Overcoming Betrayal Trauma with Mr. J

0:00 At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back than Soel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Jenny, Welcome to the show. How are you hey, doctor Dog. Thank you for having me on. Appreciate your time. Well, I'm enjoying having you. This is an interesting topic and what fascinates me is how people tend to get to a point, what their journey is on where they finally reach for We're talking on podcasts about things that may be entirely different what they originally did. You know from a business standpoint or from that kind of thing. So, what is your journey, what is your background and what brought you to this point where you are helping people with trauma?

0:56 Well do you have four days now? You know? So, I started my career as a youth worker. I worked with troubled youth. Then after that I went back to school, got my teaching certification my master's degree, and I was certified and special at it. So I used to I would work with kids primarily with behavioral difficulties, some learning difficulties, but primarily behavioral difficulties. I did that for about, you know, over fifteen years, and then we decided to adopt some children, and it was important that one of us stay home, so voila, I was the one picked. So I stayed home for many years. And then as my kids got older.

1:40 Long story short, my father died tragically and quickly. And when I mean quickly and tragically, I was talking with him on the phone one day, laughing, telling jokes, and four days later his casket was being lowered into the ground, and it just it just shocked my system. And about two days after his funeral, well, I woke up in my first ever panic attack. Now I've heard of panic attacks, never experienced one, but boy do I appreciate it now when somebody says they have a panic attack, because it literally feels like you are dying. It feels like a heart attack. I went on to do some research on why I had this panic attack, and in my research discovered I had a lot of unpeeled childhood trauma. That led me into this deep dive of understanding the differences between stress trauma and then betrayal trauma. And I found the topic of betrayal trauma beyond fascinating and I started getting into these groups. Next thing, you know, I was taking all of my wisdom from collective all the years of my life, and I was helping these groups. And somebody reached out to me and said, you know, I've noticed that you've been helping a lot of people. I have a program. Would you like to become certified in this and help people profession And I said, yeah. So I always say I didn't find betrayal trauma approaching. It found me. Okay, the rest is history.

3:07 All right, all right, And you've written a couple of books. Tell me about the books. So, actually, one book has to do with my education when I was teaching students, when I first started teaching, well, it doesn't matter, bottom line. I have a children's book out there. It's on Amazon. It's called I Am Loved right where I Am. It's actually doing well his phenomenal reviews. And then when I started doing my coaching business, I found that from the time of discovery or what people call D day until the time they can really start coming up and lifting their nose above water, give or take, is about three months. So I designed a three month Betrayal Trauma Journal which helps people go from tears to transformation.

3:50 Published journal as. Well, wonderful. So, you know, it's interesting as you talk about betrayal. One of the things that comes to my mind is it's so it's so individually perceptive and perception. So you know, something may happen to me, and if it were to happen to you, you consider it really deeply trauma and I look at it and go, okay, that's. Just part of life. So first of all, let's talk about what is your concept of trauma and betrayal trauma? And then secondarily, you know, not only how do you define it, but what causes people to perceive it as betrayal rather than just an incident that occurs.

4:34 Yeah, great questions. So I'm going to tell you something, just for the ease of the viewers. Trauma is simply this too much, too soon. It's anything that overwhelms our coping mechanism. And the reason why different people can perceive it differently is because everybody has different coping mechanisms. Somebody might have a strong childhood foundation, strong resilience, a great support system. Maybe they tap into their faith, may a really good you know, yoga and meditation and prayer and all this other stuff, and if something happens from a traumatic standpoint, their system may not be overwhelmed. When somebody that doesn't have those system in place, they could experience the same thing and it could be overwhelming. So it's too much, too soon. And basically, betrayal trauma is almost the same thing, only it's at the hands of a primary attachment. So betrayal trauma would be safe from let's just say you're relying on a child, a parent. Well, actually, if you're a parent relying on your child, you can get betrail trauma from a child. You can get betrail trauma from a boss. It's anyone that you're reliant upon or that caretakes you. So a boss, your job, your actually God, or yourself. And i'll give you an example in a second. And certainly espousal betrayal. Probably eighty five percent of my clients are from spousal betrayals and fidelity.

5:56 People working to rebuild after broken trust but when I say God or yourself, basically, you know, I work with a lady one time and she was like, mister j I was, I'm a health fanatic, I meditate, I eat organically, I do all my checkups, and I was still diagnosed with breast cancer. So I feel like my God, my creator, and my body betrayed me. So that could be betrayal traumas. Okay, okay, So another question that it just comes to my mind. And I assume you're familiar with with different emotional levels and so forth, And there's a couple of charts out there that have been developed about your emotional level, whether it's happiness all the way down to anger and victims. So I look at victim.

