Embracing Transformation: Healing and Empowerment After Infidelity in the New Year

Have you ever felt that stirring deep within, nudging you toward a path you can't yet see? That's where my 2023 journey led me, and it's a powerful tale I'm eager to share with you. This episode isn't just a recount of personal growth; it's a beacon for anyone yearning to align their life with their soul's deepest desires. Especially poignant for women grappling with the aftermath of infidelity, I unveil the very essence of my year-long transformation and how it has fueled my mission to facilitate healing and empowerment through a bespoke six-month program. It's about creating spaces—both within us and around us—that foster strength and connections that support our rise from the ashes.

The new year rings in not just with confetti but with the promise of joy and fulfillment, and I'm thrilled to have you with me on this journey. Gratitude flows for the companionship you've extended as listeners, and I'm brimming with excitement for the shared path unfolding before us. It's a path lined with continuous support, guidance, and a community that's a testament to the power of 'happily even after'. Stay close to the heartbeat of our growing community by tuning into the tales shared, engaging with us on social media, and subscribing for updates that ensure you never miss a step as we embrace the new year with open hearts and steadfast determination.

Please follow me on instagram and facebook @happilyevenaftercoach and if you want to see what coaching is all about I offer a free 30 min. clarity call via zoom.

Email me: hello@lifecoachjen.com for any comments or questions.

Thanks for listening, please like and review as well as share with your family and friends.

My website is www.lifecoachjen.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hi friends, welcome to Happily. Even After I'm Life Coach Jen, a certified life coach that specializes in relationships. I'm a mom of four awesome kids and one amazing senora, a home decorator, a remodeler, a shopper, a scrabler and a snuggler. I want to help you with your relationships, mainly the relationship you have with yourself and your family and God. Thanks for listening and letting me share the tools I have learned that can help you live happily even after some of life's greatest challenges. Hey, friends, I'm so excited to be here today.

Speaker 1: 0:43

Happy New Year. Can you believe it is 2024? I honestly can't believe it. I am grateful that 2023 is behind me and it was an amazing year and a lot of growth for me. But I'm super excited for this new year and I hope you are too.

Speaker 1: 1:04

So every year for the past several years, I've chosen a word, and I think it's kind of fun to choose a word. So if you have never done it, just try it. And if you're like, oh, that's silly, that's fine. But the word I chose for 2023 was transformation and honestly, I can say I watched a video I had done in January of 2023 and I was like, wow, I just could even just myself see my growth in my podcast like listening to my podcast, just seeing from. I went from four storage sheds January 2023 to zero storage sheds now, which was huge for me. It was a lot of boxes and getting rid of and going through a lot of decluttering I've been doing. I feel myself, my physical body. I've been really focused on eating better and exercising and lifting weights and building muscle and doing all those things. I've really focused on deepening my friendships and so I really feel like I've transformed. In my putting content out there, in April I created a funnel and I've been able to build my email list, my followers on my Instagram and Facebook, my downloads on this podcast, which are all silly numbers, but I think they show that I am growing and that what I'm putting out there people are wanting to listen to and to they need because, unfortunately, affairs in fidelity is not going away in 2024. I'm really sad to tell you that there's always, unfortunately, going to be people that stray and go outside their marriage and if that happens to you, if that's happened to you, it's important to heal that and so, anyways, so the word I chose for 2024, it's interesting because I sat down last night and was like what is my word going to be? And I was thinking, oh, I didn't know what to think. But the second I saw this word I'm like that's my word and it's alignment. And there's lots of meanings to the word alignment, but the one I'm talking about is personal alignment. And alignment with yourself means to be in agreement with our soul's plan and our life's purpose, and I feel that so much.

Speaker 1: 3:44

I feel like my purpose in life is to help women heal from infidelity, because it has been such a difficult thing for myself and I've gone through many stages, the stage of don't ever tell anyone, because you know they'll never want to be your friend, or they'll never talk to your husband again, or your marriage is going to fall apart, and I also pretend it never happened to. Oh my gosh, this is happening to me. What's wrong with me? Why is my husband cheating on me? This must be my fault. Let me see how I can manage myself to be more of who he wants me to be and completely get out of alignment with my values and everything. So I've done that. I've done all the things that you shouldn't do and, hopefully, a lot of the things that you need to do to heal from infidelity. So that is my.

