If you’re familiar with my blog or my work, you know I’m a huge fan of affirmations and any kind of positive self-talk. Heck, I even wrote a book about it! So let me ask you-
Have you ever really observed how you talk to yourself? Some of us are not very nice to ourselves, and others are just plain abusive. What kinds of things do you say to yourself? Is your self-talk positive and loving? Or maybe you beat yourself up and tell yourself hurtful things?
Have you ever tried talking to yourself as you would speak with a friend? How would that feel? Try being understanding, considerate, and kind to yourself. You would do that for your friend, right? You would encourage her, or him or them, wouldn’t you? You can start doing the same for yourself right now. Acknowledging your feelings about yourself when you make a mistake or struggle and choosing to comfort and care for yourself is called “self-compassion.” Self-compassion promotes positive, healthy self-care practices and a healthy mindset, which help to heal codependency.
It’s not surprising to know that what we tell ourselves is linked to how we feel about ourselves. Changing your self-talk from an unsupportive inner dialogue to an uplifting and proactive one brings about positive change. But, if you beat yourself up for perceived failures or shortcomings, how does that help you? Does it motivate you to change? Does it keep you feeling bad and keep you stuck? How is it different from how your narcissistic mother treated you?
Do you tell yourself, “I’m just _______,” or “I’ve just always been this way,” or “that’s just how I’ve always been”? I have a couple of things to say about these types of comments: first, stop using the word “just.” When you add “just,” it implies that what you’re saying has low significance. It sounds apologetic and meek. Don’t believe me? Take the word “just” out of your self-talk. Say it with and without the word “just.” Do you see how it feels different? Are you more confident? Empowered? Serious? You tell me.
Unconscious Commands
And what we say to ourselves isn’t only a description of what we believe about ourselves; it is a command. Your self-talk TELLS your mind what to think about you! When you tell yourself, “this is just who I am,” “I’ve always been _______,” or “I’ve always done ______,” it implies that there’s no room for change. These statements tell your brain, “this is it. This is final. There is no more.” Why would you want to do that? Chances are, you don’t know you’re doing it, and this is where self-awareness comes in. Start becoming aware of how you speak to yourself and the words that you use. Notice and take note for future reference.
Now, give yourself a break. You’re a human being, and no human being has ever been or will ever be perfect. Perfection doesn’t exist. Instead of comparing yourself to a non-existent standard, try focusing on your progress.
Results happen over time. Making positive life change is aboutprogress, not perfection. Encourage yourself the way you’d encourage your friend or a small child. Tell yourself, “You’ve got this!” and eventually, you will get it! Be patient with yourself. It takes time to learn new things. Treating yourself with kindness, patience, and compassion does a lot towards reparenting yourself and healing your inner child too.
Thinking about and remembering what happened in our childhoods doesn’t promote healing. That’s where many of us get stuck. Recovery requires more than reading, educating ourselves, and revisiting old memories. It requires action: getting in touch with our feelings, prioritizing self-care, dumping limiting beliefs, learning to set boundaries and enforce them, learning new ways of communicating, increasing self-esteem and self-confidence, doing inner child and reparenting work, and emotionally detaching.
It means doing the work, and I believe it begins with changing our unconscious, negative self-talk.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
Using Affirmations to Heal Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome
When we grew up in dysfunction, especially in narcissistic homes, we couldn’t do anything right. Whether intentional or not, if we had a narcissistic mother, her “ emotional daggers” hurt us deeply. Long after we left home, that cruel, critical voice stayed with us inside.
We may have tried convincing ourselves that we were over-reacting, that she didn’t mean any harm, or that it never even happened. Denying the reality of our childhood and allowing emotional wounds to remain unaddressed and unhealed leaves us unable to face life’s challenges in an adult manner. Our unhealed triggers and our wounded inner child keep us stuck, perceiving, feeling, and responding like a frightened child.
When we’ve done the work and progressed through the stages of Narcissism Awareness Grief to arrive at Acceptance, it feels as if a burden has been lifted. Suddenly we can see clearly. We are finally able to face ourselves and confront the reality of our past fully. It is as if blinders have been removed from our eyes; we can see our past; where we came from, who we were, who we are, and who we can be. And we’re not afraid or threatened by it. We have a sense of understanding and a new feeling of personal power. We know what to do, and we know we’ll be OK.
