June 1, 2023

Healing Your Heart and Body Image After Infidelity: A Conversation with Andrea Giles | Ep 59

Healing Your Heart and Body Image After Infidelity: A Conversation with Andrea Giles | Ep 59

In this soul-nourishing episode infidelity coach, Andrea Giles, vulnerably explores the raw pain and deep wounds inflicted by infidelity. But amidst the darkness, she reveals a glimmer of hope—a transformative journey towards healing and self-discovery, paving the way to the most nurturing relationship you can ever imagine—with yourself!

Join us as Andrea shares her invaluable insights on guiding clients through the healing process for their hearts and body image. Discover the transformative journey toward building trust and cultivating a positive self-image, leading to a profoundly fulfilling relationship with oneself.

This conversation is an opportunity to explore the transformative power of healing and rediscover your own potential for deep self-love.

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About the Guest:

Certified Life Coach Andrea Giles is the host of the "Heal from Infidelity" podcast, as well as mother to 12 in a big blended family. Her main coaching focus lies in helping women decide to stay or go after infidelity in her signature program, "Know in 90." In addition to coaching and taking care of her family, Andrea loves good music, being outside, and travelling anywhere and everywhere.

 

Find Andrea Giles on the following platforms:

Website: https://andreagiles.com/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/theinfidelitycoach

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Andreagilescoaching

About the Host:

Meet Chanci Dawn - a visionary non-diet certified nutritionist, mindset, and embodiment coach who is passionate about empowering women to break free from the restrictive chains of diet culture and establish a truly nourishing relationship with food and their bodies. Having spent over three decades struggling with her own disordered eating habits, Chanci is driven by a deep desire and passion to share her knowledge and experience to help other women achieve the same freedom and joy in their lives. Chanci firmly believes that by cultivating a deep sense of self-love, women can tap into their true power and become agents of positive change in their own lives and in the world around them. So, if you're ready to unlock the secrets of embodied eating and take your first step towards a happier, healthier you, this podcast is for you!

Find Chanci on the following platforms:

Website: http://www.chancidawn.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theembodiednutritionist/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/chancidawn

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Transcript
Chanci Dawn:

This show is about freedom. Freedom from your constant struggle with food and letting the size of your thighs determine your worth. Join me weekly for no hope back unfiltered girlfriend kind of conversations that will inspire, teach and empower you. As we tune into our own body's wisdom and tune out of the diet industry blinds, we can live our most radiant, pleasurable and fulfilled lives. My name is Chanci Dawn. I'm a non diet nutritionist embodiment and mindset coach. But most importantly, I'm a woman on a mission to grow a deeply connected and conscious relationship with food and my body. And I'm here inviting you to do the same. Let's go.

Chanci Dawn:

Hello, and welcome to a tastes like freedom. I am your host Chanci dawn. And I've been thinking a lot lately about what are the topics that we need to dig into here, the things that are not talked about in depth as they need to be in order to facilitate our healing. So obviously, this whole show is about healing our relationship with food and our bodies. But there's so many things that impact this relationship. And infidelity is definitely one of these things, so I couldn't think of a better guest to have on the show than Andrea Giles. She is the host of the heal from infidelity podcast, as well as a mother to 12 in a big blended family. I love that. Her main coaching focus lies in helping women decide to stay or go after infidelity. In her signature program known in 90. In addition to coaching and taking care of her family, Andrea loves good music being outside and traveling anywhere and everywhere. Welcome, I hope you love this this show please share it with women who need to hear it women who need healing from infidelity again, whether directly or indirectly in their lives. Enjoy.

Chanci Dawn:

Hello, and welcome to it tastes like freedom. And today. As you know, you've already heard her bio, she is amazing. And I'm so excited to have Andrea Giles here with us. I met Andrea like quite a few years ago, we were on a mastermind together. And she's someone that we spent pretty much the first 10 minutes with me trying to convince her to come and stay with me in Canada. You know you love someone when you're like come to my home and and all this time with me. So anyways, that this is a we have so excited. And we're here today to have a girlfriend kind of conversation about infidelity and how it impacts our self confidence, our self image, and just what we can do moving forward. Right. So Andrea, I would just first of all, welcome. You are welcome. And second, I would love to just hear first of all, what brought you to the point where this is, this is your niche. This is what you love working with?

