#59 Betrayal Recovery with Dr. Debi Silber

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions. Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists, and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hi and welcome. I'm excited to introduce you today to Dr. Debbie Silber. She is a psychologist and founder of the Post Betrayal Transformation Institute. She's a mindset and personal development expert and author of several bestselling books. Thank you so much for being with us here today, Dr. Debbie, or I call you Debbie because I know you well. So I'm so excited to be able to to share your knowledge and expertise with my audience.

Excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Looking forward to our conversation.

So tell us first, like, how did you get to here? How did you. Because you really defined post betrayal syndrome and in your PhD work. And so I just think that's so awesome that you not only have, through your experience.

Were recovering from betrayal yourself, but you said, hey, I need to help other people with this. Let me figure this out and actually create an institute that helps people through betrayal. So tell us more.

How did that all come about? Yeah, well, you know, you don't wake up one day and say, you know, I think I want to study betrayal.

I had a horrible betrayal from my family. I thought I healed. And then a few years later, it was my husband and I was devastated. Anyone who's been through it, you're heartbroken, Your soul crush is crushed. You're in such devastatingly painful, you can't even make sense out of any of it. So the way I usually move through things is I try to understand. So I was so desperate to understand this that I was like, what do I do? So I got him out of the house and I'm like, okay. I have four kids, six dogs, a business. I'm now a single mom, and I'm enrolling in a PhD program. I was like, I don't even know why I felt I had to do it. It was so. I was just felt so intuitively guided. And it was. It was in transpersonal psychology, the psychology of transformation and human potential. Because I was changing so much. I didn't quite understand it. He was on his own, but I wasn't really ready to look at that. And so I was Learning all of this stuff. And then it was time to do a study. So naturally, I studied 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 deceive. That study led to three groundbreaking discoveries. Changed my business, changed my family, changed my health, changed my life.

Wow. It gives me goosebumps, actually, hearing the way you describe that. Goosebumps that you know, that you were able to really follow your intuition and your gut and find such discovery in the process. So I guess talk us through a little bit more. Like even just the word betrayal. What does that mean? Because I think sometimes people might be thinking, well, is what I experienced qualify as a betrayal? So tell us, what are some of the common betrayals people experience?

Yeah, sure. And then I'm happy to go through the discoveries. So I define it as the breaking of a spoken or unspoken rule. And every relationship has them. Think about it. We even had an agreement today. I was going to show up and we would have a conversation. And if I didn't, I would have betrayed you. Now, the way it works is that wouldn't have devastated you. The more we depend on the person, the closer we are. The more we trust that person, the bigger the betrayal. So for example, a child who's completely dependent on their parent, and then let's say the parent does something awful, that's going to have a much bigger consequence than, let's just say your best friend sharing your secrets. But it has so many faces. It's when that person in authority says, no, no, no, you can trust me. And they do something. That's a betrayal. When you're, like I said, your best friend shares your secrets. Siblings say, we'll be there for mom and dad one day, and then they're not. You know, your co worker takes credit for your idea or self betrayal. And that's so common when you swear you won't do that again. You know it's not in your best interest. And you do you compromise your values or your integrity. So it has so many faces.

Mm.

Okay. Thank you so much. And yeah, tell us, what were those things you discovered about going through the recovery after a betrayal?

Yeah, well, that was what was shocking. I mean, I was just desperate to heal. I wasn't looking for any more than that. But there were these three discoveries. The first one was that.

There'S. Originally I was studying betrayal and post traumatic growth. Post traumatic growth is like kind of the upside of trauma. How that trauma, whatever it is, leaves you with a New awareness, perspective, insight that you didn't have before. But I had been through death of a loved one. I had been through disease. And I was like, betrayal feels different. But I didn't want to assume. So I asked all my study participants and I said, if you've been through other traumas besides betrayal, does it feel different for you? Hands down, unanimously, they said, oh my gosh, it's so different. So it needed its own name. We coined the term post betrayal transformation. Here's why. Let's say you lose someone you love. You know, for example, like I lost my mom, you grieve, you're sad, you mourn the loss. Life will never be the same. But you don't necessarily take it personally because betrayal feels so intentional. You take it so personally. So the entire self has to be rebuilt. Confidence, worthiness, belonging, rejection, abandonment, trust. These are huge. They all get destroyed. They all have to be rebuilt. So if I were to give you an equation, my stick at math, but this one I can do rebuild. So if it's rebuilding yourself after your experience, let's say healing from your experience.

