Self-Care After Betrayal

Self-Care After Betrayal

I have heard the saying, “Self-care is more than a mani and pedi.”  There is much to be said about how you feel after being pampered.  You feel calm, grounded, serene, loved, noticed, feminine, light, and acutely aware of your wonderful experience.  I love massages, mani and pedi, sitting on my wonderful patio, cutting flowers from my garden, looking up at the moon (the sun is not my favorite unless I’m on the beach walking in the sand ), shampooing my hair, the scent of my favorite body moisturizer as I put it on.  These are moments that give me joy and make my soul smile.

On the other hand, if you have experienced betrayal, self-care can feel very far away.  Holding raw emotions of loss, grief, sadness, disappointment, confusion, devastation, brokenness, rejection, loss of joy, and I can go on and on…  Betrayal leaves your heart broken in many pieces and joy seems very far away.  Self-care is the last thing on your mind.  How do you do self-care in the middle of feeling so much pain? 

I was once in Hawaii and walked on a path along the ocean every morning.  It was wonderful and refreshing.  On my third morning, I noticed there was a group of swans in the pond by the resort.  The first morning, there were only two swans, and then by the 3rd morning, there were three swans.  I stopped walking and gave attention (at a distance) to how the swans moved.  I was hoping to determine if they were a family of swans.  I noticed that the swan in the middle was floating along and had one leg up on its body while the other two swans circled the one in the middle.  I instantly knew the swans on the outside were protecting the middle swan as the middle swan was being cared for physical discomfort.  The swan in the middle continued to rest with one leg resting on its body.  By then, another walker had gathered with me, and we had a conversation about how protective the other two swans were of the one in the middle who needed care.  Still, the one who needed care took the time to give himself care. 

I pull in this experience because it takes time and awareness and other safe people around you to heal from betrayal as you do self-care.  Here are the points to consider for self-care after betrayal.

First, find a supportive therapist.  Find a therapist who knows the steps to recovery from betrayal.  Someone who has been trained in EFT is a CSAT and someone who understands loss, grieve and trauma and knows the difference between differentiation, enmeshment, and individualism, so the one who has been betrayed is not taking responsibility for the behaviors of the one who acted out the betraying.

Secondly, change your eating habits.  It is so important that when your body is holding raw emotions, you are attentive to how each part of your body feels.  Waking up every morning and doing a body scan (a body scan is noticing each part of your body and how you might be feeling), and journaling what you are feeling.  Remove all processed foods, drink plenty of water, and notice the difference between hunger and the heaviness of how emotions will rest in your body and cause discomfort. 

Third, do not be afraid to sit in difficult emotions and become curious about why the emotion is there.  Engage deep breathing, creating a calm place (a place that brings you calm feelings.  You may have been there before or it can be imaginary).  Do stretching often throughout the day.

Fourth, engage a safe circle of people to help you heal.  They do not have to know all the details of your journey or pain, but they should be trusted, reliable individuals who can support you with empathy and love.

Pray or meditate.  There is something about having a spiritual connection every day and always, but it is more noticeable and important during times of uncertainty and trouble.  Pray or meditate for clarity, direction, healing, guidance, and joy.  Remember, there are very few moments when you have to decide what to do next after a discovery or disclosure of betrayal.  Gift yourself time to heal and to feel whole again.  There is an ending to the acute pain.  You will enjoy a mani Pedi again and a massage.  You will enjoy the sun again.  You will feel joy again.  Hang in there!!

Holiday Guidelines

Suicide Prevention in Families

Suicide prevention in families

Our families are precious to us.  There are certain memories in families that warm our hearts.  These memories keep us strong, longing for connection and valuing one another.  Your family can be rich in generosity, abundant in love, great at forgiveness, and full of hospitality.  When your family gather, you can feel the connection.  It’s like that saying of taking a deep breath and kicking off your shoes.  Oh, families are so precious.

However, our families are also subject to hurt, pain, disappointment, generational patterns, sibling and parental conflict, loss, chaos and disconnection.  We can feel the disappointment and pain just as deeply as we feel the love and hospitality.  Unfortunately, there is no family that hasn’t experienced some level of pain and disappointment.  We have come to understand that in those trying moments, we are better standing together, then we are standing apart.

