Take a deep breath in through your nose
Sit down or lie down somewhere where you can close your eyes and relax undisturbed for the next five minutes slowly let that breath out
Take another deep breath in through your nose
you can stare at the wall or you can gently close your eyes
as long as you let your eyes defocus and relax perhaps they’ll even close with their own accord
and as you listen to the sound of my voice and you allow your entire body to relax deeper down
you become more focused and calmer and more at peace
and you can begin to ask yourself simple questions about
where you are right now and where you’re seeking to get to
over the course of this course
we’re looking at overcoming the pain and the wounds that are caused by exploitative behavior in intimate relationships
exploitative behavior that we used to not have the strength to be able to say no to
and what we’re looking to work towards doing together slowly over time and with practice
is exploring the ways in which we can become stronger now
and into the future where we can, keep ourselves safe from exploitation and from misuse
and where we can have our love and our attachment and our desire for another person exploited against us
where now instead → We can say okay i can say no. It’s safe for me to say no.
It’s safe for me to refuse covert invitations to engage in exploitative patterns of behavior.
It is completely safe and necessary for me to put myself first and to take care of myself
because i cannot take care of other people unless, i’m effectively taking care of my own self, first.
This is important and this is necessary, because this is my life, and i only have one life to live
noticing without judgment that
there are places where we tend to fawn
which means that we submit
which means that we become neurotically hyper agreeable
and we say yes to things, we shouldn’t say yes to
we don’t have to judge yet we only have to become aware of it
With whom does this happen? where does this happen? what could i do instead?
could i learn instead in these most vulnerable parts of myself
to grow a new sense of strength, that gives me the ability to avoid such situations altogether with wisdom seeing them before they unfold
preemptively moving away from them
or when we are in these situations having the strength to say
“No thank you, i would rather not do that, it is not good for me, and i don’t do things that are not good for me”
“i sometimes put myself first and i like to live my life as though this is not a rehearsal
and this is the only life i have and that
i’m responsible for what i do with my time, my attention, my resources and my love.”
ask yourself the question:
Do you have the right to pass judgment on other people’s behavior as being exploitative??
i would suggest that you do
Is it necessary that you’re able to assess and judge that some behavior in other people is bad and unacceptable to you based on your values?
Remembering that you are allowed to set your own level, you are an adult you can set the standards by which you live, and you can set the standards of the people you choose to associate with.
When we are feeling strong feelings of guilt and shame; and they push us to over giving.
it is not the over giving that is the problem
the over giving is a symptom of the problem
the cause is the emotion
When i am inviting you, so gently and yet so repetitively, to work on reducing your emotional flashbacks.
i know that if you’re having strong uncontrollable feelings of guilt and shame,
the only way to moderate those feelings of guilt and shame,
will be through the neurotic addiction to over giving.
So now imagine your life if you didn’t feel that guilt and shame
imagine it was reduced, imagine you began to detach from such feelings of guilt and shame
imagine what it would be like if the when those feelings of guilt and shame came up,
They were reduced you dissociated and detached from them,
you were able to say this is an emotional flashback, these are not authentic feelings that i’m having in the moment
your emotional literacy work will teach you how to distinguish between the two
and i don’t have to act on this impulse
i have a strong impulse inside of myself now to over give and give myself away,
the guilt and shame is there, but i’m not going to do it this time.
There are times where you will want to give and it is okay for you to give
but you are in control of those times and when the situation is right
You get to determine your own philosophical ethical system
of when it is right for you to give with whom and how much
you must now grant yourself the permission to be an adult
and to make rational decisions in your own best interests
repeat after me
i am now granting myself the permission to be an adult
and to make rational decisions in my own best interests
you must also be permitted to put yourself first sometimes
so repeat after me
i’m granting myself the permission to put myself first
there are things that stop you from being your authentic self
you are now growing in awareness of them
there are people there are situations there are scenarios that actually put a stop on you just being the most authentic version of yourself that you can be
and you’re becoming more and more aware of them every day
you’re learning to avoid those situations and
you’re learning when you cannot avoid those situations
to take yourself from a fawning submissive response to a healthier more adult response that is more in your best interest
we can learn to give up the addiction to codependency as a response
we can learn to become independent and
we can learn to become more adult, more rational, and more responsible
but it does take courage
beyond this place, we must grow and when we grow we will become more potent we will become more powerful and in that new space we of course will have more responsibility
so we must willingly accept the greater responsibility that comes with the greater potency that we are developing here
please repeat after me
i willingly accept the responsibility that comes with my greater potency, as i go through this process
in your own time
Wiggle your fingers and toes,
take another deep breath in
begin to stretch and
when you’re ready open your eyes
come back into the room
take stock of your surroundings and have a good day
i hope you’re cheerful and smiling more frequently than you would usually
have a good day