Trauma Bond After Divorce: Understanding Why It’s So Hard to Let Go

5 Key Takeaways

1. A trauma bond is different from healthy love. Feeling drawn back to your ex doesn’t always mean the relationship was right. Your nervous system may simply be repeating familiar survival patterns.
2. Childhood experiences can shape adult relationship patterns. Early experiences of inconsistent safety, attention, or emotional support can create relationship patterns that continue into your adult marriage and divorce.
3. Healing requires more than going “no contact.” While creating distance can help you move on from your ex, true healing also involves retraining your nervous system and changing deeply rooted emotional patterns.
4. Actions matter more than words. When evaluating your relationships, look for consistent behavior, instead of broken promises or short-term changes in behavior.
5. Recovery happens one small choice at a time. Choosing healthier responses, building emotional awareness, and practicing self-compassion gradually weaken the trauma bond with your ex and allow you to heal.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I identify signs of a trauma bond after divorce?

Some common signs include constantly thinking about your ex despite knowing the relationship was unhealthy, feeling compelled to contact them, minimizing painful memories, or believing that “this time will be different.” You may also notice that your emotions fluctuate dramatically depending on whether your ex reaches out.

What are common signs of a trauma bond after divorce?

Common signs of a trauma bond after a divorce include:

• Feeling emotionally pulled back to your ex, even after the relationship ended.
• Missing the relationship despite recognizing it was unhealthy.
• Repeatedly checking social media or waiting for messages from them.
• Making excuses for their harmful behavior.
• Confusing emotional intensity with genuine love.
• Feeling anxious or empty when there’s no contact.
• Believing only your ex can provide the closure or healing you need.

How to identify if I’m stuck in a trauma bond with my ex-spouse?

1. Ask yourself a few honest questions:
2. Do I keep hoping they’ll become the person I always wanted them to be?
3. Am I focused more on the good moments than the overall pattern of the relationship?
4. Do I return to the relationship expecting a different outcome despite repeated disappointment?
5. Am I staying connected because I feel emotionally safe—or because the relationship feels familiar?

If your attachment is driven more by fear, anxiety, or the need for validation than by mutual trust and respect, you may be experiencing a trauma bond. Recognizing the pattern is often the first step toward healing.

Highlights

• 00:00 “Magic Drop Nervous System Giveaway”
• 06:27 “Joyful Wins for Nervous Rehab”
• 09:35 “Trauma Bonds and Betrayal”
• 11:29 Seeking Security That Never Came
• 14:27 Unmet Needs and Brain Patterns
• 18:03 Breaking Free from Comfortable Chaos
• 23:16 Control and Love in Relationships
• 24:24 Choosing Vulnerability for Transformation
• 28:22 Retraining Trust and Nervous System
• 33:17 Actions Over Words Matter
• 34:16 “Vulnerability and Humility Essentials”
• 37:46 Interrupting Painful Cycles

Full Transcript

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:01]:

Ever wonder how to handle that pull not to him, but to the idea of him? Maybe your brain whispers, it wasn’t that bad. Or your chest clenches when his name frickin pops up. It’s not drama, it’s not weakness, it’s this. Your nervous system trying to finish a story it didn’t get closure on. Trauma bonds aren’t about love. They’re about unfinished, finished safety. You don’t miss him. You miss who you hoped you could be with him.

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:35]:

So let’s talk today about why your body hangs on and how to slowly take your power back without fighting yourself. Hi, love. Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, focus, find the healing you crave, and build back your confidence. I’m your host, Dawn Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorce. Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce. All right, loves. Today’s episode is jam packed. We are going to explain the actual reason trauma bonds feel like soul ties and why you keep pursuing this repetition compulsion.

Dawn Wiggins [00:01:30]:

Later, we’re going to give you a sentence to use that can stop your maybe I should text him back spiral. But we’re also going to really explain to you the truth about why the idea of cord cutting or like going no contact doesn’t get the job done. And what will actually get the job done. We’re going to give you one of our book recommendations that will, like, spell out for you what’s happening neurobiologically in your body mind, and how to actually get it so that your body feels like the cord is cut. Because I think we do cord cutting rituals and we cut cords conceptually, but then we still feel that pull and it doesn’t actually feel cut. So screw that, let’s actually cut it. And then stay with us because by the end, we want you to really understand if it’s trauma or if it’s truth calling you back.

Producer Joy [00:02:22]:

Right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:02:22]:

Because that’s the ultimate power you need to have to know if there’s which path to go down. Do you keep engaging him because there’s some truth behind it, or is it trauma and you need a whole different toolkit to enact? So we will get to that at the end of the episode. In the meantime, help me welcome coach Tiffany and producer Joy. Good morning, ladies.

