You’ve heard the saying, time heals all wounds—but when it comes to betrayal trauma, that couldn’t be further from the truth. If you’re waiting for time to magically fix the devastation, the triggers, and the self-doubt, you’ll stay stuck.
In this eye-opening episode, betrayal recovery coach Lora Cheadle exposes the myths about healing after infidelity and explains why waiting, numbing out, or ignoring the pain won’t work. Instead, she shares the exact tools and strategies to take control of your recovery, rebuild your confidence, and step into your power NOW.
Top Takeaways:
- Why betrayal is NOT a relationship crisis—it’s a full-body trauma
- The biggest mistake most betrayed women make (and how to avoid it)
- Why traditional therapy often fails in betrayal recovery—and what to do instead
- The difference between coping and true healing (Hint: Most women get stuck in coping!)
- How to break the toxic cycle of waiting—for closure, for change, for him to wake up
- The 4 long-term recovery strategies to reclaim your identity and rebuild your self-worth
This is the second episode in a 4-part series on betrayal recovery—be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss Part 3!
Download your FREE Betrayal Recovery Guide now: betrayalrecoveryguide.com
Subscribe, Rate & Review: If this episode spoke to you, share it with a friend and leave a review—it helps other women find the support they need!
About Lora:
Lora Cheadle is a betrayal recovery coach, attorney, and TEDx speaker who helps women heal from betrayal on an energetic, emotional, and ancestral level—while also providing legal guidance to help them navigate the practical complexities of infidelity and relationship transitions. She empowers women to rise from the ashes, reclaim their identity and self-worth, break free from repeating patterns, and step into their power with confidence, clarity, and grace.
After being shattered by her husband’s fifteen years of infidelity, Lora knows firsthand what it takes to transform devastation into an invitation for healing, freedom, and joy. Her unique approach blends deep emotional healing with tangible legal and life strategies, guiding women beyond betrayal into lives of unapologetic confidence and purpose.
As the founder of Life Choreography Coaching & Advocacy, Lora provides comprehensive legal, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual support on demand. She believes that infidelity doesn’t have to be the end of the dream you poured your heart and soul into—it can be the beginning of a life filled with sovereignty, connection, and joy.
Licensed to practice law in California and Colorado, Lora is also a trauma-aware coach, clinical hypnotherapist, somatic attachment therapist, and advanced integrated energy practitioner. She is certified in yoga, mindfulness, group fitness, and personal training, bringing a holistic perspective to healing.
She is the author of FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, & Spiritual Self (an International Book Awards Finalist and Tattered Cover Bestseller) and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive. She also hosts the podcast FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity and Betrayal.
Based in Colorado, Lora is an adventure-seeker who loves travel, a great book, and saying yes to life’s magic.
This episode is the second in a 4-part series on betrayal recovery—so be sure to subscribe and tune in next week for Part 3!
Betrayal Recovery Tool Kit
Find Relief, Reclaim Yourself, and Rewrite Your Story
Download your Betrayal Recovery Roadmap & Tool Kit at www.BetrayalRecoveryGuide.com and start reclaiming yourself and your life today!
About Lora:
Lora Cheadle is a betrayal recovery coach, attorney, and TEDx speaker who helps women heal from betrayal on an energetic, emotional, and ancestral level—while also providing legal guidance to help them navigate the practical complexities of infidelity and relationship transitions. She empowers women to rise from the ashes, reclaim their identity and self-worth, break free from repeating patterns, and step into their power with confidence, clarity, and grace.
After being shattered by her husband’s fifteen years of infidelity, Lora knows firsthand what it takes to transform devastation into an invitation for healing, freedom, and joy. Her unique approach blends deep emotional healing with tangible legal and life strategies, guiding women beyond betrayal into lives of unapologetic confidence and purpose.
As the founder of Life Choreography Coaching & Advocacy, Lora provides comprehensive legal, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual support on demand. She believes that infidelity doesn’t have to be the end of the dream you poured your heart and soul into—it can be the beginning of a life filled with sovereignty, connection, and joy.
Licensed to practice law in California and Colorado, Lora is also a trauma-aware coach, clinical hypnotherapist, somatic attachment therapist, and advanced integrated energy practitioner. She is certified in yoga, mindfulness, group fitness, and personal training, bringing a holistic perspective to healing.
She is the author of FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, & Spiritual Self (an International Book Awards Finalist and Tattered Cover Bestseller) and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive. She also hosts the podcast FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity and Betrayal.
Special Offers from Our Sponsors!
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
Are you ready to Rise, Reclaim, and Reign as the Queen of Your Life? Infidelity may have shaken your world, but it does not define you. You are powerful. You are worthy. And you are more than capable of creating a future filled with confidence, clarity, and joy.
I’m here to walk beside you, giving you the perspective, permission, and proven tools to transform betrayal into your greatest awakening. Whether through one-on-one coaching or my on-demand Affair Recovery Programs, you’ll gain the guidance and support to untangle yourself from the past, reclaim your power, and step boldly into your next chapter.
Your transformation starts now! Learn more at www.AffairRecoveryForWomen.com and visit www.LoraCheadle.com for even more resources and inspiration.
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- International Book Award, Finalist Motivational Self-Help, 2021
- Tattered Cover Bestseller, 2019
Have you spent your life playing by the rules, only to realize those rules weren’t made for you? What if you could break free—from expectations, from betrayal, from the roles you were taught to play—and reclaim your true self?
FLAUNT! is your guide to stripping away societal conditioning, healing from the heartbreak of betrayal, and rediscovering the fierce, confident woman you were born to be. With humor, wisdom, and powerful, actionable steps, Lora Cheadle empowers you to rise above the narratives that have confined you and boldly choreograph a life that is smart, sexy, spiritual, and uniquely your own.
It’s time to stop living for others and start living for you.
