24. Self-doubt, Fear, & Expanding Your Life

Today we're tackling self-doubt, fear, and why expanding your world is crucial to healing <3

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Transcript

  There's my intro music for my podcast. All right, welcome back to another episode of what the fuck do I do now with your host, Mandy? Thanks so much for tuning in today for to your go-to source for betrayal, trauma, infidelity, porn addiction, and just overall woman's empowerment to remind you that this is not your fault. 

It has nothing to do with you, your body, your looks, your appearance, or anything to do with you or your personality. It has everything to do with.  Societal conditioning and porn addiction. And the fact that no one is fucking speaking up about this and how much porn is just damaging so many people and porn is cheating. 

It is not your fault.  You did nothing to deserve this. And we're going to dive into that end to all of these episodes. 

And before we dive into today's episode, just to call out, first of all, if you can help this podcast grow and help more. Women find it who are struggling with their current or past partners porn issue. So they know that they're not the only one, a huge way you could help me do that is by just subscribing to the podcast, giving it a four star rating or however many stars you want to rate it. 

And that would just help the algorithm, push it out and help it find more girls.  Secondly, if you are not a part of my private support group, yet I  fully met you to come join. It's  helpful to be able to speak with other girls who are going through their current or past partners, healing from their current or past partners, porn consumption. 

 And so it's just nice to know that you are not alone because this can be such a.  So it can be such a shameful and isolating journey. If you don't have women around who can help support you in women who have been through this to help validate your feelings and to let you know that you're not crazy because that's something a lot of us feel so much going through this. 

It's are we overreacting? Are we insecure? Are we going crazy? No you were just. Asking for the bare minimum respect in a  monogamous relationship. You are not crazy. You're not insecure. Alright, tangent over. So today I would love to talk about self doubt and confidence, and I don't have an outline or anything written for this. 

I'm just ramble and see what comes out. But this has been something on my mind, the past few days. And.  At first I wanted it to be like, okay, like how can you create confidence after betrayal knowing that going through betrayal, it is. It fucking plummets, your self esteem so much ticket. 

You think it's your fault. You think it has to do with your body. You think it has to do with your looks and your causes. Oh, why am I not enough for him? Why does he need these other girls? Why is he not stopping to watching it? Why was me leaving? Not enough. Like why, what the fuck is going on? 

And it's so normal to have your confidence be absolutely shattered. I've spoken about this before on a few podcasts episodes, right? I after discovering my partner's addiction and discovering him getting hotel rooms, the porn star, I hated my body so much. Like I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror for. Weeks. 

I get it. I showered my eyes closed. I went to the bathroom, my eyes, cause I did not want to look at my body or my face, anything about me because I thought I was the cause of this because I wasn't enough. And that's something I hear so often from females. So if you're going through this, no, I know it's easier said than done. To be like, okay. 

Yeah. It's not, my fault has nothing to do with me, but there's always the like whisper in the back of your mind and say maybe if I would have looked differently or if I would act differently or if I would have been more at that would have been enough to stop him and. Again, it. I know it's easier said than done, 



but no one woman is enough to sexually satisfy someone who has an addiction to porn. 

It would be like, if you were dating an alcoholic and you're like, okay, every time we go out, I'm going to make sure I always buy. The nicest bottle of tequila so that he never has to drink anything else.  Like that's not going to cure his. Addiction. Cause he still there's underlying emotions that he is not confronting. Like this. Porn is so often. Substitute for when you're feeling lonely, stressed, sad, or bored, or like running from uncomfortable emotions. 

It and just looking at the way society. They tells men what quote unquote masculinity is. It's you're tough. You don't show emotions. You don't cry. You're a man like Buddha.  It's so fucking stupid and it's not true. And then it ends up messing up guys in the long run because they don't know how to express emotions. 

They don't know how to.  I don't know how to be like a real human being. They turn into a robot and they just go to porn for all their issues without even realizing it half the time. And.  



And I don't really know where I was going with that tangent. Oh no. Every time I say I'm not, I'm going to create an outline next time. 

So this doesn't happen. But then every time I don't. There's my add 

But anyways, I'm not saying that the way that he was raised in society or the emotions that he is running away from. I'm not seeing that validates or excuses, his behavior towards you that doesn't validate or excuse lying, manipulating gaslighting, hiding any behavior from you like that does not make it acceptable at all. 

And. Aye.  Sometimes, I don't even like to use the word porn addiction, because I feel like that gives people like a cop-out to be like, oh I'm addicted. I'm addict. I can't help it. But we talked about this in the support group last week where it's like, they're still, even if they feel like they can't control themselves in the moment when they're acting out, when they're reaching for porn, they can still control themselves after and they good at any other time of the day. 

Like they still know what they did. They still have time to be a full adult, to be a real human and to come to you and to communicate what's going on. 

