Are you burned out after the holidays? Is your relationship feeling strained rather than renewed? In this episode we will take a deep dive into holiday and relationship burnout, giving you strategies and techniques to manage stress and strain and come back home to yourself.
Top Takeaways:
- Expression & Release through Somatic Movement:Learn the profound importance of physically expressing and releasing pent-up emotions, just like a toddler’s tantrum, to maintain emotional balance. Use somatic practices like rolling on the floor, running, or engaging in vigorous physical exercises to release trapped energy.
- Stress Relief Tools:Explore a variety of tools, including journaling, mindfulness, and meditation, to alleviate stress and enhance resilience during stressful times.
- Managing Relationship Burnout:Uncover strategies to tackle both holiday and relationship burnout by understanding emotional states, setting boundaries, and avoiding codependency.
Special Announcement!
Upcoming Book Release
Don’t miss the release of Lora Cheadle’s new book, “It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive,” on January 21st. This essential guide differentiates between burnout and betrayal, offering five transformative steps to recovery.
Get your free downloadable guide on the “The Top Three Ways You Betray Yourself Every Day, and How to Stop” at www.burnoutorbetrayal.com.
Stay Connected: Subscribe, like, and hit the notification bell for more episodes packed with tools to nurture your spirit and maintain your well-being. Join us in creating a balanced, joyful life beyond the chaos of the holiday season.
Are you ready to Rise Up & Reign as the creator and queen of your life, let’s talk. I will walk by your side and give you the perspective, permission, and wisdom needed to turn your betrayal experience into something constructive, empowering, and transformative in all the right ways.
Work individually with Lora or complete her online Rise Up & Reign Affair Recovery Program in the privacy of your own home. Learn more at www.AffairRecoveryForWomen.com
About Lora:
Lora Cheadle is an attorney, TEDx speaker, and betrayal recovery coach who helps women turn their devastation into an invitation to rise up and reign. Whether reclaiming what they let go of along the way, rebuilding their identity, or stepping into a stronger sense of self-trust and self-worth, Lora’s expert guidance empowers women to uncover the truth™ of what they are capable of and deserve. After being shattered by her husband’s fifteen years of infidelity, Lora knows firsthand the skills and strategies necessary to stop feeling broken and start living fully and freely.
She is licensed to practice law in California and Colorado, is a trauma-aware coach, clinical hypnotherapist, somatic attachment therapist, advanced integrated energy practitioner, and is certified to teach yoga, mindfulness, group fitness, and personal train. She is the author of the International Book Awards Finalist and Tattered Cover Bestseller, FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, & Spiritual Self and host of the podcast FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity and Betrayal. She lives in Colorado and loves travel, adventure, and a good book. Learn more at www.loracheadle.com
Get Relief Now!
Download your Sparkle After Betrayal Recovery Guide at www.BetrayalRecoveryGuide.com and start reclaiming yourself and your life today!
Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast! Take charge of your mental health and get 10% off your first month of therapy at https://BetterHelp.com/FLAUNT
Untangle yourself from the past, reclaim your power, and own your worth so you can create a future you love on your own terms. All with a wink and a smile! Learn more at www.loracheadle.com and follow me across all social!
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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 them selves and their worth. Tune in weekly so you can start making sense of it all and learn how to be okay on the inside no matter what goes on on the outside. Download your free betrayal recovery toolkit at betrayalrecoveryguide.com.
Lora Cheadle [00:00:35]:
I wanna talk a little bit about an exciting thing that’s happening. The exciting thing that’s happening soon is my second book. It’s not burnout. It’s betrayal. It’s coming out on January 21st. This book will help you differentiate between burnout and betrayal, and it gives you 5 tools to help you fuel up and manage that burnout. Because burnout is real. Betrayal is real.
Lora Cheadle [00:01:12]:
The holidays are real. Life is real. There’s all of these things that we are being tasked to do. And when we burn out, it depletes our energy, and we don’t have energy to move forward and to take care of the things that are important to us, to take care of the things that we want to take care of. So if you go to burnoutorbetrayal.com, you can download the top three ways we betray ourselves every day and how to stop. But most importantly, when you go to that website, burnoutorbetrayal.com and sign up, I will send you an email that will give you free access to this entire book. I will let you know what day you can hop on Amazon, and you can download it for free. And this book will give you 5 tools to understand if it’s burnout or a sense of betrayal and to manage that sense of burnout so you will have the energy to continue on in your betrayal recovery journey.
Lora Cheadle [00:02:20]:
You so you will have the energy to move through the holidays. So you will have the energy to show up strong for your family at work and for yourself. So you can learn how to manage your burnout more effectively and efficiently by getting to the root cause and addressing that. So burnout or betrayal.com. Hello, and welcome to Flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. I’m Laura Cheadle. And today we are going to talk about 2 very important things.
