[00:00:00] [00:01:00] [00:02:00] Well, hello, Dr. Debi. I’m so excited that you have joined the podcast. Welcome to the show. And I just want to tell my listeners, we met at a networking event in San Diego and we connected and just really want to unpack your story here today. And I just want to first thank you for being here. Thank you so much.

Looking forward to our conversation. Yeah. So when we met I was just intrigued by all the things you’ve done, right? And your intro, I’ve talked about your TEDx talks, which were phenomenal by the way, and we will link them here. But really how you became this founder of the Post Pandemic Betrayal transformation Institute, and we had discussed about betrayal.

What does that look like? So if you can take us and start us off the conversation today, talking about how you came upon this work and how [00:03:00] you stumbled into it. Yeah. I don’t think anybody says I think I want to study betrayal. You said it because you have to, I’m in business 33 years, it was health and then mindset and personal development.

And then I had a really painful betrayal from my family thought I did everything I needed to do to 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 I looked at the two experiences thinking what’s similar to these two, of course, me, but what else?

And I 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, So here it was four kids, six dogs thriving business. And I couldn’t find a book. On betrayal that would help me. I couldn’t find a program, a course.

So I enrolled in a PhD program in transpersonal psychology of transformation and human potential. And while I was there, I did a study. I studied betrayal and I was only hoping to heal. That was my only intention or goal. [00:04:00] And that study led to three groundbreaking discoveries, which changed my health, my family, my work, my life.

Yeah, I, love hearing about the pain to purpose story. One of my pains was over drinking and that led to the purpose I had, the calling I had on my life was like, how do I heal from this? How do I transform this habit? And then that became into this podcast. So talk to us a little bit more about these three discoveries, the beginning parts of your journey and what you’ve learned.

Yeah. Well, I, anybody who’s been through it, it’s so painful because this was the person or these were the people who gave you a sense of safety and security. So when this is the person, these are the people to shatter that very sense of safety and security. It’s traumatizing. But so I originally I was studying betrayal and post traumatic growth.

And for those who aren’t familiar, I look at post traumatic growth as sort of the upside of trauma. How any trauma. Death of a loved one, disease, natural [00:05:00] disaster, whatever can leave you with a new insight awareness perspective you didn’t have. But I had been through death of a loved one. I’d been through disease and I was like betrayal feels different for me.

I didn’t want to assume it was the same for all my study participants. So I asked them if you’ve been through other traumas besides betrayal, does it feel different for you? Unanimously? They said, my gosh, it’s so different. 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.

So it didn’t quite qualify as post traumatic growth. It’s like, yes, the invitation is to rebuild your life, but you also need to rebuild the self. So I coined a new term, post betrayal transformation, which is the complete and total rebuild of your life. And yourself after betrayal. So that betrayal is a different type of trauma that needs a different way to heal.

That was the first discovery. [00:06:00] And can you give us more about like, what does it take to heal that I imagine, when your sense of security and safety is rocked, that could be really painful and some deep work that one has to do. Oh boy. Yeah. Because think about it. If the person you trusted the most proves untrustworthy, who do you trust?

Right. If this is the one you run to another, people are causing harm. If that’s the one causing the harm, where do you go, right? It’s completely traumatizing, which is why we struggle physically, mentally, and emotionally. And this is real. That actually was the second discovery. What was discovered was there’s this collection of symptoms.

Physical, mental, and emotional so common to betrayal coined another term post betrayal syndrome. And we’ve had over 95, 000 people take our post betrayal syndrome assessment to see to what extent they’re struggling. A few things about that. We’ve all heard [00:07:00] time heals all wounds. I have the proof that when it comes to betrayal, that’s not true.

There’s a question on the on the assessment that says, is there anything else you’d like to share? And people write things like my betrayal happened 35 years ago. I’m unwilling to trust. My betrayal happened 15 years ago. It feels like it happened yesterday. So we know you cannot count on time. You cannot even count on a new relationship to heal it unless and until you deliberately and intentionally heal it.

It will follow you around in your health, in your work, in your relationships. Every few months though, I pulled the stats from the quiz to see where people land. I’m happy to share them if you want to hear some. Yeah, absolutely. And I imagine has you get betrayed, you start betraying yourself, right?

