PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Podcast 13 min read

Your Betrayal Works for You w/ Dr. John Demartini

with Dr. John Demartini

Chris Do and Dr. John Demartini examine how one woman's account of betrayal changes under direct questioning.

Chris Do

Founder, The Futur™ · October 7, 2026

The Betrayal That Became a Ceiling

A betrayal can end a friendship and still keep directing a career. In a live coaching conversation hosted by Chris Do, Dr. John Demartini, an author, coach, and speaker, challenges a woman who fears that becoming more visible will invite another attack. His perspective matters here because he does not offer reassurance: he asks her to reconsider the event she treats as evidence that success is dangerous.

The woman's concern is specific enough to feel practical. Someone could defame her, undermine her, or destroy what she has built. In her account, that has already happened.

A friend disclosed her affair to her husband. The woman describes jealousy, violated confidence, and a deliberate effort to bring her down. What began as a private relationship crisis has become a prediction about what visibility will cost.

The injury belongs to the past. The restriction operates in the present.

Demartini's approach is to challenge that transfer. He does not begin by asking how she can protect her reputation or choose better friends. He asks which remembered incident carries the greatest emotional charge, then works toward the particular action she resents.

That choice gives the conversation its tension. The woman arrives with an account of another person's wrongdoing. Demartini wants to examine the account itself.

Do has invited him partly because of recommendations from friends. At a dinner, one friend urged Do to attend Demartini's workshop; another described receiving coaching during a period of personal and business upheaval. Those recommendations explain Do's interest, but they are testimonials, not independent evidence of the method's effectiveness.

Do positions himself as a student rather than a competing authority. He also acknowledges the exposure that a public coaching session demands: “And I think there is something about the risk of being vulnerable.”

The participant takes that risk. She discloses an affair, resentment, family difficulties, and uncomfortable examples from her own behavior. The material is not an abstract leadership problem safely removed from consequences.

Demartini describes the Demartini Method as a series of concise questions designed to reveal information that a person has overlooked. His stated objective is to help people move from emotional distraction toward gratitude and a more balanced perception of their lives.

That is the proposition being demonstrated, not an outcome that can be assumed in advance.

The distinction becomes important as the conversation grows more forceful. Demartini makes sweeping statements about suffering, relationships, and the meaning of adversity. The session offers a close view of his questioning and the woman's immediate responses; it does not establish those statements as universal facts.

What it does expose is a consequential gap. Her life after the marriage contains professional growth, greater independence, and stronger relationships. Her explanation of the betrayal has not made room for those developments.

Her future is being judged through one part of her history. Demartini's task is to bring the rest of that history into view, without changing the underlying events.

A Story Is Not a Specific Act

The first obstacle is language. Undermining a marriage describes an interpretation of consequences, not a single observable behavior. Jealousy describes an attributed motive. Betrayal describes the meaning assigned to a breach of trust.

All three can belong in an account. None gives Demartini the precise incident he wants to examine.

He repeatedly asks the woman to narrow her description. Was the central offense the friend's complaint about her success, the disclosure to her husband, or the reported boasting about bringing her down? Each carries a different grievance.

Specificity comes before reinterpretation.

The distinction is not merely verbal. A person confronting an unwanted disclosure is addressing a different event from someone confronting public humiliation. Treating both as one undifferentiated betrayal makes it harder to identify what remains unresolved.

The woman's account contains several layers:

She confided in a friend about an affair and how to tell her husband.
Her husband later said the friend had called and told him.
Other people reportedly said the friend had bragged about taking her down.
She understood the friend's behavior as an attack motivated by jealousy.

Demartini separates what she directly experienced from what others reported. She did not witness the friend's conversation with her husband. She did hear her husband attribute the disclosure to the friend.

That difference does not prove the disclosure never happened. It identifies the source of her knowledge and the moment her resentment began.

For this exercise, the emotional starting point is the husband's statement. Demartini asks her to return to that moment rather than continue describing the entire relationship. His method depends on locating an experience precisely enough to question its meaning.

The editorial distinction is equally important: the friend's motives and conduct remain the participant's account. Neither the friend nor the former husband is present to offer another perspective.

That limitation does not make the woman's distress irrelevant. It prevents a coaching conversation from becoming an independent verdict on absent people.

There is a useful contrast with Storytelling Is A Superpower. A story can give events coherence and force; here, coherence becomes the very thing under examination. The compelling account is not necessarily the complete account.

Demartini's impatience with narrative is deliberate. He wants an action, a person, and a moment. The broad story gives the participant many places to move; the specific incident gives both of them something to test.

It also changes the original problem. Fear of shining too brightly initially sounds like a general obstacle to ambition. Once traced backward, it becomes a response to a particular social and marital rupture.

No future attacker has been identified. A past experience is supplying the imagined threat.

That does not establish that future reputational harm is impossible. It establishes that her expectation of it is being shaped by this unresolved episode. The question becomes less about predicting other people's conduct and more about examining the evidence she carries into every new opportunity.

The first reframe is therefore modest but substantial: an old event is not automatically a reliable forecast.

The Mirror Is Uncomfortable

Once the action is defined, Demartini turns the inquiry toward the participant. He asks her to identify occasions when she said things about someone in ways intended to diminish that person's standing.

The move is confrontational. The woman has volunteered to address something done to her. Now she is being asked to describe things she has done to others.

Demartini calls this reflective awareness. In his account, recognizing a judged behavior in oneself weakens the certainty that the offending person occupies an entirely separate moral category.

The participant first remembers making fun of her mother in front of other people. She places herself in an apartment in Chicago, around age nineteen or twenty. A man in the group told her to stop.

Her recollection is imperfect. She does not remember the exact words. She does remember the social setting and the intention to retaliate for something she believed her mother had done.

Demartini presses for more examples rather than treating one admission as sufficient. The resulting inventory spans family, employment, committee work, and a former partnership.

