Tiny Buddha

Tag: trauma

  • What Creates Anxiety and How We Can Heal and Ease Our Pain

    What Creates Anxiety and How We Can Heal and Ease Our Pain

    “Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need, rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, not the symptom.” ~Ashleigh Warner

    Do you ever wonder what creates anxiety and why so many people are anxious?

    Anxiety doesn’t just come from a thought we’re thinking, it comes from inside our body—from our internal patterning, where unresolved trauma, deep shame, and painful experiences are still “running.”

    It often comes from false underlying beliefs that say, “Something’s wrong with me, I’m flawed, I’m bad, I’m wrong, I don’t belong.”

    Anxiety can be highly misunderstood because it’s not just a symptom, it often stems from what’s going on subconsciously as a result of past experiences, mostly from when we were little beings. And yes, the body does keep score and remembers even if the mind doesn’t.

    Anxiety is often a signal/experience that happens automatically from our nervous system. It’s emotions/sensations letting us know that we don’t feel safe with ourselves, life, or the person we’re with or situation we’re in. It’s our inner child saying, “Hey, I need some love and attention.”

    Maybe, instead of blaming, shaming, or making ourselves feel bad or wrong for experiencing anxiety, we can be more compassionate and caring, knowing it often comes from deep unresolved pain.

    Just taking a medication or doing symptom relief may help ease the anxiety, but are we really healing the “root” cause? Are we taking time to understand what the anxiety is conveying? Where it’s actually coming from and what it’s showing us about what we need?

    Many people are living with anxiety but aren’t even aware it’s happening. Our minds and bodies aren’t at ease, and we may try to soothe them by being busy, over-eating, drinking alcohol, scrolling through the internet, smoking, compulsive shopping, over-achieving, or constantly working.

    From my earliest memory I felt anxious. I didn’t feel safe at home or at school. I felt different than the other kids; in a sense I was an outcast.

    I was alone a lot, and food became my companion and coping mechanism. When I was eating, I felt like I was being soothed. It gave me a way to focus on something else to avoid my painful feelings, and it also helped me cope with being screamed at or ignored by my family.

    At age eight I started experiencing dizziness, which was another form of anxiety showing up in my body. My parents took me to the doctor, and they checked my ears and did other tests but couldn’t find anything wrong with me physically.

    That’s because the dizziness wasn’t caused by something physically wrong with my body, it was stemming from the fear and anxiety I was experiencing. I was afraid of everyone and everything—I was afraid of living and being.

    I was experiencing extreme panic. I didn’t know how to be, and no one comforted me when I was afraid; instead, my father called me a “big baby.”

    When I was ten my parents started leaving me at home alone, sometimes at night, where it was very scary for me, and I cried and sat at the door waiting for them to walk in. When they did, there was no acknowledgment. They just said, “Go to bed.”

    They didn’t meet my needs for connection; my needs to be heard, loved, seen, and accepted; or my needs for safety and comfort when I was hurting and afraid. Because of that, I experienced severe panic and anxiety. I didn’t know how to be with myself when those feelings were happening, which was constantly.

    Then, when I was thirteen, my doctor told me to go on a diet. I became afraid of food and started using exercise to soothe my anxiousness. Little did I know I would exercise compulsively, to the point of exhaustion, daily, for the next twenty-three years of my life.

    I couldn’t sit still for a minute. If I did, my heart would race, and my body would sweat and shake. My trauma was surfacing, and I didn’t know how to be. The only way I felt okay was if I was constantly moving and being busy. 

    I was also self-harming and limiting my food intake, so at age fifteen I entered my first hospital for anorexia, depression, cutting/being suicidal, and anxiety.

    Was there really something wrong with me? No, I was just a frightened human being trying desperately to feel loved, accepted, and at peace with who I was. I just wanted to feel safe in some way.

    I didn’t realize what was going on at the time, and the people who were “treating me” didn’t understand true healing. They were just doing symptom relief, which never took care of my inner pain, the trauma my mind/body was stuck in.

    Deep down I was living with the idea that there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t a good enough human being, I didn’t fit into society. I had a shame-based identity, and I was trying to suppress my hurt and pain.

    I was stuck in fear and worried about the future and what would happen to me. I was trying to make the “right” decisions, but no matter what I did my father called me a failure. No wonder I was so anxious all the time. I couldn’t meet the standards on how I should be according to my family and society, and I never felt safe.

    When I was old enough, I started working and found that when I made money, I finally felt worthy, which temporarily eased my anxiety.

    This became an obsession, and I became a workaholic, basing my identity on my income and trying to prove myself through my earnings.

    I also hid my thoughts, feelings, and needs because I never knew, when I was a kid, if I would be punished for doing, saying, or asking for anything. This left me with many unmet needs and continuous anxious feelings. 

    How can someone live that way? We can’t. It’s not living, it’s running. It’s trying to just get through the day, but then the next day comes and the panic sets in, and the routine starts all over again. Living in proving, self-preserving, and trying to find a way to feel safe—what a life, eh?

    I also had to deal with the anger my family projected onto me for “being a sick puppy.” They said I was ruining the family, not to mention all the money my parents spent on treatment that never helped me get better. That really upset my father and made me feel guilty.

    All that panic, fear, guilt, shame, pain—feeling not good enough, unlovable, and unworthy—was going on unconsciously, and because I was trying to suppress how I was truly feeling I experienced the symptom of anxiety, as well as depression, eating disorders, cutting, and other ways of self-harming.

    Many people have these feelings but do a great job of covering them up through physical means. Internally, they’re at war.

    That’s why I share my story: I know there are other people out there who feel this too. If this is you, please be kind and gentle with yourself.

    Please know that whatever your survival/coping mechanisms, you’re not bad or wrong; in fact, you’re pretty damn smart, you found a way to help yourself feel safe.

    And, if you’re experiencing anxiety, please know it’s not your fault; it’s how your nervous system is responding to what’s happening internally and externally. 

    Sometimes anxiety can mean that we care deeply and we’re in a situation or with a person who means a lot to us. We want to be loved and accepted, so we get anxious about trying to do and say the right things, which makes it hard to express ourselves authentically.

    Anxiety can also be a response from our nervous system letting us know we’re in dangerous situations or our needs for belonging, safety, and love aren’t being met. However, there’s a difference between a real threat and a perceived threat based on outdated neuro patterning stemming from traumatic past experiences.

    Here’s the simple truth: We all have some anxiety—it’s part of being human—but when anxiety shows up in our daily living and it’s extreme like it was for me, it can be helpful to notice it with compassion and loving so we can do some inner healing.

    I started feeling at ease by embracing the part of me that was experiencing anxiety, listening to why it was feeling how it was feeling, and giving it what it needed; this is called inner child healing, loving re-parenting.

    I started feeling at ease when I made anxiety my friend and I saw it as a messenger from within. By taking the time to listen, I saw how anxiety was serving me; sometimes I really needed protection or a shift in perception, or to speak up or leave a situation, and I only knew this by listening.

    When I started loving and accepting myself unconditionally—my insecurities, my imperfections, my wild ways of being, my free, authentic, and crazy expression, the ways I love and care deeply and the things that frightened me—I became truly free.

    We’ve all been conditioned to be a certain way in order to be loved and accepted, and this often creates a disconnection from our soul’s loving essence and can cause us to be anxious with the false ideas that we’re not good enough and there’s something wrong with us. 

    For those of us who experienced trauma too—the trauma of not being heard, seen, or comforted when we were frightened or hurting, or not having our needs met as a little being, or being beaten physically or emotionally—well, it’s understandable that we would feel unsafe and anxious.

    When we’re in situations that trigger our anxiety, we need to take a deep breath and ask ourselves:

    What am I afraid of?

    What is this experience bringing up for me?

    What am I feeling and what am I believing to be true about myself, the other, and/or what’s happening?

    Is that really true?

    What do I need? How can I give this to myself?

    One thing that has really helped me is the idea that it’s not really about the issue or the other person, it’s about how I’m feeling, what I think it means, and what’s going on internally, as we all see the world through our own filters, beliefs, and perceptions.

    We find ease with anxiety when we make it our friend, relate with it, and respond to it instead of from it, and offer ourselves compassion instead of judgment. 

    We find ease with anxiety when we forgive ourselves for betraying ourselves to get love and approval and/or forgive ourselves for past mistakes, seeing what we can learn from them and how we can change.

    We find ease with anxiety by taking risks and making small promises to ourselves daily, which helps us learn how to trust ourselves and our decisions, so we don’t feel anxious when there’s no one around to help us.

    We find ease with anxiety when we realize there’s nothing wrong with us, and we take time to find out what unrealistic expectations we’re trying to meet in order to be a “good enough human being.”

    We find ease with anxiety when we have a safe place to share our fears, shame, and insecurities so we no longer have to suppress that energy.

    We find ease with anxiety when we notice the “war” between our mind and our heart—our conditioning and our true being.

    We also find ease with anxiety when we see it as a positive thing. Because of my anxiety, I’m empathetic and sensitive to my own and other people’s feelings and needs. This helps me understand what I need, as well as what my friends, clients, and other people need and what they’re experiencing internally.

    We find ease with anxiety when we understand what’s causing it internally; express, process, and resolve our anger, hurt, shame and pain; and offer those parts of ourselves compassion, love, and a new understanding.

    We find ease with anxiety when we pause, take a deep breath, put our hands on our heart, and say, “I am safe, I am loved.” This calms our nervous system and brings us back to the present moment.

    We find ease with anxiety when we experience a re-connection with our soul’s loving essence; this is where we experience a true homecoming, a loving integrating.

    If you’re someone who has experienced trauma, please don’t force yourself to sit with your feelings alone. Find someone who can lovingly support you in your healing, someone who can assist you in working with those parts of you that are hurting to feel safe, loved, heard, and seen.

    Oh, and one more thing, please be kind and gentle with yourself. You’re a precious and beautiful soul, and you’re worth being held in compassion and love.

  • If You’ve Been Abused and You’ve Lost Your Joy and Sense of Self

    If You’ve Been Abused and You’ve Lost Your Joy and Sense of Self

    “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can choose not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou

    I know what you’re feeling because I’ve been there. You’re sitting quietly with your pain asking yourself if the abuse really happened or if you just fabricated it in your mind like they said you did.

    You’re wondering if you’re too sensitive. If you really did hurt them as much as they claim you did. There’s a small part of you that wonders if you actually deserved to be treated poorly because of what you said or did or because of who you are.

    Deep down you know it was abuse, and even now as you break free, a part of you knows what happened to you was wrong, that it wasn’t your fault.

    It’s hard to hear that part of you though. You’re numb, shut down, and drained. You don’t know what you want or what you need. You don’t even know what you should be doing right now or who you really are.

    You’re not used to having the freedom to choose what you want to do. You became used to being told how you should feel and act.

    “Does it get better, will it get easier, or will I always feel like this?” you ask.

    I’m here to tell you that it can get better. If you do the work required to heal, not only will you be able to feel again, you will feel a sense of awareness unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. You will clear away the ashes of these broken relationships and open yourself up to healthier ones. Relationships that affirm the person you have become.

    People will tell you to get over your past and move on. Ignore that advice. Sometimes you can’t just get over something, especially if it was traumatic.

    Instead, lean into your pain and understand it. Recognize the positive ways it has shaped you. Maybe because of it you’re more empathetic and more in tune to others’ emotions, and maybe, if you’re like me, you’re motivated to help others so that they’re not alone with their pain.

    Ask yourself how the abuse motivated you. Did you strive to prove yourself and accomplish more than you ever thought possible? Were you able to unlearn the things they taught you about yourself? Are you where you are in life because of it?

    I’m not saying that the abuse was a good thing. I’m saying that we can create good things as a result of bad situations. Lean into that and reflect on it, because I have learned that if you can find something positive to hold onto, it gives the pain a sense of transformative purpose. 

    Draw a picture, write a poem, or write a letter to yourself reflecting on what happened and try to let go of any thoughts, feelings, or beliefs that keep you stuck. Take your time, feel your feelings, and tell yourself your feelings are okay.

    Sometimes when you have lived in survival mode for so long, having to shut off your feelings altogether, you can feel numb for weeks, months, or even years. When someone says “feel your feelings” you don’t even know what that means. Instead, you go through the motions pretending to feel what people expect you to feel, acting in the way that you think you should.

    I want you to remember that you don’t have to force anything. There is no right way to feel in this situation, and no one has the right to tell you what you should and should not be feeling right now. These are your feelings and your lived experiences.

    If you’re feeling numb you might ask, will I ever feel again? In time you will, and if you give yourself permission to feel whatever it is that you have suppressed things will get easier and you will start to feel like yourself again.

    I have learned that you can only suppress feelings for so long before they bubble to the surface forcing you to feel the pain, to relive the experiences and actually feel them.

    It sounds scary, and I’m not going to tell you it doesn’t hurt. But feeling the pain will make you feel whole again because not only have you numbed the bad things, but you’ve numbed the good as well. Feeling the pain will lead to a sense of peace and you will be able to experience joy and happiness again. I know because I have been there.

    Get to know yourself. The abuse caused you to lose sight of your wants, needs, feelings, and sense of self. Now you have the exciting task of rediscovering those things and reinventing yourself.

    You might think that getting to know yourself is selfish or that focusing on your own wants and needs is wrong. There is nothing wrong or selfish about learning about yourself. In doing this you will be in a better position to help others; you will be happier, healthier, and become the person you were truly meant to be.

    Ignore the voice inside your head that says, “I can’t, I am not good/capable enough.” Ask yourself where that voice came from. It is really your voice, or did someone else’s voice find its way into your head?

    How can you rediscover yourself when you don’t even know who you are or what you want anymore? Start small—notice the foods you like to eat and take note things you enjoy doing. Sign up for personality and aptitude tests such as The Myers Briggs, The VIA institute, and Best Instruments. Don’t use these tools to define you but as a guide to help discover yourself.

    Ask yourself hard questions such as: What do I want my life to look like? What activities bring me joy? What have I always wanted to do, and what have I regretted not doing in the past? Maybe you’ve always wanted to travel the world, attend university, take a cooking class, learn to play a musical instrument, run a marathon, or own a pet.

    Open a notebook or a word document and write down 100 things that you want to do, see, achieve, learn, or experience. Don’t think, just write in a stream of consciousness. If you start to think when doing this activity, you will start to second guess yourself.

    Once you’ve written as many things as you can think of, put the notebook/Word document away. Return to it a few days later and ask yourself how many of these things you can do now, in the next six months, in the next year, or in the next ten years. Then start making a plan.

    I do this activity every year, and every year It helps me rekindle my passion for life and create a sense of purposeful focus.

    You might think you don’t deserve the life you dream of, but the truth is that you do! Your happiness and fulfillment matters.

    You might think you can’t do any of the things you put on your list, but I’m here to tell you that you can! You might need to take baby steps, but the smallest steps toward the life you want are still steps in the right direction.

    If you want to go to college/university start by exploring schools/prospective programs. If you want to become a chef, start by asking if you can observe/volunteer to help a local chef. If you want to start your own business, start by doing some research about what resources you might need or what skills you might like to develop.

    If you want something badly enough you will explore limiting beliefs, thoughts, and feelings that prevent you from achieving your goals, and you will find a way or maybe even find something along the way that’s better.

    If you think that the people in your life might try and dissuade you from pursuing your new goals, hold on tight to these dreams and keep them to yourself. I have learned that sometimes showing people that you have enrolled in college or taken some form of action is much better then asking for their permission or giving them room to judge you.

    Remind yourself that you don’t need to have everything figured out, that you don’t always need to know what is going to happen next. If you take positive steps toward the life you want, you will see progress over time.

    Let yourself dream, let yourself feel, and give yourself permission to be the amazing person you are.

    If you start to discover yourself and learn to live with the abuse that has shaped you, life will be better then you could ever have imagined. A life of fulfillment, happiness, positive relationships, and achievements greater than you could have ever imagined is possible. And no matter what your abuser told you, you absolutely deserve it.

  • The Abuse Behind My Happy Family Pictures (and Why We Should Talk About It)

    The Abuse Behind My Happy Family Pictures (and Why We Should Talk About It)

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of physical abuse and may be triggering to some people.

    “There remains what seems to be an impenetrable wall of silence around violence, and we must all play a role in breaking this silence.” ~Reese Witherspoon

    The other day my brother sent me some rare old photographs of my family. In the middle of those aged images, I found a picture of a seven-year-old girl, so cute! She was wearing two perfect long braids and a smile. Oh, the smile of this lovely girl!

    There was also an image of a man sitting down on the sofa, holding a baby in his arms, showing off a big, round, happy face. The man looked loving, respectful, and good to be around. “What a beautiful family!” you would say.

    But for me, the one who lived the story behind the pictures, it’s a different feeling. We all know that nothing is what it seems to be, yet we choose to believe in appearances. I guess it’s easier to believe in what we see instead of going deeper.

    I wasn’t expecting to receive these pictures on my phone, so when I saw the man’s image, my heart started automatically racing, my hands sweating. He passed away long ago, but my body still remembers my automatic response whenever I heard, saw, or even imagined he was near.

    He was actually not a nice person to have around, but you already saw this one coming, didn’t you? I made myself stare at his picture until the feeling faded away. I no longer fear him, but I couldn’t help but get triggered. It was a long time since I’ve seen an image of him.

    The last time I saw him, it was in a dream. Not so long ago, I used to have nightmares almost every single night, where he would chase me non-stop, and I would run and run until I woke up. My heart racing, my hands sweating.

    I had to go to bed with one light on so I could fall asleep. But the last time we saw each other, there was no fear. In the dream, I looked at him, he looked at me, and that was it. I never saw him again until I got the photographs on my phone.

