Hello, dear soul, and welcome to the Light Bears Library. My name is Kate Harmony. In today's journal entry, I want to talk about betrayal and this specifically being about betrayal of oneself. So the men who betray themselves in all sorts of different ways. And I see this come up in the comments and in my own life with my husband, where he constantly sort of betrays himself. And this can look like, you know, the martyr complex coming out of just martyring himself and making decisions that he maybe wouldn't have made if it weren't for me or weren't for others in his life. And I think a lot of times this happens in a lot of lives with people, with men in relationships, and they they do things out of the love and the care that they have for their partner, or it could look like for your children if you have children. And you end up in a life of doing those things over and over again when maybe inside your soul is slowly feeling smaller and smaller and smaller and feeling like it's dying, maybe. I mean, I've I've I've felt that in my own life. And I just I I honor you for having done that. However, I think that that we need big souls. We need in this world, we need souls that are that are following, following that voice of the conscience inside of them, inside of you. And this can be very scary because we have patterns of behavior and patterns and ways of doing things over a lifetime or, you know, decades. And I think there comes a time in everyone's life where things start to feel that pressure inside, the conscience, the soul, whatever we want to call it, starts to say, I'm not okay with this anymore. And that can lead to all sorts of things, you know, whether it's job changes, relationship changes, and divorce or breaking up could lead to, you know, this kind of like maybe this is the typical midlife crisis, right? We we this is maybe what's happening. Um, maybe on for some, for some men, it's not necessarily even conscious that that's what's happening. On this channel, it's like in highly sensitive men that we're usually too tuned into what's happening on a deeper level at some point, um, and recognizing that there's a mismatch, there's a you know, something needs to shift and change to for there to be even to grow as a soul, to grow like personal growth, if you want to talk about it like that. And um so I I think that it's it's because we've got this. If we think about these two things where we have our personal conscience, our soul, and then we we come up against the collective, right? The we often, as you know, we we would often wear masks to fit into that collective a lot of times. And some more successful than others, as you know, as INFJs, it's probably much more difficult sometimes. Um, you can do it very, very well. Um, but it's it's just it's tiring and exhausting to wear to try and fit in, especially if you're highly sensitive. Um, because there's just things that you can't ignore, you know, like noise and all the stuff, all the stuff. Um and it's like, but this is we come up against the collective, and oftentimes the collective acts, you know, asks us to to believe in things that um, you know, norms and dogmas that we don't necessarily believe as a soul. And so it takes courage to make that shift in in midlife or whatever, whenever these these transitions happen, these shifts, where it's like, okay, I I need to break out of this hard shell that maybe we've built around ourselves and um and ways of being that we just kind of that you say yes to things when inside you're saying no. And um, so I think that we need to start a way to start shifting towards more of the soul and the conscience is to explore different ways of thinking and being um on our own time. Like it nothing needs to maybe shift on the outside. It's just inside of our our minds and our hearts, we can start exploring new new ideas, new ways of of being inside. Um, like because the thing is is that growth and change require or growth requires change. Like plants, when they're growing, they're constantly changing. And but that is the meaning that we're gonna have to challenge and reshape our beliefs about ourselves, first of all. You know, that we kind of have a new concept of self and um and it kind of reshapes how we see the world around us. And I think on this journey that it's about trusting our our inner guidance, because so often we look outside to the outside world for guidance. And um, you know, because when we grow up as a kid, we're always looking to our parents and to our teachers or whatever for that outside guidance. It's like, but we're not children anymore, you know, and and so it's about our internal guidance system, our internal compass, and having the courage to do to to be now be guided by that and navigate by that. And and and then just being patient with with ourselves in these massive changes, um, and and having the courage, you know, because it it it's it takes change takes time as well. And sometimes it takes many, many years, you know, for or maybe it's just a lifetime where we're just sometimes it feels like that since since I was maybe yeah, I went to school. It's just a constant life of of change, but um