The 4 Phases of Betrayal Recovery: Are You Healing—or Just Learning?

Woman hiding behind a book

After betrayal, it is easy to become trapped in an endless cycle of learning. You listen to more podcasts, read more books, study nervous system regulation, attachment, boundaries, narcissism, reconciliation, and divorce—hoping the next piece of information will finally make you feel clear.

But there comes a point when gathering more information can become its own form of hypervigilance.

In Part One of this two-part series, Lora Cheadle introduces the four phases of her Life Choreography® Method: Regulate, Reorient, Reconnect, and Rechoreograph. She guides you through each phase as though you were in a private session together, helping you identify where you are, where you may have skipped ahead, and what kind of support you actually need now.

This episode also explores the difference between conscious insight and subconscious change, why the right tool used at the wrong time can feel like another failure, and how hypnosis can help update the old survival rules that continue operating beneath the surface.

Top 3 Takeaways

  1. Learning more is not always the same as healing.

Learning can be an important first step, but endless information gathering can keep you focused on the problem and safely outside your own transformation. At some point, the next step is no longer another book, podcast, or tool. It is allowing what you already know to change how you live.

  1. Betrayal recovery has an order.

The four phases of the Life Choreography® Method are Regulate, Reorient, Reconnect, and Rechoreograph. You cannot force clarity while your nervous system is still in survival, reconnect with yourself before orienting to the truth, or rebuild a life that reflects who you are before knowing who you are now.

  1. Conscious understanding may not change a subconscious survival pattern.

You can consciously know that you are safe, worthy, and capable of making decisions while your body continues reacting from fear, abandonment, or helplessness. Hypnosis helps update the subconscious beliefs, conditioned associations, and old survival rules that keep recreating the same emotional response.

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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

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  • Laura [00:00:03]: Today we are going to be talking about the 4 phases of betrayal recovery, and I’m going to question you. I’m going to push you, sort of like if you were in a one-on-one session with me, to discern whether you are truly healing right now or if you were stuck in a cycle of learning. Truly, by the end of this episode, you will have a complete understanding of the 4 phases of the Life Choreography Method. You will be able to identify your current readiness to change, your readiness to heal, your readiness to move through this. And you will begin recognizing exactly the kind of work that you need now. Not yesterday, not 3 months from now, but right now. This show honestly is going to change your lived experience because it is not a show that I want you to just passively consume. I truly, like I said earlier, want you to think about this as being a guided coaching experience. Laura [00:01:30]: I’m going to ask you questions, and I want you to sit with those questions. If you want to write things down, write things down. If you want to listen to this episode again, listen to this episode again, because some of the questions will create That immediate sense of relief. And quite honestly, some of the questions may also create a sense of resistance. And either way is good. You know, if you feel relief, obviously that’s good. But if you feel resistance, that’s something that I want you to notice. I want you to be like, yeah, that feels a little sticky. Laura [00:02:14]: Yeah. in my body? Because that may reveal exactly where and why you are stuck. It may reveal exactly where you are in your healing journey, and it will help you determine, like, what is ready to move? What is ready to move forward in me? All right. And if you haven’t already done so, take a moment to like and subscribe to this show. It’s particularly important for you to subscribe right now because this is a 2-part episode. Yeah, this is a 2-part episode, and I wanna make sure you subscribe so you get notification when part 2 drops. Because healing doesn’t happen in one episode. You’re going to need the second part as well. Laura [00:03:14]: And as long as you are liking, as long as you are subscribing, would you pretty, pretty please leave a review? Just a simple couple of sentences helps other women going through this know that this is a safe space to be. So many people read reviews first before they actually listen to the podcast. And just a couple of sentences about things shift for me when I listen to this. What I really appreciate is, gosh, Lora understands me in a different way. Just a couple of sentences. They don’t have to be perfect, but just to let other listeners know, yeah, this podcast changes things. And this is what I want to listen to. So thank you. Laura [00:04:03]: Thank you for that. And with that, let’s talk about the 4 phases of betrayal recovery. And let me help you figure out truly if you’re just learning everything you can about betrayal or if you are actually moving into healing. Let’s be honest, there comes a point In the betrayal recovery journey, truly, we’re learning and learning more is actually harmful. The never-ending quest for knowledge actually stops our healing. It keeps us focusing on the problem. It keeps us focusing on the why. That’s a big one. Laura [00:04:51]: Sometimes I’ll see people and they’re like, “I just don’t understand the reason