Stages Of Healing Quotes

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Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another: Why can't you see who I truly am?
Shannon L. Alder
What drains your spirit drains your body. What fuels your spirit fuels your body.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
If you are a future donor recipient, remember: your family should be a part of your transformative journey. Both parties will experience growth as they find balance in your new life stage.
Gregory S. Works (Triumph: Life on the Other Side of Trials, Transplants, Transition and Transformation)
Some people can’t be in your life because they don’t have the power to help you improve it. That doesn’t mean you don’t wish them well, it just means that you are on Chapter ten of your life, when they are on Chapter five. Maybe, it is just enough to meet at the crossroads in life and agree to take separate paths, then with a cheshire grin you both look back and shout, “Beat you to the top of the mountain”, followed by the funnest sprint of both of your lives.
Shannon L. Alder
Recovery unfolds in three stages. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central focus of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.
Judith Lewis Herman (Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror)
We are not designed to be critical of others or ourselves; we think ill of others only out of fear.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
Learn to trust what you cannot see far more than what you can see.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
We are often told during times of bereavement that time heals all wounds. That's crap. In truth, you are devastated, you mourn, you cry to the point where you think you'll never stop - and then you reach a stage where the survival instinct takes over. You stop. You simply won't or can't let yourself "go there" anymore because the pain was too great. You block. You deny. But you don't really heal.
Harlan Coben (Live Wire (Myron Bolitar, #10))
How can you live without knowing what your spirit is doing and what your spirit is saying to you?
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
Let me know what I am able and trust that behind all events no matter how painful there is a reason from which truth can come.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
your biography—that is, the experiences that make up your life—becomes your biology.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
Becoming fully aware of the dynamics of psychological abuse is not an easy truth to absorb.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
The healing process is best described as a spiral. Survivors go through the stages once, sometimes many times; sometimes in one order, sometimes in another. Each time they hit a stage again, they move up the spiral: they can integrate new information and a broader range of feelings, utilize more resources, take better care of themselves, and make deeper changes.” Allies in Healing by Laura Davis
Laura Hough (Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child)
Healing hurts. If you break your leg, there is no stage in the healing process when your leg feels better than it does after it has healed. There is pain and itching and loss of strength. From the moment your leg is broken, it continues to feel bad … until, gradually, it starts to feel less bad. It's appropriate that it hurts.
Emily Nagoski (Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life)
until victims know deep in their souls that it is a choice to be an abuser, they will continue to entertain pity for toxic people.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Love is the fuel of our physical and spiritual bodies.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
Our lives are structured around power symbols: money, authority, title, beauty, security.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
It is not about holding on to hurts but not allowing time or distance to distort the truth about the abuse.   If
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Restoration is to take the actions that are within our power to restore what our abusers took from us.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
consistent: live what you believe.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
The important thing to remember is that even if survivors stayed broken for the rest of their lives, the abusers do not. They are not experiencing the same devastation. They never did.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
When we don’t honor ourselves, we are coming into agreement with the abuser’s toxic agenda. We end up abusing ourselves too.   While
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
I saw a post online where someone said, “An abuser doesn’t abuse every day.” That, my friend, is intermittent reinforcement in a nutshell.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Rarely does a toxic person give an authentic apology. To do so would be too much evidence that they are just like everyone else and flawed.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Healing doesn’t mean the loss didn’t happen. It means that it no longer controls us.
