Last night I watched ‘The Drover’s Wife’ on Netflix. It broke my heart wide open and then I closed it over to cope with the grief, the anger and the pain from domestic violence and alcohol fueled violence that affects so many women and children, myself included.
It is devastating as a child watching your parent be verbally, emotionally, physically and/or sexually abused. It is infuriating that you are too small to save them, to fight back, to stand up to the abuser and tell them to “STOP. Take responsibility for their pain and their life, to be a caring, mature adult and do the right thing”.
The joy of life gets stripped away as you deal with your anger, your resentment, your fear of when it is going to happen next or if it will get worse. You worry about your parent getting seriously hurt or killed and you being left alone with the perpetrator. You worry about when he/she will turn on you. You feel so helpless and hopeless.
You wonder why none of the other adults in your life step in to help. You wonder why your parent stays and allows themselves to be treated so poorly.
You struggle to lift your head up and live. You wonder “What’s the point of trying if it is always going to be like this”. You don’t ever relax fully just in case the fighting breaks out again.
Fun times, parties, are not fun for you as you know once the perpetrator gets drunk the fighting is likely to start. So, you brace yourself ready for what is to come. You hope and pray it doesn’t occur this time. You pray that maybe just once they will pass out before they attack and abuse.
You wonder whether there is any goodness in them at all and how they can live with themselves afterwards, after being so cruel and destructive.
You wonder why life is so hard and why humans can be so cruel. To survive you harden up, you numb yourself to the pain, you become bitter, cynical and angry. You do what you have to do to survive, even if that means isolating yourself from those you love, never letting anyone close because you don’t want to see their pain, face them being hurt anymore.
You close down and retreat into yourself or you leave, run away physically or energetically, no longer being a part of the family system. But energetically, spiritually we are always a part of our family system. They are in our blood, our DNA, the cells of our body. We live because they lived and passed on life to us. We can’t cut ourselves off, that’s like cutting off our own arm.
If we do cut ourselves off fully we will eventually get drained, exhausted, burnt out as we have cut ourselves off from the goodness, the energy supply, the river of life force that flows through our ancestors to our parents to us.
They are a part of us. We are a part of them. Our job as adults is to find our way back to our hearts, to feel our pain and to humbly stand before our parents and speak our truth.
“It hurt so much to see you suffer. I just wanted you to be safe. I wanted to feel your love and play. I wanted to be seen and listened to, to be heard and cared for. I accept you couldn’t give me that, you didn’t have any more energy, love or joy to give to me with what you were facing.
Thank you for giving me what you could. What you couldn’t give me I’ve had to find from elsewhere. It’s taken a long time to find it Mum, but I have found it. I honour you and all you went through.
I thank you for my life and for the closeness we now have. Thank you for finding your way through too. I’m so glad you won’t let anyone treat you that way ever again. I love you so much and I welcome you back into my heart, my life, my love and I look forward to spending more time together actually enjoying life. Thank you Mum, thank you for my life”.
When we can do this, we set them and ourselves free. We get to have peace in our hearts and calm in our bodies and nervous systems. We get to step out of hypervigilance, scanning for danger and isolating for protection.
We get to rejoin life and to see that there is love and goodness out there. There are lots of people who treat each other with love and respect. We start to let ourselves participate in life more fully and receive the love and goodness we have always longed for.
In time we also see that the perpetrator didn’t know how to behave better, how to cope with their hurts and disappointments from their life. As we heal we eventually find compassion for them and their journey. We see that they had deep pain inside which leads to their lashing out and hurting others.
We see that as an adult we can now walk away from that. We don’t have to stay entangled in their pain. We can hand it back and leave it with them. We can bow, honouring their difficult journey and then turn to face our own life, to walk forward into our future, using what we have learned to create as much goodness, love and joy as we can.
May all children and parents who have suffered from domestic violence find peace. May they heal and come back together to honour the love they have for each other and enjoy the rest of their lives as much as they can. Blessed BE.
(The healing process I’ve explained above is just my life’s example. A lot of the deep healing occurred through doing Family Constellations sessions where I could feel my feelings and speak my truth to someone standing in as a representative for my Mum and my Stepdad. I didn’t have those conversations with my actual parents. That would have been too confronting with the level of pain I had and they may not have been able to hear it.
Family Constellations creates a safe space for you to speak your truth and heal. Once you have healed and found more peace you might have a truthful conversation with your parents. When you’ve reached a greater level of peace within you, you are less vulnerable, less likely to be reactive or defensive if they can’t hear you or acknowledge what you have been through. Your parents will have seen what occurred very differently to you. If they have not dealt with their pain they may simply deny it or push you away as it is too hard for them to face it.)
Recently I’ve been having more memories of sexual abuse arise. As I comfort my younger selves and release the buried trauma and emotion I found myself asking this question and channelling this answer. I hope it is useful to those who have experienced abuse and are finding their way through it. Many blessings to all, Jodi-Anne
When you have been sexually abused your body becomes numb, armoured, and protected so that you don’t feel the full impact of the abuse or what happened afterwards. As you heal you start to soften the defences and open back up to love, touch, closeness, and intimacy. For some this is too scary, so they stay celibate, not able to trust another to treat them right.