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It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive
Burnout isn’t just exhaustion—it’s a betrayal of your time, energy, and trust. This essential guide redefines burnout, exposing its hidden roots and equipping individuals, teams, and leaders with five powerful tools to reclaim their passion, purpose, and well-being.
If you’re ready to break free from burnout and step into a life of clarity, confidence, and fulfillment, this book is your roadmap.
Available now on Amazon. Download your free guide, BURNOUT UNCOVERED: Fostering Candid Conversations for Teams at www.ItsNotBurnoutItsBetrayal.com.
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Transcript
Lora Cheadle [00:00:01]:
You’re listening to Flaunt, find your sparkle and create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. A podcast for women who’ve been betrayed by their intimate partner and want to turn their devastation into an invitation to reclaim them selves and their worth. Tune in weekly so you can start making sense of it all and learn how to be okay on the inside no matter what goes on on the outside. Download your free betrayal recovery toolkit at betrayalrecoveryguide.com.
Lora Cheadle [00:00:35]:
Hello, and welcome to Flaunt, create a life you love after infidelity or betrayal. I’m Lora Cheadle, and this is the second in a series. This series is betrayal recovery one zero one, what every woman needs to know. And last week, I talked about the first thirty days. And today, what I’m gonna talk about is the truth about healing and why time alone does not fix betrayal trauma. And let me tell you, I am enormously passionate about this topic because there is so much misinformation out there. And, you know, part of the reason I’m doing this whole series, on betrayal recovery one zero one, what everybody needs to know, is because of the amount of misinformation out there. And I know when I went through it, you know, I too was taken in by a lot of the stories, a lot of the just perceptions about what it meant, what it didn’t mean.
Lora Cheadle [00:01:41]:
And when I started really breaking down that false narrative and figuring out what was really going on, that’s when everything changed. So that’s what we are going to target today. Really breaking down some of those truths. Talk about the truth about healing, what it means to heal, because that’s the other thing. That’s one of the things that I talk to, people. That’s one of the first things that I say when I do a clarity call with people is what does healing even mean to you? And even though we’re not on a call right now at this moment, I challenge you to ask that. What does healing mean to you? Because for so many women, they say things like, I wanna go back to how it used to be. I wanna I wanna go back to how I was.
Lora Cheadle [00:02:31]:
And, you know, there’s some there’s some good in that. There’s some truth about that. But also, I didn’t wanna go back to the same old relationship. I did not want to go back to the same old relationship. There were absolutely some problems in that relationship that I I was too afraid to admit. I didn’t want to admit because I didn’t know what to do about it anyway, so it’s kind of better just to not admit it. There was there were there were issues. I mean, there were some really, really good things.
Lora Cheadle [00:03:09]:
There were some really amazing times. But, yeah, there were some issues too, and I don’t wanna go back to that. And I think what I want most for you is also that realization that, you know what? I want way more than going back. I want better. I want a better relationship. I want a better relationship with myself. I mean, why go through all this pain if you’re you’re not gonna come out with something better on the other side? And I think that’s really that really defines who I am and what I’m about. I have been through this.
Lora Cheadle [00:03:52]:
If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. I have been through this. My husband cheated for fifteen years with five different women, and I truly was blindsided by it. And seven years later, we are still together, and we’re both definitely happier and healthier than we were before. And, yes, we’ve come out the other side stronger, But that didn’t just happen. That wasn’t just good luck. We both worked for it. And part of the reason that I am so passionate about this is, as I said earlier, there’s so much misinformation out there about what it means to heal.
Lora Cheadle [00:04:33]:
I am an attorney. I am a trauma informed life coach, somatic attachment therapist. I’ve got a lot of different skills that can help you fully recover and then take everything to the next level. Because I really, really believe that betrayal recovery goes so far beyond healing. It goes into a complete and total transformation. What I would love for you to do before I get into this show is to scoot on over to betrayalrecoveryguide.com and download a copy of your betrayal recovery guide. It’s a fantastic guide. It gives you a clear path forward.
Lora Cheadle [00:05:22]:
It’s the clear path forward that I wish I would have had. In it, I break down the five phases of healing so you know what phase you’re in, so you can take constructive steps to move from heartbroken, overwhelmed, flooded with emotion to a sense of empowerment. It’s got a lot of great practical tools, meditation, journaling prompts, and somatic practices to help you feel better fast. So if you’re really tired of feeling stuck, if you’re tired of feeling broken and frustrated and in pain and all of that, scoot on over right now, betrayalrecoveryguide.com, and download your free guide. Okay. With that, let’s lean into this show because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Again, we’re gonna talk about the truth about healing and why time alone won’t ever fix betrayal trauma because it just won’t. That is my truth bomb for this episode.
Lora Cheadle [00:06:30]:
Time alone does not heal betrayal trauma. You don’t just wait it out and hope for the best. You actively have to take charge of your own recovery. Take charge of your own recovery. A lot of people when a marriage goes south, when they learn about infidelity, the first fix that they reach for is couples therapy. Because therapists fix it. Right? Yes and no. Couples therapists don’t fix betrayal trauma.
Lora Cheadle [00:07:08]:
They don’t fix broken marriages. Therapists can help you get to the bottom of things. But what I usually find is a therapist is best for the betraying partner, the cheater, and a coach is best for the betrayed partner, and here’s why. The person who cheated on you has got some problems. They’re not in touch with their emotions. They’re not in touch with what they need to do in order to regulate themselves and feel better. They are using cheating quite often as a coping mechanism to give themselves the validation, to deal with a career loss, a midlife crisis, frustrations that they feel like they’re having, not getting their needs met. So a therapist can help them unpack why they think cheating is a tool that is going to help them feel better.
