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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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About Jen Hinkkala

Jen Hinkkala is PhD student, researcher, and teacher of arts education in Canada. As a researcher Jen strives to understand what factors and experiences lead to higher levels of wellness, resiliency, self-care among arts educators and students. Jen is also a life coach and specializes in self-care, well-being, time management, performance anxiety, estrangement, overcoming abuse, career paths, and anxiety. Jen runs a support group for estranged adults and a group to support personal development.

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Why Strong Chemistry Doesn’t Always Lead to a Strong Relationship

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” ~C.G. Jung 

Everyone says it. They say chemistry is a must. I know I say it. But why do we say this?  What exactly is chemistry, and is it really the best indicator of a good partner?

The man I had the most chemistry with (we’ll call him Tim) treated me like an option and was never particularly concerned with my needs, desires, or feelings.

I remember the day I met him, and he opened the door and flashed his ear-to-ear grin. I literally said to myself, “FML, this guy is going to break my heart.” Despite knowing he would, and despite his treatment, I stayed with him in a long-distance, off-and-on relationship for two and a half years. Oh, and yes, he did break my heart.

Not only have I done this once, but I’ve done it SIX times!

Why did I place my feelings for him and my desire to be with him over my own sanity, my security, and my needs? Why do we do it over and over again? Why do we value chemistry over caring?

What is Chemistry?

According to anthropologist Helen Fischer, chemistry is really a mixture of hormones (testosterone and estrogen) and neurotransmitters (dopamine and serotonin). In her book Why We Love, she lays out a framework indicating there are four distinct personality types, each made up of varying degrees of hormones and neurotransmitters.

The Four Personality Types

• The Explorer, defined by high dopamine activity, is adventurous, novelty-seeking, creative

• The Builder, with high serotonin activity, is cautious, conventional, managerial

• The Director, pumped up with testosterone, is aggressive, single-minded, analytical

• The Negotiator, more estrogen-influenced, is empathetic, idealistic, a big-picture thinker

But, underlying this biological chemistry is a psychological chemistry, which is when we are seeking out someone to heal the damage done in our childhood. This chemistry is where our problems come in.

Most of the time we don’t know that we are drawing this parental figure toward us in some quest to get them to do things right by us this time, thereby fixing our wounded hearts. Sometimes we know it, but we keep moving forward anyway.

With Tim I knew immediately. I felt his avoidance and his emotional unavailability. My intuition told me to run the minute I met him. Unfortunately, my hormones, my soul, and my heart told me otherwise, and I continued a pattern of push and pull, love and disdain for over two years.

With all of my other boyfriends and even my husband, it wasn’t so obvious. Some it showed up later and some were worse than others. But I felt an immediate connection with every single one of them and went from being single to being in a relationship within a matter of days.

So, Is It All Or Nothing?

Not once did I take the time to determine how they treated me. Not once did I take the time to observe their behaviors and their willingness to meet my needs. I let chemistry and my feelings toward them override common sense.

This isn’t to say they are to blame or that they were bad guys, because they weren’t. My childhood issues were running the show and have been since I can remember.

Every one of them had the same characteristics. They were all kind, honest, good guys. But none of them seemed to care about my needs as much as their own. Life was all about their wants, needs, and desires, and I was supposed to just accept it. Unfortunately, I did accept it. I took it for as long as I could until I eventually left.

However, this is not a healthy way to interact in a relationship. I was at fault for settling and not speaking my mind and discussing my needs. I suppose I felt that I was lucky to get their crumbs, and if they said they loved me that should have been enough. It wasn’t.

There was always an underlying chemistry with all of them that kept me there and kept me trying. One night while I was separated from my husband, he spent the night after we went out to dinner. I remember lying there next to him. My body craved being physically next to him, but I kept looking over at him and thought to myself, “I really don’t like you very much.”

Chemistry can override our common sense, and it can keep us with someone who isn’t right for us or doesn’t treat us well. Chemistry can be the most amazing thing on the planet. The highs you get are amazing. Unfortunately, the lows that can also come with it are very low. So, what do you do?

Moving Forward

I’ve come to realize that as of right now I am always going to be chemically attracted to someone who has a little bit of an avoidant personality. Emotional ambivalence feels safe and normal to me at first. It feels like love and it feels like home. Unfortunately, that type of love is not at all fulfilling as an adult, and I have to figure out how to rewire my brain.

I’m not a doctor or a therapist, but I know myself and I think I’m fairly smart. What I think needs to be done going forward is to examine my choices more carefully before diving in.

Almost all dating experts will tell you the same thing: Relationships are built on mutual trust, intimacy, and how each partner is willing to meet the other’s needs.

If you haven’t heard of the famous study by John Gottman, here is a quick recap. They put couples in a room together and let them interact. They followed them over the years and came to this one conclusion: Every person turns toward their partner in an effort to make an emotional connection. They called these needs bids.

They found that the couples that were happiest and that remained married met their partner’s emotional bids eighty percent (80%) of the time.

Gottman identified nine separate emotional bids that include:

1. Attention
2. Interest
3. Affection
4. Extended conversation
5. Emotional support
6. Humor
7. Enthusiastic engagement
8. Play
9. Self-disclosure

What does this have to do with moving forward and with choosing a partner based on caring instead of chemistry? It means you have to observe them. Don’t rush in. Don’t choose someone just because you like them so much or you have chemistry with them.