Producer Joy [00:02:43]:

Hey.

Coach Tiffini [00:02:43]:

Hey.

Producer Joy [00:02:43]:

Good morning.

Dawn Wiggins [00:02:46]:

Okay, let’s touch base for a minute. Before we dig into trauma bonds and repetition compulsions and all the things, let’s just review the magic drop that dropped inside of our community last week. Because if you’re listening to this episode on the day it aired, you still have a few days left to participate in the Magic Drop. So it’s this awesome giveaway we do every month inside of Cocoon, our free community. And the magic drop is related to the thing that we’re working on inside of the community. And this month’s magic Drop is a book called you’d resonant self, which really helps work differently with your nervous system. A bottle of cell salts that we use all the time with our clients in our lives, in our families that helps biochemically repair the nervous system. And one of our favorite bespoke homeopathic remedy blends that we developed over here that works with the neurotransmitters in your body and helps rehab your nervous system.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:40]:

So it’s a total like nervous system Magic Drop. So to be entered to win it, all you’ve got is join our community and then comment on the post. Tiffany, tell them what the post is and what we’re asking them to do this month. To be entered to win.

Coach Tiffini [00:03:54]:

Yeah. So basically we want you to share your wins with us so that we can share them on the pod in our community. So those small things that are happening throughout your week that you notice that you know is moving the needle on healing, we want to hear about it and we want to celebrate with you.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:09]:

And it’s such an essential part of recovery. Right. Joy. Talk a little bit about if we’re not doing joy. You are joy.

Coach Tiffini [00:04:16]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:17]:

If we’re not doing the behavior of joy, if we’re not doing the behavior of optimism and gratitude that there’s a whole leg missing in our three legged stool of healing, Talk about what you notice that way.

Producer Joy [00:04:28]:

Absolutely. So like, it’s so fun. Joy and silliness is so fundamental in our existence. It helps you vibrate, it helps you raise your vibration, it helps you seek good. Right. When you have joy, you’re seeking good. I know for our, our women in our community. That’s something that I really kind of push because you can, you can be in the moment of your sadness and your struggle and forget so easily that how important it is or how it feels to be joy.

Producer Joy [00:05:03]:

Because when you’re in a depression state and you’re in a this heavy grief, deep stuff. Yeah, Healing. Right? Healing heavy state. It helps you kind of remember what the fight is about, what the fight is for.

Dawn Wiggins [00:05:17]:

Yes.

Producer Joy [00:05:17]:

Right. And so when you jam out to a little silly song or when you make a silly face, it, it Reignites the passion and the joy that you inherently have, that you have lost or has been taken from you through throughout the course of your life or whatever. Right. So it’s just so fundamental to be able to take joy in the little things or the silly things or the stupid things. Right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:05:47]:

Amen. Yeah. And we know from all the research and the data that we heal faster when we’re laughing. We heal more deeply and completely when we’re laughing, when we’re playing, when we’re having fun. Right. When we’re so serious all the time, it takes us longer to learn a lesson. Like whether it’s literally math or self esteem. Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:06:10]:

Like kids who have fun at school learn better. We learn better and faster, and we recover faster when we are playing. So yeah. One of my favorite abundance tracks to listen to right now. If you’re on Instagram, go to Abelhart. And he also has music on Spotify and Apple music and all the things.

Coach Tiffini [00:06:27]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:06:27]:

And I just played it for the three of us before we hopped on this to record this episode because it’s so joyful and it’s got the, the frequency music with all of these manifestational things and it’s just so silly and so happy and it’s an instant vibe shift. So this month’s magic drop is to help rehab your nervous system. But in order to enter to win, you have to submit us your joyful, happy, winning moments so that we can share those in the community. Because if we are not sharing our wins, we are not healing completely joyous.

Producer Joy [00:06:57]:

So can we. I would love to just give examples of some wins because like that, what, what, what is a win? When you’re in the deep darkness and heaviness, like, what’s a win? Right? So, you know, a woman in our community was able to go to the city where she previously lived and didn’t drive by the house. You know, it was huge because she was breaking that repetition and compulsion. She was breaking that habit of trauma bonding. You know, being that little nosy, being that little, like, what is he doing? What is like, is there a car.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:30]:

On therapy more about sitting your past than your future.

Producer Joy [00:07:32]:

Choosing. Yes, she chose her. In that moment, something as small as seeing someone in the grocery store and not needing to engage that just, you can just go home. It’s just that you can choose. You. You can choose no drama, you can choose no conflict, no. No victim mentality. You just can go get in your car and go home.

Producer Joy [00:07:55]:

And it’s so beautiful, those little wins or, you know, not choosing a glass of wine when all you want to do is just kind of.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:02]:

No, ma’.

