The Best of Heal from Infidelity | Ep #100

I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to episode number 100 of The Heal
from Infidelity Podcast, The best of Heal from Infidelity.

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 freedom 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 everybody. Welcome. Welcome to episode number 100. 100, I can’t even
believe it. It kind of crept up on me. Actually, one of my clients pointed
it out, said, “You’re almost to 100. Can you believe it?” So crazy. So
crazy. Can I just say something? Well, I’m going to say a lot of things,
but I want to say this before I dive into today’s episode. If there’s
something that you want to start and that feels scary, but that you feel a
push to do it, just do it, just take the leap. I had no clue, no clue, when
I started this podcast two years ago, a little over two years ago, what it
would become, who I would get to interact with because of it, the clients I
would get to serve, the people I would be able to bring together. I had no
idea. No idea. And I was so scared, and so like, oh my gosh, am I really
doing this? And 100 episodes in and I’m just so grateful. I’m so grateful I
took the leap.

If there’s something that you want to do, but you can’t see quite how it
all works and how it’s all going to come together, you don’t need to know.
You don’t need to know. Just start. Okay? Just start. Take my word for it.
Okay. So yes, episode 100. My business is now an international business. I
have worked with clients from all over the globe, from Asia, different
places in Europe, Canada, all over the United States. It’s really amazing.
I’m so grateful, and I’ve met so many incredible people along the road.

Today, what I’m going to do is I went through and looked at the statistics
for all of my episodes, and I pulled clips from the top five episodes and
you voted. These are the ones that people go back and listen to again and
again. Some of them that I have on here, they have downloads that are twice
the amount of my normal episodes. So people go listen to them again and
again and again. So I pulled some clips from them. I’m going to talk about
them a little bit, and I hope you enjoy it.

Before we dive into that, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for
listening. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for taking the time to go leave
a review. I read every single review, every one, the good, the bad, the
ugly. I read them all, and I take them to heart, and I appreciate them so
much and learn from them and what I want to improve and check in with
myself of the things that I want to bring to make this better. So thank you
very much for taking the time to do that.

And I ask if you have not yet reviewed my podcast, if you would. It very
much affects the rating. It very much affects the algorithm of what comes
up when people look for infidelity. And if you go to my social media, I am
hosting a fun little contest, a little 100 episode celebration where you’re
going to win some prizes for reviewing, for sharing, things like that.
Anyway, so go check that out, Andrea_Giles_Coaching, and you’ll see the
celebration for this and a way to earn some fun prizes.

As far as future plan for the podcast goes, I have some fun guests coming
up. I have some fun episodes coming up that I know you’ll love. I know that
you’ll enjoy them. I still just listen to what keeps coming up for people,
and that’s what I cover. And I also want to point out that I am 100
episodes in, and I go back to some of my earlier episodes, and I have been
coaching for over two years longer with lots of people. And so I know more
than I did. I have learned more. And so there may be in the future some
episodes that I come back and circle around to and go in more depth about
or teach a little bit differently. Just watch for that.

Anyway, as far as the frequency of this goes, I’m still going to stick with
every other week. I thought that I would be going back to every week by
now, but I have had so much inspiration and just things come to me that
need to be created, ideas of things that need to be created to help my
clients, and I need time for that. And so I’m going to go ahead and keep
this every other week for now and give myself the time needed to get those
things created for my clients. And hopefully at some point I will go back
to once a week, but right now it’s going to stick to every other week while
I am in major creation mode.

Okay. With further ado, let’s go ahead and get started. Top five, top five
episodes. One more quick thing, at the end of this episode, if you stay to
the end, I’ll talk about how you can currently work with me. I hear from
many of you who are looking for that. My webpage, I’m working on editing my
webpage because it no longer portrays the main ways that you can work with
me and just a lot has changed. My business has grown a lot, and so watch
for that, but I will be going over at the end of this episode how you can
work with me. All right, here we go.

By far, the most popular episode was episode number one, My Story, and
that’s really cool and really humbling, and I appreciate that you have
listened to that. It has over double what most of my episodes have, and
I’ve thought about that and went back and listened to it, and I think that
part of the reason why it has been popular is because it is my first
episode. So when somebody’s trying to learn about somebody and should I
give this person a listen, naturally, they’re going to listen to episode
one.

But I also think that part of it might be because in this space of
infidelity, it can feel so lonely, so lonely, and it can feel like no one
really gets it, no one really understands. And in episode one, I lay out my
story and how I get it, how I know what it feels like, how I understand the
decision, I understand the heartache and all of it, and am speaking from
experience of somebody who has gotten on the other side of it and is living
a really great life and really enjoying my life. Okay. So we’re going to go
to some clips from episode number one.