Andrea Giles:

Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's so fun to be here. So I I guess I'll give the kind of short version 10 years ago this year, I was navigating a lot of a lot of hard things in my first marriage. I had been married for 16 years. We had six children between us at the time, they were ages 14 down to four. And I there had been like a lot of deception for many years in my marriage and it kind of had all come to go ahead with it was just it did got pretty rough. And I was in a spot where I needed to make some decisions and decide what I wanted to expose my kids to what I wanted to expose myself to while also really deeply caring about this person and wanting good things for him. And ultimately I decided to leave my marriage. And I it was me that that filed for divorce. It was a really really, as you can imagine just a really hard time. I had always been a stay at home mom he had been. He was a lawyer at the time. We lived in the Bay Area. He worked for Google. He was an in house attorney for Google. And I was absolutely terrified because he had all this education and made the money and I was a stay at home mom, but something in me. I knew that it was no longer a good place for my kids or me to be and so I decided to move forward. And during that time, even when Even when I was, I was not in a great headspace like it was really, really hard. And I had other women coming to me, asking me for help and guidance and said, you know, how did you do this? And how did you decide this? And well, what you noticed, wanting to know how I was not, you know how I was still moving forward and like making these decisions and not letting fear, like get the best of me as I navigated things. And so I helped as I could. But I knew at that time, I just knew, like, at a deep level that I down the road, I would be helping in some capacity that I would be working with people and helping them I just knew that. And so got divorce. And then seven months later, he was he just was in a really rough state of mind where he made a lot of kind of self destructive decisions. And he was drunk driving, and, and crashed into a tree and died. And he was 3939 years old. And once again, my kids and I were, we're in a situation where like, now what, again, a lot of grief, things like that added in a new layer of things to work through. And after that I decided I it was time for me to take seriously kind of that call that I felt to help other people. Yeah. And so I started going back to school to with the intention of becoming a therapist, that was the plan and started going to school. And anyway, to make a long story short, I was introduced to coaching and it just whipped my head around like what what is this now? Yeah, by this time, I had gone to a lot of therapy, I had done a lot of group, group cut, like betrayal, trauma therapy, lots of therapy, and nothing had even come close to the kind of like instant instant help instant relief instant, wait a minute, I can just choose to think that what like I can just choose to like, not be labor this thing that super painful, like I get just, it gave me something to do, instead of just nice ideas about things. Or even like there were things that were helpful to learn about, about infidelity, about addiction, things like that, but it gave me like something I could sink my teeth into and like actions to take like, you can you can move forward. And that's what this looks like. And so, for me, it was just this instant recognition that you thought you're going to be a therapist, actually, you're going to be a coach. And so I finished that semester of classes and jumped into coach training. And I've always just known since the beginning of it, that I wanted to work in the infidelity space. I I know it really well, I know, I know it well, right, I get intimate experience with it. I know what it does to your head, I know what it does to your heart. And I and I also know that there are so many people, so many people who don't feel like they can talk about it. And that are really, really suffering that it's far more common than what we know, because there's so much shame around it. Yeah. And so it has just felt like a mission to shine a light on it, and to take the shame out of it and help help women really move forward in a really bold way and heal from it. So that's that's how I got into it. The more I the more I get into it get deeper and deeper into it. Like I just I love to changing the narrative around it, changing some of the stories that are coupled with infidelity. For a lot of people, and it just it's it's brought me a lot of joy actually to dive into this painful topic, right and to really see people heal from it.

Chanci Dawn:

Wow, that is so beautiful that it's like that's the perfect example of the hero's journey. Right? Like starting in here you are like going through the process. And now you're in this place of actually finding joy being able to help women heal. Yes. Wow. Love it. I love it. Thank you. Thank you, first of all, thank you for doing this important work. Thank you, you know, and yeah, and I'm, you know, my heart is like, I'm sorry, you had to go through that. And I'm also really grateful you did because you're you are and if you did it, you know it. That's one thing you find so often with coaching, right? We go through the stuff and it's like we get coached, our minds are blown and then it's like wow, we get to a true place. Healing, we're getting ready to give back. And you are doing that. So great.

Andrea Giles:

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah,

Chanci Dawn:

thank you. Okay. So, three things that you were taught that you mentioned in there that really made my body go. Ooh, let's dig in. One was the shame. Okay. Other was the herding of the heart. And did you say the soul? There was two things?

