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How childhood trauma robs your power away and how to take it back
This summer I spent about a month at my father’s house with my son. It wasn’t our first time and, as I’d expected, it was tumultuous. A part of me knew it was time to stand up to some of the dysfunction in my family of origin and confront it. I could only hope that this experience was going to bring me some resolutions and it would prove empowering. And it did. For the first week or so the usual, generations-old, themes of guilt and shame, insecurity and inadequacy were saturating the air until it came to a boil. There were tears and screaming, anger and pain – suppressed emotions and…
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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…
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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…
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Dear beautiful you
Dear, I love you! I cherish you! I thank you for being the vessel for my soul! You are beautiful, you are worthy, you are precious! You deserve to be happy, you deserve to follow your dreams, you deserve to honour your path. You don’t have to hold on to the past, you do not need to keep the painful memories, you do not need to suffer anymore. You don’t have to be unhappy because someone else is unhappy, you do not need to commiserate with their pain. That won’t help ease their pain, that won’t make them feel better. You have the right to put your needs first, you…
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Inner Child Therapy: Working with the father and mother roles
Sessions number two and three from my Working with the Inner Child therapy were about getting into the role of the father and the mother and voicing everything that comes through: their words, messages, lessons, ways of punishment and rewarding, etc. In the session when I had to “be” my father I could barely find any words he had said to me when I was young. I was remembering messages from older years very clearly but I couldn’t get back to the early years of my childhood. During the session, feeling my inner child, I felt distance at first. Like my dad wanted to say something but he kept it inside,…
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Web Wonderland No.4: How your ancestors’ experiences affect you, learn to tap away your fear, and live a loveable life
Hey You! March is here – one of my favourite months – the winter’s pretty much over, the sun’s warming up everything back to life, and in Bulgaria we have the most colourful and meaningful celebrations. First of March is the day of Baba Marta (Granny March) – it marks the arrival of spring and we put on red and white woven martenitsi to symbolise health and longevity. Third of March is our Liberation Day, when Bulgaria was liberated from the Ottoman Rule which lasted around 500 years. Eighth of March is the International Women’s Day which is widely celebrated around the world and is still quite big in Bulgaria…
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Breaking free of our mental prisons
I mentioned in my last post that I’ve kept myself into a sort of a mental prison. After talking to my therapist about it and going for a walk after, it came to me – another piece of the puzzle. After the dreams about my past lives, I had another few empowering dreams – one symbolising letting go of the burden I’ve been carrying by throwing things out of a backpack I’ve been carrying, and another – expressing myself freely by singing to a song I don’t remember the words of but nevertheless singing loudly and freely. To me, those dreams symbolise my emotional release of the trauma I’ve been lugging around…
