How to Heal from Betrayal and Emotional Trauma to Reclaim Self-Trust with Dr. Debi Silber

Have you ever felt as though the ground has suddenly dropped out from under you after someone you trusted deeply betrayed you?

Betrayal can manifest physically and emotionally, preventing you from achieving what you truly desire.

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Debi Silber, PhD, the founder of The Post Betrayal Transformation Institute and an international bestselling author. She shares three key insights from her personal experiences with betrayal trauma, as well as her research findings.

Debi explains why betrayal trauma is uniquely different and requires a different healing approach. She also describes what relationship recovery entails and walks you through the five stages of healing from betrayal. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How trauma responses can create discomfort and physical issues in the body, manifesting as exhaustion, gut problems, chest tightness, disrupted sleep, and difficulty loving again.
• The three discoveries Debi made while researching betrayal trauma, and why it differs from other types of emotional trauma.
• The importance of nervous system regulation and somatic healing in overcoming betrayal trauma. 
• The five stages you need to navigate in order to heal from betrayal.
• Why stage three is often referred to as the "muddy middle" and is the most challenging phase to get through.
• The crucial role of emotional resilience in progressing through all five stages. 
• How trauma responses like people-pleasing, emotional eating, or emotional shutdown may indicate a need for further healing from your betrayal trauma.
• Why forgiveness is more about your personal journey than the actions of the other person.
• How setting emotional boundaries can help you move forward with clarity and self-trust. 
• The #1 indicator that will determine your ability to recover from your betrayal. 

If you’re still holding on to a past betrayal and are ready to rebuild your self-trust, this conversation is for you! Remember, you don’t have to go through this process alone.

Much love,

Laurie

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Website: https://thepbtinstitute.com/ 

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Transcript

Laurie James: Hey there. It's Laurie. Don't fast forward yet, because I have a new mini course you won't want to miss. I recently just launched my new nervous system regulation starter kit, and it's the best investment you can make if you're ready to learn how to regulate your nervous system. It's packed with simple practices and three recorded exercises slash meditations that you can easily incorporate into your life to begin to feel safe or safer in your body through nervous system regulation, a $59 value priced at $29 so click the link in the show note and get started today. And if you're a coach or therapist looking to understand how to help your clients through betrayal, my guest today also has a course, so check it out that link is in the show notes as well. And if none of this interests you, I hope you just enjoy this episode on how to move through betrayal. It's a great episode, and I know I learned a few nuggets through my conversation. So enjoy.

Laurie James: Welcome to Confessions of a Free Bird podcast. I'm your host, Laurie James, a mother, divorcee, recovering caregiver, the author of Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go, a therapy junkie, relationship coach, somatic healer and now podcaster. I'm a free spirit, and here to lift you up on this podcast, I'll share soulful confessions and empowering conversations with influential experts, so you can learn to spread your wings and make the most of your second half. So pop in those earbuds, turn up the volume, and let's get inspired, because my mission is to help you create your most joyful, Purpose Driven Life, one confession at a time.

Laurie James: Hello, Free Birds, welcome back. And for any new listeners, welcome today, I have the pleasure of sharing the next 40-45 minutes or so with Dr. Debi Silber. Debi is the founder of PBT Post Betrayal Transformation Institute and National Forgiveness Day, celebrated on September 1. She has two incredible TED talks, which I highly recommend watching, and we'll link in the show notes. She is also a two-time number one international bestselling author and the host of From Betrayal to Breakthrough podcast. What I love about Debi is for her PhD study, she studied betrayal, something I've experienced myself in my life, and I'm guessing you may have also, she made three groundbreaking discoveries that changes how we experience and heal from betrayal. And guess what? That's what we're going to discuss today. So pop in those air buds, and let's welcome Debi. Thank you so much for being with me today.

Dr. Debi Silber: Thank you so much. Really looking forward to our conversation.

Laurie James: Yeah, you've been a busy gal.

Dr. Debi Silber: Spreading the word.

Laurie James: Yep.

Dr. Debi Silber: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, betrayal isn't something that you know most people want to talk about, but it's happened to so many people, so that there's a proven, research-based way to heal from all of it. That's what I want everyone to know.

Laurie James: Good. Well, I look forward to diving in. So can you start by telling us about your experience with betrayal and how you fell into studying this topic?

Dr. Debi Silber: Yeah, sure. No one says, you know, this is a great topic.

Laurie James: I think I'm going to go out and research this, right? I want to experience it.

