The Trauma of Betrayal: How to Recover and Thrive

Betrayal has a special kind of aftermath: you’re not only grieving what happened, you’re questioning your judgment, your sanity, and whether you can trust yourself at all. I open with two betrayals that shaped me in different ways, one in a relationship and one at work, and why those “old” moments can still flare up years later when something makes it feel official or undeniable. That lingering charge is a clue that betrayal trauma isn’t fully healed, even when life looks functional on the outside.

Dr. Debi Silber, founder of the Post-Betrayal Transformation Institute and host of From Betrayal to Breakthrough, breaks down what her research revealed about betrayal recovery. We talk through her five stages of betrayal, why most people get stuck in survival mode, and how “I’m fine” can actually mean you’re living behind walls, numbing, avoiding, and repeating patterns without realizing it. We also dig into the shame and silence that often follow infidelity, family betrayal, or workplace betrayal and why this trauma demands a more specific healing approach than generic “time will help” advice.

We get practical about rebuilding trust after cheating or betrayal, including a clear way to picture trust as a brick wall and why it’s not your job to rebuild what you didn’t break. We also cover forgiveness versus reconciliation, how to tell if you’re truly healed, and how to turn your intuition back up by rebuilding self-trust through small daily choices. If you’ve been telling yourself you should be over it by now, this conversation offers a real roadmap forward.

Subscribe for more conversations that help you stop shrinking and start thriving.

You can find Dr Debi HERE 

https://thepbtinstitute.com/

Check out my book Nature Knows: Grow and Thrive through the Wisdom of Plants

Transcript

Why We Ignore Our Intuition

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We intentionally turn down our intuition. And we do that because if we were to confront that boss, that coworker, that partner, on what we intuitively feel, it's going to create a cascade of events that we may not feel emotionally, mentally, financially ready for.

Mary’s Story Of Betrayal

Mary 0:26

For centuries, the phrase shrinking violet was used to diminish women, to suggest we were meant to be small and meek. But in nature, violets are anything but weak. They're resilient, beautiful, and essential to the ecosystem. Hi, I'm Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist, and each week I sit down with women who remind us that being compared to a violet isn't an insult. It's a testament to strength, endurance, and the power of taking up space and living by your true nature. If you're ready to stop shrinking and start thriving, you're in the right place. Hey Violets, welcome to the show. I have been cheated on more than once. In fact, the relationship in which I'd invested the most up to that point in my life was wrecked by dishonesty and betrayal. Honestly, there's still a part of me that doesn't quite believe it. And soon the number of years we've been apart will be more than we were together. There were signs. I believe there are always signs. I just talked myself out of seeing them for what they were. In hindsight, it was ludicrous how obvious it was, and I don't believe I have fully plumbed the hurt it caused. He ended up marrying the person he cheated with, and when that happened, while it wasn't like tearing open an old wound, it certainly felt like the kind of injury that flares up when the weather's bad. The memory is there, but it takes certain situations to actually recall the pain. And in this case, it wasn't that it hurt so much as that it legitimized the cheating. She now wasn't just the other woman, she was now his wife. The last few inches left between something dark and hidden and something that is now official and celebrated. I know that that betrayal and other lesser ones informed how much I functioned in future relationships. It made me hyper-independent. I feel strongest and safest when I can make my own decisions. Relying on anyone, including my current husband, who is 180 degrees different than that other guy, makes me feel twitchy and uncomfortable. My husband just treats me like a feral cat, steady, gentle, and consistent love. And it's working slowly, but I am a work in progress for sure. So am I over the betrayal? Well, I rarely think about it at all anymore. But there are certainly situations where I can recognize that its impact still plays a role in my behavior. And here's another thing. Until I started to research my guest today, I didn't realize that there was another just as impactful betrayal that I experienced more recently. A job that I had loved with coworkers I cared about and an HR system, believe it or not, that I trusted, betrayed me in the most poignant and stunning way imaginable. I was caught totally unaware, and at the end, when I knew the only option was to leave, I left devastated at how easily people could simply just not care. Although I fully recognize that my life is better, brighter, and so much more fulfilling than it could have ever been if I had stayed in either of those situations, those betrayals forever changed how I see people. It for sure helped me stop shrinking, but well, it's complicated, as anyone who has been betrayed knows. So I am quite intrigued to talk with my guest today. She helps clients recognize the role that betrayal plays, not just in their intimate relationships, but in all their relationships. Dr. Debbie Silber is founder of the PBT Post-Betrayal Transformation Institute. Her podcast, From Betrayal to Breakthrough, is globally ranked within the top 1.5% of podcasts. She actually studied the experiences of betrayal and uses her knowledge to help people move through betrayal to find health, work, relationships, confidence, and the happiness that they most want. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Debbie.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Thank you so much. Looking forward to our conversation.

