Why You’re Still Stuck: Masculine & Feminine Energy, Inner Child Healing & Sovereignty After Betrayal

“You might not like your choices—but you do have them. You are an adult. And that means you have power.”

In this powerful, soul-level conversation, Lora goes deep into why healing doesn’t work for so many women—even when they’re doing all the therapy, reading, journaling, and emotional work. And the answer? It’s not about trying harder. It’s about energy balance, integration, and inner sovereignty.

Start Here – A Quick Note About This Episode

This is a deeper episode—a masterclass-style conversation that weaves together multiple advanced healing concepts:

Masculine vs. feminine energy integration
Inner child vs. adult self
Partner polarity and healing dynamics
Structure vs. surrender in recovery

If one part hits you harder than another, trust that. Healing is layered. You might come back and re-listen again and again as you grow. Let this episode meet you exactly where you are.

Top 3 Takeaways

Energy is Everything: You can’t heal without a balance of masculine (structure, leadership) and feminine (emotion, flow) energies—within yourself and your relationship.
You Are Not a Child Anymore: Learning to separate your adult self from your wounded inner child is how you reclaim your power and end the fear of abandonment.
Healing Is Not Linear—It’s Energetic, Emotional, and Embodied: If you’ve been stuck in your head or in endless tears, it’s time to realign and embody the opposite energy to create balance and momentum.

This Episode Is for You If:

You feel like you’ve “done everything right” in your healing journey, but still feel stuck
You’re overwhelmed with emotion or paralyzed by logic—and don’t know how to move forward
You want to understand the deep emotional and energetic dynamics between you and your partner
You’re ready to integrate your inner child, reclaim your adult power, and rise

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You deserve more than survival. You deserve sovereignty, peace, and joy.

About Lora:

Lora Cheadle, JD, CHt is a betrayal recovery coach, attorney, TEDx speaker, and author of FLAUNT! and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal.

After uncovering her husband’s 15-year affair, she turned her own pain into purpose—helping high-achieving women reclaim their identity, power, and joy.

A trauma-aware coach, somatic therapist, and former attorney, Lora blends legal insight with emotional and spiritual healing for full-spectrum recovery.

✨ Learn more at LoraCheadle.com →

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Books By Lora

International Book Award, Finalist Motivational Self-Help 2021
• Tattered Cover Bestseller 2019

Are you tired of living a life dictated by others? If you’ve felt trapped by expectations and long o be free, FLAUNT! is the key to unlocking who you are, expressing yourself authentically, and choreographing your life your way.

Reclaim yourself with this transformative guide that empowers you to strip away societal expectations and reveal your smart, sexy, and spiritual self.

Through a unique blend of humor, wisdom, and actionable steps, you can uncover your deepest desires and build the confidence to live a life full of passion and purpose.

Buy Now on Amazon, or wherever books are sold.

It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive, is the essential guide for burnout and betrayal relief. Packed with insight and practical tools, this book is a must-have for individuals, teams, and leaders alike.

Available on Amazon.

Learn more 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 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. Dot.

Lora Cheadle [00:00:35]:
If you are wondering, why am I still stuck after my partner’s infidelity or betrayal, I’m doing everything right. Why am I still stuck? Then this is the show for you. What I want you to know is you are not crazy. You have just got some unbalanced energies going on inside of you. And today I’m going to explain what that is, what that means, and then I’m going to help you balance them so you can finally move on and heal. So if you have been journaling, reading, listening to podcasts, working with a coach, working with a therapist, doing all of the right things, but you still feel broken, you still feel stuck, you still have intrusive thoughts, you just are emotionally off kilter, you just don’t feel like yourself anymore, then this episode is for you. We are going to talk about the real reason why healing isn’t working and how you might be missing the balance between masculine, divine, masculine and feminine, divine, feminine inside of you. Because without that balance, without that unity, without that wholeness, no amount of effort is going to set you free.