Post traumatic growth plus rebuilding the self equals post betrayal transformation. So betrayal is unique because like I said, because it feels so intentional. We take it so personally. That was the first discovery.

Well, and as I'm listening, I'm imagining myself as someone who's maybe recently experienced a betrayal. And it's so overwhelming in the moment and to some degree, hearing that I'm going to need to do kind of rebuild myself also sounds overwhelming.

So.

But I can see where, if you could tweak the mindset to have that be a positive experience. Tell me about that. How do you make that transition from I'm overwhelmed and now I'm more overwhelmed into, wait a minute, here's an opportunity here.

Yeah, I love that question. Betrayal is truly the catalyst for transformation.

And it gives you the most beautiful opportunity. And I know everybody's looking at me right now, we're hearing me saying, you must be full blown crazy lady. What kind of opportunity it does. And I'm going to give you an analogy and you'll see it so clearly. Ready? And I use this example all the time because it just shows it so clearly. Here's the difference between resilience and transformation. Resilience is restoring, bringing back. You need that for your everyday. Transformation is a whole different thing. Trauma and transformation. So let's say there's a house, and let's say your house needs a new boiler. You get a boiler. That's resilience. You're bringing it back. Let's say your house needs a paint job. You paint. That's resilience. You're bringing it back. Here's trauma and transformation. A tornado comes by, levels the house, boiler's not going to fix it. A paint job is not going to fix it.

Right?

Both won't fix it. Now, here's the thing. You have every right to stand there at the lot where your house once stood and say, oh my gosh, this is the most tragic, horrible, awful thing that's ever happened. And you'd be right. And you can call everybody you know over, your friends, your family, your neighbors. Look at this. Isn't this the worst thing you've ever seen, you've ever seen? They all agree. And you can mourn the loss of your house until your last breath. However, should you choose to rebuild your house, you don't have to. But if you choose to rebuild it, there's nothing there. Why would you build the same thing, right? Why not give it everything the old house didn't have? Make it bigger, better, more beautiful? That's the opportunity. Like in my own experience with my family, rebuilding is always a choice. Whether you rebuild yourself. With my family, it was not an option to rebuild with them, so I rebuilt myself and moved on. Or if the situation lends itself, if you're willing, if you want to, you can rebuild an entirely new relationship with the person who hurt you. That's what I did with my husband. So not long ago, we married each other again. Two totally different people. New rings, new vows, new dress. And our four kids is our bridal party. So. But you have to know, and this is what we teach in the PBT Institute. When it's safe and in your best interest to heal yourself and move on. And when it's safe and in your best interest to rebuild, you will know.

So that's where rebuilding the self is such a great thing. Because if the old version of you tolerated disrespectful, or having boundaries get crossed, or not having your needs met, this new version of you gets to say, you know what? No, that doesn't. That's not who I'm bringing into this version of me. You take the parts you love and you leave behind the parts that you just don't want to take with you.

Well, and I. It makes me think about, you know, because a lot of people, I believe, live with an experience of betrayal and they just keep trudging forward from there. And what I see in my practice is how that can predispose people to different health issues. So these unresolved betrayals, basically where the, where the rebuilding and the healing doesn't happen, can really lead us to be susceptible to all different health issues from. And not just psychological. Right. Like we would think, okay, it might leave a person with more anxiety or depression or maybe sleep issues, But I also see that it leaves them with more, say, digestive issues or hormone imbalances or even immune system that's not protecting them as well or potentially triggering autoimmunity or other viral infections. Like, I work a lot with, with patients who have active HPV and ebv. And they are saying to themselves, why am I susceptible to this virus? Why is this virus able to cause health problems for me when maybe it's not for another person? And I encourage them to look at their stress exposure of various types. But talking to you, I can see that that also includes stress exposure from betrayal.

Oh, absolutely. I want to answer that a few ways. One is there were three groups in the study who did not heal.

