Infidelity and betrayal can shatter the foundations of one’s life, but these experiences also offer profound opportunities for growth and transformation. Erica Bennett, founder of the Crazy Ex Wives Club shares her journey from heartbreak to empowerment. Her insights provide powerful tools for anyone navigating the painful aftermath of betrayal, guiding listeners towards reclaiming their worth, happiness, and independence.

 

Top Takeaways:

• Visualizing Positive Outcomes
  Erica emphasizes the practice of visualizing positive outcomes, regardless of a relationship’s fate. Instead of focusing on potential negative scenarios, Erica suggests imagining happiness and fulfillment for oneself and one’s partner. This mental shift fosters a healthier headspace and progressively pulls one’s reality towards positivity. Whether you choose to stay in the relationship or move on, holding a vision of a happy future helps pave the path to a truly fulfilling life.

• Embracing Self-Sufficiency in Relationships
  Relying solely on a partner for happiness is a recipe for exhaustion and disappointment. Erica underlines the importance of self-sufficiency, advocating for individuals to meet their own emotional and psychological needs. The key to a strong, healthy relationship lies in two whole individuals coming together, each bringing their best selves. By focusing on personal well-being and independence, both partners can contribute positively to the relationship without depleting each other’s energy.

• Grounding Techniques to Combat Fear and Anxiety
  Confronting fear and anxiety is crucial in the healing process. Erica shares practical grounding techniques, including sensory exercises and deep belly breaths, that can help shift focus and calm the nervous system. Identifying five things you can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch activates a different part of the brain, breaking the cycle of anxiety and grounding you in the present moment. Combining these with deep, intentional breaths and tapping methods can reduce the power of fear-based thoughts, helping you regain control and peace.

• Conquering the Fear Monster
  Fear often thrives when left unchecked, growing into what Erica describes as a “fear monster.” By consciously questioning and countering fear-based beliefs, you can ‘shrink’ this monster. Erica uses intentional practices to strip away layers of vulnerability, much like a burlesque dancer revealing their true self. Embracing fears and confronting them head-on empowers you to find safety and happiness amidst the chaos.

• Setting and Enforcing Healthy Boundaries
  Understanding and establishing boundaries is essential for personal well-being and healthy relationships. Erica highlights the difference between boundaries and ultimatums, explaining that true boundaries revolve around actions within your control. Personal boundaries should focus on self-care practices that maintain your well-being, such as needing alone time or engaging in activities that rejuvenate you. Clear, realistic boundaries help in avoiding self-abandonment and maintaining a balanced, fulfilling life.

• Rediscovering Identity and Joy Post-Divorce
  Erica’s post-divorce journey involved rediscovering her identity and passions. By trying new activities she previously avoided, such as camping and different foods, she unraveled layers of societal expectations to find what truly fulfilled her. Breaking free from norms, and even simple acts like choosing not to wear a bra, contributed to her profound sense of self-discovery and joy. Her story highlights that divorce, while painful, also opens doors to immense personal growth and exploration.

• Balancing Personal Space in New Relationships
  In new relationships, maintaining boundaries and personal space is crucial to prevent self-abandonment. Erica prioritizes her rituals and self-care practices, ensuring she remains true to herself while supporting her partner’s fulfillment. This balance allows for a healthy, supportive relationship where both individuals can pursue their passions independently without feeling threatened. Continuous personal growth and respecting each other’s need for independence form the foundation of a strong, lasting bond.

• Grieving and Moving Forward
  Grief is an intense and convoluted emotion, especially when grieving the unexpected aspects of a marriage. Erica stresses the importance of processing these feelings and understanding that sadness is a natural part of the healing journey, not an indicator of failure. Reflecting on love and loss allows one to make significant decisions from a place of clarity and love rather than emotional turmoil. Embracing these experiences as lessons rather than mistakes fosters resilience and growth.

Erica’s insights illuminate the path from betrayal to empowerment. By focusing on personal happiness, grounding techniques, healthy boundaries, and continuous growth, individuals can transform their pain into profound personal development. Embracing fear, setting personal goals, and maintaining independence pave the way for a fulfilling and joyful life after betrayal.

 

About Erica

Meet Erica, a global training guru and coach, whose unwavering passion lies in helping you break free from the chains of fear that are holding you back. With over two decades of experience in training and coaching, Erica has honed her unique “woo and do” approach, blending the mystical with the practical, to empower you to align with your deepest desires and take confident strides towards success.

As the host of The Crazy Ex Wife’s Club podcast, she shares her own divorce journey, offering hope and support to those facing similar challenges. With expertise in behavior training, healing, and personal growth, Erica guides you through separation or divorce, empowering you to transform pain into purpose.

Learn more about Erica, The Crazy Ex Wives Club, and the Crazy Ex Wives Club Podcast here: https://www.thecrazyexwivesclub.com/

Catch Lora’s Interview on Erica’s show here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/resilience-and-growth-after-betrayal-personal-stories/id1692703087?i=1000674996634 

Join Lora for an Energetic Healing Session on November 15th at 11 AM PST, noon MST, 1 PM CST, 2:00PM EST designed specifically to explore and heal the roots of betrayal.

Via Zoom for only $7!

Learn more and sign up at stopselfbetrayal.com.

About Lora

Lora’s mission is to facilitate deep healing on energetic, soul, and ancestral levels, enabling women to restore their sense of self-worth and sovereignty. She offers numerous methods for support, including guided meditation, past life regression, and personal sessions.

You can work with her individually or through a variety of online programs.

Learn more at www.AffairRecoveryForWomen.com 

 

Special Offers and Resources

Get Relief Now!

Download your Sparkle After Betrayal Recovery Guide at www.BetrayalRecoveryGuide.com and start reclaiming yourself and your life today!

 

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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Purchase Lora’s book, FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy & Spiritual Self on Amazon, IndieBound or wherever books are sold.

 

 

 

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Join our Facebook group for ongoing support and the chance to hear more inspiring stories. Sharing and connecting with others who understand your pain can be a transformative experience.

 

 

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Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share our podcast to help others on their journey. Your involvement helps destigmatize affair recovery and provides a lifeline to those in need.

 

Thank you for being part of our FLAUNT! community. Together, we can transform our perspectives and create lives we love, even after betrayal.

 

Transcript

Lora Cheadle [00:00:03]:
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@betrayalrecoveryguide.com.

Lora Cheadle [00:00:37]:
Hello, and welcome to Flaunt. Create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. I’m Laura Cheadle, and today, I’ve got an incredible guest. Her name is Erica Bennett, and her podcast, you will love. It’s called the Crazy Ex Wife’s Club podcast. And Erica also has experienced infidelity. And like me, originally, she decided to stay and work it out. And then after a couple of years, it was like, end no.

Lora Cheadle [00:01:09]:
And she is now a coach, a guest speaker, a trainer, and a divorced boy mom learning to live life on her own terms. I was just on her podcast. I’m going to leave the links to that in the show notes because this is kind of part 2, the continuation of that. I talked about my journey staying and the tools and the techniques and what that looked like. And now she is going to talk about what it looks like when you decide to leave, how she made that decision, and how she has navigated, the rest of the journey. So welcome to the show, Erica.

