I love you. The Invitation #6.

 Betrayal.

This chapter first point to betrayal of self, but first a reprise;

It doesn't interest me if the story you're telling me is true.

I want to know if you can 

disappoint another

to be true to yourself;

if you can bear the accusations of betrayal

and not betray your own soul;

if you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

Then betrayal of another... 

"It is uncomfortable when someone perceives us as breaking faith with past promises. Yet, if we live fully, it is inevitable that this will sometimes happen, because change is inevitable, and commitments, if they are to remain vital, must be remade and renewed. Often we protect ourselves from the knowledge of broken promises by pretending that nothing has changed."

"These are the choices we make, consciously or unconsciously, and yet ultimately, if we can be still enough with what is, we can find the place the Native American call Chui-ta-ke-ma, the place of choiceless awareness, the place where it is clear which choice is a choice for life, where we can make no other. Sometimes, to choose life, we must break agreements; sometimes we must keep them although they are hard to keep.

 

Tell me, can you do this? Can you make the choice that's for life even when that choice is hard, when doing so means others will see you as faithless? Can you make the choice without putting yourself or the other person- no matter who is the betrayed, who is the betrayer in this moment- out of your heart? This is what I want to know. This is what I want us to learn together, to teach each other in the way we hold each other when the choices are hard."

 

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer