Have you ever let yourself down so badly that you don’t just feel disappointed, but betrayed by yourself? And even years later when you think about the memory, it makes you feel a bit hot and very nauseous. If so, it sounds like you may already know a bit about self-betrayal and how it impacts your self-worth. How you’re left with feelings of embarrassment, anxiety and guilt, and the lurching thoughts – did I really do that, how could I, what made me?
In the interests of honesty, and because an example makes everything easier to understand, I’ll go first. Here’s my tale of self-betrayal. It’s not nice and I’ve tried not to sugar coat it.
My experience of self-betrayl
I’d recently started a new job, and my new colleagues were a little aloof. They weren’t unfriendly or unkind. They just weren’t especially welcoming. I told myself it would all warm-up in time.
Coincidentally, an old friend of mine worked in an office just down the road. from my new office. She’d spent many years in a tempestuous relationship, but now it seemed the storms had cleared and she was getting married. I met her for lunch and she gave me the wedding invitation.
This invitation wasn’t just ivory card with black calligraphy. It was a whole pamphlet about their relationship. How they met when they were at high school, how they were fated to be together and how their path to true love had been plain sailing and destined.
The relationship I was reading about, has absolutely no resemblance to the one I’d spent years hearing about. The real one – where two people love each other but also have doubts. Where they’re compatible but also don’t want to have their freedom curtailed. Where they wonder whether to settle, or enjoy seeing other people for a while.
And it’s to my everlasting shame that I took this invitation to my new workplace, and showed it to my colleagues. And we laughed out loud at it’s soft focus photography, at the claimed ‘true love’ narrative, and the guileless needed to publish pages about yourself and your love affair.
It was shameful behaviour. And I still feel guilty about it now, because it goes against my values. I think of myself as a loyal friend who doesn’t talk badly about those she’s fond of.
Protecting ourselves from disappointment with yourself
Often bad decisions are made in the spur of the moment. When there is no time to check in with ourself. To examine the need we fill by gossiping about someone, or having an affair. Is it to feel accepted, validated, important? To fit in, to feel important? By taking a moment to check in with ourselves, we can make sure that we don’t overstep. Are we lonely, hungry, drunk, cold, angry? It’s so easy to make a choice that will provide comfort in the moment – only to spend years regretting it.
As Victor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
I’ve let myself down and I feel awful – but now what?
However bad you feel about self-betrayal, there’s little point in endlessly ruminating over it. That quickly becomes unhelpful. Here are a couple of recommendations to help get back in alignment.
- Self-compassion
I’ve written about the benefits of self compassion in a previous blog. But this can be an especially useful technique for managing feelings of self betrayal. A good place to start is to check your inner dialogue, and talk to yourself in the same way you’d talk to a close friend. It’s also worth separating yourself from your actions. This means accepting that although your behaviour wasn’t good, you’re not a bad person. Where you would try to forgive and understand a friend’s behaviour, try and do the same for yourself. Occasionally everyone gets stressed, scared or lonely, and acts in ways they wouldn’t normally. You are no less deserving of understanding and compassion because of this
2. Reaffirming your own values
Perhaps the only good things to come out of self-betrayal is that it clarifies exactly what your values are. If you were dishonest about a situation and now feel terrible, then one of your values may be honesty, integrity or justice.
Similarly, if you’ve betrayed another person then examinng what it was about them that made you angry/vengeful enough to do this can really pay dividends. For me, I can tolerate almost anything but I do struggle with inauthenticity. And there’s probably something similar for you which presses all your buttons.