Longing After Betrayal: Grieving the Future You Thought You’d Have

Woman with short curly hair gazing out of a window podcast cover

There’s a very specific ache that shows up after betrayal—especially during the holidays. It’s not just missing a person. It’s grieving the future you thought you were building…and the version of you who once believed in it. In this episode, we talk about longing—not as a problem to fix, but as a signal of healing, a doorway back to self-trust, and a gentle bridge into what’s next.

 

Longing after betrayal can feel confusing and even scary—because wanting, hoping, and believing once led to pain. But longing isn’t weakness, and it doesn’t mean you’re stuck or that you “made a mistake.” In this episode, Lora Cheadle explores why the holidays amplify longing (hello, Hallmark movies), why longing is often grief and love intertwined, and how longing can become a powerful compass back to self-trust. You’ll learn how to honor the future you lost without rushing into a new one, and you’ll be guided through a presencing practice and intentional silence to help regulate your nervous system and listen inward. Plus, Lora invites you into her $26 Vision Board Workshop on January 10—a gentle, guided container to help you reconnect with what still matters and shape what comes next without pressure.

 

Top 3 Takeaways

  1. 1. Longing doesn’t mean you want your old life back—it means something meaningful mattered. You’re not “doing it wrong” if you ache; you’re human, and you’re grieving a future you imagined.
  1. 2. After betrayal, many women don’t stop trusting others—they stop trusting themselves to want again. Avoiding longing isn’t failure; it’s protection that hasn’t been updated yet.

 

  1. 3 Longing can become a compass when you stop trying to resolve it. Instead of asking “What do I want next?” try asking, “What does my longing still care about?”—and let that guide you gently forward.

 

Favorite Quote

“Longing isn’t asking you to go backwards—it’s asking you to acknowledge how far you’ve come.

 

📌 Hashtags:
#BetrayalRecovery #InfidelityHealing #HealingAfterInfidelity #BetrayalTrauma #EmotionalHealing #SelfTrust #NervousSystemHealing #SomaticHealing #HolidayTriggers #GriefAndHealing #WomenHealing #LifeAfterBetrayal #FLAUNTPodcast #LifeChoreography #VisionBoardWorkshop

Free Betrayal Recovery Guide

You don’t have to stay shattered. Download your FREE Betrayal Recovery Guide and come back home to yourself with clarity, confidence, and unshakable self-trust.

✅ Calm the chaos inside & out

✅ Break free from the trauma bonds

✅ Stop the spiral of second-guessing

✅ Call back your power, self-trust, & self-worth

Download Your Free Betrayal Recovery Guide

Ready for More?

I'm Lora Cheadle

I’m Lora Cheadle, JD, CHt—a betrayal recovery expert, attorney, TEDx speaker, and author of FLAUNT! and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal. After uncovering my husband’s 15-year affair, I turned my own pain into purpose, helping high-achieving women reclaim their identity, power, and joy. As a trauma-aware coach and somatic therapist, I blend legal clarity with emotional and spiritual healing to guide women toward full-spectrum recovery.

Lora's Books

Flaunt! by Lora Cheadle
It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive

Special Offers from Our Sponsors!

BetterHelp

Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast! Take charge of your mental health and get 10% off your first month of therapy.

BetterHelp.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 works. It’s a monthly dose of self-love delivered right to your door!

Use Discount Code LORA30 for 30% off your order!

www.Mindfulsouls.com
Advertise on FLAUNT!

