I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast,
episode number 158, Changing Your Mind.

Hello, and welcome to the Heal from Infidelity podcast where courageous
women learn not only to heal from their spouse’s betrayal, but to become
the boldest, truest, most decisive and confident versions of themselves
ever. If you know there’s more for you than the life you’re currently
living but don’t quite know how to get there, you are in the right place.
Stick around to learn how to create a life that will knock your own socks
off. Is it possible? It is, and I’m here to show you how. I’m your host,
Andrea Giles. Are you ready? Let’s dive in.

Hello my beautiful listeners. Welcome back to another episode of Heal from
Infidelity. Today, we are going to talk about changing our mind, when to
change our mind, why would we change our mind? All the different things,
talk about changing our mind. Okay. Before I dive into that, I want you, if
you have never watched my class, how to get your life back after
infidelity. Whether you stay or go, it’s available now. It is free. It is in
the show notes. Go grab it. It’s a great class. You’ll learn a lot. You’ll
get to know more about me, my style, how I work, all of that. Go check it
out. All right.

Now, changing your mind. Let’s talk about changing your mind. The reason I
decided to talk about this topic today is because yesterday I was minding
my own business and I got an email from Terry Real and I am in his
certification program I’ve been in all year.

I’m winding down, completing all the things I need to do, but he sent this
email out and it was this very long email and it really struck me at how
powerful the things that he was saying were. So what it was about is that a
while ago in our community, in the community of all the people that are
certifying, he made a comment in there basically taking a stand about
something, and I’ll just share with you what it was about. He said that he
did not think that any of us should ever use the words that were offended
and that we should strike it from our vocabulary. I never saw that initial
thing, but apparently he got a lot of pushback from people, like a lot of
pushback, and then he started to do his own research into that and why he
thought that and talk to people, ask questions, listen to people, and guess
what he did?

He wrote up this very thoughtful, very long, all about why he was wrong and
he sent an apology and he said, “I retract my statement. I’ve changed my
mind. I no longer believe that.” He is such a leader to me in changing your
mind, in being schooled and being taught and being open and being humble.
This is Terry Real who has been a therapist for over 40 years and worked
with the biggest names in the industry, admitting very publicly that he
retracts something he said that he was wrong and that he’s sorry. Now, why
does this matter for all of you? Why it matters is because sometimes when I
first start working with people, they’ll come to me having already made up
their mind about, for example, if they’re staying or going. They’ll say, “I
already know I’m staying. I already know.”

And the thing is that when we hold so tight onto something like, “My mind
is made up, this is what I’m doing.” We really block our ability to look at
all the things that we need to see. It’s like, “I can look at this as long
as the answer is that I stay,” or the opposite, “I can look at these things
as long as the answer is that I don’t need to go back. That I’m leaving.
I’m done. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want anything to deter me from
that.” Okay. So now let’s talk a little bit about why it’s so hard to
change our mind. Why we struggle to change our mind.

One reason we struggle is because of cognitive biases. We tend to seek out
information that confirms what we believe. We have a hard time seeking out
information that might counter what we believe. We are less likely to do
that we are more inclined to look for evidence of what we already think is
true. Another thing that we do, it’s called sunk cost fallacy. We stick to
decisions because of past investments. So in marriage or a long-term
relationship or just any relationship, there’s an investment and sometimes
we think that we have to stick to that decision or that investment because
we’ve already invested so much. I’ve already invested so much, I don’t want
to lose my investment.

Another thing we do is we are afraid of judgment. We have societal
pressures and we worry about what people will think. We worry about people
thinking we’re flaky or inconsistent, and so this might be hard for us to
admit when we’ve changed our mind. That’s partly why I was so impressed with
Terry’s email yesterday. He just owned it. He just owned it, and it made me
respect him that much more. Another piece is identity and ego changing. Our
mind can be tied our identity. Like if we choose to stay, if we choose to
leave.

I know for me, when I chose to leave in my first marriage, it was like a
full-on identity crisis, like who am I if I’m not a married woman? I had
been married for 16 years, most of my adult years I was married, and it
really felt very challenging to that image of myself. I felt pretty lost.
That identity felt pretty lost. So changing our mind when it rubs up
against something like this, like an identity type thing, could be really
challenging and we might not want to look at it. It might be really hard to
look at. It might be a blow to our ego. Changing our mind might mean losing
a little something of ourselves temporarily. Okay.

Next, the benefits of changing your mind. I believe that we are here to
grow. I believe that we are here to shed false beliefs that we have about
ourselves, about the world, about other people, and to really grow into who
we really are. I believe that being willing to change our minds reflects
personal growth, and an openness to new information and new perspectives.
When we can drop our preconceived ideas about something, our long-held
beliefs about something and actually open up to a new perspective like, “I
might not actually have all the answers here. I might not have all the
information,” there is so much growth in that. There’s so much new
information, so many new perspectives that we can gain.

In our world, we’ve had many societal leaders that have changed their mind
and often they come under fire for it. Oh my gosh, they’re a flip-flopper.
They change their mind constantly, and while I would be naive if I said
that some of it isn’t to appease this party or this group of people or this
group of people, I do think that in the public eye it does happen. It’s
very real that we change our mind. That one thing that we might have a
really strong opinion about, we might brush up with a personal experience
with somebody. We might just have a general idea. And then we actually meet
people who are living the very thing that we have the idea about, and we
get to know their experience and hear their views on it, and we can change
our mind.

