Create lasting change

How many times have you read books, taken classes, and taken steps to change yourself or your relationship, but couldn’t quite get that change to last? Using the transtheoretical model of change, here is what you need to know in order to make the changes you desire in yourself and your relationship.

Roadmap for Successful & Lasting Change:
  • Identify where you are at on the transformation journey:
    • Pre-Contemplation: D-day just happened and you are struggling to come to terms with what happened. (A good time to see a qualified therapist!)
    • Contemplation: You’ve accepted the reality of your situation and you are starting to explore your options and learn what might be available to you. (A good time to read, listen to podcasts, and use on-line or group coaching programs.)
    • Preparation: This is where you learn (and practice!) the tools, skills, and habits necessary for you to be successful and manage setbacks. (A good time for one-on-one coaching so you can be sure you are cultivating the skills necessary to soar!)
    • Action: The time to take action begins only after you’ve learned how to support the changes you desire. (Accountability and support are critical here!)
      • 90 Days to create a habit: Go slow! Be patient, have grace, and expect failure along the way.
      • Change one or two things at a time: Clearly identify what you want to change so you can know if you are succeeding or not. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too much.
      • Work on both “sides”: Change takes place on both “sides” of the coin. The logical side and the emotional side, the conscious side and the unconscious side, etc. Work to change both your actions and your thoughts.
      • Use journaling, meditation, & somatic movement to lock in change: These modalities are the backbone of tools necessary for successful change and to finally BECOME all that you want to be!
    • Maintenance: In this phase, you refine what you want and practice living your best life!
    • Termination: You and your relationship have become who you wanted them to be!

 

Are you ready to finally create the change you desire? Whether it’s a change withing you or a change within your relationship, this Free 5-Day Spring Awakening Workshop, April 8-12, 12-1:00 MST via Zoom will help you feel calm, confident, and sexy again so you can create the change you desire. Replays available. Sign up at www.SparkleAllSeason.com. All sessions available on-demand:

  • LIVE! Monday April 8 – Intention Setting & Guided Hypnosis
  • LIVE! Tuesday April 9 – Journaling & Why The Power’s Been Inside of You All Along.
  • On Demand! Wednesday April 10 – Meditation, Frequency & Becoming Who You Are.

  • On Demand! Thursday April 11 – Somatic Movement to Process Pain & Reclaim Your Sexy.

  • LIVE! Friday April 12 – The Creation & Elimination of Habits, Thoughts, and Behaviors.

 

Join for FREE at www.SparkleAllSeason.com

 

About Lora

Attorney, speaker and Burnout & Betrayal Recovery Coach, Lora Cheadle believes that betrayal uncovers the truth of what’s possible when we stop focusing on what was done to us and start showing up unapologetically for ourselves. She helps women rebuild their identity and self-worth after infidelity so they can reclaim (or find for the very first time) their confidence, clarity, and connection to source and create their own kind of happily ever after.

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

 

Narrator [00:00:01]:
You’re listening to flaunt, find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. A podcast women who’ve been betrayed by their intimate partner and want to turn their devastation into an invitation to reclaim themselves and their worth. Tune in weekly so you can start making sense of it all and learn how to be okay on the inside no matter what goes on on the outside. Download your free betrayal recovery toolkit at betrayalrecoveryguide.com.

Lora Cheadle [00:00:35]:
Hello, and welcome to Flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. I’m Lora Cheadle. And today, we are going to talk about how to create lasting change in yourself and your relationship. And this is such a huge one because infidelity really, like I say, betrayal uncovers the truth. It uncovers the truth of all of the things that we’ve been a little bit dissatisfied with. It uncovers the truth about all of the things that we’ve put up with that we really don’t want to put up with. And I’m not talking about just in our relationships.

Lora Cheadle [00:01:21]:
I’m talking about within ourselves as well. I’m talking about that realization that I’ve been kind of a doormat or the realization that I have let way too much of myself go. I have sacrificed who I am and what’s important to me and what I believe in. I have murdered myself. I have not been true to who I am and what I want and what I deserve, and I wanna change all that. And that’s what this show is about. This is about those things that we really legitimately want to heal or address or change in ourselves, in our lives, in our relationship. And, yes, it can be related to the infidelity.

Lora Cheadle [00:02:15]:
It can be, you know, something that came up, but it can also be something like, you know what? I have always sought to please way too much. I’m tired of being a people pleaser. I am so tired of that. I’m gonna be done. Or I’m tired of feeling so insecure. I’m tired of being living this life where I’m just afraid of judgment. I just wanna live for me. I’m tired of making everybody else happy.