Erica Bennett [00:01:49]:
Thank you. I’m excited to have this conversation. I I love talking about this because I think we don’t have enough stories of people who have made it through and transformed and started over.

Lora Cheadle [00:02:00]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And I also love just the dichotomy between us, the similarities, and the differences. We had the same experience. We both tried. Things turned out differently. We made different choices, and we both survived and thrived and became better because of it.

Erica Bennett [00:02:20]:
Yeah. And that’s the one of my core beliefs. You can be happy if you stay. You can be happy if you go. It depends on the work that you’re each willing to put into it. Mhmm.

Erica Bennett [00:02:30]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And what matters is that transformation because I think sometimes people get so caught up in, I have to make the right decision.

Erica Bennett [00:02:41]:
Yes.

Erica Bennett [00:02:42]:
Not always just the decision.

Erica Bennett [00:02:45]:
Right. And that was really hard for me because I was so afraid. So I was wildly stuck in fear of restarting. And so the decision to leave or stay was made for me solidly for the 1st year. I was too afraid. I was too afraid to see any other option other than figuring out a way to fix what went wrong. And so every single therapy, book, tool thing I invested in was 100% with the intent that I was gonna get him to change his mind. I was gonna get him to come back.

Erica Bennett [00:03:24]:
I was gonna fix this thing. And in year 2 year 2, there was a lot of changes happening because the groundwork that had been done in year 1 and the, you know, the pieces that he did or didn’t do led me to a new place of I I really have to be ready to make this choice. And so then I spent a year getting clear on what I wanted to do and if I was ready to leap or if I was gonna stay.

Lora Cheadle [00:03:51]:
Yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the whole trajectory of your story, how long you had been married, what happened, how those decision points came about that I’m gonna fix it versus and I’m done.

Erica Bennett [00:04:06]:
Yeah. So the math. Right? Always the math. 1 would think I’d have these numbers in bed. But from the point that we were dating, right, dating to finding out about the divorce was 11 years, and so marriage was, like, 7 years. Okay? So we had gotten married, and we dated for, like, 4 years. We got married in February. We moved to an entirely new state in April, had no friends, no support system, no nothing.

Erica Bennett [00:04:35]:
We moved for me to take a promotion with my job. He quit his job, had to find a new job. Like, everything was uprooted, and we had lost our entire support system, but we continued to make it through. Right? We continued to find we still didn’t have any kids. We were freshly married. I had my checklist of things that I wanted in my life that I thought he wanted the same thing that were the success markers, the happiness markers. Right? I wanted to find the house. I wanted to have 2 to 3 kids.

Erica Bennett [00:05:08]:
I wanted to have 2 dogs. We had one dog. My dog from college was still with us at that point. So I was working. I was checking things off the list. Yeah. And I really thought you just had to get them done. And once they were done, then you could relax, then you could do all of the other things.

Erica Bennett [00:05:25]:
And so that stayed that way for a while. We waited quite a bit until we had our son. We, had a miscarriage before our son, so we had a miscarriage. I pulled the trigger to get a second dog because, you know, I just felt that I needed to have something, and I was gonna fix this thing right away. That didn’t help. The 2 dogs hated each other, and then we had another baby. So lots lots of chaos, lots of chaos. My dad got sick and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when my son was 6 months old.

Erica Bennett [00:05:59]:
I mean, you’re talking about, like, all the grief and all the chaos that could be put into a situation it was. Yeah. And all it was was the icing on the cake of the fact that we had grown apart. I continued to work on we have to get these things done. He had already been checking out. His first affair started when my dad was sick. He was traveling for work, so was another coworker. They were always in hotels together.

Erica Bennett [00:06:23]:
Things just happened. I didn’t find out about anything until, like, 4 years later. So 4 years later, we’re talking 4 years of me knowing something’s wrong. Hey. Can we read this book together? Hey. I’m really worried about this. I did get him to go to, like, one session of couples therapy. The therapist was not good.

Erica Bennett [00:06:44]:
This is why I say that there are there are bad therapists. It shut him down so fast and so furious. He pretty much refused to ever return again. But I kept I know something’s wrong. I know something’s wrong. He kept going out more. I kept staying home more and being overwhelmed by now having a toddler, and then my dad dies, and work, and all of the things. So by the time I find out, it was because I found deleted messages between the 2 on a shared computer.

Erica Bennett [00:07:16]:
And when I confronted it on him, he confessed to the first affair years ago thinking I hadn’t found the current one. And so everything came out at once. We were trying therapy. He was actually at the point, he had come home a couple weeks earlier. He had gone out to the bar. We were trying to have a second baby. I thought things were finally better, but I knew something was wrong. Well, we’ll talk when I get home.

Erica Bennett [00:07:40]:
He comes home, you know, at 2 in the morning, and he just thinks he’s gonna go to bed. And I’m like, I’m not letting it go this time. And he says, I love you, but I’m not in love with you. We just want different things. And he rolls over. He goes to bed. It’s the first time he slept through the night in years. You know? His, like, sleep apnea wasn’t bothering him.

Erica Bennett [00:07:57]:
The snoring wasn’t an issue. Like, you could tell that it was the truth he wasn’t facing was showing up physically, and so he had his peace, and my hell started. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep, like, through the night for the next 6 or 7 years. And that started this journey of trying to figure out how do I save this. We used to be happy. This was no. I had never dated anybody longer than 3 months before I met my husband.

Erica Bennett [00:08:26]:
I just always nope. Not the right person moving on. Right? Like, I just knew. And so I was like, we used to be really happy. We used to be a really good fit. Things used to be really good, but we fell apart. We lost each other along the way, and I think that we should try and work on it. His standpoint was I’m just not ready to, and I don’t know why.

Erica Bennett [00:08:45]:
I didn’t know he was still seeing the other woman. He swore he wasn’t, but it really comes down to, again, he just was avoiding the conversations. He was waiting for me to continue to do the work. He couldn’t do it. He knew he was done. He couldn’t do it, but I was gonna fix it. Right? So I got into manifesting. And how could I, you know, watch the secret every single night? How could I get this thing to work? And did divorce busting and did coaching and did therapy and did, it was like a guidance thing where they walk with you while you explore what your feelings are.

Erica Bennett [00:09:21]:
And I went deep into figuring out how to fix it. And every single person I talked to said we can’t control what he’s choosing to do, but we can focus on you. So what would help you right now? What would make you happy right now? What are you learning about yourself? What do you want to do? And while it was really annoying in all the conversations, it was the groundwork, especially when I had so much alone time, to now start to really think about what do I want, and and how simple can little moments of joy become? A hot cup of coffee, the first hit of warm water in the shower on your back. Yeah. The ways that the tree leaves, they, like, sparkle. When I’m really happy in a good mood, they look like Different. Like, they’re, like, shimmery. They look different.

Erica Bennett [00:10:13]:
The clouds, clouds followed me everywhere. It was, like, the easiest thing to just help me breathe and realize that there is something so much bigger than me, and then I’m gonna be okay.

