Gratitude is not hard. It is a habit to cultivate. Instead of seeing what is wrong with the world, just focus on what is right.Focus on the beauty, the joys, the flowers and trees. Focus on the kindness, the peace and tranquility of nature, the laughter of children.
Gratitude comes easily once you have made it a habit. You can be thankful for the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the home you live in, the friends you have. There are many people in the world who do not have these luxuries, they sleep cold in the street and starve most days. So be grateful for what you have, even if it annoys you, even if it is not your favourite taste or look. At least you have it, whatever it is.
Be grateful for arriving safely at your destination each day and waking to a new one the next morning. Many people don’t wake up, they die, and you have been gifted with another day. Even if your life is not how you would like it to be – if you are unhappy at work, alone, or unhappy in your relationship – don’t focus on the negatives as that will just increase the size of them. It will seem worse than it is and your level of dissatisfaction will increase. Focus instead on the positives. At least you have a job, it is providing you with income, opportunities to make friends, to learn and grow. Find the good in it and you will feel more satisfied.
Think about what it is you would prefer, the kind of job you would like to move into, picture it, feel it, know you will make the change when the time is right and be grateful to the Universe which is guiding you towards it. Know it will happen with certainty and take steps towards it, even little ones – read a book related to it, research positions, training required, do a course, talk to someone in the role. Each step you take you will feel more empowered, excited and hopeful. This is much more productive and feels better than simply complaining about your current job or feeling stuck and acting like a victim. You are not a victim. You have options. You just have to learn to take them and believe that you can change your life. You truly can.
Gratitude is one of the keys to a satisfying, fulfilling, enjoyable life. Your circumstances don’t have to change to create it, just your attitude and your thinking patterns. Each time you catch yourself thinking a negative thought or complaining, stop yourself. Just stop it. Refuse to do it. Refocus on something else. You can say to your mind “Thank you, but i’m not doing that any more”, then look for a more positive aspect of the situation or a solution to focus on.
When you focus on solutions, you find them. When you focus on problems, you see more of them. Like attracts like energetically.When you focus on problems, your mind thinks it is helping you by coming up with all sorts of thoughts about the problem. It is like you have placed an order at the restaurant and your mind serves up all kinds of beautiful dishes in the hope to help you, to serve you and fulfil your order.
If your focus is on solutions, then your mind and intuition will come up with lots of ideas on how to solve the situation. They will just surface and come to you, if you ask for guidance and you allow some space and time, to sit quietly and listen for the answers from within.
An attitude of gratitude can greatly improve your life and it is simple. It doesn’t cost money. You don’t have to go anywhere to get it. You just have to make the effort to focus your thoughts on more positive aspects of life. Keeping a journal can help. Some people like to write a list of items they are grateful for each night. It may include interactions with others, experiences throughout the day, insights they had, even ‘negative’ experiences that they learned something from.
Another way to do it, is to sit at the dining table and add a round of sharing to the conversation at dinner. You may ask each person to share something they are grateful for that occurred during the day, or three things. This forces each person to come up with three things to be grateful for. It helps build the habit of being grateful. Good to do.
Gratitude is a tool you can use to help yourself enjoy life more. It is well worth cultivating for a lifetime of greater pleasure and enjoyment of life.Blessed BE, Amen.
Emotional abuse is just as devastating as physical or sexual abuse. It damages the psyche and deeply affects a person’s self worth and feeling of safety. It leaves individuals afraid to interact with others and sets up a condemning pattern inside, where they repeat the abuse to themselves, by calling themselves less than loving names and treating themself in less than loving ways.
While devastating at any age, emotional abuse while a young child (0-6 years) of age is most damaging, as this is when children simply believe and absorb anything they are told. It goes straight into their subconscious programming and they are conditioned to act it out their whole life, unless they learn how to change their subconscious beliefs.
Such negative conditioning can have devastating affects throughout their life. If they are told they are ugly, unwanted, not needed, not liked, a failure, hopeless, that the problems others are facing is their fault, etc, then they will believe it and subconsciously they will play it out in their life – at school, at work, in relationships.
When things are going well the conditioning will cause them to act out and self sabotage. If on the brink of success, and the conditioning is that they are a failure, they will find it very uncomfortable to succeed. They will most likely fail shortly thereafter, if not before.
So they may get the promotion, but then find they can’t cope with the job or do something to cause themselves to be demoted – be late continuously, get sick, make a critical mistake or simply leave the job as they don’t enjoy it. This form of self sabotage happens unconsciously and repeatedly until it is changed.
If a child watched one parent being abused emotionally by the other, then the child learns that is how relationships are. They will accept poor treatment from others as they don’t realise that they deserve better or that there can be loving, safe interactions between people.
Worse, the parent who is constantly belittled is likely to withdraw from the child. They are likely to sink into depression, if not addiction, as a way to cope with their unhappy situation. The child therefore becomes neglected as well as suffering from witnessing and receiving the emotional abuse.
If the parent sinks far enough into depression and doesn’t have the strength to stand up for themselves or leave the relationship, then this destructive pattern can continue for years and usually does. A child in such a situation gives up hope. They may have tried really hard to be a good boy or girl, in an attempt to make things better. They may have tried helping out around the house to make life easier for the parent, and in an attempt to reduce the catalysts for fights. The child tries to be the peace keeper.
When that doesn’t work, they may try to rescue the parent, to help motivate them to leave or by standing up to the abusive one. But of course the child is a child acting like an adult, and the actual adult is stronger, more powerful, and can be vicious. The child is dependent on the abuser for their home, food and other necessities. It is a no win situation.
And in this situation the child has lost the ability to be a child and enjoy their childhood. their thoughts are not about their friends, toys, school, sport, playing games or having fun. Their thoughts are about survival and staying alive. Worse about keeping the depressed parent alive, if they have attempted suicide as a way to escape the abuse. The child becomes numb, simply going through the motions, withdrawn in a shell of self protection. Their life is a series of painful events, marked by even more painful events when the emotional abuser turns the focus on them, and lets rip with a torrent of cruel and mean statements about the child.
