Sex, Drugs, & Soul

99. From Betrayal to Rebirth: Healing After Infidelity with Lora Cheadle

• Kristin Birdwell • Season 4 • Episode 13

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In this episode, I sit down with Lora Cheadle, former attorney turned betrayal recovery coach, somatic therapist, intuitive channel, and author of FLAUNT! and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal.

And this conversation goes everywhere: infidelity, identity collapse, somatic grief, self-abandonment, the gift inside the rupture, spiritual downloads, sacred travel, Egypt codes, plant medicine, and the radical art of rebuilding your truth from the inside out.

Lora shares the story of discovering her husband’s 15-year, multi-partner affair… and how it became the catalyst for BOTH of them to dismantle old identities, release generational trauma, and rebuild a marriage on truth instead of performance.

Timestamps:
00:00 – What’s turning Lora on in life
01:05 – Expectation vs. desire: how your inner state shapes your reality
03:00 – Lora’s transition from attorney → burnout → betrayal coach
04:20 – The moment she discovered a 15-year affair
05:30 – Rebuilding identity after betrayal & staying in the marriage
06:30 – The REAL first steps after discovering infidelity
07:50 – Blame, shame, shock, & why you must stop before you act
08:40 – Self-betrayal, “good girl” conditioning & performance mode
09:40 – Knowing something vs. embodying it
11:55 – Reawakening intuition, somatics, & energy healing
13:30 – Did we choose our lessons? The game board of life
14:20 – The Librarians: Lora’s channeled guides & Akashic lessons
16:00 – Understanding your soul story like a TV series
17:20 – Co-creating your reality with cosmic free will
19:00 – The gifts inside betrayal (for both partners)
22:00 – Rebuilding authentic relationships without the masks
23:40 – The FLAUNT! Framework (Find your Fetish → Trust your Truth)
26:00 – How to accept unconditionally without sacrificing yourself
27:20 – Navigating the non-linear nature of healing
28:30 – Dark night of the ego vs dark night of the soul
29:30 – How to rebuild self-trust after collapse
31:45 – Creating spaciousness to receive guidance
33:00 – Letting yourself evolve + writing in cycles
38:40 – Sacred travel: Egypt, Sekhmet, Dendera & receiving codes
40:20 – Mystical experiences + light language activation
43:00 – Plant medicine journeys (San Pedro) & consciousness work
45:00 – Meditation styles for ADHD, anxious, or embod

For all the peptide goodies, join me on Ellie MD.
https://elliemd.com/kristinbirdwell

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...

Kristin:

Welcome to Sex, Drugs, and Soul, the sacred sensual space for wild ones, truth tellers, taboo dancers, and revels with soul. I'm your host, Kristen Birdwell, best-selling author, mystic, tantrica, and professional line blurrer between the profane and the profound. For years, I thought I had to choose to be the good girl or the wild one, be spiritual or sensual, polished or powerful. But I've learned the magic lives in the both hand, in the mess, the mystery, the mischief, and in embracing our messy humanness. This podcast is where healing gets real. Self-discovery gets juicy, and shame gets kicked to the damn curb. Whether I'm flying solo or vibing with fellow seekers, healers, experts, and pleasure revolutionaries, we dive deep into the beautifully messy intersection of spirituality, sexuality, and self-expression. Because your body isn't too much. Your story isn't too messy, and your truth, that's holy. Welcome back, guys. Today I have on Laura Cheadle, which, if you've ever been betrayed or been the one doing the betraying, I've been on both sides of the fence, actually. Um, so I thought that she could bring a unique perspective to healing that journey. Um, she has a blend of legal experience, uh being a betrayal recovery coach and an intuitive channel, which I'm totally like, can we get into all three? Um, for sure. So I'm happy to have you on and offer some unique wins uh windsight, wisdom and insight. I like windsight. Yeah. I'm like, hey, and it'll make you like win at life more. Yeah. Um, so I'm curious like how one first off, actually, I'm gonna rewind a little bit and ask you because I've been meaning to ask this question to everybody, and sometimes I forget. So before we go any further, I want to ask you what's turning you on in life. And this can be in or in or out of the bedroom, or what's making you feel the most alive and juicy right now?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that is a great question. I really like that. Um, this might sound weird, but what's really like all the things turning me along everywhere is I have so ground into the belief and the idea that I truly can create my life. I really can create my experiences. You know what I mean? And it's like I'm just showing up places, whether it's in the bedroom or out. And I'm like, oh yeah, this is about me. And I can change the vibe here, and then I do, and it's really, really fun.

Kristin:

Like, um, like manifestation and energetic or energetic shifts in the moment, or what's something that you've kind of called into being?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, what it is, I had this conversation not too long ago about like desire, and I'm thinking desire is like the pinnacle of everything, and if I desire it, I get it. And then this woman said to me, No, no, no, no, no. It's your expectations. What you expect is what you get. Yeah. So I've been hyper aware. Like, if I expect somebody to be a jerk to me, if I expect to be disappointed, if I expect, and it's so crazy because there are so many times we walk in and we're like, Yeah, I expect this to be so so. And just really shifting that energetic expectation, and it does change the situation.