why,” and I’m like, “Okay, that that can be.” Very important, yes. And how long has it been? And they’re like, 3 years. And I’m like, okay, that’s one of those cases where learning is truly never-ending. You know what I mean? There’s always something more to learn. And when you always are having that carrot dangled out there, like just one more podcast and I think I’ll figure it out. I know, just one more book. I know, I know, just one more group coaching and then one more thing online. When we always kick our recovery out further, we do just that. Laura [00:05:36]: We kick our recovery out further and we don’t give ourselves and our nervous systems the opportunity to drop in and feel peace and feel healing. So many things are important. Attachment style, nervous system regulation, narcissists. Are you a narcissist? Are you an empath? Trauma responses, boundaries, reconciliation, divorce, affair recovery. Like, think about all of the things that you are being tasked to learn. And when we start learning in any area, what’s one of the first things that happens? One of the first things that happens is we realize there is so much more to learn. Like, I have just scratched the surface, which then sets us off on this never-ending quest to learn the next thing. And that sets us up energetically, psychologically, as being one book short. Laura [00:06:49]: You know what I mean? One card short of a deck, one podcast short of— and we never give ourselves the opportunity to stop and to breathe and to let our brain quit that endlessly roving forward, grr, grr, grr, grr, grr, churn, churn, churn, churn, churn, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, to learn the next thing. Yeah. And we never give ourselves the chance to stop and to drop in and to just be like, oh, actually, is there more to learn? Let me tell you, there’s always more to learn. There’s always more to learn. But that’s my job. It’s my job to learn more and to titrate that knowledge to you as necessary. It is not your job to learn everything. So when we stop our brains endlessly moving forward, because learning is a state of hypervigilance, I’m just gonna name that endless learning, endless figuring it out is truly its own brand of hypervigilance. Laura [00:07:55]: At some point you need to stop and you need to just live and to feel and to be. And it’s from that state of living, of feeling, of being Then that you can figure out, okay, here’s where I am different. Here’s where I still need support. Here’s what I’m clear about, and here’s what I don’t know what to do. Here’s a trap, and I so get this, but so many of us want to have it all figured out before we begin. You know what I mean? We wanna know the ending. Yeah. before we start the journey. Laura [00:08:35]: We wanna know, okay, my marriage will be saved and my partner will take full accountability and it’s gonna be a better relationship. And we wanna know that. Or we want to know, you know what, it’s done. It’s, it needs to be done. And I’m gonna move forward and I’m gonna find the love of my life in November. And then I’m gonna get this incredible job. Like, we want to know The ending before we ever begin our journey. Am I totally right on that one? Yeah, I’m totally right. Laura [00:09:09]: We all want those guarantees. And the problem is learning more does not give you a guarantee. Learning more does not guarantee a happy ending. I mean, let’s be honest, if that was the case, I don’t think many of us would be here because if you’re anything like me, I worked really stinking hard on my marriage. I worked really stinking hard on communication and taking care of everything and being the perfect wife, the perfect mom, the perfect partner. Like, do I deserve this? Oh, heck no. Do you deserve this? Oh, heck no. Working more, learning more, doing more does not guarantee a happy ending. Laura [00:10:00]: So that’s why I’m challenging you very lovingly in service of your own growth, in service of your own feeling of peace. Are you healing or are you just learning about betrayal? Yeah. And I think perhaps even a more uncomfortable question. Are you a lurker? Yes. Are you a lurker? Are you a lurker in the betrayal recovery space? And again, I say that with so much love, not because lurking is necessarily bad. It’s nice to be on the outside and to look in on a community, on a program, at a person. Like, I want you to look at me. Yeah. Laura [00:10:48]: I want you to see me in my everyday life. I want you to see me in my marriage. I want you to see me in my relationships with my kids, my family, my friends, my team, my coworkers. Like, please look at me. I want you to see how I am because it shows you what’s possible. It shows you what is possible for yourself, for your relationship, for your confidence, for your happiness level, for your level of peace and joy. Like, It shows you that. So I want you to see that. Laura [00:11:21]: And I tell my story completely honestly. I answer all the questions completely honestly. I do not sugarcoat. Like, is our marriage better? Oh my gosh, it’s so much better. Is it perfect? No. He bugs the crap out of me sometimes. I bug the crap out of him sometimes. We miscommunicate sometimes. Laura [00:11:42]: And yet still, It is so much better because we know how to repair. We understand what’s really going on with the other person. We see each other fully in a way that we didn’t before. So our life, it’s not transactional and it’s not performative. It is very present. So yes, you can work to see who I am and to see What’s really happening in my life? Lurking allows you to listen before you participate. It allows you to test the waters to make sure things are safe or people are aligned with you. It lets you gather information without exposing