How to Heal with Rick Gardner

When the very fabric of trust is torn apart by betrayal, finding the path to wholeness again can feel like an impossible quest. Betrayal Trauma Coach Erin Anderson, our esteemed guest, reveals the deep-seated patterns of relationship and generational trauma and offers a lantern of hope to those lost in the dark labyrinth of healing. Her personal narrative of resilience and the transformative moment that led her from anguish to a fulfilling career as a coach is nothing short of inspiring.

Navigating the murky waters of psychological control, addiction, and the complexities of narcissism versus avoidism, this episode is a deep dive into the human psyche's resilience. Erin's insights into the seven pillars of healing post-divorce, and her professional evolution as a coach, provide not just a map but a compass for anyone seeking to rebuild their sense of self after their world has crumbled. The heart of this discussion lies in the practical strategies Erin shares for confronting trauma's adversaries, empowering us through the embrace of truth, and fostering gratitude in the face of life's adversities.

As we wrap up our time with Erin, the conversation is enriched by the addition of Aaron, who brings his own perspectives to the dialogue. They equip us with an arsenal of resources, from specialized support groups to coaching services, ensuring that no listener has to walk the road to recovery alone. This episode is not just a podcast; it's a community, a guide, and a testament to the power of transformation through intentional healing.

For the Powerful and Profitable Trauma Informed Coach 5 Day Challenge, click on this link to join the challenge: https://www.kushlachadwick.com/5day-powerfulandprofitable

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:56

Welcome to Divorce Recovery Stories. I am Rick. I hope you're well. We are here today with Betrayal Trauma Coach, erin Anderson. Erin, welcome to Divorce Recovery Stories.

Speaker 2: 1:08

Thank you, rick, I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:10

I'm excited for this too. This might be one of our first video episodes that ends up on YouTube, so I'm a little concerned. But so I'm a little concerned but you'll be fine.

Speaker 2: 1:21

You'll be fine, trust me. I I've been doing podcasting for years and I can tell you I don't think there's ever been a podcast that's been perfect. Especially, you know, I've got I've got kids behind this door that we'll probably hear at one point or another.

Speaker 1: 1:39

So yeah, so you'll understand if you hear my dogs. Yes, one is literally cuddling up under my feet as I'm talking yep, yep, yep, yep, because life goes on around us, right it totally happens, it does, it does uh erin, how long have you been doing trauma healing?

Speaker 2: 2:01

You know I've been doing it for 11 years and there's a fun story and I know, like you were about ready to ask me, you know how did I get into this work and I'm going to tell you that right now.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Great.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Because my story is one where, you know, I've dealt with a lot of trauma in my life. You know, uh, lots and lots of relationship trauma, lots and lots of generational trauma. There's lots and lots of developmental trauma and all these different traumas kind of just culminated into me, right. Yeah, and so you know, I I grew up with a fairly difficult relationship with my mom, difficult relationship with my grandma, and you know, when I got married, my husband, you know, had some addictions that he brought to the table and that caused a lot of difficult relationship things too. But what I didn't realize is how difficult my relationship was with myself. That wasn't like, that wasn't even a part of my psyche, that wasn't even in my field of vision, right, and so when I'm sitting here like begging for healing and wanting peace and wanting all of this, what I saw was how everybody else like acted around me. But since this is my life, I somehow perceived it to be my fault.

Speaker 2: 3:33

Something's wrong with me okay right, like because this is something that I think a lot of people deal with. When we have other relationships in our life that aren't showing up well, that tends to grind on our confidence, and especially when you know we've been dealing with this as a generational issue and then as a developmental issue on top of it. You know as a child, when, when your parent has a lot of pain, you don't see that, you just see the, the disconnection, you see the neglect, you feel something's wrong, but as a child, a child doesn't have the cognitive ability to say, well, that's their issue. Right, all the child can see is well, mom and dad are here to protect me. I need to listen to them, so if they're behaving this way, it somehow has to be my fault, right?

Speaker 1: 4:39

So you saw that as a reflection of yourself.

Speaker 2: 4:51

Yes, and that wasn't ever something I ever questioned, right. And so here comes. You know, my husband tanked my job actually. Um, the story is is he was very angry at me because I was doing so well and he didn't like it because other I was a teacher and the parents were coming in and wanting me to take over his classroom and that could cause some frustration.

Speaker 2: 5:26

Yeah, it caused some frustration in him, right, he turned it on me and, um, whenever I went to go, get a late apply for a teaching position, they would call him and he would take the job and say all kinds of nasty things about me. And so I was. I wasn't getting hired, right. Somehow that had to be my fault. Does that make sense? And so I was taking on all of this energy and saying, somehow all of this is my fault, this brokenness, right? Hey, somehow all of this is my fault, this brokenness, right? And at some point, like we can't handle that much brokenness, and at some point we fall into depression. We fall into deep, deep pain, sorrow, hopelessness, you know, feeling like we'll never be seen, never be loved. Hopelessness, you know, feeling like we'll never be seen, never be loved, and like and my thing was is I felt like I was the only mistake God had made, right?

Speaker 1: 6:30

That's a surprisingly common feeling.

Speaker 2: 6:33

Isn't it, you know? But I thought I was the only one out there.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Right.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Also probably a surprisingly common feeling, Right.

Speaker 2: 6:41

Yeah out there, right? Also probably a surprisingly common feeling, right? Yeah and uh, it's really interesting how our pain isolates us, even though there's so many people out there that probably experience a very similar type of pain, right? But I finally had had it, and I remember, like hitting my knees one day, probably 13 years ago, 12 and a half years ago and just screaming at God Like what are you doing? Why are you doing this to me? Everybody you put into my life hates me. It feels like I'm the black sheep, right Out of all these white sheep I think I know how to speak English Sheep I'm the only one that's black. I'm tarnished, I'm the only mistake you made, but yet you threw me to earth and just get rid of me. Let other people you know make fun of me, hurt me, because that's what my purpose is, right. Like what a god. And I just and I screamed at him and yelled at him and riled at him and did literally everything as a Christian woman, I was told not to do with God, right In two hours, and finally collapsed on the floor in a pile of snot and tears.

Speaker 2: 8:27

On the floor, in a pile of snot and tears. And I remember hearing like, very audibly, very clearly are you sure you've done everything? Are you sure you've done everything to heal? Are you sure you've done everything you can do to keep your relationships intact that are important? Well, that started a whole new two hours of me being offended at god and screaming and yelling how could he do that to me? Like what a slap in the face. Like how could he ask that? Of course it's not my fault, I can't possibly be my fault, like all these things. And finally, again, after another two hours of railing at God, I was completely exhausted. At this point it exhausted all of that energy, all of that anger. And I heard again oh sweet one, have you just tried to heal? Yet You've been trying to control all these things that are outside of your control. You've never considered yourself and given yourself the permission to heal. If you'll do my will, I'll show you how to do it.

