How trauma and codependency in childhood can cause toxic mommy guilt
I often question why I feel so much guilt as a mother towards my little boy. It’s not only crippling my own experience of being a mother but also sending inaccurate messages to my son which shape the way he views himself and the world. I feel stricken with guilt every time I feel the effects of my trauma. I blame myself for not being able to shake off the sadness or depression I feel, for the anger that sometimes I can’t hold or the negativity that my critical mind is keeping me a captive to. I feel shame every time I’m not at my best for letting my son down. When…
The shame around being a “bad mother”
Sometimes I resent being a mother. That is not to say that I don’t love my child. Unlike my mother and some mothers who can’t love, I do love my son. With all my heart and soul, always and forever. I believe all mothers have moments when they resent motherhood. I believe that the contemporary expectation to be a non-stop happy and vibrant mother is not only unrealistic, it’s also severely shaming and stigmatising. It makes natural temporary feelings of dissatisfaction or unfulfillment fester into gnawing guilt. That makes me think how terribly unprepared and largely delusional so many mothers enter into motherhood, including me. I wanted my child with…
Turning seasons and the possibility of new horizons
Weather in Bulgaria has turned and it’s been really chilly for the last couple of days – we woke up to a 1°C/33°F morning in Sofia. It will be getting slightly warmer next week but, even so, autumn is upon us. I just flipped the calendar into October (although there’s a few more days) because I usually remember to do it when we’re well into the new month so I used this rare opportunity of remembering in advance. Doing this I flashbacked to when I first put the calendar up on the wall early in January. And here we are, just a few more days and we will be in…
What I learned from my physical and mental instability episode
(Long post alert) I’m just back from my holidays in Greece. We spent 11 days on the stunning islands in the Ionian sea on west coast of the country. I’d been prepping for this journey for months, organising diligently and planning fervently. I’ve waited passionately and eagerly until the day came. The complications started on the day before our trip. It appeared that our car’s documents were out of date and needed to be renewed. It was Saturday and we were supposed to leave the next day, Sunday. We decided not to risk passing the border with invalid documents so had to wait till the offices opened on Monday. That…
Setting ourselves free from the pain of the past
I’ve spent a good deal of time digging up my past, exploring my psyche and searching for answers and truth. I found a lot of pain, sadness, hurt and sorrow. Not only that, of course, but I’ve been focused mainly on the difficult aspects since I wanted to heal them and release myself from the emotional prison I’ve lived in my whole life. For the first part of our life we don’t realise any of this, we simply act out these painful aspects of our past that were lodged into our subconscious. Sooner or later something happens to us to wake us up, become aware and heal the pain that’s…
Finding your authentic blend of expression
Do you sometimes wonder who you are? I often catch myself thinking: “I want to know what my life purpose is!” Who am I? Why am I here? What am I here to do? I’m telling you it can quickly get very tiring and overwhelming. But still I wonder. You see, there’s this part of me that simply wishes to transcend the material. In other words, there’s this deep knowing that the material aspect of our life isn’t the full and whole picture. There’s so much more to our existence. And I just can’t put up with serving only to my material needs. Actually, I tent to ignore my physical…
Accepting our shadow as a way back to wholeness
The key to joyful happy full life is the acceptance of all of yourself. It was C.G. Jung who first developed the concept of the “shadow” – we all have parts of ourselves that we would rather hide than show to ourselves or the world. These are those qualities we deem “unacceptable” due to many reasons – perhaps our parents told us that such and such people are bad, or to be this and this is wrong. Or it was our culture and community we grew up in that portrayed certain characteristics in a negative way. At a very early age, we learn to disassociate from these qualities in ourselves…
The Rise of the Feminine and the next stage of my spiritual journey
Hello beautiful people at the new Vilina Christoph site! You can read my earlier announcement here. You might’ve noticed that I haven’t posted for the last couple of months. Truth is that this next stage of my spiritual journey has been brewing and hatching. In particular, I moved my blog over from the cosy and automated world of WordPress.com to an independents host which gives me more freedom. The move was ripe since I’ve been planning it for months and just last week it was the right time for that change. Your experience as a reader won’t change but if you’ve been following my journey you will notice some conceptual changes at…
Heal yourself, heal the world
Most of us know the popular quote: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” ~ Ghandi More and more we start realising that this really is the truth. On my journey of healing, more and more I start to understand that by healing myself, I make a change in the world, and the world itself heals. Digging deeper and deeper in my own pain and trauma has led me to realise that I’m not only healing my personal wounds. In fact, my wounds are wounds that many of us share; they’re wounds that have been passed from generation to generation, throughout the history of humankind. These are…
Self-doubt: get out of your head and into your heart
I often find myself lost and wandering. I question choices, I search for direction, I grasp for guidance. Since I was a child I was never able to develop a healthy sense of self-worth and confidence. I battle with doubt every time I need to make a decision or take action. This could be mentally taxing and emotionally exhausting. The struggle to stay on top and in control of things is real and relentless. If I say or do something, I doubt whether it was the right thing or if I didn’t rush it. If I don’t say or do anything, I’m wondering whether I’m being too passive or too…