yourself, and that’s really, really important. Laura [00:12:29]: And it lets you stay safely on the outside so you can observe. Without having to feel it or face it or realize I’m in way over my head. And sometimes that’s exactly what our nervous system needs. Sometimes we need to just be on the periphery to watch, to listen, to learn the language, to see how it works for other people. I think that’s a really important one. There’s communities where People become more and more bitter and more and more entrenched and more and more like, uh-uh. Is that the kind of community you wanna be in? Because if so, yay, go be in it. That’s not the kind of community I create. Laura [00:13:19]: That’s not the kind of community I want to be in. My take is compassion and love and truth and honesty and rawness and holding the good with the bad. You know what I mean? Being fully real, because I don’t think— I don’t want to be fake. Like I said, I don’t sugarcoat things. I fully believe going through betrayal recovery is one of the most powerful things a human can do for themselves. When each human does their own recovery for themselves, then yes, they can create an incredible relationship that is truly beyond their wildest dreams. But it’s not about reaching out and repairing the relationship first. It’s about each of you doing your own work. Laura [00:14:18]: So while I say lurking is a really good way to get the lay of the land, Lurking is a doorway. It is not meant to become a permanent home. Lurking is a doorway into somebody’s world. It is not meant to become a permanent home because it’s a doorway. And what is a doorway? It’s a space between transitions. You’re not in, you’re not out. At some point, we need to take That step in or out, and then to find another doorway that we would more comfortably step in. Because at some point, staying on the side— safety— safely on the side keeps you on the outside of your own transformation. Laura [00:15:13]: Being in a doorway is not transformation. So here’s how I’m challenging you. How many resources have you downloaded? Have you downloaded my hypnotic meditation? Have you downloaded my Betrayal Recovery Guide? If you haven’t, go to betrayalrecoveryguide.com and start. But again, that is your doorway. Listen to the episodes. My episodes are easily searchable by keyword on my website. Take screenshots, nod along. Do some of the journal prompts, hop in the Facebook group, share your story, ask me questions, do all of that, and even entertain the thought, okay, one day I think I’m gonna reach out to Lora. Laura [00:16:00]: One day I think, I think I’m gonna do more. One day I’m going to call, and even if it’s not me, if it’s somebody else, I’m going to call a therapist. I’m going to call my divorce attorney. But don’t just think it, do it. Yes, listening is an action. Yes, learning is an action. Yes, gathering information is really essential, but there truly comes a moment where consuming more information becomes a very sophisticated way of avoiding your own transformation. Listen to that. Laura [00:16:39]: There comes a moment where consuming more information is a very sophisticated way to avoid being changed by the very information you are consuming. Yeah. Who kind of had a ripple of like goosebumps up and down their spine? Like, oh, not me. Yeah. This is not about judging yourself. We all do this. This is a very human nature. You don’t need to defend yourself. Laura [00:17:13]: I understand. Just become curious. You know, it’s always, oh, I’m going to wait for the school year to end, or I’m going to wait for somebody to turn a certain age. I’m going to wait for my license to be renewed. I’m going to wait for so-and-so to get their bonus. I’m gonna wait for the wedding. I’m going to wait for the baby. I’m going— like, I get it. Laura [00:17:39]: But seriously, you and I both know there’s always something that will keep us from moving forward. And I don’t care what it is. You know, starting a business, we all think, well, there’s one more thing I need to learn before I actually start. Yeah. Looking for a new job. There’s one more thing I’m gonna do on my resume before I actually send it out there. Losing weight or getting in shape. Well, first, what I really need to do is I’ve gotta lose 5 pounds before I get to the gym because I’m really embarrassed the way I look. Laura [00:18:15]: I’m just gonna start by doing this at home, but, uh, I’m tired today. I’m gonna start tomorrow. Yes, I understand massages would be really great and self-care would be really great, but right now I’m just going through such a busy time. I’m gonna have to start next fall when things settle down. How many times have you said something like that? And again, I’m saying this with the utmost of love and respect, but simply become curious. Become curious. Why haven’t I called Lora? Honest to goodness, why have I not got on her website and booked a $97 introductory session? Why haven’t I done that? Do I not wanna tell my story out loud? Am I afraid that telling it will somehow make it real? Am I afraid I’ll be judged? Am I afraid she’ll pressure me? I won’t. Do not pressure. Laura [00:19:26]: Am I afraid I’m really, really going to want to work with her? And then when I do, she’s going to create this huge change in me and my whole life is going to change. And I’m really not sure if I’m prepared for my life to change because the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know. And honestly, when I talk to people about it, that’s the one thing that I hear the most. I put off calling you. I put off booking that introductory session, introductorysession.com, by the way. I put it off because I’ve listened to your show enough to know that I need this. And I put it off because I know working