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Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Dr. Keesha Ewers is an integrative medicine expert, Doctor of Sexology, Family Practice ARNP, Psychotherapist, herbalist, is board certified in functional medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, and is the founder and medical director of the Academy for Integrative Medicine Health Coach Certification Program. Dr. Keesha has been in the medical field... Read More
Dr. Debi Silber is a holistic psychologist, a health, mindset and personal development expert and the author of the #1 bestselling book: The Unshakable Woman: 4 Steps to Rebuilding Your Body, Mind and Life After a Life Crisis. Her recent PhD study on how we experience betrayal made 3 groundbreaking... Read More
- Sort out how betrayal is a different type of crisis that requires a different way to heal
- Identify the five stages you must go through to heal from betrayal
- Learn to spot the physical, mental, and emotional symptoms of Post Betrayal Syndrome
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Hi, everyone, welcome back to the Healing Your Energy Body summit. This is reverse autoimmune disease summit 5.0. So we’ve gone through lots of different layers of how to reverse autoimmune disease and with this particular layer, we’re going to be talking to Dr. Debi Silber, one of my dear colleagues and friends who is the founder of the Post Betrayal Transformation Institute and is a holistic psychologist, a transformational expert, the author of Trust Again, and is a two time number one international bestselling author of The Unshakeable Woman and from Hardened to Heal. Her podcast from Betrayal to Breakthrough is also globally ranked within the top 1.5% of podcasts. Her recent doctoral study on how we experienced betrayal and three ground breaking discoveries that change how long it takes to heal. In addition to being on several media channels, including the TEDx stage twice, she’s an award-winning speaker and coach dedicated to helping people move past their betrayals, as well as any other blocks, preventing them from health, work, relationships, confidence, and happiness that they want most, welcome.
Dr. Debi Silber
So great to be with you, my friend, looking forward to this conversation.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Me too, because when we talk about healing the energy body, the paradigm that I show to our viewers is from Ayurvedic medicine, which is the pancha kosha or five layers of us, five sheaths. So we have this physical body that has our DNA and our organ systems and all the things we feed in water and take for walks. And then we have this energy body that’s right next to it. And then we have next to that, our emotional body, and from their higher self and what we call anandamaya kosha or bliss sheath, which is our portal into the collective unconscious that Yoon talks about and pure bliss, the place that we’re free of all of our emotional trauma and disease and where we really wanna have access to all the time, but when we have toxicity in the other layers, then we don’t get as great access to that joy and bliss. And so healing the energy body, of course, there’s so many different things that contribute to toxicity there and one of them is the human experience of betrayal. And so I would love to have you tell your story a little bit, because I mean, you went to school to study this and you help people detoxify that emotional layer so it doesn’t affect their genetic expression badly, doesn’t lead to leaky gut, doesn’t become a mental, emotional, spiritual toxicity that they carry around with them in the form of resentment.
Dr. Debi Silber
Well, and betrayal will lead to all of that, until you deliberately take measures to heal it. So no one studies betrayal because you like the topic, you study because you have to and that was certainly the case for me. I mean, it’s my 30th year in business. 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. A few years later, it happened again, this time it was my husband. So anybody who’s been through it, you’re shocked, you’re blindsided, you never saw this coming. So I got him out of the house because that was the deal breaker. And I looked at the two experiences thinking, okay, well what’s similar to these two? And of course me, but what else? And I realized boundaries were always getting crossed, I never took my needs seriously. And I’m really one of those believers that if nothing changes, nothing changes. So here it was four kids, six dogs and a thriving business and I’m like, that’s it, going back for a PhD. I didn’t know how I was gonna pay for it. I didn’t know how I was going to manage the time, but it was in transpersonal psychology, the psychology of transformation and human potential. I was changing so much, I didn’t quite understand what was happening. He was too, wasn’t really ready to look at that. And then it was time to do a study. So naturally I studied betrayal and it was really just to get me out of this jam. And I studied what holds us back, what helps us like heal and what happens to us physically, mentally and emotionally when the people closest to us lie, cheat and deceive. And that study led to three groundbreaking discoveries, which changed my health, my work, my family, my life.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And what are those three groundbreaking discoveries?