Kristin:

I think so too. I I sometimes I'll play around with like asking myself questions in the morning, like, okay, like, why do I always meet the right people at the right time? And I feel like that's kind of a way of priming my brain for that expectation. Yes. Um, or like that our brain like looking for the evidence to make us right. And if we can shift it. I love that. That's a great one.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. It really works.

Kristin:

It really works. So I'll remember it. You know, it helps us stick. Um, I'm curious. And I've and I read a little bit on your website, so I'm a little privy, but just for people tuning in, kind of like how did you make the transition or what was the catalyst for making the transition into like the legal world and RAM, into you know, supporting women through affairs or a burnout? Like, what was that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. There were two pivotal moments. First, after practicing law for a while, I had two kids under two. Uh my husband traveled. Yeah, it was a lot. Um, I'm really close to my grandparents. Three out of four of them were in hospice in various stages of dying. And it's like, okay, how can I be a full-time mom, a full-time caregiver, a full-time attorney? Like, you no, no human can do this. And I completely burned out. I was disillusioned with the practice of law. I thought it was going to be about justice, it's really not. Um, and I I burned out, and that was my first catalyst. From there, I went into, I returned to my spiritual roots. You know, I went back to fitness and yoga and energy work and all the different things. And I went into wellness coaching and health coaching and burnout coaching, all of that stuff. And I I really thought I knew it all. Like I was successful, I was doing it great. I thought I had won at life. And that's when I found out that my husband had been cheating on me. Get this for 15 years of our 23-year marriage with five women. And it, I mean, it destroyed me because it was like the last 15 years weren't real. Did anything that you say was that real? Was anything that we experienced real? And that was horrendous. It completely, I had to completely rebuild my identity after that. And in the process, I realized the remedy for like betrayal is so wrong. You know what I mean? We blame, we blame the person who cheats as a bad person. They're not. Spoiler alert, my husband and I are still together.

Kristin:

Oh, okay. I was gonna ask.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're still together. We just celebrated our 30th anniversary. Okay, cool. Plot twist, because I was thinking you left, maybe. Okay. Um, and then like on the betrayed side, so often it's just, you know, therapy, counseling. That's a part of it, but it's a spiritual rupture. We have to get into the legal safety, we have to get into the somatic processing to release all of that trauma that's in our bodies. We need, we need the medicine from all different areas. It's not just, well, I went to counseling for a year and I'm fine.

Kristin:

Yeah. I'm curious, and like there's a part of me too, because whenever I think of betrayal, like I thought of, you know, those betrayals of self. I thought of like childhood betrayal or like, you know, having that betrayal wound. And then, like, do we become like a self-fulfilling process prophecy, whether we are conscious of it or not, by like, you know, whatever in in life later happens or transpires? Um, I'm like, well, like which direction do I want to go with this? I'm curious, like, yeah, some of y'all's first steps towards like repair. Um, and then I know you have a process for walking women through it too. And does it, I'm like, does it do they are most of the women wanting to stay in repair or do they want to leave, or does it vary?

SPEAKER_01:

Or it really it really depends. And I think I love that you went there because that's like one of the questions that people ask right away. Like, what do I do? And usually the question is, it's okay, the the all of my answers are answering all of your questions all at the same time. The first thing we need to do is we need to feel and we need to grieve and we need to stop, and we need to let that shock reverberate through our body, through our systems, through our lives. And raised as strong, empowered women, we think we need to do something. We think we need to make a decision, we think we need to fix it. We think, and it's like, no, first, you just need to stop and you need to be. And that's the hardest thing in the world because we think I've got to fix it, I've got to do something. You don't. But after you stop, after you let some of those shock waves die down, after you grain, regain your footing, you can start sleeping, you can start eating, you can start breathing and moving again. Then the next thing that people want to do is they want to blame the other person. Well, he did this and she did this, and what do people think? And what and then they turn it to self-blame. What did I do? And what did we have to go through that process a little bit. That's normal. But that's not really what it's about. That's not a great place to make decisions either. When you talk about like that mirror, and did I attract it? What I really discovered is betrayal is a mirror of the way other people treat you is how you treat yourself.

Kristin:

Like what we're willing to accept is love or something, or yeah, just I was conditioned.

SPEAKER_01:

I think so many women are conditioned to please. Not even like we hear a lot about the good girl. I wouldn't have necessarily thought I was a good girl, but I did please. I sought to do good in my career. I wanted to get the grades, I wanted to get the degree, I wanted to get the job. I wanted to take care of people. I wanted to be seen as the competent one. That's all this mode of performance, and that's abandoning ourselves.

Kristin:

If it's not, yeah. I can see like if it's not coming from like a true inner desire, like looking to feel something as far as, and I say that that's my twin coming out a little bit, like feel, like like uh like you know, love, abandonment, I mean, uh, acceptance, like that sort of thing. Because I've totally been on like an external invalidation hunt, or like you know, like thinking that's where I was gonna find it, or like or the complex or not feeling worthy, or you know, I'm like, I was like, in so some ways that served me in life, it was like getting that you know degree or whatever. But in some ways, it's like, okay, how was I not listening to myself? So how let's keep going and riffin.