with you, I will change. And I know I will be solid and clear and different. Laura [00:20:15]: And I’m not quite sure if I’m ready to deal with that because it’s scary, because it’s going to disrupt things. And I’m afraid once I put these boundaries, my partner won’t meet me. And I’m not sure if I’m prepared for divorce yet. Or I really think my partner will meet me, and I really think I need to be the one who does it first, and then it’s going to change our relationship. But I don’t know what it’s like to be in a really good relationship because my whole life I have never been in a really good relationship. And although it sounds really crazy, I’m terrified to know how good it can really get. And that’s the thing. Fear of success is actually a stronger fear than fear of failure. Laura [00:21:05]: Fear of having it too good is actually a stronger fear than the fear of having everything implode. Because when we have it too good, when we are too successful, it confirms how worthy we are, how good we are, how powerful we are. And then when we really know that we are unquestioningly worthy, beautiful, deserve it, whoa, it means we have to believe that too. And that’s scary. And I know it sounds weird, but it is really scary sometimes to step into the fullness of your power. And the mind will come up with any excuse. Oh, that’s arrogant to think that way. Oh, I don’t deserve this. Laura [00:21:57]: Let me just tell you, one woman to another, you deserve it. If not only for you, for your kids, for your daughters, for your nieces, for your sisters, for your ancestors, for your mothers and aunts and grandparents who couldn’t do this. Do this for everybody. Take the reins, become the protagonist in your story, in your life, and step into the full breadth Of your womanhood, your goddess nature, whatever you call it. Because this transformation is something you deserve. And lurking, remaining on the outside, continuing to learn something else is really just a fancy way of remaining untouched. It’s a fancy way of never having to commit and never having to do the work. And at the end of the day, what is more worthwhile to you? Do you wanna be 97 years old looking back saying, I never did it, I wonder what would’ve happened, I wonder how good it could’ve gotten? Or do you wanna be 97 years old saying, you know, there were some bumps in the road, And it wasn’t that comfortable always, but oh my God, look at me. Laura [00:23:30]: I know myself. I love myself. I’m supremely comfortable and confident in who I am. And the relationships and connections I have forged because of that have truly been otherworldly. They have been so good. So I want to wrap this up by saying, If you feel stuck, it’s not— you’re not stuck because you’re failing. You’re not stuck because you need to learn more. You’re stuck because you’re not stepping through that doorway. Laura [00:24:01]: You’re stuck because you’re not fully committing to yourself. You’re stuck because you’re giving yourself the illusion that there’s just one more thing I need to do. I need to save a little more money. I need to have a little bit more time. I need to see what he’s gonna do. I need to, I need to, I need to. No, you need to commit. You need to step through the doorway of change and transform. Laura [00:24:26]: And the very— the reality of that too is sometimes we fully commit, but we do things in the wrong order. Let me tell you, I have been famous for doing a lot of things in the wrong order. And that’s one of the reasons that I created the Life Choreography Method, Because my brain likes to skip steps. You know what I mean? Through healing, through all these things, I’d always want to skip and go to the end. I’d always just be like, okay, I got that. I got that. I don’t need that. I’m going to skip to the end where you do need all the steps along the way. Laura [00:25:03]: There’s a reason for it. Whether it’s reading music, practicing finger skills on the piano, like you need to start at the beginning and you need to do all the different steps in order to get there. And after living through betrayal myself, after guiding thousands of women through their recoveries, I really learned that recovery requires so much more than a lot of tools, a lot of tactics. You know, people are like, therapy, that is a tool. Breathwork, that is a tool. Yoga and meditation, that is a tool. Hypnosis is a tool. Somatic processing is a tool. Laura [00:25:50]: Reading books is a tool. Like, we have all these tools, but it’s the strategy of how to put those together that matters. And I know that sometimes that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to me either. In cooking, like sometimes where it’s like, let the dough rest, and you think, let the dough rest, why? Or it’s like, combine all the wet ingredients and then combine all the dry ingredients. And my brain is like, no, I’m just gonna dump all the ingredients in the bowl because why would it matter? It matters. For anybody who’s had a cooking error, you know it matters. And it’s the same way here. Laura [00:26:30]: And that’s why Life Choreography is a method. It’s a practice, it’s a process to do all the things. And yes, you might not have the tools, but what you might be missing is the strategy. You might be missing the sequence. And just like the stages of grief, it’s not a rigid timeline. It’s not like a singular formula that assumes every single woman and their relationship and their personality is the same, but it’s this framework that helps you understand what is needed right now. Where do you need legitimately to go back and clean something up? And where are you just spinning in your brain and you’re like, nope, I gotta move forward? And that’s what this methodology does, and that’s what we’re