Facing the Shadow and Healing the Inner Child: One Example

December 8, 2019

Today is the 6-year anniversary of my dad’s death. I love and miss my father very, very much. He was so kind and loving, and I’m immensely grateful I was given a father like him.

My mom and him divorced when I was just one year old. I have no memories of their marriage. In fact, I have no memories of living in the same home as my dad as a child. My mom got married to my stepdad, and they had more children together. I remember calling my stepdad, “Daddy”, like my younger siblings did, and being confused and sort of lost when he responded, “I’m not your dad. Don’t call me Daddy, call me by my name.”

He didn't say that to be mean, he just knew that my real dad loved me, and he didn't want me to be confused. But I was really little, so I was super confused.

My dad was in my life, but not a lot. I would see him every other weekend until we moved out of the state, then I went through most of elementary and middle school without seeing him at all.

I lived with my dad on and off again as a teenager, which is really when we got to know each other, but we didn’t actually grow close until I was an adult.

As an adult, it wasn’t too late for him to help shape me into the woman I am today. He was so kind and loving, philosophical, and loved to have long discussions about the meaning of life. I cherished our long talks, and how he gave advice. He gave amazing advice. Of course, I didn’t listen to most of his advice even though I should have.

Me and My Dad About a Year Before His Death in 2013

I held no bitterness or ill feelings towards my dad for the time in childhood we didn’t get to see each other much. I knew he had regrets about life, deep regrets, which he shared with me, and that he always yearned to see his children more than he was able to.

I always thought of my dad fondly, especially after his death. To this day, I miss him terribly. I talk about him and his jolly spirit, every day, to my three sons, who feel close to him as well, just because his spirit is so much a part of our daily lives.

How does this have anything to do with the topic of toxic relationships you might ask?

Every relationship has its ups and downs. That is true for toxic relationships as well. They do have good times, and fond memories. One of the things that I came to realize, as I was healing from the ending of my second toxic relationship, is that my former partner reminded me so much of my father. The good things about him. Not the bad. My father was so jolly, jovial, and sometimes even childlike. His sense of humor, generosity, hospitality and warm affection.

My former partner, when he was in a good state, was so much like this. He made me think of my father constantly when he was projecting this fun-loving side of his personality. Now for those of us who have experienced a toxic relationship, we know this is only one side of the coin. The other side is very dark, confusing, hurtful, blaming and shaming. This side of my former partner was nothing like my father.

As I was trying to move on from this relationship, I was in a painful and vulnerable state. It was very hard for me to let go. I wondered, why can I not move on? Our relationship was so damaging, and literally dragged me down into depths of darkness I would never want to revisit. Why am I still clinging onto these good memories, even though the bad memories are reason enough to never go back?

I thankfully found the way in which to heal myself. By using techniques such as the Interactive Healing Meditations in my 6-week How to Thrive After a Toxic Relationship healing program, I was able to understand what was inside of me that was causing this yearning to go back to my former partner.

By going within, deep into my psyche, finding the traumas long forgotten and stuffed inside, I found that I was holding onto this connection to my former partner because as a child, I did not have my father. My father lived in another state, and I didn’t get to see him regularly, or even really know him, until I was in high school. There had been a hole inside of me, a longing for this father who alluded my child self.

My former partner represented this figure in my subconscious. He represented a father, a man to take care of me, to love me and nurture the little girl inside. This was especially so, because of how his positive traits resembled my own father’s positive traits.

This need to be parented, to be fathered, to be loved… was a need inside of me I had to fill myself, to truly be complete, full and self-partnered. I needed to parent myself. I simply couldn’t expect another to fill this hole inside of me.

Simply by being aware of this yearning inside of me, and the reasons for it, helped me to heal that and nurture myself in ways that filled my own cup. And I grew so much closer to the spirit of my actual father, when I was able to forgive him and let go of the loss I felt as a child for him not being there. These were feelings I didn’t even know were there inside of me, until I forced myself to look within and face my own shadow.

I had to truly look at the reasons inside myself that I would want and desire to be with a partner who ripped my whole world apart, and blamed it all on me. I didn’t want to be sick and needy and codependent anymore. I wanted to be the person I knew I could be, the person I had always thought I would be as a grown up. I didn’t want to be a wounded child anymore.

We have access to the tools to transform our lives. It’s about awareness and remembering to tap into these tools. If you resonate with any of this, please know I have been there. Many, many people have experienced these feelings and know what you’re going through.

My 6-week healing program delves deep into the psyche, and unveils layers of programming for transmutation. If you feel as awful as I did, as hopeless, as rock bottom, please check out my resources today at www.thrivingwithrachel.com.

You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.

And to my dad… it’s been six years since you passed… we miss you so… see you on the other side…

Please, love and Namaste. Have a thriving day.

Why do we attract toxic relationships?

Today I’m going to talk about why we attract toxic relationships. I look around at the world around me, and I see people living their lives in all sorts of relationships. Some are in seemingly happy relationships, while others are in obviously unhappy relationships. And I have to ask myself, why is this? Why do some people get so lucky as to find the right mate, while others are duped and disillusioned by the torment of abuse, whether the abuse is mental, verbal, and emotional, or even physical?

I look at my own life experience, and how I myself have two failed toxic, super unhappy relationships. Tumultuous, chaotic, miserable years these were. So bad, there were times I wanted to disappear. To run away from my life and start fresh somewhere else with a new identity. Or what’s worse…at times, I wanted to... you know… end it all.

If you’re reading this, you most likely can relate to these feelings. Toxic relationships can cause us to question life itself. The pain is sometimes unbearable.

So it can make you wonder….

