Letting Go & Healing: a How-To Guide - (Part 1)
I’m starting this series for anyone who needs help letting go of their past, or moving out of their current situation, to get to greener pastures. Perhaps you already started your healing journey and just want some extra tips on how to heal, or maybe you’re taking your first step just by reading this. This is for both of those people. Some parts may apply to you, some may not. Feel free to take what you need from this post and skip the parts that don’t apply. I simply wish to offer my experiences up as a lifeline. I have this written for victims of abuse like myself, especially women, but this advice can apply to any healing or toxic situation. I’ll also have to post in parts to avoid an entire novel :) I hope this finds it’s way to those who need it.
Letting go, is perhaps the hardest part of the healing journey. It can take time, and lots of it, to put all the pieces back together…but here’s the secret. Sometimes, the pieces aren’t meant to go back in the exact order they were already in. Instead, we take our broken shards and put together a new stained glass masterpiece, more beautiful than the last. I think that’s why some people have a harder time in their healing journey than others. We are constantly trying to go back to who we were before the hurt, before we felt broken…but the truth is, we aren’t that person anymore, and we cant go back to that. However, we can build a new version of ourselves, and decide what pieces we’d like to carry with us, and what we’d like to leave behind.
I am not writing this to tell you my way is the best way. I am not offering blanket advice for all issues out there, or promising this will work for you. I can however, tell you what worked for me, how I did it, and offer you some options, a starting point. As much as I’d like to fix your hurt personally, unfortunately, that work lies with you. I can lend advice, share tactics and tips, but ultimately it’s up to you to do the work.
If you’re up for the challenge, read on. If you’re not ready to let go yet (because let’s be honest, we have to reach a point of WANTING to release our hurt, not hold the shards of our past anymore and let them keep cutting us, we have to want to let go and release. It can take years to get to this point! Be patient with yourself, you’ll get there.) then bookmark this for another time, and come back when you feel ready; because this isn’t easy, and involves a long road filled with shadow work, tears and opening old wounds; but I can say the end makes it worth the work. Crying from joy is one of the most intense emotions I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I used to think that was just an “in the movies” thing. No, it’s real. I hope you get to also someday. Let’s begin.
(Trigger warning for this next section)
Real quick before we start, at the risk of talking about myself, I want to give a short background on for what reason I’m even sharing this, so you know I’m speaking from experience, and see where I’m coming from.
I’m an abuse victim myself. I’ve been r*ped more than once, held against my will, had death threats and been stalked on numerous occasions. I’ve been sent scary packages/letters, had people I loved try to choke the air and life from my lungs. I’ve been cheated on, thrown into walls, emotionally and mentally abused. I’ve had lovers steal from me, and try desperately to ruin my life and take any later happiness from me. I used to be an absolute doormat, had zero self esteem or self love/self worth for myself, and while that’s much, MUCH better than it was, some days I still work on the loving myself part, and that’s ok. I checked myself into a mental hospital twice, and have a few suicide attempts under my belt, and numerous self harm scars in various places. I’ve had to get restraining orders, call the cops and take exes to court more than once. I’ve moved and changed my name many times for safety, I’ve went into hiding, been found, lost everything and started over again from scratch, also more than once.
Thankfully, over the years, I learned to get my voice back, my power back, my strength back, my fight back. I’ve wrote about and made money off my pain, shared my story in front of audiences, talked to students and other people like myself, and made something beautiful out of a life that shouldn’t have been. At this point, I can truly say, this is the most evolved form of myself yet, and the absolute happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I now live with true joy, the world looks colorful and bright again, I haven’t self harmed or thought about suicide in years. I’m head over heels in love with someone I swear to Goddess is my one true soulmate, and we’re about to make this life of mine even more beautiful. I’m telling you all this to say, it does get better…if you want it to…but it takes work. You can lose everything over and over again, but as long as you have the will to keep getting back up and fighting, and don’t let anyone take that from you, you can always build and even more beautiful, fulfilling life, over the ashes of the old one.
“Sometimes you have to die a little inside in order to be reborn, and rise again as a stronger and wiser version of yourself”
“Don’t be afraid to start over, This time you’re not starting from scratch, you’re starting from experience.”
“There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought you were.” - Hazrat Inayat Khan
So enough of that, here’s how I got here.
Part One: Fix the Environment
There is a saying, “Bloom where you are planted”, as beautiful as it is, I disagree. It doesn’t consider all situations. Yes, bloom THE BEST YOU CAN where you are planted, WHILE you are planted there…but nothing beautiful grows in toxic soil, and you cannot stay there and expect to thrive. I prefer “When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” (Alexander Den Heijer)
You are not broken. There is no sustenance in your soil. You need to get out of that soil, out of that environment, and find richer ground. First step of that? determining what your soil is.
Toxic relationship/person? Toxic family? Addiction? Work environment? Living situation? Or is it a number of these things? Or something else? Whatever it is…you need to get out; and here’s where the biggest problem can lie for some. You first have to ACCEPT that this environment is bad for you…and dead honesty? Some people never make it past this step. Some are drawn into their excuses for staying or keeping the toxic habit/environment…and there always is an excuse to stay if you want one. You have to REALLY want out, and have the will to do it, or to be frank, there’s no point in reading further. You can’t make the same excuses and stay in the environment and heal, trust me I’ve tried, and spent years telling myself it would get better, they would change. Well it doesn’t, and they don’t. It gets worse. You need to take your power back and leave. Determine how you need to do that, and do it. Quit that job? Disconnect from family? Move? Leave your toxic lover? Check into rehab, and break the addiction? Whatever it is, that’s what needs done. Your soul knows what you really need, listen to it.