Some stay in the pain and continue to let themselves be touched in ways that are not beneficial. They let themselves be used by others for the momentary feeling of being wanted, loved, and special, only to find that once the act is over the other leaves them feeling even more alone, abandoned, used and discarded.
It is a hard path to navigate. It is hard on your body that gets armoured with each impact, each indiscretion, and each choice. It is not empowering to sleep around thinking you have the choice and freedom to do as you please. Seducing others so you feel powerful just leads you to despise them and yourself. For at a later stage you will regret your choices and your naivete. You will feel the emptiness and neediness that was underneath your actions. Even though you were voluntarily engaging with others sexually, it is still a form of self-neglect and self-abuse.
The healing comes when you start to honour yourself more fully. When you start to say “No, I am going to look after myself. I don’t need anyone else to give me false affection. I am going to meet my needs. I am going to honour my body and all it has been through. I am going to treat myself like the precious being that I am. I am going to hold my own hand and look after myself. I will love, cherish and honour the innocence inside me, which is still there, still pure, no matter what I’ve been through. I am still a beautiful bright light. I’ve just been covered in dust. I am going to cleanse my lens and shine.”
No need for shame, guilt, punishment, rejection or further loss. You are worthy of great love, kindness, care and joy. When children are exposed to sexuality too early they don’t realise their bodies are sacred. They don’t realise they are precious and only to be touched by loving hands at the right time when they are older. They simply don’t have the information or adult reasoning capacity to make wise choices.
The physical sensation of pleasure is tempting. The choice to have closeness and feel special is attractive. It draws them in, especially if they are not receiving healthy levels of love and affection from their parents, leaving them needy, hungry, longing for connection, susceptible and vulnerable to abuse.
Children are so innocent, so pure. Even those that appear a little naughty or rebellious. They are just learning what it is like to be human, how to deal with all the emotions that arise in their bodies and little brains.
They need healthy adults to guide them and protect them from inappropriate activities. If these adults are not around or not paying enough attention then the child may find itself in less-than-ideal situations. It is not the child’s fault. The child is still innocent, even if their curiosity led them down a destructive path. They just needed more guidance and protection from the adults around them.
Parents need more support, guidance and help. Parenting is a hard job. It is a job, a full-time job, and now that it is common in society for both parents to be working, and for children to be put into daycare more often, the children are made susceptible to inappropriate tactics of other immature, wounded adults.
Children’s emotional needs for safety, feeling loved, seen and heard do not get met if parents are always rushing, tired and exhausted. Their needs don’t get met if parents aren’t available to play and be with them, to sit and hold them in nurturing and healthy ways. If they don’t get their needs met then they are put at risk, as they will be looking for that love, that closeness and connection from others who they encounter.
Our society is not set up for parents to be successful. It is set up now for parents to be drained, stressed, exhausted and depressed or angry, as they know life can be easier and more enjoyable.
Many parents struggle with putting their children in care for long hours each work day, but they feel they have no choice when they need the income to provide a home and a lifestyle of success and wealth.
Children do not care about wealth. They care about you and their connection with you, with how close they feel to you, of whether they feel wanted or not, or a burden to you. They sense your disappointment with life if that is your situation. They sense your emotional pain and distress. They try to help fix it so you can be available to love them more. They want you to feel good so you can give to them. So they sacrifice their needs and start asking for less, expecting less from you. They may help out around the house more or just play on their own.
They may disconnect from you and connect with others whose time and attention they can get. This leads to unhealthy patterns where a child may start seeing the most popular kids at childcare or school as their role models, their leaders or pseudo-parents. They start to copy them and take their lead as to how to dress, behave and what to do. They become followers of others in the hope to belong and be accepted, to receive praise and love from others.
They no longer look to their parents for that role modelling. They no longer care as much about winning their parents’ approval, so they don’t care so much when you tell them off or discipline them. They feel “You don’t care about what I wanted so why should I care about what you want or need”. They rebel from younger and younger ages. This is documented in Gabor Mate’s book ‘Hold onto your kids: why parents need to matter more than peers.‘ It is a brilliant book for parents to read and it includes guidance about how to win back your children’s hearts and minds so that they do feel close to you, listen to you, and see you as their role model for life guidance.
The focus of society on wealth at all costs has serious consequences for all of us. Our children suffer. Our health suffers. Our joy suffers.
If you are an adult survivor of child abuse, know that your parents did for you what they could with the awareness, emotional pain and life challenges they had. You can heal and break free from the pain of the past. You can reclaim your innocence, your purity, your light and your joy. It just takes time. Time to heal, to feel what has been buried inside, to mourn what was, to feel and release anger, disappointment, resentment, despair and rage, to move through depression and numbness, to open back up to lightness, to feeling sensation in your body and dropping back inside of it, to inhabit it instead of being dissociated or stuck mostly in your mind or your base instincts/survival mode.
