Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 Welcome to the balanced perspective podcast, where we're going to be challenging perspectives on what it actually takes to be successful in both business and in life. I'm your host, Terry Ann Richards. And with 16 years as a serial entrepreneur, I've experienced some of life's most epic successes and failures. Join me as we journey on a mission to blow the lid off of some of the best kept secrets to living a life of true success from the inside out, really excited to dig in today with my guest, Dr. Debi Silber. Debbie is the founder of the PVT Institute. She's a holistic psychologist, recognized health mindset, empowerment and personal development expert. She also has a number one best-selling book, the unshakeable woman, four steps to rebuilding your body, mind, and life. After a life crisis. If you read her Bible, you would be thoroughly impressed, which I certainly am. There's lots of accolades behind her name, but what I really want to talk about. So if you go to Debbie's website, she has this quiz called the healed or hardened quiz. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 00:01:25 Thank you. Looking forward to our conversation. And I realized that's an old bio. I have so many more books since then. I have, uh, last year trust again, came out and trust again is when we start talking about D what's been going on in the last couple of years, trust again was the first book with this new awareness. And then I realized everybody was getting stuck in this one particular area. So from harden to healed addresses, just that, oh,
Speaker 0 00:01:52 I really, really like this. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about your journey into becoming a holistic psychologist, deciding to be an entrepreneur and not even just an entrepreneur, but you have this Institute. You're an author. You're speaking on stages. You're here with me on the podcast. There's all of these other things that you've been up to talk about your journey of what brought you to that place.
Speaker 1 00:02:13 Yeah, it's actually my 30th year in business and as life would morph and change well. So at business, it was held him in mindset and then personal development. It just kept changing. And then I had a really painful betrayal from my family thought I did everything I needed to do to heal. And a couple of years later it happened again, this time it was my husband. Anybody who's been through it, you're shocked. You're blindsided. You're devastated. Life will never be the same. So I got him out of the house. I looked at the two experiences and I thought, well, what's similar to these two, of course me, but what else? And I realized boundaries were always getting crossed. I never took my needs seriously. And I was like, you know, it's something big has to happen here. So here it was four kids, six dogs, a thriving business.
Speaker 1 00:02:53 And I'm like, we're going back for a PhD. And it was in transpersonal psychology, the psychology of transformation and human potential. I had no idea how I was going to manage the time I was going to pay for it. But I, it, it felt like I, I needed to do something big and here it was in this program and it was time to do a study. So I studied betrayal. What holds us back, what helps us heal and what happens to us physically, mentally and emotionally, when the people closest to us like cheat and deceive, that study led to three groundbreaking discoveries, which changed my health, my business, my family, my life.
Speaker 0 00:03:32 Okay. That is a lot to unpack. So what are those three?
Speaker 1 00:03:38 Yeah. So the first one was, you know, originally I was setting betrayal and post-traumatic growth. And for those who aren't familiar, post-traumatic growth is if you can imagine kind of an upside of trauma, where that crisis, whatever it was, death of a loved one disease, natural disaster, whatever leaves you with a new insight awareness perspective, you didn't have like, maybe you lose someone you love and you realize life is short. That kind of thing. But I had been through death of a loved one. I'd actually been through disease, but I was like, Hm, betrayal feels so different for me. I didn't want to assume. So. I asked all my study participants and I said, if you've been through other traumas besides betrayal, is it different for you? Every single person said, oh my gosh, it's so different. And here's why, because it feels so intentional. We take it so personally. So the whole self is shattered. Rejection, abandonment, belonging, confidence, worthiness, trust, they're trashed, and they all have to be rebuilt. So if you imagine rebuilding your life and rebuilding yourself, we needed a new term for that net. It's now called post betrayal transformation. That was the first discovery. Now
Speaker 0 00:04:48 Did you like, I've never heard this saying before, so it's post betrayal
Speaker 1 00:04:54 Transformation. That's why it's the PBT Institute, post betrayal transformation. So it's the, so it's rebuilding your life and rebuilding yourself equals post betrayal transformation because you are a very different person when you have fully and completely rebuild your life and yourself
Speaker 0 00:05:14 After a betrayal. Wow. So this is really interesting. I work with female entrepreneurs and leaders, and typically they're bringing me into their world because they want to grow, right. They want to grow their business. They want to grow their professional realm. And it always happens. You go, there you go to the stuff that's behind them. I always call it the 50 pound bag of potatoes. That's sitting behind them that they've been dragging into every relationship, every conversation, every business and it's there. And when there's betrayal, there's a sense of the women have this lack of self worth, lack of confidence. There's just this again. And I love how you're saying, how you're pointing out the not so obvious, which is it's so much more deeper because they knew you. They knew all of you, you trusted them. And then they betrayed you. It's very different when somebody passes or a sickness happens that wasn't intentional.
Speaker 1 00:06:10 You don't take that personally. Right? And here's the thing you're right. It affects every area of life. And with entrepreneurs. I mean, we, we see it in health, in work, in relationships and unhealed betrayal. And here's the thing we always think partner, but it can be family member, friend, coworker. And I want to get to the second discovery about how we know time. Doesn't heal all wounds, but it shows up in every area of life. So think about it that the women that you work with, of course their business is going to struggle because let's say they're working in a company. You know, they deserve that raise or promotion, but their confidence was shattered. So they don't have the confidence to ask they're bitter and resentful instead. Or they want to be a team player, collaborative partner, but the person they trusted the most proved untrustworthy, how do they trust that partner?
Speaker 1 00:07:02 Right. We see it in health. People go to the most. Well-meaning amazing doctors, coaches, healers therapists to manage a stress related symptom, illness, conditions, disease at the root of issues, and then heal betrayal. Very often. We see it in relationships all the time, too, in two ways, the first way is a repeat betrayal. The face has change, but it's the same thing. So you go from Boston, Boston bus, Brent friend to friend, partner to partner party. And you're like, what the heck does it mean? Yes, it is. It's not you. And that it's your fault. It's you in that there is a profound lesson waiting to be learned. And until, and unless you do, you will keep getting opportunities in the form of people to teach you. Right? So that's one way. Or we see it where people put the big wall up. They're like, Nope. Been there, done that. No, one's getting close to me again. We think it's coming from a place of strength. It's not, it's coming from fear. So it's showing up and affecting how we show up in every area of life. And that just came through with the first, you know, we noticed that with the first discovery.
Speaker 0 00:07:59 Wow. So you go through betrayal and there's path left path to the right path left is you keep continuing the same. We'll call them mistakes, opportunities, challenges over and over. Option two is you close off the great wall of China around your soul, your heart, your mind, and you avoid pain because you're afraid of feeling what you have felt before. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 00:08:27 Yeah, well that was actually one of the things with the second discovery. What we learned was there's actually a collection of symptoms, physical, mental, and emotional, so common to betrayal. It's now known as post betrayal syndrome. So we've had 50,000 people take our post betrayal syndrome quiz on our site to see to what extent they're struggling. And a few things about that quiz. The first thing is we've all been taught, time, heals, all wounds. And I have the proof that when it comes to a trail, that's not true. There's a question on the quiz that says, is there anything else you'd like to share? And people write things like my betrayal happened 35 years ago. I'm unwilling to trust. My betrayal happened 15 years ago. It feels like it happened yesterday. So we know when it comes to betrayal, do not count on time to heal it.
