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VILINA CHRISTOPH

A Woman's Story of Healing & Empowerment

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  • I am the person I am because of my trauma image
    Healing & Recovery

    I am the person I am today because of my trauma, not despite it

    My biggest battle is accepting my childhood trauma and the effects it has had and continues to have on my life and its overall quality. More accurately, I struggle the most with accepting that because of my posttraumatic stress responses, my role as a mother has been impaired. As a victim of childhood abuse and trauma, I am especially sensitive towards the fact that because of my own “condition” my child is suffering too.  I can easily go down the spiral of blaming myself for not being the mother I wish I could be, for the things I have done or haven’t done because I wasn’t well myself. Because I am…

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    Web Wonderland No.1: How to heal childhood trauma, speak with confidence and say “yes” to everything

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    Web Wonderland No.3: New life coming to fruition, crazy eclipse season, and a special bind magic

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  • Shyla Cash Interview Image
    The Empowered Women Series

    Interview with Shyla Cash: Narcissistic abuse and emotional neglect survivor, and a coach at Grow Heal Change

    Shyla Cash is the life coach behind Grow Heal Change Coaching, a coaching practice that helps high-performers and creatives heal mind, body, and spirit. She believes childhood trauma can be a portal to experiencing our full potential. Shyla loves to witness the process of transformation as she guides her clients through the amazing journey into the life they desire. Her own trauma history involved a childhood filled with narcissistic abuse and emotional neglect. Through her own healing, she discovered the amazing ability for humans to transcend the pain of family dysfunction into confidence, personal power, resilience, and responsibility. Shyla just got married to her amazing husband Nathan, she loves to…

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    Identifying triggers and breaking free from the past

    2nd May 2017
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    You’re not alone in your pain

    25th September 2017
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    How to work with difficult feelings

    20th March 2017
  • Tanya Amidei Interview Image
    The Empowered Women Series

    Interview with Tanya Amidei: Sexual abuse survivor, life coach and a spiritual writer

    Tanya is one of the beautiful people I’ve met on Instagram. Her posts are deep and poetic and full of wisdom and truth. Her personal story is truly poignant but her strength, her spirit and her faith have transformed her into the woman she is today. Tanya is a Life Coach and writer who lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She is engaged and lives with an invisible illness called Dysautonomia, more specifically Ehler Danlos and POTS. She describes herself as a people person and some have called her a catalyst for human growth because of her innate ability to see people’s potential. She is passionate, a natural leader, values-oriented, intuitive…

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    Letting go of guilt

    29th April 2016
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    Quiet confidence: living in alignment with what our souls desire

    2nd March 2017
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    The power is within you

    2nd August 2017
  • "If I only could make them happy" Image
    Healing & Recovery

    “If I only could make them happy…”

    My inner journey of healing and discovery is reaching a turning point. For the past 5 years, I’ve been digging and going deeper and more inward like it was my job. And it was my full-time job – I’ve taken this task of nurturing self-understanding and awareness so seriously, it became my primary focus and priority. Layer by layer, I’ve been stripping old programmes, paradigms, and conditioning. I was determined to get to the core of things, to the root of all pain and ailments, emotional and psychological. Last year in September, I stumbled upon one piece of the puzzle – my mother had suffered from a mental condition and…

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    Self-doubt: get out of your head and into your heart

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    Happy where I am

    13th September 2017
  • Amie Johnson Interview Image
    The Empowered Women Series

    Interview with Amie Johnson: Trauma survivor and a host of The HeART of Healing podcast

    I “met” with Amie via Instagram and instantly felt we have much in common. She’s recently come out of years of dealing with trauma symptoms and mental health (mis)diagnoses and is moving on in her healing journey. I always appreciate her heartfelt and honest posts, and find much wisdom in her words and story. Here are Amie’s own words: Tell us a little bit about your life journey. This question always gets me! I’ll give you the “nutshell version.” I was born and raised in a small, beach town in West Michigan. My childhood was a strange dichotomy of idyllic and awful. I had an emotionally and physically abusive dad, and…