And I assume. You're not supposed to assume anything. As a researcher, I was new to this. I assumed that the ones who were the hardest hit would grow the least because they had the most to overcome. That had nothing to do with it at all. And to your point, one of the groups who didn't heal, this was the group where the betrayer had no consequences. I only saw two things in this group. Number one, it was only a further deterioration of the relationship. And that group, hands down, by far, was the most physically sick. Okay, your heart can't take that, your body can't take that. And you know, that leads to the second discovery, which was there's a collection of symptoms so common to betrayal, it's now known as post betrayal syndrome. And at this point, we've had over 17,000 people take the quiz to see to what extent they're still struggling. I pulled some stats to share with you. But what's also so interesting about this is we've all heard time heals all wounds. I have the proof that's not true. Because when it comes to betrayal, you only heal it when you face it, feel it, heal it. And a repeat betrayal is a sign of an unhealed betrayal. And we have people who. There's a question on the. In the quiz that says, is there anything else you'd like to share? And people write things like, my betrayal happened 40 years ago. I can still feel the hate. My betrayal happened 35 years ago. I'm unwilling to trust. My betrayal happened 10 years ago. Feels like it happened yesterday. So it is a very different experience. But, you know, you also mentioned the health issues. It's staggering what these numbers are when it comes to. When it comes to what betrayal does. So just for example, this is. Out of 17,000 people.

78% constantly revisit their experience.

Like, in their mind. They keep, like, reviewing it, reviewing it.

81% feel a loss of personal power. 80% are hypervigilant. Think of how exhausting that is right there. 94% deal with painful triggers. Let's see, these are the most common physical symptoms. Low energy. 71% have low energy. 68% have sleep issues. 63% extreme fatigue. There's your adrenal issues right there. 47% have weight changes, and 45% have digestive issues. So I'm sure you're seeing a lot of these patients. That's the thing. And what I found so interesting about the digestive issues is just, even from an energetic standpoint, think about what the gut does. It digests, absorbs, and processes. Isn't a betrayal difficult to digest, absorb, and process? Like, is it any wonder the gut is getting crazy? Emotional issues. 80. Oh, no. Mental. 78% are overwhelmed. 70% are in a state of disbelief. 68% unable to focus. 64% shock. 62% are unable to concentrate. So take something like that. And here you are, you're going to work, or you're raising your kids or you have your other obligations, and now you have this gut issue or whatever else is going on. You're trying to make sense and meaning out of your experience. That's not even the emotional ones. Ready? 88% profound sadness. 83% anger. Just mixing sadness and anger. It's exhausting. 82% feel hurt. 80% have anxiety. 79% are stressed. Here's why I wrote trust again. 84% have an inability to trust. 67% prevent themselves from forming deep relationships because they're afraid of being hurt again. 82% find it hard to move forward. 90% want to move forward, but they don't know how.

I mean, here's the thing, Debbie, is. I'm really thinking of how common this is. I mean, here we are humans, and we're not experts at communicating with each other or meeting each other's needs. So betrayal sure happens, probably to most everyone. I don't know. Do you know a percentage on that? How many people experience betrayal?

You know, you could never get a real percentage of it, because who defines it as betrayal? Who just makes excuses for it? So you Couldn't really get an accurate number. But what's so interesting is, you know, think about it. We see an unhealed betrayal in every single aspect of life. And here, for everybody, this is how we'll see it show up in relationships. I'll see it in one of two ways. Those repeat betrayals, that's how, you know, you keep getting an opportunity to learn some profound lesson. You're worthy, deserving, lovable, create better boundaries, whatever. And until and unless you do, you will keep getting more opportunities to learn that. That's the repeat, the trail.

Yeah. Like, even my own experience, it was my family blindsided. You know, there was the frying pan to that. And then my husband and. But then look what I did. I was like, no. What's common to these experiences? Me, I never. And not to say that it's my fault, but I needed to do something very different. So I said, you know, I've never taken my own needs seriously. It's always been about everybody else. Forget that. And I enrolled in this PhD program. People thought it was nuts. They're like, you're going back to school at 50. What are you, crazy? And I didn't know how I was going to do it, but it took something radical, a radical shift in me to create that change. Lesson learned. I mattered, right? The second way we see it in relationships is we put the big wall up. We're like, nope, no one's getting married near me again. Been there, done that. We think it's from a place of strength. It's not. It's coming from a place of fear.

Mmm.

It's like that experience was so painful, we can't even think of doing that again.

So it's like a protection.

