Choose your path to recovery
Empathy is so complex when we’re talking to women in betrayal trauma.
As we hone in on one area for the sake of starting somewhere, we encourage you to discern for yourself how you’re doing in these different areas. Ultimately, we hope to guide you towards embracing empathy in a way that’s healthy for you.
Whether you’re in a romantic relationship or not, learning to create psychological safety for yourself after trauma is a huge principle of healing.
Many of us don’t even know that we’re in charge of our own safety, and since we didn’t have it in place before the betrayal happened, our next best option is to put it in place now.
In conversation with Tony, Luke and Alana share vulnerable insights from behind-the-scenes in their marriage – including their history with betrayal trauma and their subsequent healing journey.
Just as we’d tend to a scrape or a wound on our physical body, we have to pay attention to the wounding of our emotional body. We’re so quick to judge our mental or emotional pain, push it down, tell ourselves to suck it up and walk it off.
But if we had a cut or scrape that was bleeding, we wouldn’t do that. We’d open up our first aid kit and use those tools to help heal ourselves. Self care is no different. It’s an addition to your tool kit, particularly in healing from betrayal trauma.
Clearly we were meant to cross paths with dating expert Loni Harmon, because we share passions about very similar things. We love helping women and men who are trying to navigate dating and really date healthy. And when you’re setting your priorities in a healthy relationship, one of the first things you want to consider is what we’re discussing today: healthy attachment.
As a continuation of our discussion on trauma bonding from last week, we’re bringing a second topic into the mix: overfunctioning. Overfunctioning in relationships is a pattern where one person tends to take on all the thoughts, feelings, and responsibilities for both people in the relationship. It’s a way of establishing a sense of control – a common result in cases of trauma bonding where the balance of control is disproportionate.
We’re going to tackle a hard topic for our 100th episode today: trauma bonding. Many women don’t realize they’re either in trauma bonds themselves or know someone who is. It’s a lot more prevalent than most of us expect. Let’s get some clarity around the term ‘trauma bonding’ and what it means, so we can better understand our relationships and experiences.
When you’ve been betrayed by your spouse, where it affects the highest level of intimacy, and hurts you where you’re most vulnerable, it can often be extremely traumatic and where the body is concerned. And it’s totally understandable.
Loving your body after betrayal trauma may sound impossible. But it can absolutely happen for you.
Sometimes we show up in a way that we wish we could do over. It’s inevitable – we’re not perfect. There are ways to have healthy do-overs with your children and even your partner – when you make the conscious decision to learn to show up differently.
How do you know if you’re doing the work it takes to heal? One big aspect of doing the work and healing is learning to process what’s happening and allowing yourself to feel all your feelings.
We’re taking this opportunity to talk about some of the common thoughts our brains offer when we’re feeling threatened. Join us for a discussion about facing sexual addiction, progressing through the stages of healing after infidelity, and learn new ways to interpret the relationship between you and your partner’s parents.
A question that comes up a lot in our women’s groups dealing with sexual addiction is, “Should I be talking to my kids about this?” Every situation is incredibly nuanced, but we’re giving you some points to consider about sharing with your kids.
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