What Treasures Did I Uncover From Early Childhood Disappointment?
Posted on June 10, 2021 Leave a Comment
I loved playing in the streets as a child. We didn’t have to worry about a lot of traffic entering and exiting our streets, for at the end of our street was a large field extending for miles and an alley that ran alongside it.
Sometime after the secret, several kids including myself, were outside playing in the streets. Somehow S, one of the two male family members who misused my body, made it over in front of me. All of a sudden, he turned around and wasn’t smiling anymore. He said “it wasn’t that bad.” For a minute, I stood there in disbelief. First of all, he denied his involvement in my sexual abuse experience since day one. Second of all, he downplayed what he already denied. But, in that moment, I knew his denial had nothing to do with me. I did the right thing in telling the truth.
I didn’t know what integrity meant at the time, but I knew I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on either end (not telling the truth and causing someone to think something so big was so small of an issue). No child should ever experience sexual abuse or ever feel that being forced and manipulated to do something is no big deal.
How did I turn S’s denial and minimization of my experience with childhood sexual abuse?
- I faced what I didn’t like. I was more grateful about J showing me who I didn’t want to be. Then, I knew who I wanted to be.
- I practiced telling the truth as much as possible from something simple as the color of grass to my emotions and every day situations.
- I remembered how it felt to have someone minimize my emotions, feelings, and body (mental construct). No one should ever feel like an outcast for telling the truth. I tried my best to include others (classmates, friends, new kids on the block, to coworkers)in whatever I was doing.
My childhood sexual abuse experienced uncovered several treasures, including:
1. The “what I say to you. I say to me” principle. If I encourage you to do something, I should be doing it myself.
2. As a child, I prayed to see the innocence in people. I did not want my heart to harden because of what someone else did. Oh man! This one hit me again. It’s easy to judge people when you feel like they have disappointed you.
As I focused on the treasures of the disappointment, I continued to chip away at the guilt, shame, and other emotions and feelings lingering from my experience with childhood sexual abuse.
We do not have to live with anger, blame, guilt, shame, resentment, and vengeance. Embrace the experience and know there are treasures waiting for you.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7, NIV)
Thank you for reading my post!
Make this lifetime great!
Timika
MSN BSN RN, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, ACE Fitness Instructor, CDCES
P.S. I would love for you to join my community of being bent on using our experiences as stepping stones to our divine purpose, healing from the inside out, and achieving and sustaining optimal health. Subscribe to @timikaschambers.com by clicking the link below.
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How Can You Regain Your Sense of Self-Worth After An Unwanted Experience?
Posted on June 8, 2021 Leave a Comment
All of us experience some form of disappointment in our lives. At five years old, two family members led me into the dark wilderness of childhood sexual abuse. After calling out for nature’s help, I chose to learn from life instead of being a continuous victim. Of course, over the years, anger, guilt, resentment, shame, and the like visited me, but I set my overall navigation on growing and learning. There was more to life than my childhood sexual abuse experience. So, how do we recover from broken expectations and prevent further damage to our self-worth?
Here are four steps to help you remember your worth.
- You acknowledge the experience for what it was. You don’t need to pretty up the story or tell a different story to achieve inner peace. When we deny our experiences, we increase the risk of denying our creativity, innate ability to heal, joy, peace, and like-minded virtues. Many emotions (anger, etc. )and feelings (incompetent, etc.) we experience come from denying what happened. Ask yourself. What am I refusing to accept about the experience?
- Part ways psychologically and physically, if you can. You do not need to continue in pain or repeat the past. Hurtful actions and words come from people who hurt. Often, their pain has nothing to do with you. For years, I lived near the two family members who misused my body. I saw them get on with their lives, and I knew I had to move forward with my life, too. Ask yourself. How can I move forward with my life?
- Learn from your experiences. Although your experiences can give you insight into your strengths and things to improve on, your experiences do not define you. You choose the life you want to live and set the standard for future experiences (relationships, employment, and other areas of your life) with what you now know about yourself. Self-empowerment comes from realizing you are greater than your experiences. Ask yourself. How can I use what I learned for future experiences?
- Create moments of stillness to reflect on your life and lessons learned. Throughout my day (i.e., cooking, cleaning, and other activities), I allow my mind to sift through experiences. Stillness is not about where you are but achieving inner peace despite where you are. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for quiet moments, but sometimes I can’t wait until the kids go to bed or go outside on the deck to achieve calmness. Ask yourself. How can I achieve calmness regardless of my environment or passing storms?
- Forgive the teachers in your life. Every experience has something to teach us about ourselves””unfortunately, unhealed wounds and pain blind people to the Truth. Forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). Ask yourself. Who am I permitting to interrupt my inner joy, peace, and other virtues?
We can turn broken expectations into opportunities by not taking our experiences personally, separating our worth from experiences, setting our life navigation on learning, and creating time to reflect on what we learned.
Make this lifetime great!
Timika
MSN BSN RN, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, ACE Fitness Instructor, CDCES
P.S. I would love for you to join my community of being bent on using our experiences as stepping stones to our divine purpose, healing from the inside out, and achieving and sustaining optimal health. Subscribe to @timikaschambers.com for my quarterly newsletters. Let’s break the generational cycle of pain by creating a generational cycle of Love.
