Infidelity is a situation that rocks your world and changes the way you see your partner, your life, and yourself. In other words, it changed your perspective. While you might feel broken and afraid right now, the truth is your perspective will change again. One day, you will see things differently, one day, you will understand, and one day, you will be happy. In this episode, we dive deep into the power of changing perspectives and enlisting expert advice to help you do so to heal and thrive after infidelity.
Top Takeaways:
- 🔍 A Shift in Vision and Mindset
Lora’s personal story of how feeling unhappy and trapped by vision problems shifted when a friend recommended a visit to a specialist who could address her specific issues. Embracing the shift from shame to confidence, a powerful lesson for overcoming life's difficulties that took place when she discovered that her vision wasn't as bad as she thought.
- đź‘“ Tools and Options for a Clearer Vision
Why trying a variety of tools and options is the best way to solve your problems and release your pain. In the same way, Lora’s eye specialist offered various options like monovision and bifocal contacts for her to try, so too must you be willing to try different solutions to find what works for you.
- đź’” You're Not Alone: Healing from Betrayal
Betrayal can feel isolating, but remember, you are not alone! Connecting with others helps you feel connected and supported. Join a community, share your experience, or read about others who have faced infidelity, too. This sheds light on the complexities and commonalities of these journeys. Our Facebook community, Affair Recovery for Women: https://www.facebook.com/groups/affairrecoveryforwomen ) is a safe space for support and understanding.
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- 🌟 Expert Guidance for Trauma Recovery
Stop settling for less and get the help you need and deserve! Seeking help from trauma-aware specialists is essential. Just as finding the right eye doctor made a world of difference for me, finding a specialist experienced in betrayal and infidelity can profoundly impact your healing journey. These experts understand how trauma affects the brain, nervous system, and relationships, providing the precise care you need.
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Are you ready to Rise Up & Reign as the Divine Queen of your Life?
Get the support you need to find your footing, begin making sense of it all, and feel better fast. I can help you find the clarity and confidence to create a life you love on the other side of betrayal.
Work individually with Lora or complete her online Rise Up & Reign Affair Recovery Program in the privacy of your own home. Learn more at www.AffairRecoveryForWomen.com
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About Lora
Lora Cheadle is an attorney, TEDx speaker, and betrayal recovery coach who helps women turn their devastation into an invitation to rise up and reign. Whether reclaiming what they let go of along the way, rebuilding their identity, or stepping into a stronger sense of self-trust and self-worth, Lora’s expert guidance empowers women to uncover the truth™ of what they are capable of and deserve. After being shattered by her husband’s fifteen years of infidelity, Lora knows firsthand the skills and strategies necessary to stop feeling broken and start living fully and freely.
She is licensed to practice law in California and Colorado, is a trauma-aware coach, clinical hypnotherapist, somatic attachment therapist, advanced integrated energy practitioner, and is certified to teach yoga, mindfulness, group fitness, and personal train. She is the author of the International Book Awards Finalist and Tattered Cover Bestseller, FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, & Spiritual Self and host of the podcast FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity and Betrayal. She lives in Colorado and loves travel, adventure, and a good book.
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Tap into the world's largest network of licensed, accredited, and experienced therapists. Explore our tailored mental health solutions in the privacy and convenience of your home or office. Take charge of your mental health and get 10% off your first month of therapy at https://BetterHelp.com/FLAUNT
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READY TO START A BETTER CHAPTER? Step into the future you’ve always dreamed of with the power of transformative rituals with the Mindful Subscription Box. Get a monthly box full of crystals, aromatherapy, and other spiritual tools worth $120. Filled with high-quality gems, crystals, oils, and mindfulness tools for self-care that truly work. It’s a monthly dose of self-love delivered right to your door!
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Free Betrayal Recovery Toolkit:
Download now for a free chapter of FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy & Spiritual Self, a journal that will help you re-choreograph the next chapter of life on your terms, and a full-length hypnotic meditation that will help you overcome obsessive thoughts and feel better fast! www.BetrayalRecoveryGuide.com.
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✨ Community and Connection
Join our Facebook group for ongoing support and the chance to hear more inspiring stories. Sharing and connecting with others who understand your pain can be a transformative experience.
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🎧 Stay Tuned for Our Next Episode!
Don't forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share our podcast to help others on their journey. Your involvement helps destigmatize affair recovery and provides a lifeline to those in need.
Thank you for being part of our FLAUNT! community. Together, we can transform our perspectives and create lives we love, even after betrayal.