Dr. Debi Silber
So the first one was originally, I was studying betrayal and post traumatic growth and for anyone who isn’t familiar, post-traumatic growth, I define it as sort of the upside of trauma. How any trauma, death of a loved one, disease, natural disaster leaves you with a new insight, awareness, perspective that you didn’t have, but I had been through death of a loved one, I’d been through disease. And I was like, no, betrayal feels totally different. I didn’t wanna assume it was the same for all my study participants so I asked them if you’ve been through other traumas, other crises, does betrayal feel different for you? Unanimously, they said, oh my gosh, it’s so different and here’s why. Because it feels so intentional, we take it so personally. So the self get shattered, rejection, abandonment, belonging, confidence, worthiness, trust, they’re all trashed and have to be rebuilt. So it didn’t quite qualify as post-traumatic growth. It’s like, yes, you need to rebuild your life, but you also need to rebuild yourself. So I coined a new term, post-betrayal transformation, which is the complete and total rebuild of your life and yourself after an experience with betrayal, that was the first discovery. Want me to get to the second one?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
The second one, yep.
Dr. Debi Silber
So the second one was, there’s actually this collection of symptoms, physical, mental, and emotional, so common to betrayal, it’s known as post-betrayal syndrome and we’ve had 60, 70,000 people take our post-betrayal syndrome quiz on our site to see what extent they’re struggling. What I find so interesting about the quiz and I’m happy to share some of the statistics. We’ve all heard time heals all wounds. I have the proof that when it comes to betrayal, that’s not true. And unhealed betrayal will follow you around like a shadow and I can share how that looks. But there’s a question on the quiz that says, is there anything else you’d like to share? And people write things like my betrayal happened 35 years ago, I’m still unwilling to trust. My betrayal happened 15 years ago, it feels like it happened yesterday. So we know you cannot count on time, you can’t count on a new relationship to heal it. It’s deliberate and intentional healing betrayal. But do you want me to share some of the statistics?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Sure, you know I do.
Dr. Debi Silber
Oh yeah, I was gonna say, cause it would be a really weird, awkward moment if you said no. So now imagine we have men, women just spent every age, every country, almost every country’s represented. So this is out of 60, 70,000 people. 78% constantly revisit their experience, 81% feel a loss of personal power. 80% are hyper vigilant. 94% deal with painful triggers. Here are the most common physical symptoms and you know by the time something manifest physically, there’s a lot going on mentally and emotionally. 71% have low energy. 68% have sleep issues. 63% have extreme fatigue, your adrenals have tanked. 47% have weight changes. In the beginning, you may not be able to hold food down. And later on, you’re emotionally eating, using food for comfort. 45% have digestive issues. And this can be anything from Crohn’s, IBS, diverticulitis, constipation, diarrhea. What I find so interesting about that one is, think about energetically what’s happening here. What does the gut do? It absorbs, digests and processes food. Isn’t betrayal difficult to absorb, digest and process?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
This is part of reversing autoimmune disease. What Ayurveda said 10,000 years ago is you actually have to digest your emotions and your experiences and your memories. If you don’t do a good job of that, you will get sick. And autoimmunity is undigested anger.
Dr. Debi Silber
I love that. It just makes so much sense. So the most common mental symptoms, 78% are overwhelmed. 70% are walking around in a state of disbelief. 68% are unable to focus, this brain fog. 64% are in shock. 62% can’t concentrate. Now you can’t just check out. You still are working, you’re still raising your kids, other obligations you have. The most common emotional symptoms, 88% experience extreme sadness, 83% are very angry. And you know how common it is to bounce back and forth between those two emotions. 82% feel hurt. 80% have anxiety. 79% are stressed and just a few more. This one got me, 84% have an inability to trust. 67% prevent themselves from forming deep relationships because they’re afraid of being hurt again. 82% find it hard to move forward and 90% wanna move forward, but they don’t know how.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
There’s this really interesting statement that a spiritual teacher of mine once said and that was all the energy that you spend trying to make yourself feel safe and convince yourself that the world won’t hurt you is wasted because the truth of the matter is the world’s unsafe and people will hurt you. And I just thought that’s fair. Drop the energy then. And just know that I’ve hurt people as I’ve moved in the world without knowing it. And then I’ve been hurt and we’re both perpetrator and victim and we switch off and oftentimes, we don’t even know. And so just releasing this idea that, oh, I have to put up guard walls to not get hurt that you’re actually harming yourself, the thing I think you call hardening.