Andrea Giles:

I said, but see the, the our heart and your Oh, I can't remember mind soul? I'm not sure.

Chanci Dawn:

Yeah, okay. I can't remember. I wrote it down. I mean, those are really important, then I don't even remember but the hearts what matters really. And so when we're talking about shame, and that heart that heart ache? Can you speak more about that in relation to the body image? Yes, he feels about her body.

Andrea Giles:

Yep. So you know, shame, just shame is a beast of any emotion, it can just take us out. Shame is an emotion that breeds like feeds on secrecy and privacy and hiding. And for for women who have experienced infidelity. It's a very, very, very easy place to go, right? Very easy place to go. Thinking that I must not be enough. And it often does go to body like to your body image, like, I must not do it for him, he has to go, you know, get that somewhere else because I don't do it for him or I don't I'm not, you know, I don't, not enough not as frequent as he wants not giving, you know, all these meanings attached to it. And the shame piece, the shame piece is around. I mean, it shows up in lots of different ways or in infidelity. But in regards to the body. Unfortunately, I think when we when we experience trauma, when we experience these kind of life altering events that really shake us to our core, what it can do is it can hit on insecurities that were already there. Good point and really make them like blow up. And so if they're already we're like, if they're if they're already, we're insecurities around different parts of the body. Like for a lot of my clients, it's you know, I gave birth I had a baby or three babies and my body is just not what it was my, my sex drive is not what it was, you know, being pulled in different directions just in life. I can't give the attention that I used to be able to give, but particularly around looks around you know, I sag where I once was perky. Right things like that. And they if they already were feeling insecure about those things, Oh, does it blow it up to where, you know, I've seen people go and spend a lot of money to try to for those of you can't see I'm using air quotes to fix fix the parts that they think are broken. Because they feel so much shame around that if he's if I was beautiful enough if I was attractive enough, then he wouldn't have made this choice. And so it's very loud that shame around not being not feeling beautiful enough pretty enough good enough. It's it's very prominent and really like one of the painful things about it is like it just it exasperates all the areas that were already a little touchy. I think that's one of the reasons why infidelity feels like such a blow to people is because it like pushes on the points that maybe were already a little bit tender.

Chanci Dawn:

Yeah, it's you know, I talk a lot about on this podcast of how I call that primal brain or brat brain Okay, and how the branch brain will constantly look in the environment scan everything for evidence of what she's already believing. So of course infidelity is like not it would not just feel like oh there's some evidence it would be hard fact seriously do not measure up therefore he right so boy with this I can understand how that would really perpetuate the shame because if she's already feeling this and then this happens. You just want to go into a cave.

Andrea Giles:

Yep. Yeah, yep. And many do you know many? At first at least, just kind of go into deep depressions go hide out go. Just don't even tell anybody about the infidelity because they're so ashamed of that they think that it's them that I am insufficient in some way. Right. The saying about shame you've probably heard this before is instead of just thinking like, I did something wrong, it's like I am wrong. me just the entirety of me, right? And if I were right, he would not have done this. And you know, just it's such a painful, painful meaning to attach to it. But it's what we do. I know I did. Right. I went there, for sure. Like, I must not be enough. It's, it's we want to understand we were meaning makers, right? We want to understand why things are the way they are. We want to find those meanings. We want to make those connections. And so that's just a very easy place for our brains to go. Yeah, even they're very painful, right?

Chanci Dawn:

Mm hmm. It's so it's so interesting. I did a podcast last summer, called like, my boyfriend's wandering eye or something like that. And it was very vulnerable about me and who's now my fiancee. Wonderful, man. Yeah, wonderful man. And we are tubing. And I saw him check out this woman who I have to admit, I looked at her too. She looked great. But for me, not for him. That he noticed her right. So that even that made my I was all the things that I already was feeling. Right. I'm also and I was like, I feel like a frumpy mom, I feel like all of these, all of these things. I'm not skinny enough. But like, everything that, you know, I'm constantly every day choosing to respect my body through and looking at my body and saying, Sorry, body. I don't talk or think about this, you know, with you anymore. And but it just came flooding. So if that. Yeah, that to me. infidelity is like a whole it's a tidal wave,

Andrea Giles:

I'm sure. Yep.

