Tag: self help techniques

How to enjoy life?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Conscious Evolution, Self help techniques

You can enjoy life more fully once you stop fighting against it. Many of you are so caught up in judgement and drama. You don’t see the bigger picture or trust the evolution occurring. You try to control it, predict it, struggle against it. Yet it will take you exactly where you need to go.

Surrender and allow, don’t fight against it. Feeling the pain that you are avoiding at all costs is what liberates you. Feeling and releasing the pain sets you free to enjoy life more, to be unrestricted, to flow gently and joyously along your path.

feel inner emotionsYou humans judge pain so much, you avoid it, you fear it, you think it is wrong. And in all that focus you keep it active and alive. Even when you are trying to ignore it, pretend it isn’t there or magic it away, all of this is putting energy into its existence. Whereas if you just surrender and feel it, it can dissolve, it can leave.

Yes, you will feel vulnerable and raw going to the core wound, the core pain in your heart. It will feel challenging to allow that, but if you drop into it, through it, you will find peace on the other side. Your body can then relax, no longer needing to be locked in armour, in fight or flight or senseless defense mechanisms.

Your body does what it needs to in order to protect you and keep you safe. If you couldn’t fight back or flee from danger then your body will move into freeze, into numbing you from the pain so it doesn’t feel so bad.

Inside you are all these frozen parcels of energy from all the times that you didn’t speak up, stand up for what you wanted or defended your honour when people were being unkind or inappropriate. Whether it was a bully at school, a sibling, a teacher or parent who treated you poorly, all these hurts, resentments and disappointments get locked inside you and weigh you down.

Thankfully you can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help yourself. You can shake out all these old frozen dense energies. You can release the buried stresss, tension and trauma, so that you can feel more fully the goodness inside you. You can regain access to your innocent self, your childlike playful nature who trusts in life and enjoys connecting with others. That purity is still there inside you. It’s just buried under layers of density that have accumulated throughout your life, weighing you down and making it harder for you to enjoy life.

By releasing the stress, tension and trauma your body can finally relax and BE. You can be more present as more of your energy is available now, instead of locked into all those protective mechanisms. And when you can be in the now without all those distractions, you will feel joy, simply because you feel more whole, you feel the war is over inside and you can do what ever you want.

The controller and guard are gone, or at least sidelined, they no longer control the show. You are free to breathe more deeply, to rest, to just BE, to enjoy nature and life more fully. You feel joyous because you are finally being you and not pretending to be okay, you actually are okay and you know it.

You know that life is on your side and the Universe is helping you evolve and live more fully, more freely, so you can be your true self, your destined self and make a positive contribution to this world. You are finally being who you truly are. You let love in and you surrender to the majesty of life on Earth, knowing whatever comes it will be glorious. Your greater freedom within enables greater freedom outside, in life, in what you do.

Your life circumstances will improve as your inner life comes to life, is empowered, freed and born anew. You are literally being reborn with a clean slate, without your childhood conditioning or your past life influences. Instead of the old baggage which you have felt and transformed, now your gifts can awaken. Your joyous abilities, your light filled gifts can awaken and arise enabling you to serve more fully and be yourself in all you do.

You obtain freedom from 9am-5pm standard life, you see a much richer picture of life and live it. You will attract what you need to step up and be you more fully serving the whole in your own unique way and this will feel so good, so joyous because you will know inside that it is who you truly are and what you came here to do. Blessed BE, Amen.

You really can enjoy life fully and you will. So be it. Amen. Blessings to your hearts and the awakened being within you, who waits patiently until you are ready to embrace it. You have all you need. It is already within you. It is growing and blooming at the perfect rate for your journey, just as nature’s plants grow and flower, so do you, your soul, you are part of nature and it all happens perfectly.

jacaIt is all programmed into the seed. You will grow into who you truly are, it is inevitable. You can’t become anything else, just as an acorn seed can not grow into a Jacaranda tree. It must grow into an acorn tree. It will become that, it is nature’s will and it wins out over everything else. So relax, trust, breathe through the feelings that arise and settle into your true nature, that which lies beneath the surface, at your core, deep within your heart. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (4 July 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How to release rage safely?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Self help techniques

When your life has been filled with disappointment and loss, a significant amount of rage can be built up inside. Rage at missing out, rage at being hurt so deeply. Rage at feeling unable to enjoy life. Rage at those people and events that hurt you, held you back or stopped you in some way from living life how you thought it should be.

AngerThe truth is everyone will experience loss and challenge. Life does contain ups and downs, good times and sad times, joyful and painful times. The rage is just blocked emotion. You have deep grief and sadness inside and you are stopping yourself from feeling it, it builds, it becomes a pressure, a weight, a burden on your shoulders pushing for your attention, asking you to feel it, to give in to it, to grieve what you lost and let go of the pain.

The more you resist it, the stronger the rage gets and the more easily you are triggered by day to day events. If your reaction is over the top, you know it is the pain underneath toppling out. The day to day events provides you with an opportunity to diffuse your bomb, to let out a little bit of steam so you don’t self destruct and explode.

