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I’m Andrea Giles, and you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity podcast, episode number 217, Your Energetic Yes and No – Listening to Your Body in Real Time.

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

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Hello. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Heal from Infidelity. As promised, this is a part two off of last week’s episode about energetic boundaries. Today, the entire episode is going to be about your energetic yes and no and learning how to trust your body and listen to your body in real time. I’m going to go through what that means, how to notice. We’re going to get right into that, but before I do, I need to let you know something important. I am going to be hosting a free class on November 25th, all about navigating the holidays, protecting your peace through the holidays. If you have not yet registered for that, it’s just coming up in a couple days from the release of this episode. So go ahead and grab your spot. You can find the link in the show notes. I hope to see so many of you there as you head into the holidays.

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Okay, so last week we talked about energetic boundaries. They’re the invisible, the internal edges that keep your energy clean and your center intact, protecting your center, who you are, protecting your needs, protecting your wants. Today I want to take you deeper into something more intimate, more knowing of yourself. This is where you really get to know yourself and learn how to build more of your capacity, more of your ability to hold things that are uncomfortable. Your energetic, yes, and your energetic, no. Alright, so as we touched on last week, most people think that boundaries are external rules. Don’t jump on that. Don’t show up unannounced. Please don’t speak to me like that. Do do this, don’t do that. But the actual truth is the external boundaries that we try to set or that we do set or that other set are based off of something internal.

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It’s the conversation between you and your body in real time. So sometimes somebody else may say, don’t do that, and we may understand it or not understand it, but you need to recognize that they are doing that because of something that is happening inside their body. It’s not about the thing you’re doing or not doing, it’s about something that’s happening within them. And we’ll get more into this a little bit later, but you get to decide actually what boundaries others set you want to say yes to. But for right now, we’re talking about setting your own boundaries based on what’s going on inside of you, the conversation between you and your body in real time. And if you’ve been through betrayal or chronic people pleasing, which all of you likely have in one form or another that are listening, you have probably learned to override these internal signals, these internals, actually, we don’t want to do that.

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The expansion of yes, the contraction of no, we’ve overridden them long before your logical mind ever gets involved. Isn’t that a bummer? You might be saying no on the inside or yes on the inside and we’ve totally overridden it. So today is about remembering what your body already knows. And I’m going to just share with you something my sister sent me yesterday that just made me chuckle. It’s an image, like a painting of a woman, and all it says is, due to not wanting to, I will not. Thanks. And she said, let’s get a thicker skin. And I just loved it. It made me chuckle just because I don’t want to, I’m saying no or just because I do want to. I’m saying yes, and I want to spend a whole episode on this because this can be really tricky. We can start to feel an energetic yes or no and then make ourselves wrong for it, right?

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How many of you understand what I’m saying with that? We’re going to get into that, okay? But first of all, let’s talk about what is an energetic Yes. What is an energetic no? An energetic yes isn’t just like enthusiasm. Yes. Woohoo. Okay. Sometimes a yes is something that we don’t actually want to do, but that our body, our wisdom, our wise self is letting us know, yes, this is for you. Yes, yes. Lean in. Yes, you’re freaked out. Yes, you’re scared. Lean in. What does this feel like? Let’s talk about what it feels like in your body. Openness, curiosity, ease, shoulders dropping a deeper breath, subtle leaning in warmth, possibility. Okay. Something that feels like you are opening up rather than contracting. There’s an openness. Now, I want to make sure you know that sometimes when we feel that openness right on the tail is we’ll feel some resistance to it.

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And that resistance often is fear, like, oh my gosh, if we do that, if we go along with that, then blah, blah, blah, all these things can happen. I want you to go back to your initial feeling, okay? All the chitter, tatter. We’re going to sit you down for a minute. Let’s go back to that initial feeling. Alright? Now we’re going to talk about an energetic, no, an energetic no, sometimes can look like avoidance, can look like we’re resisting something, but that’s not quite it. Sometimes we avoid the very things we need to look at. Sometimes we resist the very things that are the yeses. This is more of a body contraction. It can feel like tightening in the chest or throat. It can feel like pulling back. It can feel like sudden exhaustion, fatigue. It can feel like a dread or a heaviness. And the important thing is this, your energetic yes and no show up before your mind starts negotiating.