Lora Cheadle [00:02:42]:
Whatever it is for you, we are going to talk today about how to change. And I’m going to give you the exact steps and the exact tools to figure out how to navigate that change. And this is kind of a follow-up to my spring awakening, workshop and challenge. And if you’re sitting there thinking, wait, spring awakening workshop and challenge, what is this goodness, Lora, and where can I learn more? I’m so glad you asked. Just go to sparkle all season dot com. Put in your name and your email. If you hear this in time to capture some of the live, Zooms that we’re gonna have, wonderful. And if not, because I’ve got people all over the world, most people will be listening to the replays.

Lora Cheadle [00:03:40]:
So you can get the replays. When you put in your name and your email, I’ll send you the live Zoom link and the information, and I will also send you the replays when we’re done. So it doesn’t matter when you hear this. You can always get the replays. And what’s also great about that is once you have the replays, you can use these steps, these tools, the rest of your life, anytime you want to create any kind of lasting change in yourself or your relationship. Because let’s face it, something always needs changing, and that’s not a bad thing. As we live life, we develop, we grow. And when we develop and we grow, it means our tastes develop and grow, and we require different things.

Lora Cheadle [00:04:35]:
A baby requires different things than a toddler. A toddler requires different things than a teenager, and a teenager requires different things than an adult. Growth is good. There is nothing bad or wrong about change. There is nothing bad or wrong about change. Changing your mind, changing your opinions, changing the way you think or feel or believe. There’s nothing wrong with that. So sparkleallseason.com, catch the replays, catch it live, and learn how you can successfully create change within yourself and within your relationship.

Lora Cheadle [00:05:20]:
Okay. The first thing that I wanna talk about when we talk about change is we have to figure out where we are in our willingness to change, where we are in our willingness to change. And what you might be thinking, I don’t even know what that means, Lora. Where are you on your journey to transform? One of my favorite stages of change models is the transtheoretical model of change. And I don’t want you to tune out and be like, oh my god. She’s gonna give us some academic description of some theory of change, and I don’t really care. Let me tell you why you should care. Identifying where you’re at on the journey helps you to figure out, are you on the journey? Are you really on this journey? And are you in the beginning stages, the middle stages, or the end stages? And why that’s important to know is it gives you an understanding of your behavior.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:30]:
So using the phrase, the problem, I’m tired of being a doormat. I’m tired of giving away too much of myself. I’m tired of sacrificing and not getting anything in return. I’m angry at this. I’m tired of the judgment. Using that as the example, is that something that is just coming to light for you? Is that something where you’re like, oh my gosh, I have been a doormat. I have been a self sacrificing martyr. Is that something that is just coming to mind, or is that something where you’re like, you know what? I’ve been working on this for several years, and I’m getting really, really good at not murdering myself.

Lora Cheadle [00:07:18]:
And it’s really almost to the point that it’s not much of a problem anymore. That’s a wide range that I just gave. When something just comes to your awareness, you’re typically in the precontemplation state of change. That precontemplation state is where you’re like, wow. I just learned that smoking is bad for somebody. I have never heard that in my life before. Holy cow. I gotta figure that out.

Lora Cheadle [00:07:50]:
This is that place where you go, holy cow. I have given up too much of myself. I have over functioned on behalf of everybody. I cannot believe I didn’t see it. Wow. How did I not know this? And most importantly, this is the place where we are when we first discover the infidelity. We are in that pre contemplation state because we just learned about it. Our partner has known about it for a long time.

Lora Cheadle [00:08:22]:
It’s just crossing our awareness. So we are in that precontemplation state. D day launches us into that precontemplation state of, oh my gosh. What do I do? This is all new to me. This is not something I ever planned for, thought about. I don’t know what to do. So that’s that first stage of change, and it’s important to give yourself grace and space and time to grieve and to figure out and to come to terms that, yeah, this just happened. Even if you think about the death of somebody you love, when that death comes out of the blue, you have to give yourself time to process.

Lora Cheadle [00:09:11]:
That is precontemplation. You are contemplating life without this person anymore, and that’s a lot to take in. You are contemplating for the first time the fact that your partner was unfaithful, and that’s a lot to take in. So when you are in this pre contemplation state, give yourself grace, give yourself space, give yourself time, and don’t force yourself to launch right into change or launch right into action from this place. When you’re in a precontemplation state, you need to start contemplating what does life look like with this knowledge. What do I look like with this knowledge? What does this relationship look like with this knowledge? Precontemplation is a slow, gentle place to be in. Now once you’ve given yourself a little bit of time, maybe 3 months, maybe 6 months, you start entering the contemplation stage. The contemplation stage of change is the place where the reality of this is settled in.

