Feeling Burned Out? The Overlooked Signs of Betrayal You Need to Know with Lora Cheadle

Have you spent years doing everything “right”? Building your career, caring for others, keeping things together and still feel like something is off? 

Maybe it’s a quiet ache you can’t shake. 

That pull between might not be burnout at all. It might be a kind of betrayal you didn’t know you were carrying.

In this episode, I sit down with Lora Cheadle, author, speaker, and betrayal recovery coach. Lora’s story began with infidelity but led her deeper into the world of nervous system regulation, and the rebuilding of her self-worth. Lora brings a lived understanding of how our bodies often speak the truth before we can put them into words.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How societal expectations and perfectionism can cause emotional exhaustion and disconnection, especially in high-achieving women.
• What happens to your nervous system when you live in survival mode for too long and how self-betrayal becomes a coping mechanism.
• How to tell when your burnout symptoms are signs of deeper misalignment
• What your body is communicating through tension, fatigue, and restlessness.
• How expectation management can shift long-standing relationship dynamics
• Simple somatic tools to support nervous system balance and recovery.
• Ways to rebuild trust with yourself through internal validation instead of outside approval

This conversation is a gentle invitation to pause, breathe, and remember that you’re not broken. You’re human and you’re learning, healing, and coming home to yourself, one sensation at a time.

Here’s to honoring what your body already knows,

Laurie

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Thank you in advance. 

Click here to learn about my NEW “Nervous System Regulation Starter Kit” 

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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. Real quick before we get started on today's episode, I just wanted to take a minute and thank you. Thank you to my new listeners that are here. If any of my episodes resonate with you and you think of somebody, please share that episode with that someone special who you think might benefit from it. And if you feel called, please leave a review. You can go to the show, scroll down past the episodes, you'll see "Rate and Review" and leave a really short, quick review. It takes two minutes and again, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for being here.

I also wanted to let you know that I don't know about you, but I've been feeling a little more anxious these days. And if you also feel this, you're not alone. You know there's so much going on in the world. The holidays are coming up, and even just saying that I can feel a little tightness in my chest. So I wanted to invite you to join me for an upcoming workshop that I am putting on.

It will be Wednesday, November 5, at 4 p.m. Pacific time. It's a 90-minute workshop called Regulate Your Anxiety. I'll not only be addressing general anxiety that many of us experience in life, but also going to talk about high-achieving anxiety as well. And I'm going to go into the education of the physiology of what's happening in our body, guide you through some somatic practices that will help complete the stress cycle that your body is in, help you restore a sense of safety and relaxed alertness within the body, and leave you with practical tools so that way you can use them in your daily life. These are easy, simple tools that can make a real difference.

Because here's the thing: you're not broken and you're not unfixable. Your body is just communicating that it needs you to learn a new way to understand and respond to what's going on in your body. I have limited spots, so click the link in the bio to reserve your spot today and enjoy my conversation with guest Lora Cheadle. We are going to be talking about betrayal through a very different lens. So stay with us, and again, if you find this podcast valuable, please share it with somebody who you think could benefit from it. So enjoy my conversation.

You are listening to Confessions of a Free Bird podcast. I'm your host, Lori 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.

Hello, Free Birds, welcome back, and I hope you all are doing well today. I am so excited to jump into this conversation with Lora Cheadle. She is a betrayal recovery coach, legal consultant, and best-selling author and speaker. Her new book, It's Not Burnout, It's Betrayal, is out now, and she's also the host of the podcast Flaunt.

Lora's superpower is helping women cultivate peace, confidence, and a sense of sovereignty on the inside to claim their self-worth. And today we're going to touch on the topic of betrayal, but we're going to kind of approach it from a little bit different angle. And so I'm super excited to jump into this conversation. So Lora, thank you so much for being here and taking the time out of your busy day to be here with me.

Lora Cheadle: Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Laurie James: Good, me too. So can you start with just sharing with our listeners what your relationship with betrayal has been? Yeah.

Lora Cheadle: Absolutely. It started off as an infidelity. That was my first big experience with betrayal, and that's when I learned what it was, how it feels, how you get over it, how you don't get over it. And once I really learned what it was, like so many light bulbs went off because I started realizing all of these other experiences in the past where I had been betrayed, or I had felt betrayed, and I had never really had the language to identify what was going on.