She recalls publicly mocking her mother as a form of payback.
She describes taking satisfaction in consequences for a man she says sexually harassed her.
As a board chair, she told committee members about someone's earlier conduct after feeling disrespected.
She spoke about a former partner to people who could affect whether he was rehired.

The workplace example exposes an important limit. Reporting sexual harassment through proper channels is not equivalent to maliciously disclosing a friend's confidence. The woman herself initially resists the comparison.

Demartini redirects the discussion toward her later satisfaction and what she said to her team. She eventually recognizes a similarity in wanting someone brought down. That narrower resemblance is the supported observation, not a finding that the incidents carry equal ethical weight.

A shared element does not make every context interchangeable.

The same caution applies across the inventory. Public ridicule, professional disclosure, and damaging gossip can overlap in their effects while differing in motive, necessity, accuracy, and responsibility. The exercise is strongest when it examines the overlap without erasing those distinctions.

Demartini interprets the examples as evidence that the behavior she condemns is also available within her own repertoire. She is not merely the recipient of reputational harm. She has sometimes used information and social influence against others.

That recognition complicates her original position. It does not cancel the breach of confidence, but it makes a clean division between an innocent self and a uniquely destructive other harder to sustain.

This is the most demanding kind of accountability in the session: not accepting blame for everything, but admitting an uncomfortable resemblance where the details support it.

The participant's willingness to continue matters as much as the inventory. She could protect her original account by insisting that every action of her own was categorically different. Instead, she acknowledges variations on the same theme while raising objections where the comparison feels strained.

That combination deserves attention. Honest reflection includes recognition and discrimination. It should not require surrendering the ability to distinguish legitimate reporting from retaliation.

The Gains Missing From the Ledger

The second major turn is more provocative. Demartini asks the woman to return to the moment her husband disclosed what he had heard, then identify how the event benefited her career.

Her first answer is that it did not.

He refuses to leave the answer there. His premise is that the event contains advantages as well as disadvantages, and that she has trained her attention on only one side. He asks again, steering the conversation toward the life that followed.

The participant begins to identify professional freedom. She had been living behind her husband's identity and priorities. After the rupture, she could establish herself more independently.

What changes is not the fact of exposure. It is the scope of the account.

Consequences belong beside intentions. The friend's alleged purpose and the woman's eventual gains are separate questions. A harmful intention does not prevent a beneficial consequence, and a beneficial consequence does not establish a benevolent intention.

Demartini moves systematically across areas of her life rather than accepting a vague statement about becoming stronger. He asks about work, money, relationships, physical condition, parenting, and her sense of self.

The woman's responses supply the substance:

Her career gained attention and energy outside her husband's shadow.
A financial settlement provided money that she invested and later used toward a home.
Her social circle became more aligned with her own priorities.
She improved her physical condition and self-image.
She describes becoming more present as a parent.
She began to see herself as a whole person rather than an extension of the relationship.

The specificity gives this part of the session its force. A house is not a slogan. A changed relationship with a daughter is not a generic promise of growth. These are developments the participant identifies in her own life.

They also answer the fear that opened the conversation. Her account began with someone destroying what she had built. Under questioning, it expands to include what she built afterward.

The question of where self-belief comes from also appears in Where Do You Draw Confidence From?. Here, the relevant evidence is not applause or reassurance. It is a record of decisions and outcomes that the woman had not connected to her present capacity.

Demartini repeatedly asks whether she thanked the friend for these gains. That is his preferred endpoint. It is not the only conclusion the evidence permits.

The participant's progress can be acknowledged without assigning the friend sole authorship of it. The woman made decisions, pursued work, invested money, raised her daughter, and developed relationships. The rupture was part of that history; so was her effort.

That distinction protects the useful insight from becoming another form of diminished agency. Replacing an all-powerful villain with an all-powerful benefactor would still leave someone else at the center of her life.

The more durable reframe restores the participant to the picture. She experienced a painful disclosure and acted within its aftermath. Her history contains injury, but it also contains competence.

Leaving out either produces an incomplete account.

The Cost of the Life That Never Happened

Demartini then examines the alternative the woman had wanted. Suppose the friend had kept the confidence. Suppose the disclosure had never forced the confrontation. What would have been the drawback?

The participant recognizes that she had felt stuck.

This is the cost of the preferred alternative, a reversal of the usual comparison. Instead of weighing a painful reality against an ideal outcome, Demartini asks what the ideal outcome would have preserved.

In this case, secrecy would not necessarily have resolved the marriage's existing problems. The woman had already been unfulfilled, had already had an affair, and had already been considering how to tell her husband.

The disclosure did not create every difficulty that preceded it.

That chronology matters. Her original account gives the friend a decisive role in undermining the marriage. The fuller account includes dissatisfaction and decisions that were already present before the confidence was broken.

Demartini pushes further into the woman's position within the relationship. She describes helping with her husband's business, raising their daughter, and wanting her contribution to prove her value to him. The work was not simply about completing tasks; it was also connected to being recognized.

The conversation becomes less tidy here. Demartini proposes a hidden financial agenda, which the woman rejects. She says she is getting lost in the words before identifying her wish to feel valued.

Her correction belongs in the account. A forceful coach's interpretation is not automatically a participant's truth.

The thread becomes clearer when she discusses her career in New York. She says she would have preferred to insist on staying rather than leaving while her career was going well. The concrete regret is not merely that another person betrayed her; it is that she subordinated something important to her.

The related question of inherited expectations sits alongside Living in the Dogma of your Parents. In this session, however, the evidence remains personal: she wanted partnership, feared loss, and made choices she now evaluates differently.

Demartini also asks who supported her while her husband was less engaged. She identifies her daughter, friends, and people connected to a course she was taking. His broader claim is that support and challenge always balance; this conversation does not prove that rule.

It does establish something narrower. Her husband's attention was not the only attention available. Other relationships and learning experiences were becoming important to her independence.