Dr. Debi Silber
Definitely, and that’s what we do when these things do happen. But here’s the part that I find so crazy. First of all, you didn’t hear me read one stat that was like 20%, 30%, these numbers were high. The part that’s so disturbing to me is this isn’t necessarily from a recent betrayal. This could be from something that happened when you were a kid. This could be from that boyfriend and girlfriend who hurt you when you were in high school and think about it. This person may not know, care, or even remember. And here we are decades later with the hypervigilance and the gut issue and the anxiety and the poor sleep and the digestive issues, that’s not right. I mean, the good news is you can heal from all of it.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Well, it kind of is right, because the brain is wired to say, oh, that berry is poisonous, don’t eat it. Oh, that fire is hot, don’t touch it. And so we take in information of where pain will be caused and we remember it. And so it’s important to be able to put it in this space where it’s not Velcro to you, but you can say, oh yeah, that’s an experience of being a human that really hurts, it’s owie. And I have these other experiences of being loved and being in joy and beauty that are also there and it’s like whichever one we wanna pay the most attention to is the one that we’ll notice all the time.
Dr. Debi Silber
That’s so true and the truth is without that noticing, and without that intentionality, like a repeat betrayal is so common and that’s one of the classic signs of an unhealed betrayal. The faces change, but it’s the same thing. You keep going from partner to partner to partner or friend to friend to friend. What the heck, is it me? Yes, it is. Not in that it’s your fault, in that it’s your opportunity. There’s this profound lesson waiting to be learned. You are lovable, worthy, deserving. You need better boundaries in place. Whatever it is, until and unless you get that, we’ll have opportunities in the form of people to take us.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
So leaky boundaries leads to leaky gut everyone. That’s one of my big tweetables is leaky boundaries is what leads to leaky gut, thank you very much.
Dr. Debi Silber
That’s so true, that’s so true. Do you want me to mention the third discovery?
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Please.
Dr. Debi Silber
This for me was the most exciting. And what we learned was while we can stay stuck for years, decades of lifetime and so many of us do, if we’re going to fully heal and by fully heal, I mean, symptoms of post-betrayal syndrome to that whole rebuilt place of post-betrayal transformation, we’re gonna go through five proven predictable stages. And we even know what happens physically, mentally and emotionally at every one of those stages and we know what it takes to move from one stage to the next. Healing is entirely predictable. And I’m happy to share the stages if you want.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Oh, well of course I want.
Dr. Debi Silber
Again, it would be really weird and awkward if you said no. So they’re all mapped out in trust again. I mean, it’s what we teach in the institute, but here we go. So imagine four legs of a table. This is stage one, four legs of a table, the four legs being physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. And you’re so great at this so you’re gonna easily see how this happens. We’re so busy thinking and doing, physical and emotional and kind of neglecting the emotional and the spiritual feeling being. So imagine a table with only two legs. It’s so easy for that table to topple over, that’s us. Stage two, shock trauma, D-Day, discovery day, the scariest of all of the stages. And this is the breakdown of the body, the mind and the worldview. So right here, you’ve ignited the stress response. You’re headed for every single stress-related symptom, illness, condition disease. Your mind is in this total state of chaos and overwhelm. It’s like what just happened? It makes no sense. And your worldview has just been shattered, your mental model, the rules that prevent chaos and govern you, don’t go there, trust this person, this is how life works.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I wanna pause right here for just a second and slow it down for just a minute and insert a paradigm shift. As you’re listening to Dr. Silber, think about also D-Day as diagnosis day with your autoimmunity, because this is also, these are the stages of healing when you find out a lot of people feel betrayed by their bodies. So autoimmunity often brings a betrayal syndrome into, oh, I can’t trust the very physical form that I inhabit. So as you’re listening to her, it’s not just people, it’s not just life circumstances, it’s also this body.
Dr. Debi Silber
That’s so true. And if I tell you how often I hear I was doing everything right, I was eating well and exercising and drinking my green juices and I got cancer, or I had got this or got that.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Doing everything right.