6:36 How many people that are experiencing trauma, betrayal or betrayal trauma tend to find themselves in that victim emotional state? Oh, I'd probably initially say one hundred percent. You know, one of the things I like to do is empower my clients. And one of the ways I do that is, you know, instead of victim, can we can we ass and possibility of uh survivor? And I'm gonna be honest with you, and I know I might put a lot of people off. I don't even like the term survivor. So can we you know, if they're if they go into survivor, can we start transitioning out of that to fighter? Well?

7:16 And I agree with you, because survivor still tends to point to victim, and you know and that that kind of correlates to a victim. And I totally agree with you on that, So I appreciate you making that point. So let's let's talk about. Betrayal for a minute. You're you're defining it and what what brings that about? And how do people normally react and depending And you brought up the fact that you've had, you know, a fairly healthy childhood and so on and so forth, and some deep beliefs and that type of thing. You may be a little bit more resilient. But what have you found common wise among the people you work with? What what is what are some of the things that cause that sense of betrayal? What are some of the things that they've experienced in childhood that immediately brings up to the point where they perceive it now is betrayal?

8:07 Well, okay, great question, And first let's let me just rewind two minutes and just say this. I want to give differences between trauma and betrayal trauma. Okay, there's there's there's there's a few differences. I just want to point out three. Okay, number one. Betrayal trauma is a secret society. So right now, let's just say, you know, somebody listening has a parent pass away. That's traumatic. That's traumatic. However, you can call your boss and ask for some bereavement time, your coworkers show up to the funeral, maybe your neighbors bring you some meals. You can't call your boss and say, hey, listen, I need time off. I just found out found some hooker numbers and my mattress for my husband. You just don't do that. It's a secret society, so you don't tell people things, so you don't have the collective support.

8:57 So it's a secret society and people feel so alone. That's the first difference with betrayal trauma. The next difference is it's so personal. If you have a parent that dies, yeah, that's sad, it's it's traumatic, and it's going to change. But unless you killed your parents, you can't personalize it. When you find numbers under your match, just that your you know, spouses is hooking up with people or an app on their phone, they're meeting people on their lunch break. You personalize that what was wrong with me? Why wasn't I good enough? So it's personal betrayl trauma. And the last point I'll make as far as the difference between trauma and betrayal trauma, is that trauma affects the here and now, in the in the in the future. Betrayal trauma affects not only the here and now in the future, but it also affects the past because now you can't look at old pictures of vacations anymore the way you used to. Now you can't drive by certain hotels and restaurants without getting triggered. So those are three key differences between trauma and betrayal trauma. Now, to answer your question, okay, I think what happens and listen, there's no study on this next point I'm going to make. This is just Jay's thought and study and whatever my expertise is. I feel what I'm dealing with clients that when they are dealing with the betrayal at hand, it's probably about it.

10:13 It's affecting them about forty percent. What's the other sixty percent of what it's affected is it's waking up that sleeping giant of all the childhood wounds they never healed. So that's what I have thought. And have you found there's common themes among the childhood trauma that they've experienced that that brings up or is it really individualized? No, it's really individualized, but it usually does go back to some type of childhood betrayal trauma, whether it was a babysitter, an ant, or an uncle, a parent, a neighbor, somebody that they relied upon, they were they were getting care from who somehow, in some capacity betrayed them.

10:55 Okay, and you talk a little bit, and I'm curious, what's betrayal blind Now you haven't mentioned that yet, but what is betrayal blindness? And how does that fit into this whole discussion. So betrayal blindness was a term that was keyed by Jennifer Freed, I believe in nineteen ninety one, and basically it's a part of our nervous system. It's the fawn response. If it was to fit in one of those f's although we know them as the three fight flight fond I think there's a lot more f's. There's flite flight, fond forget this f this. I think there's a lot of f's. But anyway, betrayal blindness is this. It's a phenomenon that our what our mind does is real is minimize or deny what's in front of us as a way to protect us. So it's actually meant to protect us, but it's I call it our best friend and our worst enemy because what happens isn't when the truth comes out.

