Let’s talk about the challenges of navigating disapproval and emotional reactions in relationships. You’ll learn about differentiation — maintaining one’s identity while being in a relationship — and hear about ways to manage emotional responses. We’ll look at the significance of self-respect, personal growth, and keeping the courage to stand firm in your truth, even when faced with someone else’s discontent.
Key Takeaways:
- Healing from infidelity involves becoming your truest self.
- Disapproval can trigger deep-seated fears of rejection.
- Differentiation means staying true to yourself in relationships.
- Emotional reactions should be managed before responding.
- It’s okay to feel sad when others are upset with you.
- Self-awareness is crucial for personal growth.
- Supporting yourself is not selfish; it’s courageous.
- You can hold space for others’ feelings without losing yourself.
- Grief for the current situation is different from guilt.
- Trusting yourself leads to healthier relationships.
More from me:
- Sign up for the “Heal on the Go – Audio Membership” here: https://portal.andreagiles.com/offers/9tSEsULS
- Sign up for the $47 class “Decide: How to Commit to Staying or Going After Infidelity” here: https://portal.andreagiles.com/decide
- Apply to join the Get Your Life Back After Infidelity group program here: https://andreagiles.com/get-your-life-back/
- Follow on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/theinfidelitycoach/
Episode Transcript
(00:00):
I’m Andrea Giles and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast, episode number 199, When They’re Unhappy with You: Staying True without Shutting Down.
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.
(00:51):
Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Heal from Infidelity, not only another episode, episode number 199. Next episode, we’re hitting the 200. So fun. If you would. I would be so appreciative if you go in and leave a review. If you have not left review, I ask you to please do it. It’s been slow going over there. I know that there are many, many, many listeners. This podcast is in the top 0.5% in the world, and let’s give a boost to those reviews so that more and more people that can benefit from this can go find it. You go into wherever you listen. When you’re inside, you should be able to find a little button that says review. You can either leave a star review just in stars or then it asks you if you want to write a review. The written reviews go a lot further.
(01:44):
If you would go take the time to do that, I would be so appreciative and it does help other people find it easier. Okay, without further ado, let’s jump into today. We all struggle to disappoint people. Sometimes we make a choice that feels deeply true to you and somebody else can be really upset about it. They can be upset. They can make accusations. They can think that you’re wrong. They can judge you. For example, you might want to take some space in a situation to give yourself time to think about something and might not be as in close contact with somebody as you usually are, and they may not like it. They might get really upset and have judgments and think that you’re being selfish or whatever it may be. Think that you’re not being considerate, and that’s what this episode is for, to help you navigate these things because I guarantee as you start to heal, we all don’t like this part anyway, but as you start to heal, you’re going to have these things happen more and more with lots of people because you’re not going to be doing things the same way you’ve always been doing them.
(02:59):
You’re not going to say yes the way that you always said. Yes, you’re going to say no to more things, and it might be uncomfortable, especially when you’re navigating infidelity, whether you are the one who betrayed, whether you’re the one who was betrayed. It’s going to be tricky to navigate this part of knowing that maybe your partner or spouse is unhappy with you and not shutting down, not retreating, but standing your ground of where you are. And we’re going to talk about this today. Okay, so let’s talk about why it’s so hard. This part gets into the science of it a little bit. Our nervous systems equate disapproval with loss of belonging, which historically meant danger and often death. If we got cut off from our tribe, it often meant that we would go out in the wilderness and die alone. Many of us were taught growing up that approval equals safety and love and disapproval means that we’re not being loved or that we are not safe.
(04:04):
You may have gotten in trouble as a child for disagreeing. You may have been told things about yourself. If you disagreed, you may have been made to feel wrong, like there’s something wrong with you. You may have been punished either overtly or more silently like the silent treatment, or you may have been in trouble in other ways very loudly. You may have had love withdrawn for non-compliance, maybe the absence of all kinds of affection just for existing, even if you weren’t doing anything wrong. And so maybe the thought of doing something wrong feels really, really scary or the thought of somebody really actively withdrawing from you. What this creates in us, these childhood conditions, childhood conditioning, is people pleasing, collapsing into guilt and shame over explaining to seek approval, emotional cutoff, or defensiveness as self-protection. And it can create these patterns in us that can become very, very challenging to break.