Dr. Debi Silber: Exactly. No. I've been in business 33 years, health, mindset, personal development, and then I had a really painful betrayal from my family. Thought I did what I needed to do. Heal from that. And then it happened a few years later. This time, it was my husband, so that was the deal breaker. Got him out of the house, and really looked at the two experiences thinking, you know, what's similar to these two besides me, you know? And I realized boundaries were always getting crossed. I never took my own needs seriously. And I'm one of those people that believes, if nothing changes, nothing changes. Yeah. So usually I look at I look for books or courses or something to kind of learn my way out of something, but I couldn't find anything. So here I was, four kids, six dogs, a thriving business, and I enrolled in a PhD program. I didn't know how I was going to pay for it. I didn't know how I was going to manage the time, but this was so big that I just needed something so big. Yeah, dive into.

Laurie James: Sometimes you need something big to deal with. Something big.

Dr. Debi Silber: That's it. And so while I was there, I did a study on betrayal, and it was I. Honestly, to help me heal so I could be better for my kids, my clients. And I just remember going through that study, and there was just this moment of clarity where I just thought to myself, you know, if I have no idea how I can heal from this, but if I do, I'm taking everybody with me. And that study led to three groundbreaking discoveries, which changed my health, my family, my work, my life.

Laurie James: Beautiful. I love that, and I want to get into the three different types. But before we do that, can you give us a basic definition of what betrayal is?

Dr. Debi Silber: Yeah, you know, I define it as the breaking of a spoken or unspoken rule. And every relationship has them, and the way it works is, the more we trust and the more we depend on that person, the deeper the betrayal. So, for example, a child who's totally dependent on their parent, and then the parent does something awful that's going to have a different impact than, let's say, your best friend sharing your secret, your coworker taking credit for your idea. Still betrayals different level of cleanup left in the wake?

Laurie James: Yes, definitely. So tell me if I'm wrong, then betrayal is a spectrum, right? You can have something that might feel like a betrayal, but it's not, maybe as great. Or you can have deeper betrayal.

Dr. Debi Silber: Yeah, there are those micro betrayals, those sort of death by 1000 cuts betrayals. There are hugely significant ones, you know. And it's interesting because in my study, originally, I was studying the lived experience of the betrayal of a family member, partner or friend, and I actually had to drop the friend part, because while they will infuriate us, will be so angry, so disappointed, so upset, they don't break us. Of course, we're never broken bent, like the betrayal of a family member or a partner. Those are the ones that get us the most.

Laurie James: Can you go in a little bit deeper of like, why that is because I know we talked on a little bit before we hit record, and I've shared with my listeners. I mean, I have had a couple of very big betrayals in my life by my ex-husband. Why is that?

Dr. Debi Silber: Because this is the person, or these are the people who gave you a sense of safety and security, which is an absolutely basic, most foundational need. So when this is the person, or these are the people to take away that sense of safety and security, it's shattering. Think about it. This is the person you run to when other people are causing harm, and now that's the person who's causing the harm, right? So it's completely disorienting. It's completely traumatizing, because if the person you trust the most proves untrustworthy, who can you trust exactly and that tell me if I'm wrong, shows up in our body? Oh, it shows up everywhere. It shows up in our health, in our work, in our relationships. So for example, a classic sign of an unhealed betrayal. I'll see it in relationships in one of two ways. The first way is a repeat betrayal. The faces change, but it's the same thing, and we keep going from partner to partner to partner, friend to friend to friend, boss to boss, and then, you know, you think, is it me? Yes, it is not in that it's your fault, in that it's your opportunity. There's a huge lesson waiting to be learned. Maybe the lesson is just get it already, that you are lovable, worthy and deserving. Get it that you need better boundaries in place, whatever the particular lesson is for you, until and unless we get that, we're going to have opportunities in the form of people to teach us.

Laurie James: So tell me, I mean, this is how I feel about it, and based off of my personal experiences with betrayal and boundaries, is it starts with a little tap on your shoulder. Then it like nudges you a little bit, and then it kind of almost pushes you over. And depending on when we start listening or hearing that lesson that we need to learn as our part in the process. In my case, I had to have a couple of two by fours hit me over that.

Dr. Debi Silber: Me too, and that's what happens. And this is why those gigantically painful experiences often serve as the catalyst to our greatest transformations. Because they get us to wake up, they crack us wide open, and they have us look because like there's this psychological earthquake now, right? Life is is now, before it happened and after it happened, but it creates that space of like, wait a second, I've now been woken up and who do I want to be because of this? What am I going to do? My old life no longer exists. So they are so painful, but if you notice, they get us into action.

Laurie James: Yeah, that's when sometimes yeah and that, unless you stay, tell me if you disagree. But unless we choose to stay in a victim mode, which some people do.