It’s a big journey to come home to your heart and honour the beautiful child that you were, to love, honour and protect that child so it feels safe inside you and relaxes to play again, to enjoy life again, freeing you to move forward now from a place of wholeness, not emptiness. Honouring yourself, and being there for yourself and your children. This is how we reset the moral compass. We choose love and safety, fullness and flow as our guiding lights, instead of fear, emptiness and neediness. Meet your own needs so you can venture forth with excitement, joy and passion for life.
May you find your way through any darkness and rough terrain as easily as possible, so you can enjoy the sunshine and the rain, all of life’s phases and challenges. They all become easier when we are facing them from a full cup, from a nurtured and satisfied place of self-love and self-acceptance. You are important. You do belong. And you are wanted. Welcome home to your heart. Blessed BE.
P.S. There is a range of free resources on my website that may be of assistance to you with your healing journey.
When we have been wounded in life we develop strong defence mechanisms to keep ourselves safe, to survive the best way we know how. My defence mechanisms were to isolate, hide, and try to fix the pain of myself and others so love could flow. I felt alone, sad, isolated and at times angry and resentful. I slipped in and out of depression, exhaustion, and collapse. When I’d find enough strength I’d try to climb out of the hole I’d created for myself and I’d try to be special so that I might get loved, accepted, be wanted and belong.
What I didn’t realise for decades was I was already loved, accepted and I belonged. I had just shut off to my family system out of fear, wounding and disappointment of what occurred in my early life. This disappointment was a key feeling throughout my life. No matter how much I achieved it never felt enough. No matter how much I learned it didn’t seem to be all I needed.
The truth is I was looking in the wrong places. I was needy and desperate and trying to be the best I could be because then I’d be special and get seen and loved.I tried to save and rescue Mother Earth with my sustainability career. I tried to save and rescue others in my early counselling and healing work. I tried to save and rescue myself and to appear strong and capable and like I had all the answers, but really I was still feeling like that wounded, scared child inside.
It was only when I turned within to work with my inner child, my defence mechanisms, my emotions and my nervous system which was locked in states of fight, flight, freeze, and collapse, that I started to receive relief. And amazingly I realised I already had all I needed. I didn’t need to be big and special to be seen, I could relax and be me, and share from the heart. I could slow down, take care of myself and live my life for me.
I could serve from a place of empowerment, helping others to unravel their own defences and patterning, helping them to see how they could feel and release their emotions and how they could calm and rebalance their nervous system. I could plant seeds that clients watered so they could grow into beautiful gardens and joyous lives.
I didn’t need to be special to be loved. I just had to heal my wounds enough that I could open the door and let love in. It had always been knocking but I’d been too scared to let it in, to trust it would stay and that I wouldn’t be devastated when it left me. For that was my fear, parental divorce and separation from parents when young had led me to a fear of loving and losing. I’d shut down internally and was focused on self-reliance.
When we shut our internal doors to love we can’t feel the goodness of life that is available to us. We end up stagnating, getting lonely and sad. We see the pain all around us instead of the love and light. It is so important to heal those patterns so you can open the curtains and let the light in. We are all doing the best we can with the life experiences we have faced. It is a challenging journey coming home to our hearts, our beauty, and our innocence to realise we are enough as we are. No need to fight and struggle with life. No need to impress and earn love or to hide and reject all that is given to you.
It’s okay to let the defences down, drop from the mind and enter your heart, to reestablish feeling and connection with your body, to become re-embodied and come home to all of who you really are. It’s a joyous journey when you can be comfortable in your own skin, your life, your essence.
I’m so grateful I no longer feel a need to be big or special, and I can just do what I love sharing insights and tools that others may find useful on their journey, helping people to go within and unlock their defences, so they too can find that inner peace and safety that most of us have been searching for our whole lives.
If you would like to find out more about what I do or the tools I use please visit my website – https://www.jodiannemsmith.com/
With love and appreciation for all our journeys and the challenges we face. Many blessings, Jodi-Anne
(I asked this question and received the below answer via automatic writing 26 Nov 2021. Some of it is specific to me, but the guidance on the healing process is relevant to all so I thought I’d share it. I hope you find it useful.)
Your deepest wounds are those core hurts that you experienced as a child, those events and feelings that cut you like a knife and have been bleeding ever since. When wounded this deeply it affects your whole life. Part of you is frozen in pain, terror, rage, and fear. Part of you is stuck, trapped, hidden away and you spend a lot of your life force energy keeping it buried and building self-defence mechanisms to protect yourself from ever being hurt like that again. You live in fear of what could occur and pain from what did occur and there is little room left for joy, fun, friendship, love, trust, surrender and growth.
It takes a lot of courage to dismantle these defences, to open up to love, to live life with an open and unguarded heart, to return to your original state of innocence and joy. The vulnerability involved in risking exposure, connection, the possibility of more hurt, rejection, or loss can feel too much to give in to, to surrender and step into. This is why many people stay stuck their whole lives. They stay frozen internally, numbing their pain and the disconnection from their true self and heart with addictions and other distractions, such as keeping busy, fighting for some cause, working too much or being of service helping others while continuing to neglect their own needs. Sound familiar???