And you start falling into these unhealthy habits like drinking over eating, overworking, all kinds of things because it happens in a particular spot. And that’s what the third discovery talks about. But yeah, so these are now imagine [00:08:00] over 95, 000 people, just about every country’s represented. I share these symptoms though, pay attention to these numbers.

Cause that’s what I really want to stress. 78 percent constantly revisit their experience. 81 percent feel a loss of personal power. 80 percent are hyper vigilant. Think about how exhausting that is. 94 percent deal with painful triggers. And if you’ve ever had triggers, you know how painful they are.

These are the most common physical symptoms. 71 percent have low energy. 68 percent have sleep issues. 63 percent have extreme fatigue. You sleep all night. You wake up, you’re exhausted. You’re adrenal symptoms. tanked. 47 percent have weight changes. So in the beginning you can’t hold food down. Later on, you’re using food for comfort.

45 percent have digestive issues and that could be anything. Crohn’s, IBS, diverticulitis, constipation, diarrhea, you name it. The most common mental [00:09:00] symptoms, 78 percent are overwhelmed. 70 percent are walking around in a state of disbelief. 64 percent are in shock. 62 percent can’t concentrate. So just imagine you can’t concentrate.

You’re exhausted. You’ve got issue. Now you have to raise your kids. Emotionally, 88 percent experience, extreme sadness. 83 percent are very angry and you can bounce back and forth between those two all day long. Just a couple of more 79 percent are stressed. Here’s why I wrote trust again.

This one killed me. 84 percent have an inability to trust. Think about how that would impact you. 67 percent prevent themselves from forming deep relationships because they’re afraid of being hurt again. 82 percent find it hard to 90 percent want to move forward, but they don’t know how. Now, first of all, you didn’t hear me say one thing, 20%, 30%.

These numbers are super high. They’re also [00:10:00] not necessarily from a recent betrayal. So think about this. This could be from the parent who did something awful when you were a kid. This could be from the girlfriend, boyfriend who broke your heart in high school. This person may not know, care, remember, they may not even be alive.

And here we are decades later with these symptoms because it was left unhealed from something so long ago. Right. Yeah. The good news is you could heal from all of it, which was the third discovery. And I’m happy. Yeah. Yeah. Before we get there, it just reminds me of the book, the body keeps the score and how we experience any form of trauma, big T, little T betrayal is a type of trauma, right?

The body will hang on to that. And the mind hangs on to that. Like you talked about, I wrote, we wrote down. You called it something else, but I said 78 percent rumination, like constantly thinking about her revisiting it. Right. That’s like rumination. And if you’re constantly living in what happened 30 years ago, you are missing the opportunity of the present and the [00:11:00] future.

So I’m just like, wow, I’ve seen women do that. And. I know that could be so painful and it feels like an inability to move forward. So with that, I’d love to hear the third discovery. Yeah. And also I’ll share the third discovery. And if you remind me I can share the three groups who did not heal.

You’ll see why so clearly. So the third, for me, this was the most exciting and what was discovered was while we can stay stuck for years, decades, a lifetime. And so many people do, if we’re going to fully heal and by fully heal, I mean, going from those symptoms of post betrayal syndrome to that completely rebuilt place of post betrayal transformation, we’re going to go through five.

Proven predictable stages. And what’s even more exciting about that is we now know what happens physically, mentally, and emotionally at every stage. And we know what we need to do in order to move [00:12:00] from one stage to the next healing is entirely predictable. And I’m happy to share the stages if you want to hear them.

So stage one, I mean, it’s all mapped out in trust against all we do within the PPT Institute.

That’s what our coaches are certified. And here’s a boiled down version stage one. This 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 everybody, me too, was a heavy lean on the physical and the mental thinking and doing.

We’re so good at that, right. And neglecting or ignoring the emotional and the spiritual feeling and being, well, if the table only has two legs, it’s easy for that table to topple over. That’s us stage two. Shock trauma, D day, discovery day. This is the scariest out of all of the stages. And here’s where you get the news that forever changes your life, right?