Lora Cheadle [00:08:04]:
Also, I kid you not, ninety five percent of the people that I work with, the partner who has cheated has got some pretty significant trauma. Childhood trauma, young adult trauma, sexual abuse trauma. There’s a lot of trauma going out on out there and therapists are amazing at helping you unpack trauma. So I highly recommend a competent, qualified trauma informed therapist for the betrayed partner. In fact, I have partnered with BetterHelp. They do online therapy because I know that’s a hang up for so many men too. They’re like, I’m not gonna go in and do therapy. Well, great.
Lora Cheadle [00:08:44]:
You can do it on Zoom. If you go to betterhelp.combackslashflaunt, f l a u n t, you will get 10% off your entire first month of therapy. So betterhelp.com/flaunt. Send the betraying partner there. If they don’t like the first therapist, they can switch therapists along the way. Everything is totally confidential. Easy, easy, easy to do that work that way. That’s what I recommend for the person who cheated.
Lora Cheadle [00:09:17]:
For the betrayed partner, for you, the person who was duped, who was lied to, who was manipulated, I usually recommend coaching. The reason that I recommend coaching instead of therapy is because coaching is forward leaning. It helps you take charge and take the next steps forward. We don’t spend time in coaching going back through your past and digging things up. We spend time right now taking constructive steps forward. If you wish to work with a therapist at a later point in time to uncover some of your patterns and the reasons why you do things that you do, that’s perfectly valid. But what I do, what we do in coaching is help you move forward. Hey.
Lora Cheadle [00:10:06]:
I’m acting in a codependent manner. Let’s figure out how I can act in a different manner. Let’s figure out how I can show up differently so I can maybe impact this relationship differently. So I can stand in my power, so I cannot give things away. Let’s figure out how right now I can reclaim my identity that was so unceremoniously ripped from me by this betrayal. Let me figure out how I can trust my truth and lean into my own intuition so I can start discerning what’s true and what’s not true. On the legal side, let’s start figuring out some of your rights. Let’s start taking steps to protect yourself.
Lora Cheadle [00:10:49]:
It’s very constructive, and it helps you move forward quickly. Traditional therapy is slow. And while it’s very worthwhile, I really think you need coaching to help you move forward more quickly and start getting a handle on this situation. Plus, coaching does not require the betrayer’s participation. It doesn’t require their participation. This is something that you can do on your own with or without him because truly, let’s be honest. It’s not about you fixing him. I know we all want to.
Lora Cheadle [00:11:31]:
Right? I know I wasted a lot of time trying to fix him if I can only get him to see, if I can only get him to understand. Oh my gosh. Look at what his trauma is doing to him. But it’s not about him. It’s about me. I’m the one that’s been hurt. I’m the one that’s been wounded. How do I fix me? So that’s why I do things differently here.
Lora Cheadle [00:11:56]:
I help you focus on healing you. Okay. You’ve been betrayed. You have experienced betrayal trauma. That’s a thing. It’s a real thing. Betrayal trauma is similar to PTSD. It’s not that you’re weak.
Lora Cheadle [00:12:19]:
It’s not that you’re overly emotional. You have experienced a significant trauma. Betrayal is not a relationship crisis. Betrayal is not a relationship crisis. That’s why so often people will say marriage counseling isn’t working. It’s not working because it’s not a relationship crisis. It is an individual trauma. It is a full body, full life trauma.
Lora Cheadle [00:12:45]:
Your entire nervous system has been impacted. Your brain, your heart, your emotions, your life. This is a full life trauma. When you experience a full life trauma, your nervous system responds. All of our nervous systems respond. Betrayal activates the survival instinct because everything that you have relied on and counted on and trusted is no longer happening. It activates fight, flight, freeze, or the newer one is either fawn or fix. So that’s where you’re like, I’m gonna fix it.
Lora Cheadle [00:13:24]:
I’m gonna fix it. And I think so many of us go into fix, and we go into, I’m gonna fix our partner. And that’s where the problem lies. Trying to fix your partner is a nervous system trauma response. Trying to fix your partner is a trauma response. Breathe in, breathe out, and let that sink in. Later on down the line, supporting your partner in their own work is different. But right here, right now, trying to fix your partner is a trauma response.
Lora Cheadle [00:14:06]:
Okay. So your survival instinct has been activated because of this full body betrayal trauma. What do you do? Time does not heal all wounds. Waiting does not work. Trauma gets stored in our mind and our body. If you have not read the Bessel van der Kolk book, The Body Keeps the Score, I highly recommend it. It’s thick. It’s powerful, but it’ll help you understand how and why trauma gets stored in the body as well as teach you the importance of releasing that trauma so you don’t impact yourself quite literally for the rest of your life.
Lora Cheadle [00:14:47]:
So you don’t impact your kids and future generations. Trauma gets stored in the body and the mind and without actively healing. You will stay stuck in a loop of hypervigilance. Hypervigilance, hyper focus, obsessive thoughts, self doubt, and emotional paralysis. And that is a loop. And if you’re in that place right now where you’re like, I’m triggered all the time. I’m hypervigilant all the time. I have obsessive thoughts.
Lora Cheadle [00:15:21]:
I doubt myself. I feel stupid. I’m completely paranoid paralyzed and paranoid. Then what you’re experiencing is normal. But my ask for you is to not wait, not stay in the spot forever. I want you to feel all your feelings. I’m not talking about pretending they don’t exist and just, like, moving on, but I’m talking about feeling them fully with direction and with awareness. So you know that you’re moving through them and you were feeling better.
Lora Cheadle [00:15:57]:
You’re digesting them. You’re processing them. Think about this is so gross, but sometimes gross examples are are the best. Think about when you are like the stomach flu. What is our first reaction? My first reaction when I’m laying there in bed and I’m like, I’ve got this stomach flu and this isn’t gonna be good. My first reaction is I wanna suppress it. I wanna ignore it. I’m always like, maybe I can just fall asleep and, like, sleep through this and then I’ll never be sick.