As the child grows they may come to hate the abusive parent, they may wishe they would die and even fantasise about hurting or killing the parent. This is just an attempt to gain back the power they have lost, to feel stronger, more independent, not so crushed. Few would actually act out such a fantasy.
Emotional abuse is just as devastating to a child as other forms of abuse. It sets up similar fear patterns, mistrust patterns and self loathing patterns. This damage will take years to heal. It will take many decades for the person to become fully aware of their conditioning, to feel and release the emotional pain, and balance backup to a state of self love.
They will have to learn to monitor and change their thoughts to more loving and supportive ones. They will need to change their subconscious beliefs, so that they do believe they are worthy of love, they are a worthwhile human being and they are deserving of good things.
It will take a lot of time to learn to be kind and loving to themselves. This softness will not be natural as they have grown up in harshness. So it will take time before softness feels safe and acceptable. Keep practicing until it does.
Harder still will be the ability to trust others. Mistrust will be so deep. Self protection and isolation so automatic, that it will take a lot of concerted effort to break free of it and be able to let people truly close and truly know them.
It will take a long time for the person to actually know themself – what they like to do, their interests and what is fun for them. At first this is such a foreign concept, as life has been about struggle, survival and avoiding further abuse. It hasn’t been about having fun or doing what they like. So they have to learn how to have fun, how to do a hobby and relax and enjoy it.
Their bodies are often armoured, hard with locked up muscles from keeping all the pain inside. The softness is buried beneath the armour and much work needs to be done to help the body relax and come out of its permanent state of fight, flight or freeze. The body is also likely to be exhausted from the constant stress, trauma, and lack of exercise, good food, etc. When locked in fear the breath often shallows, so the body does not get as much oxygen, it can’t digest and absorb the nutrients as well, and the adrenals get over worked and depleted, resulting in fatigue. Good diet, exercise, emotional release work and body work to help dissolve the armour and trauma all help.
Your nervious system which has been in constant fight, flight, freeze is wound up tight, constantly activated, pumping adrenaline and cortisol through your body, or if you feel there’s no hope and you’ve started to give up and shut down, then your body is pumped full of opioids to numb you.
A range of actions can help your nervous system to calm – deep breaths, time in nature, but most importantly Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) which activates the body’s natural stress, tension and trauma release mechanism, so that the body can complete the unfinished trauma reactions and return to its normal, calm state. It is well worth doing to help you find greater peace.
Once the nervous system calms and you are no longer in constant fight or flight, your mind will soften as your body will feel safer and your mind won’t feel a need to be so defensive, so your defences melt and you can open up to play, to softness, to enjoying life interacting with others.
There is much that can be done to heal from childhood emotional abuse, but it takes a lot of time and effort. If you are going through this process, be as kind to yourself as you can, understand that you are undoing a lifetime of conditioning and it will take time.Every step you take is helping. Every day it wil get a little bit better. If you feel discouraged seek help, join a support group, see a counselor, or start a fun activity to help balance up. Love yourself and your life will improve. It takes time, but it is well worth doing. Good luck, I know how hard the journey is. I also know it can be done. Blessed BE, Amen.
When someone has been raised in a violent, rage-filled home it is understandable that they automatically expect the worst to occur, because in their childhood home it did occur.Any small provocation could turn into World War 3, and as a result, the child learns to brace itself ready for what is to occur. The body goes into fight, flight or freeze ready to protect itself from the danger that was always present.
Even if the rage and terror only occurred occasionally, it is likely the child would be on high alert, as you never know what will trigger rage and horrible experience for them and the family. This fear of what may occur and usually does occur leads the child to not be able to relax and enjoy life.
Good events often turn bad or nasty once the drunk parent loses their temper, so having fun feels unsafe, dangerous to the child or doomed to end badly. This is why many children raised in alcoholic or drug-addicted homes don’t know how to have fun. They tend to isolate preferring to stay home or alone as this feels safer than risking interaction with others or having fun.
The reactions of children are not exaggerated. They respond to what occurs in their environment. If danger, violence, hurtful events occur often enough an association is built up in the brain that pain is what life is about. It becomes the dominant neural pathway and belief of the child, so naturally, they expect the worst and they do so because it often happened.
It is very hard to change this deep patterning of expecting the worst. It is not as simple as changing a thought. Every fibre of your being is used to violence, danger and preparing to protect itself. The terror, the helplessness and powerlessness of childhood abuse are catastrophic. A child in an abusive home will literally shut down, numb out, and fantasise leaving and having a better life.
The fantasy leads to resentment, shame, guilt and blame. It leads to more longing and feeling not good enough. Your family, yourself, your life are all judged as not good enough and as needing to change. This frustration at what is can become an explosive rage at the unfairness of life, of your experiences. You can then become violent, filled with hate and the cycle repeats. The child then grows into an adult with volatile tendencies and may become abusive to their families, existing and new. This is the repetitive nature of abuse in families.
The abuse comes from emotional pain that has not been dealt with. The sadness, the rage, the helplessness is all bottled up inside. If allowed out explosively it is destructive. If kept inside it is deadening, life becomes a numb, painful place where you just go through the motions, doing what you have to do, but not really feeling or enjoying anything very much.
Deep depression and sadness can occur as you realise how much you are missing out on, as you can’t shake off the doom and gloom and it feels like life never changes or improves. It can feel hopeless and people often wonder what is the point of going on. Here is the risk of suicide. Children who were abused can grow up feeling unloved, unwanted, unnecessary and feel like there is no point living, that no one would really miss them, etc. STOP! Stop this thinking. You are deeply loved, deeply, deeply loved, by God and many of the people around you, they just may not show it to you in the ways that you would like. Most parents do love their children, just their own emotional pain and addictions stop them being there for the child, stop them being tender and caring.
To stop expecting the worst to occur we have to learn to be kind and loving to ourself. We have to make the effort to do fun things and to enjoy life. Try out a hobby, a sport, an activity of some sort and find what makes your heart smile.
All the negative emotions and painful experiences will need to be released, so you can return back to a state of peace and calm. This will happen slowly and naturally. Don’t push it, force it, try to make it happen sooner. Remember to be kind to yourself in all you do.