Lora Cheadle [00:10:24]:
You no longer wake up and go, oh my god. What just happened? Is this real? You are no longer crying all the time. You are no longer completely out of control and hopeless because the reality of the situation has settled in. This contemplation stage, again, is not the place to launch into grand and glorious decisions that will impact you and the rest of your life. This contemplation stage is the stage where you need to do 2 things. You need to first start exploring your options. Start seeing what is out there. Start getting a little bit curious and just thinking, what would life look like if if we separated, if we stayed together, if we stayed together and it happened again, if it stayed together and it happened again and I didn’t care, if I did care, What would it look like to move? What would it look like to be roommates? What would it look like to step into my power? What would it look like not to be a doormat? What what behaviors in myself do I see as doormat ish? What behaviors do I see in myself that are unhealthy? What would it be like to prioritize myself? What would it be like to reclaim myself? This stage is where you start asking yourself those kinds of questions.

Lora Cheadle [00:12:16]:
And I really think this is the most important stage to reach out and get some coaching. Free contemplation when you’re trying to come to terms with things, that’s a good place to get some therapy, to get some grief counseling, to get some resources that will help you come to terms with what just happened. But a common mistake people make is then they stay in that realm for too long. And it’s not that I’m talking you out of therapy or, you know, things like that. I’m not. It’s just that once you have come to terms with what’s going on, I think it’s good to launch into some coaching. I think it’s good to take a break from therapy for a while for you, depending on your circumstances, I know, but to give yourself a new perspective. You have come to terms with it now what? And sometimes therapy can keep you back in that state of processing unhealed stuff from your childhood, and it’s just can be too heavy.

Lora Cheadle [00:13:28]:
It can be too heavy to go from this monumental, you know, infidelity grief suddenly into unpicking and unpacking everything from your past. After you have come to terms with infidelity, I think it’s a good idea to take a little break to move into coaching so you can explore what’s possible for you. That’s that contemplation stage. From precontemplation, come to terms with it, take a break, get some coaching, and go into the contemplation stage of what does it look like to be powerful? What does it look like not to care about other people’s judgment? What does it look like to live my own life my own way and to not always be worried about what will my parents think, what will my partner think, what will the neighbors think. That contemplation stage takes a long time, and it’s healthy and it can be fun because you start exploring, oh, what it looked like to not care what other people think? Oh my gosh. That’s a new idea for me. Give yourself time to be there. And then after you have had some time there, you enter the preparation stage.

Lora Cheadle [00:14:50]:
And the preparation stage is the stage that I’m talking about in my sparkle all season challenge. The preparation stage is where you’re actually making some plans where you’re like, I have explored what it might look like, and I have decided some of the things that I wanna shift in me. I don’t want to give up my own dreams. I don’t want to not be happy. I don’t wanna be controlled by others. So now I have to make preparation for how to do that. How do I prepare for change? There are a 1,000,001 examples that I can use. If you’re going to cook a recipe, you prepare by giving yourself a shopping list and making sure you have the right ingredients and the right pans and the right tools and the right amount of time.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:53]:
If you were going to do any sort of craft project, same thing, You gather your equipment. An example that I really love using for people who have had a baby is you pack your labor bag before you go into labor. You think about the things that you might need and you pack the bag and you have it ready. You’ve got your insurance card. You’ve got your clothes and your essential oils or whatever it is. You’re preparing for something that you know is going to come, and you’re preparing for it. So when the time comes, you are ready. And that’s what this preparation stage is all about.

Lora Cheadle [00:16:37]:
And sometimes people get confused that it means they have to take the first steps at changing, and it’s like, nope. That’s Braxton Hicks contractions. That’s not really effective or efficient or fun. This is you gathering your stuff. Gathering the stuff. You’ve made the decision. The baby’s in there. The baby’s gonna come out.

Lora Cheadle [00:16:58]:
This is you gathering the tools and gathering the things that you know you will need. You’ve already decided it’s lasagna for dinner. Now you just have to prepare. Do I have an oven? Do I have a pan? Do I have cheese and noodles and tomatoes and oregano? Don’t jump the gun and move out of the preparatory phase too quickly. Otherwise, it will lead to frustration. The the example of that, and I think we’ve all done that, is we start making a recipe or something that we haven’t fully prepared for because we just assumed that we had the ingredients, And then we’re like, what? I’m out of eggs? How can I be out of eggs? I can’t be out of eggs. I’m out of eggs. And then we’re trapped, and then it’s kind of a problem.