Lora Cheadle [00:16:30]:
My first reaction is to suppress that urge to vomit as long as possible Because I don’t wanna go there because I know once I start throwing up, it’s gonna keep going and it’s gonna keep going and I’m gonna be on the bathroom floor and I’m gonna be miserable. And then the entire next day, I’m gonna be weak and I’m gonna be laying in bed and I’m gonna be nauseous. So I suppress. And I think so many of us do that too. When it’s something that we don’t want to deal with, we suppress it. It’s not gonna happen. It’s not gonna happen. It’s not gonna happen.
Lora Cheadle [00:17:03]:
It’s not gonna oh my god. It’s happening. That’s what I’m talking about when I talk about feeling your feelings. I know you don’t want to start feeling this. I know you don’t want to start this process, but it’s a process. And as gross as it sounds, it’s just like the stomach flu. You’re not gonna lay on the bathroom floor, vomiting for the rest of your life. When you have the stomach flu or food poisoning, you get it out of your system.
Lora Cheadle [00:17:29]:
You have to puke it up. You have to it’s disgusting. You have to get through it. You have to give the chance the the body the chance to heal. And within a few days, you’re eating again and you feel normal. I wish I could tell you recovering from infidelity and betrayal takes a few days, but it does, and it takes longer than that. But my analogy still stands. You have to lean in.
Lora Cheadle [00:17:51]:
You have to, quote, unquote, vomit. You have to do all of that stuff, and you have to get through it. Because the more you try to suppress it, the worse it’s going to get. And then when it explodes, it is not going to be a pretty picture. So feel your emotions fully. This is in service of doing more than just surviving. This is in service of reclaiming your divine sovereignty. This is in service of coming back home to you.
Lora Cheadle [00:18:22]:
This is in service of keeping your body and your mind healthy. Healthy, free, powerful, clean, so you don’t have trauma stored in your body the rest of your life. Trauma that’s stored in your body or your mind creates physical ailments. It creates emotional ailments. It impacts relationships, not only relationships with your significant with your significant other or future partners, but with your kids at work. It makes you hypervigilant and afraid everywhere. It can change your personality. When you talk about people going through traumatic events and they come out totally different.
Lora Cheadle [00:19:02]:
Some people’s hair turns gray. All of these things happen. You need to get it out of your body. So active healing is necessary. Time alone does not heal wounds. Action does. I also wanna talk about the difference between coping and healing. Coping is fine.
Lora Cheadle [00:19:30]:
Sometimes we just need to cope, especially early on. We need to cope. We need to get through the day. We need to have food and water. We need to sleep. Oh my gosh. How many of you did not sleep? I could not sleep. I couldn’t sleep.
Lora Cheadle [00:19:50]:
Little tip. One of the things that really helped me was listening to Esther Hicks. Esther and Esther Abraham Hicks. As you might or might not know, I channel, so I’m big in the channeling community, and I love listening to channeled material. For those of you who are like, channel what? What do you channel? Channeling spirit. Whether it’s channeling angels or guides or, just any any entity out there, spiritual entity or being to help, I channel a group of beings called the librarians that tap into universal human wisdom and knowledge. The librarians record the records around each lesson. So, like, a solo lesson of betrayal, a solo lesson of abandonment, a solo lesson of self worth.
Lora Cheadle [00:20:42]:
They get the records from all of the souls who have gone through those lessons, and they tap in to that wisdom that has been gained by every individual. And when I do readings and when I do channelings with them, we tap into that record so you can get more information about the lesson that your soul is going through. And you can kinda gauge, like, why is your soul going through this? Or what does your partner have to do with this? What do you have to do with this? And this is one of the things that I do in my coaching as well because I think it’s important to understand why am I going through this. It’s not just random. If you’re going through betrayal, what is the soul lesson around betrayal? What is the deeper meaning of this experience? I think most importantly for you, but also for your partner because this is a karmic relationship between you two. Why are you two doing this? Why is this happening? What is it here to teach you? What is it here to teach your partner? And I think, most importantly, what can you do to learn this lesson fully so you can move forward? So when I do the channeling and things like that, that’s about that real healing. That’s not about just coping. It’s about really healing and having that deeper understanding.
Lora Cheadle [00:22:18]:
So the reason I went down this path is, sleeping. I absolutely could not sleep. And the only way that I could find some comfort is on YouTube, I would listen to channeled messages. I would listen to a lot of Esther Hicks channeling Abraham because just her soothing voice and the energy of that channeled information would soothe me to sleep. So I’ve been in the process of really building up my YouTube channel, and I’ve got a whole playlist on channeling from the librarians. And I don’t have my sleep playlist completely done yet, but I’m working on it. I’m working on it. But that was one of those things that would help me cope in the short run to fall asleep, but then was also facilitating that real deep healing, that real deep understanding.
Lora Cheadle [00:23:12]:
And that’s what I what I pride myself in giving people is tools that will first help you cope, which is getting through the immediate in service of deep healing, which is understanding that global perspective, that soul perspective. Because it’s not just about healing right here, right now. It’s not just about custody of the kids or repairing your marriage or figuring out the division of your four zero one k, although that’s really important. To me, it’s the deeper lesson. Why did I go through this? I oh my god. It was so painful. It was so painful. It was horror.
Lora Cheadle [00:23:59]:
It was such utter horror to learn that fifteen years of what I thought was a marriage, my husband was with somebody else. I mean, it was like this whole double life. And the horror, unless you’ve been there, the horror is indescribable. And, yes, I needed to cope in that moment, but I need a deep healing. I needed to understand why this would happen to me, why this would happen to me. I’m a good person, and I try hard. And I’m loyal and loving and kind. And I think about not harming people and, like, all of those things.