When rage is felt at these extremes, it is dangerous and has the potential for harm to occur to others. It could be random strangers or people you love. When the top comes off the bottle it can be volatile and venomous. The challenge then becomes how to release this rage with as little damage to self or others as possible.

There are many ways to release the rage. Some people like to yell or punch a punching bag. You can run and stomp it out as you go. You can draw how you feel and let the energy move from within you out onto the paper.

You need to titrate it, to let it out bit by bit. Another powerful way to do it is to use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help release the stress, tension and trauma out of your body. You may have noticed that when you are enraged you start to shake. Your hands might shake with rage wanting to let it out, express it.

This is a sign that your autonomic nervous system is overloaded. It is highly activated and locked in fight/flight mode. You need to help it calm back down into a relaxed state. That’s what TRE does. It helps the nervous system to release that built-up tension. It unwinds the wound up tight muscles so that you can breathe more deeply and relax back down.

Whatever has triggered you on the outside may have been quite small. It’s the built-up energy and unexpressed emotion within you that leads to the overreaction, to blowing your top.

TRE is just a set of simple exercises to activate your body’s natural stress release mechanism. Just as your body automatically tenses up when a threat is sensed, it also has a process for it to relax back down. It’s just that most of us don’t know about it, so we don’t allow our body to naturally balance back up.

It does so through tremoring. Your muscles will tremor and move to use up the cortisol and adrenaline released in your body to prepare you to fight or run away. So your legs and arms may move, shake to use up this energy as if you were running or fighting. Your torso will twist and contort as well as shake mirroring defensive movements to avoid being hit.

When threat occurs we automatically contract. We hunch over to protect our self. We might stiffen and stand tall to show our strength resisting the urge to run away. All of this contraction, stiffness and hypervigilant energy stays in the body if we don’t actually fight or run. It’s this that leads to our stiff muscles, aching shoulders and backs. TRE is a natural process that you can use to help your body release this tension and calm back down.

If you’d like to learn more about TRE visit the TRE page of my website. There you will see what it looks like to allow your body to tremor and discharge the energy. You can learn TRE in a session or two, then you can use it as a self-care tool at home whenever you like for the rest of your life. It’s well worth doing for the sake of those you love and who hate to see you in pain or bare witness to your rage when it comes out in destructive ways. Give yourself and those you love freedom from that. TRE can help.

You can also use visualisation and ritual. Visualise a burial ceremony for the rage and acknowledge the grief underneath it. See a tombstone and grave in front of you, fall to your knees and allow yourself to cry. Cry for what you have lost, for what you missed out on, for what you haven’t been able to do. Weep for those you loved who left you or died when you were young. Release the pain to Mother Earth, she can take it.

Surrender to the process and let yourself grieve. You truly are mourning the aspects of life that hurt you. Be gentle with yourself over coming days and honour that grave and what it represents. Visualise yourself visiting each day and putting fresh flowers on it, caring for it, pulling up weeds and tidying up. Each day you go your pain will be less, you will find a sense of peace and belonging, a feeling of coming home to yourself.

Be humble and quiet and let yourself be strengthened. Love and light will fill the space in you that had been suffocating in pain. With that released you can now stand strong, welcome in the happier parts of you – your inner child – and you can start to explore life anew from this place of greater peace and freedom from the past.

You are not really angry at life, you are just hurting and need to release the grief. You can do so safely with little damage to self or others. Love and honour yourself and those you interact with. No one deserves your rage, your judgement or blame. Each has done the best they could. Each is coping with their own internal struggles. If they could have done better they would have. Let it go and accept what is. Choose love and peace in all you do and you will find happiness. It is inevitable and it will happen. Blessed BE, Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (30 June 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How to know when to rest and when to push?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Conscious Evolution, Self help techniques

A lot of you who are focused on healing push yourself way too hard, seminar after seminar, therapist after therapist, session after session. You push yourself in the hope that you will feel better, escape the pain, sadness, anger, depression, grief, etc, but you can’t escape it. You have to feel it in order to release it. You can’t just exorcise it from your system.

hurting againEach time you push forward with yet another healing modality or technique, your body has to try and adjust to the changes you are forcing upon it. It is already coping with the baggage and emotional density inside. It is already juggling the defense patterns, the compulsive energies rising to the surface for release and now you are forcing a change in the vibration of your body by doing healing or release work. It is a fine line between helping yourself and pushing yourself over the edge into exhaustion, depletion, fatigue and consequential depression.

When you push too hard, too fast and get exhausted, you often feel depressed, because no matter what you do, you feel like it hasn’t helped, worked or fixed you. But the truth is you are not broken and you don’t need fixing. You just need to accept yourself, your life and the process. Trust the evolutionary impulse inside you to lead you forward, to guide you to what serves you, to tell you when it is time to push a little and see a therapist, do a course or have a healing session, and when it is time to rest – time to let your body integrate all the changes and adjust to your new vibration.

The body needs time to sift through the density inside and decide what it is now ready to let go of, what it believes you can cope facing and processing, and what needs to be kept within till a later time when you are feeling stronger and your body has the resources to process it gently, safely and as quickly as possible.

