I’m Andrea Giles and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast,
episode number 179. Stop Reacting and Start Leading. Hello and welcome to
the Heal from Infidelity podcast for 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.

(00:49):

Alright guys. So hi. Welcome back to another episode. Oh man, I am going to
cut to the chase and be real with you. It’s been a little bit of a week. I
just recorded this whole episode. It was really good too. It was really
good. And realize I forgot to press record. I forgot to record, so I am now
take two doing it again, and I didn’t include any of this in the first
episode that I recorded, but I’m going to tell you anyway, I’m just going to
level with you, okay? This is going to show a side of me that hopefully
makes you chuckle a little bit. I can be very smart in certain areas and
sometimes I have to roll my own eyes up myself. Earlier this week I had to
drive three hours away to a specialist in a different town with two of my
kids.

(01:44):

It has been a frozen freezing tundra here. Just to give you an example,
when I left my home that morning, it was negative 27 degrees, freaking
cold, so cold, negative 27. It was wild driving along a river and seeing
steam coming off the river. It was just so cold, so cold. Anyway, frozen,
tundra, so much snow. We’ve gotten more snow than usual this year and we
went, and I’m just going to level with all of you here in that appointment,
I at 47 years old, got diagnosed with A DHD by a psychiatrist, okay?
Leveling with you. So that has been something to wrap my head around a
little bit. And I left that appointment, was heading home, drove an entire
hour in the wrong direction, an entire hour in the wrong direction. If any
of you have been to Montana, there’s a lot of open space.

(02:44):

They call it the big sky country. There’s just a lot of open space and
everything is just covered in snow. It’s like white as far as you can see,
not a lot of landmarks. They’re covered. Everything’s just covered in a
blanket of white forever, ever. And I also started getting a migraine on my
way home. I just got to get home. I just got to go home and then realized I
turned the wrong way, didn’t even realize it, so I had to go back and head
home, and got home much later. I share all of this with you to say, when I
do things like for getting to press record, now I have a little bit more
understanding of why, and these are some of the struggles that I have in
business, in life, and I’m just leveling with you. So there you go. There
you go.

(03:31):

Now you know a little bit more about me. I try to bring you my best
professional self here. But on the other side of this is a very down to
earth real human who does stupid human things like silly human error and
happens more than I’d care to admit, honestly, silly things that I just
forget. But anyway, without further ado, let’s get into today’s episode
because it’s a really good one, okay? Please stick around to the end. I’m
going to be giving you an actual assignment that I want you to do as if I
am your coach and that you are taking seriously and doing your homework.
Okay? I’m going to give you some homework. Alright? So basically, if you’re
constantly reacting to your spouse’s choices, whether it’s their apologies,
their lack of apologies, their excuses, their silence, even their love and
affection, you are handing them all the power.

(04:33):

And today we’re going to change that. Why does this matter? It matters
because reacting is keeping you stuck in their drama. It’s keeping you
stuck in what’s going on with them and it’s not fair to you. Responding
from a place of strength gives you clarity and control and confidence
taking it back. You are reacting to their drama when you are in a place of
reaction. It’s keeping you stuck in their drama, creating a whole lot of
drama for you based on what they’re doing. Alright? And I want you to learn
to take it back. Sometimes something that I see my clients is they’re really
wanting to know if there’s room for them in this relationship. And when we
are in a constant state of reaction, there is no way to know. There’s no
way to know. We’re not pushing on the things that need to be pushed on to
see if there’s room for us.

(05:38):

When we learn how to slow this down, how to pause. This is when things open
up and we learn if there’s room for us here, and most of all, and most
importantly, you are making room for you. You’re making room for yourself
where you can tell the truth, where you’re not hiding parts of yourself,
where you’re not shrinking parts of yourself, okay? First of all, let’s
talk about the cost of reacting. This is what reacting looks like. And as
I’m talking, I want you to think about for yourself where you react, what’s
your go-to, okay? Jumping to conclusions. Where do you jump to conclusions?
Where do you hear something that somebody’s doing? And for the purposes of
this particular podcast, I’m going to talk about your partner’s,
significant other, whether you’re staying in or not, okay? And you hear
something and you instantly jump to some kind of conclusion that surely
they must be thinking this.

