Keeping your healing path clear

Even after many years of "finding myself, healing from abuse and learning to dream again", I still experience "attempted abuse" from time to time. As you can suspect, from a former spouse/abuser who of course says to this day "I never verbally abused you". Gaslighting at its finest. I still have to remain detached, not lose my composure or feel that I am being attacked by him and need to defend myself. I apply "good self-talk" to walk myself safely through a "discussion" with him without losing sight of where the abuse has brought me...to a place where I am in control and can keep my life FREE from abuse.



Along my healing journey, I have learned so much about myself that I would love to share with you in easy steps that you could just follow, unfortunately, it is not as easy for me to "set my life into easy to follow steps" anymore than it would be for you to follow them and get the same results. So in lieu of this, I attempt to share bits of wisdom, insight and personal growth that I have acquired over many years. I try to encourage you to "take good care of yourself", be mindful, be "gentle" with yourself, and push denial far from you so that your healing path would remain clear.

As many have said and as you might have heard before about "holding onto your healing", I see this as being an appropriate thought as we travel our healing journeys. Every forward step needs to be "stabilized" and "set in stone" as to not have to walk that way again. Every accomplishment, every insight, every success needs to be celebrated.

When we must talk with a former abuser, we need to remind ourselves not only of "who they are" to us and what they have done but also that our boundaries have changed. They no longer, even through their most valiant efforts, are able to penetrate them, because we do not permit it. We have control of our lives now. We make sure that whatever they say to us that we see it AS IT IS...abusive, controlling, manipulative, lies and even "gaslighting". Funny thing is, though we grow on our healing journeys, they have not. They may continue the "same old" song and dance as they used when we were not quite aware of the insidiousness of the abuse that they used on us. It just doesn't work anymore. We see it for as it is...ABUSE.

We can now call a lie, a lie. We can now see our "once perfect" abuser for the liar, manipulator, conniver, controller and most clearly, as the pitiful person who we once loved. We deal with reality, we stay "in the moment" and we realize that we are "finding ourselves, healing from abuse and learning to dream again". It is a great thing to be "singing a new song". No matter what we need to go through to reach this place, we will find that it has been worth it because WE are worth it.