“Betrayal ends where Sacred Self-Belonging begins.” Lora Cheadle
After infidelity, the deepest wound isn’t just the loss of your partner’s trust—it’s the loss of your own. In this powerful episode, Lora Cheadle reframes betrayal recovery as a sacred homecoming to yourself. Learn what Sacred Self-Belonging really means, how it differs from self-care or self-love, and why it’s the ultimate goal of your healing journey. If you’ve ever felt like you abandoned yourself to be chosen, this episode will guide you back to the safety, sovereignty, and wholeness that betrayal tried to take.
Top 3 Takeaways:
- Betrayal ruptures your identity and self-trust, not just your relationship—and that’s what makes healing so complex.
- Sacred Self-Belonging is deeper than self-love—it’s a somatic, spiritual reunion with the parts of you you once left behind.
- Three powerful practices to begin reclaiming your self-worth, safety, and voice—starting now.
Book Your Introductory Session Here: https://calendly.com/loras-schedule/first-time-session
LOVE THE SHOW? TAKE THE NEXT STEP
Don’t just listen—start healing.
Download your FREE Betrayal Recovery Tool Kit and take back your power with clarity, confidence, and support that meets you where you are.
Calm the chaos
Rebuild self-trust
Stop the spiral of second-guessing
Reclaim your worth and your future
About Lora:
Lora Cheadle, JD, CHt is a betrayal recovery coach, attorney, TEDx speaker, and author of FLAUNT! and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal.
After uncovering her husband’s 15-year affair, she turned her own pain into purpose—helping high-achieving women reclaim their identity, power, and joy.
A trauma-aware coach, somatic therapist, and former attorney, Lora blends legal insight with emotional and spiritual healing for full-spectrum recovery.
✨ Learn more at LoraCheadle.com →
Special Offers from Our Sponsors!
Take charge of your mental health and get 10% off your first month of therapy at https://BetterHelp.com/FLAUNT
If you’re done trying to heal alone—and you’re ready to feel strong, supported, and clear again—I’ve got you. Whether you need one powerful session or full support inside my Affair Recovery coaching programs, I’ll help you untangle the pain and reclaim your power.
Book now at AffairRecoveryForWomen.com
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. You deserve 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! Go to www.Mindfulsouls.com and use Discount Code LORA30 for 30% off your order!
Books By Lora
- International Book Award, Finalist Motivational Self-Help, 2021
- Tattered Cover Bestseller, 2019
Have you spent your life playing by the rules, only to realize those rules weren’t made for you? What if you could break free—from expectations, from betrayal, from the roles you were taught to play—and reclaim your true self?
FLAUNT! is your guide to stripping away societal conditioning, healing from the heartbreak of betrayal, and rediscovering the fierce, confident woman you were born to be. With humor, wisdom, and powerful, actionable steps, Lora Cheadle empowers you to rise above the narratives that have confined you and boldly choreograph a life that is smart, sexy, spiritual, and uniquely your own.
It’s time to stop living for others and start living for you.
Buy Now on Amazon, or wherever books are sold.
It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive
Burnout isn’t just exhaustion—it’s a betrayal of your time, energy, and trust. This essential guide redefines burnout, exposing its hidden roots and equipping individuals, teams, and leaders with five powerful tools to reclaim their passion, purpose, and well-being.
If you’re ready to break free from burnout and step into a life of clarity, confidence, and fulfillment, this book is your roadmap.
Available now on Amazon. Download your free guide, BURNOUT UNCOVERED: Fostering Candid Conversations for Teams at www.ItsNotBurnoutItsBetrayal.com.
Transcript
Lora Cheadle [00:00:01]:
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@betrayalrecoveryguide.com.
Sean [00:00:35]:
I used to lie in bed at night wondering how someone who claimed to love me could make me feel so worthless and so disposable. But then I realized the deeper wound wasn’t that he betrayed me. It’s that somewhere along the way, I stopped belonging to myself. And today I want to talk about how to get yourself back. This episode is about something deeper than healing your relationship with your partner. It’s about healing the relationship with yourself. Because Betrayal recovery is a sacred homecoming, and that home is back to you. And it is so easy to get lost.
Sean [00:01:35]:
It is so easy to think. This is about fixing them and understanding them and forgiving them, when really, Betrayal Recovery is all about you. This is why so many people get stuck and they can’t heal and they’re like, but I’ve been in therapy for nine months, and it doesn’t feel better. It’s because they haven’t healed the relationship with themselves and they haven’t come back home to who they are. This episode really has the potential to shift things for you. So before we listen, I’d like you to pause just for a moment and to set an intention for you. I would like you to set the intention to come back home to who you are, to find your sense of sacred self belonging. Because setting that intention and realizing that, yes, this is the destination point.
