Reclaiming Power After Betrayal: Finding Healing, Freedom, and Self-Worth with Lora Cheadle

Note: Our Podcast, “A Year and A Day”, was created to be heard, but we provide text transcripts to make this information accessible to everyone. All transcripts on our website are created using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and could contain errors.

Jaime – 00:00:05:

Welcome to A Year and a Day. I’m Jaime Davis, board-certified family law attorney at Gailor Hunt. On this show, I talk with lawyers, psychologists, and other experts with the goal of helping you navigate divorce without destruction. In this episode, I’m talking with Lora Cheadle about navigating the feelings of betrayal during and after divorce. Lora is an attorney, TEDx speaker, and betrayal recovery coach who helps women heal from betrayal on an energetic, soul, and ancestral level so they can rise from the ashes, reclaim their identity, self-trust, and self-worth, and reign as the sovereign queens of their own lives. After being shattered by her husband’s 15 years of infidelity, Lora knows firsthand the skills and strategies necessary to turn devastation into a powerful invitation and initiation for healing, freedom, and joy. She is licensed to practice law in California and Colorado, is a trauma-aware coach, clinical hypnotherapist, somatic attachment therapist, advanced integrated energy practitioner, and is certified to teach yoga, mindfulness, group fitness, and personal training. She is the author of the International Book Awards finalist and tattered cover bestseller, Flaunt!: Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy & Spiritual Self. And host of the FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity or Betrayal. Thanks for joining me, Lora.

Lora – 00:01:42:

Thank you for having me, Jamie. I’m really looking forward to our conversation.

Jaime – 00:01:48:

So you describe betrayal as an opportunity for healing, freedom, and joy. How can someone in the thick of betrayal begin to see it as an opportunity for growth rather than only pain?

Lora – 00:02:01:

Yeah, it’s so hard because when you’re in the middle of it, it hurts and it crushes your spirit and soul. And I think two things. First of all, be aware that there is life on the other side. And while you’ve got that awareness, give yourself the time to grieve, to lay on the floor and cry, to feel hopeless, to rant, to sob, to do whatever you need to do to let those emotions flow. Because when we let our feelings out. That’s the first step in moving through. It’s just not getting stuck there, letting them out, moving through with awareness.

Jaime – 00:02:47:

Yeah, I can imagine that if you don’t deal with the grieving and those feelings that you are just going to be stuck and you’re not going to be able to move past the betrayal that you’re feeling.

Lora – 00:02:57:

Yeah, absolutely. And I always want to be cautious because I do want to give people awareness that there is something on the other side. There’s something better on the other side that you might imagine, but also to not. Throw false positivity at it because for the first three, six months, maybe even year, it hurts and it’s awful and it’s devastating. And you’re not doing something wrong if you feel awful for that first year or so. You’re not. Allow yourself the time and space to grieve. Betrayal has disrupted your entire worldview and your view of yourself. That’s why it’s so devastating. And it’s not something we can just decide to get over and move on from because we want to. We need to grieve.

Jaime – 00:03:52:

Can you share the moment you realized you wanted to use your own experience with betrayal to help others heal from similar experiences?

Lora – 00:04:01:

Yes. It wasn’t a single moment. It was kind of a compilation of moments. The first was maybe six months into my own journey. I had this awareness that, prior to this experience, I was a happy, joyful, positive person. I trusted people. I had fun in life and that I was becoming that quintessential, bitter old lady that we’ve seen. And I kept thinking, but that’s not me. That’s not who Lora is. And if I become this woman, I have let my partner win. I’ve let the other people win. And I’m not giving them that much power. I am not letting these people destroy my life. This is my life and this is who I am. And I’m going to go back to being who I am. That was my first moment. The other moments kind of came along the way when I was getting help, when I was reaching out to other people, when I was interviewing people. There’s some great help out there and there’s also some not great help out there. And when you’re in a space like this where you hurt so bad and you’re so vulnerable, it’s really easy to believe what you’re being told. And I had several different situations where people would be telling me what this experience meant for me. And they were telling me what my future would become. And I kept thinking. Maybe that was true for you, but it’s not going to be true for me. And I started building again that awareness that there’s a lot of different possible outcomes here. And what I focus on matters. And what I fill myself up with matters. And that’s what I want to start doing for other people is to help give them that awareness that it’s not just one end to this story. You have a lot of power to choose.