Yeah. That's all that is. And it's almost like, let's say you're cooking and you burn yourself on the stove. And they're like, that's it. Never cooking again. Like, that's not fair to you. If you enjoy that, will you be careful? Will you learn how to approach the stove differently? Yeah, but you need to learn how to do that. We see it in health, too, where people go to the most incredible, well, meaningful. Doctors, coaches, healers, therapists, just like you to manage a stress related symptom, illness, condition, disease. At the root of it is an unhealed betrayal. We see it at work where, you know, let's say people want to ask for that raise or promotion, they deserve it, but they're terrified. Their confidence was shattered, so they don't have the confidence to ask Their bitter and resentful instead. Or they want to be a team player. They want to do that joint venture with that collaborative partner. But the person they trusted the most proved untrustworthy. How can they trust that boss, that co worker, that partner? You see?

So we stop ourselves. You know, basically we, we start stopping ourselves in life. But as soon as we block ourselves, then like you're saying, we're blocking ourselves from also experiencing beautiful things in our lives, right? Being able to experience intimacy and closeness in relationships and connection with others. If we're so afraid, we can't cross that line into feeling connected. And so we kind of trap ourselves, right?

We do. It's like living half a life. It really is. When you don't learn to trust again and when you don't learn to feel safe again, you know, and that actually can bring us to the third discovery. And that was that there, you know, while we can stay stuck for years, decades, a lifetime, and so many of us do, if we're going to heal, we're going to move through five now proven predictable stages. And what's so exciting about that is now we know what happens physically, mentally and emotionally at every one of those stages. And we know what it takes to move from one stage to the next. So why is that good? Now we know healing is predictable.

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I'm.

Happy to go through the five stages if that would serve.

Yes, please. I'm so curious. Yes, they kind of help us to know like what's in store. Okay. What do we have to do here?

Yeah. And they're all mapped out in trust again. So it's all. And you Know what this is? Because here's the thing. When you.

Oh, it's so exciting.

When you do a brand new. Yeah. When you do a dissertation and like three people on the research committee read it, I'm like, there's no chance. I put in all that effort.

Everything was analyzed completely, 250 studies.

And I'm like, so I made it reader friendly. And that's what trust again is. Yeah. So anyway, the five stages. When this showed up, I mean, I was in the geekiest way. I thought my head would just fly right off my body because this was. Now we realized, okay, here's a roadmap, which. When you're drowning from a betrayal, you need that.

Yeah. So here are the five stages. So the first was like a if you imagine a setup stage. I saw this with every study participant. Me too. If you imagine four legs of a table, the four legs being physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. What I saw with everybody was a real heavy lean on the physical and the mental and kind of neglecting the emotional and the spiritual. So what does that look like? Looks like we're really good at thinking and doing and not really paying much attention to the feeling and being, but it's in the feeling. And being is where our intuition lies. And so often we turn that down. And so imagine the table with only two legs. Easy for that table to topple over. That's us. Now. It's not to say if you're just busy doing things, it's a setup for betrayal. But it's what I saw. Stage two, by far the scariest stage, and this is D day, Discovery day. You're shocked, you're blindsided. Here's where that person takes the mask off and you realize who they've been. And in stage two.

Here'S the breakdown of the body, the mind, and the worldview. You've ignited the stress response. So now you are headed for every single stress related symptom, illness, condition, disease. I remember one of my study participants saying, you know what it feels like? It feels like every negative emotion you can imagine. Getting punched in the gut and losing a child in a crowd.

Everybody remembers their D day. The mind is in a complete state of chaos and overwhelm. You can not wrap your mind around what you just learned. Yeah.

It's like sometimes I think about it like what you think was your reality, you realize was not really real. And you're like, what's my reality now? Like, you have a complete loss of that. Right.

That's why trust is so foundational. And it's completely shattered. And there's the breakdown of the worldview, which is what you're talking about. Your worldview is your mental. These are the rules. This is how life works. Don't go there. Trust this person. And in a moment, everything you've known to be real and true no longer exists. So here's truly where the bottom, bottom's out on you. It's terrifying, but think about it. If you were walking down the street and the bottom were to suddenly bottom out on you, what would you do? You'd grab hold of anything and everything you could to stay safe and stay alive. That's stage three. Survival instincts emerge. It's the most practical of all the stages. If you can't help me, get out of my way, how? Survive this experience. Where do I live? How do I feed my kids? What do I do? Who can I talk to? Here's the trap. Because stage three feels, and because survival feels so much better than the shock and trauma of where you just came from, you think this is good? So you start planting roots here. You're like, who? Okay, okay.

You're thinking, that's the end. Like, I'm just going to stay in survival.