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#perspective #extertguidance #specialist #surviveinfidelity #healingjourney #thematrix #redpillbluepill #InfidelityRecovery #RelationshipHealing #SelfWorth #BetrayalRecovery #HealthyRelationships #PersonalGrowth #lifecoaching #Relationships #initiation #invitationtothrive #illusionshattered #UnderstandingInfidelity #BetrayalSupport #PodcastCommunity #CheatingRecovery #cheating #infidelity #affairrecovery #saveyourmarriage #savingyourmarriage #relationshipadvice
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(soft music) - You're listening to Flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. A podcast for women who've been betrayed by their intimate partner and want to turn their devastation into an invitation to reclaim themselves and their worth. Tune in weekly so you can start making sense of it all and learn how to be okay on the inside, no matter what goes on on the outside. Download your free Betrayal Recovery Toolkit at BetrayalRecoveryGuide.com. (soft music) This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you been struggling lately? Relationship issues impact every area of your life. When I found out about my husband's infidelity, I was so devastated. I could barely function. Sleeping was impossible because I couldn't shut off my brain. Eating was a challenge because I felt nauseous all the time and for the first month or so, everything felt pointless. Whether you're having trouble sleeping, feeling hopeless or just can't focus, BetterHelp is here to help you. BetterHelp offers licensed therapists who are trained to listen and help. You can talk to your therapist in a private online environment at your convenience. There's a broad range of expertise in BetterHelp's 20,000 plus therapist network that gives you access to help that might not be available in your area. Just fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs and then you'll be matched with a therapist in under 24 hours. And then you can schedule secure video and phone sessions. Plus you can exchange unlimited messages and everything you share is completely confidential. I know the confidentiality was important for me, especially early on when I couldn't even get my own mind wrapped around what was happening. And it was so comforting to be able to speak with someone candidly about everything I was going through to validate that what I was feeling and experiencing was completely normal. You can request a new therapist at no additional charge anytime. Join the 2 million plus people who have taken charge of their mental health with an experienced BetterHelp therapist. Special offer to flaunt, create a life you love after. Infidelity and betrayal listeners. You get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/flaunt. That's BetterHelpHELP.com/flaunt-F-L-A-U-N-T. Thanks again to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast. Hello and welcome to flaunt, create a life you love after Infidelity or a betrayal. I'm Laura Cheetel. And before we get into today's show, which is all about expertise and perspective and what that has to do with you and the betrayal recovery journey, how it's going to help you along the betrayal recovery journey, I wanna remind you of two very important things. Number one, please subscribe to the show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Please like, rate, review, and most importantly, share. Because the more we can get this information out there, the more we can destigmatize this entire affair recovery thing, which is going to be better for all of us, both those of us who have been betrayed, but also for those who betray because it will be out there and there'll be more information and resources and understanding around why they cheat. Because let me tell you, in my experience, so often the people who cheat don't understand why they're cheating. They don't understand why they're cheating. So then they can't explain to you and they most importantly, they can't figure out what to do not to cheat. And isn't that what we want? We want healthy people in our lives, in our world that don't default into cheating and other type of manipulative, horrible behavior. So, rate the show, review the show, like the show, and share the show. The second most important thing that I really want you to do before you go any further is to download your betrayal recovery toolkit. It's free, it's an instant download with I think six different things in it. But the most important thing, the most important thing right now is that it contains a full length hypnotic meditation that helps you delete the drama and feel better fast. It's a hypnotic meditation that you can use any time as often as you'd like. You can use it with your kids in the room. You can use it to fall asleep at night. It helps you go through traumatic situations and then delete and rewire them. So hypnosis helps you rewire the brain so you're not traumatized by things like the memory of D-Day or reading certain texts or seeing pictures or anything like that. So the delete the drama, feel better fast meditation, is one of the free goodies in the betrayal recovery toolkit. And the feedback that I've gotten from that is phenomenal. So be sure to download it. How you get it is you go to betrayalrecoveryguide.com. That's betrayalrecoveryguide.com and download it. There's also a free chapter of my book, a worksheet on recoreographing the next chapter of your life, lots and lots and lots of goodies, but the hypnosis I'm passionate about and you do not want to miss out on that. So now that we've gotten those two very important things taken care of, let's talk about perspective and expertise and what that has to do with you and your betrayal recovery journey. Okay, I'm going to start by telling you a little story. A couple of weeks ago, I went to the eye doctor and it was a new eye doctor. And here's why I went to the eye doctor. For years, I have been going to an optometrist, just a neighborhood optometrist. I