Lora Cheadle [00:02:07]:
And if you’re also feeling better within yourself but still stuck in your relationship, I’m going to show you how you and your partner together can also come together to create that unity, to create some polarity with the masculine and feminine. So you can both each be healing yourselves and your relationship along the way. And part of that healing, too, that I was talking about really kind of goes into some inner child work and we’re talking about integration, but there’s also a separation and of separating the inner child from the adult, separating out the beliefs and the attitudes and the fears of the inner child from the adult. And it can get kind of convoluted, so to stick with it. But it’s the integrating of the masculine and the feminine, it’s the integrating of the internal with the external. But it’s also that radical separation so you can step into your sovereignty, separating from your wounds, separating from the past, separating from false beliefs about yourself, separated from those roles. So it’s. It’s like a kaleidoscope you know, in that there’s parts where you’re pulling things together and then there’s also parts where you’re pulling it apart.

Lora Cheadle [00:03:34]:
So we’re going to start with the divine, masculine and feminine and the integration of both of those energies. But then when we really get to the end of the show, that’s when I’m going to go into some of the inner child stuff and talk some more about separating out that wounded little boy, that wounded little girl, that wounded sense of self, really allowing you to step into sovereignty because you are an adult and like it or not, you have choices. You might not like what those choices are, but you have choices and you have power. And it is up to you to direct the full course of your life. And that’s kind of the 360 degree view of the healing that we are going to go into today. Okay, for those of you who haven’t been here before, welcome. I’m really sorry that you’re here. You are now a part of a sacred sisterhood that, quite frankly, none of us ever wanted to be a part of.

Lora Cheadle [00:04:41]:
And what I know for sure is, even though this has been my worst pain, my absolute worst pain, and it’s an experience that I don’t wish on anyone, it was also the biggest catalyst for growth of my entire life. And I wouldn’t be the woman that I am today had I not gone through this journey and my relationship with my husband. Yes, we’re still together. Seven years later, we are still together. Our relationship wouldn’t be as strong or as honest, as raw or as intimate as it is today because of it. This experience really made me realize how there was so much performing going on in our life, in our marriage, how we were living up to rules, how we put on masks even to deal with each other, how we let the unhealed parts of us sometimes run the show. And this experience has really helped us shed those layers, connect to our vulnerability, manage shame, pain, trauma, become better communicators, and really reach a level of depth and intimacy that we, I don’t think could have ever had before. Was it easy? No, it was not easy.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:17]:
You know, just like any couple, we still have difficult moments, too. It’s not like we’ve walked into this little Disneyland, fairy godmother, adventure world. But there is such a deep connection, There is such raw vulnerability that we never had before. And for that I am endlessly grateful. Whether you stay with your partner, which is possible, if that’s what you both want, or whether you choose to Walk away or whether you’re like, I don’t even know what I want to choose. This show is going to help you. This community is going to help you. I can help you.

Lora Cheadle [00:06:59]:
Yes. I work one on one with both women and men and couples. So whatever you need, reach out. Lauraauracheadle.com and you can even begin by downloading my betrayal Recovery guide@betrayal recoveryguide.com and that will also lead you to the different ways that you can connect with me. So with that, I’m glad you’re here. I’m sad you’re here. And together we are going to rise and become stronger because of this. All right, Healing from betrayal, it really isn’t about just time or effort.

Lora Cheadle [00:07:43]:
It’s about energetics. It’s about the energetic integration within ourselves and with our partner. And in this episode, I really want to unpack some of the elements of masculine energy and feminine energy so we can lean into creating that sense of balance of divine masculine and feminine within which will create healing. And I’m also going to teach you exactly how to reclaim your power by embodying both structure and surrender. This episode is dropping around Father’s Day, and there’s no coincidence because of that. It’s really a tribute to everybody who is doing that deep work, who is transcending the toxic traits of generations in the past. Toxic masculinity, toxic femininity, abuse. And it’s really tributing men who want to step into their power, women who want to step into their power, and couples who, whether they stay together or not, are choosing healing and choosing growth with love, with strength, and most of all with truth.

Lora Cheadle [00:09:08]:
Okay, so here are the first three things that I want you to know. First, masculine and feminine has nothing to do with gender. It’s about energy. The second thing I want to talk about is structure versus flow, form versus surrender, because that’s what you need. That right there is that missing key in healing. If you’ve got too much structure, you’re not going to heal. If you’ve got too much flow and emotion, you’re also not going to heal. And the third thing I want to talk about is your partner’s role in helping you heal.