11:53 Now we're dealing with multiple womans. Let me explain. Okay, so little Red GRIDINGO right. She wants to see her grandma. She loves her grandma. She misses her grandma. But let's just say there's COVID lockdowns. She can't see her grandma, so she's got to wait for two months, four months, six months. All of a sudden, the lockdowns are lifted. I can go see my grandma. So she starts making oatmeal cookies, banana bread, chocolate chip muffins, you name it. She's so excited. She knows there's a big, bad wolf in the forest, but she's so blinded by wanting to see her grandmother. That's all she knows, and so she goes, and she trudges through the deep dark precocious or precarious forest, and she knocks on the door, and something inside her just immediately feels off. But she misses her grandma. She wants to see her grandma, but nobody calls, nobody answers the door. So she opens up the door. She's like, Grandma, something in her body says danger, or she's like, I want to see my grandmother. I have blinders on. So she goes in the back bedroom. Now the red flags in her body are screaming because she even says, Grandma, why do you have beady eyes, a long nose and sharp teeth? I mean it's right in front of her, but she still questions it because she wants to see her grandmother so much to the detriment, the wolf winds up eating her. Well, that's what happens with the betrayal blindness.

13:09 We'll see the chapstick in the glove compartment, or we'll see the smell of the perfume, you know, on our spouse, and what happens. Betrayal blindness kicks in and we're like, oh, he just gave his coworker right home from work. Oh she he was just doing a tester at the store. That's what I smell. The facts are right in our face. But the. Fact that if we were to accept our spouse is cheating on us would be so devastating and overwhelm our system. Our system shuts down to it, and we've become blind to it. Now when I see our best friend and our worst enemy is because it does protect us in a way. It does protect us. But what winds up happening is once it all comes out in the wash, as my mother used to say, and the truth is revealed.

13:56 Now not only are we dealing with the betrayal from our spouse or formever, but now we've separated ourselves so much from ourselves that now we don't even know who we are while we're trying to work on healing from Betrayal's okay. So here's my question. As you're talking about the blindness and how individuals will stay in a relationship and so forth and just kind of avoid seeing what's there. You know, obviously, but let's talk about trauma, physical, mental, emotional abuse that goes on, say, in a relationship, and we talk about individuals who will stay in those relationships because they tend to be you know, really it's difficult to get out of that. Is that in a sense because when you get into relationship, you have this vision of what's really going to be about and how good it's going to be and so forth, and then all of a sudden these other things happen.

14:55 Is that a form of betrayal? You mean, within yourself, well. Within yourself, and you know, you're married to someone and all of a sudden you're getting the emotional abuse or physical abuse or whatever that happens to be. And you had them, you know, visioned to be at a certain level of love and kindness and trust, and all of a sudden, here's all this stuff going on that you never expected. Is that something that they're kind of betraying you because they're not who you thought they were. The line can be very murky with that scenario. I think a lot of people stay in relationships for various reasons, whether it be you know, whether it be we have kids, I don't want to disrupt this dynamic, whether it be somebody's financially reliant upon someone, whether it be I promised God that I was going to stay in this marriage what have you. So, usually betrayal trauma is is not something that's slow and endured throughout. Usually it's a big earthquake in in the life. Now, let me tell you, depending on the person's experiences and developmental potential trauma, certainly they could they could feel some betrayal trauma, but usually it's more of I called betrayal trauma almost like like the cancer of diseases. It's I and I say that for a few reasons. Number one is because just like cancer,

16:28 betrayal trauma affects the whole entire family. And just like cancer or heart attack, if you recover, usually if you do the work, somebody could be far more healthier after a heart attack or you know, a major disease than beforehand, because now you really know what to focus on that maybe you weren't focusing on before. So yeah, certainly, most definitely. Let's just say you get out of a twenty year marriage or relationship and you're like, wow, this person really betrayed me. Certainly, but betrayal trauma usually what happens is it's a profound shock to your system when you're with somebody who over twenty years is verbally abusive, it's not necessarily a shock to your system, but certainly with some people, depending on their history or past, it could also be in line, so it could get murky in query.

17:21 All right, And you know, you talk about it mainly all the words you're using deals with relationships, and you know, someone betraying an individual in a relationship, is that the main majority of people that you work with her? Have you found that there are other types of betrayal that causes that traial trauma besides just a relationship. Absolutely, Like I was saying before, the lady that you know was very healthy and she was organic, and she meditated, and she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she felt that her creator, God, or even her body betrayed her. Some of my clients have been working for twenty thirty forty years at a company and they're being fired and laid off, and they're like, I devoted my life to my job, I devoted my existence to my company, and I feel like my company's betraying me now in my older years.