I think that’s what happens a lot in politics is that people grow and
evolve and then they change their mind, and sometimes yes, it’s for the
looks of it, but I do think that there are some, where it is genuine that
they genuinely change their mind. And in my opinion, when this comes from
an honest place, it actually makes me trust people more because I know that
they are somebody that lives with integrity. It might seem counterintuitive,
but I trust people more who are open and teachable than rigid and locked
into a view. To me, it is a strength. To me, it shows that this person is
resilient and adaptable in both their personal life and in professional
things that I can trust them. Okay. Mental health professionals will say
that rigid thinking is very bad for mental health. It creates more stress,
whereas being open to change can promote mental well-being. That means
being willing to change your mind can promote mental well-being who knew.
Okay.

Next, how to change your mind. When to change your mind. In my first
marriage, I had a lot of data and I decided that I was in, that I wanted to
stay. I really wanted to stay. I talked about this on my last episode a
little bit that I actually felt at peace with that. I felt like my highest
growth was to say, and I’m going to share something even more personal than
that. I remember having this deep intuitive message come to me during that
time, “Give him everything you’ve got. Love him with everything you’ve
got,” and I felt like that was something I could get behind. This person
that had really hurt me, this person that had let me down, I wanted to love
this person with everything I had, and so I did. And it was genuine and I
loved this person, and I was forgiving and I was willing to start anew and
make new memories and move forward.

The problem is that it didn’t last long. I was willing, and over time what
I found is that he was not. That he wanted to continue doing some of the
things he was already doing, it was made known to me. And then I changed my
mind and I decided to leave. I had new data. I had new information. It was
no longer a loving environment for me to stay in, but I have experienced
what it feels like to stay and to leave and to find peace both ways. I know
how it feels both ways. So I changed my mind because I had new data and I
recognize that now my highest growth was to leave, was to say no, and I
stepped into that.

How to become more open to changing your mind. A few curiosity, I talk
about this all the time in my program with my ladies. If we can just crack
open our brains to 1% curiosity instead of really rigid ideas about people,
we’re going to learn a lot. We’re going to learn a lot. We’re going to
learn that we’re often wrong, so what I encourage you to do is rather than
making blanket statements about things, ask questions. You want to push it
even further? Seek out opposing views as a way to challenge your own
thinking. Here are the other side. Hear what other people have to say.
Okay. This person thinks so different than me, I want to know why. I want
to understand. I want to hear it.

And it can totally feel threatening to you, but it doesn’t have to. It does
not have to. You can be open and you know what? If it leads you to changing
your own mind, it’s coming from a place of honesty and integrity and you do
not need to fear that. Okay. Be willing to admit when you’re wrong. It’s
okay to be wrong. It’s okay to change our opinion when we have new facts,
just like the example of Terry Real. Check in with yourself. Know what your
values are, recognize what they are and when our long-held beliefs are no
longer working for us where they’re no longer in alignment with new
information. All right.

One of the most important things about being able to change your mind,
being willing to change your mind is this, so many of us are so afraid to
make a move. We’re so afraid to even take a step forward because we’re so
afraid that if we do, we’re going to be wrong. We’re going to get it wrong.
We’re going to mess up. We’re going to hurt people. I want you to know that
what actually happens is when we make a decision and take a step forward,
we are given more information or given more data.

So for example, when there’s something that we have held back on and we
finally decide, okay, now’s the time. This is a little micro decision.
Now’s the time I’m going to go to my spouse and I’m going to bring this
thing up. I know it will ruffle feathers. I know it will be uncomfortable
and I’m willing to do that. We could have hemmed and hawed and been so
afraid of even having that conversation for weeks and months and finally
going, “It’s time I’m doing it. The time is now.” We know we might not get
what we want in that conversation. We recognize that, but we do it anyway,
because that’s the courageous thing to do.

Now, the thing that happens is we have that conversation and we might have
a plan of what we are planning on doing in our relationship, we can have
new data and guess what? It might change our mind. We might go, “You know
what? I planned on this, and with that information, I actually think I
might go a different direction.” It’s not what I was planning, but this is
what it looks like. It’s really, really important. It’s being flexible.
It’s being malleable. It’s being teachable. It’s being humble. It’s being
open. It’s going this thing that I was so sure of, I am not sure of anymore
and I’m not sure what I am sure of, but I’m open. There’s a beautiful
surrender to it. There’s a beautiful not needing to know. There’s a
beautiful not needing to be right. It’s softer. And the thing is that when
we’re softer, we’re more open, we get more data, we get more information,
and we can move forward.

Changing your mind is not a bad thing. Changing your mind is a beautiful
thing. When it comes from your integrity, your growth, your transformation,
lean into it. Trust that you can make a move and that you can handle what
comes. If you need to change your mind, you can change your mind and it’s
not the end of the world. Okay. All right. My beautiful people, so much
love to you. Go out there and challenge those beliefs. Okay. Challenge
those thoughts, challenge those beliefs. All right. I’ll see you next time.

Thank you for listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast. If you would
like to be kept in the know about upcoming free classes, new podcast
episodes, and other ways of working with me, go subscribe to my weekly
email. You can subscribe at andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. Again,
it’s aandreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. I will see you next time.