Lora Cheadle [00:09:45]:
Because if you’re going to stay together, even if you’re going to separate and co parent, you two will still have interactions together. And the man really is being tasked with growing up from wounded boy to divine leader. And we’re going to talk about that a little bit today. So let’s go ahead and start from the beginning. Okay? The first thing I want to talk about is really the definition of masculine and feminine, both toxic and feminine. First of all, all of us embody both masculine and feminine qualities. We embody both divine masculine. That kind of energy which both women and men embody is really about presence.

Lora Cheadle [00:10:42]:
It’s about protection, accountability, it’s about logic, clarity, it’s about conscious leadership, it’s about form. It’s really about the strength and the integrity. You might have heard people define masculine as like the banks of the river and feminine is the water that flows, it’s the river. Or masculine is the soup bowl and feminine is the soup. One of the ways I’ve really liked to describe it is masculine is the theater, it’s the stage, it’s the lights, it’s the seats. And the feminine is the players, the actors, the musicians that bring that theater to life. Toxic masculinity, on the other hand, is about control. It’s about domination, it’s about power over, it’s about avoidance, it’s about grandiosity, it’s about ego, it’s about emotional shutdown, it’s about take, take, take, take, take.

Lora Cheadle [00:11:52]:
It’s, it’s abusive. And sadly, in our culture in the western hemisphere, I think really all over the world, a lot of the toxic traits, toxic masculinity has been revered. We like, we think people who are domineering can be really strong. We, we like that take charge attitude, not in the healthy way, but in that overbearing way. So part of what I want to do today is really have you rethink the definitions of masculinity and femininity. So when you were using this to heal, you were clear that you’re not moving into a toxic masculine when I’m asking you to integrate more masculine into your own life. Now on the other side of the coin, we’ve got femininity. Divine femininity is all about intuition, flow, feeling connected, being vulnerable in a beautiful open way.

Lora Cheadle [00:13:03]:
It’s about creation, it’s about flowing with the seasons. That’s why so much of the work that I do is centered around the seasons. Because that is divine feminine, that is Mother Earth, that is beauty, it is joy, it is light. Whereas toxic femininity is about manipulation, it’s about chaos, it’s about martyrdom, it’s about emotional overwhelm, it’s about over functioning. And again, if you look at our culture, what are women encouraged to do? Women are encouraged to over give. They are encouraged to self sacrifice, they are encouraged to control through toxic manipulation. The feminine is not honored. The seasons waiting for the seed to crack open and to grow up through the soil is not honored.

Lora Cheadle [00:14:02]:
Waiting. Trusting intuition is not honored. If you were in a business meeting, or any kind of meeting for that matter, you and somebody has facts and figures and somebody has intuition, most people will lean on the facts and figures instead of the intuition. And that just shows this preference that has developed in our world for the masculine over the feminine. So again, I wanted to start with this description of masculine and feminine so you can see how the truly divine pure traits of masculine and feminine are powerful, free flowing, connection, vulnerable, creation, protection, strength, integrity, accountability. That is us in our highest and best selves. And that’s what we are striving for, both us and our partners, in order to heal. Now you might be saying, okay, that was a great little definition, Laura.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:08]:
And now I understand the difference between masculine and feminine. I know that both men and women embody, both know the difference between toxic and powerful and healthy. But what does this have to do with healing? What does this have to do with anything? Because it’s actually just ticking me off because now I can see how unhealed my partner was and if he would have been more healed, this wouldn’t have happened. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why we’re talking about this is this is a key to healing. Understanding and integrating the masculine and feminine within you is a key to healing. And it might be the reason why you were not healing despite doing everything right. Okay, now we’re going to move into the structure part.

Lora Cheadle [00:15:58]:
Structure heals. The masculine structure heals. It is essential to have structure to your recovery. It’s essential to read, listen to podcasts, work with somebody who has got a healing plan. My healing modality, my healing work is all based around the acronym flaunt. It takes you from that compressed, covered, pain filled, collapsed place to an open, expansive space. It is a step by step framework. It is a step by step roadmap that leads you from that collapsed, compressed place into hope and healing and happiness.

Lora Cheadle [00:16:54]:
It’s a process. It’s like the stages of grief. It’s a process. It’s not. It’s not just a free for all, it’s a process. It takes different people, different amounts of time to move through those stages of grief, to move through the stages of recovery. Because yes, all relationships are different, all people are different, but it’s a proven formula. You can’t expect to heal from betrayal unless you are following a proven formula.