Dr. Debi Silber: You will see that in the third discovery, yeah, absolutely, it's everything you're saying is so true. So just so I you know, and people don't like open loops and unhealed between. We'll see it in relationships, in the repeat betrayal or the big wall goes up. We're like, been there, done that. No one's getting close to me again. That's classic unhealed betrayal. We think it's coming from a place of strength. It's not. It's coming from fear.

Laurie James: Yeah, because then you completely shut down and you shut people out, everybody, even people that you can trust.

Dr. Debi Silber: Well, yeah, and it's like, imagine you love cooking, and you burn yourself on your stove, and you're like, that's it. Never cooking again. Like, that's not fair to you, right?

Laurie James: So I should have done that when my children were little.

Dr. Debi Silber: But so do we need to learn how to move towards the stove? You know? Do we need to wear a glove, whatever it is, right? But to swear off cooking, that's not right, and that's what we do in relationships. And relationships have the ability to give us levels of connection and intimacy and love and all these amazing things that we deny ourselves if we don't heal.

Laurie James: Right. Well, and we're wired for connection, right? Our nervous systems are wired for connection, but our experiences such as betrayal then build often those walls.

Dr. Debi Silber: Yeah, it all shows up in very similar places in the second and third discovery.

Laurie James: So how does betrayal impact us, physically, mentally and emotionally?

Dr. Debi Silber: That's the second discovery.

Laurie James: Okay, so do we want to start with the first then?

Dr. Debi Silber: Sure, the first one was, you know, I had a feeling that betrayal was a different type of trauma. I've been through death of a loved one, I've been through disease, and I was like, betrayal feels different. I didn't want to assume it was the same for everybody, so everybody else. So I asked them in my study, I asked them, if you've been through other traumas besides betrayal, does it feel different for you? Unanimously, they said it's so different, and here's why, because it feels so intentional. We take it so personally, so the entire self get shattered, rejection, abandonment, belonging, confidence, worthiness, trust, like when we lose someone we love, we grieve, we're sad, we mourn the lost. Life will never be the same, but we don't question the relationship, yeah, right. We don't question who we were during that time. We don't question our ability to trust. We don't question our sanity. You know, with betrayal, we do so that betrayal is a different type of trauma that needs a different way to heal. That was the first discovery.

Laurie James: Beautiful, and it's so true, because when I think about my betrayals that I've experienced in life, I mean, it cut down, like to the bone, to the core of who I was. And like you talk about being shattered, like it did. It shattered my whole world. I mean, I in my marriage, I really thought that for all of our differences, I thought that we were in this together, and that he trusted me and I trusted him, but I think in my situation, my ex didn't trust and that's where the betrayal came from. Even though I trusted him completely. He didn't trust me, and that comes from his own childhood and his trauma from his childhood, and he, you know, his parents were immigrants, and I think that he was just raised not to trust people well.

Dr. Debi Silber: And you know, it's never an excuse to betray any type of betrayal.

Laurie James: I'm not giving it an excuse. It's a reason why it happened like that. Meaning making that we need to make. Oh yeah, yeah, sense of it, but it doesn't make it okay, of course. Means what happened?

