Five Ways To Leave Pain Behind

"In my world, nothing ever goes wrong." Wayne Dyer, author of Your Sacred Self, introduced me to this expression by Nisargadatta Maharaj. Your Sacred Self is my favorite of the Wayne Dyer series of books.

This book made such a tremendous impact on my spiritual journey that I have given it as gifts to several of my friends. Do you have any sayings such as this or any books that you have read that have impacted your life as this one has mine?

You will find these words, "In my world, nothing goes wrong." scattered throughout my house and written on poster paper and index cards. The use of this expression can enable you to look at the challenges in your life as lessons that you need to learn, rather than as things going wrong.

You will find a simple shift of your attitude can make big changes in how you see people and situations. A major shift happened for me when I started looking at the sexual abuse committed against me in this way.

Rather than continue to blame others which only keeps you struck in the pain of the abuse, if you look at the whole incident as a series of lessons, you will be able to release the pain and leave it in the past with the abuse. You may ask, "What lessons can be learned from being sexually abused as a child?"

Here are a few of the things that you might learn:

1.  You can become a survivor rather than a victim---just a small          shift in perception that makes a big difference in how you see 
     yourself. You can go from feeling helpless as a victim to being 
     a powerful voice against abuse. You can begin to see the value 
     that you have as a human being.

2.  You are courageous rather than being fearful of all people---
      again just a small shift that can allow you to trust and love 
      again. Trust can be a really big issue for a survivor of any
      kind of abuse. I had to learn to trust women. I was afraid of
      being judged harshly by women because the major women in
      my childhood were judgmental. When I was seven years old,
      my aunt told me that I was going to Hell because I was wearing
      shorts. I have been blessed that certain women came into my
      life as an adult and taught me that is was okay to trust. I now
      know that no child is going to Hell just because of what they 
      are wearing.

3.  You may find that you have developed strengths of character
      that you might not would have possessed without going
      through the abuse and the process of healing the abuse. You
      don't learn courage if you have never been afraid. You don't 
      know compassion unless you have been hurt. You don't know 
      strength unless you have been tested. You don't know victory
      unless you have faced adversity. You can't love until you have
      learned to love yourself.

4.  You may find, as I did, that you have faith in God and in 
      yourself that grows stronger each day because you stopped
      blaming God and yourself for the abuse. For years, I was angry 
      at God and hated myself. I didn't share who I really was with
      anyone because I was afraid that you would see how bad, how
      tainted I was. None of that is true today. You might find, as I
      did, that you can love yourself and that your love connects you 
      with and comes from the God within you. God, then, is no 
      longer some entity outside of you. We are one.

5.  I choose to see the sexual abuse as a blessing instead of a curse.
     This is a huge shift for me that would not have happened 
     without the first four smaller shifts of perception. You can, in
     the same way, turn your smaller shifts of perception into a huge
     shift that will affect your entire being.

All of these and so many more shifts can happen for you if you decide to apply these same words, "In my world, nothing ever goes wrong." to your own life. 

Lessons are good. They teach you about yourself. How you react to the challenges in your life gives you valuable lessons about yourself if you will take the time to look. 

Today I love my world (even on the days that I feel sad or angry) and I love me. You might ask, "How can you love your world on the days that you feel sad or angry?"

On those days, I know that I am present just because I do feel those things. You don't have to get struck in the feelings. You can look to see what it is that you need to see or hear or learn to make a difference in your life. This process will work for you if you are willing to face yourself.

This article was originally a guest post on the blog "The Next 45 Years". That blog which belonged to Alex Blackwell has since been closed. I wrote the post on February 29, 2008. 
Patricia

How Would You Describe Yourself?

I was asked to describe myself to a group recently and decided that I would share my thoughts here with you. I like and love who I am today. I had to work to let go of the negative thoughts of the past and to learn to give myself value. Here is how I see myself today.

I see myself as a strong, caring woman who has learned that it is okay to be vulnerable and to open my heart to others. I have a great sense of humor that has helped me through some hard times. I can laugh at myself and see that I am very human. I make mistakes and do my best to learn from them so I don't repeat them because life has a way of bringing back lessons over and over again until we learn them. I love people. I am an extrovert but also need my quiet time to think about what I am going through and what I am feeling. I am quite vocal on things that I care about. If something isn't important to me, I don't waste my time. I am long-winded with my words, especially my writing. Focus is sometimes hard for me because I can see that a path can go in a lot of different directions and I want to walk down all of them just for the experience. I have grown from a shy, scared little girl into a strong, outspoken woman that has been called names a number of times for my outspokenness and for refusing to let another person control me since I escaped my alcoholic, rageaholic dad's control. Today I am more in balance with who I am than I have ever been before and I very much like and love that person that I have become.