Lora Cheadle [00:17:29]:
It is too important than to just wing it. Healing. In healing, you need Boundaries, you need legal knowledge, you need financial empowerment. You need to read, you need to journal, you need coaching. You need to educate yourself. This is all the masculine. This is the masculine energy. You contain some of that emotion.

Lora Cheadle [00:17:55]:
You are containing the emotion. But I want to be so clear, you’re not suppressing it. Go back to when I was talking about, masculine is the soup bowl and it holds the soup that is feminine. Masculine is the river banks, and a hold and guides and directs the flow of the river. We’re not talking about damming up the feminine, the flow, the water, the emotions. We’re talking about directing it. You probably have rage. You should have rage.

Lora Cheadle [00:18:28]:
You probably have grief. You should have grief. You probably have all of the things, and you should have all of those things. But do you have that masculine structure in place to hold and guide and direct it? So many of the people that I work with talk about the pain, the rage, and they talk about raging at their partners. They talk about falling apart at work. They talk about their partner getting tired of their anger, of their tears. It’s not about suppressing it, but how. How do you do that balance of letting it flow, and where do you.

Speaker C [00:19:10]:
Let it flow to?

Lora Cheadle [00:19:12]:
Because if you just keep letting the emotion flow, you can just create more emotion. You need the structure of the masculine to guide that healing. But here’s the thing. Sometimes we can get too stuck in our head. Sometimes we can get too much in the structure. I have read every single book, I have listened to every single podcast. I have done all of the things, and I don’t feel better. That’s when you need to start looking at, how can I move more into my feminine if I’ve done all the masculine? How can I move more into my feminine now to let some of that flow? And that’s what I want to move into next, is a little bit about that healthy feminine, feminine energy is flow.

Lora Cheadle [00:20:06]:
It’s emotion, it’s power. It is grief, it is tears, it is wailing. It is creative energy for the next chapter of your life, for your next incarnation, for your relationship. Emotion. Femininity is the language of healing. You can’t logic yourself out of betrayal trauma. You can’t look at your calendar and say, you know what? It’s been a year now, it’s over, and cut it. You can’t always stop the tears.

Lora Cheadle [00:20:44]:
It helps to understand things, but you can’t logic your way out of trauma. Trauma is not logical. Trauma is a powerful emotional and physiological response, and that is that feminine energy. Feminine energy allows grief. It Allows self expression. If you’re watching this, you’re seeing that I am moving a lot in the work that I do with people. We do somatic processing because we want to move. It’s sensuality, it’s sexuality.

Lora Cheadle [00:21:21]:
So often people hysterical bond and have a lot of sex with our partner after the betrayal, and then they feel absolutely crazy. That’s normal because you’re flowing something. Sometimes people just lean into wanting to feel sensuous themselves, wanting to feel beautiful themselves. It’s a way to flow emotion. It’s a way to create. Some people do get very creative. Some people just cry. Whatever it is for you, it is flowing again.

Lora Cheadle [00:21:54]:
Think about the river bowl. Think about the soup. Think about the actors or the musicians on stage. They are the ones emoting. Feminine energy is emoting energy, but just like the masculine. If you’re not healing, you could be stuck in feminine energy. If it’s been six months and you’re still crying every single day, maybe you’re stuck in that. If you are still having obsessive thoughts, intrusive thoughts.

Lora Cheadle [00:22:25]:
If you just can’t get your mind right, maybe it’s because you’re stuck in this feminine flow. And think about the river with no riverbanks, and the torrent of water comes through and there’s no riverbanks, what happens? It floods. It floods the village, it floods the city. It takes down everything. Think about the soup bowl. If there is no soup bowl and you’re ladling soup on the table, there’s nothing to hold it. So soup spills all over the table and you can’t eat it. The soup becomes worthless without the soup bowl and too much emotions become unhealthy and worthless without that masculine direction containing it.

Lora Cheadle [00:23:11]:
Just like an empty theater with no musicians, with no actors, provides no entertainment, it’s worthless. And just like actors and musicians running around without each other, without a place to perform, there’s no benefit there. It’s that balance. So if you’re not healing, the first question to ask yourself is, where? Where am I most of the time? Where am I when I work on healing? Am I in structure? Am I in logic? Am I in my head? Am I reading and journaling and podcasting and doing it all? Am I do, do, do, do, do? Or am I collapsed? Am I in emotion and tears and flow and thought loops? Am I in despair? Notice where you are at and then try bringing back some of the opposite energy. It might be time to stop reading books for a while. It might be time to drop out of your head. And into your heart for a while. If you’ve been crying, it might be time to get up and do something.

