing and growing alongside them, showing them that transformation is possible.

Highlights

• 00:00 Breaking Cycles in Parenting
• 03:51 “Overcoming Fear through Intentional Focus”
• 06:16 Reprogramming Beliefs for Abundance
• 12:21 Therapists Aren’t Enough: Self-Heal
• 13:02 Optimizing Treatment for Unique Needs
• 17:51 “Navigating Divorce: Key Insights”
• 19:29 Suppress to Express: A New Focus
• 25:32 “Evaluating Guidance: Tools and Practices”
• 27:11 Love, Peace, Beautiful Day

Full Transcript

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:00]:

At the end of the night, when you’re laying in the dark thinking, I’m scared. I’m failing my daughter the way I was failed, if those words, those thoughts hit a nerve, you are not alone. We have literally, as girl moms, and this applies to boy moms, also shared these fears. And this episode might be hard to hear, but it could also be what the universe is sending you to speak to your fears. And if you’re willing to dig into it, we can rewrite the story. There’s no question that divorce is devastating for families, especially children. I can tell you as a therapist that very many people end up on my sofa and divorce is one of the things they certainly mention as being impactful in their journey in life. Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:47]:

It’s, it’s something people end up needing to address or understanding more deeply about themselves when they go to therapy, how divorce impacted them. But divorce isn’t the most significant thing that is potentially repeating the cycles for your children. That’s not the thing. So in today’s episode, we’re going to unpack your fear that your kids are going through what you went through as a sign of your intention and what’s really working for you there and how we can just sort of refine that. We’re also going to take a look at the truth about cycle breaking, because if cycle breaking feels overwhelming or impossible to you, there is a reason. And in this episode, I’m going to blow up some of the myths and guilt traps that are keeping you stuck. You don’t need to do it all, you need to do it differently. And then we’re going to take a look at what I would do differently if I were divorcing with kids all over again.

Dawn Wiggins [00:01:46]:

There are a handful of things that I would absolutely focus on, and it’s not what most of us are told to do. So I will share what I’ve learned and how. You can double check, right. If you’re focusing on these things in your day to day life. Let’s dig in. One of my favorite new finds on Instagram has been the Handle High Love Parenting with Reem Raudha. And she wrote in a post a little ways back that children don’t inherit your dreams. They inherit the wars you never resolved inside of yourself.

Dawn Wiggins [00:02:21]:

They inherit the rage you suppress, the shame you still carry the fear you never spoke out loud. It’s not just your words they absorb. It’s your reactions, your tension, your silence. Your nervous system becomes the home they grow up in. This isn’t opinion, it’s biology. And you may have promised yourself, I’ll give them everything I never had, but if you don’t heal, you’ll give them everything you did. And it’s so true that our work here, that we do on the podcast, the work that you do coming to this space, is the most beautiful and precious gift you could give your children. And I want to reassure you that it does not matter how old your children are unborn.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:06]:

To adults, this work is the game changer in their lives and in their capacity for relationship. But I do want to say that if you’re focusing on fear of breaking the cycle, that we have to pivot that right. We have to take a look at how can we transition this fear that I’m not breaking the cycle or that I’m putting my kid through the same thing, right, into a more positive intention. Because from a Law of Attraction standpoint, friend, the universe does not know the word no. It doesn’t know the word no. What you focus on is what it brings you. And if you’re like, I’m afraid I’m repeating, I’m afraid I’m repeating, I’m afraid I’m repeating. It is bringing you repeating because that’s what you’re focusing on, fear and repeating.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:51]:

And so the more you rehearse the fear of repeating, the more you’re keeping your nervous system activated in a fear based way, which then is just giving your kids that container of fear, right, to function within. So we want to take that fear, I want to honor it. I want you to be able to feel it and release it, right? Get into your body, feel that, acknowledge it, own it, and then say like, all right, I’m going to refocus it on intention. I am going to tackle these closets, I’m going to clean them out and I am going to be well. And from a law of Attraction standpoint, that has to be where we focus. I know we have been hearing a lot in our community lately, that’s you, that cycle breaking feels overwhelming and sort of impossible. And so we’re going to get into that later in this episode, the reasons why that really seems to be the case. But in this part of the episode, what I want to say to you about that is it’s not impossible.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:50]:

And your capacity, right, your capacity for wellness, your capacity for healing, your capacity to truly, truly find, find wellness, will be limited on your beliefs, by your beliefs, right? So if you have been practicing lately the belief that maybe it’s impossible or it’s exhausting, like you’re going to get more of the same of that. And so I cannot say enough. I know you’ve heard me talk about the reticular activating system. Man, we talked about that a lot around here this weekend. My daughter asked me the other day, she was getting dressed for school and she’s been wearing hair clips a lot lately. And she’s like, did you like my green clips? And I was like, my reticular activating system did not perceive that at that moment in time. My brain didn’t perceive it needed to notice the color of your hair clips. Sorry.