When you reach out in an attempt to make a connection, how does your partner respond? Do they respond to your bid or move away from it? It doesn’t matter whether they do it consciously or subconsciously; what matters is how they respond.

Of course, it’s your responsibility to communicate your needs, desires, and wants, and if you fail to do this, you can’t blame it all on your partner. But, if you have and they still fail to meet your bids, then your relationship is likely doomed to fail.

Choices

It’s irrelevant if the person you choose has the physical appearance, job, sense of humor, ethics, or personality that you covet and are attracted to. If they fail to meet your bids for emotional connection, you will end up miserable and it won’t work. Period.

So, take some time to write down what it is that you need in a partner. What are your non-negotiables? This should not really include things like height or hair color or body type.

Non-negotiables are things like:

• Honesty
• Considers my needs as well as their own
• Hard Working
• Not selfish
• Makes me laugh
• Able to communicate their needs
• Wants children/doesn’t want children
• Accepts the fact that I get super fussy when I’m tired and doesn’t make me feel bad about it
• Listens to me

This is a basic list of some things to consider. Before you invest time dating you need to invest time in yourself. Figure out what you can and cannot do without. Write down three to five of your non-negotiables and stick by them.

I’m not saying it will be easy to do this. The heart wants what it wants and chemistry can be a powerful force. Maybe this is what we all should think about if we keep choosing chemistry over caring.

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About Carrie L. Burns

Carrie L. Burns is a blogger on a mission of self-discovery. As a sexual abuse survivor that struggled for years with depression anxiety, low self-esteem, lack of self-love, and relationship issues, she found her purpose through writing and sharing her story with others. Check out her other writing at www.acinglife.com.

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Toxic Help: 3 Signs Your Support Is Doing More Harm Than Good

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” ~John Holmes

As someone who people often come to seeking help or advice, I recently encountered a new situation for me: one in which I chose to stop helping someone and walk away entirely because I determined it wasn’t good—for the other person or myself.

It felt like the wrong thing to do, but once I had some distance, I knew I had made the right decision. Throughout the helping, I soldiered on and helped and helped and helped until it no longer felt good, and sometime after that I determined it was no longer help at all—it was enablement.

My good friend—let’s call him Jack—has had a series of extremely toxic relationships. Infidelity, dramatic and very public confrontations, drug abuse, police involvement…. Jack has always played the role of victim in these cases, and in the three relationships I saw him in during the time of our friendship, he was cheated on, dumped, thrown out of the house, and physically abused. He can’t seem to help himself in this regard.

Last year, he entered a relationship that was problematic before it even began. The very first official date with Henry, the guy who later became his partner, Henry stormed out of a dinner with a group of people, got extremely intoxicated, and got into a fist fight (with a legally blind person no less) and thrown out of another establishment later. This was all on the first date mind you!

In a sense, this was very lucky. When someone shows you their worst selves, that is often after years together, a shared home, or maybe even a marriage. At that point, it’s usually emotionally and perhaps even logistically very difficult to walk away. On date #1, not so much!

And yet, Jack persisted.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Henry, who was already living paycheck to paycheck, was fired from his new job (for which he relocated internationally) for having a shouting match with the boss, and had a dramatic fight with his older sister, who was his only acquaintance in this new country and perhaps his only source of financial support.

It also became clear the guy was an alcoholic and drug addict. Without a job or the help of his sister, who do you think he immediately turned to for money? Yup, Jack.

Before too long, Henry’s temper tantrums were directed at Jack’s friends, including myself. The first day I met him, Henry screamed and yelled at me over dinner. In short order, the temper tantrums were turned on Jack, and soon the words became closed fists. He beat up Jack a few times—once leaving Jack with a pair of black eyes—and yet, it was Henry who dumped Jack. Jack kept coming back for more!

This all unfolded over the course of about six months. During this time, Jack frequently sought my advice. Whenever we talked, I of course let him know how unacceptable Henry’s behavior was, but also tried to get Jack to accept the deeper reality of the situation—that no one who was okay with themselves would tolerate this type of behavior from someone else and that Jack needed to really work on himself.

As the situation became more threatening and then violent, I counseled Jack in no uncertain terms that it was time to get the hell out of there. Had I been aware shortly after the physically violent episodes (Jack only told me weeks after the fact), I very likely would have become directly involved and called the police.

After each of these conversations, Jack’s mood brightened from despondent to anywhere from determined to energized. He was going to take action. He was going to see a therapist. He was going to stop giving Henry money and leave him. He was going to make sure not to speak with him alone. And each time… nothing. Same story each time. Each time I saw Jack, Henry was there, often belligerent, and always intoxicated with something.

However, as incomprehensible as Jack’s behavior and decision-making seemed, it’s not uncommon for victims of abuse, who often suffer from past traumas and therefore have underlying emotional and psychological issues that require professional attention. In fact, it has a name: trauma bonding. I was aware of that, so beyond trying to help protect Jack’s physical safety, I was patient in nudging him toward seeing someone.

What finally did it for me—the last straw—was after the second or third incident of physical abuse. Jack’s friends, some of whom I knew, were very happy to gossip and complain about the situation behind Jack’s back, especially insofar as it affected their social plans. However, they didn’t intervene or offer him help in any way that I could see.

