Episode 77: The Stages of Betrayal and Post-Betrayal Healing with Dr. Debi Silber
Brief summary of show:
Are you aware of the stages of betrayal?
Did you know that low energy, gut issues, weight gain, and more can be attributed to the impact of betrayal, even from situations more than 20 to 30 years ago?
Betrayal is an important topic, and we’re exploring the stages of betrayal and how to heal from it in this episode with Dr. Debi Silber.
Dr. Debi Silber is the founder of the PBT (Post Betrayal Transformation) Institute and is a holistic psychologist, a health, mindset and personal development expert, the author of Trust Again, and is a 2-time #1 International bestselling author of: The Unshakable Woman AND From Hardened to Healed. Her podcast: From Betrayal to Breakthrough is also globally ranked within the top 1.5% of podcasts.
Her recent PhD study on how we experience betrayal made 3 groundbreaking discoveries that change how long it takes to heal. In addition to being on FOX, CBS, The Dr. Oz Show, TEDx (twice) and more, 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 the health, work, relationships, confidence, and happiness they want most.
Listen in as we talk about:
[3:30] Why Debi decided to study betrayal
[5:00] What betrayal can look like
[6:45] The three discoveries of betrayal
[9:10] Statistics around betrayal
[12:30] The stages of betrayal
[17:35] How to get out of the effects of betrayal
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Notes from Natalie:
Connect with Debi
Connect with Me
View Transcript for this Episode
[00:00:00] Natalie Tysdal: Hi everyone. It's Natalie. This week's podcast is so important on many levels. Betrayal is something that can hold your life back physically and mentally. It can keep you from a life of happiness and health, but betrayal is more than just hurt.
[00:00:15] It's deep. Sometimes we don't even know that what we're struggling from is something that may have happened to us as a child, Or it could be something more recent could be personal, could also be professional. My guest and expert is Debbie silver. She's a holistic psychologist, a health mindset and personal development expert.
[00:00:36] She's also the author of trust again and is a two time number one, international best selling author of the unshakeable woman and from hardened to heal. Love the title of her books. Her podcast from betrayal to breakthrough is also globally ranked within the top 1.5% of podcasts. Her recent PhD study on how we experienced betrayal, made three groundbreaking discoveries that changes how long it takes.
[00:01:05] To heal. And we're gonna talk about all of that today. In addition, she's been on a lot of shows that you've maybe heard of from the Fox network, CBS, the Dr. A show TEDx twice, by the way, and so much more. She's amazing. She's also an award-winning speaker and coach she's dedicated to helping people move past betrayal.
[00:01:26] Thank you so much, by the way, for being here, this. And listening to this podcast. I am so grateful for your love, your support and your continual inspiration as listeners let's get started.
[00:01:38]
[00:01:40] Natalie Tysdal: Debbie. Thanks so much for taking the time today. This is a topic I've been wanting to talk about, and I'm, I'm really excited to get deep into this because so many people have a sense of betrayal and they might not even be identifying it as betrayal, but it's holding them back in so
[00:01:56] Debi Silber: many ways. Yeah. And looking forward to this conversation, it's holding them back physically, mentally, emotionally, it's showing up in their health, in their work, in their relationships.
[00:02:06] For example, I'll see an unhealed betrayal in relationships in two ways. One is a repeat betrayal. Classic sign that it's not healed. You go from partner to partner, to partner, friend, to friend, to friend, boss, to boss, to boss. What the heck is it me? Yes, it is not in that. It's your fault in that? It's your opportunity.
[00:02:24] There is a profound lesson needing to be learned. You are lovable, worthy, and deserving. You need better boundaries in place, whatever it is until, and unless you get that, you're gonna have opportunities in the form of people to teach you the other way. We see it. Yeah. Is, is. The big wall goes up, you know, people like that, right.
[00:02:42] They're like, Nope. Been there, done that. No, one's getting near me again. They think it's coming from a place of strength and it's not, it's coming from fear and we see it in health and in, and in work as well.
[00:02:52] Natalie Tysdal: I wanna take a step back for a moment.
[00:02:54] Why did you decide to study this and, and to really dive in deep with this topic?
[00:03:00] Debi Silber: Yeah, I don't think anybody says, you know, I think I wanna study betrayal. No, you study because you have to. And it's my 30th year in business and as life would change, so would business. So it was, I started in health and then mindset and then 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.
[00:03:20] And then it happened a few years later this time it was my husband. That was the deal breaker. So I got him out of the. And looked at the two experiences thinking, okay, well what's similar to these two, of course me, but what else? And I realized boundaries were ne were always getting crossed. I never took my own needs seriously.