(06:36):

If they said this, so they must mean this. They didn’t do this, so they
must think this. How often do we do that? It’s very, very dangerous to make
assumptions. It’s very dangerous and costs so much. We’re spending so much
time spinning out and something that we don’t even have all the facts to.
Now, I hear what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, well, Andrea, but I
already have evidence because of things that my partner has already said or
done that this is probably what they’re thinking. I hear you on that. Okay?
I hear you on that. And still I’ll say, I want you to still learn how to
stop jumping to conclusions anyway, because if your brain’s always jumping
to conclusions, there’s no room for the other person to change either.
There’s no room for you to really get the data that you need to make the
decisions that you need to make.

(07:29):

Another thing that reacting looks like is emotional outbursts. Just losing
your shizz, okay? It looks like they say something, you feel yourself get
hot and boom, there she blows, or pleading or withdrawing and shut down
pleading. How many of you have found yourself pleading and how terrible
does that feel? I have. I know what that feels like. I feel so crappy right
now, and if you could just tell me that you like me. If you could just tell
me that you value me at all, that you care about me at all, please just let
me know, right? This feels so terrible and it’s not going to get you what
you want because they are probably likely going to just react to you, and
it’s not going to come from a grounded place from them. It’s going to be
coming from a, oh my gosh, I need to do what I need to do to put this fire
out.

(08:23):

This is so uncomfortable. And then you won’t even be able to accept it or
believe it because you’ll recognize that it came from a reaction in both of
you. You want it to be organic. Now, this doesn’t mean that when you’re
feeling triggered that you can’t say, Hey, can you just give me a hug? Hey,
can you sit by me and just give me some reassurance? But that is different
than pleading. Pleading is coming from a place of desperation. It does not
feel good. Okay, withdrawing and shutdown. How many of you withdraw? Close
it down, put the wall up. Many of you probably lived in this place before
the infidelity even happened. You recognize that there are areas where you
guys were not on the same page where maybe you were missing each other,
where maybe you didn’t have the intimacy that you wanted and you maybe
tried you maybe to have that intimacy and when it wasn’t received the way
that you wanted, you might’ve shut it down.

(09:17):

Shut down parts of your heart and vault closed, and that might be the place
that you go to feel safe, but it’s costing you your own peace. It’s costing
you your own joy, and it’s a bummer right? Next, making decisions based on
their mood rather than your values. Okay, so I’m going to give you a quick
example of this. Let’s say that you are talking about boundaries around
phone use with your partner and you find out that they’ve been chatting it
up in the private chats in Instagram and Facebook, and it’s nothing sexual.
It’s just talking, right? It looks innocent enough, but part of your
values, part of something that you recognize is that there were not strong
boundaries in place before the infidelity of how you are going to protect
your marriage, and you recognize that it’s one of your values to highly,
deeply protect your marriage, and so rather than going to your partner and
going, Hey, this really bothers me that you’re doing this and this is not
protecting our marriage, this is kind of leaving us in a vulnerable state.

(10:30):

Rather than doing that, you’re just feeling really freaked out and scared
and don’t say anything because you’re afraid of what they’re going to do or
say, or you do go to them and they minimize it and say, it’s no big deal.
You’re trying to control me and I need to have some freedom, and then you
shut down rather than honoring the value that you have of protecting this
thing that you care about so much. The reality check here is that reacting
means they get to set the tone of your life. That is so much power to give
to anybody. Oh, it’s so much power to give to anybody. It means that they
get to set the tone of what your day-to-day life is like. It means that
their inconsistency or their consistency, whatever it may be, determines
your peace. This is a very dangerous way to live.

(11:21):

It’s dangerous because where are you in this? Where’s your decision making
of what you want, of how you want to live? If they, by chance, some of you
are living with a situation where they’re still waffling, they’re still
lying, they’re still justifying, they’re still kind of keeping you out, not
really coming fully clean. You are going to be staying on that reactivity
roller coaster until you decide to get off. And for those of you where you
actually are seeing a lot of consistency, where you are seeing that they
really are digging deep and doing their own work, if you stay in this place
of reactivity and fear, you’re still on a roller coaster. Nonetheless, it
might not be quite as intensive a ride, but it’s a roller coaster
nonetheless, because you’re living in this space of whatever they put out
today is how my mood is going to be.

