Tiny Buddha

Tag: abuse

  • 5 Things I Did Because I Didn’t Feel Good Enough and What I Do Now Instead

    5 Things I Did Because I Didn’t Feel Good Enough and What I Do Now Instead

    “You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” ~Louise Hay

    Since I was a little girl, I believed there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

    So I was always trying to find a way to fix myself and be worthy. To feel good enough.

    No baby is born thinking they aren’t worthy, and neither was I—or you.

    This came from our early beginnings.

    I had a very traumatized dad, who I now understand was struggling with his own pain from his childhood.

    He would lose his temper and torment me. Tell me I was nothing and no one. That I was unlovable. That nothing I did was good enough.

    As children, we just believe our parents. We cannot understand or fathom why they would say these things to us if they weren’t true. So we internalize the belief of not being good enough or not worthy.

    We all find our own way to survive this pain of not being seen or loved for who we truly are.

    These are the five ways I tried to fix feeling unworthy but actually ended up ruining my life instead.

    1. I tried to please and fix people.

    I wanted to please my dad. In fact, I lived for it. Whether I was going to have a good day or bad day was all dependent on my parents’ moods. I was only okay if they were okay.

    As an adult, this meant I gave my power away to people. I allowed them to take out their emotions on me, and I took responsibility for how they felt. I didn’t feel safe when people were upset, and I believed to my core everything was my fault because of this deep shame I was carrying.

    This was all learned in my childhood and has a name—codependency. A great book to read is Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. She explains in detail why we do this!

    2. I got into toxic, codependent relationships. 

    I was a magnet for relationships where it was all about the other person’s needs and feelings. The codependency had left me so needless and wantless that we became the perfect match for each other! They wanted to be chased and adored. I (unconsciously) wanted to ignore my own needs.

    I was used to chasing love in relationships without compassion and kindness and being blamed for how other people felt, so these toxic relationships felt normal for me.

    A codependent’s wounds can attract a narcissist. Narcissists are also traumatized children, and these wounds create a trauma bond. I had this in friendships and romantic love. These relationships were never about me, and my low self-worth got lower and lower as a result.

    They become almost my higher power. I was obsessed with meeting their needs. I thought if I could make them happy, they would choose me and then I would feel good enough.

    Sadly, that never happened, and I just got exhausted and sick in the process.

    3. I obsessed over fixing my body. 

    When your body is criticized in childhood, not just by a parent but by other traumatized family members and society, you conclude that it mustn’t be enough.

    I went from a confident little girl twirling to someone who hid in the corners of a room in baggy clothes. I didn’t want to be seen or noticed in case someone shamed me for what I looked like. That stung!

    So, instead of recognizing that other people had created this issue in me, I spent years abusing my body, through excessive exercise and dieting, to make it perfect. Then, when my body would change, people would still make comments on my imperfections, and I would emotionally eat to numb the pain.

    I also overate because I didn’t really care about nourishing my body. I hated it so much. I felt like it was to blame for all these horrible things people would say about it. I never considered for one moment that hurt people hurt people.

    4. I got myself into debt. 

    I worked from a very young age, but my dad didn’t allow me to access to the money I earned. He controlled how I spent it, which sent the message that I couldn’t be trusted with money. Safe to say, this didn’t create the healthiest relationship with money.

    If I earned it, I felt uncomfortable holding on to it, so I would overspend. I was more comfortable rolling in debt, as that’s what I felt like I was worth. I would always be clearing debt, and then when I would have money again, I would do something to shift the balance once again. It was normal for me to be in these feast-famine cycles with money, kind of like my love life and my relationships with my parents. There one minute and gone the next!

    5. I overworked and overachieved.

    Since I was a little girl, I tried to do whatever I could to get my dad’s approval and love. One way to his heart was through education and achievement, so I went all in as a child and adult. Working long hours to pass my exams, applying for qualifications he wanted me to get, even though I had no interest in the subject areas. I learned very young to work lots because, if I didn’t, he would get angry with me, and that felt scary. So I did what I could to try to keep myself safe.

    My dad has been gone for fifteen years, as he took his life in 2008, yet I still find myself doing this one! It’s part of my unconscious programming. When I feel unsafe or unworthy around work or even my business, I will push harder. I will forgo my own basic needs, like food and water, to meet a deadline.

    —

    All of these characteristics are what we call “trauma adaptations”—ways my little brain learned to survive in an unpredictable environment. Between birth and seven especially, children should be nurtured so they can grow self-worth and self-belief. But children that grew up like me were too busy feeling terrified and surviving, so it’s no wonder we got older and struggled.

    However, I have learned first-hand that no matter what age we are, we can change our adaptations with awareness.

    I began to get curious about how I spoke to myself, and I soon realized that I wouldn’t even speak to an enemy the way I was talking to myself. So I consciously started to speak to myself with kindness and compassion, like I would a friend. I also began listening to affirmations to help me rewrite this negative narrative I had in my mind.

    All of a sudden, I started to unconsciously say the affirmations out loud. I would say things like, ”I am worth so much more than that” and then gasp that I had changed my beliefs.

    I learned, mainly from books and podcasts, how to show myself love and care. I introduced this slowly into my routine. I was learning to become my own nurturing parent, the one I missed out on growing up. Like little seeds, my self-worth began to slowly grow.

    After that, I felt worthy of investing in support from professionals. They provided a safe space for me to explore my story and to get a different perspective. I also found somatic therapy and Internal Family Systems parts work really helpful for healing trauma and growing my self-worth.

    I still had relationships in my life that needed changing, which required boundaries and even walking away from some people, but I had to grow that relationship with myself first. Then I had the confidence to expect more in my relationships. When the relationship with myself was no longer toxic and abusive, I was able to stop chasing the unhealthy ones and walk away from the abusive ones.

    The seeds in my self-worth garden were growing, and my life changed as a result. My reality was a mirror of how worthy I felt within.

    Because I believed I was worthy of true love when it came to me, I didn’t run away; I welcomed it.

    I chose new career paths, as I realized I was worthy of having more money and working a job that fulfilled me, not one I had taken to please my dad.

    My relationship with my body is changing too. I show it love and kindness with how I feed it, speak to it, and treat it. No more extreme behaviors. I’m learning to love it just as it is.

    I realize now that I always had this power to love and care for myself. When I learned to do this, my story changed, and I began to feel more than good enough. It was never about anyone else giving that to me or outside validation. It was about ending the war that began inside of me when I didn’t get my needs met as a kid.

    I lovingly use inner child parts work to tend to my younger self, who sometimes falls back into her survival adaptations. I let my inner child know that she is safe now and that I am here to take care of her needs. That we no longer need to chase, overachieve, or overgive in order to be loved and accepted. That I love and accept her for all of her light and her darkness. For her shadow parts.

    I listen to her fears, her sadness, her grief—the way I wished someone listened to me when I was younger. I attend to her needs with love and compassion so she no longer has to search for love or validation in the wrong places.

    If you can relate to any of what I wrote, start planting seeds in your self-worth garden today and watch your story change.

  • I Forgive Forcefully (An Act That Takes Great Strength)

    I Forgive Forcefully (An Act That Takes Great Strength)

    “You don’t have to rebuild a relationship with everyone you have forgiven.” ~Unknown

    “Forgive” and “forcefully” are not two words I have ever joined together before.

    My idea of forgiveness involved kind and gentle meekness.

    Goodness.

    Altruism.

    Compassion.

    But never forcefulness.

    Well, not until I waded through the choppy waters of forgiveness after I had the courage to leave my abusive marriage.

    Forgive is a Verb

    Forgiving isn’t an emotion. It’s an action. It’s a process that has no time limitation or expiration date.

    It can’t be ordered, demanded, or rushed.

    When I first discovered that my husband had been lying to me, we had been married for thirty years. Out of the blue I discovered he had lost his job…over fifteen years previously.

    You read that correctly—fifteen years.

    For fifteen years he led me to believe that he was going to work every day. I thought we were saving money for college for our three children, “rainy day” needs, and retirement.

    But there was no accumulation of money at all. He didn’t contribute anything to our family. Consequently, his financial betrayal had devastating, long-lasting effects on me.

    We didn’t have health insurance. Going to the doctor or dentist was a luxury. We couldn’t afford a lot of the basic necessities for our children and relied on help from our families. He caused all this while criticizing my concerns, saying I was too needy and materialistic, and that I should be grateful for what I had.

    Little by little, I discovered that most of our marriage had been built on a mountain of lies. My ex-husband is a pathological liar. He is also a sex addict. He cheated on me routinely and without regret because he felt like life ‘owed’ him whatever he desired.

    Looking back, I see how he moved us away from my friends and family, isolating me. He belittled me until I had no self-confidence left. He used me like a worthless piece of trash.

    It’s impossible to put into words how it feels to discover that most of my life was completely out of my control.

    The story of my life was written by someone else. Someone who is selfish, greedy, and power hungry.

    Is forgiveness possible?

    Victim Bullying is Real

    Our first marriage counselor beamed proudly at my husband (ex-husband now.) She praised him for his willingness to attend counseling with me and for his acceptance of his faults.

    I listened to him manipulate the facts of the story to present himself in a better light, and I marveled at how blind I had been for so long.

    And then the counselor jumped into the topic of forgiveness, and I felt like my head was spinning.

    This man had abused me.

    For thirty years I was abused emotionally, sexually, and financially.

    Yet now everything was in my hands. He had done his job and apologized, so I needed to meekly accept it. Right?

    But I couldn’t.

    That first session, our marriage counselor gave me three homework assignments: a book to read, a list to write of things he could do to rebuild my trust, and a letter to write expressing how hurt I felt.

    My abuser’s homework?

    Nothing.

    I felt further victimized. I was trying to uncover and measure the piles of dust that were being swept up. At the same time, he was handing me a can of Pledge to clean up his mess.

    We need to stop bullying the victims by pushing them to forgive before they are ready. If the forgiving is completely up to me, then I need to do it my way. Period.

    By the way, this same counselor eventually pulled me for a private session one day and encouraged me to have a bag packed and an exit strategy planned. The blindfold eventually was lifted. She was the first person to validate to me that my experience was abusive.

    One Right Doesn’t Fix Bunches of Wrongs

    Once my husband started admitting to all the wrongs he’d done, he acted as if I should naturally just forgive him right away.

    It doesn’t work like that.

    “I’m sorry” isn’t the magic eraser of bad deeds.

    Three decades of purposeful abuse can’t be wiped away with a simple child-like apology.

    I left my husband and began working with a therapist alone. She helped me see what forgiveness really is. It isn’t absolution for the abuser. It isn’t a free pass. It certainly isn’t a reset button to give my abuser a second chance. In fact, it has very little to do with my abuser.

    Forgiveness means I am releasing the hurt and anger I feel so that it holds no power over me.

    What Needs to Be Forgiven?

    To forgive is to let go of the hurt that crushes my heart.

    Truthfully, I will probably never know the full extent of what my abuser did to me under the guise of being a ‘loving’ husband.

    So forgiveness can’t hinge on knowledge.

    Even though I’ve learned that my abuser was himself abused as a child, I can’t accept that as a good reason why he treated me badly.

    So forgiveness isn’t understanding or compassion.

    What is forgiveness for me?

    It’s forceful action to reclaim my life.

    Forcefulness Is Real Action

    New memories pop up to haunt me all the time.

    The time my ex-husband missed my son’s winter concert. I know he wasn’t working, so where was he? Who was he with? Was he using the money I had earned at my job to go to a strip club?

    The time he fought against taking me to the hospital because we didn’t have health insurance. I was having a hypertensive crisis, and he tried to get me to somehow ‘fix’ my problem at home. I ended up driving myself to the ER, where I was whisked away for a CT scan immediately because the doctors feared I was having a stroke right then.

     My husband put my health in jeopardy by not ‘allowing’ me to go to the hospital, by not having medical insurance, and by not being around to help. Thankfully, I have fully recovered. But it’s something I had to forgive him for, even though he never specifically apologized for that particular instance.

    I’ll never know the full story.

    I won’t hear apologizes for every single betrayal.

    These are the ghosts of my past that linger in the air.

    And with each new spotlighted transgression, I must forgive my abuser all over again.

    This goes on and on, repeatedly. But I no longer view it as re-victimization. I see it as my empowerment to direct my future.

    Forgiving Is Not for The Weak

    So, as an abused person, forgiveness is not a single act for me. It is a continuing action.

    I can try to give a blanket forgiveness, but when bleak memories attack me in the dark hours of the morning, I find myself needing to release and let go of all that hurt again. If I don’t, I risk being weighed down with anger.

    It’s exhausting.

    But it’s also empowering because I’ve learned I can’t rely on the gentle meekness displayed during schoolyard apologies. To forgive is hard work.

    It takes force, which includes:

    • Strength
    • Determination
    • Power

    No, forgiveness is not for the weak.

    Are you struggling with forgiving something that is hard? I understand. Try to take the power into your hands and forgive with forcefulness. You have the strength to do it. And the freedom you uncover is well worth the effort.

  • Dysfunctional Family Survivors: 7 Myths that Hold Your Healing Hostage

    Dysfunctional Family Survivors: 7 Myths that Hold Your Healing Hostage

    “I have never known a patient to portray their parents more negatively than they actually experienced them in childhood but always more positively–because idealization of their parents was essential for their survival.” Alice Miller, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child

    If we’re born into dysfunctional families and, by some miracle, manage to recognize there’s something really wrong there, we can end up devoting a huge portion of our time on Earth (if not all of it) to piecemealing a life not defined by the despair and pain we felt as children.

    This is as challenging a feat as it gets.

    The institution of family is universally recognized as sacrosanct. But when this unquestioned bubble becomes a breeding ground for trauma, neglect, or abuse—be it covert or explicit, emotional or physical, subtle or extreme—then naming a breach, taking a stand, protecting ourselves, or even deciding to proactively heal can be seen as a betrayal.

    After a lifetime of some version of this, I want to share with you seven family myths that, for years, held my healing hostage. 

    It was through gradually unwinding these myths one by one that I mustered the strength and resolve to go no-contact with my mother and set necessary boundaries with other members of my family, which cleared the way for a difficult but true healing process.

    It hasn’t been an easy road; in fact, it’s been an almost entirely off-road journey involving enormous patience, grief, truth, and courage. But I can tell you, cross my heart, I owe it my life.

    Admittedly, this is a confronting topic. We’re unpacking an aspect of being human that’s rife with open wounds, loyalty, heartbreak, and primal bonds. 

    My intention here isn’t to rebuff the natural ties of family but to validate your longing to feel safe, whole, and seen as you are and to shed light on the enormous potential for healing that can happen within the family structure when these myths are dismantled.

    Let’s begin.

    MYTH 1: Blood bonds are a free pass for bad behavior.

    The pervasive refusal to address our trauma and do the work to actively heal it plays out in the family like nowhere else.

    Because this is an institution that we take for granted as just and loving, it’s one in which our worst behavior can run rampant, completely exempt from checks and balances.

    In these cases, the measure for love seems to be how much we’re willing to endure and how much they’re willing to endure from us. This is not okay. Family members treating each other in ways we’d be ashamed to treat virtual strangers is only the norm for one of two reasons. We’ve either taken it for granted as the only way (it isn’t), or we’re invested in not taking responsibility for healing our trauma and would rather keep open the channels to unconsciously play it out.

    If the only thing binding us together is our fear of going against this institution, if the only thing that keeps us in each other’s lives is fear, guilt, shame, or the hope for a change that never materializes, and if we don’t bring these conditions to the light and question them, we sign our lives over to more of the same and enable the problem.

    Refusing to play by the rule of ignoring and enduring dysfunction is the only way to end the pain chain. Repeat after me: Blood bonds are no excuse for bad behavior. Not our own, not anyone else’s.

    MYTH 2: This dysfunction is what’s real and primary; well-being and sanity are fantasy and secondary.

    One of the most painful parts of my experience growing up and throughout my twenties was that, despite investing more time, money, effort, and faith in my healing than I did on anything else, at the end of the day it was the energy, dynamics, and unspoken rules of the dysfunction that defined the baseline of my life.

    How I wanted to live, the boundaries I was setting, and the way I was able to conduct my life were dismissed as fantasy or denial. My needs weren’t real, the relational code was. Reality was fighting, bending the truth, manipulating, worrying, speaking behind each other’s backs, enabling, blowing up, and pretending it was all okay. I was wrong and in dreamland to suggest that this wasn’t okay and that something else was possible.

    Here’s what I want you to know:

    You are real. And if you’re able to live without abusing others, if you’re able to take responsibility for your healing, if you’re able to create peace and harmony in your life, if you’re able to take any window of personal freedom to grow and thrive, it’s absolutely real. It can be done and it’s 100% legitimate, not to mention preferable as a way of living.

    Just because your predecessors haven’t made the same choice, that doesn’t make it make-believe or a fantasy.

    You make your healing and a whole new set of rules to live by true by living them out. If you’re doing it, it’s not make-believe, it’s reality.

    MYTH 3: If they don’t recognize my wounds or my right to heal, I don’t get to heal.

    I’ve been working on myself forever. And for a long time, while I was working on myself, I was also furiously trying to find ways to be understood and help or change my family. 