Likewise, Jack lived at home with his parents and siblings. Even after coming home black and blue and bleeding, they took no action and never discussed the situation.

A week later, there were social media postings of Jack and Henry back together again, all smiles. The friends who knew of the abuse? They awarded those posts with smiley faces, hearts, and thumbs up.

At that point, I realized that I just couldn’t fight this battle alone. It’s difficult enough to try and help someone who is not able to help themselves and indeed seems intent on hurting themselves, but when such a person’s self-destructive behavior is supported and enabled by a whole community of people surrounding them? That is an impossible situation, so I took myself out of it and broke contact. I was out of the country at the time, so it was easier to do this at that point.

I thought about why I did this. It wasn’t because Jack was so intent on his self-destructive behavior—that just made it difficult, and it’s hardly a unique circumstance. It wasn’t because it was unpleasant—helping someone who really needs it often isn’t pleasant or glamorous, however good it might feel after the fact. And it also wasn’t that I felt in danger from Henry—he was a classic bully, beating up on people weaker than he was, but I didn’t have to see him.

No, this was something else entirely. This was “toxic help,” and I thought about it and figured out three ways to identify it as such. With these conditions, it’s difficult for me to imagine any help actually being helpful, in which case it’s better for you and indeed everyone else if you extricate yourself.

3 Ways to Identify Toxic Help

1. You check yourself and don’t like what you find.

Whenever you help someone, you should always check yourself first to ensure that this help is coming from a good place, from the standpoint of both your mind and emotions.

The ego often plays a critical role in instances of toxic help. If you delve deep, you may find that you are actually pushing some agenda or subconscious ulterior motive on the other person.

For example, you may be helping in part because you are re-enacting some past trauma or mistake you made and trying to fix your past self. Or, you may be trying to impress the person or make yourself feel superior. There are a lot of ways your ego could be manipulating the situation.

In my case, I didn’t find any evidence of a subconscious ulterior motive. However, what I did find was that I had developed a lot of negative emotions around the whole situation.

I was frustrated with Jack for making the same error over and over and over again. I was angry with Jack for constantly disregarding my advice—my advice… and that is where my ego started showing through.

I was furious with his friends and family for allowing and even encouraging the situation to continue and tired of seemingly being the lone voice of care, concern, and sanity. If I was at a more evolved state, that negativity would not have arisen, so that’s probably something I should work on myself. But that was the best I could do at that time.

Help can never come from a place of anger, any more than it can frustration, resentment, or greed. Negative emotions are part of life, but acting on them pollutes the world with that negativity. I realized that my efforts to “help” were becoming increasingly hostile in nature, and at that point nothing I would do was likely to be successful, because it was no longer coming from a place of love.

Moreover, negativity transfers, as life is not compartmentalized. My anger, frustration, and other negative emotions were surely spilling over into other facets of my life—my work, friendships, and causal interactions. At that point, even if I was still in a position to help Jack, I’m not sure if it would have been a net positive for the world if, while doing that, I was not honoring the other people and responsibilities in my life.

2. Your help is causing the other person to stagnate.

Jack, as I mentioned, normally seemed to brighten a bit after each of our little talks. He would come away feeling more determined, agreeing with my analysis, and sure he was going to do something about it. Walking away from each of those interactions, his back seemed a little straighter and his head held higher. And yet, nothing changed in the situation.

However, that’s normal with intractable problems and deep-seated behavioral patterns—they’re difficult to change! I realized that my help was not merely failing to have a positive impact, it was making things worse.

It became clear that each time Jack spoke to me, he mentally tagged that as “doing something.” He felt better that he’d talked through the issues, apparently made some decisions, and probably because he got a lot off his chest—all healthy things. Yet, in his mind, that represented action and progress. When he spoke to me after the fact about what concrete decisions and steps he’d taken, he would offer up our last talk as an example.

In this way, our talks became like a drug—a little pick-me-up that provided a brief high but did nothing to actually move Jack forward.

Our talks were counter-productive in this way because they made him feel better, when in fact it is discomfort that typically spurs people to take difficult action. Our talks made him feel more comfortable, when what he needed was to feel less comfortable with the situation. The result was that Jack was avoiding taking the positive steps he needed, such as seeking professional help.

3. You start role playing “savior” and “person in distress.”

Any truly close relationship with someone must be authentic. It doesn’t involve role-playing or people doing what they’re “supposed to do” just because it’s something they’re “supposed to do.” It is an exchange, a give-and-take, an open dialogue, and a two-way street.

Surely, in a long-term relationship, there will inevitably be periods in which one party is the needy one and the other is the helper. Yet, when those roles calcify into giver and taker, and every interaction is one of helping and being helped, that’s no longer a friendship—it’s a co-dependence.

In my case, Jack had become stagnant. He was not moving forward. If ever he was looking for just some social interaction or “chill time,” he would call Henry or one of his other friends, and this often involved substance abuse. My role just became the helper and advisor, and in truth, our “sessions” had just morphed into pick-me-ups for Jack, so it was no longer even helpful for him.

So, our relationship became boxed in this way with no clear way forward. Jack got fulfilment of his complex and unhealthy emotional needs from Henry, he got his social needs fulfilled by his enabling friends, and he got his help from me. We all had our parts to play, and indeed the other parties in his life encouraged this system to continue by enabling his behavior.

