The Physiology of Betrayal: Moving from Survival to Grounded Discernment with Dr. Monique Thompson

Welcome to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Bookshelf, a space for women healing from betrayal to reconnect with their mind, body, and soul, one page at a time. I'm Rachel Strong Smith, a betrayal trauma coach who's walked this path myself. In each episode, we'll explore books that speak to the heart of recovery, books that validate your experience, offer insight, and remind you that you're not alone. This isn't about fixing yourself. It's about coming home to yourself. So whether you're in the thick of survival, or finding your way back to solid ground, pull up a chair, you're in the right place. Hi, welcome to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Bookshelf. I am so glad that you're here. And I have an amazing guest, Dr. Monique Thompson. Hi.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello. Thank you for having me.

Oh, I am so glad to have you on.

Yes.

Oh, let me tell our listeners a little bit about you, Dr. Thompson. So Dr. Monique Thompson is an EMDR-trained therapist and trauma-informed life coach specializing in betrayal trauma, PTSD, and couples recovery after infidelity. With over 24 years in private practice, she helps both betrayed partners and partners who have betrayed restore nervous system safety before For making decisions about reconciliation or separation. Her work integrates parts-based approaches. I just have to put a little asterisk, my favorite.

Mm-hmm.

Trauma reprocessing and nervous system regulation to support clarity, accountability, and values-aligned decision-making. Dr. Thompson is the author of a bestselling infidelity recovery workbook for couples. I'm gonna show it right here. I read through the whole thing. Oh man, it's got some goodies in there. She is known for her culturally responsive approach, thoughtfully integrating faith and spirituality when invited by clients. Her clinical focus centers on helping couples move from survival states into grounded discernment, prioritizing healing and psychological health, whether they stay together or part ways. Yeah. Oh, well, welcome, Doctor Thompson. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, you know, I follow you on Instagram too. You are amazing. Amazing. All your parts work. Oh my goodness. 10 out of 10. Highly recommend.

Thank you. You know what? I really appreciate getting that feedback because I'm a little bit like, they're kind of a lot to produce. And so I'm like, is it resonating? And so hearing that, I'm like, okay, it's resonating.

Yes. Shareable level resonating. It's in a way for people to identify that there is pain that you're experiencing. A part of you is experiencing that. Another part of you might be curious about what's going on. Another part of you may feel fear. Some part of you may be like, I got this. You know, there's all these different parts of you, and allowing space for community and communication, and for you to kind of allow that emerging strong voice to bring peace and calm. It's just a matter of patience with yourself. And sometimes in recovery, or when you find out somebody's— you're trying to have patience with the situation or with the other person, and the primary nervous system to focus on is yours. Yes. Yes. So I love your work.

Oh, thank you. And so I love how concisely and succinctly that you summarize that, because that is— oh, well, let's dive in. Tell me a little bit. Let's just start with a little overview of your Infidelity Recovery Workbook for Couples. Just What is it designed to support? What led you to create it?

The irony is that the publisher reached out to me during COVID and I was not going to do the book because I felt like the world has enough going on, let alone me. But my oldest daughter and my husband convinced me that you have all of this content and they're just asking you to put it in a workbook. Just get it all put together and put it in a workbook. But I just felt I'm a little bit, tiny bit of an overachiever. I'm like, well, I need to make it all pretty. And it turns out the editor really did just need my expertise and my content. And then they made it all pretty. They made it all pretty and all the graphics and all that stuff. There was literally a long list of people working on that project. The only reason I know is because I accidentally logged into the wrong space on the site one day when I was trying to reach my editor. And I saw all these people working on the book. I said, oh, that is beautiful. Those people working on this. And all I have to do is give you the content and every once in a while explain things. So for example, some of the misunderstandings about trauma, because at one point he said, so what do you— when you say, are you saying people have PTSD? And I said, no, I'm not. But I said, but I can see how you have that question and I can see how people reading it may think we mean that you have had a near-death experience or that you've had sexual assault or something. But no, Trauma can be lots of different defined moments in your life. Not always do you develop the diagnosis of PTSD because you were exposed to a trauma. So even some of it was helping the editor to understand, help me to write better, because I recognized that he represented the general population. And so making it clear, like you said, clearing. But they will chop up your work and make it concise. Because you're thinking, what else can I cut? I can't cut anything from it. And now I was sudden it gets chop, chop, chop. And it gets— so the book is written with the intent of it being sensitive to cultures and sensitive to walk— lots of different walks of life. And I didn't see this until after it was released and I started getting emails and feedback online. The person who cheated seemed to find the book and most probably I got messages saying, if only I had read this before.