Now, I thought that if I fixed myself that things would get better. So I
went to lots of counseling pretty early on in our marriage. I went to
counseling. I thought that there must be something wrong with me, and that
if I fixed myself, then maybe things would be better in our marriage. We
also did some couples counseling here and there, and it didn’t really help
much. I learned more about different behaviors and things like that in
myself, but it didn’t really help our marriage move forward and I wondered
why.

Fast forward year 15, we’d been married for 15 years, and right around that
time a lot of things came to a head and I decided that it was time for a
change. I realized that the only way that things were going to get better
would be if I made the change. So right as our 16 year anniversary hit, I
was filing for divorce and preparing for a lot of uncertainty. I did not
know how we would be okay. I didn’t know what it would look like.

I was married to a successful lawyer who made good money, and I had always
been a stay-at-home mom. We had six children, 14 and under, and I didn’t
know what the future held, but I knew that I couldn’t wait anymore for him
to change. I knew that I couldn’t give him that responsibility, that if I
wanted my life to change, if I wanted things to change for my family, that
I needed to take that on and be willing to go through it and it was really,
really tough.

I experienced a lot of fear. I experienced a lot of doubt. I wondered all
the time, now, am I sure I know what I’m doing? Today, am I sure I know
what I’m doing? And I had to go back over and over to the things that I
knew, the convictions that I knew, that I was capable of changing my own
life, that I could use my own agency to change my own life. And so I kept
moving forward. I knew that there were parts of our situation that were
very, very unhealthy and that they were not going to go away and would
likely get worse. And so I kept going.

So the divorce finalized, and just seven months after the divorce
finalized, my first husband was killed in a car accident. He was only 39
years old. And once again, my myself and my children were met with a lot of
fear, a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of grief. And for all of us, it kind
of felt like losing him twice. It was a pretty hard time. While I was in
the middle of going through a divorce, backing up a little bit, I had lots
of women reach out to me saying, “Me too, me too.” And during that time, I
had this thought, Andrea, you need to get through this. You need to weather
this and be on the other side of this so you can help other women who are
going through the same thing. And it was at that time that I decided that I
wanted to make it a profession to help women who were in the same situation
I was.

Okay, onto the next. The second most popular episode is episode number
three, How to Make Decisions. So I’m going to be playing you a clip from
that. I think that making decisions is hard for a lot of people. I would
even venture to say most people. A lot of us just don’t necessarily trust
ourselves to make decisions that we can stand by. We often look to other
people for information of how to make decisions, or we think that other
people know better than we do, or we’re really afraid of what happens after
we make a decision. So I think that this episode is one that was popular
because many of us struggle with this, and it’s something that I work with
my clients with all the time. Every single client has this issue. So yep,
it’s a popular one for a good reason. So go check out these clips.

Another thing is resistance. Sometimes we feel resistance when we are
changing things up, when we have a decision to make. And sometimes when we
feel that resistance, we might interpret it as that we’re making a bad
decision, that we are clearly doing something wrong and that is a lie.
That’s a lie our brain will tell us to keep us from stretching and making
it work. Our lower brain will offer decisions that will keep us
comfortable. For example, yeah, eat the cookies. Don’t do that thing that
is scary. Don’t work out. It’s not fun, it’s uncomfortable. Don’t put
yourself out there. It’s scary out there.

So how do you make decisions? We make decisions from our higher brain, the
prefrontal cortex. That’s our wise, grown up version of ourselves. Our
lower brain is kind of like a toddler. It’s like, oh yeah, we want all the
cookies. We want to eat ice cream for breakfast. Okay. The prefrontal
cortex is the wise version of us. It’s where decisions are made. It’s where
our best decisions are made, I should say. It’s where we have our best
ideas. It’s where we set goals, it’s where we push ourselves, it’s where we
grow. Okay.

So with all of that, I’d like to head into step number one. Okay. So step
number one in decision-making is exploring. Exploring your options. Get
clear on what you are deciding. There’s always so many decisions to make,
right? Write it down. Just sit down. Do some brainstorming. Are there lots
of decisions to be made? Write them down. Look at your list. Which one
thing would create the most impact to decide? If you decided it and if you
just went forward with it, what would happen?

Other ways to decide are asking, if I decided on this, what impact five
years from now would it have? If I just decided and move forward with it,
in five years from now, what would change because of this decision today?
Another question is, what is it costing me not to make this decision?
What’s it costing me in brain space? What’s it costing me day to day?
Answer that.