Sean [00:02:42]:
The destination point is me. The destination point is inside of me. That’s how you will get there. So take a few breaths, roll your shoulders, move your head, whatever you need to do, and realize that, yeah, over the next 50 minutes or so, something sacred, something pivotal is going to happen for you. All right, let’s begin by talking about the fallout of betrayal. Oh, my gosh. The fallout of betrayal, of infidelity is so huge because it shatters everything. And it’s so easy to focus on.
Sean [00:03:33]:
It broke my heart. It broke our relationship. It broke us. But what I want to move into today is the realization that it broke so much more than just the relationship. It broke you on a visceral level. It broke your ability to trust other People. Yes. But it broke your ability to trust yourself.
Sean [00:04:01]:
It ruptured your identity, who you are, what you believe and think about yourself. It broke your ability to regulate your nervous system. Like, nobody finds this out and then just goes, ooh, breathe in, breathe out, move on. Oh, no, no, no, no. It changes your ability to self regulate. I have had so many clients who will say, I’m out of control. This anger. I have never felt anger like this.
Sean [00:04:32]:
I have never been violent like this. I can’t even stop in front of my kids. I can’t pull it together at work. I feel like I’m going crazy. And it’s like, yes, because the betrayal broke your ability to regulate your own nervous system. And the other thing that the betrayal broke was confidence in your own perception. And I think that is a really big one. That does not get talked about enough.
Sean [00:05:08]:
No, you don’t have to identify as, like, I’m intuitive and, oh, my gosh, this blindsided me. We all trust ourselves. I. I perceive people. I like people. I like the vibe. I don’t like the vibe. I know when somebody is lying to me.
Sean [00:05:24]:
I know when something feels off. And I know you do too. I know you are an emotionally adept person. I know you can create that alignment with other people. So what the betrayal ruptures is your confidence in your own perception. Like, this is a phrase that so many people have said to me, too. My picker is broken. How could I have picked somebody that would do this to me? How could I have been so stupid? How come I didn’t know you might be feeling like, I don’t know myself anymore.
Sean [00:06:06]:
I can’t trust myself anymore. I can’t trust anybody else anymore. If somebody that I love more than anybody could do this to me, then what could a stranger do to me? Oftentimes we second guess ourselves. After going through an experience like this, our confidence is shattered. And suddenly we’re like, I don’t even know what to do. I don’t know what I want to eat. I don’t know which job to take. I don’t know which apartment to rent.
Sean [00:06:39]:
I don’t know which lawyer to use. I don’t even know how to sign up for a betrayal recovery program because I am so afraid that I’m going to make the wrong choice. I offer. I’m sure you know this if you’ve been listening to my podcast for a while, But I offer $97 introductory phone sessions and zoom sessions. So it’s for people who were exploring, working with a coach. They’ve Never done it. They feel a lot of shame. One of the things that people say when we first get on Zoom together is I almost didn’t show up.
Sean [00:07:14]:
I was so afraid to show up. I was afraid I would be judged. I was afraid you would be different than you are in your podcast. I was afraid to speak this out loud because speaking it out loud makes it real. I was second guessing my ability to show up. I booked the appointment late one night when I thought it was going to be a good idea. And then suddenly I don’t even know if it’s a good idea anymore. And what I always say is, that’s totally normal.
Sean [00:07:43]:
It is totally normal for you to start second guessing everything. And the other thing that happens when we go through betrayal is this personal shame, this total personal shame. Well, first of all, that we didn’t see it, but also that it happened to me. I get ashamed that it. I get ashamed that I was victimized. Like, if you really start thinking about that, are you kidding? But, yeah, we get ashamed that it happened to us because there’s so many misperceptions out there. It happened to me because I wasn’t a good wife. It happened to me because I wasn’t good in bed.
Sean [00:08:26]:
It happened to me because I wasn’t thin and hot and pretty and so fun to be around. We internalize and we victim, blame ourselves. And also take a breath here. This is a big truth bomb. We also carry our partner shame. We internalize and carry our partner’s shame. And if you’re thinking, what do you mean by that, Lora? I know I didn’t choose to cheat. I know my partner did.
Sean [00:09:08]:
And I know he is going to feel shame and guilt and regret and remorse and all of those horrible feelings around it. And I know when he starts going to therapy and doing the work, a lot of stuff is going to come out. He’s going to be seen as the problem, the hurt one, the one who can’t communicate, the one who has no emotional awareness. He is going to be seen as the one who is inept, and he can’t handle that. So I feel his shame. I feel his embarrassment. My husband came from a background of poverty and trauma that was shameful to him. No, he didn’t cause it, but he lived in poverty and he experienced a lot of trauma.