Speaker 1 00:09:17 It's not the case. And I, every few months I pull the stats from the quiz just to see where people land. So now imagine we have men, women, every age, almost every country is represented. So figure about between 45, 50,000 people. Here are the stats. 78% constantly revisit their experience. 81% feel a loss of personal power. 80% are hypervigilant. That's exhausting. 94% deal with painful triggers. Some of those triggers can take you right down. Okay? The most common physical symptoms, right? 71% have low energy. 68% have sleep issues. 63% have extreme fatigue. So you wake up. You're exhausted, right? 47% have weight changes. So in the beginning, maybe you can't hold food down later on, you're using food for comfort. 45% have a digestive issue. That could be anything from Crohn's IBS, diverticulitis, constipation, diarrhea, you name it. The most common mental symptoms. 78% are overwhelmed.
Speaker 1 00:10:23 70% are walking around in a state of disbelief. 68% are unable to focus. 64% are in shock. 62% are unable to concentrate. So now imagine you can't concentrate. You're exhausted. You have a gut issue and you're supposed to run your business, raise your kids. Whatever. That's not even the emotional ones ready. Emotionally 88% experienced extreme sadness. 83% are very angry. You just bounce back and forth between sadness and anger and that's debilitating. 82% feel hurt. 80% have anxiety. 79% are stress. So just a few more. Here's why I wrote the book trust again, ready? 84%. Have an innate ability to trust 67% prevent themselves from forming deep relationships because they were afraid of being hurt. Again. 82% finds it hard to move forward. 90% want to move forward, but they don't know how,
Speaker 0 00:11:18 Okay, this sounds so depressing. And I hope to goodness, you have
Speaker 1 00:11:23 Selected news.
Speaker 0 00:11:25 You have a solution, right? Because I'm just going back to when you're talking about lack of trust, because there is a lack of trust just in society, like in general, in the marketing industry, because people are just not showing up in their authentic skin, in their authentic self. People are putting on a front, right? There's a facade that a lot of us have been told to put on in terms of what we do on social media. And so there's become this lack of trust in overall society in buying and purchasing. But then if you take it to the next level, knowing what I know that we, as humans are destined and almost determined, we need human connection. But if you don't trust, how do you have that deep connection that you're actually wired to need? Give me good news.
Speaker 1 00:12:11 Yes. I'm gonna give you such great news. First of all, trust. That's why you can trust again. And that's why I wrote it. Here's the thing. If you do not learn to trust again, it's like living half a life where exactly what you said, we are meant to connect. We are meant to share. We are meant to, to, to have intimacy with, with people. So protecting ourselves as the go-to solution is PR is it, you know what it's like? It's like burning yourself on the stove and swearing off cooking, right? It's like, do you need to be careful and learn, you know, maybe wear a glove and right. Yes. The, and there actually I teach a four step process to learn how to trust again. But the way I look at trust is it's like a brick wall. Every opportunity. The only way I know for brick wall being built is brick by brick, by brick, right?
Speaker 1 00:13:02 With trust, every opportunity someone has to show that they're trustworthy. That's one brick in that wall. And that's why I can take a really long time to build. And now think about it. The person who put up that brick wall in one earth, shattering moment, series of moments, the whole thing can come tumbling down. Now for the person whose trust was shattered, they can look at the rubble of bricks and say, I don't have the least bit of interest in watching that thing get rebuilt. Totally fine. They can walk away. However, if they're, if they are willing to watch that brick wall be rebuilt and that would be their job and that's enough, the other person has to be a really good brick layer. And it goes up the same way. It went up the first time, brick by brick, by brick. But here's what happens. The person who's been betrayed whose trust is shattered. You know, the other person may not really have much of an interest in rebuilding it, but the person whose trust has been shattered, they're so heartbroken. They're so in so much pain, they're like, forget it I'll build the brick wall. No, it doesn't work. That makes sense.