Erica Bennett [00:10:22]:
Mhmm. You have said so many times the phrase fix it. I was gonna fix it. I was gonna fix it. I was gonna fix, fix, fix, fix, fix. And what I appreciate so much about that phrase is it’s easy to get stuck into that. But in order to claim you’re going to fix something, you have to say something is broken. And, like, you are talking about something is bigger than me.

Erica Bennett [00:10:43]:
Maybe it’s not broken. Maybe it never was broken. Maybe this was not the path for either of you. Yeah. And that’s really where I landed at the

Erica Bennett [00:10:54]:
end of the 2 years. I got to this beautiful place where I wanted the best for both of us. I really wanted everyone to be happy. This was a man that I have loved for a lot of years. I didn’t want him suffering. No. I didn’t want me suffering. I didn’t want our son suffering.

Erica Bennett [00:11:12]:
No. But I also was very clear that the things that I wanted in a partner, he didn’t want to be. It was we didn’t we really didn’t want the same things at the end of this journey, and that was the piece of getting to a place where there was no more anger. There was no more hatred. I could embrace the fact that this was a chapter, not a forever story. Mhmm. This was exactly as it was supposed to be. Look at how far it brought me.

Erica Bennett [00:11:44]:
Look at the things I would have never learned. Look at who I became because of it, and I would never wish it upon anybody. No. But it was the catalyst that I needed because I was stubborn or I wasn’t looking at things. You know? I had watched the secret years before thinking that it was the solution to a problem at work, And then it comes around full circle again x number of years later, and I was like, oh, you mean to tell me that the root of happiness is me learning how to choose what I wanna think about? Mhmm. That that’s weird. You know, like, there’s a whole manifesting world. That’s great.

Erica Bennett [00:12:21]:
But, really, the the point is your happiness is your ability to choose what you want to focus on and how you want to feel. Yes. Yes. My happiness is no longer reliant on how you choose to show up. Now No. If you choose to show up and it irritates me, do I get irritated? Yes. And then I see it and I acknowledge it. I feel it, and then I choose to let it go.

Erica Bennett [00:12:45]:
There are so many other things in life. I don’t get wound up over how he chooses to act. Right? I don’t get wound up in how he chooses to communicate. And for the 1st 6 years, the other woman stayed, and it was horrendous.

Lora Cheadle [00:13:00]:
I bet.

Erica Bennett [00:13:03]:
And I had to, again, learn to let go, learn to focus on what I can control. I cannot control how he chooses to parent. My son was safe. My son was loved. We’re not talking about abuse, but he wasn’t present. He wasn’t home. He didn’t do things that were important to my son. He made my son do whatever he wanted to do, and I let it all go and chose to instead focus on, well, I can teach my son that that has nothing to do with him.

Erica Bennett [00:13:29]:
He can learn a lesson at a very young age that his feelings are valid, his desires are valid, and it doesn’t mean that everybody else always acts the way that he wants, and that has nothing to do with him. So there were tons of lessons, and it was incredibly painful. And I was okay that it was a chapter. Like, I was at peace. I was the one that finally chose to file. He, at Christmas, said he was ready to work on it, and we’re we’re talking March is when I found out. So we were 3 months shy of 2 years.

Erica Bennett [00:14:00]:
Wow.

Erica Bennett [00:14:02]:
And I was like, okay. This is not the answer I thought. In fact, I was leaving on a work trip. I was headed to Japan. It’s a 12 hour flight. This is prior to the days when there was Wi Fi, free Wi Fi. So there was no, you know, boarding doors closed, phone is off for 12 hours. And I had sent a text, and I said the flight’s 12 hours.

Erica Bennett [00:14:20]:
I want an answer by time I land. I don’t wanna do this anymore. I’m ready to have a partner who actually wants to be with me. So if you wanna be with me, you you got 12 hours to think about it. And when I landed and I turned the phone on, it dinged, and it said, I’m ready to work on it. And I cried. I didn’t know why I was so sad. I was so upset.

Erica Bennett [00:14:41]:
I’m like, you finally have this thing that you have fought for for 2 years. You have it. Mhmm. And you’re not elated. You’re you’re really sad about something, and I didn’t know why. And it took a couple more months to explore that he still wasn’t really available. He was willing to to show up. Right? He tried to make a really great Christmas for the family.

Erica Bennett [00:15:02]:
He but he was emotionally not available, and they need somebody emotionally available. And so then I was like, we’re this is not it. We both sat there and were in the fields and filed and was done.

Erica Bennett [00:15:14]:
Yeah. What I really like and appreciate about your vulnerability sharing that and talking about it is, again, it is not a one time decision. And I say this all the time. It’s you decide almost on a daily basis. No. It’s not that you’re not committed. You can show up, and you can change your mind, and you can change your mind several times. You wanted it to work.

Erica Bennett [00:15:40]:
You did all of these things to try to make it work, manifesting, fixing it. Then at some point, you decided you didn’t want to. And it’s so important for us to give ourselves permission to be in the moment, to know ourselves more, to understand ourselves on a deeper level every single day. It’s not like, last Thursday, I figured myself out. Now everything is perfect for the next 90 years of my life because I figured myself out on Thursday. We can change our mind. Our partners can change their mind. We can lean into something and decide, it’s not what I wanted, and that’s okay.

Erica Bennett [00:16:18]:
We’re never stuck. We’re never trapped ever.

Erica Bennett [00:16:22]:
No. And one of the things that I really did a lot was I created small practices to make sure that I stayed in a happy, peaceful mindset because I have lost the ability to trust my own intuition. I had ignored it for all those years. I knew something was wrong, and I kept telling myself I was crazy. I kept telling myself, like, he would never do that. Right? And all the things that I told myself he never would, he did, which meant that I had to spend some time rebuilding my own trust with myself, and sometimes it still freaks out on me. So when I was in that, I’m I’m absolutely done. I can’t handle anymore, and I’d be like, but you really, really want this to work.

Erica Bennett [00:17:06]:
I would go to a practice where I visualized the best outcome for both of us. I went real general. Right? Like, I don’t know what the answer is, but I want him to be happy. I want me to be happy. I drew I do truly believe we both can be happy whether we stay or whether we go. I believe we can both be happy, and I would just visualize that. I would visualize how good does it feel to be in a place where I’m sitting there like, I’m really happy with my life. And then to look at him in my visualization and be like, I’m really happy that he’s happy in his life.

Erica Bennett [00:17:39]:
We’ve gone through some shit. I’m happy. We’re both happy. Mhmm. Then in that state, I could ask myself, do you wanna keep trying? Are you ready to quit? And quit’s the wrong word. Are you ready to shift? Let’s say shift. Because, again, mine was like a little, like, blinders. I was in a battle.

Erica Bennett [00:17:58]:
I was in a battle, but, you know, are you ready for something else? And I had to do that for a long time until I realized that I really did think that I think first, I think this is supposed to end. I think and not because of anything he had done of who I wanted as a partner, of how I wanted to be in relationship. I had become a completely different person. I mean, I had become a crystal wearing, meditating, meditating, manifesting, like, woo woo, crazy pants lady, and I loved it. Yes. And he didn’t. And that’s okay. Mhmm.