Well, here I go with my flaws. I am stubborn which can be good depending upon the situation. I have a temper and it can flair up quickly without warning because I still sometimes let my anger build too long before voicing it. I am better with this and I am still learning to just say I am angry rather than holding it in until I explode like a volcano. If you lie to me, I will shut you out of my heart so quickly and I won't tell you why. I was lied to as a child by most of the adults in my life. Trust isn't easy for me. Once I trust you, I am loyal to a fault. I am outspoken and some people, usually those who want to control me, don't like it. I won't be controlled by anyone else. When I get scared, I get controlling. Now, I see the controlling for the fear that it is and I work on correcting the issue and addressing the fear. When I get angry, I still have a tendency to yell at you, another one I am greatly improved and still working on. I am honest to a fault and sometimes I hurt the feelings of others unintentionally because of it. I don't beat myself up for any of these any more. I used to.

I learned a long time ago that if I wanted to heal from incest or anything else that I needed to take a long, honest look at myself so that look has to include the shadow parts of myself that I might not like. I do need to acknowledge them if I am being honest with myself. Then I can decide if I want to keep those straits or if I want to work to change those parts of myself.

How would you describe yourself? Be as honest as you can. It's okay if you don't want to share the answer here. Write it down for yourself.
Patricia

Is Your Trauma Therapist/Counselor Qualified?

If you are an incest survivor, a sibling abuse survivor or a survivor of any form of child abuse and you decide to seek professional help, please make sure that your therapist or counselor is qualified and properly trained to work with you. Ask to see their certificate or license whichever is required for their particular field of work. Also some therapists and counselors are not trained specifically for trauma victims or for PTSD. Be sure that the person that you are working with is someone who is trustworthy.

With availability of the internet, not everyone that you meet is who they say they are. Don't assume just because someone asks you to let them do EMDR or some other new form of therapy with them that they are fully trained. The internet makes it easy for all of us to reach out to each other and to receive support and compassion from other survivors. Sadly, there are some people out there too that will take advantage of our goodness and our woundedness. Don't assume that someone has received training just because they sound knowledgeable.  Don't let someone manipulate you and guide you in a direction that may harm you. Pay attention to what your gut/intuition tells you about a person. Ask someone else that you trust what they think about this person. Listen to what this person tells you about themselves. Don't minimize what your inner voice is telling you. Trust it.

Not all people who trick you are evil. Some are misguided themselves. Others are self-centered and don't care how their actions may hurt others. Some act out of their own woundedness. None of that really matters and I don't mean them as excuses for what they do. It saddens me that they act out of that place in themselves but I have learned from my own experiences and my own healing that I don't have to let another person fool me because of their woundedness. I can pay attention to my boundaries and enforce them when needed. I can remove myself from that person's presence, even online. I don't have to let another person use me just because I feel sad for them. Today, as a survivor/thriver, I can protect myself. I can also learn from my past mistakes and grow past them.

Sometimes because I look for the good in people, I will miss or choose to ignore my inner voice that says something isn't quite right with this scenario or with what this person is telling me. Each time that I have ignored that voice, I have later learned that I should have paid attention to it. People sometimes disappoint me. Sometimes, I get used even. I am still learning in this area. I won't let a few disappointments keep me from looking for and seeing the good in others. I will be more cautious. That is all I can do. I can also share what I have learned here with my friends.
Patricia

Quality of Relationship More Important Than Length Of Time

Happy 41st Anniversary, Daniel

I want to start out this post by sharing a quote from a friend of mine about relationships and marriage that I read on Saturday and liked so well that I requested the use of it in this post to my dear, sweet husband for our 41st wedding anniversary. Here is the quote:

"It is not how long you have been in your relationship or marriage that matters but how well. It is time to pause and think. How has this relationship affected your well being? Our well being is an important aspect of our lives that we must take serious. If our relationships affect our well being positively, we are bound to live life to the fullest..." Ebele Solu

Thank you Ebele for allowing me to use your words. As I get older, time seems to be going by so much faster. I sometimes struggle to keep up. Most times, I don't worry about it as I sit here in the safe home that Daniel and I created together and I love our life together. As I know I have said many times before on here as I have shared my healing journey, life hasn't always been easy on me or on our marriage. Our marriage has lasted thru all of the times of struggle, not only because we love each other, but also because we are friends. If we didn't like each other we probably would have given up when the struggles got near impossible. Daniel's love, strength and patience have gotten me through so many dark times. Living with an incest survivor is never easy, on so many levels, even one who is healing. Before and during the initial stages of healing, I was so angry, even rageful like my dad. I was in so much emotional pain that I didn't have an outlet for, that it came out as rage most often. I was so full of fears that I had to work at facing and cutting down to size. Daniel had to live with all of that pain while I healed it and learned to control, not him as I had done in earlier years, but my reactions to my fears. As you have read in my recent blog post after the fears that came up during our trip to and from Gettysburg, some of those fears are still with me and occasionally come up to be acknowledged and worked thru. 