Lora Cheadle [00:17:46]:
And either the dinner doesn’t turn out the way that we wanted or we’re totally just, you know, disrupted, and we have to leave in the middle, and it’s just not fun, and it’s stressful. So pre contemplation, contemplation, and then preparation. Three whole steps to take before you actually do anything that creates change. And that is how you create lasting change in yourself and your relationships by identifying. Hey. I’ve already come to terms with it. I already saw a therapist, and I came to terms with this. I already worked with my coach.

Lora Cheadle [00:18:25]:
We have gone through this whole contemplation stage. We’ve gone back and forth. He or she has helped me come up with some questions and ideas and see what’s possible for me. A coach is really good at helping you see what’s possible for you, for showing you, hey. Could this be a blind spot? And for you to be like, oh my gosh. It is. It was just the way I was raised. It was just my belief about women.

Lora Cheadle [00:18:51]:
It was just it was just it was just. And then helping you prepare for your change so your change is successful. One of the big steps in preparation that I have my people do is I have them think about the people in their life that are going to be impacted by their change. Is your mom gonna be impacted? Is your dad gonna be impacted? Are your kids gonna be impacted? Are your neighbors gonna be impacted? Is your partner gonna be impacted? Is your career gonna be impacted? Because when you prepare in advance and you realize, wow, I can do all this deep internal work, and then I’m going to tell my family, no. I’m not gonna show up at this dinner anymore. And suddenly mom’s mad, dad’s mad, kids are mad, neighbors are mad, and I haven’t had a plan for how to deal with that mad, the easiest thing to do is to go back and act the same way. So if you wanna stop being a doormat, if you wanna stop giving away too much of yourself, if you wanna stop betraying yourself, who is that gonna impact? It’s gonna impact a lot of people, isn’t it? How are you going to deal with their dissatisfaction? How are you going to deal with their judgment? What are you going to do to calm your own anxiety? When your mom calls and says, show up for the extended family dinner, and you’ve decided, I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that.

Lora Cheadle [00:20:26]:
That is not who I am anymore. How are you going to say no in a way that feels supportive of you? How are you going to manage that discomfort? How are you going to navigate that difficult conversation? How are you going to be okay if somebody’s mad at you? Oh my gosh. That’s a big one. How are you gonna be okay when somebody is mad at you or disappointed in you? If you choose to stay with your partner and everyone wants you to leave, how are you gonna deal with that discomfort? Or if you wanna leave and everybody wants you to stay, how are you gonna deal with that? That’s all part of the preparation stage. The preparation stage is getting those tools to deal with that discomfort so you don’t cave in. You are giving yourself everything you need so you can be successful in creating the life and the relationships that you want. I’m going back to my sparkle all season workshop and challenge. My sparkle all season workshop and challenge is designed to give you those tools.

Lora Cheadle [00:21:42]:
Now I can’t give you all the tools in just a short workshop, but what I can give you is some information around the tools, some practice. If you want to go deeper, yes, you can join my full 90 day program, and I will teach you all of the tools and give you the accountability to practice them. But at least in the challenge, you will get some of them. You’re not gonna get all of them, but you’re gonna get some of them. So go to sparkle all season.com, put in your name and your email, you’ll get the videos, you’ll get the high level information on these tools that will give you the skills and the habits and the insight necessary to sit in a place of discomfort or stress. The tools necessary to do the hard things so you can follow through and create the change that you want to create. Now the next step is action, and what I wanna point out is before you take action, I want you to get good at the tools. And this is backwards to the way so many people do it.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:07]:
So many coaches do it differently. So many books teach it differently. So many programs teach it differently. They tell you to take action first. No. If you take action and get pushback, you’re gonna get afraid. You’re gonna feel like you’ve made the wrong decisions. Prepare by learning the tools to manage your stress, by learning the tools to trust in your truth, by learning the tools that will keep you calm, by learning the tools that will give you your confidence, by learning the tools that make you feel empowered and sexy and free first.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:46]:
So when you take action and then you bump up against something that’s hard or challenging, you’re gonna be like, I’ve got this, Because you do got this. Because you’ve already practiced it. I don’t know why the whole birth analogy is coming up so much, but it’s like, again, if you’ve had a baby, you have probably gone through some sort of Lamaze class or the Bradley method or just guided childbirth, prepared childbirth. When I had my kids, it was a prepared childbirth course through insurance, and then I bought the Bradley method. And then, I had this little it was a DVD tape or, VHS tape of Lamaze and the Lamaze method. Lamaze is a method. Bradley’s is a method. Prepared childbirth is a method.

Lora Cheadle [00:24:43]:
And they don’t wait until you go into labor and say, we’re gonna learn breathing techniques now. You do not wait until you go into labor to learn breathing techniques. You do this whole birth education course and you practice breathing, And people make fun of it, but you practice getting in the position, you practice breathing, you practice all these different tools and techniques, and then you see which ones work for you. So when the time comes and when you go into labor, you’re not like, oh my god. I have to learn them all now, because you can’t. So my question to you is, how many times in the past have you done it like that? How many times in the past have you been like, I’m going to change and then just launch into change, but you haven’t prepared? You haven’t practiced. I know. I know.

Lora Cheadle [00:25:36]:
I know. I think we all have, and that’s why what I do is so different and so powerful because we practice the tools first. My Affair Recovery program, I’ve got several, but I have one called First Steps. I have one that’s called Affair Recovery. And sometimes people say, why in this Affair Recovery aren’t you talking about the relationship? Why are you talking about these 3 tools, specifically getting clarity, getting confident, and feeling empowered? Well, because it’s like. It’s like prepared childbirth. We’re gonna practice the tools first. Then when the rubber meets the road and it gets difficult, then you’re gonna be confident and you’re gonna be calm and you’re gonna feel good along the way because the action is what happens along the way.

Lora Cheadle [00:26:39]:
Spoiler alert, you are on the infidelity journey. Like it or not, you are on the affair recovery journey. Prepare for that journey. Don’t just launch into that journey. Take all the time and all the resources and take up all the space you need to prepare for a successful journey. Action. Action. Action is successful when you have prepared.

Lora Cheadle [00:27:16]:
So let’s break down this action. Because as you might guess, there’s a way to take action that’s right, and there’s a way to take action that is ineffective. The first thing when you take action, I want you to realize is that it takes 90 days to create a habit. And you might be thinking, no no no no no, Laurie, you mean 30 days, you mean 31 days. Yes. And it takes 30 to 31 days of continual action to create a new habit or to remove, to eliminate a bad habit. So if you wanna stop smoking, if you wanna stop eating sugar, if you wanna stop defaulting to your unhealthy patterning, if you wanna stop pleasing your spouse, if you wanna stop obsessively checking somebody’s phone, if you wanna stop attacking, if you wanna stop sacrificing yourself, whatever it is that you wanna stop, if you consistently for 30 days don’t engage in that behavior, the neural pathways in your brain have had enough time to shrink and to not be so dominant anymore, but that’s if you do it 30 days consistently. And most of us can’t just make a decision, launch into action even with preparation, and do something successfully for 30 days.

Lora Cheadle [00:28:52]:
Most of us have false starts. Most of us have something that gets in the way. I had a client just ask me the other day, why is it so hard for me? Why do things keep getting in the way? It’s just life. Life always gets in the way. And it’s actually kinda good to notice that perception that things are getting in the way because it means you’re focused. It means you have done more than pre contemplate. You have actually contemplated. You have actually prepared, and you’re ready to take action.

Lora Cheadle [00:29:27]:
And now you’re frustrated because you can’t take action because things keep getting in the way. Yes. This is why I say it takes 90 days to create a habit. Because in 90 days, you can probably get your 30 days of consecutive change. Because weather happens, sickness happens, time delays happen, exhaustion happens, frustration happens, you name it, it happens. So in 90 days, you can get about 30 days of continuous habit formation or habit elimination. So that’s part of taking action is 1, realizing that it’s gonna take longer than you think that it is, and to give yourself grace for false starts, to give yourself grace and compassion and love for messing up, for being able to laugh at yourself lovingly, to be able to just gently recorrect yourself and be like, oh, sweetheart, my sweet, sweet, sweet precious self. Let’s try that again.

Lora Cheadle [00:30:41]:
Because if you go in thinking you’re gonna do it all right, you’re setting yourself up for failure, And I do not wanna set anybody up for failure. I don’t wanna set myself up for failure. I don’t want any of us to feel like failures. That’s a horrible way to feel. So give yourself more time and more space and realize that you will make mistakes. So I wanna stop betraying myself. I wanna stop being a doormat. I wanna stop sacrificing.