SPEAKER_01:

No, that's exactly it, because that then then it becomes okay, I'm I'm having this awareness. I'm having this awareness, but then what do I do with it? Because a lot of people get stuck there too. They're like, I've listened to all the podcasts, I've read all the books, I've talked to my therapist, but I'm not acting differently in life, I'm not showing up differently. You know what I mean? And it's different to have the knowledge in your head and then to embody it and to exude it. And that's huge. And we still haven't gotten to the answer. Do I stay or do I go? Because I don't know. I've managed the shock, I've gone through that blame and anger. I've now started to look at myself and I've started processing and I've learned it in my head, and now I need to know it in my body, and now I'm showing up differently. And as I'm doing that, do I meet my partner now? Because in my case, he was doing that same process and that same journey, and we could come back together and we could meet as two different people who were very whole and embodied and healthy, and we're like, whoa, game on.

Kristin:

Yeah, like we like this version of each other. Yeah. But you know what? It takes a lot of um, I guess, like willingness and openness to look at ourselves too. I don't know if everyone is like willing or open or ready to look at themselves and or willing to commit to like doing like the work and the play to get to that point. Yeah. I'm like curious, like what kind of you know, steps, you know, and and I love the distinction too that you said about between having it being a mental understanding or versus like an embodiment or an expression of self. So different. Oh, yeah. So I'm like, how did you begin to weave those or marry those two together? Slowly. No, I told it's funny because sometimes I'm like, okay, well, how will my future self like moving the world? I'm like, well, she definitely doesn't fucking rush, you know. I'm like, slow is good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. It's it's hard and it and it takes time. And I love what you said that sometimes you're not ready for that. Because I look back at my journey, if I would have found out about the infidelity truly at any other point in time, I wouldn't have been ready to process it. Oh yeah. And sometimes we're just not ready for something, and that's okay. This happened at the exact perfect time for me. And I do trust that. And I do trust that for everybody. We really can't mess things up. If something is for us, it's gonna keep coming back around.

Kristin:

Yeah. How um, I guess, like, how did you reach the level, like the insight, or did you start to blend the intuitiveness at the rupture, or but was it at the burnout point before, or like were we awakening it or in a way, or it's when I had the burnout point, that's when I came that it's so interesting because that's when all of the pieces started coming in.

SPEAKER_01:

I grew up as a dancer, I've always danced and moved, and I was a fitness trainer forever. But what drove me crazy about fitness training was the focus on the external. I have to be a certain size, I have to lift a certain amount, I have to. And my blend was like, no, how are you feeling in your body? You know, what is this bringing to you? Is this confidence? Is it strength? Is it flow? Is it flexibility? So I would blend hypnotherapy within the physical movement. And I became a somatic attachment therapist and I did energy healing, and it was all in service of having us feel really confident, really centered, just really grounded in who we were, both the good and the bad, you know, the shadow and the self, all in one. And so when this happened, it's like I was already there, but I had to test it.

Kristin:

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Like going through it myself, yeah.

Kristin:

Yeah. Um, do you think that it's like part of us signed up to learn some of these lessons beforehand? Like we choose them, yeah. I kind of subscribe to that too. Yeah, it's just like, damn, I signed up to learn a lot of the lessons this last.

SPEAKER_01:

I know. Next go around, no, we're just having fun.

Kristin:

Easy crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

Kristin:

Um so I want to introduce like the librarians too. So I'm like, were they at this point before, during, after? Like, who are they?

SPEAKER_01:

I started channeling the librarians um after this whole experience. I was on a flight and they came in and they just came in into my head, and I was like, that was the first time I identified. I've had this voice my whole life. Like, I've heard you forever. This is the voice that I've I've I've always connected with. It's given me this incredible wisdom. So I'm in this flight and I'm like, well, who are you anyway? Are you my soul? Are you my higher self? Are you, you know, great grandma so-and-so? Like, who are you? And what they told me is they said, all of that, they are a council of galactic and earth-based guardians that hold the records of the lessons that people experience. So, like, if they're in the Akashic field. So if you've ever heard about the Akashic records, it's like the lessons that your soul has gone through. They are not the records of the individual, they hold the records of the lesson. So betrayal is a lesson. How many people go through betrayal? What do you learn? What does he learn? What does she learn? What do you learn when you're betraying somebody? What do you learn when you have been betrayed? What do you learn? They are holding that record. So together, we're all contributing pieces of knowledge around this experience in service of eventually moving that lesson out of the grid because we won't need it because we've accumulated and assimilated everything that we need to know and learn and understand around that lesson.

Kristin:

Yeah. And the self-betrayals too, which I guess one of those could be also self-betrayal or self-sabotage or, you know. Um yeah, the Akashic records. I I am I'm aware of them or what they are a little bit, but not like fully. I've done, you know, I have, I don't even know if I've had an Akashic record reading or anything. Um like how I'm like how to how to break it down for someone or to make it easy to digest, to contact or connect, or access like their certain lessons.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Um, a couple ways to think about it. Yeah. If you if you looked at your life as a story, whether it's a story in a book exactly, or you know, a sitcom on TV, there's episodes, there's chapters, but there's a whole story arc from beginning to end. We all have a beginning, we all have an end. What is your story? Is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? Is it a drama? What is each chapter? You know, sometimes in an episode on TV, they're all standalone episodes and they're not connected to any of the previous episodes. Sometimes there's a common theme that comes through the whole thing. So the Akashic record is like that whole. It's the whole arc, the whole trajectory. What are what is this about? And what are those common threads that you're pulling through? And what are you going to do with those threads? Are you going to learn from them and grow from them? Or are you going to keep that thread of victimhood your whole life? Oh, I was abused, and then I was abandoned, and then I was left, and then I lost my job, and then I went into poverty. Great. That is a theme of victimhood. You can keep it your whole life, or you can be like episode done, chapter closed, and move on.

