Friday, November 8, 2013

Healing From Verbal And Emotional Abuse

You may spend a huge amount of time self-protecting and taking things into your own hands. You try to protect yourselves from people who may reject, betray, or invalidate you. You try to navigate, and fix people and situations to protect yourself. If you look at what you are thinking and choosing to do in varying situations, you will realize how much of your time is spent in self-protecting.

If you find yourself a victim of verbal or emotional abuse who feels brokenhearted and crushed in spirit, walk through the steps, applying one tool after another, to become proactive in creating the future that you desire and the good future God desires for you.
  1. Reach Out – Reach out to God and others. When choosing someone to talk to, make sure they are part of the solution, not someone who will hurt you more. Choose someone who is nonjudgmental, emotionally healthy, can validate you, and help you to see all your options to be proactive. Also, seek a trained counselor with experience in abuse. 
  2.  Identify - Identify the truth of your situation. Don’t deny, minimize, or rationalize your pain. Kicking dirt over something doesn't make it go away; it only buries it so it cannot be dealt with appropriately.
  3. Be Proactive – Don’t think like a victim who is without choices. Maybe your choices are not ideal, but you still have choices to maneuver out of your situation. Make the best choices possible. Don’t react but rather make proactive decisions to move forward. Victims are reactive, but overcomers are proactive.  
  4. Control Your Thoughts and Emotions – Recognize, capture, and reword your thoughts that are negative and promote an expectation of failure or repetition of abuse. Turn your thinking to similar stories where you or others overcame struggles and persevered to the other side. Don’t allow yourself to focus on the negative.
  5. http://www.drmichele.org/healing-verbal-emotional-abuse/