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

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

Lora Cheadle [00:00:35]:
This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you been struggling lately? Relationship issues impact every area of your life. When I found out about my husband’s infidelity, I was so devastated. I could barely function. Sleeping was impossible because I couldn’t shut off my brain. Eating was a challenge because I felt nauseous all the time. And for the 1st month or so, everything felt pointless. Whether you’re having trouble sleeping, feeling hopeless, or just can’t focus, BetterHelp is here to help you.

Lora Cheadle [00:01:07]:
Better Help offers licensed therapists who are trained to listen and help. You can talk to your therapist in a private online environment at your convenience. There’s a broad range of expertise in BetterHelp’s 20,000 plus therapist network that gives you access to help that might not be available in your area. Just fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs, and then you’ll be matched with a therapist in under 24 hours. Then you can schedule secure video and phone sessions, plus you can exchange unlimited messages, and everything you share is completely confidential. I know that confidentiality was important for me, especially early on when I couldn’t even get my own mind wrapped around what was happening. And it was so comforting to be able to speak with someone candidly about everything I was going through to validate that what I was feeling and experiencing was completely normal. You can request a new therapist at no additional charge anytime.

Lora Cheadle [00:02:07]:
Join the 2,000,000 plus people who have taken charge of their mental health with an experienced BetterHelp therapist. Special offer to flaunt, create a life you love after infidelity and betrayal listeners. You get 10% off your 1st month at betterhelp.com/ flaunt. That’s betterhelphelp.com/flaunt, fla u n t. Thanks again to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast. Hello, and welcome to Flaunt. Find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. I’m Lora Cheadle.

Lora Cheadle [00:03:00]:
I am a betrayal recovery coach and expert, and I work specifically with women who have been betrayed by their intimate partner and want want desperately to feel better, to reclaim themselves, to find their power, to feel free and happy. I work with women who specifically want to turn the devastation into an invitation to rebuild themselves in their lives in exactly the way they see fit. Today, we are going to talk about loving yourself. What it means to love yourself because that’s something we hear so much about. Like, you’ve gotta love yourself first. Great. What the heck does that even mean? And I’m recording this show around Valentine’s Day, so there’s a lot of emotion. There’s a lot of emotion, especially if this is the 1st Valentine’s Day after, infidelity or discovering about your partner’s infidelity.

Lora Cheadle [00:04:13]:
There’s a lot of emotion. There’s a lot of longing. There’s a lot of grief. There’s a lot of pain. Like, why can’t somebody just love me? And we’re gonna break down a lot of that today. Talking about self love necessitates talking about love from others and love that you give to others. So let’s dig deep and let’s start talking about love. Alright.

Lora Cheadle [00:04:45]:
When we talk about love, I like to break things into categories, self and others, loving yourself and loving your and loving others, giving and then receiving love, conditional and unconditional love. And those are 6 little quadrants that we tend to dance around and dip in and out of. And unless we can kind of be cohesive and bring all of those together, we’re always going to feel some angst around love. So let’s talk about that first little dichotomy, self and others, loving yourself and loving others. If you were anything like me, like I used to be, like so many of the women that I coach, we feel like we are good at loving. We’re wives. We’re moms. We’re sisters.

Lora Cheadle [00:05:45]:
We’re daughters. We’re friends. We play all of these roles where we are good at loving others, so we identify as somebody who is really good at loving. True? Is that how you’re thinking? You’re like, yes. I’m good at relationships. Yes. I know how to love. Yes.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:06]:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. What I wanna say is there’s a difference, however, between loving and nurturing. There’s a difference between loving and mothering. There’s differences between truly loving and taking care of other people. Because taking care of other people is just that, it’s taking care of other people.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:33]:
It’s taking care of your kids. It’s making lunches, making dinner, doing the tours, driving, you know, driving people around, doing errands. Yeah. Those acts can be loving, but those are also just acts of taking care. And the thing is we take care of those that we love. Yes. We can also be hired to take care of somebody, but by and large, we do acts of service for those that we love. We take care of those we love.

Lora Cheadle [00:07:10]:
And when we do things like the crust off of the, our kids’ bread because we know they don’t like crust, we know that they don’t like crust, so we serve them in a way that they want to be served. And that’s something that sometimes is a sticking point in relationships. We want to serve and we want to express love in the way we want to express love, not necessarily in the way that our partner wants to receive love or our mom wants to receive love, or our friends want to receive love. People want to receive love differently and we want to give love. And when the way we want to give love is also the way that somebody wants to be loved, that’s a really easy match and it just feels so good and you just spiral higher and higher because you’re like, I love doing acts of service and somebody loves receiving those. Or I love just sitting and talking for hours and holding all that emotional space and you like to sit here. It’s easy. But conflicts arise when we want to give love in a different way than somebody wants to receive love.