I hate the excuse of oh it's an addiction, so I can't help. It was like I understand that. And I have sympathy for people who have addiction. I'm not trying to talk poorly on them, but you still can be responsible for your behavior. That's why alcoholics go to AA. That's why anyone who with a substance addiction goes to gets the help they need. 

So they don't hurt their loved ones in the process.  All right. So there was another tangent. What did I want to talk about today? Okay. Let's talk about self-doubt and. Confidence and sorry. I know I'm jumping around a lot today. I just started the  Circular phase of my menstrual cycle. And that's like, when you're feeling very creative, you're feeling very social. 

 So I'm trying to do my podcast today, so I'm a very uppity, but I feel like I might be a little bit too upbeat today, but that is okay. All right. So self-doubt and confidence. So I remember again, after find out the betrayal, my self doubt, my confidence was shattered. 

I doubted myself I, I didn't know. I just felt so unsafe in the world because I didn't feel like I could trust myself because I didn't quote unquote, catch his behavior earlier. And so I felt like I had a bad judge of character. Then I also felt like I couldn't judge other people because.  That was such a deep betrayal boon, where I was like, wow, this person who says they're my soul mate, this person who says, they love me more than anyone in the world, this person who says they want to spend their entire life with me, if this person was capable of causing this. Deep of a betrayal wound to me, what are other people capable of doing? 

So it made me very untrusted trusting of others. 

And I was just like, wow, how, why am I not this confident person that I felt like I was before? And even before, obviously I still. I'm a woman. So of course I dealt with. Body image issues. Appearance issues just like overall, like self-doubt and imposter syndrome. And so that those are always there. And I say of course, because I'm a woman, not that every woman feels like that, but I just think the society that we grew up too with the beauty standards are unrealistic. 

The standards of working eight hours, raising a family, doing all the tours around the house, like managing a house. I engine house, managing kids, managing work, like all of that is just so fucking unrealistic and. We're just like taught that we were supposed to be able to handle it. I'm a little bit, whatever. 

It's just fucked up in my opinion. 

Anyway. So after the parents, like how I was after the Metro, I was like, how the fuck do I become confident again? How do I start to trust myself? How do I start to.  Not have so much self doubt and like crippling anxiety. When I leave the house, like how do I do this? 

So I started listening to podcasts just about confidence and releasing self-doubt and imposter syndrome, et cetera, et cetera. And basically the main takeaways I got from all of them, which is what I want to talk about today was. You're always going to have this fear. 

 You're always going to have self doubt. There's always going to be times you don't feel confident and that's okay.  You can't just magically. There's nothing you can do. And sorry if this sounds like a buzzkill, but I promise it will get like more positive towards the end. There's nothing you can do. To magically have confidence in yourself and to just magically take away that self doubt and to just feel good about yourself. 

You're a human being. You're always going to have fear. You're always going to be afraid of what, if you do something incorrectly, your brain is always going to think about the worst case scenario in a situation. And I've talked with that in a previous podcast episode where our brains are literally wired to protect us. 

And by protecting us, it looks for the worst case scenario. Scenario in every situation so that we can feel. Quote unquote prepared, although it's not necessarily. Helping us. Cause most of the times it keeps us in situations where we feel small and where we, it makes us feel stuck because we're afraid of leaving our comfort zone. 

And I think one of the things about fear is that when we look at people who.  I say public figures through a very well known, forgiving, like Ted talks or for speaking, or for celebrities or for any, anyone like big in the public sphere. We're like, oh, they must never be afraid or, oh, I wish I had their confidence. They still get terrified. They 100% still get terrified. 

They still get nervous. They still get anxiety. They're humans. 



But what makes them different from people who let fear, keep them stuck in their tracks is people just fucking do it. They go ahead and they do it anyways. They push the fear aside. They push the nervousness aside. They put the self-doubt self-doubt aside. 

And that's what I really want to talk about today. There have been so many times throughout my healing journey. And even now I don't feel like I'm saying even though, because I don't feel like I'm on my healing journey as much, or at least I'm not in like the depths of it from where I was like crying every day and they feeling anxious and dislike. Hated myself, hated the world, thought everything bad was happening to me, blah, blah. 

Like I am a very much so I'm out of that now where I can see the gift and what happened. I'm thankful for what happened because it made me the woman I am today. I was able to create like my dream life after it happened. So I very much so feel like I'm out of that stage.

But. Something that was so helpful to get me from. I'm going to say the shitty Sage, because it's really shitty the shitty grieving mourning stage two, the holy fuck. I'm thankful this happened. Like I found the gift in this. Was to lean into the fear and self doubt as much as possible and to just go fucking do those things anyways. 

And I know that sounds scary and it might not sound helpful because you're like if I wanted to do these things, I would just go do them. But. Sometimes it can be helpful listening to other people who talk about yeah. They still get the fear. They still get nervous. 

And so something that made me feel really stuck when I was in the shitty grieving mourning phase was I felt like I lost. I lot, I felt like not, I felt like I did. I lost my entire life. Like I lost who.  Who I thought my soulmate was going to be. I lost our dog, who I love so much. I love, I lost the apartment. 