When we ask our wise prefrontal cortex brain good questions, it gives us
great answers, but we have to pause. We have to sit with those questions
and listen and wait for it to answer. The reason that we do or don’t do
anything is because of a feeling. Did you know that? So the reason we might
want to know if we should, for example, stay married and try something new
within that, try having more honest conversations, try going and talking to
somebody, whatever that might be. The reason why we want to do that or
don’t want to do that is because we think that it will make us feel a
certain way.

So think about it. Okay? If we want to lose weight, for example, we think
it’s because we’ll feel a certain way once we’ve lost the weight. If we
want to change things up like a place to move or a new job, it’s because we
think that we’ll feel a certain way when we have that thing, when we’re
there. So knowing that, what is the feeling that you want? What is it? What
are you seeking? Get clear with yourself. Answer the question. Okay? One
fear that people have is, if I stay married, will I feel like I gave up?
Will I feel like a doormat? So if you knew that you could feel whatever you
want, if you knew that you could handle it, what do you think you would
choose?

Okay. The third most popular episode is episode number two, Why You’re
Stuck. I think that this episode is popular in part because it’s one of my
early ones, but also because I shed some light on why infidelity can be so
difficult and kind of normalize your experience, that you might feel stuck
and you’re still okay. You might feel really stuck, really stuck, and
you’re still okay. It’s still normal. There’s nothing wrong with you. Your
body, your brain is functioning exactly the way it’s supposed to. And so I
think a lot of people resonated with that because they could breathe a sigh
of relief that they’re okay. There’s nothing wrong with them. All is well.
Okay, I hope you enjoyed these clips.

Okay. So we’re going to start with scenario number one. You found out about
your spouse’s infidelity, you know it’s been going on for a while, and you
have contemplated leaving many times, but you’re so afraid to get it wrong.
You don’t want to deal with his emotions about you leaving. You don’t even
want to deal with your own emotions about it. You don’t want to have sad
kids, and you have a lot of fear. You don’t know how you would take care of
yourself financially. There’s just so many unknowns that you don’t have
answers to so you stay, but you feel terribly stuck. You might even be
having people, well meaning people tell you that you should leave, but you
still stay. That’s scenario number one.

In scenario number two, your spouse decides to leave the marriage and you
wonder what you did wrong. You live with a lot of shame, fear, and doubt.
And also you feel angry and mad at him a lot of the time too. You often go
back and forth between the two, blaming him for the situation you find
yourself in, and also feeling so much sadness and shame and guilt and doubt
as you watch him build a new life without you.

Getting so clear about what we want and then why we want it is the way out.
So I start all of my coaching, when I start a new program with brand new
clients, we start at this spot of getting clear about what we want and why
we want it. And sometimes it takes some doing to even state out loud what
my clients want because they are so used to thinking about what everybody
else wants. They’ve forgotten about what they want. But if you can lean
into this thought that your desires, your wishes, the things that you want,
that those are actually the markers and the guidepost showing you what
you’re capable of and where you need to go, and the growth that needs to
take place to have that thing, lean into it. It’s there for a reason. You
were given desire for a reason, lean into it.

So I start there with my clients, and then a huge part of it is going
through your reason, you’re compelling, reason. Why do you want that thing?
And nobody else needs to understand your reason but you. You’re the only
one that needs to get it, and you’re the only one that needs to answer to
it and feel good in it. You have to like your reasons why.

Other people’s judgment, it’s not enough. Yeah, what others might say, or
even your own judgment like, oh, I don’t deserve that. Oh, that’s selfish
of me. We’re dropping all of that. It’s okay to want something just because
you want it, but you claim it. Say this is what I want, this is why I want
it, and commit to it over and over and over again. That commitment will be
the thing that moves you from where you are to where you’re going.

I know for me, when I was going through divorce, what kept me going was
this image of a peaceful, calm life where I didn’t feel like I was in chaos
all the time. I didn’t wonder what was going to happen the next day. I
didn’t wonder if we would be okay. I had a vision in my mind of a
relationship that was loving and trusting and peaceful. I really wanted
peace, and I was willing to do whatever it took to get there. And so I
moved forward even though it was really bumpy at times.