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    11th May 2017
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    The death of the self: on toddler troubles, being human and name change

    4th November 2015
Vilina Christoph Headshot Image

Hello & Welcome

I am Vilina Christoph and I write about my journey of healing and recovery from childhood trauma and abuse. I use words to transmute the pain and adversity into fuel for growth and empowerment. I believe we have the power to heal ourselves and transform our lives from within. I am passionate about helping women heal, grow and feel empowered to build and live a full authentic life.

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  • 🌪️ DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY ARE DIRECT RESULTS OF EXPERIENCED TRAUMA 🌪️ ° The is no doubt that depression and anxiety are linked with trauma. That said, trauma could be a very different experience for everyone. What is certain is that the traumatic event was too much for the survivor to process. ° Experiencing trauma often leaves us stuck in the past, unable to shake off the shock and the stress. On top of that, it also makes us fearful of the future. ° The numbers of people diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety are so high and continue to grow. In a way, this is cancer of the soul. ° What we need is deep healing at the root, not surface symptoms management (although that may be needed too, depending on the magnitude of the symptoms). ° It's possible, our survival as a collective, as a race and species is dependent on us healing our traumas. ° Continue onwards in healing 💕
  • I saw this quote on PsychCentral website and thought it's worth sharing. If only we can end childhood abuse and the trauma cycle it creates, we wouldn't need hundreds of pages of diagnosis manuals, billions-worth medication industry; hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved... That said, I think we need good, trauma-informed therapist more than ever now. An army of Dark Workers, if I can say that. People who are not afraid to look into the darkest corners of people's psyches with understanding, compassion and undeterred will to help them heal. Let's envision this world together, let's create this world together. 💕
  • IF YOU SUFFER FROM PERFECTIONISM and high, unrelenting standards, write these down somewhere, carry them with you all the time and repeat them like a mantra! 📝🔮 .. This is a common aftereffect of trauma and one of the lifetraps as Dr. Jeffrey Young calls them in his book on Schema Therapy. If you grew up with a critical parent, it's very likely you've incorporated that critical voice. Your parents criticalness and perfectionism became yours. Perhaps it was the only way to receive love and attention. .. As much as your (near) perfect ways of being are quite honestly admirable, they take away your joy, spontaneity and playfulness. Remind yourself that good enough is perfect and that it's not all about perfection but also growth and progress. 💕
  • So often we turn for validation and support externally. Sometimes we receive it, sometimes we do not. .. The other night I was writing in my gratitude journal app. The prompt was: Who has helped you this week? What I wrote was MYSELF! My fighter, warrioress self! The one who never gives up, the one who keeps going no matter what, the one who is devoted to her journey, the one who is a Heroine! .. Thank Yourself! You who have survived, you who are relentlessly striving to heal, you who are building your new life. You are a Hero! Thank Yourself, you deserve it! .. Love, V. 💕
  • 🍂 CHILDHOOD TRAUMA LEAVES YOU IN A STATE OF CONTINUALLY WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO TAKE CARE OF YOU 🍂 . Over the Christmas holidays l experienced a triggering situation. It included a member of an extended family who I had some expectations towards. That person disappointed me and l felt hurt. More accurately, it was my inner child that felt let down and vulnerable. It took me several days to come out of the experience and understand what had happened to me. . I realised that my emotional deprivation wound was triggered. Some emotional needs of mine were not met, and not my expectations of this person. Soon I realised that this person really has no obligations towards me and that what I was longing for was just for someone to care about me. It's not that the person didn’t care either, but my expectations were unreasonable. . I also realised that it’s because of that original wounding of not having my emotional needs consistently met by my mother, that I felt that way. In fact, I’ve been feeling that way for the most of my life. Childhood emotional trauma leaves you in a state of waiting and longing for this initial caregiver to fulfil their duties towards you. Well, if it hasn’t happened yet, it won’t happen ever. . You are in charge now. Forget about everyone and focus on you. Heal your inner child - support her, hold her, encourage her, talk to her. She needs you and no one else. 💕
  • When healing, and in general, what matters the most is that you're making progress. The healing journey and the life journey are messy and not supposed to be perfect at all. . It's really hard to accept that truth, especially when we've been conditioned to believe that we have to be perfect to be worthy of love and even of our existence. These are really deep subconscious programmes. . Self-awareness is key. Self-compassion is crucial. And radical self-acceptance is what will change your life. It's excruciatingly hard sometimes but that's the work of the self-healers. You were born for this!🔥⚡🔥
