Day 77- Self-Betrayal

 Still dealing with the fallout of self-betrayal as taking in beer that I wasn’t prepared to take in.

The “interesting” thing about real self-betrayal is that the regret, shame, anger, etc. that one experiences after such a moment are real. They don’t go away. They are like markers for your soul to make sure you have some takeaway from the experience that is so horrendous you never go there again. It sucks that it happened, but if you didn’t keep those negative emotions in relation to the experience of falling, you might not remember and you might not learn from the experience to make sure it doesn’t happen again. No amount of self-forgiveness can remove these emotions- they remain with you like scars from a physical trauma. And they are experienced like a physical trauma- it’s like the body’s way of telling you to never go there again. You wouldn’t do the thing that caused your body to collect a scar which could last a lifetime- it’s the same for when you betray yourself in absolute self-abuse. Within that moment, I lost a part of myself. I will never get that back, and so, I cannot simply wish away the remembrance of that moment of self-abuse. The lesson is deeper than a simply emotional or feeling reaction to a moment in my daily life- it’s more of at an existential/beingness level where I must remember what happened through the storage of the pain as a symbolic reminder of what I- and I alone- did to myself.

Normally, when walking a process of self-forgiveness, an emotional or feeling reaction to a situation indicates a point where I must do self-forgiveness for the mind-construct to ensure I don’t timeloop into that pattern again in the future. With this type of self-forgiveness, I actually release myself from the emotional or feeling reaction within which I participated, and there is a sensation of release there when done correctly. I feel lighter afterwards. In this sense, it is a benefit for releasing myself from a less-than-optimal pattern that proves to me that the self-forgiveness is effective and therefore worthwhile. 

With a total-beingness self-betrayal, it was me as who I really am within that moment choosing to abuse myself. It wasn’t a mind construct, so I can’t forgive it to let it go and get lighter. I must keep the pain as a reminder of what I did so I never, ever do it again. Because what I was given in that moment was an opportunity to choose to transcend the mind entirely, and I chose instead to go into the mind. That choice, which I made for and as myself, was not what was best for me and was in fact self-abusive. So, I carry the wounds from that choice with me so my beingness can remember to not do that again. I wouldn’t want to forget such an important  decision through self-forgiveness.