18:15 So absolutely, it's not just you know, it just so happens that well, first of all, there's a lot of lack of information out there. People don't consider getting fired from a job unjustly betrayal trauma. That's probably why there's not the people coming out of the woodworks that have experienced that. And trust me, there are money, but certainly there's well unfortunately, in today's day of technology, infidelity has skyrocketed. So that's why the majority of people my clients, okay, they are their espousal. So what do you do for these people? What? You know, if I were to come to you and say, hey, you know, I've experienced this major betrayal in my relationship, which I have not, by the way, But if I were to say that to you, what what path would you put me on? And how would you start to help me to number one, overcome it? And maybe before even that, what what are the what do people experience emotionally with that betrayal syndrome? And how do they ultimately overcome it? How do you help them?

19:22 Okay, great question. I just want to say, in my personal view, and a lot of professionals will disagree with me, I don't know if you ever overcome trauma and betrayal trauma, I believe you learn to manage it. It's just like you know, if you lose a parent, do you ever get over that, No, but you absolutely learn to deal with it better as the years go on. And number two, I want to say this love your question, but it's like going to the doctor and saying, I have arthritis. How can you help me? Well, hold on, do you have ostio? Do you have rheumatory? Do you have I mean, you know, where does it hur? When did you first experience this? What have you tried before? So there's a whole you know, modality and methodology to understanding things. But I'd also want to know what did you discover, When did you discover it, how did you discover it, what have you been doing from then till now? Because I talked to people who just found out their spouse has been cheating on them and they're literally bear hugging the toilet, vomiting while we're on the phone. And then I talked to people who are thirty years out of in fidelity but they just never dealt with it, and now something happened in their life or that were that brought up that conjured up some of these feelings. So it would really depend on the spectrum where you are too. But just for the sake of conversation, let's just say somebody is a few months out and you know, two, three, four months out of there. One of the things that I have people do is, first of all, I try to teach them like rounding techniques, breathing exercises, which are very,

20:56 very very researched. A lot of people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I breathe help me, and I get that, but there's certain things. There's certain ways we breathe where you know, we raise the chest area, the lungs that really kind of get in the way of our heart having the maximum amount of room. Rounding techniques, you know named you know three things you can smell, two things you can touch, you know, five things you can see whatever. So I really try to introduce those just because the triggers from betrayal trauma will take you to your knees and maybe if we have time, we'll get to triggers. But one of the things I have people do is write down and needs assessment, because everybody's needs are going to be different. You know, if I'm talking to let's just say a single mother and she has four kids and she works full time, one of the things I'll have for I do is right down and needs assessment? What do you need so your needs might be okay? What are three restaurants where I can touch my app or call and within thirty minutes they'll deliver food. Because when you get a trigger and you're in the fetal position in bed, you can't get up, your kids still need to eat.

21:59 So a need that's needs assessment. You know, what are three people you can call in the middle of the night that won't ask you any questions, They'll just immediately listen to you. Or three people you can call that will pray with you. Or two comedy shows or movies that are funny that used to love that's not going to make you laugh, but even for a fraction of a second, maybe you'll get your mind off of what you're thinking. So everybody needs to create their own needs assessed. What support systems do you have in play whatever? And so really that's one of the thing, one of the many things that I try to help people with. I try to help people how to deal with their triggers. Triggers are you know our mind the amigdala, which I call if I'm speaking to a female a woman, I'll say, you know the amygdala. The first three letters are Amy.

22:43 Sometimes you got to talk to Amy if you've get a trigger, say okay, Amy, thank you for reminding me that I was in danger, but I'm not in danger anymore. You know, talk to yourself. Listen, We've all talked to ourselves in crisis, So talk to yourself to get out of crisis. And if you're a guy, sometimes I say call Almo because our the amiydyalas almond shaped, So say, hey, Almo, there's no hungry tiger in their room right now, looking at me growling, I'm not in any here. You know, do some grounding texting. So really, I mean this would take weeks for me to tell you all of the things, but just some things are just really to get you under control. Then we get into journaling and somatic exercising and you know all kinds of stuff that depending on really, because another thing, too is just like what one person might respond to trauma and the next person might not see trauma. One person might respond to something and another person might not respond to it. So really, sometimes it's really hit or mess too, and it's trial and error what happens. But there are some definite, tried and true things to really help people get through this.