Dr. Debi Silber: There's always some sort of reason on, you know, according to like in their from their perspective, their unhealed trauma, their lack, their scarcity, their whatever, you know and but what I see so often within the PBT Institute anyway is that a lot of the betrayed come in, they've gotten used to protecting the betrayer to their own detriment. Yeah, yeah, because they're making excuses for them or whatever. Oh, well, they went through so much, or they had such a hard time, or they whatever. Well, so did you, but you didn't choose to betray. So I you know very different experiences. Anyway, that was the first discovery, to answer your question, though, about the symptoms, that was the second discovery. And what was learned was there's actually a collection of symptoms, physical, mental and emotional, so common to betrayal. It's now known as Post Betrayal Syndrome, and we've had over 100,000 people take our Post Betrayal Syndrome quiz on our site to see to what extent they're struggling. And a few things about that. The first one is, we've all been taught Time heals all wounds, right? Well, I have the proof that when it comes to betrayal, that's not true. There's a question on the quiz that says, Is there anything else you'd like to share? And people write things like, you know, my betrayal happened 35 years ago. I'm unwilling to trust. My betrayal happened 15 years ago. Feels like it happened yesterday. So we know we can't count on time. We can't count on a new relationship to heal it, either until and unless you intentionally and deliberately heal it, it will follow you around in your health. Than your work in your relationships. But I have the stats every few months. I pull the stats from the quiz to see where people are. Do you want to hear some of the Yeah? Okay, so now imagine this is over 100,000 people, men, women. Just about every country is represented as much as you're going to hear the symptoms. I want you to hear these numbers. Ready? 78% constantly revisit their experience. 81% feel a loss of personal power. Think about what a loss of personal power will do. 80% are hyper vigilant. That's exhausting. 94% deal with painful triggers. If you've ever had a trigger, I don't have to tell you how painful they are. The most common physical symptoms. 71% have low energy. 68% have sleep issues. 63% have extreme fatigue. So you sleep all night. You wake up, you're exhausted. Your adrenals have tanked. 47% have weight changes. So in the beginning, real common that you can't hold food down. Later on, real common, you're emotionally eating, using food for comfort. 45% have a digestive issue that could be anything, Crohn's, IBS, diverticulitis, you name it, the most common mental symptoms. 78% are overwhelmed. I'm just going to read you a few. 64% are in shock. 62% can't concentrate. So imagine you can't concentrate. You have a gut issue. You're exhausted. You still have to go to work, you still have to raise your kids, and that's not even emotionally. Emotionally. 88% experience extreme sadness, and 83% are very angry. You can bounce back and forth 50 times between those two, all day long. 79% are stressed just a few more. This is why I wrote Trust Again. This one killed me. 84% have an inability to trust. Yeah. 84% 67% put the big wall up. Prevent themselves from forming deep relationships because they're afraid of being hurt again. 82% find it hard to move forward. 90% want to move forward, but they don't know.

Laurie James: How can I just say something about all of these, all of these different emotional and physical experiences, from betrayal, from a somatic place? That's because, I mean, from a somatic place, and the trier program that I've been trained in, that's because all of this lives in our nervous system until we can work through it and heal that trauma from a body standpoint. And because you talk about the hyper vigilance, you talk about the painful triggers, I mean, our nervous system does not know past from present. So if you have a personal trigger. Your nervous system is basically taking the database of what it knows and what feels familiar in the moment. So if something is happening right now that feels familiar to something in the past, then it's going to feel like a trigger, because it's going to feel the same because your nervous system doesn't really understand the difference. Exactly.

Dr. Debi Silber: And here's what's so crazy, we typically, most people, look to talk therapy. Let's just say, first of all, I did for five and a half years, if that therapist isn't highly skilled in betrayal, it's actually doing more harm than good. And even if it's helping, it's only helping on one level, but that's not addressing that's not addressing the issues in the tissues, right? The second thing is, and I just want to, you know, just to wrap up these stats, what's even crazier is they're not even necessarily from a recent betrayal. This could be from the parent who did something awful when you were a kid. This could be from the partner who broke your heart in high school. So now imagine this, that person may not know care, remember, they may not even be alive, and here we are, decades later, with medicating and suppressing these symptoms because of something left unhealed. The good news is you could heal from all of it. That was the third discovery.

Laurie James: Yeah, so, and can you say a little bit more about the third discovery? Then.

Dr. Debi Silber: Yes. So that was the most for me, the most exciting. And what was discovered was, while we can stay stuck for years, decades, a lifetime, and most people do, if we're going to fully heal, and by fully heal, I mean symptoms of Post Betrayal Syndrome, like I just shared, to this completely rebuilt place called Post Betrayal Transformation, where you've rebuilt your life and yourself, you're going to move through Five proven, predictable stages. And what's even more exciting about that is we know what happens physically, mentally and emotionally at every one of those stages, and we know what it takes to move from one stage to the next. Healing is entirely predictable. Happy to share the stages if you want to hear them, please. It's what all of our coaches are certified in it's all we do within the PBT Institute. Here's I'm going to give you a boiled down version. So stage one is before it happens. And if you can imagine four legs of a table, the four legs being physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. What I saw with everyone me too, was a heavy lean on the physical and mental thinking and doing. We're so good at that. Mm. And kind of neglecting or ignoring the emotional and the spiritual feeling and being the table only has two legs. That's a setup for that table to topple over. That's us.

Laurie James: Absolutely.

Dr. Debi Silber: Stage two, shock trauma D-Day, Discovery day. This is the scariest out of all of the stages. Here's where you got the news. It's the breakdown of the body, the mind and the worldview. So right here you've ignited the stress response. You are now headed for every single stress related symptom, illness, condition, disease.

Laurie James: Because your nervous system is dysregulated because you're in shock, shock now, right? Yup, now you're up and you're sympathetic, and potentially even moving up into your dorsal vagal, and there we go.