Get the 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 at betrayalrecoveryguide. Lora Cheadle [00:00:36]: Before we begin talking about longing after betrayal and the idea of grieving the future that you thought you would have, I want to take a moment and I want you to notice something. You’re probably listening to this. Near the end of the year, the beginning of the year, around the holiday season, it’s and if you are, you might be feeling a quiet ache inside. Not panic or anxiety or urgency per se, but just this ache, this sense that something is missing. And what you might be aching for is not necessarily a person, but it’s an ache for the future that you thought you were building. It’s an ache for the woman you once were. And if that’s you, if you can feel into that ache and that longing, then this show is for you. You’re in the right place. Lora Cheadle [00:01:47]: What I want you to know is this ache does not mean that you’ve done the wrong thing. Longing does not mean you made a mistake. You don’t need to fix it. You don’t need to move on. You’re not stuck. And also, you don’t need to know where you’re going. You don’t need to know what comes next. And we’re going to break this all down today. Lora Cheadle [00:02:11]: But for right now, just arrive. Arrive in your body, arrive in your mind. Arrive if it feels good to consciously lower your shoulders or take a breath or do something like that. If it feels good, do something. Put your hand on your heart, roll your head, do something. And if not, if you’re still kind of like, oh, I’m feeling a little too much right now, then don’t. Just listen. Be here. Lora Cheadle [00:02:48]: Take what you need and leave the rest behind. But this episode. This episode is all about longing. Not as a problem to solve, but as something meaningful that deserves space, that deserves acknowledgment. Because longing isn’t asking you to go backwards. Longing is asking you to acknowledge how far you have come. Longing isn’t asking you to go backwards. It’s asking you to acknowledge how far you have come. Lora Cheadle [00:03:37]: Like several recent episodes, this is one that you might want to go back To. So be sure to subscribe, like, save this episode so you can come back and listen to it again after the holidays, after things slow down, so you can take this in deeper on an even different level. All right, I want to talk first about Hallmark Christmas movies. What they do to us, what they do to amplify that sense of longing. First of all, most of the Christmas movies, not always just Hallmark, like any of the cheesy Christmas movies, which, yes, I love, by the way, they all give us the scenario where people are beautifully connected. There’s a wonderful community in this wonderful town, and people have all this amazing support, and they create this longing for this idealized version of life that quite frankly, doesn’t exist. And then in that idealized version of life, they throw in some of these different romantic conflicts, you know, where somebody needs something and somebody wants something and somebody’s got a mountain to climb or somebody’s. You know what I mean? There’s always no. Lora Cheadle [00:04:58]: There’s always a conflict because no conflict, no story. And from this beautiful place of support, from this beautiful place of everything, like this incredible community, these people who are very clear and healed about, I need to. Whatever. Whatever it is, make $10 million to keep my hotel running. People are so clear about what they want and what they need. And most often, they have this incredible support. So what it highlights to us is where we’re lacking. Wow. Lora Cheadle [00:05:32]: I don’t have a community like that. I don’t have people around me like that. Whoa. I don’t even know what I want. I don’t have a simple problem to solve. And then I don’t have this soulmate who just drops into my world with very little work and everything works out amazingly. I don’t have that. I don’t have any of that. Lora Cheadle [00:05:59]: And what the movies do is they pique our sense of longing. So then when we see it resolve in front of us on the screen, we feel better. We’re like, oh, that’s so wonderful. Oh, it all worked out. And then we’re left with that all feel good yumminess. Okay, so that is why holidays amplify the longing. Movies like that amplify the longing. Quiet moments amplify the longing. Lora Cheadle [00:06:31]: But what I want to foot stomp here is longing isn’t just for the person. It’s not that I’m longing for my ex. It’s not that I’m longing for our relationship, because for so many people, they’re like, well, quite frankly, my relationship needed work. What they’re longing for is for the life that was supposed to have happened because after betrayal, we don’t grieve what happened, only we grieve what was supposed to have happened. We are grieving the future we imagined. We are longing for the future we imagined. We are longing for the story that we are living into. We