At some point in our lives, most of us endure the unfortunate experience of being betrayed by someone close to us. As a therapist, I often hear from clients whose partners have cheated on or left them, who’ve gotten fired out of the blue, or have had a loved one lie about alcohol use or other addictions.

And I’ve experienced my own betrayals, including an adored mentor I completely trusted who turned on, gossiped and lied about me.

No matter what form it takes, betrayal is devastating.

How do we heal these deep wounds when they occur?  How do we learn to trust again and regain our sense of safety? And how do we recognize if a similar situation might happen again?

Here’s are some clear steps we can take after a betrayal to heal ourselves and reconnect with our intuition.

1. Express your pain. Often, a betrayal is so embarrassing that we hold it in—this is especially common when a partner has an affair or addiction. But trying to manage this sort of pain alone in our own minds is virtually impossible. If you can’t talk to a friend or family member, find a good therapist. Holding that betrayal inside us just isn’t healthy for us, and it hinders our healing.

 

2. When we discover that something we thought was true isn’t, we go through a grieving process. But while we’re grieving what was, we want to be mindful that we’re not tying that grief to all kinds of stories, because that can keep us stuck. The stories that we build around what happened to us can amplify the emotions and make the betrayal feel even worse than it is—for example, we might create a story that because our partner betrayed us, we’re not good enough. In grieving, we set aside the stories and simply allow the emotions to surface and move through us.

 

3. Reconnect with yourself. When we’re betrayed, we tend to blame the other person. It’s important to bring the focus back on ourselves. Journaling, creating artwork and spending time in nature or with friends can all be helpful self-care tools. When we’re in that awful betrayed place, we’re living from the chin up, trying to understand what happened. Now, we want to start to drop down into our body, into our heart. This is where our intuition is. As we move forward, we want to make decisions from our hearts and our intuition rather than from our mind.

 

4. Drop the suitcase. When we make betrayals part of our life story, it’s like we’re carrying around a cement suitcase. We need to choose to carry it with us or move on. I’m not saying that we forget about the betrayal, but rather we decide to not constantly lug it around. If it feels scary to drop the suitcase, we can ask ourselves Is there a message I haven’t yet gotten about the betrayal? Is there anything else I need to learn from what happened?

 

5. Set boundaries. Next, we want to slow down and get in touch with what we need our boundaries to be. If we’re continuing the relationship with the person who betrayed us, we need to ask: What do I need from that person? Once we’re clear on what we need, we can tell other person.

 

6. Reach for trust. If we decide to stay in a relationship with someone who’s betrayed us, we eventually need to begin trusting the person again. If we’ve been betrayed, it’s common for us to miss the good in the other person by hyper-focusing on the betrayal. To counteract this tendency, we need to be open and pay attention when that person does something positive. Shift the focus to questions like: Is this person showing me I can trust them? Are they respecting my boundaries? Are they doing what they say they’re going to do? If we’re always looking in the past, we’re going to miss the trustworthy behavior. This takes a leap of faith, but it’ a crucial step.

 

7. Take it one day at a time. When we’re healing from betrayal, it’s important to not get stuck in the past or venture too far in the future. The best way we can figure out if we’ll be betrayed again is to stay present and connected to our own intuition. There’s no guarantee it won’t happen again, but if we’re connected to ourselves and staying present, there’s a better chance we’ll notice if something’s off in the relationship.

 

By taking these healing steps, we can survive the painful experience of betrayal.