Ep. 304 Day 10: Why You’re So Hard on Yourself After Divorce (Especially on New Year’s Eve)

New Year’s Eve has a way of turning self-criticism up to full volume after divorce.

The comparisons.
The sense that you should be further along.
The quiet question of what’s wrong with me that this still hurts?

If you find yourself being unusually hard on yourself today, this episode isn’t here to tell you to “think positive” or try harder.

It’s here to explain why this happens—and what your nervous system is actually doing when self-doubt takes over.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why divorce retrains your nervous system to scan for failure instead of progress
• Why pride and self-validation feel uncomfortable or even unsafe for so many women
• How New Year’s Eve amplifies comparison, loneliness, and internal pressure
• A simple practice to help your system start noticing what is working

This is not about forcing confidence or pretending you’re okay.

It’s about understanding why self-criticism shows up when safety feels fragile—and how to interrupt the spiral without shaming yourself for being in it.

🎄 This is Day 10 of the 12 Days of Divorce Christmas—short, steady episodes designed to support your nervous system during one of the hardest weeks of the year.

Join Dear Divorce Diary Premium to access the full 12 Days of Divorce Christmas.

Capacity builds in connection. Hugs ❤️

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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_00 (00:05):
Hi, love.
Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary,the podcast helping divorcees go
beyond talk therapy to processyour grief, find the healing you
crave, and build back yourconfidence.
I'm your host, Don Wiggins, atherapist, coach, integrative
healer, and divorcee.
Join me for a fresh approach tohealing grief and building your

(00:25):
confidence after divorce.
Hi, love.
Welcome to day 10 of the 12 daysof divorce Christmas.
We are very excited about thisone because this one is really,
really about stepping intobecoming her, right?

(00:49):
This woman that you dream ofembodying.
And so today we are going totalk about being proud of
yourself, letting yourself feelproud, even if no one else sees
it.
And we know you struggle withthis because we can read your
mind.
Just kidding.
Um, because we watch the womenin our coaching program really

(01:10):
struggle with this, and a coupleof them really, really, really
profoundly.
And so most women are soinsanely hard on themselves that
it can be really, really, reallydebilitating.
And so one of the choices, thevery intentional choices we have
to make is you can access thefull episode by becoming a
premium subscriber, which isjust five dollars a month.

(01:31):
Scroll down to the show notesand click the link where you'll
get your very own individualizedRSS feed for your podcast app.
You can find more atmycoachdawn.com.