Producer Joy [00:08:02]:

Am. One of the easy thing to do is just to kind of dissociate and doom scroll with a glass of wine. When you choose, when you make those microchoices for yourself, that is a win. That is what we want to hear about. We want to hear how you are choosing you.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:16]:

Exactly. Exactly. How about the challenge you had the women do this week where you wanted them to lip sync, right? Lip sync. Little video. And for so many of the women, it was really, really hard to record themselves lip syncing, but they did it anyway. Right. It’s like this choosing self, choosing. Choosing to go, choosing yourself.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:34]:

Yeah. Like any of these types of wins, we want to hear them all. If something happened in court, if something happened with your kiddos, if you’re proud of yourself for something, if you cleaned out a closet, if you fix your toilet, if you like any freaking thing, right? If you went to the gym when it was hard, if you did yoga when you felt like not, if you washed the dishes and you didn’t have the energy, like, we want to hear about it. Anything. Anything like that.

Producer Joy [00:08:59]:

Yeah. These are gonna fill my soul so much. I cannot wait, literally.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:04]:

And we just can’t underscore enough that if this isn’t a regular practice, and if it is a regular practice, why wouldn’t you want to share it with us? If it isn’t a regular practice, it has to become it. And so this is us just building it into your. The way you do life, right? Like, if you’re listening to us, you know, we want to send them. Send it over to us. We’re going to be so excited. We’re going to celebrate with you. So, like, that’s it. All right, back to the topic at hand, which is the repetition compulsion or trauma bond of going back over and over again.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:35]:

The urge that seems like. Like physiological, like, it’s literally drawing you forward. Like the, I don’t know, like something from Star wars, like, is like. Like a tractor beam pulling you towards it, right towards a trauma bond. So let’s talk about the reason that trauma bond feels like a soul tie. And one of the things that I just want to mention at the top of the episode is one of the books that I have had on my bookshelf my entire career. And so much of the work that we do in our communities and in my own personal healing journey and in our practices is based on the work that I’m going to share in this book. But the book is Called the Betrayal Bond.

Dawn Wiggins [00:10:19]:

It’s written by Patrick Carnes. It will be linked in the show notes. It’s breaking free of exploitive relationships. And this book gets into the weeds, the black and white, step by step, of how to identify what happened in your life that you continue to revisit the persons or people who hurt you, who did harm, who continue to treat you some type of way. And so it is like trigger warning about this book. It talks about a lot of hard things, but it is going to outline everything for you step by step by step, so that you will literally be able to very clearly say, this is specifically what I experienced that led to this pattern happening inside of me. So first things first, let’s talk about the reason trauma bonds feel like soul ties, right? So there’s this idea that at some point early in life, we reached for safety as a. Either an infant or a very young child and did not experience safety.

Dawn Wiggins [00:11:25]:

Does that make sense how I say that, ladies?

Coach Tiffini [00:11:28]:

Absolutely.

Dawn Wiggins [00:11:29]:

We had a need for someone to provide us with some sense of security, Whether it was a diaper change or we were hungry or we got frightened or we felt alone or any number of these things, right? We felt a pain or we felt alone, or we felt disturbed in some way and we called out for security and security didn’t come. And for some of us, that’s it. The security didn’t come. For some of us, not only did the security not come, but we got injured also, right? Like got yelled at or got physically injured in the process. So when there becomes this pattern, and this can happen in families that are good families that really mean well and are just doing their best, and they’re just overwhelmed and overburdened. And maybe there’s issues of there’s not enough resources, right? Whether it’s time, money, energy, food, right? But. But there’s a lot of love, but there’s just not enough resource. Or it can happen in families where they’re rampant with addiction or abuse or trauma, and those patterns just are still alive, right? So even in quote, unquote, normal families, you can still have this thing unfold, right? But where you reached for security and it didn’t come, and then that became a habit or a pattern that I got used to reaching for security in a place where it does not arrive.

Dawn Wiggins [00:12:48]:

And that became a brain map. How does that land with you ladies? What comes up for you?

Coach Tiffini [00:12:54]:

And I think everybody can relate to at one time or another, not feeling like they were seen or understood or whatever by their parents or people that were Caring for them. Like, we all have all of those memories in us that we felt alone or we felt neglected or, you know, issues of abandonment or things like that, where it just felt at the time, like when we asked for something we did not receive. And so we learned internally, you know, somewhere along the way that, that those needs were not going to be met. And so that kind of shaped us into other behaviors, other things to sort of help. And that’s where parts are formed, right? So in ifs, a part is formed when an adult acts in a way that is not acceptable. Right. Irresponsible behavior, like whatever it is, and then the adult does not take responsibility for it and then you internalize it, take responsibility and form a part, whether, hey, I got yelled at that one time, so now I’m going to be a perfectionist or I’m going to be a people pleaser and fly under the radar, right? Like, there’s all these parts that we take on when we feel like the people in our lives who are responsible for caring for us are not doing.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:03]:

That well, not able to, for whatever reason.