Kristin:

It kind of circles back to like what you talked about at the beginning, as far as like kind of what we expect, we get too in a way. Because I'm like, I'm curious about like the balance of how much is written and you know, whether it's lessons we started to learn, and then also like the we do get to create like our realm or our world or our reality. Because I do totally think we can be co-creators, yeah. Um, so it's like, how do we really take what we we experience?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I love that. That's one of my favorite questions. How I see it, and again, this is this is how Laura sees it. Yeah, yeah. But I see it, it's it's like the game board, you know, and we're playing the game, and here is the game board. So there's some there's some big things on that game board, whether it's shoots and ladders, there's a shoot, there's a ladder, you can hit it, you cannot hit it. You can so there's some things that sure, these are some lessons that I wanted to learn. I wanted to have a thorough understanding of betrayal in this lifetime. So I'm going to move through it. I've wanted to understand persecution. I want to understand judgment. So, okay, we can like sign up to learn those lessons. That's the game board you're given. Okay, this game board will help you understand betrayal, persecution, and judgment. Bye. You're gonna forget about when you get here. Yeah. So then along the way, that's where we have a lot of free will. I can learn these lessons from a bitter, angry space, or I can Learn these lessons from a very loving, compassionate space where I'm also spreading love and light to other people. Because it would be very easy for me to tell the story for the rest of my life. You wouldn't believe what my husband did to me. And after all these years and all these sacrifices, I can still learn the lesson, but I can be an angry bitch learning those lessons. Or I can learn those lessons and I can be like, you know what? I can alchemize this. I can feel good. I can create love. I can really help guide my kids through this. I can share my message with the world. I can hold up the light for other people and say, it's okay if you cheat or are cheated on. Here are some of the gifts from this initiation. And I can feel happy and satisfied. So you're going to play the game. It's whether you play the game with happiness and playfulness, or if you're going to play the game being grouchy the whole time. That's truly up to you.

Kristin:

Yeah, it gets cool that you get to choose uh like what's in your tool belt or what you know mode you're gonna be navigating. That I like the visual too of shoots and ladders because then you can like kind of like go through one or maybe an elevator too. Like I'm up and down. Yay! You listen to yourself. Um, you mentioned gifts that and the betrayal and stuff. I love to expand, you know, on either the gifts that you've you know claimed and owned, or on or your husband, or both of them, like that, you know, coming from like both sides of it. Yeah. And I know it's through like the lens of you, but I'm to share those, I think, would be pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I and I think it's important. Um his gifts, I'm gonna start with his and then shift back to myself. He had a childhood that was filled with really significant abuse and trauma and poverty and neglect and I mean all the things. And he was like, and now I'm an adult and I'm gonna close the door on that. You don't just close the door on trauma, you know, you don't just say, I'm over it now. It it needs to be processed, it needs to be acknowledged. So he really had the gift of being able to process that, of identifying it. He was not a very happy person in a lot of ways before because he had all this internal stress. He was always worried about poverty, always worrying about he wasn't doing enough, always worrying that he was going to be left, always worrying that he was not good enough. Like all of these issues and pains, his gift is he's gotten to process that. He's gotten to release it. He knows he's going to be okay. He can figure things out now as an adult that even though up here he knew he could process, he didn't really internalize it and live it. So he's showing up different and he's feeling happier. He's like, I'm happier and healthier than I've ever been because I addressed that. And it was because of this experience. Now, for me, I speak my truth way more than I ever did. I advocate for myself way more than I ever did. I have such a deep level of self-trust. I don't want to be hurt. Nobody wants to be hurt. But you know what? I've been through it. I can take whatever. You know, it's it's not like bring it on, I challenge you. I don't want it. You can learn through ease and grace now. Right.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

That's what I expect. I can handle it, I can move through it. I create my own happiness. My happiness doesn't come from my size, my weight, my marital status, what the kids do. Like none of that. It's about me. I get to do me, you get to do you. And then our relationship is so much more authentic now because we're not performing for each other. I'm not playing the role of the good wife. He's not playing the role of the good husband. We are who we are, we mess it up a lot, and we have love and grace and forgiveness and compassion for each other. And that is so much more connecting and enriching than it ever was when we had the perfect life before.