David Kessler (Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief)
By the time survivors are compelled to leave their psychologically abusive relationships, they do not see any other viable option but to leave. They have tried anything and everything to keep their relationship going. No matter how hard they tried to fit the mold the abuser wanted, it was never enough.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
When an abuser gaslights, he or she sets up situations to make the target doubt their own memories and assessments of situations. This is done in order that survivors will become so unsure of themselves they hand over reign of their lives to the abusers.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
The abuser sees it as a huge victory to turn an independent survivor into a needy, dependent person who can no longer make decisions without the abusive person’s help.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
An educated survivor can, and will, guard against future abuse.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Normal people have a hard time comprehending that abusers go to such lengths, but they do.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Living well does not mean the abuse never happened. It means the abuse did not damage you beyond repair.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Meeting the “self” activates the transformation of human consciousness,
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
If your definition of love is wanting to see another person authentically happy and living a fulfilled life, then the answer is no. Psychological abusers cannot feel love. They can only mimic what love looks like.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Poem from Rev. Jim Cotter, as listed on the opening pages of “Anatomy of the Spirit” by Caroline Myss: ~ God be in my head and in my understanding. God be in my eyes and in my looking. God be in my mouth and in my speaking. God be in my tongue and in my tasting. God be in my lips and in my greeting. ~ God be in my nose and in my smelling/inhaling. God be in my ears and in my hearing. God be in my neck and in my humbling. God be in my shoulders and in my bearing. God be in my back and in my standing. ~ God be in my arms and in my reaching/receiving. God be in my hands and in my working. God be in my legs and in my walking. God be in my feet and in my grounding. God be in my knees and in my relating. ~ God be in my gut and in my feeling. God be in my bowels and in my forgiving. God be in my loins and in my swiving. God be in my lungs and in my breathing. God be in my heart and in my loving. ~ God be in my skin and in my touching. God be in my flesh and in my paining/pining. God be in my blood and in my living. God be in my bones and in my dying. God be at my end and at my reviving.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
Healing from psychopathic abuse is a long journey. It is neither linear nor logical. You can expect to swing back and forth between stages, perhaps even inventing a few of your own along the way. It is unlike the traditional stages of grief, because you have not truly lost anything—instead, you have gained everything. You just don’t know it yet.
Peace (Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, & Other Toxic People)
Teachers dread nothing so much as unusual characteristics in precocious boys during the initial stages of their adolescence. A certain streak of genius makes an ominous impression on them, for there exists a deep gulf between genius and the teaching profession. Anyone with a touch of genius seems to his teachers a freak from the very first. As far as teachers are concerned, they define young geniuses as those who are bad, disrespectful, smoke at fourteen, fall in love at fifteen, can be found at sixteen hanging out in bars, read forbidden books, write scandalous essays, occasionally stare down a teacher in class, are marked in the attendance book as rebels, and are budding candidates for room-arrest. A schoolmaster will prefer to have a couple of dumbheads in his class than a single genius, and if you regard it objectively, he is of course right. His task is not to produce extravagant intellects but good Latinists, arithmeticians and sober decent folk. The question of who suffers more acutely at the other's hands - the teacher at the boy's, or vice versa - who is more of a tyrant, more of a tormentor, and who profanes parts of the other's soul, student or teacher, is something you cannot examine without remembering your own youth in anger and shame. yet that's not what concerns us here. We have the consolation that among true geniuses the wounds almost always heal. As their personalities develop, they create their art in spite of school. Once dead, and enveloped by the comfortable nimbus of remoteness, they are paraded by the schoolmasters before other generations of students as showpieces and noble examples. Thus the struggle between rule and spirit repeats itself year after year from school to school. The authorities go to infinite pains to nip the few profound or more valuable intellects in the bud. And time and again the ones who are detested by their teachers are frequently punished, the runaways and those expelled, are the ones who afterwards add to society's treasure. But some - and who knows how many? - waste away quiet obstinacy and finally go under.
Hermann Hesse (Beneath the Wheel)
Normal people don’t play all the toxic games psychological abusers do, and yet, survivors end up initially blaming themselves.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Resist remaining in any level of denial. The truth is painful to see, but necessary.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Of all the offenses an abuser puts a target through, I am most deeply outraged by the stealing of goodness. It offends me at a core level.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Abusers like to target people who have something they do not or cannot possess themselves. Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths are notorious for picking targets that initially boost their egos. It could be the target’s appearance, age, intellect, reputation, religious convictions, career success, family, friends, or something else.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
It’s called hidden abuse for a reason. Abusers are out for emotional blood when they use gaslighting to undermine a target’s sense of self. They know exactly what they do. They want the survivors to look petty in the eyes of other people. They want them to question themselves and their grasp on reality. They want survivors to fall apart so they can better control or mock them.   Smear
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Third-level, life-long relationships are generally few because “their existence implies that those involved have reached a stage simultaneously in which the teaching-learning balance is actually perfect.” That doesn’t mean, however, that we necessarily recognize our third-level assignments; in fact, generally we don’t. We may even feel hostility toward these particular people. Someone with whom we have a lifetime’s worth of lessons to learn is someone whose presence in our lives forces us to grow. Sometimes it represents someone with whom we participate lovingly all our lives, and sometimes it represents someone who we experience as a thorn in our side for years, or even forever. Just because someone has a lot to teach us, doesn’t mean we like them. People who have the most to teach us are often the ones who reflect back to us the limits to our own capacity to love, those who consciously or unconsciously challenge our fearful positions. They show us our walls. Our walls are our wounds—the places where we feel we can’t love any more, can’t connect any more deeply, can’t forgive past a certain point. We are in each other’s lives in order to help us see where we most need healing, and in order to help us heal.
