trauma recovery – Page 6 – Jodi-Anne's Insights into Peace and Happiness

How to enjoy life?

6 August 201625 September 2021 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Conscious Evolution, Self help techniques

You can enjoy life more fully once you stop fighting against it. Many of you are so caught up in judgement and drama. You don’t see the bigger picture or trust the evolution occurring. You try to control it, predict it, struggle against it. Yet it will take you exactly where you need to go.

Surrender and allow, don’t fight against it. Feeling the pain that you are avoiding at all costs is what liberates you. Feeling and releasing the pain sets you free to enjoy life more, to be unrestricted, to flow gently and joyously along your path.

You humans judge pain so much, you avoid it, you fear it, you think it is wrong. And in all that focus you keep it active and alive. Even when you are trying to ignore it, pretend it isn’t there or magic it away, all of this is putting energy into its existence. Whereas if you just surrender and feel it, it can dissolve, it can leave.

Yes, you will feel vulnerable and raw going to the core wound, the core pain in your heart. It will feel challenging to allow that, but if you drop into it, through it, you will find peace on the other side. Your body can then relax, no longer needing to be locked in armour, in fight or flight or senseless defense mechanisms.

Your body does what it needs to in order to protect you and keep you safe. If you couldn’t fight back or flee from danger then your body will move into freeze, into numbing you from the pain so it doesn’t feel so bad.

Inside you are all these frozen parcels of energy from all the times that you didn’t speak up, stand up for what you wanted or defended your honour when people were being unkind or inappropriate. Whether it was a bully at school, a sibling, a teacher or parent who treated you poorly, all these hurts, resentments and disappointments get locked inside you and weigh you down.

Thankfully you can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help yourself. You can shake out all these old frozen dense energies. You can release the buried stresss, tension and trauma, so that you can feel more fully the goodness inside you. You can regain access to your innocent self, your childlike playful nature who trusts in life and enjoys connecting with others. That purity is still there inside you. It’s just buried under layers of density that have accumulated throughout your life, weighing you down and making it harder for you to enjoy life.

By releasing the stress, tension and trauma your body can finally relax and BE. You can be more present as more of your energy is available now, instead of locked into all those protective mechanisms. And when you can be in the now without all those distractions, you will feel joy, simply because you feel more whole, you feel the war is over inside and you can do what ever you want.

The controller and guard are gone, or at least sidelined, they no longer control the show. You are free to breathe more deeply, to rest, to just BE, to enjoy nature and life more fully. You feel joyous because you are finally being you and not pretending to be okay, you actually are okay and you know it.

You know that life is on your side and the Universe is helping you evolve and live more fully, more freely, so you can be your true self, your destined self and make a positive contribution to this world. You are finally being who you truly are. You let love in and you surrender to the majesty of life on Earth, knowing whatever comes it will be glorious. Your greater freedom within enables greater freedom outside, in life, in what you do.

Your life circumstances will improve as your inner life comes to life, is empowered, freed and born anew. You are literally being reborn with a clean slate, without your childhood conditioning or your past life influences. Instead of the old baggage which you have felt and transformed, now your gifts can awaken. Your joyous abilities, your light filled gifts can awaken and arise enabling you to serve more fully and be yourself in all you do.

You obtain freedom from 9am-5pm standard life, you see a much richer picture of life and live it. You will attract what you need to step up and be you more fully serving the whole in your own unique way and this will feel so good, so joyous because you will know inside that it is who you truly are and what you came here to do. Blessed BE, Amen.

You really can enjoy life fully and you will. So be it. Amen. Blessings to your hearts and the awakened being within you, who waits patiently until you are ready to embrace it. You have all you need. It is already within you. It is growing and blooming at the perfect rate for your journey, just as nature’s plants grow and flower, so do you, your soul, you are part of nature and it all happens perfectly.

It is all programmed into the seed. You will grow into who you truly are, it is inevitable. You can’t become anything else, just as an acorn seed can not grow into a Jacaranda tree. It must grow into an acorn tree. It will become that, it is nature’s will and it wins out over everything else. So relax, trust, breathe through the feelings that arise and settle into your true nature, that which lies beneath the surface, at your core, deep within your heart. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (4 July 2016).

Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

The root cause of addiction

3 August 2016 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse

Great 3 minute video summarising the research findings around the root cause of addiction, and how addiction can be healed.

https://www.facebook.com/upliftconnect/videos/846444885492494/

For more information, read the article here: http://upliftconnect.com/opposite-addiction-connection/

How bad experiences in childhood lead to adult illlness

29 June 2016 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Health, Self help techniques

Yet another article with the science showing what survivors of child abuse have always known. Abuse in childhood leads to significant physical, emotional and mental difficulties in adulthood. The good news is that more and more people are recognising this and that we can’t simply “get over it”. Abuse changes the way a child reacts to stress and constant exposure leads to changes in the child’s DNA resulting in the ‘fight or flight’ system being always turned on. The ongoing, chronic stress unfortunately leads to inflammatory and immune responses that damage health as adults.

Joan Kaufman, director of the Child and Adolescent Research and Education (CARE) programme at the Yale School of Medicine, recently analysed DNA in the saliva of happy, healthy children, and of children who had been taken from abusive or neglectful parents. The children who’d experienced chronic childhood stress showed epigenetic changes in almost 3,000 sites on their DNA, and on all 23 chromosomes – altering how appropriately they would be able to respond to and rebound from future stressors.

Likewise, Seth Pollak, professor of psychology and director of the Child Emotion Research Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, uncovered startling genetic changes in children with a history of adversity and trauma. Pollak identified damage to a gene responsible for calming the stress response. This particular gene wasn’t working properly; the kids’ bodies weren’t able to reign in their heightened stress response. ‘A crucial set of brakes are off,’ says Pollak.

It is great that science is catching up. They are also recognising that there are many ways to heal which can help survivor’s bodies relax and not be in ‘fight or flight’ all the time.

Science tells us that biology does not have to be destiny. ACEs can last a lifetime, but they don’t have to. Just as physical wounds and bruises heal, just as we can regain our muscle tone, we can recover function in underconnected areas of the brain. If anything, that’s the most important take-away from ACE research: the brain and body are never static; they are always in the process of becoming and changing.

Even if we have been set on high-reactive mode for decades or a lifetime, we can still dial it down. We can respond to life’s inevitable stressors more appropriately and shift away from an overactive inflammatory response. We can become neurobiologically resilient. We can turn bad epigenetics into good epigenetics and rescue ourselves. We have the capacity, within ourselves, to create better health. We might call this brave undertaking ‘the neurobiology of awakening’.

Today, scientists recognise a range of promising approaches to help create new neurons (known as neurogenesis), make new synaptic connections between those neurons (known as synaptogenesis), promote new patterns of thoughts and reactions, bring underconnected areas of the brain back online – and reset our stress response so that we decrease the inflammation that makes us ill.

In the article they specifically mention ‘Meditation, mindfulness, neurofeedback, cognitive therapy, EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) therapy’ as some of the tools that can help survivor’s to calm their bodies and reprogram their minds.

I have found a wide range of techniques helpful including:

Energy and body work, such as crystal bed sessions or reiki, to help the body unlock and relax;
Psych-K or Lifeline Technique to release trauma and reprogram the subconscious mind so you can change negative beliefs about life and the world into positive ones e.g. so you are not always expecting the worst and you can start to feel safe, so you believe that you do deserve good things and that people can treat you well;
Mindfulness and meditation techniques to still the mind and create space to witness what is occurring instead of reacting automatically;
Skill development including thought stopping, boundary setting, inner child, and self love skills, so that you no longer allow yourself to be abused by others or by yourself;
Family Constellations to heal the trauma in the family system and reconnect with love, thereby allowing greater lifeforce and harmony within.

There is lots that can be done. While adverse childhood trauma does have a massive impact on your life, it can be healed.

How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime

22 June 2016 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Health, Parenting, Personal Development, Uncategorized

In this short video Nadine Burke Harris explains how adverse childhood experiences impacts the health of the child and continues to do so over the lifetime of the person. She explains in scientific terms why this occurs and ways the impacts can be reduced. She believes that this is a public health issue and should be addressed as such with multidisciplinary teams available to help affected individuals to heal the trauma and reduce the impacts.