We feel a sense of gratitude for allowing ourselves to question those unsupportive inner voices and challenge them. Now, we no longer feel the need to push them away. Now, we can sit with them and observe. And as we watch, we see our story unfold. We write and talk about it. We acknowledge the courageous little child we were, faced with a childhood full of confusion, doubt, and shame, and we feel compassion for ourselves.
Healing Affirmations can help each stage of Narcissism, Awareness Grief, and afterward, set boundaries and replace codependent thinking and behavior with healthy ones.
What are Affirmations?
An affirmation is a simple positive statement made in the present tense. It impacts the conscious and the subconscious minds. By believing in a particular thought and saying it regularly, you begin to attract more positivity and higher vibrational people and things into your life.
The Law of Attraction is a viewpoint proposing that thinking positive thoughts bring about positive results, and negative thoughts bring negative ones. The theory is based on the belief that thoughts are a form of energy. So, positive thoughts attract positive energy; positivity, and success in health, finances, relationships, etc. As the “Law of Attraction” states, “like attracts like.”
“Healing” affirmations are positive statements about your well-being. They are based on the belief that your thoughts influence your physical and emotional health. The best news is that you don’t have to be sick to use healing affirmations!
Saying your affirmations to yourself is all about becoming your “authentic self.” You are more easily able to connect with your authentic self when your vibration is high. When we are not vibrating highly, unhealthy, unsupportive inner dialogue can remain our default way of life.
Positive affirmations work best when they are highly personal. They are a self-talk approach that creates a motivating outlook on life. Affirmations help you elevate your emotional vibration when you’re in a lower vibrational pattern feeling emotions like fear, worry, anxiety, doubt, or powerlessness. Using positive affirmations is one of the quickest ways you can raise your vibration. They are a powerful tool for manifestation and can lift your attitude at the same time.
As you continue to use your affirmations, your vibration will increase, and you’ll notice you feel lighter, happier, and more peaceful. You’ll begin to attain your goals, fulfill your desires, and attract the people and experiences you want.
How Affirmations Work
Affirmations remind us of who we are and who we want to be. They help us to create our most authentic selves and connect us with our higher selves.
The journey out of codependency means finding ourselves, discovering our true selves, our authentic selves, for the first time. When we are caught up in codependent behaviors, we don’t have an authentic self. In his book “Codependency, An Emerging Issue,” Robert Subby says that it results from household rules preventing the “open expression” of feelings. (Pompano Beach, FL, Health Communications Inc.,1984, pp. 34-44)
Listen to your intuition, and your inner voice before you begin writing affirmations. Let your inner compass direct the course of your life. What is your inner voice telling you? What do you need to work on? When we use affirmations, we honor ourselves, listening to our intuition and higher power to become our authentic selves.
Allow the journey to begin because you love yourself.
The Power of Optimism
Affirmations are written and designed to promote an optimistic mindset. Optimism is a powerful attitude! Affirmations have been shown to help reduce the tendency to dwell on negative experiences (Wiesenfeld et al., 2001.)
When we replace negative thoughts with positive statements, we create a whole new hopeful and flexible narrative around “who we are” and what we can accomplish.
There are three main ideas underlying self-affirmation theory, and correctly written affirmations work according to this theory:
First, by using positive affirmations, we can change our self-identity. Affirmations reinforce our newly created self-narrative; that we are flexible, moral, and capable of adapting to different conditions (Cohen & Sherman, 2014.)
Instead of viewing ourselves in a “fixed” or rigid way, for example, as “lazy” or “selfish,” when we are flexible, we can see ourselves as much more. We can adopt a wider range of “identities” and roles, which means we can define things like “success” differently. This means that we can view the various aspects of ourselves as positive and adapt to different situations more easily (Aronson, 1969.)
Second, self-affirmation theory maintains that self-identity is not about being exceptional, perfect, or excellent (Cohen & Sherman, 2014). Instead, to be moral, flexible, and good, we need to be competent and adequate in areas that we value (Steele, 1988.)
Third, we maintain our self-integrity by behaving in ways that genuinely deserve acknowledgment and praise. This means that we say an affirmation because we want to live that particular personal value.