(12:14):

Okay? Alright. Now let’s talk about what to do with this. The power of the
pause. Okay? I’m going to teach you a simple little hack that is so
profound and so powerful. Pause before you respond and pausing before you
respond equals taking back control. Now, what does a strong response look
like? It looks grounded. It looks thoughtful. It looks intentional. It
looks like, I’m going to give myself a minute and think this through. Check
in with myself. It looks like love. It looks like love for yourself. It
looks like love for everyone involved, right? You’re not spewing more doubt
or meanness or accusations in. You are taking a minute. You are not proving
anything. You are not defending anything. You’re not begging for
validation. Another thing that many of my clients that I talk to struggle
with is this need to justify themselves to explain themselves, to validate
themselves, but in a way that is unhealthy.

(13:25):

It’s not a way of truly validating. It’s in a way of overexplaining to try
to get the other person to agree with you or to validate you. We do this in
our workplaces. We do this with all kinds of relationships, but certainly
in our most intimate ones. Why? Because many of us don’t know how to have
our own back. We haven’t learned how to have our own back, how to really be
with ourselves, explore what we think about things, and then stand up for
those things in a way that it feels strong and powerful. And what we’re
doing is when we’re overexplaining, we are casting doubt on what we are
saying that we think and making room for the other person to question us
because we’re questioning ourselves in this space of a strong response.
We’re not defending. We don’t need to be growing up. Something that my dad
used to say all the time that I agree with is truth needs no defense.

(14:22):

If something is true, yeah, we defend truth by standing up for it, but we
don’t have to go on and on and on and on and on and defending it. Now, in
this space, we’re not begging for validation, but we might be saying, Hey,
can you sit with me in this? But we’re not begging for it. We might ask for
it, and I would say that in a healthy relationship, validation is really
important. When we have the courage to share something intimate, something
that feels scary and vulnerable to share, and our partner does not respond
at all or gets defensive or walls up, it can feel very invalidating and
really it is a break of intimacy, a breach of intimacy. Intimacy does not
mean that we agree on everything. Intimacy does not mean that we’re going,
oh yeah, I agree with you completely and I am wrong.

(15:20):

You’re right. That’s not what validation is. It’s just saying, I value you
and I hear you, and I want to understand more. Tell me more. Oh, powerful.
Right? But we’re not begging for it. We’re not begging for it. This kind of
response is communicating. I’m not here to manage your emotions. I’m not
here to babysit your emotions. I am here to lead myself. I’m here to lead
myself. Okay? Now, what does it mean to lead yourself? I’m going to give
you a few hacks, okay? First of all, notice what the trigger is. What’s the
moment that is triggering you and what do you instinctively want to do? Pay
attention. When you feel triggered going, I know that I’m feeling triggered
right now. I know that I am, and what do you want to do when you’re feeling
triggered? Okay, you might want to run away.

(16:13):

You may want to cry. You may want to yell and scream. Slowing it down, slow
it down. You might go straight into blame you pizza. You know what? It’s
your fault that I have this trigger. Okay? Pause, pause, pause, pause. Take
a breath, pause. Take a breath. Even five seconds of breathing can change
everything. Just slowing it all down. Asking, what would my strongest,
wisest self say or do right now? What would my highest self do? Right now?
My highest self would probably pull up a chair for that trigger and go,
Hey, I see you. You’re really scared right now. This is so scary and I’m
going to sit with you while you feel the fear. Sometimes our highest self
says, give a minute, sleep on it. Take a pause. Say, I need to go for a
walk for 30 minutes and circle back sometimes.

(17:06):

That’s what it is. Okay, pause. Now, self-leadership is so powerful because
what it does is it shifts the power dynamic. When you’re in a reactive
mode, neither of you are real powerful. It’s our really reactive, childish
parts that are reacting often to theirs, and what we want is power meets
power. That’s the goal we’re going for. The power in me sees the power in
you, even though you made choices from a very young part of yourself, the
power in me sees you as a human worthy of respect, even if your actions
were not respectful, but I want to treat you this way because it’s who I
want to be. Even if I don’t respect your choices, okay? We get our own
power back. We shift the power dynamic when we decide to take it back. The
kicker here, the thing that’s so cool is they feel your energy change.