Emotional release, while intense, can be quite quickly done, enabling you to balance backup quickly and relatively effortlessly. If you just breathe through what arises and let it flow out of your system, it will leave. It is only when you resist it, try to ignore or deny it, or go into the story of it and feed it with your thinking, your judgement, your ‘Why me’ victim thinking or your ‘F*ck them’ retaliation mentality, that you prolong the pain and keep it going.

If you just breathe through it, witness it, welcome it up, be grateful for it leaving, then it can flow out smoothly as there is no resistance and a clear path out of your body, mind and field. There is an art to emotional release and consciously balancing back up to feel connected to Source and Self and Earth, here in the NOW. It is an art, a skill, a practice to Master which takes time.

You can’t try and rip the emotional density out, carve chunks of your body off and expect to feel good. It needs to be done delicately and with reverence, with respect for your inner child and younger selves that lived through the pain. You need to comfort them during the process and ensure that they feel safe and supported. You need to be there for them as the Adult that you now are, holding their hands and reassuring them that they are okay, that you can handle it and you are in control now, in the sense that you are connected to Source, to your body and you will listen to it for clues of what it needs. You won’t just go rushing off on a whim to another course, another therapist, another modality. You will stay grounded, check in regularly with your inner world, with your inner child and younger selves and see what they need, see how they feel. You will give yourself time to rest and play and have fun. You will make the effort to exercise and eat well, to show yourself love and kindness and compassion.

heart wateringWhen you do all of this your body trusts that you are capable of processing and releasing your burdens safely and it will start allowing it up with more ease and grace. You don’t have to hunt for what haunts you, just be in a state of calm and peace and allow the process to occur naturally.

If you listen within your body will tell you what it needs. If you pay attention to what is occurring in your outside world, you will see what past events / traumas / incidents are being triggered by those you connect with during the day. Your dreams also give you clues.

Your body is your ally, not your enemy. It releases what needs to be released at a rate that it believes you can handle. If you learn the skills to handle it well, then you can release your pain and emotional density relatively quickly, so that you can be in peace and happiness most of the time. Stuff will still come up, but it will release quite quickly and you return to a state of peace and balance almost immediately. Gratitude then comes as it feels so good to have glided through it, rather than been tormented, caught up in it, resisted or fought against it as you may have done in the past.

So listen to your body. It will tell you when it is time for a session with a therapist, when energy work would be beneficial or time alone in nature. Your body will tell you all you need to know. Don’t exhaust yourself by doing too much too quickly. Know that even when you feel bad, you are moving forward. Those feelings, be it sadness, anger, loss, betrayal, loneliness, etc are only temporary and they will leave and you will feel better again. Just breathe through it and in time you will feel better.

Treat yourself with the tenderness you would show to a young child or animal. You are just as precious and just as deserving of love and kindness, and that is what you are longing for and what you truly need. Give it to yourself and you will flourish. Each day your heart will open more and more, until it overflows with joy and happiness, that is a beautiful day and you will see it, reach it, feel it, if you treat yourself with love and kindness no matter what arises and what you are going through.

Give to yourself and you give to the world. For the world craves more love and kindness in all ways. Serve yourself and you serve the world. Your vibration goes out and touches many – those in your ancestral line, those in your physical vicinity, and all of those you interact with on a day to day basis. As you heal your higher vibration makes it easier for others to do so too.

If you feel a discomfort, a racing inside, an urge to run or fight or freeze sit with it. This is your nervous system activated in fear. It is this unease that leads you to want to do something, to search for a solution, to look outwards for answers.

Know that inner unease can only be healed by turning within, by listening to and soothing your body. One of the most effective ways I have found to soothe and calm my nervous system and that inner unrest is Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE).

TRE is the body’s natural way to release tension, stress and trauma. Your body has its own internal mechanism for releasing tension by shaking it out. We call it tremoring. It uses up the adrenaline and cortisol released during moments of stress and trauma. It completes those activations so the body can relax. It realises there is no need to run, fight or freeze now. It’s safe, so it can relax and BE.

TRE is a simple process that you can use at home any time you want as part of your self-care routine. Once learned you can use it for free for the rest of your life. TRE lets your body lead the way with your healing journey. It leads the way. You don’t need to exhaust yourself searching any more. You can relax and allow your body to heal the wounds within so you can have greater peace and relaxation.

By Jodi-Anne (19 June 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How bad experiences in childhood lead to adult illlness

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Health, Self help techniques

Yet another article with the science showing what survivors of child abuse have always known. Abuse in childhood leads to significant physical, emotional and mental difficulties in adulthood. The good news is that more and more people are recognising this and that we can’t simply “get over it”.  Abuse changes the way a child reacts to stress and constant exposure leads to changes in the child’s DNA resulting in the ‘fight or flight’ system being always turned on. The ongoing, chronic stress unfortunately leads to inflammatory and immune responses that damage health as adults.

Joan Kaufman, director of the Child and Adolescent Research and Education (CARE) programme at the Yale School of Medicine, recently analysed DNA in the saliva of happy, healthy children, and of children who had been taken from abusive or neglectful parents. The children who’d experienced chronic childhood stress showed epigenetic changes in almost 3,000 sites on their DNA, and on all 23 chromosomes – altering how appropriately they would be able to respond to and rebound from future stressors.