Mm-hmm.

I started communicating, I would've been more sensitive. I wouldn't have tried it. And I'm thinking, yeah. So it's written for both partners, but even in practical everyday clinical work, some of that part, the part that's written for the person who cheated, is from my work with the partners who cheated. And from constantly saying the same thing over and over again, like you Cannot rush to answer these questions. You rushing to answer these questions because you're really trying to control your partner's emotional response. So now you've lied again under the pretense of trying to protect them and only made it worse. So now the fire had gasoline poured on it from your answers to these questions, or you didn't have any response at all. You just shut down because your nervous system was completely maxed out. And so the book helps people on both sides to find ways to communicate. There's exercises in there, places for you to communicate together. So there's a chapter for each person and there's chapters to do together. And then kind of overall, there's the, I guess the part is, it's like the Olympics of recovery work. Just like with AA or NA or SA, where part of what you have to accept in step 1 is that this is with you now. And it is a long— it's a lifelong companion and your recovery work is daily. And if you go to any AA, NA, SA, any group, any 12-step group in the world, people can be in there that have been sober for 15, 20 years and they will still say, I am one moment away from a full relapse. And the same thing, you have to accept this is with me now and my effort daily. Put some space between me and this situation. But just like with the 12 steps, self-compassion plays a huge role. Self-compassion, empathy for the other person, all of that. So a lot of that theme, you'll see that theme in the workbook. Making amends— bigger than an apology is making amends. But you see that same tradition in the 12 steps, that at some point you gotta figure out how you're going to live out your amends. And when possible, make direct amends. But even in 12-step programs, that's what step 8— you don't start there. You start with the sobering reality of the damage that was done. And that's a lot of people too. Yes.

Yes, yes. And that is— I really appreciated the book, especially saying slow it down, keep this process slow. This isn't rushing through it. Exactly. What would you say would be like In the stages in betrayal trauma healing, infidelity recovery, couples work, where would this recovery workbook come in? In the, you know, what do you see that as?

D-Day, the day you discover, you know, the day you discover, especially for the person who cheated, the day that it is discovered, get the book so that you don't do more harm, secondary traumas. If you Are someone who is cheating and you haven't yet been caught, but you're— because I get people for therapy who haven't been caught. They are thinking about what to do. They haven't decided. They're cheating, but they've decided that they need to do something. They want to either leave their marriage or stay, or they want to leave the affair partner or stay. Like, they're trying to decide what to do. That workbook even helps them in that decision-making process. At any point when infidelity has presented itself to your life, the workbook helps you with managing through it from a nonjudgmental— kind of giving you a workspace or a studio to work through this versus the hard line of— I mean, online, they'll have you thinking you just need to just climb up on the cross and just die. Just die. Just die today. Can you die faster? Can you die faster? You know, or if you're thinking about staying—

Mm-hmm.

Oh, you're so stupid. Why would you stay? They're just going to do it again. So slowing down, the workbook helps you to slow down on you pushing yourself to make what you perceive to be a socially acceptable decision. Sometimes people's culture or religion may make them feel like they're obligated to stay. They feel all this pressure. So the parts work helps. If you're coming in, this is one I don't recommend you do alone though. Let me back up a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, get the workbook right away, but quickly get to somebody like you. Get to Rachel. Get to somebody like me. Quickly get to someone whose specialty is in this scope of practice because it's fairly unique. I've learned it is a fairly unique specimen. And people who have more hours under their belt, so to speak, one, are more calm about it. So I I don't panic anymore. I mean, as a younger therapist, I was like, what are we going to do? But learning as I went that don't even promise. I don't know how the relationship is going to work out either. I don't know if it's going to work out. I don't know if this— I don't know either. I do know what we can do to peacefully arrive at a decision, but no promises. And sometimes I see things on YouTube or on Instagram where people seem to promise People going through this, the promise of outcome. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So if I can just put that out there to your listener, don't believe— don't believe it.

