175. What's Actually Essential After Betrayal

When your world’s been shaken by betrayal, it’s natural to want answers: more insight, more understanding, more effort. But what if healing doesn’t come from adding more, but from doing less? If your mind feels overcrowded, your emotions on edge, and you're trying to fix everything at once, this episode is for you.

In this conversation, I explore the overlooked art of essentialism in betrayal recovery, why stripping things back, not stacking them up, is the real path to peace. You'll learn why emotional overwhelm isn’t always a sign of under-functioning, but often of over-functioning, and how clarity starts with subtraction, not addition.

Key Takeaways:

• Healing isn’t additive; it’s subtractive. Growth comes from removing what destabilises you, not forcing more effort.

• Emotional regulation beats endless analysis. Understanding isn’t enough if your nervous system is in overdrive.

• Focus on the essential four: safety, reality, emotional permission, and choice.

• Stop managing emotions for others’ comfort. Expression, not suppression, is what sets you free.

• Prioritise internal stability over external approval. Essentialism teaches you to choose yourself, even in emotional chaos.

💬 Reflection Questions:

Have you found yourself doing everything in an attempt to feel better, only to feel worse? What would it look like to do less, but more intentionally?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. Hello and welcome back to the After The Affair podcast. I'm your host Luke Shillings and today you're listening to episode number 175.

Today's episode might sound a little bit counterintuitive because instead of talking about what you actually need to do after betrayal I actually want to talk about what you need to stop doing. Not because you're lazy, not because you're avoiding the work but because healing after betrayal doesn't always break down just due to a lack of effort. It usually breaks down due to excess.

So I want to explore that a little bit and try and consider why less is not only enough but it's necessary. One of the most misunderstood parts of betrayal recovery is what actually overwhelms people. It's not just the pain, it's the mental overcrowding that follows.

So after betrayal the mind tends to go into overdrive. It's replaying the past, forecasting the future, scanning for danger, the sensitivity has been turned up high, questioning your identity, searching for meaning and almost immediately a quiet subtle underlying belief forms. If I could just understand this properly maybe I'll be okay.

So what do people do? They add. They add conversations, analysis, explanations, frameworks, emotional labour. But what so rarely gets questioned is whether adding more is actually helping or whether it's making things worse.

Because the truth is the mind tends to add noise when it doesn't feel safe. Not because it's helpful but because it's so desperate for control. When uncertainty is present the mind goes seeking for solutions.

It's trying to find certainty but in doing so it's looking everywhere all at the same time and this is causing an internal cognitive chaos. There's this deeply ingrained cultural belief that effort equals progress. So after betrayal people often assume that more insight equals more healing and more tolerance equals more strength.

More understanding equals more peace. But betrayal isn't just a knowledge problem, it's a regulation problem. And regulation doesn't come from more information, it comes from containment.

When everything is being processed all at once nothing actually integrates. This is where essentialism becomes critical. So let me be very clear here because this is where people often misunderstand the concept.

Essentialism, even if this is the first time you're hearing the word, is not about minimalism. It's not about productivity. It's not about doing the bare minimum and in the context of betrayal recovery essentialism is a filter.

It asks one question repeatedly. What must be in place for healing to even be possible? Not what could help, not what might be useful, not what someone else recommends, but instead what is non-negotiable? Everything else is optional, helpful maybe, but not essential. And when you don't make this distinction you end up exhausted, self-critical and still stuck.

Most people assume that healing is additive, but in my experience healing after betrayal is primarily subtractive. You don't heal by adding more effort, you heal by removing what destabilises you. So this might mean fewer conversations about the affair, fewer updates about your partner's internal world, less exposure to triggers, less self-interrogation, less pressure to be okay.

This is not avoidance, this is creating the conditions for your nervous system to stand down. Because until your system feels safer, insight is not going to land. Perspective doesn't stick, growth doesn't integrate.

Essentialism is about doing less forever. It's about doing less until stability returns. But before we go any further I want to step away from betrayal for a moment because this pattern shows up absolutely everywhere.

A few years ago I was working with somebody who came to me because they felt completely burnt out at work and on paper they were doing absolutely everything right. They were responding to their emails instantly, they were staying late to support colleagues, taking on extra projects, trying to be helpful, reliable, indispensable. To be honest it reminded me a lot of how I was in one of my previous jobs from some years ago.

From the outside it looked like commitment, from the inside they felt exhausted, resentful and constantly behind. When they slowed things down and actually mapped out their week something became really quite clear. Almost none of what was draining them was essential.

They weren't doing the work that moved things forward, they were doing the work that just stopped other people being uncomfortable. So we tried something simple. It wasn't dramatic, it wasn't reckless.