Lora Cheadle [00:24:38]:
It might be time to create a checklist. It might be time to reach out to me and let’s put together a healing plan. It might be time to incorporate the assistance of your best friend and be like, okay, you’ve got to come over every day and get me out of this house, because I need something to do. If there’s too much flow, bring in more structure. If there’s too much structure, break away and give yourself some more time to flow, to cry, to swim, to dance, to sing, to moan, to lament, to do whatever it is to give you that balance. The other thing around this is not only how are you balancing this within yourself, but how are you balancing this within your relationship? Because one of the best ways that we can heal with our partner is by meeting our partner in the opposite and helping create that polarity so we can move forward into healing. And that means if we are in a collapsed state, if we are sad, if we’re depressed, if we can’t stop crying, how can our partner step into the masculine? How can our partner recognize, oh, you were in a state of feminine flow, watery collapse. Let me step in and be the rails.

Lora Cheadle [00:26:19]:
Let me step in and be the strong support. Let me give you what you need right now. This is not my time and my turn to go into my emotions and to start falling apart or attacking. It is my turn to be the support that you need to let this flow until you can start creating some more of your own guardrails or on the other side. If you are too in your head, if you are too structured and logical, how can your partner bring in some breath, some flow? How can your partner provoke some emotion so you can get out of that? I am holding this all together for everyone. It might look like your partner doing some cooking or cleaning or taking care of child care duties or stepping in in some structured way. I will make our therapy appointments. I will research this for you.

Lora Cheadle [00:27:18]:
You just go lay in a bathtub, you go take a walk. It’s noticing each other and being able to step in again. The river and the river banks, you need both. You need that guidance and you need direction. And it’s really. It’s a dance. It’s a dance of integration. It’s how to notice within yourself and then give yourself the opposite so you can create internal balance.

Lora Cheadle [00:27:47]:
And then it’s how to notice your partner and do the opposite so you can provide them what they need, and you can give each other that support. And then beyond that, it’s also creating that dialogue with your partner that can be really helpful in healing. I am in a watery state of flow. I need solid masculine. I need healthy masculine right now. I need you to decide where we’re going for dinner. I need you to pick the paint colors. I need you to schedule the appointments or where you can also say, I need to be in my masculine right now.

Lora Cheadle [00:28:35]:
I feel so hurt and so out of my power from this. Flowing feels scary. Crying feels scary. Connecting with my emotions feels scary. I need to step into my power. I need to start driving the train and directing things right now because it gives me comfort. So instead of fighting me on that, I need you to step back, and I need you to flow, and I need you to help process for us. And when you start having these conversations with your partner, both about what’s happening within you and with what’s happening between you, and it can really help again, create such a sense of safety and belonging and healing.

Lora Cheadle [00:29:27]:
And I had said earlier when we started the show that I wanted to honor, you know, Father’s Day is coming up, and I want to honor that. We recently had Mother’s Day, too, and I want to honor that as well. I want to honor the uniqueness of each. I want to honor the pain that we all feel. Betrayers hurt, too. And it’s such a delicate balance, because I don’t want to take away your pain. You were victimized. I was victimized.

Lora Cheadle [00:30:09]:
Everybody who has been cheated on has been victimized by the betrayer. The betrayer is the bad actor. There is just no getting around that. And without minimizing that, what I really want to lean into is how we are all victims of life, how we have all been raised in a society with toxic beliefs around both masculinity and femininity, about how we all think that loud power is stronger than the soft power. But when in reality, that soft power, that fierce feminine, that’s the power that changes the world. Fierce feminine is the power that topples empires. And it’s my belief that that is why the feminine has been so suppressed, because it is so strong. And the masculine, in fear of losing power, felt the need to suppress and diminish that feminine power.

Lora Cheadle [00:31:24]:
And not only is this about healing you, it might also be about healing your partner and healing your relationship and healing the balance of power on the earth. So together, we can create a new world, a new life for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren, for generations to come. And that’s the beauty of a lot of this work. I often say betrayal uncovers the truth because it does, it uncovers so much. Not only about our partners, but about us. Like I said earlier, this is uncovered so much about me. I was a chronic performer. I was a chronic overachiever.

