Friday, September 30, 2011

I began to understand that it was all about me - not you or them....I was the "perfect victim"


Photo Credit


A note from the Empowering Solutions Community page on Facebook last week....


I kept getting stuck in abusive relationships and thought I had some sign on my back that said "kick me". So I worked really hard to try to "see" abuse in others to protect myself. But - what I found - is when I learned to understand why I was the "perfect victim" - I also learned to not only identify abusive persons (male or female/intimate/family/friends) but I learned to understand why it was so hard to "see" it playing out in my life and relationships. I also began to learn how to identify and engage in healthier relationships. Today I no longer feel like I have to live in chronic "hypervigelance" and bit by bit I am able to identify unhealthy relationships and make an exit before I get enmeshed and stuck in it again. At the same time - I'm discovering safe relationships that are based on equality and respect where I can finally feel safe vs that chronic state of "on guard" and that never ending dance-of-dysfunction.


Learning to live beyond that place where I saw everyone as the next potential abuser freed me up to first, see that I was not so powerless after all...


And second...


Understand that its pretty darn hard to see "healthy" when all I'm looking for is UNhealthy. 


I had to change my focus from what I hated...


to what I wanted.


to get where I wanted to go. 


Learning to see what it was about me and how my past life experiences had shaped me to become the "perfect victim" empowered me to...


no longer be a victim.


Understanding and "seeking" what it was about me that I'd learned when I'd learned to tolerate t...he intolerable


enabled me to understand why and how I continued to perpetrate the abusive relationships in my life and 


empowered me to begin to create my 


best life. 


From the archives on "relationships"...


Sometimes...


Ambivalence as a survival skill


Back to basics....when life gets messy


Black and White...the Zebra Effect


"12 Things" on Empowering Solutions at Blog Talk Radio...

Listen to internet radio with Heal My PTSD on Blog Talk Radio



Join us at the Empowering Solutions Community here. :) 



Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Turning The Light On


And Then There Was Light
March 2010 by SusanKs
Learning to see, understand and accept the world on its terms meant learning to 


see, 


understand 


and 


accept when I wasn't.

Eh?

Along the way one of the things that was core and foundational to my transformation from that...

perpetual victim

to

the powerhouse I am today :)

began with...

Here it comes....

Wait....

Wait...

Its really simple...

but it is definitely not

easy.

Here it is....

Almost there....

Ready?

The lightbulb began to glow dimly when I 

began to choose

Awareness. 

Instead of

Avoidance.

Yup.

Awareness.

No.....


Not of what everyone else was doing wrong and that pissed me off


or hurt me, scared me and sent me running


with my tail between my legs


finding comfort in my weakness...

I can't...

But they...

But its....

so

HARRRRRDDDDD.

Yup.

That was me. 

Just a few short years ago.

And it began to change

when I began to change.

Awareness.

Its the beginning of

the end

of the nightmare.

Its where I began to discover that I held the power to create the change

that would ultimately

change my life. 

Friday, September 23, 2011

Learning To Let Life Unfold Naturally



Photo Credit

As a survivor of really bad things, change was something that easily could put me off center and feeling discombobulated. I would fight it and struggle to maintain my current state of existence. One of the problems with this though was that it often brought a lot of drama and conflict to my life and relationships as in my fear of change I tried to control people places and things that I really had no control over. I found an empowering solution in learning to recognize this and in doing so I saw that I could begin to relax, release control and allow life to unfold naturally.

Join the Facebook Empowering Solutions Community and receive my daily bite size notes about the healing journey in your FB stream....click here to "like" the ES community:) 

Enjoy creating your own "best day" each and every day! 

Thank you for sharing the journey! 

Monday, September 19, 2011

A Tale of Two Wolves

Photo Credit
Recently a friend on Facebook (thank you Sara! :)) shared this ancient tale of wisdom and I wanted to share it with you today...
An old Cherokee told his grandson, "My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth." The boy thought about it, and asked, "Grandfather, which wolf wins?" The old man quietly replied, "The one you feed."

What we focus on is what we are experiencing in our lives.

