Healing Truth Artistry
The gentlekindness coaching facebook page is beginning to get more follows. This past week has been better because I ran a” Boost Post” ad for the page. I am not quite sure yet if it will turn out to be something I will pay for again, but so far it seems to be drawing new followers.
The words “empath” and “empathy” come up with red squiggles on my laptop. I believe that “empath” also comes up wrong on my cell phone.
What is wrong with the world?… when words like “hateful” …”prejudice”…”malicious” …and “psychopath” come up just fine, because there is a need to use those words all the time. But “empath” and “empathy” are not important enough for them to add to the common word list?
I have found that many people with C-PTSD have trouble saying no. If you were brought up in a mentally or otherwise abusive childhood, saying “NO,” may be associated with severe consequences to you.
If you lived with a parent that had narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder, then they probably used confusion tactics on you, to the point where there was “no” way to say no to them.
It may be difficult to tell what situations that “NO,” would be perfectly okay, and what situations where saying no, would really cause a problem.
If you grew up in an environment where your feelings and thoughts were not considered relevant, then you probably feel that your feeling of wanting to say no, just does not count. Even though the same person may say “No” to you all the time, you do not feel that you have the same right to say no, that they do.
If you were even in an abusive situation where disobeying meant punishment , then you probably have a fear of retaliation from others. There is an anxiety response triggered by saying no and refusing to comply with another person’s request.
Triggers are very real and the tendency is to want to avoid feeling the bodily sensations associated with them. Ignoring triggers and going against our conditioned responses, is a very difficult thing to do.
You are allowed to set personal boundaries for yourself. You can also set boundaries for certain people that you do not want crossed.
You can set boundaries in regards to your emotions, your time, your energy, your work and your social interactions. You can set boundaries in regards to dating, doing work for people and doing favors for people.
Any situation where someone is trying to get you to do something by using your emotions against you, is a situation where your boundaries need to come into play.
Sometimes people do not accept your simple NO or your reasons for saying NO. They try to convince you be making you feel guilty or by shaming you.
image from mylovestory.me and Pinterest
They want you to feel bad and they do this by intentionally pushing whatever buttons they know you have. If they know that you want to feel like you are cooperative they will call you uncooperative.
If they know that you have helped them many times in the past, they will lie and tell you that they do not remember the last time you did them any favors.
Don’t fall for these manipulative behaviors. If someone feels the need to make you feel guilty in order to do them a favor, then they really do not deserve the favor.
People should accept No, especially if you have perfectly good reasons for saying no, even if the reason is that you just do not feel comfortable doing it or do not want to do it.
No.
No, thank you.
No, I really cannot do that.
No, I do not want to do that.
No, I am not interested in that.
No, I cannot find time in my schedule to do that.
No, I am just too overloaded right now, to do that.
No, I am not interested in doing that.
No, you go ahead without me.
No, please ask someone else.
No, I do not have to think about it. I would rather tell you NO right now.
I said no. Please respect my answer
If you have a history with this person that tells you that they will counter any reasons you give them for saying No, then you can try something like this..
“In the past my giving reasons for my No, seems to have just been an opening for someone to tell me the reasons are not good enough or to dispute my reasons in some way. So this time I am going to say simply No without going over my reasons with you. “
Just because they are going to upset that you told them “no”, does not mean that you are responsible for their feelings. As long as you were not intentionally trying to hurt their feelings, then you did not cause for them to feel bad.
If someone is an adult then they are responsible for their own feelings. Much of the time, manipulative people are acting when they get dramatic with you. They can be very dramatic about how disappointed they are in you or about how selfish they think you are.
These are more reasons not to tell them “yes” every time they demand something from you. The more times they are able to manipulate you, the more they will resort to the same tactics over and over again.
**Please note that this article is not talking about partner relationships where the person will physically abuse you or will otherwise punish you for saying no. Those relationships are volatile and should be escaped as soon as possible but I never recommend to ignite retaliation in a severely abusive person.
It is designed more for situations where you are in no immediate danger or impending danger.
This article is also not a recommendation to tell your boss no to doing work, thus risking your job. If your boss is abusive it is a different topic and must be handled with a different strategy that is not discussed in this post.
*PLEASE NOTE **If you are in an abusive relationship with someone that you fear may become violent, then please do not provoke them ! …. Get help, and carefully plan your escape from them. …..Do not risk violence to yourself or your children….. Pathological people can suddenly become much more violent when confronted by a partner.
While our brain is designed to protect us, sometimes the different parts of your brain fail to coordinate properly. The triunal brain theory teaches us that we are driven by the parts of the brain we are not conscious of.
It isn’t that we cannot discover what beliefs the subconscious brain is holding. It is more that we do not recognize the importance of doing so. There are methods of trance, hypnosis and NLP that can guide you to connect with what is driving your choices and behaviors.
Staying in a toxic relationship is something that many people do. Outsiders to the relationship may either judge you for stsying in it, or they may judge you for considering leaving it. In fact there may be both kinds of social pressure coming at you from different directions.