You may look at what I just wrote and ask how can she call her marriage a good one? How has it survived all of that pain, anger and fears. My answer would be that we have survived as a couple partly because of God's Grace, I do believe that, partly because we are both very stubborn individuals who refuse to give up on our marriage or ourselves but mostly because we do love each other. My definition of true love is wanting what is best for the other person. Sometimes that love requires sacrifice and other times compromise. We have both done our share of those over the years. One very basic fact is that we trust each other. With that trust in place, there is no place for jealousy which I see doing so much harm in many relationships today. If you trust someone, there is no room or need for jealousy. Trust is a very big issue for me as an incest survivor. If I didn't trust Daniel I would not be married to him. It is that simple. He is a good man. I have seen that over and over throughout our years together. He cares about me, our marriage, our family and other people. He has a kindness that I have learned from. 

Kindness wasn't taught in my childhood home. Control, bullying, rage, fear were constants in my childhood. My parents were married for just over 30 years when they were divorced. Even though I had wanted my mom to leave my dad for most of my childhood, when the divorce was final, I cried. It meant the end of a dream that at some future date my parents would love each other and we would come together as a healthy, loving family. The divorce put an end to that fairy tale that my inner child held on to. Their marriage with 30 years had very little quality to it. Theirs was a marriage of domestic violence and the secret of incest. 

My grandparents had a long marriage that only ended with the death of my grandfather. My dad's alcoholism was passed down to him by his dad who got it from his dad most probably. The rage was also passed down from generation to generation. So was domestic violence within the marriages. These are my examples of length of time not being as important as quality in marriages and relationships. These examples of my childhood are why I am willing to continue to work on my marriage with the help of my husband Daniel.

I love you more today than I ever have, Daniel, simply because you are who you are and because you have stayed by my side and given me the space to do my healing. I hope that you agree with me when I say that our marriage is better than it has ever been. To get here today has been a mutual effort. I couldn't have gotten when I am today without your love and support. I would not have the full life that I do today without you in it. You have allowed me the space and time to grow into who I am today. You have loved me since before I could tell you the source of my pain. You have seen me thru the Hell of denial of the incest and the days of healing which in their own way were Hell too. Today I feel joy and peace. Laughter often rings through our home. You play a big part in all of that for me. 

I love you with all my heart, Daniel.

Happy Anniversary, Honey.

Pat

Forgiveness, Lies And Trust

Hi, it is Saturday and I am cleaning house. Actually I am taking a lunch break right now and wanted to write down and share a few thoughts going thru my head from a number of conversations I have been in this week. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Forgiveness is not a one-time thing. You have to do it over and over as issues come up, your pain is felt and you have reached the stage of taking back your power from your abusers. Forgiveness isn't about the abusers. With forgiveness, I reclaim my personal power to not be hurt or controlled by another person thru their manipulation of my feelings, mind or body. My abusers may never know that I forgave them. I don't have to confront them or even tell them that I forgave them. Little things are easy to forgive. Big things take longer and some may never be forgiveness. That is my choice to make. I believe that it is okay to not choose to forgive some things if you don't want to or can't. I refuse to carry around guilt if I don't forgive and no one else has the right to guilt me with their thoughs on forgiveness. Sharing your thoughts on forgiveness is different than guilting me because I am not really or willing to forgive. Most people know the difference.

2. Lies are the hardest thing for me to forgive and I may never trust you again, depending upon the size of your lies and the depth of the hurt they inflicted upon me. Again, even if I forgive you, I may not tell you because I don't want you to think that I am inviting you back into my life. I am not. I won't give you the chance to hurt me again.