Lora Cheadle [00:08:21]:
And it’s not that any of that is good or bad or right or wrong. It’s just that we have different ideas of how I want to give and how I want to receive. So how this plays out with self love, because this show is about self love, this show is about how you love yourself, is oftentimes we have a conflict within us about giving and receiving love to ourself, about taking care of ourself. We have this idea that self love is this thing that kind of happens in a vacuum And that we can just say, yeah, I love myself, but then we don’t nurture ourself. We can say we love ourself, but then we don’t take care of ourself. We can say that we love ourself, but then we don’t do the things that make us feel better. We have that same conflict that we have with other people internally. I want you to sit with that for a little bit and think about it.

Lora Cheadle [00:09:23]:
How do you want to be loved? Do you want time? Do you want just deep connected 1 on 1 time with somebody? How were you having deep connected 1 on 1 time with yourself? Are you sitting in silence or is there always something going on around you? Are you taking a walk by yourself Or are you putting in your ear pods and just listening to music and never allowing yourself to just drop in? Are you always turning on the TV? Are you always reading? Are you always doing? If you want somebody else to give you just time and space and presence, give yourself time and space and presence. What you want is what you give to yourself, and, oh my gosh, that’s hard because we get locked and trapped in this belief that that’s for somebody else to give me, that’s not for me to give myself. Do you like somebody surprising you with gifts, with flowers, with chocolate, with bath salts. When was the last time you treated yourself to one of those little special items? It’s not about spending beyond your budget. It’s not about going crazy. It’s about treating yourself. When was the last time you treated yourself to something that you wish somebody else would give you? It could even be something big like a piece of jewelry. And when did you let yourself really enjoy it? If you bought yourself something big, a piece of jewelry, flowers, whatever it is, do you feel guilty about it? Then do you beat yourself up? Do you go and tell the story, you wouldn’t believe what I did, and I shouldn’t have done, and I can’t believe I did it? No.

Lora Cheadle [00:11:32]:
Accept it. Receive it. Give to yourself what you want to give to others. Do you wish somebody would do more chores? Do you wish somebody would take care of things? How are you taking care of yourself? If you wanna pick up the house because you like a clean house, that’s me. I will be the picker upper because I want my environment to be good. I will take care of me. I will pull out the vacuum and I will vacuum my office, the bedroom, the family room, whatever it is to satisfy me. And I will unhook from the story that I’m the only one that ever does this blah blah blah blah blah.

Lora Cheadle [00:12:18]:
I can ask for somebody else to do it for me, and I can also meet my own needs. I can also satisfy myself. That’s important to me. I love myself enough to take care of it. And when I am meeting my own needs like that, again, the language around it is important. It’s not from this place of being a victim. Nobody ever does this, and I can’t believe here I am doing it again, and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. It’s yes.

Lora Cheadle [00:12:49]:
I am taking care of me. I am giving myself a clean peaceful environment. I’m standing in my office right now. When I come to my office, I prepare it. I light my candles. I set the lighting in a way that I like. It’s not always clean and perfect all the time, things are in flux and in flow, but I will straighten stacks of paper. My cats play down here a lot and they’d leave little wads of fur on the floor.

Lora Cheadle [00:13:19]:
I’ll pick that up because it makes me feel good. Because I like to look around and be like, this is fun. I’ve got my little flamingos down here. I’ve got cards that people have sent me. I have things around me that make me feel good, and I take care of myself by taking care of the things around me. I also have a walking pad under my desk, because my body feels good when it’s moving. I am recording this podcast standing up. Even though I have my chair and I love recording there, right now, I needed to stand up so I am taking care of me.

Lora Cheadle [00:14:00]:
And I’m not doing it from a place of I have to or nobody else does. I’m doing it because I want to. So my challenge for you here, right now, today, this week, Like I said, I’m recording this Valentine’s week. My challenge is for you is to name 3 things that you want from other people. Name 3 things. I want someone to ask me how I am. I want someone to hold space for me emotionally. I want someone to surprise me with something that feels like a splurge.

Lora Cheadle [00:14:42]:
I want human touch. I want whatever it is. List 3 things that you really want, that you really want from somebody else and I want you to give them to yourself. If you want human touch, go get a pedicure. Go get a massage. If you want to splurge or a gift, go shop for yourself. Buy yourself a meal. Light the candles.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:09]:
Put a rose on your table. Turned off and in the other room. Grab a journal. Get some hot tea, and spend some quality time with yourself. That is my 1st challenge. Instead of wanting to receive it, give it to yourself. Yeah. Let me just call it out.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:41]:
There is moments where I can kind of feel lonely, where you’re like, yeah. Here I am doing this for me. Identify that. Oops. Slipping into victim mode. Mhmm. I’m expecting somebody else to do for me what I don’t wanna do for myself. It’s this radical responsibility.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:59]:
We want others to love us, but we don’t know how to love ourselves. We want others to love us, but we don’t know how to love ourselves. How can we expect others to do for us when we can’t do it for ourselves? Oh my gosh. Sit with that. Think about that. Whether you are rebuilding your relationship with your current partner or whether you’re separating and you hope to have a a relationship in the future, you have to love yourself first because other people will love you the way you love yourself. A big complaint is my partner doesn’t respect me. My partner doesn’t listen to me.

