214. Overcoming Inaction 🧊 Break Through the Frozen State & Trust Yourself After Divorce

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Do you ever feel so overwhelmed post-divorce that you don't know where to begin? Us tooooo...and we're here to help.

Life after divorce has probably left you feeling stuck and unsure of how to move forward, paralyzed by indecisiveness or fear of making another mistake. In this pod, we delve into everyone's internal battle—how to start when you feel frozen by your circumstances.

In this episode, you will hear how emotional paralysis is tied to your nervous system, why community can be a game-changer in your healing journey, and how to overcome the fear of taking those first steps.

Tune into the episode now and take your first step toward freedom from that frozen state—your new beginning awaits.

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A podcast exploring the journey of life after divorce, delving into topics like divorce grief, loneliness, anxiety, manifesting, the impact of different attachment styles and codependency, setting healthy boundaries, energy healing with homeopathy, managing the nervous system during divorce depression, understanding the stages of divorce grief, and using the Law of Attraction and EMDR therapy in the process of building your confidence, forgiveness and letting go.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you sometimes feel overwhelmed listening to the
podcast because you don't knowwhere to start or how to start,
this one's for you.
Hi, love, welcome to DearDivorce Diary, the podcast
helping divorcees go beyond talktherapy to process your grief,

(00:24):
find the healing you crave andbuild back your confidence.
I'm your host, dawn Wiggins, atherapist, coach, integrative
healer and divorcee.
Join me for a fresh approach tohealing grief and building your
confidence after divorce.
In today's episode we are goingto touch base on how to know

(00:57):
where to start and how to breakthrough, why it feels so hard to
start, what all that has to dowith being able to trust
yourself and the thing thatyou're probably resisting most.
But first a story.
We were getting ready to recordthis episode today and in
popped one of the most amazingmembers of my team who helps us
administratively.

(01:17):
She puts together little swagboxes we send out, and she helps
me build homeopathic remediesand she oh gosh, there's just so
many things that she does tokeep us organized and keep the
wheels moving over here at DearDivorce Diary and beyond.
And she happens to be twicedivorced and now remarried and

(01:42):
she's been a longtime listenerto the podcast.
But she lives here locally andwe were talking about how she
has been struggling to apply thethings that she learns from the
podcast, from the books thatshe reads, from the
conversations that we have, andshe talked about how difficult

(02:06):
it is for her to trust herselfbecause she feels like she's
made so many wrong turns in herlife and very often she'll ask
for direction or guidance andthen, once she gets it, she's
like oh, I knew that, I knewthat that was the right answer,
but she has a hard time trustingherself and taking the action.

(02:28):
When we were talking todayabout what's contributed to all
of that and how she's been ableto start taking more action, she
said that homeopathy has been agame changer in terms of her
being able to take action.
And well, why does that matter?
It matters because, from anervous system perspective, when

(02:53):
you feel like you're strugglingto start taking action, or
you're feeling frozen ininaction, like you're not sure
if you can trust yourself, oryou don't know what the next
step is to take, or in so muchpain that it just hurts to move,
either physically oremotionally, very, very often
that spot is like a lose-losespot.

(03:13):
Right the answer from someonelike a coach or a therapist,
even if they're verytrauma-oriented and nervous
system-oriented, is they'regoing to say love, you need to
get your nervous system unfrozen.
You are in a nervous systemcollapse state, right?
You are frozen in your fightflight freeze response, right,

(03:34):
you are in a frozen nervoussystem response.
And so very often therecommendation there is going to
be things like nurture yournervous system, eat good foods,
gently move your body, removethe things from your environment
that are causing you to feelmore sense of threat.

(03:55):
Do some nervous systemexercises like humming and
gentle massage and do somesomatic exercises where you can
feel into the tight spaces andloosen things up.
Right, there's going to be alot of recommendation around
somatic processing and bringingwater to the fire, but I think

(04:15):
that when you're a single womanand you're juggling all of the
new things in a very earlypost-divorce phase, that even
the directions around bringingwater to your nervous system
fire feel very overwhelming.
Actions around bringing waterto your nervous system fire feel
very overwhelming, and so itfeels like a catch-22 place that

(04:38):
you can hear folks like mecoach you around the nervous
system thing, but you feel sosort of stuck that you literally
need someone to sit in front ofyou and say this is what your
next step is.
And that's what this beautifulteam member said today.
She's like I guess I need atherapist and I was like, well
why?
Because she wants someone totell her the very next thing to
do.
And so, when you're strugglingto start taking action, the

(05:04):
first thing I want you to getpresent to is that your nervous
system is probably in a somewhatfrozen state, and that is the
thing that's blocking you fromfeeling like you have capacity
to start.
And I think it's a very realexperience that when you've
experienced traumas in life anddivorce is a trauma and you have

(05:25):
some health concerns you knowshe talked about the
inflammation in her body sheexperiences fibromyalgia, like
literally just taking actioncauses her to feel pain, and
pain feels like a threat to ournervous system in and of itself.
So it's like the very initialactions to take are ones that
the nervous system is going tobe like.
I don't know if this is theright move, and I think that

(05:48):
that's where you know thefeedback loop can feel very
exhausting for us when we're inlike a post-trauma loop.
Right, it's like in order tostart creating movement or
oiling those wheels of change,you're going to feel more pain
first, and the nervous systemexperiences pain as a threat.
And that's why we have to dosomatic exercises in order to

(06:11):
help coach the nervous systemthat actually, this movement
isn't a threat, this pain isn'ta threat, it's a perceived
threat, right?
So I hear this catch-22.
So get present to the fact thatyour nervous system feels
frozen and it's perceiving a lotof threats, including outside
of you and inside of you, andthat's the first thing to break

(06:33):
through.
Now, interestingly, as she and Iand producer Joy were chitty
chatting and I said okay, helpme quantify, if you can, how
much of a difference homeopathyhas made like 8%, 22% and she
was like I don't know how toanswer that because I don't know
how much percentage there is,like I don't know how to answer
that because I don't know howmuch percentage there is Like I
don't know how far this goes.