Lora Cheadle [00:31:11]:
I wanna stop over functioning. After I have done all of the preparation, I give myself 90 days to break the habits that I had that caused me to feel like I’m a doormat, like I’m over functioning? And be mindful of which habits you’re breaking. If you wanna break the habit of checking someone’s phone, that’s a specific habit, so you know if you’re successful or not. If you wanna break the habit of always stepping into finished chores, if you wanna break the habit of whatever it is, identify the habit so you know if you’re successful or not. I’m going to break the habit of arguing when the person that I’m arguing with has no interest in seeing my side of the story. Be specific and give yourself 90 days of trying and failing and trying again, and be compassionate. Now the second thing about taking action is realize that action needs to be taken in several different ways. It’s not just taking action and doing something differently.

Lora Cheadle [00:32:42]:
It’s not like, I am going to make healthy meals. The action that I’m going to take is cooking a meal. It’s not always just the action. It’s also the thoughts. The action and the thoughts, the behavior and the emotions. Taking action, there’s the two sides of everything. You might be able to successfully not check your partner’s phone. But what’s going on inside of you? If your thoughts are running wild, like, oh my gosh.

Lora Cheadle [00:33:17]:
She knows that I’m not gonna do this and blah blah blah blah, and I’m sure this is happening, and I’m so stressed. And what if if your thoughts are out of control, your behavior doesn’t matter. If your thoughts are out of control, your behavior doesn’t matter. You have to change your thoughts. You have to change your thinking. You have to change your emotional state as well as your action. If you’re going to not question your partner incessantly, but then you’re going to have so much anxiety that you end up becoming a crazy person and drinking yourself into a stupor, that’s not a win. That’s not a win.

Lora Cheadle [00:34:01]:
So part of the preparation is managing both sides of the equation, managing the logic and managing the emotions, managing the behavior and managing the thoughts around those behaviors. And this is truly that breakdown of the conscious and the unconscious or the subconscious mind. This is really where we break down, like, what is the conscious behavior? What is the thing that I am doing? And then unconscious or subconscious, what is the reason why? I’m doing this because I wanna feel safe. I’m doing this because I’ve always done this. I’m doing this why, And this takes a while to unpack too. And when I am working with people, some of the tools that I use, the tools that you will learn in the sparkle all season challenge are journaling, which is using cultivated curated questions to open up that subconscious mind and to get to the root of what’s really going on. Because when you ask, why am I nagging? Why am I a doormat? Why am I obsessively checking the phone even though I know nothing is wrong? Why am I over functioning all the time and driving myself to these crazy extremes? Why am I doing that? When you use journaling, you can start answering your own questions, which is getting to the root cause of the behavior, which is managing those thoughts. So you know you wanna stop doing something, use journaling to figure out why you are doing it in the first place.

Lora Cheadle [00:35:52]:
Why you were doing it in the first why were you withdrawn out in the first place? Break it down. Use journaling to help you. The other tool that will help you that I teach and that I give you access to in the sparkle all season spring awakening challenge is meditation. Talking about conscious versus subconscious or unconscious, meditation slows down conscious thought. So when your brain is racing, I bet he, and what about this, and this means that, and if I don’t do this, everybody’s gonna judge me, and everybody’s gonna think I’m a horrible mom and a horrible wife, and then I’m gonna get blamed. And I really care what people think because if people don’t like me, then then I’m gonna be rejected. And then if I’m rejected, I’m gonna die alone under a bridge all by myself. Those are those conscious thoughts that start racing.

Lora Cheadle [00:36:46]:
Meditation slows those thoughts down and helps you access that deeper, wiser part of yourself. So instead of running away with you, your thoughts start slowing and you start thinking more clearly, which is really powerful if you’re trying to take different action, if you’re trying to break a bad habit, if you’re trying to create a healthy habit, creating new habits creates anxiety because it’s the unknown. How will my relationship look if suddenly I’m not controlling things? How will my relationship look if I leave it to my partner to make all the decisions? How will my relationship look if I walk away? How will my life look if I walk away? That creates anxiety because it’s new. It’s an unknown. So you can use meditation to slow the thoughts and to deepen in to your internal wisdom. So you can reassure yourself, you know what? Showing up from a place of power. How would that feel? What’s scary about that to me? The combination of journaling and and meditation is really powerful, because like that, it slows down and it asks the right questions. Is that really true? Is it really true that if you suddenly don’t care about somebody else’s judgment, you’re going to be ostracized? Is that true? And maybe in ways it could be and maybe in ways it’s not, but you’re journaling about it.