Jaime – 00:06:03:

Oh, I love that. And that’s something that I say to my clients who have dealt with infidelity in their marriages. It is just part of the story. It does not have to define you or your life experiences. It is an event that it happened to you and it’s terrible. And like you mentioned earlier, you do need to grieve that, but You can move on and you can get past it and you can be better on the other side.

Lora – 00:06:30:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jaime – 00:06:33:

What does healing on an energetic soul and ancestral level look like in practice? And why is it so essential to the recovery process?

Lora – 00:06:44:

Yeah, this is something that I’m really passionate about because when we think about healing from betrayal, what does that really mean? And what I ask my clients to do is to go back, to think about how they were raised. So many women, especially, are taught to be good girls. If you’re a good girl, good things will happen to you. If you are pretty enough or kind enough or smart enough or good enough, nothing’s ever going to go wrong for you. You’re going to get the gold star. You’re going to get the grade. You’re going to get the perfect relationship. And it’s just part of our culture. It’s the way that we’re raised. We have this belief that if we do things right, things will turn out for us. And sadly, that’s not true. And sadly, if you look throughout history, women have often been put in the position of being betrayed. Whether it’s that women weren’t able to open bank accounts, have mortgages, start businesses, divorce laws did not favor women, if they could even get it in the past at all. We have a long history. Think about Salem witch trials. Women have been betrayed by society for a long time, and we have kind of been taught that it’s okay. Think about the Cinderella story. It’s okay that you’re oppressed. If you’re good enough and kind enough, things will work out for you in the end. That’s a real betrayal of self. That is a shift in understanding. So when I talk about healing on an energetic, soul, and ancestral level, it’s rewriting that narrative for yourself. It’s understanding that bad things do happen to good people. And if you do everything right, things can still go wrong. And it doesn’t say anything about you. And it’s also understanding that the solution is not being thinner or richer or kinder or a better wife. The solution is turning inside to yourself, healing your own patterns of self-betrayal and self-worth. Stepping back into your sovereignty and creating yourself. Your life and your world around you anew.

Jaime – 00:09:06:

That is so powerful. I recently recorded a podcast and the guest said to me, the woman who loves herself is unstoppable. And I cannot get those words out of my head. I think they are so, so powerful.

Lora – 00:09:21:

I love that. They are powerful. And isn’t that the truth?

Jaime – 00:09:26:

Absolutely. So what are some small but powerful steps someone can take to start rebuilding, reclaiming self-trust in themselves?

Lora – 00:09:38:

Yeah, absolutely. The steps that I advise are encapsulated in the acronym FLAUNT. And what I love about just the acronym FLAUNT is how do you feel when things are going wrong? You feel like you’re shrinking. You feel like your chest is collapsing. You feel compressed. You feel like you’re folding in. You feel powerless. You feel the opposite of the energy around the word flaunt. So the first thing is to keep that word flaunt in mind and to keep thinking about the energy of expansion, of showing up, of not letting your shame, your guilt, your fear collapse and compress you. So that’s the first thing is remember that word flaunt. The second thing is, and I’ll walk you through the five steps of FLAUNT quickly. F. Stands for find your fetish. And I use the word fetish with intention because to say, find your joy, find your bliss, find your happiness. We’ve all heard that and it kind of becomes meaningless. But when you hear the word fetish, you’re like, what is that? So it already brings a smile to your face and it causes you to lean in more and to think, what does bring me mass amounts of joy? To remember to do things for yourself every single day that you can’t wait to do. The next step, L in FLAUNT, is for laugh out loud. When we’re stressed, when we’re hurt, when we’re afraid, we go to the survival portion of our brain and we move into a state of fight, flight, or freeze where we physiologically cannot think or make rational decisions because we are no longer in the prefrontal cortex. We’re all the way back here. According to the Mayo Clinic, laughter is the number one way to calm and re-regulate the nervous system to pull us back into that prefrontal cortex so we can make rational decisions, so we can pull back, look at the scope of our entire life, and make decisions from a rational point of view. The A-U in FLAUNT, F-L-A-U. I call that the golden center of FLAUNT because that’s where so much of the magic happens. A-U stands for accept unconditionally. Most of our pain, emotional pain, is caused by not accepting where we’re at. By wanting to be somewhere different, by wanting other people to be different than they are. When we accept unconditionally, it’s not saying give somebody a free pass. It’s not saying don’t fight, don’t strive, don’t do whatever. But if you accept where you’re at. There’s this sense of calm that permeates your being. And you can start making steps forward. That are the exact right steps. I like to say it’s like a GPS. If you put in the starting location and the destination, you’re going to get there. When you accept unconditionally, you’re giving yourself a starting location that is accurate. But if you’re not accepting unconditionally, if you’re like, my partner’s going to change, I’m going to change, the system’s going to change, this is going to change, that’s putting in an incorrect starting position. And the directions are going to be meaningless. And you’re going to have a lot of struggle getting to your destination because the starting location is incorrect. So accept unconditionally, and that way you’ll know your most immediate next steps. Speaking of next steps, the next step in flaunt is N, and that stands for navigate the negative. We all think divorce, life, marriage, whatever, is linear, A to B to C to D. And it’s just not. And when you start thinking about it more like a game of how to navigate. It makes it less stressful. It’s not like, oh my gosh, he did this and he did that. And then you’re like, okay, how do I stay present? How do I accept unconditionally what is? And how do I choose what to do next? Who do I reach out to for support? And how do I navigate? And then the very last step, T in FLAUNT, stands for trust in your truth. You’re the only one who knows how you feel. You’re the only one who can make decisions for you and your life. Yes. Seek expert help. Yes, listen to podcasts, read books, integrate all that. But at the end of the day, the decisions that you make are for you. It’s not your mom’s life. It’s not your best friend’s life. It’s not your partner’s mother’s sister’s best friend’s life. It’s your life. Trust your truth and move ahead. And when you do that, when you flaunt, that’s how you come back home to who you are and how you overcome feelings of betrayal.

Jaime – 00:14:44:

That is so great, especially the accepting unconditionally part. I feel like that is something I could talk to a lot of my clients about, that they just need to accept the position that they are currently in. So that they can then begin to navigate the steps forward to get through it and to come out on the other side.

Lora – 00:15:05:

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s hard to do because we don’t want to admit to certain things. We don’t want to do it. But until we do, we’re just spinning.

Jaime – 00:15:17:

Right, and at the end of the day, you cannot control your spouse’s behavior. You just can’t. And the only thing you can control is… How you react to their behavior. And a lot of times for divorcing women, That’s how they start to regain their power, in my opinion, is they come to that realization and they learn that every action by their spouse doesn’t necessarily deserve a reaction, that sometimes it’s okay to just… Let it go and control how they react to the situation.

Lora – 00:15:51:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And you’re right about power, because when we’re letting somebody else dictate how we are, who we are, what we do, we’ve completely given up our power.

Jaime – 00:16:04:

Right. And that’s where it’s so easy, especially for women, I think, to lose themselves and who they are.

Lora – 00:16:11:

Yeah, because we think we can fix it. And that goes back to that cultural piece that I was talking about, energetic and ancestral. We’re supposed to fix it. We believe that it is our job to fix it. It’s our job to take care of things. It’s our job to put it all together again. And you know what? Sometimes it’s just not because, when somebody else is determined to break it, it’s gonna get broken. Absolutely. How can someone recognize

Jaime – 00:16:37:

and address the deeper impacts of betrayal, especially those that might extend beyond the divorce itself?