gonna talk about today, because I want you to understand these 4 parts. I want you to use it as a diagnostic tool to assess where you are and then to challenge yourself to be honest with yourself so you can quit gathering information and you can actually heal. Laura [00:27:35]: Does that sound like a plan? Okay. Let’s all pause, swallow, take a deep breath. If you need to stretch a little bit, you know, putting your arms behind your back, rolling your shoulders, Anchor into your body before we move into this next piece. Okay, take that time, feel, breathe, and just be present with that. Why? Because learning is a full body, full energy field experience, and Like I spent the whole first 10 minutes saying, it’s not about just the learning, it’s the embodiment, it’s the way we implement. How are you going to be different because of the knowledge you have gained? How are you going to show up different because of the tools you have learned? How are you going to engage with the world Or engage with another person differently than you did before. Because when we do the exact same things and think the exact same thoughts and believe the exact same beliefs, nothing changes. In order to have a true transformation, in order to have a true post-betrayal transformation, you need to Think differently, believe differently, understand differently, show up differently. Laura [00:29:27]: And when you start becoming different on the inside as well as on the outside, that’s when everything shifts. Ah. So instead of charging ahead and being like, yes, give it to me. Swallow, breathe, and move your body. Okay. In service of that, today, rather than just teaching you and lecturing you on these 4 parts of the Life Choreography Method, I’m going to guide you through them as if we were in a private session together. And you might not answer Everything. Things might arise as a feeling, a memory. Laura [00:30:15]: You might get a visceral tightening or a sense of release in your body. You might feel like information has just been downloaded to you and you have this sudden, you know, oh, I get it. And you also might have a thought that you try to dismiss. Like you might have this knowing rise up that, oh God, I can’t stay in this relationship. And then you just dismiss it. Nope. Because you think you have to do something with that thought. And that’s what I want you to know with those thoughts that feel scary. Laura [00:30:52]: Let them come up. Because you have the thought maybe that I can’t stay in this relationship after all, acknowledging it doesn’t mean you have to do something about it tomorrow. Right. Acknowledging it gives you truth in your body. Thinking, I don’t know if he can do it. He is an addict. I don’t know if I want him to do it. Even if he does do it, I’m not sure if I still wanna be here. Laura [00:31:18]: Acknowledge that. Be true to yourself above all else. Okay. The 4 steps of the Life Choreography Method are number 1, regulate. Regulate. Number 2, reorient. Reorient yourself after you have regulated yourself. The 3rd step of the Life Choreography Method is reconnect. Laura [00:31:55]: After you have learned how to regulate yourself, after you have reoriented to this new reality, then you can start reconnecting to life, to other people, to joy, to play, maybe to your partner, maybe to other new partners. But only after you regulate and reorient. So many other methods push this reconnection. Reconnect with the world, with your partner, with yourself. And you’re like, whoa, I’m sorry, you can’t even truly reconnect with yourself until you’ve learned how to regulate yourself. You cannot reconnect with yourself until you have reoriented This whole new reality, and it is a new reality. And then the very last step of the Life Choreography Method is re-choreograph. Re-choreograph, put all the pieces back together. Laura [00:33:02]: Love, joy, relationships, money, finances, family, fitness, health, wellbeing. That’s the very end. And I want you to just think about times in your life where you’re like, gosh, I jumped right to the end. I hit up the divorce attorney first. I started doing all these other things first. I didn’t regulate first. I didn’t reorient myself. I didn’t reconnect first. Laura [00:33:32]: I just jumped to, I’m gonna fix all of this. So with that, Let me walk you through these 4 steps. And again, my challenge to you is to have you listen as if this were your session. So get as comfortable as you reasonably can. Don’t close your eyes if you’re driving or doing anything like that, but allow one part of your awareness To turn inward. And a good way to do that is by rolling your eyes up if you can. Just a few times, roll them up like you’re looking under your eyebrows, like you’re looking at your third eye spot, and just look within now. This is not about mastering all 4 parts of the Life Choreography Method. Laura [00:34:33]: This is not about diagnosing yourself perfectly. This is just noticing what lands differently in your body. If you’re able to keep those eyes up and close them, you can. And if you need to keep looking around, do that too. Regulate. Finding solid ground. Ah. Being able to sleep and eat without stomach pain and nausea. Laura [00:35:13]: Being able to wake up refreshed. Being able to smile. Being able to laugh again. Being able to notice where you’re getting a little wobbly or where somebody is hooking you in. To begin to notice, oh God, I’m going down a spiral here and I’m torturing myself. To be able to notice, my thoughts are really getting weird here. And to know what to do. To know what to do so you’re not shaky. Laura [00:35:53]: Yeah. So you’re not tense, your shoulders are relaxed. To be able to notice when another person is like hooking you in and being