Coach Tiffini [00:14:05]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:07]:

And so we, you know, to your point, we can all relate to like having some memory where we got where we felt like, you know, we threw out that high five and, and no, no hand came, you know, left me hanging. Well, what. I know it’s like the most awkward feeling in the world, right? Where you go to high five someone and they don’t.

Producer Joy [00:14:25]:

And it’s.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:27]:

Yeah, we all felt that in our bodies. But what about when you’re like 0 to 3 and you don’t remember it and maybe it’s just because you were the second kid or the third kid, right? And it’s like, it wasn’t necessary, necessarily pathological. It’s just there wasn’t enough of your mom to go around or whatever, you know what I mean? And so what if you can’t remember that happening? But like, there’s this tendency to reach for things that don’t feel good. It’s fascinating, right? And it’s like, on the one hand, it’s very, very cool because our brains are problem solvers, right? Like, our brains want to solve problems all the time. And I love that about my brain. But also sometimes when we don’t train our brains, they want to solve problems in the way they’re used to solving the problem, which is not necessarily healthy. It may be adaptive, right? It may be said like, oh, you know, I’m not getting my needs met. I’m just going to keep doing the same thing over and over again, trying to get my needs met over and over and over again.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:26]:

And when I do, it will feel so good. And that’s all the brain is doing all the time. Right. Is trying to solve a problem. In this instance, it’s reaching for the sense of security, the sense of belonging, the sense of fulfillment. But it keeps doing it in the same context where the harm or the absence or the unmet need keeps happening over and over and over again. And so this is where we have to step in and train the brain. Because I often say, like, an untrained brain is sort of like a drunken three year old running around the room with a pair of scissors.

Here’s the transcript with the requested tag replacements:

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:58]:

It can do more harm than good. Yeah. But if we train the brain right, we can teach it to do. To solve problems in new, new, healthier ways, which is what we do using all our tools over here. Right. Ifs and somatics and homeopathy. Yeah. So tell us a story, friends.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:20]:

Tell us a story about a time where you reached for the old thing and all of a sudden we’re like, oh, wait, I can do it different. Like, what stands out to you about a time that you were able to catch yourself reaching for the thing that was painful? Doing the repetition compulsion, Doing the trauma bond thing. And then you realized, oh, this is my brain trying to solve this problem in the old way and I need to give it a new way to do it.

Coach Tiffini [00:16:46]:

I think that when you’re post divorce, the thing that was the hardest for me to acclimate to. And it sounds really stupid. It sounds really stupid because he was gone primarily all the time.

Producer Joy [00:16:58]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:16:59]:

Anyways.

Coach Tiffini [00:16:59]:

Yeah. Because he was deployed. Okay. So I should have been used to doing all of the things. And I was. But also I was used to having him in some capacity. He was providing financial security. He was providing.

Coach Tiffini [00:17:12]:

You know, I didn’t work. I got to stay at home and do everything I needed to do. And so post divorce, everything felt really fucking hard. Like, every time something would break around my condo, every time I had to make a decision on something, every time, it was like every single day I was faced with all of these micro decisions.

Producer Joy [00:17:34]:

Yes.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:35]:

Yes.

Coach Tiffini [00:17:35]:

And I’m like, I can’t. And even though he wasn’t helping me make the decisions necessarily, because at the end of the day when he would call, all the decisions were made and all the fixes had been done. It was just, he was a sounding board of like, reassurance or validation or whatever it was. I still, post divorce was like, this is Very overwhelming. It’s very overwhelming. And I think for me, the thing that kept me. I didn’t. I don’t feel like I was stuck in the loop too often, right.

Coach Tiffini [00:18:03]:

I would have these moments where things would get overwhelming and I’m like, maybe it would just be easier, you know, maybe I should just suck it up. Like, maybe I should just go back. You know, he’s willing to take me back, like all of this other crap that we tell ourselves. But I think that for me, I didn’t understand at all in a relationship what a calm nervous system felt like. And so chaos was very normal for me. So when things were calm, I didn’t know how to deal with that either. That was very scary for me because it was almost like waiting for the shitstorm to arrive. And so it’s like, well, maybe I’ll go back, right? Like, all these things, financial security, I’ll have all of that if I just go back and I can just deal with the fact that this is how it is, that our life is always going to be chaos, our marriage is always going to be chaos.