(05:11):
So when we are doing the work to get really clear on something, to really understand something within ourselves, and we’ve done our work around that, and then we communicate that we can retreat to these places of people pleasing of feeling afraid, feeling doubtful of overexplaining going, oh, did I really mean that? Did I say it right? What if they think I’m being this or that? Right? And we’re going to get a little bit more into that today and what to do instead. So many, many, many, many episodes ago, I did an episode called, I think it was called differentiation, and it’s been several episodes, so we’re going to talk about this today. It bears repeating Differentiation is the ability to stay connected to yourself while also staying connected to another without merging, meaning losing yourself. Okay? Merging in this context is losing yourself or cutting off, which is disconnecting completely.
(06:17):
Okay? So if you think about going down the road, let’s say you’re going down the road with somebody that you care about in the lane right next to you. You are maybe traveling the same road, but you’re each in your own car, but you’re going to the same place. Merging would be kind of crashing into each other, which would be unsafe. Cutting off would be completely removing yourself from the situation, going down a different road, losing that other person, and honestly losing sight of where you were going in the first place. When we’re cutting off, we’re getting off our path. Differentiation means I’m in my car, you’re in yours, and we have a common destination. But whether you come with me, whether you continue to go with me or not, I am going this way. I really hope you come along for the ride. I’m staying the course and I’m not going to jump into your lane to make sure that you stay.
(07:13):
I’m not going to get behind your car and push you forward. Okay? So some key components here about differentiation are self-awareness, knowing what you feel and need. This is huge self-awareness. This means you’ve done some work around you, around your own emotions. You’ve given yourself permission to feel permission to need permission, to have things that you want just because you want them. Self-regulation, managing your emotional responses so you can stay present. This means you’ve done some work on how you want to conduct yourself. It means that sometimes you recognize that you might have a big emotional reaction to something and that you’re going to take your time to respond to the situation. Until you know that you are not reacting from that way. It doesn’t mean you don’t still feel things. It doesn’t mean sometimes you don’t feel intense emotions. It just means that you’re not taking action from that place.
(08:19):
This also means allowing other people to have their feelings, even if they are uncomfortable, even if the other person is uncomfortable, we’re not rushing in to fix it. So let’s give an example here. Let’s say that you, dear listener, are wanting to spend a weekend alone. You know that you could use the time to just be with yourself. Differentiation allows you to hold their disappointment and recognize it like you can see it without making it mean that you are wrong or bad while still being caring and loving. Okay? So you are holding your desire to have the weekend alone. You are allowing them to feel disappointed without making it mean that you are wrong or bad and you are still being caring and loving. You are staying in your lane. You’re still going to the destination you want to go to. You’re not jumping in their lane and trying to fix it.
(09:20):
You’re not swallowing their disappointment, you’re not bringing theirs into your lane, you’re just staying the course. It takes a lot of emotional awareness and growth to be able to get to this point, and it’s so wonderful when you can see yourself in this space and know that you’re getting better at it. Alright, so the next part here is sorting through our reactions before responding. So as I mentioned, we get to feel all the things we get to, we will. We are human. There is no need to mute ourselves. I had a situation recently where there was something that happened that was pretty shocking to me, something that someone was saying to me about me that was pretty hurtful, and at first I was sad and then I noticed anger and frustration and then some sadness. And ultimately I did not respond at all to the person until I knew that I had my head on until I knew that I was calm enough to respond in a way that I was not going to regret later.
(10:32):
And the beautiful thing is that I felt so at peace with my own choices that I could love the other person and know what I needed to do to take care of myself and know that I did not need to swoop in and fix it, and that it really wasn’t mine to fix that. The things that were being said were not actually mine. They were that persons that they really needed to address within themselves. Part of growing in this area, part of growing in differentiation is growing your ability to pause, to breathe, to notice the sensations in your body, to know, I am really angry. I’m really hurt, I’m really frustrated. I’m really disappointed. In these moments, you can ask yourself, am I acting in this moment from emotional reactivity or grounded clarity? What part of this is mine to own? Where am I acting out of alignment with my values?