toxic, and to be able to just have a boundary and go take care of yourself where there’s no stress. Like, oh my gosh, what do I say? And then what if they say this? And then what does this mean? And then is he gonna go do this if I do that? And then what if I’m gonna do— and then I need to take care of this for— whoa, to be out of that game. To be able to feel, ooh, there’s some anxiety because he’s on his phone. Or yeah, there’s a part of me that wants to start Googling the affair partner obsessively and to know what to do to stop it. That’s regulation. And that is that first step. Laura [00:36:41]: So what happens inside you when you hear about that? How are you with self-regulation? Can you hold your partner’s defensiveness in a healthy way? Can you handle your own spiral in a healthy way? Or do you still need some work around regulation? And I want you to know we never get perfect. There’s always that person who’s going to push our buttons. We’re always going to lose it at some point in time, and that’s okay. It’s just that we get better and better at pulling it back together. The second step, reorient to see the landscape clearly. To have a peaceful acceptance that, yeah, this happened in my life. Yeah, my partner did cheat. This is what it entailed. Laura [00:37:49]: This is who he cheated with. This is what I have had to deal with and what my family has had to deal with. This is the impact it’s made on my job, my life, my retirement. This is how I’ve had to rejig the past and re-understand. But now I am oriented. I can see the past much more clearly. I can understand the times where I thought he was angry. He really wasn’t angry at me. Laura [00:38:26]: He was looking for an excuse to be with the affair partner. Now I understand his moods and his behaviors differently. Now I know more about myself, my wounds, my core wounds. Not that I caused any of this, but I now know how and where I can get better and more healed for me, where I can find more presence. And less perfectionism. I now know how to communicate better, hold boundaries better. I am reoriented to this new life, to this new way of being. I am reoriented to a life that includes maybe therapy for him, coaching for you. Laura [00:39:23]: Maybe a move, a change of status, but I’m completely reoriented and I see now the past way more clearly than I ever saw it before. I see my present circumstances way more clearly before. I now see all the different ways I was kind of had my head in the sand and I didn’t really realize it. And even though I don’t know what the future will hold, I see it more clearly now because I’ve made such Radical peace with the past and the present. Reorient. I have been reoriented to myself and my life and my circumstances. What shifts when you hear that? Is that where you need some work? And again, there’s no shame if you’re like, well, great, 2 for 2. I need to work on both of them. Laura [00:40:13]: Of course, because we’ve all done little bits and pieces. We just haven’t done it in the right order sometimes. Third step, reconnect. Return to your own wisdom, your own soul, your values, your desires, and your voice. I fully reconnected to my power, to my needs. I have needs and I express them and I get help. And I use my intuition, and I have this fantastic ability to discern what is true and what is not true. I have this fantastic ability to trust myself in all situations, to have my own back, to meet my own needs. Laura [00:41:11]: And I have this Assurance, this deep, powerful assurance that I am here for myself and can fully and unequivocally take care of myself no matter what. I am reconnected to my soul, to my being. And even though in the past maybe I covered a lot of myself, oh, I am so much more authentic now. I am me in a way that maybe I have never even fully been me. Does that feel comforting? Frightening? Familiar? Or really stinking far away? How does it feel when I talk about reconnecting with yourself? Again, you might need 3 for 3. You might need all of them. And you might be like, no, I’ve got this one, but this is the one I need help with. 4th and final step is re-choreograph, creating a life that reflects who you are now. Laura [00:42:19]: Last week’s newsletter was all about my remodel that has taken a year because we had a sewer explosion and pretty much had to gut and remodel 2 levels of our house. The upstairs is still old, but the main level and the basement had to be completely redone. And even though it was so traumatic, and let me tell you, it was so traumatic, what I started realizing is my old house didn’t fit me now. This is the house we moved into when I was pregnant with my firstborn son, who is now 28. So I’ve been here a little over 28 years. This house, the way it was decorated, the way it was set up, that represented Lora circa 1998. This house didn’t represent me now. And honestly, I wouldn’t have had the guts in a way to just start redoing it had I not had the sewer spill. Laura [00:43:22]: Right. But now my home reflects me and who I am now. And that’s what rechoreographing your life is like. It’s reflecting who you are now. And maybe that doesn’t mean different relationships, and maybe that means the same relationship but being very different, because I promise you, your kids, your partner, your parents, your friend, they’re all growing and changing too. So rechoreographing is Resetting a life that fits who you are now. Think about the people who have changed, you know, religious beliefs, shifted our core values, believe things differently now. How can you set up a life that reflects who you are now, not who you were told to be then? What happens in your body when you imagine that? Yeah. Laura [00:44:21]: Does that create excitement? A little bit of fear? Does it