Sean [00:09:59]:
And he’s got all the scars from it. And it fills him with shame because he wants to be seen as Sean, the competent, capable adult. He wants to be seen as somebody who would not damage other people, would not traumatize other people. He wants to be seen as somebody who had a great childhood, as somebody who lived a, quote, normal life. Nobody wants to be seen as the one who’s a problem. So even though he hurt me by cheating on me, I feel his shame around all of this stuff that’s coming up. And not gonna lie, Even though there’s the part of me that’s like, oh, yeah, we’re own that, buddy, you did this. There’s also a part of me that’s like, I love and care about you, and I don’t want to throw you under the bus.
Sean [00:10:54]:
I don’t want to air your dirty laundry. I don’t want to bring shame to you. I want to protect you. And then there’s that cognitive dissonance around that, that whole juxtaposition over how do I protect somebody who hurt me? Why do I want to protect somebody who hurt me? Do I love them or do I hate them? Do I want to throw them under the bus or do I want to make this whole thing go away? And the answer is, it’s all. It’s all of that. And I’m going to say a bit more about that later, but I want to kind of sum up this section that we’re talking about, which is the fallout of betrayal. That it’s not just the relationship that’s breaking, it’s all these things inside of you that are breaking that makes you feel like you don’t know yourself, like you’re second guessing everything, that you’re ashamed. That is a trauma response.
Sean [00:11:55]:
People pleasing is a trauma response. Trying to earn back love, doing the pick me, pick me dance. A trauma response over explaining either about what happened to your partner or about what’s going on with you is a trauma response. And also disconnecting from your own body is a trauma response. Dissociating, putting on a happy face, that’s okay, I got over it. That’s a trauma response. It’s easy to see falling apart, not being able to get out of bed as a trauma response. But so is over functioning.
Sean [00:12:42]:
So is over functioning. Over functioning is a trauma response. And so many of us fall into that camp and we don’t even realize we think it’s a good thing. Well, of course I pull things together. Of course I’m the over function or I have to. But what is underneath that is that trauma, that trauma response that I have to prove my worth. That my safety comes from other people seeing my value. That my safety comes from getting my value validated externally.
Sean [00:13:20]:
And I want you to think about that because one of the things I also hear a lot of people say is, is I’m not the one with the problem. Yeah, I hear that. I wasn’t the one with the problem either. When we are the ones who aren’t the problem, it only means our problems are softer, a little more hidden and harder to see. Now, I’m not putting problems on you. I didn’t have a traumatic childhood. I. I didn’t have big T trauma ever.
Sean [00:13:55]:
As a kid. I was really functional and happy and healthy. I had bruises, I had little dents, I had little things happen. And I have adaptive responses to those. They are on the healthier, more functional side. But I still had adaptive responses. Over functioning was my adaptive trauma response. Being the smart one, the altogether one, the superstar, that was my trauma response.
Sean [00:14:27]:
Is that maladaptive? No, it’s very functional, but it’s still a trauma response. Fighting to prove my worth was my trauma response. And that’s what I’m wanting to really unpack today is the sense of safe, sacred self belonging. Sacred self belonging is a holy reunion of you with yourself, of you with your soul, your essence, with the core frequency of who you are. It’s a full embodied knowing that you are your own home and that no matter what happens, you will never abandon yourself again. Breathe. You might even want to put one hand on your belly or one hand on your heart. And I want you to feel that this is where your change really begins.
Sean [00:15:45]:
I talked about it on the intellectual level at the beginning of the show. Now we’re dropping it into our body. This is sacred self belonging. I am the essence of myself. It’s not saying I am my body or I am my mind. It’s it is saying I am the all. I am all of this. I fill my body with my essence.
Sean [00:16:10]:
I feel my energy field with my essence. I fill my relationships with my essence. I’ve been working and meditating a lot lately around the idea of being self possessed. And in my July group coaching call, we talked a lot about this too. Being self possessed is a positive thing. It’s not saying I’m being egocentric. It’s not saying I’m full of my ego. It’s I am possessed fully with myself.
Sean [00:16:48]:
Not with my ego self, but with my energetic self. And in order to embody who you are, to be fully self possessed, yes, you have to know who you are and you have to love who you are. And most importantly, you have to trust who you are. It’s the place where you’re not wearing any masks, you’re not wearing armor. You are completely comfortable with yourself. A couple weeks ago, I talked quite a bit about the concept of naked self worth. And that’s what it is. This is that sacred self belonging.
Sean [00:17:31]:
What happens when you have naked self worth? Sacred self belonging. Now I want to be clear. It is different from self care. Self care is fun. We’re soothing our body, we’re soothing our mind. We’re taking a break, we’re reading a book. We’re, we’re. It’s self care and that’s not self possession.
