The Worst Thing After Betrayal Is Betraying Yourself

Watch the full episode: Master Your Mind EP15 – Turning Betrayal into Fuel

Betrayal is part of life. You can be the most loyal, honest person in the room and still get it. What you do next is the part you control, and it's where most of us go wrong.

Betrayal is not a verdict on your worth

For a long time I believed I kept getting betrayed because that was my lot in life, that I wasn't worth treating properly. That belief did more damage than any single betrayal, because it kept the cycle running.

Betrayal is a judgment of their character, not yours. You can't be upset with yourself for failing to see the depths other people will go to when you aren't capable of going there yourself.

The second betrayal

The worst thing that can happen after being betrayed is betraying yourself.

The hurt from the first betrayal has no shortcut. Nothing soothes it except time. But if you let it send you spiralling, abusing substances, abusing other people, becoming someone you're not, you've made a bad situation worse.

I've been betrayed recently, and the betrayal itself was no different from the ones in my past. The result was completely different, because I didn't let it dictate my behaviour. I reflected on how I'd reacted before, and made a conscious decision not to react that way again. I'm not saying I've been perfect at it every time. There have been times I've been betrayed and spiralled and used substances or done the wrong thing by other people. I'm not acting like I'm pure and innocent here. But through honest self-reflection, looking at my actions, seeing where I've dropped the ball, and being honest enough to acknowledge the times I could have done a lot better, I've watched myself become a better person every time. Someone doing the wrong thing by me doesn't give me the right to stoop to their level. That's a hill I'll die on.

You can't be betrayed by an enemy

Betrayal only holds weight when it comes from someone you loved deeply. That's why it cuts so deep, and why what you do with it matters. I wouldn't be who I am, or have built what I've built, without it.

I understand that you're scared of getting hurt again. I'm scared of getting hurt again, and I'm not too afraid to admit that. But turning betrayal into fuel starts with refusing to let the past dictate how you show up in the present. If I give fifty percent so I won't get hurt, I'm no longer governed by myself. I'm governed by people who hurt me years ago, and the person who pays for that is me, along with whoever is in my life today.

Be solid on your own

I'll repeat this as many times as it takes: until you're solid on your own, the risk of betrayal will always carry more weight than it deserves. People in the dating game who entertain multiple people are usually too scared to focus on one in case it fails and they have to be on their own again. Because of the times they've been betrayed, they're not solid on their own. It's taken me years to get here, and I don't want to come across as perfect, but when I'm pursuing a woman I only pursue one. I'm governed by self. I wouldn't like someone to do it to me, so I don't do it to someone else, and I'm one hundred percent solid on my own. If it doesn't pan out, I'm okay going back to the drawing board and being on my own. There's no pressure, because I'm okay.

When you let betrayal affect your self-worth, which I've done and we've all done, you retreat from society and abandon your goals, dreams and aspirations because you take on the belief that you were replaced by someone better, or that you're not worthy of love. All of those beliefs come from someone else's actions, and they're what stop you living a full and happy life. Because I've been betrayed so many times and had to be on my own so many times, it created a beast within me, not a snake. Even at my worst, I've never turned around and repeated the same behaviour back to someone who did it to me, and I'm very, very proud of that.

Time on your own, with no support network for a time, shows you what you're capable of. When I had no one to turn to and had to be my own corner, that's when I made the most progress and growth, the most money and the biggest changes, and I became absolutely relentless in the pursuit of my goals and dreams, because I learned not to need anyone. Before that gets spun into something it's not, I don't mean you should actively not have people in your life. I have good people in my life now, but they're there as a bonus. It's an additive to me already being solid on my own. They aren't the foundation.

It's the same in a romantic sense. When you choose someone from a place of being solid on your own, it isn't a requirement for a happy life and it doesn't define who you are. It's a beautiful addition to who you are, and that, in my opinion, is the only way to live a happy life. There is such a thing as healthy attachment, but the only place it can come from is being whole on your own. There's no way around that.