Lora Cheadle [00:16:47]:
Are you respecting yourself? Are you listening to yourself? Are you being a doormat? Are your boundaries mushy? Do you keep complaining about the same thing over and over and never take action? Nobody will respect you more than you respect yourself. Nobody will love you more than you love yourself. Self love is not optional. If you love yourself a little, other people are going to love you a little. If you love yourself a lot, other people are going to love you a lot, and that’s just a fact. And, yes, there’s a lot of boundaries that go into that. Yes. There’s a lot of strength that goes into that, but there’s also a lot of awareness.

Lora Cheadle [00:17:35]:
Because so often, we just fall into patterns. We read stories. We watch movies or TV. We see our families. We see our friends, our culture, the stories that are in our culture. The relationships that we’ve witnessed, they’re all a certain way. And we think that’s the be all end all of relationships. We think someone is going to complete us.

Lora Cheadle [00:17:58]:
Nobody’s going to complete you. Spoiler alert. You will never find a relationship that completes you because you have to complete yourself first. And until you can do it for yourself and you know how to do it for yourself, nobody else can do it for you. Let me tell you a little story. This is a business related story, but the story is the same. When I very first went into business and started, yay, I’m gonna be a coach. I’m gonna do my I’m gonna do this whole thing.

Lora Cheadle [00:18:26]:
I’m gonna do a podcast. I didn’t know that much about it. So I hired this firm, this online business managing firm that was going to manage my business. They were going to edit my podcast. They were going to put up my blogs. They were going to do the graphics. They were gonna upload and do all of these things. And I was like, yay.

Lora Cheadle [00:18:47]:
Because I don’t know how to do any of those things myself. Well, I entered into a year long contract with them for a $1,000 a month. This was at the beginning. Do you think I was making $1,000 a month? Not AGMs. I was just starting. I was burning money like crazy. I was literally going into debt to pay this $12,000 year long contract. And they kept telling me, like, they kept doing less and less and less.

Lora Cheadle [00:19:18]:
And I’d be like, why can’t you get my blog up? Why can’t you get my show posted? Why are there no graphics this week? Why won’t this work? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And then I get the billing and it would be like, you know, graphics creation an hour and a half, posting the show, you know, 2 hours, show editing, 3 hours, like, all of these times and I’d be like, dang. This is so hard and I’m paying them to do so much, but this is so ridiculous. And then it dawned on me, wait a minute Lora, Your undergraduate degree was in radio and television production. You know how to produce content, you know how to edit, All you need is the little software to do it. You need an audio software program and you need some way to create graphics. And I was like, well, dang, I do. I can take responsibility and I can try this. So I downloaded WavePad.

Lora Cheadle [00:20:15]:
WavePad is still what I use to edit my audio. I downloaded Canva. Canva is still what I use to do my graphics, and guess what? I can do a graphic in about 10 minutes. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but bam, I can make the thumbnail for my show in about 10 minutes. Editing my show? Holy cow. I edited for years. Undergrad. I worked for an NPR affiliate.

Lora Cheadle [00:20:41]:
I can edit radio. Digital editing is so much easier than the old editing that we had to do when everything was on, like tape, and we would physically splice the tape and edit things. This was easy. I learned my website, I got a book on WordPress and I figured out how to do posts on WordPress. To this day, I do my own editing. I do my own graphics creation. I post my own shows. And guess what? I do all of that in less than 45 minutes a week.

Lora Cheadle [00:21:16]:
They were way overcharging me and I didn’t know because I didn’t know how to do it myself. So I got suckered in. I got taken for a ride because I didn’t take the steps to figure it out for myself. Why that is relevant when we talk about self love is we always think prince charming is out there. We always think our soulmate is out there. My twin flame is coming. And that they’re going to tell us and they’re going to show us and they’re gonna magically know all of these different things. And the thing is, they’re not.

Lora Cheadle [00:21:49]:
It’s just like me learning how to do a podcast. Sure. I hired the best, and the best was not doing it right by me. And it’s not I was gonna say it’s not that it’s totally my fault and it’s not that it’s totally their fault, but it was my lack of accountability. It was my lack of figuring it out for myself. I wanted it easy and I wanted somebody else to show me how to do it. And sometimes you might get lucky. Sometimes you might get lucky, and that person’s gonna know how to do it, but by and large, unless you know how to do it, you can’t tell anybody what you want.