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Okay? I am going to give you a couple recent examples. I’ll give you a couple that are just right here or recent. I recently got voluntold that I was supposed to be part of this committee. Nobody asked me if I would, I just got put on the list and then I started getting all of the emails or texts about it and about the meetings and about, we need you to do this, we need you to do that. And nobody asked me if I wanted to be on this committee. And at first I was like, well, I could. And maybe that’s the good thing to do. Feels important. Yeah. Feels like a good noble thing. And then when I just checked in with my body, Andrea, do you want to be a part of this committee? It was a big fat. No, you don’t. No, you don’t.

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And so once the second text went out with, we’re going to be meeting at this time at this place, I just reached out and just said, Hey, I was not asked to be a part of this and it’s not something that I want to commit to right now. And I just let them know I was kind about it, but firm and I have not received one more text about it. Okay, that’s an energetic no. Okay. An energetic yes is when I recently saw an ad for something that I have been interested in. It’s about learning investments, learning how to invest, things like that. And it’s been something that’s been on my mind for a while. I’ve actually seen this company many times, but this time, this particular day, my body said, yes, it’s time. And I joined. It was an energetic yes. And every time I spent time learning in that place, it feels wonderful.

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Inside that portal, it feels wonderful because I’m honoring this higher version of myself that wants me to be good at investing, right? Those are just small examples. Alright? You’re energetic, yes and no show up before your mind starts negotiating. Please hear me on that before the guilt, before the be nice, before the, don’t rock the boat before the, I don’t want to do that. That feels too scary. Alright? If you have been betrayed or if you have betrayed others, you’ve been trained to people, please, you’ve been trained to not rock the boat. You’ve been trained to go along with things long before you know what to know. There are some of you listening here who betrayed and who knew. Knew that you wanted out and you felt trapped. You felt stuck. You felt trapped. You hated yourself. You hated the version of you that you had become.

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Hated it, but you did it anyway because you were afraid of being the bad guy. You’re afraid of hurting people. You’re afraid of rocking the boat, you’re afraid of the fallout that would happen. You’re afraid maybe of somebody making a phone call and letting the cat out of the bag. All of these things, all these reasons that we stay far too long and things that our body is saying, no, no, no. This is not the way to get what you want. This is not it. Alright? This is going to be for you too, about where you stopped listening and where you gave into these other things that ended up costing you far more than it would’ve to honor. What was your yes or your no earlier on. Okay? Alright. Now this next part, what it feels like in real time. Alright? There’s our minds that are constantly scanning, right?

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Constantly scanning, trying to protect us, trying to look out for future pain, future casting of what could go wrong, right? All the things right? Our minds are always scanning. For many of you, your mind is hard to turn off. Am I right about that? Your mind is hard to turn off for this episode and for this work, I want you to give more weight to what is going on in your body than in what is going on in your mind. Your body is telling you the truth. Your mind gets confused, okay? Your mind gets confused. I’m going to tell you something that happened earlier this year. Earlier this year. Someone that I care about set a boundary with me. It was framed very beautifully. It was very thoughtful. It was, it sounded kind. It sounded kind. But the moment that I read it, my body said no.

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And my body said, this is not kind. This is not kind. Even though the words themselves maybe sound like, oh, makes sense, my body let me know immediately. This is not kind and this is a no. It was a very definitive no. And I sat on that for a day, just sat on what I was experiencing in my body. While my brain in the meantime was given all kinds of chatter, all kinds of chatter. But what I did is instead of overriding my body, I honored it. And in the kindest way that I knew how I said no, I said no, it’s not okay for me to honor this. And the moment that I said no, I felt this alignment. I felt alignment that even though the fear was still there, even though the discomfort, even though my brain would take me to places, are you sure?