Speaker 2: 9:49

So I was like, okay, obviously, like I was able to accept that at that point that I wasn't doing things very well. The way I was doing things was causing me a lot of pain and it wasn't necessarily my fault, right, because here I am, I'm hurting and I want freedom and reprieve from this pain, but I felt like it was with my husband, it was with my mom, it was with my grandma, it was with my coworker, it was with my neighbor, it was with all these other people that were showing up in very, very toxic ways in my life at that time. So, therefore, I had to somehow control what was going on with them. That led me into extreme people pleasing because I was trying to create safety for myself. But the problem with people pleasing is I abandoned myself. The only way you can people please is to completely abandon yourself, your wants, your goals, your dreams, your desires, in lieu of someone else. But the problem is is because they don't have your brain installed inside their head, they're still going to turn around and make different decisions, right, and what you want them to make.

Speaker 2: 11:20

I was trying to do that with my mom, just pleasing her, placating her so she would stop hurting me, right, and then sometimes I'd turn into the fight. You know I'd get really angry and I'd start a huge fight with my husband or a huge fight with my mom or my grandma, and I'd stop talking to them for weeks. Blame, blame, blame, blame, blame. Right, that didn't work either. That caused more strife in my life, right. And so here I had. I begged, I pleaded, I pleased, I fought, I'd done all of these things that I could possibly consider, and so once I decided to let go and let God basically what it did is, it pulled my energy that I had been like stretching so incredibly thin, and all these different resources back into one person. I was able to focus on the one person that needed healing the most, which I knew, but I was trying to do it in all these ways. That didn't work because I didn't have the energy to finally put some energy on me, the person who needed the healing the most.

Speaker 1: 15:19

So that turned you towards the path of healing others.

Speaker 2: 15:26

It did path of healing others. It did because what ended up happening is after a year and a half of of learning and growing and letting god lead me, literally. And he did, he absolutely did. He's such a huge part of my story still is to this day.

Speaker 2: 15:43

Um, I remember my husband walking in the door one day and he's like I gotta be honest with you, I've been lying for the last several months. I've been in looking at pornography. Um, I know that hurts you and I'm super sorry. I just don't know what to do. Right? And instead of me like flying at him and like being so angry or completely withdrawing from him because I was so hurt, I stepped into support almost immediately. I was just like oh, I appreciate you telling me the truth. Finally, totally not okay that you lied to me, but I want to be a safe place for you, so let's talk about this, right, and that's what came out of my mouth.

Speaker 2: 16:42

And when I did, I was like hold on a second. There's no anger, there's no pain, there's no anger, there's no pain, there's no hurt. Did I seriously just heal my hurt before the person that I perceived as hurting me, before they healed the thing that was hurting me, like did I just do that Right? And I remember feeling very similar situations with my mom and my grandma, my coworkers, my neighbors. They started coming in and all of a sudden, what I perceived as toxic before, I could see now as their pain. And so I didn't even take it personally and I was like, oh my gosh, there's like all this freedom now there's, there's. There's no pain, there's no hurt, there's no anger, there's compassion for these people, compassion for myself, and freedom.

Speaker 2: 17:55

And I immediately and this is where it gets kind of funny I immediately went to god and I hit my knees and I was like you did it, thank you, was like you did it, thank you, like there's no pain, I'm healed, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank. And god has a sense of humor because he's like oh, sweet one, not everything does not come for free. I was like what? And he says now you need to go teach these principles, you need to go out into the world and share these principles. And I was like me, are you sure, are you sure you want me, are you sure you got the right girl like I'm? I'm this little podunk kid who grew up in this podunk town and like I never saw anything special like that, anything grand. Right, I mean, I was just planning on living a a fairly normal quiet life. That's not quiet, that's not normal, like nobody else is doing this, like why do you want me to do it right?

Speaker 1: 19:12

and so there was definitely some resistance because, again, I didn't see in myself what god saw so this experience turned you into someone who wanted to heal other people and okay, yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. Now, it wasn't. I imagine it was. There was a lot more organization to it, because now, the way that you speak, for example, here in a minute, we're going to talk about, like, the seven pillars of recovery right. This is healing or sorry, of healing. I apologize, I keep divorce recovery stories.

Speaker 2: 20:04

I keep coming back to that word. It's all good. It's all good. I keep coming back to that word. It's all good.

Speaker 1: 20:08

It's all good. So there at some point came to be a lot more organization and information, or organization of that information.

Speaker 2: 20:20

Yes, yes, granted. You know, when I started looking into coaching, I was already doing a little bit of it. I had started with doTERRA and was like leading a team and growing an essential oil business, and so I kind of understood a few of the concepts, right, but I had such a low vision of myself that I could never really break that ceiling. And so you know, you're hearing that as I'm saying like are you like you want me to do what, lord, right? So I had a little bit of experience with leadership. I had a little bit of experience with, you know, talking to people and helping them kind of break past their barriers.

Speaker 2: 21:03

And you know, my entire life, like I can remember people just randomly walking up to me and sharing their entire life story with me and them saying like I don't know why I'm sharing this with you, right, like I've never told anybody this stuff, and it's just like all coming out and, even as a child, me saying, hmm, you know, that's, that's an interesting story. And they're sharing, like, all this pain with me and I'm like, have you tried this? You know, I'm almost just kind of feeling like this direct download of wisdom and I never really connected the dots. That number one. That's one of my gifts, you know, but I never applied it to myself either, right. And so now you know, stepping into these healing stories, I've realized that it's been very possible. It's been very natural for me to help people on their healing paths, but I couldn't ever do it until I had, first and foremost, removed my own pain Right, at least sufficiently enough, I should say like Sufficiently enough for me to start building a six figure business out of coaching Right.

Speaker 1: 22:34

Well, that makes sense, because one of the things that I regularly talk about is I felt that a lot of people that I, or a lot of professionals that I interacted with when going through my divorce, were not really experts. They were maybe very academically prepared and they had very nice titles right Judges, lawyers, therapists, guardian ad litems all these people but none of them actually knew what I was going through or how this situation affected our family Right. So to me, that actual experience is incredibly valuable.

Speaker 2: 23:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:11

So that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 23:13

It is. You know it really is. And nothing against therapists. I have some really really amazing therapist friends who I think do incredible work. But it's again because I think they've experienced some really deep things in their lives, right, and had to learn what healing truly is. But you know, I actually recently met a therapist the other day and she's like, oh yeah, I know who you are. I was like you do. And she's like, yeah, I listen to your podcast all the time. It's so good. I totally use it in my teaching and my own things and I refer my clients to your podcast all the time and I'm like, now, that's a good therapist right.

