abuse recovery

The Bad Ass Mother: Make Way for Her

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Inside every woman is a warrior. (Image created using CANVA)

While getting divorced, my lawyer hit on me.

“It gets very lonely at night. You’ll see. You deserve pleasure.”

He took my hand in his. And I removed it, gingerly, as one does walking away from a live, exposed wire.

I was a young mom, caught in the crosshairs of a legal system that gave power to those with deep pockets — regardless of concepts like justice and morality. My lawyer and his pinky ring held the key to the next door of my life.

Looking back, I realize I gave my former lawyer the key. I’d handed it to him on a vulnerable, insecure platter.

We become what we believe.

Life Reflecting Belief

The world is always mirroring to us what we believe about ourselves. Back then, I believed I received the poor treatment from my former lawyer that I deserved.

Boundaries were regularly crossed because I didn’t even think to have them. 

Low self-esteem does that. It creates a world of default assumptions, allowing a person to morph into prey. 

We cannot control the actions others take. But we can have agency for ourselves. Self-esteem builds healthy boundaries. It isn’t frightened to remove a hand from an unprofessional lawyer with highly manicured hands. A woman with strong self esteem is too busy being clear about what she wants to care one cent about the frail ego of another.

The Bad Ass Mother

Hallmark can show all the sappy movies it likes of mother’s being spoiled with breakfast in bed; commercials can advertise all the eye-catching merchandise to “spoil mom.”

 But what about every day of the year? What happens when the sun goes down and it’s status-quo Monday morning?

I am a Bad Ass Mother. I love myself. Really, radically love myself. Even when it’s hard. ESPECIALLY when it’s hard. And I invite you to do the same.

You don’t need to be a mother to mother yourself. You are a part of Mother Nature. You possess all the tools needed to grow your bad ass garden.🪴

Bling is nice. So are vacations. Beautiful clothing. Cars. Flowers. Gourmet meals. But none of it matters a bit without the womb of it all: self esteem.

With strong self esteem, you are naturally going to mother yourself. You won’t take crap from others. You will take steps in the direction of your dreams. You will not settle for breadcrumbs in your personal relationships. You will love yourself for doing things that scare the shit out of you but will allow you to grow. This is cause for a Mother’s Day celebration.

No one is coming to save you because no one else can do the work but you. 

A bad ass mom does what Mel Robbins says:

“Doing what makes you happy, being brave, taking risks, and following your own path will always be more important than other people’s opinions about it. This is YOUR life. Stop allowing what other people think keep you from living it.” Mel Robbins

Join me in being a Bad Ass Mom. Defiantly love every part of yourself — especially the parts you have the most trouble loving. Even the willingness to do so is a huge step.

The greatest relationship you will ever have is the one with YOURSELF. Radically give yourself compassion. Mother yourself like a bad ass. Know you matter.

And you’ll start to notice the world around you will reflect this inner change. That kind of self esteem and self acceptance is both palpable and contagious. It is emotional kryptonite for toxic people.

Healing from Childhood Wounds: A Journey of Self-Discovery

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It’s human nature to avoid pain. Yet distraction only takes us so far — especially when it comes to emotional pain. At after half a century of life on this beautiful Earth, I am starting to embrace Rumi’s timeless quote on a much deeper level:

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Rumi

In my 20’s, I didn’t want to look at the wounds. Half the time I didn’t know they were there because I was so busy. 

Distraction is a powerful tool to keep pain at bay.

But the wounds remained, festering within my psyche as I continued to look outward for purpose, validation, and worth.

Looking back, I see that my youth was spent in a quasi-cocoon state: inside I was a gooey mess but outside it looked like nothing special was going on. I worked, I dated, I married.

The gooey mess within would get triggered by something someone would say or do. But instead of addressing the source of the pain, instead of going within to look at that dark goo, I got busier.

Life continued and with it, psychological blisters that hurt a little more each time. I looked for love in all the wrong places. I was a widow at 25, engaged at 27, married again at 28, pregnant at 29.

Go. Go. As fast as you can. You can’t catch me. — The internal battle between the cocoon of armor I’d held onto with dear might and the brimming-to-come-out wounds within.

The fifties have been a time of addressing the wounds, allowing the cocoon to fall away and finally allow the light to enter.

This second act of life offers an opportunity for radical acceptance of others and ourselves. It’s a chance to pull up a chair and put a compassionate stethoscope to the fractures in your heart.

The Russian Doll of Aging

I used to ( and still do) love those stacking Russian dolls. Every time you think you’ve freed the last Russian doll, you discover there’s another and yet another still.