Marianne Williamson (Return to Love)
The recovery task for this stage is to take hold of yourself one moment at a time, to recognize that you are a separate person, a fully capable adult, responsible for your own self-care. It is no one else’s responsibility to meet your emotional needs; only you can do that. Emotional self-reliance involves accepting the intense feelings of the experience, taking stock of your present reality, and assuring yourself that you will survive.
Susan Anderson (The Journey from Abandonment to Healing: Turn the End of a Relationship into the Beginning of a New Life)
Tenderness from empaths will be used against them time and time again by psychological abusers.   In
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
We are hardwired to need and want to be included.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
A survivor who is isolated (whether in physical or emotional distance) from his or her family of origin will experience profound grieving.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Rather than being insecure, psychological abusers are easily offended, consumed with themselves, and want things just their way.   Each
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
To move into restoration does not mean the abusers never did anything wrong. Moving forward is also not an indicator that their actions never harmed you. What restoration does is provide the ability for survivors to bring hope back into their lives; maybe for the first time.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
The agony of this chronic stage of being cannot be endured for long. At the deepest level, toxic shame triggers our basic automatic defensive cover-ups. Freud called these automatic cover-ups our primary ego defenses. Once these defenses are in place they function automatically and unconsciously, sending our true and authentic selves into hiding. We develop a false identity out of this basic core. We become master impersonators. We avoid our core agony and pain and over a period of years, we avoid our avoidance.
John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You)
The wounded child sees the Divine as operating a reward and punishment system, with humanly logical explanations for all painful experiences. The wounded child does not understand that within all experiences, no matter how painful, lie spiritual insights. So long as we think like a wounded child, we will love conditionally and with great fear of loss.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
Survivors are wise to not fall into the trap of second guessing all of their actions because it is likely they could never show enough agreement to please a truly toxic person.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Unraveling the lies and replacing them with truth is at the heart of the recovery journey for survivors of psychological abuse.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Boundaries are the foundation for regulating a high degree of compassion for other people.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
A Narcissist will run you over and scold you for being in their way. They will endlessly complain about how you damaged their car.   A
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
People should never underestimate a psychological abuser’s ability to hide the truth. They are not even honest with themselves and truly believe their own lies.   I
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Psychological abusers are known for becoming jealous of any attention not being given to them.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Chronic selfishness and parenting do not go together.   Bonded
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Looked at from a spiritual standpoint, our discomfort in any given situation provides a signal that we are out of alignment with spiritual law and are being given an opportunity to heal something.
Colin C. Tipping (Radical Forgiveness: A Revolutionary Five-Stage Process to: Heal Relationships, Let Go of Anger and Blame, and Find Peace in Any Situation)
Most people have no clue hidden abuse is taking place right under their noses. It is being perpetrated by individuals who would never be suspected of being abusers. The concealed nature of this harm is what leaves its targets devastated.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Realizing toxic people are not actually insecure is one of the hardest concepts for survivors because thinking toxic people struggle with insecurities is a form of justification for their bad behaviors.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Small empowering steps towards independence from a psychological abuser are incredibly important to the deprogramming process of recovery.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
The problem is a survivor never knows when the next warm and fuzzy experience will happen, or when the next episode of abuse is coming through the door.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Toxic people are great actors. They will utilize whichever props are available to maintain control in the relationship.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Any personal growth that comes after abuse is a testimony to the strength of the survivor.   I
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
psychological abusers damage others – not out of impaired judgement – but because they enjoy the control they gain from abusing people.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Facing the truth about those we have loved (e.g., our parents, siblings, a treasured friend, or a spiritual leader) is unbelievably hard, but there is no glory in clinging to a lie because the truth is too painful to accept.   One
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
What is born will die What has been gathered will be dispersed What has been accumulated will be exhausted What has been built up will collapse And what has been high will be brought low. The only thing we really have is nowness, now.