Lora Cheadle [00:22:30]:
It’s like ordering. I’ve used this example before. It’s like when you open up Amazon and you’re gonna order something, you have to type in in the little search bar what you’re ordering. I’m ordering pots and pans. I’m ordering makeup. I’m order like, you have to put out there what you’re ordering. You have to type in the order thing and then you have to select. If you select detergent or lip gloss or stovetops.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:01]:
Wow. Gas, electric, induction, what size? Built in, what do you want? You have to keep narrowing and narrowing and narrowing, and that’s what self love is about. It’s about figuring out what works for you and what doesn’t work for you, because unless you love yourself first, nobody else is going to love you. It takes time. It takes money. It takes energy. I started by saying you probably identify as somebody who loves. You’re probably like, I am a lover, I’m a wife, I’m a mom, I’m a friend, I’m a sister, I’m a all these good things.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:38]:
What are you doing for yourself? What are you doing for yourself? I say this so often, but if we broke promises to other people at the rate we break promises to ourselves, we would never be our own friend. We just wouldn’t. How often do you say, I’m gonna clean up my diet, and then you don’t? How often do you say, I’m gonna meditate, I’m gonna stretch, I’m gonna walk, and then you don’t? How often do you say, I need a mental health day, and then you don’t take it? How How often do Ask yourself, what do I need today? What do I most need in this moment? And then do it. Promise yourself, what I need most is to go outside. This is what I truly need today. What I need most is to go outside. It’s cold, but it’s sunny. I need to feel that sun.

Lora Cheadle [00:24:46]:
I need to feel that crisp air. What I need most is like a 20 minute walk. Now there are so many days where I’ll say that and then I don’t love myself enough to give it to myself. Ouch. Right? How hard is it truly to give yourself a 20 minute walk or whatever it is you need? Start building up that habit, that muscle of loving yourself, of take care taking care of yourself, of asking yourself what you need and then giving it to yourself. Yeah. We forget, but if a friend calls and says I need something or your child says I need something, the odds of them getting it are probably pretty high. The odds of you giving it to yourself should be at that same rate.

Lora Cheadle [00:25:41]:
Right? So those are my challenges for you. Pick 3 things this week that you wish somebody else would do for you and do it for yourself and to start every day just once asking yourself, what do I most need, and then give it to yourself. Give it to yourself. Even if it is bedtime and what you needed was stretching, get on the floor and do a couple of stretches. Get on the floor and do a couple of stretches. I like to work out for about an hour a day in some form. And you know what? There are days that’s not gonna happen. And instead of saying, it didn’t happen today, I will do a half hour.

Lora Cheadle [00:26:21]:
I’ll do 20 minutes. I’ll do 15 minutes. I am still giving myself something. It’s not all or nothing. It’s not perfect or imperfect. It’s this is what I need and I want to, and where can I keep honoring myself by showing up for myself? That’s how you love yourself. You love yourself by refusing to betray yourself ever again. You love yourself by asking what you want and asking what you need.

Lora Cheadle [00:26:50]:
You love yourself by giving to yourself. And I’m not necessarily gonna say give to yourself first. It just flows in, but give to yourself every day. The question that should come up first thing in the morning to you is what do I most need today? And then you figure out where that works in. Sometimes it doesn’t work in until the night, sometimes it’s the afternoon, work it in. Now, this leads into that 2nd category which is what I was talking about with conditional and unconditional. We can love ourselves or others conditionally or unconditionally. Conditional means, if then.

Lora Cheadle [00:27:35]:
If you do this, then, I will love you. If you do this, then I will be happy. If I’m a size 2, then I will feel confident. If I make 7 figures, then I will be successful. If, then. If this relationship works out, then. That’s conditions. Anytime there’s a condition, it’s conditional.

Lora Cheadle [00:28:01]:
If you succeed at school, child, then I will love you. Then we will go to Starbucks and I will treat you. If then. Now there is absolutely absolutely nothing wrong with incentivizing yourself. I like to incentivize myself. I like to set the reward out there. Okay, Lora. We’re gonna go grab ice cream as soon as this is done.

Lora Cheadle [00:28:34]:
Or yes, you’re gonna have this little day off and you’re gonna have this wonderful time as soon as this is done. That’s an incentive, and incentivizing yourself is a great way to help you stay on track. Setting goals and achieving them. Incentives. Yay. It’s like when maybe you pay your kids for grades. You get, you know, $5 for a’s, $4 for b’s, $3 for c’s, whatever it is. That’s great.

Lora Cheadle [00:29:02]:
There’s, like, conditions, but you still love them. You still love them. You’re still proud of them. They’re still your child, you’re still gonna hug them, and kiss them, and say, I love you. If they come home with d’s and f’s, you might say, I am disappointed in this behavior, I am upset at, it’s separating the behavior from the person. You can’t and this is important when it comes to infidelity. You probably still love your partner when you find out that they have cheated, because you don’t just go, bam, it’s over. I found that, and I don’t love you anymore.