Speaker 2: 24:01

Because you've got somebody who's learned something out of a book versus somebody who is actually open to learning things in life, right?

Speaker 1: 24:14

So that's, I think, a great transition, because now you've been doing this 11 years, you've seen a lot of clients. What are some of the common things that you see?

Speaker 2: 24:29

So you know, there's actually a ton of commonalities a ton.

Speaker 2: 24:46

But when we're talking about divorce specifically, we're talking about men and women who have experienced pain, right, and you know most of my clients I'd say about 90% of them are women, right, and you know most of my clients, I'd say about 90% of them, are women, right, and the other 10% are men. But one thing that's very, very common in both is that they are struggling with the exact same thoughts, the exact same mentalities, the exact same pains, but they're just acting on them in a very different way. See, when they get into the guilt and the shame and the pain and the maybe I'm not good enough, maybe I will never have what I want, you know that whole black sheep mentality, right, what they tend to do is they tend to step into the addiction of control, and I really do call that an addiction because it is. If you actually look at the psychological triggers with control, they're very similar to pornography. And what does a man do? He steps into porn or addictive behaviors like that for the exact same psychological triggers.

Speaker 1: 26:10

He's attempting to control something in his life that feels out of control so for a woman that might manifest as needing to be in charge of everything and control everything, even down to, maybe, the behaviors of her husband, spending habits of the home, which would inevitably lead to feelings of being overwhelmed and overworked and to blame and to resentment, that's, and a lot of people might label that as narcissism, which is a whole other thing. We're not going to get into that.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Right, you know, let me hit on this quickly because I think it does actually merit some discussion. There's narcissism and then there's avoidism. Okay, and that a lot of people like take a look at avoidism as narcissism, because they have very similar traits. The difference is a narcissistic is actually doing it on purpose. They actually like the mind games. It makes them feel powerful, it makes them feel good to completely and utterly destroy another human. It makes them feel good to completely and utterly destroy another human Right. But where the avoidant and this is, I think, where I where really what I see most people in I don't really see a lot of people as an actual narcissist.

Speaker 2: 27:47

The avoidant Is distributing narcissistic tendencies because they're scared. They still care, they still actually do want relationships in their life. They're not trying to destroy you because they're just sick, they're doing it because they're hurting themselves as well and they're scared, right, and so you actually see this happening and this kind of ties it back to both man and the woman. Right, the woman is actually avoiding in a lot of ways her own pain by trying to control her husband. Right, because I remember, like thinking in with my husband, that if I could just get him to stop, then I'd be happy. If I could just get my mom to stop, then I'd be happy, if I could just get my grandma to stop, if I could just get this person or this person or this person to stop, then I'd be happy.

Speaker 2: 28:46

But what that is is that's actually the very psychological foundation of I need to control this person. Right? We're not necessarily doing that consciously, right? No, I don't believe that. Any person, unless if they're really, really sick. But the people listening to this podcast, no, no, no, if if they're doing that, they're not doing it on a conscious level, right? I?

Speaker 2: 29:15

I truly do believe that this is just a result of avoiding our I'm sure we both see that a lot yes, yes, but you know what ends up happening is, when we avoid our emotions, there is one emotion that comes in and sits, and that's depression, because depression teaches us we cannot have what we have. But the other emotions will give us a signal to either what's going right or what's going wrong. And if we're consistently avoiding emotions, like even the negative emotions, then we also have to avoid the good emotions, like even the negative emotions, then we also have to avoid the good emotions. We cannot have the good emotions without the bad. It's not possible. And so when we have the absence of both the good and the bad, the only thing that's left is depression.

Speaker 1: 30:29

That makes sense. In getting ready for this, we set up something of an outline. And one of the things that you touched on that I'm not super familiar with is this idea of seven pillars of healing. I can speak English, I promise I can. Seven pillars of healing?

Speaker 2: 30:56

yes, gosh, that's way too much effort. Yes, and you know really quickly, you know, before I get into the seven pillars because I do want to get into that I also want to talk about the man, cause I did just touch on the woman. I'm kind of like what she's avoiding?

Speaker 1: 31:12

Oh yeah, just as an example.

Speaker 2: 31:13

Yeah, please go right ahead, but I think that it also is to say that the man is also avoiding his emotions in a big way, like, if I'm not for for sure, if you're looking at pornography or anything like that, that's your struggle. You're avoiding your emotions Absolutely. That is something that every single man I've ever seen that comes to me and says hey, I struggled with porn or I am struggling with porn, or you know, when their wife brings them on camera for a bit and he's actually man enough to talk to me and I do have a few of those right Um, they they'll open up and they'll talk about, like, what they're struggling with and, without fail, these are men that are avoiding their emotions because guilt and shame are so prevalent and guilt and shame together also create that infection of depression, because he's been avoiding the good things and the bad.

Speaker 1: 32:19

Oh yeah, in my opinion, right, neither of us are psychologists, we're not here to diagnose anything, right? But in my opinion, addictions aren't addictions, addictions are symptoms yes, yes, so, and you know what that's actually more there there's.

Speaker 2: 32:38

There's actually more than just an opinion there. That's actually been psychologically proven. Um, any good therapist, any good coach will actually actually tell you that the whole adage of you know, once an addict, always an addict, that's bogus, that's bonkers. Hey, the truth of the matter is it is simply a symptom of a deeper problem. It is simply a symptom of a deeper problem, absolutely, because everything you can peel back the layers of if you start to get curious about why you do things the way you do, why are you feeling this depression? Why are you feeling this anxiety, why? But and we're going to get into the pillars here on this when you start to feel that panic, when you start to feel that depression, when you start to feel that avoiding right, our brain, when it wants to avoid something, wants to speed up. It's trying to run away from something. But the one thing you'll never be able to run away from is yourself.

Speaker 1: 33:55

This is probably a question that I should have asked sooner. I wish I'd thought about this a little more. I apologize, but I feel like it belongs here, in this part of the conversation too. What kind of traumas have you helped people heal from?

Speaker 2: 34:10

You know it's really interesting because I say myself I've talked about being a betrayal trauma coach. But betrayal trauma encompasses money trauma, relationship trauma, generational trauma. You have societal trauma, you have developmental trauma, childhood trauma, uh, ptsd. You know lots of different types of trauma actually come under self trauma. It all comes under the guise of betrayal trauma. So you name I have helped somebody with it.

Speaker 2: 34:51

It's not uncommon for me to have helped somebody as a war veteran either. I've had a couple of them come through the one I will say there is one person that I actually did say probably needed more therapy, this sweet, sweet lady. She's actually probably like one of the strongest people I've ever known, ever met in my life, but she came to me and she had had satanic ritual abuse. She came to me and she had had satanic ritual abuse and when I say that I'm talking about like the most vile thing a person could ever do to another person and you know I can't go into the details of what she shared with me simply because it would traumatize the audience. I'm not even joking. It was that bad and what it?

