Betrayal

The concept of betrayal has been on my mind a lot lately. To live a healthy happy life, it is of utmost importance to have a sense of security. This means trusting others and trusting the legal system you live in. Betrayal is defined as a violation of another person's trust or confidence, it is the sense of being harmed by the intentional actions or lack of actions of others. It can involve harmful disclosures of information. It can occur in corrupt countries, in war-torn countries. It can happen on your doorstep. No matter where, betrayal takes place in significant relationships and over an extended period.

It’s not as simple as finding out your partner has been sleeping with your best friend. It isn’t a one-off situation, but something that has been going on for some time. It could also be a public betrayal that brings shame upon you and your family. Often the betrayed person will be shell shocked by the betrayal because they really had no idea what was going on around them and for such a length of time. Betrayal is not about two people growing apart, it is a situation in which deceit over a long period of time has played a major role. We must differentiate between a stressful situation and a traumatic one. Betrayal is most definitely a trauma – it is a sudden moment when you realise your trust has been violated in a fundamental way and your life will never be the same again. It can affect your standing in the community. Directly or indirectly, people will question you – how could you not know? You feel foolish and ashamed.

If you have been betrayed, you will most likely repeatedly go over the situation again and again to the extent of becoming fixated and obsessed with the betrayal. You will constantly keep asking yourself, how could this happen to me? What did I miss? Why didn’t I notice the signals? You tend to return to the situation, re-reading emails or messages, flicking through your diary, trying to find clues that have been missed. You start doubting yourself, even blaming yourself. As betrayal is intentional, we take it very personally. It results in deep anxiety – even grief. You realise that the life you believed you had, you don’t have. You start having difficulty concentrating, you become hypervigilant, you start questioning everything and are constantly reminded of the betrayal you have experienced. Sleep becomes difficult, appetite can increase or decrease, you look for ways to shut out the shock. It becomes impossible to trust anybody, you become suspicious of everything constantly exercising due diligence on every aspect of your life. This is because after betrayal your brain starts to work in a different way – the fear centre becomes active and cannot switch off. You go into survival mode because you feel under threat 24 – 7.  

Having felt this deep injustice, you need to find ways of getting out of this rut and start living and trusting again. What makes this more difficult in the case of betrayal is that time will not help you heal. New revelations come up in relation to the betrayal and you are forced to face the betrayal over and over again. It’s as if you had one life and now a second later you have a completely different one. If someone dies, they die, it’s over and done. It’s not easy, but the grief diminishes with time. We all die, it’s to be expected. Betrayal is unexpected and intentional. It just lingers on, nothing is concluded, just the foundations of your life have been dismantled. You need to rebuild your confidence and trust in yourself and others. There’s nothing more energy depleting than living in the confines of your own walls and not letting anybody in. But if you don’t, you’ll experience repeat betrayals, just with different people and in different situations.

Betrayal will affect you as long as you let it. Betrayal impacts your natural ability to react to stress. You need to use this challenge as an opportunity to transform and grow. Make a new version of yourself and move on. Only then will you learn to trust again, begin to open your heart again and be able to live a fulfilling, healthy life. Turn trauma into transformation! This is the only choice. It’s not an easy path, but there are options available and often it is a combination of these that help the healing process. I have found that art therapy, specifically neurographics helps with a wide range of traumas. Neurographics rewires your brain through art. Meditation helps quieten the mind. But also bioresonance helps restore missing or disharmonious frequencies in your body. Overcoming such a trauma as betrayal takes time, lots of time. But you are worth it and you will discover a whole new you.

If you are wondering where to start – contact me, let’s find the new you together!