Is something wrong with me? Is something wrong with all the people who are living in or have experienced unhappy and toxic relationships? Why are we not easily finding compatible mates like some of these OTHER PEOPLE?

The answer to this question is... well, it’s complicated. 

Nothing is necessarily “wrong” with myself or you or others who have experienced this toxic sort of relationship. 

Yet, at our core, in our innermost subconscious, there is a wound. This wound is deep…. And it is old… it has most likely been there since early childhood.

This wound may have been created before we even remember. It may have been created from years of witnessing unhealthy relationship modeling by the adults around us growing up. We may be trained codependents, self-sabotagers, complacent, or unable to stand up for ourselves. To say no. To believe in our own sense of self-worth.

We may have patterns so ingrained into our thoughts, beliefs, and actions, that we are unable to see that we are the common denominator in our toxic relationships.

There is good news, friends! These wounds can be HEALED. The childhood traumas that are holding us back from living in harmonious, loving, and toxic-free relationships, can be dealt with at a core level and integrated into our experience now.

One of the key ways to integrate these traumas so we can heal and move past them, is through the interactive healing meditations in my 6-week How to Thrive After a Toxic Relationship healing program. In these healings, we literally go deep into the areas of our subconscious where these traumas are stuffed under the surface, uncover them, and transmute them for good.

I myself discovered one of the reasons I have always been so self-conscious and didn’t feel I was as smart or as deserving as the people around me. I uncovered that my earliest memories in life, around the age of 3 or 4, were of being bullied by my older siblings. They would literally make fun of me for anything and everything that came out of my mouth. I would say something sweet, cute and innocent, silly or quirky, and they would call me “dumb”, “stupid” or worse. They would literally point and laugh at me. 

Over time I learned it was better just to keep quiet so as to not get made fun of. I would do anything to get their approval. Going into adulthood, I realized I was still trying to do anything and everything to get their approval. Not only theirs, but everyone around me, especially the toxic relationships I was attracting. I was always the people pleaser, desperate for a sense of worthiness.

My survival “monkey brain” had been literally re-wired for survival. That’s why I changed my personality in early childhood. To survive. I didn’t know I had a choice.

Now when I was an adult, and found myself attracted to my first toxic relationship, of course there were red flags. Red flags like he would get angry at me and not talk to me for hours, but refuse to tell me WHY he was angry. I would cry and beg him to tell me why he was angry. Finally, he would tell me, and it would be for one small thing I had unknowingly done hours earlier. Our day together was ruined, and I couldn’t understand why. It was all so tormenting and wasteful.

This is a very small example of the many red flags that cropped up in the early weeks we first started dating.

A person with a healthy and strong sense of self, who knows their worth and value, would not have continued in this relationship. They would have said, “well it’s nice to know you, thanks for your time, but I’ll be moving on now…”

They would have gone on with their life, refusing to settle for less than what they are worth. They would have waited for someone kind, authentic and caring. They would not allow themselves to get caught up in the mind games of a narcissist, who is wounded themselves and playing out their own childhood traumas in unhealthy and toxic ways.

But then there was me, just happy that a man liked me enough to date me. Sure, he was cruel and unusual, but I didn’t know I deserved better. Even if I did, I certainly didn’t want to be alone and single again. It was scary. Would if I didn’t survive?

My subconscious programming was so developed that I put up with the mind games, which evolved into emotional and verbal abuse, a 10-year off and on-again relationship that ended in a nasty divorce, but it gave me my three beautiful sons.

And when it was over, I took time for myself. I didn’t jump into another long-term relationship right away. But I threw myself into work. As a small business owner, I became a work-a-holic, and when I wasn’t at work, I was running from charity event to happy hour to board meeting. When I was home, I wasn’t paying attention to myself or my kids. I was on social media, working on my computer, doing whatever I could do to not face my demons.

So when a new relationship blossomed and seemed like literally the man I had been PRAYING for, HOPING for, DAYDREAMING would show up, I was PUMPED! 

I moved him in to my townhouse with me and my boys, and immediately had him start helping me run my business. This was less than 4 months after meeting him.

I’m not going to get into the details of what happened next, perhaps in another blog post… but what I want to say is that in no way, shape or form, was I ready for this relationship. There were deep, deep, deep wounds that had NEVER been healed.

And unfortunately, it ended up being another toxic relationship, but this time it took my business down with it.

After that, I was so lost and depressed, even suicidal although I would never leave my boys like that… I mean I was totally rock bottom… then I found a way to face my demons once and for all. 

The people pleasing, the codependency, the self-sabotage. Now, I’m not perfect and healing is not a linear process at all. Things continue to come up and I continue to do my inner work and heal, heal, heal. But this gunk, this subconscious muck that is holding us back from living our full potential… it really can be faced. It can be cleared out. 

We CAN thrive after a toxic relationship. I can’t wait to tell you more. 

Love Rachel

www.thrivingwithrachel.com

Welcome to Thriving with Rachel

You've been wandering your whole life... moving from toxic relationship to toxic relationship... trying to figure out why these situations keep coming into your life, and how you can stop it from continuing. Perhaps you are stuck now. Perhaps you just got out of one, and are looking to take preventative measures so that yet another toxic relationship doesn't find you again.

 I want to help. I have been there. I know what it takes to break the toxic cycle -- ONCE AND FOR ALL.

It isn't about the other person. It NEVER is. It is about YOU. And your innermost wounds that are begging to be healed. Once these inner wounds are healed at a QUANTUM level, you will never go back to the old ways again. You will be renewed. These dysfunctional and toxic situations won't even know where to find you. You will be a magnet for peace, respect, harmony and joy.

Let's get you there, together.
www.thrivingwithrachel.com