You hit me with your verbal abuse, it didn’t leave a physical mark but it did on my feelings and that is no excuse.
Excuses you had plenty, you had a bad day, things didn’t go how you wanted, you didn’t feel food ~ way too many!
Your justifications for being cruel left me feeling like a damn fool.
You placed your anger on me when you were mad at yourself, rapidly, fiercely like I wasn’t a person just a shelf.
I got nervous and tried to do things right, but little did I know there was no “right” in sight.
I bent and twisted to try to make you happy, it never worked and I always felt crappy.
As you triggered a past , I thought was the norm, these feelings turn us cold and do not keep us warm.
I felt so much shame for allowing this to happen again and again, what I really wanted in you was to be a friend.
When I tried to defend myself I was met with even more put downs and it only got worse, your “friendship” was not a blessing but a curse.
Feeling hopeless and afraid and losing my mind, I met with a therapist seeking answers I hoped to find.
She told me to look up verbal abuse, I did and it seemed like breaking news.
I then began to relate, I knew what this was called, it was more than just “fate.”
I learned that I didn’t have to take that shit on, that your projecting on to me was all wrong.
I learned that I could heal and own what is mine, real and authentically feel.
I felt like a victim but learned I didn’t have to, my evidence didn’t have to go that way and doesn’t now today.
I got to own what is mine and heal in time and I really am fine and it is not a lying line.
Please continue this story and what I am about to say, I hope that it empowers you in some way.
Often times, we don’t know we struggle and suffer from verbal abuse until someone points it out just like my counselor did. In our evolution and to give defense to what I think that what was allowable or made to sound humorous has been examined and expanded into what we know as verbal abuse. The just kidding when one says hurtful things to us that triggers or pushes our buttons has turned and created folks with narcissistic traits. Many of us have judged the person and not set boundaries for this, which when we judge and think leaving is setting a boundary we often times find we just end up finding a pattern if we are willing to look, if not we just think our picker is broke and give up.
I do believe that the intention for us to be on this Earth no matter what your spiritual belief or not is to love. I am not talking about a romantic love, though, it certainly can help that if we observe, examine, heal and evolve we will all make this world a better place. We live in a time where information is being poured to us faster than we can receive it all. What we search for we will find through the algorithms. The algorithms are our search engines in the computer but that leads to our mind, which feeds our cells in our body as in what we think about we bring about. If we keep thinking of old traumas that tells us we are searching for that. This is why I discuss the polarities so much, I want to shift from this to that, it is like my map telling me where I want to go or what algorithm to feed. As a human we have pain, we dissolve or not old thought patterns that flow into our mind reminding us of the pain. Sometimes we choose to distract as I did for many years only to get to come back to the same issue, when it comes down to it, it was a lack of self-love. Lack of self-love fed the algorithm of verbal abuse and the thought pattens that went with it as factual and fateful. Once I was able to define what it was I could begin a journey to observing – examining – healing – evolving. Evolving means making changes to everything, myself, cells, DNA as I choose to heal intergenerational trauma. If you are not familiar with intergenerational trauma I will try to relate it to you as this; if one of your children behaves like your partner or even parents then you have recognized what may be intergenerational trauma. Healing is expansive, not healing we tend to contract ( as in the verb).
Healing work typically doesn’t involve a single person, we can’t heal with the single mind that has helped create the problem. I used to think I could heal as fast as I could read, it’s not intellectual though. Healing is feeling and processing. Healing calls for feeling in a safe environment to process and retrain our thoughts & perspectives on who we actually are not who we have been told we are or to be. Let me explain, working with someone can help us realize where our feelings are coming from, and retrain our brain not to do the same if we are sick and tired of being on insanity’s roller coaster ride. You know the one one, where we are not yelling “look at me, look at me or not even a slight little weeeeee!” We are actually trying to lay low but want to be noticed at the same time. When we are complimented we don’t even know how to receive, we kind of want to cry and that my friends can be a low self-esteem. We aren’t used to being seen or talked to in a nice way or being valued. Our soul knows we are to be valued that is part of the confusion.