Laurie James: Yeah, you know, and I think that that's, unfortunately, we don't get to this point in our life without having some type of betrayal, you know. And I've talked about it on my podcast. I've had several different betrayals in my life, even at birth, you know, because I was adopted. So that is a type of betrayal, not really like having my family share that story with me, and just having to kind of figure it out, and then finding out things later on in life that would have made a huge difference knowing it upfront. And then betrayals throughout my marriage.

So anyways, people can go back and listen to past podcasts to hear all those details, because that would take up the whole podcast. And it's not about me, it's about sharing information with the listeners. So in your book, you talk about It's Not Burnout, It's Betrayal. Can you share with me and the listeners what do you mean by that?

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, absolutely. And before I do, I just want to say, you know, amen to everything that you said. Like so many of us have so many betrayals, and again, it's like, have you really identified that as a betrayal? Sometimes not, and then have you taken the specific steps to get over that? Because it's not just grief, it's not just anger, it's not just disappointment. So thank you for just saying, like, I've had so many because, haven't we all?

Laurie James: Yeah. Well, let's stop on that for a minute. Can we just touch on that for a little bit about that process of betrayal before we go on? Because I think that's, you know, it starts with awareness, you know, because, like, you feel it. I felt it in my body, and you talked about you didn't have words to put to what was happening to you, but our body feels it, and our body senses it, but we don't always have the verbal language for it.

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, and that's a great place to start. As a lawyer, I like to start with definitions, and if you look at the definition of betrayal, it is the breaking of an expectation that ruptures your view of yourself or the world. And when you sit with that, I have an expectation that the world will treat me a certain way. I have an expectation that good people will have good things happen to them. I have an expectation that all will be fair and karma is going to get the bad people. And I have an expectation that my life is going to turn out well. And we all have these expectations and our self-worth and our identity is based on that. So when our view of our self is ruptured, that's foundational.

Laurie James: Yeah, it hurts. Or that the person or job that you are in, or the expectation, because I certainly had expectations early on in life, of like, well, you know, I'm going to get married and I'm going to have 2.5 kids, and I'm going to—now that I'm married, my kids are going to grow up, and I'm going to live happily ever after. I am living happily ever after, but it's just not quite worked out that way. No, not at all, not at all.

And that's exactly the concept of It's Not Burnout, It's Betrayal. When you think about what are the things you burn out on? You burn out in your career sometimes. You burn out in relationships sometimes. You burn out in, you know, a friendship. Like, burnout is too much work. That's a thing. But it's not always just too much work. If you're working so hard at work, and you get an assistant and they take up half the work, and you suddenly don't have too much work, you can still feel burned out because the expectations that you had about that job and the way that it was going to work have been ruptured.

When I first started practicing law, I thought, I am working really hard. I'm really smart. I'm giving more. I'm leaning in. I will be rewarded equally. I will be paid equally. I will be treated equally. Whoa, that didn't happen. I didn't get the corner office in, you know, five years. I didn't have all of these things happen despite doing what I was supposed to do. And that's a sense of betrayal. That's a ruptured expectation.

Laurie James: But is that a societal betrayal, or was that like, how would you describe that type of betrayal? Real, yeah.

Lora Cheadle: And I'm so glad you went there, because, like with everything, it's compound complex. Yes, the system betrayed me. Yes, a patriarchal, misogynistic system, you know, betrays people. Systems betray people all the time. Companies prioritizing profit over people can betray people all the time. And my company didn't necessarily do anything wrong to me. They were very easy to work with. They were very accommodating, but I had this vision in my head of what it was going to look like.

And one of the things that I talk about in my book, and it's kind of funny, but I grew up in the 80s. And if you think about the Enjoli perfume commercial in the 80s, you know, you can bring home the bacon, you can fry it up in the pan, and never let you forget you're a man. Like, my view of myself was that I could do that. I could do it all. I could have it all. And then my life was crumbling, and I couldn't do it all, and I couldn't have it all, and I wasn't having the kind of life that I envisioned, not because anybody was betraying me, but because I had very unrealistic expectations, which, again, is this form of self-betrayal because I internalized: I'm failing. I can't bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. I'm wrong, right?

Laurie James: But that's also your nervous system saying, "I need to do this. I need to be here." Where did that message come from for you? Yeah.

