I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast, episode number 238, What’s Living in the Corners?

Infidelity changes everything. Who you thought you were, what you thought your life was. From here, you can keep circling the pain or rebuild something real. This is a space for men and women navigating infidelity. Whether you’ve been betrayed or you’re the one who broke trust, I’m Andrea Giles, master certified relationship coach. I know what’s possible on the other side. When you’re willing to tell the truth all the way out, you’re in the right place. Let’s begin.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back. Welcome back. I mentioned last week in my first episode, back in a little while, that I had some more follow up of the episode I did last week about telling your truth all the way out. And this week, I’m going to continue on that theme, as promised, about truth all the way out. So this week, I’m going to go a little bit deeper on what that meant for me and what it means for you. As I’m sharing my own personal experience with this over the last few months, I want you to look inward and go, okay, where does this apply to me? Where are the questions that Andrea’s asking herself, needing to be asked to myself, okay, I’m taking you with me. I’m not telling you this after the fact. Like, I’m on the other side and I’m perfectly clear and perfectly clean and all is well.

I’m actually bringing you along. While I’m in it, I’m in this massive space of a lot of personal transformation, a lot of personal growth, a lot of personal seeing and knowing things about myself that I haven’t fully seen. I’m seeing, um, them at a much deeper level. So this is my attempt in bringing you along, in helping you to go through your own process of what it looks like to tell your own truth all the way out, to see all the way, all the way through. And this one is about what’s lurking in the corners, what’s living in the corners, the things that are hidden, the things that are veiled, masked, that might look really, really good on the outside. And we’re going to go a little deeper about what’s actually in the corners. Okay? So for me, really, this whole last several months has been about seriously slowing down, taking the time to look everywhere, Everywhere in my life. Everywhere in my life.

And one of the biggest things that I’ve learned is around strength. What does it mean, what is strength? What have I thought strength is? How have I defined it? How have I defined strength in myself? How have I defined strength in others? And this piece has been a huge corner that I’ve had to go look in. And I decided to spend most of the episode talking about this today because I’m guessing that there’s many of you who will very, very much relate to what I’m saying. And so I want it to you today. Okay. I also want to say that at the end of this episode, I’m going to be sharing with you some changes to the podcast that involve you, some things that are going to bring you in and help it be a little more interactive and ways that you can support the podcast, things like that. So stick around. Okay? Okay.

So two kinds of strength. There’s two kinds of strength. One is there’s a strength that gets you through. Scrappy, tough, resilient, hardworking. I call this survival strength. It’s the strength that we learned as children, likely as children of, uh. This is how you cope. This is how you get through. This is how you survive life. And this is a very, very real strength. It’s a valid strength, and it is one that we can be very, very grateful for. It kept you standing when standing was hard. It kept you pushing through grit, right? Grit, drive, ambition. It kept you going, going, going. And I want you to honor it. We are not dismissing this kind of strength at all. We’re actually very, very grateful for it. But survival strength is the kind of strength that was forged out of necessity, out of protection, out of survival. I need to be this way because this is how I survive my life. Right? And we. We likely didn’t use the language like that. We adapted. We adapted when we are children to be strong in certain ways. That strength meant X, Y and Z. Maybe never asking for help, maybe only asking for help. If this maybe.

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I know that I’m tough and I can handle this. Other people might not be able to, but I can. Okay. That’s one that we will circle back to. Okay. It can be taking on way more than anybody should because you think that that’s noble or you’ve been told that that’s noble. You’ve been told that that’s a good thing to do, and you probably get a lot of praise for it. Right? It can look like staying busy so you don’t have to feel what’s underneath. Staying really outwardly busy and slapping on a label that calls that nobility and goodness. Right. It can be making decisions from what can I handle versus what do I want? Okay. And it can also mean performative strength, acting stronger than you feel on the inside, acting put together, acting like you’ve got it buttoned up, like you know what you’re doing when inside you might not. And there’s a piece here of strength. We want people to view us in a way because it feels like protection for them to view us in that way. Right.

