Welcome to my podcast. Happily, even After. I’m life coach, jen, I’m passionate about helping people recover from betrayal. I rode the intense emotional roller coaster and felt stuck and traumatized for years. It’s the reason I became a trauma-informed certified life coach who helps people like you navigate their post-betrayal world. I have the tools, processes and knowledge to help you not only heal from the betrayal but create a healthy future. Today, we begin to help you live happily even after. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast.
Today I’m kind of going to do a little book review, and it’s the book I’m reviewing and talking about is the Commodity of Connection how Authentic Relationships Saved my Life when my Daughter Lost Hers, and it is written by my friend, molly Bice Jackson, and actually I’ve had Molly and her husband on my podcast, I think in like February of 2022. And bizarrely, if you go back and listen to that podcast, it was when I was doing my podcast with my husband at the time. So a blast from the past and hopefully I’m going to have Molly on again. She wrote a beautiful book and I just want to start this off by. In no way do I think the death of a child and betrayal are the same. However, there is a lot of feelings and emotions that are similar. So I’m not saying losing a child is a completely different experience than having your spouse cheat on you, have an affair, betray you okay. But just reading her book, there were so many things she said that was like, oh my gosh, that’s how I felt, that’s how I feel, that’s how I know people that have experienced betrayal feel I think you should go get the book. It’s on Amazon, right, totally buy the book. I’ll put a link of how to get the book. It’s a quick really.
She’s very funny, lighthearted, like her pain. She has been able to create beauty from her pain, and so I just love that, because that’s my goal, right. Like something so awful as finding out your spouse has been lying to you for any length of time and gaslighting you and manipulating you and creating this craziness inside of you is very unsettling. And then to find out he has been with another woman or your wife has been with another man is just devastating. But I find sometimes we have to just laugh and find humor in this pain, right, and so I just want to preface that, to say so. I’m just going to share some quotes, some stories that she shares, and relate them to betrayal. And also the other fun fact about this book is that there’s a whole chapter dedicated to my brother, and my brother passed away 11 years ago and of course I’m getting emotional and so there’s never been a book where my brother has been in a book. I think this is the first time that I know about, and so I just think it’s beautiful that she dedicated a whole chapter to him and the love that they had for each other. They were really great friends for a very long time, which is how I know Molly is from my brother, justin. That’s another reason that we’re talking about the book or that I’m talking about the book. That’s another reason that we’re talking about the book or that I’m talking about the book.
There is a quote that she uses often in this book and it is by an LDS apostle, neal A Maxwell, and he passed away a long time ago and he gave this quote September 1st of 1974. September 1st of 1974. So I was three years old when he said this, but I just think that it’s such a beautiful quote and he says the cavity carved by pain can one day become our receptacle for joy, and I just want you to think about that and the pain that you feel. For her it was the death of her daughter and for you and I, or whatever pain you have felt, that pain, hopefully, will one day hold joy. And the thing that I do believe is, as we get really good at feeling betrayal and disappointment and devastation, all those really hard anger, all those really negative emotions that we feel when we find out our spouse has been having an affair or lying to us or doing the million other things that could be happening, other things that could be happening that our capacity to feel joy just gets stronger. Right, we cannot feel good emotions if we aren’t willing to feel negative emotions, and so it is so important to feel our feelings, and sometimes that feels scary and that feels hard, but I promise that this is true, that you can feel joy again through the pain.
I think this quote another thing it just helps us to find a purpose, to live with our purpose. Let so many things go that we’re holding on to that we think are helping us, but in reality they’re hurting us and showing up in love, dropping the judgment of ourselves and others, also learning to whoever you know, loving for me, it’s been loving my kids where they’re at, not wanting them to be who I imagined in my brain when they were born, accepting them for who they are and learning to love me with all my flaws and all my strengths right, all of me. I think that has been something beautiful that I’ve learned, and just this quote has reminded me of. And so, in one of her chapters, she talks about this yellow line. And you know, they took her daughter to. She donated her organs, which is such a beautiful thing, and I’m not, I’m not going to. I want you to go read the book. So go read the book and you’ll find out about her daughter, lucy. But she says this is Molly.