Lora Cheadle [00:03:00]:
We are going to talk about holiday burnout, especially when you’re going through infidelity and betrayal, followed by relationship burnout. So the common denominator, the common thread is definitely burnout and the sense of burnout that we all experience, that all humans experience. But when we are going through something difficult, that sense of burnout feels different. It becomes, like, too exhausted to function, too exhausted to care, and then it goes into resentment, cynicism, feelings like this is not fair. And while it is not fair, the position you were in is not fair, and it’s normal to identify that because it’s a correct thing that happened to you. We can also become trapped in that negative story that this is unfair, that this is awful, and it can deplete us. And there’s a fine line between truth telling and saying it like it is and allowing ourselves to be sucked into and taken hostage by the negative. And that’s one of the reasons that I started doing the work that I do.
Lora Cheadle [00:04:29]:
This is one of the reasons that I started the podcast, that I started coaching women in all phases of betrayal recovery. Because when I was going through it, it seemed like my options were, I could get sucked into some really negative communities that just wanted everybody to vent and yell and bash their partners and say how awful it was and how men are horrible and how cheaters are horrible. And, you know, even though that felt good for a while, I didn’t want to live there. I didn’t wanna live in that hate filled space. Like, it’s one thing to get some things out and to vent, but if you stay there for too long, pretty soon, it’s like, all men are cheaters and nobody ever changes, and this is just awful, and I can’t trust anybody. And I didn’t wanna live there. That’s not who I was, and it didn’t bring me joy. It didn’t bring me empowerment.
Lora Cheadle [00:05:35]:
It wore me down. Another space that I found out there was the therapy space, and I’ve done therapy. I love therapy. There’s great things about therapy, and therapy is a slow roll. It’s a long term thing. You don’t just have a couple of sessions with the therapist, fall in love with your inner child, figure everything out, unpack your entire childhood, get clarity over your partner’s past, and just be like, yep. And I’m great, and I’m moving on. Therapy is a slow role, and I deserved better.
Lora Cheadle [00:06:19]:
And you deserve better too. You deserve to have some clarity. You deserve a narrative around this. You deserve to feel better as soon as possible. Now speaking of feeling better, that was the other thing that I found out there that was a no go for me. I I am positive and I am forward leaning, but I also don’t believe in bypassing it. I don’t believe in a spiritual bypass. I don’t believe that we can sugarcoat this.
Lora Cheadle [00:06:51]:
I believe that if you’re anything like me, and I think that you are, there’s a lot of things in our past that we rolled over. It’s not that we well, maybe we buried our head in the sand. There were some things I’m sure I I know. Not I’m sure. I know I buried my head in the sand on a few things. But there were also things where it’d be like, oh my god. I have kids. I have a family.
Lora Cheadle [00:07:15]:
I have a life. I have obligations. I know there’s a problem, but I can’t stop and deal with it right now. Just move on. We’ve gotta move on. We’ve gotta get to dinner. We have family coming over. We’ve got whatever it is.
Lora Cheadle [00:07:28]:
And that’s really common. We do have to squash things down. There’s things that happen at work. There’s things that happen in our personal lives. Most of us don’t have the luxury to be like, oh, something is coming up in my marriage or with myself. So I’m just gonna instantly take time off of work, and I have a safe space for my kids to go, and we’re just gonna address it right here, right now. That’s not realistic. But after year after year, thing after thing of kind of rolling over, not addressing, not dealing with it, it leads to a situation where affairs are more likely to happen.
Lora Cheadle [00:08:10]:
And then when you find out about the affair and everything blows up, it’s an opportunity to start dealing with all of those things that you didn’t deal with along the way. And there are some people out there that are like, the past is in the past. Yes. It is. And we can’t put the past in the past until we understand the past. So it’s that tension between, do I need some therapy? Probably everybody on the planet could use some therapy, but it doesn’t make you feel better fast. Usually, most people don’t leave their therapist office being like, oh, I am so happy, and I am so clear. Usually, couples leave their marriage counselor.
Lora Cheadle [00:08:53]:
Usually, individuals leave their session with a lot, with a sense of heaviness, with a lot to ponder, a lot to process. And that’s good and that’s normal. But at the same time, how are you gonna stay positive? And what are the skills and tools and resources that you’re gonna do to feel better fast right now that is not burying your head in the sand? How are you gonna get through this doing the hard work while feeling good at the same time? So that’s why I created this. The other reason was, oh my gosh. There are so many old white men out there doing the work. And I’m sorry, but being a woman is different. We have different societal expectations placed on us. We have different belief systems, and I needed a woman.
Lora Cheadle [00:09:47]:
I needed a woman who understood, who had that lived experience, who had also been through infidelity, and was on the other side in a place that I wanted to be too. So that’s why I created this. There was nothing sufficient out there for me. So with that said, let’s talk about this in terms of burnout. That’s a lot. You’re dealing with the past. You’re dealing with the present, and you’re dealing with the future. And you’re dealing with tough, deep, emotional things.