Mary 4:13

So I usually start by asking my guests about flashball moments. And those are the times in life that if you sort of look back over your life, they've been captured. It's sort of a moment where you're like, oh, things changed there. So when you think about the work that you do, can you talk about a couple, what I'm guessing you have, flashball moments that led to this passion you have to do this work?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, sure. I don't think anybody says, you know, I think I want to study betrayal. No, you study because you have to. I'm in business 34 years. It was health and mindset and personal development. I had a really painful betrayal from my family. I thought I did all I needed to do to heal from that. And then it happened a few years later. This time it was my husband. So that was the deal breaker. Got him out of the house and looked at the two experiences, thinking, okay, well, what's similar here besides me? What else? And I realized that boundaries were always getting crossed. I never took my own needs seriously. And I'm one of those people that believes if nothing changes, nothing changes. So usually I would go to books or courses or mentors to help me heal and or help me get out of something. And I couldn't find anything. So this was so big that I decided I needed to study it so big. I mean, I had four kids, six dogs, a business, like I couldn't just check out. So um I found myself at 50, enrolling in a PhD program. And uh what then it was time to do a study, and I studied betrayal, and I studied it just so that I could help myself heal, be there for my clients, my kids. And that study led to three groundbreaking discoveries, which changes everything we know about betrayal.

Mary 5:52

Okay. Wow. Okay. So of course we're gonna get to that, but um, I think there's so much, like when you're going through it, and I know having experienced it myself, there were so many times where, you know, as a therapist, if I came to me, I would be like, girl, are you kidding? Like that it is so obvious. So I think when we're in this situation, we can often dismiss it or we look for the reassurance and we get it a lot of times, but we know it's not true, but we still tell ourselves to believe it. So I talk a lot about socialization of women. Do you feel like, and you sort of alluded to that, do you feel like that plays a role sometimes when the woman is the one that is cheated on?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Uh, you know, it's a great question. And and I've seen it so often where it's the betrayer is is the man, is the woman. I mean, there's no set thing. I will say though, and that was that has a lot to do with the first and the third discovery, what you're talking about. But the the uh the first one, this is one of the reasons why betrayal is such a different type of experience. Because, for example, let's say you lose someone you love, you grieve, you're sad, you mourn the loss, life will never be the same. Um, you don't question the relationship, you don't question your ability to trust, you don't question your sanity with betrayal you do. And also, to answer your question, when it comes to other, like let's say you lose someone you love, people rally. They're giving you the space, the grace, bringing you the casseroles, right? With betrayal, there's so much shame and humiliation and fear of judgment for something that the betrayed didn't even do. So very often they're struggling and suffering in silence. To make matters worse, very often they're covering for the betrayer. They're so loved by the family, the friends, the community. So here they are dealing with one of the most painful of the human experiences by themselves. It's like a, and they're acting like it's like a regular Tuesday, you know, the kids are like, What's for dinner, mom? Dad, and you know, they're showing up, going to work, and they're not getting any of the uh really what they need to to process this profound trauma.

Mary 8:15

Yeah, and I know I I read something on your website where, you know, things happen to us all the time. But when when there's a betrayal, that was a decision that was made by someone to perpetrate something on someone else. So how do you, what does your research show? What does your work say about how does that affect or change someone going forward in their relationships?

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, you know, and that's one of the reasons, again, why betrayal is such that was the first discovery that betrayal is such a different type of trauma. And that's why well-meaning coaches, counselors, therapists who say trauma is trauma, no, it's not, because there's a complete and total shattering of the self. That doesn't happen with other traumas. Rejection, abandonment, belonging, confidence, worthiness, trust, right? They're destroyed and all need to be rebuilt. So it's a very different type of experience. But what happens is with betrayal, this was the person likely closest to you. This was the person who gave you a sense of safety and security, and that's who took it away. This is the person you run to, you ran to when other people were causing the harm. That's become the person causing the harm. So it is completely disorienting because where do you go? Where do you turn?