Likewise, Seth Pollak, professor of psychology and director of the Child Emotion Research Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, uncovered startling genetic changes in children with a history of adversity and trauma. Pollak identified damage to a gene responsible for calming the stress response. This particular gene wasn’t working properly; the kids’ bodies weren’t able to reign in their heightened stress response. ‘A crucial set of brakes are off,’ says Pollak.

It is great that science is catching up. They are also recognising that there are many ways to heal which can help survivor’s bodies relax and not be in ‘fight or flight’ all the time.

Science tells us that biology does not have to be destiny. ACEs can last a lifetime, but they don’t have to. Just as physical wounds and bruises heal, just as we can regain our muscle tone, we can recover function in underconnected areas of the brain. If anything, that’s the most important take-away from ACE research: the brain and body are never static; they are always in the process of becoming and changing.

Even if we have been set on high-reactive mode for decades or a lifetime, we can still dial it down. We can respond to life’s inevitable stressors more appropriately and shift away from an overactive inflammatory response. We can become neurobiologically resilient. We can turn bad epigenetics into good epigenetics and rescue ourselves. We have the capacity, within ourselves, to create better health. We might call this brave undertaking ‘the neurobiology of awakening’.

Today, scientists recognise a range of promising approaches to help create new neurons (known as neurogenesis), make new synaptic connections between those neurons (known as synaptogenesis), promote new patterns of thoughts and reactions, bring underconnected areas of the brain back online – and reset our stress response so that we decrease the inflammation that makes us ill.

In the article they specifically mention ‘Meditation, mindfulness, neurofeedback, cognitive therapy, EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) therapy’ as some of the tools that can help survivor’s to calm their bodies and reprogram their minds.

I have found a wide range of techniques helpful including:

  • Energy and body work, such as crystal bed sessions or reiki, to help the body unlock and relax;
  • Psych-K or Lifeline Technique to release trauma and reprogram the subconscious mind so you can change negative beliefs about life and the world into positive ones e.g. so you are not always expecting the worst and you can start to feel safe, so you believe that you do deserve good things and that people can treat you well;
  • Mindfulness and meditation techniques to still the mind and create space to witness what is occurring instead of reacting automatically;
  • Skill development including thought stopping, boundary setting, inner child, and self love skills, so that you no longer allow yourself to be abused by others or by yourself;
  • Family Constellations to heal the trauma in the family system and reconnect with love, thereby allowing greater lifeforce and harmony within.

There is lots that can be done. While adverse childhood trauma does have a massive impact on your life, it can be healed.

Article - bad experiences in childhood lead to adult illness

Why is joy so fleeting?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Self help techniques

Joy is an emotion that occurs when you are totally at peace and living in in the Now. You are not thinking about the future or the past or what you need to do later in the day. Joy is the sheer pleasure of being present and attentive to the moment at hand, and whatever is arising. Few of you can stay present for very long. You skip all over the place with your thinking and therefore joy is lost. It takes focus, immersement, surrender and acceptance for joy to be present. It is not a doing or an efforting, it is an ease, a relaxation into what is.

The questioning mind keeps you away from joy. The judging mind sends it away further. All these mind activities keep you stuck in the head and away from your heart, which is where joy is felt. So you can’t have lasting joy unless you can rest in your heart. When you can do so, you see beauty and joy everywhere. You see it in nature, in the sunshine, in dogs playing, children laughing. You see it in life and its busyness and you see it in the faces of those who are eating cake or icecream or who are on an endorphin high after exercise. Joy is everywhere when you are in the receptive state to see it, feel it and receive its vibration.

That means your heart needs to be peaceful and for many of us that isn’t the case very often. Many people have hearts full of emotioal pain, yet to be released, full of fear and mistrust, confusion and pain, doubt and loss. There are lots of emotions and painful thoughts or beliefs leading to and perpetuating these low vibration emotions and energies. People’s bodies are filled with these issues creating emotional density or baggage. The heart is weighed down and joy which is very light is not felt.

It can be felt temporarily when you do something that stills you, that takes you to your heart and to enough inner silence that you can hear the heart’s message. This might occur during meditation, a walk in nature, holding a baby or a beloved pet. Whatever it is that takes you inside yourself and quietens your mind, then you can feel joy.

Joy can last and become your predominant experience, once you have cleaned out the emotional density and ceased reacting to the events that occur around you. If someone cuts you off in traffic, you don’t have to get agitated or angry. You can stay calm and peaceful. It’s a choice. A habit to break and a decision to choose differently. Even if someone is in your face saying unkind things, you don’t have to react with fear or with anger back. You can just stay centred, send love to your heart and your inner child, and choose peace. You can send the person love and acknowledge their power, for that is what they are truly seeking, to be seen, heard, acknowledged and accepted. They are hurting inside and lashing out. Don’t deepen their wound by reacting badly/painfully, send them love and help them heal. If you can do this, you can maintain your state of balance, peace and joy, no matter what you encounter.

It is possible, you just have to learn to do so, to be able to step back and witness what occurs and choose your reaction. So monitoring your thoughts, being quiet enough to hear them, is an important skill to learn in order to have peace and joy all the time.