Kristin:

Yeah, I mean, because it's coming from an authentic and genuine place versus like these masks that were maybe worn or identities or you know, all those things. And I feel like that's so common, especially like in the realm of social media or keeping up with the Joneses, or most people, most people only display like their their accomplishments or like they're, you know, the per picture perfect, you know, they're not giving you like the behind the scenes like or inside look on a lot of those things, which I can feel like only amplify or be like, you know, ladder fluid on like insecurities or things of like, okay, what's wrong with me or my relationship that I'm not we're not X, Y, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And and on the flip side, my TED talk talks about this too. Also for women, we're so like, don't brag, don't brag, you don't want to show off. Oh my God, is that skirt too short? Is your we don't want to show ourselves too in too good of light because we don't want to be judged, and we also don't want to show ourselves in too bad of light. And it's like that gives us very narrow range of how we're supposed to show up. You know what? And that's why a lot of my work is built around the um concept of flaunt. Love it. Let's see how it's an acronym. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's an acronym, but it's the energy. I'm gonna flaunt it all. I'm flaunting the good, I'm flaunting the bad because it's me. And if somebody has a problem with it, it's not my business. It's not my problem because this is who I am.

Kristin:

Yeah, I feel like it's more of a reflection on them if they're coming at you with some kind of judgment. Yeah. Um, yeah, no, I love to break down flaunt or the process. I love acronyms. So let's tell them, like, let's share the acronym and share the it's fun.

SPEAKER_01:

The F stands for find your fetish. And I love the word fetish. Yeah. Yes, yeah, because it's a little naughty. Yeah, do-do-do. It's a little naughty, but it's like lean into the thing that brings you the most joy without judgment. You know, I don't care if it's reading with a cup of tea. I don't care, like I did pole dancing and I danced burlesque. That kind of self-expression is my fetish. Do what lights you up. It's all about you, and that's where it starts. The L in Flaunt stands for laugh out loud. Laughter is actually the number one way to calm and re-regulate the nervous system. Hell yeah. I knew I liked going to the mothership. And from that place, that's where we can actually make better decisions. And again, you know, when I was talking about we can do life as a total grumpy human, or we can do life as a happy human. It feels more, it's more fun to be be a happy human. Yeah. Yeah. It's good for you, it's good for your immune system, it's good for everything.

Kristin:

Like I definitely prefer the playful path. Me, okay.

SPEAKER_01:

The AU stands for accept unconditionally. And that is the golden center of flaunt. And that is so hard. But that's the magic happens. Because it's accepting yourself unconditionally, but also other people. If you have a toxic person in your life, how many times are we like, but if I just say this, then they won't do that? Well, if I just appease them, no, no, no, no, no. Accept them unconditionally. They are who they are. You are who you are. If it's not a mix, it's not a mix. But so much brain space is taken up leaning into somebody's potential and trying to see the best in them and then manipulating by being like, Well, if I just do this, then they're gonna say that. And then if I do this, then they're gonna do that. And if I bring them, then they're accept it.

Kristin:

Yeah. And if you need to let them see themselves up, let them see themselves up.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. N stands for navigate the negative.

Kristin:

Oh, wait, what was okay? Oh, so as accept, accept, unconditionally. Okay, got you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Okay. N is navigate, navigate the negative. We all think, especially like in the whole self-development world, like I'm gonna learn these skills, and then I'm just gonna go from one to a hundred, and I'm gonna make a million dollars in my new business, and I'm gonna meet the person of my dreams in three months. It's never linear. Growth is never linear. It's all a journey to navigate. So when we can let go of the idea that it's from point A to point B and to participate along the journey. And how do I navigate this moment? And then what do I do in this step? And then what do I do here? And oh, I've got a backtrack here. It releases the pressure, and we end up having more fun along the way.

Kristin:

Yes, love that. And I totally remember like uh whenever I thought it was like one dark night of the soul or one moment.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, it's like, well, I have my being. But yeah, yeah. I I had my dark night of the soul. I'm done.

Kristin:

No more. Yeah, you know, and yeah, a friend of mine uh reframed it when he came on here too. He's like, I actually like to call it dark night of the ego. He's like, because the soul knows what's going on, and so I was like, Oh, I like that. Thank you. Yes, but I gave me just like a little bit of yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, the T is trust in your truth. We know what's up for us. And yes, get advice from other people, yes, talk to friends, whatever. But you know what? It's your life. You make your decisions, trust yourself, and far too many of us give our power away. Trust your truth.

Kristin:

How um I love this because I feel like self-trust is newer for me over the last like year or two. Um, that as far as kind of like what you uh nodded to earlier, is like, okay, the waves will come, like, but I trust myself to handle whatever does come. I can expect one thing or the other. And sometimes there's gonna be some surprises or challenges or grief. Like whenever you're talking about your grandparents earlier, I was like, oh my God, my grandmother just passed. So it's like a tender spot in my heart where I'm like, oh my God, am I gonna cry? Oh, so how do what do you suggest to people to build that self-trust or to trust their truth, or if they haven't, or if they've been like, you know, on the wearing the mask or in that role in a certain relationship where they're not necessarily acting according to one's own like inner guidance, how do they start to reconnect with themselves to even discover what their truth may be if they've just kind of like pushed it down for so long?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Couple things. I'm I'm a big fan of journaling and just asking myself questions. Is this really my desire? You know, who who's and then challenging myself. If this weren't my desire, whose desire would it be? Mmm question. Yeah, because we lie to ourselves. Well, I just want to do this for me. I just want to, and then it's like, but if I didn't want it, whose would it be? Oh, oh, I don't think it's mine. Yeah. And then the other part of that is sometimes just sitting in silence, not trying to meditate, not trying to journal, but just stopping. Three to five minutes, not a lot of time, even if you're just in the car before you go in somewhere, just in silence.