When an emotion comes up, feel it, then let it go. Don’t hold onto it. Don’t go into judgement about it or the people involved in the remembered situation. Judgement just keeps you stuck, feeling justified in your pain and dysfunction. Judgement and blame are just ways to stay stuck in your head, ruminating over what occurred, instead of being in the present moment and listening to your heart.
When you have experienced deep pain and trauma your heart is often filled with such sadness that it is hard to feel it and sit with it. If you need help processing your emotions get it. You need a safe space in which to rest, to feel what needs to be felt and to release it safely – a counsellor, a friend, a family member, a space in nature that you connect with.
There are lots of ways to release the emotion – drawing it out, singing, running, crying, whatever works for you to shift it from locked inside your body, to being released outside of you. The concept of emotional transformation is to lovingly release what no longer serves you. You just feel it and breathe through it, until your body calms back down. You do this every time you are triggered and notice your body going into restriction, bracing itself for the worst to occur. You do this every time you feel the emotion from the past bubbling up to be released.
The more you clear out the old buried emotion and trauma, with love and kindness, you create a space for new energies to enter, for joy and peace to take hold, for love and kindness to become your dominant experience.
One way to help your body gently release all of the buried tension, trauma and stress is to use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE), to activate the body’s natural healing mechanism.
Just as your body will automatically tense at the threat of danger, react with fight, flight or freeze, it also has a process for coming out of that reactive, hypervigilant state back into calm, peaceful relating.
The process the body uses to do this is called ‘tremoring’. It literally shakes out the stress and tension that has been stored in the muscles of the body so they can relax.
All of the fight, flight chemicals, such as adrenaline and cortisol get used up with the shaking. When we get triggered and our body wants to run away or fight back but we don’t do so, those chemicals stay in the body. It is these that add to the tense muscles, the contractions and shallowing of breath, the frozen states within us.
TRE is a gentle process enabling the body to heal itself, to unwind the tension and calm back down. Once you have learned how to do TRE you can use it at home for free whenever you want to calm your body and release daily stresses.
As you release the old energies you make way for new lighter energies to enter. This makes it easier for you to move forward, to try new things and not feel so threatened.
As you’ve got less pain inside your defence mechanisms start to soften, the self-protective processes aren’t as strong as your body is no longer signalling your brain that you’re in danger all the time. As the signals ease off your mind and body relax and you can see more clearly what is actually occurring around you.
When your body is full of trauma and pain you see through that lens and you see it outside of you, see the risk of pain everywhere. It’s not that the world is a horrible, dangerous place. It’s just that’s what you see because of the pain inside you. If you clear out the pain you can see the beauty and joy in the world more easily as your body now has room for these to enter.
If you’d like to learn more about TRE visit the TRE page of my website. It would be my honour to help you learn this life-changing process to help you calm your body and enjoy life more.
As your body becomes clearer you start to expect love and kindness, it becomes your new norm. First, it comes from how you treat yourself, then it will come from those around you – as like attracts like. Vibrationally those around you will mirror what is locked inside you.
You don’t ever need to accept poor treatment, just walk away, send love and know that it is not personal. Anyone who hurts another is in inner turmoil and is just as mean and cruel to themselves. Such people need love and acceptance, not judgement and rejection. It is okay if you can’t do this yet. If you feel you still need to defend or protect yourself from others and the outside world. Your defensive patterns and automatic reactions will soften as you heal, as you start to experience kindness and peace inside.
It does require a lot of self-love and self-kindness, which you may not be used to doing. You have to cultivate this habit, you do so by tuning into your body and what it is feeling and what it needs. If it needs to rest then rest. Don’t push through till you are absolutely exhausted. Rest. Be kind and tender to yourself. Become the loving parent you didn’t have – be that for yourself.
Learn to have fun, try things out. Don’t be surprised if you don’t feel much fun at first – you are used to social situations being challenging or threatening, so it is going to take some time for it to stop being the automatic reaction and for fun to take its place.Keep doing things and you will notice in time that you are relaxing, you are having fun, and all is well.
You don’t have to stay stuck in pain or isolation. This does not help you. It just avoids the work needing to be done to find freedom and peace. There is much you can do to change negative beliefs and programming so that you do expect good things from life and you do enjoy whatever you experience. These belief changes will help, but the trauma and pain need to be released too. You can try to think positively as much as you like, but if you haven’t done the deep healing work, you are just playing around the edges, like the tip of an iceberg. You can make the tip look nice, but there is still much more to be done underneath the surface.
The most important thing to realise is that your reaction of expecting the worst to occur is a normal, understandable reaction for someone who experienced constant or ongoing terror as a child. You couldn’t relax or enjoy life because of the abuse occurring, the rage-filled or drama-filled atmosphere of your childhood home. So your reaction is normal and it can be healed – it just takes time. So be kind to yourself as you go along the healing journey and don’t give up. With every step you take, every emotion you release, your life is getting better and better. Your vibration is rising as you have less emotional density locked inside and therefore you will attract differently.
It is a long journey and sometimes it feels ridiculously long and tedious, but it is a path you have to walk if your life started harshly. You can find your way to peace and happiness, it just takes time, self-love and peaceful thoughts. Do the work required and you will be rewarded with a much more peaceful experience of life. You can have a life filled with positive events and experiences, and as that becomes your normal day to day occurrence, you will learn to expect the best to occur each day and you manifest heaven on Earth. Remember it is possible. It just takes time and effort. You can do it. You deserve it and you can achieve it. Blessed BE. Amen.
In the first blog on this topic, we talked about the impacts of abuse and mentioned some tools for healing. In the second blog, we focused on the impact on your sexuality and ability to interact lovingly with others. In this third blog, we focus on the pain and releasing it from the cells of your body.
When great trauma occurs it is often too intense for the person to cope with. They escape it in some way. It may be by pushing the pain down in their body – swallowing it, holding it deep inside locked in the cells and muscles of the body. Others push it out, try to escape it by pushing it away, pretending it didn’t happen, not wanting it to touch them ever again. This keeps it in the person’s energy bodies and it does still affect them and touch them, just energetically. It is like the black cloud walking along behind or above them. Either way, the pain and trauma stays with you.