Susan Anderson (The Journey from Abandonment to Healing, Revised and Updated: Surviving Through and Recovering from the Five Stages That Accompany the Loss of Love)
Toxic people have an incredible ability to triangulate their helpers into abusing survivors. This is done on purpose so the toxic person’s hands stay clean from the abuse. It’s hard to pin responsibility on an abuser when he or she wasn’t even in the same room when the offense took place.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Parentified children learn to take responsibility for themselves and others early on. They tend to fade into the woodwork and let others take center stage. This extends into adulthood - adult children may put others' needs before their own. They may have difficulty accepting care and attention.
Kimberlee Roth (Surviving a Borderline Parent: How to Heal Your Childhood Wounds and Build Trust, Boundaries, and Self-Esteem)
The survivor’s perfect romantic interest, mentor, or friend has abruptly turned on her or him. It’s a crushing season in life. How could someone who once professed love, or deep respect, now be the exact same person who is stealthily abusive? Welcome to the vile world of personality disordered people.   Narcissists,
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
If we have a high level of emotional capacity, it predisposes us to stay in abusive environments longer. That is not a great thing. On the other hand, a high level of emotional capacity helps survivors heal and truly recover. Our own strengths can be double-edged swords when dealing with abusive individuals.   Getting
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
The grave problem with hidden abuse is the target is being manipulated. The feelings are being manufactured for the power and control of an abuser, but the target doesn’t know it yet. The target thinks she or he has met someone wonderful, possibly even “the one.”   In
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
They also highlight the fact that a psychologically abusive person has no moral compass and is more than willing to use innocent people as pawns to further the horrendous treatment of the scapegoated survivor.   The
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Some people wonder if abusers can feel love or affection for their targets. The answer to that depends on your own definition of love. Abusers can have fleeting moments of acting like they care about others, because in those moments, the loving actions serve the abusers in some way.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Our spiritual evolution depends heavily upon our recovery from our worst addiction—our addiction to the victim archetype, which traps us in the past and saps our life energy. The inner child represents nothing but a metaphor for our woundedness and a cutesy form of victim consciousness.
Colin C. Tipping (Radical Forgiveness: A Revolutionary Five-Stage Process to: Heal Relationships, Let Go of Anger and Blame, and Find Peace in Any Situation)
SURVIVOR: To remain alive; to carry on despite hardships or trauma; persevere, to remain functional or usable, to live longer than; outlive, to persist or remain usable through, and to cope with a trauma or setback, to persevere after.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Still another time have I come to a place where it is very difficult to proceed. I ought to be hardened by this stage; but there are some experiences and intimations which scar too deeply to permit of healing and leave only such an added sensitiveness that memory reinspires all the original horror.
H.P. Lovecraft (At the Mountains of Madness)
We may indeed be justly proud of our apostolic succesion. THESE ARE OUR METHODS - to carefully observe the phenomena of life in all its stages , to cultivate reasoning faculty so as to be able to know the true from the false. THIS IS OUR WORK - to prevent disease, to relieve suffering and to heal the sick.
William Osler
Fantasies of what might be, what could have been, or what should have been are very counterproductive to recovery. The truths that are hard to look at are the exact things a weary soul must see in order to be driven to change current life situations.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Shamanism is not confined to specific socio-economic settings or stages of development. It is fundamentally the ability that all of us share, some with and some without the help of hallucinogens, to enter altered states of consciousness and to travel out of body in non-physical realms - there to encounter supernatural entities and gain useful knowledge and healing powers from them.