Lora – 00:16:46:

Yeah. Let’s start with the definition of betrayal because sometimes just going back to that definition is enough. Betrayal is defined as the breaking of an expectation. That you have relied on, that you have materially relied upon. That ruptures your view of yourself. Or the world. And if you think about that decision, we have materially relied upon our spouse, our marriage, emotional support, financial support. We’re going to grow old together. This is how vacations, holidays, families, there’s so much that we have relied on. And when that expectation is broken, it ruptures our view of ourselves because we think, how could I have been so stupid? What’s wrong with me? What did I do wrong? Or And, and, and, or, it’s ruptured our view of the world. Why are people so awful? Why can’t I trust this? What’s wrong with people today? What’s happening with the state of our… A state of our world with a state of marriages. It disrupts all of that. And when you think about how significant that is. Rebuilding your identity. Rebuilding your worldview? It takes a lot. It’s truly analogous to thinking about something that you care about. We were just done with the election. So just think about the elections. Think about whatever side you’re on. If somebody all of a sudden told you conclusively that everything you believe is wrong and that the other side is right, and you know conclusively that that is true because… That’s a huge shift. Can you imagine how much rethinking and rejigging you’d have to do? It’d be like, but. Wait. That’s what betrayal does. It’s the trust that you have placed in everyone and everything. You’re now being told, oops, guess what? It’s the opposite of what you thought. That’s significant. That takes a lot of effort and time to rebuild. That’s why betrayal is so tough. And that’s why it’s so long lasting because you can’t just figure it out and get over it in a week.

Jaime – 00:19:09:

Well, and I think too, it causes the person who has been betrayed to second guess everything, right? Like decisions that prior to the betrayal, they would have been perfectly confident in making once that happens to them. I think they start to second guess their own instincts and whether or not the action that they’re taking is the right path.

Lora – 00:19:33:

Yes. I have had so many clients say to me, what’s wrong with me? My picker is broken. Why did I not see these red flags? Well, you didn’t see them because you were doing the right thing. You were trusting your partner. You were trusting the relationship. You were not being hypervigilant. You were giving people the benefit of the doubt. Good people get betrayed. I mean, that’s the nature of betrayal. And it’s not that you’re doing something wrong. But you’re right. Then it’s really hard to go forward and be like, well, hey, I was totally fooled. In my case, for 15 years, my husband cheated. I did not know. I would like to think of myself as a smart, aware person. I did not know. So it’s really hard then to say, if I couldn’t trust myself then, how can I trust myself now? And if I couldn’t trust other people then, why are you telling me that I can trust people now? That’s a really large gap to close.

Jaime – 00:20:35:

Oh, definitely. And one of the things that I tell my clients is that you can trust your spouse, but just keep your eyes open. Women’s intuition is a thing. And if something doesn’t feel right to you for some reason, there may be something there. Maybe not, but there could be. And so you don’t have to turn into your own private detective, but keep your eyes open and look for signs. And that way, if there is something there, maybe you won’t be so blindsided in the future.

Lora – 00:21:07:

Yeah. I love that you said women’s intuition because it’s true. It is so true. Trust what you’re feeling. And one of the gifts of betrayal is we’re wiser after. It’s not just in relationships. It’s in business. It’s in all areas of life. Now we know. The blinders are off and we can move forward. Now we know. Now we also know that we’re strong enough to trust our intuition. We’re strong enough to deal with the fallout and that we can handle it and we can protect ourselves because so often we don’t advocate on behalf of ourselves. And that’s a huge gift of betrayal is finding that strength, that drive, and the ability to start advocating on behalf of yourself in all situations.

Jaime – 00:21:57:

Well, and it doesn’t have to be a defining experience, but it should certainly be a learning experience. And proving to yourself that you were strong enough to get through it, to deal with it, and to come out on the other side. And I think that can be so empowering for so many women to just learn that life lesson.

Lora – 00:22:19:

Yes, absolutely. It’s very empowering. It’s not fun. It’s not fun at all, let me tell you. But I also wouldn’t trade the woman I have become because of that experience for anything. And that’s something that I really want people to know. You will become a stronger, better version of yourself.

