Is an Imagined Betrayal Holding up your Healing?

Betrayal is a wound that tends to leave a mark scored in the deepest parts of us, so that it seems its intention is to make sure it’s not easily forgotten. We’ve all felt the pain of betrayal at the hands of another, but what about the betrayals we’ve imagined and inflicted on ourselves? You may be wondering what I could possibly mean by “imagined”, but the following words reveal it:

“My body betrayed me!”

Were the words blurted out in a private session years ago with my client who had battled cancer many years prior and was now cancer free. Even though, much time had passed since her recovery, her thoughts about the circumstance, were still deeply rooted in resentment over how her body decided to get sick without her permission. 

I listened to her share how she had essentially willed herself to health, but it was clear the part of her that was willing it and her body were very separate from each other (in her idea). She believed they were each acting of their own accord. 

Now, in reality, this is quite impossible. The mind and body are joined intimately. What is a body without a mind or awareness to occupy it? So, there is no chance that the body would just express something outside of the mind that inhabits it. The same goes for every experience of our life. 

“Do you have a discouraging voice inside your head that makes you feel bad about or fear your own body?

That voice is not your friend.

It is an enemy in your own household.”

~Dr. Melissa Sell

Imagine believing that you have absolutely no control over what is expressed in your body because it is doing something you don’t like. I, too, fell victim (and that’s the key) to this idea. There were many days that I cursed my experience because my body was “lashing out”. I have angrily confessed “This isn’t me!” The conflict was very real.

And, from a conscious place, no, you wouldn’t choose to put yourself through the things you’ve experienced physically or otherwise. However, it’s not the conscious part of you choosing the Illness, or struggle, or circumstance that’s creating it. It’s never that blatant. It’s the subconscious part of you that has no argument with an erroneous belief picked up, somewhere, long ago that festered until the body said, “I just can’t hold this toxic thing anymore.” No one’s consciously thinking they want illness, heartbreak, financial struggles,  family issues, etc. It’s the hidden things you’ve carried for so long that eventually surface and produce these conditions. 

What kind of experience might you be having if you believe the thing you walk around in all day long is against you?

If your consciousness is holding ideas of betrayal, about your body or your life, you are perpetuating a separation conflict that’s got your healing hung up. 

“What you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops.” Your life is constantly revealing these secret thoughts and beliefs. And maybe that is what triggers the imagined betrayal. So, it then becomes imperative that we bring our attention to our thoughts rather than blaming the effects that come from them.

As I accepted this in my own life, I knew that going to war with my thoughts would absolutely never work. I’ve run the gamut of new thought, new age, change your thoughts, change your life, teachings. I’ve walked on hot coals at a Tony Robbins weekend to purge my fear, subjected myself to “vulnerable” shares of every dark thing I could find to be ashamed of, in a circle of strangers, and meticulously analyzed the history of my life, desperate to overcome the thoughts that seemed to be ruining it. While the memories of these events have been lasting (because they were traumatizing), they were not radically transformative.

I made a commitment to myself. I was not going to attack myself any longer. I found prayer to be the loving remedy that began to renew my mind.

Prayer nurtured an intimate, loving, harmonious relationship within me. So much so, that deeply rooted beliefs would often surface as if to say, “Here I am. This is what you’ve been looking for.” Rather than hunting down my “demons”, these erroneous beliefs began to come to light as if to indicate that they too were tired of the charade. Going to war would have only suppressed them further. When I became aware of the erroneous patterns, I no longer felt betrayed by anything in my outer world (including my body). When the light of awareness was shined on these hidden things, I had context and understanding about so many things in my life. Understanding eliminates imagined betrayal. And when the imagined betrayal dissolved, the hidden beliefs that activated the conflict of separation were reconciled.

Prayer is reconciliation. To enact Prayer is to accept that I cannot be separate from myself or God.

Prayer opens the path of communication within, so that you can tap into the Wellspring of wisdom in the depths of you. The act alone, harmonizes your biology and brings coherence to your mind and body so that they are consciously unified. And, prayer changes things. Your external world (including your body) is positively impacted when you are reconciled. 

May you bring only love and compassion to every part of you so that you will know the joy of resolution in your life and affairs. Prayer can take you there.

If you’ve struggled with an imagined betrayal, I would love to hear how you resolved it in the comments.