Lora Cheadle [00:32:28]:
I sought to prove my worth each and every day. I manipulated from that covert one down position by saying snippy little comments, sometimes to try to manipulate, by trying to quietly shame or just say something. And that was a journey that I had to embrace. I had to let go of that it was just about my husband and that it was just about him cheating on me. Because it’s so easy to lock into that this is the biggest, most blatant wound. Because it is the biggest, most blatant wound. But when you’re uncovering the truth, it’s about so much more than that. And it’s about really having the opportunity to look at your own toxic traits, your own toxic beliefs, your own tendency to be a martyr to self sacrifice.

Lora Cheadle [00:33:36]:
Because here’s the thing about being a martyr and self sacrificing that whole good girl thing. I would get mad that people weren’t seeing me and yet I would circle right back in and do the same stuff in hopes that next time they would see me. It was like I had to prove how abused I was sometimes. And so much of the world commends that. They commend us dimming our light and self sacrificing and oh, you have given up all for your kids. You do everything for your family. That is so noble. No, it’s not noble, it’s bs.

Lora Cheadle [00:34:22]:
And if I want to do something, I do it because I want to do it. And if nobody notices or sees or cares, I am still happy because I choose what I want to do. And if somebody sees me and gives me an accolade, yay bonus, Yay me. But I’m not doing things to make other people happy. I’m not performing the role of good wife and good mom. And that’s a lot to take in. It’s a lot to change, it’s a lot to address. But if we’re asking our partner to look at their wounds, to look at their trauma, to look at how broken they are, because they are broken.

Lora Cheadle [00:35:11]:
If they cheated, they are broken. And if we’re asking them to step in to their divine masculine to heal that wounded boy, then we need to do the same. They need to go first. They need to go first because they created this most immediate harm. But it would not be fair to us or to the relationship for us to just accept their healing and then to move on without fixing ourselves. It would not be fair for us to rely on their healing alone. Nor will it create a better, healthy relationship. Because if you show up the same way and your partner is truly healed, it’s not going to be a match.

Lora Cheadle [00:36:07]:
They will walk away, or you will walk away, because you are not at the same frequency. You’re not at the same level. You are not creating that same masculine, feminine polarity. Healed part partners deserve healed partners. And both of you deserve to heal and to be in a healed partnership, whether you’re with each other or with somebody new. I want to move now into a little bit of discussion around that wounded child, the wounded boy, but also the wounded girl. Because wounded children create wounded adults. And we all have that part of us inside that is hurt, whether by big T trauma, abuse, poverty, neglect, or just by little T trauma, disappointments, sadness, being a little bit ignored, being parentified by your parents.

Lora Cheadle [00:37:23]:
It doesn’t matter what the wound is. We all have something inside of us where we feel insecure, where we feel afraid, where we feel not good enough. And the problem with not doing some inner child work is that inner child shows up in our adult self and it wrecks the relationship. Here’s what I want you to think about. If you’re a kid and your parent abandons you, you can die. You don’t have food, you don’t have money, you don’t have shelter, you don’t have the ability to take care of yourself. And all of us humans know that. So we are terrified of abandonment because we think it equates to death, because as children, it does.

Lora Cheadle [00:38:22]:
But here’s the thing. As an adult, we have these attachment wounds and we’re so afraid of being abandoned. But let me ask you this. Are you going to die as an adult if you were abandoned by your partner? Are you going to die as an adult if you were abandoned by your partner? No. You might be heartbroken, you might be inconvenienced terribly, but you’re not going to die. You know how to cook. You have a credit card. You have money.

Lora Cheadle [00:39:03]:
You have the ability to make money. You will not die if you are abandoned as an adult, but your inner child still feels like they will be dead, they will be at risk. So as an adult, that inner child comes up and makes situations seem worse than they are, more dramatic than they are. And one of the techniques that we can do to help calm and soothe that Inner child is talk rationally to yourself. Ask yourself, I feel like I’m going to die. I feel like whatever it is, I’m being abandoned. But am I really. Am I really being abandoned, or am I just being left? Because there’s a big difference.