Don't believe it.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you. That was— I mean, that was even one of my first hesitations when I looked at this book. I was like, is this going to be just another promise that, oh, if you do this, then you are definitely going to stay together? And I love that you very clearly are saying this isn't about making that decision right now. This is about how To come to that decision. Like you said, like, there— I don't know what's going to happen here. And the infidelity recovery, yes, right? Sometimes that means, oh, that means they stayed together. No, that's not the definition of that, right? Recovery is returning to you.

Returning to your most authentic self. Yeah, you know, and genuine. Now, I don't use a lot of anecdotal stories because I believe in confidentiality, protection of identity, privacy, and you need a safe place to come and kick your shoes off and talk about So these are a couple of stories that are by permission, but still I change a few things, right? But one of the stories that I thought was just beautiful was this guy. He'd been, you know, a young guy, you know, traveling the world and had somebody in every city, right? But he, and there was an understanding. And so as a backpedal to that, I define infidelity as non-consent. Okay.

I like that.

So if everybody's consenting, Then it is not infidelity, right? So he had people in every city. Everybody understood and knew that I am the one here. He had some— everybody understood the situation. He noticed, though, that in this one particular place that he would go visit, what he said to me, he said, she's too accommodating, you know, and she makes it feel too much like home and like family. And he's like, she wants more than what I'm Trying to do right now. He said, everybody is— if I land in town and they are busy, they like, I'm busy, I'm busy. Or if I break plans with them, I break plans with them. If they— it's very casual, you know. It's if they're available, they're available. If they're not, they may be with somebody else and they'll say, oh, you know, I'm busy tonight, and they mean I'm with somebody. He was like, I never feel anything about it. They don't feel anything about it with me. He said, but I feel tender about even telling her that, you know, I'm in town, but I'm not coming by. I'm someplace else. He felt it, you know? And she would still say, oh, it's okay. It's okay. He said, but I don't think— I don't think she's really— I feel like I'm betraying something that's happening. And I was like you. I'm like, that is remarkable, right? So he flew in unannounced, knocked on her door. She opens it, and he says, it's over. And she's shocked. She's like, what, what do you mean? What are you talking about? He's like, I won't be calling you. You won't be calling me. You want something that I'm never going to have available. We have to stop. So he turns and walks away. There was a whole— he didn't even come. He leaves and she immediately starts calling and, oh, I just— can we try to— can we talk? And he said that was his signal that he was right. That she wanted more. He said, because anybody else didn't even bother calling on his birthday, nothing. It was just so casual. He was nothing to these other people. They were nothing to him. He could feel and sense that, you know, we have a real understanding and kind of a quote unquote hell yes to what we're doing. And he just trusted his gut on that. Well, this is when it was shared with me. It had happened many moons ago, many moons ago. It just kind of came up. And I said, you know, do you mind? It's such a remarkable story. Do you mind if I use that from time to time? Oh yeah, sure. So I use that story from time to share that the decision about whether or not something is infidelity, it can be felt, it can be sensed, and it is not always so properly defined in clear language, but it can be sensed and it can be felt. And that is what I encourage. Like the recovery, the infidelity recovery is you coming clean with you.

Hmm.

You, with you. Even if your partner never finds out, which by the way, they always do, but say your partner never finds out. You already know, and the person that you have now had this somewhat, you know, first level of betrayal was actually with yourself. You telling yourself that this is okay or that it's all right. I should have— that was you betraying yourself, your own integrity with yourself. And that's what you want to recover from. Because whether it was this or that, you want your whole life to— your oldest and longest companion is you.

Mm-hmm.

And you want to have a really beautiful, clean relationship with yourself. Whatever your choices are, you want them to be good, clean, honest choices for you. That's what then— that's how I define that now. Wow.

Wow. That is quite a story. And it does flip some things. Like, OK, well, what is this really happening? Which kind of leads us into this— what, again, The definition of the infidelity. I mean, here's yeah. It's all dicey, and as you can see, as you've described in that story, like what is it? And when two partners see it differently, and da da da, like that's its own thing. But for the sake of this question, we'll just say infidelity. It's agreed upon. Whatever you listeners are defining as infidelity. When someone discovers infidelity of their partner. How does that moment impact the nervous system? And why is it helpful to understand that betrayal is a physiological injury rather than just the emotional one?