are longing for that version of ourselves who believed it in the first place. Lora Cheadle [00:07:27]: Yeah. Were longing for that version of ourselves who believed it. Who was good and kind and trusting and who believed it. And what I want to say about that is when we long for that version of self, it’s not that we really want to go back to that identity because it’s archetypally a childhood identity. It’s I believe in the magic of Christmas and I believe in Santa. I believe in good things. I believe in all of those amazing things. And it’s not that. Lora Cheadle [00:08:10]: It’s just that it’s this grieving for this person that you used to be. And then it’s highlighting how this is not me anymore. So what you’re grieving is this innocent version of yourself. But that innocent version of yourself is not necessarily where you want to be. It’s not the adult, actualized, self activated, sovereign version. What it is, is it’s that you haven’t. How do I say this? You haven’t acknowledged fully how far you’ve come. It’s not that you’re longing to be that person again. Lora Cheadle [00:09:00]: You are longing to acknowledge how far you’ve come. You are longing to acknowledge the growth. The thing about longing is when we long for our old self, when we long for that woman who believed, that woman who trusted, it’s very similar to that nostalgia of longing for a simpler time. It’s just our nervous system saying, this is a lot, this is a lot, and I need a break. It’s not that we really want to go back to the 1950s. It’s not that we really want to go back to that version of a relationship that really could have used some growth. It’s not that we really want to go back to that version of who we were. It’s just acknowledging us, acknowledging that this is hard. Lora Cheadle [00:10:02]: This is a lot. This is taking extra effort. And there’s a higher level of responsibility now, now that I know there’s a higher level of responsibility. And sometimes that wears me out. And that’s okay. When we have that longing, we are really longing for acknowledgement. We are longing for acknowledgement of how far we have come. And sometimes when we’re in the middle of growth, it’s hard to see how much we’re growing. Lora Cheadle [00:10:37]: It’s not until we look back five years down the road, 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road, that we can say, whoa, I have grown, I have changed. I am a strong, capable, self actualized, happy woman who, and I think this is the important part, deeply trusts herself. I am somebody who now deeply loves myself and trusts myself. And I, I can advocate on behalf of myself and I don’t have the same level of self judgment that I had before and I don’t have the same level of like weird hang ups that I had before. I am so much happier and more content with who I am as a person. And yet still I can long for the simplicity of that woman that I used to be. Something I want to address too is the fact that longing often shows up when things finally slow down, when you actually start healing your nervous system a little bit, when you have a little bit of more, of more time, when you’ve got some space to feel. That’s when longing starts kicking in. Lora Cheadle [00:11:51]: And so many people book sessions with me and then they’re like, oh my God, I think I made a horrible mistake. I’m thinking back on this and this wasn’t bad, and this was great and we idealize things and, and then we feel like we’ve made a horrible mistake. And the thing is, can mistakes happen? Of course they can, but chances are you didn’t make a mistake. You did not make a mistake. I haven’t even met you and I’m really sure that you probably didn’t make a mistake. What’s going on is those moments are kicking in where you have all of this love with nowhere to go, where you have a taxed, stressed nervous system and you just want to chill for a bit, where you are going into a new space and you’re like, I need to acknowledge how far I’ve come. I want to validate myself and my growth and I need to see my goodness and my growth. And that’s what the longing is for. Lora Cheadle [00:13:01]: The longing is a longing to be witnessed not only from others, but most importantly for yourself. It’s the longing to witness yourself and your growth and your wisdom. What longing is not. I want to be clear about that. Longing is not a weakness. It’s not evidence that you’re stuck. It certainly does not mean that you want your old life back. Longing is this blending of grief and love and awareness. Lora Cheadle [00:13:43]: Longing is that place in the middle of where on one hand you see that you were naive, you were young, you were a child, you were innocent. You were all of that. And now you see, you are a woman. You are empowered. You are aware. And it’s like, oh, I can see both sides. It’s the red pill or the blue pill. Do you go back to how things were, or do you really lean into the growth of what is being laid out in front of you? That’s what longing is. Lora