really liked him. I really liked his staff. The office was convenient and close to home. They took my insurance like all of the reasons and he was just a general optometrist and he had good Google reviews and go to Yelp reviews and all of that. And I've been seeing him for years, probably 10 years. And I always felt like he's done fine by me. But over the years, he has, you know, as we've gotten to know each other, he has continued to say things like, you have the worst vision of anybody I've seen. Oh my gosh, I can't believe your vision. Not only are you new-sighted, but you've gotten astigmatism and that's crazy. You know, and then I laugh and it'll be like, yeah, yeah. My grandma had bad vision too. And my friend, she's got bad vision and we laugh. Well, as I've gotten older, which stinks, but as you get older, you start losing the vision that's close up. So for the last several years, I've been in that phase where I'm like, this really stinks, I can't see far away and I can't see close up anymore. And that's really inconvenient. And he's like, I don't know what to do with you. You have the worst vision of anyone that I've ever seen. I cannot tell you how often I've heard that phrase. So one of the solutions that he came up with was, you know, get a lot of those readers, get a lot of those little reader glasses and keep them everywhere. So I haven't been in my laptop bag. I haven't been in my purse. I haven't been on my desk. I haven't been on the bedside, I have all of this. And then he said, for the contacts, what you really want is to make sure you're not fully correcting your vision. You want to have contacts that like correct that mid-range. So then when you go to read, it's easier to read and you might not need those readers or you might not need as strong of a prescription with the readers. And then if I want to see something far away, like if I'm driving or going to a play or a sporting event, then I should get some glasses on top that are my distance glasses. So that way, mid-range, my contacts are mid-range, up close. I've got the readers far away. I've got the glasses over the top. (sighs) Part of me was like, about feels like an awful lot. But yeah, I get to that, that makes sense. So sure enough, I invested in the contacts. They're the monthlies, they're kind of pricey. I got my distance glasses. That's kind of pricey, getting the frames, getting the lenses, you know, all of that good stuff. And then sure enough, I went to the drug store and I got, it feels like 200 pairs of readers and I have them all over my house. Well, I've been frustrated. I've been frustrated because I never see that great. Having the contact sure it helps, but nothing is ever crystal clear and then I still need the readers and then I'm forever forgetting my distance glasses. And then I'm showing up at plays or driving and saying, I can't read the street signs. What's going on? This is such a pain. So I've been frustrated for about a year. And finally, I was venting to a friend about like, this is ridiculous and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I know you have bad vision. Why aren't you struggling the way I'm struggling? And she was like, Laura, how long have you done this? And I was like, well, really on and off for the last five years, I've been kind of unhappy but this last year, my unhappiness is really peaked because I can never see and I never have glasses since frustrating. And she said, so why aren't you going to a specialist? And I'm like, what do you mean specialist? I don't need, what do you mean? I mean, I don't need surgery. I'm not getting lazy. What do you mean by a specialist? And she was like, Laura, do you know that there are eye doctors out there? Like who specialize in bad vision? And I was stunned. It was like, ooh, isn't an eye doctor an eye doctor? Don't you just walk in anywhere and get an eye exam? And if you have a small prescription or if you have a large prescription, why does that matter? They're an eye doctor. Why would I seek somebody out for a contacts exam or a glasses exam other than an eye doctor? What do you mean? And she was like, I don't know why I'm explaining this to you and why this never crossed your mind but do you know people specialize in different kinds of vision? And it's not just, oh yeah, go get, go see an eye doctor and get your vision checked. Flored me. I was like, no, I did not know that. But thank you so much. And who do you recommend? 'Cause you have really bad vision too. So she gave me the name of an eye doctor who again, in the neighborhood, tons of great Google reviews. And guess what? He specializes in treating people with really bad vision not just a tiny little minor correction which I didn't know was a thing. So I went to his, I went, I booked an appointment and I went in and guess what he said to me? He looked at my eyes and he said, you don't have bad vision at all. And I went, wait, what? I'm here because I'm totally frustrated. Here are four boxes of contacts with different prescriptions because I can't get anything right. Here's a pair of distance glasses that I just paid a gazillion dollars for. And I think I've maybe worn four times and they're not satisfying. And here's just one of the 2,000 readers that I have sitting around the house. And here's me feeling frustrated and you're telling me I don't have bad vision? And he's like, no, not compared to the people I see. You don't have bad vision at all. You're in great shape. And it blew my mind. It was like, what? And suddenly I started feeling proud. I started really feeling proud of myself. Like, yeah, I don't have bad vision. This is awesome. And he said, I don't know why you have glasses that you're wearing over the top. And I don't know why you have readers. Has your doctor talked to you about mono-vision? And I said, well, not really. My eye doctor said he was concerned about the difference between the far eye and the near eye and that I might have a really tough meeting point because my prescription