Acceptance of the reality of what is allows you to honor yourself and your perceptions. Relationships should promote self-love. To regain your power allows you to love yourself. To regain your power in an abusive relationship, you must name what is happening and accept it. Accept what is. Despite how painful that is. Accepting does not mean you approve, agree, or are okay with it. It is also not forgetting or pretending the abuse didn’t occur. Acceptance does involve giving up excuses for your partner’s behavior or trying to convince them to change. Firing yourself from the job of helping them ..read more

Believing you deserve abuse is an injury. Believing you deserve abuse is an injury from coercive control. Abuse damages your belief in your worthiness, leaving you vulnerable to those who want to dominate. I decided to write on this because my last blog, Saying You Allowed Abuse Is False, elicited this comment: “What about those who believe they deserve how their partners treat them?” Verbal, emotional, and physical abuse affects your self-image. Here are frequent issues that contribute to believing you deserve abuse. Low Self-esteem When you experience abuse in an intimate relationship, it ..read more

Saying You Allowed Abuse is False Saying you allowed abuse is the same thing as saying you gave your permission. This does not help you heal. Emotional abuse healing begins with improving the accuracy of the story you tell yourself about what your partner did.   When you say you allowed abuse, you are blaming yourself for something over which you had no control. You probably learned to accept this from your partner’s blame and hearing similar media assumptions. Often society makes victims responsible for their abuse, rather than the one who abuses.   “The stories you tell are often ..read more

Seeing forgiveness as emotional self-care may sound strange. Especially if you experienced an abuser telling you to forgive when they haven’t changed. Forgiveness can be premature if done too early. Refocusing on you and your emotions is an important step in healing. Allow yourself to feel anger and find ways to recover from the pain you experience. This frees you to determine anything you want to change about yourself or your relationships. Therefore, forgiveness should not replace taking time to recover. EMOTIONAL ABUSE HEALING TO CONVERT YOUR PAIN TO GROWTH gives pointers on what helps you ..read more

Emotional abuse healing takes time Emotional abuse healing takes longer than most physical abuse injuries. Every survivor I worked with said that emotional abuse was more difficult to recover from. Research indicates that it has long-term effects on mental and physical health. Physical abuse adds to emotional injuries, such as loss of self-worth when your partner hurts you. Emotional injury includes low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Coercive Relationships goes into detail about the many types of injury. It can be helpful to know them so that you do ..read more

Emotional abuse recovery requires partners to change. “Can my partner change?” Victims of intimate partner abuse often ask this when they face emotional abuse recovery. The issue isn’t really about whether they can, but whether they choose to. Many conclude their partners will not change for valid reasons. However, some harm-doers alter their behavior and attitudes. The critical question is: “Are they committed to changing?” Commitment involves following through with the work that it takes. This depends upon their willingness to give up power over others and learn respectful relationships skil ..read more

HOW TO MAKE EMPOWERING RESPONSES WHEN PEOPLE ARE UPSET indicated conflict is inevitable. Time Out and Broken Record are the last two conflict management skills. As with any assertive skill, assess your safety if someone has a history of being abusive. Download the steps and practice exercises now if you’d like to see them as you’re reading. Time Out is an empowering response Time Out The conflict management skill of Time Out is something you do for yourself, as opposed to the Time Outs you give children as a consequence. It gives you emotional and physical space to contemplate how to respond i ..read more

I’m Upset! Conflict in relationships is inevitable. Conflict management skills help us navigate it constructively. The conflicts I’m referring to are upsets because of disagreements, differences in needs or interests, and misunderstandings. We sometimes call them fights, but not fights as in harming another physically or emotionally. Conflict may be stressful at times, but it’s not inherently bad. The foundation for making empowering responses with those who express upset: Accept conflicts are inevitable. Do not take others’ emotions personally. Cultivate curiosity about what they feel and w ..read more

Learning about giving and receiving negative feedback may not seem inviting because of past experiences with both. None of us like receiving it and we may be uncomfortable giving it. The last two skills, expressing and receiving positive feedback have more comfortable associations. This fourth blog in my assertive communication series shows why these skills are important and how to be constructive in their use.  Feedback skills cultivate good relationships. Perhaps it is easier to see this with positive expressions, but it’s no less true with negative. Living involves inevitable tensions ..read more

Positive Expressions Giving and receiving positive expressions are the next skills in my assertive communication series that began with Assertive Beliefs. It covers two of four feedback skills. Each article in this series includes exercises for learning and practicing assertive skills. Some do not think of giving and receiving positive feedback as being assertive. However, assertiveness is not just about taking a stand when there is disagreement. It also enables us to express the fullness of our emotions, including both positive and negative ones. Giving and receiving negative feedback will be ..read more