That’s what aging feels like: the allowing of ourselves to — with compassion — explore the layers of our life story. 

It’s not until we are willing to explore the landscape of our heart and mind that we can begin to heal. We need to become like emotional excavators if we want to unearth the effects of those early seeds planted.

The Five Childhood Wounds

A popular psychological concept is that there are five potential core psychological wounds from our childhood. Many times, we are unaware of the wounds and walk around this life feeling triggered without knowing its origin.

Our thoughts, behaviors, and relationships in adulthood are often deeply influenced by our wound in childhood.

It is when we don’t address those core wounds that they have a greater chance of manifesting in our adult relationships.

Here are the five core inner child wounds:

🤕 Abandonment

🤕 Rejection

🤕 Shame

🤕 Betrayal

🤕 Injustice

Each fear arrives with certain behaviors. For example, if you were sent to your room without dinner for a bad grade, a seed of rejection may have been planted.

Fear: being rejected for who you are

Behavior: people-pleasing or perfectionism

The power to heal from our wounds begins by recognizing where and how the wound began.

And that healing continues when we carve out a safe space for ourselves to alter the narrative and know that we are not our wounds. 

I often think of that Frosted Shredded Wheat commercial in the 1980’s. 

We can tune into the gooey cocoon of our psyche at any time. It may hurt to listen, but that shell we carry is falling apart anyway. And when we allow to see our wounds with compassion, we are creating a sacred space for our wings to unfurl.

You were meant to soar. You were meant to transform your wounds into something beautiful. 🦋

Healing Mastery XI Code

Confronting Inner Wounds: Steps to Emotional Freedom

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He was poking me. Not physically. Emotionally. His words landing like shards of glass in my throat and chest.

The pain was unbearable. It was a suffocating thing. All consuming and deep.

So, I did what typically happens when we are in this level of suffering: I lashed out with biting words of sarcasm. I knew my words were wrong and irrational, but rationality takes a back seat when pain is in the driver’s seat.

And then came the tears. My tears. Deep, guttural tears that had nothing to do with his poking words and everything to do with the unaddressed wounds within me.

The pain in my heart lasted long after he hung up on me. It ached between my bones and clung to the pores of my skin, stinging my eyes with unshed tears.

There is no greater pain than living with unaddressed wounds. 

Emotional pain holds on greater than a rabid Rottweiler biting down on a pant leg. It’s unwavering, unrelenting and feels like your soul is coming apart.

Break Out to Break Through

The pain I felt was so intense that I knew there was only one thing left to do: explore it.

“When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, because that’s what’s inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.”-Wayne Dyer

I looked at the wound within me. And there I found a history of wounds. I unravelled each wound until a pattern began to form. 

The wounds were from a lifetime of false narratives, all of them being told by unhealthy, narcissistic, insecure men.

The pain I felt was a lifetime of me contorting myself to fit their narrative. 

We each have the power to transform our pain to empowerment.

The man goading me was just another manifestation of that false narrative. He was able to “get a rise out of me” because of the unaddressed wounds that I’d bandaged up, with psychological pus oozing out of them. 

A peace arrived within me when I addressed the root of the wound:

I was a victim of abuse. I am not the abuse. The power is always within me. I can choose to love and be love, regardless of what others do.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t experience moments of sadness or grief, pain or disappointment. It means that I allow those emotions to rise and fall within me, no different than waves in an ocean.

“Don’t think you’d be free if you just didn’t have these kinds of feelings. It’s not true. If you can be free even though you’re having these kinds of feelings, then you’re really free — because there will always be something.”-Michael Singer

When I allow the pain, it passes through and doesn’t stick around to form a new wound.

Emotional pain arises because of the unaddressed wounds we carry. It’s ripping off the figurative Band-aid that allows us to heal. It’s allowing ourselves to feel the pain and breathe through it that brings us true peace.

The need to poke another emotionally is sourced from an unaddressed wound. Those who manipulate, lie, and deflect responsibility are walking around this planet with significant unaddressed wounds.

True peace arrives when we realize we can only be responsible for our own inner healing. 

I cannot get sick enough to make that man healthy. You cannot get poor enough to make someone else feel wealthy.

Freedom means allowing another to choose their own path, however destructive that may be. 

A peaceful life begins when we embrace the four C’s: I will not control, change, cause, or contribute. 

But we can choose to be light and love to others. We do this when we prioritize our own healing.

XI Code to Peak Performance

Embracing Change: Transforming Toxic Relationships

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Knowing the keys to the kingdom are a “level up” sign. (Image created using AI on CANVA)

I recently returned from visiting with a close family member who suffers from frequent physical ailments. The pains themselves alter throughout her body but one constant remains: the shroud of negativity she carries. 