(11:34):
What part is theirs to own? Are they simply unhappy because my choice doesn’t meet their preference? Okay, you can ask all of these questions. I do recommend though that in the moment where let’s say that your spouse says something, your spouse makes a request of you, says something they want, and you feel that instant burn or rage or frustration or whatever it may be, sadness, anger, okay, let’s say that that’s there and you’re like, what the heck? This is intense. Whoa, this is intense, right? That is not the time actually to ask these questions. In that moment, all you have to do is be with yourself. That’s it. That’s all you have to do in that moment. You can breathe. I recommend breathing, taking some deep breaths, maybe going for a walk, maybe setting a timer and going, I’m not doing anything for 30 minutes.
(12:32):
I’m not going to respond in any way for 30 minutes. I’m going to put a timer on my phone and go walk for 30 minutes before I do anything before I even think about it before I even try to think through a proper response. Okay? Give yourself a minute and then you can jump into these questions. And then once you’ve gone through these questions, once again, here they are. Am I acting from emotional reactivity or grounded clarity? What part of this is mind to own? Where am I acting out of alignment with my values? What part is theirs to own? Are they simply unhappy because my choice doesn’t meet their preference? And then what choice feels aligned with my integrity? Long-term vision and inner peace? Alright, what choice feels aligned with my integrity, my long-term vision and my inner peace? Last week I hosted a call.
(13:34):
We do calls every week and cite the Get Your Life Back After Infidelity Group. I was hosting a call and I was asking them each, when they feel the most peace, what’s kind of their mantra? What do they know in moments of peace? And it was such a beautiful conversation. And one person that actually is a recent join, she said that she has come to know and partly why she joined the program, that all she needs to worry about is her and that everything else will fall in place. And it was so beautiful and profound because she speaks truth. This is true. When we focus on us and our own nervous systems really taking excellent care of ourselves, we really don’t have to worry about anything else. The rest falls into place. We know the next steps to take. We don’t have to ruminate and obsess and all of those things that we do, we really don’t.
(14:30):
Okay? Next, I want you to know that you get a lot of room for error here. You still get to mess up. You still get to fumble, okay? It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to mess it up. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to say things in a way that maybe later we’ll go, could have worded that differently. It’s okay. It’s okay. But if we have sorted through the reactive layer and are choosing from clarity, we can trust ourselves even if they remain unhappy. Okay, there’s lots of grace here. There’s lots of grace. We can know where our heart is. We can know that was the best that I got in that moment. That was the best I had, and I’m really proud of that. Now, how do we let other people have their feelings? Oh, this is hard, right? I still struggle with this with being a mom.
(15:24):
It’s hard. It’s really hard. Even with my husband, it’s hard to really know something within myself and know that somebody else might be disappointed in my choice. It’s really tricky sometimes as a stepmom, although I adore all of my step kids, I’ve been their mom for nine years now. I love them all. Sometimes I stumble, and especially with when I have to set a boundary about something, there’s sometimes this little niggling fear that comes up around them not liking me or them deciding that I’m no longer whatever. Doesn’t that sound silly? It sounds silly saying it out loud, but again, that primal, please don’t kick me out of the tribe, right? It is going to stay with us until we die. Okay? It’s not going anywhere. And sometimes I notice this kind of pleasing energy of wanting to reach out if there’s something I’ve kind of drawn a line around or said no to, sometimes I want to reach out and fix it.
(16:23):
And what I’m learning is really trying to manage another person’s emotions is actually a form of control. We’re actually trying to control how they perceive us, and it keeps us entangled. It keeps us hopping over in their lane, letting them feel what they feel honors them while it honors us. It’s keeping us in our own lane, letting them be in their own lane. We’re not trying to control them. It’s actually a gift that we’re giving them. We’re saying, I respect you enough that you’ll sort this out. This might be how you feel towards me now. Hopefully something will change there, and in the meantime, I’m here and I love you and I care about you. Things that we can say are, I hear that this is really disappointing for you. And while we are acknowledging their feelings, we are staying regulated. We are breathing into our chest and our belly.