Lora Cheadle: Exactly, a couple of different places. I was and I am an only child and an only grandchild on both sides and an only great-grandchild on both sides. So sometimes people are like, "Oh, you were so lucky and you were so spoiled." Well, yes, and everybody's expectations were on me. I had to be perfect because, oh my god, I wasn't going to disappoint anybody. So I leaned on high performance, huge high performance. So if anybody can do it, Laura can do it.

Laurie James: That's it, yeah. And that puts your body into a state, a constant, dysregulated state of sympathetic nervous system. So that's where you live. And when we stay in that place for too long, that's when burnout happens, because we set these expectations for ourselves, because if we do this, I'll get praise. I'll get love if I can keep this status up. And because it happened when you were younger, tell me if I'm wrong, like when you were perfect and you were getting the good grades and you were doing all these things, you got accolades, and you got the trophies, but then you also got all this praise from your family. But then you go out into society, and that didn't happen when you tried to recreate that.

Lora Cheadle: You're right. It's, where's the award for living in life? We don't have that. It's that external validation. And how do I start validating myself internally? Wait, what? Yeah.

Laurie James: How do I find happiness and joy? Because I'm always trying to reach the next mark, the next accolade.

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, and how do I find worth around that? And for me, that was one of the, and I hate to say the gift of betrayal, because it sounds so cheesy and trite, but that was one of the gifts for me. Like, "Wow, my husband cheated on me, so it made me feel worthless." I had to rebuild my self-worth, and there's this internal struggle: I am worthy. I know I'm worthy. I don't feel worthy. Am I wrong for not feeling worthy? It's okay to feel unworthy. It's that whole back and forth of, how do I validate myself? How do I find my joy? How do I regulate my nervous system? How do I hold all of these conflicting emotions?

Laurie James: Yeah, manage myself. So, how did you do that?

Lora Cheadle: Breath at a time. Some days well, some days poorly.

Laurie James: Yeah, I think that's true for all of us. And how did you hold grace for yourself when you didn't feel like you were doing it well?

Lora Cheadle: It was a struggle. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, it's really hard to be in that place. It's hard to feel bad. It's hard to be dysregulated. It's hard to know better in your head, but to not be able to make your body respond. So for me, you know, like you, the somatic processing is huge. I would try to walk. I would try to breathe. I would do a lot of journaling. I am an external processor. I would find people to talk to. Like, I would do so many different things just to try to get myself to feel better.

Laurie James: And did that work? Or, you know, was there something that, was it a combination of all those things, or was there something that you felt for you personally worked better?

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, yeah, it's both and it's all. There are times certain things would work really, really well. There were times where I would hop from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing and I just couldn't get myself regulated, in which case I would say, "You know what, today is not the day. I'm going to go to bed." And it's like, take a shower, go to bed, wake up the next day.

Most often movement helped. I grew up dancing. I love hiking. Most often, movement helps. Most often conscious movement helps, connecting my brain to my breath to my body, having that intent: I'm going to walk this off. I'm going to shake this off. Like, that for me, most often helped. But you know what? There's also times when it didn't help. And that had to be okay, too.

Laurie James: Yeah, that's a beautiful... so in the somatic world, we call that self-regulating toolbox, right? So you have this self-regulating toolbox that you are using. Dance movement is a really beautiful way to move that energy through us. There's also a lot of different practices that you can do to self-regulate your nervous system as well. And I have a little nervous system regulation kit for anybody that's listening that is interested in going down that path or exploring that.

But what I wanted to ask, when you were in this state of dysregulation and the dancing or movement really helped, were you able to... I mean, typically, you're in a fight or flight response. You're up in your sympathetic. After doing those movements and doing those things, how did you know that was helping? Like, what did you feel or notice in your body and mind, your mind-body connection that helped you realize that?

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, and I love that question. So thank you for asking that. I think, like many people, I tend to be in my head a lot. I tend to, you know, the legal training: figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out. And if you can figure it out, you're in control. And I would be less in my head. I wouldn't feel that drive. My internal sensation is like this roving forward drive. Just mow it down, figure it out. And I wouldn't have that forward headspace motion. I would just be grounded, and my low belly is a place that gets soft when I'm relaxed, and then my heart feels more open.

Laurie James: Yeah, beautiful. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And everybody's different, so it's going to show up differently in everybody's body. But that's beautiful awareness, and for the listener, I mean, those are really good general cues, because typically when we are dysregulated, you know, we feel it in our stomach, chest, neck, back, shoulders, head, arms, mostly less arms, but that's typically where we do feel it.

