(ThySistas.com) When you are a trustworthy person, betrayal is a concept that doesn’t enter your mind properly. You don’t see people through the lens of the harm they can do to you. You tend to see the best in them. Nothing can be more heartbreaking and damaging to the Spirit than to put full trust in someone, or something, and have that trust betrayed. Betrayal has been watered down in its definition to be on the same level with just a lie or a simple harm. The truth is, betrayal is something much deeper, and it is a word that should be used carefully because of the kind of accusation it implies. When your heart and trust has been betrayed it’s not only difficult to trust or believe in the people around you and the source of said harm, but it is also difficult to believe in yourself. Betrayal is one of those traumas that can cause you to question every single thing you know about yourself. Especially your ability to have good judgment. You’ll constantly find yourself looking to see where you missed the red flag, why you didn’t see the harm coming, and what made you believe in said person or thing in the first place. This cut can run so deep, some women tend to take the stance that they will never love, trust or believe in another human being ever again.
More importantly, some of us don’t realize we’re also saying we may never love, trust, or believe in ourselves again. Betrayal is truly a harm that can shatter a human being into pieces in a manner by which you feel you may never be whole again. Just as you know with certainty that if you put one foot in front of the other, the ground is beneath your feet… you need to have the same certainty regarding your judgment and others around you. In this regard, we don’t give ourselves much grace, and we don’t give ourselves the proper room to make mistakes and heal from them. Because we don’t give ourselves the same grace and forgiveness that we give others so easily, bouncing back from betrayal can be extremely difficult for some. Many of us believe it can’t be done. However, sisters, I am here to tell you we can bounce back from betrayal. We can find it within ourselves to believe in our center of judgment again. Though it can be done, that outcome takes quite a bit of work, and that work can be quite a bit difficult.
To heal after having dealt with betrayal one must be willing to tell the unfiltered truth. This can be difficult sometimes because in certain situations the hardest person to take into account is ourselves. In many cases what the other person has done to us, and what they have taken from us. We work hard to get to a place where we can acknowledge that what was done to us was wrong and unjustified. However, one of the most difficult things to do is to look at the situation we find ourselves in and answer the question of did we have a hand in welcoming betrayal and harm into our personal spaces. Answering this question truthfully does not make the person that hurt you any less wrong.
However, it does allow you to see the areas that were missed or mistakes that were made so that you can better protect yourself going forward. There is a passage in the Bible that says, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”. That statement is accurate in every aspect of life. We must be willing to tell the truth in order to be freed from the shackles of whatever situation we find ourselves facing. Sometimes we have to be willing to say I should have run from him or her because they were toxic. The person involved did show us that we were unloved. Sometimes we must admit that we positioned ourselves to be vulnerable and unsafe in some spaces. Doing this allows you and I to recognize those unsafe spaces so that we can avoid them going forward. The truth and owning the truth in regard to your decisions and behaviors in a situation is vital to healing and overcoming betrayal.
It is okay to look at yourself and say, something in me is broken because I have been betrayed and something in me may have died because I was betrayed. I say this knowing that I come from a space where I have experienced betrayal as of recent. Not only did something in me break, but something in me died. That was very hard to say because I had lost so many and so much over the last few years and in this year. However, acknowledging that something in me had died allowed me to grieve the loss of those things that were broken inside of me, those parts of my that no longer exists because it was unfixable. This may sound negative; however, it is the truth. We must own this aspect and understand that as long as we are still breathing and moving about this earth, if something in us dies, something new can be born.
Something stronger, more powerful, more at peace and more centered can be born within us. That truth is something I am holding on to as I watch newness birth itself in my own life. I say that to say if something in you has died, grieve it, bury it, and embrace that it’s time to move forward. Allow something new, something stronger and more powerful to be born in your life in the aftermath of having been betrayed.
Betrayal changes us. Once it happens to you, you’re never the same again. However, it doesn’t have to linger and defeat you. Betrayal doesn’t have to put your heart into the grave. You can bounce back. You can have a new beginning. This opportunity is available with every day that we live. To get to that space we must go through the challenge of telling the truth, not only to others but more importantly, to ourselves, if we find that we have enabled those who would do us deep harm. We must acknowledge that so that we don’t allow it to happen again. We must own all of our truth, and not just the truth that vindicates us or gives us comfort. It’s important to know that in being betrayed, something in you very well may break and end. That’s okay because something new can begin at that moment.
A stronger, more confident and powerful you is on the horizon; allow that moment to happen. This is not a process that happens in one day, in one week, in one month, and sometimes it takes years. The rate of progress depends on the person but know that it can be done. You can bounce back from being betrayed and be a stronger, better person for it. Just remember you deserve the new dawn and the new day. Allow yourself to receive it and bask in that truth.
Staff Writer; Christian Starr
May connect with this sister over at Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/christian.pierre.9809 and also Twitter; http://twitter.com/MrzZeta.