There is something about being close to someone you love, but yet not knowing they are suffering.  When loss by suicide happens in families, one of the thoughts that we try to make sense of is that the person was suffering and we did not know it.  We often hear statements that say, “I just talked to that person and they did not say a thing.”  “Why didn’t they say something.”  “I had no idea.”  These are all statements that indicate that there was a close relationship, but yet there was a lack of knowing the secret pain of another no matter how close.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States.  According to the CDC, over 49,000 people died by suicide in 2022.  That is one death every 11 minutes.  Suicide impacts people of all races, SES backgrounds, families, friends and communities.  There is great stigma surrounding mental health, which increase the feelings of isolation, hopelessness and secretiveness.

Dying by Suicide is one of the most devastating events that can take place in a family. I encourage families who have experienced this level of loss to do great self-care by finding a licensed therapist to discuss their loss, and to attend family group therapy.

There are risk factors and protective factors to be aware of:

Major Risk factors:

-       Prior suicide attempt (s)

-       Misuse and abuse of alcohol or other drugs

-       Mental disorders, particularly depression and other mood disorders

-       Access to lethal means

-       Knowing someone who died by suicide, particularly a family member

-       Social isolation

-       Chronic disease and disability

-       Lack of access to behavioral health care

Risk factors can vary across groups:

-       Stress resulting from prejudice and discrimination (family rejection, bullying, violence) is known risk factor for suicide attempts among (LGBT) lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.

-       Historical trauma suffered by Indigenous people contributes to the high suicide rate in this population.

-       For men in the middle years, stressors that challenge traditional male roles, such as unemployment and divorce, have been identified as important risk factors.

-        

It is also important to know the protective and precipitating factors so that you can build on them in the family.

Protective Factors:

Protective factors are personal or environmental characteristics that help protect people from suicide.

-       Effective behavioral health care

-       Connectedness to individuals, family, community, and social institutions

-       Life skills

-       Self-esteem and sense of purpose or meaning in life

-       Cultural, religious, or personal beliefs that discourage suicide

Precipitating factors and warning signs:

Precipitating factors are stressful events that can trigger a suicidal crisis in a vulnerable person.

-       End of relationship or marriage

-       Death of a loved one

-       An arrest

-       Serious financial problems

If you or anybody else is in need of help please don’t hesitate to call these numbers below:

1(800) 662-HELP(4357)

988 Suicide and crises lifeline (call or text 988)or chat (988lifeline.org)

1(800) 273-Talk(8257)

Nami Help Line 1(800) 950-6264

Empathy - The Bridge to Forgiveness after Intimate Betrayal

Empathy - The Bridge to Forgiveness after Intimate Betrayal

There are often times when we rush to forgiveness.  I call this “Cheap Forgiveness.”  Cheap Forgiveness is stating you have granted forgiveness without consciously making the decision to forgive.  Additionally, in Cheap Forgiveness, there is not enough time granted to allow one’s emotions to follow in agreement with the decision to forgive.  Sometimes this happens when we fear there might be spiritual or relational repercussions if we don’t forgive quickly.

Note, that there is a difference in making the decision to forgive and then having your emotions to follow.  This might feel like stating that you have made the decision to forgive, but then waking up the next morning with some of the same negative, hurtful feelings.  There must be a letting go of negative feelings before your emotions align with your decision.  That “letting go” might look like reviewing the hurt, recalling the incident, and thinking about the relationship and what it meant to you.  You might also experience waves of grief and loss as you notice where the pain is resting in your body.  You might also notice that your heart rate might increase as you think about the hurt.  Without walking through the above, you cannot get to empathy and you struggle with forgiveness. 

  Yes, forgiveness is a spiritual, active, relational, progressive experience; and it is also a very personal decision.   Let’s be fair, it is not easy.   Before you get to forgiveness, you must first empathize with the person who hurt you.  What will it take to get to empathy in the face of pain, anger, intimate betrayal and sadness?  How can you get to empathy when you believe the person who hurt you doesn’t deserve empathy?  How can you get to forgiveness when you were betrayed at the most intimate level of a relationship, and you discovered you were left standing alone?  How can you get to comprehend why this person betrayed you so you have a reason to walk the bridge of empathy?