What the Research Indicates
Affirmation research focuses on how individuals adapt to information or experiences that threaten their self-image. Claude Steele, a social psychologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University, promoted self-affirmation theory in the late 1980s (Steele, C. M. 1988, Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. 2007). Today, self-affirmation theory remains well-studied throughout social psychological research (Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L., McQueen, A., & Klein, W. M. 2006).
Using self-affirmations can help us cope with threats or stress and can be beneficial for improving academic performance, health, and well-being. (Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. 2014).
Self-affirmation theory has led to research in neuroscience, investigating whether we can “see” how the brain changes using imaging technology when using positive affirmations.
MRI evidence suggests that specific neural pathways increase when we speak our affirmations (Cascio et al., 2016). The “ventromedial prefrontal cortex,” involved in positive valuation and self-related information processing, becomes more active when we speak positively about our values (Falk et al., 2015; Cascio et al., 2016).
Falk and her colleagues focused on how we process information about ourselves. They found that when we practice positive affirmations, we’re more able to perceive “otherwise-threatening information as more self-relevant and valuable” (2015: 1979). This can have several benefits.
Evidence suggests that using positive self-affirmations is beneficial. Here are six examples from the experiential research:
Positive affirmations have been shown to decrease health-related stress (Sherman et al., 2009; Critcher & Dunning, 2015.)
Positive affirmations have been used effectively in Positive Psychology Interventions (scientific tools and strategies used for increasing happiness, wellbeing, positive thinking, and emotions, (Keyes, Fredrickson, & Park, 2012.)
Positive affirmation may help change the perception of otherwise “threatening” messages (Logel & Cohen, 2012.)
Positive affirmation can help us set our intention to change for the better (Harris et al., 2007) and eat more fruit and vegetables (Epton & Harris, 2008.)
Positive affirmations have been positively linked to academic achievement by lessening GPA decline in students who feel left out at college (Layous et al., 2017.)
Positive affirmation has been demonstrated to lower stress (Koole et al., 1999; Weisenfeld et al., 2001.)
The Benefits
As we’ve seen, positive affirmations can provide health benefits by helping us to respond in a less defensive or resistant way when we perceive real or imagined threats. One study found that when using affirmations, smokers responded less dismissively to graphic cigarette packet warnings and conveyed the intention to change their behavior (Harris et al., 2007).
But more generally, using affirmations allows us to create an adaptive, broader self-concept, making us more resilient to life’s struggles. Whether it’s social pressure, health, or healing our trauma, a broader self-concept is an extremely helpful tool.
Mindfulness
When implementing any change, to be successful, you must be aware of the change you want to make throughout the day, every day. You must intentionally commit to making the change daily. We’ll talk more about intentions and intentionality later.
What do you want to change about yourself? Do you have characteristics that you criticize, judge, and scorn? Maybe you have habits or perceived shortcomings that you’d like to give up? Is there an aspect of your life that you want to develop? Your answers to questions like these can give you ideas about the kind of positive affirmations you could use.
Thoughts Become Things
Our subconscious minds accept repeated affirmations as truth, even when the affirmations are negative. Become aware of your negative thoughts.
We want to use positive affirmations to change the way we think. If they’re created with a high vibrational frequency, we are more able to attract the things we’ve always wanted but believed we couldn’t have.
But if you don’t write your affirmations correctly, it can be an absolute waste of time. The key to writing successful affirmations to achieve the life you want is to be confident that what you are saying will actually happen.
When you’ve learned how to write and use affirmations correctly, you can start manifesting your goals. It takes some practice and a bit of trial and error to figure out what works.
Short, Clear, Concrete, Positive and Present Tense
Affirmations that work the best are short, clear, concrete, positive, and in the present tense.
Use only a few words in your affirmations to make them easier to remember. To accomplish this, begin with a short phrase like:
I am…
I easily…
I joyfully…
I clearly see, hear, do…
I excitedly…
I look forward with joy to…
I look forward to the opportunity that______provides for______.
Your affirmations should be authentic, meaning that they feel doable and true. Our quantum self (our “self” at the molecular level) recognizes the truth contained within our affirmations.
The above affirmational statements are concrete. They are solid, assertive, for a reason. If you use words like “I feel,” it implies that your affirmation is temporary because feelings are temporary. Do you ever feel confident when you wear a certain item of clothing? What happens when you take it off? Do you see what I mean? The feeling of confidence may decrease or disappear altogether. When you say “I am,” it implies that it’s permanent, no matter the time, place, or situation. It says that you OWN IT.