Coach Tiffini [00:18:47]:

And I’m never going to find anyone that’s going to make me feel peaceful. I’m never going to get that within myself either. And so that kind of keep me stuck there. Like, you know, was it really that bad? And looking back now, yeah, it was.

Dawn Wiggins [00:19:00]:

It was really bad.

Producer Joy [00:19:01]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:19:01]:

But that moment you picked up the phone to. To commit to doing EMDR therapy, right? Was like, oh, no, I’m going to change this pattern. Moment was like, no, I’m going to do this differently. I’m going to call in peace to my nervous system. Or, you know, there were lots of moments along the way where you reached for a new habit or pattern that ushered in a new solution that wasn’t more of.

Coach Tiffini [00:19:26]:

Well, and that’s what I kept saying, and that’s what I say all the time, is that every dating relationship I had post divorce, it was a different guy in the same situation. I reacted the same. I still had the same attachment style. I had a ton of anxiety. I never trusted anybody. Like, it was just this cycle that I was stuck in. And the things that I just kept reaching for because I could not find them within myself. Relationships were not peaceful for me.

Coach Tiffini [00:19:51]:

They were a place of chaos and anxiety and being in survival mode, needing to be chosen, needing the breadcrumbs, waiting for the text, getting anxious if he didn’t text right back. I mean, I could go on and on. Like I was your typical anxious attacher when I was actively dating and interested in somebody. So I bounced between that and being avoidant, you know?

Dawn Wiggins [00:20:11]:

Yeah.

Producer Joy [00:20:13]:

I think for me, I relate to what Tiffany said so much. I grew up in a very high drama home. I grew up with my mother. She loved me to the best of her ability, but she was in constant fight or flight. She had too many. There’s so many reasons why. And their reasons are not excuses, they’re reasons. But I went to what was familiar.

Producer Joy [00:20:42]:

Right. I was never really chosen in my childhood. And so I latched on to a man who didn’t really, like, he wasn’t great, he wasn’t a good boyfriend. He wasn’t good. Like, he wasn’t great, but he was familiar. Right. That, that distance, the avoidant attachment was familiar. And that’s what made me feel comfortable.

Producer Joy [00:21:03]:

The comfortable and the familiar pain. Right. And so as we, when we separated and my world completely crashed and I had to really kind of like, learn. I had to learn my nervous system because I didn’t know what a nervous system was. I had to learn my attachment style. I had to learn all these things. And when you see it and you kind of scope out of like, oh, this is what I did to contribute to the fall of my marriage. This is the things that I would do.

Producer Joy [00:21:35]:

It’s like that movie 1010 Ways to Lose a Guy with Kate Hudson, you know, like all those little things that I would, I would do. I didn’t give him a love fern, but there was definitely attachment things that I did. But it’s the kind of recognizing those micro things that you do and healing those and then all of the ripples that come from doing, you know, stepping outside of setting boundaries for yourself, for your family, for your friends, having yourself be held accountable, like, hold yourself accountable for your actions and your. And your decisions and having to retrain your body to not be what I would, what I would consider addicted to the drama. Right. Like, I would. I would text him, creating drama like I am sick or like, I, I think I have a lump or whatever. It was like, Hattie has one of my children has needs to go to the hospital or whatever.

Producer Joy [00:22:49]:

Like, I would create, and they were real to me. It wasn’t like I was, I wasn’t.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:54]:

No, you were feeling very real panic. Yes.

Producer Joy [00:22:57]:

Right, right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:58]:

It was a nervous system pattern where I would. Yeah.

Producer Joy [00:23:01]:

Need him to be present even though I hated him being present.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:08]:

That.

Producer Joy [00:23:09]:

Breaking that, that.

Coach Tiffini [00:23:10]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:11]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:23:12]:

So while you’re sitting here talking about addictions.

Producer Joy [00:23:15]:

Yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:23:16]:

So, yeah. Like, while you’re sitting Here talking, I’m sitting here thinking to myself, like in childhood and growing up, I had a lot of themes of like control equals love. And so it’s kind of one of those things where I remember one of the first times that me and my ex husband were gonna start dating or he came back to visit or something like that. And I was, I had been dating somebody else at the time. And I remember I had like a bruise on my arm and I don’t know, I hit something like it was stupid, right? But he looked at me and he was like, look, if this guy’s touching you, I’m gonna kill him type of a thing, right? So it was like that protective, like I’ll do anything for you type of a thing that really drew me. Yeah, it felt like love and it was, you know, and then the control started and that felt safe. So for me then I didn’t know how to feel safe in a relationship with somebody who wasn’t control.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:05]:

Domineering.