The only way I saw to break the mold was for me to change the dynamic, and so I did.

Not surprisingly, after Henry left the picture, Jack stopped calling for help. He didn’t notice that I wasn’t at his birthday party because I was out of the country, but then again, he didn’t even know that I was out of the country. He hadn’t needed help for a few weeks, so the calls stopped. as my role was temporarily written out of the script… until his next toxic relationship, when he’ll need to find a new helper.

None of this was easy for me, and it didn’t feel good or natural. I am not one to turn my back on anyone in need, especially not a friend. But I learned and came to accept that I can’t do everything and should not take responsibility to fix what is beyond my ability.

I really wish the best for Jack, and it would be nice to one day re-establish a relationship, but I needed to create distance in order to restore my own well-being, break the co-dependence that had developed, and banish the helper/person in distress roles that had hardened. In this way, I could be my best self, which ultimately is what’s most helpful to the world.

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About Joshua Kauffman

Joshua Kauffman is a recovering over-achiever and workaholic. Leaving behind a high-powered life in business, he has become a world traveler, aspiring coach, and entrepreneur of pretty things. Amateur author of a recent memoir Footprints Through The Desert, he is trying to find ways to share his awakening experience, particularly to those lost in the rat race like he was.

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4 Things I Learned from Being Possessive and Controlling in a Relationship

As she stood there watching the puppet show, our eyes locked. I was instantly attracted.

After what felt like the longest fifteen minutes torn between the desire to talk to her and the fear of rejection, I mustered the courage to introduce myself.

She gave me a smile, then without saying a word, walked away.

“What just happened? How can such a beautiful lady be so rude?” I stood there in disbelief, overtaken by embarrassment, pretending nothing had happened.

Two weeks later, as if by pure serendipity, a mutual friend reconnected us. That was the beginning of a relationship I could only dream of.

Oh boy, did I misjudge her! Her attractive appearance was an exact expression of the beauty of her soul.

One year and a half later, we were dating. Yes, I spent one year and half chasing after her. I guarantee a minute spent with her would convince you it was well worth my while.

They say it takes longer to build a castle than a chicken coop. One and a half years must be the foundation for a skyscraper that not even the worst storm could break.

For about a year, it felt that way. We were inseparable. Both our parents gave us their blessings. We moved in together. We even made wedding plans.

It was like a relationship out of a fairy tale. We had every reason to believe we would live happily forever after. Life without each other was inconceivable.

But there a problem… I was excessively possessive and controlling.

I couldn’t stand my girl talking to another guy. I had the passwords to all her social media accounts. Whomever she was talking to, I knew. If she had to meet a male friend, I was present.

Little by little I was withdrawing from her emotional bank account, as Stephen Covey put it. Worst of all, I was taking more than I was putting in.

As a fervent Buddhist who believes in “letting go,” she was very tolerant. That gave me plenty of room to throw tantrums, ruminate, and blow the littlest issue out of proportion.

Well, patience has its limits. After three and a half years, she had reached hers. I had emptied her emotional bank account.

It was over. She had broken up with me.

I was so clingy that I wouldn’t even accept her decision. I spent eighteen days trying every trick under the blue sky to get her back, to no avail.

How did that happen? We’d spent so much time building our relationship, cherishing and loving each other. What went wrong?

The eighteen days that followed were like a living hell. I suffered panic attacks, lost my appetite, and couldn’t sleep. Life became meaningless. I was at a breaking point.

On the eighteenth day after the breakup, when I realized she wasn’t coming back, I had a reckoning. My desperation suddenly gave way to a wave of frustration, anger, and shame.

As I was engulfed in deceit and embarrassment, I made a solemn decision to never again get rejected by a girl for being overly possessive, irrational, and intolerant.

Such a momentous decision! I didn’t know if that was even possible and how I was ever going to reach such a lofty goal.

That breakup and the three years spent self-examining taught me the big four lessons I am about to share with you.

Are you in a relationship? Does your overbearingness prevent you from spending quality time with your partner? Are you ready to make changes?

If you answered yes to all three questions, you are reading the right article. Hopefully, you won’t have to lose a partner and spend three years in self-introspection to find out you need to make changes.

First thing first, love thyself.

I know that sounds cliché, but I couldn’t find any fancier way to put it..

Enjoying the company of your partner starts with you feeling good in your own skin. I’m guessing you would agree that one cannot love if they don’t possess it.

A lack of self-love will cause you to center your entire being around the other person. And just like any host-parasite relationship, it will eventually fail. Your partner can’t let you feed off them indefinitely.

Self-love is not selfishness. Loving yourself first doesn’t mean disparaging the other to elevate yourself. It’s acknowledging and embracing yourself while selflessly attuning to your partner’s needs and whims.

Forget the “other half” mantras. Neither you nor your partner is a half, each of you possess their unique interests, weaknesses, strengths, and aspiration. It’s only when you both commit to each other, while staying true to your individuality, that genuine love happens.

If I had espoused that idea then, I would never have considered suicide when my ex left me. I had based so much of my life on her I just couldn’t find meaning outsider of her.

Learn to trust or you lose.

Trust is the pillar of every human relationship, especially romantic ones.

My lack of trust in my ex had nothing to do with her but rather with my deep sense of insecurity. I had the recurring thought that she would leave the minute she met someone better than me.