3. Trust doesn't come easily to an incest survivor. We were told too many lies as children and expected to keep too many dark secrets that no child should ever have to endure the pain from. Trust builds slowly but can be torn away in just a second. If you hurt me badly, don't expect me to talk to you about it. Chances are I don't trust you enough to be around you again, much less be vulnerable enough to talk to you and possibly be manipulated by you again. I won't open myself up to that. You may think that is not fair but was it fair to tell me lies that hurt me deeply when I found out about them. Everyone may not understand my reasoning but most survivors who were abused during their childhoods by those who should have protected them will understand, I think. I may one day forgive you but I will probably never trust you with my friendship again.

Now I need to get busy with some house work. I hope that you are all having a glorious Saturday. I am going to turn on some music and sing while I work. That always lifts my mood.
Patricia

Healing From Incest Takes Time

Healing from childhood sexual abuse takes time and much effort on your part and you are worth both. The most important step is learning to love yourself. Most incest victims hate and blame themselves for their abuse. Know that the blame and shame belong to your abusers, not to the child you were then or to the adult you are now. Love both your inner child and the adult that you have become. You are both survivors. Many children don't survive. If you survived, you can heal.

Learn to trust yourself and a few close friends with your story of incest. Telling is more than okay. Your healing depends upon telling someone else the many secrets that you were forced to keep by your abusers. Don't tell just anyone. Tell someone that you trust. You may not trust anyone because of your abuse. In your childhood, you couldn't trust those who were closest to you, if like with me, they were your abusers. Trust is a very big issue and one that you need to do very carefully. Sadly, the world is full of people that you shouldn't trust with your story and your vulnerability. As an adult, there are abusers who will instintively pick up that you are vulnerable and will take advantage if you give them the chance. Believe your heart and your gut when you get signals to run away from these people. This is one reason why learning to trust yourself and your intuition are so important. Really listen to your body. I know how hard that is if you disconnected from your body as a child in order to survive the pain of incest. I also know from my own experience that you can learn to reconnect. Be patient and kind with yourself as you learn to do this. You are blessed to live in a time when many resources are available for your use.

Trust a few close friends with your story or, if it is easier, trust a roomful of strangers, like I did, in 12-Step programs. Those people weren't strangers for long. They totally accepted me and my story of incest.  Today I thank God that my dad was an alcoholic. I was able to find out how I was affected by the family disease of alcoholism and had taken on the characteristics of both of my parents but I also found a safe place to talk about the incest. I talked and talked and talked until I started to feel and the hurt started to leave. Talk as much as you can until the abuse is talked out of your body and mind. Some people will think you are stuck in the memories and will possibly wish you would just shut up. Don't shut up and don't trust those people.  Most people don't realize that you were silenced for so long that you can't let the hurt and anger go with just a few words and wishes. You have to work at and talk your way through the healing process. Writing helps too if you are a writer like me. You are worth whatever it takes to heal. Find a counselor or therapist that will listen and help you work through your pain. Don't settle for just any therapist. Not all are trained to help incest survivors. A therapist that doesn't know what they are doing can do more harm rather than helping you. Sometimes you just don't click with that person. Find a therapist that you can trust and feel safe sharing your story with.

Find others who can love you until you can love yourself. Surround yourself with people who will support you through the long journey to healing. Some won't stay for very long. Those who do will be your true friends. If you trust the wrong person with your story and get hurt by them. Let go of them and move on. Don't stay in an abusive relationship. You do not deserve to be revictimized by anyone. You couldn't do anything about the abuse you suffered as a child. As an adult, you can choose to say no to abuse of any kind and leave if the other person doesn't. Don't trust everyone with yourself or with your story. You deserve to be believed. If others can't treat you with respect and kindness, leave them behind. Move forward into your healing.

As I said before, trust your intuition which will tell you who is trustworthy and who isn't. Start with trusting yourself. Be kind and compassionate with yourself first. Start to listen to your inner voice that has your best interest at heart. Don't listen to any critical inner voices that you got from your parents or abusers. Learn to tune them out. Critical inner voices don't have your best interest at heart. Being critical of yourself is just carrying on the shame that your abusers passed on to you. Don't shame and blame yourself. Being responsible for your own actions is not the same as blaming and shaming. Feeling guilty for making a mistake is not the same as feeling shame because you were taught that you are the mistake. You are not a mistake, now or ever. That is the abuser speaking. Don't listen to that crap any more. You are worthy and lovable. Love yourself and heal. You are worth it.
Patricia

Trust Is Earned, Not Freely Given

Trust and forgiveness are two of the hardest issues for survivors of childhood abuse whether it is sexual, physical or emotional abuse. I have written a number of articles about forgiveness and probably will write a few more in the future. Trust is what I want to talk about today.

