Trauma, addiction and narcissistic behaviour

There was a time early on in my journey after having met my twin flame, when I believed he was a narcissist. I was like the boy in The Sixth Sense…except instead of seeing “dead people”, I saw narcissists everywhere. As I did more and more inner work, and explored why this was showing up in my space, I began to understand that these people weren’t “narcissists” in the clinical sense. Like me, these people had experienced trauma in their childhoods, and had adopted different addictions to help them escape and avoid the pain of the trauma in order to survive. Most anything can be an addiction if it is used to avoid pain.   There are many common addictions like food, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, sex, relationships, shopping, spending, control, external validation, exercise…to name a few. No addiction will squash the pain for long, which is why addictions often take over a person’s life until they can stop and face the pain head on.  Addictions are often maintained at the expense of relationships.

Now, how is narcissism or narcissistic behaviour linked to trauma and addiction?  Trauma sets the stage for addiction, and then addiction bit by bit becomes the focus of a person’s life, which looks like narcissism, because as addiction progresses, it requires more and more of that substance or activity to keep the pain at bay. A person’s active addiction displays itself in narcissistic behaviours that are aimed at obtaining the addictive hit…whatever that may be, and at whatever cost.

It took me a long time to realize that my twin flame’s narcissistic behaviours and the narcissistic behaviours of others really had nothing to do with me…they weren’t personal.  They were just the symptoms of a traumatized inner child in need of healing.

I received a gift from the angels who presented themselves on my path who were in the throws of addiction.  They forced me to look inward and see how I avoided my own pain by focusing on others’ behaviour. I often placed others’ needs ahead of my own.  This gave me temporary relief from my pain. I sought external validation…seeking love and a sense of self worth from others for what I did for them. I didn’t know that I was lovable and worthy because I exist. I had created my own suffering. It took me a long time to realize that it was my inner child I was trying to rescue…the one who desperately needed a loving adult to care for her back then and now. They helped me realize that I need to be my own best friend…to go within…to listen to and trust myself…to turn and face the pain instead of handing my power over to others…that the love I am looking for is within.

Inner work and the dark night of the soul can seem lonely, when we turn inward and face the pain.  Be kind with yourself, and take all the time you need to go within.  You are the love you are looking for ❤

I would like to recommend Tian Dayton’s book Trauma And Addiction.

Another good book on childhood trauma is: After The Tears.

Dark night of the soul

The energies have been really intense for the past month and a half or so.  I have been struggling.  At times I have wanted to turn the world off completely, so that I could find some peace…some relief from this heaviness and this unrelenting angst. And then suddenly, as I was sitting here, about to start writing this post, it dawned on me that I am in another Dark Night of the Soul.

I am shifting and ascending, and with that comes more layers of wounding that have been brought into awareness, so that they can be placed into healing.  This past week has been excruciating and difficult. I have felt really alone as triggers arose.  As I am typing this, the thought comes to mind that, “Yes Cheryl, you are being birthed into a new you…a higher vibration…more in alignment with your true self…and the birthing process is painful.”

Triggers have kept coming up to show me that my childhood wounding from sexual abuse and narcissistic parenting led me to give my power away as a means of survival in childhood.  I continued to give my power away to others, because I did not have a good sense of self worth.  I gave my power over to others, because I did not trust my intuition. I did not trust or value myself after having been controlled, manipulated, and having had my truth dismissed and denied. My voice had been silenced by those whom I depended on for survival. I grew up to be an adult who was  gullible because of my self doubt. I backed down and accepted others’ opinions.  I tolerated a lot of abuse.  I gave until it hurt.  I found myself in a lot of narcissistic/codependent relationships.  I took on too much responsibility in relationships and at work. I often felt powerless.  I had taken on my mother’s template of learned helplessness.

It wasn’t until 2000, when I had a major Dark Night of the Soul, that I started to slowly develop and implement healthy boundaries.  Since then, I have had several smaller Dark Nights of the Soul as I have gone deeper and deeper into my healing, as I uncover my true self…as I reconnect with who I truly am, and shed the layers of false self I adopted to survive my childhood.

It has been very painful, and at the same time very liberating to become aware that I have been giving my power away.  It has been challenging to let go of fear and to reclaim my power.

