Ignore it and it will go away. Just pretend it’s not there. It’s all going to be OK. (with no action to make it so).
That unbearably cruel comment your partner made about you to a group of people you were standing with, the leering man trying to rent an apartment to you, the beautiful woman who is belittling you, the bills piling up on your bureau, don’t worry about any of these things. Just ignore them. It’s all going to be OK.
Ignoring, evading, accepting abuse...this is a learned behavior. It is common in abusive families to push things aside as though they don’t even exist. If you bring them out into the open, you know you will have hell to pay. It makes sense, your Inner child didn’t know what to do and was only trying to protect you at the time. This was the only route that was acceptable in your family. Your Ego Mind did what it was supposed to do for that time in your life. But what happens when you get older? And you continue to push things aside, to sweep things under the rug? What happens then?
Trauma survivors are stuck in this loop of learned, protective behavior. How to get out? The first thing is staying in your body. Because every time you want to sweep things under the rug, ignore them, pretend it’s OK...you are not in your body. You’re escaping, dissociating. So being present to witness what is actually real for you is the single most important thing you can do to begin to change this and many other unwanted patterns. What do you do to bring you back into your body? Exercise, meditate & practice somatic exercises, this helps enormously. Visualizations that focus on your root chakra. Connecting yourself with roots from your root chakra all the way down into the center of the Earth. This can be done as a practice every time you remember to do it during the day. Don’t assume that doing this one time is enough, remember that you are not only doing a spiritual practice when you’re doing this, you are working with your subconscious mind to tell it that it’s OK for you to be in your body now, it’s OK to stop escaping.
Get a notepad and write down mantras that you make up for yourself. Write “I am worth…” and list the traits you admire in others. Speak them twice daily...out loud, with conviction. All of these things will help you begin to build your confidence. These things and following through on what you tell yourself you’re going to do. When you say. “I’m going to exercise every day”, then, you never exercise, instead you make excuses, you are telling your subconscious mind that you are not worth feeling better and stronger, you are not worth keeping promises to. So, if you say you’re going to exercise, be sure to do that. All these simple actions will help to build your confidence, and once you build your confidence, you will know that you can stand up to any problem and handle it like a mature adult. You will see yourself confidently dealing with life head on, instead of sweeping it under the rug and ignoring it. Because the Truth is, ignoring it won't make it go away. But you will...piece by piece...until there's nothing left to run from. So stop. Be here. Face it.
~Janice M. Burke
Image by Priscilla Du Preez from Unsplash
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