23:45 And as you talk about triggers, you know, they're different approaches to that. Some people say, you know, you're never going to get over them, so you know, learn to deal with it. I like your idea of kind of stepping out side to yourself and talking to yourself about some of those things. Other people talk about how they can literally move that trigger aside, reframe it whatever, to the point where it's no longer really triggering, or if it does trigger a little bit, you're so mindful and emotionally intelligent that you look at it and go, oh, that's one of those triggers that doesn't make any difference anymore, and it's not. Going to affect me. So, as you deal with people in the betrayal trauma, how much effort do you feel needs to be put into and how much do you put into helping to somehow deal with those triggers to the point where they can be put to the side, Not that they'll ever go away, but they're put to the side so that the brain is able to develop new neural pathways, and those neural pathways that had to do with all those triggers have kind of just been put to the side.

24:51 Yeah, great question. And let me just say this, when we are in the acute stage of betrayal, there's no managing betrayal triggered in my opinion, and when we're in that acute state, what you want to do is get to So there's the the acute stage of betrayal and then there's the uh, you know, healing and growing from betrayal, and so triggers are on both sides of these. So really, depending on where people are, really at this point, it's managing triggers. Then there's the middle point where you're learning tools and techniques. Now you're actually ruling your triggers. So so for instance, if somebody is in the first three or four months where they just found out let's just say espousal infidelity, things that you can do is just tell yourself, Okay, when you get out of bed in the morning, I'm going to get triggered today. I'm going to get triggered today when I get triggered today, And even while you're talking, you could be getting triggered. The first couple of months of betrayal, you're waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares, you're waking up with panic attacks. It's the last thing on your mind.

25:58 You're dreaming about it the first thing in the morning. So tell yourself all of this is normal. It's a part of how my nervous system reacts. I understand that. Just youve got to talk to yourself. A couple of things you can do. I tell people, you know, hold ice cubes in your hand, splash your face with water, belt out a song, put a smile on your face. You're not going to feel happy, but you know it tricks your brain into saying all is good in the hood. Choose some gum, because a lot of times we will tell our nervous system fight like, hey, if you're eating, you can't be in danger. You can't be running away from a wild lion if you're eating, So choose some gum. Chewing my help. Another thing too, I think is really great because amygdala is spasming at this point is throughout some math facts. And the more intense the math facts get, the more you're engaging the frontal cortex and and and that's being now engaged rather than you're amgdala. So and this is what works great because if let's just say you're in a work meeting and you're in a boardroom, but you can't be I need some ice cubes, and I get splashing your face with water. But what you can do is coorplus fours eight. In your mind, a times two is sixteen. Sixteen times two is thirty two thirty two plus fours thirty seven and the more and that way. Now you're engaging the logic part of your brain, really taking over the amygdala. So this is in the first acute part of managing your triggers. One of the things that I tell people is this, this is what like triggers in a lot of ways. Imagine there's a box, right, There's a box, and on the bottom of that box there's a big sharp now okay, then there's a balloon

27:30 and it's filled with manure. Okay, So when you experience some betrayal trauma, it's like that balloon gets released into that box and it starts bouncing all around. Within no time at all, it lands on the neil explodes. You got manure all over the box. So now you're you're trying to go back and clean it up, clean it up, but it's overwhelming and you don't even get to clean all of it up before the next balloon is in there, it explodes, and then you're cleaning up all that manure and you don't even But with time, with time, the balloon shrinks just a little bit and now it goes into the box and maybe it takes two seconds instead of no seconds at all to land on the nail, and that explodes. Well. With time and supports and techniques, you can wipe up that manure before the next balloon hits that nail. Then, with a lot of time and work and dedication, eventually that balloon gets very small to where it takes a while for it to hit the nail.

28:28 Then just a little bit of manure gets split out and you're like, oh, let me go in here and just clean this up. Whatever, and then you move on. And then eventually, with a lot of time, work, dedication, commitment, and howd you know, fervitude, fortitude, that balloon is now tiny and instead of manure, it's filled with glitter. And I'm talking about maybe months or years out. So anyone that has kids that ever played with glitter, it still gets messy, but it's it's it's it's I'd rather clean up glitter than manure. So now it takes so long to hit that now, and when it does, now it's just glitter and that way. A lot of people like driving down the road. Let's just say six years after betrayal, They'll be driving down the road and they'll stop and they'll see a hotel. Let's just say their spouse was gone in a hotel and loyok at their hotel. Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, that was a sucky time in my life. Oh let's green go. That's the balloon with glitter at it, so you'll be reminded of it, but it will not bring you to your knees like it did the first kittle before.