Erica Bennett [00:18:35]:
And that was that realization that I’m like, oh, this it’s alright for this to just be a chapter and and to let it be something that was still good in your life even if it hurt. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Erica Bennett [00:18:50]:
And congratulations for doing that, for letting it be, for becoming, for embracing who you are, for pushing through that fear gently, for recognizing, yeah, this is really terrifying, but I’m leaning into these practices. I’m doing this visualization. We had talked on your show about tapping, that you do tapping. There’s all of these different practices out there. What do you recommend for people to do when they’re in that state of fear that I don’t wanna shift. I don’t wanna change this. Too much too soon.

Erica Bennett [00:19:24]:
What do you think? Yeah. The first thing I want you to tell yourself that you don’t need to have an answer right now. So when all that hits okay? So when the fear hits, the anxiety hits, most likely, you are future tripping. We are in a state of anxiety when we’re projecting into a future that we don’t know whether or not it’s gonna happen, but it seems very real, and it derails us in the present moment. So when that stuff happens, the first thing is is just acknowledge it because the moment you acknowledge it, you take away some of its power. Like, oh, I am way down a path, then I am nowhere near. I don’t know if that’s gonna be true. I don’t know what that’s gonna be like.

Erica Bennett [00:20:04]:
Then calm your nervous system. Bring yourself back to the present moment, and the one that I like the most when you are really, really heightened is find the 5 things. So to bring yourself back to the present moment, what do you see? What do you hear? What can you feel? What do you smell? Label 5 things in front of you right now. Right? So I could be like my microphone, my tea, the computer, the light outside, my ring light. All that does is stop your mind, your little momentum train. Visualize a train. That train is, like, 1,000 miles an hour down the direction of chaos and catastrophe. You’re now choosing to activate a different part of your brain to label, identify, label, identify.

Erica Bennett [00:20:49]:
It’s a very present moment thing, and it it will shift you out of that big momentum. Now you can start tapping, you know, your karate chop point. You can do 5 breaths, belly breaths. Don’t breathe with your shoulders. Right? Put your hands on your belly, breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth. Feel that air. The breath is the only conscious way that you can activate your nervous system, your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and digest. It is that little.

Erica Bennett [00:21:24]:
It is that little to say, oh, crap. I’m way in the future. Bring myself back to the present 5 things. Take the breaths. Yeah. Now your whole system is regulated, and now you can get to okay. I don’t have an answer today, but I can figure this out. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I will learn, or I am really upset, and I just wanna go journal this out.

Erica Bennett [00:21:51]:
All of those are fine. But when your emotional side of the brain runs your life, it ran my life. You spend all your time trying to control the details and avoid the pain. And when you learn how you can actually shift yourself back, you can look at it, you can feel the pain, and you can get through it. Those things no longer control you like fear. I mean, fear owned my entire life.

Erica Bennett [00:22:17]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I’ll I’ll thank you for all of those. Those are great. I wanna add in the idea of fear is usually much worse than the fear itself. And my listeners know I use the concept of burlesque all the time in my work. The intentional stripping away. You’re stripping away of the fears, and you’re choosing how to reveal yourself.

Erica Bennett [00:22:40]:
And when you reveal yourself consciously, you don’t feel as exposed as when somebody else puts you on the spot and reveals you that way.

Erica Bennett [00:22:49]:
Yeah.

Erica Bennett [00:22:50]:
And it’s just really powerful to be like, yeah. I can lean into this fear. Okay. I am future tripping, but maybe I’ll journal on that, and I’ll do it consciously, and I’ll step into that fear. Maybe I won’t find another partner. Maybe I’ll be alone forever and die a crazy cat lady. But when you choose to move into it, suddenly you realize, no. Actually, this is really good, and I’m safe, and I’m happy.

Erica Bennett [00:23:16]:
And it’s not actually something to be afraid of. It’s something to be embraced.

Erica Bennett [00:23:22]:
Yeah. I use the example of a fear monster. K. Your little fear monster sits on your shoulder. He is there all the time. He is whispering in your ear. You know, society, culture, the news, everything runs on fear. Oh, you can’t eat that? You’re gonna get you’re gonna get heavy.

Erica Bennett [00:23:37]:
Right? Oh, you can’t vote for that? Like, all the things. Everything is based on fear. Fine. Fear monster gets bigger and louder every time you allow those fear based thoughts to continue to be true. Mhmm. You’re never gonna find somebody. You’re gonna be alone forever. Nobody else is gonna want you.

Erica Bennett [00:23:57]:
How are you ever gonna find another partner? How am I gonna be able to keep this going? How am I gonna take care of my kids? All this gets bigger. He’s already happy and moved on. Must be something really wrong with me. K. The only way to get the fear monster to get smaller and to get quiet is to just look at it and tell it that it’s not true. Yes. Will you be alone forever? You know, I was wailing on the floor 1 Friday night alone, child free. Right? Journaling it out.

Erica Bennett [00:24:26]:
Oh my god. I might as well mine was. I might as well move in with my mother. So my dad had passed away from pancreatic cancer a couple years prior. She was also alone. I was like, I need help. I might as well move home to my small town, take my 4 year old son with me, and go live with my mother and give up on the rest of my life. K.

Erica Bennett [00:24:47]:
That was I was wailing. Right. I had a look at it, and I’d say, is it really true that your, like, life is over at 35? Right. No. Okay. Is it really true that you don’t have anybody else to help you? No. Is it really true that you will never ever, ever, ever meet somebody? No. K.

Erica Bennett [00:25:09]:
Challenge those fear based thoughts, but we can’t get to the logical mind to challenge it until we calm that nervous system. Absolutely. Little bit at a time, little bit, little bit, little bit. Right? All that happened anxiety. Right? Anxiety gets bigger and bigger and bigger until it’s debilitating because that fear monster got bigger and bigger and bigger. Those beliefs got stronger and stronger and stronger. So pick a little one. Pick a tiny low hanging branch and break it off and tell it it’s not true.

Erica Bennett [00:25:40]:
Right? You’ll get stronger at being able to challenge those beliefs until you are so fast in it. You know, mine will show up now, and I’ll be like, oh, not true. I go, I feel it. I feel it in my system. It is scary. It feels like fear and anxiety. And I go, okay. This is not a thing I’m gonna think about right now because I’m not lined up to my true self.

Erica Bennett [00:26:05]:
Fear monster is running. This is not true. I’m challenging this thought. I’ll come back to it later, and I’ll walk away.

Erica Bennett [00:26:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, speaking about the crazy manifesting woo woo stuff because that’s that’s the that’s the journey I’m on too. Yep. We do attract what we think about. We do attract what we project. And, similarly, when I start going down that rabbit hole of fear and crazy stuff, it does stop me to realize when I’m putting out this vibration, I am attracting that vibration. Mhmm.

Erica Bennett [00:26:39]:
And not that I take any blame for my husband’s affairs because I don’t, but I can also look back at how I put myself in the role of the martyr. I put myself in the role of the neglected wife. I put myself in that, and I believed it, and I projected it because I wanted people to see, Laura is so good, and she’s so pretty, and she’s so kind, and she’s such a good mom. And, look, he’s working all the time, and he’s ignoring her. Like, that was a thing that I created. And, again, I didn’t cause it, but this is something that we co created together. And this is me owning my stuff.

