Rebuilding Your Body, Mind and Life After a Betrayal
This week’s guest is Dr. Debi Silber, author of Amazon bestseller The Unshakable Woman: Four Steps to Rebuilding Your Body, Mind and Life After a Life Crisis. Dr. Debi was blindsided by a personal betrayal that inspired her to study how women experience and heal from betrayal. She shares the five stages that we go through from betrayal to breakthrough. She also talks about Post Betrayal Syndrome and Post Betrayal Transformation and shares a tool you can use to see how far along you are in the process of healing.
- Betrayal is an earth-shattering feeling that the world as you’ve known it no longer exists. [3:40]
- The Post Betrayal Transformation (PBT) Institute grew out of Dr. Debi’s experience. She teaches that our biggest crisis leads to our greatest gift. [4:26]
- Her Ph.D. research involved studying the lived experience of women who had experienced betrayal. She wanted to understand who they were before, and how the betrayal affected them physically, mentally and emotionally. Also, she wanted to understand the steps they took to heal. [5:51]
- If you’re willing to do what it takes to move from one stage to the next, your healing from betrayal is predictable. [6:58]
- Stacy asks Dr. Debi to describe the five stages from betrayal to breakthrough. She lists them as:
- Stage 1 – Ignoring your gut instinct that something is wrong. Focusing on the physical and mental, more than the emotional and spiritual.
- Stage 2 – You’re blindsided. It causes a breakdown of your body, mind, and worldview. Your body goes into a stress response. Your mind is confused and overwhelmed. Your worldview is shattered, and you no longer trust your betrayer nor yourself.
- Stage 3 – The practical stage. You focus on surviving. You can get stuck at this stage if you’re not careful. Dr. Debi describes the self benefits you start receiving at this stage, and what you need to do to move to the next stage.
- Stage 4 – Adjusting to your new normal. You’re redefining yourself and your rules.
- Stage 5 – Rebirth. Dr. Debi describes how you come through this stage with a new view of yourself and the world. [7:50]
- Dr. Debi shares 3 reasons why someone may not heal from betrayal. [15:32]
- Post-Betrayal Syndrome is a collection of physical, mental and emotional symptoms specific to betrayal. [17:54]
- Post-Betrayal Transformation is the state of complete healing after an experience with betrayal. [19:33]
- You can take an objective quiz, developed by Dr. Debi and her team, to show you where you are in the process of healing. You can’t heal from what you’re not aware of. [21:10]
- he beauty of betrayal, Dr. Debi says, is that it gives you the opportunity to rebuild something so fabulous that you never would have built had the betrayal not happened. Stacy adds that it’s the opportunity to decide who you’re going to be and to start working towards making that happen. [24:51]
- Healing is a gift to yourself because you love yourself and your family so much that you want to move on. [26:03]
- “I have yet to see anyone on the planet stronger than a woman who has healed from betrayal,” Dr. Debi says.
Resources:
Stacy Francis: Stacy@Stacyfrancis.com
Phone: 212-374-9008
Find out more about PBT, including certification: Post Betrayal Transformation Institute
Dr. Debi Silver’s TED Talk
Book: The Unshakable Woman: Four Steps to Rebuilding Your Body, Mind and Life After a Life Crisis
Find out more about the Second Opinion program