What is Post Betrayal Transformation (PBT)?

If you’ve experienced betrayal, you know the intense and unimaginable feeling of shock, loss, pain, anguish, fury, sadness, terror, rejection, confusion, abandonment and more…all at the same time. You feel like the bottom drops out from under you, and in one earth shattering moment of realization, you slowly come to learn that life as you’ve known it no longer exists.

Anyone who’s been through it understands this mind blowing shock to the body, mind and heart. The shock is so severe because this was the very person you trusted, felt safe with, and believed in. Trust is absolutely essential to our sense of safety and security. So when the person you trusted the most is the one to completely shatter that sense of safety and security, it’s traumatic. We feel abandoned, alone, brokenhearted.

Without a clear understanding of the severity of betrayal, you can think you’re crazy. You struggle with thinking you’re overreacting, you can’t explain where the physical, mental and emotional symptoms are coming from, you’re experiencing a wild range of intense emotions, you’re in a fog, exhausted, and you don’t understand why you’re having such a hard time healing from this particular type of trauma.

There’s a good reason for it.

The trauma from betrayal (infidelity for example) can even physically impact the brain. The good news? You can heal from all of it.

How?

Don’t count on time or even a new relationship to heal it. In fact, that’s a recipe for repeat betrayals. The healing needs to be deliberate and intentional as you move through The 5 Stages from Betrayal to Breakthrough. But let’s get started with Post Betrayal Transformation. What is it?

What is Post Betrayal Transformation?

It was one of the three discoveries that were made during my PhD study on betrayal. Specifically, the study was on what holds us back, what helps us heal, and what happens to us physically, mentally and emotionally when the people closest to us lie, cheat and deceive. Originally I was studying something called post traumatic growth which is a transformation after a traumatic event such as the death of a loved one, disease, natural disaster, etc. This type of transformation was discovered by researchers Tedeschi and Calhoun and involves change in these areas:

1: Appreciation of life