#emotionalabuse

“Strength And Weakness”

/ Anne Dennish / Leave a comment

I wrote this quote many years ago near the end of my 20 year marriage. As I began to heal physically and emotionally from all the turmoil of that, I realized that it was at my moments of anxiety, sadness or depression that he became strong. At first I thought he was showing true signs of kindness, yet in time I realized what was really happening: I was feeding his ego and he was starving my self-esteem. He felt like “the big man” helping the poor, defenseless, broken woman. The woman HE broke. The woman he was abusive to; the woman he told over and over again was stupid and ugly; the woman he told would never be loved by anyone.

And I believed him…until I stopped believing him.

Are you wondering how I stopped believing all that negative stuff he had embedded into my brain? I woke up. I realized that I had allowed him the freedom to treat me that way. I allowed him to speak down to me and allowed him to be disrespectful to me. So, one day I woke up and stopped allowing it, and when I did that the marriage was done and over with.

I went through years of healing myself mentally and emotionally, and of course it was with the help of many spiritual teachers and a wonderful tribe of true friends that I was able to. I’m grateful for each and every one of them.

I learned so much about myself and that loving myself first was the answer to preventing anyone anyone from treating me that way. You’d think it would never happen again, yet I’m human; we’re all human. Sometimes life brings you back to an experience that you thought you had learned the lessons from, yet life knows when you forget the lesson. And the Universe will put a similar experience back into your way until you wake up and realize that what you stopped allowing years ago, you’re allowing once again.

Even after that divorce I would find myself meeting someone whose ego was strengthened by my weakness, and for those that know me, they know I’m anything but weak. It would sporadically happen here and there throughout the years, yet now I’m much more able to recognize it when it’s happening. I’ve learned that those people lack control of their own life so they try and control mine; they lack self-respect and are unable to respect anyone else; they don’t feel strong unless they’re paired up with someone weak.

And I am no longer that girl.

I want to be treated the way I deserve and the way that I treat others: with love, kindness, compassion, consideration and loyalty, and I won’t settle for anything less. I want to be loved for the person I am, quirks and all, because I love the person that I’ve become.

We all have moments of feeling weak and that’s okay; it’s those moments that help us to find our strength again and stand back up on our feet even stronger.

We all have moments of finding ourselves back in a situation that we thought would never return and that’s okay; you’re given that situation to remind you of the lesson you forgot.

And we all find ourselves staring into the mirror, looking at ourselves and wondering how we got here and what happened to us, and that’s okay; keep looking in that mirror long enough and you’ll once again see the person you thought was lost.

It’s those moments of feeling lost that we’re actually finding ourselves again, and we’re finding an even better and stronger version of the person we once were.

Life is about balance and we all fall out of balance every so often. It’s when the world around us is spinning out of control that we see the truth of everything, and it’s in those moments that we find our balance again.

Don’t let anyone make you feel weak; surround yourself with people that make you feel strong.

Don’t spend your precious time feeding someone’s ego; spend your time feeding your self-esteem.

And don’t rely on anyone loving you the way you want to be loved; love yourself that way first and the rest will fall into place.

Everything in your life begins with YOU.

Stop allowing what you don’t want to continue.

Forgive yourself when you forgot a lesson you learned and continue moving forward.

And love yourself.

If you do nothing else, love yourself.

Anything and everything is possible if you begin with love.

It’s a good thing.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~strength and weakness

 

“Opening the Right Door”

/ Anne Dennish / Leave a comment

Did you ever wake up one morning only to realize that the situation or relationship you’re currently in just isn’t working? What was so wonderful for a time no longer holds those feelings; the good times are replaced with stress and drama, hurt and heartache.

We’ve all had a moment or two of that, yet what do we do?

We know that we want more and we deserve more, and we still hold onto the hope that the situation or relationship will change…but it doesn’t.

It’s served its’ time, taught you some lessons and made you realize that you were settling, and truth be told, it was holding you back.

There’s always some pain at the loss of something you thought was the right thing, yet I’m here to tell you that once you heal and get past those emotions, the world opens doors for you that you didn’t even know were closed.

Keeping negative things in your life, no matter what or who it is, will always keep out the good things just waiting to come into your life.

Love yourself enoughto know that you deserve all good things; wish the situation or person that you need to walk away from lots of love and light, and thank them for all that they taught you.

And let the next door open wide for you!

It’s a good thing.

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~

door

“The One Word I Despise: Victim”

/ Anne Dennish / 2 Comments

I don’t get angry very often and I try not to get upset at someone who says hurtful things to me, but I will tell you this, there is but ONE WORD that will make my blood boil and fill me with an anger that makes my head spin: VICTIM! Aside from those emotions, it hurts my heart, because I’m not that.

And recently someone decided to publicly call me that. The comments were nasty, untrue, and bordering on “threatening.” And they called me a “victim.”

There’s not many people who have called me that, in fact, I know of only two and those two people live unhappy lives and take their negative feelings about themselves and turn them on me. And the moment those two people called me that I wished them love and light and sent them on their way. The friendship had served its’ time and was done, because if you think that’s what I am then you have no place in my life. I will not surround myself with anyone that believes that of me.

I am not a victim, I am a survivor and proud of that.

I am a survivor of divorce, domestic violence, emotional abuse and breast cancer. I never once saw myself as a victim of any of these things because, while I never wanted to have any of it happen, I accepted them as life lessons. Those things happened to me so that I could learn from them, survive them, and use my voice through my writing to help other’s going through those situations.

Me? A victim?

Not by a long shot.

But there are those that play the victim themselves. They are martyrs and portray themselves as good people, when in reality, they are quick to judge and despise anyone who has something they want. They are jealous and insecure, and in reality, they are the ones who choose to be a victim.

And trust me, I’m not one of them.

I don’t have a perfect life, but it’s perfect for me. I have a wonderful man in my life and have five beautiful children, all of whom I’m very proud of. I am able to pursue my passion of writing every day of my life. I’m surrounded by some amazing friends who always have my back and see me as a survivor. My “bubble” is filled with the people that support me and more importantly, love me.

And none of them believe me to be a victim because they know I’m not.

I write about my past experiences in a positive light, hoping to let others know that they’re not alone, that there’s always hope, and there’s always a way to get through it.

I know that there are people who will judge me, but if you’re going to do that, make sure that you know me. Don’t see me through eyes of hatred and jealousy, see me through the eyes of “truth.”

“Survivor” is one of my favorite words. It means you had enough faith in yourself and your Higher Power to get through the tough times. Life hasn’t always been easy for me, yet I choose to be grateful for every day I wake up, for every experience, good or bad, that life hands me because in the end everything is a lesson to learn so that we can live the best life possible.

And once again I’ll say this: “If you can’t be kind, be quiet.”

Wishing you love and light,

~Anne Dennish~