Lora Cheadle [00:29:45]:
You probably are you despise the behavior. The behavior makes you sick. You hate the behavior, but you’re still gonna love that. And that’s that conundrum. That’s why it’s so challenging and so difficult sometimes to work through infidelity because you’re like, what’s happening? I love them and I wanna hysterically bond with them and be with them and I wanna do everything and I hate them. And that’s okay. That’s okay Because that, in a way, is that unconditional love. They have done something that literally destroys you and you can still feel love for them, and that’s normal.

Lora Cheadle [00:30:31]:
And I really wanna speak to that and I really wanna make you feel better. If you’re in that position and you’re thinking, I feel crazy, I love them and I hate them, that’s normal. That means you’re a good person. That means you understand unconditional love. The end. It means you understand unconditional love, and you’ll figure it out and you’ll create balance and you’ll move on for that. I will always love my husband and I will always hate and despise the whole affair part. It’s a yes, and.

Lora Cheadle [00:31:10]:
I I’ve got both. It’s unconditional. Love, the best kind of love, truly is unconditional. Because otherwise, we’re in love, we’re out of love, we’re always striving, it’s always, that seeking to please, seeking to conform, seeking to outperform. Love is something that comes in. You know, maybe we should have started the show there. Let’s talk about what love is, the definition of love. Love is something that comes in from source, from spirit.

Lora Cheadle [00:31:41]:
Love is universal. Love is a feeling that all of us are capable of feeling and of having. Love comes in and it emanates out. It emanates out from our heart, from our eyes, from our shoulders, from our head. It’s that feeling when you look like a little puppy or a kitten and that’s just, that is just pure love that flows through you. It’s not conditional. It’s not judgmental. It’s just that you look at that little baby animal and you go, oh, that’s love.

Lora Cheadle [00:32:20]:
That’s love. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s love. Living here, living in the world, living in society, we start stacking all these beliefs and expectations on top of love. That is love. Love is the when you see a kitten. That’s it. That’s it.

Lora Cheadle [00:32:41]:
Start there. Stop there. You don’t say I only feel love for this cute little kitten or this fuzzy little chick or this great baby elephant. Like, you don’t put conditions on that. You don’t say, I will only feel love if they’re gonna be mine or I will only feel love if they’re going to be spayed and taken care. Like, no, you’re just loving the little kitten. You’re just, oh, that’s love. Stop there.

Lora Cheadle [00:33:13]:
Stop there. Do you feel that love for your partner sometimes? Of course, you do. Do you feel that love for your kids? Yes. Do you feel that for your friends? Yes. Do you feel it for yourself? Do you feel it for yourself or is the first thing that comes in a condition? Well, on days when I’ve yeah. Mhmm. That. How often do you look at yourself in the mirror and go, oh, you precious thing.

Lora Cheadle [00:33:47]:
Yeah. Not that often. How often do you look back on yourself and go, oh, sweetheart. Bless your heart, but in the best bless your heart way. How often do you look at yourself in the future and you just go, oh, you’re amazing. That’s what I want for you. How do you love yourself? You love yourself by going for yourself without conditions. Not like, dang, you look good today.

Lora Cheadle [00:34:20]:
Although, dang, you can look good today. You can be proud of yourself for accomplishing something. I just finished a course on Udemy. Yes, I’m really proud of me. I’ve also been revamping my website because I’m creating some amazing new packages. They’re not up yet. They’re not totally done. I’m proud of me.

Lora Cheadle [00:34:41]:
I’m proud of the work that I’m doing. And you know what? Even if I quit and felt the disappointment of never doing this again, Even if my Udemy course got rejected, it didn’t. But even if it did, I could still feel the pain of rejection. I could still feel the agony of defeat, and I could still go, Lora, you’re amazing. You’re amazing. You are inherently amazing. I am inherently amazing. And why is that so hard to say? And why is that so hard to feel? Go back to that feeling of love from source, from spirit.

Lora Cheadle [00:35:18]:
It fills you up. It emanates out. You go, Wherever you’re at right now, I want you to put your hands on your heart and I want you to just do that little. Oh, and I want you to imagine the cutest little golden retriever ever or the cutest fuzziest little kitten or cheeky or whatever it is. Just go. Oh, I saw a picture of a baby bat the other day and I was like, oh, feel that feeling. And now think about yourself. Think about yourself.

Lora Cheadle [00:35:58]:
Put your hands on your heart and go for you. And just let that feeling fill you. It’s a feeling of not having any expectations, of not having any conditions, and let that fill you for yourself. And I know that’s a really hard one, but that is self love. That’s self love. Self love is not self care. You can take care of yourself and not love yourself. We started with that giving to yourself and giving to others, and I wanted to start there because that’s kind of tangible and concrete.