Another blogger got me to thinking about the issue of trust. Darlene Ouimet of the blog Emerging From Broken recently posted an article - Is Trust a Necessary Key to Emotional Healing? I will share the link to this post at the end of my article for those who would like to read it.

Trust is not one of the very first issues that I dealt with in my healing journey.  I didn't even realize that trust was an issue that I needed to work on. At that point in my journey, I just didn't trust much at all. My husband and a few close friends had my trust and that was it.  Many survivors know what I mean when I say that I didn't trust.

Looking back at my childhood, I remember being in the first grade and learning that promises were not to be made because they were going to be broken. I am sure that my parents were the ones to teach me that one. When you live with lies, secrets and broken promises, you don't learn to trust, not even yourself.

Trust has two extremes. Neither one is healthy.
1. You don't trust anyone.
2. You trust everyone until they prove that you shouldn't trust them.

Even if you aren't an abuse survivor, trust needs to be earned rather than freely given. I have been blessed with many close friends over the years that I have made the decision to trust after they proved that they could be trusted. Most have not hurt me. A few have.

Two of those friends that come to mind were also my teachers. I won't share the details of the betrayals here. The important thing is what I learned from those teachers.
1. I learned to value who I am.
2. I learned that sometimes teachers are only with you for a short time.
3. I learned that sometimes we grow and our teachers don't.
4. I learned that sometimes trust of a person doesn't have to be forever.
5. I learned that even if you forgive that person, it doesn't mean that they automatically get your trust back if they come back into your life.
6. Sometimes people come back into your life just so that you can see that whatever business you had with them has been finished.

I learned that I have grown considerably since those teachers were in my life the first time. I don't need their guidance like I once did. I do love them for what they taught me.  I am just not the same person who took them at face value before. I have learned caution when it comes to trusting others. I don't trust as easily the second time and I don't trust completely. I learned my lessons and have moved on. I don't think that either of these teachers see the changes but I do. I am not angry with either of them and I don't feel hurt by their past actions so I guess you could say that I have forgiven them. I just don't need what they have to offer right now. The first time, I walked away in anger and hurt. This time, I walked away with peace and comfort in my own abilities and in making my own decisions. I listen to my inner teacher rather than needing an outer teacher. That was a big lesson for me.
Patricia


Is Trust a Necessary Key to Emotional Healing? @
http://emergingfrombroken.com/is-trust-a-necessary-key-to-emotional-healing/

Protect Your Children From Sexual Abuse

I am writing this post specifically for parents. When I was a child, my feelings were never of any consequence to my abusers or to my parents. My dad was one of my incest abusers. He didn't care how I felt. He never once asked me about my feelings about the incest. He didn't want to know. All he wanted was my acquiessence to his demands.

My parents never gave me choices of any kind. I was always told what to do and was expected to do it whether I wanted to or not just because they were the adults in control. I never learned how to speak up for myself or how to make intelligent, healthy decisions for myself.  Because I was expected to obey all adults, I didn't have to be groomed by my abusers. I didn't know that I had the right to say no.

Parents, please do a better job of protecting your children than my parents did. Please teach your children the following things:

1.  Children have control over who touches them.  Also discuss what touches are not okay. Use language that your child will understand. Don't wait too late to have this conversation with your children because you don't want to scare them or confuse them.  Use age appropriate language and examples. I was abused before the age of three. So were many other children. At three, I called myself an adulteress. I knew what sex was because of the abuse.

2.  Tell your children that they can tell you anything. Let them know that they can talk to you about whatever subject is important to them and you will listen. Let them know that you will not blame them if they are hurt by someone else. Let them know that you will believe them no matter what they tell you.

3.  Feelings matter even if they belong to a child. Let your children know that their feelings are important to you. It is okay to feel whatever they feel, even if they feel angry at you. That doesn't make them disrespectful. Don't ignore them or their feelings. Let them see you feeling and they will know it is okay for them to feel too. They learn from watching you. If you deny or stuff your feelings, they will too.

4.  A child has the right to say no to anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. Just because an adult says something is okay doesn't mean that it is. If they are afraid to tell you, tell them to tell a teacher, the principal or a policeman. Keep telling their story until they find someone who believes them and takes action to protect them.

5.  Do what is necessary to keep your children safe from child molesters, even if those molesters are family members or friends. No child should ever be abused and have to live with the consequences of child abuse. Child sexual abuse leaves lasting scars. If your child is abused, get them help whether they act hurt or not.