For years, we shared a co-dependent dance. She would complain, and I would morph myself to please her. It was a manifested tango of low self-esteem, each of us playing our roles beautifully: her the perpetual victim and me, the quasi-therapist who could “save” her.

It took many rounds in this particular Earth School classroom to understand I was a participant in the toxic tango.

But on this visit, I watched without reacting. I listened to her cries that she didn’t want to live anymore, her verbal attacks on everything from the weather to drivers on the road. I allowed myself to feel all the emotions that arrive when dwelling with someone who is negativity personified and manipulates to get what they want. 

My body reacted to what I observed with an upset stomach. Our vagus nerve — the longest cranial nerve — runs from our brain to our large intestine. This nerve literally means “wandering” in Latin and plays an important role in involuntary sensory and motor functions — including our digestion. I couldn’t “stomach” the negativity of this loved one.

And yet, I was able to observe it all:

🧘‍♂️ the negativity

🧘‍♂️the upset stomach

I chose to take deep breaths and go for long walks when possible. I chose to find the humor. I chose to look at this spirit having a physical experience. And here’s what I saw:

A woman who is in pain with her knee because she literally can’t move forward in life. She is too steeped in the illusion of darkness to find the light that is her and always there. I saw the child inside the woman, no different than a toddler trying to sneak in an extra cookie, playing a game to get love. I watched her manipulate behavior and words to garner attention.

I realized that I can choose to love her without the need for her to change.🤯

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

Part of the reason there is often great family tension during the holidays is the old, familiar patterns that resurface. Unaddressed — sometimes unknown — triggers surface across dinner tables.

That which hurts is the wound that is unhealed. Leveling up is about growing aware of our wounds, understanding its origins, and choosing to love anyway.

“When you can find joy in the midst of the scariest times, you know you’ve leveled up.” Brenda Grate

Loving this person who identified with a false sense of self, I leveled up. Loving myself and finding joy in the midst of her pain, I leveled up. Loving her essence, the little girl with unaddressed wounds, I leveled up.

We think of leveling up in terms of gaming or a career move. It’s a term we associate with improving or growing. This world is a matrix, a classroom for our souls to experience life as a human.

Each time we choose to see light in the midst of darkness, we are leveling up.

“No romance, amount of money, credential, or achievement can give you the sense of certainty your own joy can provide. When you practice having fun along the way, the Universe supports you.”-Gabrielle Bernstein

The keys to the joy we seek is inside of each of us. We can’t make someone else happy by making ourselves miserable. When we can find inner peace and joy from within, we are free from emotional vampires. And we can also choose to love those Downer Debbies.

Even letting the Universe know that you are willing to see a negative person or situation in a new way and surrendering this desire to the Universe is a leveling up step.

Heaven or hell is a state of mind. It is not dependent on people or places, financial or health circumstances.

Find your Heaven on Earth now by being the change you want to see in others.

XI Peak Meditation

Walking on Eggshells?

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When we tiptoe around someone to please them, we hurt ourselves much more in the process.

Intimidations. Threats. Manipulating facts. These are some of the tactics an abuser uses to maintain their control.

I know because I’m on the receiving end of it right now. Have been for over 7 years. It’s only getting worse.

Abusers are often the Sirens found in mythology: they woo their victims until they don’t know what hit them.

I think of a victim of abuse as a lobster in a pot, the heat slowly getting turned up, until they are boiled alive.

If you recognize the pattern I’m about to share with you, I strongly advise you to do whatever you can to get out of that simmering pot.

The Early Years

The love-bombing commences. The romance. The remembering of small details, the overflowing with thoughtfulness. The feeling that you are starring in your own Hallmark movie.

You’ve just entered the pot. The water is warm. It feels so damn good.

Sure, every once in a while the abuser will say something that gives you pause. But you are so in love with this person by now, you rationalize the pause away. You make excuses for some minor controlling behaviors.

The Middle Years

Welcome to life inside the pot that is now starting to feel very steamy.

Still, your Abuser is so good to you. Well, except when they’re not.

As the water starts to simmer, you find yourself feeling a little uncomfortable.

Because you’ve been in the relationship for a fair amount of time at this point, you’ve lost your way. Up is down and down is up.

Being in an abusive relationship is living like Alice down the rabbit hole. Nothing makes sense.

What’s worse, you don’t trust yourself any more. You’ve lost your inner compass, your sense of what’s wrong and right.

Besides, it’s not that hot in the pot. There are even days when it still feels good. So long as you don’t upset the Abuser who put you in the pot in the first place.

