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. I’m so glad you’re here.
I’ve been thinking about this subject a lot and I’m going to talk about eight ways how to have your back and standing up for yourself, especially after divorce. But this actually totally applies in a marriage as well. So, wherever you’re at in your life, I just have realized one of my issues is standing up for myself, and especially when it comes to my former spouse, that I for sure took a backseat to many things in my marriage and my life, and I’m not judging. I totally get why I did that. It was I didn’t feel safe. I was in a toxic marriage. For sure, I felt less than I was criticized a lot and I just was not in a healthy mind space. So I didn’t. Probably if you, you were to ask me like, oh yeah, I totally have my back, or I can totally stand up for myself, but now not being married, I avoid, I like to avoid things, but I’m like, no, I’m not avoiding this because I know the tools. I know I need to confront these issues, even if they’re uncomfortable. I think the feeling of discomfort is hard for me, but a lot of people, a lot of you, might also struggle with feeling uncomfortable or anyways. And so I’ve just been thinking about this and how can I best stand up for myself in a situation? And so I just wanted to talk about because it has a lot to do with your confidence, right, and for me, I feel like I’ve come a long way with my confidence. I’m a very confident person in most things, but I see myself recoiling a little bit when I’m in certain situations, especially with men, and so I’m like, no, this isn’t who I want to be. And so I’m like, no, this isn’t who I want to be, this isn’t who I am, especially if I ever choose to date or get remarried again, I don’t want to be that person that doesn’t stand up for myself. So if this is you, or you know someone like this.
Hopefully this can be helpful and learning this skill it’s going to really help you grow as an individual. It’s going to help you feel empowered. You’re probably going to, you know, discover a lot of things about yourself, like finding your voice, like that’s actually been something that’s been really like. Just doing this podcast has helped me find my voice, which I felt I didn’t have for many, many years, and it wasn’t like I was gagged and not allowed to speak. It’s just I would choose not to speak to keep the peace, or that. It was an unconscious choice I made many times. I just didn’t want to deal with disagreeing or having my hopes and dreams dashed down or whatever. It was right. So finding your voice, I think, is such a powerful thing, and especially in women, right. Like a lot of times, women, we just don’t feel like we have a voice, and I want you to know you do have a voice. Just have to practice using it, okay. So these are the eight ways.
One of the first steps is learning to empower yourself, and we can apply this to being divorced or not. You’re gonna have to. If you are divorced like for me, like getting over, okay, grieving the loss of my marriage, that’s. You know, I have to deal with all those emotions and figuring out where those emotions are right, like being able to process those emotions out of myself the anger, the betrayal, the sadness, the confusion. Doing that, having that skill, learning that skill, which is something I teach in my coaching program and it literally will change your life if you know how to feel and process your emotions and so. But that is going to help you know that you are capable of doing and feeling anything, because if you understand that an emotion will not kill you, even though you feel like you want to die, especially when you’ve been betrayed.
They’re very intense emotions, but when you realize that you can feel those emotions, they aren’t going to last forever. You have that ability. You’re just going to have a lot more clarity and understanding of what you’re capable of. It’s just going to give you a lot of empowerment and control, because you know how to control your feelings. You know how to feel your feelings. It’s a gift that you can give yourself, knowing when you start taking care of yourself and I know people are like self-care, blah blah, but it is so important, right, like it really is to take care of yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, finding activities that bring you joy, that you’re doing because you want to do them, not because someone else liked to do them. This is so crucial after divorce figuring out what you want to do them, not because someone else liked to do them. This is so crucial after divorce figuring out what you like to do. Did you do that thing? Did you do 10K runs because your husband thought it would be a good idea and he wanted you to do that, or did you really do it because you wanted to do it? So figure out what you really like to do, and you’re gonna have to experiment. You’re going to have to try different things, you’re going to have to challenge yourself, but when you can figure out what you need to feel good about yourself. It’s going to give you more confidence to have your back, to stand up for yourself, like, no, actually I hated doing 10k runs and I’m never going to do another one, and not make yourself wrong for doing it, it’s totally fine or whatever else it was that you felt obligated or you felt like you needed to do Setting boundaries I’ve talked about boundaries a lot.
Boundaries are your friend and so I know sometimes people are like, oh, that feels hard or I don’t want to do that, but this is a great way to have your back is to set boundaries, communicate your needs. Don’t let people have to guess what you need. People can’t read your mind. I can’t read your mind. I don’t want you to read my mind, because I want you to know what actually I do need. This is such a good tool to teach your kids too, and so this is a great way to stand up for yourself when you set a boundary.
It’s showing other people that you respect yourself, that you are sending a message that you are not going to allow someone to treat you the way they shouldn’t be treated. You know, this is a hard one for me because I thought this right, like I’m not letting someone disrespect me, but reality is my former spouse was disrespecting me because he was having an affair. Right, an affair does not equal respect, and so you know we can get into. Yes, you can forgive them and yes, you could. You know you can build a stronger marriage, but just know like what messages you’re actually sending people, and that’s teaching your kids. I’ve had to do a lot of repair work in this particular topic to let my kids know like, yeah, I was living a life that was I was not allowing myself to be respected and I never want you to do this to anyone. We’re going to have a conversation about it and I’m so sorry that this is the example, because it was a really poor example and I’m really sorry and I acknowledge that.
Another way for empowering yourself in relationships you need to have goals. Figure out your interests, reconnecting with your old hobbies If you didn’t like the new hobbies that your marriage brought to you. Try new activities, set personal goals, just rediscovering who you are as an individual, especially if you are divorced or if you’ve never been married, whatever your situation is. And you could even do this in your marriage, right, like I think many marriages don’t have a lot of autonomy in it. So maybe decide, like, especially for me I’m an empty nester If you’re in that stage of life, like, maybe start trying to do a few activities, not just with your spouse. It’s totally okay to do that and actually really healthy to do that. So finding things that you used to like to do and maybe you haven’t done in a long time is such a great way to reconnect and have your back.
Self-reflection, number five self-reflection is such a powerful tool and, you know, looking back on different things, looking if you ever get triggered, I just want you to know that whatever triggers you, that’s some work that you still need to do. And it’s not to blame someone else, it’s not their job to not trigger you, right? But it’s like, oh, that really hurt when they said that and so then that’s just good information, like, okay, I still have some work to do. And then decide like, maybe you have some different ways of thinking. I’ve changed a lot the past two years, like even in things I used to believe or think, and I’ve just questioned them. And it’s okay to ask questions, it’s actually really healthy. I think sometimes our society is like, no, you can’t ask a question, like you can’t question anything. No, we need to question and say, do I believe that? And come from a space of, yes, I believe that. Or you know, actually I don’t know if I I do. It’s okay to question, even if you’ve been taught or done something for many, many years. It’s going to help you build your own self-awareness, to figure out what you like, what fulfills you in a relationship. Okay, number six Build a strong support system.
And I’ve said this in many podcasts, but it’s so important to have resources that can help support you in whatever you want to do, whether it be with friends, family members, people from your community, people in your church. However, but build a support group. I belong to several betrayal support groups and I think a betrayal support group is like none other I’ve never been in any other support groups so but like the instant connection that we all have, because we have one thing that brought us together, which is betrayal, which is wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but we all have that common ground and we all instantly have a love for each other and regardless if our life looks nothing alike, or even if most of us, the betrayal looks totally different, right, but we have this instant connection and we just we’re not talking about the weather, we’re talking about actual, real important things, and for me, that’s been very helpful to know that I wasn’t alone, that I was not. Someone else can understand and feel my story, and that’s one reason I love talking, having this podcast, sharing with you. I don’t want you to feel alone. You’re not alone. Okay, your story might be different than my story, but we have that common ground, we have that common thing, and so finding ways to build your community and your support system is going to be so helpful in having your back, being able to stand up for yourself.
Number seven is forgiveness. Now, forgiveness some people. I’m not asking you or telling you to forgive anyone. The person I want you to focus on forgiving is yourself, because I promise you, like, if you can forgive yourself, your past, self, anything we’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all not had our back. I mean, the amount of things I’ve had to forgive myself for are a lot, because I just I did, was doing my best. I did my best Because I just I was doing my best. I did my best.
But now that I’m out of my marriage and I can look back, I’m like, oh, you know, of course we can’t change our past, but just I think giving yourself grace and forgiveness can be really powerful in your healing and it can give you more confidence so that you can stand up for yourself. You more confidence so that you can stand up for yourself. And it’s not to say, when people hear forgiveness, they think I forgive someone, that means what they did wasn’t, wasn’t wrong or I approved of it. No, that’s not what it is. It’s just a way to let go and not hold all that anger and negative emotion in your body and in your spirit anymore, that you can just let it go and move on and create your best life.
And the last one, number eight, embracing your independence and self-reliance, is so key. So I just find for me, anytime that I do something in like my house, in my life that normally I would probably pass off to my former spouse, that feels or even like doing things like anything with money or cars or I don’t know, just doing things that usually are out of my comfort zone. I’ve been dealing with sprinkler issues recently. Now I did call someone and you know, hire someone to come help me with my sprinkler because I did attempt to go look at the sprinklers and it looked like I was. It’s funny because I do speak Chinese. I can’t speak Chinese, but I was like, okay, this is like Russian, right. Usually people are like, oh, it looks like Chinese. Well, actually I know Chinese, chinese, but I sprinklers felt like a foreign language to me.
I’m like, no, I can figure it out, I can find someone, right. I had a call several people and find someone to help me with my sprinklers. But it helped me know like I, I can do this. My air conditioner. My boys are like, mom, it’s really hot in our house and so I’m like, okay, we can figure this out, I can figure out how to work the thermostat, and we can figure, we can figure this out, which helps build your confidence. Right, because I’m relying on myself that I can do this. I am capable of creating whatever I want. I am independent, I can do this. So I just think it’s so important.
So, in your life, if you struggle with this, like I did, I think I just felt. So. I think in some areas I felt really confident, but in many other areas I didn’t. And so these eight ways can really help you build this confidence, so that you know you’re always going to stand up for yourself. You’re not going to back down. When someone starts pushing on your you know, and makes you uncomfortable, you already know like, okay, no, this is what I want, this is what I stand for, this is who I am and I’m not going to, I’m not going to let you bulldoze me or, you know, tell me something different, because you already know, you know if you’re buying something, what you’re willing to pay for it or what you think is fair.
Anyways, it could. You could use this in a million ways, but I just want you to know that you can totally have your back. You can totally learn this. It’s not something that someone is born with, right, and so if you feel weak in this area, I would love to help you. I can totally support you and help you see your blind spots, because we all have them. Support you and help you see your blind spots because we all have them. It’s hard for us sometimes to see where we are struggling the most. That’s why hiring a coach is so helpful and can really bless your life. Anyways, thanks so much for listening today. I hope this podcast was helpful. Please like and share with your friends and family, and I will talk to you next week.