Why do we have to go through so much pain?

11 June 201623 August 2021 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Conscious Evolution, Healing from child abuse, Personal Development

The pain is what leads to the growth. I know it is hard to accept, but without it people would simply live superficial, easy, materialistic lives. They would be caught up in seeking pleasure and never question the status quo.

It is the pain that makes people wake up. It is the pain that gets them to slow down and reflect on life. It is the pain that humbles them, brings them to their knees and gets them to accept they can’t do it on their own. It is the pain that leads them home to God, to peace and happiness. It is the pain that saves them and turns them to the light.

I know it is extremely hard and challenging when you have suffered severe pain and tragedy, when your emotions are spent and your body exhausted. I know it is devastating to see the suffering in the world, to feel the pain of all those around you, but it is the depth of suffering that will lead you to stand up and shine your light the brightest, to help reduce the suffering of others.

As each person comes out of their tunnel of darkness, they can show the way to others. They can stand in the face of the other’s pain and say “You can survive this. I am proof and I am here”. It is the pain that leads to your ability to overcome and to stand strong. It is the pain that teaches you to reach out for others to support you and help you through. It is the pain that brings you to your knees and then that enables you to empathise with other’s when they are on their knees.

You learn we are all the same, we all go through it, we all need help and support sometimes. You learn we are one, the Universal experience is that of pain and suffering and overcoming it and embracing the light. That is growth, that is evolution. There is no other way, no other way to achieve that depth of understanding and compassion. Each goes through it, each matures as a result of it and each gets stronger and shines their light more brightly because of it.

Each lifetime you explore a different aspect of life and round out your experiences. They do not all involve suffering, but some must for you to evolve and grow. You also have lifetimes full of pleasure and happiness. These are good, but slower in growth terms, as it is the challenges that lead to growth. It is those few key moments, where you get to choose to act or not act, to help or not help another, to choose love or fear – those key decisions and turning points, that life is all about. The day to day stuff is relatively unimportant and meaningless from an evolutionary point of view.

Without the catastrophes change would not occur. The Earth needs the earthquakes and volcanoes to make new land, to change what is. Floods and storms create the new on Earth. It all serves a purpose, it isn’t a catastrophe. Sometimes land needs to be split apart and what has grown there is wiped out and started again. that is life. Species die and are wiped out, pollution occurs. It is all part of it. We aren’t meant to live completely rosy lives full of health and happiness.

We are meant to face great challenges, to see if we rise up and behave greatly. We all face our demise with old age and have to surrender control as our bodies weaken and become frail. We are all humbled one way or another. We are all led to question life and why what happens does happen the way it does. We are all led to question God’s existence and whether we believe in him/her or not.

We are all led to the altar, but only some knock on the door, only some enter the kingdom, many turn away, many don’t knock out of fear or anger, pride or jealously. They don’t knock and therefore don’t get an answer. God is there waiting to answer their questions, but they have to ask. Without asking there is no call and therefore no response. It isn’t God’s fault we don’t ask, he is there encouraging us. But he waits patiently knowing everyone will knock eventually. It just takes time, different amounts of time for each to grow weary enough, that they gladly surrender and come home to his arms, his heart and choose to live in peace, accepting what is and flowing with life. While we still fight against what is, we are held separate from God’s love, wishing life was different or rebelling against it’s seeming unfairness.

Each person gets what they need for their evolution and growth. Yes it is hard, yes there is a great deal of pain and suffering, but it leads you home to the light in a way that cannot be obtained any other way.

Move through the pain to the light and you can help others learn how to do so too. You can help reduce the suffering in the world by guiding others through their tunnels of darkness in the quickest way possible, so they can enjoy life again and see the light.

You don’t have to stay trapped in darkness any longer. You see the door, walk through it into the light of day, of surrender to what is and living each day being grateful for what you do have and focusing on what is good in the world. Focus on the good and you will feel better. Be and spread love and you will feel better. Focus on the beauty of creation, of nature, of life and feel that in your heart. Fill your heart with love and joy by allowing that to be your experience of life. Do things that bring you joy, spend time wtih people who you love and feel love from. Focus on and multiply the good in your life and it will become your predominant experience of what is here on Earth.

