Betrayal is one of the hardest things to go through, and it is vitally important that you deal with it in a way that doesn’t cause you even more pain.
It is devastating when someone whom we believe cares about us betrays us – lies, cheats, breaks a sacred promise, hurts us behind our back, steals from us, turns others against us and so on.
Releasing the feelings rather than staying stuck with them
It is vitally important to find healthy ways of releasing the outrage, heartbreak and helplessness over the other person that occurs in betrayal. The first step in releasing these very painful feelings is to move into compassion for yourself. Too often, we may blame ourselves for not seeing the signs of betrayal and getting caught unawares, but we must remember that we are human and can’t always know what’s happening. Continue reading 3 Steps to Healing from Betrayal
Do you believe that feelings of abandonment are coming from others abandoning you – or do they come from self-abandonment?
When we think about abandonment, we generally think about being left by someone. But abandonment is about leaving someone we are responsible for – a child or an old or sick person who cannot take care of themselves and whom we have agreed to take care of.
As a healthy adult, another adult can leave you, but they cannot abandon you, since they likely have not agreed to be responsible for you.
It might seem strange to you, but, as a healthy adult, when you feel abandoned by someone, it is not actually about them. It is about having abandoned yourself.
Most people don’t think about how they abandon themselves because they don’t recognize that they are responsible for themselves – physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, relationally and organizationally. Continue reading Are You Abandoning Yourself?
Do you want to experience intimacy and connection with others, and the joy and aliveness that this offers? You need to start by learning how to love yourself, rather than abandon yourself.
“Intimacy begins with oneself. It does no good to try to find intimacy with friends, lovers, and family if you are starting out from alienation and division within yourself.” – Thomas Moore, author, Care of the Soul
Most of us would love to have intimacy and connection in our lives, yet we often find this elusive. Why?
Thomas Moore puts it in a nutshell. Until we are intimate and connected with ourselves, we cannot experience the greatest joy in life – intimacy and connection with others.
The question becomes: what causes alienation and division within yourself? Just one thing – self-abandonment.
“Feeling bitter interferes with the body’s hormonal and immune systems, according to Carsten Wrosch, an associate professor of psychology at Concordia University in Montreal….”
“The data that negative mental states cause heart problems is just stupendous. The data is just as established as smoking, and the size of the effect is the same.”
–Dr. Charles Raison
Blame ignites the body’s fight or flight stress mechanism. If we actually fight, then the stress hormones will dissipate, but “When our bodies are constantly primed to fight someone, the increase in blood pressure and in chemicals such as C-reactive protein eventually take a toll on the heart and other parts of the body” states Raison.
How often have you had the thought, “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t…
Get angry, yell, curse, call names, say mean, untrue things about me
Project your behavior onto me
Withdraw, run away, shut down, sit spaced-out in front of the TV
Resist doing what I ask you to do
Look at other women, have an affair
____________________ (fill in your own)
I used to have this thought all the time. If someone yelled, blamed me, shut me out, didn’t see me accurately, or went into resistance, I would think, “You don’t care about me. If you cared about me, you wouldn’t treat me this way. How can you say you care about me and then treat me this way?” Sometimes I would even say this out loud. And always I would feel deep loneliness and heartache at being treated this way.
Have you ever hear yourself say, or said to yourself, “No one appreciates me.”
I used to say this to myself all the time. I was constantly giving myself up to please others, and then ended up feeling completely unappreciated and resentful – until I learned how to take loving care of myself and appreciate myself.
I encountered this recently with Jayden, a young man who consulted with me after his girlfriend left him and he got fired from his job as a construction worker. An alcoholic who had stopped drinking last year, he was back to drinking.
“I gave so much to my girlfriend and worked so hard at the job. I don’t understand this. No one ever appreciates me,” he said with a resentful whine in his voice. Jayden was obviously feeling like a victim of his girlfriend and his boss. Continue reading “No One Appreciates Me”
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