The subconscious brain holds core beliefs that have been imbedded and programmed since childhood. One belief that may have been programmed into you is that “good family members” tolerate any and every behavior from other family members.
You may be holding the belief that while breaking off relationships with people outside the family is okay, you should never break off relationships with family members.
Toxic family members are often catered to by the family. When other family members become exhausted and drainef of all their energy, they expect you to take over the “catering” role.
Saying No to the toxic family member will be punished and retaliated against. They will shame and guilt you, using yout “brain programming” against you.
It is often the person that put the programs there in the first place, that is emotionally manipulating you. They know which buttons to press because they put them there in the first place. Or they witnesssed how you were trained to feel.
In toxic families, you are not only trainef to behave in a certain way, but you are conditioned to FEEL certain ways in certain situations. A toxic family member will train you to respond to their emotional manipulation, in order to avoid real or perceived consequences.
Getting in touch with our feelings and beliefs that are behind the scenes, can help you to take your power back. Someone can only emotionally manipulate you if they are able to elicit those negative feelings in you.
When you are in a situation where the toxic person is making you feel bad…STOP and evaluate what you are feeling. Decide to detach emotionally from the situation and assess it like an observer.
Observe and notice what thoughts are coming up at the back of your brain. What thoughts, fears and drives are at work in your brain?
Sometimes the very things we do in order to avoid pain, will end up keeping us in a relationship that gives us continuous pain.
The subconscious brain will kick on the fight or flight mode, when we are in a confrontation or conversation with the toxic family member. This function of fight or flight, wants to cause you to take an immediate action to get rid of the threat and avoid harm. But your reptilian brain and your limbic system are only operating out of what associations that have been programmed in, and the beliefs that they hold.
If you were raised in a family with a toxic person ( or people) then there are “false beliefs” that are carried by your subconscious. The feelings you have that drive you to comply with the toxic person, are based on a false belief system.
It is in the best interest of the malignant, pathological person for you to hold onto beliefs like the following.
1. The toxic person does not harm me intentionally
2. They cannot help their behavior
3. They think their behavior is the best for the family
4. I am not worthy of standing up for myself
5. Standing up to the emotionally abusive person is rude
6. I have to do what the manipulative person wants, if I cannot reasonably get them to see my side
7. The toxic person hears me when I explain my side
8. Going against what the family wants would make me a bad person
9 Deep down the toxic person actually appreciates all I do for them
10. The manipulative family member would break down and not be able to go on, if I stopped catering to them
11. The family would fall apart without my holding it together
12. My independence and happiness is not a priority over the family
13. If I really needed something they would be there for me
14. My needs, desires and dreams are not as important as the other family members, or as the toxic person
15. My perceptions are not valid when they are different than those of the family, or the manipulative person
16. Prioritizing my mental, emotional and physical health over the demands of the family is wrong.
17. I could not survive without the family
18. I owe my family, and the toxic person, to stay and cater to them for my entire life
19. If I leave they will no longer love me. ( This is based on the false assumption that they love you now)
20. The toxic person loves me. They just don’t know how to show it
21. Taking abuse from someone proves your love for them.
These are all incorrect, untrue, false beliefs that are carried my adult children of toxic families. Sometimes your family is just who you were born to.
You have no obligation to people just because you share a blood line with them. All the time and energy they demand from you could be spent with people who actually deserve it.
There are people waiting to meet you, who would support and care for you. There is a higher path and sporitual connectedness for your life.
You have to emotionally detach from the narcissists,psychopaths, and emotionally manipulative, abusive people in your life.
Chances are the family will not fall to ruins without you, although they may try to manipulate you into thinking that. They can either respect you as an individual with rights and boundaries, or they can live without you.
Blessings,
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Humans were all made individual, with unique gifts, talents and passions. While society or your family may think they know best what path you “should” follow, the authentic path for you is only known to you.
We have been conditioned to follow the pack, and to blend in with the other worker bees. The of the heads of the large organizations like businesses and churches, all have their own agenda.
The personal agenda of the leader of an organization may be kept hidden by the leader. If you do not know someone well personally, you have no way to know what their true purposes are.
The machinations of psychopathic and narcissistic leaders are disguised as good will to others, or good will towards the members. It is easy to fall prey to just taking things at face value.
We want to believe that other people have good intentions. Psychopaths that are in the top positions, government, churches, and the ones that control the media, have brainwashed us into believing that most leaders are basically good people.
They go out of their way to shine a light on community service projects they support, and they make sure attention is brought to the few “good deeds” they have supposedly done.
You have been systematically brainwashed into turning the other way when you see things that bother you. Regular people have been trained to assume that their gut feelings are off base, if those feelings don’t seem to match the general consensus.
We have to begin to reactivate that connection with our intuition and our gut feelings. It is part of our neurology for our own protection.
Remember the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, if it was read to you as a child. If you are not familiar with the story, then I encourage you to get a copy of the book and read it.