At the top of my list would be shame. If you can set aside the moral judgment of yourself just for a few weeks and just acknowledge that I, I just experienced a shock to my entire nervous system. My heart rate is through the roof. Cortisol is flooding my blood. I can't think. You know, you'll say, I can't even think straight. Well, some of you not being able to think straight is because you're now living in your sympathetic nervous system. You can't sleep because your nervous system is fully activated. And if you try to make a decision on staying or leaving while your nervous system is activated, while you're having a full stress response, You sometimes might, by luck, by chance, by blessing, happen to land at the same decision later when you calm down. I do not believe in making your life choices based on the luck of the draw. So just calm down first and know that it's going to take— you know, it takes a hot kettle a minute to calm down, to cool off. Give yourself a respectable amount of time to cool off. And by that, I literally mean This is so easily done now, 24 years in. I wish all these biometric tools were available when I first started out. You could use your phone to tell you the truth about how you're actually feeling. It will tell you the truth. It will not lie to you about how your sleep has been. It will tell you the truth about your heart rate. You can check your stress symptoms and see how you're doing. And when you see that you have not had these physiological markers of stress for a reasonable amount of time. And for me, when I work with people, we talk about what for you is a reasonable amount of time to give your nervous system. I advocate for us to start looking at weeks to months versus days because I interpret that quick decision to be a survival response, not a health response. And when you're in that space, your brain makes survival responses that are off of the instinct to survive and to avoid pain.

Mm-hmm.

It's not your executive function, your prefrontal cortex, which engages in strategic thinking. That's the part of your brain that says, well, I'm not hungry right now, but I'm about to be gone all day, so I probably should either eat breakfast or take something with me. That's the executive function. That's your prefrontal cortex. Your survival instinct is when you are passing by the donut shop and you smell, you smell the smells, you know you don't have time to pull over and you give actual thought to getting in that long line at Starbucks when you do not have time for that. That is you having a quick reaction to a survival instinct that feels like, I got to have it, I got to have it. And when you're in those first few days, you're going to have that kind of punchy, I got to have relief. So when you're, I got to, got to, got to, just don't trust your agitated brain. Don't trust it. The amount of time varies person to person, but I'll tell you, there are some predisposing factors, if you will.

Mm-hmm.

Having adverse childhood events, meaning you had Overexposure to trauma as a child, we call it an ACE score. So if you have what we call a high ACE score, then I would say slow, be really thoughtful about slowing down, getting into a professional setting to help cool the nervous system. It is too— well, when we're recording this, it's 2026. We have access to a full family, a suite of trauma options when it comes to therapy. You got polyvagal theory, brain spotting, IFS, EMDR. trauma-informed CBT. It's a whole building warehouse full of trauma-informed strategies. Go someplace and you sound baths. I mean, literally, there's a ton of trauma-informed strategies that you can use to help self-soothe appropriately versus sometimes what you find is that you're inappropriately self-soothing because you pressured yourself to make the decision too quick. So you see increased alcohol consumption, you see increased drug use, you see people acting out sexually because they're in pain, which you would think is counterintuitive, but still it happens. Well, now anytime you're engaging in maladaptive behavior, you're increasing your stress response, and as it increases, it increases, and as it increases, it increases and what goes up must come down. So then you suddenly feel like you can't get out of bed and you're having anti-survival thoughts. You don't even want to be here anymore. What have I done? You've made some of these decisions when your brain was hot. Now you're facing the consequences. And sometimes with adults, we can make life choices that don't give you a second chance.

Yeah.

And some where the second chance is quite expensive. I'm gonna give you an easy example. People will move out. They will, instead of going to sleep somewhere for the night, they will literally go and truly move out while your brain is still high. Well, now you got 2 mortgages or you got a lease on someplace that you, you've increased this housing expense. And sometimes it's created a new financial crisis, or people will insist you need to quit that job because you had the affair at work. You quit that job right now. Okay, they could, but, and work where? Especially in the economy that I'm speaking of when we're recording, I do not know where you're going to get this job. Where you going to go get this job? But even if you get it, I don't know what kind of coins they're paying for people right now. So some of it is that in the moment, you may decide later to leave. You may decide later that we do need to sell this house and get— you may actually make those same decisions.