Speaker 2: 35:49

What ended up happening is it caused split, personality disorder in her and so like I'm not necessarily qualified to help somebody with split personality disorders, right, or schizophrenia or all these different things like, again, I'm not a therapist, I'm not qualified to diagnose or treat these things Right. But if somebody is coming to me and saying I have had this trauma and I really, really want to move forward from it, you know and I can tell that they're really ready to move into their future, you know that's where I come in. Therapists are amazing at helping people untangle their past right and somewhat to their future, because they're both intertwined. But coaches tend to focus more on the future than what they do, the actual past, and when there's obvious things that can be diagnosed, those are things I won't touch, just simply because, again, you know I have to walk a really fine line with people because I don't want to step into that therapist Absolutely Right, right.

Speaker 1: 37:04

We want to write like let the therapists and the psychologists do what they do, and that's completely separate, totally understandable. The reason I asked that is because, as we're getting into these seven pillars of healing, I guess what I want to do is make sure that we address who this applies to.

Speaker 2: 37:21

Yes, and I will say that, yeah, if you've got any type of trauma, like even this sweet lady, like these pillars will help her. Sometimes traumas are a whole lot like having your shoes nailed to the floor, right. It's going to be really hard to move forward until those nails are removed. The way I look at this is you know, there are certain things I can do to help her. Yes, but she can't move forward until we actually remove the nail, and she has been nailed literally to such a really, really horrific story. But I've watched her peeling those nails out of her shoes consistently, and so I would say that the seven pillars are really, really going to help people who are ready to put this pain behind them once and for all, who actually know what it is they want, who know that they want to be capable, or they can at least be capable, of something, and that they're willing to do whatever it takes to finally get themselves into a place of lasting happiness.

Speaker 1: 39:03

So, that said, could you tell us what the seven pillars of healing are?

Speaker 2: 39:08

Yeah, sure. So with the seven pillars little backstory with them, you know I've been doing this for 11 years I finally hired not finally, I actually pretty quickly into my coaching experience hired an amazing business coach. She's been on my podcast a couple of times and she's one of my very, very best friends now. I love her with all my heart and soul and I'd been coaching and coaching and coaching and she finally told me she's like you really need to start putting this, like all of this wisdom and all this goodness, into some type of a container. And she's like like think about like the things you normally see your people go through, right. And so I was like, oh yeah, you're probably right, I probably do. And so I had gone to the Lord again with this and this is where the pillars actually started coming out. Actually started coming out is one. I was real.

Speaker 2: 40:13

I recognize that most people who are going through trauma have seven different types of adversaries that they deal with. The adversary of expectation, like what do we really expect out of life? What do we expect out of our partnerships out of life? What do we expect out of our partnerships? What do we expect out of ourselves? And oftentimes we find trauma in failed expectations right. So expectation is one of our pillars not pillars, I'm sorry, adversaries. The second one is distraction.

Speaker 1: 40:50

So these are adversaries to the pillars.

Speaker 2: 40:52

These are the adversaries to the pillars and I have to explain those first because you know, this is kind of where people find tend to find themselves first. Okay Is in one of these adversaries. So, like I said, the first one is expectation Actually sorry. The second one is the victim. Okay, being in that victim mindset which is the poor, poor me everyone else has done this to me things like why can't I have what I want, those kinds of thoughts that's in that victim mentality. And one thing that a lot of people don't love when I say but it's very true is someone can victimize you, that's true, but you don't have to claim the title of victim.

Speaker 2: 41:47

A really good example of this is like Elizabeth Smart Right, she's someone who had absolutely horrific things done to her. People did victimize her, but she will not claim the title of victim. She's way more powerful than that. See, the victim mentality actually tells us that we have no power, okay, and so we have to be very careful with that one. The third one is distraction. Right, this is where we get into Like, do we do? We do this, do we do that? There's all of these things that are better.

Speaker 2: 42:29

Or we get distracted with like controlling, or we get distracted with feeling like we can't have things, or like there's so many thoughts that are in our head that are distracting us and trying to get us to move faster. Right, instead of slowing down. Again, you know, when we're feeling this trauma, our amygdala is going nuts in our brain, triggering the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response. All of those are avoidant and go-faster thoughts. Right, trying to outrun ourselves, trying to outrun our emotions, trying to outrun the situation. To outrun our emotions. Trying to outrun the situation, right, because that's what we do when we feel like we're in trauma. We need to run, but our emotions are actually an invitation to slow down. But because we don't, we tend to get distracted. We try to distract ourselves from what we're really feeling Right, and so distraction is the third adversary.

Speaker 2: 43:47

The fourth one is overwhelm. We get into doing so many things, distracting ourselves so much Right things, distracting ourselves so much right, trying to control everything we can possibly control, trying to get the result we want with another person, and all of that becomes very, very overwhelming. You know, I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast that I'm a teacher by trade. Right, that's what I went to school for. I got a degree in right. But this is a really good example of this Kids in math, most kids that I taught. When they came to me and I was like, okay, it's time for math, they were like, oh right, like dying sounds, kids dropping on the floor, like no, right, because it was such an overwhelming idea, just the idea of math right was a four letter word to them. They were so overwhelmed, right, and we'll get into how we fixed that in the pillar here in just a second. Ok, but we get overwhelmed with trauma. That's an overwhelming thing.

Speaker 2: 45:14

The fifth one is blame. The fifth one is blame right, we can recognize that other people aren't showing up in our lives. It's a whole other thing when we say it's all their fault. Because what that does is it takes out the power of the do again. It's saying it's very similar to the victim. It's saying that we have no power over the situation. Right, when we're blame, blame, blame, blame, blaming, even blaming ourselves. It's not productive, it doesn't get us anywhere, okay.

Speaker 2: 45:58

The sixth pillar uh sorry adversary is fear and worry. Okay, because we tend to act out of fear and worry very quickly, but it's not with thought. We're acting on the emotion and not stopping for a second and actually thinking right. And what fear and worry does is it teaches us that we have to be alone. We have to do everything ourselves that we can't like. There's nobody out there that we can trust that can come into our spaces. We can't collaborate in life. And the problem is is life is all about relationships. Every good thing that comes to us in our life comes from some type of relationship. You know, the things I get to provide for my family comes from the relationship I have with my clients, right. Or the relationship I have with God, or the relationship I have with myself, right. Relationships matter. Even if you're working just a nine to five job. The relationship you have with your boss also determines whether or not you get paid and how well you get paid, believe it or not.

Speaker 1: 47:25

Right yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:27

So relationships matter. And the seventh one is vengeance.