I lost my neighborhood. I lost the neighbors in there. . I felt like I couldn't go to that area of town anymore because I was afraid of seeing him. I lost our shared friends.  Two months prior to that, I lost my job during mass layoffs. So I was, when, this, I was literally homeless. I was homeless for seven weeks couch surfing with friends because I moved out of our apartment that next day. I never went back to, I never saw him again after that day. I had lost my job two months prior. 

So I was still running on my severance checks. And I was literally as holy fuck. I just lost. Everything.  



In the blink of an eye and it still makes me tear up because I'm like, damn, like no one should ever have to go through that. I was homeless and I didn't know like where it was going to be sleeping. 

The next day. I was constantly texting friends when it came. Thank God. Some of them let me stay up for a week, others for two weeks. And it's not like they were kicking me out by any means. I just felt bad taking up space. And I literally had like, all my stuff packed in garbage bags. 

And suitcases, and I was just like a traveling nomad and it was really fucking hard. And I was just so afraid every day. And something that was so difficult was I was like, okay. So I know this huge part of me.



 Symbolically speaking just died. Like I can never go back to that life. 

I can never go back to that comfort zone as much as I want to. I know I can't go back because I know. If I go back to him, I know what the relationship will look like. And I just knew I couldn't. I was like, I know what life will look like if I go down that path. I know. The unfulfilling friendships I'll have I'll know the abusive relationship that'll have. 

I know the unfulfilling career track that'll have.

But I don't know what the future looks like and that's fucking terrifying. I have no idea what it looks like and our brain will always choose. To stay. Stuck in the familiar comfort, even if it's painful, because it knows what to expect. Rather than choosing the unknown because there could be pain there, but we don't know what type of pain to expect. 

So that feels scary. I was like, okay, both  routes are going to be painful. I know the route of staying with him of going back to that, I'm going back to unfulfilling career 

although I loved my life at that time. It was a great eye, but it still, I just felt unfulfilled. Like I was like, there must be more to this in life. And then. Looking at the future, I was like, I don't know who I want to be. I don't know what life I want to create. I don't even know what I'm capable of because every day I just feel like I'm in survival mode trying to get through each day. And something that I looked really hard. 

I was like, okay, I want to create new friendships. Not that anything was wrong with my past friendships. But I wanted friendships that had more. . Alignment in terms of hobbies, in terms of spiritual beliefs, in terms of. Just outlooks on life. , I knew I didn't want to be in the nine to five corporate grind anymore. 

I was like, I want to start surrounding myself with entrepreneurs and females who have created their own companies, people who left the nine to five, like what do they do? How do they get there? And I also knew I wanted to be with my friends who were interested in like yoga and meditation and mindfulness, because those were things that were so helpful for me leading up to the betrayal. 

And especially after the betrayal. But I didn't know how to do that. And I was scared. I was like, how do I create a life? What the F is there a roadmap for this? Like how do I get there? What do I do? So I started researching. I was like looking up events. I was going out of my way to meet people. 



And quite frankly, I just didn't think I was worthy or capable of creating a life that I was proud of. 

I was heartbroken. I was having panic attacks. I. Thoughts. My boyfriend was sleeping with prostitutes because I was so ugly and so gross. And of course, none of that is true, but that's just, that was so much my mindset. It was very much this is what happened to me. This must be what I'm worth in this must be the trajectory of my life. 

I'm just going to be miserable and no one's ever gonna love me again. I, especially with all this extra baggage, like I'm never going to feel happy again. Like my, I just lost my best friend. I lost my dog. I lost her home. I'm literally homeless right now. Like this fucking sucks. 

And because of that, I also just started overthinking everything like fucking. Everything . I knew I was going to be the only person capable of creating the life that I wanted. I knew that no one was going to create this life, but me and that was really scary, but it also felt powerful to be like, okay, I'm the only thing. Getting in the way of the life that I want. I have no one to blame. I can't point. Yes. I can point my fingers on my ass, but he just broke my heart. He traumatized me. But at the same time, That's giving him all the power and I wanted to reclaim my power back. So it was like, you know what? 

Fuck you. Yes, you did this to me. Yes. That sucks. But I'm going to go create a life that I am so proud of. A life that brings me so much fulfillment in so much joy. I liked that makes me feel happy again because I made it and because it's aligned with my hobbies and my values and my interests, that's how I'm going to take my power back by saying, yes, fuck you. 

You did this to me. That sucks. However, I don't need to, I'm going to create a life that was so much better. Than the one I had with you to the point that I'm not even going to miss you, you're going to realize how much you fucked up and I'm going to be happy living my own life regardless of you. And that's what happened and it feels fucking great. 

So I was like, okay, I'm going to create this life. How do I do this? First of all. And I have social anxiety, which I don't think a lot of a lot of my friends wouldn't they would never describe me as a person with social anxiety, but in the inside, like before going to a social outing, I get so nervous. 



