If we change the question we ask, from "can" to "how can", it changes everything.
Consider: Can I get an A in Calculus? versus How can I get an A in Calculus?
Can I ever heal from infidelity? versus How can I heal from infidelity?
"Can" holds within it potential failure. While "how can" is about agency. It's Yoda yet again reminding us that there is no try. There is only do or do not.
Notice the language you use around infidelity and your healing. Are you telling yourself, with the words you use, that you anticipate failure? Or are you reminding yourself, without minimizing your pain or grief, that you hold the power for your own life? That you aren't trying, you are doing. And within that doing is your future self.
That future self can be one that prioritizes self-care and self-compassion, that holds room for her pain while trusting her strength and resilience.
Or that future self can be one who continues to feel powerless.
I don't, for one single second, blame you for his choice to cheat. That is entirely on him.
But how we heal from that betrayal is up to us. We can try or we can do. We can ask if or we can ask how.
There will be days when what we need is to curl up in a ball. But when we uncurl, let's ask ourselves not can we heal from this pain but how we can. Cause that simple change shifts the entire power dynamic back to you.
Which is exactly where it belongs.