Dr. Debi Silber
So we do feel betrayed by our bodies. And just so everybody knows where I’m coming from with betrayal, it’s really the breaking, I define it, as the breaking of a spoken or unspoken rule and every relationship has them, but even in something like this, the unspoken rule with ourselves may be, I’m gonna do all these things that I’m told are gonna keep me healthy and then we’re not.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And I’m going to expect my body to respond in a specific way and your body has never agreed to that.
Dr. Debi Silber
Exactly.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
See, we have these implicit expectations where we say, if I do this and this and this, and this is what I expect in return, and nobody ever agreed to that, it’s like expecting life to never deliver you a challenge in the form of a betrayal. You can just expect it’s gonna happen because this is part of life, but we have these implicit expectations that that’s not supposed to happen. If we’re good, then we won’t suffer and that is an expectation that is erroneous and it causes suffering.
Dr. Debi Silber
It’s so true and we see it in so many different areas of life, but exactly with our bodies, I’ll do this, I’m expecting that I’ll be healthy and kept free of disease. So that’s why stage two is such a shock and it’s the scariest of all of the stages because of the shock of it and this was the person, these were the people we trusted the most, our sense of safety and security has been completely shattered. It’s like the bottom has bottom down on us. But think about it. If the bottom were to bottom out on us, what do you do? You grab hold of anything you can to stay safe and stay alive, that’s stage three. Survival instincts emerge. It’s the most practical out of all of the stages. If you can’t help me, get outta my way, how do I survive this experience, who can I trust? How do I feed my kids? But here’s the trap. This is stage three by far is the stage that most people get stuck in. And here’s why. Once you’ve figured out how to survive your experience, you’re like, okay, I got this. And because it feels so much better than the shock and trauma of where you just came from, we think it’s good. And because we don’t know if there’s anywhere else to go, transformation doesn’t even begin until stage four, but we don’t know there’s a stage four so we think, okay, I better figure out a way to make this work. So we start planting roots here. We’re not supposed to, but we don’t know that and four things are–
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Steroids and immune modulator drugs for people with autoimmunity and then they start feeling betrayed by the medical arena because it doesn’t get to root cause, it doesn’t work forever. And then you’re gonna go through these stages so just track everyone like everyone that’s angry with doctors and medicines, here it is right here.
Dr. Debi Silber
Exactly, because here’s where we start masking those symptoms. We’re just trying to tempt them down, but think about it. If a betrayal is at the root of it, like for example, you heard me say 45% of everyone betrayed has a gut issue. So you can go to the most well meaning amazing gut expert on the planet. But if they’re not working on that betrayal issue with you, you’re only getting to a certain level. And then because of all those other symptoms, then all we’re trying to do is just tamp those symptoms down enough to get us through our day. But at the root of it, the very root of it was that trauma from the betrayal. When you work on that, all the other stuff heals. So when you’re in this stage, stage three, you start planting these roots here. And then the first thing that happens is you get all these small self benefits, secondary gain. You get to be right. You get your story, you get someone to blame, you get sympathy from everyone you tell your story to. And on some level, that kind of works and it feels good.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
That feels good.
Dr. Debi Silber
So because of that, you plant deeper roots. And now, because you’re here, you’re not supposed to stay here, you don’t know that. And now you start thinking things like, well, maybe I deserved it. Maybe I’m not all that great, maybe this, maybe that. So you plant deeper roots. Now because here’s where you are, these are the thoughts you’re thinking, well, this is the energy you’re putting out. So like energy attracts like energy so all of a sudden, the misery low’s company crowd comes around. You start calling in circumstances and situations and relationships to confirm, yep, this is where you belong. It gets worse, I’ll get you outta here though. Because it feels so bad, but we don’t know there’s anywhere else to go, we’re like how do I get through my day? So here’s where we start using food, drugs, alcohol, work, whatever. And think about it, anything to numb. So we do that for a day, a week, a month, now it’s a habit, a year, 10 years, 20 years and I can seriously see someone 20 years out and say that emotional eating, that numbing in front of the TV, do you think that has anything to do with your betrayal and they would look at me like I’m crazy. They’re saying that was 20 years ago. All they did was put themselves in stage three and stay there. That’s when we become hardened. So that is so common. And it makes me crazy because it’s like you bothered going through the trauma. You owe it to yourself to see yourself through that transformation. So if you’re willing–
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
You’re deserving of it. Like you’re deserving of saving yourself. No one else can do it.