And what I’m talking about here is where is this unexamined and where do we need to maybe look a little bit deeper to look at where this strength was forged? We might be performing a version of ourself that’s not true anymore. That’s not true anymore. We might have grown out of certain versions of ourself that other people praise and that you get accolades for. You might get money for it. Like, let’s say that there’s a thing that you do that brings in money, but it’s like killing your soul. Right. This can be a way that we say, look how strong I am, look how capable I am. But it’s very self sacrificing, uh, and not, uh, in a way that feels good. Okay, now a second kind of strength. And this is a term that I made up, but hang with me because I think it works. Examined strength. Examined strength. And this is the place I’ve been hanging out in the last several months is examining everything, examining the parts of me that I think are good or that I feel good. Letting people see the parts of me that I don’t feel good letting people see. And sometimes calling that strength. Isn’t that tricky? Parts that I don’t want other people to see and then being like, oh, well, they don’t need to see that because it wouldn’t be helpful to them for them to see it. And then I’m calling that strength. Sneaky, sneaky. Right?

Examine strength is from actually knowing yourself. Really, really knowing yourself. Flaws, patterns, contradictions. And standing in it anyway. Knowing yourself and standing in it anyway. Okay. Um, you can’t have examined strength without examined truth. And examined truth requires you to slow down and look at what you’ve been giving a really wide berth. All right, I’m going to give you an example. Okay. In my own coaching practice, I try to bring people into the real life. I try to bring people in, especially inside my coaching program, I let them see me. I share real stories. I share real things that are happening. But to an extent, and there’s been a story for me that it looks like strength to keep things out of the limelight, uh, or out of story when I’m in it and in the industry that I’m in of, uh, being a public voice that lots of people listen to and being somebody that people look to in this industry, many people tell us not to share personal things until you are through it, not to share till you’re through it, to show them. One thing I heard is scars, not scabs. Isn’t that interesting? Uh, you can show the scars after you’re through it, but not the scabs while you’re in it. And I thought that that was vulnerability. I thought that vulnerability meant you get through it and then you share on the other side of it, and that’s vulnerability. And what has been shown me and taught me is that I had that wrong. And real vulnerability is a lot riskier. Real vulnerability means allowing people to see real struggle, real pain, and not when it’s all buttoned up. And so as I’m recording this, I will tell you I’m going to be very real with you. When I was deciding to come back, I missed it. I love. I love podcasting. I love talking with you. I love hearing from you. But I had this thought. Uh, am I ready? Am I ready? Am I ready to talk about some of the

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things that I feel like I need to talk about now? And some fear came up, and here I am anyway, because I want to hold myself to this new standard of what real vulnerability is, which is sharing in real time what’s really going on. And it’s risky, and it’s where you will know me, and it’s where you will learn to know each other, is in being real, in real time. So for you, it can look like this. You can be having a real experience with something, having an emotional experience, something that is really painful, a day, a week, something like that. For a second, I wanted to talk to those of you who broke the trust. Okay, I want you to hear me on this one. You might be having something going on at work, something unrelated to the infidelity that’s really challenging. And you might feel like you don’t have the right to bring it up because of what happened, and that you have to just suck it up and deal with it and maybe not talk about it ever, or maybe share when it’s solved. I want to push you on that because relationships heal with vulnerability. Relationships heal when we tell the truth while we’re in it. Uh, truth all the way out. And if you are struggling, and that is your real experience, you are allowed to take up Space, you are allowed to tell what’s going on with you.

And here’s the surprising thing. You might be surprised at the connection that comes from being real and telling the truth. We actually don’t want the buttoned up versions of each other. We want the real versions of each other. And all of you listening, I would venture to say, have parts of you that are hiding in corners as I did, parts that needed to be seen. And the only way that I could do this was by slowing way down. Pausing, pausing this podcast, pausing many of the things. Even the holidays last year, I didn’t record over the holidays, so I. There’s a lot of catch up of just life. I did Christmas so much slower this year. So much slower. I did not stress as much. I did less decorating than I think I ever have. I did less cooking. I ordered more things in than I ever have. And it was wonderful and lovely and one of our favorites because guess what? We had so much amazing time together. So much amazing time together. It was wonderful. And the pressure was off to have it all perfect and we just were with what was real. I asked for help more than I ever have from my family, from my husband, from my kids, and it was lovely. This real vulnerability piece is meeting what’s real. Real strength is meeting what’s real and telling the truth about it, being real with it.

