Understanding the Cycles of Abusive Behavior

Understanding the Cycles of Abusive Behavior and Watching Out for the Warning Signs

Domestic violence shows no favoritism, it comes in all shapes and forms affecting all walks of life straight across the board. No social, economic, ethnic, religious, or gender class is exempt. The statistics of violence against loved ones is staggering and heartbreaking! Are you aware that approximately one-third of all emergency room visits are by people who were there becaused a loved one put them there?

There are cycles of behavior that are prevelant within abusive relationships. The majority of abuse, relating to relationships, isn't necessarily isolated to a married couple. Abuse in relationships also include any relationship where there is intimacy.

How can you tell if you are in an abusive relationship? You may think, "well, he doesn't hit me," "It was only a shove or push," or worse, you feel as though you had provoked the attack yourself! Let's explore our own denial, first.

In the beginning of any new relationship there is always a pattern of passion. There is the sense of newness and one might consider this to be the "honeymoon stage." There is passion, there is excitement and love making is generally on fire. This stage is considered the passionate love stage, where everything appears to be perfect. Yet, somewhere below the surface, our passionate partner begins to develop a sense of possessiveness. We may feel this as our partner is protecting us and loves us so much they would go to the ends of the earth for us.

Next, our partner begins to say things to us like, "I can't live without you," "You are my world," etc. We may take these statements as facts of love. Slowly, we begin to become isolated from our family and friends, the people who have always been our support centers. Jealousy from our partner shows up in ways that may appear as signs of love. Our partner showers us with love and attention and may even pick a fight or talk badly about your friends and family creating distance between you and them.

Up until this point, we may not even realize what is happening. Then as tension builds and as our partner now has become anger with us, upset with us, blaming us for everything that has gone "wrong." We begin to question and wonder what We have done to upset them. Then it happens, a violent outburst occurs! We are stunned, we are shocked, we don't know what to do because we have basically been cut off from our friends and family. We now feel stuck. But what is a violent outburst?

A violent outburst doesn't necessarily constitute a physical attack. A violent outburst can be a raising of the voice, name calling, degrading behavior and comments, spitting, slapping, punching, even the punching of a door or wall or any other physical object are all types of violent outbursts.

The final phase of the cycles of abusive behavior is the stage of remorse. The perpetrator feels remorse, shame, begs for forgiveness and promises that it will never happen again, followed by the return of the honeymoon, passionate love stage.

However, once we initially accept this type of behavior from our loved one, we unknowingly give them permission for the cycles to continue. This cycle will continue on and on, will always continue to repeat its self over and over until there is some sort of intervention!

It is important to recognize these signs of abusive behavior to provide us with options and choices. If we can recognize the patterns and never take the blame or responsibility of others behaviors, we then slowly begin to move into a state of empowerment by standing up for our selves and either demand our partner seek some sort of guidance or we will gain the inner strength to walk away. I realize that walking away may not seem like an option, for whatever reason we have justified within us to believe. Yet, I tell you today, that leaving Is and option! I spent 10 of my 14 year marriage playing the cycles of abuse game.

With love and light

Tami

http://www.healingsoftheheart.com/

Finding Your Own Inner Strength

Finding Your Inner Strength

This morning as I lay in bed, I watched as the wind blow with such velocity. The trees were being tossed around like they were rag dolls and it reminded me of our own inner strength. As a tree is blown around, it doesn't think about what might happen to it. It doesn't wonder or worry if it will survive. In the midst of chaos, it stands with it's roots planted firmly in the ground, trusting and knowing that "this too shall pass."

As a survivor of domestic violence, it reminds me of the time I had made a conscious decision to leave and never look back. I, too, had felt the powers of the wind. My tree was blowing and I felt it would snap in two in a moment. Deep within each one of us, there is a core. This core is our balance, it's our center, one could even say it's our own "trunk," our pillar of strength. However, somewhere along the line we had lost sight of our own inner strength and we find ourselves feeling weak, dis-empowered and possibly hopeless.

One of the ways in which our abuser controls us by making us believe that we are powerless, that we have lost our inner strength and that we cannot live without them. Usually it starts with verbal abuse or mental abuse as we become continually bombarded with statements that we are lazy, worthless, selfish, among others. Over time, we begin to believe it and then we own it. From here, day by day, our inner strength fades, we become hopeless, our branches may break and lose ourselves in the storm.

Your inner strength lives deep within you. It is always there even if we feel we've lost it somewhere. Finding your inner strength is finding yourself. You reach deep down within you and plant your roots solidly, deep within the Earth. Feel yourself connecting, feel yourself gaining your footing. This is where it begins, as you gain more confidence you awaken your inner strength. The more awakened you become the stronger your roots become.

