Transforming Betrayal into Forgiveness
How do we transform betrayal? This is a big ask. This is a really rich and challenging part of the human story. We, many of us, experience this at some point over the course of our lives – the feeling of someone we know, someone we trust, letting us down, not living up to, perhaps, their highest or even a sense of certain decency, and we become the unwitting victim of that betrayal or those actions. And then, of course, on the other side, we also propagate the betrayal. We may propagate it ourselves, we may be the betrayer, we may have betrayed someone, in some way. There are many levels to betrayal. There are small betrayals, and then there are big, huge ones.
So how do we transform it? Well, obviously, we have to consider the field of forgiveness. The field of forgiveness, that’s the question here, that’s the purpose of betrayal, you could even say. So let’s start with that, a central view that there is a purpose, a higher purpose, to this whole business of betrayal. It’s not just that we’re a victim, either betraying or being betrayed, but that we have something really valuable to learn, something extraordinary, something even transcendent. So I’d like to invite you to look at betrayal as an opportunity and as even a gift, even though it won’t feel like that, probably, at least not at the beginning. But if you talk or listen to those who have truly forgiven their betrayers, you see in their eyes an extraordinary light, an extraordinary transcendence. There are stories all over by those who have forgiven the most outrageous, despicable acts, people who have seen their sons and children or parents murdered before their very own eyes in cold blood, in terrible ways sometimes. And then there are people who have managed to forgive those acts, truly in their heart of hearts, and have even taken those betrayers into their lives in some way.
Betrayal as an oportunity and a gift
I’m thinking of that story of Gandhi, when in the violent and turbulent times that the Muslims and the Hindus were fighting and battling it out, how a Muslim came to him, distraught that he’d killed a child, a Hindu child, he’d murdered a child. And he himself was a father. And Gandhi sat him down and empathised with him. This man was in a terrible state, as you can imagine. He’d realised the vastness of the act that had happened. And Gandhi said, ‘I have a solution for you. You must go out, and you must find a child or one of your own children, and you must raise them as a Hindu.’ And it was a beautiful, beautiful solution. The very source of the hatred, this difference in opinion and belief, was the very thing that Gandhi pointed that man to, that Muslim. ‘Bring him up as a Hindu, your child.’ And that would allow the man a journey of understanding and, perhaps, one day, forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and also, perhaps, forgiveness for others.
So, the journey of betrayal is an extraordinary journey. And wherever it sits inside you, just know that it’s a journey and that you can’t speed it up, that it has its own rhythm, it has its own phases. There are many things you can do. I mean, one of the best things you can do is just talk about it, just express it. Find ways to express the emotions inside you. And express them in a safe way. Express them, perhaps, even creatively, through some creative form. And really let them out onto the page, or onto the easel, or through your physical activity. Let them come out and spill out in a way that’s safe so that those feelings can be expressed.
The power of empathy
And then, the power of empathy really has to come in, because we have to try and put ourselves in the shoes of the other. We have to consider what level of wounding must that person have experienced in order to do something in the way that they have, in order not to see, in order not to feel the consequences of their actions. And we have to put ourselves in their shoes and really breathe ourselves into that and think, ‘Well, there must be something terrible that happened to that person, probably something that was done to them when they were very young.’ And that will help us understand the other person. And we can use our imagination in doing that. Imagination is a really powerful thing, the creative imagination, to imagine what might have happened to them. And let your intuition guide you – what might have happened to them? They may not even know. Many times things are done to us when we’re very, very young. We have experiences, and we don’t remember them. Our bodies remember them, our cellular memory has it, but it’s not in our conscious access. So we behave according to those wounds, and sometimes we don’t even know why we behave in the way we do. And our hearts have closed, and so we live out these same wounds that have been propagated upon us.