Chanci Dawn:

It's true when women come to you. And this is do you find first of all, I'm curious. Is this something that you encounter with most of your clients? Yes. Okay. Okay. I figured it was but I wanted to check in. So when they come to you, how do you start the healing process around body image?

Andrea Giles:

So one of the things that I that I take my clients through is, we spend a lot of time looking at looking at the meaning behind things, but also looking at the the broader picture of the whole, like, the whole infidelity. What, let me explain what I mean by that. So as women, I think that we're really programmed to kind of run things through the filter of like, self blame, that somehow I didn't measure up that somehow it was me and I didn't measure up in some way. So if it's not it, I think the first place that we go is our body. I think there's so much conditioning around that right like that, it must be this, it must be my body. And then if it's not that I'm not doing enough in this way, or I'm not sexual enough, I'm not this, I'm not that right. But one of the ways we start to heal is I teach my clients to look at data, like to learn how to analyze things, at a higher level to look at the whole the whole picture of a situation and part of that is giving some balance to the story. Okay, so right now, their story is my body's not, you know, good enough, he's not attractive enough things like that. And instead of just kind of talking themselves into a different story, oh, my body's fine and right, you know, that kind of thing. I wait, we spend some time actually looking at, at what else is going on? Okay, so part of this is like, if a if a brick didn't just fall from the sky and land on you, and this thing just landed on you, which feels pretty powerless, right? Which feels pretty powerless. If we can, like, help our emotional state, like get ourselves to a place of calm where we can actually look at some data actually look at that, like, other things that were going on. Okay. So for example, let me give some examples. I'm thinking of various clients. While we women have a lot of our own conditioning men do too, right? We all do. We all do. And I think it is a little different for men and women. I think a lot of men have the conditioning of needing to be tough, needing to be strong, needing to not show emotion. Boys Don't Cry, you know that that kind of thing. Power money. Yep. Yep. That that is the sign of masculinity. Right? Yeah. And so for a lot of the guys, they, they, a lot of them have had hard things happen in their life that they have had zero tools to know how to process like zero. They have not known what to do with it. They've not known how to process their emotion. And so they are looking for coping mechanisms, they're looking for validation for somebody to tell them that they're okay, that they're good enough. And, and so part of the healing process is being able to, you know, feel deeply, right feel deeply all have the feelings like to process them through. And then to be able to, to analyze things at a more critical level. And to be able to see things from a higher, less personal point where you're actually collecting data, where you're actually looking at the facts of the situation. So instead of like, He did this because I'm not good enough, he did this because I, you know, my body's not beautiful enough, I I'm not, you know, all of those stories. It's like, what else might be going on? What else might be here. And it's, it's pretty amazing, when I see my client's kind of soften into that, where they can kind of soften in, oh, my gosh, maybe it's not just me, like, maybe there is more to this. And then what happens, which is amazing to see is often they actually can have compassion for both of them to go, This must have been really painful for you to violate your own code of conduct so deeply to violate your own values to self betray to, you know, go against your own values so deeply. And they can kind of see, from an empathetic, compassionate point of view, they can start to shift into saying this actually was never about me. And when they can finally kind of click into that, there's so much healing there. But we have to feel safe enough to do that. Like, if we are staying in this activated state of just feeling afraid all the time feeling not enough all the time, we're not going to be able to go to that deeper level, because we just won't feel safe enough to do so it will feel too threatening, right. And so, first thing is like, being able to work with the nervous system to feel safe enough to even go deeper. And so we can do that. We won't be able to really process and like look at the deeper meanings of things.

Chanci Dawn:

Yeah. With my own clients, I use embodiment practices for that, to calm the nervous system to create safety. What do you do?