That discovery changes the meaning of being alone. She had wanted a partner partly to avoid doing things alone, yet describes feeling alone within the relationship. Preserving the marriage's structure would not necessarily have preserved the companionship she wanted.

The preferred alternative loses some of its perfection.

By examining its costs, the woman can compare two complicated possibilities rather than one painful reality and one spotless fantasy. That is a more demanding exercise than positive thinking. It asks her to account for what would have remained unresolved if events had followed her preferred script.

A Fuller Account, Not a Forced Verdict

The session ends with a changed response to the friend. Asked to imagine her present, the participant says, “Thank you, Deborah.” She also reports feeling lighter and seeing the narrative differently.

Those are meaningful immediate outcomes. They are not evidence of what she will feel next month, whether she will contact the friend, or whether renewed contact would be wise. The conversation contains no follow-up that could settle those questions.

Demartini says the demonstration covered only a small portion of his larger exercise. That limits what can responsibly be extracted from it. The session shows several question patterns, not a complete protocol for resolving every experience of betrayal or trauma.

A changed interpretation is not proof of a universal law.

That boundary matters because some of Demartini's claims go well beyond the woman's account. He suggests that loyalty attracts betrayal, that dependence on a therapist helps produce a betrayer, and that adversity can always be met with gratitude. The demonstration does not establish those causal assertions.

Nor does the participant's relief establish that people cause others to mistreat them. Finding meaning after harm is different from being responsible for the harmful act.

The useful playbook is more concrete. It consists of questions actually used in the session, with answers tested against the participant's experience rather than treated as predetermined truths.

Define the judged action. Demartini moves from a broad account of betrayal toward a particular disclosure and reported attempt to diminish her.
Examine the omitted evidence. He asks about comparable behavior in her own past and gains in the life that followed.
Test the preferred alternative. He asks what continued secrecy would have cost and what problems it would have left intact.

These questions change the frame without requiring a new set of facts. The husband still confronted her. The affair still happened. The friendship still ruptured. What changes is the conclusion that those events demonstrate why she must remain less visible.

The distinction between reflection and pressure must remain intact. An answer that contradicts the coach deserves examination, not automatic dismissal. The woman's rejection of a proposed hidden agenda is as much a part of the evidence as her eventual gratitude.

For a professional carrying an old humiliation into a new opportunity, this is the practical tension. The past can supply relevant information about trust and boundaries. It can also become an overly broad rule that governs circumstances it does not actually describe.

The participant begins with a forecast: greater success will bring another attack. She finishes by recognizing that her life has included expansion, stronger connections, and decisions that served her priorities. The forecast no longer has exclusive access to the evidence.

Nothing in that shift requires pretending the disclosure was painless. It requires refusing to let pain be the only fact that counts.

The next opportunity does not need a verdict on every person in the past. It needs a decision grounded in the life that exists now, including the capability developed after the rupture.

The betrayal happened. It does not get the final edit.

