Victim or Perpetrator? Are You Being Abusive?
We teach our girls and women to not take any shit, but we’re not yet teaching them not to give any, and this is a problem. When exposed to abuse for a long time, abuse becomes normalised. Which means we abuse the ones we love without realising what we’re doing. So if you want to co-exist peacefully with kind, loving people, here are a few ideas that might help.
1) If you don’t want to be told what to do and how to live your life, DO NOT tell others how to live theirs. Which means not telling your family members (or anyone else) what they should or should not be doing, who they should or should not be meeting, etc.
2) If you are starving for love but getting abuse instead, learn to respond with love instead of temper tantrums. No self-respecting, self-loving person will put up with someone who says words or does things aimed hurting them, so if you say or do things to hurt people you love, when angry, you’re only going to attract abusive partners and more drama. If you can’t control your temper, get therapy please, it helps.
3) Be the man that you need (or woman, if you’re a man). If you are in a need-based relationship, it is bound to be rife with insecurities, control tactics and abuse, because needs can always be met by other means and you are afraid you can be replaced. And to be in a love based relationship, you need to love yourself immensely first, so let that be your next project.
4) Being abusive does not make you despicable, pathetic scum. It just makes you a wounded person desperate enough to seek love by trying to hurtfully extract it out of someone. The only way out is by loving yourself no matter what, and taking it one step at a time. Like I said, seek help if you realise you’re being abusive. It really helps.
5) If you’ve experienced a lot of abuse, try journaling daily. Write not so much about your day but about your feelings, and feel free to cry. Embrace your pain and accept it as a part of you. Incidents can make you or break you, and you can let this pain transform into flexibility and strength when you accept it as a part of you instead of trying to fight it off and pasting a smile on your face instead.
6) Write also about your flaws. And learn to look at your flaws without judgment. As long as you judge your flaws without embracing them, you can never transcend or transform them. You have flaws. And you know what, you deserve to be loved nevertheless, so love yourself anyway. It will make it easier for you to love and accept others with their flaws too.
7) Work with your inner child. You don’t get into abusive patterns unless it is coming from your childhood. If you think your childhood was beautiful, it is far more likely to be abusive, believe it or not. My inner child healing journey helps you transform a lot of that pain into power, so sign up if it feels right for you. Click here to sign up at a 50% discount for a limited time only.