yeah, so we um when we do this, like so okay, we're doing things for others when our inner voice is saying no. I think that this is that that betrayal aspect. And when we're doing that, we're letting others control us, right? It's it's there would we wouldn't necessarily say it like that, um, but that's what's happening. If we're not following what's happening inside of us and speaking that aloud to others, it's um we're letting them them them call the shots. And then, you know, we can sometimes end up playing playing the victim card um and saying, you know, oh I'm you know, yeah, well, you can fill in, fill in that. But um, I think that the other then it turns into resentment, resenting others. And as we know, like resenting others is not a loving thing to do. And I know for my husband, when we made um, well, when he kind of I I I wouldn't have been able to move myself at the time to move closer to my family. But when we, you know, he made that decision for us, and it wasn't a decision that was coming from that true sense of self. It was a a a true, true compass. It was a decision he made even for for my for my family, not even just for me. It was, you know, INFJ's, man. I uh I feel for you. So um it's not that he ever turned that on me or my family, he turned it in on himself and was angry at himself for for kind of yeah, throwing his whole life off track and doing that. So there's kind of that again, that sense of betrayal, of self-berating, of you know, all that, which is not love to self. So it's either either resenting and not loving others or or not loving self. So either way, it's it's not good for anyone. So I think that this this whole this whole betrayal of oneself starts changing when we decide to kind of assert ourselves in in a way of not justifying our our our needs and our like you know, as highly sensitive people, we have, you know, learning lots about about that. And my husband's it's like he shouldn't need to justify why he needs like the the lights off in, you know, above um the what are those called? I don't know, the room lights, right? We always have lamps on and soft lighting, and it's like I mean, I'm just saying this because I we both do anyway, but it's like I'm saying to you, you don't need to justify to anyone about your high sensitivity uh to anything, you know. Um, but we do all the time because the norm in the collective is not highly sensitive. So they don't know what it's like, you know. They don't they don't know how noisy they're speaking or walking or dropping things is like or whatever, they don't really get it. So um, and then taking responsibility for ourselves and being clear about our yeses and being clear about our no's, and that takes that takes practice and it takes it takes a lot of courage to to start doing that if we're not used to doing that. I mean, I've heard from people who have great boundaries in the comments and are like on it, you know, and so I'm that's that's so wonderful. And yeah, but uh I I think that it's it's a it's a journey and we need to just be be gentle on yourselves because I think probably they're so hard on yourself that it's like hard on yourself for not fitting into the collective, perhaps, hard on yourself for not for not showing up more as your um your soul self or as your your conscience directs you. So it's kind of like it feels sometimes like a lose-lose, but I think on the other other side of that is is um more strength and more love for yourself and for others. And it's a journey that will unfold in a way that's unique to you. So there's we're all unique souls, and every every journey is going to be going to be different. And so, yeah, I think um I hope that's I hope that was gave you gave you some thoughts, and I would love to know from you if there are you know beliefs or thoughts that you have about yourself and your high sensitivity or yourself and how you have been living your lives about some beliefs or thoughts that you have that maybe you need to shift and change and break and be more flexible in your in your thinking or um or I'd love to hear from you if you are going through this transition and you know what what you might what you're feeling is the most difficult part. So yeah, take care of yourself. And I um oh, before I forget, um there is another men's gentlemen's conversation group happening this Sunday, June 12th. Again, I didn't write down the dates. June 12th. It'll all be down in the description. And the first one went so incredible. I'm so grateful for the 10 men who came and just we had it was really great. We had lots of laughs and um just really good, good connection of just feeling feeling not crazy in our high sensitivity and just yeah, it was it was lovely conversation. So um an hour was too short. So the the next one will definitely be um 90 minutes. So that will be on Sunday at 1 p.m. mountain daylight time. Um, and then I will have I will have another one um planned for maybe in a like 10 days or something like that. I'll I'll I'll I'll be what be on the watch for that. Anyway, okay. I wish you so many blessings. Thank you so much for being here in the library uh signing off for today, XOXO Kate.