TRANSCRIPT

Any of the stories that you've had in your life, "I went through this, I had this, and I challenged childhood," and all that stuff, it's all bullshit. You may not believe me, but if I sat with you for a period of time and we narrowed it down one by one, you would be in tears of gratitude for what happened in your life. You can be a victim of history or a master of destiny. It all depends on your perception. Today, I'm sitting down with Dr. John Demartini. He's a world-renowned author, coach, speaker, and somebody you're going to want to listen to. What you're about to watch is a live in-person coaching session, and it gets really uncomfortable, but we have major breakthroughs. This story begins a little over a year ago, probably two years ago. I'm having dinner with a dinner with a couple of friends, new friends, Tim Francis and a guy named Rohan. And they're both telling me about this remarkable person, separate stories. And I don't know the names of anybody just yet, except for I know what Tim said to me, which is if you could attend one workshop in your life, just one, this is the one that you have to meet this man. He has an incredible way of helping people through some very tough traumatic things in their lives and I was really intrigued. And then the other story was the gentleman across the table from me, his name is Rohan, he was telling me about how he had in the last couple of years gone through some really traumatic stuff. His father had died, his business partner stole money from him and stole the business and then Meta Facebook canceled his accounts which he had close to a million followers and he was devastated and he was having a hard time and he called his coach and he was telling this whole story. I'm like, this is remarkable, this is incredible. Tim Francis just texted me. He says, do you know Rohan? When he was telling that story, do you know who his coach was? I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea who his coach could be. He said, Dr. John Demartini. small world so he's helped a lot of people through lots of things he has something called the d martini method obviously and it helps people through some of their toughest roadblocks and i'm hoping rather than just me extending the interview is that first we can just describe it so everybody here knows what's going on and if there's somebody who has something they'd like help with for Dr. Demartini to demonstrate and we can work on it together and see hopefully just the genius behind all of this. And I just want to be a student here and listen and learn. The quality of your life's based on the quality of the questions you ask. The questions you ask make you conscious of what you've been unconscious of. So it helps you expand awareness. And the method, which I've been working on for 52 years, is a series of very concise questions that help you discover the hidden order in the apparent chaos, the disorder. Claude Shannon, in information theory, basically said that information that's missing is entropic and represents disorder. And if you reclaim the information, you can find the hidden order in things and why things are occurring, the meaning behind it. So it's a very series of concise questions to help navigate people from emotional distractions to poison presence. So they can be grateful for their life instead of comparing it to an unrealistic expectation that they projected. And I'm blessed to use that and develop that for many years. And we've helped people in all different types of situations. I make a statement that there's nothing your mortal body can experience that your mortal soul can't love. So it doesn't matter what you've been through, what you've gone through, what you've experienced. It's your perceptions, decisions, and actions on how to interpret it. You can be a victim of history or a master of destiny. It all depends on your perception. William James said the greatest discovery of his generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their perceptions and attitudes and mind. so this is a science a reproducible science that i've trained probably probably eight or nine thousand people and using and they're using it around the world to assist people in navigating through the apparent chaos so they can look at life on the way not in the way every word is a lot to unpack here and that's how i felt last time so how do we do this that we can get a taste of how this process works because i think I'm 100% bought in on this idea of the quality of questions you ask determines the quality for life. When you start to ask questions, you start to look inward and understand why you can overcome these things and the perception of what has happened to you can drastically alter your destiny or where you end up. How do we do this? Because I just want to give you your space. You do your thing and I just want to sit here and only chime in when necessary. That's great. Well, usually we start with somebody that's got something they want to work on. Okay. Sometimes I'm in a conference and I'll ask people, does anybody have anything that they want to work on? Challenges, conflicts, resentments, angers, grief, or anything, whatever it is that they have. And, um, whatever area of life that they want. And then we usually people vote based on who has the most intriguing information or issue that they want to work on. And we go there, we start there. And I think there is something about the risk of being vulnerable. If you want to get a reward. I remember many years ago when I was talking to my business coach about seeing a therapist, he said, if you're not going to tell the truth, don't even bother. Don't even bother. And so I went in there with the mindset, like if I hold back, I'm all holding back from myself. So we can start with any kind of challenge, roadblock, anything traumatic, frustration, something that you've been trying to work through but haven't been able to. Does anybody want to start? And by the way, depending on what that is, sometimes I'm not using the Demartini Method to help solve it. Whenever there are multiple stories, narratives, I try to prioritize it. So narrow it down. We're going to narrow down what is the highest priority issue, out of all of those things that you narrowed, what is the highest priority issue that you want to address? The fear of being someone's going to come at me if I shine too bright. When you say coming at me, what does that mean to you? By the way, you can never have fear of the unknown. You can only have fear of the content your mind is imagining. So what is it your mind imagining when you have that confronting you? That someone is going to... defame me, is going to undermine me, go out of their way to destroy what I've built. It's already happened. Okay. And out of all the ones that have happened that this is reminding you of, because the future is anticipated, but the things that are real that you've experienced, which one of those is the highest priority thing that you remember that was most painful? I had a friend who was The one that was really devastating is a friend of mine was jealous of my success. So she undermined my marriage. And then what specifically did she do? Because undermining marriage is big. What did she do that you projected? She undermined my marriage. She betrayed a confidence and I wasn't ready to tell my husband something. And she. So something you shared with her. Yes. She shared with your husband. Yes. Which you felt started to undermine the dynamic. Yes. Even though you were obviously sharing with her, there was some things in the dynamic that were concerning anyway. Yes. So she was revealing something you unconsciously desired. I'm going to be so transparent. I had an affair. And I felt really bad about it. And I was talking to her about how I should go about telling my husband. And because she was jealous of the relationship. And she tried to seduce the person I had the affair with. And because she was rejected, she... Wanted to bring you down? Yes. Great. And she did it. Her name is... Deborah. Deborah. Okay, so now, Minister. Here goes the method. Thanks for doing this, by the way. Let's take Deborah as the individual we're going to do the work on, because I can just do so much in such a short time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What specific trait... Action or inaction. Do you perceive Deborah did that you disliked and despised and resented most? Let's narrow it down. So it's not a narrative. It's a specific act that she did that you judged. She literally said to me, it's not fair that you have the life that you have and I don't have what you have. So. that didn't you made a claim that it would undermine your marriage so that by itself would not undermine your marriage no so what did are you upset because