Jaime – 00:22:41:

What are some ways to process feelings of anger and blame constructively so that they don’t define the healing journey?

Lora – 00:22:49:

Yeah, I love that. Several different things. You can journal it out. Journaling is powerful. Whether you use journal prompts or you just sit down and you start writing rage letters or whatever it is, that helps it come out. You can write letters to your spouse, to your former spouse, to the universe, to your former spouse’s mother. You can write letters to anybody and just not send them. I’m also a huge proponent of movement. As you said in my bio, I’m a somatic attachment therapist. And somatics is just the process of using the body. When our nervous system is activated, we go into fight, flight. Or freeze. Fight and flight, pump up the adrenaline. When that adrenaline is pumping in our body and we’re like, I can’t believe he just did this. You can’t just talk your body into processing the adrenaline. Move. Shaking is a big thing that helps. Shake your hands, shake your shoulders, shake like your dog when your dog stands up from a nap and they do a full body shake. Shake your legs, stomp. If you’re at work, go into the restroom and jump up and down and stomp and squeeze your fists. Do something that activates muscle, breath, help that adrenaline flow through. If you like working out, run it out, run up a hill. I also like to tell people to move in a way that is opposite to how they’re feeling. What I mean by that is if you’re in a state of grief and you’re shut down and you’re frozen and I can’t get off the floor. What is the opposite of can’t get off the floor? It’s moving. So find a movement. How can I move? How can I move quickly? How can I find a movement in my body that is in opposition that’s going to help break me out of that frozen state? If you’re feeling weak, lift weights, do some pushups, do a squat. It builds strength. When you’re moving your body in a way that proves I have strength. You start becoming. Emotionally strong as well. So use that body to help you process, to help you get through, get out of the mind, get into the body and let those things flow.

Jaime – 00:25:24:

Yeah, I am a huge advocate of self-care when it comes to folks going through divorce. And one of the things that we recommend is that folks exercise, whatever works for them, right? Whether it’s take the walk, go to the gym, whatever it is. But taking care of yourself makes you mentally healthier so that you can help your lawyer get through this process, right? We need our clients to be mentally healthy so that we can best represent them and get the best outcomes for them that we can. And a big part of that is exercise, eating well, sleeping, all of the things.

Lora – 00:26:06:

Absolutely. Something that I always tell my people, too, is use music. Even if it’s just one song, turn on one song, blast it out. If you want to dance to it, dance. I, a lot of Smorissette, she has a lot of great rage music. Turn on a song, listen to those lyrics, cry, scream, rage, dance. Literally after those two and a half minutes, you’re going to be like, whew, I feel better. And then you’re right. You’re paying your professionals to help you, but they can’t help you unless you help yourself. So take care of yourself.

Jaime – 00:26:43:

So your professionals can better serve you. From a legal perspective, what are some unique challenges people face when navigating divorce after infidelity, and how do you think they can best prepare for them?

Lora – 00:26:57:

Yeah, that’s great. First is realizing that there’s legal remedies. And there are remedies that are not legal remedies. We all want that Perry Mason moment in court where you point at your spouse and say, he’s the cheater in the entire courtroom. And the judge goes, ah, that’s not going to happen. That’s not going to happen. Legal remedies are not emotional remedies. It has nothing to do with the judgment of how good a person is or what they did to you. So I think the first… First thing to be aware of is how to distinguish what is the legal remedy. Your lawyer will get you divorced. You can set maintenance, child support, whatever it is, division of parenting time, division of assets. Those are legal remedies. You’re going to get that emotional satisfaction somewhere else. But not in a courtroom. Your lawyer is not doing anything wrong. When they encourage you not to bring emotions into the case, they’re doing something right. They’re giving you the legal remedies that are available to you and you need to deal with the rest of that somewhere else.

Jaime – 00:28:16:

Oh, absolutely. Folks are shocked to learn that in North Carolina, marital misconduct, adultery is really not relevant to a lot when it comes to resolving a divorce case. Is it relevant to spousal support? Yeah, it is. But when it comes to the property division, child support, in most cases, child custody, it’s just really not even that relevant. And that can be very disappointing for the spouse who has feel, you know, they feel betrayed by their spouse.

