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’ve been thinking about why I love puzzles so much. And so I’m going to share that with you. But I’m going to share with you three things that can really help you calm your nervous system down and get you in more of your zone of resilience or a regulated state. And one of them happens to be puzzles. And so I think I’ve unlocked why. When you have experienced betrayal trauma, it affects your brain, your thinking skills. And I saw this reel the other day that it was a therapist explaining like, think of your memories as a filing cabinet. And all your memories are placed into different files, you know, Christmases and holidays, activities with your kids, and they’re placed really nicely into this filing cabinet. And then you discover your spouse has been lying to you for years and sleeping with other men or women or having emotional affairs, physical affairs, looking at pornography, but they’ve been lying to you. So what happens is with such a good visual in betrayal trauma, it’s like the filing cabinet of all your memories gets dumped out onto the floor. And you have this mess that you’re trying to make sense of. You’re trying to put the pieces back together. You’re trying to figure out what just happened. Your entire filing cabinet, most of your filing cabinet got dumped out onto the floor. And it is very confusing and it causes a lot of pain. And I think that is such a good description of what trauma feels like and looks like. And I’m just going to tell you some benefits for your brain. It’s like a brain workout, right? It they tell us we have to physically work out our bodies, but we also have to mentally work out. And puzzles stimulate both the left brain, which is our logic analysis part of our brain, and the right brain, which is the creative part of our brain. And it forces them to work together. So, I mean, I think it reduces like opportunities for dementia and Alzheimer’s. So it’s such a great thing to be working on. And you have to do a, it’s not like I could do a 75-piece puzzle or a hundred-piece puzzle and get that same mental workout. I need to do thousand-piece puzzles. And I probably need to even increase that or 500-piece puzzles that are really like harder, right? So you need to get the right puzzle for your age, obviously, or your your capacity to do a puzzle. It improves your memory. Solving puzzles strengthens the connections in your brain. And so it’s really important, right? You have a shape of a puzzle. Um, you have a color, you have a figure on the puzzle piece, right? So people do puzzles different ways. They do it by shape, they do it by color, and you get to figure out your way to do it. But all this time it’s helping strengthen your brain, but also calming your nervous system. Some emotional benefits of puzzles, it reduces stress. So if you are in a high stress situation in your life, which many of us are, doing a puzzle reduces stress because it demands our full attention, right? We have to really focus on doing the puzzle. And it helps turn off the part of our brain that likes to ruminate on stressful thoughts. And if you’ve experienced betrayal, you know how much rumination can drive you absolutely crazy. And we ruminate on things that we’re trying to figure out and we’ll never be able to figure out or understand. And so this helps you focus, which I think is one reason I really love puzzles, because my brain doesn’t spin because I’m so focused on doing the puzzle. It can lower your blood pressure and lower your heart rate, which are all good things for us to be doing. Mood enhancement. Successfully completing a puzzle or even making progress on a puzzle releases dopamine. Like, if you like have a really hard puzzle and you find the piece you’ve been looking for, it’s exciting. It’s like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I found the piece. And so it gives some pleasure and satisfaction and provides motivation to continue when you find the pieces to your puzzle, especially when it’s a little more difficult. And that’s important. You’re doing a healthy way to get dopamine as opposed to an unhealthier way. Okay. Um, you become in a flow state. If you’ve ever heard someone talk about getting in your flow, puzzles can induce that in your body, right? You get so absorbed into the activity that it’s almost meditative and calming experience. And so, such a great tool, especially when you’ve experienced betrayal trauma or any other type of trauma. You can do puzzles with friends or family. It’s a way to connect. Like, I’m really excited that my son wants to do puzzles with his friend and they’re like, we’re gonna glue it and hang it on our wall, which is great. Like, right? That’s gonna be a memory then. They’re creating a memory together and creating new experiences because they have a lot of painful experiences that they’ve just experienced with their friend that I think it’s gonna be a way to connect them. And so I think it’s such a beautiful thing. So if you want to try it, it’s a very low-risk expense to do a puzzle, but try it and see if you like it. You know, try it a few times. I think it could be really helpful. Okay, the next one is a warm and snuggly blanket. So they’re blankets from Costco. I’m sure they sell them other places, but they’re like lap-sized, fuzzy blankets that are heating blankets. You do have to plug it in. But this blanket I bought, I I don’t know, the first year of my divorce. And I travel with this blanket. I almost sleep with this blanket every night, and it has been such a comforting blanket for me. And I’m in my 50s. I think wait, I have a blanket now, but there is science behind why this feels so amazing. And it’s my favorite gift to give someone that is going through a hard time or is going through a divorce or just needs some extra love, is to give them this blanket because it can really help you and make you feel better. If you’ve ever been to a hospital, for those of you who’ve had babies or just had any surgeries, oftentimes the hospital will bring a heated blanket and put it on you. And it immediately calms your nervous system down. You might be nervous or scared or worried. And when you get that blanket, it reduces your stress and it just calms your nervous system so you get into your rest and digest part of your nervous system, which is regulation, which is your zone of resilience. Okay. But this will also help slow your heart rate and lower your blood pressure. It reduces your cortisol, which is your stress hormone, which is linked to anxiety and sleep disruption. So if you’re struggling with sleep, try this. And it doesn’t have to be the one that plugs in from Costco. It could just be a warm, snuggly blanket. I mean, there are companies that are making millions and millions of dollars selling blankets. And this is why, right? It helps, you know, for me, I’m sleeping alone in my bed, besides sometimes with my dog, Dexter. But it just makes me feel safe and protected and gives me that security that a blanket does. If you think of when a baby is born, what do we do with that baby? We wrap them up in a blanket. We swaddle