To move past this, to heal and relax and enjoy life there is no magic wand to cure it all. You have to shift it bit by bit, layer by layer, to release out the stuck, stagnant energy, to feel and release the emotions, to comfort and rescue the younger selves who went through it, to show them you have survived, you made it through and you’re doing okay. You have to start taking care of yourself, honouring your needs for rest, play, pleasure, connection with self, others and Earth. You need to make yourself your top priority, to eat well, exercise, have fun, rest and recreate.
You see healing occurs at the rate your body can process and integrate it. If you are pushing yourself too hard, if you are exhausted, empty, collapsing in overwhelm and despair or angry and rageful at feeling so bad despite all you do, if you are in one of these overactivated, exhausted scenarios then your body is not capable of processing and healing your deepest traumas. You simply don’t have the energy or internal strength to face, feel and release it.
So to heal your deepest wounds you really have to stop your overactive, distraction-filled lifestyle and create space and time for going within, connecting to your body, listening to its messages, feeling and breathing through the emotions, connecting with, supporting and nurturing your younger selves.
You know the techniques needed. You know how to guide yourself and others to do this release work. You just have to be patient and take it day by day, week by week, step by step. Your body lets up the residue it feels you are ready to process. It only lets it up when it feels you are capable of handling it. Otherwise, it stays locked in your cells, buried in your body, waiting for when you are ready. If you want to move through your deepest patterns you need to help your body to feel safe, to trust you are ready to handle it, to face it.
Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) helps greatly here as it calms your nervous system out of fight, flight, and freeze back into calm, social engagement. It helps to release the stress, tension and trauma in a gentle way, shaking it out, releasing it so your body can relax, your mind can calm and your breathing can deepen. As you start to feel safer within it is easier to feel the emotions and clear them out as they no longer seem so big or intense.
Yes, it is challenging as deeper layers of conditioning surface and you reach your core wound, the one that hurt the most. Of course, it was this one that was buried the deepest and will be the last to surface before you breakthrough to a more peaceful life no longer affected so much by the past. Of course, it gets harder in some ways the more you heal. But even though the issue arising is harder you have the tools, the knowledge and skills to process it, to breathe through it and to integrate the shifts and changes.
So have faith it will shift. Keep tremoring, using your TRE and doing your embodiment practices, yoga, meditation, time in nature, time with friends, etc. Keep comforting your heart, body and younger selves when triggered. Keep doing what you are doing and face whatever arises knowing it is shifting out, that more and more of your body is clear from the pain, that there is less frozen energy inside, that your body is getting healthier each day as you drop out of fight, flight, freeze (sympathetic) survival mode and into rest, digest, repair (ventral vagal parasympathetic mode).
You are doing what needs to be done. You just need to be patient, to nurture yourself and rest, so your body can integrate the shifts. Stillness, rest is key, connecting with your body, feeling and releasing it all is key. You know what to do, it just takes longer than you would like, that’s all. Trust your process. You had a severe amount of childhood trauma to clear and it does take time and energy to move through it. This is your work for yourself and to assist others. You had to experience it fully, deeply to be able to understand what others go through to be able to help them process their hurts and come back to their authentic selves, their pure hearts, and a state of joy, with connection to self, others and Earth. It is all okay, all happening as it needs to. Trust your body and its wisdom. Keep doing what you are doing and celebrate the freedom and liberation you feel more of the time now. Celebrate the progress rather than be annoyed at the residue. You will clear it out. You will live your life more fully.
If you have suffered extreme wounding as a child healing becomes the major task of your life. It doesn’t matter what you had hoped to do in life. You have to surrender that and work with what is. You have to honour your body and meet its needs. You have to give to yourself what you missed out on so you do feel loved, heard, seen, accepted and cared for. That’s your job. That’s your purpose, to come back to wholeness and peace. The rest of life is superficial by comparison.
So don’t compare yourself to others. You have no choice in the sense that pain from childhood persists. It won’t stay buried. You have to feel and release it. You have to face it eventually. Most do they just need to learn the skills of how to heal, how to process it and shift it out of their bodies. This is where you excel and it is what you will do, teaching others for the rest of your life. You will love it and find it very rewarding. Blessed BE.
Healing from painful beginnings and child abuse: an overview (36:05 mins)
While every individual will go through their own healing experience there are common healing stages. People cycle through these healing stages, moving from one to another and back again until they have released the past and can concentrate on their present and future unhindered.