Speaker 1: 4:37

I feel like it aligns with my soul so much and my purpose and what I want to do in the world, how I want to be a person in the world, is to help other women heal from infidelity, because I totally believe it's possible. Being in alignment means to have your body, your mind, your soul, your spirit in balance. And sometimes they say perfect balance. I don't think perfect is possible. But when you just know when everything is aligning, I was thinking of like have you ever gone to the grocery store and you get the cart, that is a little like out of alignment. It's like bumpy, it's like screechy. I think sometimes we as human beings are like that and you're like what is wrong, this isn't quite working right. It like moves and you can still get your groceries but it takes so much more effort and it's annoying. But then if you go, switch the cart to a better cart and you get one that the wheels are you know newly I don't know they have WD Fortiana or you know they're running smoothly, there's no squeaks, and you just can smoothly go and buy your groceries. That's what alignment feels like, I think a visual of what alignment feels like.

Speaker 1: 5:59

And so to have all your parts of you working for the same goal that has the same value. And I think sometimes we get in a relationship, in a marriage, and we get totally unaligned, and that, for sure, was my experience. And so, really dig down. For me it's like, okay, what do I value? What do I find important? What are my needs? How am I going to create that? So I really just love that word. You can pick whatever word you want and whatever word resonates with you if you want to, and I would love for you to share with me on Instagram or send me an email. I'd love to hear what your word is and I can celebrate with you what you chose your word to be.

Speaker 1: 6:48

So my goal this year is to guide women who have experienced infidelity through my six month program and why I chose six months and honestly, it's going to take. I'm just warning you it's going to take you longer than six months, but it is a good, like stepping stone. I've been really intentionally doing my work for about five years, but this past year I went all in on healing from my divorce, from the infidelity, from all the things and so. But I think six months gives you such a good foundation and I like one on one because the personal. I think sometimes group is great and I eventually would love to also have a group because I think community is so important to know there are other women experiencing infidelity or betrayal of some sort that could be through porn or other ways that this happens. Right, an emotional affair? There's lots of. There's like a whole range of types of affairs that happen in relationships. But I just felt like six months was a good starting point.

Speaker 1: 8:02

We are going to work together twice a month and do coaching and the things that I'm going to help coach you through and really guide you. I'm kind of just imagining me as your guide. We will be talking about the model which I teach, which is your circumstance, your thoughts, your feelings, your actions and your results, and that, I think, really has helped me understand like, okay, my circumstance, my husband having an affair, it's all my thoughts that are really causing me all my emotional pain. But the other key factor is your nervous system and in 2023, I was trained in nervous system and trauma and so I have learned how to help you map out your nervous system, which, in my mind, is life changing, and I realized, oh my gosh, I have been in fight well, mostly fight or freeze Most of my marriage.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Of course, that made so much sense. I was not living my best life because I was stuck in those In my nervous system. I was stuck those are things that help us survive in the world and I was so dysregulated that I couldn't function correctly. And so once I learned that it was life changing. So I'm gonna teach you that and help you understand your particular nervous system. We're gonna map it out and help you know like, okay, what do I need to help regulate me as well as understand the trauma that you've experienced, because I think so often people are like, oh well, that wasn't really traumatic, that's not really trauma, it's not like you got hit by a car or in a terrible car accident. So there's that trauma and then there's a whole gamut of emotional trauma and we can't say, because everyone will react to their spouse cheating on them in a totally different way. They're gonna have different experiences. So how did you experience it? And that's all that matters. And then what happens is, when we don't learn to process our feelings and emotions, it gets stored and stuck inside of our body and wreaks havoc on it. So I'm gonna teach you how to overcome all those issues.