    Those pictures were the image that everyone from outside believed to be the truth or pretended to be. When I was done staring at my abuser’s photograph, I swiped to see the picture of the small girl. I was she, and she was me.

    For years I refused to look at old photographs. I would purposefully hide them in drawers to avoid having to look at them and face the hypocrisy: Happy faces, happy smiles, happy appearances. The sadder I was, the happier the smile had to be. That’s what they told me, with words and actions.

    The first time he beat me, it was so bad that I lost consciousness for a bit; but the thing I remember the most was the shock I felt. I was absolutely in shock when his big hand hit my tiny face and dragged me to a different room to repeatedly beat my skinny body more comfortably.

    He would beat me non-stop everywhere he could, with a rage I never knew existed. I would scream and shout and try to make him stop, but nobody came for me, even though they could. They were still in the kitchen, probably as shocked as I was.

    The next day when I woke up, they noticed I had a stroke in the eye. There were no apologies, no explanations.

    “Everything is okay.”

    “Tell everyone you hit your eye against the table” was the lie I had to tell. I’m a good girl, so that’s what I did. I went to school and I lied to my friends and my teacher, and when I visited family I repeated the same lie to everyone. People were struggling to look at me in the eyes, and my peers wouldn’t play with me. It was hard to watch.

    Just like that, I was ugly, everything was my fault, and my abuser was free to go on and make my life a living hell for an entire decade. Typical: the abuser feels like they can continue because there are zero consequences, and the victim is completely isolated, feeling powerless and ashamed for something that someone has done to them.

    When I look at myself in the picture, I can’t help but think: “Why would you hurt this child?”

    I was kind, I was good. I was a very good girl, I know that now. I took care of my brothers, loved studying, I was funny! I was also very creative and would put on an entire show to entertain you (or bore you to death) in five minutes. I would do anything you say, but I was also an intelligent kid with a strong sense of justice, which did not help me much in my childhood, as you can imagine.

    I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been through so much that I would need a book to describe it all. But the worst thing, the most painful thing besides the heartbrokenness, was the silence. The secrecy.  If you have suffered from any form of abuse, you certainly know what I’m talking about.

    The abuse takes place over and over, and no one speaks up. Plus, we hide it. And we stay silent when we grow up because that’s what we know.

    It’s hard to tell your truth when you’ve kept silent pretty much your entire life, especially if everyone around you is doing the exact same thing. Most of the time, until you speak up, until you tell your truth, you go around thinking that you are alone, that you are not ‘normal.’ Unfortunately, you are normal. You are not a rare exception.

    What happened to you happens all the time; people simply don’t talk about it. And I would love it if we started having more conversations about this, to help victims and families of victims and to hold the abusers accountable.

    The abuse I suffered was perpetuated by silence, and the perpetuation of this silence got in the way of my healing for years. It was through other people’s stories that I was able to start healing. 

    If you have been through trauma, I encourage you to tell your story. Please, don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to go public and tell everyone about everything if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, but I’d love you to explore the idea of sharing your story of trauma with the people who are close to you.

    Something magical happens when you open up.

    Each word you let out is a bit of weight that drops. And the more you share, the lighter you feel.  I know it is scary, I know you fear people’s reactions, but I promise people will not see you differently. They will just see more of you, and that’s a good thing.

    I was so scared of sharing my story with my partner, and all it did was strengthen our relationship. We really see each other now, and I don’t feel like I’m hiding something anymore. I feel free to be me, and he loves me even more for that.

    You will see that most people will admire you for the person you have become and understand why you are the way you are or do things the way you do. You will also be surprised to know that some of your friends have been through trauma as well, and you will have wonderful bonding experiences.

    It is true what they say: “The truth will set you free.” I believe that. And I believe that it will help liberate other people as well.

  • Why I Don’t Define Myself as a Victim and What I Do Instead

    Why I Don’t Define Myself as a Victim and What I Do Instead

    “The struggle of my life created empathy—I could relate to pain, being abandoned, having people not love me.” ~Oprah Winfrey

    See yourself as a victim and you become one. Identify as a victim and you give your tormentor power over you, the very power to define who you are.

    Statements like this have become commonly accepted wisdom today because they are undoubtedly true. If you see yourself as a victim, you will be one. You will be someone who has been defeated, someone who is at the mercy of another, and that is no way to live.

    And yet, the truth is that many people have been victims. Actually, it’s probably fair to say that everyone has been a victim of something or someone at some point in their lives. So, how can we reject being a victim without denying reality? On the other hand, if we accept being a victim, aren’t we then giving up our own power and independence?

    The answer I think lies in part in a subtlety of language, a small distinction with a big difference. Rather than defining ourselves as victims, why not just say that we have been victimized?

    One thing this immediately does is to describe the act, not the person. It means someone was taken advantage of, mistreated, bullied, tricked, or whatever the offense was. It does not disempower that person thereafter by defining him or her going forward after the event.

    In fact, “victimize” is a verb, and just using it seems to bring a sharper focus on the subject rather than on the object. When I hear the word “victimize,” my first thought is “Who did that?” not “Who was the victim?”

    While that may sound like splitting hairs, the word “victimize” describes a moment in time, not a person. It accurately portrays a reality without turning that reality into a perpetuity by defining someone as a victim. It rightfully places emphasis more on the person who shouldn’t have done that rather than the person who shouldn’t have let it happen, as if he or she had any choice in the matter.

    However, there is a much more important point here than those semantics, which is this: While we don’t want to define ourselves as victims, we also don’t want to erase an important part of our story, a part that may have played more of a role in our personal growth and development than anything else.

    As unpleasant as it may be to experience, pain deepens people. To hurt and to be sick is to commune with all of those people who are sick and hurting and who have ever been sick or hurt or ever will be sick or hurt.

    In suffering, one is given the chance to suffer along with everyone else who is suffering, to be connected with a vast array of people facing innumerable different circumstances. To suffer is to be human, part of a much greater whole.

    When coming out the other side, we have a choice. We can forget our suffering and learn nothing, remaining unchanged. Or, we can define ourselves as a sufferer and collect another sad story to cling to. The telling of that story is what creates our ego, and indeed, for many people, that ego is a victim story.

    While on its face a victim identity is not a happy thing, the victim story does have its allure. It certainly can be a way to avoid responsibility and curry sympathy from others. More than anything, it provides the stability of an invented identity, which is exactly what the ego is.

    That stability staves off the ultimate fear—that of life’s ever-changing uncertainty. But, at the same time, clinging to this stability causes us to fight with life, and hence leads to suffering. It is a rejection of life.

    However, there is a third way, which is to accept what happened to us and learn from our suffering to become a wiser, kinder, and more empathetic person. It is to embrace our victimization without becoming a victim.

    Suffering is the great teacher and the great uniter. There is an ancient spiritual teaching from India which asserts that there are three ways to acquire spiritual knowledge: through experience, through reading books, and through a teacher, or someone who knows about it.

    Unfortunately, if you’ve ever met or read about people who have undergone a major spiritual awakening, or if you have experienced one yourself, it is usually the result of the former, and that “experience” is usually pain and suffering.

    So, when we’ve been victimized, we gain some insight and some power. We can recognize those people who are or have also been victimized, or even who are just hurting, and more readily empathize with their experiences. We are more able to be that helping hand, that listening ear, that open heart.

    This is a lesson I have learned though painful experience.

    A few years back, I was in a cancer caregiver support group when my mom was going through her cancer journey starting just a few weeks after my father passed away. I moved back home from very far away and had served in part as caretaker to both of them—a very difficult experience.

    I stayed in the group until my mom was miraculously recovered and it was time for me to get on with my life, maybe after a period of sixteen months. When someone left the group, different members would go around in the circle a say a sort of little tribute to the person leaving.

    One woman in the group came from a very different set of circumstances than I did. I’m a white guy from the suburbs who grew up in stable family and attended a prestigious university. She was a mixed-race African American and Hispanic woman who grew up in a single mother household in the Bronx and went back to get her degree as an adult.

    She had a confession to make. She said when I first came to the group, I just seemed like a privileged white guy from the suburb where I was born. However, as she got to know me and heard me in the group, she knew there was “something” about me—that I could listen to people and hear their pain and somehow relate to them. I could hold space and give good advice at the same time, and she knew it was from the heart. It was not something she expected of “someone like [me].”

    What she couldn’t tell was that the picture-perfect suburban upbringing I had masked an uglier truth.  Unfortunately, my childhood story was one of frequent abuse—physical, emotional, and even on a couple of occasions sexual.

    I grew up in a family of four children, the scapegoat of the family. It was a relationship dynamic that my parents taught to all of my siblings. Thinking back on my childhood, nearly all of my happy memories took place outside of the home—at school, at friends’ houses, by myself, anywhere but home. I was alone in a house full of people.

    While I’d love to say that ingrained a tenderness in me, an intrinsic empathy for the downtrodden, it didn’t. It hardened me and made me uncharitable. I could tough it out. I could push past it all. Why couldn’t other people? That was my attitude.

    Then, well into my adulthood, I had a crisis—a complete emotional breakdown. After years of illness, a difficult career, tragedies among my friends and family, it all become too much. I collapsed but was reborn. It was at that time, when all my defenses crumbled, that I experienced a total change of heart. Among other things, I found my empathy. It was a bottomless well of goodness that I never even knew was there.

    More than anything, I found myself drawn to the outsider. Deep down my harder self had seen the outsider with contempt, probably because I could recall how painful it was to be the outsider growing up. Now, I was able to empathize with that outsider as I fully accepted and integrated the whole of my experience, including my childhood of victimization.

    And yet, having grown up the way I did and even after the big “shift” caused by my breakdown, I still didn’t really think of myself as a “nice” person. I suppose my outer reserve remained intact because I didn’t think people thought of me that way either.

    What that lady in the cancer group said to me that day was better, more meaningful, and more rewarding than any trophy, award, accolade, or recognition I have ever received. But it was a compliment dearly bought, for without my childhood victimization and the suffering I’d experienced in my adult life, I never would have earned it.

    A victim I am not. For that to be true, I’d still need to be sad or resentful. I’d need to be living in some maladapted way, surviving through coping mechanisms and pain management. Is it upsetting when I think about that innocent, happy, carefree childhood I never had? It sure is. But my past brought me to my happy present and taught me heart lessons that I never would have otherwise received.

    When I look back, would I want to live through it all again? Definitely not, but I’m glad it happened that way and thankful for those experiences.

    But, while being nobody’s victim, I do not reject—indeed I embrace—my victimization. It’s part of my story, maybe the most critical part.

  • 10 Reasons Why I Ditched the Drink & What Happened When I Quit Alcohol

    10 Reasons Why I Ditched the Drink & What Happened When I Quit Alcohol

    “When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That’s when the sparkle started for me.” ~Mary Karr

    Growing up I thought alcohol meant adulthood. As a child I eagerly watched the cacophony of advertisements, commercials, TV shows, and movies swirling, mixing, swigging, sipping, and smelling those delicious drinks that the beautiful and the sexy preferred.

    Alcohol was literally the forbidden fruit—a mystery and an abomination that not my parents, nor anyone in my family—really had anything to do with. I assumed this was due to my family’s lack of class or sophistication. Wine, beer, and spirits meant pairing with palates and inclusion in the upper reaches of society. It was beyond us, and it seemed foreign and fun. I couldn’t wait to try it.

    I remember my first full beer at around twelve or thirteen. I snuck away with my best friend Mimi to guzzle a couple of Coronas in the woods behind my house. It made my head spin and we giggled, but it left me feeling confused and dirty.

    Even as a teenager, alcohol failed to prove its glory. The glamour that I’d read about in Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Dorothy Parker’s Jazz Age novels never manifested in the desperate high school parties or back seat sessions I had available to me, so I gave it up, opting for other types of drugs like marijuana and LSD.

    Fill the Void

    I stayed busy striving academically during my years at university, so alcohol never played a starring role. I drank a few glasses of red wine on a Friday night when I cleaned my apartment and learned how to chug an Irish Car Bomb with my friends at our local pub, but it never disrupted my flow.

    It wasn’t until I graduated and started working in the “real” world that alcohol became my dearest friend. And looking back, I realize that I only get chummy with alcohol when I’m not feeling fulfilled or satisfied with life.

    I finished my degree in 2002, a year after September 11, 2001. The US economy was in a downward spiral, and I had serious doubts about my place in the world. It was hard enough being twenty-two, but twenty-two trying to find a decent-paying job with a BA in Historic Preservation was almost impossible. I landed a paying internship and then a part-time gig as an assistant archivist and filled in my extra hours working as a paralegal at my friend’s dad’s law firm.

    After a lifetime of school and four years of university, I couldn’t believe the adult life and the freedom I was promised consisted of desk work for eight hours a day that didn’t pay enough for me to move out of my parents’ house. The prestige and the career I assumed was waiting for me failed to be a possibility. My life was nothing but a rebooted version of monotony from my school age years, so I started drinking to escape it.

    I remember needing to go out during my early twenties—like needing it so bad. Staying home alone on a Friday night was akin to suicide. I had my weekend planned and sorted by Wednesday, my friends assembled, outfits purchased, and possible bars and clubs all picked out.

    I needed the release. I needed to ring out the chaos and the comfort and the elation those sixty hours away from work could bring me. I needed to dress up, go out, get as drunk and insane and wild as I possibly could to get all that balled up energy and anger out of me so I could stuff down my disappointment at life from Monday to Friday. Even when I worked a Saturday shift at a clothing boutique, I was either still drunk or hungover.

    I remember how being drunk made me feel. It made me feel alive, energetic, magnetic, magical, powerful, fun, charismatic, fearless, hilarious, untouchable, and sexy. Alcohol gave me what I could not seem to muster at all during the weekdays sober, but what I so desperately craved.

    Looking back, I see now that what alcohol gave me was an undiluted, raw version of myself. What was happening after two or three drinks was what should have been happening sober—I felt like myself.

    But years of child abuse and learning to people-please and put others first had forced my authentic self into the backroom. Alcohol was the only way I could feel like myself. But I didn’t know that then and I never stopped at three drinks. I stopped at stumbling, mumbling, passing out at 4am drunk.

    Alcohol was an escape from a life and a person I didn’t like, but nonetheless, both I had created.

    Finding Freedom

    At twenty-six, I did something radical. I cancelled my wedding to a lovely man and decided to leave the US and travel to Australia. After four years of steady alcoholism, I finally realized that the life I was living was a prison not a life.

    As soon as I made the decision to leave, I stopped drinking. I started working more and saving money. I had somewhere to go and someone to be. I wanted a future.

    By the time I was twenty-eight, I was married, in love, and pregnant with my first child. Happy and healthy, alcohol had no room in my life. It didn’t come to stay again until after my second child was born, and I realized my husband wasn’t happy. Then, alcohol settled in while I drank myself into ignorance as a mother, wife, homeowner, and business-owner who didn’t want to admit that she had again constructed a prison instead of a life.

    Alcohol kept me alive during my subsequent divorce. The pain was so severe that, looking back, I’m grateful I had something to numb it. But two years after my divorce I realized that I was thirty-eight and totally free.

    It was time to finally live the life I knew I wanted. I was old enough to know myself and know what I needed to feel creative, alive, and happy. So, on 1 April 2019, I made a list of all the things that were not actively contributing to my life. Alcohol was number one on that list.

    Now, two years after giving alcohol (and all other drugs and addictions) up, I can easily say that I am so much happier and healthier without alcohol in my life. I don’t miss it at all. In fact, I wish more people would jump on the sober bandwagon.

    If you think you might be keen to join me, consider these ten ways giving up alcohol changed my life for the better. I hope these reasons are enough to convince you to ditch the drink.

    1. I learned how to feel my emotions.

    Instead of numbing myself, I had to learn how to feel all the feels. This led to learning how to feel and clear emotions as well as deal with my childhood trauma head on. Healing my trauma was the best thing I ever did.

    When hiding my true self, I had invited alcohol into my life in an attempt to numb the pain I was carrying around in my body, but it also allowed me to be my authentic self without fear. Healing trauma allows you to present your true self to the world.

    2. I learned how to play.

    Not drinking alcohol leaves more space for you to be a kid again. Instead of sitting at the bar complaining about your problems, you are free to ride a bike, swim at the beach, splash in the pool, run, jump, explore, and learn because life becomes a wonderland again. Living alcohol-free just invites in more of those rare, beautiful, and innocent moments.

    3. I lost weight.

    Alcohol is pure sugar, people. There ain’t nothing good about it. Bad for your liver, bad for your insulin levels, and bad for your brain. Not one good thing. At forty, I am thinner than I was during my twenties when I was binging all weekend long.

    4. I balanced my hormones.

    As a female, I can attest to having very disrupted hormone levels. After quitting alcohol, my PMS symptoms drastically improved. Alcohol is sugar, which disrupts your insulin. Because it disrupts sleep, it also throws off your cortisol. Studies have also proven that increased alcohol intake increases your estrogen levels. If you want balanced hormones, say goodbye to alcohol.

    5. I slept better.

    Alcohol massively disrupts REM sleep. Take a few nights off from your evening wine and see how well you hit the sack. While we mistakenly believe alcohol relaxes us and eases stress, it actually has the opposite effect. Not getting proper deep sleep leaves you feeling worse and worse.

    6. I saved money.

    Alcohol is expensive, and when you’re drunk you want more and will stupidly spend it. Saving money creates the actual freedom you seek. Not going out to bars and sipping on fancy cocktails is one of the easiest ways to save money.

    7. I developed hobbies.

    Instead of using alcohol as a hobby, I started to play tennis, learned sailing, and started up a side hustle. As a result of not drinking, I’m much more interesting.