Abusers and Eggshells

Eggshells are delicate and can easily break. Abusers are the eggshells. Once we are past the love-bombing phase, it becomes the victim’s unspoken job to ensure they don’t hurt their “delicate” partner.

Well-worn phrases by Abusers are steeped in manipulation and guilt:

  • If you hadn’t done __________, I wouldn’t be in such a bad mood.
  • You are so naive. There’s no way you can do/handle ____________.
  • I treat you like a child because you act like one.

You may be told what clothing you can and cannot wear. What foods you can and cannot eat. You may have a curfew, even though you are an adult.

Again, guilt is a weapon to keep the victim in place:

“I only do this because I care about you, and it’s my job to protect you.”

Freedom’s Price

When I finally realized I was a lobster boiling in that pot, I did everything I could to get out of the relationship.

Abusers don’t like to lose. Especially ones without the capacity for self-reflection.

It’s years since I left my abuser. Years since I had to walk on eggshells in his presence.

Unfortunately, the attacks are still coming. When you have deep pockets and are an abuser, there are creative ways to continue bullying someone.

The price of freedom doesn’t guarantee the end of attacks.

But it sure beats losing your life to a boiling pot.

Freedom Over Eggshells

Looking back, I don’t recognize the woman I was with the Abuser. She was constantly walking on eggshells to please the Abuser.

Walking on Eggshells:

  • never satisfies the abuser
  • only hurts the victim of abuse more

Better to walk on those damn eggshells and be true to yourself.

When you realize that the abuser WANTS their victim to be fearful, guilt-ridden, on-edge, and gaslit, you start to wake up your inner compass.

So crack some eggs, walk with your head held high, embrace your beautiful self.

No, we can’t control what an abuser will do, but we are now free to live life on our terms.

When to Take Your Pants Off: A Spiritual Lesson on Dealing with a Difficult Person

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Got a figurative Pit Bull chomping at the bit?

Our greatest teachers are often the ones that bring the hardest lessons to learn. Their lessons require us to lean into discomfort. When we walk through them, we emerge stronger, kinder, and more resilient. I guess there’s a reason we refer to them as growing pains.

Signs of a Toxic Person

You know those humans who make you feel like you are walking on eggshells? You know, the ones who make you feel like you’re going crazy, accusing you of the very things they do? The ones who are never wrong, who lack empathy, who attempt to control everything and everyone? Those humans make Life’s greatest teachers.

Why Toxic People Make the Greatest Teachers

Contrast is what propels us forward in this thing called Life. We would not appreciate sweet without bitter nor salty without the sour. Likewise, contrast provides the conduit for our growth. The greater the contrast, the more opportunity for our growth.

When you experience control, gaslighting, manipulation, or any other form of emotional/mental toxicity, you learn about the importance of setting boundaries, speaking up, and saying no.

Why You Want to Remove Your Pants

So there I was, on the phone, with a dear friend of mine who, like me, has experienced a lifetime of toxic people. He was helping me work through one particular toxic person in my Life who has used repeated (5+ at the writing of this piece)litigation and financial power to manipulate and control. This toxic person was now threatening another litigation. Up until this point, I had fought back. It wasn’t vengefulness on my part; it was self-defense. It was using my voice — something this particular Toxic person didn’t like.

What do I do?

You fought the good fight. You stood up for what you knew was right. But when there’s a Pit Bull chomping at your leg, you gotta take off your pants.

And there it was: my greatest lesson. Sometimes, when dealing with a toxic person, the lesson is to simply let go, to accept where you are and what the Pit Bull is doing.

The Pit Bull and The Pants

So, the Pit Bull (aka, the Lover of Litigation) has my “pants” (i.e., another day in court). Here’s the gem: I am not the pants. I am free to live my life however I choose. The Pit Bull may follow through on Litigation #6, but that doesn’t stop me from living in the gift of the present moment.

We can’t control the way someone else will behave in this Life. We find peace when we surrender our figurative pants to a Pit Bull. The Pit Bull wants the “meat” of us — they want a reaction. Emotion feeds the Pit Bull; to starve them is your ticket to inner peace and happiness.

Sometimes, we need to surrender our pants in order to unearth our Zen.

—

Click here if you want a more vegetarian lifestyle

The Subtle Signs of Control

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There’s often an unconscious mindset, a spiritual sleepwalking involved in the unspoken agreement between the controller and the controlled.

*Dana started making jewelry as a hobby. But the designs she gave to family and friends were so well-received, they began asking Dana to sell her creations. Within a year, Dana’s hobby was a part-time successful business.