Speaker 1: 10:27

I will teach you how to do a thought download so that you can learn awareness of your thoughts. It's another great gift to learn is okay. Why am I thinking, thinking this? Because we have thousands of thoughts every day that we don't even know that we have and a lot of them are in our subconscious. They are ingrained in us since we were little. We have these beliefs and it's like, okay, we need to pull out some of these thoughts and beliefs and analyze them, because they're holding us back from healing and growing and becoming the person that we need to be. In order to deal with infidelity or whatever else that life brings us, we're gonna focus on rebuilding our confidence and self-esteem. I think this gets such a hard hit when, if you've experienced infidelity, because our natural reaction we think we did something wrong. I'm just gonna tell you you did nothing wrong, but you have to believe that in your mind and in your body, and so we're gonna focus on that. But building your confidence figure out where you're lacking, where you're struggling and totally can help you do that, and it's such a good gift that you can give yourself is to build your confidence.

Speaker 1: 11:48

Learning boundaries I think I didn't even know. I didn't know what boundaries were. I didn't know I needed boundaries. I had no idea. And once I figured out boundaries, it was a game changer. It actually was able to my boundary was able to let me say okay, I'm done with my marriage and get divorced, and so that doesn't have to happen with you. And I don't want you to think like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna do this program and I have to divorce my husband. That's not right at all. You can stay married, but you have to do these steps. I think these steps are so important for healing. You have to heal. It's so important. It shouldn't say have to, but I hope that you want to heal from the wound of infidelity so that you can possibly continue to stay married and to have an amazing relationship or choose to also get divorced, whatever works and feels best for you. But learning if you need a boundary and then how to create them, how to go about creating a boundary if you need that.

Speaker 1: 12:57

The next one is to learn to trust yourself. I think trust is the thing that gets taken away when someone that you love is sexual, physical, talking to, emotionally, whatever they're doing, looking at porn on the computer. When that happens, you because a lot of times lying comes along with this and a lot of other emotional ways that abuse, gaslighting, lots of other ways the trust gets broken and so we have to rebuild the trust. But you have to rebuild it with yourself first, so that you can trust yourself to know okay, can I trust you again? Can I trust my spouse? Are they? Do I want to trust them? Is it safe to trust them? The next one is we're gonna learn how to process our emotions. I've talked about that before, but understanding you need a process. You need to grieve Inferdality. Is you have to grieve that divorce? If you get divorced, you have to grieve it. You have to feel all those feelings and go through that so you can heal.

Speaker 1: 14:05

We're gonna practice letting go of our story. I know a lot of us, including me, had this story that we were going to marry our husband, have children, have this amazing life, go on all these amazing trips and live happily ever after. And when that doesn't happen, whether it doesn't happen in your marriage or with your kids, you have to reframe it and you have to realize okay, that is not my reality anymore and it takes our brain time to really accept that. It is a process, it is work, it takes effort. You can't, you might have to remind yourself a lot and so to match our reality with what's true and in the story and then practice forgiving ourself, because we have to figure of ourself before we can forgive other people.

Speaker 1: 14:59

And I think, forgiving ourself or not seeing the signs there's so many things that I think women that have experienced infidelity they're like why didn't I see that? Why didn't I know? Why would I marry someone? Why did God tell me to marry this person and they were gonna do this horrible thing to me? And so, whatever issues that you have around this, that we can practice forgiving yourself as well as forgiving the person that hurt you or harmed you or if you want to do that. But it can be so freeing and helpful and I promise it can help you be able to move through this experience and have a better life.

Speaker 1: 15:42

If you or someone you know is interested in taking this step and working with me to heal from infatality, please reach out. You can email me at hello at lifecoachgencom, you can message me on Instagram, and my hope that in this new year that you can commit to yourself. You can say I am worth getting over this, whether it has been 10 years ago. Two years ago, you just found out over Christmas that your spouse has had an affair or that they've been addicted to porn or whatever betrayal that you've experienced. That you are gonna choose you and find someone, and I think I'm the perfect person to help you, because I have been through all the things and I've done all the work and I know that I can help you have a better life, find peace finally in your life, and I know that's what you really want. You don't wanna feel all these awful, terrible feelings anymore and be able to recognize that it wasn't your fault, that this is not about you, and you get to create. You get to be empowered and not be the victim anymore, that you can create whatever life that you want, and it can still be amazing.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Anyways, have a wonderful new year. I'm so excited for this new year. It's gonna be amazing. Thanks so much for listening. Have a beautiful rest of your day. If you want to learn how to live happily even after, sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachjenn with one n dot com, follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let's work together to create your happily even after.