This is the breakdown of the body, the mind, and the worldview. So right here, you’ve ignited the stress response. You’re now headed for every [00:13:00] single stress related symptom. Illness, condition, disease. Your mind is in a complete state of chaos and overwhelm. You cannot wrap your mind around what you just learned.

It makes no sense. And your worldview has just been shattered. Your worldview is your mental model. The rules that govern you trust this person. These are the rules. Don’t go there. Right? And in one earth shattering moment or series of moments, every rule you’ve been holding to be real and true is no longer.

The bottom has bottomed out on you and a 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. That’s stage three survival instincts emerge. This is the most practical out of all of the stages.

I bet a lot of your patients, clients are in this stage right here. If you can’t help me get out of my way, how do I survive this experience? Where do I go? Who can I trust? [00:14:00] Here’s the trap though. Stage three, by far, hands down, is the most common place we get stuck. And here’s why. Once we’ve figured out how to survive our experience, because it feels so much better, Then the shock and trauma of where we just came from, we think it’s good.

We’re like, okay, I got this. 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 plant roots here. We park here. We’re not supposed to, but we don’t know that.

And then four things happen. Like I’m sure you’re picturing so many people in your mind right now. Yeah. The first thing is we start getting all those small self benefits, right? We get our story. We love our story. We get to be right. We get sympathy from everyone. We tell our story to, and on some level we’re in so much [00:15:00] pain that feels good.

So we take it. And so we stay. And now, because we’re here longer than we should be. Now the mind starts doing things like maybe you’re not that great. Maybe you deserved it. Maybe that, Maybe that. And so we plant deeper roots. And now because we’re here longer than we should be like energy, it attracts like energy, right?

This is the message you’re putting out. So now we start attracting people and circumstances and even new relationships to confirm this is where we belong. Like, here’s where we joined that lame support group and we will actually sabotage our healing because we don’t want to outgrow our people. Right.

Here’s where we’re healing, but we’re afraid to outgrow our betrayer. So we sabotage our healing. It gets worse, girl. Get you out of here. Okay. Yeah. Well, no, I was thinking, I wonder if people stay here because they’ve learned to not trust. And so they don’t trust life will get better or that they can heal or that there is a better place or a way they can uplevel or evolve to.

A hundred [00:16:00] percent. And then when this becomes your world, now you’re medicating, suppressing, and all you’re doing is managing your symptoms. You’re not happy. You’re not good. You’re just surviving. And that’s just it. And so think about it now, it’s like we have to get through our day. So, so here’s where we start numbing, avoiding, distracting.

So we use food, drugs, alcohol, work, TV, whatever to numb, avoid, and distract. So we do it for a day. A week, a month. Now it’s a habit a year, 10 years, 20 years. I can see someone 20 years later and say that emotional eating you’re doing or that drinking. Do you think that has anything to do with your betrayal?

And they look at me like I’m crazy 20 years ago. All they did was put themselves in stage three and stay there. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I’ve worked with clients who’ve said, Oh, my drinking started during my divorce. And that was 12 years ago. Right. And he’s long gone. I’m healed, but I still have the drinking.

Yeah. And that means they’re not [00:17:00] healed that I wrote from hardened to healed just for stage three, because it’s like the people are like no, I’m really good as long as I don’t see them. No, it’s not healed. Right. So that’s a deep stage three. Anyway, if you’re willing, willingness is a big word right here, willing to let go of the small self benefits, 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. So here’s where you acknowledge I can’t undo what happened, but I control what I do with it right there in that decision. You’re turning down the stress response. You’re not healing just yet, but at least you stopped the massive damage you were picking up 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, whatever, like all your stuff isn’t there it’s not quite cozy, but you’re like, yeah, we got this. Like it’s that hopeful excitement. But think about it. If you were to move, you don’t [00:18:00] take everything with you and you don’t take the things that don’t represent the version of you.

You’re ready to be in this new space. And what I found was if your friends weren’t there for you, you don’t take them with you right here. That lame support group. You’re done. The betrayer who’s not changing. You’re done. And people ask me all the time. What the heck? I had these friends for years. Is it me?