(17:20):
We are noticing our urges to fix or justify, and we are standing in our decision. I understand, and this is what feels right for me right now. Okay, I understand and this is what feels right for me right now. We may sometimes have situations where we are overly concerned about what our spouse is doing or overly concerned about. For example, our spouse leaving us. If the relationships on the rocks, and if we know, for example, that we’ve really hurt the other person, we may be anxious about checking in with them. And are you still here? You still here. Even now. Even now, right? And sometimes we actually need to set boundaries around how much space we want. Like, Hey, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere and I really need a little bit of time. I need a little bit of space. And we can allow them to be disappointed without collapsing into guilt or overcompensating.
(18:20):
Now, how can you support yourself when they are unhappy or disappointed or angry or whatever it may be? You can place your hand on your heart or on your belly and remind yourself, I am safe. Their feelings are theirs to feel, and I can be here for myself. I want you to visualize being rooted into the ground, like roots down in the ground, while allowing the waves of emotion, yours and theirs to move around without knocking you down. So really anchoring into the ground as if you’ve got roots in the ground and the wind, the waves, it can all whip around and you don’t move. You can stay, okay. You’re not going to blow over some things that you can say to yourself when you are in it are, I care about them and I still choose what’s right for me. I don’t need to collapse into guilt to prove my love.
(19:19):
Their disapproval does not define my worth or my truth. Okay? Key reminders here about differentiation. It’s not about getting it perfect. Okay? We will stumble. We will overexplain, we will react at times, growth is noticing sooner and recalibrating, staying differentiated builds stronger, healthier relationships. People learn to trust your yes and your no when they come from clarity rather than reactivity. You can feel sad that they’re upset with you while still holding your line, okay? You can feel sad and it’s okay. You can feel grief for the way things are in this moment while they’re feeling those things. Grief is different from guilt. Grief says, I’m really sad that it is this way. I’m so sad. I care about this person and I wish it were different, but this is still my truth. I can’t collapse.
(20:22):
The relationship that is going to change the most as you grow in this ability is the one with you. You will respect yourself more. You will know that you can hold onto yourself, that you can engage in difficult conversations with conflict, with the whole plethora of emotion and not collapse. Not collapse. Who could hold on to you so much respect and healing when you know that you’re able to do that. It doesn’t make it pleasant. It doesn’t make it fun. There’s often a lot of grief there, and there’s a sense of self-respect and dignity and love and trust. Learning that you can trust yourself again to stand up for you. Okay, so a few questions to ask yourself before we wrap it up today. One, where in your life right now are you avoiding a choice or conversation because you fear someone’s unhappiness? Two, what would staying differentiated look like in that situation? Three, what is the cost to your inner peace of continuing to people please or avoid to close things out? Supporting yourself in these moments is not selfishness. In fact, it is the most courageous thing you can do. It is maturity, it is clarity. It is integrity. Other people’s feelings are theirs. To feel. Your job is to stand with yourself in your truth while staying open-hearted to theirs.
(21:59):
Whether you are listening as a person who was betrayed or the betrayer here, please know that this is very relevant for both of you. You can listen to somebody else, their experience, their words, and know for you what is true. It doesn’t mean we can’t have compassion for what they’re feeling. It doesn’t mean we can’t offer our assistance, but we are also holding onto ourselves. We are offering ourselves kindness and grace and love and getting better and stronger at understanding what is true for us, what is not true, what is true about us, what is not true, and standing up for that with love and conviction and not getting pulled over into somebody else’s sure story about us. We can listen to it. We can reflect and go, what’s true, what’s not true, and we can stay differentiated. Alright? Thank you so much for being here.