Life, I’ve learned, is full of these lines. We don’t want to cross moments that demand we let go of we love most and move forward into the unknown, even when we feel wholly unprepared. And for her, you know her daughter had passed away and it was sending her daughter to donate her organs. But for me, this was divorce, right. For me, the line was getting divorced and I couldn’t imagine doing that until I did it. And so what is your line? What are you waiting for? What are you scared? What are you holding back on? What is that fear? What is that preventing you from doing? And the beautiful thing for Molly you know tragedy, right, that her daughter passed away, but she was able to give life and so many organs to other people to let them live. That was the beauty of it, right For me, the beauty of divorce.
I can’t even the things that I’ve learned about myself and my kids. And it wasn’t as terrible as I thought, like I thought I was giving up my family, my eternal family. I just had so many. I thought how could I be alone? How could I do this? How could I? What would this mean for me? But for me, divorce has been so beautiful. So can you see the beauty in the really hard choice that you might have to make? Okay, and even if you choose to stay after betrayal, that is still a hard choice. There’s still a lot of work involved and still a lot that you’re going to have to deal with and process and experience. And really you’re going to have to experience all those things when you get divorced too, right? Because if you don’t, you’re just going to fall into the same pattern, attract the same man or woman, right, and go in the same spiral as what happened before. Another quote.
Another thing that she said was the world didn’t break it. Shattered Like glass dropped from an impossible height, every piece of me fragmented, scattering into dark unknown. The weight of grief was unbearable and a suffocating gravity that pulled us under deeper and deeper with each breath, each heartbeat, each silent scream. There was no putting us back together. We were broken beyond repair, beyond hope. And when I read that, I’m like that’s how I felt when I discovered my spouse was having another affair or an affair, right, and I kept on shattering into a million pieces and I feel like for me, it took me to get divorced to start putting myself back together. Right, I thought I was putting myself back together and I was kind of, but it was definitely with, like, band-aids and duct tape, but for me, getting divorced allowed me to actually put myself back together, and so I just loved her words, how she said that. It just really resonated with me. Okay, there’s a few more that I’m going to share with you
So she speaks a lot, right, and she’s a public speaker and in one of her chapters, in one of her speeches, she talks about scars, and I just want to share some of her words because I want you to think about your scars. What are scars in your life? Okay, she says. Molly says scars are the body’s way of reminding us that we have survived, that we have endured. They are both a testament to the pain we have experienced and a symbol of our resilience. In many ways, my deepest scars are invisible, etched not into my skin but into my soul. Yet these scars have become the most beautiful part of me, a source of strength and a reminder that even in the darkest moments there is a way forward. But nothing compares to the scars I live with now, the scars that only those of us who have lost a loved one or have been betrayed and I added, and been betrayed understand. Sometimes we are the only ones who can ever see them or recognize them in others, and I definitely know that’s true.
Right, when we meet someone that has experienced the same experience as we have, it’s an instant connection, at least for me it is. That’s why I, like, have so much joy in helping people. When I know that someone sets up a free phone call with me, they get on the line. I know they’re paying before they even say it to me. I know that. Okay, the reason they’re on the phone. Or the reason they’re on the Zoom call isn’t to tell me about their day, it’s to tell me wow, I just found out my husband’s having an affair, or my husband’s been lying to me for 30 years, or I caught them doing this or that, and I don’t know what to do and I feel scared and I feel lost. And so it’s this instant connection, because we share similar scars.
She goes on to say before I tell you too much about how I got my deepest scars, I want to share a quote with you from a book I recently finished called Little Bee. Little Bee is a Nigerian girl who witnessed and survived horrific tragedy in her country, as well as enduring two years inside a British immigration detention center. She implores the reader, I ask you right here, to please agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay, this will be our secret, and I haven’t read that book, but I think I’m going to. But I loved that because it’s true.
Sometimes we think why did this happen to us? Why was this the thing we had to go through, but it is, and denying it is not going to help us. But if we can lean into it and say, okay, what are we learning from this betrayal? What are we learning from this betrayal? What are we learning from this experience? What are we gaining? What are we? You know, don’t hide from it because shame wants us to hide. But instead, it doesn’t mean you have to share it with the world. It doesn’t mean you have to have a podcast or become a coach, right, but just speaking, the unspeakable, speaking about your scar to someone, to a close friend, to a coach, to a therapist, is so healing, right. We can have that healing connection, right, and that’s what her whole book is about is connection.