So what other ways can betrayal show up in our lives, in your opinion?

Lora Cheadle: It can show up in so, so many different ways. Think about anything. Like you said, I'm going to get married, I'm going to have 2.5 kids. I'm going to have the white picket fence. And then I'm going to age beautifully. And then we have this view, and it's great that everything is going to work out in this weird unspoken way. We don't really consciously think, one day my parents will age, and it's going to be a miserable process, and then they will die, and I will take care of it.

Laurie James: And you have to take care of them for 14 and a half years while raising four children and your marriage falling apart. Right?

Lora Cheadle: Right? You don't think, when you get the puppy, that one day, this dog is going to die and you're going to have to make these gut-wrenching decisions, whether you, you know, put your animal to sleep, or like I had a friend's son recently commit suicide. Like, we don't think these things are going to happen to us, so when they happen, which are all normal things that we didn't think the world would shut down from a pandemic. We didn't think 9/11 would happen. We didn't think like political, religion, like all of these things, we don't sit around thinking and expecting these things to happen.

So when anything happens that we don't expect, it can be such a hit to our nervous system, and it can lead to a sense of betrayal. I mean, politically, yeah, people feel betrayed, like when a candidate does or doesn't get elected, they take it personally, and it's like this sense of betrayal.

Laurie James: Well, and what I hear you saying is that it's also a shock to our system. Totally, right? So you think things are going to go one way, and then they go a different way, and then we're shocked, we're surprised.

Lora Cheadle: And then we go, "What did I do wrong? What did I do wrong?"

Laurie James: And what should we be saying instead of, "What did I do wrong?" What should we be saying instead?

Lora Cheadle: Oh, that is so good. I think a couple of different things. I think getting curious is the place to begin. So it's not necessarily a question, but it's like, let's get curious about this. What can this reveal to me? What can this reveal about me?

Laurie James: Yeah, and sometimes I want to say that can take time, because when I was going through my most difficult time that I wrote about in my book, that eight-year period of time, I was very impatient because I was dysregulated and I was like, I wanted answers now so I could figure it out and move on, because I also didn't like the way I was feeling. And sometimes we have to be patient with ourselves, even though we're impatient, and wait for those things to reveal themselves over time.

Lora Cheadle: Yeah. And quite honestly, too, sometimes beautiful things do get revealed, and sometimes we have to shift our perspective. You know, just think about our aging bodies. I don't like seeing more wrinkles. I don't like seeing jowls. I don't like seeing the waking. Like, there is nothing that I'm just loving about this. Yeah, right, the crepey skin. Yeah?

I mean, it's not that I've done anything wrong. It's not that I'm unwilling to do certain things that I could do. Some of it is just making peace with, you know what, this is how it is. And how do I separate cultural conditioning around a woman's worth is around youth, with who I am and what I know to be true, and what matters more is how I feel inside versus how I look on the outside. And it's sometimes a mental walking around and seeing things differently, finding a different lens.

Laurie James: Yeah, I love that, because that is so true. It's like when we can feel safer and feel good about ourselves from the inside, then I think we care less about... I mean, yes, we want to look cute and, you know, we want to put makeup on, and we want to present ourselves the best ideally, but I think you care less about those things when you feel good, and tell me if I'm wrong, that's self-worth, that's self-confidence.

Lora Cheadle: Yes, yes. And that's also self-betrayal. Like, if I am not going to go to the beach and enjoy myself because I'm too worried about the way I look, I'm betraying myself. I get to eek joy out of life. I get to lean into every moment. And would I rather look adorable doing it? Sure, but even if I don't look adorable, I'm still going to go do what I want to do, because that's what brings me joy.

Laurie James: Can we talk about that self-betrayal a little bit more? Because I think that's a... and I think that shows up in deeper ways too, like self-betrayal when we stay in relationships for too long, or self-betrayal when we stay in that job for too long, or we are people-pleasing for too long, and, you know, we're betraying ourselves.

I mean, I, one of my neighbors is, you know, I was talking to her the other day, and she was like, you know, complaining of like, "I'm always doing everything for everybody else." And she's like, "and I'm exhausted, I need to..." And I'm like, "Yeah, you need to go do something for yourself. Like, let's go to lunch. Let's, you know, let's take some time out for us or you, or whatever it is." So can you touch on that a little bit more, that self-betrayal piece, and where you think we get caught up the most, and how to kind of change our perspective and change that narrative a little bit?

