Forgiveness After Betrayal

What does it mean to forgive someone?

There is more to forgiving someone who hurt me.

What is difficult is that forgiving someone doesn’t cancel out your pain. It doesn’t cancel the memory, the pain in your body, the weight in your heart nor the haunting thoughts in mind.

Because in some way, what did we overlook? What did we allow?

What were we waiting to experience?

What were we waiting to learn?

If I forgive a person, it’s because I looked at every scenario and reason and tried to feel it all deeply to understand. Because when you feel so much, I need to understand so my mind can convince my heart and how to process it.

How much and how long I put myself through something that has caused me so much pain and layers of conditioning myself for them and what we shared.

But was it respectfully shared?

When you feel betrayed or let down, it’s an internal sink hole. And the sink hole slowly sucks down little bits of joy, motivation and passion in your everyday life.

It’s especially hard with the consistent need to be mentally, physically and emotionally available to my children.

Because I don’t feel like I am at all. So, I carry the guilt on top.

I dissociate so much to escape because I carry too much already.

That is the cost of putting your heart in the hands of the wrong person. I feel more hurt than the memories with my kids. It’s awful, but that’s the storm you’re in after being left out in it.

I care for my kids, but there is a level of love, connection and presence I am struggling to find again with them.

I am angry at myself, more than the person who betrayed me. Because it is the space I allowed that should have been a safe place. Disappointment weighs heavy on broken hopes and dreams.

This is why many people want to stay single. Why many women struggle to embody their feminine energy. It’s not fear, it’s experience. To not allow another person to let us down again.

What I’m Processing

Sometimes, a woman becomes the capsule swallowed for everyone’s needs but their own.

I listen to how a person grew up. Who they hang around and the type of people they connect with. I also look at the kind of relationship they have with themselves.

I read into this so much because I want to understand the person and how they act a certain way. I want to learn to know who they are and what I value in them and where my respect sits with that person to determine the energy I give out.

For me to cope through heartbreak and betrayal, I need to understand it, so I know how to manage my thoughts and feelings.

At times, breathing feels difficult. Restricted by my own rib cage, it lost the muscle memory to function properly. The thought of someone I poured your energy into made the conscious decision to disrespect me.

What it Taught Me

The chances I gave, the mental and emotional capacity I had to learn to understand to forgive…I am still learning how to carry pain that’s become a part of me.

I still cry, I break, I crumble some days and it honestly feels so pathetic at times.

But I gained clarity from this. And it may be part of me, but the part of me that became part of me rising above the bullshit.

There is a depth we get to learn about ourselves here and pride in how we build ourselves back up.

I still want goodness and growth to come to those people. And I am grateful that I look beyond, to understand.

But once hurt has been done. Forgiveness doesn’t give the other person ongoing access to you. They proved otherwise. It is unfortunate, but with access, I lose my own self love and respect.

No.

A meaningful connection won’t put me through that. Forgiveness isn’t a clean slate.

I am learning about my own mental and emotional capacity and resilience. And it is like a superpower in life. I am learning what it takes to forgive myself. All that love, care, time and energy I poured into someone that never held it.

How do I Move Forward?

Pain caused from hurt becomes the reminder of the person I am and the boundaries I need to keep in place to protect my heart and energy. I am telling myself that where I feel hurt and betrayed, can only be a realignment for something more meaningful and more aligned.

Fighting for someone who wronged you is attachment. There is still a fine line in hurting someone you supposedly love. Maybe this person still doesn’t know what love is.

But who are you?

Are you going to punish them? Or be gentle with them?

All whilst still protecting your own space and self-respect.

What do you value in love?

Once betrayed, you have thicker boundaries. You notice the after effect in your body around other connections and especially with yourself. Don’t adjust your values to somebody else’s. I love myself more every day I keep to my values.

That is where the attachment loses its grip.

In the end, you’re brave enough to love while letting go.

This will shape me, but it won’t define me.

The life I’m building deserves the version of me that trusts herself more than her fears of the unknown.

Betrayal teaches you who a person is.

Forgiveness teaches you who you are.

The hard truth? 

It hurt me enough to make the real change.

And the real change is letting go of the time spent where it caused you grief, but grateful for the outcome.