Andrea Giles:

We do, like, I have a group coaching program, that's the main coaching I do now. And I have it laid out in different weeks of, you know, that build on each other with different trainings, and then I do a bunch of coaching, and the first several weeks of the program are about nervous system, grounding, you know, grounding techniques. And so what I do is I teach lots of different ways of, of embodiment, lots of different ways of, you know, things for them to try, because what I have found is what works for one person doesn't work for another. Absolutely. And like I have some clients that were like, tapping is really, really powerful, or were like strenuous motion, like when they just need to really work something through where they they've, and they learned that about themselves. And so I invite them, I give them lots of different things to try. And then I have like, the space where I, you know, teach them and then we connect with them on the calls to kind of check in with how they're doing with that. And if if a client will come to the call really highly activated, I sometimes will do some of these, you know, breathing exercises, things like that right on the call with them, and help them in real time, which can be so powerful for the other clients to see. Right for them to do I actually have them do it with us. Like if I'm doing a breathing exercise with a client, I often will have everybody on the call do it along with so, you know,

Chanci Dawn:

I am so impressed. And of course, of course it's you were doing this right but I find so often in the mindset coaching world, it's so like, let's just get dig right into that neutral. How are we going to think about it? And yeah, if you're not able to connect with your body and calm that nervous system and go, Okay, I'm even open to considering this new data, right? I'm even open to showing my brat brain new evidence. If that doesn't happen. It falls short. Yeah. Oh, beautiful. I love that. And even in that process of doing this, you're helping the women reconnect with themselves. Yes, yes. Yeah, a lot of tears on your calls. Yes. I bet you do sometimes my

Andrea Giles:

own sometimes my home because it's such a, it's so powerful to witness, it's so powerful to witness deep healing, deep healing. And to your point, I, I'll be honest, when I first started coaching, I think both of us had some of the same training initially, like some of it, like, like, just change your thoughts, right, you just just change your thoughts. And what I've learned is that, if we don't feel safe enough to change our thoughts, it's gonna fall flat, just like you said, or it'll be like, you know, willpower, like trying to will our weight into into thinking something different. And what I have found, like, I mean, my, my program, the main purpose of my program is, of course, to help people heal, but in their healing, to be able to make a decision of how they want to move forward, right? Like if they want to stay with a person that that had the affair or not, right. And many of these women have felt stuck for years, like sometimes years and years, because they just have not known how to feel safe enough to make the decision. Whenever they go there. Their brain freaks out, their body freaks out, they're like, I'm gonna die alone. Right? Like, that's where their brain goes. And so what I have learned is that until we, like, I have different steps, like just some basic steps that we go through, and then that's kind of my my coaching process. But the step number one is called the crisis, like, we're not going anywhere until you're not bleeding on the, you know, to the bleeding stops, you're not laying on the ground bleeding, right? Like, we're not, we're not going anywhere. And so until you can, like, stand up and like, not feel like you're gonna die, right? Like, we're not going to make our best, wisest decisions when we're in that place. And we have to honor honor our bodies, and I don't think it's honoring our bodies, when we just try to shove thoughts on ourselves and then make ourselves wrong for not being able to stick with the thoughts, right,

Chanci Dawn:

like the bar of a failure. And I can't even do this, right? Yes, yeah. No wonder he didn't stay with me. I can't even do this. Right. Like, there's just so many. Yeah, so much danger in that if you don't do the first initial steps that you're talking about. And then obviously, throughout recreating continuing to create safety, and yeah, oh, beauty

Andrea Giles:

has to be aligned, like it has, like, our brains are great and powerful. But I think where we get our, our most powerful answers of, you know, steps to take in our life of truth, just truth about ourselves and who we are, and back to like, the body image thing that does not come through by shoving intellect at ourselves, right? Yeah, right. That's not where that's gonna land. That's not where we're, it's gonna heal by just we'll just think this just what's your problem, just think about yourself this way, right? And where that kind of resounding truth of our worth, because that's what it comes down to, right? Like, this is this is the shell that my soul is in. And, you know, we are so powerful, like, are so powerful, and we're all so beautiful, and have these beautiful bodies that we've been given. And it's not we're not going to recognize that on on, like an intellectual just think about it this way. Right. Right. And where I see the most healing happen is where our intellect and our body are aligned. Yeah, when they're lined up, where we can feel it, and we can think it, and that from that place, that's where like, the decision of like, staying or leaving, it's like, am I with somebody that honors all of this over here? Like is and I wish somebody who, who can who honors themselves enough to do this work with me, you know, this work of growing into something really, really powerful together, right? Like that can honor a really high standard of, of a relationship of how to treat themselves and how to treat me, right. And it's much more than just surface level. Trying to kind of white knuckle ourselves into new ways of thinking about things.