We just identified, or I helped them identify, just three things that really mattered in their role. The things that, if done really well, made everything else easier. And for one week they did those three things first.

Everything else became optional. What happened actually surprised them. In fact I don't think they really believed it was possible when we were sat having the conversation beforehand.

But nothing collapsed, nobody was angry, the world didn't fall apart, but they did feel significantly calmer, clearer, more effective and with less effort not more. The burnout hadn't come from working too little, it came from working on too many non-essential demands. And that's the same pattern I see after betrayal.

People don't struggle because they aren't trying hard enough, they struggle because they're trying to hold everything when only a few things actually matter. So let's slow it down and be precise. We'll do so by splitting this into four essential things.

The first one is safety, because without it nothing else works. Safety is not comfort, it's not reassurance, it's not blind trust. Safety means fewer emotional ambushes, fewer shocks to the system, fewer situations where you feel blindsided.

A nervous system that is constantly bracing can't heal. So if something repeatedly destabilises you, even if it's framed as necessary or maybe even part of the process, it probably needs to be questioned. Essentialism says stabilise first, interpret later.

The essential element number two is reality. And what I mean is reality, not hope, not potential. Many people try to heal based on what might be true, but healing built on potential collapses under pressure.

Reality means observing patterns, not promises. Responding to consistency, not intensity. Noticing what is changing and what isn't.

That isn't pessimism, it's grounding. Hope without reality creates emotional whiplash. Reality without hope creates despair.

Essentialism prioritises reality first. Essential element number three is emotional permission, because suppression can sometimes look like strength. One of the most damaging myths about betrayal recovery is that being emotionally contained means being emotionally resolved, but it doesn't.

Many people are regulated because they're holding it all in, whereas essentialism says stop managing your emotions for other people's comfort. Anger that is felt doesn't destroy you. In fact, any negative emotion that you feel doesn't actually harm you.

It's only when we act from that place is the damage done. Grief that is expressed doesn't derail you. What does derail you is a sense of chronic self-censorship, protecting other people from your hurt and your feelings and your truth.

Then there's essential element number four. This is about choice, even when choice can sometimes feel quite limited. But what I want to be very careful with here, because it can be easily misunderstood, is that you didn't choose betrayal.

You did not choose this situation, but healing requires recognising where the choice does still exist. Choice doesn't mean deciding the outcome, it means deciding what you engage with today, what you postpone, what you protect, what you say no to, because every small values aligned choice rebuilds agency, and agency is one of the most essential ingredients of healing. When people don't adopt an essentialist lens, they often fall into one of two traps.

Number one is over-functioning, doing everything, carrying everybody, yet collapsing quietly. Number two is something I've mentioned before on the podcast, is self erasure, becoming more understanding, more tolerant, more flexible, whilst actually subtly disappearing. Essentialism interrupts both.

It gives you permission to ask, is this actually necessary for my healing, or is it just expected of me? And let's remember, when we use that word expected, this is an expectation that may come from another person, from society as a whole, or as a culture, but it can also be that deep-seated belief that you have about yourself, and about how you think it should be. It also comes for your internal expectations, and I want you to just press pause for a moment, and question some of those. Not to diminish them, not to just get rid of the thing that you believed for a long period of time, but to actually pause and truly question, why do I believe that, and is it healthy, or is it serving me in the moment? Is there something else that could also be true, that might both feel and, feel better sorry, and release me, and help me move forward? I don't like to think of essentialism as being just a method, as a tool, as a concept, as a framework.

I like to think of it more along the lines of it being the goal, and I think this part really matters, because it isn't just a phase of healing, it's a way of relating to yourself after betrayal. It teaches you to prioritise internal stability over external approval, to value sustainability over speed, to trust subtraction as much as you currently value effort. Many people come out of betrayal not because they did everything, but because they learned what to stop doing.

That is the growth. Healing after betrayal isn't about becoming more capable, it's about becoming more selective. Selective with your energy, selective with your attention, selective with what you carry.

You don't need to heal perfectly, in fact there is no such thing. You don't need to do everything, that's obviously not possible anyway, but you do need to protect what is essential and let the rest go. Put it down, feel the weight off your shoulders ease, even just thinking about it.

If you're feeling quietly overwhelmed and unsure where to focus, support can be a huge component in helping you identify what's essential, and to then also recognise what it is that is okay and actually necessary to release without feeling guilt. Through one-to-one coaching I help people stabilise first then rebuild intentionally. You can learn more at LifeCoachLuke.com or you can reach out directly, come and join me over on Instagram, DM at MyLifeCoachLuke.

You don't need more effort, what you need are clearer priorities. Okay, thank you for having me with you for the last 10-15 minutes, it's been an absolute pleasure as always and I'll speak to you all again very soon.