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.