Not only did my baseless fears cause me my peace of mind, they also created a wedge in our relationship.

My trust issues caused her to lose all sense of vulnerability and safety around me. The only option she had was to confide in someone else.

To learn to trust, I had to remind myself of this simple truth: We can’t control someone’s thoughts and actions. The best we can do is to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Now, I choose to respect and trust my girlfriend unconditionally. Not only is she more willing to open up to me, I also enjoy a dramatic increase in self-esteem.

Forgive and forget.

Do you know those people who catastrophize and ruminate long after they got hurt? Well, that’s my past self!

I did this every time my ex did something that displeased me. It didn’t matter if she apologized, I would internalize it and bring it up every time we were in an argument.

For the last two years of our relationship, I made her life miserable. Imagine someone who never forgets even your most trivial mishap and uses it to attack you every time you’re wrong.

Ironically, I learned to forgive and forget during the eighteen-day period while I was trying to get her back out of desperation.

After flowers, long letters, and constant phone calls failed, I thought I could use religion to get her attention. That idea brought me to Google searching for “Buddha’s quote about forgiveness.”

I came across this wisdom by Buddha: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

As I copied and pasted the quote in a text message, I realized it was more relevant to me than her. I had an instant awakening.

Instead of sending the quote to her, I decided to internalize it and use it for myself. How many times have I burnt myself by holding to anger? That was a genuine eye opener.

When I started to remind myself of the danger anger poses to one’s mental health and peace of mind, not to mention its disastrous consequence on our relationships, I became more tolerant and accepting.

Understand that nothing is guaranteed to last forever.

I learned the hard way that no matter how well things are going between you and your partner, they may leave you at any time.

When you accept the temporal nature of everything, you can stop clinging and worrying about the future and simply enjoy what you have in the moment.

This means we must balance enjoying the company of our partner, while accepting they may leave anytime.

Ironically, accepting that they could leave might decrease the odds of them leaving any time soon because people feel a lot happier when they don’t feel suffocated or controlled.

—

Today, I understand my ex breaking up with me was a blessing in disguise.

Would I change things if I could go back in time? Not for the world! I grew more in the three years following our breakup than I had in the twenty-one years before that. Why would anyone trade that?

Exactly three years after that breakup, I got into a new a relationship that’s been going strong for almost two years now. I know when to invest in myself and when to give my girlfriend my undivided attention. I respect, trust, and give her all the affection she deserves.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t worry. I seize the day, prepare for the worst, and hope for best.

Did I reach my lofty goal to never again get rejected for being overly possessive? Geez, I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. All I know is that if my girlfriend leaves me tomorrow, it won’t be because I was being intolerant, overbearing, and bossy.

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About Bachir Bastien

Bachir Bastien aspires to be the sparkle that will ignite the fire of possibilities in as many people as possible. Struggles from early childhood prompted him to use his stories to empower others. He currently lives in Taiwan, where he often conducts workshops, seminars, and 121 coaching aiming at helping people build resilience, courage, and confidence. Visit him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

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19 Techniques to Calm a Highly Sensitive Nervous System

“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye

The sun is setting, the cold wind is gently blowing in my face. I’m sitting on a rock that’s about ten feet tall, overlooking the Peruvian city of Cuzco. I can hear dogs barking, groups of teenagers laughing, the low hum of traffic and the music blaring from cars in the distance. As it goes dark, the lights of thousands of houses begin to flicker on like fireflies.

I should be enjoying this picturesque scene, but I’m not. My mind is racing too fast for me to make sense of anything that I’m thinking.

The only thing I’m able to fixate on is the intense ball of worry that sits in the top of my chest. Every thought introduces a new problem and a restless attempt to solve it. But the thoughts themselves aren’t that important. They’re really just a manifestation of a physical tension that I’ve been holding onto for far too long.

This was my life with relentless anxiety.

For years I didn’t understand why I would get anxious, nor did I have the capacity to relax my body when the physical symptoms came to visit. Was I just born with a sensitive nervous system? Had life experiences conditioned me to be that way? Was it both? Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Anxiety was there and it was making itself heard, loud and clear.

Fortunately, I learned, slowly but surely, in both my work with others and my own personal experience, that anxiety could be tamed and reversed. But it was only after I was able to bring greater awareness to my body and progressively convince my nervous system that I was safe, and it was okay to be calm, that I was able to make any lasting change.

Calming your body and mind doesn’t happen overnight. It takes practice, but it’s a real possibility.

Here are nineteen ways to calm a highly sensitive nervous system.

1. Focus on the calmest part of your body.

Instead of sitting directly with uncomfortable feelings, sensations, and tensions, we can place our attention on wherever in our body we find a sense of calm. By doing that we can familiarise ourselves with relaxation and sit with it until it deepens. For example, your legs may be twitching, but perhaps you feel stillness at the back of your neck. Draw your attention there.

2. Set boundaries and manage your energy wisely.

If you’re dealing with anxiety, then you’re burning more energy than you usually would. And when your energy is low, it’s more difficult to regulate your feelings. That’s why it’s important to manage your energy wisely and not be afraid to set boundaries and say no to things that you don’t feel are in your best interest.