Chanci Dawn:

Yeah, yeah. Apps. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So when you've gone to the place with your, with your clients, where their nervous systems are now in a place of being able to receive the truth, right, they are and this vessel that their kitchen, an earth that ride on in within, right, yeah. And and when they're at the place of like, Okay, I'm ready to choose, do I stay or do I go, right? And if I stay, what does that look like? Do I go and perhaps As new partners down the road, yep. And my sort of body right now is saying who, okay, you do all this work on your own, and then you're making this decision. And then the brain will again resurface a lot of the thoughts, right? A lot of those lingering things going, ooh, Am I worthy? Will a new partner be attracted to me? Is he going to do it again? Will I fall short? Or, you know, staying in this relationship? Again? Is he going to do again? Will I fall short? So do you find that Andrea like, do that these things resurface? Oh, yes. Yeah.

Andrea Giles:

Well, like without fail, right? Yeah. Like, if you can bet on anything, you can bet on that, that those those fears are gonna come to play and go and really like to test your conviction to test like, do you mean it? Are you sure right. And, you know, one, one way that I that I like to think about making these these life changing decisions, is and I can go back to my, to my own experience, when I was going through it, it was so tough to think about my kids having divorced parents, like so not what I wanted for them. Financially, I had no idea how we were going to figure it out. Like I there were a lot of things that were unknown. But what I can go back to is that I knew, like I had this deep inner knowing it's time, it's time. And when I think of my clients, like one of the ways that I teach it to them, and that I've seen happen is that when they start doing this work of healing, healing, the the the internal, like, all this stress, all of the the nervous system, right, start to calm, tried to trying different things, different grounding techniques, really, like you said, embodiment work, really stepping into the truth of who they are. What I have seen again and again, is that the decision reveals itself. Hmm. It's like you're, it's like your body and your mind, present it to you, and you don't have to go chasing it. You don't have to chase the decision, you will just know, it'll bubble up, it will bubble up.

Chanci Dawn:

So we had some internet issues there. But we're back, pick up where we were. And I was just asking about making that decision. Right? And you were saying really, it's about it bubbles up. It's a heart centered, I call it like womb wisdom, right? Our, you know, our bodies know, and when you can marry the power of your mind with that wisdom of your body, and then trust and move forward. So can you please speak to that because that's what we're rolling on. And then all sudden, the internet stopped and Alexa started chatting.

Andrea Giles:

Commercial Break? Back. Yeah, so what what I what I really believe and what I have witnessed, and what I have experienced myself is that when the more we kind of surrender to the healing process of like, allowing our bodies to rest, allowing our bodies to, to calm down and facilitating that for ourselves, right, by doing embodiment work by doing breathing exercises, by doing, you know, somatic work that will help our nervous systems to know that we're okay. What I have seen is that the answer just appears. We don't have to go chasing it down. And when I first start working with my clients, they'll come to me kind of in this panic of like, I have to decide I can't keep living like this, I can't keep going back and forth. It's killing me. It's like destroying our relationship. Because one day I'm in and one day I'm out, right? Aren't kids don't know what's going on. And they're like, I have to decide I have to decide. And so we can, like sat down for a minute actually, you don't need to decide today. And and for today, let's let's work on on your body and helping yourself rest helping yourself, you know, get to a place where you don't feel like you need to, you know that fight or flight response constantly that activated response. And what happens is, the more they kind of surrender to that peace to just calming that, like the crisis that's going on in their body. What happens is truth just bubbles up. Like they just, they know, they just know. And they're like, I have to I have to leave or a lot of the time. It's, I gotta figure this out. Yeah, I need to stay. There's things here for me. I need to stay and both are hard. Okay, but both are very hard. I just want to throw in something for your listeners that a lot of people have false conceptions. Is that the right word? conceptions? Anyway? false notions?