If your body automatically reacts with exaggerated fear responses to situations this is a signal that you have trauma inside that needs to be released. Your body is reacting as if you are in evere danger when you are not actually in danger.

A door may bang, a raised voice might occur, a car backfires and your body goes into freeze, into hypervigilance and defensive reactions. This is a sign that you need to comfort your body, connect inside and release that stress, tension and trauma, so that your body can relax, become more peaceful and able to relate to others, to life in more joyous and open ways. While your body feels there is threat, danger, it won’t relax fully and this makes it hard to have sustained joy as your mind is preoccupied expecting danger and scanning for it.

The scanning for danger distracts you from the moment, the stillness, the joy of being present to what is. It keeps you activated, primed ready to respond to whatever does occur. It can be exhausting even though nothing bad is actually happening.

You can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) and other embodiment activities to help you to clear out the stress, tension and trauma in your body, so it is easier for you to be in the now, to relax and to enjoy life. TRE activates the body’s natural, inbuilt mechanism for releasing stress, tension and trauma. It helps to calm your nervous system, to come out of freeze, fight and flight, back into calm social engagement, where you feel safe, can relax and play with others and enjoy life.

It is well worth learning TRE to help you be calm, playful and joyful as you move through life. It does take some time for your body to reach this state. You have to clear out the old stuck energies so the new lighter energy can enter. Thankfully with TRE you can do it at home, whenever you want, as part of your self-care process. Once you have learned how to self-regulate your TRE you can do it on your own, for free, for the rest of your life. Your body will thank you for it!

Even if you temporarily lose your cool and need to balance back up, you can do so quickly if you don’t berate yourself for it. You can simply notice that you reacted, learn from it, heal whatever button or event it triggered from your past and vow to react differently in future. Love yourself and the situation for the healing it enabled. Thank it and let it go. No need to hold on to it. No need to beat yourself up for slipping or not being perfect.

You are human and you are evolving and growing each day. Each day moves you towards having greater peace and joy in your life. The recipe is clear, less doing more being, less judging more accepting, less resistance more allowance, more fun and creativity, more stillness and going within, more practice and friendships – more sharing and growth. All of this adds up to a life full of joy and happiness, being of service in whatever way feels right to you. Blessed BE. Amen. May joy be in your hearts now and always. So be it.

By Jodi-Anne (4 June 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How to let yourself be your whole self?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Personal Development, Uncategorized

When you have suffered a painful start to life you bury your true self inside under layers and layers of protection. The innocent part of you is wrapped up safely, hidden away and kept under wraps for fear that exposing it will result in more pain, loss or abandonment.

This makes it very difficult to know who you are and to live your life with joy. Basically, you walk around with a gaping hole in your heart as part of you, the core part of you is missing in action. It is simply not there, disowned, buried, ignored and left in the dark.

This results in a sense of emptiness and loss that cannot be filled by material objects or worldy pursuits. No matter what you achieve or do, you still feel empty and like something is missing, beacause it is. You are missing, the truest part of who you are, the indivdual, unique aspects of you.

We often modify who we are to fit in to different situations. We show different parts of ourself or aspects of us to different people and situations. At work you may be smart, responsible, friendly, helpful, kind and thoughtful. At home with friends you may be more casual, relaxed and playful. On the sport field you may be more rambunctious, competitive and blood thirsty. With your kids you are hopefully gentle, loving, kind and attentive.

But how are you when you are with yourself? Do you sit quietly and listen within to hear what it is your heart needs? Do you even know that your heart speaks to you or your inner child? Do you give yourself any time in the day to be with you? Do you even know what it is that you really like to do? What activities make your heart sing? What is it that you thoroughly enjoy doing, where time just flies past and you feel really peaceful and complete afterwards? These are things your true self, your unique self likes to do, things that fill your emotional needs up, they fill up your cup of life, your reserves and fuel for completing the rest of the tasks you need to do in your day to day busyness.

If you are not taking the time to listen to and meet your heart’s needs, then it is likely that your cup is close to empty. You may feel drained, exhausted and wondering whether it is worth the effort doing all the things you do. You are probably craving change, but not sure how to go about it or if you have the energy to try.

reading in natureUncover who you really are and sing through life. Make time for your true self and true desires and you will feel much better. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. Your heart’s desire may be for long walks in nature; to simply sit and read a book; to play with your dog; to cook a nice meal; to watch the sunset; to play sport; to spend time with friends; to eat chocolate cake while savouring every bite and letting it ooze down your throat.

Slowly, simply living life, enjoying it more fully, being present to each moment as it goes by. Less stress, less rush, less fuss and bother, less worry or forcing things to happen, less controlling and mind chatter. Just relax below that, slow your breath and drop into your heart centre, listen to it, it will tell you what you need to be happier and more fulfilled.

As you meet your own needs you become more of who you truly are, as you are allowing it back to the surface. It doesn’t matter if others don’t like doing what you like doing. It doesn’t matter whether you can only do it for an hour a day or an afternoon a week. What matters is you take the time to connect in with your heart and breathe through any stress and tension there to get back to a state of peace and oneness with your core self.

