Out of the abundance of the heart...

Surviving abuse is not just a matter of heart but of mind as well. The mind bending manipulations and twisted realities of a personality disordered spouse or family member result in wounds of both the heart as well as the mind. We can only truly "speak" out of our own experience and beliefs. What we can only speak of is what come from and is within our hearts. 

Above all else, guard your heart, 

for everything you do flows from it. 

Proverbs 4:23(NIV)

We may have been careful "what we put IN our hearts" but little do we realize what had gotten into our hearts and COMES BACK OUT as the result of abuse and woundedness. After having been wounded so deeply by abuse, we may "shut off" or "close down" our hearts or "build up walls" to protect ourselves from further pain. 

 The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - 
they must be felt with the heart. 

Helen Keller

I am thoroughly a "heart" person, I LIVE from my heart. For me, to live any other way is false and NOT living at all. I am warm, funny, sensitive, loving, insightful, creative, hopeful and forgiving; but one thing I am not is hard and walled up; any more that is. Abuse causes us to be cautious and protective of our hearts; we withdraw and "hide" our true selves until one day, we realize that we are losing sight of who we are. We are "losing ourselves" in the sea of abuse and neglect, pain and misery.

Here is my secret. 
It is very simple. 

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; 

What is essential is invisible to the eye. 

Antoine de Saint Exupéry

This above saying comes from the book and movie titled "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. It is funny how WISE a children's story can be and how much an adult can learn about ones own heart by reading a story about how we should "never give up hope" and that we CAN learn if we are only willing to "be like a child" again.

The heart is the most wonderful place in the world. In it and out of it comes LIFE. Without it, I would have to ask the purpose of life; in my opinion, there would be none.