    I needed them to be the bridge that facilitated my healing. Only once I got them sorted or got them to understand me would I get my permission slip to live the way I was here to live. That permission slip didn’t come.

    Eventually, I did the unthinkable: I gave that permission to myself.

    I figured out exactly what it was that was costing my sanity, expressed it every way I could, and when it became clear that ignoring my non-negotiable needs was an implicit expectation, I said, “No more.” And in the case of my mother, I even decided to go no-contact for good. It wasn’t easy, but that began the process of healing a lifetime of parentification, erasure, and trauma.

    Giving up the need to have my right to heal legitimized by family (and even friends) was the single most pivotal, empowering, and positive turning point in my life.

    This shift allowed me to validate myself in the way I’d always needed. For the first time in my life, I stopped negotiating the reality of my lived experience, and in hindsight I can say without that shift, healing would not have begun.

    Asserting my right to choose and protect my safety and sanity, no matter what, created the inner trust required for the magnitude of my grief and wounding to come to the forefront so I could work with what I was packing. 

    Healing our real wounds is a vulnerable process that requires the safety to come undone and the assurance that we won’t knowingly put ourselves back in harm’s way as we build ourselves up to wholeness.

    MYTH 4: If it’s in the name of love, it’s as good as love.

    When, in the name of love, we hurt, belittle, or abuse each other and demand that the flow of toxicity remains intact, we’re ultimately saying that real love doesn’t exist, or that love and truth cannot coexist.

    Real love is coherent, straightforward, and present. Real love sees and honors the other as a whole, separate being with a will and truth of their own. Real love doesn’t picket someone’s right to peace, safety, and healing.

    Abuse or denial in the name of love wounds, creates vortexes of remorse and resentment, and compromises our ability to recognize healthy love in ourselves and from others.

    We must begin to take notice of sanctioned behaviors that are actively un-loving in the name of a love that never or rarely manifests or registers as true in the here and now.

    We can all do better, and I believe, with every fiber of my being, that deep down it’s what we most long for.

     MYTH 5: Whatever healing you muster is owed to the dysfunctional dynamic.

    This was another big piece for me. After an abusive or painful event, the expectation was that I’d take a little break to recoup and then come back for more, rinse and repeat. This held my healing in a vice because I could never heal further than the fear of being torn to shreds again. 

    I knew there was a ceiling I had to break through to become the woman I knew in my heart I was, but I’d always end up at square one when I circled back to the toxic dynamics.

    It wasn’t until I decided my healing was final, until I was sure I wasn’t available to siphon it back into the scheme, that my healing ceiling began to shatter and I started feeling what’s on the other side.

    Repeat after me: “I’m not healing so I can be hurt again. I’m healing so I can move forward whole.”

    MYTH 6: Your job is to change your NO to a YES.

    This is another big one.

    The truth is that most of us that have incurred substantial wounding in the family bubble have also learned to de-legitimize what’s true for us.

    Because being chronically wounded (by those who gave us life, no less!) is so deeply invalidating, we come out on the other end with a wall-to-wall feeling of not being real. To them, our feelings and inner truth are getting in the way of the real us—the one they want, can do what they want with, and get what they want from without boundaries, protest, or consequence.

    As a coach I see this all the time. Incredible humans with big hearts and a commitment to courageously heal that simultaneously use spirituality and self-help as a means to deny their lived experience. This allows them to avoid rocking the boat, setting boundaries, or making a real stand for their needs and truth.

    “Taking the high road” seems to mean enduring breaches and abuse without hurting, feeling sated in withholding relationships, placing everybody’s needs ahead of their own, or even better, not having needs (let alone desires) at all.

    I believe this is a manifestation of the same wounds of invalidation they incurred in childhood (now operating from within on the DL), combined with the unconscious belief there is no version of life that’s not subject to the rules and dynamics of their families.

    Whenever I see someone bust through this myth, my heart leaps with joy because I know that’s when they’re cooking with gas.

    In my personal journey, another huge turning point was when I threw in the towel of self-denial and began to notice that my NO was telling me something, and that it was up to me to listen. I could turn that NO into a YES by standing firmly in it so my life force could move toward what’s true for me.

    I can guarantee that’s how it works. 

    How do you move into an authentic YES if someone’s trying to shove a spoonful of poison in your mouth? By saying no, trusting that no, and moving away from it.

    Each and every one of us is alive and feeling regardless of the agendas and expectations of others. Your NO is not a problem; it’s a pointer to the real-deal solution for you.

    Regardless of how unreal core wounding makes us feel, our reality is overruling and speaking volumes at every moment. Listening to and aligning with that is a non-negotiable step in restoring ourselves to wholeness.

    MYTH 7: You’re forever bound to the role you played in your family drama.

    We’re closing with a bang here, so listen up. 

    The coping mechanisms we employed to survive childhood often end up becoming who we believe we are.

    If we had to be boundary-less, “or else…,” needless, “or else…,” believe we were nothing, “or else…,” this is how we learn to operate and how we try to survive and get our needs met in adulthood.

    When we take a real stand for our healing and begin to assert and protect our safety, the parts of our persona that came about as coping mechanisms begin to unravel. 

    Each and every inch of safety and inhabiting of personal truth we take back systematically renders these parts obsolete and allows the full essence of our being to emerge, in self-responsible ways.

     This means the limitations these parts imposed on us—compromising our ability to love, create, work, relate, speak up, rest, earn, enjoy, connect the way we’ve longed for, in alignment with love and truth—little by little begin to fall away, and life opens up in ways we hardly thought possible.

     Listen, there’s always a reason why people are abusive or hurtful, and it’s usually trauma of their own. But while that’s a valid reason and a tragic one, it’s not an excuse or a free pass to rob anyone of their will, peace, truth, and the life they were born to live. Family is not an exception to this rule.

    But here is a rule I’ve created for myself that I’m learning to live by: To love, set boundaries, treat others, accept treatment, and express my needs the same way in all close relationships, be they family or not. If a behavior or dynamic needs the shield of this or any other institution to be okay, it’s not okay. 

  • The Friend I Couldn’t Fix: A Story of Love, Loss and Letting Go

    The Friend I Couldn’t Fix: A Story of Love, Loss and Letting Go

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of domestic violence and may be triggering to some.

    “You can’t heal the people you love. You can’t make choices for them. You can’t rescue them.” ~Unknown

    Every story starts at the beginning. But how far back should I go? Birth?

    I was born at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden, New Jersey, in May of 1972…just after three in the morning.

    No, wait. That’s not morning. It’s still dark outside.

    Forgive me. That’s an inside joke.

    You see, just a few years ago a friend of thirty years came to live with me. A down-on-his-luck, unemployed alcoholic that recently battled Stage four cirrhosis, we agreed he could stay with me, rent-free, for six to eight weeks as he sorted himself out.

    Just typing that sentence makes me cringe. How did I ever think he’d sort himself out?

    I believed that with enough love and support people could overcome their troubles. However, it never occurred to me that they had to WANT to overcome their troubles.

    Within a few days of moving into my apartment, he blew the job opportunity that he (and I) counted on by insulting his future boss. Six to eight weeks evolved into eleven and a half months. Sorting himself out morphed into sleeping all day, drinking all night and abusing me in the time in between.

    Which brings me back to the inside joke.

    Don’t Engage

    I woke one day before dawn. “Good morning,” I yawned as I flipped the coffee on.

    Fortified behind a barricade of empties, he launched his daily verbal assault. “Are you really that stupid? It’s not morning; it’s still dark. F*cking moron.”

    “Don’t engage,” I said to myself. Not engaging pissed him off because he wanted to fight, but engaging was so much worse.

    Engaging led to things being slammed. Thrown. Shattered. Time spent searching for every shard of glass and worrying about the eight tiny paws that scampered around my apartment. I didn’t have it in me to see any more of my belongings broken. Any more of my spirit broken.

    His attacks began months prior and consisted of only words at first—a slew of insults he hurled at me as though playing a game of merciless Mad Libs. I was stupid, a moron, a fat blob, ugly, pathetic.

    Then began the screaming, throwing, slamming, backing me into corners, pushing me into walls, grabbing my throat, and finally punching me in the face.

    It’s Not That Simple

    Prior to living with him, I never thought too much about domestic violence. I’d never witnessed it, and to be honest, it never occurred to me that domestic violence could exist in this type of relationship. You see, he wasn’t my father, my husband, or my boyfriend. He was a friend.

    Moreover, and I’m ashamed to admit it, I unfairly thought people in abusive relationships were weak. And I am not weak. I’m strong and independent. I realize now abuse is not that simple.

    It began so slowly I didn’t see it for what it was, nor did I want to. I wanted to see the best in him. Only with the gift of hindsight do I clearly see the picture three decades of brushstrokes formed. For thirty years I loved his potential, not who he really was. Looking back, I see that he had been narcissistic, manipulative, and emotionally abusive since day one.

    The Perfect Storm

    When he first came to live with me, I was his “angel” and could do no wrong. I won’t lie to you—being an “angel” felt wonderful.

    You see, as far back as I can remember I have felt useless and unworthy—the ugliest girl in the room that no one wanted. It’s a paralyzing state of mind that led me to a place of constant giving at my own expense. Of people-pleasing. Doing anything and everything to make those around me happy so they wouldn’t abandon me. So they’d need me. So they’d love me.

    And here was my friend who needed help as desperately as I desired to offer it. My friend whose spiral of mental illness and alcoholism was as destructive as my non-existent boundaries and acute need for acknowledgement. We were a perfect storm.

    The Last Day

    The last morning we ever spoke, he was in the midst of what I can only describe as a reality break. He spewed such nonsense that I secretly recorded his rage on my smartphone in case I needed proof of what was happening. He verbally berated me and threw a heavy pair of headphones across the room, missing my head by inches. The straw finally broke the proverbial camel’s back.

    I kicked him out of my home…out of my life. This man who for so long I loved and admired. This man who in reality lived his life like a forty-six-year-old toddler. Choosing to kick him out was more difficult than living with him. I loved him. But I chose me.

    I had to choose me.

    The Path to Recovery

    Not long after kicking him out, I found myself standing in front of a wall full of light bulbs in Home Depot—with no idea how I got there. I was sinking fast.

    I reached out to my primary care physician, as I realized I was in a situation I was ill equipped to handle. I was diagnosed with compounded trauma, placed on medication for depression, and instructed to seek talk therapy.

    Talk therapy enabled me to unpack the root of the issue of why I’d “allowed” this situation to carry on as long as I did.

    I peeled back the layers of an onion that revealed that I had such a deep-seated fear of abandonment and self-loathing that I was willing to sacrifice myself for breadcrumbs of love, affection, and validation. Only by identifying and facing my core wound head on was I able to make significant progress.

    Additionally, I explored eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, which lifted a weight off of me I wasn’t aware I carried. Reprocessing distressing memories using this technique fundamentally changed my relationship with my trauma.

    I devoured books, podcasts, and internet tutorials on emotional abuse, CPTSD, attachment styles, and so much more. I began eating cleaner, exercising consistently, and prioritizing sleep.

    He tore me to my foundation, but as the architect of my future self, I undertook the painstaking process of building myself into who I chose to be. I chose warrior. Well, that’s who I am on my good days. I also have days when I’m a little scared mouse, and that’s okay too.

    Lessons Learned

    It’s been three years since that final day in my apartment. In that time, I’ve accepted there is a difference between showing someone grace and sacrificing oneself for someone who cares only for themselves.

    I’ve made peace with the realization that I can’t heal or change anyone—that they need to do that work on their own.

    Can I provide love? Yes. Will I hold space? Absolutely. Am I capable of fixing anyone? No. Will I forfeit my sanity and safety? Never again.

    My love could not help my friend. I could not fix him. At the end of the day, only he had the ability to fix his problems, and he was either unwilling or incapable of doing the work.

    The Actual Last Day

    I kept tabs on him in the weeks following him leaving my place. He bounced from friend to friend, to various seedy motels and finally to emergency rooms for psych evaluations and vomiting copious amounts of blood.

    And then the inevitable.

    Every story also has an end.

    My friend of thirty years died at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden, New Jersey, in September of 2020 at 7:13 a.m.

    A time I think even he would consider morning.

  • How Childhood Bullying Influenced How I Treat Others as an Adult

    How Childhood Bullying Influenced How I Treat Others as an Adult

    “For me, that strong back is grounded confidence and boundaries. The soft front is staying vulnerable and curious. The mark of a wild heart is living out these paradoxes in our lives and not giving into the either/or BS that reduces us. It’s showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, and, above all else, being both fierce and kind.” ~Brené Brown

    Many people have experienced bullying in their lives and have possibly been a bully by association without realizing it at the time.

    While the type of bullying may differ, the emotions are often the same. Bullying is never okay, and the layered pain that bullies usually possess drives how they treat others.

    For me anxiety, shame, and a lack of understanding has always been present. On a regular basis, I experience pings of past bullying in my head reminiscent of the notifications that pop up on my phone.

    When I reflect on my teen years, it’s the cringe-worthy moments that are the headliners. These negative experiences can stick to you like glue throughout your life.

    Like every teenager, I wanted to fit in, and I wanted to feel like I belonged. Unfortunately, I never belonged where I wanted to the most.

    Much of the time I felt or knew I didn’t belong, or the belonging was fake, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. To make it just a little more complicated, I am a highly sensitive person (HSP), and at that age I didn’t understand how that impacted how I made friends and how I was treated by others.

    Most of the bullying I experienced as a teen was emotional, and for a period it was physical. Standing up for myself wasn’t really in the cards as far as solutions went. I was an athlete and I lived for the sports I played. But you don’t get to choose your team, and that proved to be a dangerous reality for me.

    My teammates did and said hurtful things. I’m not sure if they knew it or not, but I could hear them sometimes at practices. To this day I’m not sure if they knew that I knew; I waited on many days until I got home to fall apart. While the emotional toll has been tough, my worst memories pertain to physical bullying.

    Without going into too much detail, I was targeted by teammates I thought were my friends. They picked a part of my body and thought it was funny to hit, slap, and punch me. I didn’t know what to do or how to stop it, but I didn’t stand up for myself or tell anyone that could help me either.

    While the physical contact hurt, gave me headaches, and caused me to throw up, the most harmful part was that their game taught me that something was wrong with my body.

    By eleventh grade, I’d developed body dysmorphia disorder, and I hid my body as much as possible. To this day sometimes my skin still burns if I feel like I’m showing too much of my body. The shame screams at me inside my head, so I cover as much skin as I can.

    Earlier I wrote that it is possible to be a bully by association. Growing up, I hated when my mom said “guilt by association.” I loathe the feeling of those words ringing in my ears to this day. I didn’t stand up for myself, and I certainly didn’t have the strength or understanding that I could walk away instead of worrying about fitting in.

    I can think of countless times when people who bullied me then targeted others. There were times that I didn’t say a word, times I agreed, and times I maybe laughed. I knew it was wrong. I was stuck between wanting to be accepted, not wanting to be targeted, and trying not to draw attention to myself.

    I was like that in my youth, and I would get sick to my stomach about it all the time. I knew it was wrong but lacked the ability to do the right thing because of the emotional weakness that controlled me.

    Knowing that I can’t go back to change those actions has made me passionate about standing up for what I believe is right as an adult. Because when you stand by, injustice just continues in a loop and things don’t change. 

    I don’t know if I could have changed things back then. I don’t know if simply walking away could have helped. But I know the pain from bullying may last well into adulthood and can potentially affect someone for life.

    As someone who was bullied for a lot of my youth, it took me a long time to forgive myself for bullying by association. I was guilty of harming others even if I didn’t mean to.

    Now, as an adult, I am more mindful of how I want to treat others. I have developed skills, become stronger, and worked extremely hard to hold my head high (which will always be a work in progress).

    At the core, I believe that people are trying their best and do not set out to harm others. While I make mistakes and sometimes need to analyze my own behavior, I live my life with a high level of intention. I use kindness to help others, but also to heal from the harmful experiences in my past.

    After developing a list of practices that reflect how I want to treat people, I now intentionally use my past experiences to do the following…

    1. I pause to cultivate meaningful interactions and relationships. An inner mantra is “people first.” I want to make others feel like they matter and are seen.

    2. I learn about the people around me, and I show my gratitude with acts of kindness.

    3. I’m honest about my past experiences and struggles to help others feel validated.

    4. I openly reflect with others about behaviors, actions, and mistakes that I’ve made that have harmed others. I also share how I work to do better when I make mistakes.

    5. I encourage others to give me feedback and let me know if something I’m doing is hurtful or not helpful.

    6. I practice patience and kindness in the moments when I feel annoyed, angry, or sad.

    7. I speak up if I don’t agree with how someone or a group is being treated.

    8. I exit toxic relationships faster than I used to, realizing that toxic relationships do not just harm me but those around me too.

    9. I take stock of my actions and words on a regular basis to reflect on areas I can improve or how I can be kinder.

    10. I no longer allow being an HSP to shame me into not being my authentic self. I work to use sensitivity as a tool to help myself and others to truly show empathy.

    I know my actions may have harmed others in the past, and I will never arrive at a point where I am magically healed from the ways others hurt me. But I believe in the power of kindness and vulnerability. An important moment in my life was when I decided that I would no longer let my past dictate how I live my life. I decided not to hide who I was anymore. And when I leaned into the discomfort of the painful experiences, I started to grow.