You do not need to stay stuck in pain. The pain is just a stepping stone moving you towards the light. Take the leap and move forward into peace and joy and leave the past and suffering behind.

Focus on the now and all that is good in your life and the world. That is how you move out of pain and into peace. Feel what you need to feel then move on. Do the emotional release work and releasing your conditioning and mental programming. Release it and find peace. Clear our the trauma and tension from your body. You can use Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help you to do this, to activate your body’s natural, inbuilt mechanism for releasing stress, tension and trauma. Release these stuck energies and it’s easier to be in the now, to be present with others, to enojy life. Release it and move forward. You can do it and you can help many others to do it too.

You are each a role model for those around you. You are each a catalyst of growth for many. You have a greater influence than you realise. When you choose to shine your light, all those in your local vicinity receive a wave of higher vibration energy, which helps them to let go of their pain and move forward.

So your vibration helps to free them of their suffering, to loosen the grip on the ties that bind them, the inner knots and tangles inside, these slowly unwind, free up and you are helping them do it by shining your light. So realise that you serve many and your suffering has led you to this service, this gift of light that you give to others.

It does all serve a purpose, even if it appears random and senseless at first. Know you are loved and there is help all around you, waiting for you to let it in. Let the light in and choose peace, for you truly can have it when you let go of the past, your judgments on what is and flow with life. So be it. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (2 June 2016).

Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

How to heal from emotional abuse?

23 April 201615 February 2020 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Personal Development, Self help techniques

Emotional abuse is just as devastating as physical or sexual abuse. It damages the psyche and deeply affects a person’s self worth and feeling of safety. It leaves individuals afraid to interact with others and sets up a condemning pattern inside, where they repeat the abuse to themselves, by calling themselves less than loving names and treating themself in less than loving ways.

While devastating at any age, emotional abuse while a young child (0-6 years) of age is most damaging, as this is when children simply believe and absorb anything they are told. It goes straight into their subconscious programming and they are conditioned to act it out their whole life, unless they learn how to change their subconscious beliefs.

Such negative conditioning can have devastating affects throughout their life. If they are told they are ugly, unwanted, not needed, not liked, a failure, hopeless, that the problems others are facing is their fault, etc, then they will believe it and subconsciously they will play it out in their life – at school, at work, in relationships.

When things are going well the conditioning will cause them to act out and self sabotage. If on the brink of success, and the conditioning is that they are a failure, they will find it very uncomfortable to succeed. They will most likely fail shortly thereafter, if not before.

So they may get the promotion, but then find they can’t cope with the job or do something to cause themselves to be demoted – be late continuously, get sick, make a critical mistake or simply leave the job as they don’t enjoy it. This form of self sabotage happens unconsciously and repeatedly until it is changed.

If a child watched one parent being abused emotionally by the other, then the child learns that is how relationships are. They will accept poor treatment from others as they don’t realise that they deserve better or that there can be loving, safe interactions between people.

Worse, the parent who is constantly belittled is likely to withdraw from the child. They are likely to sink into depression, if not addiction, as a way to cope with their unhappy situation. The child therefore becomes neglected as well as suffering from witnessing and receiving the emotional abuse.

If the parent sinks far enough into depression and doesn’t have the strength to stand up for themselves or leave the relationship, then this destructive pattern can continue for years and usually does. A child in such a situation gives up hope. They may have tried really hard to be a good boy or girl, in an attempt to make things better. They may have tried helping out around the house to make life easier for the parent, and in an attempt to reduce the catalysts for fights. The child tries to be the peace keeper.

When that doesn’t work, they may try to rescue the parent, to help motivate them to leave or by standing up to the abusive one. But of course the child is a child acting like an adult, and the actual adult is stronger, more powerful, and can be vicious. The child is dependent on the abuser for their home, food and other necessities. It is a no win situation.

