Taking Inventory of Your Biggest Life Lessons and Strengths Gained
Welcome to February the month of Freedom. With Valentine’s day in eleven days, let the Valentine be YOU this year, above and before, anyone else on the outside of you. To lead you up to the 14th, let’s take an inventory of your biggest lessons and strengths gained from surviving life this far. What could you do for you, give to you, allow you to have? Give to yourself what you give to others. We were taught to ‘treat others how you want to be treated, to give first and receive back tenfold what you give out. How many of us are ever treated as well as we treat others, and ever receive tenfold, what a lie that was, which we believed. So in honour of caring, loving and filling up our own needs and desires, make the focus on your own heart, soul and life for this 14th February. Your health will love you for it and exponential growth will come of it, you will be filled to overflowing like a waterfall giving more generously from a loving prosperous heart instead of the usual cracked cup.
In order to move on from the past and create a future unlike anything we’ve known, we need to look within ourselves. We must be willing to extract the gold from the dark shadows, the wisdom from our wounds, and the lessons from our experiences so that the future will have new path lit, a new vibration, and a new kind of passion opened to us. The dark shadow is the Egoic identity & self-sabotaging ways to keep you under its power.
Getting out of denial can be really tough, DENIAL = Don’t Even Kow I’m Lying! but I see that the universe is always trying to help us grow up and become the magnificent adults we’re meant to be by delivering the experiences that we most need and at the time we need it, many of us miss the signs and we have to repeat the lessons again and again. (I was very resistant to learn)
What are your life lessons to date? In particular, what are the lessons you’ve been denying, resisting or hiding from? And what possibilities could arise if you were finally willing to step out of denial and tell the raw truth? Below are the top eight “tough love” lessons. While you’re making your own list, you’re welcome to borrow any of mine that resonate with you:
Protect yourself. Just because you want the best for others doesn’t mean they want the best for you. To be responsible and deeply caring of yourself, ask yourself, “What would I need to put in place to be protected (in this job, relationship, contract agreement, situation, etc.)?” What healthy, new boundary could you establish for yourself that would be more like a fence with a gate than an impenetrable brick wall and armour protected (one we built for our own heart when we were very small)
No one is coming to save you. Too often we look outside ourselves for others to take care of the things that we don’t want to – like manage our money, eliminate our pain or take away our loneliness – and then suffer the consequences of denying our greater capacities. If you think someone is coming to save you, you’re bound for disappointment. Save yourself, just have to trust and believe in your own self and the resources you have within, you ARE stronger than you think.
When they tell you who they are, listen! Are you in denial about someone or situation in your life and waiting for them to be different than they are? Are you trying to fix, rescue or change them? It does not work! Trust me as I speak from experience, no amount of the people-pleasing addiction will change them, instead, YOU, become trapped in their web of lies and more excuses forevermore. Seek help for your own people-pleasing addiction (an enabler, a crutch for others, we know better), then accept them as they are, be with them or walk away, be true to your heart. We’re informed about who people really are in so many ways – especially through their actions. So tune in, trust your instincts and refuse to minimize your intuitive feelings and eventually get lost in the world of another.
Take back your light. Instead of fixating on someone else’s brilliance, comparing, competing, find ways to develop and demonstrate your own, because you have so much to give to the world, your gifts, talents, soul purpose and passion. Shine the light the way only you can. Reclaim your power, confidence, and freedom by doing the Inner Child work, releasing your life from the grips of your old negative ego identity. This is not your truth anymore, yet you are a Puppet of your old beliefs, memories, behaviours and definitions. Replaying the old negative behaviours, habits, traits and patterns, attracting the same negative outcomes as you always did, Doh! The Inner Child work allows you to cut the puppet strings, adopt your own Inner child and raise him or her the way YOU only know-how.
Handle your “due diligence”. You’ve surely noticed that there are people who lie, cheat, steal, con and manipulate. Take radical responsibility for who you get into relationships or business with or who you give your heart to (by the time you are an adult, your heart has already been closed, and barriers are placed around it). With the Inner Child work, you get to free your inner child and heal the heart and do what you do best here on earth.
Say no when you want to say no. Remember that you’re not doing anybody any favours when you say yes and are then riddled with resentment, not good when you live in this space. Learn to use your authentic voice and heal yourself from the disease to please and keep the peace. ‘No, it doesn’t suit me’, said without fear or guilt is the freedom you seek in your life.