Coach Tiffini [00:24:06]:

Yeah, like that, it was, that was the retraining for me. And so I felt like if they weren’t checking on me, if they weren’t saying, where are you, you know, or who are you with? Or things like that they didn’t love you, right? That they were out doing something that they shouldn’t be because we weren’t paying enough attention.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:24]:

Now let’s go a layer deeper and challenge us to go even more vulnerable. So when it’s time to actually choose a healthy nervous system pattern, right? To choose to see our own needs, to get our own needs met, to let the love come from lots of appropriate places, right? Because it often isn’t going to come from the places we’ve been pursuing it. It’s going to come from new and different places that we don’t even see coming, right? We don’t even realize all of the infinite places that all of our needs can be met from. All we know is we look out at our current reality and we’re like, ain’t nobody there, but like it’s out there, right? You’re just not attuned to it. And so let’s talk about, as it’s time to call in the new, how hard that is. So for instance, when we’re enrolling a different d word, our 12 month program, how many women have trouble choosing the thing that’s actually going to usher in the full recovery, the rehabilitation of the nervous system? But let’s talk about what that’s looked like on our very own team, the three of us. So like for Instance, Joy, right? Like, I moved. I maximumly chose you, right? Moved my entire family to live in the same town.

Dawn Wiggins [00:25:35]:

But how many years did it take us to like, rebuild this new thing where that. Where you could trust that me choosing you felt good? Because even though I chose you maximally, it didn’t feel like that to you, but I did. Sure.

Producer Joy [00:25:50]:

For sure. Right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:25:51]:

Isn’t that weird? Like the thing that we think we want, right? Talk a little bit about that. Like we’re in our own lives or in the lives of women who want this thing so desperately, but then struggle to receive it. Because the good thing actually feels like the threat and the threatening thing feels good. The good thing feels like a threat, and the threatening thing feels good. That’s what we’re talking about interrupting here, right? And it is freaking hard.

Producer Joy [00:26:17]:

Yeah, absolutely. Like, Brene Brown, what’s this? What’s the scariest emotion? And this joy, right? Being able to trust. Being able to trust.

Dawn Wiggins [00:26:26]:

Feeling good.

Producer Joy [00:26:27]:

Good things. Because as a society, as a woman, as a child, as a parent, as a wife, as a. As a friend, as a. As an ex wife. Like the pain in the familiar, right? It’s the. That is what you know and the devil you know. And so, yes, it was incredibly hard. And I, I mean, I would say it took years after you move, you moved your family to be with me.

Producer Joy [00:26:56]:

It took me years to actually trust that. And it was a lot of work and it was a lot of. Like, there were times where we did not like each other, right? Like, it was hard to kind of. We’re gonna. We’re gonna do this hard work and we’re going to choose. Joy. I think a lot of times it’s a choice. You have a fork in the road every day, all day, forks of.

Producer Joy [00:27:23]:

You can choose to believe the worst about somebody, or you can choose the best. But it’s retraining your brain, it’s retraining your actions, your nervous system to be able to identify, okay, I could believe what my body and my. The stories I’m telling myself are saying, or I can believe that that’s not actually true, that my emotions are. Or brain is lying to me. Because let’s be honest, our brains lie to us all day, every day. So, like having the choice to assume good intent in someone and choose to believe that they are without factual data, right? Like, I’m not saying. I’m not saying. Believe that this man who is abusing you really means well if, If.

Producer Joy [00:28:17]:

If there’s a truth like, that’s right. Your actions True. Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:28:22]:

That’s the trick. How do you tell the difference between. How do you retrain your nervous system to trust someone, someone who has your best intentions, and clarify for your nervous system that the threatening thing is a threat? I think that’s the trick that we endeavor to teach women. And it’s tricky because I think at the end of the day, you and I would probably. I think all three of us would agree that any of the static that has existed in our relationship as the three of us have gone deeper and deeper and gotten more and more intimate and the trust between the three of us has gotten richer and richer and richer, that all that other shit before this moment was noise. Right? Nervous system, right? Static.

Producer Joy [00:28:58]:

Yeah. Right. Was it actually true? Did you actually say something that was hurtful or did. Am I blocking your love. Love from me? Right. And I think a lot. There was a woman that I’m working with, a woman, and she is struggling to find the noise. So I’m just having her, you know, just like, write down in your day, what is the truth about yourself, about the person that you’re with, or about your friend, or about, like, what’s actually true? Because I think it.

Producer Joy [00:29:30]:

If you can kind of sort through with a sieve and with words and writing it out and symptomatics, you can kind of get some pillars that you can hang on to in the hard moments.