The last chapter I’m going to share is chapter 17, which is about my brother and I’m just going to share. She talks about it’s called Momentary Magic, and this is a text and it’s not even that emotional, but a text that my brother sent. The day that Lucy was in the hospital Woke, thinking about Lucy came across this quote, so thought I would share. Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity, and that was a quote by Henry Van Dyke. It is better for you to ponder these words than for me to give my explanation. But know that I love you, your friend Justin, and the thing I want you to know about Justin is and she shares his story right that he was a master connector, like he people in the grocery store. He worked at Smith’s grocery store. He hated the job but like years after he died I would go into that grocery store. Like years after he died I would go into that grocery store and people were like I loved your brother. He made me feel good and anyways, we need each other, we need to feel connected and we can be connected through our pain as well as our joy. But I think the special gift for those of us that have experienced excruciating pain and I’m going to say betrayal is excruciating pain is that we can connect with other people and have compassion for other people in a way that someone that hasn’t experienced such excruciating pain just like Molly, with her daughter passing away For years, I carried Molly’s daughter’s obituary in my wallet in my wallet, and I did that because I had little girls at the time and I think I had three kids when she passed away.
But I always wanted to remember that life is short and that I needed to show up for my kids out of love and compassion, because I just never knew when their last day could be right. I haven’t had that experience of my children. My children are all here and I’m so grateful, but those were hard days for me sometimes because I was experiencing betrayal. I was experiencing really painful things. Yeah, I really tried to show up for my kids during those times and that picture in the obituary really helped me. And another side note so my brother sang at Lucy’s funeral and then I can’t remember how many years later Molly sang at my brother’s funeral and it was a really beautiful full circle moment, even though I wish my brother was still here. I know his life was well lived and he was the epitome of connection.
They say we need two things when we’re born, that we need attachment, which I’m going to use also connection, right, we need to be cared for and loved and held. A few weeks ago I talked about the attachment theories, right, and so go back and listen to that podcast if you’re not familiar with those, but it’s very important. And the other one is authenticity very important, and the other one is authenticity being connected to your feelings, listening to them and feeling them. When the two collide and you have to choose one right, whether you choose attachment, attachment slash, connection or authenticity, humans will always choose attachment or connection every time over authenticity, and this shows you how much humans need connection to each other. And I actually learned this when I was talking about the trauma conference I went to in San Diego. I learned this and I looked at my own life and I always chose my husband, the connection to my spouse, over my authenticity. And when I got divorced, I realized how out of alignment I was to my values, to my own feelings and to my needs and all that, and it was just so fascinating, to my needs and all that and it was just so fascinating. So I think, exploring your, you know, what connections are you choosing over your real authentic self, what you really want to be choosing? Why are we choosing them? Are we choosing them for the wrong reasons? Are we scared? Are we choosing them from love or fear? I think it’s very fascinating. It was a very fear. I think it’s very fascinating. It was a very, for me, an epiphany. I had that wow. Like no wonder I chose that. Because that’s what we do as humans we need connection.
Okay, healing looks like becoming aware of what you are thinking and feeling, like so many times people are like well, how do I even heal from this right, this rupture, this scar, this pain? How do I heal? You have to become aware, because so many of us are living unconscious, especially when we are stuck right and so devastated and in so much pain, acknowledging what has happened to us without judgment, looking inward instead of outward. So often we’re like well, what does our spouse want to do here? They’ve told us they’re having an affair, but they say they want to work it out. And then we’re like okay, that sounds good. Right, let’s work it out. We don’t even consider what we want, because probably we haven’t considered what we want and need for a very long time.
Getting your needs met in a healthy way before meeting the needs of others that’s how you heal. Women especially, but I’m going to say men live our life trying to meet other people’s needs a lot Now, some don’t, some. There are selfish people in the world right, that just focus on themselves and focusing on yourself. There’s a difference between that and selfishness. Right, there has to be a balance, but figuring out what you need and getting those needs met and I know a lot of people that have been betrayed. Their spouse has said, well, I needed this or that from you and you weren’t giving me that and that’s why I had an affair. Well, that’s a lie, right, because there were many ways to meet that need and not have an affair.