If you still have reistance to connecting with your heart, just send love to those parts of you who are scared to be seen. Breathe in gold light through your crown chakra and into each chakra, then see the gold light spreading through every cell of your body, every muscle, every fibre, all your DNA, RNA and molecules. This helps to relax, calm and soothe the body. It gives the cells what they need to start healing and releasing that which no longer serves them. Gold light is a high vibration that can help shift out that which no longer serves us and that which holds us back from living life more fully.

Embrace who you really are, your uniqueness. It truly is okay to be you. There is no need to hide it or yourself away from the world. While those in your early life may not have honoured who you are, you can and must if you want to be peaceful and happy. Own it, own who you are and have fun in your unique way.

When you let yourself have pleasure, by doing what you love, you will discover how you can do that and be of service to others. There is a way that your passion can become helpful to others and even a source of income for you, if you wish it to be so. It is up to you. You may not want to turn it into a business adventure. You may just want it to be your hobby, your special time out just for you. Whatever it is, do it, honour who you are and let your real self shine. No need to hide it under a bushel, let your love out, your light shine through and be at peace. For you truly are safe and deeply loved throughout the Universe. You just need to clear out the old story and residue, so you can see the truth and live your life without fear and with a lot more joy. So be it. Amen.

Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) can be used to help shake out any fear, tension and trauma you have within. If we’re caught in fear it is usually due to past painful events that hurt us and we’re wanting to avoid experiencing that again, so we contract, limit ourselves and our expression in an attempt to stay safe and not experience any more hurt, rejection or shame.

If you were ridiculed for your uniqueness, your passion and joy when doing what you love most, you may have decided not to do it any more. You may have given it up. Denied yourself what you loved most, so that you would fit in, be more accepted and less ridiculed.

It is understandable as a child you would do that to protect yourself, but as an adult it doesn’t matter what other people think so much. Clear out the old pain and trauma with TRE so you can open back up to fully being you and doing what you love. You will feel so much better when you take the time to spend on your passions, your joys. It will positively impact all of your interactions because you will be more content and peaceful in yourself.

When you honour you, you give permission to others to follow their passions and joys too. You role model to them that it’s okay to be who they are. The world needs more of us doing this so there is less anger and conflict in the world. See how big an impact this can have. It’s not selfish or self-indulgent to take time for your passion, your hobbies, your joys. It’s a gift you give to yourself and the world.

By Jodi-Anne (22 May 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

What to do when those you love are in pain?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Conscious Evolution, Relationships, Self help techniques

It is very tempting when someone you love is in pain to want to try and fix it, to help them feel better, to make it go away, so you can enjoy each other’s company again. It is understandable that you would want to do this, for it is hard to see them in pain and not to feel pain yourself. But know you are not serving them if you try to distract them or if you get upset with them and they swallow the pain, so you feel better and won’t be upset with them any longer.

They need to feel, release and process their pain. They need to feel into its depths, express its impact on them, move through the emotions, back to a place of calm and peace. If you can’t allow them to do this, they stay stuck and so do you and your relationship.

So, how to stay strong in the face of someone else’s pain? Remember it is growth, and they will get through it. Remember it is temporary and will leave if you let them feel it fully into completion. Remember it is not all about you and that they need to go through this. Remember deep emotional pain can only be processed at a rate that the person’s body and consciousness can handle. It can’t be done all at once. It can’t be magicked away.

Telling them to go see a therapist to process it on their own, away from you, just blocks their flow more. Yes they could see a therapist and get help. They could take more action to heal and be, what you consider, as more responsible for their own healing. But remember they are not you. They are themselves and they need to find their own way.

Imagine how you would feel if you were in deep pain and someone told you to basically go away and only come back when you are in a good mood? You would feel unloved, uncared for and you would rebel, because it doesn’t feel right. You may get angry, stubborn and dig your heels in. The choice the other has made, makes it less likely you will get help and it distracts you from feeling the deep pain, because now you are preoccupied with being treated unfairly by one of the few people who you do trust and love and their reaction has you wondering whether or not that trust is unfounded.

As a partner it is true, you don’t want to be dragged down by a friend, family member or your partner’s bad moods. It can affect your ability to enjoy your own life. But it is probably only occurring occasionally and you too have the occasional bad day. How would you feel if they pulled away from you when you are feeling blue? It would hurt, wouldn’t it? What you really need at those times is a hug, is for someone to say “I’m sorry you are feeling sad, angry, whatever it is.” “I’m sorry you went through that, it has affected you deeply.” That is what the person needs most – to be loved, accepted, their feelings validated. They need to be heard. You don’t have to sit with them for hours listening to their story. You could, but you don’t have to. Just be supportive. Don’t make them feel wrong, bad, dumb for being upset. They have a right to feel the way they do. They may have lived through horrible circumstances.

Instead of hiding from the pain, honour it, allow it, accept it and let it transmute. When you fight against it, resist it, bottle it up, it has to explode out. If you give the person the space to feel how they feel it can come out more gently. So just love them, that is what is needed most. And what you need most is to support yourself, while you are supporting them. So you don’t become depleted, drained, and exhausted.