Speaker 0 00:14:08 Totally makes sense. It's also very, uh it's. How would I put this it's momentum building in my mind right now, because when you think of the possibilities, right? Like I always talk about how people are always striving towards success and they want success. And I am a firm believer that success comes after happiness, that you actually don't get success and feel happy because success is like a never-ending goalpost, right? Like what you want at 10 years ago, different now will be different in three years. So you need to strive for happiness first. But with those percentages, you're sharing and knowing that people who are struggling with this post betrayal it's the work needs to be done, but it is a choice. And how does somebody who has that kind of pain make a choice
Speaker 1 00:15:03 And do the work? Yeah, it's such a great question. And that's exactly what the third discovery was about because a lot of people choose not to do anything. That's, you know, not doing anything as a choice, it's just not a good one. And the third, right? The third discovery was while we can stay stuck for years, decades, a lifetime. And so many people do, if we're going to fully heal and by fully heal, I mean, symptoms of post betrayal syndrome to that place of post betrayal transformation, we're going to go through five now, proven predictable stages. And what's even better about that is we even know what happens physically, mentally and emotionally at every one of those stages. And we know what it takes to move from one stage to the next. So healing is now entirely predictable.
Speaker 0 00:15:52 When you're talking about the percentages of individuals who have experienced pain in their past fall, and then those individuals who've experienced betrayal from what you're saying, that being that much more depilatory rating, I think people need to know what is, what are the stages? Yep.
Speaker 1 00:16:10 And it just showed up. And I thought my head was going to fly right off my body with this one just showed. This was the craziest and most exciting thing, because now there's a roadmap, a predictable roadmap. So, and it's all mapped out and trust again. It's what our coaches are certified in. It's what we teach with any Institute. I'm going to give you a distilled version. So stage one is before it happens. And if you can imagine four legs of a table, the four legs being physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. What I saw with everybody was a real heavy lean on the physical and the mental thinking and doing really neglecting the emotional and the spiritual feeling and being now, if you imagine a table with two legs, easy for that table to top all over it, that's us. Now, that's not saying that if you are busy doing stuff, you're going to be betrayed.
Speaker 1 00:16:58 But what happens very often in that doing this, we shut down our intuition and it could have served us stage two, the scariest of all of the stages shock blind-sighted D day discovery day. You know, the person takes the mask off and reveals who they've really been. And this is the breakdown of the body, the mind, and the worldview right here, we've ignited the stress response. We are headed for every single stress-related symptom, illness, condition disease. The mind is in a complete state of chaos and overwhelm. You cannot wrap your mind around the information you just learned. It makes no sense. And your worldview has just been shattered. Your world view is your mental model. The rules that govern you prevent chaos. Don't go there. This person safe. This is how life works. And in a moment, every relieve ever is no longer. And a new rule book hasn't shown up again.
Speaker 1 00:17:53 So it's terrifying. The bottom is bottomed out. But think about it. If the bottom words about a mountain, you, what would you do? You'd grab hold of anything. You could to stay safe and stay alive. And that stage three survival instincts emerge. It's the most practical out of all of the stages. If you can't help me get out of my way, how do I survive this experience? Who can I trust? Where do I go? How do I feed my kids? Here's the trap though? Stage three is by far hands down the place we get stuck in. And here's why once you figured out how to survive, because it feels so much better than the shock and the trauma of where you just came from, we think it's good. And because we don't know there's anywhere else to go, transformation doesn't even begin until stage four.
Speaker 1 00:18:42 But because we don't know there's anywhere else to go. We're like, okay, all right, I need to make this work. And four things happen. The first thing is we start getting all these small self benefits. We get our story. We get to be right. We get someone to blame. We get sympathy, right? We're not supposed to stay here long, but we don't know that we start planting roots when all that stuff happens. The next thing is because we're here longer than we should be. Now, the mind starts doing things like maybe you're not all that great. Maybe deserved it. Maybe this, maybe that. So you plan deeper roots now because this is where you are. And these are the thoughts. You're thinking like energy attracts like energy. This is what you're putting out. So now you have situations and circumstances and relationships coming towards you to confirm.