    Quitting alcohol sadly means losing a few friends. You’ll instantly notice which friends do have alcohol hobbies. But that’s okay. Having actual friends and real hobbies is much more rewarding.

    8. I’m happier.

    I’m not as stressed, tired, worried, or angry. Alcohol seems to take away the pain of life momentarily, but it comes back to bite you tenfold the next day. Alcohol is like a health and wellness credit card. You don’t have to pay now, but you will have to pay later, plus interest.

    Not needing alcohol to numb or feel comfortable in scary situations is such a relief. My mind is clear and calm, and that brings me immense pleasure and joy.

    9. I don’t need alcohol to talk to people.

    Instead of running straight for the wine at networking events, I just sip on water and make casual conversation. I am who I am. I also try to make sure that I ask interesting questions.

    No more “So what do you do?” I want to know who you are, what you’re about, and I dig around and see what interesting facts about you I can unearth. People become much more fascinating sober.

    10. I’m leading by example.

    My kids are witnessing firsthand that their mother does not need alcohol, so neither do they. I’m sure they remember when I drank, but I also want them to see me sober.

    While I don’t villainize alcohol and I know that they will most likely experiment with it, I want to be sure that they know that they can live a happy and fulfilling life without it.

    Bottom Line and Disclaimer

    I’m not advocating for the abolition of alcohol by any means. What I am advocating for is more responsible representations of alcohol in advertising, movies, and film. Being exposed to such blatant subconscious programming at a young age gave me the belief that alcohol would add something to my life that I felt it was missing.

    And while I know that I used alcohol as medication to treat my unhealed childhood trauma, I know that teaching kids why people use drugs and alcohol would be more effective. If someone told me during my teenage years that people abuse drugs and alcohol to cover up the pain they are in, that could have changed everything for me.

    I never sought out treatment from AA because I believed my consumption of alcohol was not irregular or excessive by society’s standards. Looking back, this greatly disturbs me. I needed help. What I really needed was to heal my trauma much sooner. It took many, many years to find the right help to heal.

    If you are consuming more than two glasses of alcohol on more than two subsequent nights per week, then you most likely have a problem.

    If you need alcohol or any drugs just to get by, then you have a problem.

    Drugs and alcohol are ways for us to cope with pain. The best advice I can offer you is to seek help for the underlying issue and heal the reason why you need to drink. I wish you all the best and know that you are more interesting, powerful, and fun sober.

  • How to Spot Abusive People and Stop Getting into Toxic Relationships

    How to Spot Abusive People and Stop Getting into Toxic Relationships

    “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

    When it comes to dating, I have always been drawn to people who made me work for their love and validation. Despite the fact that I, like anyone else, wish to be with somebody that loves and supports me, I have always somehow managed to attract the opposite.

    My relationship history has been fraught with rejection, feeling unworthy, and trying harder to win love and approval. Every time I felt criticized or undervalued, I would look inward and ask myself what I could do to make my partner love me more. I always felt as if it was my fault, and when in doubt, I would blame myself.

    I’m an overthinker and would spend a lot of time in self-reflection. I came to understand that the trauma I had experienced as a child played a large part in my relationship choices.

    Experiencing trauma as a young child leaves a faulty wiring imprint on your nervous system. Instead of developing a secure attachment, the trauma/abuse/neglect causes the brain to develop differently.

    I grew up with very little love and affection and never felt valued by my parents.

    Children who grow up without consistent care and love learn to cope in various ways. They become hypervigilant of people’s moods around them (so that they can stay out of the way of an angry/moody parent, for example), and they can also learn to disassociate from their feelings because they cannot escape the situation.

    Trauma as a child often leads to an anxious attachment style or an ambivalent attachment style, and this affects adult attachment styles too.

    I know for sure that I have an anxious attachment style, and I also have low self-belief and self-confidence. This makes me a prime target for toxic partners such as narcissists or other abusive individuals.

    It is commonly known that narcissistic types attract co-dependent, insecure types. The root cause of co-dependency is the fear of being abandoned. Co-dependents work hard in relationships to avoid the threat of abandonment. Toxic people, however, don’t respond to more love and attention; it just fuels their abuse.

    I knew I needed to break this pattern, or I would never be happy in love. I am now quite adept at recognizing the signs of a toxic person.

    Here are the common signs that you’re in a toxic relationship:

    They tend to lack empathy (although they know how to fake it for at least the first three to six months) and the world revolves around them, not you.

    Of course, people on the autistic spectrum can seem to lack empathy, so this isn’t a guaranteed science, but it is still a sign to consider. My ex found it virtually impossible to put himself in my shoes. He would sometimes say the right things, but his words never really came from the heart.

    My ex abandoned me at Heathrow airport because there was an unexpected issue with my passport. Instead of considering how I might feel, he swore loudly and kicked the baggage around and then said he had to go without me because he didn’t want his birthday ruined.

    We had planned to fly via Singapore to Sydney. I should have known then that this was the start of many awful episodes to come. Thankfully, I joined him twenty-four hours later after hastily getting a new passport issued, but he dumped me (for the first time) four weeks later.

    They will always be at the center of everything they do, and your needs will be unimportant.

    Their time and needs take priority over yours. Relationships are all about compromise and consideration for each other. When the give-get ratio is imbalanced it is often a sign that the relationship will not be equal.

    If you confront them about this one-sided dynamic, they will either dismiss what you say, ignore you, or turn the conversation around and begin to play the victim.

    When I would confront my ex about his selfishness, he would sometimes breakdown and cry and say, “I know I am a terrible boyfriend,” but then he would soon stop crying and life would carry on as it did before.

    They will justify cheating on you and lie about it.

    A friend told me over lunch one day that she had seen my ex on Match.com for the previous nine months. I felt sick, and when I confronted him, he said that it was only ”light window shopping.” I was an idiot and I stayed. I only had myself to blame for allowing this to continue.

    Toxic individuals regard others as objects to be used. I felt replaceable and never felt fully secure in the relationship. Ironically, the one thing that attracted me to my ex in the very beginning was how keen he was on me. I love the way he chased me and the very next day after our first date he called and said, “At the risk of seeming too keen, I was wondering if you’d like to join me again tonight?”

    I was flattered, but of course this is a common sign of a toxic individual. They move in fast; they gain your affection and trust very quickly. Once you’re hooked the manipulation and the control begins.

    Another thing to look out for is subtle or overt criticism.

    My ex would comment on my posture at the dinner table, the way I spoke to friends, the way I cooked, as well as the tidiness of my house. He didn’t like it if I watched television too much and would treat me like a child. He was very controlling, but he never saw that in himself.

    Once, on a journey in the car, I saw the funny side (thank goodness I had humor to help get me through) when he said, “I am not controlling, but don’t ever use the word ‘controlling’ to describe me.”

    A friend of mine remarked at a later date, “That’s like saying ‘I don’t f#%@ing swear’.” Utter madness!

    Emotional abuse can also occur in the absence of criticism, selfishness, and controlling behavior.

    Being ignored can be just as painful. When I was stone-walled or felt neglected, it triggered my childhood trauma and transported me back to the feeling that nothing I did was good enough.

    In fact, my ex triggered me a lot and made me realize how dysfunctional the relationship was. It’s an interesting cycle that I have come across numerous times: childhood trauma and subsequent toxic adult relationships.

    This is what I have learned since finally moving on from my toxic ex-partner:

    If someone is too smooth in the very beginning and tries to fast-forward the relationship, I am wary. I would far rather be with someone who was slightly clumsy and forgetful than someone who is super slick.

    If they lack friends, that can be a red flag.

    Again, this doesn’t happen in every situation, but it can be a sign of trouble to come. My ex-partner had very few friends. He didn’t seem to understand the value of connection and keeping in touch with people unless he needed something from them.

    Underneath all of the bravado was someone who was quite insecure and had high standards for himself. I’m not sure that he actually even really liked himself. He would act extremely confident around others and was able to charm others especially when he wanted something from them. Toxic people often boast about their achievements and seem to think they are more entitled to things than others.

    What I Have Learned from My Past Relationships

    All of my failures in relationships have taught me that the old cliché of loving yourself first is actually true. Instead of planning my life around somebody else’s, I made choices about where I wanted to be and what was important to me going forward.

    I have built a strong foundation from which to explore the world. My strong foundation is built on self-awareness of my strengths and weaknesses. I understand why I sought out toxic individuals and have worked on my self-belief and self-esteem. The inner bully (the negative voice inside) is still there trying to tell me what I can’t do and why I need to be fearful on my own but I’m learning to tune it out.

    I have made more time for people and experiences that uplift and inspire me as well as focusing on inspirational podcasts and videos. What you focus on becomes your reality, and it ultimately affects your quality of life. I’ve become less accommodating to people who make me feel bad about myself.

    Feeling bad about myself is familiar, and I am convinced that previous childhood trauma altered my way of thinking and behaving, and over time it became a habit. The good news is that habits can be changed. We can’t change the past, but we can certainly update our beliefs about what happened and how we wish to see ourselves now.

    When you like and value yourself you will be far less likely to take abuse from others. You will also be more inclined to have healthy boundaries and ensure that there are consequences for those that violate them.

    Know what you will and won’t accept from others and let others know when they have overstepped the mark. If they are decent, they will be upset that they have hurt you and will make an effort to consider your needs. If, however, they dismiss your needs and feelings, that should tell you all you need to know.

  • Emotionally Numb and Physically Disconnected? DDD May Be the Problem

    Emotionally Numb and Physically Disconnected? DDD May Be the Problem

    “Of all things, it would seem, make friends with depersonalization. Enemies within consciousness never work, and only escalate the problem. Befriend it, consider it part of life to work with it. We can’t expel it or cancel it. When we try, the pressure makes a volcano out of it. This is true of so many things, it must be true of DDD too.” ~David Hench

    Do you ever feel like you’re not feeling anything, although you know that you have feelings? That you’re operating on autopilot, more like a robot than a living person? That your self is hiding somewhere, and you are not yourself anymore?

    Your thoughts seem to come from your head, but somehow you don’t own them. It’s like driving on a countryside road after pouring rain—you see the world through a dirty windshield, and everything looks unclear.

    Your body doesn’t feel like your own, either. You might be observing yourself from outside, as if you were in a cinema watching a movie about your life. It’s a dreamlike world, and you feel disconnected from it and yourself—anxious, lost, overwhelmed, and trapped.

    And all you want is to feel like yourself.

    How do I know?

    A Figure in a Pop-Up Book

    As a kid, I loved my pop-up books. You opened one, and a magical world appeared in front of you. Look, here’s a princess in her puffy pink dress. She looks admiringly at her prince, who smiles back at her while holding a horse by the reins. Behind them, there’s a castle. Guards in helmets with plumes hold lances in their hands, ready to stop you and ask your name. Flags on towers flutter in the wind.

    It seems three-dimensional, except it’s not. Everything in this book is flat and unreal. That’s how I’ve been feeling for a huge part of my life—like a figure in a pop-up book.

    My first memory of dissociation comes from a very young age. I was still sleeping in my cradle.

    Mom left me alone in a bathtub; she was a restless soul, and patience wasn’t her strength. While reaching out for a toy, my bum slid, and I glided under the water, eyes wide open and body frozen.

    I lay there breathless, scared, and helpless, and that’s how Mom found me—at the bottom of a bathtub, looking at her through the water. What she couldn’t see was me looking down at us from above.

    Mom pulled me up, but she was cross. Couldn’t I just sit there quietly for a while without causing her any trouble?!

    And so the story went.

    Both my parents worked and studied at night. They had me at a very young age, and they both had ambitions to become civil engineers. But as in connected vessels, if water is removed from one, the level in the other one also changes. They had to make time for their studies, and I paid the price.

    I lived in kindergarten from Monday morning till Friday afternoon and saw my parents only on weekends. In summer, my kindergarten moved to the countryside, and I barely saw my parents for three months. No wonder I developed crippling separation anxiety. And there was no one to help me ease the pain.

    I wanted badly to become older and go to school so that I could live at home every day. Once I reached school age, it did help at some level, although my brain was already trained in a certain way.

    I worried all the time and was scared of speaking in front of the class, doing something wrong, or being criticized. I felt insecure around people. What if they discovered how uncool or “stupid” I was? I could freeze in front of a teacher or a classmate; my mind drifted away, and dissociation became my coping mechanism. I had panic attacks and out-of-body experiences that I kept to myself.

    My memories became a set of seemingly unconnected dots: an image here and a sound there, a smell or a tactile sensation, and lots of nothingness in between.

    I grew up anxious and uncertain, constantly doubting myself and allowing others to make decisions on my behalf. But most of all, I feared change and the unknown, and summers still were the worst—three-month-long school breaks in summer camps far away from home. I felt unreal for days upon leaving and returning home.

    In the beginning, it didn’t take long to get the feeling of reality back, but in time, returning to normality took longer and longer.

    Derealization became a permanent part of my life. I was missing out on the fun of being young and carefree.

    I learned about depersonalization–derealization disorder (DDD) while studying psychology and recognized its symptoms in myself, but it didn’t improve my condition. However, therapy has.

    When I started therapy, it was the first time in my life another person was attentive to me. He didn’t just listen to my thoughts and feelings but also validated them. He opened my eyes to what was happening to me, although the words “abuse” and “psychopath” sent a shiver of disbelief through my body. It couldn’t be my mom, so I defended her!

    My therapist was understanding and patient, and one sunny day in spring, magic happened. I was standing outside his office, and the barrier between me and the world was gone. All the filters fell; my senses, once again, became alive and tuned. Clear sounds and colors hit me unexpectedly. I had a feeling of belonging to this world, and I was ecstatic.

    For a few years, I was symptom-free, nearly forgetting about DDD. I was healed!

    But my mom, lost in grief after my dad’s death, proved me wrong. Exhausted after caring for him, lonely, and angry, she used me as a lightning rod for her overwhelming negativity. A few angry, hurtful words, and I sank into an emotional fog so deep that, twenty years later, I’m still there.

    After fighting my brain, feeling angry and scared, I had no choice but to learn to coexist with DDD without obsessing.

    Now I want to share with you how I did it.

    The Way Out of the Fog

    For most people, DDD is a temporary condition that will go away without treatment. But being anxious, worried, and obsessed with “getting rid of it” may only make it stay longer. Still, you can do things to ease the pain and prevent DDD from coming back in the future.

    1. Be present.

    When you space out, your self-awareness diminishes. Therefore, it’s essential to stay present by consciously focusing on what you do. And for that, mindfulness or grounding becomes handy.

    If you find it difficult to focus on the activity at hand, practice deep breathing and tune into your senses using the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Name five things you see around you, four things you can touch around you, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.

    2. Minimize anxiety.

    Anxiety is a normal part of being alive, and it can even be beneficial at times. Feeling anxious when challenged by the unknown helps you stay aroused and mobilized so you can solve problems. When this feeling becomes so intense that you can’t think and your productivity declines, you need to calm yourself to minimize episodes of derealization.

    There are many anti-anxiety techniques to choose from, like controlled breathing, physical activity, or preparing yourself for each challenge so you feel equipped to handle what’s coming. You can find additional tips to manage anxiety here.

    3. Accept DDD as a part of your current life.

    I know you don’t want to. It’s a painful condition, and your instinct tells you to get rid of it now. I get it. But fighting means constantly focusing on the issue, and obsession makes it all worse. You feel more anxious, and your DDD gets stronger. The cycle repeats itself.

    What is the alternative?

    4. Live a normal life.

    This condition is not life-threatening, just different and unpleasant. So, I’m asking you to live your life as if you didn’t have DDD. Get up in the morning and go through your usual routine. Make spending quality time with friends and family an important part of your day.

    More often than not, your DDD symptoms will disappear by themselves if you work on the steps I outlined above. And the faster you make peace with your symptoms, the faster they may go away.

    5. Work with a psychotherapist.

    If your anxiety and DDD symptoms persist for more than a few months, you may want to try therapy.

    An experienced therapist will help you figure out the cause of your symptoms. If you uncover trauma in your past, they will help you process the experience. You can also work with anxiety and depression that might be underlying issues in DDD.

    Your therapist will teach you stress management and coping strategies for dealing with dissociation. The opportunity to practice them in a safe environment will be a huge bonus.

    6. Consider medication.

    So far, there is no proof that medication is effective on DDD symptoms. There are no medications specifically approved to treat DDD. However, meds can be used to treat depression and anxiety if they are present, and that can help you heal from DDD.

    I tried medication, but it didn’t help my symptoms. I felt constantly tired and sleepy, unable to function normally in my everyday life. What was the point in taking them, then? So, I quit.

    Nevertheless, some people report that their symptoms decreased on a particular medication protocol, so you may want to explore this possibility for yourself. You will need to visit a psychiatrist for that.

    7.  Try neurofeedback.

    Neurofeedback is a technique to directly train certain brain functions and teach the brain to function more efficiently. How does it work?

    You sit in front of a screen with electrodes attached to your scalp and either watch a show or play a game. The person in charge of the treatment observes your brainwave activity from moment to moment. This information is also processed by a computer and shown back to you—an image on your screen can become smaller or bigger, brighter or darker, depending on your brain’s changing activity. The system rewards the brain for choosing more appropriate functional patterns by supporting desirable frequencies and diminishing undesirable ones.

    You can say that neurofeedback is training in self-regulation, and it helps to bring your central nervous system in balance, though it’s a slow learning process that takes months to accomplish. It’s usually provided by psychologists, therapists, counselors, or occupational therapists, like here in Germany.