Mm-hmm.

later, but they're made from a cool mind. It's with everybody, you know, concerned. And when you start off with the nervous system leading the way from a peace place, then you're ready. So kind of looking at it and saying, well, I'm not ready, doesn't mean I'm not emotionally. It means I'm not biologically ready. You could be a really— because I see a lot of devout people. I see people who are well achieved, a lot of celebrities, pro athletes, I see a lot of people who are well achieved in their life and I see the opposite spectrum too. And you are, everybody needs to understand that when it comes to this, everybody's biology is quite— I got one more story for you because this is good.

I love this.

I'm adjusting my— this is a good one. So understanding infidelity, like the effect it has on people. I couldn't have been in practice more than like 5 years or so. And I'm in year 25 in May of this year. This is one of my first cases. As luck or God would have it, it was a pimp and a prostitute. Could not make this up. Yeah, I don't know if y'all are listening or watching this. You should see—

Woo!

Rachel, you okay? You okay?

Oh, I'm here. I'm with you. You okay?

So they had gotten married, though.

All right.

So your preexisting relationship was pimp and prostitute. They're coming in and I'm a little baby therapist, so I'm thinking, assuming that what they want to work through is the prior relationship and how— no, they had continued to be pimp and prostitute or sex worker, appropriate language here. And I am sorry for the sex worker, but seriously, at that time I did not say sex worker. I said pimp and prostitute, but here I am going to correct I'm sorry. So this person is complaining. The husband is complaining because not that he wants her to stop being a sex worker, but he wants her to stop having sex with this one particular customer. I see how you— your face is my face. I really, I was like, I do not follow this at all. I mean, how we— What you— and then you think, well, but you're her pimp, so I guess you are endorsing this. But then you got married. Why did you get married if you didn't want— like all these questions. What were you thinking? You know? So the issue was he felt that whole, like sensed and felt, he felt like this guy has a different kind of connection and I don't want that. I just want it to be a business transaction. And with him, it's more than a business transaction. And her complaint was, he is my best customer. I am not going to let go of him. He was like, that's my whole point. And I'm thinking, this is blowing my mind, but it's helping me redefine infidelity. The issue is consent. He's not consenting to this. So you got to renegotiate what you're agreeing to. Because in a way, it was an open marriage, but it also made me see, I don't know if this is going to work. Open marriage concept. Like, what if somebody changes their mind? What are you going to do then? Because they experienced the same betrayal trauma that you would have experienced anyway. So that was perplexing. It still is actually perplexing to me because even I've met a lot of people who have experimented with open marriages or with the lifestyle. And the minute some, the minute anybody changes their mind, and often they do. It is because of the connection that the person has with somebody else. And they're like, I didn't agree to that. But if we just look at Helen Fisher's work, easily hers, I'll just use hers because hers is easy to kind of Google and YouTube. That was going to happen. Having that kind of connection with somebody and increasing your sense of trust in them, it was just a matter of time before one of these partners became also a love object. And then all you needed was for that person's trust in you and attraction to you and love in you to match yours. And now your partner has a legitimate complaint that you have moved into a different relationship, and that is not what they thought they were agreeing to. Well, but you can't roll back time on me having this connection, so what do we do now? Plus, you have been hurting Just the same as someone who was in a monogamous relationship. The betrayal trauma is literally just the same. So what, so my presentation on this is that with couples, I just make a decision. Make a decision and then try your best to stick to it. But if you change your mind, it needs to be in there that I might change my mind. And we have to allow space for, if I change my mind, then we are actually now approaching this betrayal trauma from the perspective of, I really am betrayed. Because it's crazy, but from that community, I get the most complaint of, you don't have anything to complain about. And I'm like, but here they are broken. Even if they agreed at first, they now don't agree. So they're still— The pain is still the same. Yes. So that is the challenge of the nervous system is that your nervous system is still— no matter who you are, it is still a nerve. It's a biological nervous system like everybody else's. And when you sense betrayal, it responds like everybody, whether you're a non-binary, heterosexual, trans, the entire LGBT community. Because I've seen a lot of that, and in that community there's a little bit of openness to trying other the minute somebody changes their mind, that has to be respected and addressed to completion. It can't be that you keep doing what you was doing while you figure out what y'all doing. Because every time you do, it's just more. Exactly. Exactly. I don't know if that answers that, but—

Wow. That is— I mean, and what an interesting perspective, because I'm right with you. And I've considered these different areas of connect— of— I'm watching context in infidelity and betrayal trauma. It isn't as important as that common thread of betrayal, the hiding, the lying, which leads to the next question. Authentic communication requires self-connection, right?