Know What You Want
What is it that you want to achieve? What do you want to change about yourself?
Ask yourself questions to find a concrete answer to include in your affirmations. For instance:
“How can I _______________?” vs. “I can’t because ___________. “
Do you see the difference between these two approaches? Asking questions prompts your mind to start looking for concrete answers, consciously and unconsciously. Asking questions opens up possibilities. When you tell yourself you can’t, it stops your mind from considering solutions. It prevents new ideas from forming. You can see how this would not be a good approach for trying to change your thoughts, beliefs, and mindset. So ask the questions and write your answers. Write the first thing that comes to mind without censoring or editing. I recommend this because the first answer often comes from our higher self or intuition, and is the purest, and often a most concrete form of your answer.
Think about the goals you want to achieve, then write short statements that resonate with you.
Write them as if the desired outcome has already happened.
For more information on how to use Healing Affirmations to heal emotional abuse, read book #3 in the Lemon Moms Series, Life-Altering Affirmations: Change Your Self-talk, Change YourSELF, available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
Mother’s Day is coming. If your relationship with your mother is typically full of pain and heartache, this article is for you.
Why Mother’s Day Sucks for Adult Children of Narcissists
Every April, TV commercials begin urging us to remember our mothers on Mothers Day, the second Sunday in May. They often portray sweet, heartwarming, sentimental interactions between mothers and their children. Watching those commercials has always been difficult for me because I longed for those kinds of interactions my entire life. Sometimes I cried when I watched them, so painful was the contrast between them and the relationship that I had with my own mother.
American culture promotes motherhood as a saintly paradigm; that mother-love is instinctual, unconditional, and spontaneous; and that all women can be loving, empathetic, nurturing mothers. Believing these inaccuracies can harm an unloved child’s spirit, keeping him or her in a state of confusion and self-doubt (“cognitive dissonance.”)
An emotionally healthy mother’s love is a powerful, constant theme throughout her children’s lives and memories; her kindness, compassion, validation, and the loving bond that they share. For those of us who don’t have that kind of mom, or that kind of relationship, or those kinds of memories, we watch others who do, and we wonder what is wrong with us. We try, but we can’t figure out why we are so unlovable. Because surely if our mothers can’t love us, it must be our fault. We must be unlovable, right?
But, the fact is, for human beings, mothering is a learned behavior; there’s a spectrum of maternal behaviors, from healthy to toxic. Acknowledging this may be helpful when thinking about Mother’s Day.
If your mother is self-important, seeks admiration, believes she’s superior, lacks empathy, manipulates and uses her children, puts others down, is hypersensitive to criticism, or believes she deserves special treatment, she may be on the narcissism spectrum. If she is, you will likely experience mixed feelings about Mother’s Day. Daughters and sons of narcissistic mothers are out there and think they’re alone. You’re not alone.
In my unhealed past, I used to spend a huge amount of emotional energy just selecting a card. These days, there is awareness and sensitivity regarding family dysfunction and the fact that not all mothers are loving and kind. It’s easier now to find a more realistic card sentiment. But in the past, I had great difficulty finding a card that wasn’t over-the-top: “Happy Mothers Day to the Greatest Mother of All Time!” or “Happy Mother’s Day to the Mother of the Year!” Seriously. They all felt like lies. While I dealt with that, other adult children of narcissists dealt with questions like: “Should I even send a card?” “Should I call her?” “Should I see her?” “Should I ignore the day?” “What should I do?”
Like other adult children of narcissists at this time of year, I was triggered by memories of an unloving, emotionally detached, uninvolved, neglectful and intentionally cruel mother. I also found myself envious of anyone who had a caring, loving mother, or who looked forward to spending mothers day with her. Every year, I experienced pain and turmoil because I was deeply codependent, and living in a state of denial about my maternal relationship. Every Mother’s Day, I was forced to face the reality of it in all its stark ugliness and demoralizing humiliation. At one point, I was actually a mother myself, yet still focused on making this day all about my own mother. I wasn’t able to enjoy what the day meant for me as a mother. Eventually I realized that something needed to change so I could experience the day in a whole new, healthy way.