Erica Bennett [00:27:25]:
Yeah. And mine was I didn’t stand up for who I was and what I needed. I had a 100% self abandoned, and I had allowed a lot of behaviors. You know? It wasn’t the first time you’d stayed out till 2 in the morning. I thought boundaries were a line that you drew, an expectation. That’s the ultimatum, you guys. Yeah. I thought I created I was like, I don’t have bad boundaries.

Erica Bennett [00:27:52]:
I just let him do whatever he wants. I need to learn about boundaries. So I read about it and came back, and I was like, you need to be home by midnight because I get up at 6 in the morning, and you cannot be waking me up at 2 and 3 in the morning when you roll in. I thought that was a boundary. This is what I want in my life, and he’d still roll in at 2 o’clock. And I was like, what am I doing wrong? A boundary it’s boundary is a thing that you change. So if he continue to roll in at 2 o’clock, I needed to say, hey. This isn’t working for me.

Erica Bennett [00:28:23]:
I can go sleep somewhere else. I can go into the guest bedroom. I can move somewhere else if he won’t. I can ask him to. I can explain why it’s important, but at the end of the day, he’s got his own free choice. He might not do it, then I do it. Then I stand up for what I need, and I make a change. And that was a really big lesson.

Erica Bennett [00:28:43]:
We have boundaries wrong a lot. We think boundaries are ultimatums. You better do this. You wanna be in a relationship with me? You better treat me this way. No. If he doesn’t bring you the flowers, guess what? You go buy the flowers for yourself. Stop giving somebody else all that power in your life and learn how to deliver it to yourself. Teach yourself how to love yourself so that you can then teach somebody else.

Erica Bennett [00:29:06]:
They don’t know. They don’t know how to love you. Every single person is different.

Erica Bennett [00:29:10]:
No. No. And another thing that I wanna say on boundaries, because this is really, really important too, boundaries are small. So often people will say, well, I’m gonna create a boundary that I will leave if he doesn’t do that.

Erica Bennett [00:29:24]:
Yeah.

Erica Bennett [00:29:24]:
And I’ll say, but are you really? Because if you’re not really going to leave because he doesn’t bring you flowers on Friday, then that’s a really bad boundary because you’re not gonna follow-up on it and you’re not gonna enforce it. Like you said, maybe the boundary is I will sleep somewhere else. Maybe the boundary is I will go away for the weekend and regroup and think about things.

Erica Bennett [00:29:45]:
Yes.

Erica Bennett [00:29:45]:
Make sure the boundary is something you will actually do. Actually do. Or even if you set the boundary correctly, it’s not a boundary if you don’t enforce it, and you’re teaching the other person, hey. I self abandon all the time, so run all over me. Boundaries don’t matter.

Erica Bennett [00:30:01]:
Yeah. Right? A boundary is like a white picket fence. Okay? You are your house. Mhmm. White picket fence in your yard. How big your yard is is how much you can maintain where you put that fence. But the boundary is, hey. This is about how much I can handle.

Erica Bennett [00:30:16]:
This is about what I can take on, but this is what I need to make my house and my yard look really pretty. Yeah. Do you need I see it all the time. Right? Everybody every mom I know almost wakes up early to read or journal or enjoy their coffee in silence before their kids get up. That’s a boundary. I I need 30 minutes alone in the morning before I have to talk to anybody to be my best self. For me, I need a walk. Ideally, I need 2.

Erica Bennett [00:30:40]:
1 in the morning and one in the afternoon. 15 to 30 minutes. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but I gotta go back out and reconnect with nature and get my breathing regulated again for me to be my best self. Mhmm. I need to eat on time. I get hangry. I know this. That doesn’t mean, you know, for a while, I was reliant on my partner to make sure he fed me at the right time, and it never worked, and I was always crabby, and I was always upset.

Erica Bennett [00:31:04]:
So then I started packing snacks. We got a sports tournament all day. I took care of what I needed. That’s a boundary, you guys. They are the small things you need to protect the yard inside that white picket fence. What do you need to be your best self? And most times, we lose ourselves so much in the relationship, we cannot even tell anybody what we need. Because the relationship takes up all of our time. Our kids take up all of our time.

Erica Bennett [00:31:33]:
What do you need? What do you need to be your best off? Like, you should sit down today and write out what do you need if you put together your ideal day. What does it look like? So start with your favorite cup of coffee or tea. Does it move through a nice healthy breakfast? Do you get gym time in the afternoon? What do you need? Yeah. Yeah.

Erica Bennett [00:31:54]:
What I appreciate about that too is that’s that’s the f in flaunt. That’s finding your fetish. That is what fills you up first. Fill yourself up first. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen and roll with it. But knowing what you need is huge. And, again, whether you are building a relationship with your current partner or with a new partner or with a friend or with a family member or with a child when you don’t know who you are? How do you expect anybody else to know you? One of the activities that I love to do with my people is to have them look in a mirror and to really see themselves and to practice telling themselves what I love about you, what I need from you, what I want from you, and to just practice stating your needs. And it’s hard.

Erica Bennett [00:32:48]:
And most people cry because we’ve never stood in that.

Erica Bennett [00:32:53]:
Yeah. I know I did that Louise Hay mirror activity where you’re supposed to stand and stare at yourself in your eyes and say, like, I love you and I as you are, we don’t actually look in our own eyes, you guys. Like, we just don’t. We look at everything else. Right? You look at your hair. You look at your makeup. You look at what you’re wearing. You look at something else.

Erica Bennett [00:33:13]:
But if you got real close to the mirror and actually looked right in your eyes, we don’t do it. Uh-uh. Yeah. Uh-uh.

Erica Bennett [00:33:19]:
And part of that and I wanna kinda go down this too. I had mentioned burlesque earlier because I just love the whole concept of dance and performance art. Who is the main character in your life, and how do you see your partner not as an accessory to you, but also as a main character in their life? Because like you said, the truth of the matter is you can only control you. They can only control themselves. You are bringing 2 main characters together, 2 lead actors together, 2 main dancers together. How do you dance with each other? Because our partners are not accessories to us, and we are not accessories to them. So how did you both break away, reclaim that main character energy in your life? And then how did you also because I know you’re in a relationship. How were you navigating that now not abandoning yourself this time through?

Erica Bennett [00:34:14]:
I mean, I’m trying. No. I’m just kidding.

Erica Bennett [00:34:16]:
We all are trying.

Erica Bennett [00:34:17]:
It’s always, always a work in progress. Yeah. So in my marriage, I really wanted an assistant, and that was one of the pieces that I owned. That was not cool. I wanted him to do what I asked, make my life easier so I could get more stuff done. And I think a lot of marriages run on, you expect your husband to be an assistant. You expect him to clean the way you clean, to cook the way you cook, to dress the kids the way you dress, and they’re their own unique person. Wait.

Erica Bennett [00:34:48]:
What? Right? Yeah. You know? Like and I did. I wanted because I was so overwhelmed. Again, I had bad boundaries on what I could or could not take on. I am a perfectionist. I kept taking on everything. High functioning anxiety, name of my life. Right? So I kept taking more on, trying to be the perfect parent and the perfect Pinterest mom and the perfect employee.