You can tell the trauma is still there by the bodily reactions when someone comes close to you.Do you react in fear? Does your breath stop or become shallow? Do you flinch? Do your muscles tighten? Do you try to shrink and become smaller to avoid their touch? Do you become angry and resentful? Do you puff up trying to become bigger to warn off the person and protect yourself?
Clearly, any of these reactions show that the body is not relaxed and at ease, the body is not feeling safe or trusting of other people. This shows the body is still locked into the trauma and is in a state of fear, not love, not peace, and certainly not joy. It can be. You just have to release the trauma out of the body.
The trauma is stored within the cells and muscles of your body. That’s why you get tight muscles. They’re literally frozen, tensed up in fear, ready to react to defend yourself, run away or freeze and be still so you hopefully can hide and not be seen.
It is exhausting for the body to be tense and on hyperalert so much. This tension and the trauma underneath it can be released out of the body so that your body relaxes and so that your mind doesn’t feel a need to be so defensive. Relaxing the body results in the mind softening and your defences melting. We literally thaw out the frozen parcels of trauma stored within the body so they can melt away.
One way to do this is through ‘tremoring’. Your body has an inbuilt shaking mechanism to help shift out the trauma and tension from your body. All mammals have it. The shaking uses up the adrenaline and cortisol, the fight or flight chemicals that were created in the life-threatening moment. If you couldn’t run away or fight back at the time, then these chemicals didn’t get used up. They stayed in your body resulting in the tension and clenched muscles.
Your body was primed, ready to fight or run, but it didn’t get to and afterwards the body didn’t relax fully. It still felt on edge, nervous, anxious, because these chemicals weren’t discharged. The trauma activation never got released. Later when we get triggered, when our body startles easily, is on edge, even if there is no real danger, it is because of these unfinished trauma activations.
You can use ‘Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help the body complete these activations, to use up the fight or flight chemicals through shaking, resulting in the body finally being able to relax, to know the war is over, that you survived and you’re okay.
TRE is a very simple process and once learned you can use it yourself forever for free, to release stress, tension and trauma. If you’d like to learn more about TRE click here to watch some videos or to book in an appointment in person or an appointment online to learn TRE. It is well worth doing so your body can finally relax.
Another important process for helping the body to relax and to complete the trauma stored within is inner child recovery work. When you get triggered or scared it is actually a younger part of you that is triggered and scared.
By becoming conscious of your bodily reactions it enables you to start self-soothing. You can tell yourself “You are safe, it’s okay I’m not in danger here”. You can self soothe by holding your own hand, so to speak, or lovingly stroking your arm or your hair. This calms the body, to know it is held and cared for. I have literally stroked my own hair at times of distress and it feels like a safe adult is brushing the hair of a vulnerable child, and this act of self-kindness leads to a softening of the emotion and relaxation back to peace.
Basically, you become the protective, loving parent of the scared child within you.There is literally a scared child inside you and an angry one and a mad, bad, stomp on all the bad guys one who wants to punish those that hurt people. These are the parts of you from the time that you were that age and experienced those things. You can easily access these inner children by closing your eyes and asking to see them.
At first, they may be hiding from you, you might just sense a closed door or a room of furniture with the inner child hiding behind the sofa, just peeking out at you. You need to win their trust, to have them feel you are safe, you will be there for them and they can tell you how they feel and what they need and you won’t reject or abandon them.
In time as you imagine sitting and talking with them, they will start to trust you and come closer, they will start to share their deepest secrets about what hurt them the most. Listen to them, reassure them you love them and that they were not at fault. It was not their fault if someone older sexually abused them or interfered with them. Many inner children may be confused. They may have allowed the contact to occur because the perpetrator was being nice to them, showing them love and tenderness when others weren’t. When it is a parent, step-parent, Uncle, Grandpa or family friend involved, it is extra confusing to the child as that person was known to them, was a safe space, but then all of a sudden wasn’t.
The child may not have thought what occurred was wrong, they may have thought it a game, only to find out later it was labelled as bad or sinful. There are lots of different scenarios.
The point is your inner child is likely to feel confused and until that is cleared up, they won’t feel comfortable trusting anyone else who enters your life. They will always be cautious and on guard, wondering if this new, supposedly safe person is going to one day hurt them like the family member did. Therefore, they don’t relax, they keep their guard up and stay alert for danger.
In this way, they refuse to let love in. Even if the other person is genuinely authentic in their caring for the person who has suffered abuse, it is difficult for the abused person to accept it, believe it or reciprocate it. This, of course, has detrimental effects on relationships and prevents true intimacy and the feeling of being loved for who you are. Without love coming in from within – to ourself, or from without – from others, our cup becomes empty and we can fall into despair, depression and feeling worthless, unloved, unwanted and think the world is a horrible place.
Yet the love and the light is there, good people are all around us, we just have to learn to let the love in, and to do so we need to allow ourselves to feel vulnerable, to take the risk to love and receive love, to surrender to life and its process of awakening.
While the inner child is still confused, scared, angry or ashamed this process is blocked or minimised, often to the point of almost complete annihilation. Anyone who dares to show you love or acceptance becomes seen as a threat, a bad person or foolish one because if they truly knew you, you think they shouldn’t love you, and hence if they do they must not be very wise, smart or worth much. So you judge them and push them away.
To stop such patterns you need to heal your heart, talk to your inner child, send it love. Any time you feel scared, know it is your inner child asking for reassurance, wanting to know you are aware of its concern, and you are taking care of the situation, that you will keep them safe and it’s okay for them to go play or have a nap. They may prefer to stay with you, clinging to the back of your leg, watching to make sure you do handle whatever interaction is occurring that has led to their nervousness.
In time, once they have seen you do handle it and keep them safe, then they will relax and go play, they will become a joyful, innocent child again and this frees you the Adult to also enjoy life again. Your body relaxes, so much so, that when someone approaches you, you do not react with fear or hesitation. You can welcome the person and interact joyfully, peacefully, light-heartedly. It takes a long time to reach this stage, but it is worth the effort.