Confusion and Cognitive Dissonance
If you are an empathetic person, you are naturally sensitive to others’ emotional needs. Trying to understand that narcissists don’t have this ability is difficult to understand or believe.
When our need for love and connection with our mothers is not met, we often blame ourselves. As children, we never thought there was something wrong with our mothers. Instead, we began forming beliefs that we were not good enough, and that we didn’t matter.
As adults, we took those beliefs with us and we keep returning to that parent, again and again, hoping and wishing that it will be different this time. We focus on gaining her approval, validation, acceptance, and love. We jump through any hoop she offers. And, as adults, if we’re still attempting to please our narcissistic moms, we’re putting ourselves in a no-win situation. Our failure to satisfy her will trigger more pain and confusion, and a continuation of the “not-good-enough’s” and “we-don’t-matter’s.
At some point, we may begin to entertain the idea that the problem is not us, and we might suspect it could be her. We may feel guilty for having these thoughts, yet, it’s something we need to consider.
There’s a Name For It
When I decided to actively pursue healing and personal growth, a therapist presented the idea that my mother may have an undiagnosed and untreated mental illness, most likely a personality disorder. This was exciting and validating news for me because I had entertained that idea for awhile. As I came to grasp the impact that my mother’s probable mental illness had on me, I felt a gamut of conflicting emotions.
“Narcissism Awareness Grief” (NAG) is a condition coined by Dr. Christine Hammond, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who works with exhausted women and their families. She teaches that the loss of a mother’s love, warmth, interest, and connection is a momentous one that must be consciously grieved.
Narcissism Awareness Grief acknowledges these losses and recognizes that our mothers’ narcissistic traits have negatively impacted us. We can then begin to come to terms with how they have impacted us. Through this acknowledgment, we can break through the coping mechanism of denial and start working through the six stages of grief, to finally arrive at the final phase: Acceptance. When you fully understand and accept that you cannot change or control your mother’s perception of you, the ball is truly in your court. It’s from the point of Acceptance that your life can and will change.
Your mother does not need a diagnosis for you to determine your relationship is unhealthy. If it is, you can do something about it.
I remember very clearly what it was like to experience Narcissism Awareness Grief. As I slowly woke up to see the effects that my mother’s narcissistic traits had on me, I felt a mixture of shock, denial, disbelief, and a sense of overwhelming sadness. You see, when we discover that the traumatic lifestyle we’ve endured as children has an actual name, Narcissism Awareness Grief, it’s a massive relief. There’s an initial rush of validation, and we suddenly realize that we’re not alone, that we’re not crazy, and that we haven’t imagined any of it. Narcissistic trauma and abuse are real things, and we can recover from them. There is nothing—and there never was—anything inherently wrong with us, as we may have been led to believe.
Going No Contact, or Not
Many experts say when it comes to relationships with narcissists, that you have two choices: live on their terms (focusing on them, chasing after their withheld love, acceptance, and affection) or go “no contact.”
But here’s the rub: when a mother and adult child relationship fails, it’s the adult child who’s commonly believed to be responsible for the breach. Cultural opinions like these can keep an unloved daughter or son stuck in the place they’ve been since childhood—knowing that something’s wrong, blaming themselves, and wondering who will be able to love them if their own mother can’t. Going “no contact,” for me, felt like an “either/or” choice, having no flexibility, and was a “point of no return.” And it didn’t feel good.
I’ve never been a big fan of black and white thinking. I like seeing all the shades of gray. So, I created a third option for myself. I learned how to identify complex trauma symptoms, refuse the gaslighting, heal my c-ptsd symptoms, remove the drama from our relationship, set enforceable boundaries, shut down manipulation, and upgrade my communication style.
I still have a relationship with my mother, but it’s changed significantly. I no longer focus on what she does, says, or expects, and as a result, I no longer fee humiliated, unloved, invalidated, and rejected. The difference is that our relationship is on my terms now.
If you’re interested in how I did this, I wrote a book about it, called “Lemon Moms: A Guide to Understand and Survive Maternal Narcissism.”
In the meantime…
So, what can we adult children of maternal narcissists do to feel better about Mother’s Day this year?
Here are some suggestions that may help:
Remember, it’s a day, and like most days, you can make it what you want.