Cheadle [00:14:17]: It’s that grief and it’s that love, and it’s that past and it’s that future, and it’s in that moment of awareness for everything. And this is what I want you to know for sure. I want you to know for sure that longing is not asking you to go backwards. Longing is asking you to acknowledge where you are at. People distract themselves. People have their productivity crash. People can, like, implode when they feel like this longing is something that they’ve done wrong. And that’s why sometimes when we try to heal too fast or too aggressively, it feels fake. Lora Cheadle [00:15:10]: It feels aggressive, it feels fake. It feels exhausting and overwhelming. It feels like something. I don’t know. So we shut ourselves down and we go into that freeze. And why we do that, that’s normal. That’s totally normal. If you are frozen, if you are feeling like this is all fake, if you can’t. Lora Cheadle [00:15:30]: If you can’t be productive, if you’re in the one of those just tailspins where you just can’t. You can’t get over it and you can’t move on, but you can’t go. If you feel really icky and stuck and trapped, what I want you to do is take a moment and to acknowledge that. What I feel is I feel frozen. I feel stuck, I feel trapped, I feel miserable. I feel like I’ve lost a lot. I feel like I want to go back to the story in my head. I feel like I gave so much to that life and I want it back. Lora Cheadle [00:16:06]: It feels unfair. It feels. I want you to acknowledge all of that and to just let that pain land. Because once you let it land, you realize, I can hold this. And in the holding it, I am acknowledging. I am acknowledging where I started. I acknowledge where I am now. And that’s a big stretch. Lora Cheadle [00:16:37]: And yes, there’s more to go, but, wow, look at how far I have come. Longing feels really uncomfortable after betrayal because the nature of betrayal is having our expectations not being met, having our hopes dashed, having things not work out. So when we, in our most recent past have this evidence that I tried really hard, I gave it my all, and it didn’t work out. I trusted him and it didn’t work out. I thought this was the life that I was creating, and it didn’t work out. We have this evidence in our brain that it’s not going to work out again. And it hurt a lot. And our nervous system is still dysregulated and on edge. Lora Cheadle [00:17:31]: So what we say is, I’m shutting down all sense of wanting. I’m stopping it. I will never want again. I will never open myself up again. I’m going to stay protected, and I am never going to be hurt again. So then these sense of longing come up. The sense of longing comes up and we push it down, and then we long for something. We push it down and then we long for something, and then we create that story in our head about how that longing is bad, about how that longing led to pain, about how that longing feels dangerous and it makes us so we don’t want to lean forward again. Lora Cheadle [00:18:07]: We don’t want to move into longing again. Because, dang it, I gave it my all before and it didn’t work out. I trusted him before and it didn’t work out. I stayed home and took care of everything, and it didn’t work out. Whatever your story is, it’s the story of longing that you leaned into that then didn’t work out. So that feels really, really dangerous whenever longing comes up again. And this is how I want you to reframe that going forward. Sit with that for a second. Lora Cheadle [00:18:39]: The show’s got a lot of moments where we’re sitting with it. Sit with that for a second. And I want you to think about, do you trust yourself after betrayal? Do you trust yourself after betrayal when you can say, hmm, the things that I wanted, the things that I leaned into didn’t work? I don’t trust myself to want again. I don’t trust myself to want again. I don’t trust myself to just be like, yay, I’m going to leave and lean into this glorious thing and it’s all going to work out again because this wound is so fresh. I’m not going to put myself at risk again. Most women don’t trust themselves after betrayal. They distrust what they’re wanting has led to avoiding. Lora Cheadle [00:19:40]: Wanting isn’t a failure. It’s a protection that hasn’t been updated yet. I’m going to say that again. Avoiding longing isn’t a failure. It’s just a protection that hasn’t been updated yet. And there is no rush in updating that. This is about being where you are. If you are not ready to long for something. Lora Cheadle [00:20:08]: A healthy relationship, a soulmate connection, a joyful, happy family, a supportive and trusting community. Somebody who’s got your back. A true partnership. If you’re not ready to long for that again because you’re frozen, because you’re distracted, because you’re feeling aggressive or angry or fake, feel it. That’s why I started this section by saying, acknowledge however you’re feeling and be with how you’re feeling. Know that I’m not ready to start longing for