All it takes is becoming conscious of your patterning and comforting your self, your inner child, becoming the good parent to it and guardian of it, and in time it will relax. Then the pleasure is amazing. You can stare at the leaves moving in the tree and feel transported into a magical place again, you can feel the awe and wonder that a little child feels for life. You can see the beauty and love all around you and you can let it in.
You can let yourself receive love and goodness and the Universe pours it into you. It always has been doing this, but our defences have stopped us receiving it. With those defences melted away, we can finally accept the goodness and allow ourselves to have a happy life, with friends, love and peace. It is wonderful to do so. Blessed BE. Amen.
We have all made poor choices at one time or another. We have all done things we later regretted or with hindsight wished we hadn’t done. Given our time over we would choose differently. We all make mistakes = miss takes. To err is human, to repeat the same error over and over again is foolish. We must learn from what we experience or what we experience will not change.
Life presents us with a series of opportunities to choose again, to choose from love, to take more positive action than we were able to take at first. This is life – a cycle of improvements, of decisions born from hate, lust, envy, greed, etc that eventually get made from love, with consideration and compassion for all involved. As we learn we evolve higher in our consciousness and our vibration raises.
Do not punish yourself over your earlier choices. At an earlier time of life you did not have the knowledge and awareness you do now. Let yourself off the hook.See yourself with kindness and compassion, and lighten up! Let go, don’t be so serious. It is alright to have stuffed up, we all do at times. We all make poor choices some times. We just need to learn from them and choose differently.
You don’t need to suffer, make amends or go without. You don’t need to make yourself ill or keep yourself poor or sacrifice your joy. You deserve to be happy, no matter what you have done before. Choose peace with your past and enjoy your now. You are allowed to, really you are.
Know that we all make mistakes, sometimes big, sometimes small. It is part of being human. Say you’re sorry if you want to and get on with your life. Your loved ones will forgive you for hurting them in time, especially if they can see your growth, your genuine regret and sorrow over what you have done. It is okay to move forward and prosper. It is okay. No matter what you have done, you can choose peace and choose future actions from a space of love, to do so is divine. To do so is freedom and liberation.
Trust in life to help you move forward and achieve your dreams. If it is meant to be, it will. Know nothing happens by accident, it is all preplanned, destined from before you were born. The things you class as your deepest regrets were meant to happen, they lead to your greatest growth. That is their purpose, that is the reason for their existence. So allow what is, accept what has been and choose peace in the now. It is up to you.
Would you hold a small child responsible for their actions? No, because you know they don’t know better. They are not mature enough to know the consequences of their actions. We are the same. We may be adults, but we are immature beings unaware of the bigger picture and slowly waking up to our purpose in our life. When we know better we can do better, but not before. So forgive yourself for past actions and love who you are now, love yourself and others. Be kind in all you do, then you can be proud of your now and your future. Blessed BE. Amen.
It is truly okay to move forward and forget the past. You don’t have to cling to it. Let it drop away and start anew. Just like rain washes away the residue on roads and lawns, let your tears wash away your regrets and sadness. Let the sun rise and joy fill your eyes. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to bloom and show your beauty to the world. Let your garden blossom and honour all the plants within it. For it is the variety that makes it interesting. Let yourself blossom and celebrate life. For you truly can. Blessed BE, Amen.
Nature vibrates at the rate of Source energy. It helps us slow down and our vibration rise. It is calming and soothing to our nervous systems that are over stimulated from modern living and rushing around.
Nature shows us life’s pace – things grow, bloom, wither and die. There is no fanfare or drama linked to these events, it is simply part of life.There are times when life seems bountiful – good weather, nutrients, enough water and plants thrive. There are times when life seems poor, harsh and cruel – no water, drought, blistering heat. Yet the plants and animals simply adjust, changing their behaviour to suit the circumstances. Some may perish. This is not a personal vendetta or attack. It is simply life in the bigger picture.
All species need some form of control to limit numbers and destruction of the ecosystem from over population. Different species eat each other. Pests and disease come to wipe out some populations. It is all part of the cycle of life.
Trees don’t take it personally when the wind blows, pushing them around. They just bend as much as they can and let the wind blow. They don’t go into ‘Why me, it’s so unfair, i’m a good tree, I haven’t hurt anyone, etc’. They just bend and adjust. They just keep growing. And life can be much simpler and more enjoyable for us if we learn to do the same.
It is our emotional reactions to events in our life that create the suffering. If we just flow with life, accepting what occurs and adjusting to it as need be, we wouldn’t suffer as much.
The loss of that job or partner is not a tragedy, it is a step in your evolutionary process, it is leading you forward to something far greater.
When we are comfortable in our lives, we just sit and be still through much of it. This is beneficial, a time of rest, restrengthening. The bud is beginning to reach out, absorb the sun and is readying itself to burst forth in bloom when the time is right.
Most of us will not step out of our nice, comfy place without a push, a life event catapaulting us forward to face whatever needs to be faced for our growth and evolution. We need the storms in order to grow. The floods and fires shake things up so that new life can spring forth once the tidal wave of change recedes.
Big events in our lives, unexpected massive changes to our lives are like these storms. They unhook us from our stable foundations and force us to adapt, to find a way to evolve and grow.
Human beings are part of nature and are also exposed to similar cycles and patterns of growth. Nature itself shows us the most useful way to respond. Nature adapts and moves on.The deer run when the lion is around and rest when it is not. The bear hibernates in winter. He doesn’t push through, trying to force things to be different than they are. He just does the wisest thing he can to conserve his energy and stay strong. He rests, sleeps deeply and awakens when the time is right and the harvest is present. We do the same.
Spending time in nature helps us in so many ways. The green colour which is so prevalent in natural scenes soothes our heart and helps the heart chakra open. The blue of water soothes our throat making it easier for us to calmly speak our truth. The beauty of nature leaves us in awe of life and to creation, helping us consider that there may be a creator who produced all of this magnificence.
