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what I learned about self-love

I’m Grateful For What I Learned About Self-Love from ‘The Other Woman’

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what I learned about self-love

 

The year I turned 40 my husband left me for a woman twenty years younger than me.

My god, it hit hard. Not just the fact that I was left (that was excruciating enough) – but that it was for someone so much younger, brighter and more glamorous than me. How did I know that this stranger was younger, brighter and more dazzling than me? Well, I stalked her online of course.

I found out who she was after she inadvertently sent me a friend request through Facebook. I already knew her first name and I guess she knew mine. The friend request was promptly retracted by her, but not before I caught sight of her full name.

So armed with the newfound knowledge of who the other woman was, on to good old Facebook I went. What I saw there only compounded the pain that was already threatening to overtake me. She was gorgeous. She was young (obviously) and fit and beautiful with a mane of long blonde hair that fell effortlessly over one of her perfect, bronzed shoulders.

The image of her tormented me. I soon started dreaming of her. I dreamed of her and my husband together, tucked away in his new bed, at his new place. In my waking hours, I questioned and criticized myself relentlessly. I questioned what it was about me that was so horrible and unbearable that he felt the need to upgrade. I criticized my looks, my thighs, and my stretchy wobbly stomach.

I left my dignity at the door and bombarded him with questions – I asked him if he loved her, if he was planning on building a future with her, if he was planning on introducing our kids to her. I all but convinced myself that she would soon be pregnant with his child and claiming a stake of the marital house. I thought I was going crazy. I was actually knee-deep in grief.

I assumed that I would never feel normal or ‘right’ again.

Yet time passed, as it does, and the grief that I was certain would eat me alive slowly began to ease its grip. Winter became spring. I met new people and gained new perspectives. I spent a lot of time alone and read a lot of self-help. I learned to accept that my marriage was over and that there was no hope of reconciliation. The day I realized that I no longer wanted reconciliation was one of the most liberating days of my life.

The thing between my husband and the other woman eventually came to an end, as I guess it was always going to. A relationship with a twenty-five year age gap was, in all likelihood, eventually going to end. And by the time it did, I no longer cared. The day I realized that my hate had turned to indifference was the day I knew that I’d healed.

And the healed me saw things a whole lot clearer than the broken me:

I no longer felt paralyzed by jealousy and anger. It occurred to me that, in all likelihood, the other woman – girl – also struggled with self-love and esteem. Maybe she had a shit childhood. Maybe latching on to middle-aged married men made her feel better about herself. (I somehow have the feeling that my husband was not the first, nor the last).

Yet, I don’t judge her. Especially not now, four years on. Not now that at the age of forty-four I finally know and understand my worth. Not now that I’ve finally learned how to be alone, how to self-partner and self-soothe. Not now that I have a partner who tells me regularly that he has ‘waited his whole life for me’.

What I Learned About Self-Love from ‘The Other Woman’

I now know that it was never about her. It was about me. It was about my fears and insecurities and long-buried wounds. She (very unwittingly I’m sure) made me confront my wounds. She put her hands deep inside of me and pulled them from me. For all to see. For me to see. For me to examine, dissect and ultimately and eventually heal.

Without her – without the idea of her and what she represented – I would still be a self-doubting woman living a half-life. A life consumed by the fear that she was not ‘good’ or ‘lovable’ enough, a life in which she was too afraid to live as her authentic self.

I now know that the other woman was not necessarily more desirable or lovable than me. I also know that she was not necessarily an evil villain. I know now that most of us are doing our best to feel wanted, accepted and desirable to others. Some of us go about it in the wrong way; some of us are able to find what we need within ourselves.

Those of us who are willing to do the deep inner work – to spend time alone, to learn how to self-soothe and self-partner, to face our heartbreak and sit with the pain and the shitty feelings without constantly looking for distractions to make ourselves feel better – knowing that the pain and shitty feelings will not last forever – will probably fare better than those of us who never teach ourselves to do this.

It may surprise some to know that today, I am friends with my ex-husband. He is on his own journey, and I hope that he someday finds what it is he’s looking for. I’m grateful for the lessons he and ‘the other woman’ delivered me. How could I not be? I wouldn’t be half the woman I am today without them.

I now know how to love me.

The post I’m Grateful For What I Learned About Self-Love from ‘The Other Woman’ appeared first on Divorced Moms.

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10 Lessons Learned From 10 Years In Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

10 Lessons Learned From 10 Years In Narcissistic Abuse Recovery

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Today is an exciting day for Thriving!

Because I am sharing with you my compendium of the ten top lessons that I have learned over the last ten years in narcissistic abuse recovery.

You may already know and embody these lessons – or you may not have started yet.

Either way, if you start working with and aligning with these lessons, not only will you achieve recovery from narcissistic abuse in ways and time frames that will stun you…

You will also open yourself up to receive the life of your dreams.

Truly… These changes will infiltrate your life in incredible ways.