Sean [00:17:54]:
It’s not self love. Self love is a part of it. Self care is a part of it. But self care is like soothing the body and making you feel better, soothing in the emotion, making it feel better. Self love is about that emotion of value, of worth, of attention. But self belonging is energetic. And it’s like, it’s like being a transceiver. I push out the energy of who I am and I receive the energy of who I am.
Sean [00:18:30]:
It’s energetic safety and sovereignty. And it’s feeling so comfortable standing up and being and emitting and transceiving exactly who you are. This past week I went to an amazing week long retreat with Lee Harris. It was his annual Soul Magic event. And it was incredible. And one of the things that I realized spending a week, you know, in deep states of meditation were I am joy. One of the, one of the things I realized is I am joy. I am and pure positive light and love and laughter and joy.
Sean [00:19:14]:
That is the signature of who I am. And sometimes I don’t see that as a value or as an attribute because it’s just who I am. And in my monthly group coaching call, one of the women was like, I am a nurturer. And one of the women was like, I am a lover. I love people. I want to grab people and just hug them and love up and down on them. And I think we all know those people, those people who bring laughter, those people who are nurturers, those people who are lovers, those people who are philosophers, those people who are even the people who are like antagonizers. That’s who they are.
Sean [00:19:58]:
They’re disruptors, they’re antagonizers. And often they’re disrupting something to create something else. It’s for the common good. But we know those people. If you’ve ever had kids, your baby, they’ve got an energy signature by the end of like three months, you’re like, this child is, this is my peaceful baby. This is my you know, energetically powerful baby. This is my, you know, whatever it is. Like, we know what that energy signature is.
Sean [00:20:30]:
We know it in our animals. One of my cats is pure heart, and my other cat is pure wisdom. And my dog, he is pure laughter. He is pure goofball energy. Those are their energy signatures. So being self possessed is knowing your energy signature and allowing you to be that self belonging is rooted in somatic as well as spiritual safety. When you were fully self possessed, when you were in a state of sacred self belonging, you feel safe in your body. You feel safe with your thoughts.
Sean [00:21:10]:
You feel safe in your body and you feel safe with your thoughts. I want you to think about that. Do you feel safe in your body right now? Like, where is that hypervigilance? Are you feeling safe and now? What about your thoughts? Do you trust your thoughts? Are you feeling safe in those thoughts? And this is not a judgment thing. If you’re like, no, right now I feel completely crazed. I do feel hypervigilant and I feel totally crazed and I don’t know myself anymore. That’s okay. You’ve got the awareness that that’s where you’re at right now, and that’s huge. And as you learn to identify and be with whatever it is you feel, that’s where that self trust comes back in.
Sean [00:22:02]:
Because I can say, I’m dysregulated right now. I’ve spoken truth to myself. That’s another childhood wound that a lot of us that don’t have trauma have trauma around. When I was a kid, I would sense things or I would feel things, and then I would be told, no, that’s not it. Sometimes it was as simple as I would. I was cold all the time as a kid. It was the 70s, it was the energy crisis. We lived in Colorado, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sean [00:22:35]:
And I’d be like, I’m so cold. And my dad’s response was, it’s not cold in here. That’s invalidating my reality. I am cold. I don’t care if it’s 80 degrees in here. If I am cold, my reality is I am cold. And that kind of invalidation gets us to not trust ourselves. It gets us to not feel safe with our own thoughts because we think I’m cold or I’m emotional or I’m sad.
Sean [00:23:02]:
That was another one. Sometimes I’d be like, I’m so sad. My dad would be, no, you’re not. But I am. And that creates that wound of having to prove yourself. But I am, because watch. And then this happened. And then we over explain it doesn’t matter why you’re hot or sad or cold or or annoyed.
Sean [00:23:22]:
Having the ability to have that validated by somebody creates self trust. And when our parents, even when it’s done lovingly, no, you’re not sad, no, you’re not, you’re going to be fine. It creates that sense of disconnection where we can’t trust our own thoughts and we can’t trust our own feeling. I don’t feel safe in this relationship. I don’t feel safe with this person, but I can’t trust it. They’re telling me I’m safe, so I must be safe. My boss is telling me I’ve got a long flourishing career to look forward to, but I feel like I can look around and think this company’s going under. Learning how to trust yourself again by validating your reality for yourself is huge.
Sean [00:24:09]:
And that’s when I talk about, when I talk about somatic safety. It’s not necessarily putting yourself into a spot where nobody can hurt you because we can’t really do that. But it’s being able to be self aware enough that we can identify what we’re thinking, what we’re feeling, what we’re sensing. And even if everybody around us says, nope, that’s not true, we can still be okay with our truth and be like, okay, I’m still upset, I still sense that something’s wrong. We can be reassured, sure, but we don’t have to buy it. If that makes sense. I am going to walk you through now three practices that’s going to help you start rebuilding that sense of trust that’s going to help you be okay with not being okay. First practice is the Mirror of Truth.