Lora Cheadle [00:38:54]:
And then you start feeling that anxiety and you can use that meditation to slow it down. And to think about all the other ways where it wasn’t true or all of the other options and things that you could do to create a different story around that. Meditation, journaling. And then the last thing that you’re going to learn in my spring awakening challenge, again, sparkle all season dot com, you’re going to learn about how to embody that, How to find union between the doing and the being. How to yoke together the thoughts and the action so you can show up in a way that is seamlessly integrated? Because it’s hard to show up and stay grounded and solid when our mind and our emotions and our thoughts and our logic and our emotions are all in different places? And somatic movement, somatic processing is one of the best ways to unite both hemispheres of the brain, to unite the heart and the head, to move some of that chaotic emotion out of your body, and to give yourself the opportunity to practice, to rehearse being and showing up differently. Moving, projecting, being who you are. This is all part of that action stage. Now I wanna zoom back out because there’s been so much in this show.

Lora Cheadle [00:40:46]:
But precontemplation, that’s holy cow d day. I haven’t wrapped my head around this. I haven’t I haven’t I can’t even figure out and accept that this just happened. Contemplation. Okay. It happened. What am I gonna do about it? Preparation. How am I gonna handle these difficult moments? How am I gonna be calm? How am I gonna be confident? How am I going to feel embodied and strong along the way? And then within the action step, how do I give myself enough time and enough grace and enough space taking the 90 days? And then how do I unite all facets of me? So not only do I think different, but I be different and I feel different.

Lora Cheadle [00:41:29]:
How do I show up different and then not have anxiety around it? And how do I use those tools that I’ve already practiced to manage that anxiety? Now, once you’ve gone through all of this, and this is a long process, really, this could take a year. At the end of the 1st year, you should probably still be in this action stage where you’re like, I’m still navigating. I’m still creating new changes because I’ve done one at a time and I’ve given myself 90 days and I’m preparing, and I’m going back through. This is a cycle that you’re gonna go back through and back through and back through. Once you’ve had several years of doing this, and I’m gonna say more about that in a minute, then you enter the maintenance phase. The maintenance phase is a little bit easier because now you have sussed out everything that you want to change. Now you have figured out all of the habits that you want to release, all of the habits that you want to create. You have tried, you have failed, you have shown up differently, you have changed your mind, you’ve gone back through this cycle numerous times, pre contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, 5 or 6 times.

Lora Cheadle [00:42:59]:
Now you are solid with how you want things to be. That’s when you enter the maintenance space, That’s when you’re like, I’ve done it, and I just need to keep doing it. You know the recipe. You don’t need to pull out the recipe anymore. You don’t need a shopping list anymore. You’ve done it. You know how to make the lasagna. You don’t need measuring cups anymore.

Lora Cheadle [00:43:30]:
You can even estimate it. You know when it looks too solid. You know when it looks too juicy and you need to cook it a little longer. You know when you need foil on the top because it’s burning like you know how to do it. You have figured it all out. You even know what brands of seasoning or cheese you like the best. Now it’s just maintenance. It’s learning how to do it maybe more efficiently with more reliability, and it feels pretty good.

Lora Cheadle [00:44:02]:
This is where you have competency. This is where you’re like, yeah, I get it, and you’re just doing it more and more on autopilot. This is the place where you actually want some problems to come in. This is where you want the neighbor to challenge you. This is where you want your parents to say, you know, we were always been disappointed in you when blah, blah, blah. This is where you want a problem to happen. Why? 2 reasons. 1, it tests the water.

Lora Cheadle [00:44:42]:
It tests the water. If a problem comes up, it tests your strength and your resolve, and it’s gonna build your confidence. Also, if something comes up and you know that it’s wrong, you’re gonna be like, okay, so good to know that. So good to know that. This is not actually the person that I wanna be with, or this is not the person I want in my life, or I need to restart this whole cycle again and make some big changes because my sister does overstep. That maintenance phase is where you want the problems to come in because you’re solid, you’re just maintaining, and it really helps you with discernment and knowing what else might need to change. And then the very, very last stage in this whole trans of theoretical model of change is termination, and that’s when it’s fully integrated. It’s integrated into the way that you be, into the way that you think, into the way that you feel, into the way that you emote.

Lora Cheadle [00:45:50]:
You have become this new person, and you’re out of this whole loop, this out of this whole cycle. Again, I don’t know why childbirth just keeps coming up, but it does. When you first have a baby, speaking for myself, you have the baby, and at first, you’re like, what do I do with the baby? And it’s not like, I am a mother. You have weird feelings about it. You haven’t become a mother yet. And then at some point down the line, you’re just a mom and you have fully embodied that identity. And it’s not something that can be taken from you anymore. My kids are in their early twenties.