Speaker 1: 47:33

Vengeance.

Speaker 2: 47:34

Vengeance. This is seeking for justice at all costs. This is the Inigo Montoya Right Prepare to die After he kills him. What does he say? He's like I don't know what to do with my life anymore. Right.

Speaker 1: 47:54

Well, vengeance and justice aren't the same thing at all, right? Well, vengeance and justice aren't the same thing at all.

Speaker 2: 48:09

Hey, right, I think vengeance will often use justice as a scapegoat, yes, or as justification, as rationale, but they are not the same thing. They're not. But when you, when you say I am responsible for this person's justice, what does that do?

Speaker 1: 48:28

It's not justice.

Speaker 2: 48:29

It's not justice, If anything you've corrupted justice.

Speaker 2: 48:32

Yes, and so that's actually vengeance. When you make yourself responsible for another person's justice, that is vengeance. That is exactly what that is. Now, there are things yes, you know, like our soldiers go out and create justice, right, I get that. Our police officers, bless their hearts, are there to protect justice, right, I get that Our police officers, bless their hearts, are there to protect justice, right? Yes, justice is somewhat in our hands, but when we take it into our hands and make justice ours, it is corrupting and we tend to chase an idea that has no bottom.

Speaker 1: 49:24

Okay, so that's our adversaries. We still need the pillars.

Speaker 2: 49:28

Yes. So let's get into the pillars, okay, and then we'll talk about, like, how to actually cross over into from the adversaries into the pillars. So the pillar number one is intention. It's the opposite of expectation. Okay, intention keeps the power of the do with ourselves.

Speaker 2: 49:48

Okay, we can sit there and say I want a husband who cherishes me, I want a husband who has ambition, I want a husband who has a deep, abiding and loving connection with God or his highest form of love, right, I want that out of a person, out of a man, out of a partner, okay, but we can't expect it. What we can do is we can look for someone who those things come naturally to. Now, if we're already, if we're already married to someone and we're flipping from expectation to intention and these are not things that are natural to a spouse, right, or a partner then what we do instead is we get to set, uh, non-negotiables with them. And these are things yes, these are things that I've done with my husband, right, and we've talked about, like, how we kind of had a rocky few years there and it is. He has to have a relationship with god. That's a non-negotiable for me, because when we have a relationship with god or our highest form of love. We tend to find the highest versions of ourselves and love that person fiercely.

Speaker 2: 51:17

I want him to love himself fiercely Because through that self-love comes devotion to others, right. And that easily steps into cherishing me. That easily steps into cherishing his kids, which he does. He's a fantastic father, right. I want him to pursue his goals and his dreams without fail. One of the anchors I've seen in men who struggle with addiction they always deny themselves what they want because they believe they have to give that up once they become a father or husband. And that's not true, right? It's not true. No, we want you to go out and actually pursue your goals and your dreams. We like a guy who has vision, who has purpose, who has drive, because that makes us feel safe, right. And the last one is no porn. And if he follows those three porn's, not a problem.

Speaker 1: 52:28

Okay, so the adversary of expectation. I want X, y, z right, I want somebody who provides well, I want somebody who cherishes me, the pillar, or the opposite of that right which we're labeling our opposites as as our adversaries and our pillars. And so the opposite of that is to have an intention, and so the opposite of that is to have an intention, which means setting a boundary around what you want and what you will accept. Am I understanding that right?

Speaker 2: 53:05

And what you will do, because the intentions, the pillars, are all about what you can do and what you will do, right, bringing the power of the do back with you. The adversaries say you have no power, you can't do anything, and that's not true, right? So, yeah, you're absolutely right. But the thing is is when I give these non-negotiables to my husband, right. Then I can discuss with him what happens if those are broken.

Speaker 1: 53:42

That's a whole other conversation. It's a whole other conversation. It totally is.

Speaker 2: 53:47

I told you I could talk about this stuff for hours. I could. But I will also say this about the intentions. Will also say this about the intentions I cannot give non-negotiables to my husband that I am not willing myself to, first and foremost, live right okay, and that's really the honest empowerment of intent is because it teaches us what we ourselves are actually willing to do. And if we are not willing to do those things ourselves, we cannot set that as a non-negotiable for anyone else.

Speaker 1: 54:38

I want to not spend a ton of time on this not because it's not great, but because the whole issue around boundaries literally there are books and books, and books and books, and this could explode and easily take over everything else. Yes, so it.

Speaker 2: 54:57

Could I this? Like I am going to write a book about this. I, I, I have been told by god that this needs to be a book and I'm like, yeah, you're probably, because I could talk for a while about this. But you know, moving forward onto the second pillar, that is called the bounce back. The bounce back, or basically knowing who you are, because one of the things I hear from both sides is I just wish I could be myself, right.

Speaker 1: 55:32

That's opposite of victim.

Speaker 2: 55:34

That's opposite of the victim, because if you feel like you can't be yourself, you're probably stuck in the victim mentality, believing that you have to perform a certain way or be a certain person for someone else in order for you to be accepted. But what does that do? It leads to a lot of resentment, and resentment is a very good indicator that we are A ignoring our boundaries, not setting boundaries and living boundary-less, and also living in the victim mentality, believing that we don't have any power over the situation. Right, the truth of the matter is is one of the questions I'd love to ask people. When they come to me and they're like I just, I just want to be who I am, I just want to be free to be who I am. I ask them that's great, who are you? And all of a sudden, there's nothing Right. They don't know. They've been too busy trying to play a role for years. That's not who they are.

Speaker 1: 57:08

They never really lived and so they have no idea who they are. And so this is called the bounce back, because the idea is you've got to bounce back to who you are yes, you've got to bounce back to the truth of who you are. Okay.

Speaker 2: 57:24

Right, you've got to know yourself. One of my mantras is be your own best friend, right, but how can you be a best friend if you're your own worst enemy?

Speaker 1: 57:37

That's true, right. That is very true, that is very true.

Speaker 2: 57:41

Yes, and so everything has its opposite. And once we start realizing what the opposites are in our lives, we can start to understand number one if I think that I'm worthless, well how does that feel? Not really great. So what could also be true? It's not that you're not, you're not worthless, it's not true. Ok, it's absolutely not true.

Speaker 2: 58:12

But if you say to yourself and this is powerful, you need to say it out loud, and I could talk about that also in a whole other episode. But the power of your voice, you really do need to say it out loud I am worthy, I am deserving, I am going to create greatness. See how that lands right. And I don't believe in affirmations. I believe in truth. That lands right, and I don't believe in affirmations. I believe in truth. Truth lands deep. All of a sudden it starts to awaken something inside of us. It starts to stir, and it might feel uncomfortable at the very beginning, but the more you say it and the more you anchor into that, all of a sudden you start. You'll start to see all of the reasons why you are.