Sean [00:25:06]:
The second practice is Somatic Anchoring. And the third practice is rescripting the inner voice. And you’ll notice since we’re body, since we’re mind, since we’re spirit, each of these practices kind of uniquely taps into a different aspect of who we are so we can come back home to ourselves. Because sacred self belonging is I know my mind and I trust my mind. I know my heart and my emotions and my feelings and I trust my heart, my emotions and my feelings. And also I am safe in this body. That is where that full sovereignty comes in, is trusting ourselves on every different level. So let’s start with that first practice, the Mirror of Truth.
Sean [00:25:57]:
The prompt for Mirror of Truth is just asking yourself, where have I abandoned myself in order to be chosen? Where have I abandoned myself in order to be chosen? If you Want to journal about it? You can journal about it if you want to just drop in and think about it or use this prompt during your meditation. Where have I showed up differently because I wanted to fit in? Going back to sixth grade is really the first time I remember showing up differently because I wanted to be a part of this little girl gang. Basically, up until sixth grade, I pretty much hung out and I was pretty much okay. And I wasn’t too aware if I was a dancer. Other people did sports. I wasn’t aware. Like, is there a hierarchy? Should I be wanting to do sports instead of dancing? I wasn’t aware I was a good student and I loved studying. I wasn’t aware.
Sean [00:27:25]:
Is there a stigma around that? Will I be seen as a goody two shoes? I just kind of did me and I was okay with it. And then in sixth grade, there was this amazing group of girls, and I thought they were so beautiful. And they all sat together at the cafeteria tables, and during recess, they all walked around together in this big clump. And I really, really wanted to be a part of them. I really wanted that. And I was always a little bit on the outside. They were always cooler than I was. I felt way, way less mature than they were.
Sean [00:28:05]:
A lot of them had older siblings and were starting into makeup and talking about boys, and I wasn’t there. And they kind of liked the whole gossipy thing and the whole powery thing. And one of them created this rule that every day somebody was going to get left out. So all the girls had to do things to please this leader or they would be left out and that they would be told that they couldn’t sit at our lunchroom table. Well, good heavens, I. I never wanted to be that person. So, yeah, I did all the things that I could to please this one little girl. I would say things, I would do things.
Sean [00:28:40]:
I mean, we’re not talking major things. We’re. We were sixth graders. But still, I was abandoning myself because I wanted to fit in. And, you know, dating, there was some of that that happened when I was dating. There were things that I did to try to look cool. There were things that I did to try to fit in. There were times where I abandoned who I was in order to be chosen.
Sean [00:29:11]:
And, oh, my God, this comes up so much in infidelity. You know, what did he do with her that he didn’t do with me? What should I be doing? Maybe that’s my boundary. But he did with her. So now I have to erode my own boundary because clearly that’s what he likes. And if that’s what it’s going to take. You know, how many of you have been like, well, she had a different hairstyle or a different haircut or a different body size or a different body type. Again, I can’t tell you how many of you have been like, yeah, but you should have seen her boobs. They’re nothing like mine.
Sean [00:29:43]:
Maybe I should get a boob job. Oh, my gosh. I like, I get it. Well, she was so thin, so I need to lose weight. Like, yes, I get it. But no, that is abandoning who you are in order to try to get somebody else to choose you. You know, it’s really interesting. When was was pre pandemic, 2018 or 2019, I went to a conference in India and it was a women’s conference.
Sean [00:30:17]:
It was amazing. It was the Women Economic Forum. And I spoke and met some amazing people and just had a great time. And. And there was mostly women, but yes, men can come too. And I spoke. And after I spoke, some of the women came up and thanked me and, you know, we had a great conversation. This was not infidelity related.
Sean [00:30:37]:
It was, you know, business related. And then a man came up, and I noticed myself changing when the man came up and he was an investor and he worked with people, and I was consciously aware, truly, for the first time, of this overwhelming need to prove myself to him and to please. And it was fascinating. It was one of those moments where you’re witnessing yourself, you know, the women are showing up and, and, oh, thank you. Wonderful, yes. Can we connect? And wonderful. Great. And a man comes up and he was putting himself in this hierarchical position.
Sean [00:31:14]:
Hello, I’m here recruiting people and I’m investing in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I immediately went into, let me tell you how awesome I am. Let me prove that I’m the one that you should select. And I was aware enough that I was able to stop myself fairly quickly. But my question for you is, how often have you done that? And are you doing that in your marriage now? You know, compromise is one thing. It’s. It’s healthy to compromise. Yes, I’ll do this, you’ll do that together, we’ll do this.