Lora Cheadle: Yes. Most of us, the way we are raised is we please other people. You make mommy and daddy happy. You please your teachers. You get the grades. You please your employer. You suck it up. You say, "Yes." That is how we're raised. If I do the right things, then I will be rewarded. It's this whole if-then conditioning, and to realize we are doing that if-then conditioning for other people.

And if you think about yourself, nobody is in charge of you. Nobody is going to put you to bed at a certain time to make sure you get the right number of hours of sleep. Nobody is going to feed you these meals and pre-proportion them out. And nobody is going to take you to the gym and make you do all these happy, healthy things. You are really in charge of you.

Laurie James: Yeah, your adult self, if you're talking about parts work, like your adult self, and maybe a younger part of you is saying, "I don't wanna, I don't wanna." Yeah.

Lora Cheadle: Yeah. So it's that self-leadership, and that, coupled with that awareness that I've probably spent at a minimum, you know, 25 years pleasing other people, that's all. How do I step—exactly, at a minimum. How do I step into that adult role and start keeping the promises that I make to myself?

And a question that I like to ask is, if other people broke promises to you, at the rate you break them to yourself, would you even want to be their friend?

Laurie James: That's a great question. I really like that. Yes, I'm just like sitting with that right now. That's a beautiful question, because I've never really heard it phrased that way. Can you say that one more time?

Lora Cheadle: If other people broke promises to you at the rate you break promises to yourself, would you even want to be friends with them? Because, I mean, think about it: "I'm going to get up early, I'm going to work out, I'm going to, you know, eat a salad. I'm going to call my mom. I'm going to walk the dog. I'm going to spend time reading." Do you ever do everything that you say you're going to do? So rarely. We break promises to ourselves all the time.

Laurie James: But okay, so how do we balance that, though, with allowing ourselves to be connected with ourselves to say, "Hey, I don't have enough time to do that today. Maybe I over-scheduled myself."

Lora Cheadle: Which is a huge form of self-betrayal right there, because it's a little bit gaslighty of ourselves to think—and oh, I am guilty of it too. Like, "On Tuesday, I'm going to rebuild my website, paint the bathroom, and have lunch with..." No, I'm not, you know? But that is that, that gaslighting of myself. What am I really capable of doing in this amount of time?

Laurie James: Yeah, and being really honest with yourself about that, yeah. And that is tricky, because at least for me, and you know, I'm like, "I'm going to be happy when I get to X," and I've lived most of my life that way. I mean, I've worked on this a long time, and I'm not there. But, like, even when I was raising my kids, I mean, I would have 10 things on my to-do list, and I'd be running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everything done. And then I would be so exhausted at the end of the night that I, like, barely popped into bed. And I literally would fall asleep in like two minutes because I was so exhausted from doing.

And I don't do that to myself. I mean, I give myself space. I start work a little bit later. I... But even when I was starting my business, I was like, "I need... I don't have enough clients. I need more money. I need this. I need that. I need..." I'm like, "Where is that coming from?" So it's really taken me a while to get to that place. What advice do you have for people that do that too?

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, one of the best tools, I think—I still have a paper planner, and I use Outlook, so I write this down, or I schedule it in—but I schedule in my things. For me, I schedule in the long shower so I can massage all the creams into my face. I schedule that in. I schedule my workout. I schedule my reading time. I block things out.

And my goal is to put one thing on my calendar every day that lights me up, whether it is turn on music and dance around the house or go play with the animals. I schedule in my things, and if something has to go, it's not the thing that I scheduled for me. Something else can go.

Laurie James: Love that. That is so important and such great self-care and self-regulating. Yes, that time for ourselves.

Lora Cheadle: Yes, because, again, it's about, what do I value, what do I cherish, what do I honor? What do I respect? If I need to respect and honor myself and my nervous system and my joy. Like, why would we even want to live if there was no joy? Honestly, why would you want to?

Laurie James: Because our society rewards us to not. Yeah.

Lora Cheadle: Yeah. So it's like putting in that joy first.