Yes, it is. You’re undergoing a transformation. If they don’t rise, they don’t come. So very common to change friendships in this stage. Anyway, when we’ve settled into this space, we’ve made it cozy. We’ve made it home. We move into the fifth, most beautiful stage, and this is healing, rebirth, and a new worldview.

The body starts to heal, self love, self care, eating well, exercise, right? We didn’t have the bandwidth for that earlier. Now we do. The mind is healing. We’re making all kinds of new rules, all kinds of new boundaries. Based on the road we’ve just traveled. And we have a new worldview based on everything we see so clearly now.

And the four legs of that table in the beginning, it was all about the physical and the mental. [00:19:00] By this point, we’re solidly grounded because we’re focused on the emotional and the spiritual too. Those are the five stages. Wow. That’s a lot to unpack. And when you, work with people and go through these five stages, is there a timeline to expect?

I know everybody’s different. Everybody has a unique journey to healing. But what would you say is typical? Yeah it’s such a great question and I answer it the same way all the time. It has less to do with time than willingness. The more willing someone is, the quicker, the more quickly they’ll move through the five stages.

And listen, if they have a lifetime of trauma, like they, they had a betrayal from Family, and then they carry that into their relationships and that’s all they’ve known. There’s more work to do, but I’ve found willingness has more to do with it than everything. But to get back to the earlier question about the three groups who didn’t heal, this is also where it could be you can [00:20:00] never heal if you are doing these three things.

So the first group, this was the group that they had their story. They were sticking with it. Like they had so much invested in stage three. That was it. And here’s also, we have so many people coming into the PBT Institute with therapy trauma, the most well meaning therapists, but they’re not skilled in the five stages.

So if you’re feeling heard, validated, and understood, and you go along your way, You’re no closer to moving towards stage four than you were before you walked into that session. So you deeply rooted in stage three when you’re just sticking to your story and that’s it. The second group. This was the group that was numbing avoiding and distracting.

So maybe they ran to their doctor who put them on a mood stabilizer anti anxiety med. They were numbing, they were drinking emotionally eating, whatever may have made the day a bit easier now without a price they didn’t heal because they didn’t feel, [00:21:00] they didn’t feel it as deeply as the ones that face it, feel it, heal it.

The third group this was the group where the betrayer had very little consequences. So whether it was out of, financial fear was a big one not wanting to break up. A family religious reasons. That was another big one. They did all they could to turn the other cheek, look the other way. I saw two things with this group.

Number one, a further deterioration of the relationship. And two, this group was the most physically sick. Your broken heart can’t handle that. They had the most symptoms of post betrayal syndrome. So if you’re doing any of those three things it’s not a question of time. There’s you don’t heal that way.

Yeah. And I’d just love to make a comment on some of these as I was writing them down as you went through them. So like the first group you mentioned is so invested in their story and the words that just popped up as I work with [00:22:00] clients wanting to change their bad habits. To me it’s more of a, another way I would say it is a fixed mindset.

Like this is what happened. This, I don’t know if I want to use victim mentality but, like, I am really, stuck on seeing myself as an over drinker or I’m really, identifying with this story and somehow it served me along the way. And that’s why I’m keeping it, but I can’t even begin to see.

a growth mindset or a different mindset or from a different perspective. So I thought that was very interesting because we know a lot of the data around a fixed mindset. Exactly. It’s not very helpful. And I’m so glad you brought that up because here’s the thing too. You may say you want to heal, but , we can’t be without an identity.

So if you don’t see anything other than the person who’s drinking, you can envision like, where’s that? Where’s the target? [00:23:00] There’s nowhere to move towards when we can envision a version of ourselves who isn’t drinking anymore, who’s moved past their betrayal. Then there’s something to work towards. And I see this all the time because like, let’s say the person who is afraid.

To outgrow their betrayer or afraid to outgrow their friend group. But if you have friends who are already in a very different space, they can hold you to higher place, even if you don’t know exactly what that looks like. So I’m so glad you brought that up. It’s so true. Yeah. And now that you mentioned that, when I do gatherings with females, it could be retreats or I’m invited to a group of women that I know some of them, but not all of them.