Dr. Debi Silber: Your mind is completely chaotic. You cannot understand what just happened, and your worldview has just been shattered. That's your mental model, the rules that govern you, that prevent chaos. You could trust this person. These are the rules. This is how life works. And in one earth shattering moment or series of moments, every rule you've been counting on is no longer like everyone remembers their D-Day, right? Oh yeah, the bottom, and so does my body. Yeah, right. The bottom bottomed out on you, and the new bottom hasn't been formed yet. This is terrifying, but think about it, if the bottom were to bottom out on you, what would you do? You grab hold of anything or anyone in order to stay safe and stay alive, right? That's stage three. Survival Instincts emerge. This is the most practical out of all of the stages. If you can't help me, Get out of my way. How do I survive this? Who can I trust? Here's the trap. Though, stage three, by far, hands down, is the most common place. We get stuck. I imagine all of your clients are coming to you in this stage. Here's why. Once we figured out how to survive our experience, because it feels so much better than the shock and trauma we just came from. We think it's good, and because we don't know there's anywhere else to go, we don't know there's a stage four or stage five transformation doesn't even begin until stage four. But because we don't know there's anywhere else to go, we're like, Okay, I better find a way to make this work. And we do, and four things start to happen. The first thing is we start getting all the small self benefits. You mentioned the victim whole thing. You get that here. You get to be right. You get your story. You get sympathy, you know, you get something to blame. And on some level, we don't get much else, so we take it right. And so we're digging ourselves a deeper hole right here and now, because we're here longer than we should be now, the mind starts doing things like, you know, maybe you're not that great, maybe you deserved it, maybe this, maybe that. So we plant deeper roots, right?

Laurie James: And now negative self talk.

Dr. Debi Silber: Exactly. And now, because these are the thoughts we're thinking, this is the energy we put out. Like energy attracts like energy. So now we start attracting people and circumstances and new relationships to.

Laurie James: Kind of similar right to consumer to confirm what our belief system has become.

Dr. Debi Silber: Exactly. Here's where we join that lame support group, and we will actually sabotage our healing because we found our people. Here's where we talked about therapy before that therapist who is not highly skilled in betrayal, you're feeling heard and validated and understood, and you're actually gluing yourself to that spot. You're not any you're not an inch closer to stage four every time you leave one of those appointments. Here's where the betrayer has no intention of changing, but you sabotage yourself because you're afraid to outgrow that relationship. Does this make sense so far?

Laurie James: Well, yeah, because our nervous system has just experienced something so devastating and shock and trauma and to move out of it our nervous systems, it's scary, right? So it's scary. So some for some people, it feels safer to stay there and continue to play the victim, continue to stay stuck, versus to move forward, because that is even scarier than what just happened. So.

Dr. Debi Silber: Familiar, right? And now it gets worse, but I'll get you out of here because.

Laurie James: Oh, good. I love it.

Dr. Debi Silber: Because we're so unhappy, but we're so afraid of the crash and burn of the old. In order to birth the new, we need to get through our day. We have to figure this out. So right here, we start numbing, avoiding and distracting. So now we start adding to what we're really not happy about. We start using food, drugs, alcohol, work, TV, scrolling, whatever it is. And now think about it. We do it for a day, a week, a month. Now it's a habit, a year, 10 years, 20 years, and I can see someone 20 years later and say, you know that emotional eating you're doing or that drinking? Do you think that has anything to do with that betrayal? Know? And they look at me like, I'm crazy. They say it happened 20 years ago, right? All they did was put themselves in stage three and stay there. That makes sense. Yeah? Totally, yeah. And this is where you're living a stage three life, because you're medicating and suppressing your symptoms. You're having repeat betrayals. Life kind of stinks, but because you're surviving the experience, you think it's good, you don't feel good. You don't know there's anything better Can I get you?

Laurie James: I lived in that state for a lot of years after my first betrayal in my marriage, and went on to have two more children. And like, you know, I wasn't happy, but then I wasn't like that unhappy either, until you know the second betrayal hit. So.

