spiritual healing

Chronic Disconnection

This is a vulnerable post. I picked up Brene Brown’s new book, Atlas of the Heart, and in chapter 9, page 152 the “Places we go when we search for connection; Belonging and Fitting in, Connection and disconnection, Insecurity, Invisibility, and Loneliness.”

I will share the points that pierced my heart. Why would I do this you ask? Because I know I am not alone in hurting.

I’m not alone holding onto unhealed trauma as I continue to move forward.

And I’m not alone in seeking positive connections while healing.

I know there are many out there that have lived their life wanting to belong, really belong. I feel it begins in the home, even as early as the womb (healing birth stories are amazing!) within our family dynamic. I remember in church singing the song, ‘Love at Home’ and hating it. Singing about bliss and no contention. WTH? Family meant contention, dismissal, and lonliness for me. That was what I was familiar with and it created how I defined love. I did everything in my growing-up years figuring out ways to belong. Be important. Be seen. Be valued and sadly, nothing comes to mind. Sure I got used to my family dynamics by turning inwards. I managed. I wasn’t in a bad situation just a disconnected one and that resulted in negative beliefs buried deep, I’m just getting to understand the consequences of them. Awareness is the first step in healing. Familiarity is not awareness!

Being raised by a narcissistic mother with bi-polar tendencies aka covert narcissism (a real thing, look it up) I learned lessons that have taken years to unlearn. Many years to find clarity and understanding! The visual above (I edited it for the sake of space and relevance to my post.) When I read this my heart hurt. Physically hurt

I’ll paraphrase this a little for myself. Maybe I’m paraphrasing this for you too. I hope you insert your words in place of mine for you to feel into this too.

Belonging – Jody being somewhere, at home, school, church, wherever I decide to go with the intent to feel that others wanted me there too. ‘True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to BE who we are – p158’

Fitting in – me being somewhere where I want to be but no one cares one way or the other. Such as the grocery store, shopping, to the park.

How many of you seek to belong but have only found yourself fitting in? In chapter 9, Brene Brown relates to love and belonging as an ‘irreducible need for all people’ p154. Basically, central to our well-being. I can understand that so I kept reading.

After reading more I still felt numb. I read it, I get it, I understand it but it still didn’t penetrate my being, until I came to page 169.

Page 169 “Defining connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel SEEN, HEARD, and VALUED; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they drive sustenance and strength from the relationship.” On that same page, she brought up the painful result of chronic disconnection.

WOW!

This is what pierced my heart! What hurt the most was not for me, it was for my children who were raised by a disconnected mother, me. I felt the pain for my grandchildren who are now growing up in a disconnected world too. Enough is enough!

I’ve read another book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate. A book on addiction and the core issue he found was a lack of connection in their lives. The connection I’m talking about is the universal truth of unity. I have been one-sided, looking to spiritually connect with my universal source, I call God. This is a great door to open but please be aware as it leads to beautiful healing but the human connection remains critical. That’s where Restored Soul comes in. Connection with like-minded women FEEDING our souls while healing. My divine nature is a manifester. My heart soars to bring others together for comfort, the comfort of connection. Not just spiritual connection but human connection. I have been so blessed to find connections with those also seeking to become their best self.

Living with a narcissistic mother – living with ANY narcissistic person, you are not seen, heard, OR valued ~ they are! I’ve also learned from Brene Brown’s book that shame is the underlying state to narcissism. I’ll let you get the book and learn more on that for yourself. You’re welcome

My chronic disconnection became my emotional filter. It’s what I knew. It’s what I understood but it was not what my soul was seeking. My life was spent hiding and protecting my emotional self from being rejected or ignored. The women you see who appear strong, self-confident, and altogether ~ are the women who crave connection but can’t find it. The other harsh thing I learned was my craving for connection actually manifested itself into perfectionism. A powerful lesson on page 172. Another ah-ha moment when I recognized my need for perfectionism was to BE good enough to be seen. Sadly, it didn’t do that because I appeared to be disconnected from others and they responded to that, seeing me as hardened. Perfectionism actually kept me disconnected.

To all those out there who are striving to stay on the ‘straight and narrow’ without allowing deviating, I’m sorry. The rigidity of life is not sustainable. God would rather you be happy, enjoying life, and at peace. You are the only one condemning yourself. God doesn’t condemn, he loves!

Restored Soul has created a space to be heard, seen, and valued without judgment. We all are Divine beings, and our events create a space that holds the light and love of acceptance for all to see themselves as beautiful beings and converge with others with the same spirit. True, pure, authentic connection.

I consider myself a chain breaker! Whose with me? Click here to send me a personal message if you’re ready

A picture a friend sent me from Facebook. I’m sorry I don’t know who to give credit to.

Natural Principles

I began reading the book Principled-Centered Leadership by Stephen R. Covey today, and he writes about Natural Principles.

I love reading and learning from others. What I learned while reading, most people strive to ‘fix’ their lives on a weekend. He speaks about the law of the harvest – meaning, you can’t plant and harvest in a weekend. It takes time and planning to have a successful harvest.

He shared, ‘Many parents take teenage rebellion and rejection personally, simply because they are too emotionally dependent upon their children’s acceptance of them, so a state of collusion is established, where they need each other’s weaknesses to validate their perceptions of each other and to justify their own lack of production.‘ (I suggest to re-read this again, these are powerful points to ponder!)

This hit home because I was one of those parents. I believe I was emotionally dependent upon my children’s acceptance of me. I gave them full responsibility to take away my power, which ended up in a state of contention. I set it up, I taught them how to treat me. Looking back I created the collusion aka contention, because I was validating my ineffective coping skill.

My ineffective coping skill was deflection: What does it mean when a person is deflecting? Deflecting is a psychological defense mechanism that people use to take the blame off of themselves. When they are deflecting, they are trying to make themselves feel less bad for their wrongdoings – aka blame!

Let me explain, when Stephen R. Covey stated, ‘parents take teenage rebellion and rejection personally.’ What does rejection look like to you? Do you classify that as disrespecting you? Is disrespect really seen as not listening? What about being distracted when you are trying to tell or teach them something? What about them not jumping up on your command to come to you when called?

Is this a pattern? Does this happen often enough that your frustration level is easily met? I knew I was emotionally dependent upon my children’s acceptance of me. I held the belief that IF they’d stop, then I’d stop. How many of you hear the same thing in your homes? How many of you had a similar thought? My dependency on their behavior was directly correlated by the rules I set upon myself, from what I learned as a child. I created ‘rules’ on what love looked like as a child and carried with me in adulthood. That main rule was blame!

What rules have you created around beliefs?

What now?

What does it take to shift the contention level in your homes and heart?

It takes a desire, then a decision, that leads to action. Desire feeds motivation, and motivation feeds decision making, and a decision feeds action.

Once you feel you have a desire, check out what we can offer you @www.jodykhill.com. IF we aren’t the ones that resonate with you, we have many connections to guide you towards more fruitful options.

A question that gives reflection, “Do you want to be where you are in the next five years?” IF you answered no, then it’s time to make a decision.

SOUL Abuse; Rejection versus Unwanted

A friend on Facebook shared her story of being abused and a part she shared pierced my heart.

As you all know, I continue to heal, layer upon layer, understanding and removing negative emotions that I’ve taken on dealing with a narcissistic mother through writing my blog posts.

Here’s what my friend wrote: “My therapist has told me that it isn’t even the severity of the abuse that determines a person’s ability to go on and heal from it, but more so whether they were believed and supported when they came forward.” ~ Katie McKenzie Peterpaul

When I read the part about being believed and supported, it hit home! Even if the rest didn’t relate to anything for me, this one part did.

This was the key that brought understanding to my soul; of course, I had to dig deeper.

You ask, how’s this going to tie in together? Good question! Let’s dissect this and figure this out together.

First, feeling unwanted or rejected are masks for something we feel emotionally deeper. That core yearning to feel others believing in and supporting our divine self. Supporting our divine nature, aka our divine motives which relate to our core character. Not the character others interpret. Just think when someone gossips something bad about you, that person who believes and supports you would NEVER believe what was said. They would have your back.

Second, It feeds our soul when others see our goodness and our efforts, during the good times and bad. We seek out those WHO see us without question, aka interpretation. We feel a deep connection to those who see us ~ It’s that unconditional love our soul seeks. Our humanness seeks it from others but our divine nature seeks to feel it from Spirit. So when we talk about trauma or abuse in the physical sense, it happens to us spiritually as well. Trauma or abuse of our soul happens when we feel dismissed and believe it as truth. When we feel judged and believe the lie. When we feel accused and believe we are bad. When our character is attacked and we think it’s justified. It’s only when we believe it, does it penetrate us. Think of pretend fighting. When a person throws a punch but doesn’t hit the person, there’s no pain. That is much like having negative feelings of judgment, dismissal, or accusations thrown BUT if that person actually hits the other person, the pain of the dismissal, judgment, accusation ‘hit’ is felt. When we believe the lie of the negative, we feel emotional pain and that pain penetrates our soul.

What hurts the most is when others you love believe and support the assigned motives over your true character; this has to be the biggest hit of them all!

We all have pain, we’ve all been hit and when we feel ready to heal, we seek ways that resonate with our soul. I could write pages upon pages of the dark holes of pain I’ve fallen into but I can also relate years of work in learning how to climb out by healing.

A good resource is a book, “The Four Agreements”

In the First Agreement, it says, “Think back to a time when you or someone you know was angry with someone else and desired revenge. In order to seek revenge, you said something to or about that person with the intention of spreading poison and making that person feel bad about him- or herself.”

I still feel the sting of hurt when a person who was angry with me and desired revenge. I believed this person believed in me and supported me ~ the deepest pain came when I shared feelings from my heart and they claimed I attacked them aka assigned me a motive to years of a friendship and spread those assigned motives they created to anyone who’d listen, yep aka gossiped. WOW! It felt like our entire relationship became an instant lie and I felt the depth of the betrayal. I could spend energy on ‘proving’ her wrong and those she told these hurtful things to but where would that take me? Yep, even deeper into a dark hole of pain and swallowing that poison she spread, all for me to be brought to her level of feeling bad about myself.

Even writing it I still feel the sting. It was like those words were a flame being thrown on sunburned skin. It hurt! And, it hurt deeply. During those times it’s ok to take a bit longer to realign to spiritual truths. Those who sincerely love you will give you space and time to realign. I can not be in charge of how they feel, I can only be in charge of what I do. I can understand they may be in a challenging position, so I won’t be taking those words personally ~ that’s the Second Agreement. It’s like I can see a wounded person lashing out. Even with that understanding, I can still be hurt.

When we feel aligned with our truths we know we are in alignment with supporting motives and if others choose to twist them, reassign them, and/or criticized them, that speaks more of their character than yours.

This is an important reason for strengthening our inner light. It gives us the strength to walk through the fiery darts of emotional wars and stay aligned.

Together we can create a beautiful New Year! Let’s surround ourselves with mature adults and speak powerful uplifting words with each other.

You may be ready to experience this level of peace; IF yes, sign up to attend the Restored-Soul Retreat! YOU ARE WORTH IT!

Can you imagine how that would affect 2021 as a whole? Let’s do this!

Sending you love & light

Jody k