Mary 9:31

Yeah. Well, and I think too about what is surrounding that. So for instance, when it to my the situations that I alluded to when it was my relationship, there were people in my life that I had known that were my people first, that for instance stayed Facebook friends with someone. And so those kinds of things is that part of what has to be addressed when you work with this?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Very often, because you know, people don't know how to respond. You know, they think it's contagious, you know, so they stay far away. They don't know what to say, so they say nothing and it it comes off as they don't care. They're so uncomfortable, they don't know what to do. Like I'll never forget, right after my betrayal, I had a friend who said, you know what, Debbie? And I thought she was going to give me this real helpful advice. She said, I'm so glad I'm not you. Like, what? You know, but but people just they don't know. They just don't know. And uh, so it's a really um, it's very confusing. Also, people are giving you their advice through their lens. Like, let's take a, let's say it's a husband and a wife, and let's say the husband is the one who betrays again, definitely not always the case, but let's say the the in-laws they want to see you together. So, so let's say they minimize it, or they make, you know, they make light of it, or they blame it on other things, right? So it's always coming through someone else's lens. And and I do see this with the betrayed very often too. Make excuses for the betrayer. Oh, they've been through trauma. Oh, they've been they're dealing with so much. Well, so have you. You didn't make those choices. So, you know, when it comes to healing, we have to get very real with what's going on and we have to understand what betrayal does, what it leads to, and more importantly, how we can heal from it.

The Five Stages Explained

Mary 11:25

Yeah. So speaking of healing, I think sometimes you can feel like it's never gonna end. So I I talked about, you know, things going along, and then you hear if it's an intimate relationship, oh, they've gotten married or some sort they have a child, something like that. So that can plunge you right back into those feelings. Are there stages? So if people think, oh, I'm never gonna get there, are there sort of stages in common with any type of betrayal that people can maybe sort of gauge where they're at?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah, that was actually the third discovery, the five stages of betrayal recovery. And this was the most exciting about all of the stages, about all the discoveries, because what we learned was while we can stay stuck for years, decades, a lifetime, and most people do, if we're going to fully heal, we will move through five proven predictable stages. And what's even more exciting about that is we learned what happens physically, mentally, and emotionally at each stage. And we know what we need to do to move from one stage to the next. Healing is entirely predictable. And so a lot of what you shared is all indicative of stage three, the most commonplace most people get stuck. And I'm happy to share the stages if that would serve.

Mary 12:38

Oh, that would be great. Yes. Could you tell us a little bit about them?

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Sure, because that would have been an awkward moment if you said no.

unknown 12:44

Okay.