And in this situation the child has lost the ability to be a child and enjoy their childhood. their thoughts are not about their friends, toys, school, sport, playing games or having fun. Their thoughts are about survival and staying alive. Worse about keeping the depressed parent alive, if they have attempted suicide as a way to escape the abuse. The child becomes numb, simply going through the motions, withdrawn in a shell of self protection. Their life is a series of painful events, marked by even more painful events when the emotional abuser turns the focus on them, and lets rip with a torrent of cruel and mean statements about the child.

As the child grows they may come to hate the abusive parent, they may wishe they would die and even fantasise about hurting or killing the parent. This is just an attempt to gain back the power they have lost, to feel stronger, more independent, not so crushed. Few would actually act out such a fantasy.

Emotional abuse is just as devastating to a child as other forms of abuse. It sets up similar fear patterns, mistrust patterns and self loathing patterns. This damage will take years to heal. It will take many decades for the person to become fully aware of their conditioning, to feel and release the emotional pain, and balance backup to a state of self love.

They will have to learn to monitor and change their thoughts to more loving and supportive ones. They will need to change their subconscious beliefs, so that they do believe they are worthy of love, they are a worthwhile human being and they are deserving of good things.

It will take a lot of time to learn to be kind and loving to themselves. This softness will not be natural as they have grown up in harshness. So it will take time before softness feels safe and acceptable. Keep practicing until it does.

Harder still will be the ability to trust others. Mistrust will be so deep. Self protection and isolation so automatic, that it will take a lot of concerted effort to break free of it and be able to let people truly close and truly know them.

It will take a long time for the person to actually know themself – what they like to do, their interests and what is fun for them. At first this is such a foreign concept, as life has been about struggle, survival and avoiding further abuse. It hasn’t been about having fun or doing what they like. So they have to learn how to have fun, how to do a hobby and relax and enjoy it.

Their bodies are often armoured, hard with locked up muscles from keeping all the pain inside. The softness is buried beneath the armour and much work needs to be done to help the body relax and come out of its permanent state of fight, flight or freeze. The body is also likely to be exhausted from the constant stress, trauma, and lack of exercise, good food, etc. When locked in fear the breath often shallows, so the body does not get as much oxygen, it can’t digest and absorb the nutrients as well, and the adrenals get over worked and depleted, resulting in fatigue. Good diet, exercise, emotional release work and body work to help dissolve the armour and trauma all help.

Your nervious system which has been in constant fight, flight, freeze is wound up tight, constantly activated, pumping adrenaline and cortisol through your body, or if you feel there’s no hope and you’ve started to give up and shut down, then your body is pumped full of opioids to numb you.

A range of actions can help your nervous system to calm – deep breaths, time in nature, but most importantly Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) which activates the body’s natural stress, tension and trauma release mechanism, so that the body can complete the unfinished trauma reactions and return to its normal, calm state. It is well worth doing to help you find greater peace.

Once the nervous system calms and you are no longer in constant fight or flight, your mind will soften as your body will feel safer and your mind won’t feel a need to be so defensive, so your defences melt and you can open up to play, to softness, to enjoying life interacting with others.

There is much that can be done to heal from childhood emotional abuse, but it takes a lot of time and effort. If you are going through this process, be as kind to yourself as you can, understand that you are undoing a lifetime of conditioning and it will take time. Every step you take is helping. Every day it wil get a little bit better. If you feel discouraged seek help, join a support group, see a counselor, or start a fun activity to help balance up. Love yourself and your life will improve. It takes time, but it is well worth doing. Good luck, I know how hard the journey is. I also know it can be done. Blessed BE, Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (02 April 2016).

Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

Healing from childhood sexual abuse (part 3)

19 March 201618 February 2020 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Self help techniques

In the first blog on this topic, we talked about the impacts of abuse and mentioned some tools for healing. In the second blog, we focused on the impact on your sexuality and ability to interact lovingly with others. In this third blog, we focus on the pain and releasing it from the cells of your body.

When great trauma occurs it is often too intense for the person to cope with. They escape it in some way. It may be by pushing the pain down in their body – swallowing it, holding it deep inside locked in the cells and muscles of the body. Others push it out, try to escape it by pushing it away, pretending it didn’t happen, not wanting it to touch them ever again. This keeps it in the person’s energy bodies and it does still affect them and touch them, just energetically. It is like the black cloud walking along behind or above them. Either way, the pain and trauma stays with you.