And I go, we go out to dinner and I say, Oh, I’m not drinking. It’s interesting how some people will gravitate towards me and sit next to me. And I get this sense inside my body, like, wow, they just need a leader to show them A way where they don’t have to consume alcohol because maybe they’re shy or they’re [00:24:00] introverted or they don’t really want to drink, but they feel pressure.

Cause that’s what a lot of people do that they hang out with. So I love that you brought that up because I really love being that light for people to say, Hey, you can break free from this habit, even if it’s just one night, or this is how I do it. And this is how I proclaim my freedom from. Over eating my freedom from dessert, my freedom from alcohol, my freedom from, and to me, it’s a, it’s an uplifting place.

It’s not a place of deprivation. And I think a lot of people when they’re first navigating the waters, they feel like unstable or uncertain to leave the comfort zone. And so there’s, there is some fear with that and it could feel like deprivation, but I like that fixed mindset. Looks at it as deprivation, but you know, once you get into that growth mindset, it’s like, Oh no, wait, this is my freedom.

My chains are coming off. Yeah. I love that you brought that up. And I remember before I had the confidence to, to do that, I would, I’ll never forget. I was with a bunch of friends and they were always commenting on my, on how I would eat. Cause I [00:25:00] was eating pretty healthy and we were at a Mexican place and there were the tortilla chips and just, and I was eating like the whole basket of them almost just to show them.

Yeah. I’m just like you sort of thing. And then I was like, that’s really, why am I doing that? So then I turned into the one who orders first. So I put in that crazy order, this on the side, don’t have this, don’t have that. So that everybody else can feel more comfortable with all of their. Specific orders and things like that but it is it is the kind of thing where you, do need a little bit of support in the beginning.

And it’s so easy just to just to fall into that. Okay. Well I’m too uncomfortable to speak up. So I’ll just go along with it. And now in the world of betrayal, imagine what that looks like. Yeah. That feels unsafe and terrifying. Of course, especially it’s like, wait a second, a lot of times the betrayed protects the betrayer at their own expense.

Everybody loves the betrayer. So they’ll sort of take the hit [00:26:00] or they won’t say anything. They don’t get the support they need. They struggle and suffer in silence. They are struggling with all those symptoms of post betrayal syndrome. Oh my gosh. I love how you said that phrase, suffer in silence.

I was there for so long. And it’s like, when I realized I can’t help myself out of this drinking thing, let me just reach out to a coach. I mean that was a game changer. And so I just really want anyone listening to this. It’s like, you don’t have to suffer in science. There are plenty of people have walked your journey and are willing to help you find your journey and the way to heal on the way out.

Yeah. I love how you said that. And then number two, the people that didn’t heal are the people that continue to numb, avoid, distract. And I know many people in my realm, right? It feels so comforting and so safe and to stay with the alcohol and I used to call alcohol my friend and whine my friend and part of my identity and to leave that whether it’s with food or overworking or however it manifests in one’s life, to, [00:27:00] leave that.

You are faced with more emotions that come up that you may not have experienced or have this skillset yet to deal with. And so I love how when you take it away, it’s painful, right? You’re almost allowing the pain, but what happens when you get so much pain, you look for solutions. So if you’re always numbing the pain, you never get to a place where you’re so dissatisfied or so Wanting a different realm than the realm you’re living in.

If you keep numbing the pain with these like little things that don’t, you feel like, Oh, well, it’s keeping me safe, but is it keeping you safe? Is it keeping you healthy? Is it keeping you as the most vibrant, epic version of yourself? And if the answer is no, it’s really like, well, how can I let the pain be there?

So I can figure out a good solution, a different solution, a different path. That’s truly going to change me inside and heal me rather than just numb me. So I love how you pointed that out. [00:28:00] Yeah. And, that’s it. You mentioned safe. It’s also keeping you stuck, keeping you small, keeping you sick. It’s doing those things too.

But we when it comes to some like these deep traumas, you need to crash. It’s like, that’s that whole broken open thing. And, that’s when you have that dark night of the soul. And then you realize, wait a second, What am I tolerating here? Who do I, who am I ready to become? When you’re entering into stage four and I tell people you are deliberately and intentionally creating yourself, recreating yourself.