Speaker 2: 59:04

All the proof we kind of have, like this court of law going on inside of our head, right, where we've got these adversaries trying to prove to us certain things, that we're not good enough, we're not worthy. And they line up all of our mistakes and all of the ways people show up and show up before us and we say I'm not good enough, right, but we don't ever give a moment for our angels to speak. And the angels will speak truth. They don't feel gut-wrenching, they don't hurt. What they say feels like light, it feels like hope, it feels like purpose, it feels like a push forward. It feels like purpose, it feels like a push forward, it feels like clarity, and these are all indicators that that's true.

Speaker 1: 1:00:10

So that's the bounce back that's the bounce back. Then we have distraction, and the opposite of distraction is the brain on board. That's the bounce back. That's the bounce back, then we have distraction.

Speaker 2: 1:00:20

And the opposite of distraction is the brain on board, onboarding your brain with what is true. Right, we have to sit in truth. We have to sit in truth about ourselves. Okay, we sit there and we claim that truth is that we are pieces of crap. But if you believe in God or even love, then you are calling God or love a liar because you're labeling yourself as less than less than a miracle if you think about god's creations.

Speaker 2: 1:01:07

Right, he created the heavens and the earth. He created, uh, animals, plant life, you know, light, seas and land, all these different things, but the culmination was first man and then woman Very significant. There's a lot of significance in that. Also. I could go into that one and create a whole other podcast for that. But let me just say this he saved the best for last. He made us the creators of this earth. Trust me, I own chickens. They love like I get to tell them where to go and how to get there, and like they love it and they're happy little chickens. Right, I get to till my yard and create something there. I get to help plants grow. I have to help get life to grow. I get to create what I I want in my home. What other living thing on this planet has that power?

Speaker 2: 1:02:22

yep it does nothing. We are the only ones. So therefore, we must have some type of greatness inside of us, for a reason. Greatness inside of us For a reason. If we are not sitting in truth, we will not know Our missions and our purposes. We won't be able to get our brains on board with the truth. We have to sit in truth, and so that leads to distraction.

Speaker 2: 1:02:55

That leads to distraction, all of the things that aren't true. We get so wrapped up into it and I can't tell you like I see this across the board when I literally hit somebody in the face with truth and they've been believing this lie for such a long time. It's so hard for them to accept. First because they don't understand humility. We think that being humble, because we want to be humble, is to literally think we are worse than the dust of the earth ah yeah, I think that's a very poor formulation of humble.

Speaker 2: 1:03:42

It is. It's not true, right. But to have the worst opinion of ourselves, to slap away every single compliment, that's what society has taught us that humility is, but it's not actual humility. Actual humility is accepting all truth. That is actual humility, because actual humility and truth will create you to do great things. But if you believe the worst possible thing about yourself, you cannot behave above your self-belief. It's not possible. You've set a ceiling for yourself. This is why curiosity and that brain onboarding is so incredibly important. It's because it causes you to challenge the ceiling that you've put on yourself to find truth.

Speaker 1: 1:04:45

So we've got intention, bounce back brain on board, and now we need an opposite to overwhelm. Which is play.

Speaker 2: 1:04:56

We need an opposite to overwhelm.

Speaker 1: 1:04:59

Which is play. I love that.

Speaker 2: 1:05:01

Right. Consider like going back to those cute little second graders when they came into my classroom and they're like right, and this is something I tell because most adults I talk to still have that math kind of mentality right, but the truth of the matter is is once we started playing with it and I started having fun with math and started showing the kids how fun math can be, all of the sudden it wasn't so scary, it wasn't so overwhelming anymore. The things that we view as fun are not overwhelming. They're exciting.

Speaker 1: 1:05:48

It's hard to have play with things that overwhelm you, though, because very often, if it overwhelms you, there maybe is is some fear, there's some anxiety, you know and yes, so the idea of playing with it let's see, you're talking about the previous adversary there, which is distraction, which is why we need to get into the brain on board.

Speaker 2: 1:06:13

Right, we need to be able to challenge our thought processes and before we can actually get into play, you're right, things get scary, things get overwhelming, right. So how do we play with those things? Well, we've got to learn to start asking ourselves some really great questions, right?

Speaker 2: 1:06:37

That makes sense, and so once it's less scary, then you have to find ways to have fun with it yes so, depending on what it is, I imagine yeah well, you know, in general, you know, um, I had a couple that came through my coaching doors a few years ago who were really struggling in their relationship. You know, she was feeling abandoned by him and he did have a porn addiction, right, and they knew that. Both of them knew that if this was going to continue they would likely end up in a divorce, okay. So. So one of the things I had them do, we kind of went through the first three pillars and then we instituted play and they said that that was actually the most powerful thing, cause what do you you know experts say in marital advice play together.

Speaker 1: 1:07:37

Right, okay, okay. So it wasn't play with um, play with being abandoned, or play with your addiction. It's play together, create new.

Speaker 2: 1:07:48

yes getting into the creation cycles right, because we're playing with life. It's not the addiction cycles, it's not the addiction cycles, it's not the abandonment, it's life that feels overwhelming right, life in general. And so once life starts to become fun, all of a sudden life doesn't feel so overwhelming, and then we can actually deal with the addiction cycles and the abandonment issues. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 1:08:22

Okay, Okay. So when we're saying okay, I think I'm understanding. Now.

Speaker 2: 1:08:29

Yes.

Speaker 1: 1:08:31

So it's not a little more sense?

Speaker 2: 1:08:33

Yes, I'm glad you're asking these questions for clarification.

Speaker 1: 1:08:35

It's good.

Speaker 2: 1:08:36

It's good to ask them Right, but that was the actual piece that started bringing them together. I'm glad you're asking these questions for clarification. It's good, it's good to ask them right, but that was the actual piece that started bringing them together, started knitting them to each other and to themselves, right, because what we're talking about is really deep rifts within ourselves. When we're talking between the adversaries and the pillars, right. When we move deeper into the pillars just on a personal level like let's not even bring everybody else into the subject we tend to find healing in our relationships as well.

Speaker 2: 1:09:11

when we feel the rift we have with ourselves, and so play is so incredibly important, and when people are overwhelmed, they're not playing.

Speaker 1: 1:09:25

Absolutely, absolutely. They're walking away at that point.

Speaker 2: 1:09:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:09:30

Almost out of necessity, because the other option is breakdown.

Speaker 2: 1:09:33

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 1:09:35

So that makes sense, okay, okay, so play, uh. What's our next one now? Opposite to blame.

Speaker 2: 1:09:44

Ownership Now this can be yes this one.

Speaker 1: 1:09:49

That's where all the business coaches chime in.