So I started to put myself out there and a lot of honestly, uncomfortable unfamiliar situations. It was really hard. I started going to  workout classes alone. I started signing up for  community events. I started looking on Eventbrite to see what events were going around on in neighborhoods or areas around me. 

I started going on Instagram to find people like influencers within the yoga meditation breathwork space, et cetera. And just reaching out to them, asking if they had any events coming up and. I started going to a lot of events alone. And was it scary? Yes. Did I have a lot of self doubt? Yes. Did I feel confident? No every time before I'd go, I'd my brain. 

Like I said, it always everyone's brain just will go for the worst case scenario. So I would picture myself before going to this event alone. Big. Okay. Should I go? What if I go and no one talks to me, what will I do if  I just stand there awkwardly alone. 

Like what do I do? What, how do I leave a blah, blah, blah. And like you think of every worst case scenario. But I was like, you know what? I'm just going to say, fuck it. And I'm just going to go.



And there would be times where I was at the events and yes, it would feel uncomfortable and yes, no one was talking to me and there'd be times where I'd go to events and I'd be like, oh, I didn't really meet anyone. 

Maybe that wasn't worth it.  But the reason I'm talking about this is the more you do things. Outside of your comfort zone, even though you feel doubt, even though you don't feel confident, even though you're afraid, but you just push past that you're like, fuck it. I'm going to do it anyways. It makes it easier and easier and easier to do that every time you do it. 

So for example, even after the break,  I had a lot more time being alone since I wasn't living with this person anymore. I was like, okay, I'm going to start to try to be one of those girls that just goes out to eat alone. 

And I. I was so scared the first few times I did it because I was like, what are people going to think of me? I'm going to look like a loser. They're going to think I have no friends there. What are people going to say? What am I going to sit? What am I just supposed to sit in the silence of my thoughts? 

Like what the fuck? 



But then I did it and yeah, the first few times it's really awkward. It's really uncomfortable. But I say this what I'm about to say, this respectfully, no one gives a shit about you. And I don't mean that to you as a person, but no one, like when you're out in public, when you're out alone, no one is looking at you thinking, oh, I bet that person  doesn't have friends. 

Or while they look like such a loser alone, like no one gives a fuck about you because everyone is so stuck in their own brains and their own world. Worried about. At what people are thinking of them. No one cares about you. And the way that you think they might be caring about you. 



And whether you're in the relationship or whether you left it,   one of the ways we heal is by expanding our world, growing our world, we put so much emphasis on our past recurrent partner. 

And we're so focused on receiving validation from them, or we're so focused on what they're doing or what they're thinking. And our routines and our life with them that they become our sole focus. But the way we start to gain independence, the way we start to hear the way we start to claim back our power. Is by expanding and growing our world and realizing that there's so much more to life.  Then this one guy. And I'm not trying to minimize his impact in your life and how much you may or may not rely on him or how special he is to you.  But in the grand scheme of things, he's just one guy. And there were so many other people in the world and there was so many other things in the road. 

There's so many hobbies. There's so many activities. There's so much, there's so much more to life. Than just one, man. And I say that lightly, I'm not trying to minimize a few are married and have kids, or you're just in a relationship with him. Or you're like, this is the love of my. I love my life, my soulmate. That's a great, but you need to become the love of your life. 

You need to become your soulmate and you need to focus all your time and energy. On you. Stop putting his needs or his wants, or his feelings before yours. You need to put yours first, especially.

If you're hurt by his porn use, and this is a repeated thing and whether or not you left the relationship or not, this is something  that everyone has to do is you need to get so fucking selfish with your healing, with creating your new world, with expanding your world. If you keep orbiting in the same world that you had when you were with him or that you continue to have with him, if you just keep orbiting that, of course. Your world is going to feel really small. 

It's going to feel claustrophobic. It's going to feel paralyzing is going to feel like you're stuck in this forever because that's all you're allowing your brain to see. But what happens when you slowly take gradual steps towards expanding your world and doing things on your own? And try new hobbies, going to new workout classes, trying a new music class,  doing crafts, going to a cooking class. 

I going to a new gym going to. New hikes go joining new clubs, joining Bumble BFF, meeting, new people and this ties back to my theme of course, you're going to feel scared. You're going to have self doubt. You're going to be afraid and that's normal and that's okay. But the difference between someone who stay stuck in this pain and  the person who.  Claims their power back is by starting to create your new life, whether he's in it or not, you have to start taking charge. Of your life. 



 You are the architect of your life.  You create your life. Yes. Other people can impact them. Yes. Other people can traumatize you.  But at the end of the day, you are solely responsible for the life that you're going to create. And so how do we create this life? You need to think you need to get so crystal clear on the life that you want to create, what hobbies do you want to start trying? 

What type of people do you want to surround yourself with? What type of friendship, what type of family members? What are the qualities in other people that you want to show up in your life? , how do you want your day-to-day to look like?  What type of career do you want to do? What gives you meaning and purpose and fulfillment in life? 