Kristin:

I like that one because um, yeah, I just like the dropping in of silence and the offering of a different opportunity or possibility because so many people that I've either been in a lot of conversations or you know, get people that they're like, Mike, I just can't turn off my mind, like I can't meditate, like that's not for me. But it's like really if you like listen to you can like listen to the silence in some ways too. For me, I I can especially I it's easier for me to like practice like outside if I can feel like all the wind on my skin or like the words, or just or in bed, right when I wake up. I'm like, yes, I'm like, that's a good opportunity. Ah, love it. I'm like, where do we want to go now? What direction?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. And and I find myself um, like in this digital Zoom world, so often I'll be like, oh, well, I've got a call in three minutes. Only would be like, I can check an email real fast, or let me scroll social real fast. Now I'm like, you know what? Yay, I've got three minutes to wait. I'm just gonna sit here. And it's hard. Your hands are like, oh, I want to scroll, I want to do something. I just stop.

Kristin:

Mm-hmm. Wait, spaciousness.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

Kristin:

I feel like that um that reminds me of like just stacking calendars like with different appointments and stuff like that. Um, I think I can't remember if someone asked me or I was watching something. They're like, Are you creating the space for you know God, universe, spirit, source, whatever you want to call it, to provide for you if you're not creating any of that spaciousness, whether it's an inside or an opportunity or a meeting or a conversation with someone. Um, because I know sometimes I can be like, okay, I'm gonna go to the gym. Then this, you know, just so I like the idea of more spaciousness too.

SPEAKER_01:

And even just in those small amounts, because you know, like you, sometimes I can almost get anxiety, like I blocked myself a whole hour. What am I gonna do with this? It's an hour wasted, you know. So just start small. Hey, I'm three minutes or early for the Zoom, I'm gonna sit. Bam! Good enough.

Kristin:

No, I mean, I feel like that's enough for a little lightning strike of inspiration to come through. Or even you don't have to have the expectation, but for you know, sometimes I think I've just been experimenting with writing in a different way lately. I was telling myself the story that um I write best in creative verse, and then I need a lot of rest and recuperation time. And maybe that was true for a certain period of time. But in this next phase, I'm like, I'm just like giving me 20 minutes and then a break and then see what happens and just see what flows, and then 20 minutes and you know, another break or whatever. So I don't know why that came up, but it did.

SPEAKER_01:

So it makes sense because it's like, yeah, yeah. Just being open to the possibility of what doing something different might bring.

Kristin:

Yeah, I guess like the evolving or like giving ourselves permission to evolve.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

Kristin:

Love it. Yeah, and then I was saying too, I was like, what is there another book that you have on your website too? Or I've got two books.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, my first book is Flaunt, Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, and Spiritual Self. And that's about releasing the labels, the rules, the scripts, the identifying. The theme of that book is know yourself to show yourself. Because we all talk about, I want to be seen, I want to be heard. But when you're showing yourself in a mask, you're never going to find that true sense of belonging and freedom. Because I'm showing you my mask of perfection. That's not me. You're still not seeing me. And that book is really fun because they use the concept of burlesque. And yeah, strange. And then the embodiment practices, because when I was a corporate lawyer, you put on your suit jacket, you put on your power heels. We always wear the costumes, don't we? And it's like, how do I strip out of my lawyer suit? How do I strip out of my Lululemons? How do I strip out of, you know what I mean, in whatever persona and the way that I'm showing up? And who is Laura? And how can I really be okay having her being seen? Because I want to be seen, I want to be understood, I want to be known. You can't know me if I have if I have a corset and a push-up bra and fake eyelashes and a wig on. That's not me. So that book is about the deep internal work of knowing yourself and showing yourself. And then my second book is It's Not Burnout, it's betrayal, five tools to fuel up and thrive. And that's about that external work. Once I know myself and I can show myself, how do I relate to other people? If I'm relating to conscious people, it's different than if I'm relating to people who are in ego. So, how do I stay rooted in my truth? As a lawyer, I'm big on advocacy. How do I advocate for the ideas, for the beliefs that are important to me? How do I identify my expectations, communicate those expectations? How do I set boundaries? Like, how do I live in this world now that I figured out who I am? And then how do I do it and play this game in this world?

Kristin:

Yeah. I'm like, did you notice like anything in your relationships outside of like the one with your husband shifting whenever you like discovered your true self? Because I feel and I feel like like it could offer the opportunity for relationships to strengthen and grow or new ones to form, or then other ones may like just kind of trickle off. Um, because I feel like there's an um if we're presenting a mask or who we think you know will be, then we're not gonna receive that love as love either way, or or it won't really feel like we're being seen because we're we have all those things that we're showing, whether it's like physical accompaniments or personality, you know, traits or uh coping mechanisms or whatever it is. Yeah, just serious about how your relationships shifted or evolved, you know, beyond your husband, too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's been interesting because I was afraid that I would end up losing a lot of relationships, but it has been really refreshing. Yes, I've lost a few, but they didn't hurt, they just kind of dissolved and disappeared. And the relationships that I've had have gone so much deeper. And there's such a deeper level of trust and knowingness and support. And it's almost like in many of them, we don't need to connect as often because when we connect, we go deeper and we're always there. It's like I feel so supported by my network, even if I'm not talking to them all the time.