  • That photo was taken during the Christmas holidays while visiting a friend from my university years. Some relationships are meant to stay and others won't. Some other ones will transform with time. . When you're healing from trauma and/or abuse, your relationships will be up for an examination. I've been going over relationship after relationship for the past while - with my father, my partner, close friends, extended family. It's become clearer which people I can rely on and how much and for what exactly. . After childhood trauma, when our emotional needs have not been satisfied, we're in a state of eternal longing for someone to do it. But that way, we set ourselves up for disappointment and hurt. . You are the only one who can fulfil those unmet childhood needs. You are the only one who can give you the love, acceptance, compassion and encouragement you need. You are the only one who can be your parent and look after your inner child and yourself now. 💕💕
  • Childhood trauma robs your Sense of Self - you never get to develop it. Childhood trauma is developmental trauma and you never get to fully develop as a Healthy Adult. . Surviving adverse experiences as a child (ACEs) forced you into becoming an incomplete version of yourself. You became who you had to become in order to survive; in order to receive love and approval. . You learned pretty quickly who you can be and who you can't be. You learned that being the full expression of your true self is not welcomed, in fact it could be dangerous. . In my healing journey, I realise how it's never been about me. How I don't really know who I am and what I like and want. I am almost at a loss of being Me. . As childhood trauma survivors, in order to find out we need to unlearn what we've learned as children. We need to look at every thought, belief and behaviour pattern. It takes tremendous effort but it's well worth it. . Your beautiful authentic true self is awaiting you 💖
  • As much as trauma is real and leaves some long-term effects over our lives, sometimes we can get "addicted" to the process of healing and thus never "feel ready" to make a step forward. . I'm speaking from personal experience. I keep looking and searching for answers and reasons to why I am this way or that way. What I see is that I'm just afraid. That's not to say that this fear is not legitimate. . After trauma it's all natural to feel afraid of getting hurt again. After all, you've been doing great, hard work of healing yourself. It would seem foolish to jump right into the battle when your scars aren't fully healed. . But there is a very fine line between being re-traumatised and being just afraid. We'll never feel ready and we'll always be afraid of getting hurt again. And we most probably will experience some sort of trauma again. . But that doesn't mean that you can't handle it - it doesn't mean that you're not strong and capable enough. It doesn't mean that you're powerless and helpless - you're most definitely NOT. . What I'm saying to myself right now and the strategy that I'm going to use is this - just TRY and SEE what happens. Don't get stuck and buried into something, you can change it anytime you want. Just try and see. . Hope that helps you too, V. 💕
  • Happy New 2020 Year! Its been a long time since I've posted. But this doesn't mean I haven't been busy 😊 I've been writing on my blog and you can read the latest articles when you click on the Linktree up in the bio. . The more I progress on my journey of healing childhood emotional trauma, I realise how much of that work is actually inner child healing and reparenting work. More often than not during my sessions now, I need to "rescue" my inner child from the traumatic situations in my childhood. . As my therapist said, "my inner Vili is becoming bigger and stronger". . The more you solidify the foundation under your feet, the more you will be able to build your life anew. The more you secure you feel, the more open you will be to the world. But you have to walk all the way back and retrace your steps to your original trauma in order to heal! . May this new year be one of growth and expansion for us all! 🌠
  • 🌱 WHAT PERSONAL GROWTH & HEALING FROM TRAUMA FEELS & LOOKS LIKE 🌱 . The accelerated pace in my healing journey continues as I mentioned in a recent post. I feel that an integration of past wounds and trauma is occurring at a speedy level, too. . The more the fragmented "exiled" parts of ourselves are being integrated back into our wholeness, the more energy is freed up for focus and progress. The more the pieces of our stories start to make sense and we put them into a coherent story. And we're not so much being drowned in it, we're coming at a surface level and we're able to look in retrospect. . We're able to distinguish ourselves from our past mistakes and failures, and see ourselves in truth for who we are. We are able to find even forgiveness, one that has been out of reach for so long maybe. . One of the most significant parts of the healing journey and growth is the welcoming back of your inner child. Reparenting is at the core of healing childhood trauma. . Not to mention the massive awareness you've developed and a deep understanding for the human condition. . Now is the time when you start perceiving your true purpose, something that has also been obscured from you for so long. But you've also learned patience and that timing is important. Your purpose is not going to run away from you. . Opportunities will show up and little by little you'll gain back confidence, zest and desire for life. . May you be free on your healing journey and growth 🌋🌋
  • Here is a gentle reminder and a loving note for You from your Loving Self 💕 Have a gorgeous weekend! .. Via @gratefulness.me