Lora Cheadle [00:10:25]:
And you’re trying to live in that present moment, take care of your family, your kids, build a better relationship in future, it’s a lot going on, and it taps your resources. And when it taps your resources and you’re burned down, you get burned out. Burnout is described as an overwhelming amount of stress that has not been sufficiently dealt with. And as you and I both know, dealing with infidelity brings up an inordinate amount of stress, and most of us don’t have a lot of stress relieving skills. Like with any skill, the more we practice it, the better we get at it. So I’m gonna talk about some stress relieving skills today that you can use right now, today, anytime in the future, but especially over the holidays. Because holidays put in our face. Oh, you have to be happy and joyful.
Lora Cheadle [00:11:38]:
It’s the holidays. We have family and friends, and you’re supposed to be cheery. And if you have kids, then you have to put on this show for the kids. And, yeah, to a certain extent, it is a show. It is a show that you have to put on. And, yes, masking your pain to get through the day is something that, realistically, a lot of us end up having to do. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. How do you do that? How do you do what you’re supposed to do to take care of your kids to get through all of these happy times while at the same time making room for yourself? Making room for your grief, for your pain, for your burnout, for your exhaustion, for your stress.
Lora Cheadle [00:12:27]:
And then we’re gonna roll that into a sense of relationship burnout. Okay. So we started with the, definition of, burnout. Too much stress that has been unsuccessfully managed. When you have too much of something, you have a couple of different ways to alleviate that stress. Either lower the stress level or increase your level of skills to deal with that. So that’s the first question. Can you lower the amount of stress that you’re under? Number 1, can you lower the amount of stress that you are under? There’s a lot of things that you can’t lower.
Lora Cheadle [00:13:11]:
You probably can’t just walk away from work, but do you have some vacation time? Do you have some flex time options? Is there anything that you can do to alleviate some of that stress? Are there some things that you normally do around the holidays that you can let go of this year? What can you let go of? Maybe it’s sending out Christmas cards. Maybe instead of making the whole dinner, can you do takeout? Unless you enjoy cooking. What are some of the things that you can unload? Can you ask somebody else to wrap the gifts for you? Can you hire it done? If you’ve got younger kids at home, can you hire a babysitter so you have more availability to just, like, go shop and do things on yourself by yourself and not be stressed about it? Are there some functions that you can say no to? If going to a party fills you up, then by all means, go. But if you’re like, every year, I dread the neighborhood cookie exchange. Don’t go this year. Lower the amounts of stress. If you and your partner are working things out and it’s and it’s helpful to keep having your weekly meetings or your daily check ins or whatever it is, do it. But if you’re like, it’s so exhausting to have our weekly conversation through the holidays, don’t.
Lora Cheadle [00:14:45]:
Just don’t. Just don’t have it. It’s okay. And when I talk about holidays, because I know Thanksgiving is behind us, you know, Christmas, all these things are kind of behind us we’re in the middle of, I’m talking about any holiday going forward too. This applies to Valentine’s Day. This applies to kids graduating. This applies to weddings. This applies to birthdays.
Lora Cheadle [00:15:10]:
This applies to all big family events. This applies to anything, any kind of holiday, any kind of event. Number 1, how can I lower the level of stress that I’m under? And if you’re one of those people like me, who’s like, I can’t. I just can’t. You have no idea what I’ve got going on. I do wanna lean in and challenge you a little bit because I know there is something you can let go of. You might not want to let go of it. You might not want to let go of the beautiful family portrait.
Lora Cheadle [00:15:40]:
You might not want to let go of the amazing Christmas table spread. You might not want to let go of the annual New Year’s party, but you can. And if you choose to keep it, I want you to choose to keep it from a place of empowerment, from a place of I don’t have to do this. I want to do it. And if you don’t want to do it and if you’re feeling obligated, have that conversation with yourself, have that dialogue with yourself. Because why are you letting yourself down? Why aren’t you standing up for you? And you might be saying, but my kids rely on it. The neighbors love it. My family okay.
Lora Cheadle [00:16:30]:
You’re at a really tender time right now. If not now, when? If you are unwilling to have your own back in this moment, Are you ever gonna be willing to have your own back? What’s it gonna take? How much worse does it have to get before you hold yourself before you honor yourself, before you value your sanity. This is a tough one for me because as a chronic perfectionist and overachiever, I almost took sick pride in being like, but I can do it anyway. I really don’t feel like it, but I can do it, and I can do it with a smile on my face. And it took it took some time to start unwinding from that, and it’s something I still find myself leaning into. But now I am to the place that, you know what? I value myself more. I value my sanity more. I respect my time and myself more than to give away too much of myself, than to give more than I have to give.
Lora Cheadle [00:17:52]:
And I’ve dropped the ball in a lot of things, and I’ve let a lot of things go. And it hurts at first, but then the sense of freedom that you get, the sense of joy, and the sense of strength and worth that you get is almost overwhelming. And that’s what I really encourage you to lean into not only now, but in the future as well. Now number 2. Number 2. Once you’ve decreased the amount of stress, the second thing you can do is increase your stress tolerance, increase your resilience, increase the number of tools and tactics and skills that you have to manage stress. So let’s talk about 3 of those things. My program for women who have recently found out about the infidelity is called starting strong because it helps you start off on the right foot.