That's it. So then a few things happen. The first thing is you start getting your story. You tell it to a lot of people, and you get a lot of sympathy from everybody you tell it to. You get to be right. You get someone to blame. You get a target for your anger. You don't have to do the hard work of learning to trust again. Do I trust you? Do I trust you? I forget I'm not trusting anybody. You stay there longer and you're planting some deeper roots. And then the mind starts doing things like, well, maybe you deserved it. Maybe you're not all that. Maybe, you know, maybe you're not as good as you thought you were. Maybe this is the best you can hope for. Now you plant deeper roots. And because you're here and this is where you think you belong, like energy attracts like energy. So now you're calling circumstances and situations and people to you that match that energy. And now you're planning deeper roots, it gets even worse. I'll get you out of it. Don't worry. Because this feels so bad. But you have no idea there's a stage four. Stage five. Here's where you start using things like food, drugs, alcohol, work, tv, keeping busy, reckless behavior because you don't like it, but you don't know it gets any better. So you're like, you're just resigning yourself to saying, this is it. So how do I survive this? Now here's the thing. You do that for a day, a week, a month, a year, 10 years, 20 years. I can see someone 20 years out and say, you know that emotional eating thing you got going there? You think that has anything to do with your betrayal? My gosh, that happened 20 years ago. Do you see? They were stuck in that.

We get stuck in that, that survival mode.

That's all it is. Now here's the thing, and that's why it's the most common place to get stuck. And I'm sure the majority of your patients, that's where they are.

Yes.

If you're willing to let go of the story, grieve, mourn the loss, few things you need to do, you move to stage four. State four is finding and adjusting to a new normal. Here's where you acknowledge I cannot do my undo my betrayal, but I control what I do with it. And I always use the example of if you've ever moved to a new house, office, condo, apartment, anything, whatever, it's not quite cozy yet. Right. All your stuff isn't, you know, there.

But it's a new feeling.

It's a new feeling, but it's going to be okay. But when you're in that mental space, you're turning down the stress response a little bit. You're not healing physically, healing just yet, but you're not causing the massive rapid damage you were causing in stage two and stage three. Now here's what I found so interesting to this stage. If you were to move, you don't necessarily take everything with you. You don't take the stuff that doesn't represent who you want to be in your new space. So what I found in this stage was if your friends weren't there for you, you don't take them with you. You've just outgrown them.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

So there's a big, there's a big leap in sort of that's your shift from your old way of being in the old relationships to this kind of new way of being. So that stage three to four seems pretty significant.

It really is because people come to me all the time. What the heck, I've had these friends forever, you know, and I just don't resonate with them anymore. And I don't know, I just don't feel like I belong. Is it me? Yes, it is. You're undergoing a transformation. That's exactly what's happening. Stage four is readjusting that new normal. It's A whole new thing. Those people can grow with you, but if not, here's where you outgrow them. When you're in that space, you've made it your own. You've made it okay. You can move into the fifth most beautiful stage. And this is healing, rebirth, and a new worldview. The body starts to heal. Self love, self care. You didn't have the bandwidth for any of that. Eating well, exercise, that was all you were surviving. Now you do. You're healing. Your body's physically healing your mind. You have a whole new set of beliefs and boundaries and everything based on your experience. And you have a new worldview based on what you see so clearly now. And remember the four legs of the table. In the beginning, it was just the physical, the mental. By this point, we are solidly grounded because we're focused on the emotional and the spiritual too. Those are the five stages.

Wow. Wow. I love it. And to think that that can happen even while in a relationship, perhaps with the person that you experience the betrayal with. And I think, I mean, maybe that can seem too much to ask for some people at this moment in time, but I think to know that that's possible, you know, that, that there's a way that relationships can heal through that process too.

Well, they have to. Here's the thing. Both parties have to be incredibly willing because this is grueling work, I'm not gonna lie. And you don't always, it's not always an option. If that person is unwilling, let's say the betrayer, if, if they're unwilling to do anything different, if they're not even willing to acknowledge, you know, what they've done or, you know, or in any way make up for it, or make that person feel safe and valued, whatever, you've nothing to work with, you know, and it takes, it takes a while too, because like, I'll give you another analogy. I look at trust like a brick wall. People ask me all the time, can it be repaired? I say, no, but it can be rebuilt. Because here's a brick wall. How is it built? Every opportunity that person had to show that they were trustworthy is like a brick in the brick wall. And it could take 10, 20, 30, 40 years to build. And then in one earth shattering moment, it's completely pile of rubble. Now the person who's been betrayed, the person who the trust got shattered, can look at the rubble of bricks and say, I don't have the least bit of interest watching that thing get rebuilt totally fine, then you can move along. But if they're going.