We are intelligent human beings capable of assessing things that we see. Most people are moral and have empathy for others.
There are systems in place to make you doubt what you see and feel, in order that certain people can interpret the meaning for you. Remember you are an individual as well as part of a society.
Think for yourself and do not let manipulative people override your critical factors, with a bunch of jumbled word salad that makes no real sense.
The people that try to make you feel guilt or shame over not doing what they want you to do, are just serving their own agenda.
If they continue to try to emotionally manipulate you, they have no concern for your reality. They do not respect your right to see things from your own point of view.
People will claim to know what you should start doing…or stop doing..that will make you a better person. But take a closer look and see that they are trying to get you to fit into their own agenda.
You do not have to change your core beliefs to make someone else’s reality more comfortable. They are clearly not changing their beliefs to suit you.
If you are not trying to guilt and shame them, then what right do they have to do it to you. What gives one person, or one group of people, exclusive rights to know everything that everyone “should” and “should not” be doing?
Shaming people is not loving. Any group or individual that is making you feel bad about yourself, or trying to make you question your own truth to support theirs, is more concerned with serving their own agenda than wanting you to be your authentic self.
People that claim to care about your best interest, but try to shame and guilt you into changing for them, do not have your best interest at heart….but they have their own best interest at heart.
So let them continue to follow their own path and do what they feel best supports them…..while you follow your own path and do what best supports you.
Why is it okay for them to want an environment they feel safe and supported in….but you are selfish because you also want to feel safe and supported?
painting by Taras Loboda 1961 Link to more of their paintings HERE
If you find yourself in the darkness….it is partially a solitary battle. Trying to get out of that tunnel backwards, by retreating will not work.
You have to sit with the darkness and interact with those fears, angers, grief or sadness demons. You need to let your inner child know that you are confronting those demons for them, because the child in incapable to battle them or defend against them.
If you try to run away from that tunnel, the demons will always follow you, because they refuse to be ingnored. Your inner child will continue to feel rejected and abandoned by you, because you are not integrating the demons.
If you experienced trauma at early ages, those demons are still haunting the child.
An incident of coming face to face with evil or darkness, will trigger the old fears, because they were never consoled and accepted.
You can sit with these feelings and let your inner child know that you accept them, love them, and will always protect them.
Once the child realizes it is not abandoned then the process of integrating the fractured child parts, and fractured memory pictures, can begin.
image from pinterest Link HERE
Each picture has a meaning attached to it. The meanings of things during childhood are programmed into you by others, who were concerned with their own agenda. You can change the meaning that your subconscious holds about these memories.
Take your time as you walk through the dark tunnel. You will get to the other side stronger and with greater ability to perceive truth.
Any feelings you are carrying of shame, guilt, or obligation to violate your authentic self, are part of this veil.
There is more to see and perceive….and there are more possibilities that exist….and more possibities that you can create. People limit you by telling you what you cannot and should not do.
The darkness does not have to be pushed aside, in order for you to survive it.
Painful emotions are guides, telling you not to go in a certain direction.
Your emotions are an alert system that is important for you to pay attention to.
Others are not living your life. They do not have any right to dictate how you feel about their behaviors and words. They do not have any right to program your mind with the meaning they want you to attach to things.
Your brain and your emotions are your own. You have a right to feel how you feel, and to care about those feelings. Others who discount your feelings are not supporting you and those people are not good for you.
Highly sensitive people and empaths are criticized by the ones who want to dominate over and subjugate them.
They will tell you that you are “too sensitive” or that you are “over reacting.. “
They may even deny things they say and do, in order to gaslight you.
When you try to set boundaries with them, they tell you they never did what you are remembering them doing….or they just plain say that your needs are irrelevant.
This is to create ficticious examples of how your “highly sensitive person” qualities are not valid. If these people can make you question your perception of reality, then they can manipulate how you feel about yourself.
Do not discount or minimize your feelings.
Experience them and integrate all parts of you into the whole. Others will attempt to fracture your parts, because this disables you from being powerful.
You have a great purpose and there are many possibilities all around you. Accept and love yourself for who you are.
Photography by Karina Chernova – see more of her work HERE
As you begin to integrate the light and the darkness of the old and new demons, you will begin to see how you belong in the world.
You have purpose and are part of all life. Your gifts are special and unique. .
Listen to those people that nourish your soul…rather than those people that seek to cripple your spirit. Find others who can validate your worthiness ….
Highly sensitive people and empaths are in the minority.
It is important for you to exist in an environment that supports you. Seek out those who value your gifts and accept you for who you are.
Blessings,
Annie
Note – If you are interested in life coaching for expanding and blossoming your unique gifts, or help finding your direction, please feel free to visit my web site and join the email list.
-overcoming narcissistic abuse
-recognizing gaslighting
-dealing with the “red pills” and truth being revealed to you
-hypnosis and NLP
-energy healing
-compassionate conversation and validation
GentleKindness 