Betrayal

Betray:–verb (used with object)
1. to deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty
2. to be unfaithful in guarding, maintaining, or fulfilling: to betray a trust.
3. to disappoint the hopes or expectations of; be disloyal to: to betray one's friends.
4. to reveal or disclose in violation of confidence: to betray a secret.
5. to reveal unconsciously (something one would preferably conceal): Her nervousness betrays her insecurity.
6. to show or exhibit; reveal; disclose: an unfeeling remark that betrays his lack of concern.
7. to deceive, misguide, or corrupt: a young lawyer betrayed by political ambitions into irreparable folly.
8. to seduce and desert.

I've been musing upon the subject of betrayal. I had a conversation with someone recently and she said, "You have been betrayed. Repeatedly." I heard the words with my ears. I heard the words as if disconnected from my ears to the rest of me. I've been thinking about it in the back of mind for a week. It's strange to know that something is true. But to know it is true is one thing and to believe and understand what it means is quite another thing. And I believe I need to understand it so I can allow myself to heal the wounds of it. It's like denial, my old friend. Actually, denial is a friend I would like to break up with! Oh, I know it's had its protective purposes all these years, but it's really not doing me much good these days.

So, I think the two definitions most appropos at this time are numbers seven and eight. To deceive, misguide or corrupt being number seven. It takes me back to a time so very long ago, when, as a very young child, I totally immersed myself in belief and faith as taught by a group of people that believed they had the right to speak for God.  And speak for God they most certainly did! Impressionable and eager to please the Divine and trusting the guidance and direction they gave, I learned my lessons well. Anything that they said Jehovah wouldn't like or that would displease him was something I used all my considerable power to root out. I got so good at it, it was like a fuse would be blown if something deemed unacceptable crept into my view. My personality was deformed this way. My identity was defined by pleasing or displeasing the God they defined for me. Yet....yet....all the while, deep inside me, there was a little soldier clinging to personal truth and she did battle with all the greater energies surrounding her. Brave little thing! Still drawn to all the so called undesireables. Still open to diversity and color and the hidden things. Yet, still it made me sick, weakened me, defeated me. Made me pathetic and ineffectual, righteous overmuch, judging others with this shield of faith that wasn't really faith at all. It was all misdirection. It was all faulted and full of holes...and all this time I thought it was ME that was faulty and full of holes. And they called it The Truth, a barrier to any other belief by default.

The thing of it is, to have your mind manipulated and coerced from infancy really fucks you up. It fucks up the way you see the world and yourself in relation to every other living thing. It takes so much energy to reprogram yourself. And I don't trust anyone. I don't trust. Yet....I have been learning to reconnect to my personal truth found in the center of my soul...the Truth I brought in with me when I was born into this life, this body, this time. I understand that all I have been through is not in vain. All that I have been through has made me who I am. And who I am is fundamentally the same Soul Energy I have always been. In view of this, I want to relinquish the betrayals to the Universe and its infinite power. That's the thing about betrayal....it isn't always done on purpose. It still mangles the mind. It still fucks with your sense of self; your sense of belonging. Everything happens for a reason. To perfect our Souls? To expand the experience of the Soul? I honestly don't know and no matter what I read or hear, I am skeptical and claim no belief as absolute. I never want to be closed minded ever again. I don't ever want to judge another human being the way I once did. Oh, they can judge me all they want to. It has no effect anymore. I just don't give a shit. I just want to open my mind, my heart, to the depths of my very soul, to my core and release all the pain and disappointment...the betrayals, in all their tortured, ugly, misshapen ridiculousness....even trying to find the right words to express this inexpressible expression...it amuses me and that's a good sign....a very good sign.

 In humor, in love, in light, in beauty, in surviving and thriving and being and becoming and discovering...in so many ways, it's as if life has just begun. Life is, indeed GOOD!

Screw number 8! It just doesn't matter.