I once heard an old saying many years ago "Grasshopper, be strong like tree." author unknown

Healings of the Heart specializes in facilitating healing and empowerment to women who have suffered from abuse. To learn more about these services or if you are ready to find your inner strength, hypnosis is also offered to help you regain your voice and inner strength. Visit www.HealingsoftheHeart.com

Tami MacDowell is founder of Healings of the Heart and promotes healing & empowerment for survivors of all forms of abuse. Tami is a certified hypnotist and a practitioner of holistic health, metaphysics, past life regression and guided angel imagery. Tami also teaches classes in women's empowerment and healing with the Angels. Tami's newest classes, Women's Empowerment, will be featured through Holistic Healers Academy making it eligible for graduates to receive a Holistic Health Practitioner Certificate of Completion in women's empowerment. If you have ever had a desire to help and be of service to women, this course may just be what you're looking for. http://www.HolisticHealersAcademy.com or you can view her website http://www.HealingsoftheHeart.com

With love and light

Tami

Using Hypnosis to Aid in Establishing Boundaries

How can hypnosis aid in establishing boundaries?

Hypnosis is a tool to help quiet and bypass the consciousness and speak directly with the subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind houses all our beliefs, learned behaviors and associations. It is also, where our automatic responses reside.

Our conscious mind holds within itself our abilities to reason, our logic, our decision making, and our will. It is the home of "ego." Through hypnosis, we can bypass our defense mechanisms and go straight to re-programming our old, out-dated beliefs.

Chances are if we grew up in a dysfunctional family, like myself, we never were blessed with the skills to learn how to set proper boundaries. We become "people pleasers" or worse, "doormats!" These behaviors have become some ingrained within our subconscious, that we aren't even aware that we are reacting to these old patterns of behavior.

Through hypnosis, it's possible to return somewhere between the ages of 3 - 6, apply some assertive behaviors towards a family member who left us, once with a sense of disempowerment. Believe it or not, this one step, not only builds our self-esteem, but our confidence as well. Hypnosis is a safe and effective means to bring about behavioral change.
If you are one of the millions, like myself, who have little or no boundaries and allow others to treat you poorly, or if you are a parent with children who act out, learn more about how

hypnosis can help!

May the Light of Your Spirit Guide You!

With Love and Light

Tami

www.HealingsoftheHeart.com

Establishing Healthy Boundaries

Why Do We Need to Establish Boundaries?

Let's start off by gaining a clear understanding of the definition of a boundary. A Boundary reflects your personal desires with a definite consequence from crossing or not respecting a set boundary. For example: "If you touch me in an inappropriate manner, our relationship will end" Is a boundary. Broken down, it clearly states that you have a personal desire to not be physically not be hurt by someone you love and the consequence for crossing the boundary is I will leave you.

Boundaries are not only important for adults, but also as a parent raising children. Our children's trust is developed between the ages of 3-6 years of age. Teaching young children your boundaries will help them to grow up with a sense of knowing that "If I do this, this is what I can expect"

What boundaries do you have for yourself? Maybe, you don't have any boundaries at all or maybe, you don't enforce the consequences. This happens sometimes because as children we were taught to be "obedient" This is a problem for many women raised in dysfunctional families, as it has taught us to become "people pleasers" and can might also take us down the path towards co-dependency.

Hyposis can help us to learn to love ourselves enough to establish healthy boundaries by placing suggestions of self-love, self-worth, etc into our subconscious minds. It also, enables you to return to a younger age and inserting assertiveness towards a family member or members which, then, enables us to have the self-confidence to begin establishing safe, healthy boundaries.

Let's not confuse boundaries with walls....Walls are a defense mechanism we put into place to push people away so we don't get hurt.

With Love and Light

Tami

www.HealingsoftheHeart.com

A Day in the Life of Living with Abuse

What are the dynamics of an abusive relationship?

Research focusing on the dynamics of abusive relationships has resulted in several ways of understanding the interactions between the batterer and the victim.

The first conceptualization is that of the Cycle of Violence, 5 consisting of three stages:

1. The tension building stage (tension in the relationship gradually increases over time);
2. The acute battering stage (tension erupts, resulting in threats or use of violence and abuse);
3. The honeymoon stage (the batterer may be apologetic and remorseful and promise not to be abusive again).

The cycle continues throughout the relationship, with the honeymoon stage becoming shorter and the episodes of battering becoming more frequent or more severe. The honeymoon stage reinforces the victim's hope that the batterer will change and contributes to the victim staying in the relationship.

The concept of Traumatic Bonding 6 has also been developed to explain the dynamics of domestic violence relationships.

Essentially, strong emotional connections develop between the victim and the perpetrator during the abusive relationship. These emotional ties develop due to the imbalance of power between the batterer and the victim and because the treatment is intermittently good and bad.