Lora Cheadle [00:24:44]:
I’m a really good person. I know you’re a really good person too. That’s why you’re here. That’s why we attract each other. Because it was like, how can I really give my heart and soul to being the perfect wife and the perfect mom only to be treated like this? Are you kidding? Yes. I need to cope in the short run so I can sleep and eat and freaking function. But I need a much bigger understanding of this. I need this explained to me because it needs to be worth it.
Lora Cheadle [00:25:18]:
At the end of the at the end of my life, I want to be on my deathbed being like, I get it. I get it. Thank you for this amazing journey. I fully understand. And this is the part that just makes me cry. I want it to be so powerful that I will walk this path again. That’s healing. That’s pure healing being like, I get it so much that I would voluntarily choose to walk this path again because it was worth it.
Lora Cheadle [00:25:51]:
And that’s my standard for you too. Let’s figure out how to cope in the short run, but let’s make this deep, real healing to the point that you’d be like, yeah. It was worth it. It was absolutely worth it because of what it’s brought me and because of who I have become after that. Okay. Let’s talk about what it looks like when you don’t actively heal. When you just let time go and you slowly start forgetting and you slowly start getting distracted. And you’re like, yeah.
Lora Cheadle [00:26:26]:
I’m just in my new life, and he’s in his new life and whatever. Or, yeah, we’ve just gone back to pretend normal. Yeah. Every it’s just we’re just brushing it under the rug. We’re never gonna mention it again. Oh my gosh. Sometimes my people will tell me that. They’ll be like, our agreement was to never mention it again.
Lora Cheadle [00:26:44]:
Are you kidding? Are you kidding? That’s ignoring something that is sticking your head in the sand. When you ignore something, when you just surface heal, when you get distracted and just move on, what happens is you continue to repeat unhealthy patterns. If you’re in the same relationship, you keep doing that same dance. And here’s the worst part too. If you’re in a new relationship and you’re like, set them free. I’m gonna move on to it. You start creating those same patterns in your new relationship. And this new relationship that seems so good at the outset, just like your current relationship probably seems so good at the outset, producing those same patterns and same spiral start repeating, and you create subconsciously the same dynamic.
Lora Cheadle [00:27:38]:
It’s not necessarily that you create more cheating. That’s not how it works, but it’s the same dynamic. And here’s the thing. Who wants the same same dynamic? Not me. Okay. The other thing that happens if you don’t actively heal, if you really don’t take this bull by the horns and actively heal, is your self worth, your self esteem takes a hit. You slowly, over time, start trusting yourself less and less. That level of emotional security, that level of self awareness, that level of I am a worthy being, and I can stand in my power, and I can hold anything because I am inherently worthy and I have inherent worth, that slowly gets eroded.
Lora Cheadle [00:28:33]:
What I don’t like to hear this is another myth. One of the myths out there is if he cheats, you take him for all his work. You revenge cheat. You go girl. There’s all of this, like, rah rah female empowerment stuff. And what I don’t love about the rah rah, you go girl, take him for all he’s worth, walk out of here, get your dignity, is it’s false empowerment. It’s not that common here at worth that this is what I don’t deserve. This is what I’m willing to tolerate.
Lora Cheadle [00:29:08]:
This is what I’m not willing to tolerate. It’s not you being in authentic power. It’s you being in this one upstate of, yeah. I’m gonna revenge cheat. And I’m gonna take him for all these words, and I’m gonna tell the affair partner, and I’m gonna do this, and I’m gonna do that. It’s a false empowerment. And, again, going back to the coping versus long term healing, in the short run, falsely pumping yourself up into this big state of I got this and I don’t deserve it. In the short run to cope, that can keep you high.
Lora Cheadle [00:29:43]:
That can keep you elevated. That can keep you from sobbing and crying, and that can remind you of who you are. But that’s not that’s not real self worth. People who are inherently worthy, that worth comes from that internal knowingness, from their ability to trust themselves fully, from their ability to know how to emotionally regulate themselves, to know how to get help, to know how to invest in themselves, care for themselves, honor themselves, trust themselves. It’s this really deep, rich, fulfilling way to live. And, yes, sometimes it can be louder, but most often, it’s more quiet and it’s powerful because I set boundaries. And I follow-up on my boundaries, not from a place of rage or demanding or controlling, but from that place of deep authenticity, from that place of deeply knowing my worth. That’s healed.
Lora Cheadle [00:30:57]:
Rah rah, you go girl. Take him for all he’s worth. You deserve better. Set him free. I’m gonna do better next time. That’s falsely empowering yourself. That’s a coping skill, but that’s not real healing. And unless you really truly heal, you’ll slide back into life.
Lora Cheadle [00:31:17]:
Yes. But then the next thing that takes you down, a job loss, something going on with family, friends, whatever, where you’ve been hurt, then you don’t have skills to repair. You don’t have skills to repair that hurt. So once again, you have to go into that false empowerment state of, I’m gonna get them, and I’m gonna show them, and I’m gonna teach them. And for me, I just think it’s more valuable to learn those skills as difficult as it can be and as painful as it can be. Once you know how to have your own back and to honor yourself, once you are fully connected to your worth, then you’re unstoppable. Whatever happens to you in the future, you’ll be able to manage it and deal with it. Yes.
Lora Cheadle [00:32:11]:
You’ll have to go through the pain. Yes. You might need to do some short term things to cope, but who you are, your self worth, your self esteem, your tools, setting boundaries, and advocating for yourself and speaking for your true for speaking your truth are so clear that you never really have to worry again because you know you’ve got your own back. And I think the way to sum that up is it’s knowing that the betrayal doesn’t define your future. It’s not like you’re going out there and you’re damaged goods. So many people say they’re broken. We’re all broken. We all got broken by this.
Lora Cheadle [00:32:58]:
But that doesn’t define your future. If you do you want to stay broken? Do you wanna stay in a heap on the floor? Do you wanna be put back together in a really cattywampus way? Or do you wanna rebuild your life and yourself in a way that serves you better? Betrayal does not define your future. It’s something that happened along the way, but it does not define your future. And in service of that, I’m really big on reframing the betrayal because it’s not about fixing your partner. It’s not even about fixing the relationship. It’s about reclaiming you and deciding what you want to do after this. Think about the fires in Malibu in California recently. It’s horrible.