How much money do you want your bank account? How do you get to that money?  And then start taking gradual steps towards that. And if you're like, I don't know what I want my life to look like. I am just so stuck in the day-to-day of the anxiety and the depression  and just all those grieving feelings. That's totally normal, especially depending on how recent you just discovered this, or  if you stay in the relationship and you keep finding more porn use or more lies, of course, it's normal that you're going to keep getting essentially pulled back to that pain because. You're not escaping it. 

Of course. It's going to always keep coming back to you 

but one of the ways to get out of this pain is to start growing and expanding your world.  I look at the life I had. When I was with my partner and yes, I loved it. It was safe. It was secure. But it was my comfort zone, but that's the issue is that it was just my comfort zone and there started to be growing pains. 

, I wanted more out of life. I wanted more fulfillment. I. Wanted. More excitement and more joy. And.

I in a way, I just felt like I was settling, but I had no idea how to create. A bigger life. I just thought, oh, maybe this is what life is like. Maybe this is all that life is, and I should just be thankful for what I have fuck that you deserve a life where you wake up every day. And you feel fulfilled or you feel safe or you feel happy or you feel excited because you're going to learn something new. 

 You deserve that life. And I, it breaks my hearts. Whenever I speak with girls and they're like, I just want to feel confident and love myself again. That's such bare minimum things that anyone should feel. And you are worthy and you are capable of that. I didn't think I was capable or worthy of that at all. 

As most women don't, especially living in a patriarchal society where they will literally try fucking anything to make women feel less than 

But you are worried that you are capable and you can do it. And the way you start to do that is by taking small gradual steps. 

Something I did while I was still in the relationship. And when I felt like I started to question the relationship, not knowing that you had a porn addiction or was cheating on in real life, but I did know that he was using porn. And. The more I started to work on myself and the relationship, the more I started journal and go to therapy and through yoga and get into mindfulness meditation. 

 The more I started to see how unhealthy of a person he actually was like the way when we would have fights, I would pick up on his gaslighting and the manipulation and the line and the shift blaming. I started picking up on all those tactics so much more and it made me start to question a lot of things. So I was like, whether or not I stay in this relationship, I need to know that I'm going to be okay. 

That I'm going to feel confident in my decision, who I am. And so I started taking myself on, I think it was maybe like once a month I would go on a date alone. Where I would go to a garden or I would go walk around a new beach or I would go try a new class and try to meet a friend there, or like whatever it was. 

I would just put myself in unfamiliar situations and. When I first did it and maybe miss him a lot when I was still in the way, she was like, oh, I wish my best friend was here. It'd be so much more fun with him. But then I would search at Bruno journal and I would just journal while I was at the. These events. 

And I felt so connected so much more connected to myself, which was really super helpful, but then fast forward, like months later after the relationship ends and I'm homeless for seven weeks, just cup surfing,  I also didn't have a job yet. So I was again, cause I was just laid off. And so I had so much free time that it was like a concerning amount of free time to be alone with my thoughts. 

I was like I need to go. Instead of just sitting and moping in bed all day. I'm going to go put myself out there. And that is ultimately when I look back at where I am now to where I was then putting myself in these uncomfortable situations  and getting comfortable of having fear, but of saying, you know what, fuck it. 

I'm going to push past the fear anyways and go like the question I would always ask myself is can this kill me?  Of course every time the answer was, no, this can not kill you. 

So I'd go anyways and. The more, I would start going the less scary it became and that's right. That's like the key message I want to get away with. This is you're going to, you're going to feel fear. That's normal. You're going to feel self doubt. That's normal. You're not going to feel confident and that's normal too, but the more you push past it, the more you push yourself in these con in these situations. The more your world is slowly going to expand. And at the same time, you're going to grow your confidence by doing this because you're going to be reminded of, oh last time I was nervous, but I went anyways and it turned out to be fine. Or last time I was.



Overthinking the situation and made myself really scared and talk myself out of going or almost talking myself out of going. 

But I went anyways and it was fine. That's how you grow your confidence is you. You recognize the fear. You labeled if you're like, Hey, yep. This is fear. I realize I'm talking myself out of it. I realize I'm scared, but I'm going to go anyways. That is where the leap of confidence  comes from. 

And the more you start doing these scenes to put yourself in these uncomfortable situations, of course, it always makes sure you're safe. I'm not saying to go put yourself in a weird sketchy situation, but when, but just going to a new social gathering alone where you might not know anyone. But you could come out with a friend and that's going to be, that's going to feel so amazing. 

TD bake. Wow. I just went to this event. I striked up a random conversation with the girl and turns out we both have similar hobbies and interests. And now next week, we're going to go on a walk or go grab tea or something. And then that's how you start to create new friends too, which is.  Amazing 

and if you're listening to this, should I go well, I was hoping that the purpose of this podcast episode would be that I would just come out feeling absolutely confident all the time like that. I sure I get it, but that's not fucking realistic. And I'm not trying to say that as a downer. But I don't know any women I've never spoken to a woman or even , listening to interviews of a woman who just feels absolutely confident all the time. 

