I have come to understand that betrayal is a two-way street. Being betrayed leads to feelings of being abandoned and alone. It is a deceptive experience, specifically as adults, because we think it is about the person who is betraying us. Betrayal as a child is much more complex and destructive to our souls and leads to larger issues in adulthood.
As an adult I have discovered that when I have a hard time forgiving someone for behaviors which lead me to feel disrespected, unheard or alone, it comes from a place of having felt betrayed.
Betrayal brings trouble. When we feel betrayed we project that onto others; we become bitter and angry about the way we’ve allowed someone treat us, the simple act of betraying ourselves.
Betrayal always comes from our own betrayal of ourselves.
When I have abandoned the things that are most important to me in order to hold onto a relationship, to be liked, or to not feel alone – I create precarious relationships with others built on a lack of respect for myself. The moment I sacrifice my own boundaries I give permission for the very same behavior to rebound onto me from the very person I abandoned my boundary for.
For example, I was in a long-term relationship with someone who did not have much respect for me, who would not listen to me, who was self-involved and who, I felt, never recognized what I brought to the relationship. I saw this truth very early on in the relationship. In my gut I knew this wasn’t right, but I blew past that feeling by making excuses. I didn’t want to be alone and I admired certain characteristics of this person; because of that I became easy to manipulate. I knew that I did not want to be with someone like this: discarding my self-respect and abandoning my desire of how I wanted to be treated opened the door to consistent disrespect by my partner. Betraying my needs led to years of betrayal and untruths as well as a lack of support when I most needed it. But ultimately, I only had myself to blame. I disregarded my truths over and over again, year over year, in order to hold onto something I was too scared to let go.
This same thing can happen in our workplaces. It has happened to me when I have been too scared to speak my truth, uphold agreements or be clear about my expectations because I am worried about being judged or misunderstood. I became a target for disrespect and often felt unappreciated, solely because I lacked the courage to stand in my own truth and let go of my cowardly behavior. This behaviour has always created unhealthy relationships.
When a friend imposes their ideals of how I should respond to a situation and I am unable to stand up for myself and explain that I feel differently from what they think, I leave the conversation feeling contempt and frustration because I didn’t make the space to say “I am allowed to have an experience that is different from what you want me to have”. In these moments I have disrespected myself. To be honest, I have noticed that the next time I am around that friend they are often even more critical because I have taught them I am open to their judgements.
How do we uphold our boundaries so that we don’t betray ourselves and go on to create relationships of distrust and disrespect? We get more courageous. We learn to take risks with our words: we can be kind, yet clear. We work on this repeatedly. We take ownership over what has happened in our lives and stop blaming others for how we feel. We look at the source of our anger and resentment. We become brave by owning our stories, our shame, our pain, our sadness. We do it again and again, until we can release others from our stories and learn to own our lives. We learn to unpack the ways we’ve betrayed ourselves and understand why we did what we did. We figure out why we felt we had to allow someone to trample over our boundaries, or perhaps where we have lacked boundaries altogether, and why.
This isn’t easy work. If it was, we would all be living in a constant euphoric state. This is challenging. This is big. This takes great courage and a willingness to get immensely uncomfortable. We have to avoid being distracted by our phones and with keeping busy. We need to permit ourselves to see our true stories so that we can stop feeling betrayed by ourselves and projecting that betrayal onto others.
So much love to you on your journey
Noelle