of that are you upset because of what she said to your husband she told him that I was so which one is the one you were resenting probably that one that she told him okay so let's get to that okay because otherwise you're just doing narrative people love to share their narratives but narratives don't get you anywhere so what specific did you actually perceive her or was it hearsay that she told your husband he told me she told him so it's hearsay somebody told you that she told yeah but you didn't actually perceive it When you say perceive it, what do you mean? You didn't actually see her do this? No, no, no, no, no, no. So we don't even know for a fact, other than what your husband said, that that's what happened. Okay. So your husband claimed that she said the story, which is evidence, but you never saw her do it. I never saw her specifically or heard her do it, no. So you did not have anger at her until you found out that he made a statement. Yes. And other people, but yes. So other people told you that she had said that? Other people told me that she had bragged to them that this is what she was going to do. And then, yeah. Okay. So are you upset with the idea that she bragged about what she was going to do? The idea that your husband stated that she said it? I think it was the, she was bragging about publicly taking me down. Okay. The highest priority thing that you judged in her was that she bragged about taking you down and we have hearsay that she confronted and told your husband. Correct. Okay. Let's work with that one for a second. Sometimes we have a convoluted series of things and we have to kind of narrow down what the issue is i love your question and sometimes it's it's uh hearsay and i don't like working with hearsay i like working with something factual that you perceive so we have something tangible now the roughest part there's a quote in romans 2 1 from the new testament that whatever we judge in others we're doing the same thing so let's define what she did again she bragged about taking you down and then told your husband, told somebody that something you didn't want to tell. So now let's go to a moment in your life where you bragged about taking somebody down and told somebody exactly what you're seeing in her. Find out where it is. The earliest one I can think of and the only one I can think of is my mother. Okay. And it's the same behavior. It's got to be the same action. I took her down publicly. Okay. Because the only reason somebody is drawn into your life is because we have a shame inside. We dissociate from it. We get proud, try to judge other people for what we're actually hiding inside. And we don't want to face that. We've done that. And we're still carrying a hurt and a shame about doing that to the mom. Yeah. So, and you said what about your mom publicly that undermined and got back to her? I don't remember what I said specifically. It was just, there was a group of people. You can't have shame without their memory of it. I was just making fun of her. About? I don't remember what I said. What did she do that you wanted to make shame of her? She made a mistake. Probably a lie she told. Okay. So she made a lie in your mind and you didn't like the repercussions of that and you were trying to bring her down and humble her. Yeah. Okay. So go to the moment when you did that. You there? When you actually said the thing? Okay. Where were you at that moment? I was in Chicago in our apartment and there was a group of people and a man told me to stop. When was this? I was probably about 20 years old, 1920. Okay. The reason I'm asking those is the amygdala, which is a subcortical nuclei in the brain, assigned valency to stimuli and experiences that we have. And it signs valency to the hippocampus, which is a seahorse-shaped structure. And it is the source or storage place of episodic memories that have a time, a place, a direction, a location, and a distance. So if I narrow it down, I go into the hippocampus and I access that memory. And that's where we're storing shame or we're storing our own stuff. So you're there at that moment. And who specifically did you tell? There were about four people there. So you then, and. I was entertaining them with the story. Okay. And did your mom know any of these people? Yes. So then you said things behind her back. No, in front of her. In front of her. Okay. That she felt humbled by. And you kind of did that because she had lied. And so you did it as kind of a, Payback. Payback. Okay. So in that moment, can you see you did the same thing as this lady did? Yes. Great. Go to the next moment. Where and when you've done the same behavior again. Oh, this is icky. I was working in a corporate situation and somebody had sexually harassed me and there was this opportunity for me to... Disclose. No, no, actually, no. No. I did disclose it to my boss. I went through the proper channels. And then when this guy got promoted, he demoted me. Where did you do what this lady had done to you? Said things behind to somebody and tried to bring you down. Where did you do that? You tried to bring him down? No, I was just somebody else did, but I was, I, I talked about how he had it coming. So I don't know if that's the same. So who did you say that to? My team. So you spoke to the team and kind of let them know some of these things as a way of kind of diminishing him. And these are people that knew him. Yes. Or knew of him. Yes. So in that case, did you do the same thing that lady did in that moment? It's not exactly the same. Well, yes, I did. I took glee in somebody. To bring somebody down and to go behind and say things about them. Yes, yes, yes. So is that the same? I think so. Maybe not the same magnitude, but the same. Yeah, it's not. Yeah. Great. That's number two. Go to number three. And when you're owning reflections, this is called reflective awareness and transparency. We usually go all the way for 20 examples are done until there's an absolute certainty that what you perceive in them, you have. Because as long as you're too proud to admit what you see in them, you're going to self-righteously project your values onto them and condemn them and hide your own shame and cover it up with the pride. And the amygdala likes to hold on to pride and hold on to fantasies about how people are supposed to live in our values. So that's why I'm going to go again. Because whatever you perceive this person doing, you've done to the same degree. And I've been doing that for about 41 years and never had anybody that couldn't find it if they just kept looking. So let's go to number three. Yeah. The next situation I was, I was a board chair person and this person had been disrespectful. I made sure that everyone on the committee knew what this person had done prior. And you wanted to do that to kind of bring them down from their pride and arrogance and put up. Yeah. And, and, you told people that you know could affect him? Yes. So you did, that's the third example of where you've done that? Yeah. Let's go to four. It was a former partner and I said some things to some people who would have been able to affect whether he got rehired in this situation. Okay. And in that moment, you can see who you shared it with. You can remember where it was and when it was. You there? So in those examples, would you acknowledge that those examples are different variations, but of the same theme? Yep. Okay, fantastic. I may come back to those, but just because of time, I'm going to go on to my second little question. Hey, it's Rich Cardona, producer of The Future Podcast. We're going to pause real quick because so far you've watched Dr. T. Martini take one volunteer from a friend destroyed my marriage to finding four moments where she did the same thing herself. That's the setup. Coming up, he flips the entire story, career, money, family, all of it until the person she's resented for years starts to look like someone she owes. And it's a heads up while I have you, this is part one of part two. Next week, Dr. Demartini answers the questions driving the entire session. Why our minds go into the negative in the first place, including what happened when he spent two years testing pure positive thinking on himself. It's that good. Let's get back to the show. Go to the moment where and when you perceived that she did this behavior and tried to undermine you and tried to do something. Go to the moment when you first perceived it. The actual moment you perceived she did that and you were angry. Is this when he told you and spoke to you? So go to the moment when he began to speak about it and now you resented her for exposing something you said. even though you didn't see her do it, you had some evidence from him, go to the moment you felt resentful to her at that moment and let me know when