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Recent Posts

  • Letting go never goes out of fashion imageLetting go (of what no longer serves us) never goes out of fashion
  • I am the person I am because of my trauma imageI am the person I am today because of my trauma, not despite it
  • How my son starting school is helping me heal trauma imageHow my son starting school is helping me heal trauma
  • Shyla Cash Interview ImageInterview with Shyla Cash: Narcissistic abuse and emotional neglect survivor, and a coach at Grow Heal Change
  • Childhood Emotional Neglect ImageChildhood emotional neglect – the hidden root of my pain
  • Tanya Amidei Interview ImageInterview with Tanya Amidei: Sexual abuse survivor, life coach and a spiritual writer

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  • 🌪️ DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY ARE DIRECT RESULTS OF EXPERIENCED TRAUMA 🌪️ ° The is no doubt that depression and anxiety are linked with trauma. That said, trauma could be a very different experience for everyone. What is certain is that the traumatic event was too much for the survivor to process. ° Experiencing trauma often leaves us stuck in the past, unable to shake off the shock and the stress. On top of that, it also makes us fearful of the future. ° The numbers of people diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety are so high and continue to grow. In a way, this is cancer of the soul. ° What we need is deep healing at the root, not surface symptoms management (although that may be needed too, depending on the magnitude of the symptoms). ° It's possible, our survival as a collective, as a race and species is dependent on us healing our traumas. ° Continue onwards in healing 💕
  • I saw this quote on PsychCentral website and thought it's worth sharing. If only we can end childhood abuse and the trauma cycle it creates, we wouldn't need hundreds of pages of diagnosis manuals, billions-worth medication industry; hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved... That said, I think we need good, trauma-informed therapist more than ever now. An army of Dark Workers, if I can say that. People who are not afraid to look into the darkest corners of people's psyches with understanding, compassion and undeterred will to help them heal. Let's envision this world together, let's create this world together. 💕
  • IF YOU SUFFER FROM PERFECTIONISM and high, unrelenting standards, write these down somewhere, carry them with you all the time and repeat them like a mantra! 📝🔮 .. This is a common aftereffect of trauma and one of the lifetraps as Dr. Jeffrey Young calls them in his book on Schema Therapy. If you grew up with a critical parent, it's very likely you've incorporated that critical voice. Your parents criticalness and perfectionism became yours. Perhaps it was the only way to receive love and attention. .. As much as your (near) perfect ways of being are quite honestly admirable, they take away your joy, spontaneity and playfulness. Remind yourself that good enough is perfect and that it's not all about perfection but also growth and progress. 💕
  • So often we turn for validation and support externally. Sometimes we receive it, sometimes we do not. .. The other night I was writing in my gratitude journal app. The prompt was: Who has helped you this week? What I wrote was MYSELF! My fighter, warrioress self! The one who never gives up, the one who keeps going no matter what, the one who is devoted to her journey, the one who is a Heroine! .. Thank Yourself! You who have survived, you who are relentlessly striving to heal, you who are building your new life. You are a Hero! Thank Yourself, you deserve it! .. Love, V. 💕