It’s like my kids used to all like Legos. Like imagine there’s just this Lego structure sitting in the corner of the room. It’s not good. It’s just there. Right. And now it just gets destroyed. The whole idea is, and the invitation is not to build what was right. Now you look and you’re like, you know what?

I don’t want to build it like that. I want this piece here. I want to do this. I want to add these colors. And you build something so intentional and so magnificent. You take [00:29:00] yourself on and you bring all the things you love and you leave behind everything that no longer serves. Like, here’s one thing I did.

I used to be so hard on myself. I was such a driver like work hard. And I would call myself all these names of lazy and whatever. And then I realized after betrayal, I don’t want to be like that anymore. I want to be kinder to myself. I would never say any of those things to my kids, to my friends.

Why am I treating myself like that? So I traditionally do things like if I’m driving, I know I’m going to get lost. It’s just what happens every time. It’s just what goes on. So I decided with those kinds of things that I do. Instead of criticizing, critiquing myself, now it’s simply adorable. So I do these things and now they’re just adorable.

And I do many adorable things. So it’s the whole idea that you get to look and say who do I want to be now? And you create this version of yourself that wouldn’t have existed [00:30:00] had that experience not happened. That’s trauma. Well, sir, that’s beautiful. I love the visual of the Legos. My daughter was a big Lego builder as well.

And they’re still all over the house, but, it’s, it is an image that we can tear down that and build it anytime we want. And we’ll probably go through that. Process a couple of times in our life or more than a couple of times, right? Several times during our life. And it may be because of betrayal, or it may be because of, we’re just sick and tired of being this version of ourselves.

And it feels better to be this version, a healthier version or a more secure, confident version, or, a more feminine version, or I’m not going to let society define. Success in that way, because that doesn’t feel good to me. That doesn’t feel like success. That feels like trappings, and so being able to say, Oh I know people use the new year as like a new start, but you can really. Rebuild or reconstruct those Legos [00:31:00] any time you want. And I love the story that you’re like, this is not a bad thing. This is something that I get to do because it honors who I want to be and where I’m going and, pulling away those labels and being so hard on ourselves.

Exactly. And rebuilding is always a choice where the, you rebuild yourself and move along. That’s what I did with my family. It wasn’t an option to rebuild with them. Or if the situation lends itself, if you’re willing, if you want to, you rebuild something from the ground up entirely brand spanking new with the person who hurt you.

And that’s what I did with my husband. Not long ago as to totally transform people, we married each other again, new rings. New vows, new dress, and our four kids is our bridal party. Never in a billion years would I have done anything like that if I wasn’t totally transformed, and for sure if he wasn’t either.

But when there’s a complete and utter death [00:32:00] and destruction of the old, That’s when you have the opportunity to birth something entirely new, entirely. What a story you have, what a transformation that has led to in your life. And I can tell you I’ve lost loved ones. I’ve been in the ICU for 11 days.

Nothing for me was as hard as rebuilding a brand new relationship with my husband. You take on everything you take on your ego. You take on every questioning. Why am I doing this? What’s, what example am I setting for my kids? What am I showing them? And it’s interesting because I used to be that woman who would judge other women for rebuilding something.

And I don’t know what it looks like to where there’s no consequences and you just, you’re together again. I couldn’t physically, mentally, and emotionally do that, but what’s required In order to truly have [00:33:00] something new. I’ve never done work like that ever. And just to give a flavor as we wrapping up here, What’s an important part of that process of stage five rebuilding, forgiveness.

And I know it’s a very heavily, charged word. It plays a huge role. You’re not ready for anything even close to that early on. So reach for acceptance first. And I remember reading a study that said, if you feel safe and valued. And you forgive, you feel better. If you do not feel safe and valued and you forgive you feel worse.

And I thought, well, forgiving is just for our sake anyway, to release the power that pain has over us. So I changed the word, what would it look like if we changed the word forgive to rebuild? And it would sound like this. If you feel safe and valued and you rebuild. You feel better. If you do not feel safe and valued and you rebuild, you feel worse.

So forgiveness is something we want to [00:34:00] do for ourselves. Rebuilding has a tremendous amount to do with the other person as well. We don’t have to do anything, but when it comes to rebuilding that has so much to do with them. Can I give you a quick analogy of what a metaphor of what this looks like?