Once we get brave enough to seek help for whatever our struggles are we often find that we are not alone. When we can tell and talk about our vulnerabilities it opens us up to humanity. It is indeed a process though. Most of start with trusting “one,” after ill placing our trust time and time and again it is hard, it starts with one, that sponsor, therapist, coach, clergy or friend. It really allows us to step out of the prison we have allowed ourselves to stay in.
I am so grateful that I did find a therapist in 2002, it was like finding the key to open the prison door. When I started therapy I was afraid and felt like I was going to die. I was in so much fear and I had managed to be in a place to heal but I didn’t know that was what I needed or where my journey would lead. I just wanted to figure things out, I had always been told what I thought or how I felt and if I hadn’t I tried to mirror and act right in my life so I would be accepted. I wanted to be accepted by my Mom who I loved very much, my dad who I was afraid of, the kids at school who I thought were much better, the people at work who I thought were much smarter. Fear, better, smarter, more talented, blah, blah blah.
“Comparison is the death of joy” ~ Mark Twain
Little did I know about falling into this human game of comparison, and that wasn’t how to go about getting self-esteem, I didn’t really think much about self-esteem though when this negative self-talk began and managed to project itself outwards when disappointments became accusations of scandalous behavior and manipulations in my ignorance of excusing myself for not knowing how or better. I began to blame situations or people for my lack not realizing I was making myself a “victim,” I did not know or own that word I only subconsciously acted it out. There is no way I could know what I didn’t know. I played a victim really well for a large part of my life. I am not saying I didn’t have a hard life, I have learned though not to compare unless it is going to be of value to my life. Darlin, we all have hard lives, that is meant for our evolution.
When we are young we have so much energy and passion, it is usually channeled somewhere or not. In healing we learn to be more expansive and in knowing that we are not alone we give up our helpless victim identity that we would deny and act out on. In all of our differences, this is good for some people for they are the activists that fight for the rights of people because there are victims and these activists do change lives for the better. These people have often been unjustly treated and are fueling their energy in a way to benefit others. Then thing is that we are all different so our energy and passion if fueled into anger can be destructive to ourselves and others, this is where the word “self-sabotage” comes in and it is only from our not knowing, which can be defined as ignorance but please know that I am not saying no one is ignorant, remember I said defined not labeled. I, myself, learned my lessons the hard way, the self-sabotaging way.
With the help of therapy, coaching, sponsoring and healing through Reiki I was able to look back at those self-sabotaging behaviors which were about me and taking my pain personally and being a “victim” and processing it into a more expansive way that removed, the guilt, shame and blame. I learned to take responsibility for my feelings and quit setting up situations to re-feel my feelings. As humans we try to think our way out of these situations, rationalize and empower ourselves on our own. I don’t think we were ever designed to do that ourselves or we wouldn’t complain to others. That’s the thing though, through healing we take a look at our motivations and intentions for these complaints and decide if they are inside of us or outside of us, if we are powerless over them, do we want a solution or just to complain, how does that serve us?
After taking responsibility for our feelings we learn that they are expressed in our words, actions and deeds, what kind of energy or algorithm will I feed. We then become aware of negative self-talk, it is a process, it didn’t start over night and won’t repair over night. Many of us were verbally abused and continued through our unconscious sub-conscious self talk to attract more situations to help us learn how to go from feeling powerless to empowered. Most of us had it twisted in our late teens and early 20’s in our rebellion, I am not saying rebellion is wrong, it is our learning process, rebellion with disrespect is wrong please know the difference. I think it is admirable to stand up for ourselves and what we believe in but as we get older things change and we get more information, we begin to settle down a little bit. Most of us don’t think about “oh, I am experiencing evolution,” that is indeed what we do in our humanness.
I think as we enter our 30’s we are more confused, by this time we are beginning to see that what we thought in our younger days is different and we are trying to make sense of that. Comparing ourselves to others is getting tiresome and as our energy or metabolism is slowing down there is another part to our maturity that begins to question everything that we thought we “knew.” Our soul is desiring to expand but we aren’t sure how as we thought that running my the passions and emotions of our heart were what we were supposed to do. The failures and the blame and all of the energy we brought to that are subsiding, it doesn’t bring us peace though, like I said it brings more confusion. This is because of the illusion, it is starting to break down and as we mature we get into acceptance. The acceptance of not knowing, woah, this is hard! We have been taught or think as humans we are just supposed to know as the most intelligent life form and the trait of arrogance, as we mature arrogance is replaced with humility.