you're there. - Okay, I'm there. - You're there? Great. How did that benefit you at that moment? You have spiritual benefits, intellectual benefits, business benefits, financial benefits, family, social, physical. How did it benefit you in your career? - It didn't. - I don't ask questions, I don't have answers. How did it help you in your career? Everything has both advantages and disadvantages. If you choose to see the disadvantage, you become a victim of history if you look at the advantages. So how did it benefit you in your career? You were somehow unfulfilled in the relationship. Yeah, I was able to come out from behind his shadow. Say that. Say that because you're going to have a tear when you say it. Say it. I was able to come out from behind his shadow. Say it again. I was able to come out from behind his shadow. Okay. And you had been sitting in his shadow and you wanted out of his shadow And that's when you had the fling, you had somebody that was giving you acknowledgement. Yeah. And you were living in a shadow instead of on the shoulders and equals. It made me visible when I felt invisible. Exactly. Okay. So you were unfulfilled. That's why you were looking for somebody to try to bring in fulfillment. Anything you're not willing to do with your mate, you got to be willing to delegate. If the man's not doing something that's fulfilling in the needs, then you'll find somebody else to fill those needs. Pretty normal. So you got out from under the shadow. and how did that help your career reposition yourself with your power yeah can you see you were hoping for that wanting that so can you see that the lady actually catalyzed you to be able to go and do what you want to do yeah did you ever give her a percentage of the income that you earned as a consultant no okay how did it help you intellectually what did you learn as a result of him speaking up saying that what did you learn that was valuable in your life I learned that it wasn't my job to sacrifice for somebody else's happiness. Okay. So anytime you infatuate with somebody and put them on a pedestal, you'll minimize yourself and inject some of their values into your life and try to live in their values, which is futile. It's non-sustainable futility. And you had some infatuation with the man initially, apparently. So you learned that lesson. What's that worth? At least a couple million. Okay. But you never gave any of that to the girl, the lady that helped catalyze that freedom and that lesson? No. Okay. Because somehow we don't see that people are not in our way. They're actually on our way, their actions. How did it help you actually financially? Well, in the settlement, I got money. Okay. And did you invest that? Yes. And is that giving you compound and passive income? It was no longer, but yeah, it did. So you then chose to use it and put it into a house or something? Yes. Okay. A lifestyle instead of investment. So it helped you financially because you got a house and you had a desire for a house? Yes. So did she help catalyze you getting your own house? Yes. And do you now design it and organize it the way you want? Yes. Instead of his or yours together? Yes. So you got financial remuneration. You got liberated intellectually and some things about not subordinating to other people, which is a basic reclaiming of your own power. And you also got a catalyst into driven back into your career. And did you go more into your career with more gusto? Yes. And did that give you some advantages in your career? Yes. but you didn't thank her for that no okay and how did it help you in social circles did it screen out people that were not really engaged in your long-term mission yes and did you then prioritize and select people that were more and more in line with your mission yes So didn't you, you were living in the shadows through those other people, through your husband, and now you've shed those? Yes. That you thought were friends? Yes. That were friends to him? And I didn't thank her for that either, no. But now you're now selective with people that are more engaged in what you're up to? Yes. And understand your mission? Yes. What's that worth? Oh my God, a life. So she's helped you have your life back, your finances back, the house if you want, your career engagement, and you've learned a great deal about not living in subordination to anybody else. So now let's go and look at how did it help you physically? I got in great shape. did you get work out yeah back on the back on the market well not right away but yes well but you went back into shape because you know that fitness is and looks is one of the key elements for dynamics that's my self-image okay so then you got to develop your self-image so we can add that as another benefit yes so you got a self-image out of it you got back in shape you got some cash flow out of it got a house how did it help your family your you have children yeah how did it help the children i was more present i was a better parent say that again i was more present and a better parent okay so then this lady by her saying what she did helped you in the dynamic with your children yes be more present yes what's another benefit to your children do you have two children one well one from that marriage one from that marriage so that's when you're addressing how else did it help her to her right how else did it help her when this lady did that yeah i think because of the different moving around that we did she blossomed as so your daughter got to blossom she became more independent probably and you got to be more of a present with her so what did you think you did that was guilt generating uh that should you know her father wasn't in the same house when the father wasn't there who became the new father figure nothing's ever missing it just changes form so who became the new father figure um mentors coaches best friends or men yeah what's the benefit of them becoming the father figure instead of him they were more present for her so by what happened this lady catalyzed it so she could do it now when your husband left did he leave or did you leave okay you left who became the new woman in his life that he starts to train again a new one that he gets to train how specific do you want me to be there's a series no it's somebody who almost has my same name and looked like because he's now in the next training program he's teaching the next training program and she's going to learn the lesson and get to grow some more too How did it help you in your spiritual path? Bigger vision, new possibilities? New possibilities, seeing myself as a whole thing. Seeing myself as this whole being. Say that again. Seeing myself as a whole being. What's the value of that? Isn't that what authenticity is? Yes. We sometimes exaggerate ourselves or minimize ourselves, and we have these imposter fragments the parts and when we integrate them we get to be authentic and whole and that's individually as a whole individual means undivided you're not a person persona mask you're an individual whole so you got to grow spiritually intellectually mentally in other words socially financially, your business, what is it you're upset about on this? What are you judging her for that you haven't done? And by the way, when you've done this, it's also catalyzed greatness in other people, but you may not have ever seen it. You may have felt bad that you did it, but the reality is that everybody gets to grow in these dynamics if they don't grow it's because not because of what happened is because they've chosen not to see the blessings in they're making themselves victims of history not masters of destiny i'm just helping you be accountable to see that you're actually on track the lady was a perfect catalyst to catalyze something that you were contemplating in your mind about getting out of that marriage but you didn't have the courage to do that because you didn't want to have the feeling the responses from people of judging you for jumping out of your marriage And you had to have to have the perfect person to come in to help you catalyze it. Someone to blame. Someone to use as a scapegoat because you didn't want to be the one that said, I'm breaking up my marriage because of an injected value from probably a mom or somebody else in your life. So what's another benefit of this whole thing happening besides us having the time to get to meet today? Yeah. And thank you. Well, I just live in my truth now. Ooh, what's that worth? You can't put a price on that. Now I'm going to ask you another wild question. At the moment, go to the actual moment that he said this again. And he said that she told him about these things. What exactly did he say that she said? Or what did you believe at the moment he disclosed what he did that she had done? He asked me point blank