  • 5 Ways to Heal from a Highly Critical, Controlling Parent

    5 Ways to Heal from a Highly Critical, Controlling Parent

    “You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” ~Louise Hay

    When I was growing up, it felt like nothing was good enough for my dad. And all I longed for was his acceptance and love.

    He had this temper that would blow up, and he’d blame me for how he felt. He would outright tell me his behavior was my fault. That if I’d behaved better, he wouldn’t have had an outburst.

    When he told me I wasn’t enough or worthy, I believed him. I was constantly walking on eggshells around him, trying to not annoy him, as his angry words would really hurt.

    The confusing thing about my dad was that he wasn’t like this all the time. Sometimes he was loving, affectionate, and warm, and then in a moment he would switch to cold, controlling, and cruel.

    As a child, I believed to my core that I was the problem. The only way I thought I could keep myself safe was to try and please him and be the perfect daughter.

    I became obsessed with achievement. It started first with my grades and school, and then it was getting the job he wanted me to have. Because sometimes an achievement would get me a crumb of love from him. I would push myself as a child, forsaking rest and hydration at times, so he would see how hard I’d worked.

    But it was never enough for him. He would lose his temper on the one day that I was taking a break, telling me that I would never amount to anything.

    He would even tell other people how awful his family was when he was drunk. It was beyond humiliating.

    Now, at forty-one, these memories with my dad are in the past, but they still haunt me. He has since passed—he took his life fifteen years ago. Turns out my dad wasn’t okay and was struggling with the impact of his own childhood trauma.

    But rather than seeking help, he took it out on his family and himself through addiction and, ultimately, his suicide.

    His controlling, critical voice still lives in my subconscious mind. It’s his voice that tells me to work harder or that I am not good enough, or questions, “Who do you think you are?”

    Even though I consciously know now, as a trauma transformation coach, that his behavior was due to his pain and his words were not the truth, the younger parts of me still believe him. Because those younger parts still feel blamed, shamed, and not enough.

    After his passing, I found myself in relationships where others would criticize, control, and deny my reality, and found myself powerless again, just as I’d felt as a little girl.

    But by investing in various safe spaces, like support groups, therapy, and coaching, I have been able to step away from these relationships or maintain boundaries so that my younger self is no longer triggered by the pain of the past. This has created space for kinder, more loving relationships to come in.

    However, more recently I noticed that even though I’d stepped away from toxic relationships, I had become him to myself. I would speak to myself critically and put myself down. Nothing was good enough, and I would push myself to achieve at any cost, going through cycles of overworking and burnout.

    I would push myself to have the ‘perfect body’ with extreme exercise and diet. But then my inner rebel would push back and sabotage the diet and my health through emotional eating.

    Constantly pushing myself to be better, I realized, unconsciously, I was still chasing his love. His acceptance even though he wasn’t here.

    I had become the controlling critical parent to myself. It was time for me to become the parent I’d longed for and not the parent I’d had.

    Here are the five practices that are helping me to heal from my controlling, critical parent—practices that could help you too.

    1. I ask myself: Am I being kind to myself?

    I have created a pattern interrupter by asking myself, at least three times a day, if I am being kind to myself and, if not, how I can be. I notice my behaviors and inner dialogue and explore how I can shift into kindness.

    For example, if I don’t sleep well, is it kind to push myself with a cardio workout and long day of work, or would it be better to go for a walk in nature and take a slower pace?

    Or, if I am speaking to myself without self-compassion, is there a more loving way to communicate with myself rather than being nasty?

    Each day I make a conscious choice to step into that kind energy. I treat myself how I wish he had treated me.

    2. I celebrate myself weekly.

    Each Sunday, I reflect on what I am proud of and celebrate myself, even if I’ve done something small, like being consistently kind to myself. I become the cheerleading parent I longed for, and this builds self-esteem.

    3. I use affirmations.

    I affirm throughout the day that I am safe and enough. That I don’t have to prove my worth or people-please. I can just be me. This helps soothe the critical voice that goes into past fear stories.

    I use affirmations to say I love and care for myself. That I am my biggest priority.

    4. I listen to my body and choose to take care of it.

    Instead of pushing myself physically, I ask myself: How should I nourish myself? Or how should I move my body? What shouldn’t I put into it out of love? I check in with myself if I need rest or if a certain relationship or situation is causing me physical and mental stress. I speak kindly about my body rather than shaming it for not being enough.

    5. I reparent the parts of me that are in pain from the past.

    My dad will always be part of my story. I can’t change the past, but I can take care of the different parts of me that were hurt. I can show those parts kindness and love through reparenting and inner-child work.

    My favorite practice is going back in time to visit my younger self. I give her a hug, ask her how she feels, and then do whatever I can to fulfill her needs. I soothe the hurting parts of her rather than getting her to perform and achieve.

    Some days my old behaviors come out, but I use the question “Am I being kind to myself?” to get myself back on track. I also practice self-compassion and forgiveness, as I would never say the things I have said to myself to others.

    —

    If you can relate to what I wrote because you had a similar parent, step into being the parent you wished for yourself. Because a happy, loved, affirmed child is better able to live a happy, healthy life than a bullied child that hates herself. Give yourself the gift of love and kindness and watch your story transform.

  • Learning to Speak Up When You Were Taught That Your Feelings Don’t Matter

    Learning to Speak Up When You Were Taught That Your Feelings Don’t Matter

    “A proper grown-up communicates clearly and assertively.”

    This is something I have heard many people say.

    By that definition, I wouldn’t have classed as a proper grown-up for most of my life.

    There was a time when I couldn’t even ask someone for a glass of water. I know that might seem crazy to some people, and for a long time I did feel crazy for it.

    Why couldn’t I do the things others did without even thinking about it? Why couldn’t I just say what I needed to say? Why couldn’t I just be normal?

    Those questions would just feed into the shame spiral I was trapped in at that time in my life.

    But the question I should have been asking myself was not how I could overcome being so damaged and flawed, but how my struggles made sense based on how I was brought up.

    Because based on that I was perfect and my behaviors made perfect sense.

    I was the child that was taught to be seen and not heard.

    I was the child whose feelings made others angry and violent.

    I was the child whose anger got her shamed and rejected by the person she needed the most.

    I was the child that got hit again and again until she didn’t cry anymore.

    I was the child whose needs inconvenienced those who were in charge of taking care of her.

    I was the child whose wants were called selfish, attention-seeking, or ridiculous.

    I was the child who was made wrong for everything she felt, wanted, or needed.

    I was the child who was called a monster for being who she was—a child.

    I was the child that grew up feeling unwanted, alone, and entirely repulsive.

    So why would that child ever speak? Why would that child ever share anything about herself? She wouldn’t, would she? It all makes sense. I made sense. It was a way of living. A way of surviving.

    I had been taught that I didn’t matter. That what I wanted or needed and how I felt was something so abhorrent it needed to be hidden at any cost. And I did it to avoid getting hurt, shamed, and rejected. Even when I was with different people. Even when I was an adult.

    That pattern ran my life. I just couldn’t get myself to say the things I wanted and needed to say. It felt too scary. It felt too dangerous. It was too shame-inducing.

    So if you struggle to express yourself and feel embarrassed about that, I get it. I did too. But I need you to know this: It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.

    And yes, life is harder when you didn’t get to be who you were growing up. When the only way you could protect yourself was by being less of you. When you could never grow into yourself because that would have gotten you hurt. When you couldn’t learn to love yourself because that was the biggest risk of all.

    But today, that risk only lives on within you. In your conditioning. And that’s where the inner healing work comes in.

    For me, that meant getting professional support to help me learn how to safely connect to myself and my truth, and how to banish the critical, demanding, and demeaning internal voice that told me my feelings, needs, and wants were wrong.

    It meant learning to regulate my nervous system so that I could get past my fear and be honest about what worked for me and what didn’t. This was a major turning point in my relationships because I started to represent myself more openly and assertively, which meant that my relationships either improved dramatically or I found out that the other people didn’t really care about me and how I felt.

    It also meant opening up emotionally and learning to understand what my feelings were trying to tell me. Since I’d learned to avoid and suppress my emotions growing up, I knew it would be challenging to truly get to know myself.

    I had the great opportunity of reparenting myself—giving myself the love, affection, and attention I didn’t receive as a kid.

    And that’s what ultimately allowed me to finally feel safe enough to express myself.

    The relationship I had with myself started to become like a safe haven instead of a battleground, and my life has never been the same since.

    Everything on the outside started to align with what was going on inside of me. The safer I became for myself, the safer the people in my life became, which allowed us to develop deeper, more meaningful and intimate relationships.

    So I know that that kind of change is possible. Even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. I know that it is possible because today I am the most authentic and expressed version of myself I have ever been.

    Just look at everything I am sharing here with you. That’s a far cry from asking for a glass of water.

    Today I no longer choke on the words that I was always meant to speak. I speak them.

    Today I no longer hold back my feelings. I feel them. I share them. Freely.

    Today I no longer deny my needs and play down my desires. I own them. I meet them. I fulfil them.

    Today I own who I am and I don’t feel held back by toxic shame in the ways that I once did.

    Back then I would have never thought this was possible for me.

    I hope that in sharing my story and my transformation you will follow the spark of desire in you that wants you to express yourself. To share your thoughts and desires. To express what it’s like to be you. To finally get to meet more of you and eventually all of you.

    That’s what you need to listen to. Not the voice of fear or shame. Not your conditioning. Not anything or anyone that reinforces your inhibitions or trauma.

    You were born to be fully expressed. That was your birthright. That is the world’s gift.

    Just because the people who raised you didn’t understand you as the unique miracle that you are, that doesn’t mean that you have to deprive the world, and yourself, of experiencing you. More of you. All of you.

    It’s never too late to open your heart and share yourself in ways that feel healing, liberating, empowering, and loving to you.

  • How I’ve Stopped Letting My Unhealed Parents Define My Worth

    How I’ve Stopped Letting My Unhealed Parents Define My Worth

    “Detachment is not about refusing to feel or not caring or turning away from those you love. Detachment is profoundly honest, grounded firmly in the truth of what is.” ~Sharon Salzberg

    A few months ago, my father informed me that he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Although he seemed optimistic about the treatment, I knew that hearing such news was not easy.

    After a few weeks, I followed up with him. He ignored my message and went silent for a couple of months. Although his slight ghosting was common, it made me feel ignored and dismissed.

    In the meantime, I went to India for a couple of months. A few weeks before I returned, he reached out, saying he needed to talk. Although he wasn’t specific, I knew something was happening and immediately agreed to speak to him.

    It was Sunday afternoon when he called. After I picked up, I immediately asked about his health. He went on to explain the situation and the next steps of the treatment.

    The call took one hour and twenty-six minutes. I learned everything about his health, where he goes hiking, what food he eats after the hike, what time he wakes up, the fun he and his girlfriend have, what his relationships with his students is like, and where he goes dancing every Saturday night.

    The only thing he knew about me was that my trip to India was great. He didn’t ask me what I did there or why I even decided to take such a radical step.

    Right after the call, somewhat discouraged because of his lack of interest, I received a call from my mom.

    Since my parents are divorced, I must divide these calls and often keep them secret in front of each other.

    The call with my mom went pretty much the same way. The only difference was that she repeated things numerous times without realizing it since she is on anti-depressants, often accompanied by alcohol.

    After both calls were over, thoughts of unworthiness started hitting me. At first, I judged myself for expecting my father to care about my life and used his health as a justification for his treatment. Then I realized I always made excuses for my parents. It was the way I coped with their behavior.

    Although talking to them was more of a duty than anything else, I knew not having contact wouldn’t resolve the issue. However, I didn’t know how to deal with these feelings. It felt as if every phone call with them reminded me how unworthy and unimportant I was to them.

    While growing up, my mother struggled with alcohol, and my father abused the entire family. When I began dating, I naturally attracted partners that reflected what I thought of myself: I was unworthy and unlovable.

    Although I wasn’t sure how to handle it, I knew there must have been a solution to this emotional torture.

    Typically, when I ended my calls with my parents, I would reach for thoughts of unworthiness and inadequacy. However, this Sunday, I chose differently. For the first time, I stopped the self-destructive thoughts in their tracks and asked myself the fundamental question that changed everything: How long will I let my unhealed parents define my worth and how lovable I am?

    After sitting in awe for about ten minutes and realizing the healthy step I just took, I asked myself another question: How can I manage these relationships to protect my mental health and, at the same time, maintain a decent relationship with them?

    Here is how I decided to move forward.

    1. Setting boundaries while finding understanding

    I always dreamed of how it would be if my mom didn’t drink. I remember as a fourteen-year-old kneeling by the couch where she lay intoxicated, asking her to please quit drinking. As a child and as an adult, I believed that if she could stop the alcohol abuse, everything would be better. She wasn’t a bad mother but an unhealed mother.

    Today, I understand that this may not be possible. Although watching someone I love destroying themselves almost in front of my eyes is painful, after working through my codependency, I understand that it’s impossible to save those who have no desire to change their life.

    Therefore, emotional distance for me is inevitable. I decided to use the skills I learned as a recovering codependent when appropriate. If I feel guilty that I moved far away, stopped financially supporting my mom since she drinks, or that I am not there to deal with her alcohol issue, I pause. Then, I forgive myself for such thoughts and remind myself that the only power I hold is the power to heal myself.

    If I find myself secretly begging for the love of my father, I reflect on all those loving and close relationships I was able to create with people around me.

    Another self-care remedy I use when feeling sad is a loving-kindness meditation to soothe my heart, or I talk with a close friend.

    2. Accepting and meeting my parents where they are

    Frankly, this has been the hardest thing for me to conquer. For years, the little girl inside me screamed and prayed for my parents to be more present, loving, and caring.

    Because I secretly wished for them to change, I couldn’t accept them for who they were. I wanted my father to be more loving and my mom to be the overly caring woman many other mothers are.

    When I began accepting that the people who caused my wounding couldn’t heal it, I dropped my unrealistic expectations and let go.

    I also realized that instead of healing my wounded inner child, I used her to blame my parents. Therefore, I was stuck in a victim mentality while giving them all the power to define my value.

    Today, I understand that expecting change will only lead to disappointment. Frankly, my parents are entitled to be whoever they choose to be. Although it takes greater mental power and maturity, I try to remind myself that this is what their best looks like while considering their unhealed wounds. This realization allows me to be more accepting and less controlled by their behavior. It allows me not to take things too personally.

    3. Practicing detachment

    Frankly, I felt exuberant when I chose not to allow my parents to define how I felt about myself when we last spoke. It wasn’t anger or arrogance; it was detachment. I remember sitting there with my phone in hand, mentally repeating: “I won’t let you define my worth anymore.” After a couple of weeks of reflecting on this day, I can say that this was the first time I took responsibility for my feelings concerning my parents.

    Although this story doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending, it feels empowering, freeing, and unbelievably healing. Breaking the emotional chains from the two most important people in my life is the healthiest decision I could have made.

    After my first victory in a years-long battle, I feel optimistic that this is the beginning of immense healing. Although I know that thoughts of unworthiness will creep in when interacting with them in the future, now I understand that I hold in my hands the most powerful tool there is—the power of choice.

  • How I’ve Navigated My Grief and Guilt Since Losing My Narcissistic Father

    How I’ve Navigated My Grief and Guilt Since Losing My Narcissistic Father

    “One of the greatest awakenings comes when you realize that not everybody changes.  Some people never change.  And that’s their journey.  It’s not yours to try and fix it for them.” ~Unknown

    In 2021 my father died. Cancer of… so many things.

    Most of the events during that time are a blur, but the emotions that came with them are vivid and unrelenting.

    I was the first in my family to find out.

    My mother and sister had gone on an off-grid week-long getaway up the West Coast of South Africa, where there’s nothing but sand, shore, and shrubs.

    I was living in China (where I continue to live today), and we were under Covid lockdown.

    He called me on WhatsApp (which was rare) from the Middle East, where he lived with his new wife. Asian and half his age.

    The cliche of the aging white man in a full-blown-late-midlife crisis. Gaudy bling and all.

    He looked gaunt and ashen-faced. That’s what people look like when they’re delivering bad news. He dropped the bomb.

    “I have cancer.”

    What I am about to admit haunts me to this day: I cared about him in the way one human cares for the well-being of any other human. But at the time, I never cared at the level that a son should care for a father. I had built a fortress around myself that protected me from him over the years.

    He’d never really been a parent to me. He wasn’t estranged physically, but emotionally, he’d never been there.

    He was emotionally absent. He always had been.

    I was the weird gay kid with piercings, tattoos, and performance art pieces.

    He was a military man. The rugby-watching, beer-drinking, logically minded man’s man.

    We were polar opposites—opposite sides of completely different currencies.

    I sat with the bomb that had just been delivered so hastily into my arms and ears. Information that I didn’t know what to do with. It felt empty. I didn’t know how to feel or how to respond. 

    Six years earlier, in 2015, I had flown back to South Africa to sit with my mother on her sofa for two weeks while she grappled with the complexity of the emotions of being recently divorced after forty-something years of marriage.

    My mother and I always had been close. She had spent her life dedicated to a narcissistic man who had cheated on her more than once, who was absent a lot of the time during our childhood because of his job in the Navy, and from whom she had shielded my sister and me.