“Easier said than done! I have kids! What about money?! They still love me! I still love them! I’d have to start over!”
Ever hear, “If there’s a will, there’s a way?” Get the will, the way exists.
There is help available for all of these problems, if you’re willing to do the research, and reach out for help- talking from experience here. Here’s just a few options to help, but there is many, MANY more. The domestic violence center can provide you a cell phone to hide to use to call for help, and reach out to programs, people donate used ones. There are ways to secretly tell a doctor about your unsafe home situation. Government programs are also available to just give you a free cell phone, with minutes and text available. There are food banks, Social Services programs, WIC, and churches (you don’t have to attend them) willing to help with food and money related problems. There are ways to pay your electric bill if you have a shut off notice, ways to help hide you and your children from abuse. There are LAWS allowing you to leave your home, lease or not, to escape a situation (I have used this myself). I’d provide links but the names of these organizations vary by state, so my advice is to contact a social services worker or a domestic violence center/women’s shelter, and tell them everything. They can get you started. Starting with programs like this, can allow victims some small room to start hiding a little bit of money away, or a lifeline, to take their leave. There is much, much, more on this, so don’t get discouraged and think that’s it.
Aside from that, one of the hardest parts of this, is the acceptance of your situation. If you are being hurt, they do not love you. Even if they say they do, bring you gifts, put food on the table or pay your bills. Physical things and words do not equate love. Even if you love them, they do not see you as an equal, they are not capable of love, no matter how convincing they sound. Look up narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), or “Gaslighting” if you’ve never heard these terms before. It’s not uncommon for abusers to convince their victims they’re crazy, or try to make them out to be the problem. Often times our abusers have more wrong with them than we originally see. Perhaps it comes from their parents, childhood, or a mental illness, whatever it is, it’s time to start seeing the red flags instead of looking through the rose colored glasses. See your reality.
We must come to a point where we stop hoping for the life we wanted, and wishing things would change on their own…and live in, and accept, the reality we are actually in.
Second painful part of this? Often times we don’t have the self esteem to leave. Yup. I was there too.
“This is the best I’ll ever get! Who else would love me? How could I ever start over? How could I ever be alone? What if I miss them?” - Any of that sound familiar?
Believing the things your abuser tells you, is exactly what gives them the power to keep doing what they’re doing. You are not worthless. You are capable and worthy of love. You are talented, and don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be. The toxic people in our lives want us to believe these things to keep us in line, keep us around to use and hurt, and so they can keep the control…so stop giving them that power.
“Again, easier said than done lady!!!”
But possible…with a will. You have to work on getting your self esteem back, thus taking your power back. This involves retraining your brain. To do this, I would reply back in my head (sometimes it’s not safe to say it to them, but you can if you’d like) after my toxic person would say something nasty to me. Make it snarky if you’d like, the attitude helped me.
“You’re useless! Good for nothing! You can’t do anything!”
My Brain: “Yet here I am doing your laundry, cleaning the house, cooking your dinner, because you don’t have the brain cells to boil water, know how to turn on a washer and are too lazy to push a vacuum. I do everything for you, because you’re incapable yourself”
Whatever it is they try to say to say, respond back in turn. They say you’re ‘this’ and ‘that’…you remind yourself you’re ‘this’, ‘this’ and have done ‘that’.
The point here is to start proving them wrong, to start to allow yourself to challenge them, even if it’s only in your head (again sometimes it isn’t safe to fight back and you need to go about leaving in a secretive way. You can determine that)
“You’re weak!”…”Yeah? well watch me do this…” shock the shit out of them.
Remind yourself of things you’ve accomplished in your life, the things you’re good at, your proudest moments. Once you start retraining your brain to see the good in you again, this will get easier. You’ll think of more, the wit comes back, your attitude comes back…your fire comes back…your confidence comes back…and with that confidence and fire? You can burn away this life, and find the strength to leave. Once you see your worth again, you’ll see your time is being wasted with the wrong person, and you can do better. Let yourself be angry with them, let yourself see their flaws and shortcomings, it will fuel you. You might even start to hate them…GOOD.
For me, this process took about 6 months. It could take longer or shorter for you, there’s no set time so don’t get discouraged, but you will reach a point where you finally realize you’ve had enough, and you’re done. I realized I was done with him, the relationship, that life, in my head far before he had any idea…and wow did I really, REALLY hate him. Frankly? I had the blinders taken off, realized I was never in love at all, and saw what an…pardon the French…absolute JACKASS he was!! How could I have been so blind, to date someone so awful to me? so awful to others? I could do better. So I did. He was shocked when I finally put my foot down, started saying no, and finally left for good. I will remember for the rest of my life how good that felt, it’s one of my proudest moments. I hope you feel that joy someday too, that weight off your shoulders.
Part One Summary
To keep this at a readable length, I’m breaking this into parts, bite sized pieces for you to chew on/work on until the next section ;) so today’s lesson?
“If there’s a will, there’s a way” - Whatever your environment is, there’s a way out of it, and options/help available if you want there to be. Start now thinking of ways to get out of your toxic soil, after determining what that soil is made of.
If it’s relationship oriented, start working on your self esteem/self worth again, to build up the confidence to leave, if you’re not able to walk away right now. If you can walk away now…do it…now. Yes really. Go see them, text or call if you don’t feel safe, and take the garbage out. Get your stuff back if they have anything of yours (the police can assist with this if needed! also done that) and wake up free tomorrow.
If it’s anything else, seek new employment opportunities, look up rehab centers, new places to live, whatever it takes to get you out of this current unhealthy environment.