Healing from Spiritual Betrayal Without Blame

Have you ever trusted a spiritual leader, teacher, or guide — only to discover they weren’t who you thought they were?

Spiritual betrayal can shake our trust, our sense of self, and even our connection to what we believe. In this episode, I explore how we heal after guruism, misplaced trust, and spiritual betrayal — and why taking personal responsibility is not the same thing as victim-blaming.

Drawing from my own experiences, including follower dynamics and a powerful vision quest experience, I share what helped me move from hurt and confusion back to empowerment, discernment, and wholeness.

In this episode, we explore:

• The difference between responsibility and blame in healing
• Why desperation for connection can make us vulnerable to manipulation
• How filters, conditioning, and past trauma affect perception
• Different types of harm — and why healing isn’t one-size-fits-all
• How to support others without projecting your own healing journey onto them
• The path to neutrality, self-forgiveness, and reclaiming your power

Whether you’re processing a betrayal, questioning a teacher, or supporting someone through a difficult experience, I hope this conversation offers a compassionate and empowering perspective on healing.

Sometimes the path forward isn’t about blaming yourself or someone else. Sometimes it’s about moving beyond the betrayal, returning to your own inner knowing, and choosing yourself again.

🌿 Ready to go deeper?

I offer one-on-one sessions to support you in reconnecting with your inner wisdom, releasing what no longer serves you, and embodying more of who you truly are.