    I started neurofeedback last year. Tomorrow will be my fifty-fifth session, and my symptoms haven’t changed so far, so I can’t offer a glowing personal recommendation. But from what I’ve read, it’s been helpful to many. As with all mental health treatments, what works for some might not work for others.

    Final words

    There is ongoing research about depersonalization and derealization, and one day new treatments for DDD will ease or eliminate the condition altogether. Until then, try what you’ve just learned, but don’t put your life on hold. Treat depersonalization–derealization as an old, overprotective friend who’s trying to help. They may be stubborn and even annoying, but they don’t mean you any harm.

    Live fully.

    Live now.

    And trust that if you put in the work, you will eventually feel more grounded in your own body and better able to experience and enjoy all the good things life has to offer.

  • How Meeting and Re-Parenting My Inner Child Helped Me Love Myself

    How Meeting and Re-Parenting My Inner Child Helped Me Love Myself

    “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” ~Oscar Wilde

    The journey to meeting, loving, and re-parenting my inner child was a long time coming.

    In 2018, I went through a devastating breakup. I’d been through breakups before. They suck, they hurt, some of them left me in deep abysses of sadness for a long time, but this one was something different.

    I can honestly say I felt levels of pain I did not know were survivable for a human being. Many days, I did not want to survive; I couldn’t imagine continuing to be in that level of pain for another moment. It is indeed a miracle I survived and came out on the other side thriving!

    So, what was the cause of so much pain?

    Well, it wasn’t him, I’ll tell you that much. While I loved that man more deeply than I previously knew possible to love someone, and so it made sense for it to be more painful, it didn’t make sense for me to be crying non-stop for months. I felt like I was being ripped to shreds from the inside out. The pain was relentless and wasn’t lifting even a tiny bit as time went on.

    So, I sought help to get to the root issue. The real cause of my pain was the tremendous amount of unresolved trauma I was carrying, a complete inability to love myself—in fact, I had no real understanding of what it meant to love oneself—and a massively wounded and scared little girl running the show at my core.

    To sum up: I had a great amount of sexual trauma, abandonment trauma, complex PTSD, and low self-worth, and I only understood validation as coming from outside of me. This breakup unearthed all these issues in one violent movement, like ripping a Band-Aid off a scab.

    All this ugly, unhealed stuff was exposed and shot into my awareness like a volcanic eruption, and I had no means of escape. All I could do was deal and heal. So that’s what I did.

    There were a lot of things I did, and still do, to facilitate this healing. Therapies, somatic healing modalities, and spiritual methods. None are necessarily better than the other. They all worked together to weave a rich tapestry of healing approaches to choose from at any moment.

    But since this is about inner child work, that’s what I am going to talk about.

    I believe many of us have wounded inner children running the show. Everyone we meet has an inner child expressing themselves through adult bodies. To what degree that inner child is wounded ranges on a wide spectrum, mostly based on how well their needs were met by their caregivers.

    My therapist suggested I purchase The Abandonment Recovery Workbook by Susan Anderson and begin working through it on my own in between our sessions. I furiously raced through the chapters, hoping that once I finished, I could date and find someone to hopefully mitigate the unrelenting pain. However, as I worked through and neared the end of the book, it became clear to me that I was in no way ready for someone else yet.

    The workbook contains several exercises, but there were a few dedicated specifically to identifying, visualizing, or meeting your inner child—a younger, more tender, innocent version of yourself that just needed to be seen, heard, and accepted for who they are.

    It helped for me to find photographs of myself from three to five years of age to aid in visualizing this child. Looking at that little girl and imagining she still lived inside me, deep inside my being.

    Once adult me was able to see her, I had to learn how to hear her and how to communicate with her. Via meditation, I’d visualize her and ask her questions:

    What does she need right now?

    How can I make things better for her right now?

    What is she feeling about this situation?

    I’d have to sit until I received an answer from her. This came as a thought or a feeling, sometimes a visual image or memory. Oftentimes, all she wanted was to be held, so I’d visualize my adult-self holding this small girl and giving her the comfort and compassion she desperately needed.

    This is the re-parenting. The part where we respond to ourselves in the ways that we would have wanted or needed when we were small children. To be seen and heard, rather than molded to act or behave a certain way. To be truly responded to, based on the needs we were expressing.

    The dialogue exercises with my little girl continued daily, sometimes multiple times in a day. It just depended on how intensely my inner child needed something from me that day, or how intently I was listening at the time.

    Sometime after I’d begun this dialogue, I was at work and delivered a small thank-you token to a colleague for doing a quick project for my office. He kissed me on the forehead in return. It made me very uncomfortable, and I quickly exited his workspace.

    I walked out to the street to run an errand, and within me, my little girl was raging. It felt like there was an inferno of anger brewing within my gut. I recognized in that moment I was not listening to my inner child, and she wasn’t having it, now that we had begun communicating with each other.

    So, I stopped. I tuned in. I asked her what she needed.

    She told me this man had violated her space and she felt unsafe, and I’d promised, capital “P” promised, she said, stomping her feet as young children often do, that I would take care of her from now on, and I hadn’t when I allowed someone to violate my physical space without saying something. She would not be appeased until the matter was resolved.

    The inferno continued to rage inside my belly until I walked back down the street, back into his office, and told him, “I do not want to be kissed by my coworkers. I’m sure others may not be bothered by it, but this is a boundary for me.”

    Of course, he apologized profusely, and we have never had any inappropriate run-ins again. But more importantly, immediately upon taking care of myself and my little girl, the inferno subsided.

    I took care of her and made her feel safe and secure. I continue to do so in my day-to-day life now.

    The above example was an extreme one. She is not always so easily heard. Sometimes I ask her what she needs, and it’s just to move the body, go for a walk. Other times it’s a cookie she wants. Often, it’s just to be acknowledged. Validated. To be told, “I hear you, I see you, your feelings matter.”

    As with any relationship, the needs, communication, and dynamics are ever-evolving.

    But I can say without a doubt, the connection between my adult-self and my inner child is the most valuable relationship I have, and today the amount of love I have for myself, due to inner child work, is above and beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

    I used to feel, most of the time, that I was not enough. Since doing this healing work, I now know I am enough, in all situations and places.

    Where there was typically a sense of impending doom and danger, there is now a lightness and delight and a true, deep happiness that has nothing to do with outside circumstances—just the pure joy of an inner wholeness I never even could have dreamed of.

    That’s what happens when we truly see and hear our inner child and respond to their needs without judgment. We feel love and safety like we’ve never known, and we finally realize we deserve nothing less.

  • What I Really Mean When I Say I’m Fine (Spoiler: I’m Not)

    What I Really Mean When I Say I’m Fine (Spoiler: I’m Not)

    “Tears are words that need to be written.” ~Paulo Coelho

    It was lovely to see you today. I haven’t seen you in such a long time. So much has happened since the last time we saw each other.

    You asked me how I was. I politely replied, “I’m fine” and forced a smile that I hoped would be believable. It must have worked. You smiled back and said, “I’m so glad to hear that. You look great.”

    But I’m not really fine. I haven’t been fine for a very long time, and I wonder if I will ever know what “fine” actually feels like again.

    Some days are good, some not so good. I’m doing my best to stay optimistic and to keep faith that tomorrow will be better. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s worse. I’m never prepared for either outcome.

    I’m doing my best to pretend I’m fine.

    The mask I wear hides my pain very well. I’ve been wearing it for so long now that no one can see through it anymore. It’s my new face, and it smiles on demand.

    Some days I wish I didn’t have to pretend to smile. I long for the day when it will come naturally, sincerely, and genuinely.

    When I say I’m fine this is what I really mean…

    I’m sad. I’m really having a hard time right now. I wish I could tell you. I’d like to think that you might even care. And maybe you do truly care. But I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to bother or burden anyone with my troubles.

    My troubles are big and ugly. I can’t burden you with them. You are facing demons of your own. You don’t need to be exposed to mine. That would be so selfish of me. To think that your demons are not as important or debilitating as mine.

    So I just tell you I’m fine. I’m protecting you when I say I’m fine. Because I’m afraid my pain is just more toxicity.

    I want to tell you my troubles. I want you to take them away. I wish someone could fix everything that hurts, though I no one else can do that for me. Still, I wonder, does anyone have all the answers to these questions that are pounding in my head and causing me grief and anxiety?

    Anyone?

    There’s a tightness in my chest that won’t go away. There’s a darkness in the pit of my stomach that makes me nauseous. My shoulders feel weighted and my arms long for human touch. A body to wrap around tightly to comfort me and ensure me that everything will be okay.

    My troubles have completely consumed my life.

    Inside, I’m crying all the time. My soul is crushed, and my heart is full of holes that I’m desperately trying to patch up as best I can.

    I’m full of anxiety inside, and no matter how hard I try to find peace, it eludes me. I feel there are a million demons inside of me, and I don’t know which one needs my attention the most.

    So I ignore them all. It’s too much for me to bear most days.

    When I say I’m fine I really wish you could hear my inner voice screaming, “I’m not fine, and I need help. Please stay and talk to me, comfort me, help make this overwhelming pain stop.” I want to say this to you. But I open my mouth, and “I’m fine” comes out instead.

    I’m not really fine. I’m not sure how to handle today, and I fear what tomorrow may bring. It’s constant anxiety. I wish it would go away if only for a day.

    I want to be fine, honest I do.

    One day I would love to sincerely tell you how fine I am. That all my anxieties, worries, and fears are gone, or at least less overpowering. That I walk with a skip in my step and a song in my heart. I want to feel that. I may have felt this once before a long time ago, but I don’t really remember it.

    Every day I’m doing my best to smile and make the day better. I’m thinking positively, I’m taking big deep breaths when I need to. I’m reading inspirational blogs and quotes. I’m even listening to guided meditations.

    Today I went shopping and bought myself something nice. I know, a temporary fix. But it worked.

    It all works. For the moment. And then the moment is gone, and it all comes flooding back. All the turmoil, the anguish, the anxiety, the pain. I breathe deeply again. And I’m okay for a few more minutes.

    But for now, I’m doing my best. I know that everything in life is temporary. The good, the bad. Even life. It’s all temporary. If I can just get through today, I’ll be fine.

    I’m doing my best to see the bright side. I can see it some days. But it doesn’t take away the turmoil brewing inside of me. It only masks it with a Band-Aid. A temporary fix.

    Everything is just a temporary fix until I finally become brave enough to get to the bottom of my demons. I need to face them one at a time. I need to bring them to the surface, dust them off, address them, heal from them, and then let them go.

    This I know. But it’s such a daunting task. Just thinking about doing that is overwhelming and causes me a great deal of anxiety. I know it’s up to me to be able to say, “I’m fine” and really mean it.

    One day I will. When I feel strong enough to do so. Until then, I may say I’m fine when I’m really not. But I will try to find the courage to say, “Actually, I’m sad,” even though I know you don’t have a magic wand to take all my troubles away.

    Maybe just opening up and letting you support me will help. Maybe if I stop painting a smile on my face and telling you “I’m fine, really I am,” one day soon I will be.

  • How I Stopped Putting Everyone Else’s Needs Above My Own

    How I Stopped Putting Everyone Else’s Needs Above My Own

    “Never feel sorry for choosing yourself.” ~Unknown

    I was eleven years old, possibly twelve, the day I first discovered my mother’s betrayal. I assume she didn’t hear me when I walked in the door after school. The distant voices in the finished basement room of our home drew me in. My mother’s voice was soft as she spoke to her friend. What was she hiding that she didn’t want me to hear?

    I leaned in a little bit closer to the opening of the stairs… She was talking about a man she’d met. Her voice changed when she spoke of him. The tone of dreamy wonder when you discover something that makes your heart race. She talked about the way they touched and how she felt being with him.

    I felt my body go weak. I could not tell if it was sorrow or rage. All I knew was, she had lied to me.

    Several months prior, my parents had announced their divorce. My mother told me the decision was my father’s choice. She told me he was the one breaking up our family. She told me she wanted nothing more than to stay with us and be together.

    And now I heard her revealing that was not true. She wanted to leave. She was not choosing me. She was choosing him.

    Since I was nine months old, my mother had been in and out of doctor’s offices, hospitals, psychiatrist’s and therapist’s offices trying to find the cure of her mental and emotional instability.

    When I was a young child, she began to share her frustrations and sorrows with me. I became her support and the keeper of her pain. She had nicknamed me her “little psychiatrist.” It was my job to help her. I had to. I needed her stable so I could survive.

    I don’t remember when or if she told us that she was seeing someone. I just remember she was gone a lot after that day. She spent her time with her new boyfriend out of the house. As the parentified child who she had inadvertently made her caretaker, it felt like she was betraying me. She left me for him.

    I was no longer the chosen one—he was.

    I hated him for it. When my mother moved in with him, I refused to meet him. I didn’t want to get to know or like this man she left me for.

    I saw them one day in the parking lot outside of a shopping plaza. I watched them walking together and hid behind a large concrete pillar so they wouldn’t see me. The friend I was with asked if I wanted to say hello. I scowled at the thought. I despised him.

    Within the same year, his own compromised mental health spiraled, and they broke up. He moved out of their apartment. I didn’t know why or what happened. I only knew my mother was sad. Shortly after their breakup, he took his own life. From what we heard, he had done so in a disturbingly torturous way. It was clear his self-loathing and pain was deep.

    My mother was devastated. She mourned the loss of her love and the traumatic way he exited. She stopped taking her medication, and her own mental health began to spiral. My father received a phone call that her car had been abandoned several states away. I’m unsure what she was doing there, but she had some issues and took a taxi back home.

    He later received a call stating that my mother had been arrested for playing her music too loud in her apartment. Perhaps to drown out the voices in her head. She was later taken to the hospital without her consent and was admitted due to her mental instability.

    After several days of attempting to rebalance her brain chemistry with medication, my mother began to sound grounded again. The family decided she would move in with her parents a few states away from us and live with them until she was stable again.

    A few days after Christmas she called me to tell me how sad she was. She grieved her dead boyfriend. I was short with her. I was still angry for her betrayal. I didn’t want to continue being used as her therapist. The imbalance in our relationship was significant, and my resentment was huge.

    I loved her, but I could not fall back into the role of being her support without any support back. It was life-sucking. And I didn’t care that he was dead. She chose him over me. I was fine with him being gone.

    I don’t recall feeling any guilt when I got off the phone that day. I felt good that I had chosen myself and put a boundary in place to not get sucked into her sorrow. I was fourteen years old, less than a week shy of fifteen. I just wanted to be a kid.

    The next day, my mother chose to make more decisions for me and for herself. These were more final. She told her parents she was taking a nap and intentionally overdosed on the medication meant to save her. She died quietly to relieve herself from her pain and left me forever.

    That choice—my own and hers—would change the course of my life.

    The day my mother freed herself from this world was the same day I learned to become imprisoned in mine. I was imprinted with a fear that would dictate my life. I became quietly terrified of hurting other people. I feared their discomfort and feeling it was my fault. From that day forward I would live with the silent fear of choosing myself.

    My rational mind told me it was not my fault. I did not open the bottle. I did not force her to swallow the pills. I did not end her life. But I also did not save it.

    I learned that day that creating a boundary to preserve myself not only was unsafe, it was dangerous. When I chose me, people not only could or would abandon me, they could die.

    Of course, I never saw this in my teenage mind. Nor did I see it in my twenties, thirties or the beginning of my forties. I only saw my big, loving heart give myself away over and over again at the cost of myself.

    I felt my body tighten up when I feared someone would be mad at me. I heard myself use words to make things okay in situations that were not okay. I said yes far too many times when my heart screamed no. All because I was afraid to choose myself.

    The pattern and fear only strengthened with time. I learned to squirm my way out of hurting others and discovered passive-aggressive and deceptive approaches to get my needs met. My body shook in situations where conflict seemed imminent, and I learned to avoid that too.

    What I didn’t see was that this avoidance had a high price. I was living a life where I was scared to be myself.

    On the outside I played the part. The woman who had it all together. Vocal, passionate, confident, and ambitious. But on the inside, I held in more secrets than I knew what to do with. I wasn’t living as me. My fear of being judged and rejected or not having my needs met was silently ruling my life.

    So many have developed this fear over time. Starting with our own insecurities of not feeling good enough and then having multiple experiences that solidified this belief. The experiences and memories differ, but the feelings accompanying them are very much the same.

    The fear of choosing ourselves, our desires, our truths, all deeply hidden under the masks of “I’m fine. It’s fine.” When in reality, we learn to give way more than we receive and wonder why we live unsatisfied, resentful, and with chronic disappointment. Nothing ever feels enough, and if it does, it’s short-lived.

    The memories and feelings become imprints in our bodies and in our minds that convince us we can’t trust ourselves. That we can’t trust others. That we must stay in control in order to keep us safe. We learn to manipulate situations and people to save ourselves from the opinions and judgments outside of us. We learn to protect ourselves by giving in, in order to not feel the pain of being left out.

    We shelter ourselves with lies that we are indifferent or it’s not a big deal in order to shield ourselves from the truth that we want more. We crave more, but we are too scared to ask for it. The repercussions feel too risky. The fear of loneliness too great.

    In the end, our fear of choosing ourselves even convinces us we can live with less. That we are meant to live with less, and we need to be grateful for whatever that is.

    Do we? Why?

    What if we learned to own our fear? What if we accepted that we were scared, and it was reasonable? What would happen if we acknowledged to our partners, families, friends, and even strangers that we, too, were scared of not being good enough? Of being discarded, rejected, and left behind.

    What would it be like if we shared our stories and exposed our insecurities to free them instead of locking them up to be hidden in the dark shadows of ourselves?

    I’m so curious.