things yet, but one day longing will come in. And when that longing comes in, when that sense of longing comes in, I welcome it. I welcome it not from a place of showing me what I’m not getting, but from a place of showing me my nervous system is healed enough to start wanting again. Lora Cheadle [00:21:06]: So how would you feel watching the cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies? If you watch that movie and at the end when everything turns out, you go, oh. And you lean in and it feels good, that’s evidence that you’re healing versus watching it and going, well, that’s stupid. It doesn’t work out like that. That’s evidence of how you’re feeling. I’m feeling irritated by this. I’m sure we’ve all felt irritated by that. I’m feeling irritated by it. That doesn’t mean you’re broken. Lora Cheadle [00:21:39]: It means I’m not ready to move into longing yet. My nervous system does not yet feel safe enough to long to have longing. Acknowledge that my nervous system does not want to watch these movies. My nervous system is not ready to long for something yet. The wound is still too fresh. I feel pissy. I feel shut down. I feel irritated. Lora Cheadle [00:21:59]: Whatever it is, name it and be with it. And then know that. And one day soon I will want to long again. And one day soon I will be ready to lean into the joy of longing. Because longing is a threshold. It’s a threshold into healing. It’s a threshold into deep self trust. Deep self trust. Lora Cheadle [00:22:28]: Not trust that I trust somebody else, but into deep self trust. Longing isn’t a plan. It isn’t a commitment. It’s not something you stick on a vision board and say, I really long for that. Longing is information. It’s information that you’re ready to move forward. It’s information that my nervous system feels safe enough that I can start dreaming that I’m out of this fight, flight or freeze. And now I’m into creativity. Lora Cheadle [00:22:59]: And now I’m into action. And now I’m into just doing some fun things again. So longing is information. It doesn’t tell you what to build, what to do. It doesn’t tell you I’m ready to move to Montana and get married to the local Christmas tree farmer. It tells you I trust myself a little bit more. I trust myself to want. I trust myself to open my heart. Lora Cheadle [00:23:33]: I trust myself to have discernment. I trust myself. It doesn’t tell you what you want or what to do, but it tells you what still matters. It tells you that connection still matters, that relationship still matters, that partnership still matters, that a home life or a family life still matters. It tells you that you still matter. It tells you that you matter. Are you longing for safety? Are you longing for ease? Are you longing for partnership? Are you longing for deep conversation, for depth? Are you longing for a companion? Are you longing for joy without performing or proving yourself? When you long for things, you’re trusting yourself again and you’re affirming your worth. I can’t long for something that I don’t think that I’m truly worthy of having. Lora Cheadle [00:24:55]: I long for that deep, deep connection and joy, to be seen and known and loved for who I am, for companionship, for partnership, for, like, all of that. Like, I long for this community. I long for this network of support and love and joy. Like, I long for that because I. I believe that I’m worthy of it and because I know that I deserve it. So I’m safe enough to long for it because I know I deserve it versus, oh, my God, it’s what I want and I’m never gonna have it. Longing to affirm, longing to validate, longing to guide you up into that next version of who you are. You don’t have to completely resolve the longing for it to guide you, for it to enliven you, for it to bring you joy. Lora Cheadle [00:26:00]: You don’t have to get the man with a Christmas Tree farm. You don’t have to get the perfect relationship and have your Hallmark Christmas movie movie ending. Longing is joyful. Longing is enriching. And having that energy guide you and move you and motivate you is healing. And when you trust yourself and when you stop judging yourself and really trust yourself and your heart, then you can manage those bumps along the way. You can manage all of those things that don’t quite work out. And you are even healthy enough to see the blessings then in the things that don’t work out. Lora Cheadle [00:26:52]: Oh, this didn’t work, but this will. Oh, that’s all right that this didn’t work. I trust myself enough to meet my needs somewhere else. You know what I’m saying like if I’m longing for connection and companionship and that’s what I want. And in my head the story is that’s going to be in a romantic relationship. But my romantic relationships aren’t working out. But I end up finding this dear, dear, dear friend and then I’m really loving this friend. And we have this deep companionship and we have this deep connection and we have great girls weekends and we have this. Lora