Graham Hancock (Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind)
The hoodlum-occultist is “sociopathic” enough to, see through the conventional charade, the social mythology of his species. “They’re all sheep,” he thinks. “Marks. Suckers. Waiting to be fleeced.” He has enough contact with some more-or-less genuine occult tradition to know a few of the gimmicks by which “social consciousness,” normally conditioned consciousness, can be suspended. He is thus able to utilize mental brutality in place of the simple physical brutality of the ordinary hooligan. He is quite powerless against those who realize that he is actually a stupid liar. He is stupid because spending your life terrorizing and exploiting your inferiors is a dumb and boring existence for anyone with more than five billion brain cells. Can you imagine Beethoven ignoring the heavenly choirs his right lobe could hear just to pound on the wall and annoy the neighbors? Gödel pushing aside his sublime mathematics to go out and cheat at cards? Van Gogh deserting his easel to scrawl nasty caricatures in the men’s toilet? Mental evil is always the stupidest evil because the mind itself is not a weapon but a potential paradise. Every kind of malice is a stupidity, but occult malice is stupidest of all. To the extent that the mindwarper is not 100 percent charlatan through-and-through (and most of them are), to the extent that he has picked up some real occult lore somewhere, his use of it for malicious purposes is like using Shakespeare’s sonnets for toilet tissue or picking up a Picasso miniature to drive nails. Everybody who has advanced beyond the barbarian stage of evolution can see how pre-human such acts are, except the person doing them. Genuine occult initiation confers “the philosopher’s stone,” “the gold of the wise” and “the elixir of life,” all of which are metaphors for the capacity to greet life with the bravery and love and gusto that it deserves. By throwing this away to indulge in spite, malice and the small pleasure of bullying the credulous, the mindwarper proves himself a fool and a dolt. And the psychic terrorist, besides being a jerk, is always a liar and a fraud. Healing is easier (and more fun) than cursing, to begin with, and cursing usually backfires or misfires. The mindwarper doesn’t want you to know that. He wants you to think he’s omnipotent.
Robert Anton Wilson
Before the crisis, my life moved along like a well-planned play. I showed up and acted my part while the script directed the flow. The devastation demanded I grieve while the play of my life continued around me. I wished I could stop the spinning stage long enough to catch my breath.
Shauna L. Hoey
Sometimes, we expect life to work a certain way and when it doesn’t we blame others or see it as a sign, rather than face the pain of the choices we should or shouldn’t have made. Real healing won’t begin until we stop saying, “God prevented this or that.” Often in our attempt to protect ourselves from pain, we leave things to fate and don’t take chances. Or, we don’t work hard enough to keep the blessings we are given. Maybe, we didn't recognize a blessing, until it was too late. Often, it is the lies we tell ourselves that keeps us stuck in a delusion of not being responsible for our lives. We leave it all up to God. The truth is we are not leaves blowing toward our destiny without any control. To believe this is to take away our freedom of choice and that of others. The final stage of grief is acceptance. This can’t be reached through always believing God willed the outcomes in our lives, despite our inaction or actions. To think so is to take the easy escape from our accountability. Sometimes, God has nothing to do with it. Sometimes, we just screwed up and guarded our heart from accepting it, by putting our outcome on God as the reason it turned out the way it did. Faith is a beautiful thing, but without work we can give into a mysticism of destiny that really doesn't teach us lessons or consequences for our actions. Life then becomes a distorted delusion of no accountability with God always to blame for battles we walked away from, won or loss.
Shannon L. Alder
Survivors who repeatedly believe they are the problem, they are broken, and they are not good enough, are people who are never going to see the hidden abuse. Not because they don’t want to, but because they are looking in the wrong spot for answers. In therapy, we start to literally deprogram the conscious and subconscious lies the abusers have planted in the survivors.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Eating disorders are prevalent among women who were sexually abused as children. They seem to have components of other symptoms such as obsessions, compulsions, avoidance of food, and anxiety, and they primarily include a distorted body image and feelings of body shame. For some women, eating disorders are related to the loss of control over their bodies during the sexual abuse and serve as a means of feeling in control of their bodies now. Eating disorders can also be indicative of the developmental stage and age at which the sexual abuse began. Women with anorexia and bulimia report that they were sexually abused either at the age of puberty or during puberty, when their bodies were beginning to develop and they felt a great deal of body shame from the abuse. By contrast, women with compulsive eating report that the sexual abuse occurred before the age of puberty; they used food for comfort.
Karen A. Duncan (Healing from the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse: The Journey for Women)
One of the main allegations that narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths make against survivors is that they accuse survivors of being disrespectful. Why is this complaint so common for toxic people? It is because their grossly over-inflated egos make them believe that even the most minor correction, or disagreement, with the toxic person’s opinion is a huge sign of disrespect.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
akeru. It means “to pierce, to open, to end, to make a hole in, to start, to expire, to unwrap, to turn over.” When someone leaves, akeru refers to the empty space that is created, the opening in which a new beginning can take place. I was amazed at the power of a single word that could suggest that to begin and to end are the same—part of one never-ending cycle of renewal and healing. I
Susan Anderson (The Journey from Abandonment to Healing, Revised and Updated: Surviving Through and Recovering from the Five Stages That Accompany the Loss of Love)
We cannot outrun our past trauma. We can’t bury it and think that we will be fine. We cannot skip the essential stage of processing, accepting, and doing the hard, yet necessary trauma recovery work. There’s a body-mind connection. Trauma can manifest itself into chronic physical pain, cancer, inflammation, auto-immune conditions, depression, anxiety, PTSD, Complex PTSD, addictions, and ongoing medical conditions.