Dawn Wiggins [00:05:40]:

And she’s like, what is a reticular activating system? It’s the part of our brain that filters information from the environment based on our beliefs. And its priority is to, number one, keep us alive and number two, to have us have like a thriving life, right? And so it’s going to give us data from our environment that reinforces our beliefs and helps us forward our goals. So I was like, sorry, kiddo, the color of your hair clips didn’t land in that moment. Right then as we were sort of stepping through the weekend, it came up over and over again. And as we were getting ready, as we were going to bed last night, she’s like, oh, Monday. We always record on Monday. She’s like, Mondays are so crazy. I’m like, oh, look at there.

Dawn Wiggins [00:06:16]:

You have programmed your reticular activating system to notice all the ways in which Monday overwhelms you, and therefore you’re gonna get more of the same, right? And so it’s not woo woo, it’s science, it’s biology. That what we believe, what we rehearse, what we think. Law of attraction is not hocus pocus, it is biology. And so while you may feel feelings of overwhelm and impossibility, I need you to know that those are only thoughts and beliefs and they can be changed. And your raz can be reprogrammed. And everything you desire for yourself and for your children, unborn or adult or anywhere in between, is possible, but not if you’re doing it from a place of fear. It has to start moving or continue to move in a direction of abundance, love. And so I’m so proud of you for being aware, for having a concern that fear means you’re paying attention.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:10]:

The fear means you’re paying attention. You’re not broken, you’re awake. And now let’s talk about what the heck to do about it. My goodness. All right, to all of my girlies who feel like this cycle breaking crap, especially in the midst of divorce when you only have control over half. Right. Tops of their time. Maybe, maybe a little more.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:38]:

Right. But. And that you can’t control what’s not controllable. Exactly. Right. Let’s talk about all the things, the myths and the guilt traps that we are falling into that are keeping you stuck day in and day out. Now there are a bajillion wellness experts on the Internet, on the Tiki Talky and on the Instagram and round town. There are so many wellness experts and they’re all going to pitch you supplements.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:09]:

You need systems, you need types of therapy, types of healing modalities. They’re going to tell you all day long if you just do this, if you just use this one missing thing, you will be well. And I can tell you 9.9 times out of 10 it’s not the whole story. It’s not the whole story. And that there is no supplement you can take that is going to crack your case. That’s just not a thing. There’s no supplement you can give your kid that’s going to crack your case. Deep transformation is layered.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:44]:

It is going to require multiple modalities and it is going to require an individualized approach, an understanding of really what ails this person and what is needed, what needs to be called to, to really transform. And I think that there are a lot of, there’s a lot of noise out there right now. Right there. Everybody is influencing something. And we compare ourselves to those influencers and what they’re selling and what they’re pitching and we’re like, man, this didn’t work for me. What’s wrong with me? And I want to say something bold here. And that is if you polled all of those wellness influencers, whether they’re therapists or they’re somatic experts, they’re nervous system coaches, their wellness gurus, functional medicine folks like you name it. If you pulled them all and you asked them, do you have any of the following things? Here’s my list.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:49]:

Chronic migraines, hair loss, reoccurring, BV, bacterial vaginosis, insomnia, overthinking, gluten intolerance, back pain at 40. Have you been on an antidepressant for something like 5, 10, 15, 20 years or an anti anxiety medication for 5, 10, 15, 20 Years? This is just a short list. I could go on and on and on. But if you pulled all of those people, the EMDR therapists, the somatic coaches, the you name it, these things still apply to them and they’re telling you about this robust wellness that’s available. But they are still struggling with signs of nervous system distress because gluten intolerance is absolutely a suppressed trauma. Nervous system distress symptom, back pain at 40 is not normal. It’s common. It’s not normal.