Speaker 1 00:19:31 This is where you belong. The misery loves company crowd. They come along now too. It gets worse, bro. I'll get you out of here because it feels so bad. But again, you don't know there's anywhere else to go. You resign yourself. You're like this stinks, but I just have to get through this. So right here is where you start using food, drugs, alcohol, work, TV, keeping busy, whatever. Now, think about it. You do it for a day, a week, a month. Now it's a habit and a year, 10 years, 20 years. And I can seriously see someone 20 years out and say that emotional eating you're doing that. Drinking. You're doing that numbing in front of the TV. Do you think that has anything to do with your betrayal? And they would look at me like I'm nuts. And they would say it happened 20 years ago. All they did was put themselves in stage three and stayed there. Does that make sense?
Speaker 0 00:20:20 Perfect sense. But it's also like ridiculously scary. So
Speaker 1 00:20:24 Overall there are two more stages. I hope you give
Speaker 0 00:20:27 Me, give me the, give me the, the rope to get out of this hole because I'm just sitting here thinking if you're not aware in stage three, you're just in stage three. And if the people around you also aren't aware, they can't even give you the lifeline to pull you out of your hole because they're awful not aware, right? Because most, most of us
Speaker 1 00:20:45 Don't know this. No, that's, uh, that's why I'm so grateful for people like you who have me sharing this message. And that was exactly why I wrote from heart to heal because I found trust, again, talks about the five stages, but everybody was landing in stage three and staying there. So it was like, you know what? For Martins a healed. It is just for those in stage three, I'm coming for you there because you've been through the worst of it already. You owe it to yourself. Now that we know the stages, you owe it to yourself to move through all of them. It is a different version of you in stage five, but okay, let me get you out of here with stage four. Okay? If you are willing to let go of all the small self benefits, everything you got from it, you move to stage four grieve more than the last bunch of things you need to do.
Speaker 1 00:21:29 You move to stage four, stage four is finding and adjusting to a new normal. So here's where you acknowledge. I can't undo my experience, but I control what I do with it. Just in that decision right there, you start turning down the stress response. So you're not healing just yet, but at least you just stopped the massive damage you were causing in stage two and stage three. No, what also happens is it. And I always use this example. If you were to move right, if you were to move to a new house, office, condo, apartment, whatever, you don't take everything with you. Don't take the things that don't represent the version of you. You want to be in this new space. And what I found was if your friends weren't there for you right here, you've outgrown them. You just don't take them with you.
Speaker 1 00:22:12 And people say to me all the time, what the heck I've had these friends 10, 20, 30 years. Is it me? Yes, it is. If they don't rise, they don't come. And it's so common. But if we don't know it, we're like what is happening? I talk all about it. Trust again. Anyway, when we're in this new space, we're making it cozy. We're making it home or we're okay with it. We move into the fifth, most beautiful stage. And this is healing rebirth and a new worldview. The body starts to heal. Self-love self-care eating well, exercising, things like that. You didn't have the bandwidth for that earlier. Now you do, um, your mind is healing. You're making new rules, new boundaries based on the road you just traveled. And you have this new worldview based on everything you see. So clearly now, and the four legs of the table in the beginning, it was all about physical and mental. But at this point we are solidly grounded because we're focused on the emotional and the spiritual too. Those are the five stages I feel like
Speaker 0 00:23:10 Who goes through all of these stages and comes out. The other end, needs a certificate or a badge, right? Like when you think about all of the, the work, right, the introspection and the work that would need to happen to go through. And I love that you're labeling it. Cause I'm, I'm putting myself into the picture of some of my past betrayals and the healing. And it's like, oh, that, oh, that made sense. I remember when I sat in number three for a real long time, and I didn't know I was there until everything around me just felt like it just was dark and nothing good. And I'm like, like, this can not be it. You cannot have gone through that. And this be it. And I had some nice bright lights around me, which was awesome. So you said something earlier that really stood out to me and I feel like other people who are listening to this, it's going to, so you certify people in this.