Dana Arcuri (Soul Rescue: How to Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse & Heal Trauma)
Survivors who try to get help to protect themselves and their children are often seen as “hysterical, crazy, and unstable.” This is because the covert nature of hidden abuse is very difficult to put into words. Without the correct language, survivors often sound obsessed. Those of us in the recovery community know that is not the issue at all. The general public still has much to learn about hidden psychological abuse.   In
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
It is a source of power and entertainment for a toxic person to destroy an originally healthy and happy person. This point is often missed by survivors because in the middle of the abuse, they see themselves as broken. Since the abuser says such hateful things, the survivor assumes they were targeted because they are “weak.” That is the exact opposite of the truth.
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Spiritual depression presents itself in much the same way as clinical depression—but not quite. The marks of distinction are crucial, yet hard for the untrained to recognize. They make the difference between interpreting the source of depression as a problem that may require medication or as a process of transformation that is best served by reflection, discussion of the stages of the dark night, and understanding the nature of mystical prayer. I have met many people who have been treated for depression and other conditions when they were, in fact, in the deep stages of a spiritual crisis. Without the proper support, that crisis becomes misdirected into a problem with relationships, a problem with one’s childhood, or a chronic malaise. Spiritual crises are now a very real part of our spectrum of health challenges and we need to acknowledge them with the same authority as we do clinical depression.
Caroline Myss (Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason)
Again, we all have negative feelings, but not all negativity produces disease. To create disease, negative emotions have to be dominant, and what accelerates the process is knowing the negative thought to be toxic but giving it permission to thrive in your consciousness anyway. For instance, you may know you need to forgive someone, yet you decide that remaining angry gives you more power. Remaining obsessively angry makes you more likely to develop a disease because the energy consequence of a negative obsession is powerlessness. Energy is power, and transmitting energy into the past by dwelling on painful events drains power from your present-day body and can lead to illness.
Caroline Myss (Anatomy Of The Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing)
She looked down at him, smiling with exasperated amusement. *Stubborn, snarly male.* *Stubbornness is a much-maligned quality,* he panted as he climbed toward her. Her silvery, velvet-coated laugh filled the land. Then he finally got a good look at her. He sank to his knees. *I owe you a debt, Lady.* She shook her head. *The debt is mine, not yours.* *I failed you,* he said bitterly, looking at her wasted body. *No, Daemon,* Jaenelle replied softly. *I failed you. You asked me to heal the crystal chalice and return to the living world. And I did. But I don’t think I ever forgave my body for being the instrument that was used to try to destroy me, and I became its cruelest torturer. For that I’m sorry because you treasured that part of me.* *No, I treasured all of you. I love you, Witch. I always will. You’re everything I’d dreamed you would be.* She smiled at him. *And I—* She shuddered, pressed her hand against her chest. *Come. There’s little time left.* She fled through the rocks, out of sight before he could move. He hurried after her, following the glittering trail, gasping as he felt a crushing weight descend on him. *Daemon.* Her voice came back to him, faint and pain-filled. *If the body is going to survive, I can’t stay any longer.* He fought against the weight. *Jaenelle!* *You have to take this in slow stages. Rest there now. Rest, Daemon. I’ll mark the trail for you. Please follow it. I’ll be waiting for you at the end.* *JAENELLE!* A wordless whisper. His name spoken like a caress. Then silence.