You can tell the trauma is still there by the bodily reactions when someone comes close to you. Do you react in fear? Does your breath stop or become shallow? Do you flinch? Do your muscles tighten? Do you try to shrink and become smaller to avoid their touch? Do you become angry and resentful? Do you puff up trying to become bigger to warn off the person and protect yourself?

Clearly, any of these reactions show that the body is not relaxed and at ease, the body is not feeling safe or trusting of other people. This shows the body is still locked into the trauma and is in a state of fear, not love, not peace, and certainly not joy. It can be. You just have to release the trauma out of the body.

The trauma is stored within the cells and muscles of your body. That’s why you get tight muscles. They’re literally frozen, tensed up in fear, ready to react to defend yourself, run away or freeze and be still so you hopefully can hide and not be seen.

It is exhausting for the body to be tense and on hyperalert so much. This tension and the trauma underneath it can be released out of the body so that your body relaxes and so that your mind doesn’t feel a need to be so defensive. Relaxing the body results in the mind softening and your defences melting. We literally thaw out the frozen parcels of trauma stored within the body so they can melt away.

One way to do this is through ‘tremoring’. Your body has an inbuilt shaking mechanism to help shift out the trauma and tension from your body. All mammals have it. The shaking uses up the adrenaline and cortisol, the fight or flight chemicals that were created in the life-threatening moment. If you couldn’t run away or fight back at the time, then these chemicals didn’t get used up. They stayed in your body resulting in the tension and clenched muscles.

Your body was primed, ready to fight or run, but it didn’t get to and afterwards the body didn’t relax fully. It still felt on edge, nervous, anxious, because these chemicals weren’t discharged. The trauma activation never got released. Later when we get triggered, when our body startles easily, is on edge, even if there is no real danger, it is because of these unfinished trauma activations.

You can use ‘Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) to help the body complete these activations, to use up the fight or flight chemicals through shaking, resulting in the body finally being able to relax, to know the war is over, that you survived and you’re okay.

TRE is a very simple process and once learned you can use it yourself forever for free, to release stress, tension and trauma. If you’d like to learn more about TRE click here to watch some videos or to book in an appointment in person or an appointment online to learn TRE. It is well worth doing so your body can finally relax.

Another important process for helping the body to relax and to complete the trauma stored within is inner child recovery work. When you get triggered or scared it is actually a younger part of you that is triggered and scared.

By becoming conscious of your bodily reactions it enables you to start self-soothing. You can tell yourself “You are safe, it’s okay I’m not in danger here”. You can self soothe by holding your own hand, so to speak, or lovingly stroking your arm or your hair. This calms the body, to know it is held and cared for. I have literally stroked my own hair at times of distress and it feels like a safe adult is brushing the hair of a vulnerable child, and this act of self-kindness leads to a softening of the emotion and relaxation back to peace.

Basically, you become the protective, loving parent of the scared child within you. There is literally a scared child inside you and an angry one and a mad, bad, stomp on all the bad guys one who wants to punish those that hurt people. These are the parts of you from the time that you were that age and experienced those things. You can easily access these inner children by closing your eyes and asking to see them.

At first, they may be hiding from you, you might just sense a closed door or a room of furniture with the inner child hiding behind the sofa, just peeking out at you. You need to win their trust, to have them feel you are safe, you will be there for them and they can tell you how they feel and what they need and you won’t reject or abandon them.

In time as you imagine sitting and talking with them, they will start to trust you and come closer, they will start to share their deepest secrets about what hurt them the most. Listen to them, reassure them you love them and that they were not at fault. It was not their fault if someone older sexually abused them or interfered with them. Many inner children may be confused. They may have allowed the contact to occur because the perpetrator was being nice to them, showing them love and tenderness when others weren’t. When it is a parent, step-parent, Uncle, Grandpa or family friend involved, it is extra confusing to the child as that person was known to them, was a safe space, but then all of a sudden wasn’t.

The child may not have thought what occurred was wrong, they may have thought it a game, only to find out later it was labelled as bad or sinful. There are lots of different scenarios.