Lora Cheadle [00:33:52]:
It was devastating. A variety of celebrities and regular people. It took everybody out. It’s not like it took only the lower class out or it was everybody. These fires ripped through California, and they took everybody out. It was a catastrophe. It was a tragedy. It was unfair.
Lora Cheadle [00:34:18]:
It happened to good people, and it happened to bad people. It happened to people who deserved it, and it happened to people who didn’t deserve it. And what are you gonna do with that? People can give up and walk away, or they can rebuild. And they can learn and rebuild better. Maybe not rebuild in that same area. Maybe rebuild with different equipment. What did the city of Malibu learn? What did the, you know, the I there was a whole thing about not having water to some of the fire hydrants. There’s a lot of lessons that come from this.
Lora Cheadle [00:34:52]:
We don’t just ignore it and rebuild the same house on the same land using the same materials. We figure out what we need to do, and we make it better. Were those people victimized? Yes. Were you victimized? Yes. You are 100% victimized by this betrayal, but you don’t have to play the role of the victim forever. You need to cope in the short run, and then you need to figure out what you’re gonna do with it because that is real healing. So don’t play the role of the victim. Yes.
Lora Cheadle [00:35:31]:
You were victimized. I was victimized. I’ve been victimized in so many different ways and so many different scenarios, and I’m not going to play the role of the victim. I’m going to heal, not just cope, not just brush it under the carpet. I’m going to heal and move on. I wanna lead into four essential tools for emotional regulation. Now these are just short term essential tools that will help you regulate emotionally right here right now so you can cope with whatever it is you’re going through. The first one of those is somatic healing.
Lora Cheadle [00:36:08]:
As I said earlier, batrauma is stored in the body. The way to get it out is movement, breath work, and emotional system resets. Hop on my YouTube. Lora Cheadle, life choreography. You look up with the YouTube somatic movement. I have got many different somatic movement videos. But right here, right now, move your body. Get out of your head and get into your body.
Lora Cheadle [00:36:35]:
Ask your body, what do you need right now? Do you need water? Do you need a nap? What do you need? Your body will tell you. Does it need stillness? Does it need deep breath work? Does it need energizing breath work? Energizing breath work is like really flipping that lower belly in, and yoga is the breath of fire, Kabbalah body that stimulates energy. Try. Try some fast breaths. Try some long, slow, deep breaths. Which feels better right now? Once you know how it feels in your body, you will be more likely and more able to answer those questions for yourself. What do I need right now? Quick breaths, deep breaths. What do I need right now? A nap and stillness? Sometimes we need to stare at a wall.
Lora Cheadle [00:37:29]:
What do I need right now? Violent, aggressive kickboxing and running up a mountain or gentle, flowing, stretching. Try all of the things and get to know what body work and what breath work feels best for you, and then ask yourself what you need. Another great nervous system reset that I just learned about is gargling. Yes. You heard me right. Gargling is a great way. When you gargle, put some water in your mouth and tip your head back and do that, you know, that thing, that hits the vagus nerve, and that can help reset your nervous system. And what I’ve really loved about gargling as I’ve been playing with it is it also changes your breathing because you can’t be breathing and gargling or you’re gonna choke and die.
Lora Cheadle [00:38:20]:
We don’t want that. So you have to get the liquid in your mouth. You have to tip your head back. You have to take a deep breath, and you have to breathe as you gargle. So try gargling when you feel dysregulated, when you feel like you’re in a state of fight, flight, freeze, or fix. Go gargle. Just three or four rounds. Ask your body what it needs, and do that.
Lora Cheadle [00:38:47]:
The second tool we hear a lot about is mindfulness, self awareness, recognizing your triggers and controlling your reaction instead of spiraling. A big one is checking your partner’s phone. Let me ask you. How do you feel when you’ve checked your partner’s phone? Does it bring you, calm and relief, or does it agitate you? Does the whole thought of checking his phone agitate you? This is being mindful and self aware. It agitates me. The thought of checking the phone or checking phone records or checking it agitates me. I’m not gonna go there. It sends me in a spiral.
Lora Cheadle [00:39:30]:
And you might be arguing that I might need to know. Maybe. But how does it make you feel? And do you really need to know it or is that a story you’re telling yourself? This is where mindfulness and self awareness comes in. What do you need? What do you not need? And always ask yourself, is this gonna help, or is this going to hurt? The third tool that is essential for emotional regulation is legal and intellectual clarity. Legal and intellectual clarity. We have a fear response when we don’t know our future. We catastrophize so easily. Oh my god.
Lora Cheadle [00:40:20]:
I’m gonna get divorced, and I’m gonna end up living under a bridge. When you have legal clarity, it helps you regulate because you know what’s real. You know the facts. You know if you were to divorce roughly what you’re entitled to in terms of child support, in terms of maintenance, in terms of property division, in terms of houses and cars and assets. One of the things that I do coaching is we do this legal analysis to help you understand what might you be entitled to. What’s realistic? What would you have to do in terms of income? What are you entitled to? What’s really going to happen? Which is so anxiety provoking. And then we do the legal analysis, and everybody’s like, oh, this wasn’t as terrifying as I thought. Same thing with walking you through what a divorce is like.
Lora Cheadle [00:41:19]:
How many of you have this big, like, thing set up in your brain about how horrible a divorce is gonna be? Okay. Let me walk you through what it’s like. When you know the steps, it’s not as scary because you know what to anticipate. You know what’s happening. That legal clarity makes a huge difference. Same thing with the intellectual clarity around why did your partner cheat. So often we internalize that and we think it’s our fault and we did something wrong and or that they don’t love us or blah blah blah blah blah. When you have that intellectual clarity about what it means when a guy cheats and it means nothing about you, it means that they have an inability to cope.