Laurie James: Yeah, yeah. And I think so many of us, that's like one of the first things to go, especially as women. And I think some men do it too, because I do have some men listeners. I think men do it too, but it's like we put other people first, especially if you have a family, you're putting other people first. And I think it's more so for women, because we have that nurturing side of us. I think that certainly shifts when you hit menopause and you're like, "Okay, that estrogen ain't there." It's like, "I'm not prioritizing anybody as much as I used to." So I think, you know, menopause has its benefits, and that's one of them.

But how has our society and social norms betrayed us, like both from men and women? How do you think they've betrayed us?

Lora Cheadle: So many different ways. Even just looking at my own infidelity story, which is the thing that started it all, my husband played the role of the man. He was strong. He was emotionless. He could handle anything. I played the role of the wife and the mom, and I took care of everything, and I did everything for everyone.

Well, what we didn't know was inside, he was dying, because he's a very soft, tender, emotional person, and he had this background of trauma, so he's putting on mask after mask after mask to try to show up as this manly man. And inside I am dying because I'm alone and I'm disconnected, and I'm drowning every moment of every day, and I'm getting nothing for me, and I'm putting on mask after mask after mask to be like, "It's fine, it's good. I'm sacrificing for the common good." We were both betrayed by society because neither of us felt empowered or had the skills to just show up and say, "I'm hurt, I'm sad. I can't do this anymore. This is what I need." We kept performing.

Laurie James: Yes. So, how so? How long have you been divorced?

Lora Cheadle: Shocker, I am not divorced. Okay. We separated after the infidelity happened. He started addressing his trauma, because he has a severe background in childhood trauma. I started getting really clear about myself, all the ways that I was betraying myself, and we ended up coming back together, and we've been together now for eight years.

Laurie James: How beautiful is that? It worked very well. Congratulations. Thank you. That is such a beautiful story that you... but it also speaks to the fact that both of you needed to do your own work, and both of you were willing to do your own work.

Lora Cheadle: Yes, yes, and I didn't do his work for him, and he didn't do his work for me. And I think that's huge, because so often we want to get into other people's business. "Well, I'm going to fix you because you're messed up."

Laurie James: I know, I'm guilty of that. I'm a good fixer. They don't call me Sergeant Charge for nothing.

Lora Cheadle: Yep, exactly. We all are. And especially, I think especially women: fix it, fix it, fix it. We'll over-achieve, we'll over-perform, we'll over-function.

Laurie James: Yeah. So you guys have been back together for eight years. I that's just it warms my heart to hear that. It really does. But on that topic, in your opinion, what is the root cause of... and we've, I think we touched on some of this, but I want to maybe dive into a little bit deeper, what is some of the root causes of betrayal?

Lora Cheadle: Expectation, going to the definition. It's the breaking of an expectation that ruptures your view of yourself or the world. So the question is, I have a three-pronged inquiry into this. What is your expectation? Mostly, we don't know. Mostly, we're just moving through life. We're really busy. We're really focused. When push comes to shove, what do you want? What do you expect from this person, this situation, this interaction? Whoa. We don't know. We're just moving. I'm just showing up. I expect it's going to work out. I don't really know. Identifying what it is that you want.

The second part of that is communicating. Have you communicated this expectation to the relevant person? Again, most of us are like, "Well, no. Everybody knows that you're supposed to get that..." No, no, communicate that expectation clearly to the other person. And if you can't, that's a clue that the expectation is probably unrealistic, because if I can communicate to another person, "I expect dollars for hours, I expect fidelity, I expect whatever it is." If I can communicate it, it's probably pretty realistic. If I can't communicate it: "I just expect. I don't know. I just want to feel good in this situation. I just want to be loved. I just want to be seen." Probably unrealistic.

And then that third step is, how do you advocate on behalf of yourself and that expectation? Because, again, we can't just toss it out there into the world and say, "I want a million dollars an hour. I expect a million dollars an hour. You're going to give it to me," and then not advocate for it.

Laurie James: And just expect it to happen all on its own. So, so I wrote them down. So the three prongs are: expectations, identify the expectation, then communicate, communicate your expectation, and then advocate for yourself after. Okay, so can we walk through that? Like, so if we have an expectation, let's just say, I don't know, I'm in a job or in a relationship, and I want to, let's say I want to go ask... we're in a job, and I want to go ask for a raise, and I expect, I've been working really hard, and I expect a whatever, four or five percent raise.