Erica Bennett [00:35:13]:
I was really overwhelmed, so I expected him to just come in and clean up the extras that I needed to be done. So then, you know, you get divorced. I remember not knowing what I wanted to eat for dinner because he would get home early, and he always made dinner, and it was now something I really miss because now I have to cook, and I don’t like cooking. But at the moment, I was really frustrated because he didn’t wanna cook the things that I wanted to eat. We like different things, but food was always there. Now I’m divorced, friends coming over to help install a toilet, and I’m like, what do you want? And he’s like, just make what you wanna eat. And I hadn’t had that freedom in a really long time. So when I got divorced and I had learned that fear had taken over my entire life, I was afraid to try a new restaurant because a lot of foods made me really sick.

Erica Bennett [00:36:02]:
My digestive system had, like, quit. My adrenals were shot. My hormones were shot. My digestion was shot. I ended up having a really, really severe case of SIBO, but I didn’t find out until years later. So my whole so, like, if we went out to eat and I ate and had one cocktail, guaranteed 2 hours after laying down, I would be up throwing up dinner. Like, my system just excessive pain, bloat. It didn’t like food.

Erica Bennett [00:36:28]:
I was afraid to try a new place. I was afraid to try beer. I was I was afraid to go anywhere where I looked like I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t ever wanna appear like I was lost or didn’t have all the details. Fear ran my whole life. So when I got divorced, I committed to myself to retry everything I had ever said no to because I honestly didn’t know if I didn’t like it or if it was my little fear monster trying to keep me small. And so I tried camping again and I realized that I actually really liked it whereas before I used to freak out about where’s the bathroom and what’s my hair gonna look and how am I gonna shower and now it was delightful. I got into hiking.

Erica Bennett [00:37:07]:
I started working out and lifting weights at the gym. I found out that I do like beer, but I like porters, not IPAs. I think IPAs are gross. But I had to go out and retry all these things. And so the main character of me became testing and testing. And I had always been really the the, like, jack of all trades my entire life. Right? I could I could meld into whatever the new friendship group was. I’m a really quick learner.

Erica Bennett [00:37:36]:
I pick things up. You know, I was in a group that worked on vintage Volkswagens in college while also doing bridal makeup and working in a beauty shop. Like, the opposite extremes, and I could do any of it and find happiness in it. And what I learned was the things that were me were the things that stayed even when I was alone. I’m a quality time love language. I like to know that I am important and valued, which means that I like to get the invite. So I was doing a lot of these outings for the social aspects without realizing that I didn’t really just like doing it. The thing didn’t fill me up.

Erica Bennett [00:38:13]:
Even though I I love sanding cars down, like auto bodywork, love it. It’s super relaxing for me, but I don’t do it anymore. So I dove into I could try whatever I wanted. Yeah. And the beauty of getting divorced is you already broke the society rule. Right? You already became you’re the, you know, the black sheep. You’re you’re the one who’s kicked out of the circle. You can do whatever you want.

Erica Bennett [00:38:38]:
So I could get as weird and crazy as I wanted. You know, COVID had hit, so, like, super random. But I started no longer wearing bras. And I’d spent my whole life being like, you always have to have a bra on. And now I was like, I am free to do whatever I wanted. I bought every single sound bowl I ever wanted. I just sit on the floor and play them with my music. I would meditate.

Erica Bennett [00:39:02]:
I started wearing all my beads and all my crystals, and I went really deep into everything, and then came out with the pieces that I wanted to keep, that built who I was. Now as you alluded to, I’m in partnership again. And guess what? I have to fight for my boundaries in a in a beautiful way. And then guess what? It’s not my partner. It’s me.

Erica Bennett [00:39:24]:
Right. It’s like

Erica Bennett [00:39:26]:
I am so quick again to self abandon, you know, a daily meditation. I’m real quick to, like, not have the time for that because I made dinner and I cleaned the kitchen, and then I wanted to hang out and watch TV together instead. He’s like, can you please go? Go do your yoga. Go do your meditation. You are happier when you’re doing it, and I had to enlist him. I’m like, you have to kick me off the couch because my quality time will make me just wanna sit with you. Even though I don’t care about what the TV is, even though I know I feel better when I’m doing something else. And so that’s where it’s a daily practice.

Erica Bennett [00:40:02]:
Sometimes I’m giving more, and then I find that I’m depleted. And the lesson is is that in my main character energy, that’s my responsibility. It’s not his. And so then I say, okay. I’m a little depleted. I need a little bath time tonight. I need to do my own thing for a little bit. I need to carve out Erica time because I’ve lost her again.

Erica Bennett [00:40:22]:
And then you pick her back up and you’re like, oh, there she is. And how do I wanna merge this habit that I used to have? You know, when you when I was single, I had a lot of free time. I did a lot of beautiful, delightful rituals with the full moon and the new moon, you know, burning intentions and soaking in bath water, and I did moon water every time there was a full moon. And a lot of those rituals have fallen away, and I crave them. And so now it’s a deliberate choice of me bringing them back in 1 at a time and saying, is this what I want in this season of my life right now? Does this feel really good and really juicy again? And, like, is this the thing that just makes me feel more like me? Mhmm. And when I find that, I want that for my partner. My partner finds himself through sports and through diving and through travel. And so in the beginning, it’s really hard.

Erica Bennett [00:41:18]:
He’s like, I’m going on a trip, and you’re not coming with. And my mind was, oh my god. That means that you’re gonna are you cheating? Or who are you seeing? Right? Because that was my old story. He’s like, no. I’m gonna go play sports. I’m gonna be on the pitch, you know, 10 hours a day. You don’t wanna be here. No.

Erica Bennett [00:41:37]:
And I want him to come back recharged. Mhmm. You know? I never wanna get in the way of his sports playing because that is, like, his version of therapy. That is where he relaxes and finds himself again.

Erica Bennett [00:41:48]:
And And it’s important.

Erica Bennett [00:41:50]:
It is important. You know, we all nobody wants to be somebody else’s only source of happiness.

Erica Bennett [00:41:57]:
No. You know? We put up these hoops.

Erica Bennett [00:42:00]:
We’re in a relationship. I’d be really happy if you made me dinner tonight, but that’s a hoop. Jump through the hoops for my happiness. Jump through this next hoop for my happiness. I need to go to bed at 10, so you can’t be up late. Jump through that hoop for my happiness. Do you wanna do that for somebody else? Like, if your partner was only happy because of the things that you did for him, that’s exhausting. Nobody wants that.

Erica Bennett [00:42:24]:
But we sit from the mindset of, well, they should do all these things, and I see it online. All these women are like, well, you should leave him because he did this. Pause. Right. Does it really matter? Is this really important? And how do you need to take care of your own needs first? Because you gotta stop the hoops. You gotta stop demanding this other person show up. Now you’re in a place of, I love it when I’m my best self, and I love it when my partner is his best self. And I’m bummed when neither of us are our best selves.