 I want women to feel unbothered. Sure. Like shitty things can be happening in life. Sure. You might feel like you have some fear going on, you might fear, like you have some self doubt or lacking confidence, but you're on bothered by it. Like you're still gonna fucking push through anyways. 

And that's what I think is so can be so healing throughout this journey. Is I just being okay. I noticed the fear. I recognize this as fear. I also recognize that most people always are afraid and experience fear, and I'm just going to push through it and see what happens.



And this doesn't only have to be in the realm of making new friends. 

You can also apply this to work. If you work. And pushing back fear of being like, okay, there's this new project that I could take on, but I'm afraid. Or I could speak up in this meeting to voice my opinion, but all I'm afraid. And if you deal with any feelings of imposter syndrome, which you probably do, I'm not saying that like you as a person, but it's because the majority of women do experience imposter syndrome. I just wrote this amazing book called  the secret thoughts of successful women by Valerie young. And she just talks about how prevalent imposter syndrome is in women and us not feeling like we're qualified enough or just not feeling like we have the skills or. Like taking a lower position so that a man can use his voice or that a man can speak up. 

And this book is so fascinating. Like she talks about all these crazy successful women. Like we're talking about. Women who have gone to law school at Yale or Harvard or women who have 10 degrees. And I'm not saying that's the only way that women just fun define success as being your. Academic or career. 

I'm not saying that by any means, but just in these cases and all these women. Always experienced imposter syndrome didn't matter. The amount of degrees they had. It didn't matter. Matter the school credentials they had is still at the day, they felt imposter syndrome. They didn't feel qualified. And they were always felt like fear. 

 But. It's not true. It's just something that women experienced so much. And even in this book, she goes to talk about how obviously it has to do with like our upbringing and societal conditioning, with different genders, with males and females. 

And it's yeah. If you're a girl dealing with imposter syndrome, I highly recommend that book again. It's called the secret thoughts of successful women. By Valerie young.  And I feel like I've rambled a lot. This pod podcast episode, basically, I.  I'm getting so sick of talking about men in porn. And I say that in the way, like not like I'm sick of advocating against porn and advocating for women, but I'm so fucking sick of talking about men, where I just want to focus on talking about you and helping you create the life that you aspire and to help empowering you. 

And. 

I get so many Instagram and Tik TOK comments of just trolls and men just being so misogynistic and saying everything is the woman's fault, blah, blah, blah. And. I just don't even care to defend myself to them anymore because I'm like, I just want to focus on the woman. I want to focus on empowering and uplifting the woman. 

I realize how much your self confidence, your self worth just tanks. Going through this and I want you to know you're not alone. Every woman feels this you're not the first woman to be going through this. And I don't say that to minimize your pain, but rather to be like, women are getting through this. 

You are going to get through this and the way you do that is one. You need to start getting really fucking selfish with your healing, put your needs, your emotions, your thoughts. Prioritize all of that. Stop prioritizing him. Whether you're in the relationship or you left stop thinking about what he's doing. 

Stop. Think about what he's feeling stop thinking about. Is he relapsing? How can I help him, blah, blah, blah, focus all that time and energy into your fucking self. That is how you're going to heal. You will not heal by putting all your time and energy on him and focusing on the past, you need to start expanding your world, regulating your nervous system, focus on your healing. And start creating a life slowly, but gradually. That you feel proud of? 

And that you're like, yes, this is what I want my life to look like. And if you don't know what you want your life to look like. Start here. What did you love to do as a kid? What activities did you do? What sports did you, what did you love to draw? Did you love to play music? Were you creative? 

 Did you play sports? Like where you did you love to read? Did you write poetry? Did you love to ride bikes, like play hopscotch, whatever it was just go do that. It doesn't matter if you are quote unquote good at it anymore.  You don't need to be good at things to enjoy them. 

Just go do something that starts heal that inner child of you. And start to give her that joy and the pleasure and going through betrayal, trauma,  it can be such a dense and sad period and so of your life. And so it's so important to start putting in things that make you feel good. 

And these are not things. These are not people that make you feel good. This is not your current or ex partner. Don't start putting him in, start putting in. FEMA friendships who can validate and support you say female friendships and go doing activities like riding your bike, going for a swim writing poetry, reading a book, playing music, getting creative, drawing, painting, whatever it was that you loved Dina as a kid. Go do that now, like scenes I love to do as a kid. 

I didn't even know that. I didn't even realize that I loved doing it until this healing journey. As a kid, I loved to ride my bike and I love to dance and I love to write. So that's what I do a lot now. And am I good at it? No, but does it bring me joy? Yes. Like I love my happy place is going on a bike ride. 