Nature soothes us, replenishes us and helps us ground within our bodies, to come out of the head or mind chatter and be present in the moment.Walking bare foot on grass helps us heal. It allows the energy of the Earth to travel up our legs and calm the body. It is a good cure for jet lag too, helping us adjust to the new location / new energy that you are in.
Nature truly is our friend, of great benefit to us and when we destroy it, we are harming ourselves literally. Without nature in abundance the air we breathe would not get cleansed or purified, the water cycle would not work as well and pollution would stagnate in our water instead of being filtered out. The soil would erode without tree roots holding it in place and the land would become barren, making it more difficult to grow our food.
When we disturb the balance of nature we suffer as well. So plant some trees, support your local environmental groups and give thanks to this wonderful planet who supports us, nourishes us and heals us, all without asking for recognition, compensation or reward. Thank you Mother Nature. Thank you. Blessed BE, Amen.
Each of you has your child-self inside you, the memories and feelings of what it was like at each age of your life. These memories and feelings still affect you today and can sabotage your life. If you are wanting to do something new, to take a risk and explore a new aspect of life, these younger parts of you may try to stop you if they don’t feel safe, if they remember taking risks before led to lots of pain or change = loss, heart break. In this sense they are trying to protect you and keep you safe. If you want to go ahead with your risk taking you will need to talk to and work with your inner child to reassure them that you are aware of the risk and you are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t go badly.
You literally can talk to, cuddle and hold your inner child. Close your eyes and feel them inside you. They may be hiding from view at first, but as you talk to them and try to connect with them they will come out from the shadows to talk to you. Ideally you want to build a healthy, loving relationship with your inner child. Check in with them daily, even if it is only a few minutes. See how they are feeling and ask them what they need. If you have been working really hard they may want you to rest and have some fun. You can visualise going to the partk with them and playing on the play equipment or having a picnic by the sea. There is no limit to this inner contact and its possibilities. As the child learns to trust you it will relax and play more on its own, not needing to interrupt your plans with its fear, concerns or anger. Ignoring your inner child is a recipe for disaster. It will throw a tantrum and cause you to behave in less than ideal ways. Better to meet your inner child’s needs first so this doesn’t occur.
My child was very scared and grumpy at first, feeling alone, neglected and abandoned. She wanted icecream and attention. She wanted to be heard and listened to as she told me all of the things I had done that hurt her. She then wanted the chance to dot he same with my parents and others whose actions had affected her. This can all be done through guided visualisations.
Basically your inner child wants you to become the good, attentive, loving parent to it.They may feel you didn’t receive enough love and attention when little and they want to receive that from you. If you give it they become contented, happy, joyful, playful and help you go through life seeing the beauty and innocence all around us.
Many of us had to grow up too quick. Many kids learn very young to shut off their childlikeness and innocence to focus on the needs of others – to watch out for danger in an abusive home or unsafe environment. Many end up taking care of their parent who may have been depressed, suicidal, or otherwise unavailable. Many kids become much older than their physical age by taking on some role in the family, it may be caring for siblings if the parents don’t do it. For whatever reasons, many people do not experience the beauty and innocence of childhood where life is all about exploring, learning, playing and having fun. Those inner children who missed out on that, who grew up too quick, may still be trying to control what happens to you, continuing to play the role of watcher, protector, guardian. They may be scanning for danger constantly or fearful of what might occur. They need you to take over, to be the adult, and to allow them to finally be a child and do age appropriate things. Then they can relax and play. They can open their hearts back up and have fun. They can let go of their grudges and resentments. As they heal we obtain the freedom to be more adult-like, to operate from the present, as oposed to being affected by the past.
The role of the inner child is to show us what we still need to heal and to help us return to our state of innocence and peace. They remind us how to live life in the moment in awe of the natural world around us. They remind us how to play, have fun, love unconditionally and just BE. They have a very important role in helping us return to health and wholeness. Love them, take time to be with them and your life will blossom, as you do so internally. Our inner children are very important and deserve to be rescued from the pain they have been trapped in for decades. Set them free and you also free yourself. Blessed BE, Amen.
This is a gigantic topic that can not be addressed in one blog. We will give some general guidance and cover other aspects in future blogs. Childhood sexual abuse is a heinous act that takes away a child’s sense of innocence and trust in the world. Whether the act was done in a violent or loving manner it rips apart a child’s identity. They are no longer a child living in a world of mystery, awe and learning. They no longer can lose themselves in the moment, they lose spontaneity and joy for life. In its place come watching, scanning for danger, for fear of it happening again. Confusion terrifies – is it good, bad, dirty, evil? Am I a bad person because of it? Why is it a secret? Why mustn’t others know? All of this takes a child out of a child’s mindset and experience of life. It robs them of their freedom to live life innocently and openly connecting with self, others, nature and life.
Each experience is different, based on the particular circumstances, but none of them are beneficial to the child. The child may feel some pleasure in the physical touch. They may feel love towards the perpetrator who is giving them special attention. They may become jealous of the other parent and sharing the perpetrator with them. This sets up an unhealthy competition between mother and daughter (if that is the scenario). Or mother may be depressed, father/stepfather unhappy and the child steps in to compensate, hoping father will stay, not leave.
There are many combinations and the above relates to incest by family members or friends of the family. These are the most common forms of incest. Strangers molesting children is much rarer. It is usually a person known to the child. Someone they trust and this also has a massive impact on their ability to trust others.
Whatever the situation, healing from childhood sexual abuse is a long and tedious process. All the various emotions have to be felt and released. The dysfunction of the family and the complicity of those involved has to be seen and acknowledged.Your parents / the adults should have been protecting you, but they didn’t. Shame, anger, rage, grief, loss, isolation, pain, all has to be worked through, before light can start to enter.
Because these events were so painful and confusing it is automatic to push the memories and feelings away when they surface, but suppressing them does not help. It just keeps them locked inside the body and the person numbed out from feeling fully.This means that they can not experience great joy or happiness either, as their feelings are numbed, on auto pilot, shut down to the bare minimum.