Speaker 2: 1:09:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:09:53

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:09:55

And this can also be somewhat triggering to people Right, because we do. We recognize that we don't want to abandon ourselves, but when we are sitting there saying it's everybody else's fault, that's exactly what we do is we abandon ourselves ourselves? Because again, if you remember, we are taking away the power of do. We are in essence saying we are weak, we are not capable, we are not good enough. That is what ends up happening when we are in the blame cycle and, in such as a result, we end up abandoning ourselves completely and that turns into fawning or extreme people pleasing or trying to control another person and their actions and their thoughts and their desires. However, ownership looks like this.

Speaker 2: 1:11:03

You know, I took a look. A quick story, I should say. Last summer my husband and I had had a bit of a fight, and I don't even remember what the fight was about, but I was so incredibly angry at him and I remember him saying, and over and over and over, every time we'd get into a fight he'd say you think you're better than me, don't you? No course I don't. I just want better for us, right? Well, he had just said that again to me and I just spun on my heel and I just walked away and I mean, I really went walking. I was like four miles from my house, you know, and I was sitting there ruminating on the situation and like stomping and thinking to myself like oh, what a jerk.

Speaker 2: 1:12:10

But I remember thinking to myself he always, but I never. He always does this, but I never do that. I'm such a good wife. He's such a crappy husband. He always, I never, he always, but I never do that. I'm such a good wife. He's such a crappy husband. He always, I never, he always, I never. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh crap, he's right, right. And I remember thinking that to myself, like I do think I'm better than him, right, and I immediately spun on my heel right then, and I walked the four miles back home and I looked at him and I said you're right, I do right, I do. I'm so sorry, even though he had things that he could have taken ownership for first, even though he had brought his own piece to that argument, his own piece to my pain, even though Well, that's part of a relationship, right?

Speaker 1: 1:13:17

You're not really there to punish and criticize the other person into who your ideal would be. Ideally, you're partnering and you're making yourselves incrementally better right, and as you do that, you become better partners.

Speaker 2: 1:13:35

Yeah, exactly, so that's what should happen. That is's what should happen that is exactly what should happen. And here's the deal right. Regardless of how he responds, it's keeping me in integrity with myself. It's keeping me in alignment with myself. I did not abandon myself in that moment because I had set a standard for myself to be kind and respectful and to be a seeker of truth at all costs.

Speaker 1: 1:14:06

Right. It is not demeaning to you to better yourself.

Speaker 2: 1:14:10

Exactly, and you know what. You know what. Since that time I've been very aware of my thoughts around my husband, you know. Now there can be a danger here when we tend to think only good things about them and feel like we have to protect them. There's stuff behind that again, we can get into a whole other podcast on that one. Right, you have to be careful. But when it comes to ownership, it is simply owning one thing you can work on and do better on. It's not taking control over what he did or what she did right. It is legitimately simply taking control back with yourself. That's what ownership does okay.

Speaker 1: 1:15:09

So next we have opposite of fear and worry which is called the lean-to lean-to the the lean to so if you think about not the tent, not the tent, but if you think about leaning into something, right.

Speaker 2: 1:15:28

This is where I talk about leaning on leaning into god, or leaning towards god, leaning towards truth, leaning towards truth, leaning towards truth and trust Right, because when we get into fear and worry, we are basically saying I can't trust anything, right? This is again this opportunity to slow down and sit there and say what can I trust? Right? For me, in that moment, where I was screaming at God, I actually hadn't abandoned all trust in him, yet I was trusting him not to hit me with a bolt of lightning for swearing at him.

Speaker 2: 1:16:15

Right, I was trusting him, like totally subconsciously, but I was trusting him to come in with love and I can tell you that's the most loved I've ever felt in my life. After that moment of me just completely releasing everything to him, yelling, screaming, blaming him all of it, swearing at him like did everything you're told not to do in a relationship with God or in a communication with God? I should say I did it all. But my communication has changed so authentically because of that one interaction with him.

Speaker 2: 1:17:06

I realized from that one thing even though I showed up as my worst self, he didn't judge me. It wasn't about him. It's never been about him, it's always been about us. And in that moment he made it completely about me. You bet your bottom dollar. I learned I can trust him Through that and through trusting God I've also learned to trust myself. From trusting myself and trusting god I have learned what it takes to trust other people and when they bring trustworthy characteristics up, and from that has come abundance I feel like that could be a whole other thing too, like what does trust mean and who is trustworthy leaning?

Speaker 1: 1:18:04

that's a whole other yeah, it is.

Speaker 2: 1:18:08

It definitely is. If you guys want more information about that, come check out my podcast too. It's the other side of the struggle, healing from betrayal trauma I've got all that kind of stuff on there too plug that here in a second yeah, we'll just plug that in right there all right.

Speaker 2: 1:18:26

So our last pillar is our opposite to vengeance yes, which is called the anchor, because if you think about vengeance, if you really step into trying to keep justice with yourself and be responsible for another person's justice, that's going to leave you feeling a whole lot like a hot air balloon on the wind Right, or I should say a helium field balloon in the wind. You're going to get bounced all over the place. However, the anchor is how can we actually be grateful for these situations? Now, I've had a lot of people get very angry at me for that too. How can I be grateful for a divorce? How can I be grateful for my husband's porn addiction? How can I be grateful for the way this person showed up for me? How can I be grateful for debt?

Speaker 2: 1:19:26

Well, because there's lessons beautiful, wonderful, perfect, amazing, wisdom-filled lessons that shine a light on who we truly are again, that bounce back right In gratitude for the heart. It's actually one of the things that make what you have to do way less hard, but we tend to fear it when we're going through hard things, because we tend to somehow in our subconscious believe that it's going to make things harder. But I can tell you with 100% accuracy that, had I not found gratitude in the way that my mom showed up for me, in the way that my colleague showed up for me, in the way my husband has showed up for me, and the way that my colleagues showed up for me and the way my husband has showed up for me. Does that mean that they don't need to take some responsibility and heal themselves? Not at all. They absolutely do. But what it has taught me is amazing lessons like these seven pillars. Amazing lessons like what are the main relationships in our life. It's taught me what I'm capable of, right, it brings questions to our mind and so, like, oftentimes I talk about like trauma, being a debt, feeling like we're in debt, and everybody can connect to this because money trauma is so rampant in all societies right now, right, and so debt is a big thing and it's scary.

Speaker 2: 1:21:15

It's absolutely scary. But yet, when we sit down for just a second and we question our money stories, what do we really believe about money? How has money shown up for us before? Right, and starting to really really question these things, we start to get clearer with money how do we want to make it? How do we want to create it? How do we want to create it? How do we want to be used. What do we want to go towards? Right, and that starts to change the entire dynamic and the entire relationship.