1. Acknowledging that abuse occurred
Admitting it – no more denial
Acknowledging the impacts on you & your life
Dealing with the emotions & memories
Accepting yourself & your reactions as normal
Learning to trust your self & your intuition
2. Making the decision to heal
Choosing hope over resignation or despair
Making an active commitment to change
Putting aside other demands and allowing time to experience emotions, to think about the issues, and to get the necessary help & support
Allowing the painful emotions to come up and release – dealing with the chaotic nature of this on your day to day life
Finding support – from yourself & others
3. Talking to others about the abuse
Breaking the silence
Reducing shame & guilt by acknowledging out loud that you were abused & it wasn’t your fault
Choosing who to tell, what you want from them & dealing with their reactions
4. Placing responsibility where it belongs
Recognising the abuse was the abuser’s fault, not yours – you are not to blame at all. You were a child
You are not to blame if you went along with it – the abuser had power over you & you didn’t have all the information to decide objectively – you were a child
In the case of sexual abuse, you are not to blame if your body was aroused – it’s a normal bodily response. You’re not to blame if you felt positive feelings of intimacy with the abuser – they may have been nice & loving to you when others weren’t
Any problems that arose within the family as a result of the abuse were not your fault
Identify & understand how you were tricked, bribed, threatened or coerced by the abuser – you were used & abused
You are strong though – you have survived. You can heal & create the life you want!
5. Dealing with the loss and sadness
Feeling grief over – what happened to you, your loss of innocence & childhood, the loss of trust, sadness that the relationships weren’t the way you would have liked them to be, sadness over the impact of the abuse on you throughout your life
If you get depressed, get help to move through it
Feel all these feelings, talk to safe people about them, release the emotion – the intensity will pass
6. Expressing anger
Feeling anger over what happened
Expressing anger towards the abuser & others involved, rather than at yourself (This is done in safe & constructive ways in private, not necessarily with the actual people involved)
Letting go of the need for retaliation
Building self assertion & strength
7. Working through the difficulties caused by the abuse
Working through difficult physical, social, emotional & behavioural problems
Working through unhelpful beliefs about oneself, about abuse or about life in general
8. Building a future
Accepting the abuse happened & it is part of the past
Development of self acceptance & self respect
Acknowledging the wisdom & strengths you’ve gained from surviving the abuse
Overcoming residual feelings of vulnerability & lack of confidence
Dealing with fear & planning ways to take care of yourself in different situations
Setting goals & taking steps to create the life you want
Feeling more in control of your life
Summarised many years ago by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith from: MacDonald K, Lambie I & Simmonds L, 1995, Counselling for sexual abuse. A therapists guide for working with adults, children and families, Oxford University Press, London, pgs 30-43.
What are the impacts of abuse on children and their lives as adults? (50:06 mins)
There are many impacts of abuse on children. If the child does not receive assistance to break free from these impacts they often carry over into adulthood.
Loss of childhood – abused children lose their sense of innocence, their sense that the world is a safe place. A sense of mistrust that persists develops with the abused child often expecting people to abuse them. They, therefore, do not let people close and often go inside themself, close down and withdraw. They begin to parent themself and protect themself as best they can. They may even try to parent their parents to gain a sense of safety. They cannot relax and enjoy their childhood. They may act inappropriately sexually or become withdrawn, confused and silent. They may become less intelligent than they were or more bookish if they find some safety and security in being alone.
Repetition of abuse – abused children have acutely low self-esteem. They feel there must be something wrong with them because of what happened. This low self-confidence makes meeting people and relationships difficult. It leads to difficulty in creating appropriate boundaries and recognizing their own needs. Abused children often accept more abuse as they grow, as they do not know any different and they may feel that it’s their fault somehow. They can’t easily identify the kind of person or behaviour that is harmful to them; only that something doesn’t feel good. They become more likely to be bullied in school and abused in adult relationships. A sexually abused child is 4 times more likely to be sexually abused again than a non-abused child. Castine (1989) points out that 50% of the time daughters of alcoholic fathers marry alcoholics while Jorgensen and Jorgensen (1990) report that one out of every four children of alcoholics develop alcoholism themselves.
Blaming ourselves – children can’t bear to believe that those who are supposed to love them and care for them can be wrong, so they take responsibility for the abuse themself. Blaming themself gives them a sense of control. It’s easier to live with the guilt of themself having caused it than to accept that their caretakers could be so terrible. Abused children believe that they are bad. Some may try to hide their feelings of weakness by acting strong, while others will be cowardly and subservient. They live their lives afraid of being confronted at any time with their badness. This sense of badness may not be conscious; it may be suppressed however it affects all parts of a person’s life (this is what gets changed through therapy).
Emotional rigidity – the abused child carries their hurt and their damaged inner child with them as they grow. The emotional damage affects their development. They tend to become rigid, stuck in particular feelings, thinking or a particular way of looking at the world. They often can’t feel all emotions or express them and maybe stuck in feelings such as happy or loving or angry or fear or complaining. Being stuck is a defence mechanism protecting them from feeling the other emotions that they see as threatening or that may result in re-experiencing an aspect of some earlier abuse. An adult who was abused as a child is often unable to be spontaneous. They do not see their rigidity but are aware of a vague dissatisfaction with their life. They tend to see both people and situations as either positive or negative, good or bad, there is no middle ground. They may blame others unnecessarily and direct their bad feelings and suppressed anger at them.
