"Your Feelings Are Wrong. You Are Bad."

In more or less words, this is the underlying theme of most psychological abuse.

Your jealousy is wrong when they triangulate you. Your needs are wrong when they ignore you. Your heartbreak is wrong when they leave you. Your anger is wrong when you realize what happened.

Afterwards, it makes sense that most people feel very numb. You've essentially been taught to feel shame in place of normal human emotions. The "bad" emotions get stuffed down into this indescribable mess of numbness, shame, guilt, and dread. So life becomes about being "good", proving yourself, and being nice. Becoming the "perfect" person you were supposed to be.

At some point, you need to go back in time and allow yourself to feel those old emotions. The trouble with blocking them out is that emotions are on a spectrum. So when we mute the "bad" ones, we also mute things like joy, love, and gratitude. These are the things that allow us to feel whole and human, rather than a friendly void that does everything "just right".

This is how we slowly make the shift from what others think about us, to what we think about ourselves. Turning our attention inward allows us to offer the nurturing love and patience needed to find wholeness, to merge a heart and spirit that generates joy from within.

This person's words and behavior had nothing to do with you. The idealization had nothing to do with you. The devaluation had nothing to do with you. You are not meant to fill voids in others, and you are not meant to carry this wound. These old messages that were given to you were not true. Your feelings are not wrong. You are not bad for having those feelings.

Please release yourself of this burden.

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