Kristin:

Did anyone I'm I'm like, I'm just super curious, but I'm like, did anyone like notice the shift and be like, okay, what have you done, sister? Like there are like lack of that lean-in, curious kind of energy. Cause I feel like that's part of a piece of magnetism.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

Kristin:

Whenever you do give yourself permission to be like that radiant, you know, authentic self that you are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, people are like, I think you're really okay. Yeah, I really am. You know, and and then a lot of people are like, I want to do what you did. How do I do that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's just been a lot of that. They're like, I've heard so often, like, I want what you have. It's like, well, you can get there, but it's a different version. You can't be me. And that's what I've struggled with with some of my clients too. They're like, I want to be you. I want to go to Egypt and have the same experience you had. I want to do that. And you're like, but that's not your path.

Kristin:

Yeah, love that. And my ears ping up at Egypt. I loved what what happened in Egypt?

SPEAKER_01:

I've done a lot of sacred travel. Yeah. I had a really incredible experience. In Egypt. Which temple or which place? Oh my gosh. All of them. All of them. Dendera, the temple of Dendera was a really powerful one. Yeah. But I mean, all of them I got I it's hard to explain. You just come home kind of a different person. I just feel so connect connected to that, that ancient wisdom, that ancient technology, the longevity that civilizations rise and fall. And yet there's this thread of truth that goes through everything. And this sounds weird, but when you think about like the Egyptian book of the dead and the, you know, the death and the rebirth, all of those deaths and rebirths are within us our whole lifetime. And we take pieces of us forward into that next life, which is just all part of our same journey. And just having that awareness of what will I need? I will need my heart. What will I need? I need love. I need connection. I need belonging. And taking that through each incarnation in my own lifetime.

Kristin:

Yeah, I was curious, like if there were any like uh I because I do believe in like the um like getting the codes just like energetically and physically. Um, but if there were any like palpable like insights, remember being like at the Sphinx and like, okay, help me with mission here. What am I? Then it was like all I got was like that. Well, not all. It's because it was like expanding the capacity to feel. And I was like for oneself and like outwardly for other people too. And but at the Isis temple or filet, just palpable, like the most energetic sensation that I had ever felt. Um probably in my life, like I thought I was gonna rocket to the moon, like I could barely form like syllables. So whenever I'm like, okay, fellow Egypt sister, I'm like, I want them, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right, and same thing, like I had a huge moment with Sekmet in Karnak. I was, yeah, I was teleported to another galaxy for that part, and then I started speaking light language, and I'm like, what is this coming out of my mouth? This happened, but yeah, uh every temple, it's just a different layer.

Kristin:

Have you been? Are there any ones that are like on your horizon that you haven't been to yet?

SPEAKER_01:

Or nothing in particular. It's not like this is the one place that I have to go, but I want to repeat this journey again. And I also want to go to the library where where the library in Alexandria was. I know that it's not, you know what I mean, the same, the same, but I want I want to be in that energy there. I I I really want to do that. And I want to be now that I know what it's like to be there, I want to, I want to do the whole the the whole path of the temples with a little bit more time and a little bit more integration because we would go from one, you know, to the other, to the other, to the other. And yeah, and I need space between each temple.

Kristin:

Yeah, that's what I was chatting with, um, with the woman that I went with and like the guide. Um, I was like, I need a little more feminine to this masculine go, go, go. Because you're right. It's like I'm like, I need some time to breathe and like soak this in. Like, I get that it was like a sacred mission and expedition, and it was like boom, boom, boom, boom. But man, I just want like, you know, an extra a day for a massage and writing or like hanging out by the pool and to like just really weave that all together. I was curious. Egypt was like one of the one places where I was like, okay, there I can't tell you why or what or who, but I was like, gotta go there. Um and so there's just like a certain pull or draw, and I didn't know if there were any one other ones that were like, you know, tugging at you, um, or the any ones that you uh have visited too.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

There's all of it. I mean, all literally all.

Kristin:

No, I'm like, uh I'm like Petro Canada's cool, or even just like uh Iceland or Norway. Uh-huh. Yeah, I feel like there's just so much that we can gain by visiting putting our Morocco too.

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like I need Morocco. I need Bali. Yeah, yeah.

Kristin:

I feel um there was something that my like guide said. Um, she's like, Yeah, just think about the time, the last time that your toes might have been on this sand or land. And I just love like that little imagery or visual too. And if you want, if I I can totally share with you after this, um my my the my Egypt leader guide, he has like uh expeditions and trips and can line up, you know, small groups, big groups, private visits, regular visits, the whole nine. Oh, if you're interested in something like that, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because it's amazing. I I love the sacred travel. I I've done Peru too, like with the shaman, and I highly recommend that too if you want to have your mind really blown. Have you um sat like with ayahuasca or no? Um I did a plant medicine journey, it was with San Pedro and not ayahuasca. They said I ayahuasca is a little stronger, and they're like, start here. And I'm really sensitive, and I was like, whoo, that rocked my world. I'm really glad I started.