Isolation – starts from a young age as abusive families often try to hide their dysfunction from others, siblings don’t talk about it and they compete for the attention of the parents. They may abuse each other as they try to cope with what has happened to them. They don’t bring friends home from school or venture out into the world for fear of someone discovering their secret. If an abused person feels they can’t deal with the emotions they’ve buried inside such as sadness, anger, and shame, they will often continue to isolate themselves as adults. They feel separate from others. They do not have a sense of a way out of their position and may overreact to any situation which touches on a felt memory or when people seem like their abuser, or where the feeling is the same as when the abuse happened to them. They may act as if in danger and push people away even though they’re not in danger.
Control – Often abused children as adults feel a need for a strong sense of control. This is so that awkward, painful and difficult to handle emotions/feelings can be kept at bay. Giving up control means facing the pain, which they may feel is overwhelming and therefore must be denied. The need for control can show up in rigid demands that partners, children and others also hide their feelings and control their emotions carefully. It may show up in compulsive behaviour like obsessive cleanliness and tidiness, excessive fussiness, or a need to get things right at any cost whether at work or at home. This anxiousness or desperation can be sensed by others and often makes them feel uneasy around the abused person.
Dependence and insecurity – abused children and adults often have an external locus of evaluation. They judge themself on whether or not others love and accept them or on the size of their career success and assets. These people, who feel a need for someone else to nurture them, to tell them they’re okay, are often taken advantage of by others who see their desperate need and know they can do whatever they want to them and the abused person will put up with it, they won’t leave.
Ambivalence – abused children as adults are often ambivalent to what occurs to them. They learnt to be ambivalent while being abused. They didn’t want to dob in their parents as they wanted their love, feared their loss and the consequences of telling the truth. If the parent only abused them occasionally, they may have seen it as an occasional error to be put up with. They may have pretended that they liked the abuse or told themself that not making a fuss is better or that they might not be believed even if they did say something. Hence they learnt to accept it and just get on with life. They are ambivalent about the effect of this on the rest of their lives. They may never relax and feel safe with those they love. They may never allow themself to be emotionally supported for fear of the loved one becoming an abuser. They may believe that anything good can contain bad and vice versa. The result is apathy, not knowing what to choose or where to turn.
Identifying with the abuser – identifying with the abuser can make an abused child feel strong rather than a weak victim. They will therefore act strong using anger as their dominant emotion, blaming others for things. This is a defence against their underlying feeling of danger and the fear that they may be abused again. If they were sexually abused they may be sexual with other kids. This can be an angry gesture: it happened to me now you; it may be a confusing way of trying to share the experience, trying to make sense of the pain and humiliation; or they may have felt the abuse was pleasurable and want to do it again; they may want their child friend to feel what they felt. Many kids who are abused are also cruel to or abuse siblings, kids, pets or wild animals. They may feel ashamed or guilty of this and beat themselves up. It’s really important to always remember it is not the child’s fault. They learnt what they lived, they know no different, be compassionate, do not abuse them further.
Abusing our bodies – abused children as adults often have a high level of self-contempt and self-loathing. They abuse their body by over or under eating; alcohol or drug abuse; physical abuse or ignoring their body’s needs. They may scar themself in an attempt to make themself less attractive to others or to punish themself.
Splitting and multiple personalities – if a child can not cope with what happened to them they may go inside themselves, go somewhere else. People often report leaving their body and looking down upon the scene when being abused/watching from outside themselves. Everyone has sub-personalities, parts of themselves that are happy, sad, achievers, doers, relaxed, etc, but they are all a part of the one person – they make up me. Some people after extended abuse, however, can form almost whole or partial separate personalities. Their sense of ‘I’ is not always the same, the different personalities take control. They never know when they wake up who’s going to be there. This interrupts their memory as each personality has their own preference, skills and memories. The different personalities may or may not communicate and the person can feel horrible, trapped, unable to control them.
Continuing family abuse – when abused kids grow up they often repeat the pattern with their own children. They frequently fail to connect with their children emotionally and do not know how to behave appropriately so the cycle of abuse continues They may feel horrible about what is occurring but do not know how to break free from it.
The impacts of abuse often go wider than just affecting the individual who was abused. There are also impacts on siblings who were not abused and on their partners, children and those they interact with within their adult life. The following information is offered for non-abused siblings. Recognise that it is normal for you to have felt glad not to be abused, but guilty that you weren’t and your brother or sister was or you may have been jealous of the attention they got and sought it out too – being afraid and eager at the same time. You may feel that you should have protected the abused sibling or at least protested. You may have tried to be perfect to avoid abuse and pointed out how much better you were than the other child as a way of trying to protect yourself. Remember you were a child. You coped the best you could. Don’t avoid the abused sibling now because of your guilt. They’ll probably value your friendship and you can both seek assistance in sorting through your issues and developing a closeness.