(23:03):
I will add that the very best place that I can tell you to be in right now is my group program. Get Your Life Back After Infidelity. It is just popping right now. It is such a great group. Just over the weekend, people were chiming into the group chat, the Facebook group chat about the power of this space, how wonderful it is, how much people have changed, how things that last year were plaguing them, that they don’t even have a thought about it. On and on and on. This is what you can expect in this program. You grow by being in the group, hearing the other stories, having that support, getting your own help both in the group and in one-on-one calls with assistant coach and getting just so much support throughout this time. It truly will change your life. If you want support doing this work, go get your application in and we will see you inside. Take care, everybody. Have a wonderful week. 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@andreagiles.com slash lies about dash infidelity slash. Again, it’s andrea giles.com/lies about dash infidelity slash I will see you next time.
I’m Andrea Giles and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast, episode number 199, When They’re Unhappy with You: Staying True without Shutting Down.
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.
(00:51):
Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Heal from Infidelity, not only another episode, episode number 199. Next episode, we’re hitting the 200. So fun. If you would. I would be so appreciative if you go in and leave a review. If you have not left review, I ask you to please do it. It’s been slow going over there. I know that there are many, many, many listeners. This podcast is in the top 0.5% in the world, and let’s give a boost to those reviews so that more and more people that can benefit from this can go find it. You go into wherever you listen. When you’re inside, you should be able to find a little button that says review. You can either leave a star review just in stars or then it asks you if you want to write a review. The written reviews go a lot further.
(01:44):
If you would go take the time to do that, I would be so appreciative and it does help other people find it easier. Okay, without further ado, let’s jump into today. We all struggle to disappoint people. Sometimes we make a choice that feels deeply true to you and somebody else can be really upset about it. They can be upset. They can make accusations. They can think that you’re wrong. They can judge you. For example, you might want to take some space in a situation to give yourself time to think about something and might not be as in close contact with somebody as you usually are, and they may not like it. They might get really upset and have judgments and think that you’re being selfish or whatever it may be. Think that you’re not being considerate, and that’s what this episode is for, to help you navigate these things because I guarantee as you start to heal, we all don’t like this part anyway, but as you start to heal, you’re going to have these things happen more and more with lots of people because you’re not going to be doing things the same way you’ve always been doing them.
(02:59):
You’re not going to say yes the way that you always said. Yes, you’re going to say no to more things, and it might be uncomfortable, especially when you’re navigating infidelity, whether you are the one who betrayed, whether you’re the one who was betrayed. It’s going to be tricky to navigate this part of knowing that maybe your partner or spouse is unhappy with you and not shutting down, not retreating, but standing your ground of where you are. And we’re going to talk about this today. Okay, so let’s talk about why it’s so hard. This part gets into the science of it a little bit. Our nervous systems equate disapproval with loss of belonging, which historically meant danger and often death. If we got cut off from our tribe, it often meant that we would go out in the wilderness and die alone. Many of us were taught growing up that approval equals safety and love and disapproval means that we’re not being loved or that we are not safe.
(04:04):
You may have gotten in trouble as a child for disagreeing. You may have been told things about yourself. If you disagreed, you may have been made to feel wrong, like there’s something wrong with you. You may have been punished either overtly or more silently like the silent treatment, or you may have been in trouble in other ways very loudly. You may have had love withdrawn for non-compliance, maybe the absence of all kinds of affection just for existing, even if you weren’t doing anything wrong. And so maybe the thought of doing something wrong feels really, really scary or the thought of somebody really actively withdrawing from you. What this creates in us, these childhood conditions, childhood conditioning, is people pleasing, collapsing into guilt and shame over explaining to seek approval, emotional cutoff, or defensiveness as self-protection. And it can create these patterns in us that can become very, very challenging to break.
(05:11):
So when we are doing the work to get really clear on something, to really understand something within ourselves, and we’ve done our work around that, and then we communicate that we can retreat to these places of people pleasing of feeling afraid, feeling doubtful of overexplaining going, oh, did I really mean that? Did I say it right? What if they think I’m being this or that? Right? And we’re going to get a little bit more into that today and what to do instead. So many, many, many, many episodes ago, I did an episode called, I think it was called differentiation, and it’s been several episodes, so we’re going to talk about this today. It bears repeating Differentiation is the ability to stay connected to yourself while also staying connected to another without merging, meaning losing yourself. Okay? Merging in this context is losing yourself or cutting off, which is disconnecting completely.