feel over your head or overwhelming? Or do you want to say like, it’s about darn time? So if you were sitting in front of me, I would say, which of those 4 words— regulate, reorient, Reconnect and rechoreograph. Which words create relief? Which word brings up a little fear or a little resistance? Which word feels different? Like, maybe you got there, Lora, but I’m not going to. Maybe other women are into that, but I just have to survive. You don’t understand. I just have to survive. Yes, I do. What makes, what word makes something inside of you say something like, yeah, that, that’s the thing I need. That’s the thing I’m a little afraid of. Laura [00:45:30]: That’s the thing that’s going to change everything for me. Because a part of you already knows Because if you’re anything like me and everybody else who is listening, you’ve done so much work. You’ve gotten so many different tools. You don’t need another tool. Learning more could be delaying your healing. You need the next step. You need the next honest step. You don’t need the whole path. Laura [00:46:02]: You don’t need every tool that’s ever been out there. You just need the next step, and you need some loving accountability to push you forward into that next step through that door that we were talking about earlier when I was talking about lurking at the threshold. Let me tell you why the Life Choreography Method matters. It matters because one of the biggest problems I see is that people are often encouraged to do the right work at the wrong time. Mm-hmm. They’re told to make decisions like, you have to decide whether you’re going to stay or whether you’re going to go now. And they’re encouraged to do this work at a time when they can’t think clearly because they’re not regulated. They’re told to set boundaries with their partner, but they don’t trust themselves yet. Laura [00:46:54]: So the boundaries feel scary and like you’re being mean and inauthentic. They’re told to forgive before they really fully understand what happens or where they’re at, so they’re still disoriented. They’re told to reconnect to joy and to just find some fun while their nervous system is still screaming that they’re not safe. Like, literally, how can you sleep next to the man who betrayed you and find joy? Your body, your nervous system knows they are not safe. Maybe they will be. Maybe they’re trying to get safe, but— You’re still grappling with the reality of what they did. You’re not failing. You just might be trying to skip a step or trying to do all 4 things at once or pushing the healing. Laura [00:47:42]: You know, I’m an overachiever. I’m just gonna say that I’m a total overachiever. And after I went through the initial devastation and vomiting and couldn’t eat and sleep and drink and Was crying my eyes out on the bathroom floor for a month. Once I got through that initial drama, it’s like the pendulum swung from complete devastation to, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna tackle it and I’m gonna be the most healed of all the healed people that have ever healed. And it was like, nice motivation on the one hand, but that’s not what it’s about. Right. It’s not about healing faster. It’s about healing where you are. Laura [00:48:31]: It’s not about healing faster. This isn’t a race. I often say betrayal uncovers the truth because it uncovers the truth of all the other things that are inside of you that still need healing. It uncovered childhood wounds. It uncovered things that happened to me in high school that hurt my heart. It uncovered an experience I had in 5th grade. I’ll just tell you about this experience. There was a group of several of us, and one of our girlfriends was coming back from— she was from somewhere in Europe, and why I can’t remember now, I don’t know, but she was coming back from Europe. Laura [00:49:15]: So we were going to teepee her house to like welcome her home. And they ended up coming home a day earlier. We got the time wrong. This was in the ’70s. And her mom came out when we were like teepeeing her welcome home house. And all of my friends ran away and left me. And I’m standing there laughing and waving at her mom being like, hey, you’re home. And all my other friends left. Laura [00:49:39]: And then she’s yelling at me. Oh my gosh. How dare you do this to our house? And what are you thinking? Blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, we were setting this up as this funny welcome home surprise. We were setting this up as play. We were more than willing to clean it up. There was nothing dangerous. We were trying to welcome her home, but my friends abandoned me. Laura [00:49:59]: They left me and I felt so betrayed. And then I got called into the house and I got yelled at and I had to clean it up and I’m on my own. And it’s like, this isn’t my idea. I shouldn’t have been left. Betrayal uncovers all of that. And it’s not that like that’s a deep and lasting wounding scar, but it was something that it didn’t fully heal. It never, it never, it scabbed over, but I never addressed my friends. I never said to them, hey, this was wrong. Laura [00:50:36]: You hurt me. Yeah. You threw me under the bus. Like, I never had those real healing conversations. And quite frankly, quite frankly, I had forgotten about it because really, who cares? But betrayal brings that up. It brings up all the times you wanted support and you didn’t get it. It brings up all the time you were given support that didn’t match. Like when your parents misattuned to you, when teachers intentionally misunderstood you, like it brings all of that up. Laura [00:51:18]: So as you’re healing, you’re not just healing from the betrayal, you’re healing from all of these past wounds, past stressors, Past beliefs. And then when you’re given