    He had hurt her again. And I hated him for it.

    She had been devoted to him. Committed to their marriage. Gave him the freedom to work abroad while she kept the home fires burning. She’d faithfully maintained those home fires for over a decade already. She had planned their whole future together since she was sixteen years old and pregnant with my sister, who’s five years old than me.

    And this is how he repaid her.

    He’d taken it all away from her and left her alone in the house they’d built together before I was born.  Haunted by the shadows of future plans abandoned in the corners.

    She descended into a spiral of anxiety and depression, resulting in two weeks of inpatient care at a recovery clinic with a dual diagnosis of depression and addiction (alcoholism) that wasn’t entirely her fault.

    He caused that.

    I remember lying in bed when I was about six or seven years old; I was meant to be asleep, the room in deep blue darkness. Hearing my father in the living room say, “That boy has the brains of a gnat.”

    I assume I hadn’t grasped some primary math homework or forgotten to tidy something away. Things that I was prone to. Things that annoyed him to the point of frustrated outbursts and anger.

    “Ssh! He can hear you,” my mother replied. I still hear the remorseful tone of her voice.

    He was logical and mechanical. I am not.

    I don’t remember my crime that day, but I still suffer the penalty of negative self-talk, a lack of confidence, and a fear of being considered “less than” by others.

    It’s one of my earliest memories.

    And there, in 2021, I sat with the news of his diagnosis. I didn’t know what to feel.

    Guilty for not having the emotional response I knew I was meant to be having?

    Shouldn’t I be crying? Shouldn’t I be distraught?

    How do other people react to this kind of news?

    I’ve always been a highly sensitive person. It’s my superpower. The power of extreme empathy. But there I sat, empty.

    I felt trapped.

    I was in China in 2021, and we were under Covid lockdown. There were zero flights.

    I was emotionally and physically trapped.

    Gradually, more feelings started surfacing.

    At first, I felt compassion for a fellow human facing something utterly devastating.

    Then I started to feel fear for my mom, who had held onto the idea that maybe, one day, they’d get back together.

    I was terrified about how she would take this news when she returned from her holiday.

    Within a few weeks, a “family” Facebook group was set up—cousins, uncles, people I’d never met before, myself, my sister, and my mother.

    And the “other woman” and her kids from previous relationships, none of whom we’d ever met.

    Phrases like “no matter how far apart we are, family always sticks together” were pinging in the group chat.

    I didn’t know how to absorb those sentiments.

    Family always sticks together? Didn’t you tear our family apart? Where were you when I was lying in a hospital bed in 2011 with a massive abdominal tumor?  Family always sticks together? What a convenient idea in your hour of need.  

    More guilt. How could I be so jaded?

    A month later, in January 2021, he passed away.

    It happened so quickly, and for that, I am grateful. No human should ever suffer if there is no hope of survival.

    That’s when the floodgates of emotions opened.

    I cried for weeks.

    I cried for the misery and suffering he caused my family, my mother’s despair, and my sister’s loss. I shed tears for my grandfather, who had lost two of his three sons and wife. I wept for my uncle, who had lost another brother.

    I cried for the future my mom had planned but would never have.

    And I cried for the father I never had and the hope of a relationship that would never be.

    I sobbed from the guilt of not crying for him.

    Then I got angry. Really, really angry.

    I got angry with him for never being the father I needed. I got mad for the hurt he caused my mom. I blamed him for never accepting me for me. I was angry with him because I was the child, and he was the adult.

    Being accepted by him was never my responsibility.

    In the weeks and months that followed, the wounds got deeper. My mother’s drinking got worse, to the point of (a very emotional and ugly) intervention.

    We found out that my father had left his military pension (to the tune of millions) to his new, younger wife of less than a year and her four children from different men. 

    While I want to take the moral high ground and tell you it’s not about the money—it’s solely about the final message of not caring for his biological children in life or death—I’d be lying.

    My sister and I have been struggling financially for years, and that extra monthly money would’ve offered us peace of mind, good medical insurance, or just a sense that he did care about our well-being after all.

    But there’s no use ruminating on it.

    Accept the things you cannot change.

    It’s been two years since he passed away.

    I’ve bounced between grief, anger, and acceptance, like that little white ball rocketing chaotically around a pinball machine, piercing my emotions with soul-blinding lights and sound.

    The word “dad” never meant anything to me. To me, it was a verb, not a noun. It never translated into the tangible world.

    My mother once said, “Now I know you were a child who needed more hugs.”

    She hugged me often.

    But I also needed his hugs.

    I’ve found a way to accept that he would never have been the father I needed. I will never have a relationship with my father. Even if he were still alive, he would never have been capable of loving us the way we needed him to.

    You cannot give what you don’t have.

    He was a narcissist. Confirmed by a therapist in the weeks and months after their sudden divorce.

    He was never going to change. He didn’t know how to.

    Using NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) techniques, I’ve been able to reframe the childhood memories I have about my father.

    That fateful night all those years ago, lying in bed, hearing those words that have undermined my confidence and self-worth for thirty-four years: “That boy has the brains of a gnat.”

    Through visualization and mental imagery, I’ve found a pathway to healing.

    Through NLP, I became the observer in the room of that memory. I could give that little boy lying in bed, his head under the sheets, the comfort, protection, and acceptance he needed.

    I wrapped golden wings around that little boy and protected him.

    I became my own guardian angel.

    During the same session, my NLP coach gently encouraged me to look into the living room where my father sat that night.

    What I saw in my mind’s eye took my breath away.

    I saw a broken and withered man. His legs were drawn up close to his chest. I saw the pain inside him. I saw a man who didn’t know how to love or be loved.

    I saw a man who was scared, confused, and deprived.

    In that moment of being the observer, the guardian angel in the next room, a brilliant light forcefully rushed from me and coiled around him. A luminous cord of golden energy.

    I don’t know if the surge of energy wrapped around him was to heal or restrain him. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. It was pure love, compassion, and light. And it was coming from me: I was my own Guardian Angel.

    At that moment, all the past yearning for his love, acceptance, and approval dissipated. I didn’t need it from him; I needed to give it to him—filled with empathy and compassion. I needed to release him from the anger, hurt, and pain he had caused.

    I needed to do it for myself, but I also needed to do it for him.

    I’ve accepted him for who he was.

    It took a lot of journaling, visualization, mindfulness and meditation, listening to Buddhist teachings (Thich Nhat Hanh in particular), and sitting with the emotions.

    It took the desire to heal myself and him—to be happy and whole again.

    He was painfully human. But aren’t we all?

    He was a narcissist. He drank too much, cheated on his wife, never took the time to have any meaningful connection with his kids, and loved Sudoku.

    He caused my mother pain that still haunts her to this day.

    She still dreams about him.

    I like to think that if he had one more chance to reach out from The Great Beyond, he might say something along the lines of what Teresa Shanti once said:

    “To my children,  I’m sorry for the unhealed parts of me that in turn hurt you.  It was never my lack of love for you.  Only a lack of love for myself.”

    He was a deeply flawed man—but he was my father.

  • How I Found Forgiveness and Compassion When I Felt Hurt and Betrayed

    How I Found Forgiveness and Compassion When I Felt Hurt and Betrayed

    “I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.” ~Haruki Murakami

    I’ve always felt like someone on the outside. Despite having these feelings I’ve been relatively successful at playing the game of life, and have survived through school, university, and the workplace—although, at times, working so hard to ’survive’ has impacted my emotional well-being.

    I have been lucky enough to have healthy and supportive relationships with a few loved ones who have accepted me as I am (quirks and all). To anyone else I’ve come across, I suspect I’ve been perceived as inexplicably normal and inoffensive.

    Like many of us who have suffered with our mental health, I’ve always been curious to learn more about who I am beyond the surface level experiences of life. Spirituality is a big umbrella, and in my quest for truth I explored various modalities. I eventually found a home within a small yoga community.

    I find many of us seekers feel deeply and have a tendency to overcomplicate things that just are. In my mind this style of yoga worked; quite simply, I followed the practices and life felt a little bit easier, I felt more acceptable as I was, and I believe it made me a better human being to people around me.

    The deeper I went into the practice, the more I began to observe its pitfalls. As is common in many spiritual lineages, it’s quite often not the methods and the teachings that are fallible, but how humans interpret and relate to them.

    In my particular lineage, the leader was found to have physically and sexually assaulted students over a period spanning decades. Those who were brave enough to come forward were silenced, and it took many years before the evidence became so undeniable that the community (by and large) finally acknowledged the truth.

    The revelation and realization that the leader was fallible caused significant pain to many during this time, and is sadly an experience not unique in spiritual sanghas.

    At this time some conversations were had regarding the student-teacher dynamic, and the propensity for abuse in our lineage, but no cohesive and collective safeguards were established or defined. Small fringe communities developed during this time in an apparent greater commitment to change; however, it was by no means the status quo.

    The leader, at this point, had left his body, and it appeared as if many felt it was this man alone who was the problem, and therefore the problem was no more.

    I loved the practice, and I felt my knowledge of the history of the lineage equipped me with an awareness of the propensity for harmful power dynamics to occur. I was fortunate in the early years of my journey to have teachers whose only objective appeared to be to support students by sharing what they knew.

    For the first time ever, I didn’t feel like I was an outsider—I felt acceptable as I was. Sadly, however, due to a teacher relocating, I joined a new community with a new teacher, and this is where my story of pain begins.

    My new teacher must have been suffering. The specifics around my experience are not relevant for this article, but I understand now I was bullied, belittled, and manipulated. Maybe it was a misunderstanding? Maybe I asked too many questions? Maybe I was too direct? Maybe I wasn’t obsequious enough? I went over and over in my head to try to understand, why me?

    I still loved the practice and wanted to be welcomed like everyone else. Throughout my experience I remained respectful to the teacher, but it was a confusing time. Eventually, I can only assume, the teacher got bored with playing with me and played her final card, banning and ostracizing me from the group. I was also labelled to the community as abusive and an aggressor.

    And, oh boy, did that bring up a cycle of emotions. Written down on paper like this they are just words, but I can promise you they felt intense and consuming and relentless. I felt…

    -Humiliation: I have been misrepresented. I can’t show my face ever again. People don’t believe me that I did nothing wrong.
    -Shame: Why am I the person who has been ostracized? There really must be something really wrong with me.
    -Rage: How dare someone cause me this much hurt? How dare they claim to be a spiritual leader?
    -Resentment: No one else in the community has stood up for me; none of them can be good people to let this happen.
    -Grief: I have lost a practice I really loved. My heart is broken.
    -Depression: My path gave me purpose, now what?

    Subsequently, my life unraveled, and I can honestly say the period following was the darkest of my life. Family, friends, and my therapist allowed me space to explore and accept my pain.

    We all experience the world through our own lens, and I appreciate I may have personal defects that clouded my experience of the situation. However, I do see now that I was wronged. No teacher will perfectly match my personal disposition, and that’s okay. However, they should offer a safe and inclusive space for spiritual discovery. I wasn’t given that, and that wasn’t good enough. 

    So many times, well-being supporters would tell me, “You need to move on, forgive, forget, find another yoga space.” I understood but I didn’t know how to go about that.

    At the time, a good friend was going through recovery from alcoholism and working the twelve steps. She told me that she was praying every day for people who had harmed her.

    “How can you do that?” I remember asking her. “I couldn’t wish well for those who have harmed me.” My friend told me that, to begin with, she didn’t believe what she was saying, but that over time she began to feel compassion and forgiveness toward those people.

    So that’s what I did. I made a commitment to myself to start practicing daily forgiveness meditations.

    To begin with, I worked on forgiving the teacher. I learned more about this teacher’s past and learned about a significant life event that I believe may have caused great pain. We all have shadow sides, and I spent time reflecting on the occasions where I may have hurt people to project my own suffering. With time, I was able to see and accept that her actions towards me came from a place of hurt.

    I also spent time reflecting on the positive things the teacher gave me. I acknowledged how she’d held virtual space for our community through covid lockdowns, which undoubtedly helped many of us during those isolating times. I appreciated how she had introduced me to several authors whose words I continue to find great richness in, and whose books I have since recommended to others. The teacher also helped me to advance my physical asana practice, through encouraging me to find possibility in movement which felt impossible.

    It didn’t happen overnight, but I was gradually able to find space in my heart for compassion toward this teacher. However, I wasn’t fully healed.

    I began to understand that there lay deeper hurt and anger directed at other community members, some of whom were aware of this abuse and either denied it or chose to do nothing, believing it had nothing to do with them.

    It was through those interactions that I began to understand the pain of victim denial and gaslighting. I felt angered by the lack of collective action by the community to hold harmful teachers accountable, and to enforce better safeguards to ensure greater student safety. I knew there were others who, like me, had been hurt, and that broke my heart.

    So that’s what my current practice is focused on—healing and forgiving institutional betrayal.

    I am lucky to have joined a new community that feels much kinder. It has taken time, but I am now able to separate my feelings toward yoga from the hurt I felt from individuals in the yoga community.

    I recognize now that many of those who silenced me when I tried to speak up about my teacher were just ignorant; they weren’t cruel. There is still pain, but with time I can see how this experience is a gift; it has taught me how to find forgiveness and reminded me of the importance of compassion toward all beings.

  • I Don’t Know Who I Am: How I’m Finding Myself Again After the Abuse

    I Don’t Know Who I Am: How I’m Finding Myself Again After the Abuse

    “When you turn the corner / And you run into yourself / Then you know that you have turned / All the corners that are left.” ~Langston Hughes

    Nearly two years ago I left a long-term controlling and abusive relationship.

    I didn’t know that I was in one. I just knew that I was desperate.

    Abusers take everything away from you. I don’t just mean your money or your home or your children, although they take those as well. I mean everything, including your sense of self.

    Toward the end of the relationship, I wrote in my journal: “I have nothing. Nothing. No future. No family. No home. Nothing. I don’t know what to do any more. There seems to be no hope.”

    When I first left I had nowhere to go. I stayed in a hotel for a while and then moved to a pay-by-the week residence. I genuinely could not see any future for myself at that time.

    When you read about leaving an abusive relationship, there is a lot of information about how hard it is to leave. It takes someone, on average, seven attempts.

    It also can be dangerous to leave. Abusers escalate their behavior when they fear that they are losing their control over you. These are important things to be aware of.

    What nobody seems to talk about, and perhaps there are good reasons why, is how hard it is to recover once all the dust has settled.

    I have spoken to the police and been to court and had some excellent support from a domestic abuse charity. I have been to support groups. I feel like I’ve processed a lot of the abuse and that I am now able to move on from that trauma.

    I have a truly amazing therapist, who recognized the situation I was in even when I was trying to hide it from myself. He helped me escape. I credit him with saving my life.

    I have my own flat now that feels safe. I live in a nice area. I’ve made new friends and I am starting to feel part of the local community.

    But two years on from this relationship, I still don’t know who I am.

    Someone recently asked me what I like to watch on TV. I have no idea. I surrendered all TV-watching decision-making to my ex-partner because he had a tantrum if I put something on that he didn’t like.

    I don’t know what I want to do for a job. Up until recently, I worked in my ex-partner’s field, even though it is a field I know little and care less about, because that’s what he wanted me to do. I don’t know what I care about.

    Why am I telling you this? Because I am certain that I am not alone, but sometimes I feel very alone. And if you out there reading this also feel this terrible confusion about who you are and what you want to do, and you also feel alone, I want to tell you something…

    You are not alone.

    This is normal. This is okay. Not okay in the sense that it’s enjoyable or good, but okay in the sense that it is an understandable consequence of your journey.

    You don’t have to feel like there is something especially wrong with you that you aren’t now skipping through the fields gleefully enjoying your freedom. Hooray! I can do whatever I want!

    This is, I think, what people expect a domestic abuse survivor to do once they’ve gotten away from their partner. It’s what I wanted to do. The idea of finally having the freedom to do what I wanted was so exciting.

    It fell down pretty quickly when I realized I didn’t know what I wanted.

    Other than pancakes. I love making and eating pancakes. Hot pancakes with fresh lemon juice and sugar.

    And therein lies an anchor that you can use to start rebuilding yourself and your life.

    Start with something small.

    When you are rebuilding yourself, it feels like this should be profound. You should find out what your values are. What your aspirations and dreams are.

    This is like running a marathon without having done any training. You can’t start with the massive things. Start with the small things.

    What do you like to eat for breakfast?

    Even that is a big question for me because my ex-partner controlled my eating. I wasn’t always allowed to have breakfast. He didn’t do mornings, and if I woke him up making breakfast, he’d start screaming and threatening suicide.

    One day I discovered by pure chance that I like pancakes. And I am sure of this. This is something small but something solid and real.

    I can use this with other things in my life, to find out whether I like them or not. Do I feel about this the way I feel about pancakes? It sounds ridiculous but it works for me.

    It’s okay to change your mind.

    This is a big one. When your life has been unstable because you’ve been constantly gaslit, and subject to the shifting and changing rules that a controlling person indulges in, you want stability.

    You want things to stay the same. And you think that who you are and what you want should stay the same.

    Pro tip: It doesn’t. Not even for “normal” people. And your mind has been infected with the thoughts and ideas of another person.