Lora Cheadle [00:19:07]:
It shows you here’s the road map. Here are the things to do. Here are the mistakes to avoid. Here are the skills and tools that you will need to find peace in these moments, and there’s 3 of them. The first one is using journaling. And if you’re a journaler, you might be like, yay. I love journaling. And if you’re not, you might be, I hate journaling.
Lora Cheadle [00:19:30]:
Either way, here’s why it’s important. You’re writing something down. You’re memorializing something. You’re getting it out of your body, and you’re concretizing it on paper. Not only will it help you because writing helps you, It also helps to look back on it later. To go back and read your journal, whether it was a week or a month or 10 years later, and understand it’ll help you understand what your state of mind was then it’ll help you see where you have grown. It will show you all of those beautiful things that you thought were true, that maybe weren’t, And it will help you go deeper. Because when you when somebody asks you a question or when you think of a question, you’re to ask yourself, like, do I wanna stay, or do I wanna go? Or is this even worth it? Or, oh my god.
Lora Cheadle [00:20:36]:
This is so unfair. What does it mean when? Is my husband really doing this? Am I really doing that? We think these questions, and then we just move on. Right? We’re like, do I even wanna stay? Yeah. I don’t know. Look at that. And poof. It’s gone. But when you’re journaling, when you’re writing it down and the journal prompts that I give in the program are some juicy journal prompts.
Lora Cheadle [00:21:01]:
And when you’re sitting there with pen in hand and paper in front of you and the question is there, it gives you the accountability necessary to answer the question or to realize I have no idea how to answer this. What do I need in order to answer this? And, yes, journaling is a tool that you can use to become more resilient. It’s a tool that you can use to manage stress because it helps give your brain answers. And when you have more awareness, you have more clarity. And when you have more awareness and clarity, you know what to do. You know what to say. You know what not to do. You’re more clear, so you have better boundaries because you know what you need to set boundaries against.
Lora Cheadle [00:22:01]:
You know how to preserve and protect yourself. Sometimes people that I work with talk about boundaries and they’re like, I have no boundaries. It’s so hard for me to set boundaries. I have no boundaries. Here’s here’s where to start. Like, do I teach boundaries? Of course. I can teach you how to set boundaries, but unless you really know what you’re setting a boundary around, it’s hard to maintain it. Like, if you’re not clear, what are you gonna set a boundary around? Then that boundary becomes elusive.
Lora Cheadle [00:22:37]:
Well, I just want to be treated better. I want I want more love. I want more connection. I want more like, you can think about all these things, but what does that look like? Me saying I want to be respected more and I want more love, that might be different than what you want. If I’m gonna set a boundary around that, maybe it’s around my partner’s language. I don’t wanna be disparaged. I don’t wanna be whatever. But that might be different for for you.
Lora Cheadle [00:23:07]:
It’s different from relationship to relationship. I will tolerate different things from different people, and you probably will too. So it’s getting very clear around what you will and what you won’t tolerate and from who and in what extent, and then what are you truly willing to do or to not do? You’ve probably done this a time or 2 because I certainly know I have. You can’t talk to me that way. I’m not gonna put up with that. And then you just roll into the rest of the week or the rest of the day or whatever. I the fight’s over. But what have you done about it? And then that fight happens again later.
Lora Cheadle [00:23:49]:
And then I I told you you couldn’t talk to me like that. But what action did you take to change it? What boundary did you put around it? What steps did you take to truly preserve and protect yourself? And then we look back on it and we’re like, oh, wow. I think I kinda had an abusive relationship there, and I think it went on for 15 years. And what did I just teach my kids? What did I just teach my kids to put up with? And then we have that sense of horror because we put up with something way too long. So when you’re journaling, it’s a skill to help you see who you are and what you want. So then you can put boundaries around actions or words So you can preserve and protect your energy. So then you have more energy to deal with things, and your level of stress will go down because you have more skills. You’re dealing with less BS.
Lora Cheadle [00:24:52]:
The second tool that I teach in my starting strong program is mindfulness meditation. How to drop in in a nanosecond. How to just get to that place. It’s not like clear the decks. Everybody has to get out of here. Mama needs to meditate. It’s how can you take that pause in the middle of a heated argument, in finding a new text on your partner’s phone that you didn’t wanna find, in having obsessive thoughts and having a panic moment, just as your entire family walks in the door for Christmas dinner, how you can return home to who you are to find your bra, and to get to that place. The more you practice getting to that place, the more adept you become at getting to that place.