the wrong— the right tool at the wrong time, it feels like another failure. It feels like I can’t even do this right. Everybody else is healing and over it, and I’m a year and a half out and I’m not. So doing the right work in the right order truly can begin to change everything. And then again, going back to what I said earlier, insight alone doesn’t create change. Insight alone is amazing, but it’s how you change your beliefs, how you change your thoughts, how you show up differently. It’s not just consciously understanding I’m safe. Laura [00:52:14]: Your body’s still going to feel panic. How do you make the body feel safe to match the mind? You can consciously know that you’re worthy and still organize your life around proving yourself. That was a big one for me. Like, I have a lot of confidence, I’ve gotten a lot of the external accolades, and yet I still organized my life around proving my worth. You can consciously know you’re allowed to choose And you can still freeze when choice appears because you’re so afraid of making the wrong decision. You can also consciously know that you’re safe and still feel panic. You can watch a whole other person checking their phone in a weird time who’s not even related to you, and you can feel that panic. Yeah. Laura [00:53:13]: And that’s because these responses are not being generated by the conscious mind alone. They are driven by subconscious beliefs, by conditioned associations, by protective roles, by nervous system patterns that were formed long before this moment. Long before. It’s teeping your friend’s house in 5th grade. It’s your mom getting frustrated when you were 2 and not knowing how to handle you. So Closing you in the bedroom or leaving you in your crib. Like, it’s all these little small things that add up. Your conscious mind can know the truth, but your subconscious is still obeying old survival rules and patterns. Laura [00:54:00]: And this is what I specifically will target with you during hypnosis. Hypnosis is not trying to make you believe something false. It’s not trying to force you into something. It’s helping the subconscious update old instructions, old patterns, old beliefs that are still operating as though danger and helplessness or the old identity is current. One of the things I say so much about like abandonment, people say, I feel so abandoned. You’re an adult, you can’t be abandoned. Adults can make money, they can make decisions, they can sign contracts, they can get help. Kids get abandoned and they, Can die because they can’t do things for themselves. Laura [00:54:42]: Adults get left, kids get abandoned, and that’s a big difference. And yet the subconscious operating system still feels like abandonment equals death. First of all, it’s not abandonment. Second of all, it doesn’t equal death. You can be left and that can be sad, and there’s a lot of things that you might have to do to fix it up. But let’s update those subconscious beliefs. Okay. Like I said, this has been a lot. Laura [00:55:14]: I’ve asked you some questions that intentionally I want to trigger you a little bit in service of healing. Like, what do you need right now? What do you need right now? Are you ready to move forward? And if not, why? Do you feel like you need to revisit a phase or discover a different tool or tactic? Or are you really keeping yourself trapped with the false belief that I need one more thing? Are you regulated enough to function? Like to go to work, to make yourself food? But are you completely dysregulated inside, in your marriage, in your personal life? Do you come home and fall apart? Do you understand the facts but feel very disconnected from what you want? Do you feel trapped? That’s a big one. Do you feel trapped? Do you feel trapped because none of the decisions you have to make Feel like things that you want. When we feel trapped because I don’t want choice A, I don’t want choice B, and I don’t want choice C. If you feel like that, then it’s time to walk through the doorway. It’s time to book a session with me, introductorysession.com, and to start getting a little bit of a loving kick in the patootie. To move you to that next step, or it’s time to sit down with me and get a diagnosis of, is it step 1, 2, 3, or 4? Where did you jump ahead? Where do we need to go back? So before we leave today, and like I said, this is only part 1, you definitely want to tune in next week. We’re going to talk about the stages of change and how ready you are for change. Laura [00:57:21]: Again, so you can ascertain honestly where you’re at and figure out exactly what you need to do to be willing to change, to get to that next space of change. So subscribe, like, leave a review so you can get next week’s episode as soon as it drops. In the meantime, go journal on this. Where do I still feel disoriented? Where in my life do I feel most grounded? Where have I lost connection with my own voice? And the very last one: where do I know something must change but have not yet acted? Where do I know something must change but have not yet acted? Journal on those questions. Shoot me an email with your journal responses. I’d really love to see that. Because this is about first finding solid ground, hence, where in my life do I feel most grounded? Then seeing clearly, where do I still feel disoriented? Then returning to yourself. Where have I lost connection with my own voice? And then lastly, creating a life that reflects who you are now, which is, where do I know something must change but have not yet acted? You can also email me and I’ll send you those 4 journal prompts. Laura [00:59:01]: In the meantime, have an amazing week. And as usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are, because who you are is always more than enough.