    When you ask yourself what you want, sometimes it’s not your voice that replies. You may not recognize this at first. Later, you think, wait, that doesn’t feel right anymore.

    You can change your mind. It’s okay. It’s normal.

    I desperately wanted a cat for months. I bored everyone to tears telling them how much I wanted a cat. I looked up pictures of cats and mooned over cats and planned out names for my cats.

    Now I don’t want a cat. Not that I don’t like cats, I just don’t feel ready to take on the commitment of a pet. And that’s okay.

    Try stuff out.

    Do you really like chocolate, or is it that your ex-partner liked chocolate? How do you know?

    Try it out.

    Do you like to sing? Try that out.

    Maybe you find that you love to sing and you hate chocolate. Great. You’ve learned something about yourself.

    I like pancakes, chocolate, and singing. I do not like marmalade.

    Give yourself time.

    I am eternally thankful that a lady in one of my support groups said, “It took me about six years to start feeling like myself again.” At that point I was about nine months out of the relationship and convinced I was a failure because I still felt completely unstable.

    At this two-year point I catch myself feeling frustrated with myself for not having made more progress. Come on, Lily. Why don’t you know what you want to do with your life yet?

    I don’t know because someone emptied out my mind and filled it with their ideas. And made the consequences for thinking differently from them completely catastrophic. I am still scared to hold the “wrong” opinion, even though these days nobody is going to throw heavy objects if I do.

    My brain was rewired over a long period of time and it’s going to take time for me to fix that. This is okay. It’s not fun. It’s hard work. But it’s okay.

    In the meantime, I am going to sing, make pancakes, and eat chocolate.

  • How I Claimed My Right to Belong While Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

    How I Claimed My Right to Belong While Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post briefly references sexual abuse.

    “Never hold yourself back from trying something new just because you’re afraid you won’t be good enough. You’ll never get the opportunity to do your best work if you’re not willing to first do your worst and then let yourself learn and grow.” ~Lori Deschene

    The year 2022 was the hardest of my life. And I survived a brain tumor before that.

    My thirtieth year started off innocently enough. I was living with my then-boyfriend in Long Beach and had a nice ring on my finger. The relationship had developed quickly, but it seemed like kismet. Unfortunately, we broke up around June. And that’s when the madness began.

    I believe it to be the extreme heat of the summer that somehow wrought this buried pain from underneath my pores to come up. Except the pain didn’t evaporate. It stayed stagnant, and I felt suffocated.

    There were excruciating memories of being sexually abused as a child. Feelings of intense helplessness came along. I had nightmares every night, and worse, a feeling of horrendous shame when I woke up. All of this made me suicidal.

    Before I knew it, every two weeks I was being hospitalized for powerful bouts of depression, PTSD, and the most severe anxiety that riddled my bones.

    This intense, almost trance-like experience of going in and out of hospitals seemed like the only way to cope with life. I felt broken, beyond repair. I gained a lot of weight and shaved my head and then regretted it. My self-esteem plummeted.

    I felt like I didn’t belong to society anymore. I’d had superficial thoughts like this before, growing up in the punk scene, but the experience of constantly being in and out of mental hospitals was beyond being “fringe.” I felt extremely alienated.

    With many hospitalizations in 2022, I was losing myself. Conservatorship was now on the table. I was terrified and angry at the circumstances fate had bestowed upon me.

    In my final hospitalization in December, I suffered tortuously. I was taken off most of the benzos I was on, and I was withdrawing terribly, alone in a room at the psych ward. My hands and feet were constantly glazed in a cold sweat.

    I was so on-edge that every sound outside my door jerked my head up. The girl next door would sob super loud, in real “boo-hoos,” and do so for hours on end. It eroded me. I would scream at her to stop, but she would then cry louder.

    If there was a hell on earth, this was it. I told myself, with gritted teeth, staring out the window, that this would be my last time in a psych ward. No matter how miserable I was, I would just cope with it. I didn’t want to deal with this anymore.

    So I made a commitment to myself to really try to get better. Hope was hatched by that intense amount of pain. I knew I had a long journey ahead to heal, but that there was no other way but up.

    After that final hospitalization, I joined a residential program that helped me form new habits. There was a sense of healing and community there. I felt a mentorship connection with one of the workers, who was a recovered drug addict.

    I was glad I was finally doing a little better. I realized I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital so much and perhaps should have plugged into one of the residential places first.

    This year has been easier as a result of sticking to treatment and addressing some of the issues that were plaguing me. I now have better coping mechanisms to deal with symptoms of PTSD, as well as some better grounding techniques.

    As a result, I’ve been able to go back to work, despite still dealing with intense anxiety. For the first time in a while, I feel hopeful for my life. But I can’t help but getting hit with a barrage of thoughts before I go to work.

    This whole thing I’m going through is commonly known as “imposter syndrome.” Basically, it feels like I don’t belong where I’m going in order to make the quality of my life better. I feel like a fake or a phony, afraid my coworkers will understand who I really am—someone who has struggled with PTSD and depression.

    As a result, some days are more difficult than others when it comes to showing up at work. I’ll have mini panic attacks in the restroom. There’s an overwhelming feeling of surrealness.

    Although I’m glad to have gotten out of the merry-go-round of doom, putting on a happy face and attempting to appear as a healthy, well-adjusted person is too much sometimes.

    And I know it’s not just in my situation that people experience imposter syndrome. Some people that were once extremely overweight feel out of place once they’ve lost their extra pounds. Others who are the minority in race or gender where they work can also feel like they don’t belong.

    I’ve come to realize this is a universal experience, the feeling of “not belonging.” It’s also a syndrome of lack of self-worth. I try to tackle this in baby steps every day.

    Here are some things I try to live by to feel more secure where I’m trying to thrive.

    I ask myself, “Why NOT me?”

    There’s a Buddhist quote that suggests, when you’re suffering, instead of asking, “Why me?”, you’re supposed to humble yourself by asking, “Why NOT me?” But I think this is also relevant to feelings of belonging.

    When you feel like you don’t belong, ask yourself, “Why NOT me?” Why wouldn’t you deserve to belong, when everyone else does, despite their varied challenges? This sort of thinking levels the playing field.

    I remind myself of my worth.

    I could spend hours thinking about why I’m not adequate or deserving. But I try to think about why I do have a right to be there. I deserve to get a paycheck like everyone else. I deserve to work, no matter what I’ve been through, and to value the sense of belonging offered through my coworkers.

    I try to power through my inner resistance.

    Many days this is more difficult than others, but I know if my greater goal is improving my life and feeling like I belong to society again, its worth challenging all the mental resistance I feel. I also know that my feelings will change over time if I keep pushing through them.

    Cherish the times of connection.

    There are times at work where I feel really connected to my coworkers, even though I doubt we have the same psychiatric history. I try to savor those times of connection because they keep me going. Since we are social beings, it is important to us to feel connected.

    Take comfort in knowing this will fade.

    Already, having just worked a few weeks at this job, my feelings of imposter syndrome are starting to fade. If I had known this would happen in the beginning, I wouldn’t have put so much anxiety on myself. If you’re going through this too in any capacity, just remember that the feelings are only temporary and will pass as you find your footing.

    Make peace with your past.

    Everyone has a past, some that may feel more shameful than others. But don’t conflate that with your right to belong and be a contributing member of society. Sure, some things are harder to rebound from than others, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get past them. And that doesn’t mean you need to be defined or limited by your past challenges.

    Validate your feelings of struggle.

    Although it would be nice to just use denial to move forward, that’s not possible since you know the truth. You know what you’ve been through and how it’s affected you. I validate my experience in the struggle by going to support groups after work. That way I’m not gaslighting myself, pretending I’m fine. It’s just about knowing there’s a time and place for that unheard, marginalized part of yourself.

    —

    We all put on a brave face to be accepted, but we all deserve to belong, regardless of how we’ve struggled.

    Don’t let your struggles define you. Instead, validate the fact that they have given you the strength to get where you are now.

  • “But He Never Hit Me!” – How I Ignored My Abuse for 30 Years

    “But He Never Hit Me!” – How I Ignored My Abuse for 30 Years

    “People only see what they are prepared to see.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Abuse is a funny thing. I don’t mean humorous, of course.

    I mean the other definition of funny: difficult to explain or understand.

    Abuse shouldn’t be difficult to understand. If someone is mistreated, we should be able to clearly point a finger and proclaim, “That is wrong.”

    But not all abuse is obvious or clear-cut.

    I was abused for most of my adult life and didn’t know it.

    Crazy, right?

    Let me state it again: I was abused and didn’t know it.

    I only saw what I was prepared to see.

    Is That Really Abuse?

    I’ve read enough biographies and seen enough movies based on true events to know what physical abuse looks like. But broken bones and bruises are only one kind of abuse.

    Through deep discovery with a therapist who cradled me protectively, I can now say with certainty that I have suffered abuse in several forms:

    • Emotional
    • Financial
    • Sexual
    • Spiritual

    Yes, abuse comes in many forms.

    It is often invisible.

    My abuser was my husband—the very person who was supposed to love me more than anyone.

    A man I started dating when I was seventeen years old and married when I was twenty-two years old. We were married for thirty-one years.

    He never was physically violent. He never screamed at me or called me names. That abuse would have been more obvious.

    His abuse was subtle and manipulative.

    Invisible.

    What People See

    Imagine you stand outside to watch the day end with a beautiful sunset.

    A friend stands next to you and remarks, “What a beautiful green sun.”

    “Green?” You scoff, “The sun is orange and yellow like a big ball of fire. It isn’t green. Maybe you should get your eyes checked.”

    A neighbor overhears your conversation and joins in. “It certainly does look magnificent tonight. That is my favorite color. Emerald green with shades of lime.”

    You wonder why two people suddenly think the sunset is green. Could they be playing a joke?

    You squint your eyes, looking at the sun critically. You see an orange ball surrounded by yellow haze shooting out until it blends into the ocean-blue sky.

    No green.

    You overhear more conversations around you. Everyone is talking about the green sun.

    A kid cruises by on his bike. “Look how green the sun is today!” He shouts and points up in the sky. Everyone murmurs their appreciation of the view.

    You slowly begin to think maybe you are the one that is confused. Maybe you aren’t seeing things right.

    You keep hearing that the sun is green, but you don’t see it. Maybe there is something wrong with your eyes.

    And just like that, your perception has changed. The next time you look at a sunset, you look at it differently. You’re going to be looking for green instead of the oranges or yellows.

    You only see what you are prepared to see.

    Abuse is a lot like that.

    The more you are told something, the more you believe it.

    I was told I was worthless, and I believed it. I didn’t argue against it. I didn’t see it as abuse because it didn’t fit in with my idea of abuse.

    My Abuse

    The abuse I suffered was so manipulative and deceitful that I didn’t see it coming. I was belittled and bullied. I slowly lost who I was while I fed my husband’s constant need for validation.

    These are the words I often heard:

    • You’re too emotional.
    • That’s not what I said. You never remember things right.
    • Are you cheating on me?
    • You’re too sensitive.
    • The husband’s role is harder than the wife’s.
    • It’s a good thing you have me–who else would love you?
    • I never said that. Why do you always twist my words?
    • Your body doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to me.
    • Why do you always make me feel bad about myself?
    • Remember when you messed up that one time? Let’s talk about that again.
    • Most women are better… and I got stuck with you.
    • Women just aren’t as smart as men.

    Thirty years of these statements left me feeling inadequate. Worthless. Hopeless.

    I wondered why I couldn’t be a good enough wife.

    If you read through those sentences above, you may see the obvious gaslighting that was going on.

    Classic gaslighting.

    My husband made me think I was ‘wrong’ about everything in life. I was too emotional and sensitive. I had a good body but didn’t want to have sex 24/7. (He called that false advertising.)

    I was not allowed to ask him questions about things like our finances and savings … or I was questioning his manhood.

    If I asked an innocent question, such as if he was going to have to work on Christmas Eve, he would chastise me for making him feel bad.

    My husband used my faith to control me. He would cherry-pick bible verses and common ideologies to support his authority over me.

    And then he made me feel like I was overreacting and ridiculous.

    What’s worse, I began gaslighting myself!

    I would chastise myself for not being his ‘ideal’ woman.

    I blamed myself for not being a perfect wife who could take care of everything in the home, raise three children, hold down a job, and take care of his mother who lived with us… all while fighting lupus—a progressive autoimmune disease.

    I felt like a failure.

    And then something happened…

    The House of Lies Falls

    Thirty years is a long time to live in ignorance. When I finally realized what was happening, my whole world collapsed around me like a brick building in an earthquake.

    The blindfold was finally taken off my eyes.

    In the span of four months, I discovered every heartbreaking lie my husband told me. And there were mountains of lies.

    First, he hadn’t had a job in over fifteen years.

    Every day he would tell me goodbye and go to a “job” he didn’t really have. He had lied about his job so convincingly that he had made up fictitious friends and co-workers, and even told stories about them.

    We didn’t have health insurance. He hadn’t filed taxes. He hadn’t filled out financial aid for our college-aged children. We didn’t even have car insurance.

    We had no savings. No retirement. We had been living on my meager income. We made ends meet because we were living with his mother.

    He missed many events because of his “job”: soccer games for the kids, concerts, school programs, church events. I lived like a single mother because his non-existent “job” demanded so much of his time.

    He has never given me an answer as to why he did this. But honestly, could there be an answer that would be forgivable?

    He confessed he had a porn addiction. He was watching porn every day. This skewed his sense of reality.

    This is why I was never good enough for him. He expected a porn star for a wife.

    Then came the infidelity…

    The Final Straw

    It’s not going to be a surprise to hear he was cheating on me.

    When I first learned of all the lies, my husband tried to maintain that he had been faithful to me. Well, when everything about him was revealed to be a lie, I couldn’t blindly believe him anymore.

    He finally broke down and confessed that he had been cheating on me since we began dating over thirty years ago.

    He thought he should win some brownie points because he never had a girlfriend, so he hadn’t cheated emotionally. I wasn’t too impressed.

    He had sex with over fifty people. Fifty!

    I can’t count how many times over the years he accused me of cheating on him. Now I understand why; it’s called projecting. He was projecting his own guilt on me. All the things he did, he assumed I must have been doing as well.

    And the cherry on top? He said he cheated because I didn’t fulfill him.

    In a nutshell, he cheated, accused me of cheating, and then blamed me for his cheating.

    There is no coming back from that.

    A Shift in My Thinking

    My ex-husband has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). He is a pathological liar and a sex addict.

    He can’t think beyond taking care of his immediate needs and desires.

    But here is where I had to change my thinking: He didn’t act maliciously. Atrociously and carelessly, yes. But not with malice.

    There is something wrong in his brain, a disconnect. His emotional intellect is a cross of a horny teenager and a petulant child.

    I know I’ll never get a sincere apology from him. (How can you really be sorry about lying for thirty years?) I will never fully understand the way he thinks because his brain doesn’t work the way most people’s do.

    And that’s okay.

    I don’t have to understand him to heal, move on, and live a peaceful life.

    My perception has changed. I do not accept the blame for his issues and shortfalls. It is not my fault.

    This shift in my perception did not come overnight. It has taken a lot of time, and I was helped by an awesome therapist.

    In fact, during one session, my therapist had me write in big letters on a piece of paper: I didn’t do this. That visual reminder helps me view the situation through a new lens. Now:

    I no longer accept abuse.

    I no longer ignore abuse.

    I will never again be abused.

    No one can convince me that the sunset is green today. I see the golden oranges and yellows as they really are. I am prepared to see clearly.

    But He Never Hit Me

    Remember the second definition of funny: Difficult to explain or understand.

    This whole situation is funny; it is impossible to explain or understand.

    It’s abusive.

    The only good thing to come of this is the shift in my perspective. I am now important in my life. I am the top priority.

    I remember telling my story to a friend. He listened kindly, and then asked THE question in hushed tones. “Did he ever hit you?”

    Dumbfounded, I shook my head no.

    “Well, thank God he didn’t cross that line. Then you’d have so much more to heal from.”

    This friend wasn’t being flippant. He just spoke out loud what many people think: Abuse is visible.

    But I now see abuse as it really is—hurt, harm, and mistreatment that can be visible but is often invisible.

    Scars of Abuse

    I wish I could show the marks his abuse has left on me.

    I’d love to reveal how my self-worth has been chipped down to sawdust. Or how my self-confidence has been beaten down by fear and panic.

    The wounds on my heart are deep and scored like an ancient oak tree; no amount of repair work can erase the damage that has been done.

    The bones of my joy have been broken and re-broken too many times to properly set anymore.

    Scars sheathe the joints of my freedom from the bondage of “til death do us part.”

    And the gentlest, softest part of my soul is shaded dark by bruises.

    No, he never hit me. But great damage has been done all the same.

    I am an abused woman.

    I am a victim.

    But I am a survivor.

    And my story is just beginning. I walked away from my abuser and am embracing a new life, a life where I am in charge.

    I call the shots.

    My scars may not be visible to the eyes of people who don’t know what to look for. But they have forged a new woman who is strong, courageous, and much, much happier.

  • Abandonment Wounds: How to Heal Them and Feel More at Ease in Relationships

    Abandonment Wounds: How to Heal Them and Feel More at Ease in Relationships

    “I always wondered why it was so easy for people to leave. What I should have questioned was why I wanted so badly for them to stay.” ~Samantha King

    Do you feel afraid to speak your truth or ask for what you want?