Question the card. Search for a generic Mother’s Day card, if you want to send a card at all. Giving a card that says “Best Mom in the World” is an act of denial. The first step to healing is admitting that you grew up in a dysfunctional home. NO MORE DENIAL. It takes courage not to buy that lying card.
Eliminate expectations. You can’t be disappointed if you don’t expect anything to be different this year. Learn to drop expectations.
Make new traditions. Do the day differently. Celebrate yourself! Do something you enjoy, whether solo, with a friend, significant other, or your children. YOU get to determine how you will spend your time on this day.
Feel and express your feelings. Give yourself permission to feel and express whatever you’re feeling. Give yourself space to cry, be angry, feel unloved, or grieve. Acknowledge that you have reason to feel these emotions, and validate your childhood memories. Start writing it all down in a journal to get it out in a healthy way.
Shift the focus. Practice gratitude, speak healing affirmations, or do something wonderful for someone else.
Make an appointment. If Mother’s Day annually triggers anxiety or depression, give yourself the gift of scheduled time with a professional to start or continue the healing process.
Seek support. Find support groups in your area or online. Talking with others who understand narcissism dynamics can help in your healing journey. And as always, don’t try to explain it to those who don’t. Other’s who don’t understand narcissism, or haven’t gone through Narcissism Awareness Grief and healed their own wounds, may unknowingly invalidate you, causing further trauma.
Express gratitude to mothers you know who are loving and kind. Honor other women who may have given you motherly love, perhaps a grandmother, aunt, co-worker, or friend.
If you are a mother, think about your values and work to end the legacy of one-sided love. Acknowledge and be grateful for your ability to love.
Start working a recovery program so you don’t pass the legacy down to your children. If you are working on your recovery, good for you! Do the work!
On Mother’s Day, let’s honor the mothers who have given their children the gifts of love and nurturing. At the same time, let’s acknowledge the truths of the daughters and sons of the mothers who did not fit the upheld, saintly mother stereotype. And let’s applaud the mothers who are working a recovery program to change their family legacy of narcissistic abuse.
References:
McBride, K. (2012, April 9). When Mother’s Day Hurts. Psychology Today. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201204/when-mother-s-day-hurts.
Hammond, C. (2019, June 29). What is narcissism awareness grief (NAG)? Retrieved August 2, 2019, from https://pro.psychcentral.com/exhausted-woman/2018/07/what-is-narissism-awareness-grief-nag/.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
A lot of us do. Journaling is a great way to work through our problems, express emotions, and get our thoughts OUT and onto paper. It’s a terrific way to affirm, pay attention to, and really “hear” ourselves. If you’ve ever journaled and felt the sense of clarity or peace that comes from collecting your thoughts and expressing them in writing, maybe it’s time to try “expressive writing.”
Expressive writing is a bit different from just writing thoughts and activities in a journal. It is used as a way to deal with old or new traumatic events or memories. When using expressive writing, it is necessary to reflect on a specific challenge, traumatic experience, or memory in order to discover new meaning in the event.
Benefits of expressive writing
According to researcher Dr. James Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Austin, Texas, people who use expressive writing to journal have improved mental and physical health.
Dr. Pennebaker pioneered a study of expressive writing as a coping mechanism for trauma. His, and hundreds of other studies have verified the benefits achieved by people suffering from PTSD, cancer, depression, and various other mental and physical ailments. This journaling technique was found to strengthen the immune system, reduce pain and inflammation, lower infection rate from colds or flu, and decrease depression symptoms. It can also improve memory, sleep quantity and quality, and attitude. It’s clear that there are many benefits associated with expressive writing!
How it works
Using expressive writing allows the writer to recognize a painful or traumatic experience and describe it as a problem to be solved. Doing this allows the writer to identify a particular problem and organize their thoughts and feelings, using written language to create the narrative. This process helps break the rumination cycle, which, in my experience, helps decrease or eliminate cognitive dissonance. Research shows that labeling our emotions actually calms the limbic system and the fight or flight response. (Look up “name it and tame it.”) The prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of executive functions, regains control, and a deeper meaning and understanding can be created around the memory or traumatic event. This leads the writer to feel a new sense of control and personal power regarding the traumatic event. The more we do this this type of journaling, the easier it gets.