if I was having an affair. And I said, yes. Then he said, because Debra called me and told me. Okay. So because Deborah told him, he then, was he intuitive and already kind of wondering? No. So he's a naive, focused on his work or something. He was only working. You know, there's a price for every marriage, every relationship. They may be highly intelligent, but they know it all. They may be hardworking, but they're hardly there. You never get a pleasure without a pain. There's always a pair of opposites, like a magnet. Now, go to that moment when he said that. and you felt in a sense that that's when you judged her. She was saying something derogatory about you that you didn't want anybody to do. What would be the opposite behavior of that If somebody is saying something derogatory about you to somebody and exposing something, what would be the opposite? Somebody holding a secret back and keeping a secret about you? Yeah. At the moment when he declared that she had disclosed that information, who is doing exactly the opposite to you at that moment, keeping a big secret and loyal to you at that moment? Because anytime you are infatuated with a loyal person, you have to have somebody that behind your scenes does the opposite. You never tracked a betrayal unless you're addicted to a loyal. Who were you addicted to that was loyal to you that you trusted and kept secrets to at the moment he spoke? My therapist. Ah. Were you highly involved in your therapist at the time? She was helping me, yeah. But you were engaging in her and telling her all your stuff and she couldn't disclose it? Correct. because anytime you get infatuated or like somebody that you can disclose your narrative story to that can't say anything undermine that you attract a betrayer to break your addiction to that because you don't grow in that that keeps you stuck yeah so you get the person over here to make sure that you actually break through the stuff that you're judging in yourself so just know that your dependency on her at the time is part of the reason why this also catalyzes Because otherwise you're dependent on her. And now you're just like you were infatuated and playing underdog to the man. You were doing that to the therapist. And as long as you're underdog to the therapist, you're going to have somebody to break your addiction. Anytime you infatuate with somebody and become dependent on them and fear the loss of somebody, you attract somebody that comes in there to break that addiction, to strengthen that. It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back. Adobe MAX returns November 10th to 12th in Miami Beach and online. Calling all designers, illustrators, photographers, content creators, video pros. Want to find fresh inspiration, connect with your creative community, and explore what's possible with the latest AI tools on your own terms? Join us for three days of creative skill building, visionary keynotes, and fun networking events. Learn from the world's top experts and get direct experience with the latest innovations in Creative Cloud in more than 200 sessions, labs, and photo walks. Can't attend in person? Join Max Online for livestreamed and on-demand keynotes, sneaks, and select sessions. Still, there's nothing like an in-person Max experience. Listeners of the future save $400 on a full pass. Use code FUTURE26 to register. Visit max.adobe.com to build your creative future your way. And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation. Now I'm going to ask you another wild question and reverse question. Okay. Go to the moment when you found out she did it. If she never told him that and never tried to bring you down and did what you hoped she would have done, kind of the fantasy, because you only resent somebody because they don't match the fantasy of the opposite that you hold on to. So if she had never told him and was never putting you down and trying to take you down and supported you like a therapist, what would have been the drawback to your life today? I would have been still, I was stuck. Did you ever thank her for helping you get unstuck? No. Can you see you've matured and grown quite extensively since this moment? Oh, yeah. But you never thanked her? Right now, if Debra was sitting in front of you, what would you tell her? I probably would apologize. Apologize for what? What did you think you did to her that would need apologies? Apologies assume that you did something to cause pain to her. I guess I would then thank her. Thank her for... What did you think you need to apologize for? What did you think you did that you caused... Just because of all of the... You withdrew from a friend? Yeah, I withdrew. And I just harbored resentment. Good. Good. How did that help her? Whenever we get somebody that's resenting us and withdrawing from us, we also get people that come close to us that infatuate with us. So who had her on a pedestal, infatuated, and got close to her as you were withdrawing from her and resenting her? She got married. What if you found out that you contributed to her having a man that supported her at that time? That would be good. Wasn't she a friend? wouldn't you want her to find a man she wanted absolutely would you feel guilty about that no what would you want to tell her now you imagine her in front of you i would tell her that i'm really happy that she's happy and she has a child and she has a good marriage and i think i mean i think you think that maybe the dynamic that happened between you made that possible catalyzed part of that yeah did you ever thank yourself no sometimes we don't see the hidden order that's going on in our life and it doesn't match the stories and narratives and the moral hypocrisies about how life's supposed to be. And then we judge it all instead of missing out and instead of seeing the magnificence that's actually occurring. So right now, What would you say to her about her saying the thing to her husband? What would you say to her? You've got a lot of benefits out of it. Do you want her to live the rest of her life not knowing what you gained from that? No, I probably would. I would tell her that there were a lot of benefits that came out of that. It was hard. What was hard? The breaking apart of everything. What was easy about that? I felt relieved. So why was it hard? I had to face my shame about not stepping up and taking accountability when I was feeling hurt. So I probably created a situation where somebody could hurt me more. Who and what hurt you? What did he do specifically to hurt? I'm now going off on another little chart. He disengaged. Okay, what did you do to make sure he disengaged? People only disengage when they're not getting their values met. If I'm talking to somebody and I'm meeting their values and needs, they're totally engaged. If they disengage, it means somehow they're not getting what they want in a dynamic or in conversations with you. What were you doing to help him make sure he was disengaged? Was it that you were frustrated because he was working? Yeah, he was. And you didn't honor his work? That was one of his highest values. Mm-hmm. Everybody lives according to the hierarchy of their values. they make decisions accordingly whatever will give them the greatest value if somebody they're with is not understanding what their highest value is and is in their minds trying to get them away from what their highest value is they withdraw how is him working so extensively helped you during the time you're with him and he was working so extensively how did that benefit you gave us a a nice life it gave that also your house afterwards yeah yeah and during that time when he was working so hard Where did you put your energy? Children? I was helping him with his business and raising our daughter. Yeah. Okay. So you were putting energy in the daughter and also- And the business. Yeah. And were you getting paid for that? So you're just sacrificing and helping him in his business and assuming he was going to take care of things, which you eventually did. Yeah. Yeah. So you wouldn't have done it unless there was some sort of, in your perception, advantage over disadvantage out of doing it because nobody moves a muscle without an advantage over a disadvantage. So what advantage are you getting out of taking care of him and doing that for him? Lifestyle? Long-term objective? Long-term objective. What was the hidden agenda? Oh, the hidden agenda. You want to make sure you got to a certain level so you got enough to be able to win you when you went to have the affair and divorce him? You got something? Oh, no. You sure? Yeah. Okay. Then go to what was the real objective there? Nobody is altruistic. They have a hidden agenda or compensation for guilt and shame in the past when they're doing altruistic acts. Okay. I think I'm