Dr. Debi Silber: Yeah, you know what it's like, where everybody can relate to this. Imagine two best friends, and they're both, like, 30 pounds overweight, and they're fine, meaning they're fine. They put themselves together, they look good. That doesn't stop them from doing anything. And then one day, one of the friends is like, I'm so done. I'm so done with this. 30 pounds, that's it. And she starts eating well and exercising, and she gets the weight off, and she's feeling so good. And now she's wearing clothes she wants to wear, versus what fits like. She's living the life, you know, and she says to the other friend, she's like, come on, it's so good over here. But the other friend, she's like, No, No, I'm okay. And the truth is, she is but she has no idea what's waiting for her if she was willing to get a little bit uncomfortable, yeah, that's what you need to do. But then when you do, you get to stages four and five. So if you're willing, willingness is a big word right here. Let go of your story. Grieve, mourn the loss. Bunch of things you need to do. You move to stage four. Stage four is finding and adjusting to a new normal. Here's where you acknowledge, you know, I can't undo what happened, but I control what I do with it. Just in that decision, you're starting to turn down the stress response. You're not healing just yet, but at least you stop the massive damage that was going on in stages two and stage three, stage four feels like if you've ever moved, if you've ever moved to a new house, office, condo, apartment, whatever your stuff sent all there. It's not quite cozy yet, but it's this sort of hopeful excitement. Feels like that. But think about it, if you were to move, you don't take everything with you, right? You don't take those things that don't represent the version of you you're now ready to become. And what I found was there's this one spot. As people go from stage three to stage four, if your friends weren't there for you, you're done. You don't take them with you, that lame support group, you're done. The therapist who doesn't understand betrayal, you're done. That betrayer who's not changing, you're done. And people ask me all the time, Dr. Debi, is it me? You know, I've had these people in my life all these years. Yes, it is. You're undergoing a transformation, right? If they don't rise, they don't come. So it's a very it's not necessarily a lowly period, but it's a very personal one.

Laurie James: Right? Yeah, it's personal, and it's hard. So how does somebody like what are a couple of things that maybe you could suggest, since stage three is so tough to get through, or to move from stage three, where you're feeling stuck and maybe victimized, to stage four, yeah, because that's, I think, probably the hardest step To make?

Dr. Debi Silber: It's the hardest one to leave, for sure, because, you know, stage three is very crowded. You know, it's that's where everybody is. So it feels very unfamiliar. It feels very uncomfortable. But unless you're willing to be uncomfortable, it's only more of the same. So, you know, you want to look at what is stage three, giving you and really take a hard look and say, is that giving you what you want, is that the best you can experience and hope for after? You know, after an experience with betrayal, you weren't betrayed just so you could be the post child for betrayal. You were betrayed so you could do something gigantic with it. That's trauma well served, right? But if you just, if you just stay with the familiar, knowing you only get more of the same. So the first thing is, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. You know, there's a saying that I've been saying for 33 years of my business. It holds true in I can't find a topic it doesn't work for, and it's this hard now, easy later, easy now, hard later. Take your pick. It's one of those two. Yeah, when it comes to betrayal, healing from betrayal, transforming after betrayal, it's hard now, easy later. Now, people say to me all the time, but I'm miserable, and it stinks. It's still easy now, because until and unless they're going to do something different, you're only going to get more of the same, the more of the same, of what you don't like, but more of the same. When I say hard now I'm talking about when a thought comes in your head, you assess it. You say, Is this part of the old me? Does it still serve is it good to bring along? If not, it doesn't come with you. So you take all the parts you love and you leave behind everything that.

Laurie James: Sometimes that's hard to do because our nervous system is the one that's sending those thoughts, those beliefs, our actions, up to our brain. So what I often talk to my clients about is we want to stretch your nervous system. We don't want to stress it right, because our nervous system equates unfamiliar or new with danger. So how do you move in your model from what feels like something that's dangerous because it's new and unfamiliar, to getting them, you know, because hard now, easy later, and I understand that model, because I've gone through that. But how do you bridge that?

Dr. Debi Silber: Yeah, that's why everything is at a certain point. Like, for example, just to be completely extreme. Forgiveness has a huge role, having nothing to do with the other person, by the way, having everything to do with you. But if we were to bring that up, let's say, when someone's in stage two, it backfires every time. There's got to be, there's, there is a road map, but everything needs to be at the right time, where you're completely not ready for it. So in order for us to get ready to do those new things, we're talking about mindset. We're talking about boundaries. We're talking about, you know, we're envisioning who it is we want to become. So we see that version of us, and we know who we're moving towards. So this way it's not just like, Okay, this week you're doing this, which is such a shock to the body mind. Body and mind has had enough of a shock. We need to see it first. We need to feel it so we can move towards it. So it's all very strategic. And again, it's what the research proved works. Yeah. Can I get you to stage five?

Laurie James: Yes, please.

Dr. Debi Silber: Okay, that's healing, rebirth and a new world view, the body starts to heal, self love, self care, eating, well, exercise, you know, stuff like that. We didn't have the bandwidth for that earlier. Now we do. We're making all kinds of new rules, new boundaries, you know, based on the road we just traveled. And we have a new world view based on everything we see so clearly now, and the four legs of the table in the beginning, it was all about the physical and the mental. By this point, we're solidly grounded because we're focused on the emotional and the spiritual too. Those are the five stages.

