Emotional wounds inflicted during childhood can linger and manifest in so many different ways throughout our lives. For many of us, these wounds result in difficulty regulating emotions, leading to challenges in relationships, self-esteem issues, and a real struggle to find inner peace. That's why it's really important for us to talk about healing from childhood trauma, understanding triggers, and mastering emotional regulation. Understanding Childhood Emotional Trauma Growing up in an environment where emotions are invalidated or ignored can have lasting effects on our ability to regulat ..read more

Complex PTSD... what is it? And why do children who come from childhood traumatic backgrounds have a difficult time trusting their emotions as adults? One of the common complaints that I have as a life coach when coaching people who have complex PTSD (those of us who are struggling with codependency, or who are raised by alcoholic or narcissistic parents), is that we struggle to accept negative emotions. When we have a negative or strong emotion, we often don't know what to do with it. We feel terrified that we have a negative emotion. So let's say mom calls all of a sudden but you and your mo ..read more

  Namaste Dear One, This morning, at about 4:30 a.m., I was sitting and having coffee with my husband, Anthony, which we do nearly daily. Before we start our busy lives, we spend time chit-chatting about what is on our minds. It is a time to connect and to ensure we stay within one another's universes. This relationship is so different than any other I have ever experienced and is specifically marked by a feeling of safety, ease, and contentment. It is a miracle that despite my long string of crazymaking relationships, I have found myself in such a ..read more

When I started this healing journey so many years ago, I was unaware of how negative, immature, faulty, and toxic my inner self-talk was. Thoughts popped into my head, which initiated a chain of physiological responses known as emotions, and before long, backward rationalization settled in to referee the war in my mind. Because my early childhood experiences conditioned me to disown my inner reality and to figure out how to edit myself to at least superficially be one with what was happening outside of me, my inner self-talk was punishing, cruel, harassing, and shame-provoking. One of the most ..read more

As a child, I ached to feel loved because I did not feel loved. That is not to say my parents did not attend to my physical needs or that they deprived me of food, medical care, or an education. It means that essential emotional and spiritual milestones were not met amidst the basic necessities required to keep a child alive and physically well. This does not mean to imply my parents were bad people. It does mean that they were immature, unaware, and ignorant of the emotional needs of a child, the type of needs that would allow for a child to form an esteemed psychological schema for their own ..read more

Almost 30 years ago, my life began imploding due to living my life below the veil of consciousness and through the lens of my forgotten, abandoned, and suffering inner child. I was married to my first husband, the mother of two small children, and only 28 years old. I was sitting on the couch with my ex when he said with utter conviction in his voice, "What you want doesn't exist, Lisa. Nobody has the type of relationship you keep clamoring about. Who do you know that is happy?" It would not be the last of this type of conversation until I finally accepted the stark reality of his words. We ha ..read more

 Healing Together: Understanding the Invisible Language of Adult Children It's that time of year again when the 3D world infuses our senses with concepts of festivities, happy times, peace, goodwill, and family get-togethers. From grocery stores, department stores, and even online shopping, adult children can sense the fervent energy of commercialism breathing down the back of our necks. For those not impacted by family trauma and who have somewhat of a semi-normal, semi-peaceful, semi-tolerant family, you can coast through the season without much angst. And even though Mom or Dad aren ..read more

As a child, I had no clue that my parents could be wrong. Anything they ever said or did I innocently and organically believed was correct and within their right to say, feel, and do. So when I felt unloved, my little heart, brain, and mind believed they must have been correct in their assumption of my unworthiness.  This is how it is for all children, regardless of creed, skin color, or religion.  How we are treated and perceived by the ones we love shapes our inner eye.  And magically, at the neurological level, bundles of nerve pathways are built that resonate with the percep ..read more

Trauma changes the brain, our view of the world, and ourselves, and hijacks what we by default, are able to focus on.  Most trauma survivors, including adult children of alcoholics, and narcissistic parents, as well as emotionally immature parents, will tell you that each and every day they live anticipating some kind of looming fallout. Dread becomes a constant companion, and is a mirror for the most experienced sentiments of childhood...and that by the way, is not our fault.  Those who have experienced trauma, feel trapped within a mental, and emotional box controlled by triggers ..read more

In this blog post, we will delve into the topic of narcissistic parents and their harmful behavior, specifically focusing on gaslighting techniques used to manipulate and control their children. By acknowledging the traits of a narcissistic parent, we can begin to understand the importance of healing and the significance of inner child recovery work. Furthermore, we will shed light on how these parents intensify their abuse when their children start to exhibit signs of abuse, such as depression, emotional upset, isolation, and fighting back. 1. Signs of Mental and Psychological Abuse: a) Cons ..read more