Lora Cheadle [00:36:41]:
But if you’re just giving to yourself out of obligation, it’s got a different energy than if you’re giving yourself with, And that’s that next layer that I want you to move into. Develop the habits of taking care of yourself. Develop the habit of asking yourself what you want. Develop the habit of giving yourself what you wish others would give. That’s the habit. That’s the creation of the habit. Now let’s infuse that habit with emotion. Now let’s infuse that habit with, I am buying myself flowers.

Lora Cheadle [00:37:23]:
I am creating this beautiful ritual space with my candles and with my tea and with my sparkly favorite water cup and my journal and I am journaling. That next step is infusing it with the feeling of, the feeling of love. That unconditional feeling of love. One of the things that I have the women that I coach do is spend some time looking in a mirror. And you know what? It’s it’s hard, but look in the mirror, morning, night. Every time you go to the bathroom, look in the mirror not to check your hair. Not to check your makeup, although you sure can, but to make eye contact with yourself and just give yourself a moment of, And, you know, it’s easier. Yes.

Lora Cheadle [00:38:22]:
At the beginning it’s easier when you’re like, dang. I look good. Oh, yeah. I’m looking at myself. But pretty soon you get to the point where it’s the beginning of the day and your hair is sticking up and your breath is bad or it’s the end of the day and you look haggard and worn and you can still look deeply in your eyes and go, because that’s loving yourself without condition. That’s loving yourself for showing up. So if you’re in the phase right now where you’re on the floor crying, go look at yourself. Look deep in your eyes and just fill yourself up with that unconditional love.

Lora Cheadle [00:39:02]:
No conditions. Just fill yourself up. Because again, circling back around until you can do it for yourself, nobody else can do it for you. And judgment’s hard. Letting go of judgment is hard. We have been raised in a conditional world. We have been raised to get the gold star. We’ve been raised to do all of these things.

Lora Cheadle [00:39:27]:
I get it. This is just starting somewhere. This is a place to start. Self love is about the feeling. Self love is about the feeling. You can do nothing for yourself, and you can still have that feeling for yourself every day. So wherever you’re at, even if you’re in the car, the next time you stop or pull into a parking space, look in your rearview mirror, pull down the visor, and look in the mirror, and just send yourself some love. Just send yourself that unconditional feeling of love.

Lora Cheadle [00:40:10]:
Now the 3rd and final dichotomy that I wanna talk about is the difference between giving and receiving. And we’ve talked about of this a little bit because self and others, conditional, unconditional, it’s that giving and receiving. And here’s how I want to reframe that for you in terms of self love, in terms of loving others. But, again, this is about self love. Giving and receiving is not a one way street. And so often, we get hung up on that, especially after infidelity. We’re like, I’ve given you the best years of my life. I’ve given you all of this love.

Lora Cheadle [00:40:46]:
I’ve given you chance after chance. I’ve given. I’ve given. I’ve given. And then we get bitter and we get resentful because I’ve given so much and look what it got me, nothing. Okay? I get it. Giving and receiving is not a one way street. When we are locked into it being a one race way street is where problems arise.

Lora Cheadle [00:41:16]:
You have to you’ve heard this, I’m sure. You have to you have to fill yourself up. You can’t give from an empty pour from an empty cup. You can’t give what you don’t have. Like, all of those things are there. And they’re right, but they don’t really capture the essence of what you really, really, really need to do in order to sustain because that’s all about waxing and waning, filling up and releasing. It’s about doing that in a cycle, in a flow the whole time. You don’t empty the dam and then fill it up.

Lora Cheadle [00:41:55]:
You’re constantly releasing water and water is constantly coming in. And sometimes you release too much, so you have to slow it down to fill it back up again. And sometimes so much is coming in that it starts the reservoir starts overflowing and you have to give more out. It’s that balancing because you’re trying to be at that homeostasis place, that place of feeling good, feeling enough at all times, feeling enough at all times. Think about it in terms of so many different things. We’re creating balance. We’re creating flow. We’re constantly in a state of giving and receiving.

Lora Cheadle [00:42:46]:
It’s not that it’s my birthday and I receive. It’s Valentine’s Day and I receive. It’s our anniversary and I receive. It’s flow. It’s give and take all the time. There is a way that musicians or singers can breathe. I don’t really understand it, but it’s where they’re breathing in and breathing out all at the same time. It’s like their chest is expanded.

Lora Cheadle [00:43:14]:
Their lungs are open. They have this capacity to keep things flowing in while at the same time pushing out. Bagpipes are an instrument where you get the air you’re constantly taking in the air, and then you exhale by squishing the bag into your arm to blow that air out, but you’re always filling it up so you never run dry. Raise your hand if you have ever thought, I’ve run dry. I’m worn out, I have nothing left to give. Mhmm. Me too. Me too.