Erica Bennett [00:42:51]:
Right. Take your independence. Go go get your best self back Mhmm. And bring it back to the relationship. I had that I had that belief of, you know, 2 people create a 1. We’re a 50 and a 50. You’re a 101100. And when you start becoming 90, 80, 70, what happens? We, like, latch on to our partner, and we try and pull them down with us, or we try and steal their 100 to fill us back up to 100.

Erica Bennett [00:43:21]:
Well, now they’re depleted. Well, now they’re stealing from us. You each have to be responsible for maintaining your 100%. And when you each bring a 100 to the relationship, now there’s growth. Now there’s expansion. Now you’re both your best selves coming together. And these are not always perfect. But I know, you know, I’m I’m falling down the hole.

Erica Bennett [00:43:43]:
I’m I’m tired. I’m not eating well. I’m overworking myself. I become needy. Yes. He pulls away. Well, I don’t like needy, Erica. No.

Erica Bennett [00:43:52]:
I come I become needier. I was like, oh, crap. I need I where are you going? Are we in a problem? Panic. Yeah. No. That’s just the I need to go fill myself back up. What do I need? Go to the gym. Go meet up with some girlfriends.

Erica Bennett [00:44:05]:
Go take a nap. Go Mhmm. Go get the Starbucks. Okay? We gotta stop relying on the other person to fill us back up.

Erica Bennett [00:44:14]:
Yes. One of my most popular programs that I offer is the sanctuary of the soul program. And just like you were saying, it’s based on the cycles of the moon. It’s based on the cycles of the season. And what I think is so valuable about it is it gives people a hoop that they jump through for themselves. If I tell you this is the full moon and we’re going to Zoom, you show up. You’ve created the hoop for yourself. If I remind you that it’s the fall equinox and that we’re doing the like, this month, we’re doing the Peruvian coca leaf ceremony, then you jump through it for yourself.

Erica Bennett [00:44:50]:
And sometimes it’s so important to create those hoops for ourselves, not for our partners because we do get tired. We do get lazy. We do fall into regular habits. So what can you do to create hoops for yourself? Who can you use as an accountability buddy? Whether it’s a coach, whether it’s a friend, whether it’s a program, those little reminders along the way, you gotta fill yourself up. And then like you were saying, set your partner free to fill themselves up. Not, why can’t I go? I wanna go. Well, wait. What are you doing? Set them free.

Erica Bennett [00:45:26]:
Support that. They will support you too.

Erica Bennett [00:45:29]:
And that was probably one of the most annoying lessons once I was divorced. Once I was divorced and I moved into my own place, and then I was alone, and there was open free time. And I remember being so annoyed because I knew that I was sad or on my way down, and I just wanted somebody to come fix it. And my friends were all busy. Most of my friends live out of state, so there wasn’t anybody in town. They had all been there for hours and listened to me cry on the phone. You know? Like, my friends were amazing. And there were still times when I was so annoyed that I had to pick myself back up.

Erica Bennett [00:46:01]:
I was like, oh, you mean I I have to make myself feel better? Where’s the person to speak me out or entertain me or listen to me talk? And it was a hard lesson. And I was annoyed. I was really annoyed that I had to do the work. And it was beautiful because it’s the only way that I broke that habit of realizing that I don’t need to rely on somebody else to help me feel better. Like, as a kid, we you know, coregulating is a real thing. You probably learn to feel better by relying on a parent or relying on somebody else. But we also need to learn how to self regulate to be able to take care of our own happiness and our own needs. Mhmm.

Erica Bennett [00:46:43]:
What about the relationship between you and your ex now? How are you navigating that, and how are you finding peace? And is it a good relationship now?

Erica Bennett [00:46:52]:
I don’t know what it is. No. It’s not it’s definitely not toxic. So the other woman left. And when the other woman left, he started showing up again, and that was really odd. We had not talked in 6 years. In 6 years, she demanded there was no communication between the 2 of us. He was incredibly, like, rude Mhmm.

Erica Bennett [00:47:14]:
And disrespectful to me that entire time. Hey. Our kid’s supposed to be dropped off at 7. It’s 7:05. Where are you? No response. I’ll show up when I’m gonna show up. Like, we’re talking like it was really the first 6 years were rough. We had tried going back to mediation.

Erica Bennett [00:47:29]:
I’d hired new lawyers. Like, it was a whole thing. She leaves, and all of a sudden, he’s, like, trying to be friends again. I don’t need it. I’m like, this is a little too late. So I am happy that we are respectful. It is always, hey. Can you help me with this? I’m never dictating.

Erica Bennett [00:47:48]:
Like, hey. I I think I’m gonna need a help on an extra day in October. Do you think that you’d be available? I’ll send you the dates. If he helps out with something, thank you so much. And then, authentically, I am grateful that he is willing to show up, that he is available when I ask. We have gotten to a place where we are cordial, and we can communicate back and forth, and it doesn’t have to just be text. You know? You can call on the phone and be like, hey. What’s the plan for this? And sometimes those old wounds show up.

Erica Bennett [00:48:18]:
You know, when we moved Mhmm. Officially, I moved outside of the state line by 15 minutes. So I’m the same he lived in the middle. I lived way further in. Now I live the other side, the same distance. Did he show up and be like, you can’t do this. Do you wanna go to court? It’s the same time difference, the same miles, and then he’ll settle back down. And so sometimes those old things show up, but I think it comes across my interpretation of it is, again, as I’ve elevated and I choose to see abundance and I choose to trust in the right path moving forward, a lot of the comments that I struggle with are because he’s still in a little bit more of a judgmental mindset.

Erica Bennett [00:49:03]:
And that is a, like, I don’t know if he’s ever changed. I don’t know who he is now. You know? I haven’t really talked to him in 7 years. I don’t know what he likes or who he is or how he’s changed. And so I’m grateful that we can communicate, that we can swap weeks without problems. You know, if our son gets sick or injured, we can divide and conquer. I think I’ll always be a little bit bummed it didn’t become a better relationship, but I also am really glad it’s exactly the way it is. Like, do I really I really thought I was still gonna be, like, best friends with him.

Erica Bennett [00:49:39]:
Right. Right. And I don’t think I would want that. You know? Like, thank god that didn’t happen. Thank god that the universe had a better plan for how this needed to be. And all the extended family, every you know, his extended family is all really open because, you know, stepmom checks in at Christmas. How are we doing? His his mom checks in. So there’s not any weirdness, and that was one of the big pieces for my son is that family is family.

Erica Bennett [00:50:04]:
And so I wanted to make sure that at least on our side, he’s always welcome. He’s always invited. He’s always included. Whether or not he shows up, that’s his choice.

Erica Bennett [00:50:14]:
I love that. One of the things that I hear a lot, and I’d love you to speak about this, and this is very vulnerable. One of the things women will say to me is, I don’t wanna regret it. I don’t wanna feel sad. I don’t wanna be lonely. I don’t wanna miss him. And what I usually say is something along the lines of you will be sad. You there will be moments where you miss him.

Erica Bennett [00:50:34]:
There will be moments where you think, oh my god. I made the wrong decision. That’s part of life. But being sad in that moment doesn’t necessarily mean you made the wrong decision. Have you had ups and downs, and what do you what what how can you speak to that?