Chanci Dawn:

Yeah. I don't know. Sounds good. Anyway,

Andrea Giles:

false ideas notions about? Well, if it happened to me, I would usually it's I would leave, right I would be, I would leave, right? There is no shortcut around healing from this, there's no shortcut. And often we think, Well, if I leave, then I'd be fine. And I would just move on and dump that jerk. And because if we have been wounded, like, a trauma wound to our core, where we feel less than at a deep level, it has to be addressed, it has to be healed. And so this work has to be done, whether you stay with the person you that, you know, had the affair, or whether you whether you leave, there's no easy way out. And so, stuff for my clients, it's, it's getting to that place where, honestly, where they they get to a place where they're like, Okay, with either answer, they're like, you know, I think I'd be okay either way, like the self sufficiency and trust, but then they just know, like, they're raising their own estimation of themselves. Like, that's right, I am really amazing, I am worth choosing, I am worth fighting for. I'm going to stand up for something way more than was there before this even happened. Like I'm, if I'm going to stay here, it's going to be really, really good. And that's my bottom line. Right? And then they get to work creating that and they just know, or they know, this is somebody that is not interested in growing with me. They're not interested in stepping into this new a new place with me.

Chanci Dawn:

So I got interested in

Andrea Giles:

totally, yeah. 100% Or I'm not, it's just a no, right. Like, it's, it's just a no. And so, yeah.

Chanci Dawn:

Not wanting to interrupt you, but I don't I love the full circle, right, like they come to you. deep trauma, deep pain, calm the nervous system, help them regulate that help them look for data, creating new evidence of the truth. And because their bodies can receive it, right, this their nervous system is calm, then they're able to then have these im statements that you're saying, yeah, those wouldn't be available, they those would fall short without that prior work that we've talked about. So amazing. And then these I am statements are here. And then you talked about trust. And what I believe, and I want to check in with you is that trust we we learn how to trust ourselves so deeply when we learn how to intuitively tune into and honor our body's wisdom. Yep. So when all of this stuff that you've all you know, the breathwork the embodiment, the somatic, everything that you've worked with, comes to that place where they're like, Wow, my body is so freakin wise. Yeah, and I can trust her. And that also will help build that relationship with body image, because that's the relationship that I love. Right? I always say it's like, we're embodied eating and healing your relationship with food in your body is it's a relationship. Right? So first of all, for her infidelity heal the relationship with herself first, and then she can decide the relationship with her partner or someone else down. Yep,

Andrea Giles:

absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. But, ya know, I'll add something to this back, just circling back to you said about once they make the decision, you can bet that some of the scary, you know, fear based thoughts are going to come? Absolutely, absolutely. But, you know, so just this morning, I met with with one of my clients, and she was telling me how, you know, she's staying with her partner and that they've been experimenting with her doing what she used to do, where she would go visit family in a different place than where they are. And at first she felt this absolute fear and terror about leaving, like what would happen maybe he'll just go off and you know, meet up with her this or that. And where she has grown her capacity to stay with herself is in going and and like really looking at what she needs really looking at, like how to take care of herself amidst the fear amidst the worry all of those things. And, you know, so today, one of the conversations we had was she said, Okay, we're getting to this place where I at first I wanted to FaceTime like, regularly so I could see that he was where control right Yes, yeah, yeah. And she said that on the last trip that she just got back from, she didn't call him at the regular call time because she was able to be present with where she was and that the time slipped by her and she wasn't even thinking about it. And bumps, right? Like, it was such a big deal for her to go, I didn't need it. I didn't need it. And then she asked me, so how can I deepen it from here. And, and what I said to her is that our bodies, our bodies are so wise. And we have, I think we have times in our life where we catch a glimpse of what's available to us, we catch a glimpse of, like, really good things that are available to us. And what I believe to my core, is that not only not only are they available to us, we are actually meant to have them. And that our healing comes about in the pursuit of those things. So for example, for her, what she wants is a relationship where she does not need to be checking in all the time, a relationship where she can go and enjoy herself. And, you know, sometimes it's good judgment, right? If you're with somebody who is not yet showing you that they are trustworthy, it's good judgment to to be a little, you know, have some boundaries around Yes, have some boundaries, have some guidelines, like some things that help help with that. But as she grows, her capacity to trust as she grows her capacity, like and as they're doing this work together, the next steps for her are to kind of loosen her grip on on those like, you know, the check ins and things like that, and really trusting that she will have herself no matter what happens, like trusting that he's got her and that's good enough that she like he's going to do what he's going to do. And I don't have to let what he is doing control my internal world and my experience with life. Right. And that that like, high level, right, high level healing, high level, high level growth. But ultimately, that is what's going to kind of restore and heal the narrative around our bodies around, you know, all of the shame that we started this conversation with is like, deepening our relationship with ourselves, regardless of what other people do.