I blew up at my twin flame last week, and sent a tirade of text messages.  I still get caught by my ego and my pain body…especially when I am menstruating. I so want to blame him when I get triggered.  The truth is that it is me who had been trying to settle, to turn a blind eye, to hope he would change.  I realize that this is the unhealed part of me.  I need to reclaim my power, and be unwavering in my love of myself.  I need to know that I am worth what I desire.   I need to stay true to myself and trust myself instead of compromising myself and letting others convince me I don’t know what is best for me. I have to stop projecting my self abandonment onto others, and go inside and embrace myself.  I need to stand tall and trust myself, even if that means I am standing alone in my integrity and in my truth.

And as I am writing this, the following message just came into my awareness: Love is never outside of you, and you will never find it there.  You are love.  You don’t need to find what isn’t lost, because you always have yourself.  You are a spark of God, as is everyone.  We are all One.  We are Love!

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone as we are all mothers to ourselves ❤

Healing my connection to self by reclaiming my power

The current energies have been intense to say the least!  They are bringing to the surface the things we still need to heal in order to continue to build a deeper connection to ourselves…to become more authentic and to live an increasingly heart-centered life.

I have been observing the mirroring and triggers that have been presenting themselves over the past few months, and realized that they were reflecting unresolved wounding with my mother. Going deeper inside myself to explore this wounding, guided me to issues of self worth and ways in which I had been starting to reclaim my power and ways in which I had still been giving it away.  It took time to arrive at this “aha”.  Although outer circumstances can appear to be the cause of your issues, in reality, they never are.   Outer circumstances are a projection of wounded parts of yourself that still require healing.  If we are willing to step back and realize that what is going on is indeed a projection and that we are not victims, we are able to seize the gift in these intense times, which is to bring our wounds into our awareness.

I grew up with a mother who carried the template of victim.  I learned very early on that in order to get my basic physical needs met and to avoid emotional and physical abuse, it was best to give up my needs and appease her or try to fix her problems.  I essentially gave my power away to her in exchange for my survival.  This is something I carried with me into adulthood.  I would often put others ahead of myself, and for the better part of my adult years, this has persisted.  I have often given up my power to others because I deemed their worth to be greater than my own.

My twin flame journey has mirrored and illuminated this wound for me in a way that I was unable to avoid it.  It has been frustrating and has often eluded me, as I would spin and spin, and my ego would blame him…if only he would stop doing what he is doing, my ego would whisper in my ear.   That led me to believing he was a narcissist and I was a codependent.  I don’t believe that now.  I realize that my wounded self worth was at the root of this projection, and that the issue was that I gave my power away to my twin and others.  I didn’t have enough healthy boundaries, because I grew up in an environment where not only were healthy boundaries not modeled, they were not respected…and if I had any hope of getting even some crumbs of love, I had to succumb to my mother’s manipulation and give up my boundaries and power, and place her and her needs above my own.

I have made great strides in healing my self worth  by setting healthy boundaries, so that I can take care of myself instead of waiting for others to come rescue me, and instead of growing resentful of others. It certainly is a challenge reclaiming our own power.  It is so worth it though, because reclaiming your own power and ceasing to give it away, allows you to be authentic…to stand in your truth, and to live a more heart-centered life.

Keep in mind that it is a process.  Becoming aware of when and to whom we give away our power is the first step to self empowerment ❤

Healing shifts

I have been noticing some shifts in my twin flame in the last little while.  I was starting to see that he had really shifted, as he has been patiently weathering my reactions when I have been triggered by anything that may look to me to be past behaviour of betrayal, and he is communicating more…opening up more…being more vulnerable…and is becoming more reciprocating.  His narcissistic behaviours of the past are melting away, and being replaced by actions that seek to connect to others and have concern for others.  He is taking better care of himself.

This past Thursday evening, he joined my daughter and I for dinner.  He showed up with a bottle of apple cider to share with us.  He had a heart-centered conversation with my daughter while they were waiting for me to arrive with the rest of dinner. He shared videos of his parents and family and their pets during his visit.  It was really refreshing and wonderful to have him connect with us this way. The next morning my daughter shared that she had enjoyed his visit very much. Yesterday evening after work, my daughter talked to me about how she had noticed a real shift in him…a shift for the good…that made spending time with him enjoyable.  She said she could feel his shift, and the genuineness of it…and she pointed to her higher heart chakra and asked which chakra that was…in her heart.

For those of you with twin flames who are displaying narcissistic behaviours, while you are still working on your codependent behaviours and healing, please have faith that as you continue to do your healing work, it does benefit both yourself and your twin. I am starting to see that my twin flame was doing his healing work, but in a different way than I have been doing mine.  It seems he is learning through experience, and he seems to be guided more by feelings…heart…as he notices what feels good and what does not.