6.  Your children are not here to meet your adult needs. Be a parent to your children. They are not your parents. Don't make them the adult in your relationship. Don't share your secrets with them. Don't share intimate details about your spouse with your child. Don't make your child responsible for your safety or for your emotions or for your behavior.

7.  Secrets between children and adults are not healthy. Secrets allow children to continue to be abused. So tell your children to say no to secrets. Molesters look for children that they think will keep their secrets.

8.  Be trustworthy with your children. Don't lie to them. Children need to be able to trust their parents to keep them safe. If they can't trust you then they learn that the world is not safe. Fear should not be a child's constant companion. Teach your children to trust their own selves and their "gut" to protect themselves. Teach them to follow their intuition. Teach them to be still and listen for that inner voice that guides them.

9.  If your child tells you that they have been sexually abused or touched inappropriately by an adult, believe them. Do not invalidate their pain or their story. This can do more damage to your children than the actual abuser. Don't make your child doubt themselves.

10. Most important of all is parents do not sexually abuse your child. Incest is a lifetime prison term of suffering. Sexual abuse by a parent is much more damaging than sexual abuse by a stranger.  Scientific studies now show that childhood sexual abuse, especially incest, changes the brain of a child in a way that is not found in children who have not been sexually abused.

A similar list was first written and posted on a guest blog article that I did back on June 21, 2011 on the blog called S.A.S.S.U. Sexual Assault Survivors Standing Up. You will find the link to the original article below:

http://sassuempowerment.blogspot.com/2011/06/incestprotect-your-children.html

These are very important steps for protecting your children from the sexual predators of the world. You may not think there are any predators near your child but you would be wrong. Child molesters live in almost every neighborhood today. If a child cannot depend upon their parents for protection, they will not learn how to protect themselves. Please protect your children. Don't wait for someone else to take charge to change the world. Take some action to protect the children in your life.
Patricia

Dialogues With Dignity And 22 Ways To Love Yourself

Yesterday I was on Dialogues With Dignity again with my friends Dan Hays, Ellen Brown and Stash Serafin. I love being a guest on their radio talk program. The title of this program was "Learning To Love Ourselves."
Here is the link for the dicussion:

http://dialogueswithdignity.podbean.com/2012/01/18/learning-to-love-ourselves/


I hope you will listen to the program and leave comments on Dialogues With Dignity and then come back here and leave a comment. Let us know if you liked the discussion. Thank you to Dan, Ellen and Stash for having me back for this discussion.

When I was getting ready for the show, I printed out a few of my past articles on learning to love yourself as a healing tool. Then I sat down and made a list of 22 ways to love yourself. Here is that list:

1. Reconnect with and pay attention to your body and what it tells you.
2. Forgive yourself for being that child who got abused. Know that you didn't cause the abuse and you couldn't have prevented it from happening. You were a child.
3. Feel whatever feelings come. Don't stuff or deny their existence. That is how addictions start.
4. Learn how to take care of your needs and wants. You do have them. You deserve to be nurtured.
5. Learn to trust yourself and your intuition.
6. Do things that make you feel good emotionally and physically.  Do something that is fun that your inner children will enjoy doing.
7. Use affirmations to build your feelings of self-worth.
8. Know that your value comes from within you, not from others.
9. Know that you deserve to be loved by yourself and by others.
10. Let go of your abuser's love - it isn't love and you don't need it when you love yourself.
11. Work on taking back and building up your personal power. (My next post due on Jan. 22 is about personal power.)
12. Move. Exercise. Diet if you need to so that you can improve your health.
13. Make a dentist appointment or doctor's appointment if you need it and keep it. Don't let your fears and shame keep you from taking care of your body.
14. Find a doctor that you trust.
15. Hug a special teddy bear to nurture your inner child. Sleep with it if it comforts your inner child and makes her/him feel safer at night. As silly as it may sound for an adult to sleep with a teddy bear, it helped my inner children to start to trust the adult me.
16. Use meditation to calm and ground yourself. Become aware of your breath and your connection to your body. Many incest survivors are totally disconnected from their body and the hurt that it experienced when they were  children.
17. Take small steps in healing. Pretend that you love yourself and watch others who show that they love you until you can start to love yourself.
18. Surround yourself with people who love you and support you in your efforts to heal and to become functional. Let go of those people who don't support your healing.
19. Recognize that change is scarey and it is a choice. Face your fears and change any way.
20. Be willing to be vulnerable and open your heart to those you love.
21. Love yourself today by accepting you right where you are today. With acceptance comes awareness. Accepting yourself is the first step to loving yourself. See your inner children as a product of your childhood and love them any way.
22. Loving yourself means not allowing you to hurt yourself. It also means not allowing others to hurt you. Say no to abuse in any form.

