Overcoming the Myth of Betrayal and Abandonment

Betrayal and abandonment are tremendous themes that I notice in my counseling practice and the trainings I’ve been conducting for over 27 years. I have worked with thousands of people who feel they have been betrayed by someone that they were very close to: partner, lover, boss, sister, brother, best friend, family member, parent, or child. One of the most amazing things that happened in these 27 years was when I taught a very large course in Darlana, Sweden, the home of St. Nicholaus, the Swedish version of Santa Claus. I found in that training that at least half the people had the feeling their mother or father had abandoned them. This was a town that was strongly dedicated tremendously to family values and Christmas, had no movie theater, and stores closed on Saturday at 1pm and opened again on Monday morning. When the theme of this training became abandonment, I realized there was more to the process than what the evidence in the world showed. When I became a student of the Course in 1990 I realized that the feelings of abandonment and betrayal I saw everywhere were really the feeling that we had abandoned and betrayed God and chosen this ego world of specialness and special bodies.

I believe that no one I have ever met personally remembers this choice of specialness and choosing to come to this ego world, yet everyone I know has some form of feeling that someone has abandoned or betrayed them. I have done thousands of Clearings, particularly about abandonment and betrayal. One thing I can say about these Clearings is that everyone thinks it is the other person who abandoned or betrayed them. They have lots of evidence that supports their story. One of the reasons we have so much of this going on in the world is our lack of 100% communication. We think we are communicating to people, but most of us are communicating what we think, feel and believe at a 20% level. Therefore there is a lot of ambiguity, confusion and misinterpretation about what they said and what you said, going on constantly. It seems like we are afraid to totally communicate, because if we did, we wouldn’t have a reason to attack in the form of betrayal and abandonment and we would be freer in our lives. We want to have the attack in our lives as a form of power over other people. Guilt has amazing power over the people we love.

In the last 3 months I have had the opportunity to do 2 family clearings, in which every member cleared with every other member. This took many hours. In listening to the comments of all the members when they finally heard what each person felt and thought and what they think happened and what was said, I saw again how little people actually communicate with each other. These people had been living in the same house for years and never really said anything real or total in the form of communication.

This fear of communication is especially evident in all the couples I work with who are going through divorce and legal battles. Some of these legal cases have cost them more than $100,000 but were completely resolved in 10 hours of clearing where we do all the forgivenesses of what was misinterpreted. A person hires a lawyer for a large amount of money to do everything that they could do themselves because they are afraid of communicating, and believe that no one will listen, no one cares, and the other person will not receive them, ever. One of my greatest joys in life is to see all parties fully communicate, and realize there is nothing to be upset about in the first place – nothing to forgive – it was all one big misperception between two ego minds. No one can do for you what you are not willing to do for yourself, and this is especially true in the world of communication. In any upset or misinterpretation, I can ask myself – “have I said everything here that I need to say with nothing left out?” this includes what I think happened and what it meant to me and all my perceptions and interpretations about the situation I developed in reaction.

More than 20 years ago I had the pleasure of working with Ralph Baker who was one of my clients. He was known as the Love Lawyer. He wrote a book, and in it he said “I will only help you with your divorce if you can fully tell me with truth that you love your partner, tell me all about the process of loving your partner and come back to full love with them.” I thought of course this was a brilliant idea; that people must be complete with their love, including feeling of abandonment and betrayal before their divorce or parting separate ways.

The only danger of taking the Clearing course if you are getting divorced is that you might get back together again. This is especially dangerous if you are married to a new person!

One of the greatest themes I also clear is the Will theme; who got what in the inheritance and why they got it. This brings up huge betrayal and abandonment if a person thinks they didn’t get what they deserved in the final act of their family member. I cannot tell you how many people I watch fight over thousands of dollars and end up spending it all just to settle it through the law. This Will betrayal could have been handled by Clearing every misinterpretation they had through forgiveness.

I have a friend / client who fought for years over the money that was left by her mother to her and her sister. After 5 years and hundreds of hours of attack and defense, there was only about $3000 left. I have another client and friend whose first and second wives are still fighting over what was left ambiguously in his will. The second wife was asked what she wanted, and she said “I don’t need anything,” but proceeded to fight for equality with the first wife. I believe to this day they are still fighting over this. We are not willing to ask for what we want, exactly and specifically. When we know what we want, we feel too guilty to ask.

We are all writing in our ego minds the movies, or “scripts” of our lives. We must commit to ourselves that we will recognize the payoffs and benefits we receive when we hold on to ego beliefs about who we are. What am I getting by holding on to the belief that I have been betrayed? I am able to feel victimized. I am able to blame others. I am able to get sympathy. I am able to project guilt I have on to others. These are BIG benefits in the ego’s mind, but are really just suppressing the truth of who you really are. So I must ask myself: Do I want to be RIGHT about being betrayed, or do I want to be HAPPY?

In closing, I will say after writing about betrayal, I can see how important to myself and everyone else that we demonstrate, by living it, that betrayal is not the TRUTH of who we are. You cannot betray God; once we remember this, there is no reason to project that betrayal on to others. We can give up the attack and defense game for the sake of our freedom and peace through the forgiveness process. I commit to doing this myself and sharing it with everyone I meet. I ask that you join me in this purpose.