And if you would've told me that, like years ago, I big, what the fuck? I haven't ridden a bike in 10 years, but it's just something that makes me feel happy or dancing in my room. Like putting on my headphones, playing some of my favorite music and just dance my heart out. And do I feel weird at time shirt? 

Probably. If someone were to look in make, while this girl was going ham on herself, But  it feels good after. And so just go find those little things that you love to do as a kid and start there.  

And we noticed the self doubt. When you notice the fear, when you notice a lack of confidence, start to creep in. What's a mantra or something you can just say to yourself every time to push through the fear and to just go anyways. 



For example, my mantra was stopped. 

Fucking overthinking it and just go, and I would say that over and over my head, a big stop overthinking it and just fucking go stop overthinking it. Just fucking go stop. Overthinking it. Just fucking go. And I would say that until it would push me to actually leave the house and go. And if you want an accountability partner or someone to go with, if you have a close friend start inviting your friends to go to these things with you and just, it's going to be a little bit more difficult to make friends because you were probably be talking to him or her most of the time. But it can still just go expand and create and grow your world.  

And this episode is a little bit of some tough love being that I just want to fucking encourage you to go try these things. Go put yourself out there. Will it kill you? No, of course. Make sure they're safe situations. I don't want you to put yourself in any sketchy situations whatsoever. But just try and go and see what happens. 

Worst case scenario is probably that maybe someone won't talk to you and you feel uncomfortable for a little bit.  Will that kill you? No.  Best case scenario, you go, you strike up a conversation with someone new and you have a lot of similar interests and you make a new friend out of it and you go and meet up with them. At a later date and you hang out. 

Like the more you can expand your world. The more you can focus on. What does a life of fulfillment and meaning mean to me?  The less, this betrayal. Is going to feel. So I say this slightly, it's going to feel less impactful.  Because one of the reasons the betrayal feels so intense, which it is, I'm not minimizing anyone's pain, but one of the reasons it feels so intense because that was your whole world and it just blew the fuck up. And your mind is so focused on everything that is going wrong, which again, I'm not minimizing your pain. 

Of course a lot is going wrong. And I have so much empathy for you. But at the same time, like what happens when you start to focus on. Just creating a new life and focus on.

Finding like a bigger purpose outside of yourself. Whether that even be. Spirituality or religion or advocacy or finding a cause that you're really passionate about. What if you start putting your time and energy into that, or going back to school or finishing a degree or start a new side hustle or getting a promotion at work? 

Like what if you can start to focus your time and energy? And two things that are going to.  Better up. That's not a word. It seems that are going to upgrade.  I'm cooking for it. Not better up. Things are going to upgrade your life in areas outside of just your one-on-one romantic relationships. I guess society puts so much pressure on women and just anyone in general being like the number one thing you should look for in life is a soulmate and your person. 

And once you find that you'll be happy and everything will be rainbows and butterflies, and you will have your white picket fence and you'll have your house and your dog and your kids and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not seeing any of that as bad. And it's not bad to want that. But there is so much more to life outside of just this one romantic relationship you have with the person and they get, I'm not trying to minimize your pain, but when you can start to think about life like that, And think of, okay, what other areas of my life am I missing out on? 

Do I have a creative outlet? Do I have an activity that helps me move my body? Do I have a support system of friends and family outside of my romantic relationship. Do I have activities that light me up? What joy am I bringing into my life?  What am I working in striving for in life to make myself a better person? 

Not that you need to make yourself a better person, but it can just feel rewarding to know that I am trying to. Improve this area, this specific aspect of my life, or I want to grow my world. I want to see more of the world. I want to, you could be, you could start traveling alone. There are so many things. That you can start to do. 

And just what happens when you shift all your time and energy on focusing on your past record in relationship. Which, yes, I get it. That's a big part of your life, but it's not the entire aspect of our life. There's so much more.  And I never thought I'd be the type of girl to say this to be fully honest, from. Middle school up until 29. 

I was probably jumping from relationship to relationship. Like I was never single longer than.



I don't know, like maybe six months to a year, because I was just always searching for the next guy. And it wasn't even that like guys were throwing themselves at me. Like I was just throwing myself at whatever man would validate me and would give me the time intention, attention of the day. 

Cause I thought the sole focus of. Life was to find your quote-unquote person to find your soulmate. And then once you have that, everything will be good. And.  You know what happened with that? I found my quote, unquote soulmate. I lived it with him. We had the dog, we had the whole life and then that blew up and I was like, wait, that was all a hoax. 

There's so much more to life. The being in relationship and I have been.  October November, December. April.  Sorry, just had to count on my fingers. I've been single now for a year and a half and I fucking love it. It is great. I, there are so many aspects of my life that I'm instead choosing to focus my time and energy on. 

I tried doing the dating apps. It was just like a.  I just, it just, it's such a waste. In my opinion, for me, it was such a waste of time because I knew I didn't want to jump into a relationship right away. I knew I had a lot of healing to go on. I knew I had a lot of quote unquote baggage. 