3. Self-soothe through affirmations.

Affirmations are only useful if they’re having a helpful impact on your state of being. Repeating positive phrases that you don’t truly believe in can actually have the opposite effect. So instead, choose an affirmation that feels true to you, such as “I am strong enough to survive this panic.” And try experimenting with how you talk to yourself—the tone of voice, pace, care behind the words—instead of just on the words you are saying. A slow, calm, and reassuring internal voice can be a great tool to calm the body.

4. Journal from the perspective of your stress.

Sometimes your anxious thoughts just need to be respected and expressed coherently by getting them out of your head and down on a piece of paper. Writing from the perspective of stress, exploring what’s fuelling it and what it wants us to know, also helps us take a step back from our worries.

5. Journal from the perspective of your calm.

When you’ve written down your stressful thoughts, you can dialogue (and reason) with it from the perspective of a calmer and wiser voice.

6. Try Taoist Inner Smile Meditation.

This meditation is one where you feel a smiling energy in your body. Most people find this easiest to do by visualising a smile or bringing a slight smile to their face. The effect of the inner smile meditation is cumulative, and it can be an effective way to signal to your brain that you’re not under any threat.

7. Finish the sentence “My nervous system wants to…”

This is another journal exercise that helps connect your thoughts to your feelings so you can take a step back from our thoughts. You may discover that your nervous system wants you to take a break, rest, or get some fresh air.

8. Create compassionate imagery.

Like the inner smile meditation, compassionate imagery is a way to tell your brain that you’re safe and it’s okay to relax. You might want to visualize a person or a place, either real or fictitious, where you’d feel the most calm, safe, and connected.

9. Increase bodily awareness.

Anxiety can feel like it comes out of nowhere, but that’s rarely the case. By increasing bodily awareness, either through meditation, yoga, or just regularly checking in with how you’re feeling, you can catch the early signs of tension in your body before they get too difficult to manage.

10. Slow down to six breaths a minute.

Studies have shown that six breaths a minute seems to be the number at which we get the most benefits in terms of relaxation. As most of us breathe a lot quicker than this, any attempt to reduce the rate at which we breathe—with a focus on extending the exhalation—is a useful practice.

11. Play around with your body language.

How we position our bodies and physically move through the world has a big impact on our emotional state. Bringing more awareness to how you’re holding your body from moment to moment—how you sit, stand, communicate, etc.—can help you to address habits of tension.

12. Establish a mindful movement practice.

It can be hard to remember to be aware of our bodies, which is why a daily or weekly embodiment practice is useful. You might want to try yoga, qigong or tai chi, the Feldenkrais method or the Alexander Technique, or any other practice. Just try to find something you enjoy and that works for you.

13. Dance.

Dancing is a great way to reduce stress and increase your bodily awareness. If you don’t like the idea of a formal practice, then this might be for you. And the good thing is you don’t need to get any special training or even leave your house—you can just blast your favorite song and get moving.

14. Visualize a future calm self.

Our minds are largely predictive machines, so when we expect to be anxious, that’s what will happen. We can begin to disrupt this cycle by visualizing a future state of calm, which sets a more useful expectation.

15. Imagine your mind in slow motion.

This is just another trick to break out of unhelpful patterns. An anxious mind will move rapidly, whereas a mind that is intentionally moving slowly will start to move us out of a state of anxiety.

16. Laugh (even if it’s forced).

Laughter is another great way to take our body out of a state of stress. In fact, the reason we laugh might be an evolutionary signal that everything is okay and that a perceived threat has been averted. It doesn’t matter if it feels forced, your brain will still get the message and you might even find that you end up really laughing anyway.

17. Try chanting or singing meditation.

Both chanting and singing slow your breathing down and stimulate the vagus nerve, which is another quick way to transition from a state or fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest.

18. Hum.

Some people don’t like to chant or singing, but luckily humming does pretty much the same thing.

19. Visualize healthy and rewarding social situations.

A lot of bodily tension comes from an unconscious perceived threat in the world—particularly the social world. By visualizing healthy relationships and positive social situations, either real or imagined, we are convincing the social part of our brain that we’re connected and safe.

—

If my experience with anxiety and my work as a therapist has taught me anything, it’s that there is no best way to manage our nervous systems. There is only the way that works for you. By permitting yourself to experiment and play around with different techniques, you’ll be better positioned to uncover the most effective way to calm your highly sensitised nervous system.

Let us know in the comments which techniques have worked for you and if there are any that we might have missed!

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About Benjamin Fishel

Ben Fishel is a transpersonal psychotherapist. He has a background in neuroscience, counselling and existential psychotherapy and is on a mission to help people improve their mental health with cognitive science and spirituality. Ben offers online therapy worldwide (with the exception of Canada & the U.S.). You can book a FREE 15-minute call to see if you’d like to work with him – and don’t forget to follow him on Facebook for more of his essays.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Everything is okay.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something magical happens when you open up.

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

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

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

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

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About Erika Sardinha

Erika Sardinha is a certified life coach and yoga teacher based in the Canary Islands. She is a healing coach for women, and her main focus is to help them let go of the past, find peace and emotional freedom. Erika hosts women healing circles and workshops and also does 1:1 online coaching. She also has an online healing coaching Program called The Emotional Freedom Program. Visit www.thepersonaldeveloper.com to know more.

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How to Stop Reacting in Anger When You’re Triggered

“Freedom is taking control of the rudder of your life.” ~Yukito Kishiro

“What’s for dinner?” It’s a simple enough question. Yet it’s one that has made me lose my mind at my husband on more than one (or ten or twenty) occasions.