getting lost in all the words, but I just, I wanted to prove my value to him. Ah, and did you? I thought I did. And, But did you feel that you were on a underdog position? You had to be. All the signs are showing it. Yeah. So you want to make sure that you contribute to me because you felt like you were getting a good deal. I needed to feel valued. by him by him so you didn't feel you were being valued for him who had you on a pedestal it overvalued you you never get undervalued without overvalued so who overvalued you at the time who had you on a pedestal well he did okay well that's confusing because you just said i need to prove a value to him and you're saying he overvalued you well that's contradicted and then then it waned and so i was trying to earn when it waned and he wasn't valuing you who picked up that part part who started valuing you my daughter ah So in the family dynamic, she started putting a value on you as he was waning. Okay. What was the benefit of her doing it? Not him. You got to feel more like a decent mother because you came back and said that you wanted to contribute more and be even a greater mother. Yeah. So you've got the benefit of being acknowledged as a mother by the daughter during a time when he waned. Yeah, we have very good relationships. What if you found out that there's always a balance of support and challenge, praise and reprimand that's conserved through life, and it's just morphing and changing forms through people. And when he withdraws, somebody else picks it up. And when he's doing it, you become addicted and subordinate to him. And you began to grow. When your daughter started supporting you, you just started gaining some independence. Can you see that happened? Yep. So can you see that her doing it was lifting you up and making you stand more as an equal, which is leveling the playing field. And he was used to you being the underdog. And all of a sudden, you're now not playing there. And he's withdrawn and trying to find somebody else to give him the attention. Yeah, I can see that now. So right now, when he devalued you like that, what was the benefit to you? You started your independence. When somebody praises you, you become juvenile dependent. When somebody criticizes you and challenges you, you become precociously independent. If you hadn't have done that, you would have been trapped. I would have felt like I couldn't rise above him because then I would lose him. Oh, my God. Yeah. You only fear the loss of things you got above you. You don't fear the loss of things that go below you. One's prey, one's predator. So right now, what did he do or she do that's not part of the journey that was needed? It all worked out. But there is something I would have changed. What would you have changed? I would have put my foot down because my career was going great in New York and I wouldn't have left. I would have insisted we stayed. So you got infatuated with a guy and sacrificed your career for a fantasy guy. So you're not probably going to do that, are you? You probably learned a lesson. Yes. So he taught you the value of that. Correct. Because you thought that you needed a man for your identity. I just didn't want to do things alone. You know, I wanted a partner. So while you're with the guy that's withdrawn from you, you're alone. I'm alone anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So right now, what would you change different? It would have been nice to have that relationship. feeling, the feeling that I was enough. And who is, when he was not doing it, the daughter was doing it. And who else was doing it besides the daughter? Because they're balanced. For 25 years, I've been demonstrating in people's lives that you can't get one without the other because of the law of contrast. You can't judge something without its equal and opposite contrast being there to be able to perceive. So if somebody is criticizing, there's a praiser. You don't see it, you run the story. I'm a victim of criticism. I'm a victim all my life. You don't get anywhere that way. When you see both sides, you realize that I had a transformation of who is supporting and challenging me throughout my whole life. Yes. That's mastery. So who was praising you besides your daughter at the time and had you kind of on a pedestal and made you important? I want to include you in the life. Friends? Yeah, my friends. Social circles and friends? Social circles. I was taking a course at the time and learning a new skill. And those people and the teachers and people on that? Mm-hmm. So can you see that him doing that work and withdrawing allowed you to get the support from those people? and the daughter correct but wasn't that necessary for the next step was it necessary for the next step all that education and every all that information wasn't that part of your network and team and knowledge you needed to go the next step correct yeah so where are you not been on track i've been on track so what's it like to realize you've been on track the whole time there hasn't been an error in this whole thing i can let all this crap the illusion go yeah yeah yeah so right now when you look at your your husband Can you see he played a perfect job in this? Your daughter played a role. Deborah played a role. So if Deborah's sitting in front of you again, what do you want to tell Deborah right now? Thank you, Deborah. what do you want to say to her i said thank you deborah okay yeah now is that a little lighter than you started oh hell yeah is the narrative that you had completely looked differently yes okay now we've only did about two or three little columns out of the exercise there's 80 columns in it okay so we could just keep going with it just know that any of the stories that you've had in your life i i went through this i had this and i challenged childhood and all that stuff It's all bullshit. You may not believe me, but if I sat with you for a period of time and we narrowed it down one by one, you would be in tears of gratitude for what happened in your life. And then you'd be liberated from the story that you've run that we run our illusions till we're ready for the truth. The truth kind of sets us free from the stories. We use the stories because of all the moral hypocrisies we get indoctrinated about how people are supposed to be instead of seeing how magnificent they are in the journey. Somebody once asked me if I had if there was a year that I would eliminate in my life, which one would it be? And I, you know, just like Queen Elizabeth said, she had the Anna's Horribilis. I said, you know, 2005, but I wouldn't do it because then I wouldn't have met you. that person you know well anything you can't say thank you for is your baggage yeah anything you can say thank you for is your fuel so you you can decide to be victim of history because you're comparing current reality to a fantasy and how it should have been would have been could have been or you can be a master of destiny to be able to see through and navigate it and realize there's nothing that i or other people did that's not part of the journey that was needed to help me move forward because you said things were being held back but i haven't heard anything that's really holding you back Just me. Sounds like you've been growing and doing and expanding in the areas that are important to you. Yes. But we can run that narrative sometimes. Sometimes we compare ourselves to other people. Anytime you compare yourself to somebody else and put them above you, you're going to inject their values. You're going to try to envy and imitate them, as Emerson said, which is futile and a form of suicide. And you'll eventually learn the hard way that that's futile and non-sustainable. Yeah. And eventually you get the symptoms of that. to wake you up to not put people on pedestals nobody's worth putting on pedestals there's no guru out there there's no teacher out there there's no saint out there there's human beings out there i've met enough gurus out there that people think are all somehow one-sided or enlightened or whatever no they're just human beings we're all just human beings and we're not worth putting on pedestal pitch we're worth putting in hearts And now you've got Deborah Moore in your heart than when we started. That's our objective. Yeah. And that's, I didn't realize how clung onto that I was because I was still harboring. Yeah. That's why I'm not interested in your story because the story is, anytime you have an emotional story, you have incomplete information. Yes. Anytime you have, thank you, I love you, we're getting somewhere. Yeah. Thank you. So that's at least a start.

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Topic: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

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