Encouragements

Growth Through Pain

 

You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful garden,

but you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you

experience losses, and if you do not put your head

in the sand, but take the pain and learn to accept it,

not as a curse or punishment, but as a gift to you with

a very, very specific purpose

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

 

There is always a gift of wisdom that comes with pain. We may not understand the gift until long after the pain has subsided, but we have recieved it nevertheless.

Instead of envying the happiness of others, instead of looking longingly at couples who seem to be happy, realize that you have something to learn fro your situation. You have an opportunity to grow from it and become a far better person. Don’t waste your time envying the contented ones in the flower garden.

Appreciate pain as the gift it is — an opportunity for growth.

Encouragements For The Emotionally Abused Woman .. Beverly Engel, M.F.C.C.

Emptiness

 

When the mind soars in pursuit of the things conceived in

space, it pursues emptiness. But when the man dives deep

within himself, he experiences the fullness of existence

Meher Baba

Because of your low self esteem, yo, like many other emotionally abused women, have been searching for something outside yourself to give you a sense of completion and a sense of worthwhile. Like many women in our culture, you have probably looked to romantic love as the solution for your feelings of incompleteness and inadequacy. But no one can complete you, fill up your emptiness, or give you a sense of meaning but yourself.

If you give yourself the time and space to get to know yourself and your feelings, you’ll find that you can fill up the emptiness a layer at a time. each time you allow yourself to feel a feeling, each time you allow yourself to express an emotion, you are filling up another empty space inside.

Fill up your emptiness with yourself — with your emotions, your desires, your beliefs, and your dreams.

Encouragements For The Emotionally Abused Woman… Beverly Engel, M.F.C.C.

 

Sorrow

I saw sorrow turning into clarity

Yoko Ono

 

Through sorrow comes wisdom and vision, insight and strength. Sorrow is like a heavy cloud that descends suddenly and hovers over us for a long time. But as surely as sorrow befalls us, a wind will eventually come and blow the cloud away, providing us with a clearer view of our life.

Let your sorrow be like the wind, clearing the air and providing you a much better view.

Encouragements For The Emotionally Abused Woman.. Beverly Engel, M.F.C.C.

Being Angry With The Truth

The truth will set you free. But before it does,

it will make you angry

Jerry Joiner

Nothing makes us more angry than to discover the truth about something and realize that it changes everything. The reason we tend to be so good at fooling ourselves, minimizing the abuse and making excuses for the abuser’s behavior, is that deep down we know that once we admit we are indeed being emotionally abused and we recognize how damaging it is to us, we will be forced to change the situation.

Like the woman who suspects her husband of cheating but doesn’t really want to know because the knowledge will force her to act, may not really want to know we are being abused. Denial often lulls us into a false security, while the hard truth is like a cold shower or a slap in the face.

As much as you hate the truth, it is a wake – up call.

Encouragements For The Emotionally Abused Woman… Beverly Engel, M.F.C.C.

Overcoming Your Pain

Although the world is full of suffering,

it is also full of the overcoming of it

Helen Keller

Many, many people before you have suffered, and many have overcome their suffering, including the wonderful woman who said the words above. Helen Keller never gave up and never gave in to her physical handicaps. Think of her example, and the examples of thousands of others who overcome suffering and hardships everyday. Gain strength from their perseverances, gain hope from their victories.

You can and will overcome your pain , but first you will have to feel it.

Encouragements For The Emotionally Abused Woman.. Beverly Engel, M. F.C.C,

Tears

There is a palace that opens only to tears

Zohar

Even though it may feel as if the pain will never end, it eventually will — not all at once but gradually, a teardrop at a time. So let the tears come, let the healing begin. Allow yourself to feel the pain of your loss, to cry all the tears you need to cry, to feel the pain of your broken heart, for only by doing so can your heart mend.

Nothing, not even pain, lasts forever

Encouragements For The Emotionally Abused Woman.. Beverly Engel M.F.C.C.

Self-Forgiveness

If you haven’t forgiven yourself something,

how can you forgive others?

Dolores Huerta

Self- forgiveness can be th most difficult form of forgiveness to achieve, but it is one that we must strive for at all costs. If we don’t forgive ourselves for our real or imagines transgressions, we will continue to bring people intro our life who will punish us. We need to forgive ourselves for being attracted to emotional abusers, for allowing emotional abusers to damage us, for staying in abusive siituations even when we knew we should get out, for blaming ourselves for the abuser’s behavior, and, most important, for not taking care of our own needs.

You may never be able to forgive the abuser or your family for victimizing you, nor are you required to do so in order to recover. But recovery does depend on you forgiving yourself.

Self- forgiveness is not optional, it is essential. It is an act of humanity, self-care, and self-love.

Encouragements For The Emotionally Abused Woman— Beverly Engel, M.F.C.C.

Hope

“Hope” is the thing with feathers-

That perches in the soul-

And sings the tune withing the words-

And never stops — at all–

Emily Dickinson

No matter how much pain you are in, there is always hope. It may be buried inside you, so deep that you sometimes cannot find it, but it is always there. Sometimes we neeed to do some excavation before we find hope; it can be covered over with pain, disappointment, and anger. But within us all lies the potential for hope, deep within our soul, singing a quiet tune.

Listen carefully and you will hear the song of hope, no matter how faint.

Encouragements For The Emotionally Abused Woman… Beverly Engel, M.F.C.C.