When people become more comfortable thinking about and remembering a traumatic event, they are more able to share their feelings with others. Expressive writing may indirectly lead writers to seek emotional support, thereby accelerating the healing process.
As demonstrated in a 2006 study published in the Journal of Psychological Science, expressive writing can also improve relationships. The study found that when one partner wrote about their relationship in detail, both partners began using more positive language when texting each other. The relationship also lasted longer.
Don’t like to write?
If you don’t like journaling, you can still use expressive writing. Recording your thoughts has been shown to work just as well.
To use the technique, write without judgment, self-editing, or correcting spelling or grammatical mistakes. Just write it as you think or feel it. Write for 15 to 20 minutes for at least three consecutive days. Deep dive into your thoughts and feelings and write about them in detail when you do this.
I’m a big fan of journaling using expressive writing. I wrote the “Lemon Moms Companion Workbook” to supply the necessary prompts, questions and challenges to help you use expressive writing as one of your healing tools.
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions. Practice mindfulness.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
I found these resources online when looking for support for myself and my loved ones. I checked these resources and thought I would share them here. This is by no means an exhaustive list and serves as an example of what you can find online if you are discerning.
I’m not affiliated with these organizations in any way nor do I personally or professionally endorse them.
“Need help? Know someone who does? If you, or someone you care about, are feeling overwhelmed with emotions like sadness, depression, or anxiety, or feel like you want to harm yourself or others: Visit the Disaster Distress Helpline-call 1-800-985-5990, or text TalkWithUs to 66746”
From the Anxiety and Depression Association of America
Quick Expert Tips and Strategies to Manage Coronavirus Anxiety – ADAA 5 minute Video – ADAA member Dr. Debra Kissen https://youtu.be/xP14-Pc56xU. ADAA also has free peer-to-peer support groups.
And last, but not least, here’s a great article from “Best Sleep Health”
How to sleep better if you have coronavirus-related anxiety or sleep disturbances.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
When our basic needs aren’t met, we lose our ability to think rationally and logically. The acronym HALT stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. When we stop and think of HALT, it can remind us to check in and see if we have any unmet needs before we react in any situation.
Applying the acronym HALT or The HALT Method to our lives is a way of setting a healthy boundary. It’s a reminder that we need to take care of our basic needs. When we go without food or sleep, or we isolate or don’t attend to stressors, it taxes our emotional limits.
Using HALT is a very simple way to alert us to pay attention to our own self-care. When we feel HALTed it means we need to give ourselves attention. Feeling HALTed means that we should stop what we’re doing and come back to it only after we’ve taken care of the unmet need.
The effects of self-neglect
If we ignore our need to eat, deal with anger, be with people or sleep, we create an unhealthy emotional environment for ourselves where it’s impossible to thrive. When we’re in that unhealthy emotional environment, we may think negatively, have a sour outlook, fail to see obvious choices, make poor decisions, forget, withdraw, push people away, or stop socializing. We may stop enforcing our personal boundaries or lapse back into codependent behaviors. Neglecting ourselves in order to take care of someone who’s capable of their own self-care can make us ill. We need to pay attention to what our bodies are telling us and then redirect the focus back to ourselves.
Using the acronym HALT is an excellent way to check in with ourselves. Redirecting our focus, paying attention to and meeting our own needs are necessary steps to take when learning to break free from codependency.
When we neglect ourselves, we’re not able to participate in our lives fully. When we let ourselves get run-down, we no longer have the ability to think clearly and so it isn’t possible to make good decisions.
Why self-care is essential
When we learn to take care of ourselves, life feels better. When we make the effort to take care of our needs because we feel worthy of taking care of ourselves, our self-esteem improves. Our beliefs about what we should hang onto, and what we should let go of, start to change, and we start setting healthy boundaries. We start to understand what’s our responsibility and what’s not. Part of the process is having a quick and easy way of checking- in to see what we need and then giving it to ourselves.
Remember that airline mandate about putting on your own oxygen mask before attempting to help others with theirs? In the same spirit, ensure that your self-care commitments are at least as important to you as someone else’s would be. If you don’t take care of you, then who will? No one is capable of caring more about you than you are!
Hungry
Hunger is a sign that we are lacking or in need of something physical or emotional hunger. Are we hungry for food? Ask yourself: Is my stomach growling? Am I irritable or lightheaded? When was the last time I ate? Physical hunger is associated with food, diet, and nutrition, which are undeniably important aspects of our overall health.