(06:17):
Okay? So if you think about going down the road, let’s say you’re going down the road with somebody that you care about in the lane right next to you. You are maybe traveling the same road, but you’re each in your own car, but you’re going to the same place. Merging would be kind of crashing into each other, which would be unsafe. Cutting off would be completely removing yourself from the situation, going down a different road, losing that other person, and honestly losing sight of where you were going in the first place. When we’re cutting off, we’re getting off our path. Differentiation means I’m in my car, you’re in yours, and we have a common destination. But whether you come with me, whether you continue to go with me or not, I am going this way. I really hope you come along for the ride. I’m staying the course and I’m not going to jump into your lane to make sure that you stay.
(07:13):
I’m not going to get behind your car and push you forward. Okay? So some key components here about differentiation are self-awareness, knowing what you feel and need. This is huge self-awareness. This means you’ve done some work around you, around your own emotions. You’ve given yourself permission to feel permission to need permission, to have things that you want just because you want them. Self-regulation, managing your emotional responses so you can stay present. This means you’ve done some work on how you want to conduct yourself. It means that sometimes you recognize that you might have a big emotional reaction to something and that you’re going to take your time to respond to the situation. Until you know that you are not reacting from that way. It doesn’t mean you don’t still feel things. It doesn’t mean sometimes you don’t feel intense emotions. It just means that you’re not taking action from that place.
(08:19):
This also means allowing other people to have their feelings, even if they are uncomfortable, even if the other person is uncomfortable, we’re not rushing in to fix it. So let’s give an example here. Let’s say that you, dear listener, are wanting to spend a weekend alone. You know that you could use the time to just be with yourself. Differentiation allows you to hold their disappointment and recognize it like you can see it without making it mean that you are wrong or bad while still being caring and loving. Okay? So you are holding your desire to have the weekend alone. You are allowing them to feel disappointed without making it mean that you are wrong or bad and you are still being caring and loving. You are staying in your lane. You’re still going to the destination you want to go to. You’re not jumping in their lane and trying to fix it.
(09:20):
You’re not swallowing their disappointment, you’re not bringing theirs into your lane, you’re just staying the course. It takes a lot of emotional awareness and growth to be able to get to this point, and it’s so wonderful when you can see yourself in this space and know that you’re getting better at it. Alright, so the next part here is sorting through our reactions before responding. So as I mentioned, we get to feel all the things we get to, we will. We are human. There is no need to mute ourselves. I had a situation recently where there was something that happened that was pretty shocking to me, something that someone was saying to me about me that was pretty hurtful, and at first I was sad and then I noticed anger and frustration and then some sadness. And ultimately I did not respond at all to the person until I knew that I had my head on until I knew that I was calm enough to respond in a way that I was not going to regret later.
(10:32):
And the beautiful thing is that I felt so at peace with my own choices that I could love the other person and know what I needed to do to take care of myself and know that I did not need to swoop in and fix it, and that it really wasn’t mine to fix that. The things that were being said were not actually mine. They were that persons that they really needed to address within themselves. Part of growing in this area, part of growing in differentiation is growing your ability to pause, to breathe, to notice the sensations in your body, to know, I am really angry. I’m really hurt, I’m really frustrated. I’m really disappointed. In these moments, you can ask yourself, am I acting in this moment from emotional reactivity or grounded clarity? What part of this is mine to own? Where am I acting out of alignment with my values?