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Are you sure you should have done that? Oh my gosh, what’s going to happen? There was a feeling of alignment where my body and my mind knew that I had honored me and that I had showed up for me. And I remember thinking, if I say yes to this, I will be abandoning me. I’ll be shrinking me and I’m not okay with that. And I also was thinking about my children and would I be okay with one of them agreeing to this boundary? And the answer was a big fat no. And I’ll tell you, that was really, really challenging because my response back was not received well at all. And it has created some pretty difficult dynamics that have been quite painful. But when I go back to the original, what was requested and what my response was, I still to this day have my back in it because my body told me the truth.

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My body said no, this is not okay. This is not okay. And why? Because the request, though some may say not reasonable, some would not think reasonable, but some might. It would have required me to contort, to silence myself and to pretend that something was aligned when it was not. And that moment became a marker for me. Okay? A marker for me. A reminder that my energetic no is sacred. It’s not harsh, it’s not selfish, it’s not dramatic. It’s sacred because it preserves the integrity of my inner world, of my highest truth. Okay? My energetic, no. And my energetic, yes. And this is true for you as well. These come up in real time when we go about living our life, okay, I’m going to go into that now. We often believe or think that other people’s boundaries automatically override ours. And I want you to know that that’s not true.

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You can honor someone else’s boundary or somebody else’s wishes or something that they want and honor your own. You can say, I hear your need and here’s what’s true for me. You can say, I respect your limit and here is mine. You can say, I’m not available for that. You can do that too. And this is relational honesty, which must be present. If you want a real relationship with anybody, this is clean energy, okay? It’s clean. So what this means is that as you are going through your life, as things happen in real time in your life, as people are asking you questions, as you are making decisions, as you are just navigating life, let’s say you are at work and somebody tries to give you an assignment and you already have a total plate full, and you might want to say yes, but your body’s saying, no, no, wait, that’s a no wait.

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We don’t have the capacity right now. Or we just don’t want to. No. Okay, then say no, then say no. Or it might be something that somebody asks you to do that feels really scary. Let’s say I’m going to use the work example again. Let’s say that somebody at work offers, let’s say a project to do that is way out of your wheelhouse. It’s something that you’re not comfortable with, but that you have felt a desire to understand more about. Your mind is saying, we’re not ready. You don’t know enough, but your body is saying, yes you are. Yes, you are. So this is where you can energetically say yes even if your brain has all the chatter. What’s important though is that you will have a moment where your mind and your body are aligned and where you will know that you honored yourself around infidelity, around this space that we here find ourselves in or have been in.

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You can see this in your relationships, you can see this in, let’s say you’re going to a family event. And first of all, do you want to go? Do you want to go? Do you want to go? What does your body say? What does your heart say? Okay, listen up. Listen up. Okay? There might be events, there might be things that your spouse is saying. For example, I did this thing because you were not giving me this thing, and in order for me to want to stay here, I’m going to need to give me this thing. Can your body say yes? Why or why not? Listen up? Okay. Can you say yes? Listen up. There’s something important there. Okay? Alright. So how do we do this? First of all, when do you start moving through your life with the intention of listening in real time?

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Pause before responding. Just three seconds. Three seconds can create space for truth. Pause before responding. I’m just going to take a beat and breathe for three seconds. In that moment you are asking your body, do I feel myself open or contract? What do I feel? Okay? We’re not asking our mind right now. Our mind can be all over the place and feel really unreliable. Really unreliable. Okay? Do I feel myself open or contract? Now, I want to make sure you know that sometimes when we say yes to something from that aligned place or no to something, we will feel something that is not the same. Okay? Let’s say that you say yes to that thing that scares you, and then anxiety kicks in. Fear kicks in. That does not mean that you were wrong. It means that your body is doing what it’s supposed to do and it’s showing you areas that need attention.