Lora Cheadle: Yes. So first of all, it's getting clear with yourself. "I expect between a four to five percent raise. Two percent is not going to cut it." I expect between four and five percent. So first of all, it's getting clear. Because sometimes people are like, "I just want more money." Well, what does that mean? Do you want one percent more? Do you want ten percent more? So you are getting clear in your expectation.

That can include maybe some research. You know what? This is the typical amount that people get paid. This is the typical amount of a pay increase after X many of years. This is absolutely what I expect in my position, etc.

Laurie James: Okay. And then communicating that, communicate, yeah, communicating that. Do I need to talk to HR about that? Is it my direct manager? What, what is the forum for doing that? Do I email somebody? Do I request a meeting? Do I talk about it in my annual review?

Lora Cheadle: And it's actually saying the words, because sometimes people are like, "Well, I went in for my annual review." Great. Did you say, "Based on X, Y, and Z, I expect a pay raise at the end of this term at around four to five percent"? Have you said those words? "Well, no, but they knew."

Laurie James: No, they didn't. Yeah. And then the third piece of this is advocating for yourself. So let's say you communicate it, and they're like, "Well, I don't know. You know, we've got budget cuts and things are a little tight right now. We've got all this, you know, global economic disruption happening, and so I don't, you know, if that can work, then what?" Yes.

Lora Cheadle: And that's that advocacy piece, and that is the piece that is most important. What is standard in this industry? What value do you bring the company? How can you save them more money? Let's talk about the cost of replacing an employee. Hiring and onboarding somebody is very expensive. They will actually save money giving you a raise than they would spend recruiting, training, yeah, letting you go, hiring, and going through that whole process.

And it's, it's not a threat. It's, I'm advocating. I am presenting the facts. I am presenting what I can bring. And again, this is why, when you do this, this is how it talks you back down from unrealistic expectations, because you are doing the research in order to advocate on behalf of yourself in your position. So you know with certainty, this is absolutely fair. This is the value that I bring. Let, you know, what if we do a trial program for three months? What if we do this? What if I have some ideas?

Laurie James: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Okay, I love this framework so much. Can we like, take an example for our listeners, of, like, a personal situation, right? So maybe that's an intimate relationship, and you have an expectation, or an expectation of your family, like, I don't know, let's make something up. What do you, what's, what's a good example?

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, and there's, there's so many good examples. Well, what I'm kind of torn with is, do we want a big, dramatic one, or do we want kind of a subtle, everyday one? Like, who's going to make dinner?

Laurie James: Oh, so many choices. Is there something in the middle? I don't know.

Lora Cheadle: Finances. Finances, that's my... Here's a basic one, okay, like, not overspending more than you make. Okay?

Laurie James: Let's do that, yeah. Some because, fine, money is a huge issue in relationships, so let's jump into that.

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, it's a huge one. Some people grow up living on credit cards, and that's completely valid, and that's how they do it. And sometimes you carry a debt, and sometimes you don't. Other people are like, cash for everything. You never charge anything.

Laurie James: Or you charge and you pay off your credit card at the end of the month.

Lora Cheadle: Yeah. So however you grow up is what you will perceive as normal, and everything else is somehow not quite normal, not quite right. So let's identify that. Is that first, what is my expectation? "Wow, I don't know. I just thought we did money the way we do money is the way you do money," and that it's all different. So it's identifying, just like you said, "We can put something big, like a vacation on a credit card and pay it off in no more than three months. We can put Christmas on a credit card, but only if we pay it off the next month." Like, what are all of these parameters? What are my expectations?

Laurie James: Yeah, yeah. Because that was a huge, huge issue in my marriage, money. It was also a controlling aspect in my relationship with my ex, but he had a very different expectation of how we would spend money than I did and, and especially as we got older and had a nice nest egg, I was like, "Okay, let's take that nicer vacation. Let's take the kids on a nicer vacation." And I feel fortunate. We were able to buy a second home and... but his expectations, we literally did not have a living, formal living room furniture in our house for the first 17 years that we owned that house.

We had a Little Tikes roller coaster in there.

Lora Cheadle: I love it.

Laurie James: I didn't. Yeah.

Lora Cheadle: But like that, identifying what the expectations are. And people will fight over this, because they don't take time to really go within and articulate, because it's hard. It's like, "It's just the way that things should be," according to who? So getting really clear, "This is what I expect. I expect furniture. I expect 50/50, or I expect proportioning between the amount of income we make."