Okay, we can’t have examined strength without examined truth, and examined truth requires you to slow down and look at what you’ve been giving a wide berth to. What have I been giving a lot of leeway to? Okay, onto the next section. There’s a question that I asked myself that I want to ask you. That’s going to be one you want to sit with. You’ll want to write it down. It’s going to take time. You’re not going to solve this in this one. Listening today. And again, I’m in it. I am currently in it. I am in this question. And here it is looking at all the decisions that you made that you are currently living at the effect of, like, who you married, where you live, what your house is like, what your job is, your children, how you raise your children, your relationships with parents, with grandparents, with family, what you do with your body, how you take care of yourself. All of it. All of it. All of the decisions. What version of me chose this and what do I choose now? Oof. This has been a. A big fat question for me that’s revealed a lot. And it’s. It’s not all been lovely. You guys it’s not all been lovely to see what’s been revealed. What version of me chose this and do I choose it now? And a, uh, follow up question is, if I still want to choose this, what does it need to look like for me to choose it in full integrity today? What needs to shift? What needs to change? Can I just choose it again today without question?

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Or are there things about it that I need to wait and see or that I need to bring all of me to, that I need to bring the best of me to so I can see with me showing up with complete honesty and that examined strength, is this something that can change or is this something that has run its course and I’m setting it down? And for me personally, I’ll tell you that some of the choices that I have made still add up and I still like, and some I’m not sure about and some I don’t, flat out don’t. And some of the things that I have chosen in my life have come from a place of other people’s expectations of me. What I was told would be the correct thing, the right thing, the good thing, the noble thing. And looking at, uh, who I am now and going, if I were to choose this now, who would I be choosing it for? Is it for me? Because if it’s not for me, it’s a no. It’s a no, it has to be a no. And if it’s for somebody else, no, no, no, no, Right? It’s for me or it’s not at all. Now, it can impact other people, it can affect other people.

But ultimately, can I choose this for me now? Okay, I will tell you some of the ways this has shown up in my life. It’s literally been everywhere. My work, my programs, my pricing, travel, travel. I tend to travel a lot. I’ve slowed that down. I’m in it. Uh, is there a reason I need to see that? I like to travel as much as I do. What’s that about? That’s just one example how I spend money. My marriage. My marriage. What version of me picked my marriage? We’re coming up on our 10 year anniversary. Who was she? Who was she when she married a widower with five kids and picked up and moved to Montana? And who is she now? When I tell you this shit’s gotten real around here, it’s gotten real. These questions you don’t just gloss over. These questions invite you into feeling things that you’ve probably avoided. Hence, what’s hiding around in the corners. Right? There’s been a Lot of emotion. Looking at versions of myself that were in survival mode, that were in pleasing mode, that were in. I can do this. I can make this work because I’m capable and I’m strong and I’m able to do what most people can’t.

Guess what, you guys? I don’t want to be her anymore. I don’t want to be the Andrea that takes on the world because she can. Because she’s tired. She’s really, really tired. And I want to choose things that fill my soul. And I want to make room for ease and for play and for joy and for allowing people to support me in the way that I offer support to others. That’s uncomfortable, right? I want to make it clear that this is not about judging any version of you. It’s not about judging the past you and making her wrong or making him wrong. It’s actually about going to that version of you and offering so much love and compassion and kindness and go. Of course that’s what you chose. This is what you believed. This is what you thought. This is what you cared about. This is what you didn’t care about. And you’re shining a light on all of that. And it’s a beautiful thing. We’re going into each of these closets and turning on the light, going, huh, what’s in here? And. And you will feel some things. I have felt grief. I have felt loss. I have felt sadness. I have felt sadness about the version of me who has tolerated different things in my life that the version of me now would not. Would not tolerate. I have felt grief over the version of me that has felt like I have to hustle for my worth, for my value, reach certain numbers, do certain things, be super mom, super wife. All the things. She’s so tired. She’s so tired. And this massive learning that I’m in is that me just being me is enough. Just me just being Andrea. Just being me. Messy, beautiful. You know, we all are both. We all are messy and beautiful. We all have all the things. And, um, guess what? We always will. Because we are human. And there’s no getting out of it. There’s no out running out, working

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the human parts of us that we don’t love. So why can’t we embrace them? Why can’t we embrace them now? Why is this so hard? Because looking in every corner means looking at things you built, things that you’re proud of, and also looking at what you allowed to define you. And some of what felt like strength turns out to have been avoidance. In many ways, avoidance. If I keep myself busy enough, then I don’t have to. X, Y and Z. If I could just push through, keep myself focused on this, then I don’t need to see this over there. Okay? And then when you start to see it, you can’t unsee it. And you will feel some things, and there’s no way around it. Okay? But some of what strength felt like to me turns out to be avoidance in a pretty convincing costume. It looks pretty good. And it’s like my soul has said, we are not doing this anymore. We must slow down and examine and breathe and come back to yourself and who you actually are and not all these things that you have assigned yourself to be for your own worth. Okay?