Speaker 2: 1:21:58

We're talking about divorce here. Whether you're already divorced or whether you're looking at a divorce, that is definitely an emotional debt kind of a situation, right, and when we pull things back for just a minute and we're not looking at everything with that fear and that worry and that I need justice and what is wrong with them and I need to control and like trying to reach into all of the wrong things, we're trying to put our resources, our time, our energy, our talents these are all resources that we overspend on. When we're putting them in all of the wrong places, it's like gambling but we're not getting the return on our interests.

Speaker 1: 1:22:53

That makes a lot of sense and if you go into relationships or any interactions with people and poorly informed and poorly skilled, you really are gambling.

Speaker 2: 1:23:05

You really are, and it's high stakes. You really, really are.

Speaker 1: 1:23:11

Sorry go ahead.

Speaker 2: 1:23:12

It's okay, I was just going to say, but once you actually start getting into the gratitude, gratitude grows your resources without fail. It always does, and so gratitude will also open you up to wisdom. See, the only way you can ever grow a relationship is when you grow yourself and I can tell you. I can tell you with a hundred percent truth again, that when I grew myself, my relationship with my mom changed.

Speaker 2: 1:23:49

I have the best relationship ever with my mom. Now we are completely safe people with each other. Now she can come to me and she can talk to me about her fears and her worries without being judged. I can give her ways to think about it in a different way and she's completely open to that. Now you know, she's completely in my kids' life. I'm a mom of six kids, right, we can do a whole other podcast on that one too, I know. But you know she's she's one of my best friends. Now. That's a whole. I didn't even know that that was possible.

Speaker 2: 1:24:35

My husband even though there's still things that we need to work on in our relationship, even though there's still things that we need to work on in our relationship, one of my favorite things about him is he is open To trying something new, to trying something different, to thinking about things in a different way, which he wasn't before. I have amazing friendships, hence, like this podcast. Right, I'm gaining a new friend today, amazing friendship, and I have people literally all around me and this is I'm going to get emotional, eric but I have people all around me now that support me, love me, they're cheering me on, support me, love me. They're cheering me on, they love seeing my success, they love seeing me grow and they're excited for me versus feeling so alone in my life. This is 11 years later, yes, but I can tell you I dealt with that aloneness for 25 years and that changed in 18 months. It probably would have been quicker if I wasn't so daggone, stubborn. I will say that there's that ownership piece right there.

Speaker 1: 1:26:03

Well things do get better if you face them honestly. Well okay, maybe that's not necessarily true. Maybe what happens right afterwards won't be a great experience, but it's a more useful experience than continuing in ignorance or in fantasy.

Speaker 2: 1:26:21

Yes, or in fantasy yes.

Speaker 1: 1:26:25

Or in control.

Speaker 2: 1:26:28

Yeah, I think divorce is often there because we do tend to have failed relationships, and I'm not saying divorce should never happen, but at the rate it's happening, something's wrong, something is absolutely wrong, and one of the things I do see, probably more often than it needs to, is that divorce happens because we weren't able to control another person, right? Or divorce happens because somebody tried to control us to the point that we just couldn't deal with it anymore. But what happens? And this is what ends up happening with the seven pillars, you can only control one person at a time. If you're trying to control someone else, that leaves you out of control and feeling crazy at the same time, because you can actually never completely control another person. You don't have that ability. Nobody does. However, you do have the ability to completely control yourself, but you cannot do that if you're trying to focus on controlling another person. It's true, focus on controlling another person.

Speaker 1: 1:28:00

It's true.

Speaker 2: 1:28:01

And you know, this is where some invitation comes in here that can feel really really triggering to some people that are really really in this deep hurt. And that's not my intention at all I heard anybody listening to this but it is my intention to get you to simply slow down again, pull back and just wonder am I trying to control something out of my control? Because if you are, and if you'll be honest enough with yourself, like heavens, I've been doing this for 11 years and I'm still finding ways where I'm like trying to control someone else, right. But if I can sit there and get into these pillars for a minute, I can realize, okay, I need to take some ownership here with the wisdom or the gratitude I can find. Maybe how can I go play for a little bit, so that way things don't feel so overwhelming and I can think right, there's all these different ways we can really get into these pillars and get out of the cycle of control.

Speaker 1: 1:29:12

So I know we've gone way over time, way over time, and I apologize for my part. We just converse, yes, we do, but I have to ask at least one more for somebody who is divorced or divorcing, and they're going through that pain that they need now to start healing from what would be the first thing that just tell them to do.

Speaker 2: 1:29:44

In a relationship with yourself, a relationship with yourself to the point where you don't abandon yourself and your emotions. Your own emotions aren't scary, so you don't dismiss them. Remember that it takes 90 seconds for the chemical of an emotion to burn out of our brain, like we're not re-triggering it. So if we sit with our emotions just simply for 90 seconds and that can feel very overwhelming, I get it Right. But if you sit with the emotions for 90 seconds, then you're not going to be thinking in emotion, you're not going to be re-triggering it.

Speaker 2: 1:30:35

And it's the emotion sometimes that if we try to act out of can kind of cloud our judgment, can kind of cloud our vision. But if we learn from it and ask ourselves, what is this emotion trying to tell me? It can help us grow in beautiful, beautiful ways. Emotions are a universal language. Somebody in china can totally understand fear, exhaustion, worry, excitement, joy, the same way we can, and we can recognize it from completely opposite ends of the globe. They're universal languages and so once we start to understand, accept and love ourselves for being emotional, we will find someone who also loves, understands and accepts us for being human.

Speaker 1: 1:31:37

Well said. Thank you very much Again. We've been talking with Coach Erin Anderson. Betrayal and Trauma Coach, sorry, you said the best way to reach you was the Better Than Betrayal. Your Facebook page right. Better Than Betrayal.

Speaker 2: 1:31:55

Yes, and you have a podcast as well.

Speaker 2: 1:31:57

I do have a podcast. It's the other side of the struggle, healing from betrayal trauma. Definitely go check it out. I've got lots and lots of episodes on there. You know that kind of dive deeper into some of these things that we were chatting about earlier. But, like I said, I do have, like I said, the Facebook page. I also have a group, the other side of the struggle healing, healing from betrayal trauma. That is for women. I have immune and unashamed. That is for married couples. So I definitely, if you guys are listening to this as a married couple or even as a divorced couple, wherever you're at you know, definitely go hang out on that group. That's for men, that's for women. And then, if you're interested in trauma coaching too, I also have the trauma informed coach on Facebook as well.

Speaker 1: 1:32:48

Trauma informed coach on Facebook, so there's multiple ways to get ahold of of coach Aaron if you'd like some, um, some guidance working through your trauma. Uh, thank you so much for being with us today, aaron.

Speaker 2: 1:33:01

Thank you, rick, it was such a pleasure.