Betrayal - lesson of integrity

Cosmos flowers against blue sky

Lately, I have been experiencing themes of betrayal in my personal stories as well as larger themes that are playing out on the global scale. 

Have you been experiencing themes of betrayal? What is considered betrayal and what emotions are connected to it? 

Betrayal often happens as a reaction to fear which can be multi faceted. As I was exploring my own themes of betrayal that were coming up in multiple scenarios, I went back to the larger pattern of my country and effects of WWII. On a humane level this was evident in the memories of brothers betraying brothers as a means of saving their own lives. It started to show itself to me through recommended videos, photos, as well as personal memories.

One of the memories that came to me from my life is an early childhood memory. It is one that had been repressed and buried deep, only accessed fully with the help of hypnosis. It is actually my memory of betraying my brother as a means of saving myself from corporal punishment. The fear of punishment had me frozen in the pattern that continues through decades of my life and lately has been resurfacing in multiple scenarios. Of course, those things seem disconnected until we are ready to see the larger scheme at play. 

In pattern with others 

What is interesting about the betrayal is that I was experiencing feeling betrayed and having people close to me continuously betraying me (at least in my own experience of it) to the point when the pain led me to explore more about it. I then saw my own involvement and how often I have betrayed others, also those, who now I perceived were betraying them. 

In my experience, even the strongest feelings of being a victim of a betray, led in fact, to memories of me betraying others. Here I will share some instances of how they showed up, so perhaps it can be familiar to you as well.

What forms of betrayal were there? 

• talking about someone behind their back 

• saying mean things about someone when feeling hurt by them 

• denying allegiance with someone when they are challenged on their point of view, while agreeing with them in private

• thinking negative thoughts about someone (subtle level) 

In pattern with self 

Looking at this, I saw a theme of self betrayal, that was a result of my actions. In all of these scenarios, I was losing the respect for myself and therefore trying to cover up my mistakes and messing up by creating a strong "image". This promotion of image had to do with the loss of integrity, which was an underlying theme. 

In what ways was I betraying myself? 

• through harsh judgment of my actions 

• stopping myself from acting from the place of truth and authenticity 

• punishing myself by negative self talk 

• putting on “an image” to make others see me in a “better” light

• succumbing to the illusion of mortality & scarcity

• succumbing to the illusion of being separate from love 

At the root of all the pain is the illusion of separation. It is stopping knowing that I am one with the spirit and instead believing in alternative realities created by the mind. Those realities grow proportionally to the amount of energy they have been fed and can start feeling quite real, especially if they have been familiar for most of our life. 

Repeating the history

When we are faced with the themes of pain that run through the world as a collective, perhaps repeating themselves with the history lessons, we can see this as an opportunity to dive deeper into ourselves. Connect to our personal history of repeating painful experiences, either as a giver or receiver of pain. There really is no difference, as the pain is the same, perhaps even worse, when we give it to others. Looking at our personal history we may stumble upon a family’s history or a history of our city, our country. Larger themes can emerge that can point into how deeply rooted this misconception is. It means it has been reinforced on many levels and now it’s time for it to change.

It can only change with you and me sitting with our own feelings and pain. Seeing all of it and witnessing it without judgment. Large, collective themes came as a result of smaller, individual pain that grew and extended into larger entities. The only way to disempower and disconnect from them is by self awareness and acceptance of our past. To clearly see the past, we can understand where we are right at this moment in time. Not denying and trying to hide anymore, not judging and deeming our behaviour as bad, but rather seeing the pain the misconceptions cause.  

Physical manifestations

As with any emotions, the themes of betrayal run through a series of physical symptoms we can be experiencing. For myself, I have been experiencing a lot of nausea and sick feelings in my stomach. I also noticed this in many people in my circle. Our bodies are talking to us through the symptoms they are experiencing, and when we listen long enough, we can discover the reason behind it.

The reason is: it didn’t start with you. Whether you are aware of the events before your birth or not, the themes are recorded in the energetic field as well as in the biological structure of how our bodies function. The “glitch” or a pattern will be unconsciously passed from generation to generation until someone is ready to feel it and willingly let it go. 

In the case of betrayal, it seems to be teaching me about integrity. It is showing me when I lost integrity to myself, to my values, what I know is true and acted against it.

Instead of seeing this pain as a punishment, I choose to see it as a gift- an opportunity to make the mistakes known and break the cycle of unconscious repetition. As a result, I can become empowered in knowing myself and standing up for my truth with confidence. 

Pathways back to integrity

For starters, I decided to reconnect to my love of flowers that I had since early childhood and dedicate my vegetable garden to growing flowers this year. This will symbolize healing from the survival mechanism (harvesting veggies to hoard and survive) into thriving and inspiration.

Simple acts of change on the physical level can have profound effects on multidimensional levels. My heart longs for planting flowers, painting them, sharing the seeds with other women and talking about how the spirit of the flowers influences the opening of gentleness and softness in our energy.

Journal prompts

Have you been experiencing the themes of betrayal? If so, where can you see it?

What are some ways you will bring back your integrity?

How can you remain faithful to yourself?

How to get started?

Some people are drawn to doing this work on their own. Others, seek guidance and company of others to be able to safely explore it.

At Pure Reflections we offer modalities that help reconnect to the subconscious feelings and sensations in the body. Check out our Art Healing section to learn more.