Laurie James: Or I expect to save a certain amount for retirement, yes, out of our paycheck, or the maximum we can put in our 401K or whatever it is, yes. And then communication. So first, keep going on communication.

Lora Cheadle: "I" statements, not "we should." "It's wrong what you do." "You are negligent." "You are a spendthrift." It is "I." I am communicating my expectations. "I am most comfortable when we max out our 401K's every year. I prefer to pay off the credit card every month. I understand that sometimes a furnace can go out, or we might want a vacation, or it's a holiday, and I am okay rolling over a balance for about two to three months, but I don't feel comfortable continuing to overspend. I don't feel comfortable not balancing the checkbook."

Laurie James: Yeah, but what about if you feel like you're being responsible and you're trying to communicate with your significant other or spouse and they're not receiving it, or they brush you off when you do try and communicate with them?

Lora Cheadle: That's where the boundaries and the advocacy comes in, okay? And that self-betrayal, if you communicate. We communicate. We do all the things right, and somebody stonewalls, shuts us down, rolls over the boundaries, does whatever they want anyway, or shames you for spending money when you have the money.

Laurie James: Yes, yes.

Lora Cheadle: That is then that self-betrayal piece. How do I continue to honor myself and my wants and my needs?

Laurie James: We hide the clothes in the closet, exactly.

Lora Cheadle: It works for a while. It does, but it's like that. How do you keep your nervous system regulated and happy? Yeah. And sometimes, what's hard about that, and I'm just gonna say it, sometimes we can't come to a solution.

Laurie James: Yeah, yeah. And that's what eventually happened with me. I mean, this was just one of many, many pieces that was, you know, wrong with my marriage, but, and that's where I eventually came to. But that was a huge, huge issue for us, and I know finances are a huge issue for so many people out there, because we, if we're all raised differently,

Lora Cheadle: Yes, yes, and that's that's that advocacy piece, too. As you get clear on what you want, and they get clear on what they want, and you've communicated it, now it's almost like a checklist. We agree on this, we agree on this, we agree on this. We don't agree on this, don't agree on this, and don't agree on that. What are we going to do with that?

And it's about being clear: okay, I choose to get comfortable doing this part your way. I choose to let that go, because I value everything else in our marriage. It's so amazing that this one little piece I can choose to release, or that is an integral piece of who I am and what I believe, and I will be completely abandoning myself if I give in on that, and coupled with all of this other BS that I'm dealing with, it's a deal breaker. And it's hard to say something as a deal breaker. Yeah, really hard to say that.

Laurie James: Oh yeah, it's very hard now. Those are two wonderful examples. Thank you for walking us through that. I hope you got something out of that.

So as we come to an end, and I didn't mention this before we hit record, so, but what's one confession that you'd like to share with our listeners around this betrayal topic that we haven't talked about?

Lora Cheadle: There's so many, sadly. Yeah, exactly. I think the biggest confession, though, is that it's not all perfect all the time, and that sometimes it's so easy to listen to people or to get the script, 1-2-3, "It's so easy," and that it's not. And I think that's the confession, that it's moving up from the head to the heart to real life is a process, and I can understand it in my brain, and I can articulate it, and it doesn't always flow out in real life the way that I want it to.

Laurie James: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's true for all of us, you know. Like it's a journey, it's not a destination, and I used to hate that, but I've continued to get more and more comfortable with it, because we're all learning and we're human beings. We're not human doings, and we aren't perfect. Humans are not meant to be perfect, so yeah, how can we give ourselves that grace and and each other grace, as long as everybody's willing to admit that, "Yeah, I'm not, I'm not getting this perfect, but I'm trying. I'm trying, and I'm doing my own work."

Lora Cheadle: Yeah, and one of my favorite words is, willing. Are you just willing to keep showing up? Are you just willing to try? "I'm just willing. I'm here."

Laurie James: Yeah, willingness is so key, and that for sure. And where can people find you, Lora?

Lora Cheadle: My website is LoraCheadle.com, it's L O R A C H E A D L E, and they can download my betrayal recovery guide at betrayalrecoveryguide.com.

Laurie James: Beautiful. Thank you so much for this conversation. I'm looking forward to being a guest on your podcast soon too. I'd love to stay connected with you.

Lora Cheadle: Absolutely.

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 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.