    Do you tend to neglect your needs and people-please?

    Do you have a hard time being alone?

    Have you ever felt panic and/or anxiety when someone significant to you left your life or you felt like they were going to?

    If so, please don’t blame yourself for being this way. Most likely it’s coming from an abandonment wound—some type of trauma that happened when you were a child.

    Even though relationships can be painful and challenging at times, your difficult feelings likely stem from something deeper; it’s like a part of you got “frozen in time” when you were first wounded and still feels and acts the same way.

    When we have abandonment wounds, we may have consistent challenges in relationships, especially significant ones. We may be afraid of conflict, rejection, or being unwanted; because of this, we people-please and self-abandon as a survival strategy.

    When we’re in a situation that activates an abandonment wound, we’re not able to think clearly; our fearful and painful emotions flood our system and filter our perceptions, and our old narratives start playing and dictate how we act. We may feel panic, or we may kick, cry, or scream or hold in our feelings like we needed to do when we were children.

    When our abandonment wound gets triggered, we automatically fall into a regression, back to the original hurt/wound and ways of reacting, thinking, and feeling. We also default to the meanings we created at the time, when we formed a belief that we weren’t safe if love was taken away.

    Abandonment wounds from childhood can stem from physical or emotional abandonment, being ignored or given the silent treatment, having emotionally unavailable parents, or being screamed at or punished for no reason.

    When we have abandonment wounds, we may feel that we need to earn love and approval; we may not feel good enough; and we may have our walls up and be unable to receive love because we don’t trust it, which keeps us from being intimate.

    We may try to numb our hurt and pain with drugs, alcohol, overeating, or workaholism. We may also hide certain aspects of ourselves that weren’t acceptable when we were young, which creates inner conflict.

    So how do our abandonment wounds get started? Let me paint a picture from my personal experience.

    When I was in third grade a lady came into our classroom to check our hair for lice. When she entered, my heart raced, and I went into a panic because I was afraid that if I had it and I got sent home, I would be screamed at and punished.

    Where did this fear come from? My father would get mad at me if I cried, got angry, got hurt and needed to go to the doctor, or if I accidentally broke anything in the house. Did I do it purposely? No, but I was punished, screamed at, and sent to my room many times, which made me feel abandoned, hurt, and unloved.

    When I was ten years old, my parents sent me away to summer camp. I kicked and screamed and told them I didn’t want to go. I was terrified of being away from them.

    When I got there, I cried all night and got into fights with the other girls. My third day there, I woke up early and ran away. My counselor found me and tried to hold me, but I kicked, hit her, and tried to get away from her.

    I was sent to the director’s office, and he got mad at me. He picked me up, took me out of his office, and put me in front of a flagpole, where I had to stay for six hours until my parents came to get me. When they got there, they put me in the car, screamed at me, and punished me for the rest of the week.

    When I was fifteen, I was diagnosed with anorexia, depression, and anxiety and put in my first treatment center.

    When my parents dropped me off, I was in a panic. I was so afraid, and I cried for days. Then, my worst nightmare came true—my doctor told me he was putting me on separation from my parents. I wasn’t allowed to talk to them or see them for a month. All I could think about was how I could get out of there and get home to be with them.

    I didn’t understand what was happening. I just wanted my parents to love me, to want to be with me, to treat me like I mattered, but instead I was sent away and locked up.

    I started to believe there was something wrong with me, that I was a worthless human being, and I felt a lot of shame. These experiences and many others created a negative self-image and fears of being abandoned.

    For over twenty-three years I was in and out of hospitals and treatment centers. I was acting in self-destructive ways and living in a hypervigilant, anxious state. I was constantly focused on what other people thought about me. I replayed conversations in my mind and noticed when someone’s emotional state changed, which made me afraid.

    It was a very exhausting way to be. I was depressed, lonely, confused, and suicidal.

    There are many experiences that trigger our abandonment wounds, but the one that I’ve found to be the most activating is a breakup.

    When we’re in a relationship with someone, we invest part of ourselves in them. When they leave, we feel like that part of ourselves is gone/abandoned. So the real pain is a part of us that’s “missing.” We may believe they’re the source of our love, and when they’re gone, we feel that we lost it.

    So the real abandonment wound stems from a disconnection from the love within, which most likely happened when we abandoned ourselves as children attempting to get love and attention from our parents and/or when our parents abandoned us.

    When I went through a breakup with someone I was really in love with, it was intense. I went into a panic. I was emotionally attached, and I did everything I could to try to get her back. When she left, I was devastated. I cried for weeks. There were days when I didn’t even get out of bed.

    Instead of trying to change how I was feeling, I allowed myself to feel it. I recognized that the feelings were intense not because of the situation only, but because it activated my deeper wounding from childhood. Even though I’ve done years of healing, there were more layers and more parts of me to be seen, heard, cared for, and loved.

    The “triggering event” of the breakup wasn’t easy, but it was necessary for me to experience a deeper healing and a deeper and more loving connection with myself.

    When we’re caught in a trauma response, like I was, there is no logic. We’re flooded with intense emotions. Sure, we can do deep breathing, and that may help us feel better and relax our nervous system in the moment. But we need to address the original source of our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in order to experience a sense of ease internally and a new way of seeing and being.

    Healing our abandonment wound is noticing how the past may still be playing in our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It’s noticing the narratives and patterns that make us want to protect, defend, or run away. It’s helping our inner child feel acknowledged, seen, heard, safe, and loved.

    Healing the abandonment wound is not a quick fix; it does take self-awareness and lots of compassion and love. It’s a process of finding and embracing our authenticity, experiencing a sense of ease, and coming home.

    Healing doesn’t mean we’ll never be triggered. In fact, our triggers help us see what inside is asking for our love and attention. When we’re triggered, we need to take the focus off the other person or situation and notice what’s going on internally. This helps us understand the beliefs that are creating our feelings.

    Beliefs like: I don’t matter, I’m unlovable, I’m afraid, I don’t feel important. These underlying beliefs get masked when we focus on our anger toward the person or what’s happening. By bringing to the light how we’re truly feeling, we can then start working with these parts and help them feel loved and safe.

    Those of us with abandonment wounds often become people-pleasers, and some people may say people-pleasing is manipulation. Can we have a little more compassion? People-pleasing is a survival mechanism; it’s something we felt we needed to do as children in order to be loved and safe, and it’s not such an easy pattern to break.

    Our system gets “trained,” and when we try to do something new, like honoring our needs or speaking our truth, that fearful part inside gets afraid and puts on the brakes.

    Healing is a process of kindness and compassion. Our parts that have been hurt and traumatized, they’re fragile; they need to be cared for, loved, and nurtured.

    Healing is also about allowing ourselves to have fun, create from our authentic expression, follow what feels right to us, honor our heartfelt desires and needs, and find and do what makes us happy.

    There are many paths to healing. Find what works for you. For me, talk therapy and cognitive work never helped because the energy of anxiety and abandonment was held in my body.

    I was only able to heal my deepest wound when I began working with my inner child and helping the parts of myself that were in conflict for survival reasons make peace with each other. As a result, I became more kind, compassionate, and loving and started to feel at peace internally.

    Healing takes time, and you are so worth it, but please know that you are beautiful, valuable, and lovable as you are, even with your wounds and scars.

  • How I Stopped Being Everything I Hated About My Parents

    How I Stopped Being Everything I Hated About My Parents

    “The beautiful thing about life is that you always change, grow, and get better. You aren’t defined by your past. You aren’t your mistakes.” ~Unknown

    When I was an angsty fourteen-year-old, I remember screaming at my parents that I never (ever!) wanted to become like either of them. And I meant it.

    My dad was a workaholic who was never at home. When he was at home, he was emotionally unavailable, arguing with my mother, or he’d escape the stress of our house by going to the betting shop to gamble.

    My mother had erratic mood swings, did not allow me to have age-appropriate boundaries, and would talk to me about the lack of intimacy between her and my father. These were, unfortunately, not role models that inspired me.

    As I entered my twenties and experienced adult life for the first time, I continued to carry the ideation that my life would be different. I was determined not to become my parents. And for many years, I naively lived life proudly thinking I had not turned into them.

    Then, one day, I opened my mouth and heard my mother’s voice come out. I can’t even remember what I said, but I recall the feeling of utter despair. Despite all my thinking and wishing over the years, I had become my parents. This prompted me to reflect on my life so far, and I realized that I had repeated many of my parents’ patterns.

    I had become a workaholic to avoid feeling my emotions, was in an abusive relationship but didn’t realize this until well after it had ended, and I struggled to know how to develop healthy friendships due to difficulties setting boundaries.

    Shit. Damn. Bugger it.

    I’d accidentally become my parents! Why was all my thinking and wishing over the years not enough to stop this from happening? I thought that I had more control over my life than this.

    During my own self-discovery journey, I found that there are many reasons why we repeat the same family patterns. I also learned that we can change them.

    Humans learn from watching and copying other people’s behavior, and children are sponges that soak up everything in their environment.

    For example, when I was a child, I remember my dad ordering a meal at a restaurant, and the vegetables on his plate were stone cold. Instead of sending the meal back and asking for hot veggies, he complained about how terrible the restaurant was and ate the cold meal. When I became an adult, I struggled to assert myself in similar situations, which led to a lot of anger and resentment.

    Learned behavior is not just a one-time thing. It is passed down from generation to generation.

    For instance, my paternal grandparents lived through the Great Depression in the 1930s, before my dad was born.

    They taught my dad that food was a scarce resource, so he carried this belief with him into his adulthood, and subsequently passed this down to me through not being able to model assertive behaviors.

    This is called intergenerational trauma because the unhealthy family dynamics continue throughout new generations. Generally, intergenerational trauma is defined by events that affect people profoundly, such as child abuse, parental incarceration, poverty, war, natural disasters, etc.

    Sometimes, we aren’t even aware that our family dynamics are unhealthy, or we might be aware but are too scared to change. This is usually because humans have a strong desire to be accepted and belong. In fact, this is very important for our survival.

    For some people, repeating those family dynamics means that they continue to be a part of the family unit.

    From a young age, I was often labelled as the ‘black sheep’ of the family, because I voiced the unspoken, toxic family rules. It became easier for me to distance myself from my family rather than remain enmeshed in a family environment that was detrimental to my mental health and well-being.

    The good news is we can change our patterns so that we don’t become (or continue to be) our parents.

    The first step is to be aware of the unhelpful patterns that you’re carrying with you. Without awareness, we cannot change.

    I started by asking myself what emotions I experienced frequently and whether they ever seemed like they were out of context or disproportionate to the situation.

    One emotion I often struggled with was jealousy. Whenever a friend would share something positive about their life—if they got a new car, got a promotion at work, or won a competition—my go-to emotion was jealousy.

    This impacted my friendships, as I was constantly comparing my life to theirs and driving them away by trying to find ways to make sure my life was more successful. This led to perfectionism in everything that I did, and let me tell you, it was exhausting! I couldn’t maintain this lifestyle, and I felt like I was drowning.

    When I hit a low point after my relationship ended, I sought therapy. Through therapy, I learned that the reason I compared myself to other people so frequently was due to the beliefs I held about myself. I didn’t feel like I was good enough as I was. This made a lot of sense when we explored the relationship I had with my parents.

    They regularly compared me to other kids and were only proud of me when I performed better than anyone else. It made sense that, as an adult, I would experience strong feelings of jealousy toward other people. Jealousy meant that I was constantly trying to prove my worth to other people rather than living life on my own terms.

    I then looked at my beliefs about this situation/emotion and thought about where and when those beliefs developed. Identifying the patterns behind my behavior was a positive first step in my inner healing journey, because you can’t heal what you don’t know.

    Because I wasn’t taught what emotions were or how to understand my emotions as a kid, I needed to learn how to do this as an adult.

    My therapist helped me to better understand the motivations behind our emotions and develop new strategies to cope with these.

    For example, with my jealousy, I learned that this was a response from fear and insecurity. I was able to learn to identify my thoughts, and when I realized that I wasn’t actually unworthy but rather that was the story I had learned from my parents, I was able to choose different behaviors instead of continuing to follow the same old patterns as before.

    I recognized that perfectionism meant I worked too much, so I learnt how to slow down through mindfulness and yoga. Once I was able to recognize my emotions for what they were, rather than reacting to them without awareness, I was able to make better choices about how I wanted to respond to that emotion.

    Having that space to understand my emotions meant that I could move out of the comparing myself to other people situation, and I was able to step into the entrepreneurial space and create a business that I love. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I hadn’t done the inner work to change and not become my parents.

    I learned this was why my wishful thinking didn’t work. I knew I didn’t want to be like my parents, but without additional support from a therapist, I didn’t know what to do instead! Therapy helped me learn how to deal with old patterns in new ways.

    From there, it was all about practice. These habits and patterns existed for many, many years. I knew they would not change overnight. However, with perseverance and practice, I was able to make meaningful changes in my life. I found it helpful to keep a journal to record my progress so that I didn’t forget how far I’d come.

    Finally, it was important for me to remember that my parents are human too. In addition to recognizing the unhelpful habits they taught me, I found it useful to remember some of the positive traits or experiences I’ve gained.

    Even though my dad was a workaholic, he instilled a strong work ethic in me, which has helped me when creating my own business. My mother loved to travel, and she has definitely passed that love to me as well.

    Reminding myself of these things allows me to acknowledge my parents’ humanness, especially in moments where I find it hard to offer them grace. For me, reminding myself of the positives is a way to honor my need to have compassion for myself.

  • 9 Things I Would Tell My Younger Self to Help Her Change Her Life

    9 Things I Would Tell My Younger Self to Help Her Change Her Life

    “You are one decision away from a completely different life.” ~Mel Robbins

    At twenty-six years old, I lost my dad to suicide. I was heartbroken and so angry.

    My dad was not the best. Ever since I was little, he would criticize everything I did. I was never good enough for him, and I was a place he discharged his anger through emotional insults.

    It never stopped, and I was always on high alert around him. Right until the moment he took his life.

    He could also be loving, kind, funny, and warm, but my nervous system could never relax around him. He was a Jekyll and Hyde. I never knew what behavior would set him off.

    Then all of a sudden, he was gone.

    I was angry because he had caused me a lot of pain growing up, and now he had left me.

    I was angry that I loved this man so much and felt such deep pain without him. It made no sense to me. Surely my life should be better now that his constant abuse was over.

    But it was just the beginning of my emotional breakdown. Children love their parents unconditionally, no matter how we are treated. But if our parents project their pain on to us, we end up not loving ourselves.

    Now that the abuse had stopped, it was time to deal with all the emotional wounds he’d inflicted over the years.

    But I resisted this and got stuck. I struggled in romantic relationships, unconsciously dating versions of my dad.

    I was full of self-hate. He may have died, but his criticism was very much alive in my head! And I was the one now persecuting myself for everything.

    I may have loved him, but I had no love for myself, as he had taught me that I wasn’t worth that.

    I felt powerless and in so much pain. I numbed this pain with the tools he had given me—wine, TV, food, and caretaking others. I had the busiest diary so I would never have to feel.

    I had no idea how to stop feeling so awful and like I was doomed for life because of this childhood trauma I had suffered. I was in denial that I had even experienced childhood trauma.

    The man who had caused me the pain had gone, so why did I feel the same, if not worse?

    I would lie in bed at night with this huge ache, longing to be loved by someone but looking for it in all the wrong places.

    I felt trapped in my emotions and like there was no way out.

    I sit in my front room now, over fifteen years later, in a life I didn’t think was possible, in a home that feels safe and peaceful. No longer abusing myself. Doing a job that I love and married to the most amazing man.

    I feel like life is a gift and there is no dream I cannot make a reality. That pain that kept me awake at night is no longer there but replaced with love for myself, and even for my dad.

    If I could go back in time, I would tell myself these nine things to get me moving forward to the life I’ve since created. If you also grew up with an abusive parent, my list may help you too.

    1. It was not your fault.

    We put our parents on a pedestal as children because we have no choice. We need them to survive. When my dad persecuted me for not being quiet enough or not pleasing him, I translated that as “I am not good enough” and that everything was my fault.

    We often take all the blame when our parents mistreat us. But what were their stories? How did they grow up? Did someone teach them how to balance their emotions?

    I see now that my dad was struggling. He was grieving the loss of his parents and a difficult childhood. He was not given any tools to manage his emotions. He was shown how to lash out and project them. He was shown how to drink to numb them out.

    He would come home from a job he felt he had to do, feeling tired and stressed, and blame others to help himself calm down.

    Realizing this helped me let myself off the hook. It has also helped me forgive him, which has brought me peace. I started to understand him and his traumas. He was repeating a pattern of survival that his parents had taught him.

    This is generational trauma, and it wasn’t his fault. But it was his responsibility to keep his children safe, which he didn’t fulfill because he had no idea he was traumatizing them!

    2. Reparent the wounded child within.

    The versions of me that still hurt and felt this ache to be loved still lived within me, many years later. The seven-year-old who was shouted at for being too loud, the thirteen-year-old who didn’t study enough, and the twenty-five-year-old that wasn’t there for my dad. All these parts of me had unmet needs and were in pain.

