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 recently had a client send me a song about kind of how she was feeling and it was by an artist, kyle Hume, h-u-m-e, and it’s called Hello, my Name Is. And I just loved the song so much and it just really got my brain thinking and her comment was hello, my name is. Betray is betrayal trauma and I’m going to tell you what that means in a second. But I kind of want you to consider, like, what are you holding on to in your marriage, in your life, that you think is keeping you safe? What she was holding on to is this betrayal trauma, right? And if you’ve experienced betrayal in any form, it causes a lot of trauma to our bodies because the thing is the person that we trusted and loved and married and had babies with, has been lying to us and deceiving us and calling us crazy and maybe having sex with someone else or at least talking about really intimate things with other people or looking at pornography or whatever the betrayal is, and I’m just mostly talking. I know there’s financial betrayal, there’s lots of betrayal, but I only work with people that have experienced mostly affairs emotional or physical affairs and so what are you holding on to about that? Because the thing is, our brains think that letting go of certain things or certain thoughts feels dangerous. If we stop feeling betrayed, if you’re still married, our spouse might betray us again. Like, we need to be on high alert at all times, and this is exhausting and it isn’t even helpful and it’s not going to work. So I thought of some things that like so her, she was holding on to betrayal, the trauma of it, right, and of course, we never forget things like we’re not going to forget that our spouse had an affair, but it doesn’t have to be so heavy, it doesn’t have to be constant high alert, right, we can relax and let go of these things.
What about are you holding on to the story, right? Either, when the story of my life is perfect and amazing and the happily ever after story, or are you holding on to the story of my life is so hard. You know, why did they do this? Why did my spouse lie to me? Why did I choose them? Why did I have kids with them? Whatever right, the positive story or the negative story or a mix of both, what is the story you’re holding onto and can you loosen your grip on that and maybe choose a different way to think about that? Your story, right? Is there a better way, a more helpful way? Are you holding on?
I know a lot of people hold on to the other woman or the other man, right? Are we so fixated on who they are and compare ourselves? And, of course, all those things are normal, especially when we first discover the affair. But when are you ready to let go of them? Because, because, many times they’re, I’m going to say, victims too, right, they don’t even know that your spouse is married. Because they’ve lied to them and to you. And to what end? Right, like, the more you focus on the other person, the less you can focus on yourself and your own healing. And I want you to focus on you and your healing, not concern yourself with the other person, right? And especially if you’re divorced, they’re none of your business, and I know that’s hard. And sometimes they are your business because your spouse ends up marrying them and then they’re parenting your children and that is very painful and hard. So give yourself lots of grace and love, but let’s loosen our grip on them, right? Our emotional grip is what I’m talking about, not our physical grip.
Your body what about your body? Are you holding on to? Like your negative view of your body? I used to feel like I had this just constant running voice in my head telling me you’re fat, you’re ugly, you’re disgusting, your husband doesn’t love you, he’s never going to love you if you’re not thinner like just a lot of really negative, awful self-talk. And so I had to like let go of that because it was driving me crazy and it was miserable and it wasn’t even true, because I had to learn to then love my body, right.
And so what things about your former spouse, your ex, are you holding onto still? Are you holding onto that? Oh, now, it’s not fair. They’re with someone else and they’re going to be the best version of themselves with this new person. Right? They’re all of a sudden going to have an awakening and change. Okay, I’m guessing that’s not going to happen, right? That very rarely does happen. Because if they weren’t willing to change in your marriage, what makes you think that they’re willing to change in this new marriage? They just think that their circumstance was causing the problems. They thought the problem was you, not them. So they’re like oh, this new person. They make me feel so happy and amazing and wonderful. But the reality is that’s just like fantasy, and the fantasy wears off and eventually reality happens and then the real version of them comes out, right, and who knows? Of course the person’s going to react different. They’re going to have different history, different experience, and so it might be different. But it’s not like they got the better version of your former spouse. It’s not like they got the person you thought you were married to, right. So can you let go of that? Can you loosen your grip on that idea?
I love in the song he talks about evicting these thoughts out of your mind, right, like if you know what an eviction notice is like. They’re literally kicking you out of wherever you live because you didn’t pay rent. You know you owe money, and so can you consider what thoughts are holding you back and keeping you stuck in misery and rumination and on high alert all the time? Are you willing to get them out of your head? You have to be intentional to do that, like you can’t just be like, oh yeah, I am and then do nothing. Like this is going to take work and intention.