(11:34):
What part is theirs to own? Are they simply unhappy because my choice doesn’t meet their preference? Okay, you can ask all of these questions. I do recommend though that in the moment where let’s say that your spouse says something, your spouse makes a request of you, says something they want, and you feel that instant burn or rage or frustration or whatever it may be, sadness, anger, okay, let’s say that that’s there and you’re like, what the heck? This is intense. Whoa, this is intense, right? That is not the time actually to ask these questions. In that moment, all you have to do is be with yourself. That’s it. That’s all you have to do in that moment. You can breathe. I recommend breathing, taking some deep breaths, maybe going for a walk, maybe setting a timer and going, I’m not doing anything for 30 minutes.
(12:32):
I’m not going to respond in any way for 30 minutes. I’m going to put a timer on my phone and go walk for 30 minutes before I do anything before I even think about it before I even try to think through a proper response. Okay? Give yourself a minute and then you can jump into these questions. And then once you’ve gone through these questions, once again, here they are. Am I acting from emotional reactivity or grounded clarity? What part of this is mind to own? Where am I acting out of alignment with my values? What part is theirs to own? Are they simply unhappy because my choice doesn’t meet their preference? And then what choice feels aligned with my integrity? Long-term vision and inner peace? Alright, what choice feels aligned with my integrity, my long-term vision and my inner peace? Last week I hosted a call.
(13:34):
We do calls every week and cite the Get Your Life Back After Infidelity Group. I was hosting a call and I was asking them each, when they feel the most peace, what’s kind of their mantra? What do they know in moments of peace? And it was such a beautiful conversation. And one person that actually is a recent join, she said that she has come to know and partly why she joined the program, that all she needs to worry about is her and that everything else will fall in place. And it was so beautiful and profound because she speaks truth. This is true. When we focus on us and our own nervous systems really taking excellent care of ourselves, we really don’t have to worry about anything else. The rest falls into place. We know the next steps to take. We don’t have to ruminate and obsess and all of those things that we do, we really don’t.
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Okay? Next, I want you to know that you get a lot of room for error here. You still get to mess up. You still get to fumble, okay? It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to mess it up. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to say things in a way that maybe later we’ll go, could have worded that differently. It’s okay. It’s okay. But if we have sorted through the reactive layer and are choosing from clarity, we can trust ourselves even if they remain unhappy. Okay, there’s lots of grace here. There’s lots of grace. We can know where our heart is. We can know that was the best that I got in that moment. That was the best I had, and I’m really proud of that. Now, how do we let other people have their feelings? Oh, this is hard, right? I still struggle with this with being a mom.
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It’s hard. It’s really hard. Even with my husband, it’s hard to really know something within myself and know that somebody else might be disappointed in my choice. It’s really tricky sometimes as a stepmom, although I adore all of my step kids, I’ve been their mom for nine years now. I love them all. Sometimes I stumble, and especially with when I have to set a boundary about something, there’s sometimes this little niggling fear that comes up around them not liking me or them deciding that I’m no longer whatever. Doesn’t that sound silly? It sounds silly saying it out loud, but again, that primal, please don’t kick me out of the tribe, right? It is going to stay with us until we die. Okay? It’s not going anywhere. And sometimes I notice this kind of pleasing energy of wanting to reach out if there’s something I’ve kind of drawn a line around or said no to, sometimes I want to reach out and fix it.
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And what I’m learning is really trying to manage another person’s emotions is actually a form of control. We’re actually trying to control how they perceive us, and it keeps us entangled. It keeps us hopping over in their lane, letting them feel what they feel honors them while it honors us. It’s keeping us in our own lane, letting them be in their own lane. We’re not trying to control them. It’s actually a gift that we’re giving them. We’re saying, I respect you enough that you’ll sort this out. This might be how you feel towards me now. Hopefully something will change there, and in the meantime, I’m here and I love you and I care about you. Things that we can say are, I hear that this is really disappointing for you. And while we are acknowledging their feelings, we are staying regulated. We are breathing into our chest and our belly.