Lora – 00:28:51:

Yeah, absolutely. It goes back to the whole concept of the scarlet letter. We do want our spouse to run around with a scarlet letter on their chest forever. And I get that. I wanted that too, but ultimately it doesn’t help. It really doesn’t help. What helps you is figuring out how you want to be on the other side, who you want to be on the other side, and what you need to help create that kind of life on the other side. Future focused, future focus, future focus, future focus is what’s going to help you. And I also want to be really, really clear that the person who cheats is the problem. You’re not the problem. There can be contributing factors that led to a bad marriage or an unsatisfying marriage. But the person who cheats is the one with the problem. They are the person who is unable to define or understand their dissatisfaction. They’re the ones that are unable to communicate their dissatisfaction. They are the ones that have limited tools in their toolbox. I like to say that cheating is a tool that people use sometimes to try to make themselves feel better, whether it’s because they’re having a midlife crisis and they feel old and irrelevant and useless, whether it’s because they’re dissatisfied in a marriage and they don’t know why and how and they feel worthless. It’s a self-worth problem, for the person who is the cheater. It doesn’t say anything about you. It’s about them, their dysfunction. Like you said, there might be contributing factors, but it’s about them and that they don’t know how to do anything better. So they use this completely dysfunctional tool in a desperate attempt to take care of themselves. And it never works. And it’s not about you. And yes, we all do things wrong. But you didn’t cause this. You did not. Unless you held a gun to your spouse’s head and said, you will go out and cheat on me right now. You didn’t cause it. You didn’t cause it.

Jaime – 00:31:01:

For those who feel shattered by betrayal, what advice would you give them about creating a life they love despite the pain and loss that they may still feel?

Lora – 00:31:10:

Mm-hmm. I like to tell people, yes, you feel like you’ve been broken. You feel like you’ve been shattered. But when you can reframe it that I have been broken open. I have been broken open for something more. I have been broken open for good so I can rebuild. That’s the first step is you’re not broken. You’ve been broken open. And it hurts. Think about the seed. It has to break open in order for that shoot to start growing. It’s hard. You’re going to be pushing through the darkness for a while. But you get one life. And truly, the way you live that life is up to you. Yes, you’ve been victimized by this. But choosing to be a victim is choosing an identity. Are you going to choose to be a victim for the rest of your life? Or are you going to choose to be a conscious co-creator of your life? Most of us don’t want to live as victims. Most of us don’t want to be miserable. If you’re going to live to, what, 80 years old, how many years do you have left? How are you going to use those years? And then also for the people that are around you, for your kids, for your family. Is this what you are going to model for them? But if something bad happens, you quit. That’s not who I am. That’s not how I want to show up for my kids. I’m in my mid-50s. I plan on living until my 80s. That’s a lot of years that I can either be miserable or I can be joyful. So the question is, what have you been broken open to create?

Jaime – 00:33:03:

If you could give only one piece of advice to someone going through a divorce, what would it be?

Lora – 00:33:11:

To stay aware of your future. This is one chapter. This will be in your past. Think about reading a novel. There’s always those stressful, angst-filled chapters. This is one chapter. At the end of the day, it’s going to wrap up. It’s going to wrap up on a really good note. So stay aware this is only a moment in time. And you get to create the rest of the story.

Jaime – 00:33:41:

That is wonderful advice. Thank you, Lora, for joining us.

Lora – 00:33:45:

Thank you so much for having me.

Jaime – 00:33:52:

Thank you for listening. If you like this episode, be sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss the next one. While the information presented is intended to provide you with general information to navigate divorce without destruction, this podcast is not legal advice. This information is specific to the law in North Carolina. If you have any questions before taking action, consult an attorney who is licensed in your state. If you are in need of assistance in North Carolina, you can contact us at Gailor Hunt by visiting divorceistough.com. I’m Jaime Davis, and I’ll talk with you next time on A Year and a Day.