What you believe is what you get. It’s the old story that what you focus on increases or becomes more present. It’s like the way you really notice teenage boys when you are a teenage girl and then when you get older and have different interests, they become invisible. I believed my entitlement was a bad relationship, and I got it.
Not everyone who experiences fear, inadequacy and rage goes on to perpetrate acts of violence. It is a choice. In the area of mass psychology issues may become blurred. But certainly in the individual sphere it is always a choice.
ou never will reach perfection, because human beings were never programmed for perfection.
But you are more than good enough, right now, exactly as you are. And you are the seed of what you will become.
I’ve always found that misery begets more misery. Focusing on what you don’t want has an unfortunate but predictable habit of drawing more of the same into your orbit. Focusing on something different, however modest that something may be, has the effect of producing a different, and better, result.
The greatest, possibly the only real power we have in life is over what goes on in our own head. My Inner Sh**bag behaviour, I realised, was once upon a time the best – if not the only – strategy available to a very disempowered woman. I am not that woman any more. Nor do I wish to resort to those behaviours again. Ever.
in the last couple of weeks I have done two things differently. First, I have stayed with my fears – not just my fears regarding the house – and I have accepted the worst case scenario. Strange to say, it’s a curiously liberating process. Second, I visualized the house selling, and the buyers have turned up and the whole process is going ahead very much in the way that I visualized it happening.
What holds most people back is that they do not have a clear, irresistible picture of what they want for themselves. Everybody, pretty much, knows they should have goals and dreams and they do their level best to come up with some. But maybe nobody ever told them that they have the right to explore and choose what makes their heart sing.
The truth is that for many of us compromising on the partner we truly want and need has been all but soul-destroying.
We all make the best decisions we can at the time, for the best reasons we have at the time. Whatever decision we make requires tremendous courage. There are no easy options in an abusive relationship. The question is: how can you best protect yourself from further psychological damage?
Yvette is desperate to manage a dysfunctional situation and remain in control of her life. Her dilemma is this: if her partner’s behaviours are unacceptable then she is vindicated… but powerless. Because they are not going to change. If her attitude is to blame, then she is, clearly, losing her grip on the situation but, theoretically at least, she has the power to improve things.
Over the next 5 days, I'll send you some lessons and tips that I've found have really helped women to heal from narcissistic abuse. Starting with the basics.
Want daily reassurance and inspiration? Sign up to my Instagram account. @dr_anniephd