Okay. The fourth most popular episode, episode number six, Feeling your
Feelings. I pulled a couple different clips from this one. Why is this one
so popular? I think this one is popular because after infidelity, there’s a
lot of feelings and it’s hard to know what to do with them. It’s hard to
know how much air time to give to them. It’s hard to know, is it normal for
me to feel this way or should I be feeling a different way? It can be very,
very confusing. And so I think people go back to this one a lot to have
kind of a reference point of what to expect, and then with some real clear
guidance of what to do with your feelings. So enjoy these clips.

So last week somebody reached out to me and asked me a question wanting to
know how to forgive her husband. She found out a few months ago that her
husband has been having an affair and he’s doing the things that she wants
him to do, and she truly wants to forgive him, but she doesn’t know how.
And what I responded to her is asking herself, why does she want to forgive
him? What is she wanting to feel? What is she wanting to experience by
forgiving him? I’m all for forgiveness. I’m all for the peace that comes
from that, but what I wanted her to be aware of is that sometimes what we
do is we want to hurry to get to a different emotion. We want to hurry and
feel something different so we can get out of whatever pain we’re in.

And so we think, well, when I forgive, I’m going to feel better. When I get
to this spot, then I’m going to feel better. And the truth is that our
feelings have to be felt. We have to feel them. We have to go into them. We
have to allow them to be in our body. So as a review, our feelings are
chemicals released into our bodies from our brain. Okay. So we think a
thought. If we believe the thought, it creates a chemical response in our
body. It can build up and build up if we don’t allow it to be released. And
I’m going to be teaching a little bit more about that later on.

Another thing to point out is that just because we feel something doesn’t
need, we need to obey it. So we might feel something, we might feel an urge
to do something. It doesn’t mean that we have to follow through on that
urge. So for example, if you’ve ever had a craving for something, let’s say
you have a craving for a chocolate chip cookie. You’ll have this craving,
this feeling. I need the cookie, and it might seem very logical why you
should have that cookie. And if you can pause for long enough and ask some
questions of yourself, like what do I really want? What do I really need?
What story is it making it mean that I want this cookie and that I need to
have this cookie? What is it that I actually need? What do I actually want
to feel? And how can I give that to myself now? What can I learn about
myself in this situation?

So when we learn to just allow the feelings and feel what we’re going to
feel, it opens us up to being able to get to know ourselves so much better
than if we’re just covering it up, for example, by eating that cookie and
ignoring the underlying thing that is available to us to learn about
ourselves. So the more that you understand how to access how you currently
feel, the more you get to control what you create. It’s amazing.

So let’s go into that now. You get to choose the thoughts that create new
emotions. So it’s like trying on a new outfit. Let’s say you try on an
outfit and you’re wanting to be somebody who feels bold. So you’re trying
on this outfit of bold. I wonder what it would feel like to feel bold. So
you’re practicing thoughts that create a feeling of boldness. It feels a
little weird, feels a little bit uncomfortable, and then your brain might
go, see, you’re not actually bold. Go take the outfit off. It might try to
kick it out, but if you’re willing to sit in it and be uncomfortable. Even
with positive emotions, sometimes it’s hard for us to feel comfortable
because we’re not used to it and our brains will want to kick it out. But
if you’re willing to think of it like you’re just trying on a new outfit,
it’s okay to be a little uncomfortable. You’re like, I’m just trying. I’m
just seeing what happens when I try this on. I’m not sure if I’m going to
cut the tags off or not. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it, but I’m
trying it and I suggest doing this with so many different emotions.

You want to feel confident? What are some thoughts that create confidence?
Let’s try that on. I wonder what confidence might feel like. How about
curiosity? I might think I know everything about this situation. And when I
think I know this is how I feel, I wonder what it would feel like to be
curious about the situation. I might be looking for other ways of thinking
about it. I wonder what would happen. So just like the toddler analogy,
just because our brains try to reject a positive emotion and tell us that
it’s not real and that we can’t actually have it. Remember the toddler,
that the toddler has this story to tell, but it doesn’t actually mean that
the toddler knows what it’s talking about. We can’t take ourselves quite so
seriously sometimes.

So one other question to ask yourself when you are trying to process an
emotion, and when you’re looking at it and going, do I want to stay here?
Do I want to give it more air time is, is this going to help me move
forward if I process it or is it going to keep me stuck?

Okay, number five, the fifth most popular episode is episode number 52,
When to Leave a Marriage. Interesting, right? I was kind of surprised when
I went and looked at the numbers. So a lot of you are making this decision.
A lot of you have tentatively decided to stay, but you still feel really
uneasy with it. Some of you have decided to leave and feel uneasy with it.
Some of you really don’t know, don’t know, and can see pros and cons to
both. And so you got one foot in and one foot out and have a really hard
time fully going all in, which is understandable. And so this episode
covers some of those things and discusses when to really think about
leaving if that’s something that you are considering. So I hope that you
enjoy the clip from this.