Dawn Wiggins [00:29:43]:

So let’s run with that. Right? Because we want our listeners to have this sentence that they can hang on to when they’re in the spiral, when they’re feeling that urge, that deep, deep, deep, deep urge. Right? And so when they’re in this. Maybe I should text him back, Spiral. Riff on that. But is it true? Can it be proven? Right? Like, riff on that. What would you have women really ask themselves or tell themselves in that moment to interrupt the spiral?

Coach Tiffini [00:30:08]:

Are you going to get a new outcome?

Producer Joy [00:30:11]:

That’s a good one.

Coach Tiffini [00:30:12]:

You know? And what if he does text back? Because every time mine would text me back and. And I’d get pulled into this shitstorm for two days of texting back and forth. Then all of a sudden he would say something and I’m like, ah, there it is.

Producer Joy [00:30:28]:

There is.

Coach Tiffini [00:30:29]:

There’s who he is, you know, that’s who I left. So understanding that, like, people aren’t changing overnight, there’s a reason why you’re separated, there’s a reason why you’re divorced. There’s a reason why somebody stepped out or somebody had an affair or somebody did this. Like, there was clearly a breakdown. In the marriage, that led to a lack of communication, which led to a lack of intimacy. Right. We could go down the whole path. But my point is, like, so go ahead, you know, test yourself too.

Coach Tiffini [00:30:58]:

You want to text him back, go for it. And I guarantee you within 24 to 48 hours, he’s going to say something on that text thread that’s going to make you go, oh, that’s why. That’s.

Producer Joy [00:31:07]:

Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:08]:

Are you going to get a new outcome? You know what’s interesting about what you just said, Tiffer Doodle, is when I was married and hadn’t done all this work yet, I wanted overnight change. That’s what I wanted. And that to me was a sign that I was okay. But that’s not real change. That’s fake change, right? That’s like first order change. That’s faking it change to quiet the nervous system alarm in my body. That is from layers of trauma.

Producer Joy [00:31:30]:

Right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:31]:

So anyone who does change quickly or overnight or in a blink, like, it’s not authentic real change. So, yeah.

Coach Tiffini [00:31:40]:

Wow.

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:40]:

So are you gonna get a different outcome? Okay, so all of this is why, like, cutting the cord or going no contact doesn’t really do the trick. Right? It’s a good place to start. We could do cord visual, like cord cutting visualizations in our Thursday premium episode. Actually, we’re gonna do a nervous system guided visualization so that we can soften the cord and feel a deeper anchor within self. But that’s a process. Process, right. That clearly we’ve all identified takes time. Like deep, energetic work and time and clearing the noise from the nervous system.

Dawn Wiggins [00:32:13]:

And that happens layer by layer. So in the meanwhile, let’s talk a little bit about how to help women spot. Is it trauma calling or is it truth calling? Is it trauma calling or is it truth calling? Trauma or truth? Trauma or truth? Trauma or truth? And I love Joy that you talked about earlier, like, writing down what’s true, what’s true, what’s true, and looking at a person’s body of work, right? If this is a relationship that I want to invest more time in, and I say this all the time, whether it’s talking to my daughter about building friendships or talking to women about dating, what does this person’s body of work say? Okay, they. They. We’ve all gotten baggage, right? We’ve all got baggage. We’ve all been through things, but what have we done to move the needle or to transform or to transmute or to become a clearer, cleaner, more grounded version of ourselves? And so if you’re Engaging with someone, what is the body of work that they’ve done that has been in the direction of truth versus just like.

Coach Tiffini [00:33:15]:

I.

Dawn Wiggins [00:33:15]:

Don’T know, like lip service.

Coach Tiffini [00:33:17]:

I was going to say that. Let’s make sure we’re talking about action body of work and not talking body of work, because anybody can talk a good game. But to me, I felt like the difference when I was trying to choose partners or evaluate people or even friends in my life, I always looked at their actions over their words. That was always a thing like, that’s great that you’re telling me that you’ve done 20 years of therapy and you feel like a new person, but what in your life says that about you? So making sure that everything is aligned that way, you know? And then also when you meet somebody finally, you know, and you want to start dating them, are they as committed to their own emotional wellness and growth as you are? Because healing is a lifetime process. We don’t just do therapy for a year, and then everything is magically okay. So consistently look for things in their life that they’re continuing to do to work on themselves, whether that’s new hobbies, meditation, yoga, you know, going to a therapist. You know, what things in their life.

Dawn Wiggins [00:34:16]:

And, you know, you know, what character trait or what characteristic that speaks to that sort of being a student of life. What that speaks to is the capacity for vulnerability and humility, right? If we are able to practice the behavior of vulnerability or humility, we are able to keep coming to the table of, I am a student of life, of this relationship, of this moment. I’m a student of this moment, right? And in. In ifs, that is one of the eight Cs is curiosity, right? Or courage or compassion, right? There are a lot of Cs that get at this. Can you be humble and a student of this moment kind of concept. And I find that a lot of people really struggle with what vulner vulnerability means. And I had this just come up with a patient earlier this week because they’re like, I don’t know. I’ve told.