Transformation After Survival Mode

SPEAKER_00 12:45

All right. So stage one, this is actually before it happens. And, you know, when you think about it, when we're in what we believe is a healthy relationship, we're not scanning for betrayal. We're not looking for it. We're and we're actually on autopilot very often because we're busy, we're going to work, we're raising our kids, we're doing all the things. So it comes to as such a shock to us because we were abiding by the spoken or unspoken rules, assuming the other person was too. And so it's a complete shock to the body, to the mind, to the heart. Now, this is something something that also happens. And I just want people to be aware of this because they're so hard on themselves, but it's so common. Sometimes we either intentionally or unintentionally turn down our intuition. And you alluded to this in the very beginning. Now, we in we can unintentionally turn it down because we're busy, and the only way we can get things done is by doing more thinking, doing versus feeling being. That takes a little bit more time, right? So we we become uh more like our you know, functioning and we just get more done. But sometimes we intentionally turn down our intuition, and we do that because and and here's what we do we say, you know what, maybe it's not what I think it is. I'm sure there's a a logical explanation. Um I'm sure that's not what it is. And we're doing that because if we were to confront that boss, that coworker, that partner, on what we intuitively feel, it's going to create a cascade of events that we may not feel emotionally, mentally, financially ready for. And it's almost like have you ever had a that thread hanging from the sweater, and you're like, if I pull this thing, the whole thing may come down. Right. And and so we make that decision. But then what happens is now stage two, shock, trauma, D-Day, discovery day. This is the scariest of all of the stages. And here's the thing in the beginning, and this is where seeing a therapist is really helpful, we found it actually can not be as helpful in stage three, but in stage two, very helpful, especially in the rumination stage, because what's happening is we're scanning, scanning, scanning for looking, looking for what we missed. This is so important. Here's why. When we think about trust, which is shattered in betrayal, right? Trust is absolutely shattered. What as horrible and terrifying as it is, that the person we trusted the most proved untrustworthy. Here's what's even worse. We all have our own system to discern trustworthiness. If that person says or does something 50, 100 times, I can feel safe in knowing they're trustworthy. Right. So now that person betrays that trust, not only is that hard to reckon with, now we look and we say, oh my gosh, my system that I've created is fundamentally flawed. My compass is broken. I cannot trust myself. So again, when well-meaning people say, you know, you need to learn to trust again. That is so off. Because if we don't regain that our own system of discernment, how in the world can we trust in anything or anyone? We can't even trust what to choose for lunch. You see? So huge, huge. Anyway, stage two, uh, shock, trauma, D-Day, discovery day. And we've ignited the stress response. We're headed for every single stress-related symptom, illness, condition, disease. The mind is in a complete state of chaos and overwhelm. We cannot understand what just happened. Uh, and our worldview is shattered. Our mental model, the rules that govern us that prevent chaos. Trust this person, don't go here, you know. And in one earth-shattering moment, every rule we've been following is no longer true. The bottom has bottomed out and a new bottom hasn't been formed yet. This is terrifying, right? But think about it. If the bottom were to bottom out on us, what would you do? We grab hold of anything or anyone in order to stay safe and stay alive. That's stage three. Survival instincts emerge. This is the most practical out of all of the stages, but this is the stage the majority of people get stuck in. And here's why. Once we've created a functioning life again, because it feels so much better than the shock and trauma we just came from, we think it's good. And because we don't know there's anywhere else to go, we don't know there's a stage four or stage five. Transformation doesn't even begin until stage four. But because we don't know there's anywhere else to go, we plant roots here. We're not supposed to. But what happens is we create that functional life. We're fine, we're going back to work, we're able to raise our kids, we're doing all the things, but it's a safety behind walls. It's very protected. It's I'm safe, but I'm not gonna trust that person again. I'm not gonna take that risk, I'm not gonna be vulnerable. So this is one of the biggest lost opportunities in coaching, in therapy, because when a person gets to find, we let them go very often. It's like, okay, I guess they're good. And what happens is the client's like, I guess this is as good as it's gonna get. And the let's say well-meaning coach is like, I don't get it. My these are great tools, they work with everybody else. Why are they not working with this client? And that's because fine only represents stage three. Wow. Oh, yeah. So when, you know, also what happens here is again, we're functioning, but we have a lot of symptoms of post-betrayal syndrome. That was the second discovery. Happy to share about that. So we're medicating and suppressing symptoms where this is where repeat betrayals happen. This is where nothing has really changed. So nothing has really changed. And this is where we feel we just feel fine. And now we're not happy. We don't know there's anywhere else to go. So right here we start numbing, avoiding, distracting. So we can start using food, drugs, alcohol, work, TV, whatever. And now we do it for a day, a week, a month. Now it's a habit, a year, 10 years, 20 years. And I can see someone 20 years later and say, that emotional eating you're doing. Do you think that has anything to do with your betrayal? They look at me like I'm crazy. They say it happened 20 years ago. All they did was put themselves in stage three and stay there. I would imagine the majority of people you see have locked themselves in stage three, and they don't know there's anywhere else to go. Yeah. So that's why it's so when when uh, and that's why my my the book I just wrote Unstuck is for practitioners because when you understand the language of betrayal and of the five stages, and someone you see the symptoms, you know the symptoms of post-betrayal syndrome, you know the language. So you know when someone's like, No, I'm fine, I'm okay, but there's a flatness to it, that's not the time to let them go. That's the time to gently invite them into stage four.

Mary 20:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Stage, yeah. Stage four is uh if you're willingness is a big word right here, uh, willing to let go of the story, all it gives you. Grieve more than the loss, a bunch of things you need to do. You move to stage four. Stage four is finding and adjusting to a new normal. Here's where you acknowledge I can't change what happened, but I control what I do with it. So right here, you're making a decision. It's very forward-moving. Who do I want to become? What am I ready for? What have I outgrown? What was I settling for? And you are intentionally and deliberately creating a version of you that otherwise wouldn't have had the ability to be created. That's trauma well served. And as you're moving through stage four, you're gaining momentum, you're feeling more confident uh in this new space, you move into the fifth most beautiful stage. And this is healing, rebirth, and a new worldview. The body starts to heal. Self-love, self-care, eating well, exercise. We didn't have the bandwidth for that earlier. Now we do. The mind is healing, making all kinds of new rules, new boundaries. Uh, and we have a whole new worldview based on everything uh we've been through. And it is so common to see new levels of health, new businesses, new passion projects, new relationships, either with the person who hurt you in a very different way, or with someone uh entirely new. When we're in stage three, we only have access to stage three thoughts, stage three things. So when people ask me all the time, do I stay? Do I go? What do I do? What do I do? You move to stage five because then your decisions will be made from a place of strength and clarity versus scarcity and fear.