Sean [00:31:49]:
But compromise is not abandoning yourself. Compromise is, yes, I’ll make dinner, even though I don’t want to. Compromise is, okay, we’ll go to Mexico, even though I wanted to go to France, but then maybe next year we’ll go to Mexico and. Or we’ll go to France instead of Mexico. Like, it’s a Minor thing. Sometimes it’s not that minor. I get that. But it’s not abandoning yourself.
Sean [00:32:17]:
It’s not putting other people’s judgment and perception of you ahead of your own reality. Feel that one. Please feel that. I define myself. I know myself to be loving, joyful, nurturing, kind, whatever. If you judge me as not nurturing, not loving, not joyful, not kind, it does not change my essence. I still remain that unless I choose to believe your judgment ahead of my own. If you look up at the sky and you see that it’s blue and you know it’s blue and everybody around you says, no, it’s purple, are you really going to abandon your knowingness that the sky is blue? And then most importantly, is the sky going to change colors because the majority of people are calling it purple? Think about that.
Sean [00:33:26]:
Is the sky going to change colors because the majority of people are calling it purple? No, the sky is blue. The sky is blue. It doesn’t matter if everybody on earth demanded that the sky becomes purple. It’s not going to, because it’s not. That’s what this mirror of truth exercise is about. What is being mirrored to you might not be true. What you are mirroring to yourself is true. Ask yourself, where have I abandoned myself in order to be chosen? And then at some point, look in a mirror, bathroom mirror, bedroom mirror.
Sean [00:34:21]:
Look at yourself and say out loud what you see. I see joy reflected in my eyes. I see love reflected in my eyes. Say all the things that you see. I see beauty. I see grace. I see vulnerability. I see weakness.
Sean [00:34:52]:
And I belong to me. I belong to myself. I am not leaving myself again. Look at yourself in the mirror. I am not leaving you again. I belong to you. You. And I promise to reflect only the truth of who you are.
Sean [00:35:23]:
I belong to you. And I promise to only reflect the truth of who you are. Exclusive of anybody else’s beliefs or judgments. Ah, breathe that in. Feel the energy around that. The second tool that really anchors in self belonging is just that. It’s somatic anchoring. I’m a somatic attachment therapist, which means I use the body to help anchor in healing around your attachment style.
Sean [00:36:10]:
So this thematic anchoring, what I want you to do, is scan your body. That might mean making some gentle moves, some shoulder circles, some breathing, sitting up tall. It might mean just moving your attention inward and starting with your toes, coming up, your feet, legs, torso, arms and head. And ask, where do I feel safe in my body right now? Where do I feel safe in my body right now? You might feel Very safe. In your thighs, in your gut, you might not feel so safe in your heart, in your mind. Just notice where you feel safe and if it feels safe to do so, bring in more safety. Lean into that sense of safety. Look around your environment right now.
Sean [00:37:31]:
Are you safe? If you’re sitting in your bedroom or sitting in your kitchen, you’re probably safe. Maybe you’re outside running, you’re walking, you’re at a park. Are you safe? Don’t play games in your head like, well, yeah, the whole sky could fall. Sure could. But are you safe? For the most part, Are you safe? Notice that safety and try to feel it. Try to bring up that sense of safety in your body, if indeed you are safe right now. And I want you to ground that sense of safety with breath and by placing one hand on the heart and one hand on, on the womb, the belly, and just breathe and anchor in that sense of physical safety, that sacred self belonging. Who are you? How are you mirroring that in yourself? And how are you allowing that to feel safe in your body? Like I said, I had this realization that I am pure positive joy.
Sean [00:38:51]:
I am feeling that joy in my body, in my fingers, at my temples, at my heart, in my gut, in my toes. Name what you are and see if you can move that throughout your body. That love, that nurturing, that kindness, that compassion. Anchor that into your body. Now as that’s anchored in, I want you to imagine, visualize or pretend that somebody is trying to disrupt your piece, that somebody’s trying to tell you, no, you’re negative and critical. No, you’re awful and rude. You’re not that smart, you’re disgusting. And instead of sliding up into your head to start defending that and fighting that, stay down here in your body, stay in your gut and feel it and be like, yeah, I am safe here.
Sean [00:40:05]:
I am safe right here, right now. Now the third activity that’s going to help bring in that sacred sense of self belonging. You filled yourself up. You have found that trust with yourself in the mirror. You have found the sense of safety in your body that even though other people are trying to get you to prove your worth or trying to get you to show up a little bit differently, you’re still there. The third thing I want you to do is rescript your inner voice. We’ve got the spirit that we addressed in that mirroring energy and that mirroring activity where it’s like, I’m mirroring the, mirroring the energy of my soul, the somatic anchoring, we’re anchoring it into the body. And this rescripting this is an intellectual activity.
