Drawing by Ingrid Cryns
I met a woman on the weekend and I was moved by how angry and intense she sounded. I listened to her story until I saw why her soul was expressing its outrage. She had been following her dream and after 4 years, now she is almost bankrupt. She had experienced deception and felt deeply betrayed, and I saw how her heart was achingly breaking. She had dreamed of becoming a farmer with no background or experience in it. She cashed out her city life and moved into the rural country to make a go of it. In the end, she realized how completely unsupported the farmers are by the government and how many of them, including herself, are working so, so hard and are still losing money. Many of them are living on the poverty line.
While she spoke, I remembered feeling deeply betrayed myself a few times in my own life; from the loss of love of a lover, from a family relationship and from a business partnership. I felt a deep compassion for her grief and despair and I totally got why her heart and soul felt so deeply betrayed and broken.
Feeling betrayed can truly be one of the worst feelings to experience in the body. I feel it like a knife in my heart and a punch in my gut at the same time. Betrayal can come from trusting something or someone and then finding out that, that trust was misplaced. What you thought was safe, something that was stable or supportive is suddenly, shockingly gone! Like a rug being pulled out from under you, everything that you thought was real or true suddenly gets re-examined and reflected upon again with a new light of awareness through it. It can feel very confusing and disorienting for a while – sometimes for a long while.
Whether you are betrayed by a lover or marriage partner who had an affair that you suddenly discover, or you are betrayed by the government who you thought was protecting or supporting your environment, industry or perhaps financial systems, the essential feelings are the same. It can be an outrage at the complete inability to include you in a decision making process that would affect you in some fundamental way.
Betrayal happens because it is unexpected and shakes your foundational structures in some way. A form of deception has occurred and you have become aware of it, to your great surprise. It’s like you were invisible and the other party simply didn’t care. They only see their needs or point of view and are not listening or responding to the reality of what your needs are to include them.
These people or systems that betray others are operating from a narcissistic and ego-centered place. They are not taking into account the fact that we are all truly inter-dependent with each other and what affects you, ultimately always affects me at some point in a relationship. Even in groups, families, businesses or governmental systems, if I don’t include your voice in some form in the decision making process, then I am hurting myself as much as you will be hurt when you discover the shock of the lack of respect that is implied when you don’t include my needs as well.
Even if we have a different point of view about some aspect of the relationship, if you are informed of this in advance, there is an opportunity to take the time to honour the difference and adjust what action may need to be taken in response to this, with full presence of both parties. It is not done in secrecy or without your awareness, which is what sets up the betrayal experience.
When one feels betrayed, you can also start to question yourself and your decision making process of how you did not see it coming and start to feel betrayed even by yourself. Or, even of God/Source for perhaps guiding you to this situation.
When I told this woman, “It sounds like you followed your dream and you feel betrayed now” the energy shifted in our conversation. I saw something flicker in her eyes and realized that she felt seen and heard from her soul. I met her in that moment. Her energy and intensity began to lighten up and she visibly began to slowly relax after my comment.
Betrayal can be healed and it also can be forgiven. In Part 2 of The Betrayal, I will begin with describing the steps of how you can begin to heal and let go of carrying the wound of betrayal in your heart. I will also talk about the other side of how forgiveness can be experienced when responsibility is taken.
If you need help to heal a betrayal you might have experienced in your life, give me call or click on the contact tab at the bottom of the screen if you are reading this on my website. Perhaps I can meet you too one day!
I welcome your feedback. Please leave a link back to your own blog too via the commentluv feature here on the site.
Ingrid
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