Anne Bishop (Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels, #2))
Besides stage magic props and settings, ritually abusing groups use technology, such as that described by Katz and Fotheringham. Military/political groups have the most sophisticated technologies, and much training or programming is now done with virtual reality equipment. Movies and holograms are used to deceive a child into believing in things that are unreal. When a client says to you “I don't know if it's real; how can it be real?” remember that there are several options, not just two: (1) It happened just as s/he remembers; (2) it did not happen at all; (3) something happened, but due to technology and/or trickery it was not what s/he thinks it was; (4) the thought that the memory must be unreal is itself a program, as described in Chapter Twelve, “Maybe I made it up." p55
Alison Miller (Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control)
In the past you have suppressed and denied the ego system. The ego has not been raised to awareness, but once you start to raise it to awareness and the stuff starts getting flushed up, there is a strong tendency to want to project. Even though the ego is now being unveiled, you are seeing that the mind is still very strongly invested in it and that is where the guilt comes in. The transcendence will eventually come where we are able to detach in our mind from those false thoughts, from the attack thoughts; we will be able to just calmly see the false as false. But that is one of the stages that we go through. Once it starts to get flushed up there is a real tendency to project – to be what Jesus calls the unhealed healer. You want to go around and give healing without having healed yourselves and it is just to watch as we do this, and go through it.
David Hoffmeister (Unwind Your Mind Back to God: Experiencing A Course in Miracles)
I used to know a carnival man turned preacher who said the key to his success was understanding the people of what he called Snake's Navel, Arkansas. He said in Snake's Navel, the biggest thing going on Saturday night was the Dairy Queen. He said you could get the people there to do damn near anything --pollute their own water, work at five-dollar-an-hour jobs, drive fifty miles to a health clinic-- as long as you packaged it right. That meant you gave them a light show and faith healings and blow-down-the-walls gospel music with a whole row of American flags across the stage. He said what they liked best, though --what really got them to pissing all over themselves-- was to be told it was other people going to hell and not them. He said people in Snake's Navel wasn't real fond of homosexuals and Arabs and Hollywood Jews, although he didn't use them kinds of terms in his sermons.
James Lee Burke (Swan Peak (Dave Robicheaux, #17))
Waste of time," said the leper. "There's a dozen or more beggars who come here every day, pretending to be cripples, hiring themselves out to the holy men. A couple of drachmas and they'll swear they've been crippled or blind for years then stage a bloody miraculous recovery. Holy men? Healers? Don't make me laugh." "But this man is different," said Christ. "I remember him," said the blind man. "Jesus. He come here on the sabbath, like a fool. The priests wouldn't let him heal anyone on sabbath. He should've known that." "But he did heal someone," said the lame man. "Old Hiram. You remember that. He told him to take up his bed and walk." "Bloody rubbish," said the blind man. "Hiram went as far as the temple gate, then he lay down and went on begging. Old Sarah told me. He said what was the use of taking his living away? Begging was the only thing he knew how to do. You and your blether about goodness," he said, turning to Christ, "where's the goodness in throwing an old man out into the street without a trade, without a home, without a penny? Eh? That Jesus is asking too much of people." "But he was good," said the lame man. "I don't care what you say. You could feel it, you could see it in his eyes." "I never saw it," said the blind man.
Philip Pullman (The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ)
We cannot feel badly for those who intentionally harm us. If we do, we will not be free from their heavy chains. Pity gives way to excuses and excuses will soften the heart of anyone. It’s a part of the human condition. It is the double-edged sword of compassion. Those who have been targeted are often very empathetic people. They may identify with being sensitive spirited. In the recovery community, it is called being an Empath. The dance between an empath and an abuser is one of control, mind games, and mockery. This is why education is such a critical step in the healing process. Tenderness from empaths will be used against them time and time again by psychological abusers. In Healing from Hidden Abuse, we have a lot of material to cover. My desire is that you will not feel rushed to quickly get through it from cover to cover. I enjoy reading books slowly, and reflecting on the words I have read. I will often sit down with a pen in hand and underline key phrases or sentences that jump out at me. That way, I can later go back and quickly remind myself of the nuggets that originally were meaningful. I would encourage you to do the same here. If you do push through this material, maybe consider coming back around for a second read and taking time to reflect a little
Shannon Thomas (Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse)