(18:09):

You’re no longer playing their game. You’re no longer jumping. When they
say jump and they know it, and they might push back at first, they might
push harder at first and know that there’s a new sheriff in town. There’s
something different happening here, but that is a sign that’s working.
That’s a sign to keep going. There’s something bigger here at play, and I
don’t really know how this is going to end. I don’t know ultimately if
they’re going to keep resisting or if they’re going to come around, but I do
know that I’m leading myself somewhere that I’m so proud of. Over time, what
happens is your intention and your growing, your skill of leading yourself
forward forces clarity. Either they step up or they reveal who they really
are and who they’re going to stay, and you get to make a choice from a
place of peace because you know that you did your own work to show up as
your best self to this party.

(19:07):

Okay? How to start today? You start today by making a commitment. I will
not react impulsively. I will pause and lead myself first, okay? So your
challenge for this week, I want you to do this. I want you to pull out a
journal. I want you to look at a situation, something that you feel afraid
of that can be very, very triggering to you where you know that you usually
react, and I want you to commit to pausing. Instead, I want you to commit
to pausing and to just giving yourself a minute to breathe and decide that
your usual impulsive response, you can do that, but today you’re going to
practice something different and try it out. You’re going to test it. You’re
going to see what happens when you do something else, okay? I want you to
watch how the energy and you shift.

(19:55):

I want you to watch how your respect for yourself grows when you do this.
Okay? Alright. Before we wrap it up, I will boldly say that the work that
we do inside my Get Your Life Back After Infidelity Program. Is this on
steroids? Okay. It is so immersive. I know many of you are faithful podcast
listeners, and I really love that and appreciate it, and I appreciate your
loyalty. What I will say is that inside my program, for people who are
serious about not just having your fix and then forgetting about it, this is
for people who are serious about changing their life, by committing, going
all in to doing the work day to day, to change their own life, to where
this becomes your new reality, to where you look back and go, wow, I lived
so reactively to everything. I was in my own prison cell of putting out
fires reactively all the time, and what a prison I was in and I didn’t even
know and I’m out.

(21:02):

I busted out and I’m the only one that could do it. I’m the only one that
could bust myself out. Okay? My program just gets better and better. It
truly is life-changing. There’s nothing like it out there. So much care, so
much attention, so much thought. So much has gone into making this a place
that is so powerful. You get three coaching calls a week with me and Beth,
who is my assistant coach and fantastic live coaching where I get through
everyone who wants coaching. All day trainings three times a year where you
just get that and gifts in the mail that come. They are deep dives. We just
had ours recently. It was so, so powerful. People are talking about it
every day. A client mentioned it to me today, how transformative. I can’t
tell you how powerful because it’s immersive and we’re going deep on the
things that need to be looked at.

(21:52):

We’re not skimming the surface. If you are somebody who recognizes that you
are a deep thinker, you want to get beyond their reactivity and go deeper
and take full responsibility for your own healing rather than waiting for
something to happen, please get your application in. You apply. We accept
you. If you’re a good fit, you get in, you get your money in. There are
different payment plans available. You get your money in, you get access
immediately. You get call replays that go back over a year. You get access
to every workshop I’ve done. You get the guest people that I’ve had come in
and do breath work and do classes on people pleasing and all kinds of
amazing things. It’s all there. All of my own trainings that are deep and
profound and life-changing and all the worksheets and everything. There’s
so much support. Not to mention the group.

(22:46):

I can’t tell you without you being in there, what kind of women are in this
space. They’re high caliber, smart, go getter women. You won’t find a more
supportive group anywhere. You just won’t. Just this week, a couple days
ago, somebody in the group posted and got so much support coaching for me
and so much support from so many women in the group. She said, thank you
everyone for the love and support. I never thought I would find such an
amazing group of women to lean on. Thanks, Andrea, for the coaching. I
think a part of me knows that this doesn’t have anything to do with me, but
sometimes I struggle to remember that. Thank you for reminding me. This is
every day for an entire year. You will leave a different person. You will
leave a different person if this speaks to you. If you want more than these
short snippets, which I know are powerful and I know are really helping
many of you, but if you know that you need to go all in on you, I invite
you to come. We are ready for you. We have so much support for you between
one-on-one coaching and group coaching. It’s all included. Now you get two
calls a month with Beth. You get live coaching with me every week, except
the fourth week of the month, which we have is a quiet week with no calls.
There’s so much here for you. Come join us. Come join us. Alright. Thank
you for being here. As always, it’s a pleasure and I’ll catch you next
week.

(24:18):

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 https://andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/.
Again, it’s https://andreagiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/ I will see you
next time.