And this path of betrayal, whichever side you’re on, it’s a path into this wounding, into this core human wounding. It’s a lifetime’s journey. A deep betrayal is a lifetime’s journey – to learn to forgive, to really ease yourself into that forgiveness. And it requires an act of will. You’ve really got to want to let go. Because if you’re holding on to that, it just festers inside you. If you can’t find the forgiveness at some level inside you, if you can’t let that person go, at some level, if you can’t empathise, then you’re going to carry that your whole life as a hook that connects you to that person. So, if you want to be truly free of that person and that act, you have to let it go. And so, that alone, that realisation, should supply you with the will to follow the journey. To seek help, guidance, empathy, solace in someone else, someone who will really listen to you, someone who will really help you. Perhaps they’re professional, perhaps they’re just a deep, big-hearted, wise person – we all know someone like that, or most of us. And I would counsel going and talking to them, and they may help you frame things in a different way. Often, it’s the people who’ve suffered and healed their suffering who are the greatest healers, the ones who are vulnerable. If you find someone who feels vulnerable and strong as well, then that’s a really good person to share these burdens with if they’re willing to go there with you.
Releasing karmic hooks
So, yes, it’s quite a journey, but it’s an amazing journey, whichever side of the fence you’re on. If you are the one who has betrayed – I speak from experience in this realm, I have betrayed people, I’ve betrayed those I love in various ways in my life – then, obviously, from that side, you have to find self-forgiveness. And, in a way, if you are the betrayed, the best form of, let’s say, revenge is to forgive the other person. If you are the betrayer, you have to let go of being forgiven by the other. That is not a requisite for your journey. It would be a wish, of course, you would wish to be forgiven, but it’s not up to the other person to forgive you. It’s up to you to come through that guilt, that shame, that process, that journey, let it go, move on, forgive yourself. That’s a life’s journey in itself. And often, what that does is it brings up a journey where you really wish to better yourself, you really wish to do better next time. And that can be a really positive thing. ‘For a start, I don’t ever want to do that again to someone. But if they don’t forgive me, then OK, what’s the most I can do? I can help others. I can just serve others. I can pay it off in some way.’ Because these things are karmic. We carry them, these burdens on our shoulders, they’re karmic. And so you can actually pay it off through benevolence, through goodness, through serving the whole in some way. And in that sense, every betrayal can lead to something beautiful, can lead to grace. It really can lead to grace.
And if you’re the betrayed, then to be free of that act, to be free of that memory, to forgive that other person – what a revenge that is! What a revenge! And for them to know you’ve forgiven them. Because it then puts that act squarely on their shoulders because you’ve let go, you’ve released it. And the power of that, in terms of the effect it will have on the betrayer, is extraordinary – it’s extraordinary. It forces them to look at themself, in some way. They’re no longer bound to you. You see, the betrayer and the betrayed, it’s a karmic hook. If one of them doesn’t let go, then the hook remains. And at a mystical level, you stay connected, you stay energetically connected, you can never be free of each other’s memory. So, one of you has to let go, and then both can heal and let go, in some way. And the way in which that happens is a mystery.
The thickest wounds provide the greatest rewards
So, I offer it to you here today, just some ideas, some thoughts about how you may follow this journey of betrayal. And I empathise with you, I really do, and as I said at the beginning, I think it’s a really rich field for growth, for spiritual evolution. It’s about what it is to be a human. Humans make mistakes. We learn from them, hopefully. Sometimes we don’t learn the first time, sometimes we have to do it several times to really get it. And each of us has to find a way to let go and to forgive. And forgive doesn’t mean you have to then become that person’s friend or anything. You don’t even have to tell them. You just have to know inside you that you forgive them. It’s not up to you to let them know. You forgive – you forgive yourself, you forgive the other – and you move into that spirit of forgiveness. And the grace that can come to you – the transcendence, the light, the love – what that can open in your life and in your heart is extraordinary. Extraordinary. The thickest wounds provide the greatest rewards.
So, good luck in your journey. I wish you well, and I wish you much grace.