Lora Cheadle [00:43:51]:
That used to happen to me quite a lot. I used to give to the point that I wore myself out, and then I’d think, y’all wore me out. True love, true being in a state of love, flowing with love is about balancing the giving and receiving so your tank is always full. Yes. It can fill to overflowing sometimes and can start getting a little bit low. That’s fine. But it’s being mindful of where that tank is. Love is not a one way street.

Lora Cheadle [00:44:24]:
It’s this constant flow, and it is not receiving from 1 partner only, or from your family and friends only. Like I said, when I defined love, love emanates in us from source. Call it God, call it holy spirit, call it Jesus, call it Buddha, call it Mohammed, call it the universe. We are all receiving love all the time. How are you blocking that love out? How are you not accepting it? How are you saying, oh, I don’t need that. No. Thank you. I don’t wanna be beholden to you.

Lora Cheadle [00:45:03]:
I don’t wanna connect to you. I I will feel ashamed. I will feel guilty. I will feel like you owe me. Where are you holding yourself apart? One of the questions that comes up so often around Valentine’s day, anniversaries, birthdays, things like that is, oh my god. What if my betraying partner gives me something? Receive it. Receive it. If somebody brings you flowers, enjoy the flowers.

Lora Cheadle [00:45:33]:
If somebody gives you chocolate, eat the chocolate. If somebody gives you a compliment, accept the compliment. Like, why are you holding yourself back from enjoying that? So often, we shoot ourselves in the foot. We cut off our nose to spite our face. Like, why are you not letting yourself enjoy? Okay. Here’s your day. You don’t get this day back ever. Ever, you do not get today back.

Lora Cheadle [00:45:58]:
How are you being snitty? How are you not accepting? How are you not receiving? So many ways. So many ways we hold ourselves back, because we think we have like this moral high ground. Okay, the moral high ground doesn’t matter if you’re making yourself miserable. I don’t want his stuff, he’s got tainted energy. Enjoy it! Enjoy it. I’m not gonna do that, I’m not gonna. Oh, you’re gonna make yourself miserable? Really? That helps. You’re gonna take this moral high ground.

Lora Cheadle [00:46:30]:
You’re gonna take this whatever position that you’re gonna do this on principle? Does that really make sense? If you’re hurting yourself, on principle, I am not going to do this. Okay. Well, you’re the one that’s gonna end up starving, exhausted, whatever, on principle, I’m not. Alrighty then. That is a choice and that is your choice to be a little bit miserable. So you do you, but what would it be like to just receive? What would it be like to receive and to not worry about it? To be like, yeah, I love flowers. Thanks. We’ll figure out what that means later.

Lora Cheadle [00:47:09]:
We’ll figure out what that means later, but right now I’m gonna smell the flowers. Right now I’m gonna eat the chocolate. Right now I’m gonna enjoy my massage certificate. For me, I’m receiving it. You can receive love from strangers. A smile can make you go, keep yourself open to enjoy. One of the big common things is women will say, subconsciously, not out loud, subconsciously, they will say, I wanna make myself miserable because it proves how bad he hurt me. I don’t wanna heal quickly because it will show him how devastating this was.

Lora Cheadle [00:47:59]:
I can’t let this go, and I can’t make him think that it was okay. Subconscious belief. What would it be like to let yourself enjoy along the way? What would it be like to be okay? To have the infidelity not be okay, but for you to feel okay? You can deal with the infidelity, you can deal with your partner, you can deal with all of that consciously with words, in therapy, working with the coach, having deep conversations, and it can be painful and it can be awful, and you can take a deep breath, and then you can go enjoy the afternoon. You can be mad at your partner and still go watch a movie and enjoy it. I know. Right? I know. Right? Who are you hurting? Ask yourself that question often. Who am I hurting? Who am I hurting? And yeah, your brain is gonna push back sometimes and be like, him, I am hurting him, I am hurting her, I am hurting them, I am hurt no, you’re not.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:17]:
No, you’re not. Or, and you’re hurting yourself too. Your job is to take care of you, that’s self love. Self love is figuring out what you need and taking care of you, and giving yourself what you need. If you refuse to go to the show, to accept the flowers, to have a fun walk and talk. You have just deprived yourself of a fun show, great flowers, chocolate, or a nice walk and talk. You’ve deprived yourself. It’s not about the other person.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:55]:
You might be saying, yeah, well, he wanted to go out too. He wanted that too. I deprived him and I hurt him because he can’t do that to me and then expect fun from me. Okay, wow, that’s getting a little convoluted, isn’t it? Okay, wow, you are putting him and your desire to punish above yourself. That’s not self love. That’s not self love. That’s revenge. How do you love yourself? I wanna have a nice meal.