            Unfortunately, Dana’s husband didn’t like his wife’s success.

            “A hobby is one thing but now it’s taking away time from our family.”

            Dana stopped selling her jewelry.

            *Brian dreaded calling his mother each day. He knew her judgement and disappointment were waiting for him on the other end of the line, knew he would be insulted within five minutes of the call. 

            “If I don’t call her every day, she freaks out, says she’ll call the police if she doesn’t hear from me. It’s just easier to call her and get it over with.”

            While Dana and Brian are two different people and genders experiencing different relationships, both are people in a controlling relationship. Like the metaphorical story of the frog that’s slowly boiled to death, Dana and Brian are in hot water, living a spiritual death each day.

            Controlling relationships manifest in all forms: romantic, friendship, family, and professional. Like the allegorical frog that is put in a pot of water that, ever so slowly, gets warmer, we can often miss the early, subtle signs that we are about to experience a “slow death.”

            Whether you are wondering if you are in a controlling relationship or about to start one, there is always the opportunity to wax reflective and consider the following warning signs:

  • Do you often feel like you are walking on figurative eggshells with this person?
  • Do you find yourself second-guessing your feelings regarding things this person does or says?
  • Do you find yourself agreeing to “get along” (think of the “Ostrich in the sand” mentality) with this person?
  • Do you feel guilty for privately resenting this person?
  • Have you found yourself altering your lifestyle (i.e. your choice of clothes, diet, faith, friendships, career, politics, etc.) to “make peace” or “satiate” this person?

Dana stopped selling her jewelry to make her husband happy. But just like the frog who sits in water that gets warmer and warmer until its boiled alive, Dana’s decision to please her husband before herself is an ongoing theme in their marriage: like the frog that doesn’t notice the subtle increase in temperature, Dana slowly rationalizes that “it’s not a big deal” that she wears high heels because he wants her to, or cooks lamb for him when she is a vegetarian, or receives an “allowance” from him because he’s informed her that she just “doesn’t have a head for numbers.” While Dana is a physically alive woman, in many ways, she’s no different than that boiled frog.

            Brian’s consistent cortisol spikes around the need to please his mother, usurping his own needs for hers, has long term effects on his biochemistry. An adult man, Brian has the power to decide how often he calls his mother. He can get out of the boiling water any time. But like our metaphorical frog, the Appeasement Game has been in place for years, so he thinks he’s forever trapped in that pot.

            Getting out of the pot isn’t necessarily easy. In fact, getting out of that water will feel downright cold, if not plain frightening. But that is the price of freedom—a gift and right deserved for everyone.

*Names have been altered to retain the privacy of individuals.

Nostalgia, Not Regression

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There is a subtle yet distinct difference between appreciating the past and regressing back into who we were then.

The colleagues I worked with for the past several years are back at school, preparing their respective classrooms for that timeless yet momentous occasion (that somehow always goes by in a dizzying blur): the first day of school.

For years, I loved working with students but also felt a yearning to work with students in a different capacity. When the opportunity presented itself, I grabbed my personal career brass ring and started working for a non-profit literacy agency. To say that my experience is both enjoyable and rewarding is an understatement. Each morning, I feel like I’m waking up to some career fairytale, singing like one of the 7 Dwarfs “Hi, ho, hi, ho, it’s off to work we go…”

And yet, I miss my colleagues and friends at school. I miss seeing their smiling faces as we share the unspoken adrenaline of preparing for another school year. I miss the smell of books, the various personalities that make their way through our classroom doors, the camaraderie of teachers.

So how can I miss something that I yearned to leave?

According to life coach and author, Martha Beck (THE WAY OF INTEGRITY), sensing or experiencing an “impending transformation brings on a spasm of nostalgia for the life…known so far.”

There’s a reason we call it growing pains! The prefix TRANS (transition) literally means across or beyond. To go beyond something can shake us up, ejecting us from our comfort zones. It’s why the smoker who finds the willpower to give up cigarettes, while proud of their success, can also experience sadness, knowing they can’t share a smoke with their friends anymore. It’s why the victim of abuse who leaves their abuser is finally free but craves the familiar cycle of violence.

It’s why I can revel in pursuing my career but still wax nostalgic and sad about missing the first day of school.

“If you start honoring your true nature and find yourself missing your old culture, don’t panic. Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself time and space…” (Martha Beck)

I haven’t outgrown the classroom, but I did outgrow my role as public school teacher. I can appreciate the nostalgia that comes with time away from the classroom, but I don’t want to return there just because it’s familiar.

When we embrace our transitions, honoring how we feel along the way, a world of possibility arrives. And that’s where the real magic happens.