 

Manifesting beliefs

I haven’t written for a while.  The energies have been really intense since the new year began.  I have been quite reclusive, as I continue to do my shadow work, and continue to use The Courage To Heal as a tool to work on healing the wounds of my childhood sexual abuse. While doing a guided meditation from my The Courage To Heal audiobook, I had a body memory come up.  It was very intense. I felt a tightness and pain in my abdomen, felt nauseous, my throat was tight, and I had a pain in my head as well. Then I started to cough and choke and it wouldn’t stop, so I turned the guided meditation off, and decided to do a breathing meditation to return to a calm state. I will be going for a Quantum Touch session with a very powerful healer and friend of mine, Nancy-Jane Browman , to assist with retrieval of traumatic memories, so that I  can go deeper into my healing.

I got badly triggered by my twin flame on Valentine’s Day.  After everything had passed, I realized that I have been manifesting my beliefs, and that I had sabotaged Valentine’s Day this year by allowing those beliefs to become manifest.

I began to dread Valentine’s two weeks before it arrived.  When my twin mentioned Valentine’s Day, I told him that I was dreading Valentine’s because I hated holidays since I met him. He said we should go bowling on Valentine’s Day then.  I didn’t respond.

Narcissism and codependency are two of the templates my twin and I are here to place into healing on our journey. Taking too much and giving too much are another couple of templates we have.  Holidays bring these templates to the forefront for me.  In the past, my twin flame would visit other women on Valentine’s day and/or prioritize them, and some years I didn’t see him at all on Valentine’s Day.  He has always been cheap with me, buying me a card and gift from Dollarama, while asking for expensive gifts for himself and expecting that I should take him out and pay for dinner on Valentine’s…just a tad narcissistic and taker-like 😉  I would always end up disappointed…and angry at him and angry at myself, because I would go all out and be thoughtful and generous, and I felt unappreciated and not valued.

So, one of my “protectors”…a term coined in Internal Family Systems (IFS) came to the forefront about a week before Valentine’s Day and pushed my twin flame away, so as to protect me from getting hurt once again.  The protector started with telling me that my twin was exhibiting a pattern that resembled the past when he was having sex with other women. I started to feel angry, and so when my twin said he would see me later on that Saturday before Valentine’s, I said I was tired, and it would be better to get together the next day.  When he called to talk to me, I was distant, and then said we’d see how I felt Sunday.  I continued to be distant.  Valentine’s Day came, and I was feeling very ambivalent.  Part of me wanted to see him, and hoped he had something special planned for me, and another part believed that he would let me down like he had in the past.  My protector was telling me that my twin didn’t have anything planned, and that he was probably going to see another woman before seeing me, just like in previous years.  When I finally did talk to my twin after work on Valentine’s, he said he didn’t know if I would want to see him, and that he had a card for me…not from Dollarama he pointed out, and asked if he could come by later.  I asked him when he wanted to come by.  He started to say he didn’t know, and that he was going to some stores first.  Then I asked if he was going to eat with me.  He said he would grab a bite to eat on his own.  At that point, I was full blown triggered.  In past years, he had eaten Valentine’s dinner with another woman, and then showed up later in the evening at my place with some stuff from Dollarama as my gift, and quickly fell asleep. I told him to never mind, and that I didn’t want him to come over.  We started to argue, and he hung up.  I blasted him with numerous angry and rage-filled texts.  He stayed silent for a little bit, as I continued to blast him for being a coward and hiding behind his phone.  He broke the silence and engaged.  It was like two children slinging verbal mud at each other for a while, until something gave, and we were able to end the conversation with him asking what I wanted from him.  I told him I wanted him to introduce me to his friends as his partner.  I did not want to be excluded from other parts of his life anymore.  He agreed that he would do that.

I did finally see him the day after Valentine’s.  When I arrived at his place and saw all the snow removal work he had done, I realized that the missed phone calls and the time in between calling me back, were because of the work he was doing outside with the snowblower and clearing his roof.  There was no way he had the time to be running around to women’s places, as I thought he had.  When he let me in, I saw there was a giant card for me and a rose plant wrapped in purple and pink tissue in a big cellophane wrapping. I felt so bad for having blasted him and accused him the night before.