Sometimes it can feel as if being there for another drains all your positive energy away, you feel your vibration dropping, you feel yourself becoming annoyed, exhausted and flat. This is just your reaction to them. It is how you have chosen to respond. It may be you have reacted in fear – fear of their sadness or rage. It may be that you have reacted judgementally – thinking they shouldn’t do this to you or they should sort themelves out. You may have reacted wtih avoidance – wanting to escape and not be there. Any of these reactions create pain inside of you, and it is your pain that affects your energy levels, not what the other person is doing, saying or the energy they are emitting.

shine-your-lightIf you could meet their pain with love, if you could stand strong and shine your light into their darkness, if you could hold your focus on love and light and seeing the best in them, seeing them peaceful and happy, if you can just be with them and their energy and emotion, then your light would help liberate them. They could be freed from some of their burden and you could maintain your vibration and state of peace.

It is your internal reactions that affect how you feel after the interaction. So don’t hide or run away from people and isolate yourself. There is no need. Just work on being able to stay connected to Source while dealing with someone in emotional pain. Breathe deeply and stay present. Send love and light to your inner child and any parts of you that feel uncomfortable, tell yourself you are safe and it is okay. You can do all of this, while still being present for the other person.

If you are struggling to stay present to others look at how well you are being present to yourself. Are you exhausted or stressed yourself? If so do the work to look after your own needs so that you have more energy and can be more present.

Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) is a powerful process you can use to help release stress, tension and trauma from your body. By doing so your nervous system relaxes more enabling your body to be calmer, be able to interact with others more playfully as you know you are safe and you fee more peaceful inside. This helps you to stay grounded, to be in your body and able to stand strong in the face of another’s turmoil. By clearing out the stress within you, it gives you more capacity to deal with whatever life brings you. You don’t get shoved into overwhelm as easily. It is well worth using TRE to support yourself and enable you to more easily stay present to those in your life who you care about and want to be supportive of.

Remember they are in pain, they are struggling to cope. They need your support and light to help lift them out of their darkness. Don’t trap them in it by refusing to be present, to look at their pain. Be there. Be strong and loving and supportive to both of you. A time will come when the tables are turned and you will need their support, you will need them to be there for you. Be that support for each other and your relationship can blossom and flourish. Fight against their pain and your relationship will wither and die.

Know that they are so much more than their pain. The pain is just a small part of who they are and it will get less and less if it is acknowledged, accepted and allowed to be there. Fight against it and it will get bigger, louder and more violent in its ways of getting attention and trying to get respect and acceptance. The choice is yours.

Work on your own reactions and choose peace and love and joy in the face of another’s pain, hold the vibration of love and you can stay balanced, even in the murkiest, darkest waters of Hell. For that is where a person is, who is in deep emotional pain. They feel consumed by it, trapped by it, unable to break free from it. They feel in Hell and if their thoughts plummet and become negative, it becomes a repetitive loop. They feel like they are floating in a small boat, down rivers of darkness, with no knowledge of how to get out or where they are going. They need someone to shine a light for them, so they can see more clearly a direction out of the caves of darkness and into the light of day. Be that light. Be that love and you can both enjoy life at deeper levels. Blessed BE, Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (15 May 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How do you stop making yourself wrong?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Self help techniques

If you were abused as a child, you were constantly told or shown that whatever you did was not good enough, not acceptable, basically wrong.

Even though the issue was really the emotional state of the parent / abuser, to you as the child, it would have seemed that you were the problem, that there was a fault, a flaw, an imperfection with you. You probably beat yourself up a lot, trying to work it out, “What exactly is it that is wrong with me?”.

An abuser is likely to have told you off for what you said, how you stood and looked at them, for being defiant or a smart ass, for talking back, and sometimes for simply breathing and being alive. In essence it felt like everything about you was wrong or not good enough, not acceptable or okay.

should-have-done1This sets up a pattern of self-loathing, even if you believe the abuser is full of shit, making it up, f*cked up. Even if you do place the blame on them, part of you still wonders “Am I to blame? Is something i’m doing provoking them? How can I change who I am to be less offensive?”

You certainly change who you are by watching carefully all that occurs, trying to make sense of a situation that does not make sense. You lose your innocence, your spontaneity and start becoming the watcher, the cautious one, the guarded and over protective one. In essence, you lose access to your soft, vulnerable, innocent self, your authentic self, as all these defense mechanisms kick in to protect you.

As a part of keeping yourself safe you will have developed a very strong inner Judge and Critic, who keep watch and tell you when you are doing something wrong. They become very strict monitoring your every move and they work with the inner Controller and Pusher to modify your behaviour and control your every move.

When this team of sub-personalities take over life can be very bleak. They push you to do what they think will protect you best. They watch you and criticise you first, before any one else gets a chance to, because then they can force you to modify your behaviour to be less susceptible to getting told off or abused from others. However, you are now being abused from within. There is no kindness, no rest, no fun, when this is the team controlling your ship. If these have become your dominant sub-personalities or primary selves, life becomes very painful indeed.