Mary 21:52

I hear that when you're talking about like stage three, and I can think about certain clients where you know, people they do not. And so is this always linear? Like, is there ever anybody that gets to stage five and then there's something, they meet someone or they have a situation and they kind of regress a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 22:11

It's, you know, it's well, first of all, when you as they're numbing too in stage three, the biggest uh thing that keeps people stuck as well is when they feel heard and validated and understood and they're celebrated for wow, you've come so far and let's talk about it. And now that's locking them into stage three. And it's it's so detrimental. Anyway, to answer your question, it's not perfectly linear, it's like this. Right? They're going forward, but they're going back a little bit, going forward, going back a little bit. But if someone is truly in stage five, they don't attract who they would have attracted in stage three. You know, that that lesson has been learned. The uh, and it's I'm not suggesting that it's the betrayed's fault at all, but usually there's a profound lesson, you know. Learn that you are lovable, worthy, and deserving. Learn that you need better boundaries in place, you know. Um, and until and unless you get that, you're gonna have opportunities, you know, that to teach you. But also, one of the biggest misconceptions is we all we have all heard the beautiful sentiment, time heals all wounds. And I have the proof that when it comes to betrayal, that's not true. Time doesn't heal it, a new relationship doesn't heal it. You have to be deliberate and intentional if you truly want to move to stage five.

Mary 23:32

Well, I was thinking as you were just getting to that point, I'm like, it sounds like you have to be intentional. You have to seek that. And it's almost like when you talk about like your book Unstuck, and you're saying, so you get sort of you climb out of the hole, and then there you are, but you're almost like, wait a second, I need to keep walking forward, but I feel like now that I'm out of the hole, I'm good. But really, you're stuck.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

You're just in stage three. You've survived your experience, but you didn't go through one of the most painful of the human experiences just to survive it. The worst of it happened already. You owe it to yourself to experience that transformation. The transformation happens when you are one of the things is because you're looking at every single part of the old you. And if you like it, it comes along. And if you don't, it does not. So I have a saying, and and I've said this the 34 years I've been in business. It holds true for I have yet to find a topic it doesn't work for. Hard now, easy later. Easy now, hard later. Take your pick, it's one of those two. Most people opt for easy now, hard later. They think, well, I've been through it, let me just figure out how to survive. And they're looking at it saying, but I am so miserable, that's hard, right? No, it's not. When I say hard now, healing from betrayal, transforming after betrayal is hard now, easy later. And here's why. Every time a thought comes in your head, you're assessing, is this worthy of coming along? And if not, no, it doesn't. Those boundaries. We don't like when people look at us like, wow, she was never like that before. Where's that coming from? So we opt for, I'm afraid for those for that confrontation. I'm afraid to outgrow my betrayer. I'm afraid to change. So we stay with a familiar known. You know, I had a I'll never forget, and now we just certify practitioners. But when we had clients coming into the PVT Institute, there was a woman and she came to me and she said, Dr. Debbie, my um my husband has been having affairs the 30 years of our marriage. He has no intention of stopping. Can you do something to my brain so it won't bother me?

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

No, I'm not your person.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

And that's what people do. That's easy now. Easy now. Hard later. It doesn't change. Hard now is, for example, my own experience. With my family, it wasn't an option to rebuild with them. They were deeply stuck in stage three. I healed and moved along. And with my husband, we absolutely crashed and burned. That was the end. It was over. And I moved to stage five. On his own, he completely transformed. And we met up again as two completely different people and married each other again. New rings, new vows, new dress, and our four kids as a bridal party.

Mary 26:24

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Now, I never, never would have done anything like that if I didn't completely transform and he didn't either. Now, most people are so afraid of the death and destruction of the old. That's the only way you birth the new, whether it's a new you or a new collective you.

Mary 26:44

Yeah. Well, and I think with that idea of easy now, hard later, the longer you sit in easy now, the hard gets harder.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's you can't even imagine. It's like you've been wearing these foggy lenses for so long, you don't even realize you have them on. And so you don't know there's anything other than that. And then you've created this life in stage three. So you're looking at like, okay, I guess this is just who I am now. Like, for example, I'll give you a brief story. There was um a woman, again, when we had members coming into the community in her mid-80s, and she had a 70-plus year digestive issue. 45% of everybody betrayed has a gut issue of some kind. 70 plus years from a family betrayal. She was adopted, they didn't tell her, something like that. You can imagine the protocols, the medications, the supplements, the food, the all of it. Two weeks into our program, she healed from a 70-plus year digestive issue. That's what happens when you deal with the root cause, which was the betrayal. Because from that betrayal, we have all those symptoms of post-betrayal syndrome. I didn't even share those, but we have those symptoms. And then what happens is we just they get ignited in stage two, we medicate and suppress them in stage three. They heal as we move into stages four and five.