Okay, they chose, like the worst way Processing learning to process your negative emotions so you can begin to feel the positive ones. Right, I said that before. But that’s what healing looks like learning to feel your emotions. And I know that feels scary for a lot of people, because a lot of people we avoid and we resist. We pretend, right, that we don’t feel that way, or it’s wrong to feel that way, or you know we shouldn’t feel angry, we should just forgive. No, we have to feel angry sometimes. It’s okay, taking ownership for what you can control and letting go of what you can’t.
Strengthening your zone of resilience, like learning and understanding your nervous system, so that your zone can get wider and stronger, so you’re not triggered all the time, you’re not going from fight or flight or freeze during the day. Right, you’re able to manage yourself and not allow other people to make you feel or act a certain way. When you are triggered, use that as a growth opportunity. I always tell people like, listen and watch your triggers. When you get triggered, that’s like, oh, I need to work on that. There’s something that I haven’t figured out yet. Like that’s a sign. It’s just your body yourself telling you like, oh, you need to heal that a little bit more. Set healthy boundaries, create safety within you, forgiving yourself and others, living authentically and living your values.
If you want to know how to heal, it’s a lot. That’s a big long list of things. Right, just do one at a time. I find it helpful having a coach, someone that is neutral, that’s helping me work through this, or a therapist right, but someone that isn’t your mom or your sister or your friend right, because they’re not going to be able to probably tell you honestly or they’re not going to see these things. But that is really to heal from betrayal. It’s not a DIY project, right, it’s really hard to just do it yourself. It’s going to take some work, but it’s totally possible.
Another way to connect with other people is sharing your story. If you want to and I’m not telling you you need to share it on your podcast, but speaking your truth just to one or two people. Vulnerability equals connection and many people I know in their marriage they’re like I just don’t feel connected. Well, it’s because you’re not willing to be vulnerable. You have to be willing to be vulnerable and that can be in many different ways. One of them, because we’re talking about it, is to share your story and we want to also reframe our story right. When we first find out our spouse is having an affair, we put a lot of drama in it and a lot of like I don’t know, it’s so shocking to our system, right, but I think inevitably your story changes all the time and there’s new chapters that get put into your book.
The last thing I just want to talk about with connection, and why she calls her book the Commodity of Connection, is finding a way to connect with other people. It’s so important to find your tribe, find your people right. I used to think when I was married like I don’t have any friends, I don’t really connect with people. I don’t think I connect with girls well, because I had brothers and I just I confused myself, right and it was not true. I just think it was maybe my insecurities or things like that. But finding your tribe and it’s such a beautiful thing to find your tribe, finding your people For me it was saying yes to things, even when I was uncomfortable. Hey, do you want to join this mastermind? Okay, I don’t know what a mastermind is, but yes, and I showed up at the meetings and you know what those women have been my lifeline through, so much hard, and if you’ve heard my podcast, I like to call them my diamond dolls. It’s a reference with Ted Lasso, which is coming back for season four, which I’m really happy about, but anyways.
So, finding your people, finding groups of women I’m involved in several groups of women betrayal groups, women getting together and we’re not sitting there talking or bashing about our husbands or our former husbands. We just instantly have a connection. So we get each other and we can share and it’s a deeper connection than hey, what’s the weather or what’s your favorite restaurant. It’s just a deeper connection. So I just would encourage you to find your people, find groups. There’s things on the internet, lots of resources out there, and if you need help, reach out. I can totally help you.
So, in closing, go buy Molly’s book, the Commodity of Connection. I think I’m going to reach out to her and see if she’ll come on. She’s super funny and just a lovely person and I’m grateful to be her friend. I’m grateful that my brother was her friend and I’m grateful for the lessons that I’ve learned through Molly, through her child dying, but also have helped me with my feelings of betrayal and the scars that I feel like are imprinted on my heart, and hopefully you felt that as well. Anyways, have a beautiful day. I will talk to you next week. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachjenwith1ncom. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Happily Even After. Coach, let’s work together to create your happily even after.