Laurie James: That's beautiful. I love this model. So my question is, does this have a time frame? Because I feel like healing for everybody can be different, like I might take a little bit longer than Dr. Debi might be taking and, you know, my friend Susie might be able to do it in a shorter period of time than both of us, or a longer period of time. Yeah, how do you manage that?

Dr. Debi Silber: I'm going to answer it in two ways. First, there were three groups in the study who did not heal. I want to share who they were. The second thing is, it's a great question, and it has so much more to do with willingness than time. Time really has nothing to do with it. You know, I remember thinking, Oh, when I was doing the study, oh, the ones who were the hardest hit would grow the least because they had the most to overcome. That had nothing to do with it, nothing. It was the ones who put their head down and said, You know, I am not picking it up until I'm out the other side. They blew the doors off of the others. But there were three groups who did not heal. So it'll take forever if you're doing these three things. The first one, this was the group. They had their story. They were sticking with it. They just had way too much in their mind to risk by letting go of their story. So the first group, this was the group where they had their story. They were sticking with it. They just refused to give up that story, that security of having that story was felt like a familiar, known, way better than any sort of unknown. They didn't heal. Their identity. That's it. They were deeply rooted in stage three, the second group. This was the group that was numbing, avoiding distracting. So they ran to the doctor, who put them on a mood stabilizer, anti anxiety medication. They were drinking numbing in some way. I mean, maybe the day was a bit easier to get through not without a price. They didn't heal. And the third group, this was the group where the betrayer had very little consequences. So whether it was out of financial fear, not wanting to break up a family, religious reasons, that was a big one, they just did all they could to look the other way, turn the other cheek. I saw two things with this group. Number one, a further deterioration of that relationship. And two, that group was by far the most physically sick.

Laurie James: Interesting.

Dr. Debi Silber: Your broken heart can't handle that.

Laurie James: Wow, and that affects our bodies.

Dr. Debi Silber: Because they were so afraid of the crash and burn of the old, that's the only way you birth the new, whether it's a New you like to close the loop on my story. Rebuilding is always a choice, whether you rebuild yourself and move along. That's what I do with my family. It wasn't an option to rebuild with them. They were deeply, deeply rooted in stage three, or if the situation lends itself, if you're willing, if you want to, you rebuild something from the ground up, new with as to transform people. That's what I did with my husband so not long ago, as to completely rebuilt people. We married each other again. How beautiful rings, new vows, new dress and a four kids is our bridal party now. Betrayal will show you who someone truly is. It also has the opportunity to show them who they temporarily became. Not that you need to do anything with it, but there's tremendous potential, if you choose to.

Laurie James: But in order to have the experience that you had, both of you had to be willing to do this work. Tell me.

Dr. Debi Silber: Yes, well if not, you know, we said earlier, there's nothing to work with if the other person is unwilling or incapable of taking responsibility and having deep remorse and empathy and and all of it. Why in the world would you take a vet on again? You know, I think.

Laurie James: Because you're too afraid to leave. But that, yeah, what happened with me?

Dr. Debi Silber: That's what we do. And it's, you know, it's not our fault. It really isn't, but it's, it's terrifying. But for me, I'm a highly sensitive empath. Integrity is my highest value. So there was not a sell of me that could even make any sense or be okay with this in any way. So ending it was the only thing for my mind and my heart that I could do now on the same way rebuilding it wasn't even enough for me to rebuild my family and this entirely new relationship. I had to take thousands and thousands of people with me. That's the only way I could justify something like this.

Laurie James: Can you say more about that? Yeah, because you talked about integrity being one of your highest values. And so how did you get there? Like you talked about bringing a thousand people with you, was that when you went back to school and did all this research, or how did you get to the other side with somebody who did betray you?

Dr. Debi Silber: Yeah, there's a reason why, you know, I founded National Forgiveness Day, because it was, and listen, I've been in the ICU for 11 days. I have lost loved ones. That was the forgiving and rebuilding something new was by far the hardest thing I've ever done, and you're questioning everything, everything. And one of the biggest questions I always had was, how can I be sure that he's different, but, but then I would say, but you're totally different. You have different boundaries. You see things so differently, you're letting go of the old version of you that didn't speak up, that tolerated what you never should have. Who am I to say someone else is incapable of change? And then I'll tell you one of the other things we did, we have, it's our rebuild program within the PBT Institute that's with the betrayers. So if I wasn't convinced enough at the ability for a betrayer to change seeing these people in the community, and I'm working with them, yeah, right. And they confirm over and over to had nothing to do with their partner, nothing. So I'm hearing it. I'm seeing it. I'm living it.

