Self Care Is How You Take Your Power Back: Reconnecting with Self After Abuse
Did you know self care is how you take your power back and truly heal?
Guess what? Self-care is how you take your power back, reclaiming control over your well-being and nurturing yourself after experiencing abuse. By prioritizing self-care practices, you are affirming your worth, setting boundaries, and investing in your own healing and personal growth. We will talk in-depth about that today, as I believe in the power of discussing hard things. So let’s dive in!
Traumatic events from childhood often lead to a very persistent and hypercritical inner critic, which I will call the “inner bully” from now on. This inner bully takes over the job of the abusive or traumatizing caregiver who anchored the original trauma into a person’s psyche and body. Beliefs such as:
“You are not good enough”
“You are a failure”
“You are unlovable”
These are just a few of the kinds of false beliefs our inner bully tells us. And this bully also aids us in creating the stories (or the false narratives) that we tell ourselves about ourselves and others. Stories like: “If you fail this class, you won’t amount to anything,” or “That girl glared at me. It means that I am ugly, and she hates me.”
These kinds of statements could be somewhat true, given the particular circumstance, but the thing about ultimate truth is that it is ALWAYS true—not only partly so. You know when something is true by how CALM it makes you feel. Lies and false information make you feel stressed and uneasy. And since you can’t see into the future and you can’t know for sure if you will fail at life by failing one class or that a girl who is glaring at you hates you unless she tells you so, we can’t automatically assume this is true. In this case, it is only a story, not necessarily the truth.
Understanding that self care is how you take your power back empowers you to actively participate in your healing process. By investing time and energy in self-care practices such as therapy, mindfulness, and self-reflection, you prioritize your well-being and lay the groundwork for a future built on strength, self-fulfillment, and a deep connection with yourself.
Self-love is not selfish. It is freedom. It is the foundation from which you thrive, create, feel empowered, and are at ease in your body and life.
You are worthy and enough simply because you exist, and you never have to prove your lovability or worthiness to anyone. And this is a hard concept for most of us to grasp because we live in our minds (where the lies are living) and not really in our hearts and bodies (because trauma often makes us leave our bodies). The great news is that as you go along the pathway toward self-love, you start to resonate with this idea on a deeper and deeper level of your being. You begin to ground more into your body again and know intuitively the truth of your worth.
In the aftermath of abuse, self care is how you take your power back and restore your sense of agency. It involves honoring your needs, practicing self-compassion, and engaging in activities that promote physical, emotional, and mental well-being, ultimately paving the way for healing and self-empowerment.
Back to this glaring girl we mentioned earlier... Maybe this girl glaring at you does have some beef with you? Or, maybe she is thinking about how ugly SHE feels she is, and this is the look on her face while staring off into space in your direction. Perhaps, this glare is not about you at all! We can learn to stop taking things personally the more we love ourselves. We stop believing that everyone is against us because, in truth, most of us are in our own minds and have our own false beliefs and inner bullies harassing us all day, and we don’t have time to worry about anyone else. If someone is judging you about something, you can bet they have constantly judged themselves about it.
This is the way it goes. When we constantly judge ourselves, it more or less seeps out of our pores onto others. This is called projection. So again, taking this personally wastes time and energy because they are judging and projecting their own inner bullying onto you. It’s them they are judging—not really you.
The truth about self-love is that it is neutral. It is peace. It demands nothing from anyone. It is akin to unconditional love.
Self-love is how we move past our trauma and our inner bully’s criticisms and lies. Connection is the way we start loving ourselves. Connecting to how you felt as a child when you were told (or somehow started to believe) that you are a failure, wrong, not enough, or unlovable is a great way to start getting to know that part of you that has real, true, and deep PAIN about feeling like this. Becoming vulnerable and allowing this little one inside of you to feel the actual feelings he or she felt when it occurred is how we start to become self-compassionate and self-loving. We acknowledge and honor our feelings instead of letting the inner bully dominate and tell us, “Work harder, or you will lose your job, be abandoned, and become a loser.” This only makes us stay in our minds and away from our bodies, where all the pain and old feelings live.
Once we attune with our inner self, that little one who was harmed deeply—we can heal, grow, transform, and let go of all the old baggage we don’t need anymore. This sets you free. This is because the truth always sets you free, and the inner bully, just like any bully, is a liar and not to be trusted.
Recognizing that self care is how you take your power back is a transformative realization. By tending to your own needs, practicing self-acceptance, and cultivating self-love, you reclaim your inner strength, establish healthier relationships with yourself and others, and create a foundation for lasting healing and personal empowerment. I promise it’s totally worth it!