[00:03:36] And I thought, well, if nothing changes, nothing changes. So here I was four kids, six dogs. A thriving business and I'm like, you know what, I'm going back for a PhD. I didn't know how I was gonna pay for it. I didn't know how I was gonna manage the time it was in transpersonal psychology, psychology of transformation and human potential because I was changing so much.
[00:03:55] I didn't quite understand it. He was too. Wasn't ready to look at that. And then it was time to do a study. So I study betrayal. What holds us back, what helps us heal and what happens to us physically, mentally, and emotionally, when the people closest to us lie, cheat and dece, that study led to three discoveries, which changed my health, my work, my family, my life.
[00:04:16] Natalie Tysdal: Okay. So I wanna hear about those discoveries in just a moment. You mentioned relationship betrayal. Mm-hmm , that's probably one of the biggest,
[00:04:24] but betrayal can look like a lot of things. Mm-hmm so give me some examples
[00:04:29] Debi Silber: of that. Yeah, it could be, you know, your uh, a child and, and the parent does something awful.
[00:04:35] It could be as a grown child and you have a deal with your siblings when mom and dad are older, we'll take care of them. And then where are they? It could be infidelity. It could be your uh, business partner takes the company funds. Could be your best friend, sharing your secret, someone abusing a position of authority.
[00:04:52] It has so many faces, self betrayal, you know, you swore you'd never eat that thing, be with that person, whatever it is. And there you go. So it's any time there's that breaking of a spoken or unspoken rule?
[00:05:06] Natalie Tysdal: Yeah. And for many people they might not even know what's holding them back is betray.
[00:05:13] Debi Silber: Exactly. And it's one of those things where you have physical, mental, and emotional symptoms and you may just attribute it to age or stress and think, oh, that's what it is.
[00:05:22] No, it's not. It's your unhealed betrayal. And you know, we, we also think time will heal it and it doesn't time, even a new relationship won't heal it. And um, that was, that was one of the discoveries. And, and I can, I can share how we know.
[00:05:38] Natalie Tysdal: Yeah. Okay. So I, I want you to talk about that, but you just made me think when you said we think time will heal it.
[00:05:44] What I have found is the time just shoves it down deeper. exactly.
[00:05:48] Debi Silber: You're still right. It's still there. Yeah. it is. And then people say, you know, what, what is it it's been? So it's been such a long time, but if you haven't deliberately and intentionally moved through the healing, it's just, you're just keeping it at bay at best.
[00:06:06] You're keeping
[00:06:06] Natalie Tysdal: it at.
[00:06:07] Okay. So let's talk about the discoveries and and, and your work with.
[00:06:12] Debi Silber: So the first one was I thought that I was originally studying betrayal and post-traumatic growth. And for those who aren't familiar, post traumatic growth is if you can imagine kind of an upside of trauma, how that trauma death of a loved one disease, natural disaster leaves you with a new awareness insight perspective you didn't have before.
[00:06:31] But I had been through death of a loved one and I'd been through. And I was like, Nope, betrayal feels different for me. I didn't wanna assume it was the same for everyone. So I asked my study participants, if you've been through other traumas besides betrayal, is it different for you unanimously? They said it's so different.
[00:06:48] And 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, that's unique to betrayal. So that type of peeling needed its own name, which is now called post betrayal transformation, the complete and total rebuild of your life and yourself after an experience with betrayal.
[00:07:13] So the first discovery was that betrayal is still a trauma, but a very different type of. Trauma. Okay, boy, that's
[00:07:20] Natalie Tysdal: huge. Yeah, that is huge because you're right. We, we go through something really hard, a crisis mm-hmm and you think, you know how to move
[00:07:27] Debi Silber: past things. Right. Like, think about it. You lose someone, you love you grieve.
[00:07:30] You're, you're sad. You're mourn in the loss, but you don't necessarily lose your ability to trust. Right? You don't question your sanity, you know, that's what betrayal does. Yeah. So that was the first one. The second discovery was there's actually a collection of. Symptoms, physical, mental, and emotional. So common to betrayal.
[00:07:47] It's known as post betrayal syndrome and we've had, I don't know, 80,000 plus people take the post betrayal syndrome quiz on our site to see to what extent they're struggling a few things about that we spoke before about time heals, all wounds. And it does not. Here's where I have the proof. There's a question that says, is there anything else you'd like to share on the quiz?
[00:08:09] And people write things like my betrayal happened 35 years ago and I'm unwilling to trust. My betrayal happened 40 years ago. I can feel the hate. My betrayal happened 10 years ago. Feels like it happened yesterday. So we know you can't count on time or a new relationship to heal betrayal. And, and I'm happy to share some of the statistics from, from the
[00:08:28] Natalie Tysdal: course of you.