Cheadle [00:27:29]: We just have so much fun together. We can realize, oh, I am getting what I wanted just in a different form. And I have so much gratitude for that. Sure, I still may want a Roman romantic relationship for some other reasons, but wow, my need for companionship and connection, it’s being fulfilled here. And that longing is healthy because it guides us forward and it allows us to self reflect again and validate. You got it. So the longing doesn’t need resolution. It just needs space to blossom. Lora Cheadle [00:28:11]: So here’s something that I want you to think about. Instead of asking what future do I want now? Or what do I want to manifest in the new year? I want you to ask instead, what does my longing still care about? What does my longing still care about? And no action is required. No action is needed. This is about listening to that voice inside. This is not about deciding. Because again, longing doesn’t need the perfect resolution. It just needs space to breathe. It needs space to blossom. Lora Cheadle [00:29:01]: It needs space to grow. So what does your longing still care about? Connection, Truth. Joy. Honesty. Beauty. You know that poem, she walks in beauty like the night. I care about just beauty. Not like physical beauty, but just the essence of beauty. Lora Cheadle [00:29:25]: Like there is so much beautiful nature around us. There’s so much beautiful expression around us. Music, art. I long for beauty. I long for that kind of beauty. I still care about that. That’s not like what I put on a vision board and accomplish. Yes, no check mark. Lora Cheadle [00:29:47]: It’s what my longing is leading me towards. Because longing doesn’t need that resolution. It needs space. And when we work with longing, what we need is, is a container. We need a container. We don’t need a fix. We don’t need an endpoint. We need a container to allow that longing to blossom. Lora Cheadle [00:30:14]: And in service of that, I’ve mentioned this before. I created a vision board workshop with a space to sit with your longing. Not to push past it, not to download and print and cut and paste images on a vision board about, I want a red car and a purple flower or anything like that, but a container. A place where you can come where you can listen where you can sit with yourself, where you can sit with your longing, where you can have a place to listen to your heart, to your soul without pressure. But to let. To let yourself sit and to be with what still matters for you. With a place where you can sit and be still, where you can listen, where you can get back in touch with the things that still matter to you. And what’s really beautiful about this kind of a workshop is how the things that we thought mattered so often we realize don’t really matter. Lora Cheadle [00:31:34]: Like I, I would have used to have said, so many of these external things matter. My clean house matters. My kept up appearance matters. The way you know this, that and the other thing happens matters. And now it’s like, honestly, there are so many things that don’t matter. I hold so much less judgment towards myself and towards others. The state of my house does not matter. You know what I mean? Like showing up with full makeup or hair versus rolling out of bed and putting on a ponytail, oh my God, it doesn’t matter. Lora Cheadle [00:32:09]: What matters is my presence. What matters is me. What matters is the connection. What matters is love and space. What matters is supporting people. What matters is community. What matters is having people that I can have these deep conversations with. It’s so important to really peel back those layers and to get to the heart and the soul of what it is you’re longing for. Lora Cheadle [00:32:37]: Because on the surface, most of us will say things like, I long for the healthy body and I long for the great relationship and I long for. And we say all of these things. But then when you go deeper, the longing is really for something deeper. It’s not for the cosmetically healthy looking body. It’s for vitality. It’s for carrying more joy, it’s for experiencing more life. It’s not just longing for a romantic relationship. It’s longing to be known, it’s longing to be seen. Lora Cheadle [00:33:09]: It’s longing to have a space where you can express. Like the layer is always one level deep, sometimes three levels deep. But that’s what we’re doing in this container. We. I am giving you a space to breathe. I’m giving you a space to sit. I’m giving you a space to long. And that’s huge. Lora Cheadle [00:33:31]: Because when you can sit in a safe space with other people who are also learning how to long again, what you really do is learning, doing is learning how to trust yourself again. You’re learning how to trust yourself with that sense of longing. And it’s powerful. It is so powerful, powerful. It is unlike any vision board workshop you have ever done or thought about in your life. It is on January 10th, which is a Saturday from 9 to 