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Posts tagged with “healing”

Lessons and Gifts from Grief: What I Learned After Losing My Baby

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Today marks the twenty-year anniversary of when I lost my first baby.

I was, at the time, happily married and we were excited to start our family. My pregnancy was planned, wanted, and blissful. I was six months along. I was showing, and the baby was kicking vigorously. We had just moved into a wonderful house only a few blocks from my parents. Everything was absolutely golden.

It took me a little while to find an OB-GYN in the area, so I was about a month late for my baseline ultrasound. We were very excited to get a clear view …

Why I Felt Broken and Unworthy of Love and What Changed Everything

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“How people treat other people is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves.” ~Paulo Coelho

He used to tell me no one else would love me because I’m damaged goods.

And I believed him.

Because I received messages for most of my life that there was something wrong with me.

I wasn’t good enough. Too sensitive. Too weak. Too sickly. Too different.

I realize now those messages were passed on to me by concerned parents who saw in me parts of themselves they didn’t fully accept.

And those messages were from parents whose own parents had used criticism …

Breaking the Toxic Cycle: My Family Dysfunction Stops with Me

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post references physical abuse and may be triggering to some people.

“Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be.” ~Audrey Kitching 

I will never forget, when I was twelve years old, I went to sit on my father’s lap and he told me, “No! You’re too heavy to sit on my lap!” What does an adolescent girl do with a comment …

How I’m Healing from Codependency After Growing Up with an Alcoholic Parent

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“The only person you can now or ever change is yourself. The only person that it is your business to control is yourself.” ~Melody Beattie

In 2019, I decided to leave my marriage and start over. Although my relationship with my ex-husband brought deep pain and many months of suffering, I felt content with my decision.

In a short time, I began to feel great. I developed a healthy routine, exercised regularly, began meditating every day, spent time in nature, maintained healthy and deep connections with people, and tried to focus on the positive.

For a few months, it …

When Life Gets Hard: 4 Lessons That Eased My Suffering

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“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” ~Viktor Frankl

When life goes sideways, it can be hard to take one more breath, let alone find meaning.

Trust me. I know.

In the same year, I had breast cancer, chemo, radiation, and a divorce I didn’t want. There’s more to the story (there always is), but in essence, I lost everything—my health, my love, my home.

During all of this, I lost sight of myself, quit trusting myself. I was sure I was to blame for everything.

At the same time, within twenty-four …

Things I Know About Healing

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How I Healed My Body and My Life by Embracing My Sensitivity

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“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am.” ~Caitlin Japa

“You’re making people uncomfortable,” my mother would say. “Stop being so sensitive,” she would then quip.

I have always been sensitive for as long as I can remember. Now I understand there’s a name for it: highly sensitive person (HSP).

The scientific term is sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). As it turns out, 15-20% of the population has this trait.

As a highly sensitive person, my nervous system filters less …

The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times

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“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” ~William Arthur Ward

I live in the windiest city in the world—Wellington, New Zealand. Perched between the North and South Island, this colorful little city gets hammered by wind. The winds from the south bring cold, and the winds from the northwest seem to blow forever. My body is regularly under assault. But amid all that blustering lies the answer to one of life’s great questions: How do we feel at home in the wind? Or better phrased, how do we live with …

How to Trust Yourself After the Trauma of Being Dismissed and Invalidated

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“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” ~Steve Jobs

I was a sensitive child growing up, and I felt everything deeply. Unfortunately, my childhood home was dominated by chronic tension, fear, and anger—not an ideal environment for anyone, let alone a perceptive and empathic child.

My father was rather authoritative and controlling, and he disciplined us harshly. I was raised to obey without questioning and punished for mistakes or not falling in line.

Love was only assumed but never shared, and so I grew up feeling alone, unsupported, …

Nobody Will Protect You from Your Suffering

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

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“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 …

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

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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 …

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

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“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 …

10 Reasons Why I Ditched the Drink & What Happened When I Quit Alcohol

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“When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That’s when the sparkle started for me.” ~Mary Karr

Growing up I thought alcohol meant adulthood. As a child I eagerly watched the cacophony of advertisements, commercials, TV shows, and movies swirling, mixing, swigging, sipping, and smelling those delicious drinks that the beautiful and the sexy preferred.

Alcohol was literally the forbidden fruit—a mystery and an abomination that not my parents, nor anyone in my family—really had anything to do with. I …

Emotionally Numb and Physically Disconnected? DDD May Be the Problem

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“Of all things, it would seem, make friends with depersonalization. Enemies within consciousness never work, and only escalate the problem. Befriend it, consider it part of life to work with it. We can’t expel it or cancel it. When we try, the pressure makes a volcano out of it. This is true of so many things, it must be true of DDD too.” ~David Hench

Do you ever feel like you’re not feeling anything, although you know that you have feelings? That you’re operating on autopilot, more like a robot than a living person? That your self is hiding …

How Meeting and Re-Parenting My Inner Child Helped Me Love Myself

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“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” ~Oscar Wilde

The journey to meeting, loving, and re-parenting my inner child was a long time coming.

In 2018, I went through a devastating breakup. I’d been through breakups before. They suck, they hurt, some of them left me in deep abysses of sadness for a long time, but this one was something different.

I can honestly say I felt levels of pain I did not know were survivable for a human being. Many days, I did not want to survive; I couldn’t imagine continuing to be in that …

What I Really Mean When I Say I’m Fine (Spoiler: I’m Not)

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“Tears are words that need to be written.” ~Paulo Coelho

It was lovely to see you today. I haven’t seen you in such a long time. So much has happened since the last time we saw each other.

You asked me how I was. I politely replied, “I’m fine” and forced a smile that I hoped would be believable. It must have worked. You smiled back and said, “I’m so glad to hear that. You look great.”

But I’m not really fine. I haven’t been fine for a very long time, and I wonder if I will ever know what …

How I Stopped Putting Everyone Else’s Needs Above My Own

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“Never feel sorry for choosing yourself.” ~Unknown

I was eleven years old, possibly twelve, the day I first discovered my mother’s betrayal. I assume she didn’t hear me when I walked in the door after school. The distant voices in the finished basement room of our home drew me in. My mother’s voice was soft as she spoke to her friend. What was she hiding that she didn’t want me to hear?

I leaned in a little bit closer to the opening of the stairs… She was talking about a man she’d met. Her voice changed when she spoke of …

Why “Find Your Purpose” is Bad Advice and What to Do Instead

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“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~Pablo Picasso

I was fifty-two when I found my purpose. I wasn’t even looking. It literally just smacked me upside the head. That’s a funny thing about life. It throws things your way, and you either grab them and run with them or you turn a blind eye and walk on by.

I used to turn a blind eye. I don’t anymore. These days I’m taking in all that life tosses my way. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

How

…

Where Our Inner Critic Comes from and How to Tame It

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“Your inner critic is simply a part of you that needs more self-love.” ~Amy Leigh Mercee

We all have that critical and judgmental inner voice that tells us we’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, etc.

It tells us we don’t do anything right. It calls us stupid. It compares us to other people and speaks harshly about ourselves and our bodies. It tells us all the things we did or said “wrong” after communicating or connecting with someone.

Sometimes it projects criticism outward onto others so we can feel better about ourselves. Other times we try to …