At its core, betrayal is someone close to you doing or being something that you did not expect them to do or be, in a way that threatens your connection with them.
You expected your partner to be faithful, but they weren’t. You expected your BFF to not ditch you for their boyfriend, but they did. You expected your ex to be friends after the breakup settled, but they didn’t want to be.
Sometimes the expectation you had of them was reasonable. Sometimes you superimposed an expectation that had nothing to do with the person and more to do with meeting your needs. Sometimes the person led you to believe you could expect certain things from them. Oftentimes, it’s a combination of all of the above.
However the expectation was formed: once it is broken, we feel betrayed.
And betrayal is a very difficult emotion to transmute. It hits us at our primordial, animal core: the animal we thought we could entrust with our life turns out to be the animal that would eat us alive. And because of that, they are more dangerous than anybody who was a threat from the get go.
To shift betrayal, the steps are:
1. Feel
2. Integrate
3. Depersonalize
4. Forgive
1. First, you have to allow yourself to feel the “ugly” emotions of rage and pain. This is best done through somatic means (stomping around, having a tantrum, beating up pillows, screaming, etc.).
You can also try what Christine Hassler calls release writing: completing the blanks to sentences such as “I feel angry because____, I feel upset because_____, I feel grief because______”, etc.
This step is extremely important because without it, you’re simply engaging in spiritual bypassing / repression.
2. Then comes integrating the narrative. Our brain’s job is to predict things, detect patterns, to ensure our survival by being aware of threats. The person who you trusted and the person who betrayed you are at odds in your brain.
Shifting betrayal means integrating those two people, the good and the bad, into one person, one coherent narrative: an explanation that sets your mind at ease so it can be prepared for future threats.
Mainly, this step requires time for the brain to write a new story, and the help of others validating our experience.
You might also have to come to peace with not knowing certain parts of the story.
3. Then comes depersonalizing the story. When we feel betrayed, we are taking something personally.
It’s a paradox that everything is personal and impersonal at the same time: we’re the center of our own universes, but then again, other people are the center of their own universes, too.
The more personally we take something, the more the situation is triggering inner wounding.
This isn’t to say that if you take something personally, that you’re looking at something inaccurately: just that you’re perceiving it through the lens of the wounded inner child.
For example, I was discussing a friendship breakup with a new friend I met at a retreat, (Hi, if you’re reading this!). I was talking about how I had felt betrayed because she ditched me for her boyfriend.
“So, you’re looking at this situation like your friend abandoned you, and betrayed you. But from her perspective, she just got caught up in a romance and the friendship became less of a priority,” she said.
I was interpreting her ditching me as a betrayal partly because of my own history of emotional abandonment–and partly because she had assured me she valued our friendship as much as her relationship.
But looking at it from a depersonalized perspective helped me separate my past baggage from the baggage of the present, making the present baggage much more manageable.
4. Lastly, there may be a tendency to hold onto some remaining anger and resentment in an effort to protect ourselves from future hurt. If you’ve done enough of the somatic releasing and the feeling of your feels and you still feel lingering resentment, the next step might be to actively choose to let go, and cultivate forgiveness.
I won’t say it will be easy. It might be something you have to intentionally make a practice out of. But remember: forgiveness is about setting yourself free, not condoning the behaviour.
* With this last step in particular, something that may make it much easier to manage is using energy healing to help shift the stuck emotions. I’ve used theta healing, in particular, to transform years of resentment in a single session and it was a damn miracle. I would highly recommend it if you’re open to energy healing. (You can work with me, or many other wonderful practitioners out there!)
If you’re going through betrayal right now, hope this helps, and I feel you because it totally sucks ass!
Don’t be afraid to enlist help in the process! Good luck.