    Where in your past can you see that choosing yourself left a mark? What silenced you, shamed you, discouraged you from choosing your needs over another’s? When were you rejected for not doing what someone else wanted you to do? And how has that fear dictated your life?

    Choosing ourselves starts with awareness. Looking at the ways you keep quiet out of fear or don’t make choices that include your needs. Seeing where this fear shows up in your life gives you the opportunity to change it. The more you see it, the more you can make another choice.

    Start with looking at the areas of life where you hold on to the most resentment and anger. Who or what situations frustrate you? Anger often indicates where imbalances lie or when a boundary has been crossed. It shows us where we feel powerless.

    Make a list of the situations that annoy you and then ask yourself, what’s in your control and what’s not? What can you directly address or ask for help with?

    Note the ways you may be manipulating others to get your needs met in those situations and how that feels. Note also what you may be avoiding and why.

    How would it feel to be more direct and assertive? What feelings or fears come up for you?

    Then start with one small thing you could do differently. Include who you could ask for help with this step, if anyone.

    As for me, I have found myself in situations where I lied or remained silent to avoid being judged, in an attempt to manipulate how others see me. I have felt my body cringe with sadness and shame each time. It doesn’t matter how big or small the lie, it assaults my body the same.

    I have learned that speaking my truth, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, saves my body from feeling abused by the secrets it must keep. Choosing me is choosing self-honesty; identifying what is true for me and what is not based on the way my body responds. I am not in control of others’ judgments of me, but I am in control of the way I continue to set myself up to judge myself.

    I have also found myself agreeing to do things I didn’t want to do in order to win the approval of others, then becoming resentful toward them because I refused to speak up for myself.

    Choosing me in these scenarios is honoring the fact that I will still be scared to ask for what I need, as my fears are real and valid, but asking anyway, even when the stakes feel high. It’s scary to feel that someone may abandon us if we choose ourselves, but it’s scarier to lose ourselves to earn a love built on a brittle foundation of fear.

    l cannot control the past where I have left myself behind, but I can control today, the way I forgive myself for falling victim to my human fear, and the way I choose to love myself moving forward. When I choose me, I have more love to give to others. Today I can take a small step toward change.

    Taking these small steps and building on them will help us to show ourselves that we can make progress in bite size amounts and prove to ourselves we are going to be okay. The small bites are digestible and give us proof that we can do it. This helps us build our ability to do more over time, while also decreasing our fear.

    If we look at our past, we will see the majority of our big fears do not come to fruition, and if they did, we survived them and gained knowledge or strength in the process.

    It’s not the action holding us back, but the memory of the discomfort we still live with. The more we move through these fears, the more that discomfort will decrease, and the more we will trust that we will be okay no matter what.

  • Where Our Inner Critic Comes from and How to Tame It

    Where Our Inner Critic Comes from and How to Tame It

    “Your inner critic is simply a part of you that needs more self-love.” ~Amy Leigh Mercee

    We all have that critical and judgmental inner voice that tells us we’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, etc.

    It tells us we don’t do anything right. It calls us stupid. It compares us to other people and speaks harshly about ourselves and our bodies. It tells us all the things we did or said “wrong” after communicating or connecting with someone.

    Sometimes it projects criticism outward onto others so we can feel better about ourselves. Other times we try to suppress our inner critic through overachieving, being busy, and accumulating more and more things.

    Sometimes it’s a protective mechanism that’s trying to keep us focused on our self-judgments so we won’t be authentic, because, if we are, we may be rejected and not get the love and acceptance we want.

    But, by doing this, we’re creating even more pain and suffering because we’re disconnecting from and rejecting our own essence.

    Just ignoring the critical voice doesn’t always make it go away. It may initially, but soon enough it will resurface if we haven’t healed/embraced our hurts, traumas, and wounds and shifted our internal patterning, which is where it comes from. 

    Have you ever heard the expression “What we resist persists?” Have you ever told an angry person to “just calm down” or a screaming child to stop crying? Does it work? Not when our energy is in a heightened state.

    Why is someone angry? Why is a child screaming and crying? Because there’s something going on internally that’s creating how they’re behaving. There’s often an unmet need or pain that’s asking for attention.

    Thinking a more positive thought to compensate can sometimes work, but sometimes it just creates an inner debate and mistrust in ourselves because deep inside we don’t believe what we’re saying.

    As children, many of us were taught to suppress those “bad” feelings because if we expressed them, we may have been or were punished. Welcome to the beginning of the critical voice; it’s often a frightened part of us that’s wounded and asking for attention. It wants to be seen, heard, and understood.

    My dad used to get really frustrated with me and constantly told me, “Damn it, Deb, you never do anything right.” Hearing that many times left an imprint in my subconscious. I started living with that interpretation of myself, and the critical voice kept me “in check” with being this way.

    For me, the critical voice was my dad’s voice as well as the deep shame I was feeling for making mistakes and not doing things the “right way.”

    I was holding in suppressed anger, sadness, guilt, unforgiveness, resentment, traumas, and pain that I tried to keep hidden with a smile on my face, but eventually it turned into a shame-based identity.

    My inner voice criticized me whenever I fell short or wasn’t perfect according to society or my family’s expectations.

    Just like when we’re triggered by another person, our critical voice is asking for our attention and guiding us to what needs healing, resolving, forgiving, understanding, compassion, and unconditional love.

    When it comes to the surface, we’re experiencing an automatic regression; it’s a part of us that’s frozen in time. It’s a reflection of our unhealed wounds, which created ideas of not being enough or that something’s wrong with us. Basically, it’s a trance of unworthiness.

    When we’re in a trance of unworthiness, we try to soothe ourselves with addictive behaviors. It’s hard to relax because we think we need to do something to be better and prove ourselves, so not doing anything, resting, isn’t safe.

    When we’re in a trance of unworthiness, it’s hard to be intimate with others. Deep inside we think there’s something wrong with us, so we don’t get close because they may find out and leave. This keeps us from being authentic because we don’t feel okay with who we are.

    Deep down I felt unworthy, unlovable, and undeserving, and the critical voice showed me what I was feeling and believing. I didn’t feel safe in life or in my body. How could I? I was living with so much hurt, pain, and shame inside.

    The critical voice is often stronger for those of us with unhealed wounds and who are hard on ourselves, and it tries to get us with shame and guilt. We’re always looking at ourselves as the “good self” or “bad self,” and if we’re identified with a “bad self,” we’ll act in accordance with that in all areas of our life.

    If we’ve become identified with the critical voice, it’s who we think we are; it just seems normal. And when we start to be more kind and loving, it doesn’t seem right because our identity becomes threatened and our system registers that as danger.

    That happened for me. Eventually I became identified with being a “bad girl” who’s critical and hard on herself, and, even when I started being a little kinder, more compassionate, and more loving, I felt an angst in my body. It wasn’t familiar, and even deeper, it wasn’t okay for me to be this way. My survival was at stake, so I would automatically go back to self-criticizing and judging, without conscious awareness.

    The critical voice didn’t only speak to me harshly; it also told me to do self-abusive things like cutting my wrists and face, starving my body or eating lots of sweets, and exercising for hours like a mad woman to get rid of the food I ate, whether it was a carrot or sweets, because I felt guilty. 

    Even after twenty-three years of going in and out of hospitals and treatment centers, taking medication, and doing traditional therapy, nothing ever changed; the critical voice had a hold on me.

    It was a powerful force, and when I tried to stop it, it would get louder. It thought it was protecting me in a backwards sort of way; if it hurt me first, no one else would be able to do so.

    When people used to say to me, “Debra, you just need to love yourself,” I looked at them like they were crazy. I had no concept of what that even meant because I had no experience of it.

    What I’ve come to see with myself and those I assist in their healing is that the more we keep our deep hurts, traumas, anger, guilt, shame, and pain hidden, the more the critical voice chimes in.

    And, for some, like me, it seems overpowering, so we try to find relief through smoking, drinking, eating, or being busy, and/or we experience severe depression, anxiety, or self-harming.

    When we’re consumed by the critical voice, we’re disconnected from our true essence, and when we’re disconnected from our true essence, the love within, we feel a sense of separation; we don’t feel safe with ourselves or others, and we don’t feel lovable for who we are, as we are.

    This is why many people can change, be happy for a day, but then go back to their critical and/or judgmental ways. Our automatic programming, stemming from our core beliefs, kicks in. It’s just like an addiction, and in a sense it is.

    We can try meditating, deep breathing, and positive thinking, but, unless we address the underlying cause, we’re likely to keep thinking the thoughts our internal patterning dictates. They come from a part of us that doesn’t feel loved or safe.

    So, what do we do when the critical voice comes to visit?

    What do we do when it’s what we’re used to, and it just happens automatically?

    What do we do when we don’t know how to be with ourselves and how we’re feeling in a kind and compassionate way?

    What do we do when we have no concept of what it even means to experience self-love or ease in our bodies?

    First off, please don’t blame yourself for how you’re being. Awareness isn’t about judgment; it’s about kindness, compassion, and love.

    Working with and healing our traumas, where the critical voice was formed, is key in shifting our internal energy patterning. Many people call this inner child healing and/or shadow working. 

    This is a soft and gentle process of moving through the layers of trauma with compassion and love and making peace with our protector parts.

    Through inner child healing, we can shift and transform that “negative” patterning and how the energy is flowing in our body. We can help that part of us that’s frightened, hurting, and maybe feeling separate have a new and true understanding so we can feel loved and safe in our bodies.

    When we pause and take a deep breath when we first hear or sense the critical voice, it allows our nervous systems to reset and helps us come back to the present moment; this allows space for compassion, healing, and investigation.

    Why do I believe that?

    Where did I learn that?

    Is it true?

    How does my higher self see this and me?

    Does the critical voice totally go away? No, it may still chime in; it’s part of being human. But once we realize where it’s coming from and heal/shift that energy pattern, more love can flow through, and we can experience our truth. When we learn how to be our own loving parent and meet the needs our caregivers didn’t meet when we were children, the critical voice often softens.

    Remember, the critical voice is just a scared part of us who really wants attention, love, and a way to feel safe. When we no longer take it personally, when we’re no longer attached to it as our identity, we can offer ourselves compassion, understanding, love, truth, and whatever else we’re needing.

    Life can be messy, and our thoughts can be too. This isn’t about perfection; this is about experiencing a deeper connection with our loving essence.

    There’s a sweet and tender spirit that lives within you. This spirit is your deepest truth. This spirit is the essence of you. You’re naturally lovable, valuable, and worthy. You’re a gift to humanity. So please be kind, gentle, loving, and caring with yourself.

  • I Was a Bulimic Nutritionist, but I’m No Longer Ashamed or Hiding

    I Was a Bulimic Nutritionist, but I’m No Longer Ashamed or Hiding

    “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.” ~ Brené Brown

    I felt like a hypocrite. I would tell my nutrition clients to eat a salad with vegetables, then I’d go home and scarf down an entire pizza. After guilt and shame set in, I would purge and throw it up.

    I think I became a nutritionist partly so I could better control my relationship with food. If I learned the secrets behind eating I could biohack my way to putting the fork down, losing weight, and finally being happy. This was back when I thought thinness equaled happiness.

    It’s taken me over ten years to recover from an eating disorder. Years filled with perfectionism, shame, and isolation as I untangled that my worth is not tied to my weight. I share my story in hopes that it sparks a deeper dive into your own relationship with food.

    Growing up I was an over-achieving, people-pleasing perfectionist. Which by itself may have been fine but, paired with a sexual trauma I experienced in early University, it was the perfect storm for developing an eating disorder.

    I used food as a coping mechanism for the trauma I’d endured. It was a way to dissociate from having to feel the shame of being assaulted. I assumed it was my fault this terrible thing happened, and while eating as much and as fast as possible, I could numb out from strong emotions.

    For a short period of time, I was worry-free.

    But then inevitably came the guilt and shame—ironic, since I was trying to numb the shame of my assault with food.

    Why did I have to eat so much? Now I’ll gain weight, and if I gain weight no one will like me. Why don’t I have the discipline to control my food? To control myself? I am truly worthless.

    Somehow my brain had built the association between looking a certain way and being accepted, worthy, and even safe. Having a sense of control over what I ate and how I looked made me feel powerful in a way. And maybe subconsciously it gave me a sense that I could also control what happened to me.

    I knew I needed help in University when after purging for the third time one day I had a sharp pain in my chest. Bent over the toilet, clutching my heart, I realized things had gotten out of control.

    Luckily, before I lost my nerve, I set up an appointment with a counselor. And there began my long and twisty road to recovery from bulimia. A word I would rarely utter in the coming years, instead referring to it as my “food issues,” downplaying the severity of my illness. Bulimia was something only celebrities developed, not something a straight-A student like me could encounter.

    Wow, was I ever wrong! Along this journey I’ve met many others like me, and I discovered we had more similarities than differences. We put immense pressure on ourselves to be perfect, had an insane need to control everything, and we all felt deep shame about our behavior. Many others I met had also experienced trauma and used food to soothe.

    In 2008, when I first sought treatment, I worked in secret on my recovery, only talking with a counselor and a doctor. I needed weekly blood tests to ensure my electrolytes were balanced. Turns out purging is very hard on the body, something my lack of tooth enamel will attest to.

    It was years until I told friends and family, and even now many will be shocked reading this article. It was easy to hide from roommates, as I would binge alone in my room and come up with creative reasons to use the bathroom when needed. Sometimes even purging into bags in my room then disposing of it later.

    In 2013, after a few weeks of some particularly painful binging sessions, a doctor told me I had lesions in my throat. I could barely swallow, having to sip smoothies through a straw. And my first thought was:

    Yay, now I’ll definitely lose weight.

    Thankfully, it was followed by a second thought.

    This is dumb. I’m putting my health at serious risk here… to be thin? That makes no sense.

    That’s when I knew I needed to kick my recovery into high gear. I started out-patient treatment in Toronto and attended support groups with others like me. I learned to sort through complicated emotions and release my need for everything to be perfect. In short, I was on a great track.

    But here’s the thing no one tells you about recovery—it’s not linear. I was settling into my career as a nutritionist, my binging episodes reduced, then someone would make an off-hand comment…

    Wow, you cleaned your plate, you must’ve been hungry!

    And boom, I would spiral out and feel compelled to rid myself of the extra calories. Secretly hunched over the toilet once again, knowing I had failed.

    I didn’t think people would trust my nutritional advice if I gained weight. I was also a yoga instructor at this point and convinced students wouldn’t return to my classes if I didn’t have a lean svelte yoga body.

    I continued the ups and downs of recovery for years. Having to choose recovery every single day was exhausting. Over time, the periods between binges got longer.

    For me, there was no silver bullet cure. It was a combination of using mindfulness to sit with difficult emotions and getting a whole lot of therapy to address the trauma. I never thought I’d get to this place, but eventually I learned to see myself as a worthy person—no matter my past, no matter my size.

    I used to think having an eating disorder was a shameful secret. Now I see that struggle as the source of my strength. It takes an incredible amount of courage to address trauma, and working tirelessly on recovery has taught me how to bounce back over and over again.

    I went through the ringer for many years, having to hide many of my behaviors, and thinking my weight was the most interesting part of me. I share my experience as part of the healing process, to take away the shame that hides in the shadows. I hope it encourages you to examine your relationship with food and your body—and how you might also be using food or another substance to avoid dealing with your own traumas.

    We tend to judge what we’re eating and think of food as something to be controlled, but eating disorders aren’t just about food. They’re a reflection of how we judge ourselves and our need to regain control when we feel we’ve had none.

    If we can come out of the shadows and face our pain and shame, we can start to heal, but it might not happen overnight. It might be two steps forward and one step back, sometimes one step forward and two steps back—and that’s okay. People who struggle with eating disorders are often perfectionists, but we need to accept that we can’t be perfect at healing. It’s a process, and as long as we stick with it, we will see progress over time.

    Now that I’ve worked through the pain of my past, I can finally see that food is something to be enjoyed and celebrated, and I too deserve celebrating, no matter my size. I don’t need to be perfect to be worthy. And neither do you.

  • Hurt by Negative People? How to Stop Taking Things Personally

    Hurt by Negative People? How to Stop Taking Things Personally

    “Some people are in such utter darkness that they will burn you just to see a light. Try not to take it personally.” ~Kamand Kojouri

    The saying goes that money makes the world go round, but of course that’s not true.

    It’s our relationships.

    How we relate to other people and how they relate to us keeps our world turning. When things go well, all’s right with our world. When things go badly, it can feel as though our world has ground to a halt.

    This is exactly how I felt whenever I had a difficult experience with a loved one or friend.

    Whenever they lashed out at me for no real reason, it felt as if I couldn’t move on again until their negativity or bad temper had blown over. Until that happened, I replayed the scenarios in my mind, trying to work out where I was to blame for their behavior, and feeling awful in the meantime.

    That’s why our relationships will always be the most important thing in our lives—they have such a strong impact on us, both good and bad.

    That is also why it serves us well to try to have the best possible relationship with others, as well as ourselves. That includes improving the connections we have with the difficult and less-than-positive people in our lives and strengthening our boundaries in the process.

    We probably all have several negative people in our lives—those who criticize, complain, belittle us and other people, and say or do cruel things. They can be the closest to us, people we have known all our lives, and that makes their negativity harder to escape and endure.

    I had a family member who was very negative about pretty much everything. Spending time in their company was usually a draining and disheartening experience due to their complaining and sniping comments.

    This person made it very clear whenever I met them that they had little time or affection for me, which of course made family get-togethers less than enjoyable.

    I was also puzzled as to why they were like that: we’d never argued, and I had never, to my knowledge, done or said anything mean to them. Yet, they still acted in a negative way toward me, especially if I mentioned affirmative life experiences such as a great holiday or a new exciting project.