 

 

Video Transcript

I’m so excited about today’s Thriver TV Episode, because in it I get to share with you the ten most important lessons that I have ever learned for narcissistic abuse recovery.

These are important lessons.

They are vital lessons.

They saved my life.

They allowed me to heal from the unhealable and Thrive. Also, they have set the basis for thousands of other people, just like you, to do the same.

And I can’t wait to share them with you.

But before I do…

Thank you if you have subscribed to my channel, I am so grateful for you supporting the Thriver Mission. And if you haven’t yet subscribed, I want to remind you to please do.

If you like this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up!

Okay, let’s get started.

 

Lesson #1 – It Is Impossible to Think Your Way Out of Trauma

You need to know this more than anything – thinking, talking, researching and filling your brain with more information does not stop obsessive thinking.

Obsessive thinking is a by-product of being traumatised. And the more you try to think your way OUT of it, the more traumatised you become. This is because the only thinking you have access to is the thinking ABOUT it.

The brain follows the body. It is the servant of it, not the master.

I have done many Thriver TVs about Quantum Healing and why it is the true way to heal for real, but suffice to say here, if you think ‘more thinking and information’ helps you, you are heading more deeply into Wrong Town.

There is another way – a true way to heal. This ‘true’ way is at the level of the body, working on your nervous, somatic and emotional systems at their core, where the trauma that is affecting your entire life is stored.

I want you to understand this: when the trauma is healed at its core there is NO trauma left for you to manage with thinking.

Both the body and the mind will completely calm down, creating space for relief, calm, power and new directions.

 

Lesson #2 – If You Remain Victimised, More Victimisation Comes

This lesson, at the start of recovery, is a tough one to accept but is so necessary.

Initially, I was totally a victim. I hadn’t realised that I needed to heal me. I completely blamed him and I thought my life was beyond repair. I thought I was finished.

In this state, and whilst going on abuse forums and communicating with other people about how bad narcissists are, I was denying my own love and healing back to wholeness.

When I stopped banging on about narcissists and made MY healing my greatest priority, I found many unhealed parts of myself. Aspects of myself that not only had allowed me to unconsciously accept him into my life, but had not allowed me to leave and look after me.

Healing those parts of me was what took all the abuse symptoms, fears and traumas away.

All the painful things that would have been my lifelong legacy, if I remained a victim.

I healed and evolved beyond them all!

 

Lesson #3 – Once the Trauma Is Inside You It Is Yours to Be Responsible For

This lesson is intertwined with Lesson #2, and like Lesson #2 can be challenging to accept initially.

It is this… As an adult, there is no-one coming to save you.

The people who have hurt you are not going to fix what they did, and no outside force is going to magically take the pain away.

Any external relief will be fleeting and temporary.

This means regardless of how the trauma got there, who put it there, and even what it is, the only way true recovery can happen is if you meet your Inner Being and start releasing your trauma.

When I finally GOT this, I realised how liberating it was to stop waiting for anything else and I just got down to the real mission that was my life – tending to the healing of my inner self, which is where my entire life unfolds from.

That changed everything. The pain went, and real life began.

I realised how disempowering it had been, trying to make other people provide me with self-soothing, love, approval, security and survival. I finally knew I had the power to generate these things within me!

 

Lesson #4 – It Was All Meant to Be

The more awakened we become, the more we come to this realisation: ‘I understand now why that happened.’

This understanding comes very quickly once we start healing from the inside out.

Virtually every time I accessed ‘what hurts’ in my dedicated Inner Thriver Recovery, I found a trauma and a false belief that came from my past.

The ‘ahhas’ came thick and fast, allowing me to know that the narcissist was the ‘messenger of my wounds.’

He represented the delivery of exactly the parts of myself that were still unhealed. The ways that I was hard on myself; the ways I didn’t self-partner. He brought to light my greatest terrors to do with love, safety, security and survival.

In my relationship with him, I got to see how I would dismiss myself and my health in order to not be abandoned by him. I realised how my previous abandonment wounds had led to me drastically abandoning myself.

Once I had healed these parts within, I become the happiest, healthiest version of myself that I could ever imagine. I was finally self-partnered, whole, solid and safe in my own body and in my life.

 

Lesson #5 – The Value of Your Soul is Everything

Before Thriver Recovery my identity’s value was NOT about my soul.

It was about outer things such as the relationship I was in; how much security I had; and what I owned. And it was completely about what other people thought of me.

When myself and my life were smashed into oblivion by narcissistic abuse, all that was left was me with me. It was then, after turning inwards to save my own soul by letting go of all the trauma within, that I was reborn.

I emerged knowing the truth – that I had the ability to be whole in my own soul, regardless of what I did or didn’t have.

Once achieving this became my highest mission, things started unfolding in the most miraculous ways to grant me more wholeness.