11 Mountain, which is 8 to 10 Pacific, 9 to 11 Mountain, 10 to 12 Central, and 11 to 1 Eastern. And I’ll give all the other time zone conversions to you because I know we’ve got a lot of people from Australia and Europe in here. But it is Saturday, January 10th, and here’s the thing, because I feel really called to do this, because I feel that getting in touch with our longing is such an overlooked and vitally important component to healing from betrayal. Lora Cheadle [00:34:44]: I’m doing it for only $26 because we’re moving into the year 2026. So it’s only $26. Yes, there will be a replay available so you can have access to this and you can do it not only year after year after year, but you can do it at any transition point for yourself. Go to flourish after infidelity.com you can sign up and you can make payment right there. Flourish after infidelity.com because this is the container that you are going to want to be a part of. Especially going back to like the cheesy Christmas movies if the underpinning of that is that loving, connected community. And you’re like, well, if I just had this loving, connected community, I would feel safe. And then I could be start healing and then I could finally start speaking my truth. Lora Cheadle [00:35:36]: This is that safe, connected community. This is the container for you. So flourish after infidelity.com $26. Join us live or use the replay. And what I want you to know is you don’t need clarity. You don’t need to come into this workshop, into this container, being like, what I want in 2026 is what I am longing for is. No, no, no, no, no. This is the place where you’re going to figure that out. Lora Cheadle [00:36:09]: If you have some ideas, wonderful. If you have no ideas, wonderful. You don’t need to know what you want. Wanting to listen to yourself is enough. Wanting to start wanting is enough. Wanting to feel that longing is enough. Couple things I want you to know. Longing for something is powerful. Lora Cheadle [00:36:44]: It’s a clue that you’re healing. Longing is yourself wanting to be acknowledged. Longing is yourself wanting to be trusted. Longing is the threshold to self trust. Self trust is the threshold to trusting others. You don’t have to rush the future. You just have to stop abandoning the part of you that still cares. You don’t have to squish that part down anymore. Lora Cheadle [00:37:26]: It is safe to long for the past. It doesn’t mean you made a mistake. It is safe to long for the simplicity and innocence of another time. It doesn’t mean anything wrong. It just highlights how far you’ve come. So together. Let’s celebrate how far you have come. Let’s celebrate how much you can trust yourself going forward. Lora Cheadle [00:37:56]: Nothing about longing is wrong. If you’d like support, if you’d like to be in this container, flourish after infidelity.com but again, this is not about pinning things on a vision board with this hard, fast, aggressive stance. This is about opening up yourself and sitting with what might be possible. This is not about dragging you forward. This is about sitting with what is sitting in that space where you can see both the past and the future. And you trust yourself implicitly with what is. Before we close, I want to offer you a gentle gift. I want to guide you through a presencing activity so you can get back into your body. Lora Cheadle [00:39:03]: So you can learn how to listen to yourself in a different way. So you can learn how to calm and regulate the nervous system. So you can start learning how to create the kind of container that I will be creating for you during our Vision board workshop on January 10th. Now, this isn’t about fixing anything. This isn’t about finding answers and figuring out your future. This is just letting your body, letting your nervous system settle. So if you’re driving or doing something that requires your attention, just listen. But again, bookmark the show, save the show. Lora Cheadle [00:39:48]: Oh, you know what I think I’m going to do? Oh, I know exactly what I’m going to do because you guys are amazing. I am going to pull this piece of the show and I’m going to save it as an MP3 file. And then everybody who comes to the vision Board workshop is going to get a free MP3 of this. Oh, I love my own ideas. This is why we’re friends, right? Anyway, if you were driving or doing something important, just listen, come back to it later. And if it feels safe, go ahead and close your eyes, cast your gaze down and just pause. Take a moment and notice where your body is supported right now. Is it the chair beneath you, the floor, a couch, or a bed? What is the surface that is holding you up? You don’t need to change anything. Lora Cheadle [00:41:01]: Don’t change your breath. Just notice that it’s already happening for you. Let your shoulders drop just a bit. Move your mouth, unclench your jaw. You don’t need to brace. There’s nothing you need to brace for in this moment. And Just allow yourself to be, to feel that