First 24 Hours: Essential Steps After Discovering Infidelity

Hi everybody, it's Dr. Thompson. And today what I want to go over with you is what you want to do immediately when you find out, or you suspect you found out, probably you found out that your partner has been cheating on you. So you have 2, 2 major systems that I want you to be thinking about. One is your parasympathetic nervous system. It's a long word that really just means the relaxed response. The other, the other is the autonomic nervous system. Guaranteed, when you find out, you're going to bump right into your autonomic nervous system. This is where you just feel all this panic, anxiety. You feel a level of anger maybe that you've never felt before, and it just feels like your whole brain is on fire. Kind of, it really is. Your body temperature is going to go up, your heart rate is going to go up, and things are just going to feel like they're completely Out of control, and in a way they really are in that system. However, over here in your parasympathetic nervous system, you'll notice that your heart rate is slow and rhythmic. Your breathing is deep and cleansing, and your body's not on fire, and you can actually think. So this is where I need you to choose to live, is in your parasympathetic nervous system, which will require you literally hijacking your own brain. For several days following your discovery, especially that first day, because when you find out, it's difficult to think. All right, and I need you to be thinking, not reacting. Think, don't react. So here's some ways to get over to the parasympathetic nervous system. The easiest, fastest way is through your breathwork, right? So when your breath is up here in your head, don't trust it. Just don't trust your brain breath. Up here, that, that's getting nowhere, right? You need it all the way down through your body, down to your toes. And my thought here is if you can get it down to your legs, you can walk away from insanity. All right, so you don't want to be on TV, you don't want to be on Snap, you don't want to be a 911 call. You want to figure things out, you want to be clever. Maybe you are leaving, but you want to leave in your best way, okay? If you decide to stay, still you want to stay in your best way. And to get there, we gotta live over here in this other system, right? So, how do we breathe? Well, one is you really wanna see if the air gets past here. Now, obviously, you're alive and breathing, and you're gonna be listening to this. So I'm gonna take you through this little exercise, and then if horribly this is you, then you're gonna be doing this all day long. Okay, so I'm gonna give you a little bit of something to help. I want you to pause. And I want you to think about somebody who really does care about you. Somebody who loves you and loves you well. You know, hopefully you have a list of these people, but maybe you don't. Maybe you just have a couple. Maybe you just have a couple. But I'm gonna share with you that I have like a nice list here, a nice list. And I think of those people when I need to calm down. I think about them, and I think about them loving on me. And giving me good hugs and making me feel, making me feel good. And then I think about a thank you in my mind. I say thank you to them. And it helps me to get over to the system we need to be in. And it helps me be clever. And I hope the same for you. So I don't know who that person is, but I want you to get them in your mind right now. It could be your grandmother. For me, it's my granny. I think about her. She's long gone over to paradise, but I think about her and I think about All the different times I wish I, you know, could just tell her right now, thank you. So instead of wishing, I pause, I take a breath, I think of a time when she was there for me, and I tell her thank you. You know, I can think of a time when I was crying on her couch. Oh, I was boohoo crying on her couch, and she just held me and she talked to me and she spoke to me, and I can still kind of hear her voice, and it calms me down even further. You know, I think about teachers who have been there for me. One of my favorite teachers in high school was Mr. Kevin Perry. He's my band director, and he called Moki. It was my nickname back then. And I think about him. I think about telling him thank you. And I have told him thank you. And I think about other people. I think about my parents. I was blessed to have really good parents. And I think about them. I think about times when my mom was just amazingly there for me after I had my first baby. She came down and I had— I was the biggest baby when she left. And I think about that and I whisper, thank you. A thank you to her, you know. I think about my uncles. Oh my God, I have the best uncles in the world. And I think about all the different times that they were there for me, and I just whisper a thank you. Now that helps me to distract my mind from the situation at hand, calm down, and then be clever right now. Hope the same for you. So whoever you've been thinking about, whoever's on your mind, after you watch this video, call them, tell them thank you, and delay that phone call to the person who hurt you. Put as much space between you and that autonomic nervous system as you possibly can. The more space you get, the more clever you are, and I guarantee you, you can live well with a clever solution. When you make a solution that's coming from agitated, painful place, that's when you're living with regret. We don't have to do that. Okay. All right. I am rooting for you. If you need my help with this, just reach out. My office number is 972- 820-9965. I'm located in the North Dallas area. If you want to come see me in person, you're welcome to do that. And I offer, offer individual and couples counseling. When you're going through stuff like this, you actually need both. Both. Okay, we need both. So reach out. I'd be glad to help. I'll see you soon. Take care. Bye-bye.