In terms of the power imbalance, as the abuser gains more power, the abused individual feels worse about him- or herself, is less able to protect him- or herself, and is less competent. The abused person therefore becomes increasingly dependent on the abuser.

The second key factor in traumatic bonding is the intermittent and unpredictable abuse. While this may sound counterintuitive, the abuse is offset by an increase in positive behaviors such as attention, gifts, and promises. The abused individual also feels relief that the abuse has ended. Thus, there is intermittent reinforcement for the behavior, which is difficult to extinguish and serves instead to strengthen the bond between the abuser and the individual being abused.

Finally, abusive relationship dynamics can also be understood through the concepts of Approach and Avoidance. 7 The mix of pros (love and economic support) and cons (fear and humiliation) present in the battering relationship leads to ambivalence on the part of the victim. The victim is likely to want to approach the positives in the relationship but avoid the abuse. This struggle between wanting to keep the relationship and wanting to remain safe makes it difficult to decide whether to leave or stay in the relationship. On average, women leave and return to an abusive relationship five times before permanently leaving the relationship.

National toll-free Domestic Violence hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

Healings of the Heart offers many options to bring healing and balance back into your life. If you feel threatened in any way, know that you are NOT alone and there are options available to you.

With love and light

Tami

WWW.HEALINGSOFTHEHEART.COM

What Happens Now?

What Happens Now?

What happens when someone you love, or think you love, has just physically hurt you? Your emotions run rampant, your adrenaline is pumping, you feel confused, hurt, and angry. Thoughts begin to race within your mind. Thoughts of how did this just happen? What did I do wrong? Why didn't I see this coming? Then you begin to make excuses for them, they are overtired, overworked, stressed out, or maybe they have an addiction to alcohol or drugs and you feel you said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

These are all common feelings that we, the survivors of abuse, will ask ourselves.

Stop! Know this: It was NOT your fault!

The most important thing for you to understand is this is NOT love, this is Control! And it will continue until YOU take a stand for yourself, put your foot down and say Enough!
If you have found yourself in a volital situation, the most important thing for you to do is to flee to safety. Guaranteed, if he had done it once, he WILL do it again. It will only continue and only progress. If you feel your life has become threatened, contact 911 immediately. There are also many shelters available in all communities that will provide you a safe haven in an emergency situation.

While I do understand that emotional trauma which, comes from seeking out a safe haven, know that this is the Beginning of a new life for you. A new life without abuse. It's normal if you feel emotions such as embarrasment or humiliation, it's difficult to admit to yourselve that you have been deceived. Taking this step IS the first step to healing.

I would like to invite you to join the Sis Sacred Circle and find solace, comfort and companionship with other women who took a stand for the sake of their existence as well as the safety of their children.

Domestic Violence and Sexual abuse are rampant in our country and is an issue which, is very close to my heart. Not only have I been abused, but now I have passed these traits down to my youngest daughter who only recently fled for her own safety. When she asked me "Why do men have to hurt women?" I thought for a moment reliving my own past abusive relationships and then I realized, as painful as it might sound, "Because, WE, as women, Allow it to continue" What I mean by this is this: Each and every time we experience abuse in our relationships we accept the typical "I'm sorry, it will never happen again. I LOVE YOU!" Thus becomes the vicious cycle of abuse.

Healings of the Heart offers a unique and healing program to help promote going from a sense of "brokeness" to one of "empowerment"
With love and light
Tami

WWW.HEALINGSOFTHEHEART.COM

The Courage to Believe in Yourself

Belive in You

Why is it difficult for many of us to love ourselves? We share so openly with others, yet we find it difficult to share love with ourselves. Why is it easier to continually give of our love, our support, and encouragement to our friends, children and/or spouses, yet, when it comes to giving to ourselves, we become stingy?

We promote negative self talk conversations, we become our own worst critics. We blame ourselves when others disagree with us. We question our beliefs, we doubt our words, we say mean and hurtful things to ourselves. Sometimes we criticize ourselves with words such as as, we're stupid, we're dumb, we have no right, we're crazy to think we could do something, and the list could go on and on.. You know it, what negative self-talk do you carry on within yourself?

I can remember one time, a time of when I was at my lowest. Feelings of self-pity and even feelings of being unworthy. One day I looked in the mirror and this person looking back at me I know longer recognized. I wondered who she was? Where had I gone? This prompted my own journey to inner healing. It was the day that changed my life! Though the journey has not always been easy nor always pleasant, it has been one that had brought me to a place of inner healing, love and peace.

If you'd like to read more about my own experience or share your story with others please join the Sisters in Spirit ning. Together, we can become stronger. Together we can offer one another the Courage to Believe in Yourself once again!

With love and light

Tami

WWW.HealingsoftheHeart.com