Mary 28:07

Well, that totally makes sense from my perspective, because we're a whole being, but we set we tend to, you know, when when we let things go for too long, then in my world, it's then it starts to be physical. And so when it's physical, because you've ignored the other two, the emotional and the, you know, sort of the cognitive, your body's like, hang on a second, you're not paying attention. Let me let me flare up here. So, okay, so I feel like we're now going to put sort of the beginning closer to the middle, but tell us a little about post-betrayal syndrome. Because I'm sitting here in my mind from what you're saying and what I've read about on your website, I'm thinking, okay, how does that compare? Because we all know PTSD, post-traumatic. And that's one of those things, again, post-traumatic, you're reacting to an unexpected, sometimes often violent event happening to you. The way that I'm seeing the little bit the difference is in the post-betrayal syndrome, you have a role. And I'm thinking part of that is you're beating yourself up or questioning, or so explain a little about or define that for us, please.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah. And I I love the idea of post-traumatic growth. And originally that I, when I went into my study, I always liked the upside of something. So it was, you know what, I'm going to study betrayal and post-traumatic growth. And and I look at that as the upside of any trauma, how that trauma, death of a loved one, disease, natural disaster, whatever it is, leaves you with a new awareness, perspective, insight you didn't have before. But with betrayal, there's a shattering of the self. So the invitation in post-traumatic growth is to rebuild your life. But the invitation after betrayal is to rebuild your life and yourself. When you do that, you're living in a space called post-betrayal transformation PBT. So it's a very different experience because of the rebuilding of the self.

Mary 30:04

So I'm going to ask the question that I'm guessing anyone listening is if they've been through this, they're like, but how will I ever be able to trust somebody again?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah. Yeah. And I wrote the book, Trust Again. So I get it. Trust is uh it's one of those things people ask me, can it be repaired? I say no. Can it be rebuilt? Yes, but it's a big job. I'm gonna give you um a picture of this, so because you'll see how trust works, let's say within a relationship. So I look at trust like a brick wall. And the only way I know of a brick wall being built is brick by brick by brick. Every opportunity someone has to show that they're trustworthy, that's one brick in that brick wall. So it takes a good amount of time to build, right? Now imagine the person who built the brick wall shatters the whole thing. The person whose trust was shattered can look at the rubble of bricks and say, I don't have the least bit of interest in watching that thing get rebuilt. Totally fine, you walk away. However, if you choose to watch that brick wall be rebuilt, that would be your only job. The person who shattered it has to be a really good bricklayer. And it goes up the first the way it went up the first time, brick by brick by brick. But here's what I see. I see the brick wall is there, the person who built it shatters it. They don't really have much of a vested interest in rebuilding it. So the person whose trust was shattered, they're like, fine, I'll build it. No, that's not your job. That's why you feel hyper-vigilant, that's why you don't trust, that's why you don't feel safe. It's not your job to rebuild it. You didn't tear it down, the other person did. You see?

Mary 31:41

So, how does that happen then?

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah. If that person, when it comes to forgiveness, and I founded National Forgiveness Day, so I'm a big believer. Yeah. So that has so much to do with us, it has nothing to do with the other person. When it comes to rebuilding or reconciliation, that has so much to do with the person who hurt you. Because if nothing really changed on their end, what in the world are you rebuilding? Right. But if this is the greatest wake-up call of their life, if they have deep remorse and regret and they see things so clearly, you still don't you don't have to do anything with that at all. There's tremendous opportunity if you need to. Now, does it hurt that the person who hurt you learned the greatest life lessons off of destroying your heart and trust? Of course, yes. But there's tremendous opportunity on both sides when uh when both people are willing to do the work. But the person who did the betraying, first of all, they have to become someone unrecognizable from who they were. And for a few reasons. The further away they are from that version of them who could have done something, the more they see they have an ability to change, the safer the betrayer, the betrayed feels as well. Because anytime they see a cell of that old person, there's fear. Just like, oh uh, wait a second. If they can do this, they can do this, right? So there's tremendous work on both sides. If they're rebuilding, and I always recommend you get yourself to stage five, the betrayer has to do their own work. If it's a fit, if it's in your best interest, then rebuilding can be an option. Now, what happens a lot of times is the betrayed can do all the rebuild, they can move to stage five and completely outgrow that person. Have no interest in them because they're coming from a very different place. The other, the person who did the betraying, they could they can step up their game so much. And if the if the betrayed is deeply stuck in stage three and refuses to move forward, well, now the betrayer has gonna has just outgrown the betrayed. You see? So we never know what's gonna show up. Um, but there's tremendous opportunity if they're both willing to do the deep, deep work. Now, what I see go wrong in counseling all the time is the counselor has just invested interest in getting them okay. That's that's a lost opportunity, a missed opportunity with betrayal, because this has been so profound of a trauma that if there's not a complete reckoning of the old, again, there's no rebuilding of the something new. It's more of the same, and that's not what you want.

Mary 34:33

True. Okay, so let's say you're in a situation where you're like, I will never let that person back in my life. You've made that choice. To get to stage five, is forgiveness mandatory?