Erica Bennett [00:50:47]:
Yeah. In fact perfect timing because the program I was writing in the bathtub last night was on divorce grief because one of the things that really surprised me was how many things I grieved the loss of that I didn’t expect. You know? I I had in our 2 year separation, grieved the loss of having somebody there every night, grieved the loss of the ability to call and talk to him. Those pieces came little by little because of that separation time. And then when the divorce was done, there was a lot of grief around, like, well, the family holiday rituals are gone, and I can’t talk to the, you know, former in laws anymore. And not because they weren’t open, but it it was awkward with the new woman in this situation, and the ask was to not. And I was like, okay. I I’ll respect that.

Erica Bennett [00:51:35]:
I I can respect your wishes on that. Grief is just a tricky thing because it, well, what I was writing about was that grief is the shattering of your heart. And when your heart shatters into a 1000000 pieces instantly, it is intense and all consuming. Mhmm. And so it’s not logical, and you can’t see your way out. And it literally, you know, takes the light out. It’s like you will never get out of the feeling of sadness and regret. And did I make a mistake? And that is never the time to make the choice.

Erica Bennett [00:52:08]:
So when that hits, you’ve gotta look at it. You’ve gotta feel it. Journal it out. Cry it out. A lot of times my big cries, I find it more helpful to get down on my hands and my knees so that I’m in my body, you know, rolling back and forth kind of left, right, left, right, allowing those waves, the waves of pain to leave my body. Mhmm. And then when it’s not as intense to go back and to really ask yourself if it’s true. You know? Like, do you really also I’ll confess to this one.

Erica Bennett [00:52:45]:
I was really sad about not being able to talk to his parents anymore. It was an illogical thought.

Erica Bennett [00:52:55]:
Mhmm.

Erica Bennett [00:52:55]:
They are very nice people. We are not super aligned. Right? They weren’t best friends. We’d go over to their house, and I’d often come home really frustrated because I the conversations didn’t go the way that I had wanted. Or his dad his dad is real. Like, spacey is the wrong word, but, you know, he’s real, like, just go with the flow, and I’m very, like, organized, and he

Erica Bennett [00:53:17]:
used to drive me batty.

Erica Bennett [00:53:18]:
And I sat there and asked myself, why are you sad about this? You didn’t love being there when you had to be there. So what are you sad about right now? And I realized that it was more about my own inner wounds. You know, was I ever gonna find a new extended family? My dad had died. I just really wanted a father figure that was a little bit older, somebody to be able to lean on. Those were my wounds that I was trying to fulfill through something else. And so when those pieces hit, when you’re worried that you’re gonna regret it, I’d ask you why. Why are you afraid you’re gonna regret it? What do you really regret? What are you afraid that you’re never gonna have again? When we look at grief, yes, it’s love that has nowhere to go, but it has nowhere to go because we think that that thing is never coming back. Right.

Erica Bennett [00:54:14]:
And, you know, I grieve the loss of having somebody to go to a concert with, specifically the music I was listening to at the time. Who am I ever gonna find to go to a DAWS concert with me? I am gonna have to find a fish in the sea of the dating pool that also likes the same music as me. Guess what? I found somebody who liked different music, and we’ve gone to a lot of concerts, and it’s been really fun. Yeah. So I grieved the loss of something because it was a specific condition. And once I allowed it to morph into something else, then that love had somewhere to go. And the grief no longer controlled me. I could see that it it was now, you know, piecing your heart back together.

Erica Bennett [00:54:57]:
The emotions were flowing again in the right way. So when that regret comes up, you it’s okay to feel it is the biggest thing. And it doesn’t mean that you made a wrong decision. It just means that there’s a peace in your heart that really wants to be seen and heard some part of your inner wound or wounded child that needs to be held. You know, are you grieving the loss of the idea of a 50th wedding anniversary? Are you grieving the loss of a one and only love one true love? Are you grieving the belief that you did something wrong? You didn’t do anything wrong. It just didn’t work.

Erica Bennett [00:55:36]:
Mhmm. And it is important to feel it. There is nothing wrong with feeling things. There’s nothing wrong with being sad. And I think that’s sometimes a belief that has been put into our society. I can’t remember if it was on this podcast or the other podcast where I was talking about, like, the Cinderella story. You know? Yeah. We all have these beliefs about things should look a certain way, and we feel like life should be happy.

Erica Bennett [00:56:01]:
And family should always be happy, and we should always get along. And when I have my soulmate, nothing bad ever happens. Guess what? Bad things happen all the time. Bad things happen to good people. Half of life is up. Half of life is down. It’s just the way it is. It’s not that you’re doing anything wrong because you feel bad.

Erica Bennett [00:56:21]:
It’s not that something bad is happening because you’re in a bad state. Half of life is bad.

Erica Bennett [00:56:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think the big thing for me was to make sure I didn’t feel regret or worry about this bad thing. I did a lot of work to make sure that I made the decision from a place of love. Mhmm. And until I cleared all that old pain and hurt and resentment and fear and uncertainty, then I could sit in that place that I shared. Like, I really wanted him to be happy. I really wanted me to be happy, and I was okay if that wasn’t together.

Erica Bennett [00:56:57]:
So for me, when I see people are like, I don’t wanna regret the decision. It’s because you’re trying to make an emotional decision, and you’re not in the place to do that. You need to be making a logical decision with love. Yes. So heal all the places that you’re triggered. Heal the heal the places that you’re unsure of and that you’re hurting from. And when you do that and you really do step into that love and abundance everywhere, the regret is gone.

Erica Bennett [00:57:24]:
Yes. Yes.

Erica Bennett [00:57:25]:
There are things I wish I had done differently, but, like, not really. It was a lesson. There are no mistakes. I did the best I could in the moment. I was not perfect, but I did the best I could, and then I learned from it.

Erica Bennett [00:57:38]:
Yes. And that brings it full circle and is such a great place to wrap up on. It is a choice. It is a choice. Are there mistakes I made? Yes. Are there things I regret? Yes. I can focus on how bad it was, or I can choose to see the lessons. I can choose to see the love.

Erica Bennett [00:57:56]:
I can choose to see how it actually miraculously worked out in ways that I never anticipated happening. It’s a choice. Choose the love. Choose the joy. Choose yourself. Mhmm. It has been so wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you for all of the wisdom.

Erica Bennett [00:58:17]:
Listeners, again, my interview on the Crazy Ex Wife’s Club podcast just dropped, so check that first. I will put the links below. We have got these amazing two shows that will help you reach out to either of us. Reach out to both of us. Let’s just talk. Let’s talk about grief. Let’s talk about loss. Let’s talk about love.

Erica Bennett [00:58:39]:
Let’s talk about the work. Let’s talk about ourselves. Let’s just talk because we are not alone. You are not alone. Have an amazing week. And as usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are because who you are is always more than enough.

Lora Cheadle [00:58:59]:
Tune in next time to flaunt, find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal with Laura Cheadle every Wednesday at 7 AM and 7 PM Eastern Standard Time on syndicated DreamVision 7 Radio Network. Uncover the truth of what’s possible for you on the other side of betrayal and develop the skills and strategies necessary to embrace the future and flourish today. Download your free betrayal recovery toolkit at betrayalrecoveryguide.com.