was so bad, the worst he'd ever seen. And he's like, well, how do you know unless you try? Do you wanna try? Oh, sure. I'll try mono-vision. That's great. And he said some people's brains adjust to it really quickly. Sometimes it, you know, it takes people a while and sometimes people just hate it. But let's try it and like, yeah, I'll try it. That works for me. And then the other thing he said was, did you know they have like bifocal contacts? So you can see at the distance and then when you look down, you can see up close. And then like, well, wait, bifocal contacts, you're kidding me, right? He's like, no, they're more expensive, but do you wanna try them? I was like, of course I wanna try them. So he's ordering me all the things. I am trying all the things. I'm trying bifocal contacts. I am trying mono-vision. And then the other thing that he said is, if you don't like either of those, let's just do regular contracts, make your contacts, not contracts. Let's just do regular contacts, make sure your distance vision is amazing. And then yeah, you're used to readers anyway. Do they bug you? And I'm like, well, it's kind of a pain. But at this point, I think I probably have 175 pairs that are astrood all around the house and the car and my purse and my bags. So no, that would be lovely. And it's not gonna be a problematic to have crystal clear distance vision. He was like, no, not at all. So we're trying three different options. We're trying mono-vision. We're trying bifocal contacts. And we're trying regular contact contacts with the up close glasses for readers when I am reading something up close. And I kid you not. I went skipping out of that office, calling and texting, all of my friends, all of my family, calling my friend who filled me in on this guy, happy as a little lark, because I have options. Now, I'm still waiting for all of those options to come in because it hasn't been long enough for everything to come back. Oh, guess what else? I also ordered new glasses. I have new glasses now that are bifocal glasses so I can both read up close and see perfectly at a distance. So I don't have everything yet. I haven't quite figured out what route I'm gonna go and what route I'm gonna like the best. But the point is I'm trying them all. And I have options and I feel hope. And I feel happy and I feel so proud that I don't have the worst vision in the whole world. I actually have really great vision. And as I was thinking about this and telling everybody I know about this, another one of my friends is like, but Laura, don't you see that that's what you do for people? Don't you see that that's what a lot of good coaches do for people? Don't you see that that's life? And I was like, ooh, I had never thought about that. But now that you mention it, how powerful and how amazing that is, that's the power of expertise and perspective. Let's talk about perspective first. Let's talk about how I felt when one eye doctor was like, dang, worst vision I've ever seen. This was awful, I don't know what to do about you. I felt really, really bad about myself. I felt really, really, it's weird to say I felt ashamed about my vision, but I kind of felt ashamed about my vision. I was like, what's wrong with me? Why do I have the worst vision ever? What can I be doing different? What have I done wrong? Like all of these thoughts came up versus how I felt when I went to this new eye doctor and he's like, you don't have bad vision at all. Suddenly I'm proud, I'm happy, I feel more confident. Like when the eye doctor was telling you how the worst vision ever, I started envisioning myself blind at 190 and stumbling through life and having to give up driving in my 80s because I can't see. And what am I gonna do? And what if I missed that? And how can I not see this? I'd love seeing plays and things so much. How can I, movies, I'll never be able to watch them again. Oh my God, reading. Like, it took me down. Being told my vision is so bad. Took me down. And being told my vision is not bad at all. You have great vision, brought me up. And guess what changed about my vision? Nothing. Nothing changed in my vision. Just the perspective that I had about what my vision was and what it meant changed. And that changed because an optometrist told me that I didn't know if the worst vision ever and I was like, I feel so proud. And that perspective is something that I think is vitally important in a fair recovery because it's really hard and it's really embarrassing and it's really awful. And how many times have you been in the place where you're like, this has never happened to anybody? I am such a loser. How could I not see this? How could I be so worthless that I was cheated on? How could this happen to me? This is the worst thing ever. I don't care what your situation is. It's not as bad as this. Your partner didn't cheat on you. Your spouse was faithful. It's perspective. And it's not that we always have to see somebody in a worse situation than us. But I know my very first retreat, getting together with other women who had been cheated on, it was so freeing to hear other people's stories. I remember one woman's partner had impregnated his affair partner and there was a baby do in like a month. So not only did she have to contend with all of this, but then there was custody and that there were their kids and then this new baby with the affair partner and it was perspective. And it was like, whoa, that changes things. And then there were people who had gotten a variety of STDs, venereal diseases. There were people who had addiction issues. There were people who had like this whole gamut of things, pornography, some were single affairs, some were multiple affairs. My husband, I tease him, like you excelled at cheating. You cheated with five women for 15 years, that's a lot. You know, and then there were some people who were like, "It was one woman for two weeks. "It was a one night stand." And it's the perspective. And it's not always better than worse than. It's just