We had a very vulnerable talk that night about my childhood sexual abuse, and my angry part that comes out and pummels him when I get triggered.  I shared and he asked questions…and I answered, even sharing things that had held a lot of shame for me for many years.  This was the first time he didn’t try to dismiss this topic.  In the past, he had shut me down by saying that I shouldn’t dwell on it…I should just get over it…after all, he had been abused by family friends as a child too, and he doesn’t talk about those things…that’s the past he says, not now. He even offered to do healing work on me by placing his hands on my abdomen, where I have been experiencing pain and issues. He was much more intimate than he has been, and it was nice.  Something had shifted.

I realized after having watched Twinfinity’s latest YouTube video, that my twin flame and I both have insecurity wounds to heal…and that we both have trust wounds to heal as well.

I realize that I have been manifesting my beliefs that are based in fear with my twin.  My protectors are hypersensitive at this point in time. At the first whiff of what looks like a pattern from the past, they sound the alarms, and come to the forefront.  I then begin to act as though I am being betrayed, and push my twin away or attack him with wounding words.  Once I am triggered, I am cruel and relentless with my texts.

I am continuing to do my shadow work and my healing work of my childhood sexual abuse. I realize this twin flame journey is not for the faint of heart.  It is intense and relentless.  It makes me want to scream and run away often, and then I realize how far I have come in my healing…and although, when I am triggered, I tell my twin I wish I could erase the last 6 six years, along with any memory of him…yes, as I previously stated, I am cruel when I am triggered…and then I recant to myself, because all of the healing I have done on myself in the last 6 years, is worth the pain.  I am on a journey back to self, and it is an interesting and painful journey indeed!

Living a lie

Living a lie is what happens when you settle for less than what is in alignment with who you truly are.  It is accepting not being chosen.  It is accepting lies.  It is tolerating narcissistic behaviour from your twin flame. It is tolerating anything less than respect.  It is allowing oneself to be an option.   It is tolerating the emotional devastation that one incurs when their twin cheats with another, whether it be sexually or emotionally. It essentially asks that you dim your vibration…that you not shine your brightest. You cannot stand in your truth and live a lie at the same time.

I see and feel more intensely that I am living a lie during the holidays when my twin flame ups the amount of time he spends with his “friends”.  He contacts me more during those days, trying to compensate for the impending betrayal…hoping to avoid fallout with me. It just doesn’t work.  I know his patterns all too well, and although I have been through it before, the realization that I am living a lie hurts just the same, if not more. I can’t run from myself, my intuition, or the triggers that ensue. I got triggered really deep this time, and I see how my twin mirrors my childhood wounding with my narcissistic mother. My twin disappears to these women friends’ homes…says good night to me early in the evening because he knows he won’t be able to do so later…sees me less…sends more “Love you” texts.  And then I ask him where he was…and then he lies to me…denies everything…just like my mom used to do. Just like my parents told me…my 4 year old self…that I had better not be lying about being raped by my dad’s best friend. As if bloody underwear and a bloody vagina were not enough proof for them, after me having spent time alone with him. How could a 4 year old even make that shit up? And then, as I am triggered and angry and accusing my twin, he goes silent and ignores me to punish me…to avoid accepting responsibility for betraying me again.  Just like my mom, who would lie and deny and punish me for reacting to the abuse I endured…who punished me for peeing the bed…one of the childhood sexual abuse symptoms I had from the age of 4 until I was 10. She accused me of being bad, of being crazy because I tried to speak up against her abuse…tried to protect myself, even if I was only a child. Of course, she had done nothing…even if she had failed to protect me.  Like my twin who expects me to settle….to betray myself by tolerating his narcissistic behaviour…by asking me to suffer what is intolerable for me.

I have withdrawn physically from my twin.  I do not want to see him as long as he has these other women…his narcissistic feeds…in his life.  I don’t know if I will need to stop communicating with him. I just know I need to stand in my truth.  If he wants to be with me, he needs to stand in his truth too.  No more games…no more self betrayal…no more cheating myself and each other…no more living a lie! I am starting 2019, standing in my truth, even if it means I am alone and not in relationship with my twin flame. I am ready to go big on self love! No more crumbs for me!

Merry Christmas ❤

The twin flame mirror and fear of commitment

Who would of thought lol? 6 years into the journey, and light bulb finally went off the other day while I was taking a bath and meditating. My twin flame had been mirroring my fear of commitment back to me.