This all releases in time as the person learns to feel the emotions and release them. This can be done willingly or not. The body will trigger releases when it feels you are ready for them – be it flashbacks, memories surfacing, body aches / rashes, pain or emotional outbursts. It surfaces in many ways and it will impact your ability to function in your day to day life. Surrender to the process and allow the emotion to be felt and released. It will take time, a lot of time, but it will get easier as you learn how to deal with an emotional release and support yourself through the process.
Eat well, rest and get lots of sleep. Your body is undergoing massive shifts and changes. If the trauma or emotional pain was too intense it gets locked inside the body and it all has to come back out. It needs time for this to all occur. There are no miracle cures or quick answers. It has to occur bit by bit so you can cope and process the emotions that surface.
You will need to work through feelings of loss and its impact on your life.
You will have to work through feelings of betrayal and perhaps a desire to punish those involved for what happened, and for not looking after you.
You will have to work through any shame you feel and learn that it is safe to open back up to love, sexuality, passion and joy.
You will need to learn to trust others and allow yourself to be vulnerable again.
There is much healing to occur and it does take many years to fully resolve. That is the sad truth of it. It is a major impact on a person’s life and they have to deal with it the best they can. It does lead to lots of personal growth and insight, which is a good thing, but it is a hard way to get it. Especially when others around you may seem to be having a happy, easy life. So jealousy and feelings of ‘Why me?’, of victimhood, also have to be worked through.
It is a tumultuous ride and no wonder the body may struggle at times to cope with it all. Depression is common as people work through the issues. Do your best to support yourself with kindness, love and friendship. Be the loving parent to yourself that you wished your parents were. Be patient and kind to yourself, you are doing the best you can. Know it will shift in time and while frustrating, your feelings and experience is normal. It is part of the process. That is why we said it is a heinous act. It is one that destroys a person’s natural ability to live and enjoy their life. It dominates their reactions to life and the way they interact with others. All this damage, this processing and conditioning, has to be worked through and released.
Many people become over weight, even obese, as a result of childhood sexual abuse. They hide under the layers or weight, feeling more protected and safe. At some level they hope they are safer as they feel less attractive and hope no one will attack them again.
Some remain extremely thin, afraid to exist, and not accepting nourishment. They hope if they look weak, thin, like a child, people will take pity on them and hopefully look after them. The self loathing, shame and rejection of self can lead them to self harm, to punish themselves and therefore not nourish their bodies appropriately.
Some people armour up. They put layers of energetic and physical armouring on their body, which hardens them. It makes them rigid and cold and deflects off anyone or anything that approaches them. It acts as a defense, but keeps them isolated as no one can get close enough to give them love. Love would melt the armour and help the emotions to surface. But until a person is ready this feels threatening so they would push away anyone who comes close and tries to love them. They may judge those who come close as unacceptable, untrustworthy – finding some fault in them to justify their actions and rejection of them. This can be a very lonely and sad way to live.
Some channel their anger and rage into their work. They may fight for some cause, some charity, in an attempt to protect the vulnerable in society or the planet itself from abuse by man. This fight, this burning passion to save others or the Earth is due to their own buried pain and the need for themselves to be saved, rescued, loved and supported. It is a projection outwards of what they actually need. They need to allow themselves to be vulnerable, weak, and to be looked after by others. They have been trying to be strong for so long that eventually they will collapse and burnout. They will need to rest and face what is inside. They can’t go on fighting forever as they are depleting their energy reserves and no matter what they achieve in their work it will never feel like it is enough, because it isn’t what they really need. What they really need is to look inside themselves, feel the emotional pain and release it, so they can then enjoy their lives as much as possible.
Finding peace after childhood sexual abuse is possible. It is just a long journey. Call on the Angels and your Guides to help you. Find practitioners to support you – energetically with healing; your body physically with releasing; and nutritionally with vitamins.There are many different tools and techniques that can be used to support you through the process. Try different things and see what works for you. The key is to remember to be patient, loving and kind with yourself. You have suffered enough, so don’t burden yourself by feeling not good enough or getting mad at yourself.
Inside you is the scared, wounded, confused child who went through the experience. He/she needs your love and support. They need to be talked to, listened to and reassured. They need to be helped to feel safe again and to trust that you, the Adult you, will look after them. Then they can relax and play again, they can become a natural child again – free, spontaneous, in awe of life and full of joy at what they see. This then unlocks the door to your freedom to enjoy life more fully. So love yourself through it all. Talk to your inner child regularly. Tell him/her that you love them, you will protect them and you are sorry about what they went through. In time they will trust you more and open up. You can visualise with your eyes closed and imagine playing in the park with your inner child. You can eat ice-cream together and do all that you missed out on. You can have fun and form a strong connection and feeling of safety, of being loved, accepted and safe. That is important to do. It brings light into your life and the ability to have fun and play.
Life is meant to be enjoyed. Just this and other experiences get in the way. Do the work to free yourself from the past, so that you can enjoy the rest of your life and make the most of it. You can do it and it’s worth doing.
Don’t keep pushing the emotions away that prolongs the process.
Breathe through emotions as they arise.
If it is really intense you can scream or yell.
You may want to hit cushions against your bed or lounge to release the anger.
Buried emotions within my body
You may draw pictures of how you feel releasing the energy onto paper. Whatever method works for you to get it out of your body.
Some people like to go the gym or run until they are exhausted and the energy has shifted.
Hot, salt baths help to cleanse and soothe the body after a release.
Massage and other body work can help muscles to relax and the body to let go of tension and being in constant fight or flight mode ready to defend itself.
Time in nature helps ground us and strengthen us to cope with what we are going through.
Feel the Earth’s energy and allow her to hold you, support you. Imagine her energy coming up through your feet and filling you with love and support. See all that you don’t need draining out of your feet, back into the Earth – give her your heaviness, your pain, your emotions, she can process them for you, turning them into positive energy. The Earth is fertilised with our crap and that of all animals. It is why we put manure into the soil. You can do the same energetically. She can cope with it all. Do this visualisation daily or whenever you feel you have something to release.
Counselling can help if you find a therapist who is familiar with these issues and the complexities involved. It is not completely necessary, but for many people they have isolated themselves enough they have no one they trust or can talk to about what they are going through. If this is the case a counsellor can be that person and someone you experiment being vulnerable with, revealing your secrets and your fears, desires and truth.