Lora Cheadle [00:25:51]:
When people first start meditating, it’s like, we need silence, and I need to sit a certain way, and I need my peaceful music, and I need my candle, and I might need a guided meditation. We need all of these things. We have all of these needs. And as we become more adept at meditation and mindfulness, those external needs start falling away. I can meditate in the most noisy environment. I can find my meditative space while being yelled at, while being pushed around, while being busy, because I am adept at mindfulness and meditation, and you can too. And what that does is it gives you access to the conscious portion of your brain. When humans are stressed, humans go into a state of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
Lora Cheadle [00:26:57]:
Fight is getting aggressive. Somebody says something, you’re gonna take it on. You’re gonna respond. That’s not what I said. That’s not what I meant. That’s not what you did. I put up with this, and then why didn’t you do this? And if you hadn’t have cheated, knew you, Gladys, you’re not me. That’s fight.
Lora Cheadle [00:27:14]:
Flight, ignoring it. Not letting it bug me. And sometimes people think flight is like this elevated spiritually conscious place. Not necessarily. Flight is like, avoiding. Flight is what I did early on in my relationship. Like, I was talking about earlier, things get busy. I can’t deal with it right now.
Lora Cheadle [00:27:38]:
I’ve gotta get dinner on the table. I’ve gotta get the kids to piano and soccer. I’ve got all these things going on for work. We’ve got my parents are coming over. I’ve got a trip to plan. Whatever it is, I can’t deal with this now. That’s flight. I can’t deal with this now.
Lora Cheadle [00:27:52]:
That’s flight. Running away from our problems. Freeze. Well, also flight can also be I just wanna say, drinking. Drinking can be flight. Binge watching things, on TV, scrolling on our phone. It’s like, yeah. I’m not gonna not involved.
Lora Cheadle [00:28:10]:
Not involved. Not involved. Freeze is similar to flight, but it’s it’s you’re stopped. It’s that stonewall. It’s like, I’m out of here. Totally frozen. No skills. No stopped.
Lora Cheadle [00:28:28]:
And then fawning, this was a big one for me too. I’ll just make it better for everybody. I’ll just show them how perfect I am. I’ll just do a better job. I’ll just look better, act better, think better, create better. I’ll just take care of everybody else. I’m gonna start taking care better care of the kids. I’m gonna do better things with the house.
Lora Cheadle [00:28:46]:
I’m gonna show up more at work, and I’m gonna excel at work, and I’m gonna be the best one there. It’s performing. Fawning is performing. You’re so amazing. I’m gonna do all these things for you, and I’m gonna tell you how great you are. And I’m abandoning my own needs in the process because I’m making everything all about you. Those are trauma states, all of those. Those are what happens when we get overloaded.
Lora Cheadle [00:29:17]:
When do we get overloaded? When we’re stressed out. When we’re stressed out, we go into overload. We go into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, and we move out of the prefrontal cortex, which is the rational, reasonable thinking portion of our brain where we can make really good decisions. And we go way back here, way back into the reptilian brain. We go way back into the survival portion of our brain that reacts and that searches constantly for threats. It’s constantly scanning the environment asking, am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Oh, threat. Oh, threat. Oh, threat.
Lora Cheadle [00:30:04]:
Chances are your partner might have been defensive when discussing the infidelity. Chances are you might have been defensive discussing the infidelity. When somebody is defensive, they are in the survival portion of their brain, and their brain is saying, threat, threat, threat, keep myself safe, keep myself safe, keep myself safe, which is really great if a saber tooth tiger is legitimately chasing you and you need to outrun it. But it it is not a relational portion of your brain. The survival portion of the brain does not care about relationships. It does not care about relationships. It cares about physical survival. So when you’re back here, that’s the times that you say things that you look back on and you’re like, dang.
Lora Cheadle [00:30:57]:
That was mean. That was a low blow. Whether you’re doing it or somebody else is doing it, unless they’re a psychopath, and they’re just literally saying really low blows. Usually, it’s when our thinking portion has been hijacked, and we’re back in the reptilian portion of our brain that those low blows start coming out. If we wanna preserve the relationship, if we wanna preserve our sanity, the best thing we can do is learn tools to get us back out of the survival portion of our brain and move it into the prefrontal cortex so we can be rational, so we can be reasonable, and so we can be relational. And that’s where meditation and mindfulness helps. That’s what I was talking about. When you can be the observer in your own life instead of the participant, when you go to pull back and observe the interaction, pull back and observe the sensations in your body, pull back and observe what your partner is doing.
Lora Cheadle [00:32:05]:
It takes you out of the conflict, and it gives you an opportunity to breathe and ground and process and choose your response instead of reacting. So journaling is the tool that will help you figure out what you want to set healthy boundaries and to give you an understanding of what’s happening. Mindfulness will give you that pause, and it will give you a heightened ability to stay in the prefrontal cortex, to stay rational and reasonable so you can make better decisions about things. So meditation, I’ve got like, in this program, I do these 2 minute meditations, and I have people listen to the 2 minute meditations in a wide variety of circumstances. If you wanna start finding a quiet place and doing it that way, perfect. But I also ask people to do things like meditate while they’re, brushing their teeth, meditate while they’re doing something else. So you start cultivating the ability to find that meditative state, to find that position of the observer. So you can learn how to step back, take a beat, take a pause, and not slide into reactivity, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, and that helps lower that stress.