Identify your real friends and keep them close. Often, people expend a lot of time and energy trying to make a friendship work when it’s not a great relationship. Consciously get rid of the toxic relationships, distinguish the “good time friends” and put your attention on the “lifers” – the ones who will be with you through thick and thin. And if you’re questioning where someone stands, simply ask them or get the gut feeling (sixth sense activated) working and make the best choice for YOU.
Be vigilant with your thoughts and the words you speak, what you tell yourself is how the egoic identity keeps you in its control. ‘I am not … enough’ belief and feeling from childhood will make you turn yourself inside out to become ‘enough’ in your adult life. But ego will always keep you as ‘not enough’, and will create relationships to leave you feeling ‘not enough’, never allowing you to be free of ‘not enough’. It’s an insidious cycle of ego deceit and you don’t escape, you are forever trapped until you do the Inner Child work within.
Clean up your past. Our outer world is reflective of our inner world, created for us to take notice and to change, yes, we do have that power. If your inner world is packed tight with old grudges and resentments, old integrity issues and unfinished business in relationships, limiting beliefs, worn-out fantasies and outdated dreams, it’s impossible for the universe to give you the abundance that is waiting for you, there’s no room. Until YOU clear the cluttered, unfair, unjust past memories and beliefs, nothing changes, it’s groundhog day again, and the definition of insanity. Do your own Inner Child detective work and you will be free.
Now to acknowledge the Strengths you have gained. Egoic identity does not want you to keep this, ego needs you to repeat old cycles never to be free. Soul wants you to acknowledge these strengths which increases your Inner power, confidence and courage to step out of the dark shadows into the light of your own truth. Be what you came to earth to be.
When you go through any type of abuse from a younger age, and I am mentioning narcissistic abuse, it can result in all kinds of lingering long-term dysfunction, disability, distress and health problems. But I want to acknowledge the strengths that emerge from these experiences and lessons. Surviving narcissistic abuse, from a parent, adult or partner is a superpower. Let’s take time to review some of the 7 unique strengths that come out of having experienced narcissistic abuse.
Patience – After enduring narcissistic abuse and having to weather the storms of realistic expectations that are often dashed or having to hold your tongue and not getting into pointless struggles or pointless arguments and never being able to speak your truth. You have become a patient expert. But sadly, you have wasted this skill on the narcissist. So take that patience and pay it forward and put it into relationships that could benefit from it and that will benefit you.
Resilience. Anyone who can survive a narcissistic relationship and still laugh and smile, and maybe even trust love again, and have friendships and find joy, that is resilience after living in an alternative reality and having your existence invalidated, living in a way that you never feel like you can get it right and that you’re able to still get up in the morning and get through the day.
You no longer suffer fools. You may have become more discerning and possibly a connoisseur of searching for positive loving people. You’re a person who will pay attention to red flags and walk away early this time. Remember last time you listened to all that nonsense about giving people chances and all that rhetoric, you’ve wasted years of your life. Life doesn’t last forever, and you’ve already wasted enough time on these narcissistic relationships and then repeating it over your lifetime. Learning to take the time to listen to your instincts and intuition to never suffer fools again.
Confident to cut out other toxic people and experiences from your life. You feel empowered to clean up your life, removing the people who undermine and minimise you. Removing the people who invalidate you and removing the inner ego voices that bring more toxicity into your life. And you may feel more fearless about being alone recognising that being alone or alone is better than being with people who are bad for you and your mental physical health.
You have learned to no longer be an enabler, pleaser, peacemaker. Many people who experienced narcissistic abuse spent years being enablers, years being the narcissistic supply and making excuses, justifications, rationalisations and maybe even silencing the voices of those who told you that this is not a healthy relationship with this narcissist. Then you feel confident to not participate in the fixing and rescuing of despair in dysfunctional families, workplaces and other relationships anymore.
Pay attention to the red flags in situations and be more comfortable with your own company which is a critical skill because you learn never again to settle for a messy, painful trauma bonded relationship and mislabel it as a loving relationship.
You have learnt to take personal responsibility of your own life by doing the Inner child work, owning clearing any connections and entanglements to early narcissistic relationships you had in childhood. Your childlike view that you’ve always had of toxic people, your fears of being alone. narcissistic abuse becomes a wake-up call to get your own house in order and own your stuff for no other reason than that you’re not going to fly blind into another relationship. And that’s what happens in a narcissistic relationship.
By surviving narcissistic abuse and not losing yourself in it is a sure-fire way to propel you to be your authentic self, congratulations and well done.
I would love to know what your life lessons and strengths are that you have gained?
Blessings,
Bernie.