I have seen in my own life, and now in the lives of countless others, that when your soul is your highest priority, then all else in your life comes back online. It heals and starts to flourish – even including your children.

When you value your Inner Being, which is the seat of your soul, then all of Life and Creation (Source) honours you completely, too.

 

Lesson #6 – Releasing Judgement to Be the Solution

What are people’s inner values and truth?

Have they developed from Oneness, authenticity and feeling safe and secure within their own Being? Or are they about separation, distrust, hiding out and acting to try to survive?

How many children grew up not being whole on the inside and therefore became damaged children in adult bodies?

Is there peace and love, or rage and fear driving a person’s actions that they may be deeply unconscious about?

I learned to drop judgement, pain and resentment about other damaged people, and instead concentrate on cleaning up my half of the road.

The best we can all do now is to heal our own Inner Being, knowing that this assists the healing of the whole.

The more you judge and condemn, the more it hurts you and is not a solution to the issues. It only helps hold them in place. If you are still carrying trauma, you are spreading the infection to others and you will remain a potential victim and target of it – instead of easing it.

However, by healing your own Inner Being and inspiring others to heal theirs, there is a movement away from being abused. This helps release the entire abuse pattern, for you and for your future generations.

 

Lesson #7 – We Can’t Heal Our Children if We are Unhealed

Before I understood this truth about Thriver Recovery, I desperately tried to rescue my son instead of healing myself.

The result was that he pushed back and pulled away.

My energy was damaged and toxic to be around, and I was not leading the way for him.

When I finally let go of trying to heal and control him, and took full responsibility for my own healing, he started to get well too.

Additionally, to this day, every time I do a Quanta Freedom Healing shift on myself (NARP) I have the intention that my healing is also his healing.

The results are miraculous. Where I go, he follows.

 

Lesson #8 – People Love You How You Love Yourself

I used to believe that people would love me the way I loved them.

My life was about people-pleasing and handing away my rights and power to try to make them provide me with love, approval, security and survival.

A great deal of my previous victimisation was about ‘How dare you treat me so badly after what I gave you!’

Then I woke up out of the trance and understood that what we accept is what we will get. That people mirror back the way we think about and love and treat ourselves.

You will never accept a level of love lesser than the level you love yourself.

When you heal the foundational relationship, which is the true relationship in your life, the one you have with your Inner Being, then you will have and maintain relationships with other whole healthy people.

 

Lesson #9 – Nothing Stops Until You Stop Participating

We think we are saying ‘No’ to something by pushing back on it and wrestling with it.

I was a chronic over-participator.

I would argue, defend, lecture, prescribe, try to fix, and roll around with abusers, trying to do everything to make then change so that I could have a healthy and happy life.

If you relate to this, pause this video and put your hand up to being a chronic over-participator in the comments below.

I learned that to have a healthy and happy life, I needed to STOP participating and simply state my values and truths. That I needed to pull back into them and just BE them, and only allow these values and truths into my life.

No more judgement, anger or trying to change others. Rather, my life became – that is their truth; this is my truth – and if it’s not a match that’s fine!

Then true freedom to BE me became possible.

It will for you, too.

 

Lesson #10 – There Is No Outside

This lesson is pretty Quantum – and so powerful when you work with it. It allows you to take full responsibility for your life to eternally grow and generate powerfully.

As Neale Donald Walsch said in his book Conversations With God, ‘I only send you Angels.’

I learned to accept that everyone in my experience was showing me an aspect of myself.

If they hit a trigger within, it was an unhealed part.

When narcissists co-create painful or disappointing events with you, they expose for you the evidence of a painful belief for you to heal and break free from.

And if people reflect back to you love, kindness and benevolence, these are healthy beliefs that you are starting to have about yourself, life and others.

When we use the contextual field as a tool for self-awareness and actualisation, then life has richness, depth and meaning as well as exciting growth possibilities and directions.

However, please don’t think in this self-reflection that you won’t address your outside world. You will, but in more effective ways than you ever have before.

Maybe your growth lesson is about overcoming your fear that others have power over you. What this means is that you can release yourself from that inner fear and start showing up, having difficult conversations, laying boundaries and even taking decisive action against someone when they don’t honour your expressed boundaries.

Doing this is an act of self-love.

Quantum self-actualisation is not fluffy new-age woowoo. It is about becoming the most authentic, real, empowered, effective and loving person you can be.

Okay, so I hope this video has helped.

If you are already working with the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (NARP), you are anchoring into these truths, which come into full organic realness when you lose your inner trauma.

If you are struggling with your narcissistic abuse recovery, the embodiment of these ten lessons will grant you powerful and fast relief.

To embody and start living by these lessons, you can join me and the Thriver Tribe by clicking this link.

And if you want to see more of my videos, please subscribe so that you will be notified as soon as each new one is released. And if you liked this – click like. Also, please share with your communities so that we can help people awaken to these truths.

As always I am greatly looking forward to answering your comments and questions below.

 

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