29:26 My Okay, So, percentage wise, you're dealing with what sixty seventy eighty percent relationships? I would say eighty five to ninety Okay. So here's my next question. You're talking about betrayal of a spouse. How many what percentage of those that you work with are able to repair and stay in that relationship versus what percentage need to get out and move forward in order to deal with that betrayal? Drauma, I would say a good a good upwards of seventy percent of people not only rebuild, but have a much healthier, happier, solid relationship or marriage afterwards.

30:11 In other words, like I said, they need to disconnect. No, no, no, they rebuild, stay together. Oh they rebuild. I'm sure I didn't. I didn't hear you saying. Oh no, no, yeah, no, no no, because like I said before, infidelity, Well, okay, I'm about to trigger some people that listen to this, But okay, a lot of professionals in my field say, infidelity is the is the best gift wrapped in the worst packaging. And I'm going to tell you why. The couples that do heal and rebuild and live happily even after say, oh my gosh, I never We've been married fifteen years and I never felt so close with my partner, my spouse.

30:56 I've never loved them, I've never understood them. I hate what we went through, but I love where we are now. So absolutely it was. This is why I one of the things I try to do, depending on where people are on the dealing journey, is let's start looking at the silver linings of this tragedy. What are the silver linings? And I know I probably just lost a lot of listeners because they're like this guy's a freakazor no way. But one of the best feelings in the world, doctor Doug, and it's happened on multiple occasions, is when couples come to me and say, mister Jay, I found out my husband, my wife, my partner, whatever, was having an affair, and we were coming to you because we want to walk our separate ways as civil as possible. And then eight months to two years later, I'm getting pictures from Hawaii or wherever saying we renewed our wedding vowels and we wouldn't have been able to do it without you, so thank you. It's not only possible, it's it's it's common. Now.

32:00 At the same point, there's people that can't rebuild, just can't. And that's because their spouse isn't willing to do the work, or there's way too much childhood trauma and they and and it's too much and I and whatever. I'm not here to tell anybody what to do. I'm just here to stir their boat into commer waters and they make the decisions. And as you talk about doing the work, let's say that someone you know, okay, I forgive you and that and how much is still damaged when an individual who has been the individual that is actually cheated, okay, or betrayed.

32:43 Still has that sense of. Guilt and ultimately, over a period of years, ultimately that creates a situation where. They ultimately split up. How often is that? So, I guess my question is you're dealing with forgiveness. You're dealing with of taking responsibility for behavior, changing behavior, Also the emotions and trauma to the individual who did it, is now feeling the guilt and the shame of what they did. How do you deal with all of that and or all of those elements of what you have to deal with. One hundred percent? And if you don't deal with your issues, your issues will deal with you. So I say all the time, the person who stepped out has just as much work, if not more, than the person who was faithful.

33:34 But what happens is and I understand it, I completely understand it, so much or at all of the focus is on the person who got hurt that the person who stepped out is on the back burner, and for a time, rightfully so, However, I always say, infidelity starts in childhood, So we need to do that spiritual and emotional and mental and psychological surgery to understand where did this come from. Now, I don't want to get into this, and I know people are probably thinking I'm crazy already. There are some biological links in fidelity. I'm sure to say that again. There are some biological links that have been research found for infidelity. Obviously, there's childhood trauma, there's developmental things that happen, there's experiences and examples. So every time I'm deal talking to somebody who stepped out of a relationship, one of the things that we do is we work on their why why did you do this? And one of the things that I tell people is your why needs to start before you even met your current spouse or partner.

34:42 So I don't want to hear, well, she wouldn't give me sex anymore, he wouldn't let me go grocery shopping. No, no, no, no, no no no no. This needs to this needs to This needs to begin with you and with you, and it starts before you even met this person. Now, the person you're with could have tributing components, right you know that maybe that you know that maybe led to the gun being fired. But these bullets were already in the gun before you met so let let's find out where these bullets. Came well, and you talk about it, and you know, I think there's some areas you're not wanting to say that. I'm going to say it anyway. You know, Number one, which is obvious is childhood trauma, and oftentimes that childhood trauma isn't remembered and sometimes you just you know, had those inclinations and yet where does that come from?