What are you focused on today?

Reliving your pain?

Or fueling your future?

It is possible to shift from the telling and retelling of the story...

To using the story to find healing...

And make peace with the past.

From the archives...




Thursday, September 15, 2011

It's In The Struggle Where We Find Our Strength




A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. 


Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.


The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.


The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.


Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.


Moral of the story?

It is only by going through the struggle we find freedom from the pain that cripples us and discover that we can fly. 

I Believed 



Photo Credit


Source for the story of the butterfly here. 

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Inspiration.....Return To Innocence


A friend and member of the Empowering Solutions Community on Facebook shared this with me today....and I wanted to share it with you.




Love (Love, Love)
Devotion (Devotion, Devotion)
Feeling (Feeling. Feeling)
Emotion (Emotion, Emotion)

Don't be afraid to be weak
Don't be too proud to be strong
Just look into your heart my friend
That will be the return to yourself
The return to innocence

The return to innocence

If you want, then start to laugh
If you must, then start to cry
Be yourself don't hide
Just believe in destiny

Don't care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don't give up and use the chance
To return to innocence

That's not the beginning of the end
That's the return to yourself
The return to innocence 
~

It is never too late...


to create your best life. 


Return to you to find your light...


Follow your passion


To discover your purpose...


And there is where we can make sense of that which makes no sense.


With love,


SusanKs


Lyrics from sing365

Monday, September 12, 2011

Karma? Or Religion? Or Abuse?




How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours. ~ Wayne Dyer

I read a variety of authors and genres. One is Dr. Wayne Dyer who has some really good ideas...

Although...

I can't say I agree with everything that anyone else writes - but then...

That’s part of being an independent thinker...

The ability to take in information and make ones own decisions and construct ones own meaning without having to resort to black and white thinking to support their own choices. (Deep shit, eh?)

But as good stuff goes...

This particular quote has a lot of meaning to me because…

The idea that somehow we caused our abuse/trauma or...

its payback for something we did in a past life or...

that we were somehow not good enough to not be abused/hurt/traumatized….

Or we have displeased god - however "god" looks for you...

Is just not cool.

And while I have my own faith and cosmic level of consciousness

I don't often see the human constructs of religion as helpful...

Especially when it requires someone who has been through life’s ringer and coming out the other side all f*****d up to carry the burden of the abuse or trauma experience.

So when I found this version and view of Karma and cosmic accountability I find empowering vs defeating …

And I just wanted to share it with you :)

Peace

Namaste

Bless you

and

Carry on:)
~


Visit Darlene Ouimets blog Emerging From Broken to read up a bit more on learning to recognize and combat the damaging messages we get from those who use religion to oppress and abuse by clicking here. 


Photo Credit

Monday, September 5, 2011

Changing My View Changed My World





Understanding that my outside world was a reflection of my inside world empowered me to begin to see how by changing my inside world that I could change my outside world.


I used to wonder how I was supposed to handle all the crap life threw at me.

Abuse and neglect from an early age left a very bad taste in my mouth about life in general. 

When others would look at the world and see sunshine and lollipops all I saw was 

shit. 

Life was dark. I was dark. I didn't give a damn and believed that no one gave a damn about me.

Until

I discovered and came to understand that the purpose of my journey was not to make my life, my circumstance and the people who shared my space 

perfect.

Not at all.

In fact what I discovered is that there is no such thing as perfect and that as long as I was trying to be perfect

I was being far from perfect.

It was when I realized that my job was not to shape my circumstances to make me feel ok

but to learn to accept my circumstances and then

I would be

ok.

My circumstances may not change but the way I experience them can change me. 

My world changed when I changed my view of the world


Saturday, September 3, 2011

Going Through To Get Out Of...




When I began to use "symptoms" of distress to guide my healing journey is when I finally began to heal. By beginning to use over reacting or shutting down as indicators of emotional healing to be done I was finally able to go through the pain to get past it. I was able to stop the bleeding vs just changing the band aids that came with managing, coping and surviving one day to the next. I began to see the light instead of living in the darkness that had consumed me for years. ~SusanKs