It is my belief that loving yourself is the foundation of all healing. You deserve to heal and to feel good about yourself.

Don't forget to check out our talk at Dialogues With Dignity. I wrote this list before doing the show and you will hear me mention most of this in my part of the conversation. Again, thanks to Dan Hays, Ellen Brown and Stash Serafin for having me on Dialogues With Dignity.
Patricia 

The Movie "Precious" And Incest

Here is a recent comment that I left on the website Bossip.com . You can find the article that I commented to at the following link: [Warning: the language of the comments may be offensive to some. The video could also be a trigger for some incest survivors.]

http://bossip.com/224627/damn-gabourey-sidibes-precious-audition-tape-is-powerful-video/ .

"Incest is a very big problem in our society. I have never heard Oprah or anyone else say that it only happens in the black community. Believe me, it doesn't.

Those of us who are incest survivors know just how big this problem is. I am an incest survivor and my skin color is white. Black or white, skin color doesn't matter if you are an incest survivor.

This problem has been hidden for so very long. I think we are blessed that Oprah and other celebrities are bringing the secret of incest out into the open. As long as it is hidden, we will never stop it from happening to our children. The children are important. They are our future.

If you don't like Oprah's choice of movies or her topics on her show, don't watch them. Tell [should have been "turn"] the TV off. Don't buy tickets to the movie. You have a simple choice not to go there.

As an incest survivor, I can't turn off my life. My past has molded me into who I am today. Today I am a survivor. "Get over it" as some other commenter said isn't as easy as you would like to believe. Today incest doesn't rule my life like it once did.

If "getting over it" was an easy option, don't you think we would do that. It isn't easy. Incest affects every area of my life. Shame, low-self worth, self-hatred, rage, a hurt so deep that it seems like you will never recover from it---I have dealt with all of these. People who tell you to just "get over it" don't know what the hell they are talking about and I hope that they never learn about incest first hand. Don't let your ignorance make you heartless.

What you want is for me to go back into denial of my incest issues. That isn't healthy and helps no one, lest of all me. Pretending that I am not affected by incest just makes me more of a victim which I refuse to ever be again. How about you stop pretending that incest isn't a part of our world?"

In the video audition, Miss Sidibe say two things that jumped out at me. She said, "I'm tired." and she said, "I've had enough of love."

For most of my life since I was a very small child, I have lived with a bone weary tiredness that never seemed to leave. I think that I still carry some of that feeling in my body. I learned to live with that tiredness a long time ago if I wanted to achieve anything in my life. I have been reading about doing body work on several other blogs over the past few months. Maybe it is time for me to find out if I can trust enough to do body work.

I think that many incest survivors have decided that they have had enough of love. Love to an incest survivor often has the sexual abuse so tied up in the concept of love that it is hard to trust anyone else to be intimate enough to give healthy love a chance to grow. Trust is so much involved with loving another person, letting that person get close enough for love to grow. Some of us have been so abused that trust in another person is almost impossible to even imagine. Having someone abuse you sexually while they are saying that they love you really messes up your concept of trust and love. Having someone tell you, like my dad did, that if you love me you will let me do this makes you not even trust yourself, much less someone else. Only by the grace of God did I take a chance and let myself learn to love my husband when he came into my life back in 1972. He is worth loving and so am I. I don't know where I got the courage to even try. Some incest survivors don't.

Incest and violence neither one are confined to just one race. Neither cares about the color of your skin or what language you speak or if you are even old enough to speak. Sometimes they don't even care if you are male or female. They don't care how much money your family has and they don't care what educational level your family comes from. They don't discriminate like some people would like you to believe.
Patricia

Relationships And Trust

From Awakening, A Daily Guide to Conscious Living, written by Shakti Gawain, New World Library, Novato, California, 1991, Revised 2006, October 1 page:

"We need relationships

Our primary relationship is with ourselves, and ultimately that's the only one that can provide the foundation for wholeness. That's the place where we need to find integration and balance. And at the same time, we need relationships with other people in order to be happy and fulfilled in life. If we only look for wholeness and completion within ourselves, we disown the part of ourselves that also needs other people.

Human beings are social creatures. Physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually --- we absolutely need close contact with other people. We need love, support, understanding, recognition, and stimulation reflected to us by others.

I spend time cultivating my relationship with myself and time reaching out to receive what I need from others."


I recently picked this book up at a used book store. Years ago, I read a book by Shakti Gawain and just didn't connect with it at all. I am connecting with what this book has to offer.