Lora Cheadle [00:40:14]:
We can leave friends, we can leave jobs, we can leave relationships, but it’s not abandonment. Leaving your partner is not abandonment. And one of the things that comes up so often with infidelity is that belief that we were left for another woman, we were abandoned for another woman, that we weren’t chosen. And what comes up in that situation is that inner child’s panic and fear of death. And being able to recognize my inner child is reacting more strongly because of the past can really help us gain some perspective on what’s happening for us. Inner child meditations Inner child work is really just separating yourself as an adult from yourself as a child and seeing yourself as an adult, having sovereignty, having the ability to make choices and take action, and then seeing yourself as a child with somebody who really can’t take action and really can’t make choices, who really isn’t sovereign yet. And that practice of separating those two identities and reminding yourself, wait a minute, I can make choices seems kind of simple. And you might be shaking your head thinking, I don’t really get why that’s so powerful.

Lora Cheadle [00:42:05]:
It’s. Here’s why it’s so powerful. It really reminds us of who we are. In my Facebook group, when I coach people, when I talk to people so often, I hear the language of like, I’m stuck. I can’t do this. I’ve been, you know. And they use this disempowering language. I’ve been.

Lora Cheadle [00:42:29]:
I’ve been abandoned. He didn’t choose me. I’ve. I don’t know what to do. And it’s such an important reframe to be like when you’re in that place, to remind yourself. But I am an adult. I can make choices. I might not like the consequences of those choices, but I can make choices.

Lora Cheadle [00:42:52]:
I can leave right now. I can get help. I can put it on a credit card. I can go back to school and get an education. I can put my kids in daycare and get a job. We can do whatever we want because we are adults. We might not like the consequences, but we can do anything that we want to do. And I ask you to sit with that for a little bit because it’s scary, because all the responsibility is on us.

Lora Cheadle [00:43:38]:
Let me tell you a little story. It’s kind of silly but it makes sense. Last week I went to Disney World with my family and there was me and my mom and my two sons and my soon to be daughter in law. So there were five of us. And we all have different ideas about things and we all took turns making decisions. And sometimes if something was really important to one person, we would lean in and do it. And sometimes if something was really important to another person, we would lean in and do it. But the very last day, we had tickets to go to a theme park and we were only going to go a half a day.

Lora Cheadle [00:44:19]:
And the night before, we were all talking about how tired we were and should we go or should we not go? And we went into this spiral of not knowing. And we were making such a big decision, like, do we go to Hollywood Studios on the last day or do we stay home? Well, my feet hurt. I’m kind of tired. Well, we would have to get up early and then we’d be tired, you know, at the airport. Well, we’ve might be stressed because we have to get through the parks quickly to catch a flight. Well, what if the transportation doesn’t work? Well, what about the suitcases? And it was like all of these decisions kept piling on and on and on. And we all kind of wanted the other person to make a decision because we didn’t want to be the one who said, yes, let’s go. And then to miss our flight because of all these other bad decisions, or we didn’t want to be the one that said, nope, let’s not go.

Lora Cheadle [00:45:15]:
And then to have everybody regret that and be like, oh, well, so and so made that decision and I wish we would have gone and we finally made a decision and it was hard. And then the next day, do you know what happened after the decision had been made? After we were at the airport, once it was too late, we all had like this regret. Oh my God, we should have done it the other way. We should have gone to the park, we shouldn’t have rested, we should have done it. And we questioned ourselves. And a couple days later, we were still questioning ourselves. And the reason that I’m telling this story is twofold. First, I want you to know that whatever decision that you make, you’re going to question it.

Lora Cheadle [00:46:01]:
That’s just part of the deal. You’re going to question your decisions. And the other reason I tell this story is because we all want somebody else to make the decision for us. We all want it to be where, well, so and so decided, and it wasn’t me. So if if it goes bad, we have somebody else to blame. It wasn’t us. And then the third reason that I tell this story is whenever we make decisions, we bring in all of these different bits and pieces and thoughts and we sometimes convolute it. Sometimes more information is better, but sometimes we just make it convoluted because we bring in too much.

Lora Cheadle [00:46:44]:
And when you think about inner child work, when you think about masculine and feminine, when you think about integrating and becoming whole, it is a lot. And that’s why healing takes time. And that’s why you need the process of the masculine. You need that structure. I’m going to do inner child work. I am going to do feminine, masculine healing. I am going to do all of these different things. And then you heal it within yourself.