Lora Cheadle [00:33:44]:
The third thing that I have people do, the third tool we’re talking tools here. Journaling is a tool. Meditation is a tool. The 3rd tool is somatic processing. It’s movement. It’s using your body to flow energy. Emotions are energy. Emotions get stuck in our body.
Lora Cheadle [00:34:07]:
They have to go somewhere. Think about a toddler throwing a tantrum. That is the healthiest thing in the whole world because they’re get they’re like, they’re kicking, and they’re using their voice, and they’re using their bodies, and they’re letting all that pent up frustration come out. Now I am not a sex addiction therapist, and there is addiction is kind of a separate animal in and of itself. However, a lot of times people who use sex inappropriately or who become addicts of some sort lean into the behavior originally as a physical release. To physically release pent up tension and emotion. And then because they have no other skills, they have no other tools that do that, then their their their toolbox becomes less and less broad. It becomes more and more narrow.
Lora Cheadle [00:35:12]:
And pretty soon, instead of having 30 things to relieve tension, they have one thing, and it becomes a very dysfunctional coping skill. Everything that we do is a coping skill. Drinking is a coping skill. Addictions, the the like, they’re all coping skills. It’s just that is this a functional coping skill, or is this a dysfunctional coping skill? Is it maladaptive? Meaning, it’s not gonna serve you in the long run. Smoking pot, drinking, inappropriate sexual behavior. Like, there’s so many things out there. The legit overeating.
Lora Cheadle [00:35:54]:
Oh my gosh. Overeating. These are all, like, coping skills. It’s just that they’re maladaptive because they’re just functional, because they don’t serve the human long term. Does that make sense? So this is broadening your coping skills to give you more tools to use. So if and when you use a maladaptive coping skill, which we all do. Come on. We all do that.
Lora Cheadle [00:36:22]:
And it’s okay to do something periodically. It’s just that once you start leaning into it and then an addiction develops, and then pretty soon you have no other skills or tools, and then you’re in a place where you really don’t wanna be, and you’ve destroyed your self worth. You’ve destroyed relationships. You might have destroyed your body, and it just goes nowhere good. So somatic movement is really powerful because it’s using the body to release. Sometimes we don’t have the words for things. Sometimes we can’t identify it. Sometimes it’s deeper than words.
Lora Cheadle [00:37:01]:
And that’s where the movement really helps because we can shake. We could rock. Oh, we can rage. We can punch. We can sob. We can roll around on the floor. Oh, one of my somatic processing videos, I’ve got 30 emotion specific somatic processing videos that I give to people in the starting strong program. And one of those, literally, I have you roll around on the floor like a toddler.
Lora Cheadle [00:37:27]:
Roll around on the floor like a toddler. If you’re that frustrated, roll around and get some of it out. Move your body. Bust up a mountain. Get on a treadmill and go. Run some sprints. Do some push ups. I don’t care if they’re on your knees or your toes.
Lora Cheadle [00:37:46]:
Do something to the point of, like, I can’t give one more ounce. I can’t do one more push up. I can’t do one more squat. I can’t do one more burpee. Push something out. Blow it up. Blow it out, and move your body to get rid of that stress. Another two skills, another two tools.
Lora Cheadle [00:38:06]:
I gave you the tool of journaling. I gave you the tool of meditation and mindfulness. I’m giving you the tool of somatic processing. The next one is is called a hookup, and I love this. If you’re watching the video, you can see this. If not, just follow along. Take both of your arms out in front of you. Straight elbows, reach them all out.
Lora Cheadle [00:38:25]:
Cross your arms. It doesn’t matter if it’s left over right or right after over left. Then rotate your palms so your thumbs are down and clasp your fingers together. Now pull your thumbs under, under, under, and tuck them under your chin. Holding the thumbs with the clasped hands under your chin, take your tongue, uh-uh, and push it behind your front teeth and just gentle pressure there. Cross your ankles. It doesn’t matter if it’s right over left or left over right, and just take a few breaths. You have just hooked up left and right brain, and that’s gonna help.
Lora Cheadle [00:39:14]:
Another great one, take your hands, put them behind your head. You know, like when you interlace your finger and you lean your head in your hands and you’re like, ah, do that. And then take your fingers and just start massaging at the base of the skull. You can massage the neck. You can massage kinda sideways to the ears. You can massage up and down. But you’re just getting the base of the skull, and there’s that soft space in the middle where the spinal collar or cord comes up. Rub in there, and I want you to just keep rubbing until your breath deepens, until you get that sensation where it’s like and you just take a deep breath.