It’s not the question itself. It’s a valid question and one that needs an answer (at least by one of us).

A trigger of mine is being asked to answer a question when I’m already in the middle of something, feeling overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted, or just sick of answering questions.

So then I snap and overreact.

I’ve come a long way in my personal growth journey, but I’m by no means perfect. I still react in anger but to a lesser extent and less often. I get mad, but I don’t stay there. I screw up, but I can apologize with humility and forgive myself.

When we’re in reaction-mode to life’s challenges, we aren’t in control. We react in ways that are not in tune with how we want to be.

Learning to navigate our triggers not only enables us to take back control and enjoy life more, it has an amazing trickle-down effect to those around us too. It better connects us in our relationships and models for others or our children what it looks like to be gracefully resilient so those in our circles can mimic the same.

So, what does it look like to react in anger?

Someone at work criticizes you and you instantly get defensive.

Your partner asks you to do something when you clearly have your hands full, so you immediately get pissed.

Plans change unexpectedly, and you panic or get irritated.

Someone in your life is controlling or manipulative, so you either get scared and shut down, or feel livid and lash out.

Someone does something that goes against your core values like being mean or inconsiderate or lying, and you explode.

It can also mean reacting to your own thoughts or actions and getting angry with yourself for “doing it again,” being lazy, or failing.

And all that leads to feeling guilty for saying things you don’t really mean or making a mountain out of a molehill, or maybe even rehashing past events.

It can lead you to beat yourself up again for how you handled things in the past.

And it can leave you feeling misunderstood because you recognize that your reaction stems from something deeper than this one incident;  a culmination of events, or some underlying fear created this trigger for you.

Why We Are Reactive in the First Place

We are reactive or over reactive when our stress response is triggered sending us into fight, flight, or freeze mode.

We react on autopilot. In this space, we aren’t in full control, and it’s hard to see things clearly and objectively.

Sometimes our triggers relate to events from the past. For example, you may get triggered when someone ignores you because your parents frequently neglected you when you were a kid, causing you to feel unimportant. Other times, our triggers are events that make us feel out of control.

For example, one of my triggers used to be slow drivers on the highway. I would instantly snap into fight mode and get angry. I’d drive too close to them or shake my fist (or special finger) at them, honk my horn, or speed past them in a fit of rage.

Sitting here calmly as I reflect back on my past, reactive self, I’m a little embarrassed and shocked remembering the actions I took while angry. That’s because I’m in a calm place and my fight mode is not initiated, so I have full control at the moment. I wouldn’t do any of those things when I’m in a healthy mental space—those choices don’t reflect the kind of person I want to be.

When we react from a place of fear and anger, we rarely feel good about the things we say and do.

How to Stop Being So Reactive and Respond to Stress More Calmly

We don’t have to let our fear and anger control us. At any time, we can make a choice to respond to life from a calmer place. Here’s how.

Prioritize self-care so you’re less likely to feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or on the verge of snapping.

If you overextend yourself or regularly neglect your needs, you’ll likely feel triggered by even minor annoyances because your default state will be imbalance and agitation. And you’ll find it nearly impossible to handle major issues because you won’t have the inner strength to handle them. Take good care of yourself, mentally, physically, and emotionally, and everything will feel more manageable.

Set yourself up to not be reactive by identifying your stress triggers.

What things lead you to react in anger or fear? Awareness is key here! Create a list of things that you know trigger you, and why.

Then describe how you typically react when those triggers occur.

For example, a trigger of mine has always been other people getting angry at little things that I don’t think warrant being angry about.

Funny enough, my reaction to their anger was anger! I would get mad that they are angry and yell at them to be calm. Obviously, this strategy didn’t work for me.

Then ask yourself, “How do I want to respond instead”?

As I reflected on how I usually reacted to my triggers, I realized I would rather remain composed than lose my cool and flip out. If I could pick any response to other people being angry, it would be for me to stay calm and in control.

And that’s one of the main reasons I realized I have such a strong reaction to other people’s anger. I think that the “right” way to be in this world is to be calm, kind, and compassionate. When someone reacts in the polar opposite way, it conflicts with my values, and ironically, I end up getting angry with them.

This is why this step is so important. We often react in ways that are not in tune with our values when emotions are running high, so we need to consciously decide, in advance, how we want to respond in stressful situations.

From there, think about what you are trying to control that you have no control over.

At a certain point, I realized that some people are going to get angry, and I won’t agree with their behavior. My anger stemmed from judging their reactions and wanting to control how they were feeling and behaving. I have no control over other people. I may be able to influence them, but I will never be able to control them.

If traffic triggers you, you may be trying to control your time because being delayed makes you feel anxious. If chaos triggers you, you may be trying to control your environment to create a sense of safety. If angry people trigger you, you may be trying to control how other people react and experience stressful situations.

Now, ask yourself, “What do I have control over?

Since I don’t have control over what other people do, and wanting to control them was creating anger within me, in order to reach my desired response of staying calm and in control I had to shift my focus to myself. Because the only thing I have control over is what I do.

So when someone else is angry and I think they’re overreacting, I can take some deep breaths, step away from the situation, and ask the other person how I can help (in an effort to help calm them), or just sit back and allow them to process the situation however they need to in that moment.