Darkness seems to have prevailed and has taken the forefront. This country as in the 'cooperation' of The United States of America has never been about the true higher-good of the people. Know and remember this. Cling to your faith. Roll your spiritual sleeves up and get to work. Use your energy wisely. Transmute all anger, panic and fear into light and empowerment. Don't use what fuels them; all lower-energy. Mourn as you need to. Console who you need to—and then go get into the spiritual and energetic arena. There's plenty work for us to do; within and without. Let's each focus on becoming 'The President of Our Own Life. Cultivate your mind. Pursue your purpose. Shine your light. Elevate past—and reject—any culture of low vibrational energy and ratchetness. Don't take fear, defeat or anger—on or in. The system is doing what they've been created to do. Are you? Am I? Are we—collectively? Let's get to work. No more drifting through life without your higher-self in complete control of your mind. Awaken—fully. Activate—now. Put your frustrations or concerns into your work. Don't lose sight. There is still—a higher plan. Let's ride this 4 year energetic-wave like the spiritual gangsters that we are. This will all be the past soon. Let's get to work and stay dedicated, consistent and diligent. Again, this will all be the past soon. We have preparing and work to do. Toxic energy is so not a game. Toxic energy and low vibrations are being collectively acted out on the world stage. Covertly operating through the unconscious weak spots and blind spots in the human psyche; making people oblivious to their own madness, causing and influencing them to act against–their–own–best–interests and higher-good, as if under a spell and unconsciously possessed. This means that they are actually nourishing the lower vibrational energy with their lifestyle, choices, energy and habits, which is unconsciously giving the lower-energy the very power and fuel it needs—for repeating and recreating endless drama, suffering and destruction, in more and more amplified forms on a national and world stage. So what do we do? We take away its autonomy and power over us while at the same time empowering ourselves. By recognizing how this energetic/spiritual virus or parasite of the mind—operates through our unawareness is the beginning of the cure. Knowledge is power. Applied knowledge is—freedom. Our shared future will be decided primarily by the changes that take place in the psyche of humanity, starting with each of us— vibrationally. In closing and most importantly, the greatest protection against becoming affected or possessed by this lower-energy is to be in touch with our higher vibrational-self. We have to call our energy and power back. Being in touch with our higher-self and true nature acts as a sacred amulet, shielding and protecting us from the attempted effects. We defeat evil not by fighting against it (in which case, by playing its game, we’ve already lost) but by getting in touch with the part of us that is invulnerable to its effects— our higher vibrational-self. Will this defeat and destroy us? Or will it awaken us more and more? Everything depends upon our recognizing what is being revealed to us and our stepping out of the unconscious influence of low vibrational/negative/toxic/evil/distraction energy (or whatever name you relate to it as) that is and has been seeking power over each of our lives energetically and/or spiritually, and step into our wholeness, our personal power, our higher self and vibrate higher and higher daily. Stay woke my friends—let's get to work.
Lalah Delia
The dissolving, uniting forces combine what to us have been incompatible: attraction with repulsion, darkness with light, the erotic with the destructive.  If we can allow these opposites to meet they move our inner resonance to a higher vibratory plane, expanding consciousness into new realms.  It was exciting, through my explorations some of which I share in later chapters, to learn firsthand that the sacred marriage or coniunctio, the impulse to unite seeming opposites, does indeed seem to lie at the heart of the subtle body’s imaginal world. One important characteristic of the coniunctio is its paradoxical dual action.  The creative process of each sacred marriage, or conjoining of opposites, involves not only the unitive moment of joining together in a new creation or ‘third,’ but also, as I have mentioned, a separating or darkening moment.5 The idea that “darkness comes before dawn” captures this essential aspect of creativity.  To state an obvious truth we as a culture are just beginning to appreciate.  In alchemical language, when darkness falls, it is said to be the beginning of the inner work or the opus of transformation. The old king (ego) must die before the new reign dawns. The early alchemists called the dark, destructive side of these psychic unions the blackness or the nigredo.  Chaos, uncertainty, disillusionment, depression, despair, or madness prevails during these liminal times of  “making death.” The experiences surrounding these inner experiences of darkness and dying (the most difficult aspects were called mortificatio) may constitute our culture’s ruling taboo. This taboo interferes with our moving naturally to Stage Two in the individuating process, a process that requires that we pass through a descent into the underworld of the Dark Feminine realities of birthing an erotic intensity that leads to dying. Entranced by our happily-ever-after prejudiced culture, we often do not see that in any relationship, project or creative endeavor or idea some form of death follows naturally after periods of intense involvement.  When dark experiences befall, we tend to turn away, to move as quickly as possible to something positive or at least distracting, away from the negative affects of grieving, rage, terror, rotting and loss we associate with darkness and dying. As
Sandra Dennis (Embrace of the Daimon: Healing through the Subtle Energy Body: Jungian Psychology & the Dark Feminine)