I wanted to take care of myself, so I didn't dump it onto the next person interrelationship. And I was just like, what's the point of jumping from relationship to relationship? What were all the friends that I could be creating during this time? What about the side hustles that I could be creating? 

What about like a promotion that I could be working on? There are so many areas of. Of life. And I promise  once you have to focus your attention, all the other aspects of life, whether it be school, career friends, support system, hobbies, creative outlets. Nutrition health. Once you start to focus your attention there, the betrayal will start to feel smaller and smaller because  

you are creating a new life. You're creating a new ecosystem to revolve, and you're creating a new world to orbit aside from this one smaller. Person. And again, I'm not trying to minimize him, but like at the end of the day,

I never would've thought I would have created the life. That I create now, does that mean I live a life without fear? No. Does that mean I am confident all the time? No. Does that mean I never have self-doubt no, I still experience all those emotions all the time, but the secret is to getting yourself to just say, fuck it. 

I noticed that this is fear. I'm going to push past that and I'm going to go anyways. And that's how you start to build up that confidence. And that's how. Moments start to feel less scary. Cause you're like, you know what? I didn't know. I was capable of doing that. And then I did it and it turned out good. 

Or I didn't know, I was capable of putting myself in that situation, but then I did it and now it feels good. That's how you. Build your confidence. That's how you create an expand and grow your world. And I feel like I have been rambling a lot, which. I have, but I guess that's the point of a podcast anyways, long story short. 

I women always ask me, how do I heal from the betrayal?  First step first. Focus on regular, your nervous system. You can do all the thought and the mindset work possible, but none of it's going to stick.  If you're not paying attention to your emotions and regulate your nervous system and focusing on mindfulness and third green out, like when you're triggered and how to calm down those triggers, like that is your number one goal. 

Focus on that. Second focus on increasing your world in growing your world and stop focusing all your time. Intention on.  Him and what he's doing or what he might be doing, or his healing focus at all on you. That's the main thing gets so fucking selfish with your healing journey. Put your thoughts, your emotions, your needs, prioritize that over. 

Anything else? 

To heal if you want to heal. And in such a weird morbid way, it's like just become a narcissist. Just focus all your time and energy on yourself. Make sure your needs are being met emotionally, physically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually.  And go from there. And you remember you are the architect of your life. 

No one will create your life, but you are the CEO of your life. No one will make these decisions for you. No, one's going to come in and save you. And that might feel scary.



But it can also feel really empowering to also know that you have everything you need within you to go create the life that you want to live. 

You are. The of it, you're capable of it. And I've seen women do it  there's nothing special about me. 

Any woman is capable. Of creating their life, what one woman can do all women can do.

You are worthy of creating your life, but you will never, you won't be able to create that life. If you keep letting the fear and the self doubt and the lack of confidence take over. Recognize that they're there and then say, fuck it. I'm going to go do it anyways and just push past it and see how it goes and just know that it's going to feel uncomfortable. But will it kill you? 

No.  

So what's one thing you can do this week. To put yourself out of your comfort zone. Two. Whether that be go try a new class or workshop or activity, or go meet with someone new or go on Bumble BFF to. Meet friends, like what is one thing you can do this week to put yourself out of your comfort zone and make a commitment to yourself? 

Make I'm going to prioritize this over anything this week, and then keep doing that week after week. And if you  if you just have more time on your hands. Do a multiple times a week. And I promise you within a few months, You're going to laugh at how scared and uncomfortable used to feel. 

I promise you if you stick to this. You're like, okay. Every week after week, I'm going to put myself in a situation where I feel uncomfortable, but it's a situation that won't kill me and yeah, I might feel uncomfortable and I'm going to push back, push past that fear, that self doubt, that lack of confidence. 

I'm going to go anyways. 

After a few months, or even a few times, it's going to feel less scary. They'll still be fear, but it's going to feel less of it. And you're going to say, that's how you're going to start to embody this confidence. To know that you can go do anything you want to do. You can start to create that life slowly, gradually, and incrementally it all. 

Obviously it doesn't happen overnight. Rome was not built in a day you are the creator. You can create your dream life. I promise you. Yes, it's scary. Yes. It might be fearful. Yes. You might like lack confidence, but the more you push through that, the less scary it will  feel. 



Thank you so much for listening. I hope this was helpful industry minded. This is not your fault as nothing to do with your body. Your looks, your appearance, your personality has nothing to do with you. And it's not your fault. You didn't cause this and your pain is valid. You are not overreacting. 

You are not crazy. You are. 100% valid. And if you want to join a group of other women who are healing from their current or past partners, porn use feel free to join. The link is in my bio or not. My bio, the link is in the show notes. And then also, if you can just help this podcast grow by subscribing it, giving it a rating that will help it push out to more girls who are going through this. 

So they know that they're not alone. Thank you so much for listening and for listening to my tangent today. 

Talk to you later. Bye.