Tag Archives: Quality Time

abusive behavior, emotional abuse, healing from abuse, healing from emotional abuse, verbal abuse

Steps to healing: accepting yourself

In the process of recovering our self-esteem, there are several little steps that bring a lot of joy. Once you have decided that the view of you that he is promoting has more to do with his sick fantasies than with your reality, then you begin to detach.

Detaching is making some space between his perceptions of you, and who you are. The person who you are is not decided and described by him; now you have begun to be your own person.

Good or bad, you are who you decide to be….it is exhilarating to realize that you can be yourself and not depend on anybody else to tell you how valuable or unworthy you are…

Once you take stock of who you are, warts and all, you can begin by rejoicing of your new freedom! Be happy about freeing yourself; of only depending on yourself for deciding about your life. You can even allow yourself a bit of panic thinking: “what if I need something and I can’t get that by myself?” and the answer is…..’I will find a way, because I’m a resourceful and resilient person!”

Feeling secure and happy about yourself is one of the strongest points in having a healthy relationship with any partner. Remember: you are your own person, and you make yourself happy with your decisions…

For instance: Taking care of yourself by eating right will boost your self-esteem. With a high self-esteem, comes confidence and happiness within yourself. When you are happy about yourself, it’s easy to be happy towards others especially your partner. You are sending the message that you can provide your own peace of mind, so others don’t imagine that it would be easy to control you! This is a shield of protection around you that sends a strong message to potential mates.

Being carefree and self-reliant has also more benefits… You are self-centered in a good way; when you are with or without your partner, you don’t worry about what she or he is doing. Fill self-confident about yourself and carefree about the relationship because you expect good things only.
Of course, you already know how to spot signals of abuse, so now you can say: “I’d prefer you not to treat me in this way: I’m too valuable to be here waiting for you to finish having a conversation with your friends while we postpone going together for dinner. Can you make up your mind and tell me if we are going together, now? There are other things I need to pay attention also…”
And here you are now: positioning yourself in a place of equality and respect….congratulations!

emotional abuse, healing from abuse, healing from emotional abuse

How to begin the healing!

After realizing that you are in a relationship that diminishes your self-esteem by making you feel the unworthy and less powerful side, you need to consider a simple plan to backtrack and go back to the whole, self-respecting person you want to be, right?

Perhaps the only place to begin is with yourself. Looking at this primary and inevitable relationship, try to make a plan to forgive your mistakes and learn how to appreciate the good things you do…Every time you catch yourself saying: “Yes, I did that, but it didn’t last (or was too expensive) (or was a lot of work) (or I was working on the wrong direction…) STOP! saying “yes, but” thwarts the process of recognizing the good work you do. Learn to say “I’m able to do excellent work,”  and leave the self-recrimination behind.

One should always work on building and nurturing the intimate relationship with oneself, specially if our minds are full of other people’s negative expressions. Learn to hear yourself saying negative appreciations, without even evaluating if they are right or  not, and teach yourself to stop.

Once you have learned to assert your individual value, and you respect yourself as you are now, then it is possible to begin teaching others how do we want to be treated. Be firm without being aggressive when someone is giving you less respect that you aspire to. Say again and again: “This is not the way I prefer to be treated, it’s better if you call me by my name and don’t use “sweetie” or “pretty thing” when talking about me.
Also, if you need to raise your voice, don’t be surprised if I choose to walk away….in my life, someone shouting at me is not acceptable.”

Healing from abuse is based on the important decision of shutting out any hurtful expression; and expressing our needs to be treated with love and understanding. Perhaps it will take you some time to get to the point of feeling confident in asserting yourself in this aspect. Try at the beginning to put some distance between you and the abuser, and signal that you need time alone to repair and heal. And use this time to remember all your positive aspects of which you should be proud of!