different than. And it's good to see that range. It's good to see it could have been better. It could have been worse. It could have been different. It's just good to be aware of that because it helps you ground into who you are and what's happening for you. It just helps. And again, it's not that I could be worse off. It's just perspective. It's just perspective and perspective is really important. Same thing, sometimes I will have people reach out to me for a discovery call to find out if they want to work with me or not. And they'll say, do you only work with people who want to stay with their partner? And it's like, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you stay or go. What I care about is that you're able to return home to yourself. What I care about is that you recognize your power, your ability to impact the world, your ability to create change. I care that you can step back into your agency, your power, your authority and that you can make decisions on your own behalf. And that you are no longer manipulated or gas lit or trying to please somebody else. What I care about is that you are no longer abandoning yourself and that you're very clear who you are, what you're worth, what you want and most importantly, how to get what you want. That might mean working it out. That might mean divorcing. That might mean trying for a while and seeing what happens. That might mean a lot of different things. And oftentimes we don't know what that means until we get there. So it's perspective. I am not a divorce coach that is going to help you get divorced. I'm not a savior marriage coach that is going to help you save your marriage. I am a betrayal recovery expert who will help you heal the betrayal wound. Because the betrayal wound is a wound that needs healing. And I talked about this last week a lot. Leaving your partner doesn't make the wound magically go away. Going back to normal as quickly as possible doesn't make the wound go away. The only thing that makes the wound go away is coming back into your power, understanding the power of choice, agency, free will, and knowing how to stand in your truth unapologetically, how to advocate on behalf of yourself and how to get what you want now and in the future despite anything that happens. That's what healing the betrayal wound is all about. And having that perspective around it helps you. Having the perspective of where this falls in the trajectory of your entire life helps. Your life is a story. Whether you think about it as a book with a beginning, a middle, and an end, a song with a beginning, a middle, an end, a dance routine with a beginning, a middle, and an end. You are at one point on this journey called life. You have birth at one end, you have death on the other end. You are at a point in that journey. That's perspective. Your life didn't just end. It might have felt like it ended. It might have felt like it ended because you had this view of where you thought the story was going to go. You thought you picked up a romance off the shelf. You went to the romance section of the library, you picked a romance book off the shelf and you started reading it and all of a sudden it's a tragedy. And you're like, this is not what I expected. But it's perspective that things will change. They will change. They will not stay the same. Nothing stays the same. The only thing that's constant is change as you probably know all too well. Everything changes. Everything changes. And that means as bad as you feel now, you are going to feel better in the future. No matter how you feel now, you are going to feel better in the future. Here's a tiny little story, tidbit, that sounds a little dark, but it will make you feel better. It was something that I hung on to a lot in those early days when I was just discovering all of this infidelity and the depth and the breadth of it and what it meant. It was a poem and if I can find it, I'll share it with you. But it was about when you tear fabric, the tear goes both ways. It doesn't just tear down, it tears up as well. And when the tear goes both ways, it means you have the ability to access higher levels. The tear is going down so you're accessing lower levels, but it also means you can go higher. And that was something that really hit me. It really struck me that I am in the lowest point of my life. I don't want to get off the floor. I can't quit crying. I'm shaking, eating makes me nauseous. I feel completely shattered. I feel completely broken. My whole life's been a lie. I don't know how to put the pieces together anymore and I can't feel any worse than this and I don't even care. If I could go that low, how high will I be able to go then later? How high will I be able to go now that I have gone down even deeper? And for some reason that brought me a lot of comfort and it brought me hope. Because a lot of this is about hope and that's what perspective gives you. It gives you hope. Okay, if I can handle this, I can handle that. If I can go low, I can also go high. Some people might think this is the worst, but it might not be. It might not be. I remember another story about a man whose cow died and his house burned down and all of this tragedy befell him. And he was crying to God. He was saying, I've been faithful, a faithful servant my whole life. How could you have forsaken me and made me lose my cow and my chickens and how my barn burned down and like all of these horrible things? And the response from God was, I have protected you. The call was to take your wife home. The call was to have your wife pass away. And instead of losing her, instead I took your cow, your barn and your chickens, but I left you your beautiful wife, the love of your life. And again, it's that perspective. Suddenly take the cow, take the barn, take the chickens. I'm still here. And whatever that is in your life, how can you have a new perspective around this situation? How can you have a new perspective around yourself and what this means? Just like one eye doctor