Not so many days ago, Deepak Chopra added a post to Instagram, saying ~
“However good or bad, you feel about your relationship, the person you are with at this moment is the right person, because he or she is the mirror of who you are inside.”
The response was huge but not with the usual praise. Concerned and angry comments that I agreed with, as from a different place I could see how this does and could have put many vulnerable people in a further powerless place. The words were not totally inaccurate, maybe some of the terminology was a bit thoughtless and unhelpful, and it certainly required expanding upon.
For 9 years I experienced a physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially abusive relationship. I often pondered on this “old school” belief amidst the abuse and would as many that commented on the post would feel “Okay, so this is what I deserve.” “This is what I am worthy of.” “It’s my fault.” “There is something wrong with me.”
And so because of this internal conversation I stuck it out a lot longer than I should have done. I felt shit, powerless, a victim on the inside and yes, life gave that right back.
Notice I said I felt.
My logical “grown up” mind knew that I was more than that, I was lovable, I could have more than this and what was happening was very, very wrong.
It was not easy to remove myself but eventually I did. And what changed was how I FELT.
You see, we can have these very strong ideas and talk our talk without any walk… as somewhere maybe so deeply hidden and engrained in our developmental years … some part of us does not resonate with our talk as truth, it is hurt, wounded, in pain, has not been taught healthy boundaries, lacks self-sovereignty, lacks power.
I would notice I would say “No” but I would feel an ouch in my heart, or a lump in my throat and so my “No” was not heard. I would say “leave” but feel sick inside of being the bad person. I felt responsible for all of it.
I doubted my own truth over his, questioned my own intuition and sanity… lost all sense of who I was.
With a lot of looking at myself, my childhood, where all these abusive systems had wired into my sense of self as NORMAL,
these unhealthy core beliefs and warped experiences of love … with self parenting, began to develop, flourish and mature.
I was literally experiencing everything in this relationship that I had experienced, been shown, taught, told and believed as truth as a child, to come to that place of knowing I had the power to go through the process, grow and move beyond it and rescue myself, to claim back self-sovereignty, to know and voice my boundaries, for my internal and external world to be in alignment.
I used to wonder why he couldn’t hear my NO . Until one day … my body and my voice and my mind said “No” with no gulp, no ouch, no heart tug. No inner battle. And my No” was heard. And he left.
Thereafter I felt no connection at all.
I was no longer feeding his role and he was no longer reflecting any wounds.
If someone cannot hear us, if someone is stepping over our boundaries, it is because we don’t believe we deserve a voice or boundaries, let alone have a right to them.
We still live in an internal world of unloving messages and victim. Some may be insulted by this, I can only share my experience, of what it took to escape …
It was more than a plan because running away would have only taken all this “inner work” with me, as I do recognise I even defended my own victim at times … she was scared after all, and someone had to defend her existence.
Again I am not talking about the dialogue in our heads, the conscious, necessarily but in the roots of our body, our inner wiring … our cells. The messages we habitually live out with no awareness.
My body was carrying the trauma far longer than my head … which is why trauma support has to be an embodied approach, not conversation alone.
Yes, violence, sexual abuse, emotional and mental abuse, is so so f**cking wrong but as a survivor I know the difference had to be alive and felt in me … for the wounded, undeveloped child to grow from victim into a sovereign voice and body. ❤️