Lora Cheadle [00:47:20]:
In the meantime, your partner is doing their stuff. I am going to heal this. I am going to do my own inner child healing. I am going to do this, that and the other thing. And they integrate it within themselves. And then you come together and you integrate it between each other. So why aren’t you healing? Maybe because you’ve been stuck in too much feminine flow and you need more structure. Maybe you’re not healing because you’ve been in too much structure and you need to bring in some of the emotion you need to get out of your head and into your heart and you need to feel this.

Lora Cheadle [00:48:03]:
Maybe you’re not doing your own healing. Maybe you’re focusing on your partner’s healing. Maybe you have fully collapsed your inner child with your adult self and you haven’t separated those two identities. So your inner child is running the show and their fears and their lack of sovereignty are making you feel like you’re an abandoned little girl or that your partner is an abandoned, bad, naughty little boy. Integrate, separate, come together, pull apart. Be in the flow, be in the structure. Understand the past, but live in the power of the present. And that, my beautiful soul sister, is how you heal.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:09]:
It’s how your partner heals whether you stay together or not. It’s how we heal each other. It’s how we heal the world. If you would like to get together, please reach out. You can go to betrayalrecoveryguide.com you can download the Betrayal Recovery Guide. You can get my information that way. You can go to Laura cheadle.com and send me an email. We can talk about what you need.

Lora Cheadle [00:49:40]:
You can share your story with me. This is where I think I’m at. This is. What do you think I need? Where am I? We heal together. We heal with that balance of structure and support and flow in tears. We heal together and we heal apart. I am here for whatever you need. I look forward to connecting.

Lora Cheadle [00:50:12]:
I honor you. I honor your partner. I really, truly do. I honor the journey of the betrayer. That is not an easy journey either. To be the perpetrator, to be the betrayer, to be the one who hurts others. That’s not an easy position to be in either. How can you honor your partner and their journey while not abandoning yourself? And on the flip side, how can your partner honor his journey of being the one who betrayed? Of being the one who created chaos and still love himself and accept himself enough to know that he too, deserves healing and can hold space for your rage and your tears? Because that is pure masculine strength.

Lora Cheadle [00:51:13]:
And I know it’s not easy, but I also know it’s something that we’re all capable of if that’s what we want. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. Remember to share the show, to leave a review so others know who we are and what what this is all about. Reach out, have an amazing week, and as usual, always remember to flaunt exactly who you are. Because who you are is always more than enough.

Speaker C [00:51:47]:
This podcast is sponsored by Better Help. Have you been struggling lately? Relationship issues impact every area of your life. When I found out about my husband’s infidelity, I was so devastated I could barely function. Sleeping was impossible because I couldn’t shut off my brain. Eating was a challenge because I felt nauseous all the time. And for the first month or so, everything felt pointless. Whether you’re having trouble sleeping, feeling hopeless, or just can’t focus, BetterHelp is here to help you. BetterHelp offers license licensed therapists who are trained to listen and help.

Speaker C [00:52:24]:
You can talk to your therapist in a private online environment at your convenience. There’s a broad range of expertise in BetterHelp’s 20,000 therapist network that gives you access to help that might not be available in your area. Just fill out a questionnaire to help assess your specific needs and then you’ll be matched with a therapist in under 24 hours.

Lora Cheadle [00:52:47]:
Hours. Then you can schedule secure video and.

Speaker C [00:52:49]:
Phone sessions, plus you can exchange unlimited messages. And everything you share is completely confidential. I know the confidentiality was important for me, especially early on when I couldn’t even get my own mind wrapped around what was happening.

Lora Cheadle [00:53:04]:
And it was so comforting to be.

Speaker C [00:53:05]:
Able to speak with someone candidly about everything I was going through to validate that what I was feeling and experiencing was completely normal. You can request a new therapist at no additional charge anytime. Join the 2 million plus people who have taken charge of their mental health with an experienced better Help therapist. Special offer to flaunt Create a life you love after infidelity and betrayal listeners, you get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com flaunt that’s better help. H e l p.com flaunt f l a u n t thanks again to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast.

Lora Cheadle [00:54:05]:
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 7am and 7pm 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@betrayalrecoveryguide.com.