Dr. Debi Silber
That’s the thing. And the problem also is when we stay, the longer we stay in stage three, the harder it is to leave, cause we just can’t even imagine anything other than now what we’ve created. And then think about it. We have our new circle. We have all our new people, the misery loves company crowd and then let’s even say, you may be seeing the most well meaning let’s say therapist, and you’re unpacking this over and over and over and over again. Now therapy can be wonderful if you’re working on many different things and moving forward. But if there’s anything that’s gonna act like cement for stage three, it’s going over your scenario endlessly without coming out of it with anything that’s gonna move you towards the next stage. And we see that all the time. So anyway, if you are–
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I find plant medicine is very, very helpful by the way.
Dr. Debi Silber
There you go.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Many people ruminating automatic negative thought circle going around and around in the corral.
Dr. Debi Silber
And ruminating, but then there’s marinating. It’s like you gotta make the… There’s a difference. When you’re willing to let go of the small self benefits, grief more than the last 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 that, but I control what I do with it. Just in that decision, you’re turning down the stress response, you’re not healing just yet, but you just stop the massive damage you’ve been creating in stage two and stage three. And the feeling of stage four is like is if you’ve ever moved to a new house, office, condo, apartment, all this stuff isn’t there. It’s not quite cozy yet, but it’s like, okay, this is gonna be okay. That’s the feeling. But if you were to move, you don’t take everything with you. You don’t take the things that don’t represent who you wanna be in this new space and what I found was if your friends weren’t there for you, you’ve outgrown them right here. You don’t take them with you from stage three to stage four.
And people say to me all the time, I’ve had these friends for years, is it me? Yes, you’re going into transformation. If they don’t rise, they don’t come. If they’re just gossiping or if it was a one sided relationship, you’ve outgrown it right here, very clear. When we’re in this new stage, we’re making it cozy, we’re making it mentally home, we move into the fifth most beautiful stage and that’s healing, rebirth and a new worldview. The body starts to heal. Self love, self care, eating well, exercise. We didn’t have the head for any of that stuff earlier. Now we do. Our mind is healing. We’re making new rules, new boundaries based on the road we just traveled and we have a new world view based on everything we see so clearly now and the four legs of that table, in the beginning, it was all about the physical and the mental. By this point, we’re solidly grounded because we’re focused on the emotional and the spiritual too. Those are the five stages.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Beautiful, I have a dog over here that keeps getting antsy so I keep needing myself. So I love how you put it into a system. And I know on the hurt model that I use in the middle of either you keep doing what you’ve always been doing, or you can shift into freedom, in the middle of it, it says willingness to self confront or unwillingness. And so you have a window of willingness that we’re going to talk about in the second segment of our interview for those that purchase the fast acting bundle. And so I really appreciate you sharing this and people can identify where they are in there. Oh yeah, that thing that happened, even when I was an infant. The story that you know, the trauma, any kind of trauma is a betrayal trauma. So this is really important work that you’ve contributed and I just wanna say, thank you so much. So the free gift that you’re providing for our audience is a choice between a couple of quizzes and we’ll put that link here with your talk for post-betrayal syndrome and you wanna talk about those?
Dr. Debi Silber
So two quizzes and one is the post-betrayal syndrome quiz, and you will see to what extent you’re struggling what symptoms are lingering in the wake of your betrayal. So if you’re like, oh, it’s just stressed or it’s aging, no it’s not, it’s your unhealed betrayal. And you will find what symptoms are left. The other quiz is the healed or hardened quiz and you’ll know what stage you’re in, which is an eye opener because sometimes you may be like, oh no, I’m good. I’m in stage four. No, you’re not, you’re stuck in stage three or the other way. You may be further along than you think. So you’ll know in, I mean, that quiz takes less than two minutes. You’ll know what stage you’re in.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And I encourage everyone as you approach these quizzes to contemplate and be in that awareness of you have more than one betrayal in your life. There’s never just one. And then perhaps, where have you betrayed yourself? That’s another one. Where do you not set boundaries for yourself? Oh, I’ve had a bad day. I think I’d like some Ben and Jerry’s and a Netflix. And that’s not a good boundary with self. So where are you betraying your body? If your body were to write a letter to you and you were to write a letter to your body, what would they each have to say and think about that word betrayal in many different ways, and then take these quizzes and it’ll be fascinating. We covered the three main things that she learned from her study on post-betrayal syndrome. And then the last bit that she was sharing with us was how to find yourself in the five stages of healing from post-betrayal. And there’s a piece that I asked her. So what makes it so that some people wanna dive into this work and some don’t? What makes it so that some people want to trust again and then others don’t and I’m going to let Dr. Silber take it away now with what that looks like.