    We can’t change the past, but we can go back in time in our imagination and be the parent we needed.

    I have imagined taking baby-me out of the house where I was born to live with adult me. Telling my parents to get some therapy and sort themselves out before they can have the baby back.

    I’ve imagined holding her and telling her how special she is. Over time, this helped that deeper pain to heal.

    3. Work on self-love.

    I was always seeking love and validation outside of myself.

    I was never taught or shown that self-love and self-care are necessities. You have to be able to fill up your own cup in order to love others.

    I would tell my younger self to take a step back from pleasing others and finding a man. I would tell her to focus on giving herself the love she longed for.

    For example, speaking to myself with love and kindness, having quality alone time, buying myself gifts—these were all things I longed for from a man, but I needed to start doing them for myself.

    I needed to spend time every day giving myself love and listening to my needs, not ignoring them. Do I need rest? Water? A healthy meal? To just breathe? To be in nature to calm my anxiety?

    Learning to listen to my own needs and fulfill them took time. It felt unnatural. It was a new behavior I had to repeat every day, and then soon enough it became second nature.

    4. Get to know your shadow.

    We all have parts of us that are dysfunctional and behaviors that are not serving us.

    For me, it was emotional eating, drinking wine, pursuing emotionally unavailable men, and caretaking my family. The last two made me miserable.

    But I blamed the men and my family for being needy. I didn’t take responsibility for my own behavior.

    I felt powerless over how others treated me. I was trapped in this victim state, and then I would numb with food and booze.

    Getting to know my shadow and recognizing my toxic behaviors were the first two steps to change.

    When a man didn’t treat me well, I stopped trying to prove my worth and changed my behavior to move away from the relationship.

    When it hurt, I learned how to love myself instead of chasing someone else’s love.

    Ask yourself: What am I doing that hurts me? Then work on a step-by-step plan to change the behavior. Baby steps are key in this process, as you can get overwhelmed by trying to do too much at once.

    5. Get support.

    It takes time and work to change toxic behavior and heal. I would give my younger self permission to get help when I was struggling with a change. For example, giving up toxic relationships and booze was a real challenge for me. Finding people who had already been through the transformation I was seeking was so valuable.

    Sometimes this would mean listening to a podcast or reading a book, blogs like this one, or posts on social media, and other times it would be investing in working with someone who had already done the work.

    When you work with someone who’s already made the change you’re seeking, they can outline the steps they took, which saves time and energy and makes you feel less alone.

    6. Get in your body.

    I once was a floating head and very disconnected from my body. It didn’t feel safe to feel fear, so I had to be that way to survive my life!

    I would tell my younger self to slow down and notice how her body feels. That it was safe to do that now.

    For example, certain relationships made my heart race out of fear. This was a sign that they weren’t good for me.

    I would also tell her to find ways to bring the body back into balance by discharging the stress and fear.

    For example, breathwork techniques, movement, and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping all help us process our emotions rather than running away from them.

    7. It’s safe to speak your truth.

    I have always been incredibly loyal in relationships. Growing up with a dad who was awful meant I had few boundaries and expectations in relationships. This was the only way I could have some form of a relationship with my dad.

    I would let my younger self know it is okay to step back or walk away from relationships that don’t feel good or safe, even family.

    I would let her know that she can always express her truth in relationships and explain when a boundary has been crossed, but that also it’s okay to walk away. Especially in relationships that feel unsafe and abusive.

    8. Celebrate all your progress.

    A journey of healing and transformation takes time! It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s so important to celebrate the smallest of wins daily. For example, “I meditated every day this week,” or “I said no to an invite so I could take care of myself when I used to say yes all the time.” Change starts small and grows big.

    At the beginning especially it is so important to track everything because it feels like such a mountain to climb. It will motivate you to carry on. Seeing the little changes shows your efforts are paying off.

    Younger me didn’t have a family that celebrated small wins and growth. They focused on my imperfections and were highly critical. By celebrating myself, I help that little girl feel enough!

    9. Set intentions and dream big.

    Each month, set little goals to improve your life and keep you moving forward. This could be for your personal growth, relationships, physical health, emotional health, money, love, or work.

    Make the goal super small, for example, “In January, I will not text my ex.”

    You may want to set an intention to take better care of yourself. Break this down into daily tasks to repeat for the month. And if you don’t know what you need to work on, maybe your task for the month is to read a book to help you find out.

    With intention you can create the life you dream of. But often we don’t know what our dreams are. Get still and explore what would bring you happiness.

    I think of younger-me who looked out of her bedroom window wishing for a safe home.  I think of that little girl and the life she deserves. A full, fulfilling life, just like I’d want for my own child. This has helped me to dream bigger to create a life that is not only safe but also makes me happy.

    —

    You too deserve an amazing life! Not a life stuck in patterns of surviving and playing it small, but one where you heal and thrive. Your parents treated you the way they did not because you were not enough but because they were wounded. You were always enough, and now you have the power to take daily steps to change your reality so it is not longer tainted by trauma.

    I have the most incredible life now, and it has and continues to be a journey of healing. I wish I would have done these things sooner, but it’s never too late to take the first steps on a new path! There is hope, and I believe in you.

  • 3 Key Benefits to Forgiving and Why I Thanked My Imperfect Parents

    3 Key Benefits to Forgiving and Why I Thanked My Imperfect Parents

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post mentions physical abuse and may be triggered to some people.

    “Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.” ~Marianne Williamson

    The subject of forgiveness comes up often in conversation, but I find that when it comes to the details of what that truly entails, what that process feels like is not actually talked about.

    Over the years, I’ve heard the following statements most often from people when the subject of forgiving someone came up in discussions:

    1. “What they’ve done is just wrong! I can never forgive them for that.”

    2. “They haven’t earned my forgiveness. There’s no reason for me to forgive them.”

    3. “Oh, I already forgave them and let it go. I haven’t told them because we aren’t talking. Why should I be the one to reach out first?”

    In 2006, I attended a long weekend workshop with the late Dr. Lee Gibson, where he gifted us one of his brilliant Leeisms: “Forgiveness is erasing a debt you think someone owes you. That’s why forgiveness can feel like it’s costing you something.”

    I was blown away.

    Yes! I was beginning to understand why it was so hard for me to forgive my parents. I was stuck in the very same mentality of “Why should I?”, “They were clearly wrong!”, and “They haven’t earned it!”

    Late one night when I was nineteen, I was assaulted by my father, who lost his temper and self-control. I thought I was going to die that night, because it certainly felt like he was trying to kill me. My younger brother eventually pulled him off me and kept him away long enough for us all to calm down.

    I was terrified and didn’t sleep for three nights. I also told myself this was the last time I was going to allow this to happen. I started packing that night and moved out in three days. My parents and I didn’t have a relationship for the next ten years, as my mother stood by my father’s side.

    During Lee’s workshop, with a mere group of six attendees that long weekend, we dove into the subject of family dysfunctions and forgiveness. It immediately hit a pain point for me, right in the core.

    I fought with him for about forty minutes (I was told later by someone in the same class) in what felt to me like ten minutes—I was passionately immersed in that moment to prove my point and how wronged I was that time. I was at a standstill.

    I asked him what about fairness and justice, and why must I be the bigger person here when they are the parents? Lee calmly asked, “How does it feel for you to be the bigger person? Is that okay?” Well, I thought, I suppose it is, but why must I always be that person?

    Then he proposed an even more outlandish concept—thanking the people who had wronged us for all the things they’d done right.

    I was stirred up a little more, but for some reason was curious to hear more. I needed to understand why he thought it was a good idea, and how exactly it would help me be at peace.

    To be honest, I don’t remember all the deep wisdom he had shared as to why. All I remember is that it would create a shift within us if we were open and brave enough to try it, and he encouraged us to share our experience with him afterward.

    No way, I thought. Never. Not gonna happen. Forgiveness is one thing, but thanking them was way beyond what I was willing to consider.

    I was still stewing about all this a week after the workshop. But my adventurous heart wanted to know what it would feel like if I set aside all that my parents had done wrong and thanked them for all the things they had done right.

    I started making a list of some of the things I thought they did right, such as struggling through the hardships of being first-generation immigrants and working day and night to put food on the table and a roof over our heads.

    After much thought, with a racing heart and trembling voice, I did the unthinkable—I called my parents one night, out of the blue, to conduct this “social experiment.” I went down my list and thanked them for all the things they did right without mentioning anything that they’d done wrong. They reacted surprisingly well and acknowledged there was a lot they could have done better.

    I’ll admit, I tried not to have any expectations, but a part of me was hoping they’d apologize for what they’d done wrong, and they didn’t. I felt surprisingly okay about that after we hung up.

    I felt proud of myself for having done that. I felt bigger. I felt more grown up. I felt more empowered to be the bigger person. That was my first taste of offering compassion and gratitude from a place of empowerment rather than martyrdom.

    I definitely experienced a shift.

    It probably took another five years for me to fully understand and let go of the night of the assault and all the things I thought they could’ve done better. In hindsight, giving thanks was the first step to feeling more of an adult and less of a helpless child in their presence. Being able to give my own parents a pat on the back put me at the same level.

    I no longer feel the need to be hopeful that they will treat me a certain way, give me the attention I felt I needed, or make up for what they’d done wrong. I felt more in a position to see them as they are—other human beings also dealing with their own suffering.

    As each year goes by, I continue to get to know my parents as human beings and not just as my parents.

    I have gradually taken them out of the parental role, as I no longer need them to be, and treat them like any other adult. I have established boundaries with them and began to respect their boundaries too, once I got to know their limitations. And I disengage whenever I feel like our interactions start to redirect toward an unhealthy dynamic.

    I understood very well that, as an adult, it was my choice whether to have a relationship with my parents or not. And if I chose to, I would also be playing a part in what kind of relationship we would have. I wanted to have a good relationship with them, and the only way to do that was to forgive.

    At some point in my life, I realized forgiveness is truly for my own benefit. Here’s why:

    Good closure

    The best closure is always amicable. How many relationships have left us feeling abandoned, confused, heartbroken, and questioning our self-worth? We were often not given a choice in those types of endings. But what if we could actively choose a better way to end a relationship with someone? (Or, like with my parents, begin a new relationship with them.)

    While this is a two-way street, we have control over our side. This allows each of us to move on to better future relationships and the next chapter of our lives, without guilt or attachment. A bond with another formed by anger, guilt, or bitterness is an energetic constraint to our own heart and soul.

    Personal growth and transformation

    Whenever we hold onto the victim mentality, we keep ourselves small. When we refuse to forgive, we hold onto the fact that we have been wronged and that we are the victim in that scenario. It’s hard to grow beyond that mindset when we hold onto what hurts us and continue to hold that over those we feel have wronged us.

    It may not feel like it right now (I know I certainly struggled with it for a long time), but the first step to feeling empowered is recognizing that we are in the position to forgive, and that is big. Much like extending gratitude, extending forgiveness comes from a higher place. A place where we have the knowledge that we are in a leadership position to forgive and break through the cage we have built for ourselves.

    Soul freedom

    In a way, we’re helping their hearts and souls to move on. We’re here on earth for a short period of time. As cliché as it sounds, the only things that we’ll think of in our last hours are how much we gave, loved, and lived, and what will haunt us is how much we didn’t.

    I want to make sure I am free of such torment. And if I could free others of such torment in the process, then it would truly be a win-win, on a soul level.

    —

    Forgiveness not only frees us from being permanently tied to those we feel have wronged us; it also releases them from a debt we feel they owe us—a karmic tie I do not wish to adhere to. Only then will we all feel a deep sigh of relief with a freedom to move on to whatever awaits our souls next.

    I sent my father a care package last year with a card attached, letting him know that I wish him happiness and health and he is loved and he is forgiven. And now I am at peace.

    **I am not suggesting anyone else should thank their abuser. I personally found this helpful and healing, but everyone needs to make their own choice based on what’s best for them.

  • How I Knew It Was Emotional Abuse: The Subtle Signs I Almost Missed

    How I Knew It Was Emotional Abuse: The Subtle Signs I Almost Missed

    “I hope you find love, but more importantly, I hope you’re strong enough to walk away from what love isn’t.” ~Tiffany Tomiko

    A few weeks after breaking up from what I thought was a loving relationship that in reality was sliding into an emotionally abusive one, I had a dream.

    In it, I was hiding from a group of dangerous people, but could see the footsteps of one of them coming toward me. Suddenly they saw me, and I pleaded to them, “Please, don’t kill me,” and they turned and left. When I emerged, I could see the victims all around me suffering from a fate I had been spared.

    I believe dreams relay information from our unconscious to our conscious mind, and that they hold huge significance in the processing that occurs while we sleep. I have no doubt at all that this dream signified the narrow escape I had from a man who was being emotionally abusive.

    The Cognitive Dissonance of Emotional Abuse

    I don’t use the term “emotional abuse” lightly, and I have struggled to apply it to the man I shared so much love with. Yet, one of the resources I used to understand what had been happening in my relationship was a podcast called “Love and Abuse,” which sums it all up so perfectly.

    Emotional abuse is a cycle that flips between loving moments and abusive ones, sending you on a rollercoaster ride toward a place you never wanted to end up. A result of the constant highs and lows is a state of mind that is unbalanced, ungrounded, and permanently confused. In this state, it becomes very hard to understand what’s happening.

    You’re caught between wanting to appease the person whose behavior is so hard to read and staying true to yourself. There is no part of you that wants to connect with your intuition; you only want to fix things and make them go back to the loving part.

    My relationship became a fog of confusion, as my brain struggled to understand how one moment it was loving and another it was abusive. This is a state of mind called “cognitive dissonance.” In the immediate aftermath of the relationship I read something that perfectly resonated with me—cognitive dissonance is when your heart needs time to catch up to what the mind already knows.

    Once I surfaced from the relationship, I could finally see the abusive part, as subtle as it was, and understand that it wasn’t healthy, without my heart getting in the way.

    The Moment I Knew It Was Emotional Abuse

    The realization that something was very wrong in my relationship dawned on me in the most fortunate way. We had been watching a program on Netflix called Maid. The series was about a young woman, isolated with a child and an emotionally abusive partner.

    You never see him hit her, yet the controlling behavior and shouting are there. Even though she doesn’t know that he’s abusive, she knows she needs to leave.

    As we watched, I could feel something shifting in my subconscious. I was seeing something playing out on screen that ran parallel to my life. I wasn’t with someone who was breaking things or yelling in my face, yet I was right on the edge of the cliff and he was about to lead me over the ledge.

    I just know, intuitively, that if I hadn’t gotten out of there, I would have slid downward to a place that would have been much harder to leave.

    The other lucky thing that happened to me was meeting someone who picked up the pieces of what I told her and showed me all the red flags. I had dismissed them before, not wanting to judge him for his choices, yet they were all there.

    He didn’t have any friends, he wasn’t close with his parents, he didn’t like me making plans without him, he got tense and silent, he would raise his voice at me, he was moody, he questioned my beliefs, he spoke badly about my family… all the signs were there.

    The Trauma Bond

    The trouble is, when you’re deep in it with someone, when they’ve love-bombed you so hard and fast that you’ve barely had time to breathe, when they’ve called you their soulmate and moved you in within months of dating and declare they want to marry you, you just can’t see the wood through the trees.

    Being loved feels so good, and that’s dangerous because love can blind you. Worse than that, when you’re in a cycle of love and abuse, whether or not the abuse is emotional or physical, the chemicals in your brain become severely dysregulated. This is called a trauma bond.

    The trauma bond is a chemical concoction made up from the abusive cycle—the bonding phase, where you’re showered with love, promises, and romance; the stress during the abuse; and the making up period afterward.

    It’s why making up feels so good after they’ve been angry or given you the silent treatment, and it’s why leaving someone hurts so very much. You’ve gone into withdrawal from your dopamine fix, and it’s horrific. You’re also stuck in that foggy state of confusion where you’re trying to align the messages you’re getting from your heart and your brain.

    The trouble is, they don’t match, and in this state of cognitive dissonance, which feels so deeply uncomfortable, you reach for the easiest, simplest, and safest answer—you listen to your heart. After all, what the heart wants, it gets.

    It’s this trauma bond that keeps people going back to an abusive partner. To add to this confusing chemistry, the emotional abuser will do everything to win you back, from bombarding you with messages and emails proclaiming their love and inability to live without you, to hurling their hurt and anger at you, guilt-tripping you right back into their arms.

    For someone whose self-esteem has been slowly whittled down in a relationship, this behavior is like a balm to your fragile soul. You feel so loved and needed that you fall right back into their trap. They say you’re their soulmate and you believe them, but after a period of making up, they can then continue the cycle of abuse right where they left off.

    They know you’re fragile, they know what you want to hear, and they are masters of manipulation. They pull at your heartstrings in every way they can, so be ready for it, and stay strong.

    Waking Up and Leaving

    I had no idea that it was emotional abuse, or what emotional abuse even was, until I started sharing my experience and reading about what others had been through. I think I was extremely lucky, because after seven intense months I gradually began to wake up to the spell I’d been under.

    It hasn’t been easy, and the feelings are still fresh and raw, which is why I wanted to write them down so quickly, as it’s powering my resolve to stay away from him.