What does that look like? If it all fell apart tomorrow, The Unbroken Mind, I ran out of money, no one wanted my products or my one-on-one coaching, the whole thing went down in flames, I could still walk away with my head held high, because I'm still solid on my own. I don't need The Unbroken Mind or the money or the people it's brought into my life to define who I am. I'm wholeheartedly thankful for it all, but I don't need it to survive. The same goes for a long-term partner when the time comes: I genuinely want to share my life with one woman and be happy doing that, and it's one of my life goals, but I don't need that relationship to define who I am or to give me a reason to wake up in the morning and give my life a hundred percent. There's a vast difference between the two, and only one is healthy.

Don't try to understand why

I'm not going to sugarcoat this: there's absolutely no point in trying to understand why you were betrayed. I've spent a hell of a long time trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense, and you will burn enormous mental energy trying to make sense of actions that don't make sense, because you aren't capable of them. If you resonate with this, you're probably a good, kind person who does the right thing, because you're the only one who can get betrayed.

There's a woman who shares a reel, and I can't remember her name, that says only honourable men feel shame. If you're feeling shame for loving too much, investing too much, or being there for someone who wasn't there for you, that's not a reflection of your character. It's a great reflection of your character, and a reflection of how bad theirs is. Anyone having a person like you in their life is a blessing, and you can't let that blessing go because of someone else's actions.

Just because you missed it doesn't make you stupid or naive. It shouldn't turn you into someone who doesn't have faith that there are good people out there, because there are thousands of them, and I'm lucky enough to be meeting them as we speak. We all come from the same background of being betrayed, forgotten about and left behind. That's why we connect.

Another hill I'll die on is that the betrayal has turned me into someone who needs next to nothing to go about life, chase their dreams and be successful, because I don't care about the actions of other people anymore. I take their actions as facts, and then I put it to bed and move on with my life. I know some of you aren't there yet, and that's fine. I was stuck in that loop too: why did they do this, did I choose the wrong person? If you take one thing out of this, drop that right now. The quicker you accept that this is your reality, the better. Forget the words. The actions have shown you exactly what their character is like, exactly who they are. Believe it. Whether you're right or wrong doesn't matter. You have enough facts in front of you to put yourself first, and use this out of spite if you have to. Turn yourself into the person it doesn't matter whether you get betrayed or not. You keep moving forward regardless.

Suppressing it isn't dealing with it

Staying busy so it looks like you're coping isn't processing. We all know the "let's look really busy, let's look like it's not affecting us" routine, but deep down we know it is. And collapsing into it isn't dealing with it either. Both need to happen. It's a fine line, but the way I've learned to navigate it is: do not stop, stay busy, but actively devote time to stop and allow yourself to be sad, angry and hurt, because those emotions are valid.

Keep moving and focus on things that move the needle. Then carve out a block of time, an hour or two, to sit with it. Look at old photos or reread old messages if you need to. It's a balance between stopping and allowing versus getting sucked down a black hole that chews up weeks and months of your life, where you betray yourself and let the act become another act of betrayal. You'll find the waves come less often, and the time blocks get shorter each time. You'll also become proud of yourself for getting up in the morning and continuing on with your life.

I'm big on not suppressing things, especially us as men. It's a common fallacy that we're supposed to be unbothered, detached and feel nothing. I spoke about this in the masculinity video, and it's the wrong approach. Being a man doesn't mean you're not allowed to feel things. You're allowed to cry. You're allowed to mourn the future you thought you might have. But you also have a life to live. You have parents who most likely put everything into getting you where you are, and whether you have siblings or kids, all of those people in your life, you owe it not only to yourself but to them to live the best possible life you can, regardless of what's going on around you.

The most important part of all this is focusing on what you need to do to keep living your life, move forward, try new things, meet new people and get out of your comfort zone, while carving out active time to stop and feel everything.

If you're going through this now, my DMs are always open, and there are courses, PDFs and plenty more on the site to help you move through it. In the coming weeks, hopefully, I'm going to have a community dedicated to people going through traumatic experiences and betrayal, and how to move forward with life. It's going to be a place that's not governed by an algorithm or social media, a place governed by me, where people like us can meet others going through or who've been through similar things. You can reach out for reassurance, you can remain anonymous, and you can ask questions or see how others have dealt with similar situations. We can start helping each other, rather than tearing each other down, to become better, healthier individuals, both mentally and physically.

Previous: Isolation (EP14)