Laurie James: Beautiful. But so how do you build that trust again? Even though, okay, you've changed. Yeah, your partner or your husband is doing the work, or whoever you're working with, two people are both doing the work. How do you build that trust again? Because I think that's the last piece, tell me if I'm wrong, unless there's another piece in the middle there.

Dr. Debi Silber: Trust is huge. Trust and forgiveness go along the same timeline. There's a reason why I wrote the book Trust Again. The way it works is, the way it works is trust is built slowly and carefully over time. People ask me, Can you repair trust? I say, No, it can't be repaired. It can be rebuilt, though. And the way I look at it here's going to be an analogy, metaphor. You can use it. You'll see it so clearly. I look at trust like a brick wall. The only way I know of a brick wall being built is Brick by Brick by Brick, right? Every opportunity someone has to show that they're trustworthy, that's one brick in that brick wall, right? So it takes a long time to build, and then that person who built it, in that one moment, shatters the whole thing. Now you can look at the rubble of bricks and say, I don't have the least bit of interest in watching that thing get rebuilt. Totally fine. You walk away. However, if you're willing, that's all you need to do. You'd be willing to watch that brick wall be rebuilt. The person who shattered it has to be a really good brick layer, and it goes up the same way it went up the first time, brick by brick by brick. But here's what I see. I see the brick wall taking a long time to build. I see it getting shattered. The person who shattered it doesn't really have much of an interest in building it. So the betrayed says, Fine, I'll do it. No.

Laurie James: Yes, let me see if I can rebuild this for both of us.

Dr. Debi Silber: That's why they're hyper vigilant. That's why it doesn't work. That's why they don't trust that's why they're betrayed. Again, it's not their job. That makes sense?

Laurie James: Well, right? But they learned that pattern somewhere along the way, typically, probably in childhood, and their nervous system says, I need to keep you safe. If I do this for you, then I will feel safe. If I rebuild this wall, then I will feel safe, regardless of what you are doing or not doing for the relationship.

Dr. Debi Silber: Do you see the most terrifying things are looking at the rubble of bricks and walking away? That's scary, or what? In my personal experience, what was even scarier was I'm not building that brick wall. I didn't shatter it, but I'm just going to rebuild my life. And if he's willing, on his own, having nothing to do with me rebuilding right then I could be willing to look at that, and it was terrifying, terrifying, yeah, because you really don't know what the outcome is going to be. You have no idea, and you have to be okay with that.

Laurie James: That's beautiful. That's very well said, and it's not easy, and sometimes you might give that person another chance, and they either shatter the brick wall again, or maybe it doesn't get fully rebuilt.

Dr. Debi Silber: Well, you know what? When you move through the stages, first of all, your BS meter is so sharpened and so strong that you know you're not a magnet for what you were. And secondly, you have the tools that it would never impact you the way it the way it did the first time.

Laurie James: You know, I can see that, and I've experienced that too, having been in a couple of relationships since I've left my marriage. So thank you so much, Debbie, is there a confession that you want to share with our listeners that maybe we haven't touched on?

Dr. Debi Silber: A confession, you know? I mean, it's really, it's like, it sucks being betrayed. It sucks. And I think maybe when I'm speaking, I don't convey the magnitude of how badly it hurts, yeah, but I can tell you, you know, like I said, having been through some really painful traumas, it was by far the hardest thing I've, I've ever done, and I didn't do anything anyone else couldn't do.

Laurie James: Yeah, I'm getting chills just hearing that, because I feel the same way, like the betrayal that I felt is just words cannot describe how deep and how hurtful and how painful. Yeah, that can be when you've given so much to somebody else or to a relationship and to your family, especially if it was your intimate partner. So and how can people find you and find your books?

Dr. Debi Silber: Everything is at the PBT as in Post Betrayal Transformation, https://thepbtinstitute.com/ 

Laurie James: Great, and I'll have that in the show notes. Debbie, thank you so much for your time today, and I know our listeners are going to take a few nuggets from our conversation today. Thank you.

Laurie James: Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a Free Bird. I'm grateful to be in your ears and hearts. If you're interested in becoming a free bird, I'd love to support you, please check out my website at https://www.laurieejames.com/  to learn how we can work together, or to sign up for my newsletter so you can receive tips on how to date and relationship differently and ultimately find more freedom and joy in your life. If you found this podcast helpful, please follow or subscribe, rate and review and share it with friends so they can find more freedom in their second or third act, also until next time you.