    Unsurprisingly, I responded to their negativity with a sense of apprehension, frustration, and confusion, which stopped me from enjoying the company of my other relatives. It also made me wary about fully expressing myself or talking about my life. And my uneasiness undoubtedly made the atmosphere between my family member and me even more negative.

    We all Have Emotional Scars from the Past

    I eventually recognized that I was hurt by my relative’s treatment in large part because I took it personally and allowed it to affect my self-image and self-esteem—as if I somehow deserved it. Then I realized something that changed everything for me.

    We all have a self-image shaped in large part by other people. Family, friends, and partners, who’ve likely scarred us through anger, resentment, jealousy, judgment, neglect, or even outright abuse. And this affects how we show up in the world.

    Everyone, including the people who have wronged you or been negative toward you in some way, has scars from their past too.

    Maybe your critical mother doesn’t know any better because her mother was critical. Maybe your absent father never knew his father either. Maybe your backstabbing friend was jealous of you for reasons only known to them. Perhaps your cheating partner had abusive parents, and your partner sabotages relationships because they don’t believe anyone can love them.

    Each and every one of us carries around our scars, going out into the world to meet other people who have scars, and when we connect, these combined scars can sometimes tear open.

    We all See Ourselves Through Others’ Eyes

    We all tend to see ourselves through our loved ones’ eyes—starting with our parents when we’re young—because we assume their perceptions of us are accurate and blame ourselves if they’re not flattering. Our self-image can alter based on their comments, emotions, and actions—positive and negative.

    This is a classic case of our relationships shaping our sense of self, an ongoing shaping that begins even before we can fully understand the meanings of what other people say or do to us.

    We are each the result of our experiences within our multiple relationships and interactions. How other people relate to us affects our image of ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we are helpless in the face of other people’s behavior toward us.

    We may not have had much of a choice as a child, but it’s a different matter once we’re adults. With awareness, we’re now able to protect ourselves far better from others’ negativity toward us and set necessary boundaries.

    Learning to Connect in a Different Way

    If you’re dealing with a negative or painful relationship that leaves you feeling bad about yourself, you can of course choose to distance yourself from the person and limit contact. Sometimes, however, this isn’t possible, so you have to learn how to connect in a different way while safeguarding yourself from their negative impact on you.

    I decided I had to respond differently to my family member and their negativity for the sake of my well-being. I began to look beyond their behavior and actions, and in doing so I started to piece together an idea of what might be the real cause of their pain and unhappiness.

    I recalled they had often moaned about how much they hated their job, how they disliked the town they lived in and their neighbors, and they also often complained of tiredness and physical aches and pains.

    I began to see that this person’s negativity—even if it was aimed at me, maybe due to their feelings of envy—wasn’t really about me. They were unhappy with their life in general. Negative people are often unhappy on many levels.

    It also helped me to remember we all have emotional scars, as mentioned before. When you approach people from a place of understanding, compassion, and empathy, you no longer see them as cheats, liars, betrayers, or “bad” people out to get you—even though they might cheat, lie, or betray you. You instead begin to see beyond their behavior and recognize that they’re in pain.

    When you do that a lot of their power over you starts to fade. You begin to see them as vulnerable, like everyone else. You start to realize that their negative actions toward you reflect far more on them than they do on you.

    People often hurt each other because of their own deep pain and because they don’t know any other way to act. This is often a painful lesson to learn.

    But when you finally grasp this difficult truth, you become more accepting of what happened, more forgiving, and ready to let go and move on. You realize you do not need to take on their negativity, brood about it, or feel you are the cause of it.

    That doesn’t mean you have to condone or accept mistreatment. And that’s not to say people’s negativity toward you won’t bother or hurt you ever again, but the effect won’t be so intense. You’ll realize that the situation isn’t really about you at all. Any pain they try to inflict on you is simply a reflection of what they feel inside; it no longer feels so personal.

    When I stopped taking my relative’s negativity personally, I was able to interact with them in a different way. I was much more relaxed in their company and able to enjoy family gatherings much more.

    When you stop taking other people’s negativity personally, you cease to be so susceptible to creating your self-image through their eyes. In fact, you start to focus far more on how you view them.

    Then you’re also free to focus less on their negativity and bad behavior and more on how you respond to it. That might mean setting boundaries and limiting your contact with them, and that’s okay. Sometimes you have to understand and empathize from afar to take good care of yourself.

    We’re All in the Same “Life” Boat

    Essentially, we’re all in the same “life” boat, bobbing up and down on the vast ocean of existence.

    We are all fallible. We all inflict hurt on others, intentionally and unintentionally.

    We all experience negative situations and inevitable suffering, and we simply have to accept this. Without pain and suffering we might not value joy or experience spiritual growth. If we never experienced adversity, we might not appreciate our strength.

    And without negative people we might not be truly grateful for or cherish the loving, supportive people we have in our lives.

  • FREE Online MindBody Therapy Summit for Healing and Well-Being, June 2-6

    FREE Online MindBody Therapy Summit for Healing and Well-Being, June 2-6

    Hi friends! I’m excited to let you know about the MindBody Therapy Summit, a FREE online event, presented by the Embody Lab, that’s coming up next week.

    In this inspiring 5-day summit, running from June 2nd through June 6th, you’ll hear from some of the most impactful healers, teachers, and researchers at the intersection of wellness, spirituality, psychology, embodiment, and somatics.

    What Is MindBody Therapy?

    MindBody therapy helps us understand and shift what gets in the way of being free, happy, and fully alive.

    While traditional therapy focuses on verbal processing and cognitive meaning making, MindBody therapy invites us into the wisdom of our body as the intuitive place of healing and well-being.

    How Can This Event Help You?

    Blending traditional wisdom and embodiment practices with contemporary neuroscience and psychology, MindBody therapy supports healing and transformation while working with every aspect of an individual—psychological, psychical, spiritual, energetic, and social.

    Through methodologies such as Somatic Experiencing®, Hakomi, Body-Mind Centering®, Gestalt, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Integral Somatic Psychology, and many other body-oriented approaches to psychology, you’ll gain practical tools to connect with your body and your true self.

    Who Is This Summit For?

    The MindBody Therapy Summit is for you if:

    -You’re seeking knowledge about psychology, somatics, trauma therapy, plant medicine, attachment/intimacy work, internal family systems work, experiential developmental psychology, social/cultural justice and therapy, stress and resilience, and applied poly-vagal theory.

    -You feel like you’ve hit a wall in your talk therapy and you’re looking for a fresh perspective on healing.

    -You’re interested in incorporating somatic methods of healing into your daily practice.

    -You’re ready to fulfill the highest expression of yourself and bring a new dimension of joy into your life.

    -You’re looking to connect with like-minded people engaged in psychology, embodiment practices, and self-inquiry.

    If you’re ready to access a new level of healing and wholeness, click here to register for the MindBody Therapy Summit and get FREE access to all 5 days of inspiring talks. I hope you find them healing and transformative!

  • The Simple Path to Change When You’re Not Satisfied with Your Life

    The Simple Path to Change When You’re Not Satisfied with Your Life

    “Making a big life change is scary, but you know what’s even scarier? Regret.” ~Zig Ziglar

    Fifteen years ago, I made one of the biggest changes in my life. It was something I had wanted to do for so long but had never found the right time, right plan, or courage to do.

    You see, ever since I was in my teens, I had always felt I was meant to be somewhere else.

    The town where I grew up was pretty perfect for raising young kids, but it just wasn’t for me as I entered adulthood. I always envisioned myself somewhere else doing something different than those that stayed and replaced the generations before them.

    When I came back from school in my twenties, I was eager to get my career going and was not in a rush to settle down and have kids like most of my circle. I wasn’t even sure I really wanted to raise a family. I was more interested in exploring this world and not being tied to one way of life.

    At twenty-five I thought, WOW, I finally feel like I’ve got it all figured out.

    I had lived away from home, finished school, had relationships both good and bad, and had a strong work ethic that was instilled in me from a young age. So here I was, ready to take on the world. Build my career, travel, and maybe eventually settle down and start a family… then BANG! Just like that my world started to crumble.

    Within a span of one year, I was dealt some devastating news. My mother and sister were both diagnosed with different devastating diseases.

    My world was crushed. I can still remember the impact I felt on the day I received the news.

    I was in my office when I got the call about my sister, who had lost her speech and ability to move one of her arms and possibly needed emergency brain surgery.

    I was in shock. I had no idea how I felt, what I was supposed to do, or where I was supposed to be. I just sat there with a blank stare for what felt like an eternity but really was likely just five minutes.

    After weeks of testing, it was discovered my sister had MS (Multiple Sclerosis). A life-long debilitating disease, or so I understood at the time.

    Fast forward six-plus months later, my sister was on track with rehabilitation and signs of a full recovery in speech and limb mobility. Then WHAM! My mother received a stage 3 cancer diagnosis.

    I was absolutely devastated and completely torn apart. My mother is everything to me, the woman who inspires me to stand tall and strong no matter what life throws my way. A woman of pure integrity and authenticity, loved by so many.

    After emergency surgery and intense chemo, I am glad to say that both my mum and sister survived their devastating ordeals and have been living life to the fullest since that awful time. But during that time my world was upside down and I was an emotional wreck.

    I had no idea how to unravel all the emotions I was feeling then. I kept myself busy, though, with work, too much partying, and hitting the gym hard. You see, I kept myself looking good on the outside, but I was a complete mess on the inside. I was no longer thriving; I was just surviving.

    I began taking inventory of my life and realized I was not living the life I’d envisioned for myself. I was scared to make a change and also to not make a change.

    Seeing what my family had endured made me realize how precious life is and that I didn’t want to waste mine living a life that didn’t fulfill me in fear I was next for a diagnosis. So, I decided to seek out professional help to gain control and clarity, to heal, and to push through the emotions I was suffering from. Only then would I be able to truly move forward with my life in a positive and productive way.

    Once I had done the “work” on sorting out my emotions, I was able to start creating real change from a healthy, sound perspective.

    I started creating the life that resonated with me one step at a time. You see, change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to build. It is a process, and anyone who has made significant change in their lives will tell you that. Their change likely started way before anyone was really aware.

    I wasn’t living the life I wanted, so I thought long and hard about what needed to change and finally took the leap.

    I moved across the country on my own, away from my most significant support, with no job, to start building a life that resonates with me. It wasn’t without challenge or bumps in the road, and it certainly wasn’t perfect. But it’s been absolutely amazing, and I’ve never looked back.

    Besides the emotional trauma, there were so many things holding me back at first—family, friends, familiarity, and fear. But what I’ve come to realize is when you start making positive change in your life, for you, things fall into place over time and you look back and realize the change was worth it.

    People speak from their own feelings, experiences, and fears, don’t let that hold you back from what feels right to you.

    I now live in a place that felt like home from the first time I landed here. I live by the ocean and mountains, which inspire me every day.

    My sister now lives in the same city (in fact, we live the same complex). My brother and his family moved a one-hour flight away now as opposed to across the country. My mother still resides back in the town where I grew up so, I feel I get the best of both worlds. Living in a place that inspires me while having the chance to revisit a vibrant city and old friends to reminisce with whenever I choose to.

    So, what are the top things people say they regret as they get older? I wish I’d….

    • Saved more money or made better investments
    • Worked in a job or career I was more passionate about
    • Treated my body better and had better self-care
    • Spent more time with loved ones
    • Traveled more

    And the list goes on…

    Why do so many people rush through life without taking the time to recalibrate and ensure they are focused on the right things that mean something to them or will enrich their lives? It’s an intricate topic yet simple. Life. Life gets in the way, responsibilities get in the way, others’ opinions, and our own doubts and fears get in the way.

    We’ve all been there, navigating life as it unravels each day, and as things happen, we go with the flow. But have you ever stopped to consider, what’s my “flow”?

    How do I want this day, month, year to go? Why do I keep getting dragged in other directions or the same direction only to live each day with no change? Why does it seem like others are thriving while I am on repeat or treading without progressing?

    You will never know for sure until you take the time to explore what is going on in your life and create awareness around what might be holding you back. With the right support and guidance, you can create change both big and small. In fact, making little changes frequently will add up to making a big change overall.

    Not sure where to start? Here are five proven tips to begin creating change in your life today.

    1. Break the routine.

    Think about what you can give up or take out of your day to switch up your daily routine and do this for a two-week period. This could mean not scrolling mindlessly through social media on your lunch break or not watching TV at night, then seeing what else you could do instead. Which brings me to my next point…

    2. Bring back doing something you love and make it a deal breaker in your week.

    No excuses, make it happen, even you only have a fifteen-minute window for this activity. Same as above, do this for a two-week period, and this next one, as well.

    3. Discover something new.

    What have you always considered trying out or have an interest in that you’ve never explored? Give it a try now.

    4. Journal.

    Keep notes on how you are feeling through the two weeks. Then do it all for another two weeks.

    5. Build intention.

    Each week set the intention that there is time, this is worth it, and you are worth it!

    —

    The purpose of this process is to help you see how even small shifts can change how you feel and add to your life and well-being. This sets the foundation for believing that change gives more than it takes, which helps you find the motivation to seek out new opportunities so you can make larger life changes. Move if you don’t feel thrilled with where you live, sign up for a course to help you change careers, or finally leave the job you hate to do something you love.

    It takes focus, consistency, and perseverance to make change, but everyone has the ability to do it, especially if they start small and take it one day at a time.

    Surround yourself with those that will respect you and the changes you are making. I bet you’ll be surprised to see how many people are inspired and/or motivated to begin making their own changes after watching you. So don’t wait—start today and open up to change so you can live the life you want to live!

  • How I Saved Myself by Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

    How I Saved Myself by Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

    “And here you are, living despite it all.” ~Rupi Kaur

    “I surrender!” I said this mantra out loud as my life was spiraling out of control.

    I had spent a summer in college as a camp counselor separated from my fiancé. He sent me no letters and did not keep in touch. Still, I held on. By the time I came back home, we were broken. I had also realized he was emotionally abusing me. It took that separation to make me see it.

    I realized I had been truly alone in the relationship. I was never lonelier than being with someone who refused to listen to me. A summer of independence brought me a new love of solitude, but it also made me realize I didn’t have a soulmate in him after all.

    I was forced to face that this life wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect. But… I was enough. I needed to believe that to keep moving.

    When I said my mantra of surrendering, I was on a rollercoaster of emotions. I didn’t know where my life was going. The wedding planning ended. He called it off through text. I was left emotional and without closure. I didn’t know what would happen next. I just decided to be curious rather than try to control it.

    I woke up to the fact that I didn’t have to know everything. I had to just trust. This both terrified me and propelled me forward. I didn’t know if things were going to be okay, but I knew I would make meaning out of whatever would happen.

    I wanted to teach youth how to surrender too. I figured that would be my legacy since it had healed me of so much in life.

    I had already applied to graduate school, and I would start at Brandeis very soon. I was worried about being on top of it all while going through this heartbreak. I was a Type A student, president of four clubs and an honors student. I didn’t exactly have time for love back then, but I didn’t realize I had a choice to let my ex go if I wasn’t satisfied. I put too much effort into trying to make it work when it wouldn’t.

    I didn’t see that my effort to make everything work was actually blocking better things from coming my way. In other words, I had to stop holding on so tightly to life. I had to let go. I had to surrender to survive. I had to go with the flow to find my flow. I had to learn how to be happy for no reason other than to simply be.

    When I did that, my whole life opened up for me. I practiced radical acceptance and realized my place in this world mattered. I stopped white-knuckling through my problems and pain. I stopped waiting for love and decided to love myself. I started to see myself as capable and good no matter how others mistreated me. I decided by letting go, I would not give up. I made a promise to myself to always be authentic.

    Life didn’t go as planned. I left Brandeis MAT program for teaching because I realized I didn’t want to be a high school English teacher anymore. It was the hardest decision of my life because I also did not have a backup plan.

    So, I surrendered again. And again and again through it all.

    I surrendered when I found other ways to help youth. I surrendered through a bipolar breakdown and a relapse to the hospital years later. I surrendered when I went on disability and all expectations of my life were changed. I surrendered through bad side effects to meds and awful doctors. I surrendered all through my life because I knew despite how hard things could be, I was still doing good. I was still helping others. I was still waking up each morning appreciating being alive.

    It came down to the simple things. I didn’t need certain labels or popularity. I needed to rest, to do nothing sometimes. To breathe. To just live.

    I saw myself as rising in my own ways.

    I realized I couldn’t look back. Here’s what I held onto instead:

    1. Finding Purpose

    When I let go of my need to control, I became more mindful. I started to think about how I wanted to spend my time. Was it for achievements or authenticity?

    I had nothing, so I had nothing to lose when I left Brandeis. Serendipitously, I had a branding internship the same time a brand manager of a large TV personality discovered me. The internship taught me how to manage my own image and ideas while the manager wanted to simply own me like a puppet master.

    I had a choice. I could live on my own terms or have someone take over my life. I turned down advances from this man. I wasn’t going to fall for the same red flags as I did with my ex-fiancé. I let go; I surrendered.

    I decided to make my own way and live authentically as a person, not a brand, sharing my story along the way. I used my mental health journey to help end stigma and my writing for sharing insights on life.

    I did not let walking away from the brand manager stop my story. Instead, I redefined it for myself. I was enough as I was. I didn’t need anyone to discover who I was meant to be. I would live my life for me.

    My purpose became in proving him wrong, that I could make it on my own. Then, it became for me, to show myself I was worth it. I focused on living in the moment and just following my passions without a plan. That’s what saved me. But it wasn’t the only thing.

