A Reminder for When Someone Has Broken Trust
Last year I met a woman who I became friends with. It was a personal connection which formed entirely based upon where I was physically living. She lived in my neighborhood. Due to the close proximity, we ended up seeing each other frequently.
I was open hearted to her, and it seemed she was the same. I had gone out of my way to be supportive and kind, and to help her with a few things, because I saw a need and wanted to be of service in whatever ways I could. We struck up a friendship.
Trust Shattered
Then several months after we met I discovered she had done one of the worst things someone has ever done to me, with her actions flying in the face of all my personal values!
I’m not going to go into specifics of the situation for a very good reason. Because I have left it behind, and the “what” of the situation just appeals to the human desire to delve in and feed on drama, chaos and negativity, all of which I consciously choose every day not to have (or to entertain) in my life.
“B truly gave me the golden key with which I was able to rid myself of the blocks that prevented me from living a fulfilling, meaningful life.”
What I will say though, is that she completely and utterly broke my trust.
The point I want to make is this. In my work, which you’ll know well if you’ve been following me for some time, I share a lot about being peaceful, loving and/or compassionate in the face of life challenges and in the face of people who do not resonate with you (without this approach you limit your inner peace and sense of personal freedom).
When I discovered what this new person in my life had done, I took pause. I sat with my husband Aaron for many hours talking out what happened, and bringing perspective to the situation in a way that allowed me to make peace with it, to see what life was asking me to practise and learn from the situation, and to consider what in fact life may have been asking this woman to learn and experience as part of her life journey.
Back in the days before awakening to my own true nature (the same true nature that all of us have as souls), I would have been so mad, wound up in negative thoughts in my mind and I probably would have verbally let loose with my frustration.
But this challenge life had served up to me actually allowed me to see how far I’d come. Because the primary emotion I felt was quiet sadness. Sadness for her unconsciousness, and sadness for the loss of what I thought was a genuine human connection we had. I was focused more on the overall situation from a bigger picture perspective (curious and concerned about what happens inside of people to cause them to act in such ways), than I was on making this mean something about me or being personally affronted by it.
From that place, I felt quite calm, and that calm actually felt eerie.
“B truly gave me the golden key with which I was able to rid myself of the blocks that prevented me from living a fulfilling, meaningful life.”
While I consciously intend to practise peaceful response to life every day, in the back of my mind a little voice had often been saying to me that it was easy for me to be peaceful because I wasn’t facing any really nasty situations to trigger me. So when this difficulty arose in my life I saw very clearly that peaceful response really is possible even in the face of situations that you deem to be completely unacceptable.
Projecting Lack of Trust onto Others
So, there I was in my peacefulness. I put all my awareness on forgiveness, to untether myself energetically from her and to move on.
After a month or so had passed I felt reasonably free and released from it. I felt like I’d dealt with the situation really well.
But it didn’t take long for a new sinking realization to set in…
I didn’t trust anyone new that I was meeting!
Because of what had happened, even though I had peacefully responded and moved on from it, I was now viewing every new person that was showing up in my life through the eyes of “broken trust”.
Where my former approach with people had always been “I trust and respect you and will open my heart to you until such time as you show me any reason not to”, now my approach had been unconsciously flipped. I was wary. I had put walls up!
There were two things that helped me come to this realization…
- I felt uneasy and tense. I noticed my chest felt a little tighter. I felt a little more on edge around new people I was meeting. I didn’t feel as excited to let people into my life like I normally do. I had unconsciously started to feel like if one person could do that to me then anyone could do that to me, and therefore I better be on guard.
- Then, I was on Pinterest around the same time and the first image I saw at the top of my feed was this quote below from Gandhi. Words of wisdom weaving their way into my life exactly when they were most needed. It was a sign to wake me up:
Image courtesy of Namaste Dharma Cafe
Consciously Choosing to Remain Open Hearted
Once I realized this was what my mind had been doing, taking over my true soul nature and tarnishing all people with the same brush (which was complete and utter nonsense) I quickly re-oriented my perspective.
There is no point in missing out on the beauty of many people because of the unconsciousness of one person. She is not bad. She is not wrong. She is just unconscious. The only way to transform unconsciousness is to live from consciousness.
I invite you to rise as well.
- Has your trust been broken?
- Has your faith in humanity been dented?
- Will you forgive, as a gift to yourself, to drop baggage that doesn’t belong to you and set yourself free?
- What new perspective could you bring to the situation?
- What has the situation taught you? What wisdom will you carry forward with you now because of that situation?
Whenever you notice that you are on guard, self-protecting, putting up or keeping up high walls because of a hangover from some past moment haunting your present moment behaviour, I encourage you to remember…
You must view each moment of your life from now on as a window opening up to new possibilities, not affected by the past and not reflecting the past in any way, shape or form.
Your chosen perspective is what is creating it all – it creates your peace or it creates your pain.
With love, Bernadette
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“B truly gave me the golden key with which I was able to rid myself of the blocks that prevented me from living a fulfilling, meaningful life.”