(06:54):
You know this healing journeyand I think that's a really,
really relatable point thatpeople often say to me how much
more of this do I have to do?
How far is there?
When does it end?
When does this healing shit end?
And I think that it's beautifulthat she's experienced movement

(07:14):
from homeopathy.
But even those beautiful stepsand to start to get relief and
feel like, oh, there's somespace to move, it feels a little
better in my body, it feels alittle better in my mind, I can
actually take some action.
But also it opens this wholeother loop about, well, crap,
how much more path is there togo?

(07:44):
My awareness is about that is Idon't mind being on the path
when I'm doing it with some coolpeople who I like, and we're
doing it together and I don'tfeel so alone in the doing of it
.
Right, and I think that's truefor her as my team member.
Right, it's been a lot easier.
She could show up to work andI'm like, oh, what do you need
today?
And we dose a remedy and giveher some feedback and she helps
me and I help her, and you know.
And then she goes and carrieson.
And it's the same thing withproducer joy and coach Tiffany
and I and the women in ourcurrent coaching program.
Right, it's like, ah, we'redoing it together and it's just

(08:06):
just because I'm the the leadhere doesn't mean that I'm not
doing it with you.
You know, I was away thisweekend while coach Tiffany and
producer joy covered everythingback at home and I still had
crap I had to work through whileI was away.
You know why?
Because I was away and I hadtime and space for the crap to
actually surface, for me toprocess through right.

(08:26):
And so, as we were having thisconversation and I was like
thinking, well, obviously for somany of us, the missing piece
is community, is people to do itwith, so that it doesn't feel
like, well crap, how muchfurther I have to go because
it's just a lifestyle I just doit with, so that it doesn't feel
like, well, crap, how muchfurther I have to go because
it's just a lifestyle.
I just do it with these peoplethat I love and I feel close to

(08:47):
and I feel inspired and theyencourage me when I feel like
quitting, and you know they backme up and I back them up and
it's just this deliciouscommunity and lifestyle that
we've created to do it together.
And so I said to this teammember of mine I said you know,
what would stop you from joininga program like this, where you
have someone to tell you whatyou need to do next and then you

(09:09):
have someone to support youthrough while you do it?
And she said, oh, fear of beingin a group and I'm like that's
it, right, it is it's fear ofbeing in a group Because she
says it would feel uncomfortable.
She would automatically assumethat people are judging her, and
so I think love that very, veryoften, when we don't know where
to start, it's because the verything that is going to heal us

(09:32):
is going to first feel painful.
Right, joining a group is goingto feel painful at first, and
going to the gym when you'rephysically in pain is going to
feel painful at first.
And going to the gym whenyou're physically in pain is
going to feel painful at first.
And turning your attentioninward is going to feel painful
at first.
You know she talked about that.
It was so easy for her to justhandle life when she had kids

(09:53):
dependent on her, and that's sotrue, right, because it's so
much easier for us to do it forthem than it is for us to do for
ourselves.
And that's because, again, ourfocus gets to be outside of
ourselves rather than inside ofourselves, so we don't have to
be in touch with all this painwe carry around all the time and
love, we carry a lot of dangpain around with us all the time
, right, and so you're not crazy.

(10:15):
If it feels hard to trustyourself, that's for a reason.
And no, you can't wait until itfeels easy to trust yourself,
to take action, because we don'tlearn just from listening to
the podcast or reading a book.
We learn from doing it.
Experience is the greatestteacher, and so how to start is

(10:36):
A attend to your nervous system.
And B you have to do the thingyou're avoiding, whether it's
joining a group or moving yourbody or turning within.
Those are the things that youhave to do.
You can't heal in isolation.
You have to join some sort ofgroup, and you can't do it

(10:58):
without moving or moving throughthe pain the physical,
emotional pain and it is goingto be a stinking process.
And so find people to do itwith that are freaking fun,
because otherwise it'sunbearable, and I think that's
so much of what this process andthis program and this podcast

(11:20):
provide.
Right is.
I don't want you to beoverwhelmed all the time.
I want you to feel like youhave someone you can ask what do
I need to do next?
And someone answers, and thenyou have some fun with the
people beside you doing it.
If we are not already friendson Instagram, let's do that,
because what do best friends do?
They send each other memes, andI want to send you memes, and
vice versa, and I want to be asource of support for you when

(11:46):
you feel frozen or stuck and youdon't know what to do next or
how to start.
All right, take a deep breath,do a little bit of unfreezing in
this now moment.
You are safe.
Love and you are loved.
Love.
And if you haven't followed meon instagram or put me on your

(12:07):
favorites list, do that asap,right, so that when we're live
or something new is comingaround, you get that
notification.
I love you so much.
Peace, dear.
Divorce Diary is a podcast bymy coach, dawn.
You can find more atmycoachdawncom.