    Purpose dawned on me one day while I was simply walking my dog through the woods in my backyard. I listened to birds chirping. I grounded myself by looking up at the blue sky. I touched the bark on the trees. I felt my inner voice beckoning me to love this life as it was, not as I wanted it to be. I didn’t have to do anything. I just had to be in this moment. That’s all life was asking of me.

    It took simplicity to make me realize my purpose wasn’t just a to-do list. It wasn’t fixing everything. It wasn’t mastering every skill. It wasn’t making things work when they wouldn’t.

    I had to separate myself from the “shoulds.” I had to find the gift in what I was going through. In taking the time to do nothing but think, far away from a stressful schedule, I realized that my purpose was to be happy without needing a reason to be. That took a different kind of bravery.

    2. Forgiveness

    I wasn’t able to move on from the injustices of my life very easily. I had anger in me from living under others’ control and abuse. I had loss, which I felt every day, etched into my skin. I knew what it was to be alone. I had settled too often and always saw the best in people.

    I grew up walking on eggshells surrounded by abusers. It was an endless pattern I stopped in my twenties. After my ex-fiancé left me, I found a new type of strength. I realized the only power anyone could ever have over me was the one I consented. No one could steal the core of who I was. No one could take certain things away. No one could define me but me.

    I took my power back through forgiveness. It didn’t happen right away. I meant “I love you” to my ex, but then I realized it was governed in fear. Fear of doing this life on my own.

    Sometimes life makes you continually face the very thing you’ve been avoiding. You keep getting redirected to it even as you resist. You find yourself with the same lessons you needed to learn before.

    There’s a quote that reads “You repeat what you don’t repair.” Well, I was there. I was back there constantly in my anger and hate of those who I thought stole something from me.

    But when I decided to forgive them, I released it. I gave it back to the universe and pulled my heart from the chaos. They didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t for them. It was for me. I had to let them go and surrender so I could heal myself. I forgave myself in the process, too, for not knowing enough, for not seeing the truth.

    My heart wanted to hold onto the anger so that I could do something with it. I soothed it, though, with self-compassion. I made meaning of the events of my life by helping others through similar things.

    That meant I had to say goodbye. Goodbye to those who didn’t know me enough to love me right. Goodbye to the me that was in survival mode and didn’t know I could just let go and live. Goodbye to the dark nights of the soul where I felt like giving up and suicidal ideations crossed my mind. Goodbye to the past. Goodbye to the insecurities. Goodbye to the pain. Goodbye to the worst of it all.

    And then I said it. “I forgive you.” I salvaged myself from the wreckage of the storms I had suffered. I pulled myself out of the ruins of an old life. I realized I was the one who decided my fate. I was the captain of my soul. I was finally free.

    3. The Reason

    I found my way by allowing myself to go on the detour. I realized that I was meant to go down the wrong road so I would be sure of the right one. My road was brilliant, one of authenticity, that uplifted me above all that I had gone through. I was able to look at my life and see what really mattered. I suddenly knew what I was here to do.

    I was here to share my gift. Any insight I could. To love.

    I started volunteering, writing, speaking to youth, and advocating for mental health awareness.

    I stopped living in the stigma of struggling and became open about my story.

    I surrendered to what was happening.

    I stopped fighting every little thing that came my way.

    I didn’t need to know what would happen with the lives I touched and the good things I did along the way. I just had to follow my path hoping others would follow it too, making it a little easier for someone else.

    All I had to do was surrender—be still, quiet my mind, allow rather than resist, let go, and find myself even when losing it all.

    Surrendering isn’t easy. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things we can do. That’s because we want control. But sometimes, surrendering is seeing uncertainty as beautiful. We don’t have to know what lies ahead in order to move forward.

    What will you do when you surrender, stop fighting reality, and allow yourself to live in your life as it is?

    Can you improve a situation, share a kindness, give to a greater cause, become a better you, and build a better world? Can you dream of doing such things? That is the first step to resilience. Focus on the beauty found in the broken situation and in you. Focus on the light you can bring into the darkness.

    It doesn’t take away from the horror of any hardship to believe in yourself and your ability to make change from it. That takes its own grieving time. But during that time, you can’t let it consume you. The tragedy that befell you, the heartbreak that happened, the hurt inside that you can’t let go… they are indeed senseless. Hence, it is imperative you don’t get stuck on asking why, as many do.

    Instead of viewing yourself as a victim, it’s time to be a victor. Overcome the odds. Let what hurts and irks you be the fuel to your fire.

    Hardships do not define us.

    What you have been through, your circumstances, do not define you.

    There will be days where you need to prioritize self-care and forgiveness for who you had to be to get to this point. Maybe you were white-knuckling through the pain in your self-care journey, maybe you did what you did in order to survive, but the good news is that today is a new day for you.

    Hold space for the sacred gift of simply being alive on those days.

    It works like a cycle. You will feel all the emotions on the spectrum, which means you will feel anger and sadness and doubt, but you will also feel joy and love and hope again the longer you hold on, the more patience you practice with yourself.

    A reason not for why this happened but why to go on will come to you.

    That reason is everything.

    When you want to give up, that’s when you say, “I surrender,” which isn’t the same thing. Giving up is shutting down. Surrendering is letting go.

    When you surrender, you don’t need things to work out a certain way. You accept life as it comes, which leads to a breakthrough. When you give up, you breakdown. Surrendering is the sacred step to realizing your full potential. It’s realizing you are your own hero, and you must not stop now.

    When you let go, you realize everything could change tomorrow. All it takes is choosing this very moment and living it. Mindfully surrendering is about releasing your fears and doubts so you can see clearly and letting the light come through.

    Don’t wait for life to change to create peace, joy, and purpose. Choose to make the best of what you have in your life, right now as it is. Surrender. Say the words, and it will change your life.

  • Why Forgiving Is the Last Step in The Process and What Comes First

    Why Forgiving Is the Last Step in The Process and What Comes First

    “True forgiveness comes when you realize there is something totally radiant inside you, that nobody could ever touch” ~Eckhart Tolle

    I grew up in an emotionally abusive household.

    My father was a man who diligently provided for us, but he left me with scars and shattered self-esteem.

    My mother cooked me my favorite foods and let me sleep in her bed when I was scared, but she attacked my insecurities when I frustrated her. My friends played nasty pranks, but she wiped my tears as we both tried to survive my religious, cult-like school together.

    As a kid, I didn’t have the tools and mental maturity to deal with these complicated emotions. Everything was black and white. I couldn’t understand that people were a big, beautiful, and sometimes toxic mess of gray. After a year-long depression, I discovered the Internet, and I wanted to start healing.

    All the articles suggested forgiving, and I’m glad I ignored that specific piece of advice, because it’s much more complicated than that.

    I decided to focus on healing instead, and a crazy spiral started. There were a lot of extremes, a lot of tears, and a lot of perfectionism. But there were also love and joy, friends, and moments of incredible peace.

    Six years and one day later, I woke up and realized I didn’t obsess about my parents anymore. I could see them as people and forgive them for their cruel actions. I could set boundaries without getting subsumed by a tunnel of rage, and after a nasty fight, I could calm down and let go of any hard feelings.

    How on earth did I manage this?

    Accept the pain.

    Trauma runs deep. There are lasting effects, and we’d be fools to not acknowledge them. Even mental health professionals admit that the goal of recovery isn’t to remove the side effects, but to live in the present without being completely overwhelmed by the past and future.

    And for quite a lot of us, it hurts.

    It hurts for the teenage girl who spent her high school years struggling with depression and eating disorders because her family criticized her weight.

    It hurts for the boy who battled anxiety all his life, and his existing condition was only exacerbated by terrifying bullies and an unstable home environment.

    It hurts for me, a girl who lost years of her childhood to anxiety and fear, and never felt safe around her father.

    For a long time, I kept searching for a path where I could back-pedal. Hold up, let’s forget about the trauma and depression, can I just be a normal kid? Visit friends and insult their slime collection, and laugh about memes, and cry and fall in love? Can my diary be filled with boy-crushes and silly things, instead of obsessive questions begging me, why are you so lazy? Why are you so sad, and depressed, and ugly—

    And that brings me to my next point.

    Don’t get trapped in your abuser’s patterns, and don’t give your power to them.

    At first, I tried to fix myself. I filled pages with goals among goals. Get slimmer thighs. Talk less. Stop forgetting stuff. Stop fidgeting. Stop being lazy. Stop being yourself. Stop. Stop. Stop.

    I was a kid. Your entire world, your survival, depends on two very flawed human beings feeding and clothing and raising you. I thought that maybe if I were better, they’d treat me better.

    But eventually, I stumbled upon an article about abuse. There was this checklist activity, and I checked off twenty bullet points. “Congrats! You’re a survivor…”

    I’m not the problem, I thought, staring at the screen. They’re the problem.

    So, I went down a new road. Instead of trying to fix me, I tried to fix them , and when I inevitably failed, I was angry about the awful way they treated me

    My parents used this rage as another bullet in their gun.

    “Have you ever seen such a rude child?” “F*cking insane” “I’m just trying to speak nicely, stop yelling!”

    And they kept shooting at my heart, every time I said stop.

    “Stop commenting about my ugly skin and my weight. Stop saying I’m a failure, that I’ll never succeed in life. Stop rolling your eyes at me every time I make a mistake, or I forget something.”

    Stop, stop, stop.

    But they wouldn’t stop. Trying to fix them was worse than trying to fix me. Why? Because you can’t find closure from other people. You can’t control their actions.

    After the hundredth argument, I was sitting next to my bed. And then it hit me. They would never look me in the eyes and say, “I’m sorry, I’ll try to change.” Every time I tried to talk about my vulnerabilities, they would rip the wounds open and rub salt and lime into the blood. I would never get the closure I needed from them.

    I sat there for a long time. The tears dried on my face. And then I opened my journal, and wrote, “Dear Diary, I’m so tired…”

    Love yourself during the journey.

    I kept postponing my happiness. I kept waiting for two flawed people, who mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically abused me, to change so I could finally move on. As a result, I never really tried to heal by myself.

    When I opened that journal, I still operated from the belief “I wasn’t good enough” and I needed to be “better.”

    I tried to have the perfect body. I was terrified to eat carbs and treat myself to a nice meal. I tried to be the perfect artist. At one point I loathed all the writing I’d ever made and threw away entire notebooks.

    It took me a long time to realize, there is no “better.” Are there milestones and visible signs of growth? Absolutely. For as long as I’m a human, I’ll struggle. So, I better start loving the imperfect soul I was given or die in the pursuit of “better.”

    This is why I encourage you to start taking care of yourself. Take the pressure of perfection off your shoulders.

    As an abuse victim, I tried to smash myself into a shape without insecurities so I’d never feel sadness, never cry while sitting on the ceramic toilet ever again.

    The journey is long. I’m still walking it. But every day, there are small opportunities to practice self-love and give yourself rest.

    These days, when I make a mistake, I still berate myself, but there’s a new voice, saying, “Don’t call yourself an idiot.”

    It tells me to go outside and get some fresh air when my brain’s being overloaded by my parents’ screaming voices and the TV fuzz. It tells me, “Things are going to be okay” when I’m recovering from a panic attack. It gives me strength when I want to do nothing more than give up.

    There are loads of ways to build a compassionate inner voice. Journaling, saying kind words to yourself in the mirror, complimenting your work before you attack it for its flaws. It’ll take time. It did for me. But slowly, the critical editor quieted, and I felt better about myself.

    Find an identity outside of your pain.

    This is intricately linked to healing. When I forgave my parents, I hadn’t made the conscious choice to forgive. I had made the conscious choice to heal.

    I wrote short stories, painted my first portrait and just delighted in mixing the colors, and I read blogs and books and laughed. Every day, I woke up and just tried. Sometimes I failed and fell into my spiteful patterns. And other times, I succeeded, and caught the cruel thought in my head, and dismissed it.

    I fed stray cats in my neighborhood. I watched Good Omens and read more Terry Prachett books. I took walks and I improved myself, not from a place of inadequacy, but from a place of kindness and self-love.

    I journaled these experiences, and as I read my previous entries, I realized three things.

    1. I’m not just a survivor.

    2. I’m an artist, a sister, a writer. I’m the girl who plucks dandelions from the grass near the lake and throws shells into the water. I’m the person who keeps my cat from eating plastic wrappers, and who helps my brother with his homework and comforts him when he’s crying. I’m the person who doodles millions of feathers, and faces, and earrings in the margins of her history homework.

    3. The abuse has affected me. It is a part of my life. It bleeds into my work and the themes I communicate.

    My talents and intelligence, they weren’t diminished by the mental abuse. I’m still a radiant person worthy of love and appreciation. These should be obvious concepts, but recognizing these things lifted a load off my shoulders—a load of resentment. And it comforted the deep fear I was never going to be healed. That I was always going to be a little broken, a little empty.

    But when I wrote down all of these experiences, I realized there were vast expanses of my soul my parents could never taint. There’s still pain. I think there’s always going to be pain; it’s a simple fact of life. But now I can comfort myself. I can feel those emotions and move on, without attaching the label “broken.”

    Forgive because you need the space.

    There are still scars. There are always going to be scars. There are always going to be hard emotions and terrible situations, because life is a series of peaks and valleys.

    I forgave them because I didn’t want to keep lugging them around, like a suitcase of rotting garbage. But it was the last step of a long, long process, where I repeatedly had to revisit my trauma, accept hard lessons, and integrate them into my sense of self.

    If I had tried to forgive right from the beginning, it would’ve been a stupid move. I would have constantly justified their sh*ity behavior, since “everyone has flaws, you should forgive and forget so you can maintain a relationship.” And I would’ve never discovered the power of my grief and my rage.

    If I had tried to forgive them during the middle, it would’ve been a false emotion. I would’ve clogged my headspace with my abusers, trying to forgive them for the horrendous things they’d done to me, when I should’ve been devoting that energy to healing.

    Right now, after I did the hard work of healing and gaining distance from my pain, I can forgive them. And when I say I forgive them, I mean I no longer obsess over them. I do get angry. But it’s me setting boundaries and protecting myself instead of my wounded soul lashing out. I may cry during a particularly bad attack of self-doubt, but I no longer waste energy trying to blame them.

    Sometimes, I want to hate them uncontrollably again. My father robbed me of my self-confidence, when he should’ve been building me up. I have this subtle, resigned voice that’s convinced I’ll never amount to anything, and it’s a permanent part of my psyche.

    But forgiveness has opened so much space. Space to process anxiety and tears. Space to fill with love and memories of friends. Space to just exist. And going back to my old ways, where I tried to get them to change, get them to realize how much they hurt me, it feels like putting a noose back on my neck.

    So that’s how I forgave. By healing. By loving myself. By learning how to handle my hard emotions and finding an identity outside my pain.

    Don’t rush yourself to forgive. Society says it’s the right thing to do, be the bigger person. But let me tell you that’s bullsh*t. If you’re just out of an abusive relationship, your version of forgiveness might be constantly excusing their toxic behavior and sacrificing your needs. Heal first. Make art, take baby steps to build healthy relationships, and above all, give yourself time.

    And when it’s the right time, forgiveness will come.

  • When You Lose a Loved One to Suicide: Healing from the Guilt and Trauma

    When You Lose a Loved One to Suicide: Healing from the Guilt and Trauma

    “You will survive, and you will find purpose in the chaos. Moving on doesn’t mean letting go.” ~Mary VanHaute

    I was ten years old when I discovered the truth. He didn’t fall. He wasn’t pushed. It wasn’t an accident.

    He jumped.

    Suicide isn’t a concept easily explained to a six-year-old, much less her younger siblings, so I grew up believing that my father’s drowning was an unfortunate freak accident. It was “just one of those things,” the cruel way of the world, and there was nothing anyone could have done about it.

    This explanation more than satisfied me and, other than a fear of open water and a slight pang of sadness whenever he was mentioned, I suffered no grievous trauma for the rest of my early childhood.

    But at ten years old I learnt the truth—that it wasn’t some divine entity or ill-fated catastrophe that took him from me. He had, in fact, ripped himself from the earth and left everyone he loved behind. Left me behind.

    Was it something I did?

    That’s the first question I asked.

    “Of course not,” my mother said. “He was just sad.”

    The idea that suicide was a simple cure for sadness became the first of many dangerous cognitive distortions I adopted. It would take no more than a dropped ice-cream cone or trivial friendship fall-out for me to declare my sadness overwhelming, to the point where, at the age of eleven, I drank a whole bottle of cough medicine in the belief that it would kill me.

    I was sad, I said, just like him. And if he could do it, why couldn’t I?

    As I grew into my teenage years, the possibility that I was the driving force behind my father’s suicide began to plague me, albeit subconsciously. I reasoned that the bullies at school hated me so, naturally, my father must have hated me too.

    Maybe I wasn’t smart enough or polite enough. Maybe I was unlovable. Maybe everyone I loved would leave me eventually.

    This pattern of thinking would slowly poison my mind, laying the foundations for what would later become borderline personality disorder. I suffered from intense fears of abandonment, codependency, emotional instability, and suicidal ideation, believing that I was an innately horrible person who drove people away.

    I refused to talk about my problems and allowed them to fester, harboring so much anger, guilt, shame, and sadness that eventually it would erupt out of me. It was only in my mid-twenties that I realized just how deeply my father’s suicide had affected me and the course of my whole life.

    I sought help and, slowly, I began to heal.

    Coping with The Stigma

    “Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.” ~Bill Clinton.

