Self-Betrayal; Learn To Say Yes To You
Have you ever noticed how easily you say no to yourself?
“I can’t sit down and relax with so much to get done” “I shouldn’t eat that; I haven’t been to the gym in ages.” “I can’t voice my anger about this, it’ll just upset people.” “Surely she didn’t mean that, I must have gotten the wrong idea and shouldn’t make an issue of this.” And on and on and on.
And have you observed the parameters for when you *might sorta kinda* say yes to yourself? “I’ll take that relaxing bath tonight IF I get the kitchen sink scrubbed and school lunches packed first.” “After I get my workout in, I’ll treat myself to that iced coffee drink.” “I’ll talk to my partner about the way I’ve been feeling, but if he gets upset I’ll just drop it.” “Instead of asking for the raise I want, I’ll put in a ton of unpaid extra work to perfect this report and assume my boss will notice.” See how this is just a form of saying no and betraying your own needs and emotions, of not fully saying yes and choosing you?
It’s easy to tell yourself that the reason you put others before yourself is because you’re a good, unselfish person or because it’s just more peaceful for everyone if you do or because it doesn’t really bother you to come last all that much. The truth is, it’s scary to express your needs and wants. It requires three things:
to know yourself well enough to even know what would fulfill you
that you feel worthy of receiving what you want and
that you feel safe, secure and confident in honoring space for yourself- to actually express your needs and wants to others.
Saying YES to yourself is vital. Because saying NO is almost always a self-betrayal.
When you say no by not honoring your thoughts, feelings, and authentic experience, you’ve betrayed your Purpose. One of the most common things I hear from new clients is that they feel bogged down by the details of life. They’re happy enough, but not really joyful. They have lots of friends and a full social calendar but feel disconnected and stuck in surface-level relationships. They’re crazy busy with work and home life but feel adrift, unfocused, and unfulfilled.
They tend to assume there’s something wrong with them, that they need to buck up and figure out how to be happy and fulfilled while living their life for everyone else. The real issue is that there’s something imbalanced with how and where they invest themselves. The separation they feel from themselves isn’t a bad thing- in fact, it’s exactly the right thing. It’s a trigger the body-mind sends to invite a turn inward. This invitation is an opportunity to align with what’s happening on the inside. To actually live out your Purpose.
When we self-betray, it’s often in small ways.
But it adds up. Turning off the signals your intuition is sending up, talking yourself out of what you know is best for you, refusing to see things as they are in favor of sugar-coating {I call this glitter-spackling}, or carrying an internal world very much at odds with your external self…. These are all self-betrayals. They’re reactions that pull us out of identifying with ourselves and keep us stuck being externally-directed, exhausted, and overwhelmed.
Keep this up, and symptoms escalate as your Being tries to get your attention to resolve what’s happening inside. Symptoms show up first in your emotional, mental, spiritual, and energetic bodies. By the time they turn physical, you’ve ignored a host of warning-lights. You’ve self-betrayed in ways big and small for too long. You may not even see it in yourself. But I bet you feel it.
The physical consequences of self-betrayal can become big challenges.
One place- there are others- I commonly see self-betrayal show up in the physical body is in the jaw or TMJ {temporal mandibular joint}. Pain or clicking in the jaw, clenching at night and even waking from the tension is one signal that you’re literally forcing your mouth shut, refusing to speak authentically. Often there’s referred pain in the SI joint {sacroiliac} that might include numbness, tingling, or pressure in the sacral area, and can contribute to hip and leg weakness or pain.
The underlying energetics must be addressed.
That’s because there’s a natural energetic exchange that occurs between the TMJ and the SI joint (left TMJ to right SI joint and vice versa, in a cross-body pattern).
Think about it- of course repression shows up most often in the jaw and pelvis. After all, we express ourselves (or not) verbally and sexually. Seems pretty accurate, right?
When imbalance in speaking your truth, either to yourself or others, becomes your go-to pattern, this natural flow is disrupted and energetic stagnancy occurs along this exchange route. Eventually, physical issues in both areas or anywhere in between can occur.
When honoring and expressing yourself feels safe, the physical complaints that have occurred along this energy reciprocal are often greatly reduced or eliminated. The work is in uncovering why there’s a pattern of self-betrayal in expressing your thoughts and feelings- these patterns can be hard to spot because they’ve been in place since early childhood and simply feel like your normal. It’s tricky because the pattern has been useful in many ways. Maybe keeping quiet has brought you peace, acceptance, or security that speaking up wouldn’t have. And putting yourself last has made you valuable and helpful to others, which can feel like a good thing because it secured love, respect, and acceptance.
The journey in learning to say yes to yourself is to disengage from patterns of self-betrayal and find safety in expressing and honoring yourself fully. The pattern of self-betrayal was once adaptive and helpful but is now maladaptive for the person you are and are becoming.
Acknowledging and releasing that patterning and all the underlying belief systems it entails gives you empowered and intentional direction that literally changes how you move in the world. Start with clear and intentional communication with yourself. You’ll soon be expressing yourself more authentically, showing up to relationships as your best self. And your physical body won’t need to alert you about outdated programs and patterns with imbalanced symptoms anymore.