Speaker 1 00:24:05 Yeah. Betrayal lends itself to creating an entirely new identity. You keep everything you love. You let go of everything that, that no longer serves. And you create a version of you that never would have had the opportunity to show up, had this not happened. So yeah, we have a lot of people going into the Institute just to, just to heal. And then they are so excited and lit up. It's like, you can't help, but pay it forward. And then we have people who they didn't start that way, but they're, let's say they're a doctor, a coach, a healer. They can only take their patients or clients so far like a gut expert. For example, I mentioned 45% of people who've been betrayed, have a gut issue. Well, so this amazing, it could be the best, you know, gut doctor in the world. But if they don't know how to move someone through betrayal, they're only sort of hacking away at the leaves. Then I came to the root, we certify coaches and healers. We have in some certified and they do it on their own. And a lot of them work within, uh, the PBT Institute. They teach daily classes and it's amazing. And each specializing in their own thing, reconciliation, narcissism, chronic pain, addiction, health. It it's, it's an incredible space.
Speaker 0 00:25:16 What a world you have created it. And so it's so inspiring to me because I just think for people to reach their potential and to get to that place where they have joy and fulfillment and happiness and whatever, that version of successes for them, there's healing that needs to happen. There's work that needs to be done. But it's, it's so easy to say it it's so much harder to do when you don't know what the path is. So, so tell me a little bit about what's next for you. What's the next big thing that you and your organization are going towards?
Speaker 1 00:25:50 Yeah. Thanks. And I will say just to sort of close the loop, rebuilding is always a choice. Whether you rebuild yourself and move on, and that's what I did with my family. It wasn't an option to rebuild with them. Or if the situation lends itself, you're willing, you want to, you rebuild something entirely new. I'm talking from the ground up new with the person who hurt you. And that's what I did with my husband. So not long ago, as two completely revamped people, we married each other again. Um, new vows, new dress, and our four kids, uh, as our bridal party. So I've been on every side of it except being the betrayer of, so we know
Speaker 0 00:26:29 That is awesome.
Speaker 1 00:26:31 So what's next. We have, I mean, it's just, it's just an amazing space in the PBT Institute. And I do these trust again, intensives and this way, it's a five day deep dive. We have another one coming up. We have certification in two weeks, a masterclass for certification. And now it's really about creating awareness, getting the, getting the right people into the community so that they can heal. There is nothing that exists like it. And it's, um, you're not meant to stay there for a long time. It's like training wheels until you don't need them. And even the support we have in there, it's not like the, ain't it awful club like where someone says, what happened to them? And they're like, oh, you think that's bad? You know, it's, it's all, it's all meant just to continually move you wherever you come in, you come in at stage two, you come in at stage three, how can we move you to stage four, five and beyond?
Speaker 0 00:27:21 Awesome. I'm uh, extremely excited to have had you here on the show for those of you who are interested and Dr. Debbie Silber's work, you're going to go to the PBT Institute, the PBT Institute. I'll make sure that's in the show notes and in the links below.com and you can take her quiz. You can see about the certification. I feel very honored to have had you on the show. This has been very enlightening. I very much appreciate,
Speaker 1 00:27:51 Thank you so much. Thanks for the opportunity because, uh, there are these five stages in the world just needs to know about them.
Speaker 0 00:27:57 Anything you want to add before we call it to a close today?
Speaker 1 00:28:01 Yeah. You know, I would just really say, well, two things, one thing, if you have to say at a hundred million times to yourself, it's worth it. Even though it happened to you, it's not about you. It's not about you. And that's the first thing. The other thing is you've been through the worst of it already. You owe it to yourself to heal. And when you do then it's trauma well-served
Speaker 0 00:28:21 Well, all those are good. Those are quotables folks, best of success to you for this year. And thank you so much.
Speaker 2 00:28:30 Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to click, subscribe and listen. You can like the show. Maybe give me a rating, like a five star, four star.
Speaker 0 00:28:42 You do UBU.
