Recognising The Signs Of Self-Betrayal
Self-betrayal occurs when we deny what we want and need out of a desire to receive love.
This can happen in families where people aren’t allowed to express their needs.
The pattern starts in childhood where a child has to give up their needs in order to survive and not be abandoned or punished by those who are supposed to love them unconditionally.
Unfortunately when this has happened during your childhood you are at a much higher chance of repeating the pattern at some point in your adult life.
A few examples of Self-betrayal are:
Allowing your boundaries to be violated so as not to be abandoned.
Going along with those you love in order to keep their love.
Doing things to please others when it’s not what you want to do.
Letting your partner make all your decisions, including things like how you dress, who your friends are, etc.
Working in jobs that influential people in your life approve of, that leaves you feeling lost and unhappy with life.
Self-betrayal is such a common coping mechanism in people pleasers. This shows up when you do something you know feels wrong to you, in order to protect yourself or someone else from being hurt.
This coping mechanism can manifest itself in many different ways, with behaviours varying from lying, to sabotage, and putting your needs last.
The trauma response plays a significant role in self-betrayal. When a person experiences a traumatic event, the body responds to this event with certain hormones and physiological responses to help them cope with the event.
Self-betrayal can occur when the subconscious mind takes over and starts replicating traumatic responses, even though these responses are not necessarily appropriate for the situation at hand.
The subconscious mind will do everything it can to make sure that it doesn’t feel threatened in any way shape or form, which is why it will resort to these coping mechanisms when a similar feeling has occurred, even when the threat is entirely different.
ACTING FROM YOUR TRAUMA RESPONSE
Self-betrayal is a vicious cycle, which causes conflict between your actions and your Soul.
It leaves you setting yourself up for a traumatic response in your body, leaving you fearful of either your feelings or abandonment.
This causes psychological torment and sets you up for things like co-dependency, addiction and a whole other host of problems, like anxiety and depression.
Self-betrayal is caused by the trauma that caused you to deny your needs in the first place.
Unfortunately it’s usually a dominating or controlling person that you love and don’t want to disappoint.
This in turn causes the trauma you already feel to expand and grow to a point where all you see and feel is consumed from this traumatic place.
When someone betrays themselves their moral compass gets shaken and their sense of self becomes extinguished.
They feel like they’ve been violated on a very deep intimate level and they experience a great sense of loss at not being able to control what is happening to them.
Self-betrayal is a process by which we allow ourselves to be convinced that a way of living is good for us, while at the same time knowing that it isn’t.
The first sign that our behaviour or lifestyle might be self-betrayal is when we have a deep conviction, be it intuition or through something someone has voiced to us which leaves us feeling powerless to change our course.
The second sign of self-betrayal is when we know, in our heart of hearts, that something will make us unhappy yet we still do it.
The third sign of self-betrayal is when we later look back and realise how wrong we were about something and how much it hurt us; these moments can lead to regret and guilt.
TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF DURING TRAUMATIC TIMES
What do you need right now that doesn’t involve self-harming or self-medicating with food, alcohol, or drugs?
What helps you?
We’re all different.
Some may need time off from responsibilities and rest, others may need connection and support, while others may need to stay active to keep their mind off the hurt.
If you don’t automatically know, tune into your heart and ask the question, “What do I need right now?” You might receive an immediate answer or it may come to you in a few hours, the next morning, or over the next few days.
Then give yourself what you need without hesitation.
Make a promise to yourself.
If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you are allowing them to hurt you again in your mind.
Betrayal can bring out the worst in you if you engage in self-punishing talk or actions or aggression towards yourself or the person who has harmed you.
Take back your power and try to stay in the light by deciding how you want to be in all this.
You can do this by making promises to yourself about how you want to be in relation to what has occurred.
I will not let this destroy me.
I will do my best to not obsess about this. I know I will to some extent, but I will try to keep my obsession in check.
I will not allow myself to suffer more than I have to by adding my own stories and self-criticism to the hurt.
I will not allow anger and hatred in my heart and I will instead come from a place of compassion.
I know that people cause harm because they are hurting deeply hemselves, though their pain may not be obvious to me.
These are just examples. Your promises need to fit you. So take some time and reflect deeply on how you really want to be in this situation. Then write out some promises to yourself.
QUESTIONS TO ASK AFTER ANY BETRAYAL
Once the initial shock dissipates, you’ll want to continue the self-care and self-awareness practices —the ones that fit for you.
When you feel ready, it’s time to dig deeper.
Use questions like these to understand what has happened, and to help you heal and move forward.
1. What would you like now?
A betrayal can spin you around so strongly that you only think to react or feel victimised rather than to consider that you have choices.
Instead, ask:
What is it that you really want?
Was this job, relationship, family connection or situation truly satisfying to you?
What needs to change in this situation for it to work for you?
Do you want to stay, negotiate, take a break, or leave?
Don’t get so caught up in the betrayal that you lose site of what’s important or relevant for you.
2. Have you betrayed yourself?
Take time to look within at ways you might have betrayed yourself in this interaction or the time leading up to it.
Our outer usually reflects our inner.
Did you have weak boundaries?
Were you dependent on another person for your self-esteem, self-worth, and love and therefore let unacceptable behaviours go?
Were you codependent?
Have you been too forgiving?
Were you clearly communicating your needs?
Did you trust someone’s words instead of looking squarely at their behaviour?
Don’t blame or judge yourself.
Just make a realistic assessment of how you might have contributed to the conditions that brought about the betrayal.
After all, you put yourself in this situation, how did that come about?
Understanding these factors will provide important seeds for your personal evolution.
3. Are you acting out of Empathy or Self-betrayal?
People who are empathic, irrespective of how their nervous system came to be empathic, know what others are feeling, often before knowing what they feel.
That feeling of unity you get through empathy can be intoxicating because it soothes the inner child part of us that doesn’t want to be abandoned, so pleasing others, and even taking on their beliefs as your own, can be another way of betraying yourself.
The empathic response can be so fast that you often don’t even know that your feelings might not be yours.
HOW TO HEAL FROM A NEGATIVE TRAUMA RESPONSE OF SELF-BETRAYAL
When we betray ourselves by abandoning our own needs, desires, and boundaries we come to realise that we’re actually betraying ourselves.
Embodying this trauma and allowing yourself to express your pain is the first step.
Bringing awareness, acceptance, and forgiveness will allow you to come from a place of compassion towards yourself.
The last thing you need is you compounding the trauma by beating yourself up.
You may also find you need to work on your sense of safety and your connection with others.
Self-betrayal for many means they’ve given up on themselves, their needs and their goals.
Self-betrayal has many negative consequences. It can make you feel angry with yourself and make you feel ashamed for not being able to stick to your goals or achieve what you want in life.
Some people may even start blaming themselves for the betrayal because they may think if they were a better person, they would never give up on themselves.
It is important to know that self-betrayal is common and happens often without us realising it because we are our own worst critic.
Learn to start voicing your opinion.
You don’t have to keep the peace all the time, learn to rock the boat a little.
It may feel uncomfortable but what you feel matters.
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