Lora Cheadle [00:42:00]:
They can’t regulate their internal state, they can’t identify what’s going on, then it’s like, oh. And it makes you so much more calm. When you understand your rights and your options and learns what’s really going on, it breeds a sense of calm instead of a sense of panic. My god. Is he gonna leave? Do I even have a choice? Do I need to fix things? Do I? Does he? Does this? Oh my god. What if? What if? What if? What if? And then lastly, that fourth essential tool for emotional regulation is spiritual sovereignty. And we talked quite a lot about that earlier, but that’s that rebuilding trust in yourself and in your intuition and in your ability to navigate this. I can’t tell you how many people say to me, and I felt this way too.
Lora Cheadle [00:42:53]:
Like, I I don’t even know how I’m gonna handle this. I don’t know how I’m gonna get through this. Here’s the thing. I didn’t know how I was gonna get through it. You don’t know how you’re gonna get through it, but you will. You will step by step. You will piece at a time, and you do have a choice. You can get through it by sticking your head in the sand and by ignoring and placating and going back to normal and then having these triggers come up and leading the rest of your life with a slight roller coaster going on or a slight circular, you know, relationship going on where things get better and we’re in the loving connected stage, and then we’re disconnected and we really feel panicked and we want to rebuild that connection.
Lora Cheadle [00:43:37]:
Oh my god. Now we’re connected again and whoops. Now we’re disconnecting again. Or you can really rebuild trust in yourself. You could understand what this is all about. You can tackle those patterns and those habits once and for all. You can reconnect to your intuition. You can get into those karmic soul lessons, and you can really up your ability to navigate all this because you understand why you are doing it.
Lora Cheadle [00:44:07]:
Okay. Those were those four essential tools for emotional regulation, which are more in the short term. I wanna give you four now that are really more for the long term. Long term recovery strategies. Somatic healing, mindfulness self aware, legal intellectual clarity, and spiritual sovereignty, though those all help in the short run, but let’s talk about this long term. These four long term recovery strategies are, first, breaking the cycle of waiting. Breaking the cycle of waiting. Waiting for closure.
Lora Cheadle [00:44:50]:
Waiting for validation. Waiting for him to change, waiting for him to get a clue, waiting for him to realize that his family is the best thing that ever happened to him, waiting to realize that the affair affair partner is manipulative. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. What are you waiting for? Oh my gosh. I hope that felt slightly like a gut punch because it’s a big one. I’m always waiting to lose weight. I’m waiting for, you know, my social media to take off. I’m waiting for time to get my home organized.
Lora Cheadle [00:45:38]:
I’m waiting for that next raise. I’m waiting for the kids to get older. I’m waiting for a graduation, a wedding, event. We’re always waiting. I’m waiting to get a better job. I’m waiting for his retirement to kick in. I’m waiting. I can’t say enough about breaking this habit of waiting.
Lora Cheadle [00:46:08]:
Because my favorite reframe around this is then you’re just waiting to die. Literally, you’re biding your time and you’re waiting to die. Life is not about waiting. Life is about living, and it’s about living now. It’s about loving yourself now. It’s about stepping into your sovereignty and power now. It’s about refusing to tolerate all the things that you do not deserve to tolerate now. It’s about fullness and beauty now.
Lora Cheadle [00:46:51]:
What are you waiting for, and how can I help you lean into that now? This is one of the questions that I love to ask on the free discovery call when I work with people who are deciding what way they wanna work with me. Is it in a package? Is it one on one coaching? Is it weekly? Is it monthly? Is it biweekly? One of the things that I talk to them about is this whole idea of waiting. Why are you waiting? Why are you waiting to decide to work with me? What is that waiting about? Tell me what’s coming up. Is it I’m waiting to decide if I’m worth it? Is it I’m waiting to decide if I really need support? And is that really about a sense of deserving? Do you feel like you deserve support? Do you feel like you deserve somebody by your side loving you, honoring you, holding you? And so many people at this point kind of get teary. Because what it brings up is the sense of I get it because I go through this too. I can do this on my own. I can make do. I can bootstrap my recovery.
Lora Cheadle [00:48:20]:
I can get a little help here. I can get some free resources there. I can listen to this podcast. I can do all these little things, but I’m not gonna really honor myself and take that step. I’m waiting for someone to say you’re worth it, sweetheart. Beautiful, sweet Lora. You’re worth it. Go do this.
Lora Cheadle [00:48:42]:
It’s gonna change everything for you, and you are worth it. I’m waiting for that. I’m waiting. I’m gonna pay everybody else first. And what’s left over, I’ll spend on me. I’m gonna take care of everybody else first. And with whatever energy I have at the end of the day, then I’ll take care of me. I am waiting for everybody else to go first, and that’s backwards.
Lora Cheadle [00:49:18]:
Because of the truth of the matter is you are the only one who can prioritize you. And as long as you put yourself last place in your own life, you are always going to be in last place. So what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? What is stopping you from stepping into that next chapter? Long term recovery is about breaking that cycle of waiting in all areas of your life, and it’s about living fully right now. It’s a big one. The second long term recovery strategy is about reclaiming your identity. My book, my first book, Flaunt, drop your cover and reveal your smart, sexy, and spiritual self is all about identity and reclaiming your identity and shedding the labels and the rules and the scripts and the identities that have been placed on you by society, by culture, by your family, by school, by your religion, by all of those things, and getting back to who you were before the world told you who to be. And there’s two layers here. First, let’s get back to who you were before the betrayal.