I had been spinning for years about my twin flame’s involvement with other women.  I had researched narcissism and codependency. I had looked at the possibility that my twin’s sexual addiction was mirroring my childhood sexual abuse, in addition to being a symptom of his own childhood sexual abuse.  I pondered whether or not his narcissistic behaviour was a result of my lack of boundaries and codependent behaviour, or if it was simply the result of the addictions he used to numb his pain from childhood addictions. I also wondered if this was mirroring that I was betraying myself.  I was betraying myself when I put others ahead of me or tried to appease them by not being true to myself, but this didn’t explain why he was still maintaining a circle of women friends he had at one time had sex with.  Although he was not having sex with these  women anymore, he still didn’t want to let go of these “friendships” in case I died or left him.  He was terrified of being abandoned.

The realization came when he told me he wasn’t having sex with others anymore, and he started spending more time with me…actually, he had been spending more time with me before my birthday and before I got triggered and did not to see him in person for 5 weeks following my birthday. Things had been going well since I started seeing him again.  My fears were still there and I was quite sensitive about long periods of time with silence…my ego would taunt me by replaying the past. When I realized that he is in love with me…and he told me he is in love with me…and wants to spend time with me, my ego went into a panic.  I started to have thoughts about maybe I should tell him to keep his women friends, and just stop seeing him. I started to have thoughts that maybe he would commit to me and maybe this isn’t the right relationship for me…what if he is a narcissist?…I sure as heck didn’t want to commit to that. Maybe it wasn’t wise for me to have asked him to be exclusive all along…if he got rid of the others, and he was a narcissist, I would have to leave, because I have boundaries now, and self love…and he would be right…his fears would have come true.  Oh Boy!!! Then there was the light bulb moment as Oprah would say – I was afraid of commitment!  He had been mirroring my fear of commitment back to me all this time.

Luckily, I realized this!  I had experienced this issue in previous romantic relationships.  I normally chose partners who were emotionally unavailable…who were running away.  I thought I had dealt with this…put it into healing years ago. And here I was face to face with the realization that my twin was mirroring this wound back to me. It really wasn’t about him.  It was about me! I didn’t realize I still had a fear of commitment.  Because he was involved with others, it was safe for me…it was safe to desire someone who wasn’t standing still to give me the commitment I believed I was so desperately seeking.  I was my own issue!

I did not run.  I have been seeing more of my twin flame, and it is going much better. We are building intimacy, and coming more to the middle in terms of both of our healing. I am starting to appreciate just how much healing he has done.  He is showing much more concern for my well being, and is showing less of the narcissistic behaviours that had been so predominant over the past 6 years. He is risking being more vulnerable, and so am I.  It is at the same time scary and wonderful ❤

Developing healthy boundaries is essential for self love and healing codependency

These past few weeks of reflection I have done surrounding boundaries and my 6 year physical…or as some would say “3D”…relationship with my twin flame, has illuminated the many ways I wasn’t loving myself, the many ways I was abandoning myself through my codependent behaviours of transgressing my existing boundaries…although when I reflect, I see they were very weak at best…and giving in to doing things and putting up with things that I really didn’t want to do or settle for.  My emotions have been swinging back and forth between being angry with my twin flame for professing to love me and at the same time manipulating me to get what he wanted, and then sad that I had abandoned myself in so many ways to appease him and try to win his love and approval, hoping he would choose me in the end…because we are twin flames after all, and I am supposed to love him unconditionally.

Problem was that I didn’t have a clue how to love myself unconditionally.  I didn’t have healthy boundaries, because I hadn’t developed healthy boundaries in childhood.  I had been sexually abused, physically abused, emotionally and verbally abused, and I had been placed in the role of parenting my parent and my siblings. Being sexually abused by a family friend starting at the age of 3 was enough to cause me to have no boundaries.  The physical, verbal, and emotional abuse that dominated my childhood, served to develop and entrench my codependent behaviours I had developed to survive. My normal had become anticipating and meeting the needs of others before myself. I emerged into the world on my own at the age of 17, ripe to attract narcissistic individuals, whom I would allow to use and abuse me, as I played out this dysfunctional dance in adulthood, recreating the circumstances in which this time, I would get my needs met that I hadn’t had met in childhood, through people with similar traits to my parents…desperately hoping that this time it would be different…this time they would see how worthy I was and they would love me.

I had abandoned myself in so many ways with my twin flame, in an attempt to win at this impossible dysfunctional codependent-narcissistic dance. I had transgressed my sexual, physical, financial, and emotional boundaries so many times.  I had felt my intuition, heard my inner voice, and then succumbed to guilt and fear.  I rejected and abandoned myself repeatedly.

Gradually, I began to develop healthy boundaries in all of these areas.  Every time I introduced a new boundary, my twin flame would rail against it. He would intimidate, pressure, use guilt, and lie to get me to back down and abandon myself in favour of his wants.  I became successful with time with some boundaries.