    Selfishness, cowardice, and damnation are toxic convictions that permeate the topic of suicide, adding to the anger, guilt, shame, and isolation that survivors feel. Growing up, I hid the truth of how my father died under fear of judgment or ridicule, scared that the knowledge would not only tarnish his humanity, but paint me with the same black brush.

    I still remember the words of a girl in high school, “Well, you shouldn’t feel sorry for people who do it, it was their choice after all.”

    Understanding the intricacies of mental illness and just how destructively they can distort the mind allowed me to come to terms with my father’s death. I was able to accept that his suicide was born not out of selfish weakness, but from lengthy suffering and pain, carried out by a mind that was consumed by darkness and void of the ability to think rationally.

    Letting Go of The Need for Answers

    “Why?”

    It is a question that only the person who took their life can answer—but they often leave us without any sense of understanding. In the absence of a detailed note or some definitive explanation we find ourselves trapped in an endless spiral of rumination, speculating, criticizing, and self-blaming, to no avail.

    It becomes a grievance, a desperate yearning for closure that weighs heavily on our hearts. After all, not only did they leave us, but they left us in the dark.

    It is completely natural to want an answer to the question of “why.” We feel as though an answer will provide closure, which in turn will ease our confusion, pain, and guilt. However, because there is usually no singular reason for a suicide attempt, we will always be left with questions that will go unanswered.

    Fully accepting that I was never going to get the answers I craved freed me from the constant rumination of “why.”

    Releasing the Guilt

    To quote Jeffery Jackson, “Human nature subconsciously resists so strongly the idea that we cannot control all the events of our lives that we would rather fault ourselves for a tragic occurrence than accept our inability to prevent it.”

    As survivors, we tend to magnify our contributing role to the suicide, tormenting ourselves with “what if’s,” as though the antidote to their pain lay in our pockets.

    We feel guilty for not seeing the signs, even when there were no signs to see. We feel guilty for not being grateful enough or attentive enough, for not picking up the phone or pushing harder when they said, “I’m fine.” Even as a child I felt an overwhelming guilt, wondering whether I could have prevented my father’s suicide simply by saying please-and-thank-you more often than I had.

    It wasn’t my fault. And it isn’t yours either.

    The truth is that we cannot control the actions of others, nor can we foresee them. Sometimes there are warning signs, sometimes there are not, but it is an act that often defies prediction. It is likely that we did as much as we could with the limited knowledge we had at the time.

    Healing takes acceptance, patience, self-exploration, and a lot of forgiveness as you navigate your way through a whirlwind of emotions. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel of grief. Although we may never fully move on from the suicide of a loved one, in time we will realize that they were so much more than the way in which they died.

    To quote Darcie Sims, “May love be what you remember most.”

  • The Fascinating Reason We Sabotage Ourselves and Hold Ourselves Back

    The Fascinating Reason We Sabotage Ourselves and Hold Ourselves Back

    “Sometimes we self-sabotage just when things seem to be going smoothly. Perhaps this is a way to express our fear about whether it is okay for us to have a better life.” ~Maureen Brady

    Have you ever decided to try something new—like getting into a new relationship or doing something that would help you experience success in your career/mission or offer you more vibrant health and well-being—and you were able to follow through for a bit, but then you stopped? Was this self-sabotage? Was it procrastination?

    Did you know that self-sabotage and procrastination can be survival mechanisms, and they’re actually our friends? They’re meeting some type of need, and it happens to all of us to a certain degree.

    Every behavior we do serves us in one way or another. We self-sabotage and procrastinate for many reasons, and it’s different for everybody; most often it’s coming from a part of us that just wants to feel safe.

    The key is working with these parts, not against them, and not trying to get rid of them. When we work with them and integrate them, we experience more energy, and they become a source of great strength and wisdom.

    The “symptoms” of self-sabotage and procrastination carry important messages; most often they’re a cry out from our inner child.

    Sometimes what we think we want isn’t what we truly want. Self-sabotage and procrastination may be our inner guidance saying, “Hey, I have another way.”

    Sometimes we’ve had many disappointments in the past, so our subconscious puts the brakes on and says, “What’s the use? I never win; I always lose.”

    If we’re overindulging in alcohol and food, using distracting activities, and not doing what we say we want to do, then there’s a reason. The key to healing and shifting that energy patterning is discovering the reasons and what that part of us needs.

    We often experience self-sabotage and procrastination when our unconscious needs aren’t being acknowledged or met.

    Trying to change the outer and/or push through with positive thinking takes a lot of efforting, and it often wears us out. Why? Because we’re fighting against our own biology, which creates self-doubt, self-judgment, inner conflict, fear, and insecurity. They all play together “on the same team” in that same energy.

    Most of our programming was created before we turned seven. This was when we formed our beliefs about who we are, what we deserve and don’t deserve, and how life works.

    When we want to experience something new, our subconscious goes into its “memory files” to see if what we want is “safe.” Safety can mean many things—maybe familiarity, or not speaking our truth or sharing our creativity, or using substances, like food, cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol, to numb our feelings and/or keep pain away.

    If we’ve had painful experiences in the past that were similar to what we want now, that may be the reason a part of us is procrastinating and/or self-sabotaging. Why? We have a built-in survival system, and when we’ve had a negative/painful experience, our protector part will keep that from happening again.

    We learn through the law of association, and this gets stored in our subconscious. If, as a child, we put our hand on the stove and got burned, our brain then created neurons that associated a stove with pain, so the next time we got close to a stove, we’d remember that pain and we’d be more careful.

    Our brain operates the same with physical or emotional pain. The problem is the brain may misinterpret the amount of danger we’re really in by operating on a neuro pattern that’s outdated.

    If the experience we want brought us pain in the past or we don’t feel good enough to experience it, we’ll either sabotage it or our brain will provide us with a list of reasons why it won’t happen. (But keep in mind it may not be in your best interest anyway.)

    If we found a way to soothe ourselves or find relief through addictions in the past, then we’ll automatically go back to those substances when things seem challenging if we haven’t learned how to comfort ourselves and feel, process, and express our emotions in healthy ways.

    When I was a child, my dad constantly told me, “If you don’t do it right, don’t do it at all.” The problem was, in his eyes, I never did anything right. He also told me that I wasn’t good enough or smart enough, I would never amount to anything, and I was a selfish human being.

    He blamed me for everything that happened, even if it wasn’t my fault, and if I “talked back” or shared how I felt, he either punished me or gave me the silent treatment.

    These experiences became my blueprint; I became fearful of myself, everyone, and everything, and this affected me greatly. I ended up disconnecting from my authenticity, and I became a very lost and confused being.

    The fear became so strong that if I had a thought about buying myself anything, asking for what I wanted or needed, expressing what I was thinking or feeling, or doing anything self-loving or self-nurturing, I’d self-sabotage, procrastinate, and feel anxiety and a sick feeling in my stomach.

    I wasn’t doing this consciously; my subconscious was signaling to me that wanting anything wasn’t safe because I may be punished, abandoned, or even hurt if I did any of these things I mentioned.

    As a child, I used food for my comfort and safety until age thirteen, when I was told to go on a diet and lose weight. At age fifteen I became a full-blown anorexic. Then my new comfort and safety became starving myself and exercising all day.

    From that point on, whenever I was faced with new choices or ways of being, I would push them away. I thought I was dealing with the fear of failure or not doing it right, but it went even deeper; I recognized it was really the fear of being punished, rejected, not loved, and abandoned, and to a child that’s the worst experience.

    I was stuck in an internal prison, thinking, “What’s the use of living? If I can’t be me or do anything, why even be in this reality?” This led to almost twenty-three years of self-abuse, suppression, anorexia, anxiety, and depression.

    My mom used to say to me, “Debra, you always climb halfway up the mountain, then you stop and climb back down.”

    This is what many people do: They stop before they even start, or they start something new and don’t continue to follow through, and this is because of our “emotional glue.” What’s emotional glue? Unresolved issues “buried” in us; it’s where our energy patterning is frozen in time, and it’s from where we’re filtering and dictating our lives. 

    Most often we don’t even know it’s there; we’re just living in the energy of “I can’t,” “beware,” or “it’s just not fair.” And/or we become judgmental of ourselves because we’re not able to do what we say we want to do.

    None of our symptoms are bad or wrong, and neither are we if we’re having them. In fact, “creating them” makes us pretty damn smart human beings; it’s our inner guidance asking for our attention, to notice what’s really going on inside that’s asking for compassion, love, healing, understanding, resolving, integrating, and revising.

    When I was struggling with anorexia, self-harming, depression, and anxiety, going to traditional therapy and spending time in numerous hospitals and treatment centers, nothing changed. Why? They were more focused on symptom relief than understanding what was going on inside of me.

    I was afraid, I was hurting, I didn’t feel safe in my body, and I didn’t feel safe in this reality. I didn’t need to be forced to eat and put on weight; that only triggered my traumas of being teased for being fat and unlovable when I was a child.

    I would gain weight in treatment centers and then lose it when I left; some may have called it self-sabotage; I call it survival.

    My deep-rooted fear about gaining weight, which meant “If I’m fat, I’ll be abandoned, and no one will love me,” was the driver for most of my life journey. All my focus was on controlling my food and weight.

    I was numbing and suppressing; I was existing but not living; I was depressed and anxious. I was running away from life and myself. I didn’t want to feel hurt by those negative things that were said to me, so I stayed away from other human beings.

    I didn’t want to face the hurt and pain I was feeling internally, especially the fear of being punished and abandoned again; but really, I was doing this to myself. I was punishing and abandoning myself, but I couldn’t stop the cycle with my conscious thinking.

    Self-sabotaging, procrastination, and the anorexia, anxiety, and depression, well, they were my friends; they were keeping me from being punished and abandoned. They were keeping me safe in kind of a backwards way.

    I wish I knew then what I know now—that in order to help someone, we can’t force them to change their unhealthy behaviors; we need to be kind and gentle and notice how the symptoms of self-sabotage, procrastination, eating disorders, anxiety, addictions, and depression are serving them. 

    What’s the underlying cause that’s creating them?

    What needs healing/loving, resolving, and revising?

    What do we need that we never got from our parents when we were little beings? How can we give this to ourselves today?

    When we see our symptoms as catalysts to understanding ourselves better and we integrate internally by giving ourselves what we truly need, we’re able to heal and overcome self-sabotage.

    All parts of us are valuable and need to be heard, seen, loved, and accepted unconditionally. Each part has an important message for us.

    If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms I mentioned, please be kind and gentle with yourself. Instead of feeling down on yourself for sabotaging yourself, dig below the surface to understand what you’re really afraid of and how your behavior may feel like safety. When you understand why you’re hurting yourself and holding yourself back, you’ll finally be able to let go of what doesn’t serve you and get what you want and need.

  • Learning to Honor My Grief When the World Has Become Desensitized to Loss

    Learning to Honor My Grief When the World Has Become Desensitized to Loss

    “The answer to the pain of grief is not how to get yourself out of it, but how to support yourself inside it.” ~Unknown 

    Since losing my husband Matt over eight months ago to cancer at the age of just thirty-nine, I have noticed so many changes happening within me, and one of those changes is a fierce sense of protectiveness that I have over my grief.

    We are living in a unique time in history. The world has turned upside down due to the coronavirus pandemic, and at the time of writing this the UK had just passed 100,000 Covid-related deaths with many more not involving Covid.

    That is an obscene amount of grieving people, and when I also consider the fact that not all loss is related to death, I suspect that everyone in the country is experiencing grief on some level right now.

    But I worry that this universal loss has become so entrenched within our daily lives that it is now considered the norm to be traumatized.

    The news of more deaths no longer seems to shock us. We’ve become detached from each other in order to survive and preserve ourselves, and this is being reinforced daily with messages of staying home and socially distancing.

    Our human need for closeness and connection has become secondary to the very real threat to life we are facing, and so we willingly obey to these new rules—we wear masks and keep away from each other, we retreat, and we don’t complain about the psychological wounds we are facing as a result of this because the alternative is even worse.

    There is a collective sense of numbness, which is a well-known coping mechanism for extreme levels of stress, and I cannot help but tune into this from my own fear response.

    I also feel numb sometimes, and I can certainly see the rationale for adopting this defense mechanism, but this is why my grief feels like a gift to me now: I am thankful that I can connect with and embrace my feelings of pain and anguish. This is my healing; this is me moving through life as I know I was intended to do.

    We weren’t made to deny or repress our emotions, we were made to learn and grow through them, because emotions are energy and energy needs to move. When I refuse to allow my emotions space to be present within me, they become trapped inside. 

    I know this because it has happened to me before. Grief is strange, it is the most painful and intense experience I have ever had, and yet it is also recognizable to me. I know that I have felt it before but in a different form and at a different time.

    Deep down I also have an inner knowing that I am meant to feel it. In the past, I was scared of the enormity and intensity of my emotions, and so was everyone I was close to. They would recoil when I expressed them, so I would repress them instead and do everything I could to push them down.

    The result? Years of suffering with anxiety, depression, and unexplained physical illness and ailments, which I now understand to be a manifestation of my trapped trauma.

    Bessel Van der Kolk defines trauma as “not being seen or known.” To be truly seen is to risk vulnerability, but we are continuously shamed for being truly vulnerable in our society, a society which rewards busyness and productivity above our human needs.

    Unfortunately, this mutual denial can prevent us from healing. In our culture there is a lack of tolerance for the emotional vulnerability that traumatized people experience. Little time is allotted for the working through of emotional events. We are routinely pressured into adjusting too quickly in the aftermath of an overwhelming situation.

    So, we have a problem. At a time when more of us than ever need to embrace vulnerability to avoid retraumatizing ourselves with a lack of connection to others, we are simultaneously battling with a sense of internalized capitalism. Which do we choose? Authenticity or attachment?

    I believe that we need both, but I also believe that it must start with authenticity, and here’s why.

    My grief feels sacred to me, like it’s the last bit of my love for Matt that I have left, and for that reason I refuse to let it pass me by without really experiencing and cherishing it.

    I recognize that the authentic, broken me is just as important as the joyful, whole me, and that I cannot expect to experience one without the other.

    I do not wish to drift into a false identity where I am always “okay” or “fine” or “not too bad” when anybody asks because really that is all I am permitted to say in those moments. I cannot speak the truth because the truth is unspeakable. There is an unspoken rule that we must never expose our pain in too much depth, we must keep it contained within a quick text message or a five-minute chat in order to help keep up the illusion that we have time for compassion within our culture.

    But we all know that’s not the truth if you live as we are subliminally told to live—with a full-time, demanding, and challenging career and a mortgage to pay, with a family to look after and a social life to uphold, with a strict routine that includes time for exercise, meal planning, and keeping your appearance aligned with what is currently deemed socially attractive, and with just enough spare time to mindlessly consume the latest Netflix drama.

    It really leaves little to no time or the emotional energy it would take to fully witness another person’s pain. So, we turn away from it instead, because we know that if we dare to look a grieving person in the eye, we can locate the universal phenomenon of grief within ourselves and find some affinity to it. And that throws up all sorts of questions that go against our busy lifestyles we are grappling to keep hold of.

    When I have too many superficial exchanges, however well-meaning they are, I end up feeling more disconnected and lonelier than if I hadn’t had an exchange at all, so I choose solitude instead. 

    Some pain cannot be spoken of, it can only be felt, and for me, that can only happen when I have the space and time to intentionally tune into the feelings, without having to cognitively bypass them at every opportunity. However, without a witness to my pain, I never truly feel seen or known either.

    The more time that passes, the harder it is to bring Matt up in the brief conversations I am still able to have or to express my true feelings.

    I’m aware that with time my grief becomes less relevant as more and more people are experiencing their own losses. But I have barely even begun to process Matt’s death. He died during the pandemic, and I am still living in that same pandemic eight months on. I have been locked away for my own safety and for the safety of others, so the true effects of my loss and the trauma attached to it won’t be fully felt until the threat has lifted.

    My brain has been wired for survival for almost a year now—what must the effects be of that?

    I am afraid that the rawness of my pain has a time limit to it, and if I do not fit into the cultural narrative of grief, then I will be rejected, and it’s that fear of rejection that continues to pull me away from sitting with my pain. I have become hypersensitive to other people’s reactions, and I can sense when my pain is too raw and uncomfortable for them, so I avoid the loudest and most consuming part of me to enter the conversation in order to make them more comfortable

    But… I’ve noticed a pattern happening when I prioritize others’ comfort over my authenticity.

    I begin to suffer. I experience emotions like fear, anger, and guilt, and these pull me away from the pure-ness that is my grief. Pain and suffering are not the same thing. Pain is a necessary component to healing and growth, but suffering is a bypassing of the raw pain underneath.

    I believe that the key to healing is to embrace the sorrow of loss throughout life. Loss happens continuously, but we often forget to experience it because we glorify the illusion of always being strong, mentally healthy, and resilient. 

    Fear is a block to healing. It activates our survival brain and keeps us there. Never feeling safe enough to process our emotions, we continue to suffer instead.

    Alice Miller, the renowned swiss psychologist, coined the phrase “enlightened witness” to refer to somebody who is able to recognize and hold your pain, and this becomes a cycle. Once you have had your authentic pain validated and witnessed, this frees up space for you to become an enlightened witness to another.

    That is why I believe there are so many people needlessly suffering right now. We are all afraid to confront the human condition of pain because we are afraid to lose our attachments to others, so we mask it and avoid it and deny it at any cost.

    I am terrified of losing my attachments to others too. I am terrified of ending up alone, and I am terrified of never being loved again. But I am more terrified of having to sacrifice my true self in order to gain that love.

    So, I vow not to put my grief on hold, and I welcome you to join me. However deep the pain becomes, I encourage you to sit with it and honor it as being a true reflection of the magnificent intensity of being human.