Partners of adults who were abused as kids may face all sorts of feelings. They may want to rescue their partner, trying to help them heal and protect them from hurt. This can be problematic as relationships always have some tense moments and both partners need to be able to express their feelings and get their needs met – don’t be silent about your needs as this will only cause problems down the track. The abused child as an adult may occasionally behave poorly trying to get the partner to treat them like their abuser did, provoking them. They are trying to feel familiar, comfortable as they are not used to always receiving love. They’re testing you to see if you really do love them and will accept them. If this pattern occurs talk about it, don’t abuse them.
Partners may feel a lot of confusion about what to do, how to handle it, they may get impatient or tired of their mate always being affected by the past and wish they would get over it. They may then feel guilty or ashamed of themselves for thinking this. Don’t bash yourself up over it. It’s normal for you to feel these things. Talk to your partner about your concerns or seek help or if your partner is open to it you can both seek help together. Accept your feelings of helplessness, your pain at seeing their hurt and your anger at their parents. It’s normal. It’s also normal for you to dislike interacting with his or her parents and not saying anything. However, if this is what your abused partner wants then you need to respect their wishes. But look after yourself and vent your anger and frustration healthily when you leave from visiting their parents. You need to get out any negativity, sadness, anger, etc that you have inside about the situations. When you do this you’ll feel better, more in control and react less to what is occurring. You will be able to change the dynamics of how you interact with your partner.
Learn to own your feelings and behaviour and express yourself effectively with no blaming, no judgment, or criticisms. Learn to use I statements – when you do X, I feel Y and I’d prefer it if you could do Z. If you can do this, creating a safe space for them, with love and encouragement it creates the conditions required for your partner to consider facing their own issues. They have to be ready to change. If they’re not keep working on yourself so things don’t upset you so much and you can enjoy your life fully. This is the best thing you can do for both of you. When your partner does become ready to take action you’ll be able to show them what to do or point them to where they can get help. Remember that what we focus on expands so focus on the positive and create more of it! Be a role model for your partner. Don’t see them as sick, but as a healthy person yet to take action and break free of their symptoms.
While the consequences of child abuse are huge there are also gifts that come as a result of our healing and growth.
Ability to persevere and survive
Ability to feel and understand emotions and reactions
Ability to empathise with others and to accept them and not judge them
Ability to connect in with Spirit, Source and Mother Nature
Ability to know yourself on deeper levels and to have a greater emotional intelligence than the majority of the population
Ability to receive intuitive guidance & access inner wisdom
Ability to appreciate the simple things in life, to stop and smell the roses
Ability to be a better parent, friend and partner as a result of all you have learned and healed
Ability to be happy, peaceful and grateful for all you have
Ability for self love and acceptance of all that life brings, learning to flow with it not fight against it
In Australia, there are a large number of support services available that you can access for free. If this blog has triggered you please reach out to one of the below services to get the support you need. You are not alone and help is available. Similar services should be available in most countries.
National Centre of Excellence for Complex Trauma (Blue Knot Foundation): Helpline 1300 657 380 https://www.blueknot.org.au/
National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence, Counselling Service (1800RESPECT): Helpline 1800 737 732 https://www.1800respect.org.au/
How do we heal from childhood sexual abuse? Part 3 (22:26 mins)
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 stay 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 ward 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 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 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 as 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 ourselves, 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 a 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 yourself, 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 from 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.
How do we heal from childhood sexual abuse? Part 1 (19:41 mins)
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 is 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 the 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 have 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 the 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 autopilot, 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 are 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 overweight, even obese, as a result of childhood sexual abuse. They hide under the layers of 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 defence 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 burn out. 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 bodyYou 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 with being vulnerable, revealing your secrets and your fears, desires and truth.
Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) can help your body to release stress, tension and trauma. It can help you to come out of numbness, shut down and depression. It can help you move out of freeze, fight and flight, back down into calm, social engagement where you feel safer to relate with others. It takes consistent use over time to achieve a relaxed, calm body that feels safe, can be present in the now, no longer scanning for danger.
TRE can be used for free once learned, so you can use it regularly at home to support yourself and your body to release out the stuck, frozen energies, allowing you to thaw out and come back to life. It is well worth learning so you can use TRE to support yourself for the rest of your life.
It helps to shift the internal pressure, the intense charge out of your body, so it is then easier to feel the emotions and release them as they no longer feel so big, so explosive or threatening.
TRE helps you to come home to yourself and to feel safe in your body. It really is a blessing for those of us that have suffered sexual abuse and other forms of abuse and trauma. It is best to learn TRE with a practitioner for the first few sessions to make sure you know how to self-regulate and can use it safely, knowing how to recognise the signs when your body says “That’s enough for today“. If you are unsure or would just prefer to have a supportive person holding space for you then you can continue to do TRE with a practitioner, but there’s no need once you’ve learned it. You have the choice to do it on your own at home or with a TRE practitioner like me in person or online via Zoom.
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 your goodness. It is our job to help you to see them too. We love you. Blessed BE. Adieu.
In this first blog, we have talked about the impacts of abuse and mentioned some tools for healing. In the second blog, we focus on the impact on your sexuality and ability to interact lovingly with others. In the third blog, we will focus on the pain and releasing it from the cells of your body.