gravity anchoring you onto the planet. Somewhere inside of you, there’s a quiet place where longing lives. Lora Cheadle [00:41:49]: Longing, not loud, not demanding, just present. You don’t need to name it, you don’t need to understand it. Just feel that pull, that gentle tugging. Notice where it is showing up in your body, your chest, your belly, your throat. Or maybe it’s just a feeling without location. It’s just this general whoosh pulling through you. Longing doesn’t need an answer. Longing doesn’t demand a plan. Lora Cheadle [00:42:40]: Longing just wants to know that it’s allowed. It’s allowed to be here. It’s allowed to exist. Breathe in and let yourself say silently or out loud, this matters. All of this mattered. I matter. And my longing matters. Now imagine that that longing isn’t pulling you backwards or forwards. Lora Cheadle [00:43:21]: It’s standing right next to you. It’s not asking you to recreate the past. It’s not demanding that you create a future. It’s simply here to point you towards all the things that have meaning for you without effort. See if a word or an image or a quality arises. Not a goal, not a future vision, but just a feeling. Don’t overthink, just see what comes up. See where longing is directing you. Lora Cheadle [00:44:16]: Safety, ease, laughter, joy, depth, creativity, peace, connection. Whatever shows up, that’s enough. You don’t need to act on it. You don’t need to create a plan. Just let it be received. Let your longing be witnessed, without an agenda, without needing anything more. Take a breath. Not to change anything, not to do anything, simply to acknowledge yourself, to acknowledge the longing that’s bubbling up from your heart or your soul. Lora Cheadle [00:45:21]: Longing doesn’t mean you’re behind, it doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. It means your heart is still alive. And listening to it, without judgment, without rushing, is one of the deepest acts of self trust that there is. So simply listen, be present with and acknowledge this longing. When you’re ready, bring your awareness back to the room. Wiggle your fingers and toes and carry this knowing with you. Carry this longing with you, walking alongside you, your heart in your soul. You don’t have to force the future for it to arrive. Lora Cheadle [00:46:35]: Listening, being present is enough. When you’re ready, you can either stay here or you can gently blink your eyes open. And if you’d like to continue this act of longing, this act of listening without pressure, one of the best ways to do that, one of the best ways to figure it all out, to become present, to allow yourself to listen to yourself, is simply by creating space, creating a container for yourself where you’re not doing anything. And for anybody out there who is like me, a do do doer, a fixer, an over functioner, not doing things is really hard. Instead, our mind tricks us into thinking that once I read the right book or listen to the right podcast, once I get this figured out, everything is going to fall into place and it’ll all make sense. And here’s the thing. Yes, knowledge makes a difference. But unless we apply that knowledge, unless there is application, then we don’t grow. Lora Cheadle [00:48:17]: One of the best ways to get back in touch with our heart, our soul, our longing, and our sense of self is simply by being in intentional silence. And our world is so noisy and we are used to being so distracted, our nervous systems often cannot sit still without a certain amount of discomfort, without a certain amount of anxiety. Coming up with the belief that oh my goodness, I should be somewhere else, I should be doing something. And that’s what I ask you to lean into for about the next five minutes is intentional silence. No music, no words, just silence. And what I want you to notice is what comes up. Is it hard for you to sit in silence? Is it uncomfortable? Is it uncomfortable at the beginning, but then does it get easier? This is not about meditation and quieting your mind intentionally. It’s not about focusing on your breath. Lora Cheadle [00:49:40]: It’s just about being still, being present. Maybe there’s ambient sounds around, maybe not. Just be in silence if you want to notice, sure, notice something. But just be present. Allow yourself to still and simply be present. And I’ll be back for you in about five minutes. Welcome back. I can’t wait to see you for the Vision board workshop on January 10th. Lora Cheadle [00:55:58]: Again, it’s not about replacing the future that you lost. It’s about honoring what matters as you shape what comes next. As usual, always have an amazing week and always remember to flaunt exactly who you are. Because who you are is always more then enough. Lora Cheadle [00:56:27]: 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 Dream Vision 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 embrace the future and flourish today. Download your free Betrayal Recovery toolkit@betrayalrecoveryguide.com.