Yes. Self-connection.

That authentic connect—

yep.

That communication is so essential.

Yes.

And it is, it's impossible without that self-awareness. So what does self- Connecting to oneself really look like in recovery? Because there's obviously been a miss.

So I may say some unpopular things, but I'm going to play my senior therapist card, my expertise and seniority in the field. So people may have a part of them that genuinely, I'm going to use some language here, does not give a Oh yeah. Okay. This is for real. And wants to do what he wants to do, finds this option just irresistible. And in that same person, another part of them is screaming and yelling and, no, don't do it. And then there's a part of them that may be fully neutral and unconcerned. And there may be a hurt part That is replaying some events from when they experienced pain. It is quite complex, the world of the selves, all these different parts on the one hand. On the other hand, giving voice to all of it internally. Create a meeting place in your mind. Let all these different parts come up and be heard. There's no bad parts. Let them all be heard.

Mm-hmm.

Try to understand. It may be true that you do not want to be in the relationship that you're in. You really do want to do A, B, and C. And that's a truth that you have to digest and accept, find breath in it and say, because I'm going to live that truth, I am now going to visit with the part of me that is married and hear from that part of me. And that part of me says what, you know, and that part of me may say, exercise restraint and go on about your business. And now my internal conversation is to reconcile these competing parts. Or that part of me may say, you need to leave, you're going to do harm. And now I need to reconcile that and say, well, how, how do I leave? How do I go about leaving? Because I am going to live out this experience, and that means I'm going to do harm. And to accept responsibility for the harm I'm going to do, I now need to check into another part of myself. And that whole thing, especially to the people thinking about doing, is for you. Like me, myself, and I. That is a me, myself, and I conversation until you find your truest truth. That is a conversation for you internally or in a private space with somebody else like me or like Rachel. That is not a conversation for you to take into the external world of your relationship and tell this person I was thinking. They, because now their protective parts are coming up and it's about to be World War 29,012. So, and it's unfair to expect somebody to not have that kind of nervous system response when you are a loved object. They're going to have that reaction. So taking all of your competing truths someplace where you can work through them until you find your living truth. And your living truth may be, I'm not going to do This. That has happened more times than I can count. This is another little anecdotal story, but it was beautiful and sad. Um, somebody had worked it all the way out, like how they were going to do it, everything. And it was a long time in sessions doing this. I am by judgmental, by, by, by nature, nonjudgmental. And so in this, in the end, they decided they weren't going to do it. And so I was just, I was like, well, would you mind sharing? Because they said it's going to happen. that, um, they're going to be in the same place no matter what I do. Some kind of way it's going to happen. They're going to be in the same place. And I don't want somebody knowing something about me that they don't know.

Hmm.

And I thought that was so beautiful. Let me fast forward this story. And this is where it gets sad. I mean, a few months later, their partner died. In a car wreck, and they were in it together, and they were there for their partner's last breath. And some of the solace was peace that I didn't do this to you. Right. Right.

Wow.

Wow. And that space that we had created to just work it through took months. I mean, months. I've also had, to me, the most like, if you, if you ever need somebody to general your army, these are the people to do it. I've had countless companions and partners come in who have learned down to the full level of evidence that their partner is cheating on them. They have all the evidence. They 100% know it's true. They have every shred of evidence they need, all of it. Everything. The blood tests, everything. They got all the evidence they need. And they haven't decided what they want to do. They haven't decided what they want to do. They're not sure if they want to stay or they want to go. And if they're going to leave, they're not sure how they want to leave. I'm like, I don't know how you are sitting still in therapy while you figure out what you want to do with this information. But they are, to me, the icons of you can too. Sit your nervous system down and cool it down so that it serves you instead of you reacting to it. And those people have all been able to navigate some, I mean, to me, like iconic level divorces where they had a beautiful divorce. I'm like, that was just spectacular. It was beautiful. Because by the time they got to that point, they had thought it all the way through. You know, or have reconciled. But by the time they decided to reconcile, they were sure they wanted to reconcile. They were open to whether their partner wanted to or not. They took the time to sit still and give their nervous system a moment. Not a moment, because all these people, I need everybody. We're talking months. We're not talking about a couple of— Yeah.