This inner team of voices hounds you, day in, day out, telling you what you could do better, how you should have behaved, or what you should have said. What you did do or say is never enough. It could always be better. This team thinks they are helping you avoid confrontation. They are in essence trying to help, but it is a painful process.

The habit of feeling wrong, bad, not good enough, can become so strong that you come to think of yourself as a bad person, an unworthy human being who doesn’t deserve to be alive. It is very cruel and unnecessary.

Once you are an adult and no longer in your abusive childhood home, you don’t need this barrage of judgement, criticism and control to continue, but it does until you learn how to switch it off. You do so by becoming aware of the patterns, listening for those inner voices and urges, and simply choosing to ignore them.

When the Judge comes in and says “That wasn’t good enough”, you can simply reply “I know I could have done better, but it was good enough”. When the Critic comes in and says “You are terrible, you should have …….”, you can simply say “I am no longer willing to put myself down. I am not listening to you”. As its voice ramps up, you can say “Look, I know you think you are helping me, but you are not. What I need now is for you to have a rest, a holiday, to go away and let me live in peace. I can handle it now. You have done a good job in the past. When I was in danger, you did keep me safe. But I am not in danger now and I need you to turn down the volume, so I can focus on enjoying life more and have more fun, friendships, inner peace and joy in my life. The war is over! You helped me survive it. But now it is a time of peace and you deserve to rest, to go on holiday, and to let other aspects of me come to the fore, to guide me in this phase of my life. Thank you for all that you have done, but it is time for a change of guard, a change to who is the dominant sub-personalities operating in my life. Please step back and let this change occur.”

When you can do this, have these inner conversations with those parts of yourself, they will listen. They will watch and test whether you mean it. They will observe whether or not you really are safe without their feedback and constant response. If they can see you truly are okay, then they will back off. It is not all of you beating yourself up. It is just these parts of you and they were doing it, trying to help you.

Likewise, the Pusher was trying to get you to do certain things to keep you safe, or to achieve certain things because then you might finally get the recognition you deserve, or break free from dependency on others through a successful career, financial independence.  These parts of you were helping in the only way they knew how. They didn’t realise it harmed you or caused you pain. They simply didn’t notice that or felt it was a minor, acceptable outcome, for a higher good. Their focus was on the goal of keeping you safe, avoiding  abuse, and therefore safe and isolated from other people, from your heart and the pain within it, and from all the softness of life. This was their job to keep you safe. They have worked hard, thank them and let them know the war is over. You have won, largely due to them.

Many of us have been free of our abusive childhood homes fro decades, yet we still act as if we are there, constantly looking out for danger, reacting in fight or flight and being wary of all that occurs around us. It is a painful way to be. We have to learn how to turn these defense mechanisms off, so we can finally relax and enjoy life. Talking to your sub-personalities, thanking them for how they have helped you and explaining what your new goals are and ways they could help you now, is a big part of this change.

Instead of telling you off all the time, the Critic can be asked to monitor when your body is getting tired and to let you know to rest. It can be asked to gently let you know when you are being too serious and you need to lighten up and have some fun. You give them a new job description, so to speak, so they can still serve you, but in ways that help you to achieve today’s goals.

You can ask the Pusher to help motivate you to exercise and eat well or to connect with others, instead of isolating yourself. You can ask the Judge to remind you when you are being unkind to yourself or others, or to alert you when there is an opportunity that would be beneficial to accept.

positive inner helperYou ask this inner team to become your greatest supporters, to show their love for you, by helping you achieve today’s goals. The past is the past. You don’t need to live there any more. Time to upgrade your inner workings to reflect life now, and life now can be full of love, joy and connection.

One way I found extremely helpful to shift this patterning was Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE). These inner parts were still strong because of the stress, tension and trauma in my body. This tension led me to feel stuck, wound up, anxious, on edge, looking for danger, because my body was still braced against it. My body was sending signals to my brain that I wasn’t safe. Hence, those inner parts were sensing that they were still needed to protect me as it felt like I was in danger, when in reality there was no external threat just the inner pain still active inside.

TRE helps to discharge the tension, stress and trauma. It helps to complete the overwhelm and trauma activations from the past so that the nervous system and body calms back down, so that you come out of freeze, move back out of fight and flight, into a relaxed way of being. Bit by bit your body ‘shakes’ out the tension and calms down, so in time you do feel safe, you are able to relax and peacefully connect with others, knowing the past is over, gone and life can be different now.

When your body calms and feels safe the inner parts relax because they see that they are not needing to defend you or be on high alert. They too relax and this enables you to enjoy your now and meet people anew without the old threats interfering. It is well worth the work to heal so you can joyfully live in the now doing what you want without the old defense mechanisms activating. Blessed BE.

(For more on sub-personality theory, see Hal and Sidra Stone’s Voice Dialogue).

By Jodi-Anne (24 April 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How to be grateful?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Personal Development, Self help techniques

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.

gratitudeGratitude 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.Mandala-Gratitude

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.

By Jodi-Anne (22 April 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How to heal from emotional abuse?

by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Personal Development, Self help techniques

Free-BirdEmotional 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.

healthy-relationships-300x203Harder 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.

By Jodi-Anne (02 April 2016).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.