Rebuilding Self-Trust After Betrayal
Self-Trust as a Garden
Self-trust is like a garden you cultivate within yourself. Just as a garden requires consistent care, patience, and nurturing to flourish, self-trust strengthens with each act of self-care and every promise you keep to yourself. Losing that trust can feel like a harsh overnight frost sweeping through, leaving your once-thriving garden brittle and lifeless.
However, even after the harshest winter, spring eventually arrives. While rebuilding self-trust can be slow and sometimes painful—much like coaxing new growth from frost-damaged plants—it is entirely possible. With patience, self-compassion, and honesty, new shoots of self-trust will emerge, potentially growing even stronger and more resilient than before.
Like planting seeds, every time you honor a commitment to yourself or trust your intuition, you nourish your inner garden. Over time, these small acts accumulate, fostering confidence and inner strength.
Betrayal and Self-Trust
Self-trust is the confidence in one’s own judgment, abilities, and intuition. It allows us to navigate life authentically, making choices aligned with our values. However, betrayal can shake this foundation, leading to intense reflection on our relationships—with ourselves and others.
In the aftermath, you may find yourself asking, “How did I not see this coming?” or questioning whether you can trust your instincts. You might feel constantly on guard, doubting both yourself and others. These responses—self-doubt, hypervigilance, and emotional overwhelm—are all symptoms of betrayal trauma.
Recognizing these reactions is key to healing. Betrayal trauma is real, and it often fosters persistent negative self-talk and a reluctance to trust our own instincts. The goal isn’t to eliminate these feelings overnight but to gradually rebuild self-trust and confidence.
Creating Safety and Trust in Your Body
A crucial step in restoring self-trust is reconnecting with your body’s signals. This involves distinguishing between intuition and trauma responses—two experiences that can feel alarmingly similar. Intuition typically manifests as a calm, knowing feeling, while a trauma response is often tied to past pain, triggering intense fear or anxiety.
Developing nervous system awareness can help you recognize how your body reacts to stress. You may experience thought spirals, intrusive memories, a racing heartbeat, muscle tension, or overwhelming emotions such as sadness, fear, or distrust. Learning to regulate these responses is essential for healing.
Try tuning into your body’s sensations without judgment. Mindfulness practices can help you observe your physical and emotional reactions with curiosity. Ask yourself: Is this response coming from a place of openness and clarity (intuition) or fear and past pain (trauma)? By making this distinction, you begin to rebuild a sense of trust in yourself.
Want to learn more about trauma and the body?
Self-Reflection: Boundaries & Self-Abandonment
Acknowledging that you were hurt by someone else’s choices is deeply painful. However, shifting from victimhood toward empowerment requires self-examination—not self-blame, but a deeper understanding of your patterns, boundaries, and choices to foster growth.
Setting and maintaining healthy boundaries is a vital part of rebuilding self-trust. Boundaries define what behaviors, interactions, and situations are acceptable to you. If you’ve struggled with boundaries in the past, that’s okay—realizing this is a sign of growth. Educate yourself on what healthy boundaries look like and why they matter. This knowledge will help you recognize past struggles and equip you with tools to create stronger boundaries moving forward.
Consider reflecting on these questions:
Did I compromise my boundaries along the way?
Were my boundaries ignored or manipulated by others?
How did I respond when my boundaries were challenged?
What is self-abandonment? Self-abandonment occurs when you consistently disregard your own needs, feelings, and boundaries to prioritize others. It can take many forms, including:
Dismissing your gut feelings
Invalidating your own reality
Consistently putting others’ needs before your own
Compromising your boundaries
Neglecting your own needs, values, and emotions
Recognizing these patterns is the first step toward breaking them.
While it’s important to acknowledge betrayal and pain, staying in a victim mindset can hinder healing. A victim mindset keeps us stuck in powerlessness, blaming others instead of focusing on what we can control. As you move past the initial shock, shifting your focus to what you can control—your boundaries, responses, and self-care practices—can be a powerful step forward.
Reconnect to Your Power
Rebuilding trust in your intuition after betrayal is like strengthening a muscle—it requires consistent practice, patience, and a willingness to start small. Here’s how you can approach this process:
Start Small. Make low-stakes decisions based on your gut feelings, like choosing what to eat or which route to take on a walk. These small choices help you rebuild confidence in your intuition.
Honor Your Commitments. Start with simple promises to yourself, such as taking a walk tomorrow. Treat it as a non-negotiable appointment. Every kept promise reinforces your reliability to yourself.
Reflect and Learn. After making a decision, ask:
How did this decision make me feel?
What was the outcome?
Did my intuition serve me well? Reflection strengthens the link between intuitive choices and their results.
Daily Intuition Check-In. At the end of each day, ask: When did I listen to my intuition today, and how did it go? Recognizing these moments, no matter how small, helps rebuild self-trust.
Embrace Learning Over Perfection. If things don’t go as expected, don’t punish yourself. Instead, ask: What can I learn from this? Growth comes from curiosity, not self-criticism.
Reconnecting with your power is essential in restoring self-trust. Every time you follow through on a commitment or honor your intuition, you plant another seed in your garden of self-trust. Over time, these small acts create a thriving landscape of inner confidence and resilience.
Celebrate your progress, no matter how small, and be kind to yourself when you falter. Each kept promise is a step toward a stronger, safer, and more trusting relationship with yourself.
Check out this podcast for more tips on rebuilding self-trust: Helping Couples Heal Podcast Episode on Self Trust
To find out more about our approach or to connect with a therapist that is right for you, contact us for a free phone consultation. Our team of therapists are licensed, experienced, and specifically trained in treating attachment wounds, trauma, addiction, and relationships.
About The Author
Emily Key is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate and couples therapist trained in Gottman Method, Level 1. Emily helps those healing broken trust and helping couples and individuals build new secure bonds in their relationships.