Lora Cheadle [00:39:55]:
That is calming and resetting that vagus nerve. So just rub gently there. Those are 2 hands on energetic tools that will help reset your body’s energy. The third energetic tool is take your hand and hold the bottom of the foot. Left hand to right foot, and then right foot to left hand. This has been described as, like, putting your batteries in right. You know how if you have the positive polarity in at the negative polarity, if you have the polarity and the battery’s reversed, it doesn’t work. This is a way to clear and manage your own energetic polarity.
Lora Cheadle [00:40:45]:
So left foot, right hand, just rub the bottom of that foot. Just a few breaths. And then switch and go to the other side. Right foot, left hand, hold the bottom of the foot, rub it. Those are just some energetic tools that shifts your body’s flow of energy. So those are I I just have a variety of tools. Journaling, meditation, somatic movement, the hookup, the hands behind your head, and the crossing the foot and the ankle. Those are some tools.
Lora Cheadle [00:41:22]:
Practice them to relieve your stress. When you relieve your stress, it’s going to help you manage that sense of holiday burnout, holiday overwhelm. Now the other kind of burnout that I really wanted to talk about is relationship burnout. Because relationship burnout is real. You have probably put a lot into this, especially after d day. All of a sudden, when the bomb goes off, there’s a lot of work to be done. And it’s common for you, for people to hit burnout. So burnout is that sense of, I just don’t wanna go forward anymore.
Lora Cheadle [00:42:07]:
I can’t give anything else. Just like with holiday burnout, number 1, how can you decrease the stress? And then number 2, how can you increase the skills so you could manage the stress? But it’s a little bit different when it comes to relationships, and here’s why. You’ve got another person right there who is also ebbing and flowing and going through their own sense of I’m burned out dealing with this. And let me tell you, let me just be brutally honest. The betrayer goes through this too. Even though, yes, they did this. They did this. They chose this.
Lora Cheadle [00:42:48]:
It’s their actions. They too go through burnout because they too are having to self reflect and figure out why the heck did I do this? Why the heck did I put my whole family at risk? Why did I do this to myself? How did I get another person or people involved? They have a lot to deal with. They have a lot to process. And that level of stress, that level of intensity also can become too much. And when it becomes too much, what is burnout? It’s that sense of cynicism. It’s that sense of overwhelm. It’s that sense of, I don’t want to do this. This is not even worth it to me.
Lora Cheadle [00:43:31]:
And if your partner’s in that state and you wanna work in the marriage and they’re like in a burnout state, they’re gonna go into fight. They’re gonna go into flight. They’re gonna go into freeze, or they’re gonna go into fawn. And sometimes people are like, it’s so awesome. My husband is doing everything. He’s totally he’s totally making me his queen. Okay. Are they in a state of fawn, or are they really shifting? And what is your job to manage their emotional state? What is their job to manage your emotional state? When you’re in a relationship and you love and you care about each other, yes, you can lean in to help each other, but where does that become codependent? Where does it become unhealthy? And, you know, I really wish there was a a clear bright line that could define that, and, unfortunately, there’s not.
Lora Cheadle [00:44:27]:
But let me tell you this. It’s just something that you can manage along the way. It helps to have somebody to talk to. And if you always go back to some of the journaling, you can ask yourself, does this feel healthy to me? Am I managing my partner’s recovery, or am I supporting? Are they trying to manage my recovery, or are they interfering, Or are they supporting? Or are they manipulating? When you journal, you can ask yourself some of those questions and get answers. And with relationship burnout, as you know, in a career space, just because you’re burned out, you don’t necessarily walk away. So why in a relationship space do we immediately go to I need to walk away? Maybe you do, and maybe you were burned out. Maybe you do need to walk away, and maybe you’re burned out. So asking yourself some of those questions around that will help you determine, am I just burned out because a fair recovery is a bear and every ounce of my energy and brainpower and emotional energy has been dedicated to this for 6 months, 9 months, 2 years, and I am worn out, and I just need a break? Or is it, you know what? I’m finally clear enough that I see this is not what I want, and I’m not leaning into this anymore.
Lora Cheadle [00:46:12]:
Take a breath. Think about that. Right now, are you burned out? Are you like, no. I’m totally energized. I’m really excited about what’s happening in the relationship. Or have you come to a point of clarity that you’re just not really ready to admit to yourself yet? And then what about your partner? Are they just burned out right now, And they’ve given it a lot, and they need a break. Have they come to a point of clarity that they’re not really ready to take action on yet? Where are you at? Now some ways to honor your partner in their process, some ways that you can ask your partner to honor you in your process is by putting some words around it. I feel burned out right now.
Lora Cheadle [00:47:06]:
I feel like every ounce of emotional energy, thought energy, all of that has been poured out of me, and I need some time to regroup and reground. I think we need to stop doing therapy for a month or 2. Stop talking about this for a month or 2. Just lean into some normal behaviors for a month or 2. Can we schedule a date where we can get back to each other? Let’s just pause everything for a month. Do you need some more self care? How do you need to fill yourself up? What tools are you using? What are some new tools that you might need to learn? You could ask your partner that. Hopefully, they would ask you that as well. I see that you’re burned out.
Lora Cheadle [00:47:58]:
What tools are you using to fill yourself up? I see that you’re drinking more than usual right now. I see that you are binge eating right now. Looking at the credit card, I see that there has been a lot of retail therapy happening right now. What are some other things that you could do or that I could do that might be more fulfilling? Is there anything we could do together that would nourish both of us? A walk, a date night, a movie, cooking dinner together. What are some things that we can do, that I can do, that you can do that will help bring that level of stress down? And, hopefully, those are all practical things that you can use right now to assess whether it’s holiday burnout, whether it’s relationship burnout, but you can assess where am I. Am I burned out? Yes or no? Have I made a realization that I’m just not ready to deal with? Yes or no? How can I decrease the level of stress, and how can I build up my tools so I can better manage things along the way? Now we’re gonna get into some more good stuff that will help support you around all of that. I’m so excited to talk about it. Did you know that on January 21st, my second book is being released.
Lora Cheadle [00:49:32]:
I know. Right? This book and you get it for free. If you’re lucky if you’re lucky, you get it for free. If not, you can get it for 99¢, or you can pay the full, price for the paperback, whatever works for you depending on when you hear this and when you listen. Anyhoo, the book is called it’s not burnout. It’s betrayal. 5 steps to fuel up and thrive. And this book is focused on a few things.
Lora Cheadle [00:50:00]:
It’s focusing on differentiating between burnout and betrayal because they are different. Burnout is different than betrayal. A lot of the symptoms are similar, but when you’re feeling burned out, it’s a different body sensation than when you are feeling betrayed. You have been betrayed. Let’s start there. You have been betrayed, and you can also get burned out. So how are you going to manage that burnout so you can then manage the betrayal? Because one of the reasons that people stop betrayal recovery is because they hit a point of burnout. And then they burn out, and then they don’t fully heal, and then they wonder why they’re not fully healing.
Lora Cheadle [00:50:53]:
If you go to burnoutorbetrayal.com, you can download the top three ways you betray yourself every day and how to stop, and you will be put on my list. This list is the list that I will send out the day I am releasing this book for free, so you will be able to download it for free. Burnoutorbetrayal.com, you will be able to download my new book, It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal, for free. The book is focused on all kinds of burnout, corporate burnout, workplace burnout. It applies to relationship burnout. It repla, applies to recovering from betrayal. Because like I said, you have been betrayed. It’s heavy hard work.
Lora Cheadle [00:51:49]:
You’ve got the holidays in there. You’ve got all these things. When you are burned out, you stop. When you’re burned out, you stop. We all stop. But then when you stop, you don’t get in the healing that you need to get in. So go to burnoutorbetrayal.com. I will send you an email on the date you will be able to download that book, the PDF version for or the Kindle version for free.
Lora Cheadle [00:52:19]:
So hop on that list. You can also get the top three ways you betray yourself every day and how to stop so you can start managing your level of relationship burnout, of burnout during the betrayal recovery process, and of burnout just getting through the holidays. So I hope this has been helpful. Try all of these different tools. I know we spent a long time moving through them, but they’re important to learn. They’re important to practice. Even if you’re just, like, mildly burned out, go ahead and practice them. Reach out if you need anything.
Lora Cheadle [00:53:03]:
I cannot wait for you to read this book. I think it’s really gonna help. Have an amazing week. And as usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are because who you are is always more and than enough. I wanna talk a little bit about an exciting thing that’s happening. The exciting thing that’s happening soon is my second book. It’s not burnout. It’s betrayal.
Lora Cheadle [00:53:32]:
It’s coming out on January 21st. This book will help you differentiate between burnout and betrayal, and it gives you 5 tools to help you fuel up and manage that burnout. Because burnout is real. Betrayal is real. The holidays are real. Life is real. There’s all of these things that we are being tasked to do. And when we burn out, it depletes our energy, and we don’t have energy to move forward and to take care of the things that are important to us, to take care of the things that we want to take care of.
Lora Cheadle [00:54:19]:
So if you go to burnoutorbetrayal.com, you can download the top three ways we betray ourselves every day and how to stop. But most importantly, when you ourselves every day and how to stop. But most importantly, when you go to that website, burnoutorbetrayal.com, and sign up, I will send you an email that will give you free access to this entire book. I will let you know what day you can hop on Amazon, and you can download it for free. And this book will give you 5 tools to understand if it’s burnout or a sense of betrayal and to manage that sense of burnout so you will have the energy to continue on in your betrayal recovery journey. You so you will have the energy to move through the holidays. So you will have the energy to show up strong for your family at work and for yourself. So you can learn how to manage your burnout more effectively and efficiently by getting to the root cause and addressing that.
Lora Cheadle [00:55:28]:
So burnout or betrayal.com, and I will see you next week. Bye.
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 Laura Cheadle every Wednesday at 7 AM and 7 PM 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 at betrayalrecoveryguide.com.