Lora Cheadle [00:50:29]:
I wanna have a date night. I wanna enjoy the flowers. I wanna feel good. Take care of yourself by receiving whatever there is in life to receive because you’re not gonna get this day back. You’re not gonna get this week back, this month, this year, whatever. So take care of you. Now, I understand when this is early on and you’re in shock and you’re in grief and you’re in all of that, you have to process that. And I’m not saying spiritually bypass at all and just go be happy, but what I am saying is love yourself enough to grieve.

Lora Cheadle [00:51:08]:
Love yourself enough to be in shock. Love yourself enough to be dysfunctional. Love yourself enough to have a trash can day. Love yourself enough to completely fall apart. And then when there is something out there that looks fun, love yourself enough to take it. Love yourself enough to receive. Love yourself enough to have those good moments too. Because I started off this show talking about the habit of taking care of yourself, of asking what you need, and then identifying 3 things that you or somebody else would give you and give it to yourself.

Lora Cheadle [00:51:43]:
That’s what this is about. It’s about building those habits of, I love myself enough today to have a mental health day to call in and to sob all day, and I love myself enough also to reach out. Maybe it’s to my partner and to say, you know what? I need a walk. Do you wanna go on a walk? We’re not gonna talk about anything, we’re just gonna have fun because I need it. In a way it can be selfish, but it is. It’s being selfish. It’s being you. It’s loving you.

Lora Cheadle [00:52:16]:
It’s allowing yourself to receive, to fill yourself up. And you know what? So what if you’re giving love to somebody who doesn’t deserve it? It’s not a one way street. It’s a flow. If you receive, you’re gonna give. You’re gonna give love to people who don’t deserve it. You’re going to receive love when you don’t deserve it. That’s that unconditional peace. Allow love to come in from God, from source, from spirit, from the universe.

Lora Cheadle [00:52:47]:
Allow love to come in from friends, from family, from strangers, from animals, from nature. Allow it all in. Don’t block it out. Don’t set yourself apart trying to prove a point. Don’t set yourself apart trying to prove a point. Don’t set yourself apart trying to take some moral high ground, receive. Receive it from everywhere, and then give. Not in the self sacrificial idea that I’m doing this for you.

Lora Cheadle [00:53:17]:
It’s just that It’s not letting it flow out. I see somebody’s struggle. I see somebody’s joy. I see somebody’s beauty. Let it flow. It’s that in and out breathing all at the same time. Don’t lean in and, like, shower them with love, and I’m gonna save you. That can be codependent and dysfunctional.

Lora Cheadle [00:53:42]:
It’s the in. It’s the out. It’s the back and the forth. It’s the small moments. I see you. I hear you. I give. I receive all in the same breath.

Lora Cheadle [00:53:58]:
It’s not a one way street. Love is not a one way street. It’s the inhalation and the exhalation all at the same time. As it comes in, it goes out. As it comes in, it goes out. It circles. And think about those loops with another person you’re giving and receiving in continuum, in infinity. Think about the infinity symbol.

Lora Cheadle [00:54:22]:
But also think about it within yourself. What are you giving to yourself? What are you receiving from yourself? What are you giving? How are you receiving it? It’s that infinity symbol within you, and that’s where it starts. Love starts within you. It starts by allowing yourself to give and allowing yourself to receive. It starts by being unconditional with yourself. It starts by identifying who you are and what you need. Whether you’re listening to the show around Valentine’s or any other time of the year, treat yourself as your own best Valentine. Give to yourself what you wish others would give.

Lora Cheadle [00:55:10]:
Be gentle. Be kind. Identify. Yeah. I know judgment’s hard. Yeah. I know I’m being a little hung up right now. Yeah.

Lora Cheadle [00:55:16]:
I know I’m setting myself apart. Identify it. Slowly start building the habits of letting more love in and of letting more love out just in those small simple ways. Because of the truth of the matter, love isn’t this big grand glorious gesture. Love is in the everyday moments. Love is infused within and around you and me and all of us. And when we can let so much go and just allow that love to be present, that is truly where it all happens. That’s where we find that freedom.

Lora Cheadle [00:55:58]:
That’s where we find that peace. That’s where we find that joy. That’s where it just becomes okay because we know we can always fill ourselves up again because we never let ourselves dwindle. We always stay full. We always stay connected, and we are always enough. Have an incredible week. Be sure to reach out if you have any questions or comments or if you’d like to work together 1 on 1. I would like nothing more than to hold your hand and to whisper in your ear and help you along this journey.

Lora Cheadle [00:56:38]:
Have an amazing week, and as usual always remember to flaunt exactly who you are because who you are is always more than enough.

Narrator [00:56:49]:
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 betrayal recovery guide.com.