  • 🍂 CHILDHOOD TRAUMA LEAVES YOU IN A STATE OF CONTINUALLY WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO TAKE CARE OF YOU 🍂 . Over the Christmas holidays l experienced a triggering situation. It included a member of an extended family who I had some expectations towards. That person disappointed me and l felt hurt. More accurately, it was my inner child that felt let down and vulnerable. It took me several days to come out of the experience and understand what had happened to me. . I realised that my emotional deprivation wound was triggered. Some emotional needs of mine were not met, and not my expectations of this person. Soon I realised that this person really has no obligations towards me and that what I was longing for was just for someone to care about me. It's not that the person didn’t care either, but my expectations were unreasonable. . I also realised that it’s because of that original wounding of not having my emotional needs consistently met by my mother, that I felt that way. In fact, I’ve been feeling that way for the most of my life. Childhood emotional trauma leaves you in a state of waiting and longing for this initial caregiver to fulfil their duties towards you. Well, if it hasn’t happened yet, it won’t happen ever. . You are in charge now. Forget about everyone and focus on you. Heal your inner child - support her, hold her, encourage her, talk to her. She needs you and no one else. 💕
  • When healing, and in general, what matters the most is that you're making progress. The healing journey and the life journey are messy and not supposed to be perfect at all. . It's really hard to accept that truth, especially when we've been conditioned to believe that we have to be perfect to be worthy of love and even of our existence. These are really deep subconscious programmes. . Self-awareness is key. Self-compassion is crucial. And radical self-acceptance is what will change your life. It's excruciatingly hard sometimes but that's the work of the self-healers. You were born for this!🔥⚡🔥
  • That photo was taken during the Christmas holidays while visiting a friend from my university years. Some relationships are meant to stay and others won't. Some other ones will transform with time. . When you're healing from trauma and/or abuse, your relationships will be up for an examination. I've been going over relationship after relationship for the past while - with my father, my partner, close friends, extended family. It's become clearer which people I can rely on and how much and for what exactly. . After childhood trauma, when our emotional needs have not been satisfied, we're in a state of eternal longing for someone to do it. But that way, we set ourselves up for disappointment and hurt. . You are the only one who can fulfil those unmet childhood needs. You are the only one who can give you the love, acceptance, compassion and encouragement you need. You are the only one who can be your parent and look after your inner child and yourself now. 💕💕
  • Childhood trauma robs your Sense of Self - you never get to develop it. Childhood trauma is developmental trauma and you never get to fully develop as a Healthy Adult. . Surviving adverse experiences as a child (ACEs) forced you into becoming an incomplete version of yourself. You became who you had to become in order to survive; in order to receive love and approval. . You learned pretty quickly who you can be and who you can't be. You learned that being the full expression of your true self is not welcomed, in fact it could be dangerous. . In my healing journey, I realise how it's never been about me. How I don't really know who I am and what I like and want. I am almost at a loss of being Me. . As childhood trauma survivors, in order to find out we need to unlearn what we've learned as children. We need to look at every thought, belief and behaviour pattern. It takes tremendous effort but it's well worth it. . Your beautiful authentic true self is awaiting you 💖

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© 2015-2019 Vilina Christoph