A few weeks ago on my birthday, I went inside and decided to really love myself, to finally really protect my inner child, to stop abandoning myself by setting healthy physical and emotional boundaries.  I decided that I would not be in a physical or romantic relationship…or have physical contact with my twin flame…as long as he remains in relationship with multiple women.  I stated my boundaries to him.  I told him that I want to be in a healthy, monogamous and exclusive, awakened, conscious relationship where we can both grow spiritually. He has been railing against these physical and emotional boundaries I have set for myself…in self love…regarding romantic relationship.

I am not feeling the angst I used to, or the self doubt, when I would set a boundary for myself with my twin flame. I am feeling a sense of inner peace.  It feels good not to abandon myself…not to put his needs and wants above my own…not to settle for crumbs…not to subject myself to abusive behaviour and abusive situations.  I am finally truly experiencing what it feels like to love myself and to stand in my truth…to seek validation from within, rather than from without.

I have stated my truth to my twin flame through setting healthy boundaries and communicating my needs and wants in relationship.  I have left the invitation open for him to join me in my truth should he wish to. In self love, I am continuing on my healing journey with a newfound sense of inner connection and inner peace ❤

Mirroring the childhood wound of emotional unavailability

I see my mother’s behaviours of emotional unavailability mirrored by my twin. Her incessant talking about herself and endless detail. I was forced to sit and listen and validate, not exchange or create an emotional bond. My twin does this as well. He talks on and on about himself, his work, his interests…and if I try to relate or engage, he cuts the conversation short or redirects it to himself. We often talk and I ask how he is, but he rarely reciprocates and asks me how I am. Like her, he often ignores my attempts to talk about things that are important and emotional in nature. They both stay away from the deeper, more important topics.

I have always had an uneasy feeling when communicating with them. It feels empty, alienating. It feels like disconnect…no depth…no mutual understanding or rapport. It’s like they talk at you for validation. And I was taught to tolerate this, be polite. As a child, this was my normal.

Another way my mother did this was by always being busy…cleaning, cooking, and her perfectionism. My twin mirrors this in his workaholism, his perfectionism, and his involvement with other women. It always feels like there’s not enough quality time. It feels lonely being in relationship with them.

I have been attracted to many emotionally unavailable partners, most often they had addictions. I am healing more and more everyday. I am uncovering my childhood wounds and placing them into healing. I am choosing me…keeping my promise to my inner child to love and protect her…to keep her safe and loved ❤️

Here are two excellent videos by Alan Robarge about emotional unavailability:

A promise to my inner child

I have been doing a lot of reflection over the past week. I realized that although I have come a long way in developing healthy boundaries, there were places where I still lacked boundaries, or had relaxed boundaries in unsafe situations. I thought I had reconnected with my inner child, and was doing well re-parenting her.  I realized I was still abandoning her by ignoring my intuition and placing her in physical and emotional danger by not setting and keeping healthy boundaries with my twin flame.

I have that connection with my twin flame…that soul love…that unconditional love.  The problem is that I didn’t have that unconditional love for myself…my inner child. I had placed myself in danger physically…by abandoning my boundary to not have unprotected sex with him…and emotionally…by abandoning my boundaries of exclusivity and no secrets…by time and again over the past 6 years going back with him while he continued to see other women…much of it he tried to conceal or would lie to me.  My gut knew, but I pushed it down.  It would resurface again and again in arguments or angry outbursts of texts from me when I couldn’t ignore it anymore. It never got resolved. We have continued to play out the narcissistic and codependent templates we inherited from our parents. Neither one of us has been choosing ourselves. We were both still abandoning our own inner child, in the hopes of attaining love from outside ourselves.

During this past week of reflection, I came across an excellent book by Arlene Drake entitled Carefrontation: Breaking Free From Childhood Trauma. A light bulb went on for me! She explained how to re-parent my inner child in concrete terms, and in the Now! She explained that from this moment forward, I was to protect myself and take care of my needs as I would for a small child who could not take care of and protect themself. I was to eat when I am hungry, sleep when I need rest, go to the doctor and dentist to maintain my health, not engage in unhealthy behaviours that I would not want to display in front of a young child, just to name a few.

I realized that one of the biggest ways I had abandoned myself and my inner child was in not keeping myself safe, and not placing my own well-being first. From this day forward I promise to protect my inner child by being there for her, setting and maintaining healthy boundaries, and putting self-care first and foremost to keep her healthy and safe ❤