Dawn Wiggins [00:10:45]:

Being on antidepressants for more than six months to two years, not normal. Common, not normal. Hair loss, not normal. Chronic migraines, not normal. So. So name your symptom right there, right? But these things are not normal. And we have come to believe that they’re just a part of aging. Somebody that I know, like and trust as a news influencer on Instagram recently, who preaches to us about the dangers of mainstream media recently said to me, like, I guess 40 is when you can’t eat the foods you love anymore.

Dawn Wiggins [00:11:18]:

And then posted all of her Tums and her antacids. And I’m like, no, that’s not normal. That’s not normal for you to need antacids to eat the foods you love. And then what’s further is so many therapists, I am one, Are going to tell you your kid needs a psychiatrist or a therapist. And the data that we’re actually getting, and I have you’ve heard me reference this book before by Abigail Shrier called Bad Therapy. And the title is Bad Therapy why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. And it’s. There’s so many of us that rather than really helping ourselves truly heal and transform our lives and helping our children heal and transform their lives, we’re sending them to therapists.

Dawn Wiggins [00:11:58]:

And therapists cannot heal or transform our children. And in fact, like, most therapists, like, it was like a joke in grad school that I’m not dissing therapy. I’m not dissing therapy. But most therapists aren’t deeply enough trained in the layers. Right. Of what it means to truly be well. Right. Metabolic health.

Dawn Wiggins [00:12:21]:

The extent to which dissociation operates and how, like, it’s just most therapists just do not have enough training in somatics, in trauma, in generational inheritance, in, you name it. And it’s just they can’t. They’re a tool. Therapists are a tool, but it’s not by any means going to heal or transform your child. We have to do that job. It’s true if you’re feeling, like, guilty because you’re not making enough progress and you’re comparing yourself to the other moms and the other wellness influencers and it feels like you’re not really moving the needle nearly as much as you’d like to because Your kids are still melting down and they’re triggering you left and right, and anywhere they’re triggering you. Damn right. Means that you have something unhealed.

Dawn Wiggins [00:13:02]:

And anytime they’re melting down, there, there are needs that are not being addressed. Like, yeah, this is. This is real. And the purpose of this episode is to really help you take a look at. Is your current treatment plan meeting, the dose and potency, Is it robust enough? Is your treatment plan really dialed in to make sure that you are using the tools that are the key in your lock for your family? Because your family has a unique set of needs? I’ll tell you what, like, now that my. I have this, like, robust community of, like, other therapists, right, that I know and have talked to and built a Rolodex of throughout my career, but now that I have this Rolodex of homeopaths, also, right? You know, to the moms who have the adhd pans and Pandas kids and, you know, who have these neuro, not neurotypical presentations, like kids with these hypersensitivities and where life just feels overwhelming to them, like, you have it even harder love. And the traditional techniques that you’re healing people, hearing people talk about, like, it’s not gonna get you there. And you could feel like you are hitting your head against the wall, not making progress, and feel like giving up more often than I want you to.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:20]:

And so if you’re feeling like it doesn’t work, I think that means you need a different approach and plan. Let me go back for just a moment and say what I mean by pans or Pandas kids. So these are children that have pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders. Right. And it’s associated with chronic strep infections, pediatric acute onset neuropsychiatric symptoms. So these are kids who can have tics, adhd, maybe autism spectrum disorder, things really sensitive to their environments or life can feel very overwhelming to them. They’re not typical neurological processors right there. So there’s these just so many kids these days that have these sort of mounting challenges.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:11]:

And so if you’ve not heard of the label, quite frankly, Pandas or pans, it’s this sort of emerging way of categorizing children that have these deep struggles with just sort of functioning in modern life, Right? And who could blame them? Because functioning in modern life is so challenging. But for these sweet kiddos, like, it’s that much more challenging. But we are really starting to, from a scientific perspective, understand what is creating that. And then we have so many ways to really start treating it effectively. So I think that there is a lot of comorbidity, meaning for families that are divorcing, I think that you are more likely to have pans, Pandas, kids, right? It is just more common. These things overlap, right? We have trauma that tends to lead to, you know, having nervous system dysfunction and having attachment style issues. And so then, therefore, we pick partners that have similar issues. And then that tends to.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:12]:

Then we make children with. With these conditions, and then it tends to lead to divorce. And then, you know, all of this stuff, it just is like a snowball, right? And so it’s like, gosh, I’m the woman getting divorced who needs more support. I need more love, I need more answers. And now I seem to have more problems than the person who isn’t. Why is that? Right? And it’s because all of these issues sort of snowball one into the other. And so for my single mamas who have the particularly challenged kids, like, yes, I see. See you.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:45]:

This is real. And the. The common conversations about how to cycle break, it doesn’t apply the same because of the unique and layered challenges you are facing. So let’s talk about what I would specifically do differently if I were getting divorced all over again and I had children. What would I focus on and what would I do differently to make sure that I was moving in the direction of breaking a cycle? It is not a switch that gets flipped. It is a process. It layered. And it is one that requires oodles of patience with self and your kiddos, right? It is.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:24]:

It is. And I will tell you over here, as producer, Joy and I were sitting here planning this episode, and we were talking about the tools we use and how we’ve gotten to where we are and why we’re so confident in this and that. And we were like, okay, but now rewind time and picture us without these tools, right? What life would feel like. And. And honestly, I think my answer would be probably, like, vaguely suicidal, you know, like impossible. Shut down. I. I would feel incredibly shut down, hopeless and helpless, I think, a lot of the time.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:51]:

And so when I say to you this is what I would do if I were doing it over again, the tools that we use today, I did not have when I was getting divorced. Right? And so that is so much of what this podcast is, is bringing you. Like, here are the things that I would focus on so that you can move through this in a profound way. So the first thing I would do is I would make sure to slow Everything down. One of the things I see over and over again is this sort of over commitment to after school things. I hear so many single moms having to have multiple jobs. This is real, right? And so I think that sometimes when we say no to our kids about doing things or going places or being involved in things, like we feel guilt. That’s one of those guilt traps you gotta get out of.

Dawn Wiggins [00:18:38]:

Right? So slowing down would be an essential element that I would focus on. I would also focus on somatic tools and techniques. So that’s the capacity to feel and discharge our feelings from our bodies. The soma just means in Latin, right? Body. And so the capacity to feel and express emotion from a physical place. So I would make sure that myself and my children were able to physically express sadness and anger insecurity. I would make sure we were doing things like eft tapping or butterfly tapping, that we were doing things like pillow throwing, that we were doing things like humming and ear massage. All these sort of somatic techniques where we’re able to identify where the feeling is in the body and find a way to physically express or discharge it.

Dawn Wiggins [00:19:29]:

Really focusing on exchanging suppression for expression. And I think that we often don’t realize the extent to which we have suppressive language and habits inside of us and the way that we hand those things down. I know just in terms of being a parent with a kid in public school, or like school, just like just school is how many times in a week I tell my kid to suppress something so that she can go function in that school environment. And I think that it’s profoundly working against what we’re trying to do in terms of healing nervous system here. So number one is slowing down. Number two is an emphasis on somatic expression of emotion. Number three is homeopathy. I do not believe that the promises that wellness influencers, therapists, somatic coaches, you name it, promise you on the Internet can be achieved without homeopathy.

Dawn Wiggins [00:20:21]:

That is a wild thing to say. I believe that everything in life exists on a bell curve. So it’s not all or nothing. I do believe that some of those wellness professionals do get good results with their techniques. But again, it’s going to be on a bell curve. The majority of people are going to have the majority of the struggle, and the majority of them are still going to have suppressed traumas and inherited things in their nervous systems and their tools. Like, have you ever heard an advertisement and then seen an asterisk or heard somebody say, like, results? Not typical. Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:20:54]:

The case study, they’re presenting those Results are not typical. So most people get an average amount of results from things, and the amount of distress and struggle that you’re experiencing, it’s. It’s not average. It’s above average. Right. And so you’re going to need above average solutions. And as producer Joy and I were sitting here and saying, like, wow, healing is no longer feeling like an uphill battle for us. It’s, it’s.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:19]:

Homeopathy is foundational to how we got there. We use all these things, but neither of us believe we could be where we are today without homeopathy. And that goes for us and it goes for our children a lot of times, you know, like here on the podcast. Right. I help a lot of women use homeopathy more and more and more. Like, we’re working more with more and more of you inside our free community in the Heartbeat app and more. We’re shipping more boxes of remedies out to each of you. And it’s very, very cool to watch.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:46]:

But like your kids, your kids need a homeopath. And if you need a referral, I’m happy to provide one. The fourth thing I would focus on is the Law of Attraction. You. We all need a path, a guide, Right. To, like. Yes. A path to follow, to study, to keep our thoughts going in a good right direction.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:09]:

Right. And I believe very, very much that, you know, I was raised Christian. I’ve certainly studied many other religions and love, love them, but I believe that the Bible is very, very much, specifically the New Testament, but. And specifically the things that Jesus say. The words in red are in line with the law of Attraction. We need a way. And I am particularly fond of the Law of Attraction because I had so much religious trauma. So I love now sort of weaving the two together.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:38]:

I was just sharing a book with producer Joy today called Hinds Feet in High Places, and it’s a beautiful Christian book from 1975 I read while I was getting divorced. And it is absolutely the law of attraction interwoven with scripture. It’s beautiful. But for me, the law of Attraction, it’s a law and I understand how it works and it guides my life. And it is the thing that I come back to. And I think for many people, that can be scripture. But I think that for most of us, our faith is not alive. We are.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:06]:

We are depressed, we are suppressed. And faith doesn’t feel alive. It feels like words in a book on a page. And it often feels like God has made these promises, but there’s no evidence of them in my life. And I am sort of resentful maybe of God. And I’m questioning God’s existence and his grace. And for me, when I was in those spots, law of attraction was able to bring me back to God. So I would focus on the law of attraction.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:30]:

This next one is interesting, super, super important. Can’t emphasize this one enough. I would focus on curiosity. We are so damn judgmental. And especially with our kids when we are triggered. And I don’t mean upset like, you know, my kid knows that when I’m angry, I’m often scared. And when I’m angry with her and it’s actually I’m scared, that’s a trigger. When I’m angry with her and I’m just angry, that’s less a trigger.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:54]:

That’s just like I’m angry and I’m expressing my anger. And that’s a healthy, appropriate boundary setting expression with her. But very often when we are triggered, our kids have tapped into our pain, our stuff that needs to be healed. And the more we can get curious and less judgmental of ourselves, of our children, of our environment, of our exes, of all the things that we’re going through. You cannot heal from a place of judgment. I’m gonna say that again. You cannot heal from a place of judgment. So focusing on getting curious, being curious with your children and with yourself, it’s an integral thing that if you just swapped that out, like, would be so powerful in your healing journey.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:37]:

And the final thing I would focus on is community. And that community could take on a lot of forms, but it needs to have these three pillars. If your community does not include support, accountability and wisdom, it’s not cutting the, cutting the, whatever I’m trying to say there, right? So your community, your support system, it has to have support, but it also has to have accountability. These people, whoever they are, you, they need to reliably be able to point out your blind spots and call you on your, and lovingly show you where you are, you know, reenacting the patterns you’re trying to break with your kiddos. And it also needs to come from a place of wisdom, not just their opinion, not just a story they heard. Like it needs to be rooted and grounded in. They need to have gone ahead of you, right? They need to have experience in the things you’re working through. There’s that saying, right, that says never take advice from someone who doesn’t have the thing that you want.

Dawn Wiggins [00:25:32]:

And so if your community that you’re taking advice from doesn’t have the thing that you want I need you to take a look at? Is the dose and potency going deep enough? Is the solution broad enough? Because when we are feeling overwhelmed and like the thing we’re being called to do is impossible, something is off, something is missing. So check it out. Are you slowing down? Are you using somatics? Have you tried homeopathy? Would you even consider? Do you have resistance to your kids using homeopathy? That’s something I really want you to take a deep look at. And why are you practicing the law of attraction? Do you know what it is? Or the words in red in the Bible, right? Like, are you really living by that? And not just cafeteria style, like living by it when it’s convenient, but I mean in the tight, hard, dark, twisty spaces, are you living by the law of attraction? Are you practicing curiosity day in and day out? And do you have a strong community that supports you, holds you accountable, and is coming from a place of wisdom? This is what it takes to break the cycle. There are a million other things you could do in there as well, right? You could follow this beautiful woman on Instagram and I am going to Thursday’s episode is going to cover one of her new journals. So stay tuned for that on Thursday. Right? But you could follow High Love Parenting Reem Rauda on Instagram and you could check out our Thursday episode where I am going to be covering my basically review of her recent like Parent Child journal, which I love. So that will be this week’s Thursday episode.

Dawn Wiggins [00:27:11]:

Have a beautiful day. Love you so much. Peace.