Dr. Debi Silber
I wanna go in so many directions. Do you have about three hours that I can share with your audience? But here’s what comes to mind and when a betrayal happens, it is the most beautiful time to heal just to create a version of you that never would’ve had the opportunity to exist had that not happen. I look at it. Imagine a lot of kids have or if you have children, Legos. Imagine there was this Lego structure and it doesn’t mean it was good, it just means it was built. And then the whole thing is just destroyed. Well, when you are rebuilding after betrayal, you’re deliberate and intentional. You don’t have to use every piece and you certainly don’t have to build the same thing. You get to decide what you wanna create, but how do you know if it’s safe and in your best interest to heal and rebuild with that person or simply heal and move on? So I teach something that’s called the window of willingness.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
I heard that thing before you hopped in. So in my doctoral research on healing unresolved trauma, I use forgiveness as one of the interventions, but not the lip surface forgiveness, it’s different. And one of the barriers was, I don’t wanna forgive, cause I’m afraid they’ll get away with it, I don’t wanna forgive because there were a lot of different barriers to forgiveness, but the willingness part was also, so I want people to kind of drop into their own space about where they are right now, is this person responsible for everything that’s gone on for me or am I willing to say, I can see myself in all of this. So as Dr. Debi goes through this, think about this part. The mirror of everyone around you.
Dr. Debi Silber
And forgiveness is huge. I found though when it’s done too early or for the wrong reasons, it backfires every single time.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
It has to be a process and that’s why I said the lip service part. When we start talking about forgiveness, she and I are talking about whether or not the person is safe. That they showed contrition. That’s where you can engage. Otherwise you do it all here in your own self and then you don’t have to reconcile. There’s a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.
Dr. Debi Silber
I love that you said that. And even there was a study that I read where it 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, but you and I think we believe forgiveness is for us and it’s good to do anyway so I sort of changed it. And I thought, if you changed the word from forgiveness to reconcile, that makes more sense to me. If you feel safe and valued and you reconcile, you feel better. If you do not feel safe and valued and you reconcile, you feel worse. So the window of willingness will show you that. So imagine a window that’s opened the widest, representing the greatest possibility you have to heal and rebuild with this person, again, if you choose to. If not, no worries. Do your thing. You’ll feel the window getting closed more and more and more. So level one is where the window is the widest open, the greatest possibility to heal and rebuild with this person. And that happens when there’s remorse, restitution, empathy, deep apology, regret. And it would sound something like this. I am so sorry for the pain I caused you. I can’t even imagine how you feel. What in the world can I do to make it up to you? Now with betrayal, it’s gonna take a lot more than that, but you’re off to a good start. This person has taken full and complete ownership and responsibility and you have something to work with. If you choose not to, that’s fine, but you have what to work with here. You can feel the window closing a little bit with level two and you know it’s coming when you hear the word because.
Well, I did it because, I said it because. Now you still may be willing to work with that, but it doesn’t sound or feel nearly as good as that complete and total ownership and responsibility. When you put the but in, you just negated everything. Exactly, you could feel the window closing even more with level three and you know it’s coming when you hear the word you. Well, I did it because you, I said it because you, this is blame. I call this the two-sided slap. Here you get betrayed. There’s a slap on one side and then you get blamed for it on the other. This is crazy making, don’t even believe it for a second. You could feel the window, there may be a sliver open. You have very little to work with here. This is gaslighting 101 stuff right here. Now level three is very close cousins with level four. And you know it’s coming when there is zero responsibility, no ownership. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re crazy, you really need help. So when you’re working with level one, level two, again, always heal yourself, but there’s potential to rebuild with that person. When you are working with a level three, level four, here’s where you are proving and trying to, you wanna walk around with a pen and paper, like you send this, I wrote it down. Here’s the proof and you’re just exhausting yourself. At this point in time at their current level of consciousness, this is all you’re getting. So here’s where you rebuild yourself and you move along. That’s the window of willingness.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Gary Chapman talks about the five apology languages. You familiar with his work?