To reconcile. A friend, a partner, co worker, whatever. The person who's been betrayed has to be willing to watch that wall be rebuilt. And the person who shattered it has to be a really good bricklayer.

But you know what happens so often? You understand?

Right?

Right. But so often I see the betrayed person because it's so uncomfortable, because this hurts so much. Because they just want to make everything okay. They're like, all right, forget it, I'll build it. No, doesn't work that way. You see? Yeah, that's. But that's the beauty of. Here's your opportunity. There's nothing there. Here's your opportunity to say, listen, I'm just working on me. I have no idea what's going to show up. You feel like building that brick wall, I could be willing to watch it. But it takes. It's going to take a very different version of you that the person who shattered it cannot be the same person who rebuilds it. They have to come at it from a very different space.

Well, and it's. As I'm thinking about it, I mean, there's. I know there's so many different tools people can go to as they're, as you're saying, kind of going through building their emotional and spiritual, you know, well, being and kind of balancing that stool you were talking about. I mean, everything from working with a therapist, working with, like, with someone like you.

Various things. Right. Everything from meditation to tapping to, you know. Right. Like. Like, what are some of the ways that you. I don't know if you looked at that, but what are some of the common tools that people use for that process?

You know, it involves way more than just talk therapy. And here's the thing. If that therapist isn't highly skilled in betrayal, it actually does way more harm than good. Oh, that's therapy, trauma. And we have many people in our community who've experienced that. Like, here's a scenario we see all the time. It's generic example. You will see it so clearly. I see this all day. Let's say there's a husband and wife. And let's say the husband has an affair, he's a narcissist, and she's able to drag him to couples counseling. If that therapist isn't highly skilled in what goes on in betrayal and a narcissist, you know what happens? He's very charming, turns on the crocodile tears. She looks at him like. And the therapist can look at the betrayed. The wife saying, you just communicated better. You wouldn't be in this Mess or you should really try to understand his knees. And she's like, what? You see what I mean?

So it repeats the pattern, it keeps repeating.

Well then she thinks she's crazy and she's not. That's the problem. So we need healing on every level. We need the right kind of, of mental, emotional support. We need physical support too. The issues are in the tissues. This is deep trauma. It needs some type of somatic body based. Any way you can release this? So in our community we have, I mean we have certified coaches who specialize in just the most amazing things. Reconciliation, narcissism, chronic pain, somatic, you know, practices. And we also bring in experts to teach master classes. And the idea is because we need to heal on all levels to fully heal. You know, maybe with some people we had someone come in to do breath work. Someone came in to teach dance therapy. I didn't even know that was a thing. You know, someone, someone comes in and that's a therapist and they teach, you know, their own area of it. And some people, you know, whatever, a spiritual based practice. There are so many. You have to find your own recipe, that particular, that works for you specifically and the roadmap and you also need that right kind of support. So we have a community where I saw what was going on and I was like, why is it that there are these support groups? But it's almost like when you heal, you don't belong. It's like the, in an awful club. I'm like, I don't like that. What about a group that just gets and understands this unique type of pain, but they're like, hey, I tried this and this really helped. What about you? You know, so that's, that's what we have.

And what you're referring to is that your PBT Institute or where do people tell us how people find this support?

Well, the best thing they could do, the first step is really just take the quiz, the post betrayal syndrome quiz. And they can just find that@thepbtinstitute.com quiz. So in the community it's our signature programs which literally walk you through the five stages so people can have 24, 7 access to that. We have daily classes with our certified coaches. And the beauty is they're all certified in moving you through the five stages, but they're bringing in their 10, 20, 30, 40 years of expertise in their own areas. Then we have, I have open Q and A.

Where people ask their questions. We have masterclasses with the most amazing experts and the supportive, loving community. So I Looked at it and I said, what would really what makes sense? So we took what the 17,000 people said who've taken the post betrayal syndrome quiz. I've added what I desperately wanted and needed and didn't have at the time, what the research proved we needed. And then I was like, well, what do people do that's really not working? Maybe they're seeing a therapist who doesn't understand. So I'm like, we're not having that. They're either numbing, avoiding, distracting. We're not having that. And they have a support group. Maybe that doesn't really help them, keeps them stuck. We're not doing that. So the community is based on everything that works.

