Betrayal

betrayal of selfMost of us have an underlying feeling of betrayal. Perhaps you use a different word. This I only just discovered, buried under hurt and anger and frustration.

There has been a situation stirring for a year now, nagging at me day and night. It has to do with someone with whom I have little contact, except in the war raging in my own mind. My ability to blame the other knew no bounds. Even as I did so, the absurdity of the situation was not lost on me.  My self-judgment, demanding that I feel other than how I did, kept me from getting to the root of the root.

Betrayal finally revealed itself. I spent days dwelling in all of the many ways I had been betrayed. Mother, father, sister, partners, life, all, everyone, had done their share. It was helpful to see that the present day situation, as I had suspected, was an opportunity for me to clean out an old, dense, frozen piece of my soul.

But I was still stuck. Until I realized that the betrayal that rocked me off of my knees as I prayed this morning was my very own.

Self-betrayal. It feels like the worst possible kind. How does one escape when they are their own captor?

This is a trick question, I now realize. We are all our own captors. There is no escape. In fact, the desperate trying to escape is usually, like Chinese handcuffs, what keeps us locked in our suffering.

The key is, with help from our higher self, to go into and through the worst of the worst of ourselves. Yes, it is very painful. No, it is not all tied up with a pretty bow. It is gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, soul shattering and mind blowing at its best. Finally, it is freeing.

When I see that it is I who betrayed myself, if I am willing to have the courage to be vulnerable, I can learn to trust myself.

I can promise you I have not learned anything by blaming my feelings of betrayal on others. By having the courage to be vulnerable, feel how I was hurt, disappointed, felt as if I didn’t matter – and still hold onto myself, I can strengthen myself for the inevitable bumps on this road.

When I see that the other is simply human – doing what she learned to do, just as I do what I learned to do, in order to survive, before we knew any better – with compassion for myself and the other, the world feels whole again.

 

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