SPEAKER_00 34:45

No, no, you don't have to, but if but people who say, you know, I'm good as long as I don't talk about them, I'm good as long as I don't see them, that's not healed, that's hardened. Right. So it get you move to stage five, and what's gonna happen is you're gonna look at that person uh from a place of compassion. Now, you don't have to do anything with that, but there, but they no longer affect you. You see either hurt people, hurt people, or they're coming from their, you know, they were acting from that current level of consciousness, and you've simply outgrown it. And and that's totally fine. Um, you're releasing forgiveness is releasing the power all that pain has over you.

Mary 35:24

Yeah.

unknown 35:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

But it's not necessary. I mean, you can if you want to.

Mary 35:29

Well, and you sort of alluded to this, but how do you know if you haven't healed? How do you know if you're stuck?

SPEAKER_00 35:36

When the uh triggers still get you because the the triggers can still be there, but they won't there won't be an emotional charge. When there's an emotional charge there, you're not healed, right? It's still coming up. When when you're fine, no, that's not healed. If you're seeing it in your, like let's say you uh uh this is how we see an unhealed betrayal in work, health, and relationships. Okay. In relationships, repeat betrayal. Classic sign, it's not healed. Or the other way, the big wall goes up, not healed. If you are dealing with stress-related symptoms, illnesses, conditions, disease that started soon after that, unhealed, in your work. Let's say you deserve that razor promotion, but your confidence was shattered in the betrayal and you don't have the confidence to ask, unhealed. Or you want to trust, be a collaborative partner. You want to trust your boss, your coworker, but the person you trusted the most proved untrustworthy. So you don't trust people around you. Classic sign, it's unhealed. So if you're seeing it in your health, in your work, in your relationship, it's it's unhealed. And and the simplest way to know if you're fine. You didn't go through all that just to be fine. Classic stage three.

Turning Self Trust Back On

Mary 36:56

Yeah. Yeah. So we talk about we talked about trust a lot. We use that word a lot. How do you regain trust in your own ability to um what is the word you used? Um, you said people, the second stage where you abandon your um intuition, right? Is that the second stage where you or the one of those early stages where you sort of like I can go back to know? It's like, how would I have ever talked myself out of believing what I knew? And so I think when we do that, then we have not we're not trusting ourselves, we're trusting some kind of idea or script or whatever it is. So, how do we go back then to trusting our own judgment?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Yeah, you know, we we as we turned it down, we have to turn it up. And your body is gonna tell you so much quicker than your mind will. Your body's gonna tell you something, sense something, and your mind talks you out of it. And when you get that feeling, when you get that feeling, you trust that and you strengthen it just like you were to, you know, if you were to strengthen a muscle, and you don't talk yourself out of what your body is telling you intuitively. So you strengthen it and you also have to rebuild self-trust because that's completely shattered. And you have to do little things, micro decisions throughout the day. And um you're doing that to show yourself that you're trustworthy. If you say something, you mean it. Your word is law. And over time, between strengthening your intuition, rebuilding self-trust, it's going to give you a solid base to get started with anyway.

Mary 38:37

Yeah, because I think, and so much of the theme of what I talk about with guests many times is this idea of we have intuition and then we're the the raised eyebrow comes. What are you crazy? What do you why are you going on like this? You know, we start, it's the whole, you know, we use the word gaslight, I think, too much, but we are made to feel like we're the problem. And I think that's part of why, and I'm again, women cheat too, but I think this is part of the reason that women back down because they're like, maybe I am being hysterical, maybe I am overreacting. And I wish that we could all learn to trust that intuition because we all have it, it's part of us. But I think it's those messages that when we truly come from that set that inner sense of like something is not right here. And we question and again, we go to someone who is treating us in ways we would never treat them. And I think that's also part of it. We're weighing their behavior based on our values. And I know I did that. I'm like, I would never do that. So, of course, if I chose this person, they're not gonna do that. I'm gonna believe them. But that's what I wish, especially for women, that when they have that sense about anything, that they would trust that.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Well, what you said with the, you know, maybe it's me, maybe I'm to this, maybe I'm to that. That's all stage three. That is all stage three. Because when you move through stages four and five, you're you're not believing the manipulative tactics that worked to keep you off kilter. That was designed to throw you off. It was designed to have you questioning yourself. When you that's why I say you do, stage four and five, they're earned. And you're not saying things like that in stage four and five. You're giving yourself such compassion and so much love for that version of you who just didn't know. But in stage five, you know, you can sniff that stuff out a mile away. You're like, here's such a silly little example to explain what stage five would look like. This is something that I did. I remember I used to be so hard on myself. I was so, I would get get myself to call myself all kinds of names and things if I did something. Look, I get lost wherever I go. Just what goes on. So I leave extra time. I know it's gonna happen. And I would call myself names and everything. And then after betrayal, just one thing I chose to do. It's like, you know what? I don't want to do that anymore. I'm probably gonna do the same things, but when I do, it's simply adorable. So now I'm lost and I'm just adorable. That in such a silly example, but that's what I'm saying. I'm not calling myself names, I'm not berating myself. I've outgrown that. That's stage three stuff. We don't do that stage five.

