Acts of Self-Betrayal

I Didn’t Know, But I’d Learned to Betray Myself…

Having grown up in the Evangelical Christian church, I had ingrained ideas about what it meant to live a life that was good and pleasing in the eyes of God.

There was so much that I loved about the communities I was a part of. I learned so much about love, intentionality, forgiveness, hope, faith and purpose, but at the same time I internalized a lot of damaging beliefs.

I internalized the message that my desires, wants, needs and “flesh” were selfish, sinful, and deceitful.

These beliefs created extreme internal conflict, confusion and co-dependency because they emphasized trusting in God, but implicit in them were that I could not trust myself - the messages of my body or intuition.

The Turning Point

I remember the first time I heard about the idea of self-betrayal. It came from the author and healer, Carolyn Myss who wrote Anatomy of the Spirit.

I was at a place in my health journey where I was exhausted in my pursuit of trying to find the perfect healing diet, and was starting to explore different spiritual healers and their wisdom. Carloyn’s work resonated so deeply with me.

She emphasized how failing to listen to our inner guidance, our intuition and our hearts, even in small matters drains our spirits and are ultimately acts of self-betrayal.

A light bulb went on.

Perhaps a huge reason I was struggling with my health, and wasn’t seeing progress in healing, was because I had ultimately been betraying myself in ways big and small, rooted deeply in a lack of trust and kindness towards myself.

Maybe the healing that I had been praying for all along was accessible in cultivating a relationship with myself.

Maybe I could even know God more deeply through getting in touch with the messages of my body and intuition.

For the first time, I felt a sense of liberation and relief. To know that becoming empowered was not in fact a “sin” or selfish and that it was the way to know Love, to express Love and to be held in Love felt like true grace.

I believe that our greatest healing comes when we begin to step into the fullness of who we are - when we begin to shine bright instead of attempting to hide or diminish our light - when we stop betraying ourselves.

I don’t believe this anecdotally but rather because I’ve found it to be true for myself.

Let me know if this resonates with you.

xo,

Kaitlyn