We are worthy people who require nourishing food in order to be well and thrive. Let’s treat ourselves with kindness. Take a look at how and what you’re eating and see if there’s room for improvement.
Maybe we’re feeling emotional hunger. Ask yourself: Am I craving attention, validation, affection, or affirmation? Stop and do a quick self-assessment to figure out what you need. If it’s validation, validate yourself. If it’s affirmation, affirm yourself. If it’s attention or affection, find ways to give those to yourself.
Angry
When we’re angry, our brain is flooded with chemicals meant to activate our “fight or flight” response. So if we’re feeling angry, it’s easy to overreact and our behavior will almost certainly be out of proportion to the actual event that triggered it.
Anger is a secondary emotion, meaning that there is always an emotion that we feel first, for a fraction of a second. It’s that first (primary) emotion that triggers the anger.
So when we’re angry, it’s important to stop and figure out not only what triggered the anger, but what the primary emotion was in the first place.
For example:
Let’s say that you suddenly find yourself angry because you feel disrespected. If you look closely enough, you may find that the first trigger was a spoken message. Someone just said words to you that started the whole thing. Those words caused (“triggered”) an emotionally sensitive belief to re-surface, a belief like “I’m not good enough“ or “I’m not important.”
The “I’m not good enough/I’m not important” belief is loaded with feelings that were the first emotions that you felt for just a split-second. Those feelings triggered the anger.
To summarize:
The first trigger was spoken words.
The second trigger was feeling “not good enough/not important”.
“Not good enough/not important” triggered the anger. The words that were spoken to you did not trigger your anger.
It’s really fascinating, isn’t it?
Stories
The “not good enough/I’m not important“ beliefs are stories we repeatedly tell ourselves. We have LOTS of stories. They’re often on autoplay! We can catch ourselves when we start hearing those narratives and turn them off. We CAN learn to control what we tell ourselves! We’ll definitely talk more about that in the future. For now, try to start looking deeper when you get angry. See if you can find the primary emotion and the trigger that caused it. Start making a list of your triggers! You’ll learn some interesting things about yourself and you’ll start seeing patterns. Eventually, you’ll be able to devise a strategy to use when the triggers present themselves again in the future.
Lonely
When we feel lonely it’s often because we feel like we don’t fit in or belong, or we think that people won’t accept us, or understand us or our current situation. Sometimes it’s because we’ve withdrawn from the fear of being criticized or judged, or even worse, rejected.
Loneliness leads to isolation and isolation is often a maladaptive coping mechanism. Trying to fix loneliness by using self-destructive behaviors like drinking, binge eating, shopping, or gambling doesn’t solve the problem. Those behaviors will just create new problems.
The cure for isolation (and loneliness) is to be willing to be vulnerable and reach out to others to make a connection.
When we’re tired or sleepy, we’re extremely vulnerable to making poor choices because our brains aren’t functioning optimally. Maintaining healthy sleep cycles and routines are essential for both physical and mental health.
When we’re sleep-deprived for whatever reason, it’s not the time for making decisions or having important conversations. If you find yourself tired and you have an important meeting to attend or an important decision to make, postpone it if possible until you’re better-rested.
In a nutshell:
Using the acronym HALT or The HALT Method is a simple (but not always easy) way to foster mindfulness and self-awareness. Both mindfulness and self-awareness are vital to insight and personal growth, and personal growth allows us to live a happier and more fulfilling life.
Try using The HALT Method to foster better self-awareness and to remind yourself to practice good self-care.
Tools:
HALT: Checkin with yourself to see if you’re Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. Give yourself what you need.
Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions.
Progress not perfection: Let’s give ourselves credit and just enjoy being human! No one is perfect. People just like to pretend they are.
I’m in control of me. We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. The good news is that we can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us.
More resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse, or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (ebook, audiobook, hardcover, and paperback.)
Like these posts? Want them automatically delivered to your inbox twice monthly?
As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn.
Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight regarding her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.
Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She has worked in numerous fields including domestic violence and abuse and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about recovery from narcissistic victim syndrome and symptoms of C-PTSD on The Toolbox and has authored three books in the “Lemon Moms” series. Visit her author’s website here.
She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate.
This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.
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