Sean [00:41:06]:
This is the mind. Mind stuff. We all have an inner voice, and most of us have an inner voice that is not that kind, that says things like, you’ve got to do a better job. You really failed. You’re really bad at this. I can’t believe that’s all you got done today. If people even knew what a hot mess I was. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sean [00:41:30]:
Okay, listen to this. Does your inner critic sound like your betrayer? Does your inner critic sound like your betrayer? I want you to really think about that. My husband used to say, when he was cheating, do a better job. Which is such a classic projection, because he wasn’t doing a better job. So he would tell me to do a better job, and then I would say, oh, my God, I’ve got to do a better job. Why am I not doing a better job? I can work harder, faster, longer. All that stuff, that was not my reality. That was his defense mechanism.
Sean [00:42:17]:
That was his projection that was on him. And yet I believed it because I was not possessed with myself. I was possessed with everybody else’s opinions and judgments and thoughts of me. So notice if your inner critic sounds like you’re a betrayer. If not, who do they sound like? Is it your critical mother or father, parenting figure? Is it a teacher? Where did your inner critic learn to talk like that? You know, all the little games because so many of us have heard this a million times before. But would you say the things that you say to yourself, to somebody else? Would you, honest to God, look at your best friend and be like, oh, my God, you’re. You suck. You look awful.
Sean [00:43:14]:
This is ridiculous. You can’t pull anything together. I don’t even know why you’re here. No, you would never do that. But we do it to ourselves all the time. Our inner critic. That inner voice sets the tone for our reality. It is a tall order to say, oh, wow, I get that.
Sean [00:43:40]:
I’m never going to berate myself again, because this is an ingrained habit. But what I am asking you to do is to start noticing and to start reframing, to affirm for yourself. I believe in you. You’ve got this now. I’ve got this. Lately, I’ve been saying a lot. You can do this, Lora. You can do this, Lora.
Sean [00:44:09]:
You’ve got this, Lora. And that is becoming my default. When I’m like, oh, my God, I’m so overwhelmed. Oh, my God, I have so much to do. I’m never going to figure this all out. I don’t know how I’m going to get all this done to. You’ve got this, Lora. You can do this.
Sean [00:44:24]:
Lora. Lora, it’s going to work out. You’ve got this. And at first it feels silly, but then it becomes habit and then it starts becoming that self fulfilling prophecy. I do have this. I can handle this. I might not want to handle it, but I can handle it. So that’s that third exercise that I really want you to do is by rescripting that inner voice consciously that does not sound like your caregiver or your betrayer, but it sounds like your best friend.
Sean [00:45:00]:
That it sounds like your spirit, your soul. Like when I said I am joy, that mirror of truth is I walk away from being joy to try to fit in. So now I am mirroring this back to myself. The somatic anchoring is feeling that joy in my body even when people are trying to take it away. And then that rescripting that inner voice is I bring joy to people. If they don’t want to receive that, I don’t need to hound them. This is also a recent learning that I’m just figuring out, if somebody doesn’t want my love, I’m not going to force it on them. If somebody doesn’t want my joy and my energy, I’m not going to force it on them.
Sean [00:45:47]:
It’s not a rejection of me, it’s that they can’t handle it. It’s that they can’t handle it for some reason. And oh my gosh, in the past, as part of proving myself, I would chase down all the people who didn’t quite get me. Oh, I’m going to make you understand me. Instead of engaging with all of you beautiful, amazing people who send me emails, who book appointments, who cultivate a relationship with me, I would chase after the people who are like, I don’t really get your show. If you look and there’s ratings on, like on my podcast, the negative ratings, those are the people where I’m like, oh my God, we gotta talk, we gotta figure it out. Instead of. And there’s only like three.
Sean [00:46:32]:
Instead of looking at all 40 positive ones, I’m focusing on the three negative ones and what I can do to prove myself to you, what I can do to explain because you clearly misunderstood me and if you only knew what I was really going for, you would love me too. So I gotta prove myself to you. And look at how wonderful and look at how open I am. And I’m going to take that feedback oh my God, no, no, no, no, no, no. Do you feel that? Do you do that too? Say you do that too. And this is a little side note. Please leave me a review. Apple Podcasts has the review.
Sean [00:47:10]:
Spotify, you can do the little star links. Most podcast platforms have a way to rate and review. Um, Amazon is a little. Yeah, it’s still not Amazon. Apple Music. I think I said that wrong. Apple Music. It’s a little tricky to leave a review sometimes because you can do the stars and the writing, but it would make a world of difference because people do look at the reviews and if you could speak about the changes that it has made for you, I would really appreciate that.