In the past rejection meant death, whether it was the witch hunts, the torture chamber or being left to fend for yourself in the wild as your tribe moved on without you. To be isolated and alone meant death, not just sadness and loss, death.
In today’s world rejection is less serious, a loss of a friend, a job, a group. They can easily be replaced. It is not life-threatening. It only feels like it is or like something serious. In reality, it is not.
The intensity of our fear of rejection depends on how much we were hurt when little. If our parents were there for us and we felt accepted, seen, heard, and loved, we will have a sense of secure attachment, love, and safety when interacting with others.
But if our parents weren’t consistently available to us or our interactions with them led us to feel not seen, heard or accepted, we will have pain interacting with others. If we felt rejected by our parents, not good enough for them, that is a deeply painful process to experience. It is this pain of not being loved and accepted fully by our parents, the devastation of that which then taints our interaction with others. We fear feeling that pain again.
But the reality is as an adult we are not dependent on others like we were as a child on our parents. We needed our parents to care for us, to provide for us. As adults, we can give that to ourselves. So rejection is not as serious or life-threatening anymore. It is just the emotional pain of our past experiences with our parents that leads it to feel so serious.
We can do healing work to heal those wounds so that we feel more secure and safe within. We can meet our own needs and reconnect with our body, releasing the stress, tension and trauma, so that we feel safe and secure within and can be more relaxed and open with our interactions with others. When the wounds are healed it no longer feels so dangerous and we can react playfully and joyfully as we meet others, knowing we are safe and can have fun. Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) can help us to release those tensions and complete the old trauma activations freeing us to enjoy life more fully.
The reality is you may be rejected many times throughout your life. It may be lovers, it may be parents ashamed of your choices. It may be misunderstandings between friends or work colleagues. Do not react with anger or hurt, simply move on, accept it for what it is and move on.
While rejection feels like a loss, like a forced change of direction or focus, it is actually occurring for your highest good. That person or situation has served you well. They have shaped the next chapter in your story. They have helped you redirect your efforts to something or someone else.
Not everyone will be in your life forever. People come and go, they grow and evolve, and their vibration shifts. If your vibrations conflict, you will part. It is not actually personal. It is energetic and it is meant to be.
A deep loss, of a loved one or parent or child, for instance, may cripple you emotionally for quite some time. It helps you to release sadness and grief. It helps you question your life and what you are doing with it. This may lead you to listen to your heart more and do something you care more about, instead of just going through the motions, doing things that society tells you to do.
The loss prompts significant change and it serves you. It is a gift, not a tragedy. A gift, remember that look for the good that comes out of all your experience and it is easier to accept.
A minor misunderstanding with someone you barely know, which results in the end of the blossoming friendship, shows you that rejection, while a little hurtful, isn’t the end of the world. Life goes on, your normal life is still intact, just that person will no longer be a part of it. This shows you rejection is okay, there is no need to fear it so much or give your power away to other people so much.
You are actually okay on your own. You don’t need people as much as you think you do. It is not the ancient battlefield or tribal village anymore. There are large numbers of people out there who are willing to be your friend, your partner, your lover, your work colleagues. When the time is right you meet them. You don’t need to search, you don’t need to try and force it or effort it or think too much about it or what you will and won’t say so people will accept you and won’t hurt you, reject you, abandon or abuse you. Just be yourself. That is all you need to do. Those that are meant to join with you will. Those that aren’t, won’t. It is as simple as that. So stop walking on eggshells around other people. Be yourself and be proud.
Rejection is not a death sentence anymore. It is simply one of many events in life that help shift your perspective and help you evolve, as you travel along this journey called life. Blessed BE, Amen.
In this video, Jodi-Anne explores ‘Why do we fear rejection so much?’ It is one of over 100 questions she has asked about life and channelled an answer through automatic writing. All of these answers to questions about life, how to live peacefully and happily are available for free on the ‘Life Insights‘ page of her website.
This is a brilliant video summarising how childhood trauma can lead to addictive tendencies, and what is needed to heal it. I love Gabor Mate’s work and his way of explaining things. Below is a summary of some of the key points:
Trauma is not what happens to you. It’s what happens inside you as a result of traumatic experiences.
Trauma is the disconnection from your self, your emotions, your body and your gut sense or intuition. You lose connection to yourself and how you authentically feel.
This disconnection results in difficulty being in the present moment and in the development of negative views of your world and of yourself. It results in a defensive view of other people.
Addiction is not the primary problem. It’s an attempt to solve a problem, which it does temporarily, but it creates even more problems in the long term.
Recovery is rediscovering, finding your self again, reconnecting to your self, your body, your emotions, your gut sense and intuition. You reconnect to who you authentically are and how you authentically feel.
Recovery and healing are about reconnection.
There are many ways to release trauma and reconnect with your body. One of the main methods I use is Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE). I am qualified to teach TRE to individuals and within a few months will be qualified to teach it to groups. If you’d like to learn more about TRE and how it can help you to reconnect with your body please visit my TRE page.
Gabor Mate – How childhood trauma leads to addiction (9:09 mins)