35:32 And then beyond that, and I. Think people are starting to understand this more and science is starting to show this that there's heredity issues. You've got DNA memory and oftentimes it's just like you know, they talk about alcoholism, they talk about you know, you know, being kind of physically abusive, and so often you can trace that historically to previous ancestors. And I would say, and I want your opinion on. This, is that even isn't that even an issue that can come up, that there's some DNA memory in there that you're not even aware of that can instigate that type of behavior.

36:12 Listen personally, yes, now you can be talking to somebody else in my field. The next podcast that will say, no, studies don't show that, but there are oh man, the word is eluding me. It's uh, it's the characteristics that sit on top of epigenetics, epigenetic epigenetics. I don't know why that word just didn't come to me. Absolutely, one hundred percent, doctor Doug, without question. Now, I want to make it very clear that people listening, we are not justifying your spouse having an affair because of that the no, no, absolutely not make it very clear. But that is something that we need to consider when we are trying to do some digging to say where you know where it's the same thing if you go to the hospital and say, you know, did you have any parents that had a heart attacker? Did your grandparents have a heart attack? Or you know cancer? You know, is it in the lineage?

37:07 So it's you know, it's one of many, many, many contributed components. Possibly well, and doesn't it help the perpetrator to be able to go back and maybe not totally determine it, but have enough understanding to realize that, hey, this is something that came not necessarily that I created, but it is an epigenetic type of situation that if once I'm aware of that, doesn't that help the individual to then start to deal with that and overcome those tendencies and those inclinations. Yes, it does. It helps both parties because I think knowledge is power. It helps the person who was in their relationship understand, you know what, I'm not excusing their behavior at all, because there's still a grown man. I don't want to say the word there's you know, and they know right from wrong. And I want to make sure nobody listening is taking any of this as an excuse, justification or rationalization that that could be a But yes, absolutely, that's that's a contributing component. But but similar to childhood experiences.

38:20 You know, if somebody was raised in a family where you know, their mother or their father had multiple boyfriends and girlfriends or something, their tolerance level could could be a little bit lower than somebody who you know, had came from a childhood where their parents were happily married with no infidelity for fifty years. These you know, there's like I said, we could come into this world and come into marriage as a loaded gun, and then stressors of the here and now a relationship challenges can can pull that trigger. But yeah, we need to find out where that loaded gun came from, where those bullets came from. And one of the components, certainly is epigenetics pre verbal. You know even you know, you know our hypocampus, which is in for the most part, in control of recording time, date, location.

39:07 If we have trauma pre verbal, certainly, this is why you have a lot of somatic work. That's important. There are some people who cannot express what they want to express, but they will power in a corner and cry and scream. And maybe that's because when they were two and their father came into their room to sexually abuse them, or their mother came into the room to beat them, they didn't have words for it, but behaviorally, that's what they did, and that's what they'll resort to when you're trying to work on that trauma. So it could get very deep and intense. Yeah, well, let's talk about forgiveness, because as I think about forgiveness, I think there's two elements here that come in. Number one is forgiveness of the individual who betrayed you, and number two, the person that did the They train forgiving themselves for that behavior and the guilt and potentially the shame that they feel for having to that.

40:00 Yeah, listen, on the form of forgiveness, we can get all kinds of go into detail. All right, let's do for instance, if I'm talking to the person who is cheated on again, we're just using infidelity as an example. Number one. One of the first things I do is have them define what forgiveness is. Because doctor Doug, forgiveness to you is completely different from what it means to me. You have to define what forgiveness means to you, number one. Number two, I tell the person who is cheated on, you need to forgive yourself. What does that mean? Forgive yourself for overlooking the pink and red flags. Forgive yourself by not having or enforcing your boundaries. Forgive yourself for believing all the lies your mother and father told you that you were worthless. Forgive yourself, so first and foremost, it's defining it. Then forgiving yourself. Now, I'm not going to say that you can't give what you don't have, but I think it's easier if you possess it to then be able to offer it. Because a lot of people are like, I don't even know what the hell forgiveness means. Sorry to swear, I don't even know what what does it mean to forgive? And you know, blah, blah blah. Number two, forgiveness is certainly not for the other person's forgiveness, is you. I don't even like the word forgiveness. I call it self love. And here the other thing, too, is we not only have to when it comes to our partner or anyone, we not only have to forgive the fact, but we have to forgive the impact. This is what I mean. If I come into your house right now, right and I get one thousand dollars out of your dresser drawer, and you say,