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It’s inviting you into giving comfort to those parts of you that need comfort. Oh, you’re so scared. I hear you. You’re so scared that one time when you gave a presentation in fifth grade and they laughed at you. Yeah, I know. I got you. I got it. I can handle that now. Even if people laughed, I could handle it. Okay? We’re going to that feeling. We are feeling it, but we are not letting that feeling inform what our body said is right for us. Okay? So first you’re asking, do I feel myself open or contract? This is really fast. It’s like fast. Your body’s letting you know in real time. Okay? I dunno if you can hear me snapping real time, like fast name what you feel, there’s a heaviness. I feel myself leaning in. I feel myself pulling back. I feel open. I feel curious.

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I feel a spark. It feels fun. I feel myself pulling away. Alright, let that sensation inform your next move, not the guilt that just pops in, not your fear, not your obligation. Okay? I should your sensation, honor it without performing, honor it. Your yes and no. Don’t need theatrics to be real. They don’t need a 12 sentence explanation, okay? They really don’t, or 12 minute explanation. They don’t require permission. They don’t. This is how you rebuild self-trust after betrayal. First of all, you don’t have to overexplain it to you. It just is. It just is. You don’t even need to understand it. A lot of the time you won’t because it’s your higher self directing the show here, and we don’t entirely know what’s going on sometimes, but this is how you rebuild self-trust after betrayal. Not by getting every decision perfect, but by staying in honest conversation with your body.

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Okay? You’re also going to learn from the times that you felt that contraction and you said yes. Anyway, that’s another thing that happened this year. I had a business coach push me to do something that I really didn’t feel like was a yes. And this business coach was saying, oh, it’s a capacity thing. You need to learn what you’re capable of. You need to learn that you can do this thing. And challenged me to do it. And I’m like, okay, she’s this wise business coach. She knows more than me. And so I said yes. And guess what happened? I learned real quick that I hated delivering it. I really didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t like doing it, and so I turned it off and stopped doing it because I didn’t enjoy it. So this is where it’s important to learn from all of it. You’re going to learn just as much from when you say yes to a no.

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And when you say no to a yes, okay? You’re going to learn from both. This is all part of the deal. It’s not just about getting it right, it’s about learning about your own energetic, yes and no. Alright? So as a living practice, the real boundary is the alignment between your inner truth and your outer action. When your yes matches your energy, things flow. When your no matches your energy, things stay clean. But when you say yes, while your body says no, that’s when resentment grows and we blame someone else for it. That’s where self-trust erodes. We might even resent ourselves like, why did you agree to this? Right? That’s when relationships feel murky and confusing or too costly. It’s too expensive. It requires too much of me. What are you saying yes to that is no longer a fit. And why are you saying yes to it?

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Your body actually doesn’t need time to think about it. Your body already knows. Practice listening in real time. So this week to this up, I want you to simply notice your energetic yes and your energetic, no, no pressure to act on it yet, no pressure to change anything, okay? I just want you to notice, where does your body contract? Where does your body open? Where does it whisper truth that you have been overriding? Okay? Because when you can feel your yes and feel your no, you no longer navigate life by someone else’s needs or their expectations. We all do have wants. We all do have needs before we can attend to other people’s needs, especially grownup people’s needs. We need to attend to our own understanding what it is that we need and meeting that without judgment, meeting that with openness and softness.

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Others may have things that they want that they need, and that’s being in relationship, right? We do. We do need things. We do want things, but if we keep overriding our own because other people’s are more important than ours, it’s going to bite you on the butt. It is not sustainable. It is not something that will work long term. This work is about leading yourself from the inside out. And that my friends, is the foundation of true self-trust. And when we learn to trust ourselves, we bring the people around us that are doing similar work, where they’re growing their own trust of their own selves, and then we can learn to trust each other. It’s a beautiful thing. Alright, my friends, thank you so much for being here with me today, and I’ll see you next time.

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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.