Here are some questions to consider as you are looking at making your own
decisions. Okay? And again, this is my opinion. Other professionals have
their opinion. These are mine. These are the things that I feel need to be
considered when you’re making this decision. One, are you self-confronting?
Are you seeing how you have co-created where you are now? Are you willing
to be wrong, to apologize, to give the benefit of the doubt? Are you
knowing yourself? All of it.

Now, I want to clarify something really, really important here.
Self-confronting is not taking responsibility for their actions. Their
actions are theirs and theirs alone. Okay? I am not saying that you were
partially at fault for the choices that your spouse made to be unfaithful
or to be deceptive in whatever way they were. Okay? I’m saying, are you
willing to look at your side of it? It’s so much easier to just blame, to
just say, he’s just a jerk. He did this and this and this, but where real
growth happens is when you’re willing to self-confront and hold that mirror
up to yourself. I am not suggesting that you are taking responsibility for
their stuff, though. That is theirs. Okay?

Next, number two, are you learning how to emotionally self-regulate? Are
you taking responsibility for your emotions or passing them over to him?
This is a hard one. I got married really young and I had in my head these
nice fluffy thoughts about how a marriage should be and that a husband
should make his wife feel this way and that a woman should show up in this
way. And over time, what I learned is that I needed to take care of my own
emotions, that I needed to know how to take care of my own feelings and not
hand them over to somebody else.

It wasn’t until I got more to that point. I’m never going to reach
perfection here, but when I got stronger in that area, that I was ready to
make that decision because guess what? A lot of people were uncomfortable
with my decision and I needed to know how to hold space for my own
discomfort with their discomfort and move forward anyway. Okay? So are you
taking responsibility for your emotions or are you passing it over to him?

Number three, are you speaking honestly or hiding what is true for you to
avoid conflict? I get it. None of us like to go into a fight or have these
conversations that bring up uncomfortable emotion. It’s not something we
look forward to generally, but are you speaking honestly? Are you telling
the truth to yourself about what you want? Or are you hiding what is true
for you? Are you telling the truth about asking the clarifying questions
that you want to know? Or are you avoiding those questions to avoid
conflict?

Next, are you in a place where you can thrive? Are you in a situation where
you can thrive? What is the answer to that? Now, taking personal
responsibility for ourselves, we have great power, great potential to
thrive in any situation, but when you’re looking at it from choice, from
what is truly best for you, are you in a place where you can thrive?

Next, is he or she willing to do this work as well? Are they
self-confronting? Are they showing up with integrity? Are they owning their
part? Are they helping to build something stronger? You are doing the
personal work of growing up, becoming an emotional adult, showing up in a
different way, taking responsibility for your feelings. Is he doing the
same? Is he growing up? Now, it might look like it’s at a different pace.
It might be that your version of growing up is a little different than his,
but can you see the intent? Can you see that he’s trying? Can you see that
he is trying to grow himself up to be an emotional adult?

Okay my friends, there you have it. That’s the top five. Pretty fun to go
and look and share these little clips with you. I hope that you enjoyed the
refresher too. So to wrap things up, I will let you know what I’m up to.
You’ve heard me talk about No and 90. I am launching a group here that’s
going to begin in November. I’ve already started filling spots for it. If
you want a spot, email me Andrea@AndreaGiles.com. Also in show notes, you
can schedule a call with me if you want to talk about it, if you want
information about it.

And I am also creating some new things for this program, and that’s part of
what my creation is some new things and some support for after the program
is over for people who want to continue having support, want to continue
working with me, things like that. My one-on-one spots are full at the
moment, but I do have a wait list and I have some spots opening up before
too long. But really your best bet right now if you want to work with me is
to join the group.

And I can’t emphasize enough in watching the people who are going through
it, who have already gone through it, the power of being in a group and
seeing other people, being a witness to other people and having other
people be a witness to you. And if this is something that you want, if
you’re feeling stuck, whether you are still married or not married or
wherever you are, I guarantee there are things in this program that will
help you get solid within yourself to really move forward. So go check out
the link. I’d love to have you if you want to join. So I’ve got an
application for people to apply in and off we go.

All right, my friends, thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Go
check out Instagram to participate in the little giveaway, and I will see
you next time. Thank you, Bye-bye.

Thank you for listening to The Heel 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 AndreaGiles.com/lies-about-infidelity/. I will see you next time.