41:30 mister j I need that money back, and I'm like, you know, no, no, no, not going to give it back to you. And you're like, well, I need my thousand dollars, you know whatever. Well, after you ask me that for so long and I keep saying no, You're like, forget it. I'm not going to charge you anymore. I'm not going to expect you to give it back to me. I'm going to relinquish the tie we have between each other. And that tie is that you owe me money. You don't owe me any more money whatever. So you forgave me for the fact, right, okay, But now six months down the road, now you are getting thrown out of your house because you can't pay your mortgage or your rent because I screwed you by taking that thousand dollars and you got behind on bills and now you have a foreclosure or whatever. Well, now you're impacted by what I did, So you're gonna have to forgive the impact too.

42:19 When it comes to betrail trauma, there's no such thing as one or two impacts. There's many. So forgiveness is not a one and done. It's an everyday occurrence. You have to not only forgive the fact, forgive the impact. And it's and it's a journey. Forgiveness is a journey. And sometimes I tell people, if you can't forgive, can you say you know what I want to forgive? And if you can't go there, can you say I want to want to forgive, So start somewhere and just work your way out. But keep in mind, forgiveness basically just cuts those handcuffs off you. It doesn't. It does not mean I excuse what they did. I love what they did, I accept what they did. I'm fine with what they did. No, it's I'm I'm done carrying this one hundred pound rocksack on my back. And it's time I put it down.

43:06 Okay, And and I think what you said is so important that you can't forgive someone. Else until you've learned to forgive yourself. And and you talk about self love and I and you know, you talk a little bit about theology here, and I know you have a background in that. I think of I think of something in the New. Testament where where you know, Christ says, you know, the greatest commandment is love God, and then the second love your neighbor as yourself. And I've looked at that, and what has come to my mind is that what he's really saying is you can only love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. And when you talk about forgiveness, the same thing, you can only forgive someone to the degree that you have allowed and learned to forgive yourself.

43:52 Yeah. Yeah, you know. One of one of the things speaking of, you know, the Bible, one of the things that I try to if I'm if I'm talking with a couple that has a deep faith background or walk with walk with faith, I'll say, uh, one of the things that I want you to hear from your partner is this. So let's just say there's a couple and we're working, and the couple the person who stepped out. I want them to tell their the person who they hurt and broke trust with this statement. I'm so sorry I could not protect you from my warm because it's because listen, Infidelity, in my opinion, is much like cutting yourself. We do it to non distract, avoid cope with something. Now the other person. If somebody's a deep faith, I try, and depending on where they are, I wouldn't certainly do this in the first four months, depending on where they are.

44:46 Can you understand why Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they did. Because there's a lot of people our wounds are guiding us. Yes, and I think I think that is so so essential and times up. Can you believe that we've been going no? No, So as we close Number one, how do people find your book? Oh? My lord, you can find my book me anywhere on my website. It's mister j Relationship Coach dot com. And listen, I'm gonna tell you something. Even if people never want to see my face, hear my voice, do anything whatever, I have a lot of free resources on my website. So even if they just go to my website, misterj Relationship Coach dot com, and just take advantage of my free resources because there's a lot of people in a lot of me, So please just take advantage of whatever I have to.

45:35 Great And if you were to share a final message with people that are suffering from those difficulties and betrayal trauma, what would you say to them? Let me just say this, Nobody in the history of mankind ever died from the snake bite. What people die from is when the poison enters your vein and hits to your heart. So I always say, other people give us pain, we give ourselves suffering. If a snake bites you, don't pick it up and keep letting that venom enter into your brain. Stop stop the poison from getting to your heart. Immediately. If somebody hurts you, immediately work on how do you grow? How do you forgive? How do you walk in love that way you are not making yourself suffer? Love it, love it well, and thank you.

46:17 And you know what, Jay, one of the things I love is the fact that on your website you have things that you're willing to give to others. And again, you know, part of this whole broadcast and podcast is about making a difference in people's lives, and here you are doing that professionally, but also you're willing to share that with no cost to people. And I just want to compliment you and give you kudos for that. Thank you, doctor Doug. I appreciate that. You've thanks so much. I really appreciate your insights. Folks, thanks for listening. I hope you really enjoyed this. Look forward to having you join us again soon. So this is doctor Doug saying, no mistake