I started to notice that as I stopped reacting to anger with anger, the people around me showed less anger over time. And when they did get angry, they didn’t stay angry as long.

I started to realize that they were often mimicking me, whether they realized it or not. Of course, part of it was that I was no longer adding to the anger and fueling it from my end too. But seeing what it looks like to stay calm and in control is an important skill to witness. It shows others what it looks like so they can do the same.

—

We all get triggered at times, but we don’t have to say and do things we regret, which will ultimately damage our relationships and leave us feeling bad about ourselves. With a little self-awareness, we can stop reacting on autopilot and start responding to life from a calm, neutral place. Maybe not all the time, but more often than not, and we’ll feel a lot more peaceful and in control as a result!

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About Sandy Woznicki

Sandy is a former anxiety-riddled, insomniac stress-aholic turned coach. She helps career-driven women and working moms master their stress and anxiety, to motivate themselves with kindness instead of criticism, to face life’s challenges with Graceful Resilience, and to start truly enjoying life without all that unnecessary worry.  Her coaching and free resources like the Stress Detox Mini Course help women to take back control of their lives to live more fully and freely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a lesson I have learned though painful experience.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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About Joshua Kauffman

Joshua Kauffman is a recovering over-achiever and workaholic. Leaving behind a high-powered life in business, he has become a world traveler, aspiring coach, and entrepreneur of pretty things. Amateur author of a recent memoir Footprints Through The Desert, he is trying to find ways to share his awakening experience, particularly to those lost in the rat race like he was.

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How to Access Awakened Consciousness Through Meditation [Free eBook]

If you’re anything like me, you’ve likely tried meditation, or even adopted a consistent habit, only to question if you’re doing something wrong. You show up and put in the time, but despite your best efforts, you’re not reaping the expected benefits, or at least not with the consistency you originally hoped to see.

Perhaps you initially turned to meditation for stress-relief, some way to defuse the constant sense of pressure and overwhelm that’s prevalent in our achievement-focused society.

Or maybe you first tried meditation to help you focus and be more present so that your days don’t go by in a blur while you’re busy rehashing the past and worrying about the future.

Both were true for me.

Before I found meditation, I lived my days shuffling through a number of damaging mental habits: dwelling on victim stories, beating myself up for all the ways I felt I’d failed, and pressuring myself to somehow achieve massive success in order to prove my worth.

I was missing out on my life while focusing on all the life I’d already missed and all the life I might miss if I didn’t somehow do better.

I hoped meditation would save me from myself, and in some ways it has. But I’ve also placed unrealistic expectations on my practice and found myself making, what I later learned, are common meditation “mistakes”—mistakes that prevent us from experiencing the greatest benefit of meditation: awakened consciousness.

Spiritual luminary Craig Hamilton explores this thoroughly in Unlocking the Power of Meditation, a FREE eBook that I suspect you’ll find both eye-opening and life-changing.

In a nutshell, awakened consciousness is a sense of connection to our true nature, beyond our mind and ego. It’s the place where we can easily access our intuition, wisdom, creativity, confidence, inner strength, and resilience.

This is what I think we’re all after: not just reduced stress and greater focus in the moment, but access to an expansive, sacred part of ourselves that brings us an immense sense of freedom, flow, and connection to everyone and everything around us.

If you’ve struggled with meditation, as well—if you’ve found it difficult to maintain a regular practice and feel you haven’t experienced all the mental, emotional, and physical benefits you’ve read about—I highly recommend you check out Unlocking the Power of Meditation.

In this powerful resource based on groundbreaking research, Craig reveals the five surprising, yet pervasive mistakes most of us make that prevent us from accessing the true potential of meditation.

He also shares one powerful shift we can make to ignite our meditation practice and access awakened consciousness.

When you learn how to practice what Craig calls “direct awakening” you’ll discover how to:

-Access the miracle of awakened consciousness every time you meditate and allow its powerful energy to infuse every aspect of your life.

-Experience a deep inner freedom from the hypnotic spell of fear and desire, enabling you to meet life’s challenges with courage and grace, beyond reactivity or compulsion.

-Access a source of wisdom that arises spontaneously in response to the needs of the moment, bringing forth laser-like clarity faster than the speed of thought.

-Tap into a dynamic and seemingly limitless source of energy, enabling you to do whatever needs to be done in each moment without burning out or becoming drained.

-Access an inner well of creativity that brings forth a seemingly endless flow of unexpected new ideas, visions, and integrative solutions from a place beyond the mind.

-Become a conduit for an overflowing love and care that flows through you into the world from a place beyond your mind’s comprehension.

It’s a short eBook with a massive impact, and it ends with an invitation to a free ninety-minute workshop that can help you take your meditation practice to the next level.

If you’re ready to move beyond the most common mistakes meditators make and live a life filled with meaning, purpose, love, and inspiration, you can download the free eBook Unlocking the Power of Meditation here.

I hope you find it as helpful and illuminating as I did!

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About Lori Deschene

Lori Deschene is the founder of Tiny Buddha. She’s also the author of Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and other books and co-founder of Recreate Your Life Story, an online course that helps you let go of the past and live a life you love. She recently launched a Mindfulness Kit to help reduce our stress and increase our peace and joy. For daily wisdom, join the Tiny Buddha list here. You can also follow Tiny Buddha on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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