I Was Betrayed

November 14, 2012

I was betrayedI was betrayed by others in my life, I have betrayed others, and I have betrayed myself. Betrayal is a truly awful feeling (one of the worst), no matter who is to blame.

I was Betrayed by a Contract with Myself

In executive coaching, I help clients investigate their core purpose. Their purpose is often dictated or clouded by a contract that they made with themselves when they were younger. These contracts–spoken or unspoken–can hold incredible power, even if they were made when the client was 10 or 11. Breaking these contracts feels like a betrayal of self–today’s self and all the selves they’ve been since they were the age they made the contract.

What contract did you make with yourself when you were younger? Do you still hold yourself to it? If so, why?

Sometimes the contracts we’ve internalized come not from ourselves, but our parents or other authority figures. Did your mother or father have an expectation for you that has become your own? You must be a “Good Person,” “Successful Person,” “Put everyone else first,” “Put yourself ahead of everyone else,” “Protect your brother”–you know the territory. These expectations can feel a lot like burdens if your inner self (or soul) feels betrayed whenever you stray.

The expectations we have for ourselves and others have for us aren’t written agreements, but they’re contracts  nonetheless. We feel bound to these whispers, ties, and binding elements. And yet something inside us says, “This is not me! This is not who I am!” Your body demonstrates your desire to rebel–either by becoming tired and sluggish or the opposite (restless and itchy). Beneath the rebellion, your inner voice is crying, “Mend my life.”

You may realize that you have, in fact, been living someone else’s life. Your footsteps are not your own. You have been dutifully fulfilling agreements that you shouldn’t have made or ought to have revisited and rejected long ago. You may want to blame those you made these bad deals with, but they may not have known that these promises would lead you away from your true self. Plus, blaming won’t move you forward.

If you’ve been betraying yourself or others, it’s time to establish a new contract–for your benefit and those you lead. Start by ranking and living according to your core values. And start valuing questions more and answers less. Take a page from the poet Rilke:

“I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”                   – Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke

 

Related Posts

Building Trust in Your Organization

90% of Employees Feel Betrayal Frequently

Trust Begins With You! What is Your Trust Score?

5 Questions to Ask to Build Trust

Reach your next peak

We help leaders expand the change they want to see in their teams, organizations, and the wider world.