Months and years.

Months and years. Yes. We got close to a year, like seriously, where they were weekly coming in. just kicking off their shoes and dealing with it. Next session, kick off your shoes and deal with it. A lot of it was cognitive behavioral work where we're just looking at all the thoughts you're having, just looking at them and just acknowledging them without making a decision. Sometimes I use nonverbal means of expressing, like we use a lot of art where you just, what is this like? And you just create something. I deal a lot with actual survivors of sexual trauma. And once upon a time, I had an art room. I have people use their own spaces for their art now. But this one time, I came into the room after their art session to see how things going. I peep in and they had used a hole puncher and punched holes, and the holes were all over the room, and that was the art. And I stepped back from it and I said, I totally get this.

Right.

It's like pieces of you. are everywhere. And they were like, yes, and I can't get them all up.

Wow. That's powerful.

Isn't that? So sometimes I use art. Sometimes you use the art to kind of— this is so big that it defies language sometimes. And the expression of it can be healing in and of itself. For somebody to see and get it and understand you is healing too. So a lot of co-regulation. I use a lot of polyvagal theory. My kids call it my kindergarten voice. So they can tell when I'm talking like, bring it down, slow it down. And it helps us to co-regulate each other. But to be honest with you, sometimes the nervous system wins. Sometimes the nervous system wins. I have not had, to my knowledge, anyone escalate to violence, but I've had more than my share of de-escalating people.

Yeah.

At least once a week, de-escalating people. And it's not always the partner who was cheated on. Sometimes it's the partner who cheated them, de-escalating them, or de-escalating both. The nervous system is a worthy contender. But if you can get it calm, it is beautiful. It is beautiful.

And I'm hearing in that and understanding it, really looking at it, feeling it, mapping it, knowing what is And really hearing it because there's a reason for it coming online.

Yes, it's not bad. That's the part of the process. That is what the workbook is about. Committing yourself to the process means committing myself to cooling my nervous system down, opening up lines of communication, choosing to listen better, choosing compassionate listening, choosing that I will pause on decision-making until this process is complete.

Mm-hmm.

Accepting that I don't know what's going to happen. That's the process over the outcome. Pressuring yourself too soon that we're going to make this work, or you and I are over, pressuring yourself one way or the other only adds to the excruciating pain that you're in. So that's why I advocate for the process over the outcome is because if we push ourselves in one of these corners, And it in fact was a shame corner. It was where you were going because you didn't want people to think a certain thing about you or because you were thinking a certain thing about yourself. You started thinking, I'm worthless. I can't do anything right. I'm never going to have anybody. I'm not lovable. They did this because of me. Why is everybody doing this to me? When you're having those thoughts, those are signals that your nervous system is not ready to make a decision. When you start thinking, Whether this person cheated on me or not, I have worth. I can make a decision. I can do hard things. What happened to me as a child did not break me. You know, just when you start having adaptive thoughts, you're probably close to making a decision. So that process that you're committing to is to commit to going from these heavy negative thoughts to adaptive ones. And when you start having the adaptive ones, now you're ready to either possibly make a decision or unpack more of the complex decision-making that's in front of you. But that's the process that you're committing to.

Oh, yes. I love that. I love that. Thank you, Dr. Thompson, for where we've landed. And be sure to tune in for part 2 that's coming up. And as always, Take what resonates, leave the rest. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining me today on the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Bookshelf. If something from this episode spoke to you, share it with a friend or come connect with me online. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Rachel Strong Smith. And if you want to go deeper, sign up for my email newsletter where I share grounded support, personal insights, and practical tools to help you reach connect with yourself. Remember, healing isn't a straight line, it's a spiral, and every step towards yourself matters. So until next time, take gentle care.