told me it was the worst vision he'd ever seen and another eye doctor told me it was the great vision that I'm one of his best. A new perspective will change the way that you view yourself and your situation. I know that happens a lot in my Facebook group. People will post things and it's so nice to be able to read. People will often say, I just read a lot of things. I don't post that often, but I read things and it makes me feel better. Why perspective? When you change your perspective, you can change your experience of life. When you change your experience of life, then you actually start changing your life. So what can you do to change your perspective? What can you do to see things differently? I encourage you if you're in the Facebook group to share a story. To share any story, it can be your D-Day story. It can be something you're dealing with now, but I encourage you to just share a story and see the kinds of comments that you get. If you wanna share something with me, reach out, tag me in the group. It's a fair recovery for women, betrayed to brilliant, or send me an email and just share your story. Because I do promise a different perspective will change the way you view yourself and your situation. The second thing that I wanted to talk about was the whole concept of expertise. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my eye doctor. He's a general run-of-the-mill eye doctor. But when I saw somebody who specialized in bad vision, everything changed. He gave me options. He made me feel better about myself. He changed my perspective. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about those options, but this is why you seek a specialist. One of the things that I am adamant about is to work with people who are trauma aware, trauma informed, trauma sensitive, trauma educated, get people who understand trauma. There are amazing social workers, clinicians, therapists, clergy, coaches. There's amazing people out there who do amazing work, but if they do not understand trauma in general and infidelity specifically, they're not gonna be able to give you the help that you need and deserve. Trauma is a different animal. Marriage counselors, whatever, clergy, coaches, dealing with relationships are not always trauma aware, trauma informed, trauma educated. You've experienced a huge trauma. You 100% need somebody who understands how trauma impacts the brain, impacts the nervous system, impacts relationships. Somebody's best interest will not help you. You will not get the help that you need just because somebody cares a lot. There are a lot of good people out there who care very deeply. But unless they understand trauma, they might not be able to help you because they don't understand trauma and trauma is a totally different animal. And here's what's really important around the trauma piece too. I get as much education as I can around trauma. I'm trauma informed. I take trauma informed life coaching classes. I've got a certification around trauma. And I know enough about trauma to know that, oh my gosh, you could spend literally decades studying trauma and still not know it all. So I know enough to know when I'm out of my league. I know enough to say, wow, this is huge and this is impactful and this is what you can expect and you need a specialist. You need somebody who's dealt with this kind of trauma, sexual assault, you know, violence, whatever it is. You need a specialist. You have complex PTSD. You've got a lot of childhood trauma. You've got whatever it is. You need a specialist in this area. And I refer out and I refer out often because I understand the power of somebody who knows what the heck they're talking about and what the heck they're doing. Yes, I can handle the betrayal trauma. But when other things come up, I want you to get the help that you need. And it's the same thing around the infidelity piece. There are amazing people out there, but you need somebody who is an expert in infidelity and betrayal. You need somebody who understands that the betrayal wound is different because it is. Great therapists, great counselors, great everybody out there. Get yourself an infidelity, a betrayal recovery specialist and expert, somebody who is trauma-informed and who specializes in infidelity. It's gonna make all the difference in the world. There are great, again, life coaches out there. But if they specialize in career transition, sure, a lot of the tools might be helpful, but they're not going to be able to go with you where you need to be. They won't be able to go with you where you need to be, and you're gonna spend so much time educating them when they're the ones that should be educating you. I could have Googled all of these options for poor vision, and I could have gone to my original eye doctor and been like, I've heard about this thing called monovision, and I've heard about these things. That's not necessarily my job, and I don't have the training to understand at all. I needed the specialist to tell me, here are my options. You need a specialist too. And I've said this before, I don't think that all people dealing with infidelity need to have experienced it, necessarily, but for me, I choose to work with people who have experienced it, because until you know what that feels like, the empathy piece is different, the understanding piece is different. And I don't want anybody telling me what I should or shouldn't be feeling or thinking or experiencing. I want someone who went through it too. I want someone who thought they might die because they couldn't get their head wrapped around what was going on. I want somebody with that visceral experience of shock. So when I talk about the shock and how I fell to the floor when I read the one email, they're like, yep, I get that. I get that, and I know that because I've been there too. Now, options. This is really important, and I want you to hear this. Well, what did my new amazing bad vision specialist do for me? He gave me options. He told me three different