I also want to let you know something else that’s pretty cool, and that is that when you are examining those corners, it’s not all dark. There’s some amazing light in those corners. There are lamps and lights that you did not even know. And what are those things? You get to learn the real you. The real you. And I can tell every one of you listening because I know it. The real you is magnificent. The real you is powerful. The real you is beautiful. The real you something worth knowing. I know that you’re hurting. I know that you feel let down. Some of you have let yourselves down. You’re still everything. You still are. Nothing can change it. And what’s being asked of you is for you to go inward and spend time with yourself and learn who you really are. Beyond the labels, beyond the hurts, beyond expectations, beyond shame, beyond guilt, beyond embarrassment, beyond hurt. And that’s what I’m talking to you about. And every person navigating this in this space, in this infidelity space is being handed this invitation, whether you asked for it or not. To you, that was betrayed.

A question you can ask yourself is, what? What did I know? What did I see that I wasn’t willing to say? What do I know now? What do I need to bring forward? What am I hiding behind? What am I afraid might happen if I let my truth all the way out? If I really examine the truth for myself first and then have the courage to say it out loud for the partner who betrayed? What was I running from? What was I escaping from? And what does that say about what I actually need? You have to get to this place where you hear you, too. Yes, you hear your partner. You also need to hear you. And neither question is about blame. They are both about examination. Okay? Infidelity rips the roof off of your House rips it right off. And you can spend your energy trying furiously to put it back on, or you can take that light that’s now been filtered through because the roof is off to finally see what’s been living in the corners. And I invite you to do so. And there is no shortcut one way or another, either today or in five years, or in 10 years, or in 20 years, or whatever it may be, you will have to do this work. So how about we do it today together? Okay? Now, what have I found in my own corners? I have found that versions of me that started this podcast, that started my business, that I have grown a lot. I. I’m not that same person. I’ve grown the ton. And that I want to bring new things forward. I want to talk about things a little bit differently. There’s two things that, uh, as I wrap up, that I want to make sure to say here. Okay, One of the changes that I’m making is that in the show notes, there’s going to be a link. And in that link, I want you to ask me questions. And I’m going to be going through those questions, and I’m going to be

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be doing at least one, if not two episodes a month that are just going to be answering your questions. It’s just going to be a Q and A with me, or you can send them in. You’ll be asked if you want it to be anonymous, we don’t have to share your name at all. And I’ll answer your questions right in the podcast episode. Okay? And then the other thing that I want to share is that the production of this podcast, I’m now over 230 episodes. It requires a lot. It requires a lot of time, it requires money, it requires, uh, teamwork for my team. And I also am in a position where I want to be able to scholarship more people in who really can’t pay to work with me. I want to be able to do that where I can. And so also in the link, this is new, is a link where you can donate, where you can donate to this podcast, donate to the business in whatever amount that you want. And what I can promise you, as, as I’ve examined myself, as I’ve spent a lot of time with myself, abundance is a really, really important value for me. And I don’t think of abundance as, like, no money worries in the world, not a care in the world. I can just buy whatever I want.

I actually think of abundance as knowing myself and knowing my own generosity that in that space of abundance, I have the resources I have to take care of myself and, um, my family in the way that feels good and clean and clear and that I’m able to offer that out and trusting myself that I will be abundant with people that come into my world, I do that already behind the scenes. And this is an opportunity to do more of it. And so if you feel inclined to send in a donation through this link, I can promise you that, uh, it will be put to good use, that people will be. I’ll be able to scholarship in more people. I’ll be able to create more and help more people make a bigger impact. So go in those links, leave questions, donate if you feel inclined and take the time to slow down and look at your own corners. You are worth your own time. You are worth your own examination. You are worth your own care. And it’s the way that’s going to lead you back to yourself, back to who you really, really, really are, and forward into building a life that you feel so clean and clear in. And I will tell you this, I’ll wrap it up with this today. I’ve never felt better. And that’s just the honest truth. I’ve never felt better. There are still some things in my life that I’m not sure about. And what you need to know is that we can have some uncertainty and still feel amazing. Isn’t that good news? I’ve never felt better. I feel more and more like myself than I ever have. And I know that I’m just starting on this journey of really, really coming home to me in a way that feels abundant and spacious and really know knowing me. And I want that for you as well. So keep sticking around. Thank you and I’ll catch 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@Andrea.Giles.com lies about infidelity forward slash again, it’s Andrea Giles.com lies about infidelity forward slash I will see you next time.