Dawn Wiggins [00:35:05]:

I’ve told them everything, right? There’s someone who just started dating, and they’re like, I don’t know what you mean, Dawn. I’ve been vulnerable. I’ve told them everything. And I said, but how did it feel to tell them? And what have you not told them? That still feels like a secret or something that you’re hiding or something that you’ve guarded? Because it’s not how much you share. I’ve shared boatloads of things on the Internet. Me, Dawn.

Producer Joy [00:35:26]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:35:26]:

But I’ve shared them very often after I’ve climbed that mountain.

Producer Joy [00:35:31]:

Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:35:31]:

And I feel a sense of competency or confidence around it. And I’m not usually sharing it while I’m in the deep insecurity and vulnerability around it. Right. I, I once it, Once it hits the podcast, every now and then you’ll hear me announce it like, oh, this feels awkward, or hard to share. How hard something feels to share. That’s a hallmark of vulnerability. And that’s what you want to see, see in your relationships with people. Are they meeting you in the land of being a student of the moment or vulnerable in the moment? Are they willing to reveal places about themselves that leaves them unguarded? That’s how, you know.

Dawn Wiggins [00:36:07]:

And I think too often as women, we fall for, like, the man sharing some element of their story. But that’s not vulnerability.

Coach Tiffini [00:36:17]:

No. Because everybody. I call them victim stories or trauma stories. You know, it’s like you can sit here and recite, this is what happened to me when I was a child, and this is what happened. Happened to me in my marriage and yada, yada. And you think that someone is sharing raw, but they’re not. They’ve told this to 50 people before you. And really the thing that they need to tell you is something that.

Coach Tiffini [00:36:36]:

And sometimes I find that the most vulnerable things we can share with people don’t seem like big things. They don’t seem like it at all. No, but it’s like that moment where you sort of catch and you’re like, should I say this? Because this feels scary. You know, that’s the thing. You can rehearse a freaking production for anybody.

Producer Joy [00:36:55]:

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s so trendy right now. Right. Like being vulnerable and being crying on camera. Self awareness and self. Yeah, it’s. I feel like it’s having a movement.

Producer Joy [00:37:04]:

But is it really, like, at the end of the day, are they authentic in their, in the, in the quiet moments?

Dawn Wiggins [00:37:13]:

Well, I just had a thought. Like, are people who film themselves crying on the Internet, is that a version of a trauma bond? Because I’m crying right into the void.

Producer Joy [00:37:26]:

Like, looking for the Internet points. Looking for the attachment of the Internet points.

Dawn Wiggins [00:37:31]:

Anyways, because to do it in intimate spaces. Right. Is next level.

Coach Tiffini [00:37:35]:

Yeah, that’s the thing. Are they looking at you in the face? Like, can you tell somebody something while looking at them in the face? That’s really hard.

Dawn Wiggins [00:37:46]:

Yeah. Beautiful. Okay, so we want you to really take a look at your own urge to reach for the familiar pain, right? That’s the loop we’re looking at interrupting. And if you haven’t really done a full like autopsy on your own childhood to understand where this urge comes from, highly recommend the book the Betrayal Bond. The link is in the show notes. Check that out. And when you have an urge to text him or anyone else, you catch yourself going to the first familiar pain around, right? Ask yourself, am I going to get a different outcome? And if not, we want you to get grounded into a healthier nervous system truth based process. And so join us on Thursday for the Thursday episode where we’re going to take you through a guided visualization that is going to help retrain the nervous system.

Dawn Wiggins [00:38:34]:

It’s something you have to keep coming back to and back to and back to. And gentle reminder, our Thursday premium episodes. There are so many you probably don’t even know exist. We have subliminal guided meditations. We have 528 Hz meditations. We have so many eft tapping sequences. We have some manifestation episodes. We have some deep juicy episodes where the three of us talk about shit we would never talk about that’s not behind a paywall.

Dawn Wiggins [00:38:59]:

Like if you haven’t checked out premium going all the way back. There are so many premium episodes that help you do healing, not just learn about healing. It’s not enough to just have self esteem where we read a book and we understand a cognitive concept. We have to. We learn by doing. We don’t learn just by learning. The the real unlocking happens in the taking of the action, right? So join us on Thursday where we’re going to help you get grounded into breaking the cycle of going back to the thing that hurts you. We love you so much.

Dawn Wiggins [00:39:28]:

Peace. Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by My Coach Dawn