Chanci Dawn:

Or having your own back no matter what. Yeah. Oh, wow. I could talk to you forever. That's an important conversation to have. And I really hope that you know, any of the listeners who are listening in that, who have experienced infidelity and infidelity, and they're in like, or any betrayal, right, like, if anything happened, yeah, outside of them that is causing a disconnection from your body and more of like, the shame, low, all of these different things that come up, triggers all of these things that this gives you hope, hey, that hearing this gives you first of all, hope and even the hope even going What if this is possible for me, this deep healing, that in itself will start to calm the nervous system to look for possibility. Yeah, so that is my that's my prayer for this right that it will start with Spark hope, and that they will reach out to you to you know, if there's a different coach that works with whatever they're dealing with or myself that they will do that because so much healing is possible, and you deserve to live a thriving life. Yeah, you have your own back no matter what. So, yeah, so thank you. And can you please like what offers do you have to say about your grant program?

Andrea Giles:

Sir, before I go there, I will just say I'll say one more thing. And it's, it's a hard truth, but I really believe it. I think that we are sometimes handed really, really hard, hard road to hoe like hard trials, hard challenges. And that I do sincerely believe that sometimes the ones that break us open are the ones that allow us to heal the most. Because this is for most people, infidelity is a big enough, like big, you know, it's not just a minor bump in the road for most of my clients. It's like a massive fracture in their foundation. Like the things that I thought were are not Yeah, that person I trust trusted the most is not who I thought he was, at least not in this spot, right. And so for my clients who often have been carrying really, really heavy stories about themselves, about their bodies about you know, all the things infidelity is one of those things that it's a big enough shock. It's a big enough like jolting, alarming experience to go through that it also can be such an opportunity to do really deep healing work. And oftentimes healing things that happened when you were five, like really looking at all of it and doing some really deep healing. I've had so many clients say, I've never felt better in my life, my relationship has never been better. Most of all, the most important I've never, I've never felt better myself, like with myself, with my own self in my own body than I do now. Because they're allowing it to work for them. They're allowing it to, like, open them up to surrender to the things that need to be healed, right?

Chanci Dawn:

I'm really looking at celebrate, right? Yeah, right. Yes. Oh, that is, you know, we don't think of it that way. We think these events are just oh, you know, and it's like, trudging forward by the fact that it can actually be the spark to ignite like, a deeper relationship with yourself than you ever could have imagined. Like,

Andrea Giles:

yes, yeah, almost like it the necessity of it. Like I have to, like, I have to heal this because I can't go forward in this much pain, right? Like, Something's gotta give. And often it is around these big, jolting things that that are the catalyst for massive growth and healing. So to answer your question, though, I do I have, I have some one on one clients, I work with some men as well. But I'm most like my main offer is I have a program called no in 90. And it's a program where I meet often with my with my group, and there's, you know, trainings and things that they learn. But the the real power is in the coaching, where you're seeing other women, amazing, powerful women that are in the same boat as you and coming together to heal and to really take ownership of how you want your life to be. And so the initial no 90 program is a 90 day program, where by the end of that 90 days, you're really like sinking into a commitment into what you're doing. And then they actually are in my space for an additional nine months in an alumni support group, where I do coaching and things like that, as they are actually executing their decision as they're actually embodying the decision of becoming the person that is healed, right as they move towards that and all the stuff that comes up with that. So that's my program. I have a podcast it's it's called heal from infidelity with my name, Andrea Giles, my name. That's where most of my people actually find me is through that podcast. You can find me over at Andrea giles.com That's got my podcasts and how to work with me there as well.

Chanci Dawn:

Wonderful. And all of those links will be in the show notes so you can access her easily. Thank you. Thank you so much, Andy, I know that you have your your lovely clients waiting here for your group program. I love watching the time I'm like she has to go. So this was amazing. I value you and bless you for doing this beautiful, much, much needed work like you. Thank you all on this earth. And I

Andrea Giles:

thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. I'm sure we could have talked for another couple of hours.

Chanci Dawn:

Like I'll have to come visit and stay at my b&b. And we'll do that.

Andrea Giles:

I love it. I love it. All right. Thank you. So thank

Chanci Dawn:

Thanks you.