As a Saggittarian, my natal chart shows me that this lifetime for me is all about relationships. My major work this lifetime has to do with all kinds of relationships. Maybe that is why the lessons have been so difficult with my parents. We often learn the most from our greatest struggles in life.

As an incest survivor, my early relationships were full of pain (physical and emotional) and betrayal. Trust has been one of my biggest issues that I struggle with. My newest relationship is with my Al-Anon sponsor. God has blessed me by putting this wonderful lady in my life. She has wisdom and years in Al-Anon that I don't have. That doesn't mean that she doesn't have struggles in life. She does. She allows me to see her struggles and that is good. I can see, first hand, how she handles her own struggles in life and therefore, I learn more by her example than by her words. I know that I can trust what she says because I can see her using it herself. When she is in trouble and overwhelmed, what does she do? She calls her sponsor and works her Steps in the program of Al-Anon, things that I am also learning to do.

It isn't easy for me to call another person and admit that I need help and that I don't have all of the answers. It isn't easy for me to show you my vulnerabilities because in the past those vulnerabilities were used to hurt me. It isn't easy for me to say, "I am hurting." In my childhood, I was shamed when I let it be known that I was unhappy, sad, hurting, angry, crying.....

So, how are your relationships going today? I am learning about myself through my relationships. I am learning that I have value. I am learning that I can care about you and not get hurt. I am learning that you have value. I am learning that I learn best by watching other people and seeing what works for them and what doesn't work for them. I am learning to love myself completely as I am. I am learning to love you completely as you are. I don't have to change you and you don't have to change me. As children of God, we are all perfect and that is as it should be. What have your relationships taught you?
Patricia

Out Of My Comfort Zone---Trust

I called my new Al-Anon sponsor for the first time. I walked in the door from shopping, picked up the phone and called her before I could come up with any excuses to not call her. I told her that I called her before I could chicken out again.

Trust is such a difficult issue for me even today. Right now it is even difficult to find the words to express my thoughts on the topic of trust.

In Al-Anon, I used to pre-think what I was going to say when it was my turn instead of listening to what others say on the chosen topic. Recently I called myself on this and as a result I often seem to stumble (at least to me) through what I want to say. I want honesty rather than perfection and approval. This is one way that I am stretching to trust myself and the group. I want what I share to come from my heart rather than from my store of knowledge. I don't want to continue to hide behind my knowledge.

I have to trust that when my sponsor asks me how I am that she really wants to know or she wouldn't ask. My automatic response was that I was doing fine. I know I am lying when I say the word "fine" anywhere in relation to my feelings. I learned in Al-Anon years ago that "fine" means (Pardon the language coming up.)

Fucked up
Insecure
Neurotic
Emotional

When I first heard that, I thought how true when I am in the middle of my emotional garbage. So when I tell you that I am doing fine, that is what I mean. When I am working on my incest issues, this is how I really feel when I can admit it to myself. That is the honesty that I want to have with myself and my sponsor---to be able to admit what I am really feeling.

As an incest survivor, for years I used the illusion of control in my life to feel safe. I have to trust my sponsor not to do or say anything that will hurt me. On an intellectual level, I can talk myself into sharing my issues with her. On a feeling level, sharing is more difficult. You would think that writing on this blog would make that easier but it doesn't. Sharing with you is different than sharing with my sponsor on a one-on-one level. Anyone with a therapist probably knows what I am trying to say.

My sponsor has me reading an Al-Anon book called Paths to Recovery - Al-Anon's Steps, Traditions, and Concepts. In working Step One - "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol---that our lives had become unmanageable." - I can easily say that I am powerless over alcohol. I can admit that my life has become unmanageable. Asking for help has been the difficult part for me. When I have to ask for help, that need brings out shame. Some part of me says that I need to be in control all the time, that I should be able to fix my own life, that I should be able to protect myself without help from anyone else. All of those thoughts come from shame and low self-worth. Some part of me equates powerlessness with being out of control.

Am I still talking about trust or has my ego steared me away from what I don't want to talk about. The bottom line is always how much do I trust myself. If I don't trust myself, how can I trust anyone else? I really want to be committed to doing this work rather than going to the kitchen and stuffing myself with food to get back into my comfort zone. I have been overeating this past week instead of facing my feelings head-on. That is something that I very much want to change. I will move forward through this one step at a time.

I hope that what I have written here makes sense. Right now I am too close to the feelings to know if all of the words are what I intend for them to be. Am I making sense to any of you?
Patricia