 The Bridge to empathy might be difficult to build, but it is possible.  Here are the building blocks.

Block #1:   Do you know enough about the person’s history and where their pain could have originated from?  Reflect on the following three questions:

a.     What is the history of the person?

b.     What is in that history that would make them show up in deceptive ways?

c.     What would drive them to the place of deception?

 Block #2:  You also might want to reflect on how they might view themselves.  Do they operate from a place of self-distortion, or a place of grandiosity?   

a.     Do they see themselves as broken or unworthy?

b.     Do they see themselves as being entitled because they feel they should be able to choose how they want to live their lives, regardless of who it hurts?

Once you know the history of the person, you will find that the common factor of humanity becomes clear – none of us is perfect.  We are all struggling with something, and we are all in need of grace.

Block #3:  Having the courage to explore the pain surrounding the hurt and the connection that might be present because of the deceit and the betrayal.  The connection can be something as simple as a shared childhood experience or an assumption of a shared value.  There might also be shared lived experiences or a vastly different experience that reflect similar values.

Empathy is a bridge-building tool because we can’t get to forgiveness until we find a common ground in our humanity.  We can’t get to the other side of unforgiveness until we embrace and find the courage to look at the imperfections in our human lived experience, which is our shared experience.

The Complexity Of Duality

The Complexity Of Duality

 There are phrases in the field of psychology that make a lot of sense.  The first one is “we can do hard things.”  This phrase was coined by Glennon Doyle, and it allows the person to see themselves within the context of taking on something that they thought they did not have the inner resources to accomplish.  Another phrase is “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”  This phrase was coined by Sigmund Freud and the gist of this phrase is that sometimes, regardless of what it might look like, we have to take things at face value.  The third phrase that I have learned how to live in is “two things can be true at the same time.  You can be angry and yet relieved, you can feel sadness and joy at the same time, you can experience good and evil at the same time, and you can also experience love and animosity at the same time.  You can hold these feelings, although they are on the opposite ends of a spectrum of emotion, as you stand in the awareness of knowing why those feelings are present.  This is known as duality.  Both of the opposing feelings in each of the examples above do not have to stay in opposition.  They can coexist as you learn how to hold both opposite feelings without having to choose one over the other in the moment.  You can arrive at a place of peace by accepting that you have the emotional capacity to hold them both and to feel okay in the moment.  Sometimes things are just what they are.  No further analysis needed.  Just as there was a beginning, there is also an ending.

 Learning to become comfortable with being uncomfortable as you hold opposite feelings at the same time can be a challenge.  So, here are some thoughts on how to move through it to the end. 

 1.     Understand that opposites are interdependent, and cannot exist without each other.  Although, sadness and joy feel so different, you are only able to know joy is present because you have experienced sadness.  Although they are different and opposing, they are on the same spectrum. 

2.     Know that the opposing feelings require validation.  Your sadness will require that you acknowledge that sadness is present and you might have to expand your emotional window of tolerance to accompany other emotions that can come up in the moment.  You will also need to validate joy (or the opposing feeling).  As joy could be the manifestation that sadness might be coming to an end or that the end has already happened.

3.     Work to expand your emotional tolerance so you can gain capacity to hold the opposing feelings for as along as you need to.  Not rushing through what is true for you, but reflecting on the emotions and why they are present. 

 How to expand emotional capacity can be a learning curve.  First, notice where the emotion lands in your body.  Secondly, rate the emotion on a scale of 1 to 10.  If it’s higher than a 5, you might want to take a deep breath and pause for a moment. After the pause, continue to do deep breathing until the emotion subsides.  Do not re-investigate the emotion at this time, but finish the moment out by closing out with deep breathing and promising yourself that you will return to this moment when you feel better.  If it’s lower than a 5, investigate why the emotion is there by asking yourself the questions of “what do I feel and why am I feeling this?”

 4.     Keep in mind that opposing views will not always be present.  You will move to a more settled, peaceful place as you gain more insight about your emotions, body sensations and thoughts.

 Two opposing views can be true at the same time.  It is okay in the moment and noticing your feelings and thoughts about the opposing views is all that is needed in the moment.  What is true … this will pass.