Learn more and connect with me at:
 https://janeteichorst.com

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Much love and blessings,

Janet 💛🌟🙏

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi everybody, Janet Eye Korst here. Today we're going to talk about guruism again, where some sort of spiritual leader, religious leader, somebody in a form of power, right, where we value some things that they have to say when we find out that they're not who they are beneath the surface, beneath the masks, and we find out they've done some really awful things and aren't um don't have the same value system that we do, right? So we know this is happening in our world all over, and today we're gonna talk about it in a little bit different light. We're gonna talk about it and how we talk about it and process it with ourselves and with other people. Now, this stems from a conversation, an exchange that I had with somebody where I commented on a post somebody had where they were talking about and shared somebody else's post regarding guruism and their experience of what happened and how how awful it is when you find out how shitty this person is. And so there are as many ways to heal, to return to ourselves, to be who we really are underneath all of our own trauma or all of our all of our individual conditioning. There are as many ways to return to wholeness as there are people that have been affected by other people's behavior in a negative way. And I have certainly had my own experiences of this. I shared in some of the podcasts with Jill Renee Feeler about being on a vision quest and being brainwashed. I've shared a lot about the follower dynamic, where I've gotten caught up in that, all these different ways that I have given my power away. So back to this exchange where I responded to somebody's post. And what I shared for me was a very important part of my healing process. And that is about taking personal responsibilities for things that are my responsibility when I am affected, abused, in a situation where there's some sort of power imbalance, and I am harmed. Right? So responsibility is so important, and you know, there's so many stages of going through what happens when we're harmed, and victimized, you can say. When I was sharing about taking pro personal responsibility, I wasn't victim blaming. I was sharing what helped me heal. Now, when I have been harmed and affected, I'll say, in this way, from somebody's behavior that is not in alignment with unconditional love, there are many, many, many, many stages I went through. And recognizing that that person's behavior was what it was is part of it. When I trust other people and I am putting trust in an untrustworthy person, and I don't know it at the time, I defend them. And I might not even consider that what they're doing is out of alignment. And I don't know till I know. And that process of realizing what actually happened can take a very, very, very long time, depending on where we are in our own evolutionary process. And that situation for me when I was brainwashed, that had some pretty severe consequences. You know, I split up with my current partner for a while. I it affected every everything in my life. And what I got down to for myself was that place of was there a part I had to play in it. Now when we're talking about this level of being harmed by another, sometimes things are seemingly random. They happen, and I have no clue that I had a part in it, and maybe I didn't. Right? And so there are those things that happen, and those things that happen to us as children where I had no ability to stop that from happening in that moment. And that's important to recognize. In those situations, what I realized from the all from the types of abuse I had as a child, what I needed to change was my how I responded to it. I wasn't the one that did those horrific acts to me. I cannot take responsibility for another. And it was wrong. As an adult, what I got to see was once that act is committed, that that harm is mine to heal, to come to terms with, to return to wholeness with. I understand that, and I've been through that in many, many, many situations in my life. And some of those have taken a long time to heal and to come to my my true wholeness, which is underneath all that. And then I can look at it at a soul level where I do believe that we come to Earth and we have arranged that we're gonna have certain experiences here. And I won't get too into depth of why that happens, and that's my belief. I know for myself, I have come here to heal certain dynamics. And me experiencing it is part of that. Does that mean that that person wasn't wrong? No. Does that mean that I can continue to blame them? I can. And for me, my healing process is about taking responsibility that I get to heal that harm, that hurt, those electromagnetic charges that are stored somewhere in my field. Because as a child, I could not process that. So those experiences got stuff somewhere. And as an adult, I can come to terms with that, I can unwind that and return to wholeness and change that whole pattern. Those experiences become my blind spots. So that's one thing, the seeming randomness. There's the things that happen to us as children where we are innocent and we get to heal from those. And then there's the other ones where this is where the um being brainwashed fits into this category where I was looking so passionately and desperately, really, for a connection that I didn't see what was happening. I didn't see the signs that this person was not as trustworthy as I thought that they were. So these are really important things to consider. And if I interpret what somebody is saying, and it's not accurate, that's not honoring of me or of them. I did when I was early on in my journey, I was in this group process where what we did instead of interpreting is that we would check it out with each other. And people would get triggered left and right, and they would go on to emotional processing because we've all been through some sort of trauma in our lives. And when people confront a particular behavior, ask if this is where somebody was coming from. It can be very triggering for people and opens up an opportunity for healing. And so, for instance, we would we would call them clearings in the beginning of this group process where we'd say, you know, in the last group, I felt like you were judging me. And it was so beautiful because, and challenging at times, emotional at times, because if I was the one that felt like I was being judged, I didn't know if it was my filters that were active, or I didn't know if somebody was actually judging me. And I had never taken that opportunity prior to that to actually ask somebody and check it out. Now, granted, this is not safe in every situation, and this situation was a facilitated group where we were all in agreement that we treated each other with honor and respect. And we were all wanting to get underneath what was happening for us personally so that we were not affected by blind spots anymore, and could get to the truth of when I was repeating some sort of filter or conditioning and when I was actually having an experience of somebody else that was awful. Right? So we had in that kind of an agreement in that group setting. It's like, I think you're interpreting me. And we all knew that what that meant. And if somebody said that to me, which happened all the time, I got to check out whether I was interpreting somebody else's behavior. And it it's where I really learned, initially learned this skill. And trust me, I am not perfect at this, right? I'm not, and I am committed to being a better human, where I don't want my conditioning, my negative conditioning to affect other people. So this is really important for us, and and really is an important way that we can be better humans here. So, what I'm doing today is asking all of us to be conscientious about how we support each other, how we hold space for each other, and paying attention to whether or not we're honoring somebody's experience as fully as we can. And allowing them to have their own experience and their own process. And people get to stay in that level of whatever part of their process as long as they want to. That to me is how we love each other as human beings. So I really do try to pay attention to my words. I really do try to pay attention to how I respond because I want to respond from that level of neutrality. I don't want to project my stuff out on other people. I want to maintain my own level of integrity when I interact with anybody, and especially when I hold space for somebody, and they are in that sacred level of healing, of becoming more of their authentic self, of allowing those electromagnetic charges that have had profound effects on every aspect of their life. And what looks like from one lens might be toxic programming and has been for somebody else, might not be for another. There's so much that we don't know about what's needed for another, and we can discover that. Right? We can ask, we can be present, we can hold each other in such unconditional love. I don't know the answer for another. I get a lot of in the work that I do with other people, I get so many opportunities to love them, to be present to them, and to respectfully reflect what I am seeing and the guidance that I'm giving. And it is about empowering them and the process that's important for them. Now, granted, there are similarities in how we heal, right? And there's also uniqueness in it. I really want people to be empowered and find their own way, their own access to that pure source energy that radiates through them all the time. And that conditioning sits on top of that, right? Those traumas, those ideas, those beliefs. And really, this is all in how we heal and how we deal with our processes here. Some experiences on this planet are seemingly random. And if they are, focus on your own healing, focus on your own empowerment, focus on letting that God-force energy heal you. So you get restored to your beautiful blueprint, unconditionally love-emanating aspects of you. If there's a part you have to play in some sort of victimization where you set yourself up, some of your behavior, and this isn't about blame, this is looking about what I did. So setting yourself up means that there's something that I, you did, that allowed me to be hurt in the future, right? And that's unconscious until it becomes conscious. So find a way in your own lives to sort through what happened. And if that's the case for you, grab onto it, be empowered, take responsibility for yourself and your decisions and your beliefs that allow you to be who you truly are, an empowered, brilliant being here. That's my encouragement. And the other side of this coin is paying attention to how I support, how I respond, and how I treat other people. Because I have unconsciously victimized people. The way I yell at my dog sometimes, it can be that seemingly subtle or seemingly unconscious. I want to always treat my dog with love, honor, and respect. And I may raise my voice sometimes, and that might be appropriate in that situation. But when I find myself saying things that are just very negatively based with my dog, that's not cool. And that is a form of victimization to some degree. I'm not treating her with the love, honor, and respect that I want. Right? And that's based on some of my conditioning. So that awareness of how we are in our lives, the words that we use, the vibration that we're holding, I can say the same thing. And sometimes it's based on a level of victimization, causing harm, not being kind. And sometimes I can say those same words, and it's coming from such love. So it's the vibration that we hold to and the words that we use. I love all of you. I have such a deep respect and love of humanity and all of us. And if I get into my own shit here, I clean it up the best that I can. That's my value system. And those in my inner circle do the same thing. And I've talked about this a lot because I take responsibility for those people that I allow in my inner circle, and the ones that I share intimate details with. That's my responsibility. And I get it wrong sometimes, and the results aren't great. And I have a process, I have a way of coming to terms with that and forgiving myself and others. That's how I reach that level of neutrality where those charges aren't active and affecting me and my behavior in negative ways. So much love to you. I hope this is helpful. If there's any questions about anything I said, please reach out. Much love. Many blessings. Please like, please share if this is helpful to you. Until next time.