3 Redefinitions of healthy love.

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As most of you already know, I have had a cycle of unhealthy relationships. My last one ended last June with me realizing that I had some healing to do. I had gotten so used to being manipulated and emotionally abused by people that I loved that I had started believing the lies. Now, for all my women who think that only men can be manipulative, that is incorrect. All people have the capability of manipulation, lying and acting from an insincere place. 

If you need a refresher of my past, check out my former articles of how I released the last relationship which was the icing on the cake and when I decided to let go of people who speak to me and don’t listen, those who wait for me to do wrong in order to get back at me and, some who have seen my kindness for weakness. Not only in romantic relationships but also in family and friends. I am proud to say that I have created a healthy distance from abusive and manipulative people. I also forgive them because holding onto pain and mistreatment leads to more of it. 

Through this process of healing, I have learnt 3 redefinitions of healthy love: 

1. Letting go of perfection and fixing:

I have spent a lot of my life giving in. This stems from my childhood. I am a middle child from a divorced family and have always carried immense guilt, basically over nothing but being human, making mistakes and learning. Through my healing, memories of my childhood have come back and I had memories of my younger sibling and I fighting, like most kids do. My Mother’s response would be to get me to say sorry first because she said I was the elder and had more responsibility than my younger sibling. This conditioned me to always say sorry; even if I wasn’t in the wrong. I felt a deep burden to always be right and if someone had an issue with me, I would try to get them to like me. 

Recently, I found myself crying when I thought of one of these memories as I realized that I have taken on a role that I never wanted, ‘the fixer’. You see, fixing means correcting even it abandons my emotions and feelings to make things right. In other relationships, I became the friend everyone called on when they needed something but few reciprocated the same gesture, I became the girlfriend who would be cool in order to not rock the boat and, I became the family member who wanted to be seen as perfect because it was my responsibility no matter what the other person did to me. 

This role is heavy and often impossible to implement all the time. So, as I free myself of this role, I open myself up to relationships where I don’t need to fix anything and get back what I put out with feeling guilty about it. 

2. Healing emotional abusive patterns: 

Physical abuse is easy to spot but how about when someone chips away at your spirit or your soul for years and years? This creates cognitive dissonance- where your brain starts questioning if what was true is true. Which I suffered from for many years and as a result, I would attract abusive people into my life. I had such little self-esteem that I accepted unkind words and actions towards me because I thought that that person didn’t mean to or feared being left alone if I confronted them. 

Over the past decade, I have healed (and am still healing) the need to be in unhealthy dynamics to feel like I am loved. Love can be healthy and love can be kind, not all the time but most of the time. I am done excusing people who don’t honor my boundaries or acknowledge that I am human because I am willing to respect others’ boundaries and see people as human. 

3. Not being tied to another by force but by respect and kindness. 

I am no longer afraid to shed disrespectful people from my life. I come from an African family where we put immense pressure on one another because we are expected to always be around. It was recently that I decided to shift this thinking. If being around someone causes me anxiety, pain and hurt then I am out. I am not a martyr. I, just like those who are respectful, deserve to be respected. 

Last year, I read a book about narcissistic and empath relationships and it asked these questions, how do you leave each relationship that you have? Do you leave feeling fulfilled or drained? Do you leave feeling heard or unheard? Do you leave feeling go you the respect that you deserved? 

I had to answer that question with a lot of people around me because the answer was no. I had to start all over again, it felt like. Most of what I had learned about relationships was fake women empowerment disguised as manipulation and getting the ‘guy’ to see me and hear me at all costs. I had to re-learn that love isn’t about getting anyone to do anything, it just is. Now, when I don’t feel heard, noticed, respected or acknowledged over a period of time, I let that person know and if it continues, I create distance between the relationship and me because my focus is not on forcing; it is on acceptance, honesty and being present. 

Dear God, I pray for guidance…

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Dear God, 

I pray for guidance from Angel Chamuel (the angel of love), I am confused and I pray for the strength to leave this confusion into clarity.

I just let go of a situation with a lovely guy because he wasn’t emotionally and physically available for me but I am wondering why you would send me down a path like that again? I was promised a man who is available to me. So, why him? 

 I don’t want to say that I am mad but I am low key disappointed that the one person that I wanted it to be, it isn’t. And, I am being reminded that it isn’t because he is still a unit with his family and former partner. Which he has to be but I don’t want to feel like an outsider looking in. 

I want to be a part of the story. I deserve a man who tells me; not me finding out from other sources. 

Please give me strength, God. When I see him and his family, please give me the courage to choose me, over breadcrumbs. I deserve a partner who is one hundred percent available for me, wants a future with me and is ready to have one with me. 

I don’t do games, false pretenses, intrusions or reading in code. I deserve honesty, kindness, success, drive, genuine respect and love. That is what I was promised so please guide me to it. 

I pray that I walk away from this situation without resentment; only peace. I pray for peace, serenity and surrendering to the fact that I left for a reason and now I make space for what I deserve... finally!

Thank you for making this space and I pray that you help me manifest a new partner into my life, one that is worthy of my time as much as I am of his. 

I have hope that I will find true love and respect- 2/23/2020

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I have hope that I will find true love and respect. 

He is emotionally and physically available to be in a relationship with me. 

I have hope that I will find true love and respect. 

He is upfront and honest with his feelings about me. 

I have hope that I will find true love and respect. 

I will not need to feel like a martyr and as though I am giving more than I receive. Our love is reciprocal. 

I have hope that I will find true love and respect. 

A bond where commitment and union takes precedent over anything else. 

I have hope that I will true love and respect. 

A partnership that I won’t have to guess how my partner feels, we assure one another. 

I have hope that I will find true love and respect. 

We choose each other daily without secrets and embrace honesty. 

I have hope that I will find true love and respect. 

He has used his past as a way to transform and enlighten himself and those around him. 

I have hope that I will find true love and respect. 

He embraces me and lets me know when he is going through something that is challenging him because I can’t read minds and shouldn’t have to. 

I have hope that I will find true love and respect. We embrace one another with honesty, trust and commitment

The 3 Things that I have learnt from being in an almost decade-long cycle of emotionally abusive relationships.

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As we end the year and another decade, I have found myself having nostalgia of the great memories from 2010-2019. I am (without a doubt) blessed and grateful; however, within these years, I have definitely experienced some deep emotional pain and relationships that were not ideal.

I am here today, proud of who I am because I decided to make the most of what was dealt to me. Sometimes, being in a cycle creates survival; however, I choose to thrive. The two are different. In honour of living the best life that I am able, I must be honest about my past. In my honesty, I hope to heal myself and others by revealing truths that we are usually too afraid to reveal.

Here are 3 things that I have learnt from my cycle of emotionally abusive relationships:

1. I can only save myself.

My first memory of wanting to be a saviour is when I was six and my mom came back from the hospital, after giving birth to my sister, with stitches on her belly. I deeply wanted to relieve her of her pain and kept asking her questions about how she got into that circumstance. I wanted to cure her of her stitches and make her fine right then and there. I was a kid, yes! However, I have always had a need to take people out of pain- hence why I am a yoga teacher and wellness coach. This attribute has been an advantage most of the time; however, it has sometimes been a disadvantage.

I have found myself wanting to relieve people from emotional pain and taking on their burden or relieving them of the work that they have to do to heal (themselves). I am able to influence another person; however, I am not able to do the work for them. We are all meant to work on ourselves, which is karma. Everything, including inner peace and wellbeing, requires our own work and self-healing.

2. I can say no.

In previous articles, I touch on how it has been difficult for me to say no in the past. This has been the most challenging thing to learn in my life because we do not live in a society that acknowledges boundaries. One could argue that we live in a society that promotes the lack of boundaries. As a black woman living in America and often being in corporate settings, saying no comes with a price. In fact, for anyone living in a corporate setting, saying no comes with a price because there might be someone else for the job who is cheaper and more available than you are. Corporations tend to feed into our insecurities.

In a corporate society, our personal lives follow suit. If you say ‘no’ to someone who you are romantically involved with, you risk them leaving you and finding someone else who will say yes. That instills fear within us which continues the cycle of self-doubt and lack of self-worth. It has taken me a long time to be able to believe with every fiber of my being that if I work hard enough, am truthful enough and open enough, everything that is meant for me will find me. This knowing has helped me release people, situations and things that feed off of me not feeling good enough.

3. I always have a say.

I’ve been pretty honest about how my last relationship highlighted how I had been in emotionally abusive and manipulative relationships in the past without even being aware of it. You might be asking, how did she not recognize it? Because when you live it, it is challenging to step away from it. I am grateful for every single former relationship because it had a purpose. Particularly the last one because it helped me heal the trauma that I had developed as a kid. I have also mentioned how I grew up with an emotionally abusive older sibling that subconsciously taught me that abuse is okay as long as no one else knows about it. There were no bruises but my self-worth was compromised.

As an adult, in romantic relationships, I would hide when my fiancé would call me fat, when my boyfriend would disappear for two weeks or when another boyfriend and I decided to get pregnant and, he disappeared. My silence festered this cycle. And, we all know that darkness is the prime location for breeding negativity, toxicity and secrets. It took me being in a relationship with a well-known Producer who would lie, cheat and blame me for his actions for me to see the pattern that had been going on in my life. I had attracted and entertained emotionally abusive people.

It took an exaggerated form like this where I still have to hear the music that he made about me on radio and public places to remind me of the role that I played. Who I am today is very different to the person that I was when we met, two years ago. I used to think that someone who I admired knowing me, being influenced by me and seeing me meant that it was cosmic divinity. However, now I understand that me seeing myself, recognizing my self-worth and my truth is the most magic that I will ever experience in this lifetime.

What my narcissistic toxic relationship revealed to me about what I needed to heal from my childhood.

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It’s no secret that I am dealing with a narcissistic ex-boyfriend who continues to harass me and starve for my attention. To get to me, he has hacked my phone, made a few popular songs about me and has made threats of my financial security without him. *Please read my former love articles to be updated on this romantic relationship.

He will continue to do what he does. I am physically safe; however, his emotionally abuse tactics have left my sanity and well-being threatened.

After I left the relationship, I made a decision to heal whatever needed to heal so that I would not allow this form of behaviour in my life again. In the process of healing, I noticed that I also had a few friends with similar behavior to his. So, I did some research and sought out advice from narcissistic abuse experts who revealed that we often allow abusive behaviour if we have grown up in that environment.

My first thoughts were that my parents were supportive. Sure, they are human but I know that they did the best that they could. Following this thought, I had a plethora of memories of how my older sibling emotionally (and sometimes physically) abused me for many years growing up as a kid and into my early adulthood.

I thought that I had dealt with this person (my family member) by cutting them off and no longer engaging in their abusive ways; but I forgot that the biggest thing that the abuser leaves with the abused is a mindset that they are weak, not enough and should feel guilty for how they feel.

Here are 3 things that have been revealed to me that I need to heal from my childhood.

1. Feeling like I can’t speak up.

Family abuse creates a culture of silence and as though the abused can’t speak up for themself. What elders in the situation often don’t understand or realize is that abuse begins with psychological training of the abused so that they won’t speak up. This is no shade to anyone in my life because I know that I was loved and raised from love; however, when I would let some of older family members know of how she treated me, it was often met with phrases like, ‘that’s your blood’, ‘that’s just the way that she is’ or, ‘I’m sure she could say the same about you.’

This subconsciously trained me into thinking that I couldn’t speak up for myself. I am clearly older now and sometimes still have difficulty being truthful or honest because we live in a culture that silences the abused as opposed to dealing with the abuser. I’m not sure exactly why. However, I am re-learning that my truth is more valuable than keeping people around who try to hush me for it, for my sanity and well-being.

2. We live in a culture that supports abusers.

As I previously mentioned, when I would let some elders know about how my older sibling would emotionally abuse me by calling me fat, inadequate and that I would never be loved, the common response was not to take it seriously. This created a belief system in me that if I was being abused or targeted by someone, ignoring it will help it go away- which is completely untrue. Abusers receive satisfaction from going out of their way to abuse their victims so ignoring it will not stop it- only confronting it will. We are all guilty of supporting some form of abuse and, the most common version of this is bullying. I’ve often heard that bullying is necessary because it makes you stronger; however, when you are being bullied or abused, that is the last thing that you are thinking about. The main thing that bullying does is train the person who is bullied that they are less than and need to make up for it by putting up with unhealthy behaviour because the abuser will leave behind these thoughts in the bullied persons thought system.

3. Abusers are not the same person to everyone.

I was watching a video of emotional abuse by Meredith Miller on YouTube and, she said that the classic traits of someone who is abusive is that they become a different person daily. Not meaning that people have different moods; it is as though you are dealing with a completely different person than you did the day before without doing anything to spark this change. It can make you feel like you are walking on eggshells.

While dealing with my older sibling for many years growing up, I felt like I was walking on eggshells and as though she was a ticking time bomb. In general, when I voiced concern, people would emphasize what she had done for me and as though she would give me so much. But, this is what abusers do: they create a façade to everyone else that they are kind and loving towards their abused so that they can continue their abuse. There are many theories for this but at the core of it is that the abuser needs healing and covering up what they have done or continue to do doesn’t help anyone (including the abuser) because the sooner that they can receive healing, the sooner they can make peace with what has led to them behaving this way in the first place.

*If you or anyone that you know is being emotionally or physically abused, please seek help. Your sanity, livelihood and well-being are too important to put at stake.

What I wish I’d known before I dated a narcissist.

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A month ago, I cut off my ex-boyfriend. It had gotten to the point where I could no longer have him in my life. Even though, we had been broken up for almost six months and I had moved on from our relationship, it was clear that he still wanted to be my partner again. And, would do ‘anything’ (as he phrased) to make it happen.

Once I severed ties with him, I promised to no longer speak about him or anything other than the many lessons that I learnt from what we had together. I naïvely thought that he would understand but, I had forgotten that my ex-partner had narcissistic tendencies. In fact, I believe that he is a narcissist. *Please refer to my article about falling in love with a narcissist in our love section.

As I move on with my life, he is doing everything in his power to keep me engaged in his life and whereabouts. However, as a true Aquarius, when I have moved on from a romantic relationship, there is no turning back.

I know that I can’t turn back the clock, I wouldn’t want to. And, I promised not to speak about it. However, I believe that I am meant to pass on this information to someone who needs it.

Here are 3 things that I wish I’d known before I dated a narcissist:

1. Love is not a competition or a fight.

I’m a very competitive person and believe in doing my best; however, some situations are not about winning or losing. Especially when it comes to love. When I first started dating my former partner, he told me that he would win me over. I thought that it was peculiar because I wasn’t interested in anyone else. But, he thought and believed otherwise. If he wasn’t fighting someone else who he believed to be interested in me, he would fight me about my freedom and aggressively ask me where I had been when I hadn't seen him for a few hours. I noticed a deep desire in him to win at all costs, even if it meant fighting me in the process. To this day, he is still at war with me and the decision that I have made to no longer be with him. But, that is not true love. Pure love understands and acknowledges that if someone is meant for you, you won’t have to fight for it. Putting forward effort and fighting are two different things.

2. Actions speak louder than words.

Even though I have heard this saying over a dozen times, it is hard to fathom what it truly means. In a culture that puts romance on a pedestal, it is hard to understand if someone is being authentic in what they say or it is for show. I thought that my ex was putting forward actions by his grandiose gestures: writing songs about me, posting billboards and proclaiming how he couldn’t live without me. Little did I know, he had no intention of putting in effort because that would mean doing something that wasn’t revolved around him. And, with narcissists, their World is all about themselves.

I got tired of hearing the same story of how he would change, go to therapy and move forward from his selfish behaviour. At the end of it, I understood that it is worth it for him and his success to live the life that he is living. It had nothing to do with me.

3. It’s not personal.

A few friends have sent me a very public break-up that he had with his ex-girlfriend a decade ago. I had previously avoided reading it because I don’t like to judge people based on their past; however, a lot of what she claims happened to her is what he is currently trying to do to me. He is spreading negative words about my character, what I did to him and has even wished death upon me. Sounds dramatic, I know! Because narcissists can’t handle rejection. I have decided to take the good and move forward regardless. His behaviour is not about me and if I reciprocate it back to him, I will look crazier than he does. Unfortunately, we live in a society that when a woman speaks her truth, she is awful but when a man does the same, it is his truth. Not always, but most of the time.

I have learnt that there is no need to fuel fire. He can think and tell people that I am the worst person alive but I know in my heart that I am a kind soul. Knowing who I am and what I stand for is protection against any form of un-necessary negativity.

The 4 roles that I am done playing in partnerships.

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I’ve been single for the past six months and have had a chance to really dive deep into my thoughts, my own interests and my purpose in life. Not to say that this is not accomplishable if you are in a relationship; however, the type of partnerships that I had previously been in, I gave more to them than what I got back.

I have no animosity towards any of my exes. I love them all dearly and I wish them well. They are fantastic people and they have helped shape me into who I am today. I don’t communicate with most of them, which I sometimes get sad about because I believe if you have shared a beautiful journey with another person, there is no need to be spiteful or resentful towards them. Every relationship has an expiration date.

My last relationship, which ended in June, solidified some of the biggest lessons that I had previously touched on the surface. Part of the reason that it did is because my former partner was well-known and sometimes, with fame comes disorder, toxicity and people attracted to the idea of a facade. Although I still have love for this man, it is very clear that we are not meant to be together for the long haul, which is fine. Not everything significant and life-changing requires long-term commitment. Sometimes people and things come into our lives to teach us a thing or two and then we part ways.

Through these past relationships, I learnt many things. In most of them, I played a role. Whatever title I played came with a sacrifice, of myself. I used to believe that I needed to sacrifice a part of who I was/am to be loved- which is a big lie.

True love begins with acceptance and now that I have found that kind of love for myself, I would be honoured to share it with another.

Here are the 4 roles that I am done playing in relationships:

1. The ‘perfect one’.

It was on my fifteenth birthday that my father called me to tell me that he was on his way and never showed up. Not only did he not show up but I never saw him ever again. He decided that he didn’t want to be a part of our family anymore. This pain I hid for many years in the form of needing to be perfect because, subconsciously, I had thought that I was the reason why he left. I kept what had happened a secret from my close friends because their lives seemed perfect and I was afraid that if I broke the ‘perfect’ mould, I wouldn’t be lovable to anyone. This belief is what I held onto until recently. I believed that if I showed anyone my tears or let my guard down about my true emotions and pain, they would run. Contrary to what I had believed, it does the opposite.

Creating a mould of perfection of who I am, the person that I should be with and, how we should look to everyone else is a lie. One that is not worth living because while we put up facades, we sacrifice ourselves, relationships and the people that we love.

2. The ‘martyr’.

Maybe this is middle-child syndrome or being a child of divorce; however, I have frequently felt like I am the one that everyone needs to rely on. This martyr-type of thinking attracted and entered into relationships with people who were comfortable with dumping their load onto me because I would take it. I would get dumped on, over-and-over, until I would leave or break up with my partner.

I used to believe that true love meant being someone else’s saviour; however, I have come to understand and learn that we are the only ones who can ever really save ourselves. I can support, encourage, influence and leave an impression on somebody else. But, if that person doesn’t want to change, I can’t force them.

3. The ‘cool’ one.

Even though I am very feminine, I have always been inclined to male-driven and competitive activities. As a result, I had a lot of male friends, many of them I would end up dating. Because we were formerly friends, they felt comfortable with me. Sometimes, they were so comfortable with me that they would say inappropriate things to me about how attractive another woman is and our boundaries became blurred because we acted more as friends than as partners. A friendship is important in partnership; however, partners and friends are different. We choose partners to live with, to possibly have children with and, to grow old together- this is not usually the outcome with friends.

A healthy partnership requires boundaries and I am done playing the role that I am okay with a broken boundary or disrespect when I am not. Playing along and not speaking up only leads to bitterness and resentment down the line.

4. The ‘settling- one’.

Maybe it’s because I’m an Aquarius but I believe in freedom and being with someone who enjoys my company, not someone that I have forced to be with me. I fully admit that I have previously fallen trap into the idea that love is jealous, mean and unkind when my intuition has always told me otherwise.

As women, we are raised with sayings like, ‘You need to keep him in check’, ‘He can look but make sure he knows where his home is’ or, ‘He’s a man, he is going to cheat’. Believing these sayings has caused me immense pain and suffering because they affirm that women should settle for less and expect less from men. I’m not sure why I believed these sayings because I was raised by strong women who believe the opposite of this. When I did implement these false sayings into my life, I would always regret sacrificing my self worth and integrity just to be in a relationship with someone who I probably shouldn’t have been with in the first place.

Once I found true love for myself, I released the need to be with another person. Particularly if that person is someone who doesn’t respect me, my values, my culture and what I believe in.

Dear God, I pray for guidance.

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Dear God, 

I pray for guidance. 

I agreed to forgive the betrayal in my last relationship and let him back in as a friend. However, I am struggling. Sometimes, when I see a pretty girl or someone who I believe to be his ‘type’, I go back to feeling emotional pain and it hurts me to my core. 

I know that this person is a dear friend and I am grateful for his presence in my life but I struggle moving passed the past. Please help me?

How am I suppose to be at peace with someone who hurt me so deeply? Am I on the right track? I am a firm-believer in forgiveness and this relationship has helped me grow in so many ways that I never knew possible but I’m not sure that I am strong enough to have him in my life when I am continuously reminded of what happened to me. 

I spend so much time thinking about taking the high road that sometimes I forget to be realistic. God, can we realistically continue this friendship with the acknowledgment that I don’t want to be involved in a romantic relationship with this person again. Or, is he putting on a façade around me so that I will take him back and he can do what he did to all over again? Is our connection genuine? Or, deceit?

God, please help me move forward with forgiveness and peace? I need you. I am stuck and I don’t want to toy around with another person’s loyalty, love and devotion. 

Is this friendship sincere? Has he evolved? If not, please give me strength that I need to swallow the truth and protect myself accordingly?

Amen.

Forgive him

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Why do I want to forgive him?

 Because it is not healthy to hold onto anger. I want to forgive him because I am tired of questioning why he hasn't responded or put forward actions, instead of merely talking. I want to forgive him because I am tired of feeling rejected and he doesn't have as much power in my life as I have previously given him. 

I want to forgive him because he is not a bad person- merely human and, just like I, he has issues. I want to forgive him because it is the best way to move forward from this. I want to forgive him because I cannot force him to change, I cannot re-write the past and I don't want to. I learnt so much about life and loving, which is even more reason for me to forgive as I am grateful and pleased with the outcome.

I want to forgive him because my next chapter is too promising to be ruined by feelings of bitterness, worry and uncertainty. I want to forgive him because I am certain that I deserve a love that is not heavily burdened by insecurities; that reassures us when we are not sure. 

I want to forgive him because I cannot force the truth. It is not forced or jaded. I want to forgive him because he has served his purpose in my life, it may not have been how I wanted it but I am here. I am here to forgive because there is nothing more beneficial.