Dr. Debi Silber
I know the five love languages.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
No, the apology languages, the next bit of research he did where he said I’m sorry, that’s the first one. The second one is, here’s what I know I did. So it’s a clear articulation, like you were saying of what I did. The third one is, here’s what I’m going to do to make sure that I don’t ever do this again. That’s a nice one. Here are the steps I’m going to take. The fourth one is what can I do to make this up to you, which is important because if you wanna hold on to the victim place, this is the tennis ball coming over into your court and saying here’s what it would take to clean slate this. And then the fifth one is, will you please forgive me? And you can negotiate what it takes to make it up to you. You can negotiate the forgiveness. Yes, I’ll be able to forgive you when and you can start that process, but it’s now a conversation that’s safe to have because the ownership has been taken in the first three steps. I’m sorry, here’s what I know I did. Here’s what I’m gonna do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And practicing those, he said only 25% of people are okay with an I’m sorry. The rest of us, and I’m one of them, are more high maintenance. They’re like, no, no, no, no, no. I wanna know what you’re sorry about, what you’re gonna do to make sure you don’t do it again.
Dr. Debi Silber
Well, because think about it. That’s what allows you to feel safe. If that person is just saying sorry, those are just words. But if there’s something behind it, if there’s that real understanding, then that’s gonna contribute to feeling safe again and to rebuilding trust. Just sorry, anybody can say that.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And the sixth one that I added to that is, and here are the consequences if it gets repeated and then you have to stand by what you say. If you have a two year old who has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that they’re about to cram into the VCR machine, cause it fits so pretty there in their mind and you say from across the room, my son did this, don’t do that. If you do that, you’re going to time out. And then if they look at you and do it, they wanna know you’re going to put them in time out. Like that’s an agreement of a boundary you’re setting. So if you don’t keep the boundary of what you say you will do if that offense is repeated, then you are training the people around you to betray you.
Dr. Debi Silber
We write this script, absolutely. And that’s one of those things where think about it, if you are working on reconciliation and I always believe you heal yourself, that other person needs to heal themselves and there is that potential maybe to come back together. But if you are unwilling to allow them to slip, you can’t slip either. So there are so many instances where you’re like, oh, if I stand my ground, we’re having a good night, it’ll ruin it, forget it. You can’t do that. You can’t do that if you’re unwilling to let them slip, you can’t do it either.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Actually sent my husband to jail in the first year of our marriage for grabbing me when he was angry and then our agreement, I’m so sorry, here’s what I know I did wrong. So it was for me, how do I make it up to you was a year of domestic violence training. And then the agreement after I forgave him was if you do it again, I will call again and you will wind up. Nine years later, he kind of came in my face and butted my head and I said, I have to call the police. And he said, no, no you don’t. And I said, no, I do. That is the agreement we set nine years ago. So that’s the thing. If you don’t do that, you’re actually harming the other person.
Dr. Debi Silber
Well, and I love that you said that because it’s so true. If we allow that, we’re preventing both sides from growing. That person doesn’t really get the consequences of their actions and then the other person doesn’t have that opportunity to really feel what it’s like to create these new boundaries and that sense of strength from honoring them.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
And I realized that like, oh, I’m harming people if I don’t keep a good boundary with them. That causes safety for myself and others that I’m with. Thank you so much for sharing this. This is such important information.
Dr. Debi Silber
Always so great to share with you.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Alright so everybody, we have Dr. Silber’s contact information, her website, we pointed you toward the two quizzes that she gave us three gifts. So really this is an amazing program to drop into, the Post Betrayal Syndrome Institute. Is that it, PBS.
Dr. Debi Silber
The PBT, Post Betrayal Transformation Institute. And people come in at stage two, stage three and we move them through until they’re through stage five and then they graduate.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
Beautiful.. Alright thank you so much.
Dr. Debi Silber
Thank you.
Keesha Ewers, PhD, ARNP-FNP-C, AAP, IFM-C
All right everybody, until next time, be well.
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