options, and he said there's more, he's like, if these don't work, we can come up with some other things. He gave me options. Wow, now what do I do? I go home and I try the options. He told me to try the glasses, wear them for a day, practice going up and down stairs because sometimes when you look down and the bifocal thing, practice. He told me to be safe to put my hand on a railing going up and down the stairs. Two, if I'm gonna be driving, make sure I'm going short distances in the daylight until I adjust to my glasses and make sure that they work. Yay, now I can practice. I can use that tool and I can see how it works for me. Then in terms of the bifocal contacts and the monovision, he said, don't mix those two up. To try monovision for like four days in a row, starting again at smaller intervals, choosing activities where I would stay safe. Like he's like, don't do CrossFit and go jump on a box with monovision because you don't understand your depth perception quite yet. So do small, safe things. Be careful. See how you adjust before doing anything huge. Perfect. He also gave me this little tidbit. Did you know? You can do everything with monovision, like driving, that's a thing. But he said, you can't fly a plane. The FAA doesn't let somebody fly a plane if they only have one good eye. You can drive with one good eye, but you can't fly a plane with one good eye. Cool little tidbit. Yay, we're talking, he knows. Okay, so this is what I do. The tool is monovision and I practice using that for a week. The tool is glasses and I practice those for a while. He said, once I have done that, then to practice using the bifocal contacts and see what I like better. And he said the same thing with the bifocal practice. Be safe. Put your hand on the railing going up and downstairs. Don't do anything stupid. Don't drive 62 hours at night in a blinding snowstorm. Let your body and let your brain adapt after trying each of them for a week. Come back, let them know if there needs to be tweaks made. He's like, sometimes we get the prescription a little off. No big deal, let's try it again. Sometimes you're like, I hate this monovision thing. Never gonna try it again, great, don't. Sometimes you love it. He's like, call me, we'll tweak it. And he even was very specific. He said, the cost of the eye exam includes the tweaks and the follow-ups. If you have a question, call and fix it. You're not gonna have to build insurance for another appointment. This is a continuation of the first appointment because we have to work through things to get it right. And it was like, hallelujah. Because that's what I do when I coach people. That's what I do when I work with people. My job is to present you a bunch of tools that have a high rate of efficacy for other people. I'm giving you this tool because it works for a lot of people. I'm gonna teach you some meditation, some mindfulness. I'm gonna teach you some somatic body techniques. I'm gonna show you why shaking can be a really good way to calm and re-regulate the nervous system. I'm gonna show you some breathwork techniques. I'm going to try noeses with you. I'm gonna do all of these things. I'm gonna give you all of these tools that have a really high success rate. Your job is to now try them out. Try them out in a variety of situations. See what works the best, see what you don't care for. And then reach back out to me and let's talk and let's tweak them. I started the show by telling you to please, pretty, pretty, pretty, please go to betrayalrecoveryguide.com and download the hypnotic meditation on deleting drama and feeling better fast. It's a hypnotic meditation. Hypnosis is extremely powerful. Some people like EMDR more, some people like hypnosis more. How do you know? Try it. Try it. Try it a couple times, just like the eye doctor said, try it for four days or so, give yourself a chance to adjust. Try it. Try the hypnosis the next time you're having obsessive thoughts. Try the hypnosis the next time you're feeling really, really bad about yourself. Try whatever tool it is. Try them three or four times. See if it works. When you have something that you like, let me know. We can lean into that and I can give you more. Or maybe you don't even need any more than we just celebrate. If you're trying something and you're like, this is not working for me, I hate it. I'm not taking that personally. I'm not mad at the eye doctor in case I don't like mono-vision. He gave me an option, I have to try it. We'll see if my brain adjusts to it. We'll see if my lifestyle adjusts to it. We'll see if I like it. And that's the same with you. If you're like, this isn't working for me. Great. Now we know. Now we've eliminated one of the hundreds of tools that I have in my toolbox that I can teach you and you know that it doesn't work. And that brings us right back around to perspective. Is it good or is it bad when you try a tool and you don't like it? So often, people get stuck in the mindset that it didn't work for me. I tried yoga and it didn't work for me. I tried breath work and it didn't work for me. I don't know, I couldn't focus during that meditation. None of this works for me. I don't know, I had a business coach once. It didn't work for me. Marriage counseling, it was a must. It didn't work for me. Okay, let's change that around. Let's get some perspective on that. The perspective is you did find something that maybe it doesn't work for you and what's next. That's a win. We can either cross it off your list, check, tried it, not gonna work or you can tweak it a little bit. Marriage counseling did not work. I think it might be the therapist, let's try somebody different. Perfect, we've tried three different therapists, it's not working, not our thing. I had a life coach once, he wasn't that great. I tried hypnosis once, couldn't concentrate. Great, we have that as information. It's perspective. It's changing our perspective. Now we're gonna try it this way. You used to try it at night, now we'll try it in the day. You