Lora Cheadle [00:46:42]:
I am a mom. It is a part of who I am. If I see a toddler or a baby or a preschooler or any kid doing anything, I can handle it because I’m a mom. I can handle it. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. It’s who I am. I got this.

Lora Cheadle [00:47:04]:
Give me your colicky baby. I’ve got this. Give me whatever it is. I’ve got that because I have fully embodied that. I am no longer in this stage of change around being a mom. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I’ve embodied it, I’ve integrated it, and it’s who I am. And that’s something that I do want to say is possible for you. People talk all the time about this whole betrayal recovery journey and that’s never gonna change, and I’m never gonna be the same, and he ruined me forever.

Lora Cheadle [00:47:46]:
No. That’s just not true. It’s just not true. It will integrate. You will change. You will become. If you actively hold yourself apart from that, that’s a different story. But this identity of who you were is somebody who had a faithful partner, and then this new identity of you as somebody who had a partner who is not unfaithful, that shift will fully integrate.

Lora Cheadle [00:48:25]:
And yes, it takes time, and yes, it takes effort, but yes, that integration will happen. I promise there will be a day where you look back on this, and it’s not like you forgot, but you will not feel the same way you do now. And the same is true if you’ve decided, I am not going to be a martyr. I’m not going to betray myself. I’m not gonna be a doormat. At first, you feel like an imposter. You do. You just feel like this imposter.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:00]:
You’re like, I’m this empowered imposter. I’m just pretending. This doesn’t feel like me. Just like when you first had a baby or first got a dog or you’re like, I don’t know how to do this. You don’t fully embody and embrace that identity overnight. It becomes you. You will become empowered. You will become embodied.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:27]:
You will become strong. Whatever it is, that’s who you will become with time. Until one day you look back and you’re like, I’m not a doormat. I’m not an over functioner. I’m not a martyr. I’m not self sacrificing. I am prioritizing myself, and I’m prioritizing myself because it’s the natural thing to do, not because I am prioritizing myself. So when you are feeling like, this feels awkward, This feels awkward.

Lora Cheadle [00:50:08]:
To prioritize myself feels awkward. Know that, yes, it does. In the same way, nursing a baby feels really darn awkward. Changing a diaper feels really darn awkward. Picking up a new newborn feels really darn awkward. Dealing with a teenager the first time they have disobeyed feels really awkward. There’s a lot of things that feel really awkward the first 100 times you do it, but that somehow with time, with patience become you. And that’s where I wanna leave you today.

Lora Cheadle [00:50:51]:
This new version of who you are and how you want to be will become you. Your new relationship will become you. This show is about how to create lasting change in yourself and your relationships. Anything that is lasting is worth investing in, and that means time and energy and resources. The stage of change model is really powerful. You can’t rush it, but it will get you to the place where you become exactly who you wanna be, where your relationship becomes exactly where you want it to be and where you will no longer feel like, is this real? Is this too good to last? When’s the other shoe gonna drop? So if you haven’t already, sign up for my spring awakening challenge, whether it’s live or whether it’s on demand afterwards, sparkle all season dot com, Name, email, you’ll get the link and you’ll get the videos. And in that challenge, I will walk you through how to find calm, how to create confidence, how to embody your powerful, sexy self so you can create the change in yourself and your relationships that you desire. I can’t wait to see you there.

Lora Cheadle [00:52:42]:
I can’t wait to hear what you think about this. And what I’d really like to hear is where are you along this journey? Where are you? Are you in the pre contemplation stage and struggling to come to terms with what happened? If so, reach out to a therapist. Are you in the contemplation stage where you’re like, yeah, it happened, and I gotta clean it up? Reach out to a coach. Reach out to me. I do free 20 minute calls. Are you in the preparation stage? Sparkle season is exactly where you need to be because you’re starting to prepare. Are you in the action stage? And you’re like, I’ve already prepared. I’ve gathered all my ingredients.

Lora Cheadle [00:53:32]:
I’m ready to go when I’m cooking along. Reach out to me and let me support. Have you already done it and you’re amazing? You’re in the maintenance stage. You’re just waiting for that next challenge to come so you can hone in and clarify and just become more clear and more clear. Again, reach out if you need support. Or are you in the termination phase where you’re like, no. This is me. I have become exactly who I wanna be, and I am glowing and sparkling and more powerful than I ever could have imagined.

Lora Cheadle [00:54:10]:
Until you’re there, until you’re in that place, I can help. Reach out. Have an amazing weekend. As usual, always remember to full want exactly who you are because who you are is always more bad enough.

Narrator [00:54:28]:
Tune in next time to flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal with Lora Cheadle every Wednesday at 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.