Oh, my gosh, I love that. That's how amazing what you've created. I really. Because I've kind of observed you in the process of you discovering this and creating it. And so I just want to like, congratulate you for, you know, for all that you've created and how many people are going to be helped by this. And because recently I. What you were just talking about where sometimes you see a therapist even say, for betrayal or grief. And some people have told me that maybe they go to one or two sessions and the practitioner might even say, oh, maybe you just need a medication, or maybe you just. Right. And they feel completely dismissed because they're not really helping them through the process of healing and recovery.

You're so right. And that was one of the other groups that did not heal. It was the group that was numbing, avoiding, distracting. And they ran to the doctor who put them on mood stabilizers, anti anxiety meds. They would drink, they would emotionally eat. And yeah, it may have made the day a bit easier to get through, but they didn't heal. They didn't heal. They just numb.

And the thing is that sometimes people may need a medication for stabilizing their mood, but the key is to still also do these other steps so that you can transition, because otherwise you're just stuck. Like you're saying, absolutely.

And then they're in stage three and they wonder, why does this feel so bad? Why do I keep having repeat betrayals? Why am I gaining weight? Why am I losing my hair? Why am I having thyroid issues? Why am my hormones going nuts? Why is my immune system suppressed? So now not only are they struggling with something so painful, but now their body's freaking out on them. You know, the digestive issues, all of it. And they. The thing with betrayal is you feel like you're crazy.

Yeah.

You know, and the beauty is when you do the healing, you realize you're not crazy, you're not alone, and you can heal from all of it. All of it.

Wow. It just like opened. Everything opens up and everything becomes possible again. Which is. Which is so beautiful and, and so needed and I think so, let's see. So with your book, they can get the trust again book. Now write it anywhere or where's the book?

You know what? They're best off getting it through this link because I give them a bunch of goodies. So if you go to thepbt, as in post betrayal transformation. Thepbtinstitute.com Trust again.

Okay. All right. So I'm gonna put that definitely with the notes for this interview so that everybody can find it down below. And I guess that's the best way to find you and get in touch with you if they have questions.

Yeah, the best thing, really take that quiz because they'll see to what extent they're struggling and give yourself a few minutes to take it. Don't rush through it. And all of those symptoms that you may have thought, well, it's aging, it's stress, it's your betrayal. That's what it is.

Well, and here's the thing is with the work that I do, where I will even measure for patients, their cortisol levels, their adrenaline levels, their neurotransmitter levels, or we look at leaky gut and blood sugar imbalances. So we look at how has stress affected these hormones, and I call them messengers inside your body that can really. We can see that then this stress is happening along with your betrayal quiz. And see, oh, now you have in front of you, oh, here's what happened to me. Because a lot of times you, you're thinking, why do I feel this way? What's going on? So then you can say, here's what happened. Here's what's out of balance, here's what needs to get addressed. And you could. What I'm imagining as you describe this is a person could go through your steps of recovery at the same time as working on using diet changes, herbs, nutrients to heal leaky gut, rebalance blood sugar, get their cortisol and neurotransmitters back on track. And so you can be helping your systems in your body recover from the stress while you work on helping your sort of mind, emotional, spiritual level recover from the stress. And then you're even more likely to get to this new you, this new balanced place where you can then create the life that you really want to.

Create from there and the life you deserve. And actually, that would be a great masterclass. So I would love to bring you into the community and teach that.

Oh, of course. I'd be happy to.

Yeah. We just bring the most amazing experts in because everybody, you know, they need to know that what they're experiencing is so real. And all of this mental and emotional pain is creating these physical issues. And then the worst part about that is look at how much additional power we're giving that person. They've already. You know, the damage is done, and now if we get sick over it, it's like it's. It just continues. So it needs to stop.

You realize that, like. Yeah. That they're. That they still have this much of a control or an effect on you in your life, and you start to. Even if that can motivate a person to say, I'm done with this. Whatever it takes to move out of this space, I'm willing to do. And then they, you know, now they have your space that you've created to be able to help them do that. So, again, thank you so much, Debbie, for being here. I'm so excited for your new book and your programs, and I really appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

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