Sean [00:47:42]:
And if you’re listening to this podcast on a platform that doesn’t allow reviews, if you email me a review, please, Lora, Lora, cheadle.com just email me a review because it really helps other people know who to trust. Because as you know, when you’re in a position like this where trust has been broken and you can’t, you think your own picker is broken and you think you can’t trust yourself anymore, it’s really invaluable to read reviews before. So please leave a review or send me a review. I would really, really appreciate that. I want to wrap up by really talking about and highlighting that turning point, that turning point where we go from proving our worth to being self possessed, to be in that sacred sense of belonging. You know, I had mentioned when I was at the conference speaking in India and when that man came in and I started proving my worth, I knew that was a thing. But I think another turning point for me really did happen in my relationship where, yeah, early on it was, pick me, pick me, pick me. I, I, I can do the work, I can help, I can hold your hand.
Sean [00:49:02]:
I can love you unconditionally. I can heal you through my love. That’s it. That’s it. I’m gonna work really, really hard and I, and I’m going to heal you by walking by your side. And I’m going to show you what unconditional love is all about. And then you’re going to pick me. There was a point where I really did release, Yes, I told Sean, I want you to fight for us.
Sean [00:49:22]:
I told Sean, I do love you. I told Sean all these things, but there was a place energetically where I was like, and whatever will be, will be. I, I will show up and I will do the things, but mostly I’m doing them for me because I would notice when I would get Too invested in his healing that it would create so much dysfunction. Tell me what happened to therapy. Tell me what you’re working on. Let’s discuss this. Book sharing is one thing, but being his case manager, that’s a total other thing. And I really had a turning point where it was like, dude, you do you.
Sean [00:50:02]:
And I’m gonna do me and I’m gonna focus on getting my own different forms of coaching and therapy and I’m gonna sign up for my own programs and I’m gonna take myself out to dinner and out on a walk and I’m gonna do my own journaling. And if you want to join me, Lovely. And if you don’t. Lovely. I also wanted to share a story that I recently shared with one of my clients. I’ve been working with her all the way, all the way from early on Discovery. And now they reconciled and then a whole bunch of other stuff happened and now she’s through divorce. And I was just saying to her the other day when I met you, you were not you, you were not filled up with you.
Sean [00:50:47]:
You were focused on him and you were telling me all these stories of here’s what he’s doing and it’s so cute. And he left our rings over here. And then he, he asked me and then he put the ring back on my finger and I said this. And it was all like this cute story about how great he was. And at that time he was trying. Listen, at that time he was trying. Did you hear that? At that time he was trying. And then he hit a point where the work was too much and he couldn’t.
Sean [00:51:20]:
And she leaned in and she’s going to reach out and she’s going to. And then all of a sudden she had this turning point too where it was like, whoa, he’s not capable. And she backed off and she let him be him and he imploded. And was it sad? Yes, of course it was sad. Was she disappointed? Yes. She really thought he could make this work, she could make this work. And suddenly she started doing herself. She took a couple of amazing solo trips.
Sean [00:51:53]:
She has found a fun group of girlfriends. She’s doing some other sporting activities. She’s doing things she’s never done before. She is creating some great things with her children. She is so fully self possessed. She is who she is. And she’s allowing herself to be pissed and to be mad and to be fun and to be free and to be adventurous. And it’s been so neat watching her unfoldment because like many of us, she was married young, when your full identity hasn’t been established, when you haven’t had a chance to live your whole life as yourself, and to be in a situation where you suddenly get to rediscover your own identity is beautiful.
Sean [00:52:46]:
And I hate to say it, but it’s worth the cost of betrayal. It’s worth the price of admission. And that’s what I want for you. I want this to be worth it. You were never truly broken. You were disconnected. Sure, maybe you were disconnected from your partner, but most importantly, you were disconnected from yourself coming back home to who you are. Sacred self belonging is the antidote to betrayal.
Sean [00:53:19]:
It is that unshakable foundation that betrayal tried to destroy. But it’s also the gift. The betrayal revealed the need to find yourself, the need to fully be possessed by yourself and to come back home to you so you could reflect your beauty, your grace, your joy, Close your eyes, touch your heart, touch your belly if you can, and just breathe. I belong to me and will never abandon myself again. If this episode moved you and you’d like to go deeper, please reach out. Introductory sessions are only $97. You can learn more when you go to betrayalrecoveryguide.com you can download your free Betrayal Recovery Guide and then there’s the link to schedule your $97 introductory session. We can explore where you’re at, what it would look like to come back home to yourself.
Sean [00:54:43]:
This is the first step. This is your first step in reclaiming identity, sovereignty and self trust. Remember to, like, subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with somebody who might need it to because Betrayal ends where sacred self belonging begins. Betrayal ends where sacred self belonging begins. Have an amazing week and as usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are. Because who you are is always more than enough.
Lora Cheadle [00:55:36]:
Tune in next time to flaunt, find your sparkle and create a life you love after Infidelity or Betrayal with Lora Cheadle every Wednesday at 7am and 7pm Eastern Standard Time on syndicated DreamVision 7 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@betrayalrecoveryguide.com.