Mary 41:26

Yeah. Yeah, I I really love that. Okay, so if there's someone who is starting to recognize this, okay, I'm stuck. I really thought I was fine, but now I'm realizing that that is just it's sort of like surviving versus thriving.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Exactly.

Mary 41:43

What are some ways to help people obviously seek out help, but for themselves, like to start to push themselves past that? What are some things they could do?

SPEAKER_00 41:55

You know, it it's well, awareness is first, so that's huge. I mean, just knowing that that's where you were and that's where you are, that's beautiful. That's a huge step in the right direction. And, you know, there's you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. That's the first thing. If you're only looking for comfort, you will always stay in stage three. So kind of, you know, make that decision. I'm going to be comfortable with the uncomfortable because that's where you're going to live if you're going to move through stages four and five. And uh if something feels unfamiliar, don't label it scary. It's just unfamiliar, which will be every single decision you make in stage four and five until it becomes who you really are. But every single person who's making that decision, they're doing things now that the the the older version of them never did. And it was scary, right? And but it was just unfamiliar, and you did it, and now you're proficient at it, whatever it is. So it's the same thing. Be willing to be uncomfortable, make decisions that are uncomfortable because you're creating a new version of yourself.

Mary 43:07

And I am a big word person. So I love that you're using language in a way, like even using the word adorable, instead of like, you know, I can't believe I'm so stupid or I'm so whatever. Yeah. Let's change the and then scary is so such a barrier. So if we talk about it being unfamiliar or uncomfortable, then it just immediately dials our amygdala back, that part of our brain that's sending out those signals of we need to be afraid of this. And I had a client who was very stuck because would say to me every session, I'm afraid to get out there again because I'm afraid it's going to happen again. And I could not make that transition with that person to, but you recognized it, right? Like you knew it, you just didn't pay attention. But that fear was so strong. That that was truly being stuck.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Well, it's a combination of the fear, and that person was deeply stuck in stage three, didn't even know there was a roadmap. Like there's a roadmap out of it. It is proven, it is predictable. It really willingness is more than half the battle.

Resources And Final Takeaways

Mary 44:15

Yeah. Okay. Well, this has been awesome. I have loved talking, I love that the confidence you have because I think one of the things that people have, when they've been through a betrayal, it does feel like the ground has dropped out from under you. And it's like, who am I? Where am I? What just happened? Who is everybody else? And so I love the confidence you have. So tell a tell us a little bit about a little bit more where to find you. Tell us a little bit about how your book, and you have more than one book, how those things can help. And again, I'll put everything in the show notes so people can find where you are.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Yeah, thank you. So everything is at the PBT as in post-betrayal transformation, the PBTinstitute.com. Unstuck, I have nine books. Unstuck is my most recent. That's for practitioners. Because even if people aren't coming to these practitioners, practitioners, coaches, counselors, therapists for betrayal, they're coming to their there, it's in their background. They've had that experience and it's blocking them in their health, their work, their relationships. So when you understand the language of it, when you understand the five stages, you can recognize uh, you know, where someone is at. And then uh, yeah, I mean, of course, unstuck gives you the idea. Our practitioner program gives you the tools, the everything to really truly guide someone forward. Uh, but there's no reason to stay stuck. It's become so obvious through the five stages, staying stuck is a choice.

Mary 45:41

Well, and it's really cool for me as a therapist because so much of the framework is trauma. And this is a trauma that's very different. And so having this other framework to say, okay, we know how to deal with sort of the shock of it and what it's done to your system, but then how do you move forward with those other shades that come with it about the self-trust and all of those things? So I really I really love that. I'm looking, I'm actually looking forward to learning more about it.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

So thank you for being here. Yeah, this is really, it's like you could be an amazing doctor, but if you want to do heart surgery, you need those skills. Betrayal is a different type of trauma that requires a different way to heal. So this is just hyper specific on transforming after betrayal. Yeah, I love it.

Mary 46:31

Well, thank you again. And I want to thank everyone for listening. My book, Nature Knows, Grow and Thrive Through the Wisdom of Plants, is now out. It just officially was launched this week. And the message is if you're failing to thrive, it's not you, it's the environment you're living in. So find out more at maryrothwell.net forward slash nature knows. I've linked it in the show notes. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.