Okay. Yes, please. So I see a lot of this, like I see rebuilding trust as a brick wall. The only way I know of a brick wall being built is brick by brick, right? Every opportunity someone has to show that they’re trustworthy. That’s one brick in that brick wall takes a long time. Now imagine one day they smashed down the entire thing.

The person who’s betrayed 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 the betrayed person says I’ll stick around to watch that get rebuilt, that’s their only job. The other person has to be a really good bricklayer.

And it goes back up the same way it went up the first time, brick by brick. Here’s what I [00:35:00] see though. I see the brick wall go up, get torn down. The betrayer doesn’t have much of an interest in rebuilding it. So the betrayed is like, fine, I’ll do it. No, that’s not your job. That’s why they’re hypervigilant.

That’s why they don’t trust. That’s why they have all those symptoms. It’s not theirs to do. Rebuilding has a tremendous amount to do with the person who broke the brick wall. And can you touch upon safety? Cause I feel safety comes up whether people. Recognize it at first. Maybe not. But as I’m coaching clients and working with them when you start to remove something that they leaned on for safety and I’m using food and alcohol a lot because those are the clients I help mostly, how do you help them find that safety again when the, when they feel so untethered and unsafe?

What, I found, to, to be the simplest route is lean on the five stages until you can lean back on [00:36:00] yourself because there’s they do lack the trust completely. That was actually why there was a big move towards spirituality too. And I was like, I was seeing that with everybody and I was like, what’s up with that?

Whether it was. Some of them abandoned religion completely. They felt religion didn’t serve. They moved towards the spiritual side of their religion. They weren’t doing much and became spiritual. I was like, why is that actually two things? One, they needed a sense of connection with something bigger, other than them.

And the second thing was. This was the person they trusted the most who proved untrustworthy. So then the ripple effect of that is, well, if I can’t trust the person I trust the most, how do I trust in myself? I don’t trust my own discernment. I don’t trust my own ability to make decisions. Well, if I can’t trust myself, how in the world can I trust this person or that person?

I can trust in something bigger or other than me. So you lean on, the, [00:37:00] spiritual piece or the, spiritual side of your religion, whatever. And I found with the, people that I come across my path lean into the five stages until, and trust in the five stages until you can trust in yourself again.

Yeah. And I like how you mentioned connection because that Ted talk about any type of addiction is a disconnect from oneself, a disconnect from others, and then just holding on to something that we think is providing us some level of benefit, but ultimately we know it’s not, and it’s just further disconnection with ourselves, our emotions, our spirituality we want to disconnect sometimes from those painful ruminating thoughts, but that further just drives down the whole spiral process into a negative place.

So I love that you brought in that connection piece, whether they find it internally spiritually, however, they navigate that connection back to themselves where they learn to begin to trust themselves. And when you trust yourselves and when you trust yourself, Slowly working to trusting others.

Beautifully [00:38:00] stated. Well, Dr. Debbie, is there anything else you want to leave with our audience as we wrap up? I would just say if, you have to say this a hundred million times, it’s worth it until you believe it, even though it happened to you, it’s not about you. And that’s the truth if someone does have an addiction, let’s say you’re in a relationship with someone who has some sort of addiction, you’re, of course, the relationship is struggling and you’re you’re struggling with that person’s addiction, but you don’t take it personally as opposed to when it’s another.

You do. So, but it really has nothing to do with you. It’s that person’s unhealed trauma, that person’s sense of entitlement, that person’s issues, not making an excuse at all. They need to do the work to, clean that up, but it has nothing to do with you. That’s powerful. One big takeaway I took was if you want to [00:39:00] change, you have to be willing.

So thank you for that truth bomb and saying that in the beautiful way that you’ve articulated that. Well, Dr. Debbie, if people want to learn more about these five stages and how to work with you, where should we send our audience? Thank you. Everything is at the PBT as in post betrayal transformation, the PBT institute.

com. Yes. And I highly encourage the audience to check out your two Ted talks. They were phenomenal. I learned a lot from them. They were your very great orator as well. So I will definitely link those in the show notes. And again, thank you for coming on the podcast today. Thank you so much.