Each person’s journey will be unique to them and it all takes time. Go easy with yourself. You don’t need to dig through your past trying to find clues about what did or didn’t happen. it will surface when it is meant to, when you are strong enough and ready to process it.So just enjoy your life as much as you can and know that you will remember or be triggered by others when the time is right for you to complete the next part of your healing journey.
Know that you do deserve peace, love and happiness, and you can get it. In time you will be free and you will be so grateful for that. You are brave souls on a massive journey. We cheer you on from the sidelines and we watch your progress. We hold your hands when you cry, and laugh along with you when you laugh. We are always here, supporting and encouraging you, whispering in your ear helping you to intuitively know what you need to do next. You are never alone. You are held in the arms of God and the angels. You are cherished and cared for by those of us assigned to you this lifetime. We see your beauty. We see your strength, your innocence and goodness. It is our job to help you to see them too. We love you. Blessed BE. Adieu.
By Jodi-Anne (09 Aug 2015).
Here are links to Part 2 and Part 3 of How to heal after childhood sexual abuse. Each post deals with a different aspect of how to heal.
An abortion causes a death not only to the fetus, but also inside the parents. The guilt, shame and grief that results is enormous. Some push it away, pretend it didn’t happen. Some get angry and want to blame their circumstances or the other person. Some want to die themselves or punish themselves for their choices. None of this is helpful.
What helps most is to honour the child, to love them, to thank them for choosing you as a parent and to acknowledge the truth that you weren’t willing to accept the role.Thank them for choosing you and make it clear that you were not ready or capable for whatever reasons, but you love and accept them into your heart. You did not reject the child itself. It is worthy of life, of love, of acceptance. You were just not able to provide it at the time. This is the truth that must be heard and honoured, so that soul does not feel alone, abandoned, rejected and lives in pain. Let it live in love inside your heart.
“I honour you for wanting to be with me, to have me be your parent. I honour that and I wish you well. I pray you find soul’s more willing than I, who say yes, next time you attempt to birth into life on Earth”.
Imagining them happy with new parents is beneficial. You give them permission to move on and the same for yourself. There is no benefit from getting sick, dying, staying small or unsuccessful or childless. You are allowed to be happy, successful, healthy and be a good, loving parent when you are ready.
You do not have to miss out on life just because the child did. Choose instead to do something good to honour the child.Donate to an orphanage, honour a foster child, carry a photo of your loved one in your heart, share your story with the world to help others. Make sure something good occurs as a result of the experience and the child’s sacrifice.
“Because of you I have healed my wounds and become a better person. I am no longer focused on my career at the expense of everything else. I am no longer so caught up in my head that I don’t hear my heart. Because of you I have faced my hurt and processed it. I have become a better person and I will use it to help others who also need to heal and hear their heart’s messages. Because of you I am living a healthier life and when I do get pregnant again I will realise how lucky I am and will be grateful. I will never again take it for granted or so lightly. I now realise the seriousness of my choice and the severe consequences that can result. I will not make reckless or thoughtless choices again. I will honour all who come across my path. Because of you and the pain I felt at your loss, I have learned what it is like to suffer needlessly, to be deeply depressed and to regret your choices. I will be better able to empathise with others who also suffer, due to my experiences with you. I will be a better person, Mother and therapist, because of you. Thank you for the many gifts you have given me. May you also receive gifts and blessings throughout your life that lead to your soul’s evolutionary growth. Thank you for being that catalyst for me.”
If you can find some form of the above, some form of value that has resulted from the experience, it can help shift the guilt and blame, pain and sadness. It can help awaken hope, love and light – allowing life again.
Know that every soul gets exactly what it needs to experience for its evolution.They choose what will occur prior to incarnating. So a child knows in advance whether or not it will get born or die young. This is known to the soul/spirit of the child and because it is still in spirit form before birth, it is still connected to God/Source and knows what is occurring.
Those souls that choose to be miscarried or aborted have chosen that experience. They may not be ready for a full life experience and just want a taste. They may choose to go through it to assist the Mother and bring new life into her body – the cells growing and cleansing her body of the old. There can be many reasons. The soul may choose the experience knowing it will be a catalyst to shift the parents out of their current slumber – to improve things or leave the relationship. God and that soul knows the reasons. You will too once you pass over and see the reasons for all events in your life and what they were teaching you and helping you evolve.
There are no mistakes, everything happens perfectly for the evolution of all souls. So forgive yourself, accept your choices, feel the pain and let it go.Vow to do better next time and honour the child that was and those that come after. Choose to honour the child by living your life fully. You are allowed to enjoy your life and be happy. That is what God wants for you and all souls.
You have not sinned or killed. It was not your intent to brutally slaughter the child. It is not the same as murder at all. Your circumstances, your maturity level, all led to your choice. With greater wisdom you would have chosen differently. But at the time you did what you thought was best. Do not ruin the rest of your life over that choice. Let yourself off the hook and be happy. Live fully and be a loving parent when the time is right. It truly is okay and you have been forgiven – by God, by the soul involved. You just have to forgive yourself. You can do it.
If you are struggling seek help and support from loved ones, a therapist or a support group. So many people have experienced this. It is actually quite common, it is just not talked about. You don’t have to suffer alone. Reach out and get the assistance you need.
You can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help release the stress, tension and trauma, so that you can relax more, come out of numbness, depression and shut down.
TRE can help you to shake out the pain, teh dense emotion and stuck energy, so that you come back to life more fully. You can use it regularly as part of your self-care routine. Once you have learned TRE and how to self-regulate your shaking you can use TRE for free at home whenever you want to help you and your body to relax and find peace. It is well worth doing.
Gratitude comes easily once you have made it a habit. You can be thankful for the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the home you live in, the friends you have. There are many people in the world who do not have these luxuries, they sleep cold in the street and starve most days. So be grateful for what you have, even if it annoys you, even if it is not your favourite taste or look. At least you have it, whatever it is.
Nature vibrates at the rate of Source energy. It helps us slow down and our vibration rise.