used to try it with a male's voice, now let's try it with a female's voice. You used to try it whatever, it's the perspective. Finding things that don't work is just as valuable as finding things that do. It doesn't mean that you're broken, you're not broken. I'm not broken if I don't like motivation. I'm not broken if I don't like bifocal contacts. I have preferences and I have choices and I have things that work for me, just like you have preferences and choices and things that work for you. And it's that perspective of joy, of curiosity, of trying. So many times I think the number one thing everybody says is I feel so broken. I know, I know. I felt that way too. Here's some of the things that I tried. Let's work through them with you. It's the perspective that there's so many things out there. Let's see what I like best. It's the buffet of choices. I like all of the desserts. Let me try them all and see what brings me the most satisfaction. Ooh, that salted caramel ice cream, that is my number one. But you know what, if that's not gone, if that's not there, or if it's too hot and it's gonna drip and melt everywhere, I will go ahead and go for the pudding because that is a close second. And that's what all these tools are about. That's why you go to a specialist, a trauma-informed betrayal recovery specialist who can give you the tools most likely to help you succeed and who is adept at working with you on what might not have worked on this one and what might we try next time? And the perspective that it's all good, it's all good, this is so not the worst I've ever seen. I am still waiting for that case, for that client to come in, that is the worst that I've ever seen, and I haven't seen it yet. Because let me tell you at this point, I've seen it all. I have seen it all, and they're all different. They're all different. You're not the worst, you're not the best, you're not alone. I think more than anything I want you to know, you're not alone. Sadly, the rates of infidelity are really, really high. I was reading one study that says up to 70% of all relationships have some sort of infidelity. And the reason that it's really hard to track is because it's hard to define what is infidelity. What is it? Is it online, is it porn, is it emotional cheating, is it physical cheating? And also, the studies are all self-reported. And even with promises of infidelity, so many people don't want to write down, even on an anonymous survey, yep, I'm a cheater. This is fodder for a whole other show. Did you know that interestingly, cheaters don't usually view themselves as cheaters. Cheaters don't usually view themselves as dishonest. Cheaters don't usually view themselves as why. I know, right? So when people who cheat self-report, their persona, their view of themselves is, I'm not a cheater, I'm healthy, I'm happy, I'm a good person, I'm an honest person, I'm a trustworthy person, I'm a loyal person. So when they're self-reporting, since that's how they see themselves, they don't report themselves as a cheater. Isn't that interesting? I know, I know. We can talk about that at a later time. But for now, one, you are not alone. Sadly, you are not alone. I'm sorry that you're here, but I'm glad that you found me. I'm glad that you found this community because together we will all rise. Together we will inspire each other to come back home to ourselves, to our power to our agency, to our authority, to our power to choose, to our power to be all that we are, and to grow fully into all that we can be. Download your betrayal recovery guide, betrayalrecoveryguide.com. Practice with the hypnosis, let me know if it works. Let me know if it doesn't work. I'll give you something else to try. You don't have to be formally working with me to reach out, just reach out. I'm here to help, I've been there, I know what it's like, and it sucks. But that's that perspective. Think about the eye doctor's story about perspective and expertise, and what you can do to shift your perspective going forward. Have an amazing week, as usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are, because who you are is always more than enough. Life can really knock you down sometimes, especially after a tough breakup, or when someone betrays your trust. It's hard to remember your own value when the people who should have treasured you didn't. But I'm here to tell you that loving yourself again is possible even after infidelity. It takes time, an intentional effort, but it can be done. That's where the mindful soul's subscription box comes in. It's like getting a monthly dose of me time delivered straight to your door. Inside, you'll find all sorts of goodies, natural crystals, gorgeous gem jewelry, essential oils, and many other pampering tools. It's a nice little reminder that, hey, you do deserve to feel good. I know that most of you are crazy busy. You've got a ton of people counting on you, and taking care of yourself usually ends up at the bottom of your to-do list. But that's what's so great about this subscription. They don't just deliver everything you need for your self-care moment. They also give you real practical tips on how to make self-care work for you no matter how hectic your life gets. I've been a die-hard fan of the mindful box for a while now, so the mindful soul's family sent me a special treat for all of you. If you use the discount code LORRA25, you'll get 25% off your order. That's L-O-R-A 25. So head over to MindfulSouls.com and grab your box. Tune in next time to flaunt, find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. With Lora Cheetle, every Wednesday at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on syndicated dream vision seven radio network. Uncover the truth of what's possible for you on the other side of betrayal, and develop the skills and strategies necessary to embrace the future and flourish today. Download your free Betrayal Recovery Toolkit at betrayalrecoveryguide.com. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