them and it helps them feel safe. So as adults, we often need something to help protect us, help us feel safe, especially when we’ve experienced really traumatic things like betrayal or divorce, or there’s a million other things that we could have experienced. And so consider maybe trying this, see if it helps calm your system. It’s like a hug, right? A warm embrace from this soft blanket. This is something that’s primal within us that it can soothe us and lessen our anxiety. So I just think it’s fascinating why I didn’t know this when I bought the blanket. I thought just sometimes my feet get cold and I don’t have anyone to put them under. So I was like, oh, I’m gonna try this. And it turned out to be like one of my favorite things that I have done. And now I give it as a gift. So if you don’t have a blanket, right, um, maybe try it if you’re feeling stressed and anxiety. They also have weighted blankets. My kids, some of my kids have a lot of anxiety, and so they put these weighted blankets. Those are just, in my opinion, a bit more cumbersome, but those can be helpful in calming your nervous system down. And we need to have moments in our day, especially when we have such heightened emotions and feelings, to calm ourselves down and feel safe and secure. The last one I want to talk about is journaling. Journaling can do so much good for you, especially when you’re experiencing something really difficult. It’s a way to emotionally process what you have been experiencing. It’s a safe way to just get everything out of, I call it a brain dump. Get everything out of your head and just put it on paper. And a lot of people worry about that because they’re like, what if someone reads it? Well, you just don’t leave it out in the open, put it in a drawer. Or after you get this all out, you can throw it away. You could rip it up, you could burn it, you could, it could become a symbolic thing, like you’ve written all this stuff out of your body, gotten it out of your body, out of your head, onto paper, and then burn it or whatever you want to do. But it just is a way we have these thoughts spinning in our head all the time. We’ve got to get them out and put them on paper. And then sometimes when we look at them, we’re like, wait, really? It kind of just helps bring awareness to ourselves to be like, oh, actually, like that was also, you know, something I did or I need to repair or whatever. It helps you identify how you’re feeling. I find it so fascinating. I work with clients all the time that I’m like, hey, tell me how you’re feeling. And they’ll tell me a thought or an action. They will not tell me a feeling. And so many of us don’t even know how we are feeling. Or they’ll use words like, I’m fine, I’m okay. And so getting to understand really what your emotions are, like getting very descriptive, is really good. It’s going to help you heal when you can identify how you feel. Writing down like what exactly happened or memories that are popping up can help you make sense of your story, can help you make sense of the past. I have a whole notes app about this. And so this doesn’t happen to me as much now, but in the very beginning of when I got divorced, every night I had thoughts pop into my head. And I would just put them in my notes app and then wake up and be like, oh, interesting. Like I think my brain finally felt safe to remember different things. I mean, these were memories that were coming from like 25 years ago that were popping into my head from my wedding day from deep in the past, right? And that I just I think blocked out of my memory because I don’t know why. I think I just couldn’t deal with them right then. And so now that I could, I wrote them down and just had different aha moments. And I don’t know what I’ll ever do with all those memories, but at least I got them out of my head. I could look at them, examine them, and decide like what I want to believe about them or whatever. So I think that’s another really good reason for journaling. Another reason to journal is self-reflection and insight. It helps you become more self-aware and figure out patterns and triggers and where you might be vulnerable. It’s like thinking about your thinking. That’s why for me, I love coaching so much and I love to coach other people because we have thoughts, like thousands and thousands of thoughts every day. We don’t always recognize what thoughts are causing us pain or what thoughts are holding us back, or what thoughts are hurting us and not helping us. And so sometimes journaling can help you identify your thought patterns, thoughts that you have all the time, and you can decide, like, oh, is that a helpful thought or a hurtful thought? But most of us need someone else to help us. And that’s why coaching is so powerful, is because as a coach, I can help you say, you know what, that thought really isn’t serving you, or let’s consider a different thought. And so it just keeps you more accountable. So lastly, some other helpful things about journaling are again, reduces stress. It challenges you when you’re in your self-blaming or shaming, right? We that happens a lot when we have experienced betrayal. It’s like, is it my fault or their fault? Or you go into for me, I was it was always my fault. I always believed it was my fault. And so it can really help you identify, wait, that’s not even true, right? And so I just it’s a very inexpensive way, but very helpful way. All the all the three things that I just gave you are very helpful ways to heal from betrayal. They’re just simple tools that if you try, try them, see if it helps, see if it reduces your stress. And you don’t have to experience betrayal, just any stressful life moments that we all experience. Uh try these and see if they help because we need to find ways every day to get into our zone, to regulate our nervous system, because otherwise it’s going to stay in fight, flight, or freeze. And that’s a miserable way to live. You might be so used to it, you don’t even know how miserable it is. But I guarantee when you start learning to regulate yourself, you’re gonna feel so much better. Life is gonna be better and happier and more joyful, and you’re gonna feel more peace in your life. And who doesn’t want to feel more peace? Anyways, so I hope these were helpful. I found it very fascinating because my kids are like, Mom, why do you I think I make fun of myself a lot about doing puzzles because literally every time my kids come in my room, I have a like a puzzle board. So I do a puzzle on my bed and watch a show at night. And I don’t know, but I’m like, you’re right. Like actually, I think I I totally understand why I do puzzles. I totally understand why it’s been so healing for me. So I hope this helps learning this. Anyways, if you liked this podcast, I’d love for you to leave a review and tell your family and friends about it. If you want to learn more about coaching, reach out to me and we can chat. Have a great day and I’ll 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 onen.com. Follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let’s work together to create your happily even after.
