From Betrayal to Forgiveness

A couple weeks ago, something happened. I felt hurt. And betrayed.

All feelings come from our thoughts. But my brain was telling me it was from someone else. That she hurt and betrayed me.

My thoughts were: I did nothing wrong. Friends shouldn't repeat things that are said in confidence. I can't trust her.

Those of course were the thoughts causing my hurt, but I was too "in the pool" to truly notice that.

So I sat down and self-coached.

Here's what it looked like:

1) I wrote down ALL my thoughts onto paper

2) I did some models on the thoughts and feelings that came up

3) I made a 3 columned chart. At the top of each column I wrote: FACTS, DRAMA, LEARNING. I separated out what were actual facts and what my brain was just making up. I wrote out what I wanted to learn from this scenario.

4) I decided how I wanted to think and feel on purpose. (I wanted to feel love and forgiveness).

Here's the thing though... you can't move to intentional feelings until you're truly ready. And I wasn't truly ready because 'betrayed' and 'hurt' kept coming up for me. I realized I was resisting feeling those emotions because they didn't feel good and I just wanted to feel love and forgiveness already. I'm almost there. But not quite. So for now, I have to still sit with my feelings of hurt and betrayal (They have definitely lessened in the past few weeks).

It will pass.

I know it will.

And then I can move on with total love and forgiveness. Awareness first. Then Acceptance/Allowance.

Then Change.

You can't skip a step.