Kristin:

Oh, that's how I feel. I'm like, I don't know, I haven't like yet with the IA yet. And I'm like, I'm not sure if I'm full sin there. Love mushrooms and psilocybin and the insights and aha and reset. Yeah. Um, but it's cool um that that has been a part of your journey too, like just like some different medicines, like alternative pathways, yeah. Um understanding. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And what I loved with the San Pedro, and I'm forgetting the other name for it, doesn't matter. But what I loved is like when I meditate and I get to that place and I'm fully connected. When I did the plant medicine journey, I'm like, I know this place. This is the place that I go to. And when I've shared that with people, they're like, oh, that takes away so much of the fear that I'm not disembodied, I'm deeper in myself and into that level of consciousness. And it's like, yes.

Kristin:

So, like, not as much going out, but like going more in in a way.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

Kristin:

Because I always think of like those transcendental experiences of like something like ping, you know, but I can also be like that.

SPEAKER_01:

The deepest universe is within.

Kristin:

That's where I went.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm.

Kristin:

Um, do you have any favorite like meditation like practices or flavors of meditation? It depends on my it depends on what I've got going on.

SPEAKER_01:

It really does. If I'm distracted, I love just listening to frequency music because it'll kind of give me something to anchor in on. Um, if I'm already calm, it's easy to focus on my breath. Um, something that I do a lot of times is just walking meditation or a moving meditation. That because I get so distracted. You know what I mean? So just be able to move your arms like in yoga when you reach up and fold down, just having something like that or the cadence of a walk or the cadence of a run. I need my meditation to fully embody me a lot.

Kristin:

Yeah, I love like give myself a point of awareness. Yeah, and especially if I take my dog for a walk or without my phone, it definitely feels more meditative than like not. Um like any other spaces or places or conversation topics that you want to highlight, like in the the last little while that we have, or I'm opening the space for you to for what's feeling alive or for whatever you want to share.

SPEAKER_01:

I think I want to go back to something that you said if you feel comfortable with it, because I don't want to put you on the spot. But like when you said, I've been betrayed and I've betrayed too. And I just want to hold so much space in love because I know most people listening have betrayed somebody else too, and that it's not a judgment space. And just when we can kind of get out of this, like we all do things, and it's not good or bad, it's not right or wrong, it's just stuff.

Kristin:

Yeah, I think there's a lot of freedom and ownership, and like I wanted to like uh segue into the conversation with that intentionally, because so that people could resonate maybe on one side or the other or both sides, and it's like, hey, I'm an I know I'm a flawed messy human. So much like knowing what I know now, would I do certain things?

SPEAKER_01:

No, it's not no, but I it made molded who I am today, and I do like that person, even if it does feel a little crunchy to like admit that like wide open, and you know, yeah, yeah, because I think people just get so hung up on like I don't know whether it's a morality around something, but it's like everything just is and it all can be sacred, yeah. And and I feel like that's kind of my big mission is how do I bring the sacred to the profane? Because there is the only thing that is profane is not speaking it, the only thing that's profane is hiding.

Kristin:

Yeah. I I kind of think that like we define what is profane and profound for ourselves too. And so it's like it's so individualized, and like we're wanting to define for maybe I don't know, for safety, or just like there's some universal, maybe like negatives, or you know, like maybe murder, but or good, but we always want to like assign that good, bad contrast, like da-da-da. So maybe we can navigate our way in the world or something, but yeah, I just at the other, like it's all a lot of shades of gray and rainbow. Yeah, rainbow, gray, and gray.

SPEAKER_01:

But yeah, and that's why I was like, that's kind of what I want to wrap up on. It's it's it's all one of my favorite things is saying all of life is an experiment, you know, it it just is. And sometimes we experiment and it turns out bad, and sometimes we experiment and it turns out right. And how do we be accountable and grow and learn from that?

Kristin:

Yeah, and the are we clean? I got an image of like, are we blowing up the kitchen or are we eating the delicious cake? Yeah, so it's whatever we're cooking or experimenting with. Um, what was the best way to reach you or contact you or for people to find you?

SPEAKER_01:

Um that's I'm on social media. You can find me at Laura Cheadle on most social media. Um, one thing if you have experienced betrayal and you just want to go deeper, go to betrayal recoveryguide.com and you can download your betrayal recovery guide. And I've got a channeling from the librarians in there, I've got some somatic processing, I've got some hypnosis. But I think more than anything is it just kind of walks you through the stages of betrayal and it helps you reframe and see things differently. So whether it's a money betrayal or a sexual betrayal or a friendship betrayal, it can just really help you reground and re-center it and then take your power back so you don't feel like a victim.

Kristin:

Beautiful. Yeah. Let's let's shift from victimhood to empowerment.

unknown:

Yeah.

Kristin:

Ownership. Love it. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I like how thank you for being here, love, for listening with your whole heart, for listening to the very end, and for walking this wild path with me. If today's episode stirred something in you, whether a giggle, a tear, or a full-body yes, don't keep it to yourself. Share the magic, leave a review, drop me a note, or send it to a fellow sacred rebel who needs it. And remember, your story is sacred, your desires are divine, and your mess is part of the masterpiece. Keep showing up, keep feeling it all, and keep turning your life into poetry. Until next time, stay wild, stay tender, and stay true to that beautiful soul of yours. All my love, Kristen.