The point is your inner child is likely to feel confused and until that is cleared up, they won’t feel comfortable trusting anyone else who enters your life. They will always be cautious and on guard, wondering if this new, supposedly safe person is going to one day hurt them like the family member did. Therefore, they don’t relax, they keep their guard up and stay alert for danger.

In this way, they refuse to let love in. Even if the other person is genuinely authentic in their caring for the person who has suffered abuse, it is difficult for the abused person to accept it, believe it or reciprocate it. This, of course, has detrimental effects on relationships and prevents true intimacy and the feeling of being loved for who you are. Without love coming in from within – to ourself, or from without – from others, our cup becomes empty and we can fall into despair, depression and feeling worthless, unloved, unwanted and think the world is a horrible place.

Yet the love and the light is there, good people are all around us, we just have to learn to let the love in, and to do so we need to allow ourselves to feel vulnerable, to take the risk to love and receive love, to surrender to life and its process of awakening.

While the inner child is still confused, scared, angry or ashamed this process is blocked or minimised, often to the point of almost complete annihilation. Anyone who dares to show you love or acceptance becomes seen as a threat, a bad person or foolish one because if they truly knew you, you think they shouldn’t love you, and hence if they do they must not be very wise, smart or worth much. So you judge them and push them away.

To stop such patterns you need to heal your heart, talk to your inner child, send it love. Any time you feel scared, know it is your inner child asking for reassurance, wanting to know you are aware of its concern, and you are taking care of the situation, that you will keep them safe and it’s okay for them to go play or have a nap. They may prefer to stay with you, clinging to the back of your leg, watching to make sure you do handle whatever interaction is occurring that has led to their nervousness.

In time, once they have seen you do handle it and keep them safe, then they will relax and go play, they will become a joyful, innocent child again and this frees you the Adult to also enjoy life again. Your body relaxes, so much so, that when someone approaches you, you do not react with fear or hesitation. You can welcome the person and interact joyfully, peacefully, light-heartedly. It takes a long time to reach this stage, but it is worth the effort.

All it takes is becoming conscious of your patterning and comforting your self, your inner child, becoming the good parent to it and guardian of it, and in time it will relax. Then the pleasure is amazing. You can stare at the leaves moving in the tree and feel transported into a magical place again, you can feel the awe and wonder that a little child feels for life. You can see the beauty and love all around you and you can let it in.

You can let yourself receive love and goodness and the Universe pours it into you. It always has been doing this, but our defences have stopped us receiving it. With those defences melted away, we can finally accept the goodness and allow ourselves to have a happy life, with friends, love and peace. It is wonderful to do so. Blessed BE. Amen.

By Jodi-Anne (25 Dec 2015).

Further free guidance on healing techniques and self-love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.

The impact of a lack of nurturing and stress on the brain

10 February 2016 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Family Constellations, Healing from child abuse, Personal Development

This (4:15 mins) video by Madhumita Murga explains how a lack of nurturing when we are young can limit our ability to cope with stress and creates changes to the way our DNA is expressed. These changes are passed on to future generations resulting in them having a sensitivity to stress.

Chronic stress damages the brain in several ways, which are explained in the video. The good news is that the damage can be reversed by releasing the stress and healing the trauma that caused it. Many stress reduction techniques can help including exercise and meditation, while therapies like Psych-K and Family Constellations can assist in healing any trauma and emotional pain underneath it.

Epigenetics – explaining how we can inherit trauma and tendencies for anxiety and depression from earlier generations in our family.

9 December 2015 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Family Constellations, Healing from child abuse, Health, Parenting, Personal Development

Here is a great article explaining how our ancestor’s negative experiences affect their DNA expression, which can be inherited by future generations. For instance, if Grandma was raised in an abusive, alcoholic home or suffered some other trauma, some of that trauma and reactions to it can be passed onto future generations, predisposing them to becoming anxious or depressed.

Insights into addiction – it is all about the pain

2 December 2015 by Dr. Jodi-Anne M Smith, posted in Healing from child abuse, Health

These are insightful videos by Gabor Mate who explains that emotional pain and trauma underlies addiction. He also explains how trauma/addictive tendencies get past on through the generations unintentionally when addiction affected parents are not able to be present and available to their kids.