    I also want to share the red flags that were there right under my nose that I couldn’t bring myself to examine at the time. I still have trouble believing that what transpired in our relationship wasn’t normal or healthy, which I think is all part of the process when leaving someone abusive. Recovery is starting to trust yourself rather than the person who was the source of your pain.

    Of course, I doubt myself and think I misunderstood it all. Part of me still thinks I’m exaggerating and making a fuss. A part of me also thinks about ways I could have responded to the abuse differently and what might have happened if I had. I also still miss him. Love doesn’t just switch off, but I know that’s my altered brain chemistry rather than true love.

    Then I remember the list I made of all the red flags—all the little incidents that happened, all the uneasy feelings of confusion, sadness, and wariness I felt—and I know I made the right decision to leave.

    Alarm Bells and Red Flags

    One of the main alarm bells that began to ring was how wary I was of what I said. I didn’t know what mood he would be in, so I was always trying to read the signals. If there was a tense silence, I knew it wasn’t good and tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible to avoid triggering him and making his mood worse.

    I also noticed that I was tiptoeing around on eggshells and making myself small and quiet, appeasing him and putting his happiness before mine. Putting someone first through fear of making them angry or upset isn’t love.

    I also began to tune into my mood, which was beginning to feel flat and joyless. At times, I thought I could be immune to his moods, but they affected me whether I was aware of it or not.

    I remember crying as he stormed out of the house, wondering what had gone so wrong. I remember feeling deeply confused when he picked a fight about something that made no sense to me. I remember feeling sad when he would turn from being gentle and loving to short-tempered and passive-aggressive in the flick of a switch.

    Controlling Behavior

    Another sign that slowly crept up on me were signs of control.

    I once told him about an appointment I’d made for the following day, and he became angry because I hadn’t told him sooner. One time, I was meeting a male friend who wanted to give me an acupressure treatment, and he said he felt uncomfortable having another man’s hands on me. He once mentioned how he didn’t like waiting to receive a reply to his messages, so I became nervous to always message him back as soon as possible.

    It got to the point where I felt scared to mention plans to see friends or see my family, and this is very wrong.

    The examples go on and on and, as you can see, they are small things, but added together they make up a very clear picture. We should all have the freedom to see who we choose, when we want, yet he wanted to spend every evening together, as that, in his opinion, was what a ‘proper relationship’ was about. It seemed he wanted me to feel guilty for needing my space.

    The last red flag was speaking badly of my family, who I am very close to. He used my need for independence from my family as a driving wedge between us. When my parents asked me to house-sit, he got angry, said they were using me, and made very subtle putdowns against them.

    Even I noticed how my behavior was changing and how I was spending less and less time seeing my family, a warning sign if ever there was one.

    Making the Decision to Leave

    Whether all his actions were conscious or unconscious, I know I made the right decision to leave. I thought I loved him, but I love myself far too much to ever put myself in a position like that again.

    I have a huge amount of empathy for him and remember the parts of him that are kind and loving, so I feel no anger, just sadness that he’s pushed love away through no fault but his own. I am not here to save or heal anyone, and if anyone places that responsibility on my shoulders or wants me to feel guilty that I am not helping them, then I am walking away.

    So my advice for you is this: If you feel like something isn’t right, it isn’t. This is your intuition talking to you, and it may save your life.

    You need to get away from the emotionally abusive person as soon as you can and surround yourself with friends and family. This gives you time and space to lift the fog that has been clouding your judgment, and to sever the trauma bond.

    Your relationship doesn’t need to contain every sign of emotional abuse for it to be so. Just knowing how you feel—wary, confused, scared, tearful, and all those other emotions—is enough. No one should feel fearful or trapped in a relationship.

    There is nothing more powerful in a situation like this than an outside perspective. In an emotionally abusive relationship, you are on a rollercoaster ride of chemicals, emotions, stress, love, and pain. There is very little chance you’re going to be able to decipher this on your own, so speak out, whether it’s to a friend, family member, therapist, or anyone at all—just speak to someone.

    As soon as you start to share how you’ve been feeling and what you’ve been experiencing, you will start to see the signs of emotional abuse in your relationship, like I did in mine, and hopefully will get away as fast as you can.

  • 4 Things I Needed to Accept to Let Go and Heal After Trauma

    4 Things I Needed to Accept to Let Go and Heal After Trauma

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post references sexual abuse and may be triggered to some people.

    “The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” ~Steve Maraboli

    My family immigrated to the U.S. from India when I was sixteen. Being Indian, my traditional family expected me to have an arranged marriage.

    At twenty-two, as a graduate music student, I fell in love with an American man. When my family found out about our secret relationship, they took me back to India and put me under house arrest. For a year.

    That year of imprisonment and isolation was severely traumatizing. I shut down from my acute distress and pain. I dissociated from myself, my truth, my power, my body, my heart, and my sexuality.

    Two years after they let me out, I escaped to the US but was emotionally imprisoned by my past. I lived dissociated, afraid, and ashamed for eighteen years. Eventually, I broke free from an abusive marriage and my family.

    Since then, I have been on a path of healing and empowerment.

    Beginning my healing journey was like walking through a long, dark tunnel. I was and felt like a victim but was determined to heal.

    To heal from dissociation, I needed to feel again. I felt the bottomless grief, loss, and heartbreak of all that I didn’t get to experience and enjoy.

    I faced and began to address my childhood history of sexual abuse.

    I set boundaries with my family. I started therapy and studied psychology. I learned my mother is a narcissist and my father an enabler.

    Coming from a traditional patriarchal, colonial culture, I had grown up with codes of obedience, sacrifice, and duty. I questioned and challenged my deep internalized beliefs of who I am, what I can do, and what is possible for me as a person of color.

    I learned about my rights. Growing up in India, I had a very different understanding of my rights than those born in Western countries.

    Therapy helped me reconnect with my body, with my needs, wants, and desires. I learned to identify and feel my sensations and emotions. I learned to discern who and what was safe and what wasn’t safe.

    I learned to listen to and trust myself and become more embodied through my dance practice. This allowed me to dance out my rage, shame, grief, and everything I had disconnected from and suppressed. I came alive and opened to pleasure and passion.

    I’ve struggled with low self-worth, people-pleasing, caretaking, perfectionism, fear, shame, guilt, and codependency. One of my most painful realizations was that my inner critic had become as severe as those who abused me. I continue to practice being kind and gentle to myself, loving myself and my inner child and encouraging my artistic self.

    In relationships, it has been hard for me to discern whom to trust and not trust. I had an emotionally abusive marriage and have given my power away in relationships. In romantic relationships, I projected my goodness and integrity and supported my partners’ dreams instead of my own.

    I have finally learned that I can choose myself and honor my needs, wants, desires, dreams, and goals. I continue to shed other people’s projections that I internalized. I am realizing that I am worthy of and can have, dream, aspire for, and achieve what white women can. And finally, I believe in my goodness, of others, and of life.

    Having emerged from the long, dark tunnel of healing, every day is a triumph for my freedom and a priceless gift. Every day I have the opportunity to be true to myself, face a fear, shift a perspective, and love, encourage, and enjoy myself.

    Acceptance

    There are so many steps and milestones on the journey of healing. Of the five stages of grief, acceptance is the final one.

    Acceptance is a choice and a practice. Acceptance is letting go, forgiving yourself and others, and honoring, claiming, and loving every twist and turn of your journey. Acceptance is treasuring all you have learned from your experience no matter how painful it was and how meaningless it seemed.

    Here are some things I have learned to accept.

    Accept the deep impact of trauma

    Coming from a family and culture that valued perfectionism and purity, I wasn’t aware of and wanted to gloss over and hide my trauma, shadow, and coping behaviors. Because I could live a life that seemed relatively high-functioning, I was ashamed to admit and address my childhood sexual trauma to myself for years. I was afraid and ashamed to share my trauma with others because I didn’t want to be seen as broken, damaged, or crazy.

    Once I acknowledged and faced my sexual trauma, I began my healing journey. Healing and acceptance mean seeing, claiming, and loving each and every part of ourselves, however broken or ashamed we feel. As we do that, we liberate ourselves from believing we needed to fit into other people’s ideas to be loved and accepted.

    When we don’t admit and accept our traumas, we can cycle through life alive but not living, succeeding but not fulfilled, and live according to programs we’ve inherited but not from our truths. As a result, joy, pleasure, passion, and true power escape us.

    Accepting that I didn’t get to have the life and dreams I expected

    As a victim, I was stuck in grief, loss, anger, denial, disillusionment, blame, and resentment. Life seemed unfair.

    These feelings are natural after trauma, especially extended severe trauma. But despite years of therapy and healing, I continued to cycle and swim in them and didn’t know how to not have those feelings.

    I was fighting to accept what I had lost. I kept ruminating on who I might have been and what my life would have been like had it not been interrupted or derailed. It was how my subconscious mind tried to control and “correct” the past to have the outcome I desired and stay connected to my past dreams.

    I was tightly holding on to what I had lost—to who I was then and my dreams. I was terrified that if I let go of what was most precious, I would be left with nothing.

    But the reverse happened. When I decided to let go of my past dreams, regrets, and lost opportunities, I stepped into the river of life anew, afresh, and in the now. I opened to who I am now and what is possible now.

    We don’t let go of trauma because, on a deep level, we believe we will condone what happened, and forget or lose what was so precious.

    Not letting go keeps us stuck like a monkey clutching peanuts in a narrow-mouthed jar. We don’t want to let go of what we had then for fear that we will be left with nothing at all. It keeps us stuck in blame and resentment. It keeps us from joy, pleasure, and possibility.

    But to live and breathe and come alive again, we need to unclench our past. By no means is this forgetting, or condoning, but allowing, receiving, and welcoming new, fresh beginnings, possibilities, and life.

    Accepting the character, mental illness, and wounds of my abusers

    Though my family had been brutal, my inner child wanted to believe in their goodness. I couldn’t accept that people I loved, who were supposed to love, care for, and protect me, could treat me that way.

    I was in a trauma bond and in denial. I had to come to terms with and accept that my mother is a narcissist and my father an enabler. And that the rest of my family only looked the other way.

    I had to let go of my illusion of my family, see through the fog of gaslighting, and accept the truth of who they are.

    Acceptance is learning to see our abusers with clear eyes beyond our expectations, illusions, and stories of what we needed and desired from them, and who we want them to be.

    No matter what was done to or happened to me, I am responsible for my life.

    Staying stuck in a cycle of blame, resentment, and anger told me I wasn’t taking responsibility for myself.

    After severe trauma, it’s painful and challenging to look at ourselves and realize that we played a part in it. Trauma is something that happens to us, but we are the ones who make conclusions about ourselves, others, and life because of it. My beliefs and perspectives about myself, especially about my self-worth, self-esteem, body, and sexuality, drastically changed after the trauma.

    I had to take responsibility for creating my beliefs. I needed to accept every time I didn’t choose, value, and honor myself and my gifts. I realized that just as I had adopted others’ projections of myself, creating a negative self-perception, I could shift to regard myself in a positive light.

    Accepting my part in my trauma set me free from blame and resentment. And it set me free from the power my abusers had over me and my connection to them.

    Acknowledge what I don’t have control over

    My inner child and I wanted to believe in the goodness, love, and protectiveness of my family and partners. But I have no control over who my parents, family, and culture are, or their mental health, values, and behaviors. I had no control over my culture’s beliefs and attitudes toward women and sexuality.

    Because of deep shame from childhood abuse, I felt bad at my core and had a low sense of self-worth. Subconsciously, I tried to control how I was seen. I lived a life acceptable to my family and culture and followed what the world defined as successful, believing it would make me feel good about myself and be accepted and loved.

    But my happiness, freedom, and success lie in my own truth. I learned to honor and follow that. I learned to mother and father myself. I learned about mental illness and mental health and reached out for support from therapists and friends.

    As I let go of trying to please others, pursuing my own needs, talents, and interests, I found myself, my joy, and my purpose.

    Forgive myself

    Looking back, I see so many roads I could have taken but didn’t. I see many ways I could have taken help but didn’t. I was filled with regret for past choices and decisions. I was angry with and judged myself.

    We can be our own harshest critics. I needed to forgive myself.

    I learned to see and be compassionate with my inner child and younger self, steeped as she was in family binds and cultural beliefs. I learned to hold her with tenderness and love for all the ways she didn’t know how to protect and choose herself. And for all she wanted but didn’t know how to reach for and have, for what she wanted to say and do but couldn’t or didn’t.

    As I held my younger selves with understanding, compassion, and love, and forgave them, they began to trust me and offer their gifts, which allowed me to open to joy, innocence, freedom, and play again.

  • I Cheated on Him with My Higher Self (and We’re Still Going Strong)

    I Cheated on Him with My Higher Self (and We’re Still Going Strong)

    “It’s okay to let go of those who couldn’t love you. Those who didn’t know how to. Those who failed to even try. It’s okay to outgrow them, because that means you filled the empty space in you with self-love instead. You’re outgrowing them because you’re growing into you. And that’s more than okay, that’s something to celebrate.” ~Angelica Moone

    “How could you do this to me? It’s obvious you’re with someone else.”

    That was the third and final message I received from my partner of nearly three years, several weeks after we had finally decided to break up. I say “we” because initially it seemed that the decision was mutual, although it would later be revealed that it was me who wanted out.

    He was right, by the way. I had left him for someone else.

    No, not the lover that he had conjured up for me in his own mind. In fact, what had pulled me away was much more powerful and seductive than that. I had cheated on him with my higher self. And she had been trying to win me over for quite some time.

    My higher self: AKA my intuition, AKA my inner badass that will never be ignored. Yep, she’s the one I had left him for.

    Much like when I was nearing the end of my marriage, she had started off with a gentle nudge, a tap on the shoulder every now and again. I’ve noticed throughout my life that if I don’t stop what I’m doing, these attempts to get my attention will become more consistent, until what was once a whisper finally becomes a roar.

    Such was the case three years ago when she decided that I should shave my head. At that point, I had invested a lot of money turning my naturally dark brown hair into a platinum blond mane. This was before the pandemic, when I couldn’t imagine anything coming between me and my monthly visits to the salon.

    As with most suggestions that come from my higher self, my ego was not impressed.

    If the two of them had been sitting across from one another, the conversation would have gone something like . .

    “You want to do whaaaat??”

    “Shave it.”

    “Excuse me?”

    “Take it all off.”

    “All of it?”

    “All. Of. It.”

    So I attempted a compromise by shaving a bit off the side. I knew I was kidding myself when I thought that would be the end, but at least it was a start. Over the course of the next twelve months, I felt equal parts admiration and jealousy whenever I caught a glimpse of someone with a shaved head. This peculiar mix was familiar to me, and it signaled what was destined to happen next.

    When I had finally made the decision, it was a random Tuesday morning, and it made absolutely no sense to my logical mind. Unlike the ego that thrives on being booked and busy, the higher self loves white space. When we give ourselves the opportunity to tune out and tune in, our deepest desires have a funny way of being revealed.

    That fateful day I had decided to take an extra long walk with my dog through one of the parks here in Barcelona. There’s nothing like nature, movement, and a bit of solitude to help you cut through the noise and get to the heart of what you really want. Instead of returning to my apartment, we headed to the salon.

    As I took a seat at my hairdresser’s station and looked at myself in the mirror, my ego had a full-blown tantrum while my higher self popped open the proverbial champagne.

    In those moments of feeling the clippers pass over my scalp, watching my shoulder-length hair fall to the floor, I finally felt free. Whether it’s our hair, our jobs, or a relationship we’ve long outgrown, the higher self seeks our liberation, no matter what the cost.

    That day when I told my then partner what I had done, the conversation didn’t go as I had hoped but exactly like I had imagined.

    “You’re bald.”

    While this was indeed a fact, the tone made it feel like a personal attack. He asked me why someone so beautiful would intentionally make herself so ugly. For once in my life, being “pretty” hadn’t been the deciding factor. I wasn’t so concerned with how I wanted to look but rather how I wanted to feel. As I’ve come to learn since, life really changes when this perspective starts to shift.

    If his thoughts and feelings were any indication, I was no longer much to look at when it came to the male gaze. Ironically, all he could see was “a weirdo” while the person I saw with my own eyes was a queen. 

    While my ex couldn’t get past my shaved head, I couldn’t get over the luminosity and the brilliance that could fully shine through. As he continued to fixate on what I had lost, I knew the truth of what I had gained: freedom, courage, and beauty on my own terms.

    Perhaps I always knew that he would leave me over a haircut. No one likes to think that the future of their relationship comes down to the length of their hair, but he had told me from the beginning that shaving my head was the one thing I should never do. Funny the rules we’ll follow in an attempt to belong to other people while we strategically abandon ourselves.

    I had spent nearly four decades of my life searching for safety in the fulfillment of everyone’s expectations. I used to be an expert at figuring out what they wanted and becoming exactly that. Until one cold, cloudy morning in February 2021, when I decided I was done. Done with the pretending. Done with the pleasing. Done with the denial of what I knew to be true.

    I was finally ready for a different kind of love. And this time it was all my own.

    You could say that I cheated on my ex with my higher self, or maybe she was the one I was meant for all along. Either way, I’ve chosen to be faithful to my inner wisdom. And from what I can tell, we’re still going strong.