Lora Cheadle [00:50:49]:
Who were you before infidelity? Let’s get back to who you were before infidelity. But then deeper than that, who were you even before? Because I’ve talked about this earlier in the show. Who you were before was great. Your relationship, I’m sure there’s a lot of great things, but how can you elevate that? This is not about going back to before. This is about coming home to your soul, to your heart. This is about reclaiming your divine self. This is about full living into the fullness of who you are. This is about who you were always meant to be in conjunction with who do you want to become now.
Lora Cheadle [00:51:49]:
Before the betrayal, I was a little bit of a martyr. I was a little bit of a, I do everything for everybody. I was the sacrificial lamb. I did everything for everyone and nobody ever noticed how amazing I was. I don’t want to go back to that. It didn’t feel good. It wasn’t healthy. I want to move forward into my power, into my abilities, into my joy.
Lora Cheadle [00:52:20]:
I wanna exude joy from within. I want to live fully and not wait. I want the identity of a strong, powerful, sovereign, glorious, laughter filled woman who is not waiting to lose 10 pounds, who is not waiting to touch up her roots, who is not waiting for anything to happen, but who is living fully and freely right now. That’s long term recovery. That’s not coping. This is what I’m talking about when I talk about healing fully. I had mentioned my book, FLAWNT, drop your cover and reveal your smart, sexy, and spiritual self. And for those of you who have read it or who have been following me for a while, you know that FLAWNT is an acronym.
Lora Cheadle [00:53:15]:
And it’s the acronym for my framework around that full free self expression. And that is that third strategy for long term healing and recovery, full self expression. I want to use my voice. I want to use my body. I want to use my mind. I want to express myself fully. I don’t wanna be repressed. I don’t wanna be held back.
Lora Cheadle [00:53:40]:
Oh my god. I don’t wanna care what people think. I don’t wanna have to wear the appropriate thing or say the appropriate thing. It’s not about being in your face and being obnoxious. It’s about letting my love flow. It’s about letting my joy flow. It’s about looking how I wanna look. It’s about being comfortable in my own skin.
Lora Cheadle [00:53:59]:
It’s about not censoring my words at work. It’s about showing up fully in full self expression, owning my desires, being fully in my in my confidence, saying what I don’t know, getting help when I need help, and expressing my joy and my love fully and freely. That flaunt framework is what will get you there. And we don’t have time to go into it all right now, and I’ve got a whole show on the framework. But FLOT stands for find your fetish. Find those things that bring you joy and lean into them. L is laugh out loud. Laughter calms and reregulates the nervous system.
Lora Cheadle [00:54:46]:
I wanna express myself in laughter. I wanna express myself, of course, appropriately with laughter, but I want a life filled with laughter. My work, my home, my friends, my family, it’s about finding my fetish and laughing out loud. AU is accept unconditionally. That’s the golden center of flaunt. It’s about accepting myself and my age. Guess what? I’m aging. Guess what? My jawline’s saggy.
Lora Cheadle [00:55:13]:
Guess what? I’ve got crow’s feet. Guess what? I’ve got this flabby belly. Guess what? Things aren’t perfect. Guess what? I don’t care because I accept unconditionally. You can judge me. Other people can judge me. They can think I’m crazy so often. People have said to me, your whole thing is just crazy.
Lora Cheadle [00:55:31]:
You can’t just live with your partner and have this glorious life. He did this to you. Guess what? I sure can’t. I am fully expressing myself. I express myself more fully to my partner than I ever have before because I’m not afraid, because I know my boundaries, because I know how to communicate. Guess what? He expresses more fully to me, and we figure it out. And we negotiate, and we work, and we laugh, and then we totally mess it up, and we scream psychotically at each other, and we cry, and we get into these catastrophic spaces where I’m like, oh my god. This is so horrible.
Lora Cheadle [00:56:05]:
And then I’m like, oh, grow up, Lora. You can figure this out. And I use my skills, and I figure it out. But I express myself fully. I don’t rail on people. This is not about being a screaming meanie. It’s about expressing yourself fully and owning your full self expression in service of authentically being who you are, in service of breaking the cycle of always waiting, in service of living fully. And this leaves per leads perfectly into my fourth long term strategy for healing, which is boundaries and protection.
Lora Cheadle [00:56:41]:
It’s learning how to say no and mean it. It’s learning how to set boundaries around yourself, around your relationship, around your worth, around your time. It’s learning how to say no and mean it and walk away if that’s what you need to do. It’s learning how to walk towards if that’s what you need to do. It’s learning about pulling in. It’s learning about not caring, not being afraid, and it’s learning how to prioritize yourself. This goes back earlier to what I was talking about with self worth and self esteem. I know who I am.
Lora Cheadle [00:57:16]:
I know what I deserve. And it’s not hard to set a boundary, and it doesn’t feel scary. You probably know that feeling where you’re like, oh my god. I have to do this, and I’m scared to death to do it. You don’t have to be scared to death to do this anymore. You know how to do it now. The biggest takeaway that I want you to have from this show is you don’t have to lose years of your life to betrayal and betrayal recovery. You don’t need to spend the next ten years in therapy waiting to heal and waiting to have a good relationship and waiting to figure yourself out.
Lora Cheadle [00:57:51]:
You don’t have to wait. The biggest thing I want you to take away is you can heal and rise and thrive now. Now. You get to do that now. And I can show you how. If you need help, I can show you how. The first step is by downloading the new betrayal recovery guide. This is a totally new one.
Lora Cheadle [00:58:21]:
If you’ve gotten it before, sign up again. It’s an entirely new document, betrayalrecoveryguide.com. It’ll walk you through the five stages of healing. It will give you some of these tools, some of these short term strategies in service of getting to the long term healing. But if you want that long term healing, reach out. We can start today. We can start your healing today. Live fully.
Lora Cheadle [00:58:47]:
Live freely now. Have an amazing weekend. As usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are because who you are is always more than enough.
Lora Cheadle [00:59:00]:
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 7AM and 7PM Eastern Standard Time on syndicated DreamVision seven 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.