As we come into our 40’s, at least for me, I finally began not to worry about what others thought. This was because I was able to look back through healing at my journey and have a better understanding of myself which expanded to others. Through the acceptance of myself, I was then able to accept the journey of others and know what was my business, someone else’s business and God’s business. That what people thought of me is not my business and that it really doesn’t matter what I think of anyone else except to me, it’s not all about me, there is a lot more going on on this expansive life. I really being in charge of my own thoughts and emotions, which lead to my words, actions and deeds that have come from the healing of mind, body and soul and that is what is about me. I know by now that what I think and feel can affect my health.
As I have come into the adventure of my 50’s and look at this beautiful path of my life that has been an adventure of pleasure and pain; arrogance and humility; chaos and clarity; peace and conflict; shame and dignity; wreckless and responsible; judgmental and joyful. In my 50’s I have learned to observe the differences, not compare, this is maturity. I have learned through the healing process to look at myself, my thoughts and perspectives, find the reality in between the polarities to create harmony, (and balance when we are not in a pandemic )and adjusting and evolving.
Evolution is inevitable, we can go kicking and screaming, resisting in bad health. This is what speaks to me in my 50’s. As we know in these days if we have our health we have wealth. I have talked about comparisons, rebellion, taking responsibility, acceptance, and going into the maturity and acknowledgment of the polarities, algorithms and energies in my life. The polarities of life are life on life’s terms, our health I believe plays a huge role in acceptance and resistance in and outside of our bodies. Healing and evolution. I am glad that I personally did not stay a “victim” in my 20’s, confused in my 30’s. I am grateful I began seeking late 30’s into 40’s realizing I was kicking my own ass. I am grateful that I became open to new possibilities to become more expansive through peeling away the limited layers of verbal abuse and doubt that was inflicted upon me that I in turn inflicted upon myself. I could only heal my thoughts and perspectives in my adulthood in turn to evolve into who I wanted to be. It is now weird to me as to why we judge the paradoxes and polarities. I find that everything that I have judged later kicked me in the butt. That is how I learned to learn instead of judge, that is how I learned to accept rather than defend, how I learned to be child-like and open rather than childish and spoiled. In healing I learned to validate myself, one of the greatest gifts I have given myself. I don’t look for anyone to make me feel worthy as I have my own healthy self-esteem, just as we have when we are a child before the world told us who to be, I get to be me.
” A weird thing happens when you get a glimpse of that side of you. A child-like zeal possesses you. it is addictive. You discover your voice. You matter. Maybe not to the world, yet, you matter to yourself. You are worthy. You are alive. You can be.” ~ K.J. Kilton
I get to share my gifts of healing with others, I believe that no matter where we are in our evolution that humanity is at the core and that healing is part of our earthly journey. I am gladly accepting on a daily basis my human material self and my divine spiritual self and the integration thereof making this the beautiful journey that I spoke of above.
What if the journey all along was for us to learn to love ourselves as God, Universe, Source, whoever you perceive them to be was what we were put here to do then we can truly love others authentically. If you are in any kind of abusive relationship I hope that you choose to heal, you can’t change them, you can only change you. It is not your fate, it’s just taking that one step, trusting that one person to help you heal. I say help you heal, darlin there is no one outside of you that can heal you, you have to do the work, if you pray or ask the universe for a guide they will help show you the way. You may feel hopeless please know there is hope. I hope for you, sending good vibes.
Does anyone deserve verbal abuse? I think that all abuse begins with verbal abuse, that verbal abuse creates the label of narcissists, which are victims too. We cannot change what has already happened within another person, it may not be for us anymore as we evolve but compassion begins with not extending the energy of division and understanding with compassion that the bully was bullied. Our best defense is to not participate but to send love and healing. Self-love and spirituality does not mean being abused. Which algorithm are you going to feed? It is my hope that the seed of healing will spread. We have to individually and collectively be the change, it is not going to change by people wishing it would. We have a saying in recovery that victims stay victims, I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be a victim. It begins with being impeccable with our words as said by Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements.
I hope that this has been helpful in your understanding of evolution and the process of it. As always, Thanks for reading! I appreciate your time.
#verbalabuse #healing #selflove #evolution