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We are noticing our urges to fix or justify, and we are standing in our decision. I understand, and this is what feels right for me right now. Okay, I understand and this is what feels right for me right now. We may sometimes have situations where we are overly concerned about what our spouse is doing or overly concerned about. For example, our spouse leaving us. If the relationships on the rocks, and if we know, for example, that we’ve really hurt the other person, we may be anxious about checking in with them. And are you still here? You still here. Even now. Even now, right? And sometimes we actually need to set boundaries around how much space we want. Like, Hey, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere and I really need a little bit of time. I need a little bit of space. And we can allow them to be disappointed without collapsing into guilt or overcompensating.
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Now, how can you support yourself when they are unhappy or disappointed or angry or whatever it may be? You can place your hand on your heart or on your belly and remind yourself, I am safe. Their feelings are theirs to feel, and I can be here for myself. I want you to visualize being rooted into the ground, like roots down in the ground, while allowing the waves of emotion, yours and theirs to move around without knocking you down. So really anchoring into the ground as if you’ve got roots in the ground and the wind, the waves, it can all whip around and you don’t move. You can stay, okay. You’re not going to blow over some things that you can say to yourself when you are in it are, I care about them and I still choose what’s right for me. I don’t need to collapse into guilt to prove my love.
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Their disapproval does not define my worth or my truth. Okay? Key reminders here about differentiation. It’s not about getting it perfect. Okay? We will stumble. We will overexplain, we will react at times, growth is noticing sooner and recalibrating, staying differentiated builds stronger, healthier relationships. People learn to trust your yes and your no when they come from clarity rather than reactivity. You can feel sad that they’re upset with you while still holding your line, okay? You can feel sad and it’s okay. You can feel grief for the way things are in this moment while they’re feeling those things. Grief is different from guilt. Grief says, I’m really sad that it is this way. I’m so sad. I care about this person and I wish it were different, but this is still my truth. I can’t collapse.
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The relationship that is going to change the most as you grow in this ability is the one with you. You will respect yourself more. You will know that you can hold onto yourself, that you can engage in difficult conversations with conflict, with the whole plethora of emotion and not collapse. Not collapse. Who could hold on to you so much respect and healing when you know that you’re able to do that. It doesn’t make it pleasant. It doesn’t make it fun. There’s often a lot of grief there, and there’s a sense of self-respect and dignity and love and trust. Learning that you can trust yourself again to stand up for you. Okay, so a few questions to ask yourself before we wrap it up today. One, where in your life right now are you avoiding a choice or conversation because you fear someone’s unhappiness? Two, what would staying differentiated look like in that situation? Three, what is the cost to your inner peace of continuing to people please or avoid to close things out? Supporting yourself in these moments is not selfishness. In fact, it is the most courageous thing you can do. It is maturity, it is clarity. It is integrity. Other people’s feelings are theirs. To feel. Your job is to stand with yourself in your truth while staying open-hearted to theirs.
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Whether you are listening as a person who was betrayed or the betrayer here, please know that this is very relevant for both of you. You can listen to somebody else, their experience, their words, and know for you what is true. It doesn’t mean we can’t have compassion for what they’re feeling. It doesn’t mean we can’t offer our assistance, but we are also holding onto ourselves. We are offering ourselves kindness and grace and love and getting better and stronger at understanding what is true for us, what is not true, what is true about us, what is not true, and standing up for that with love and conviction and not getting pulled over into somebody else’s sure story about us. We can listen to it. We can reflect and go, what’s true, what’s not true, and we can stay differentiated. Alright? Thank you so much for being here.
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I will add that the very best place that I can tell you to be in right now is my group program. Get Your Life Back After Infidelity. It is just popping right now. It is such a great group. Just over the weekend, people were chiming into the group chat, the Facebook group chat about the power of this space, how wonderful it is, how much people have changed, how things that last year were plaguing them, that they don’t even have a thought about it. On and on and on. This is what you can expect in this program. You grow by being in the group, hearing the other stories, having that support, getting your own help both in the group and in one-on-one calls with assistant coach and getting just so much support throughout this time. It truly will change your life. If you want support doing this work, go get your application in and we will see you inside. Take care, everybody. Have a wonderful week. 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@andreagiles.com slash lies about dash infidelity slash. Again, it’s andrea giles.com/lies about dash infidelity slash I will see you next time.
