The Only Thing You Need To Do To Trust Again After Betrayal

Once you have been betrayed by someone you really believed in, you will wonder how you can ever trust anyone ever again. Betrayal can come from a parent, a partner, a friend. People are very good at showing you only what they want you to see and when you get blindsided by someone you trusted, you might find yourself doubting everyone around you. How did you not see it? What were the signs? Are you just dumb? How could you be so naive? Suddenly you’re suspicious of everyone’s motives and wondering if everyone is hiding something.

I am here to tell you, it IS possible to trust again after betrayal. And there is only one thing you need to do. Learn to trust yourself.

When your trust is shaken by someone you respect and love, defenses go up. We don’t want to experience that kind of pain again, so we try to make sure we are one step ahead.

“If I don’t ever trust him in the first place, he can’t hurt me”

“If I’m vigilant, I will see the signs before I can be blindsided”

“I’ll keep my walls up so no one can get my trust, then they can’t disappoint me”

This makes sense in theory-you can’t be hurt if you’re not vulnerable. The flaw in that logic is that you can’t truly love and be loved in a deep and fulfilling way without vulnerability and trust. If you’ve been hurt, it’s scary to put yourself in a position to experience that again. It goes against every instinct you have. It’s a choice-and one you need to make if you want to have true relationships with others.

The best part-there is only one thing that you have to do to be able to open yourself up to trusting again.

Learn to trust YOURSELF.

When someone has hurt you through betrayal of any kind, you lose trust in yourself. You question your judgment. You feel like a fool. However, being betrayed wasn’t caused by you at all. In fact, it most likely had nothing to do with you in the first place. It had to do with the person that did the betraying. It’s not yours to own.

Learning to trust yourself again takes time and practice. Here are a few truths to rememeber as you go through the process:

Your intuition always tells the truth.

When you’ve been betrayed, many times you can look back and think of times when your intuition was telling you something was off. It may have been a flutter in your stomach, a puzzled thought that you let go of, or just a subtle feeling that something was off. As you tune into your intuition and begin to recognize when its sending you information, you will learn that it will never lead you astray.

Your experience is a teacher.

Experience is probably the greatest teacher we have. Experiences-good and bad-move us forward in our growth. When you have experienced betrayal, you learn. You learn to spot the signs of mistruths, you learn characteristics of people that are not being authentic, you learn small tells. Experience gives you the information you need so that you won’t repeat the same mistakes. Rely on your experience. Take everything you can from it and apply it moving forward.

You will be ok.

After you have been through something difficult, like betrayal, you learn how capable you really are. You faced a fear and you made it through. Now you are stronger and more prepared for challenges. You have the ability to adapt and you see more clearly what you will and won’t accept in your life. If you own your experience and know that if the worst does happen and you do experience betrayal again you will be ok, you are empowered to let go and trust.

You don’t have any control over anyone else.

It’s freeing knowing that you can’t control anyone else. People are going to do people things and that is their journey to walk. It doesn’t mean you aren’t affected by others, it just means that they own their choices and you own yours. When you learn the power of controlling what you can control and letting the rest go, fear dissolves and you allow yourself to be open to being vulnerable and loved.

Choosing to trust again after you’ve been broken is not easy. It takes work-but when you understand that trusting others is really about trusting yourself again-refining your intuition, tapping into your experience and using the lessons you’ve learned, and knowing that you can handle anything that comes your way-that’s when you know that the power doesn’t belong to the people that betrayed you along the way-but the power was always yours.