Okay, many times, like I said before, that we think if we keep our story going in our head, that that is keeping us safe and emotionally safe, but reality, it’s really keeping us stuck. So we need to have awareness right In order to let them go. We have to, first of all, be aware we’re thinking these things, being aware kind of like we’re kind of done thinking them. And then we need to bring I call it the CEO part of our brain right, our higher brain online, because the thing is, our lower brain, the thing that’s just keeping us alive, is telling us no, this is important to think about. It’s important to think about the person your spouse is having an affair. If we focus on them, we’re going to be safe. Or if we focus on their phone right, making sure they’re not texting anyone, that’s going to keep us safe, but reality, that just keeps us stuck and that keeps us spinning in misery, and it doesn’t prevent an affair from happening again. Sadly, right, we wish it would and if it worked, I would tell you to do it. But it doesn’t, because they’re going to find a workaround. They’re going to find another app. They’re going to find another way. If someone wants to have an affair, they’re going to have an affair, and if they want to lie to you, they’re going to lie to you. But that’s why you need to go inward and figure out okay, how can I start trusting myself? How can I figure out what I need? How can I start letting go of some of these things? Okay, awareness, bringing your CEO brain online.
Pay attention to how you think and feel, especially around, if you’re trying to work on your marriage around your spouse. What are you thinking and feeling, because your thoughts matter, and how do you want to feel? Like? Are you feeling appropriately Like? There’s for sure you want to feel anger and disappointment, like. For me, I feel a lot of disappointment. Even still, I feel very disappointed in how my marriage ended. Right, it’s so disappointing how their dad did what he did. Like my kid’s dad and my husband like so disappointing and so, like, be intentional, like, okay, what am I thinking, what am I feeling? Do I want to think and feel that way? And sometimes you do, and then sometimes, no, I want to start trying to think something different. I think you have to.
I call it radical honesty. You have to be completely, take ownership for your part, as well as radical honesty about the situation, right, the truth is I’m not ready to let go thinking about the other woman or I’m not ready to change my story, right, and these are all the reasons why, or whatever. Just be really honest, like I. Why, or whatever? Just be really honest. I think the more honest you can be with yourself, the better, right, and that’s important, right, because we think, oh, we were never going to trust again, how will we ever trust someone again? Well, the first person you need to start trusting is yourself, and how to do that is to be honest with yourself. So, the more honest you can be, the easier it is going to be to let go of things, owning your truth. What is the truth of your situation? The truth of my situation is I’m divorced and that’s my reality, right, like the truth is. And there’s lots that I won’t go on the podcast, right, but like there’s a whole story there, but that’s the truth is. And there’s lots that I won’t go on the podcast, right, but like there’s there’s a whole story there, but that’s the truth. I am divorced. So now what? What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? What? What do I want to let go of? And there’s lots of truth right to my story and to each of your stories as well.
I think the quicker you can get out of living in fantasy land and live in reality, it’s so much better. And I was talking to my daughter because we were talking about, like, in her perfect world, her parents would still be married. Of course they would be right, they would be right, but that’s not her reality. So now she’s navigating her unperfect world. We all have a vision of what our perfect world looks like, and then, of course, the world’s not perfect. We’re not perfect, and so we have to now, okay, this is our reality. And so now what? And so I think the more you can just tell your brain like, okay, I’m safe, I’m okay, I can, you know, stop doing this death grip on the affair or the other woman, or my body or whatever else you’re holding onto betrayal trauma, right, if I can just loosen my grip on this and decide what I want to think instead and focus is this my fantasy world or is this my reality? And I really I’ve learned coaching my clients and experiencing this myself like, of course, our fantasy world, feels so much better and safer and it feels scary to live in reality, because the truth is, the reality is hard and confusing and frustrating and we have lots of negative emotions, and so of course, that’s harder and frustrating and we have lots of negative emotions, and so of course, that’s harder. But the more you can live in that, the more fuller life you’re going to have, the more real life you’re going to have, the better your life will be. I really believe that because I’ve done both and fantasy is just fake and not real. So hopefully this was helpful.
Go check out that song. It’s really good, and I just want you to consider what things are you ready to give up in your life and let go of? And if you need some help, I would love to help you. Reach out to me. Let’s schedule a free call and we can chat. Have a great day and I will talk to you next week and we can chat. Have a great day and 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 lifecoachjen with one n dot com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let’s work together to create your happily even after.
