Breaking the Chain of Unhealthy Relationships

have you ever been

in an unhealthy

toxic relationship

or perhaps you’ve known someone who’s

been in one

it’s not uncommon to turn on the news to

hear of someone who’s been murdered

because of an abusive relationship

imagine being a 10 year old girl

and you’re suddenly awakened

by a loud banging at your front door

and you hear the devastating news

that your 19 year old sister was

murdered in front of her children by the

man she was trying to leave

i was that 10 year old girl

and my sister carmen became a statistic

that night

that day

my life was

changed and the seed was planted to

become a licensed psychotherapist

and later the creator of women redeemed

which is an intensive

group experience to help women heal

their relationships

sadly

it’s not just adult women who suffer in

silence

men are too

but they’re just too ashamed

to admit that they’re in an abusive

relationship

research shows that the quality of our

relationships personal or professional

can affect our immune system our

motivation and our coping skills

unhealthy relationships put us at a

higher risk for health conditions

such as cancer

heart disease

depression and addiction

sadly

those that are in toxic relationships

will find themselves

repeating the same harmful relationship

over and over

moving from one bad relationship to

another

because they don’t know how to break the

sabotaging pattern

harmful and dysfunctional relationships

don’t all include physical violence

they also include abuse of language

mental and emotional abuse

such as entitlement objectification

manipulation secrecy control lies

compulsive behaviors

and a lack of accountability

in order to understand healthy

relationships

it starts in our childhood

our childhood experiences

will have an impact on our adult

relationships

some of us have hidden family secrets

that nobody wants to talk about

my sister and i were raised by an

emotional neglectful alcoholic father

i saw firsthand how this dysfunctional

childhood

had an impact on my sister’s low

self-esteem and self-worth and why she

was drawn to an abusive partner

i knew i didn’t want this for myself

and that’s why i was moved to do the

work that i do

it is so rewarding to help adults

understand the value of healthy

relationships so that they can break the

cycle and pass on healthy loving

relationships to their children

everybody has the ability to change

themselves if you’re just willing to do

the work

by learning how to love better

we can all learn how to love better by

understanding the invisible forces

that shape us

when working with clients i focus on

boundaries

patterns and belief system

and this includes main

pillars of healing

mindset

inner work and the body work

first let’s start with mindset

i asked my clients to create a life map

this is a timeline of their entire life

divided into two categories their most

positive memories and their most

negative memories along with all of

their significant relationships

such as parents teachers and coaches

and this helps them to start separating

their life events from their emotions

so that they can clearly identify their

core childhood wounds along with their

sabotaging belief systems

carolyn leaf

a neuroscientist who i had the privilege

to interview on my show

she studied and researched toxic

thoughts

and she proved that unless we address

our belief systems we’ll stay stuck in

the same unhealthy patterns

such as moving from one abusive

relationship

to another

but we can break these patterns

if we learn to rewire our brain and

create new ways of living

so the next pillar of healing

is the inner work

this is about relationship trauma

not everyone will experience

an unhealthy relationship

so the reason behind this

is to understand how significant roles

of our childhood

and the people that played in those

roles

how they’ve affected and how they how

they affect how we function in our adult

relationships

such as an alcoholic father

children that are raised in not healthy

homes

will experience five main wounds

and they will bring those into their

adulthood

abandonment

abuse

betrayal

rejection and shame

children that have unresolved emotional

trauma will bring those sabotaging

belief systems

into their future relationships

childhood experiences and adult

experiences can alter our biology

our thought processes our behaviors and

our relationships

but they can also be altered in a

healthy way

the third pillar of healing is bodywork

because we know the body keeps the score

according to the research of

psychiatrist besser vanderkolt

our body can remember trauma and can

hold events of the past

trauma interferes with our ability to

concentrate

to form healthy relationships

his insights into our survival instincts

explains why some people

that experience trauma in their history

experience incomprehensible anxiety

numbing and intolerable rage

and trauma can interfere with us feeling

at home

in our own bodies

even if

someone has experienced

a lot of trauma in their history

we can harness the power of our body

to heal our mind

and the power of our mind to heal our

body

it is essential that this third pillar

is developed into the healing process

along with the inner work and the

bodywork

polyvagal exercises that engage the

polyvagal nerve are very helpful

this nerve is part of the automatic the

autonomic nervous system

that manages risk

and that creates patterns of connection

trauma interferes

with the building of the autonomic

circuitry of safe connections and

sidesteps the building of regulation

and resilience

so clients that have trauma history

it will interfere

with their ability to be able to

regulate because they experience intense

and extreme autonomic responses

so it becomes difficult to feel safe in

relationships

couple other examples

of bodywork include physical activities

such as cold therapy

yoga breath work

exercises

like

running swimming hiking where our mind

and our body are linked together in a

safe place can help widen the stress

window tolerance

meditation which is the act

of training our attention

can help us

regulate our autonomic nervous system

responses

because we know the body keeps the score

it can show up in the form

of cancer

heart disease migraine depression

and addiction

it’s never too late to heal childhood

wounds

if we’re just willing to do the work

we can learn how to love better by

understanding the damaging invisible

forces that shaped how we were loved

we can break

cycles of unhealthy relationships when

we focus on the mindset the inner work

and the body work it’s never too late

in this case we can teach an old dog new

tricks

if they’re just willing to do the work

fortunately i have witnessed numerous

success stories of men and women willing

to do the work

and determined to do the work of the

pillars so they can move from unhealthy

relationships to healthy relationships

and break the cycle

one such client

she married her first love

she thought she found her prince

charming and would live happily ever

after

sadly

he struggled with drug addiction

and he wasn’t willing to give it up

and she stayed and tolerated his

obsession with drugs for over 20 years

until she realized

she couldn’t help him

she couldn’t change him only he can do

that for himself

and he wasn’t willing to do so

well today she’s happily married to the

man of her dreams

and all that she dreamt of

another client

he found himself

dating the same woman over and over

again

he would happily enter a new

relationship

only to discover she was just as

verbally and emotionally abusive as the

woman he dated before

he just couldn’t understand why he

couldn’t find a woman who was loving and

kind

well today he is happily married

enjoying a successful career and living

the life that he dreamt of

because he worked on himself and his

relationship issues he successfully

worked through the three pillars of

mindset the inner work and bodywork

i think you all agree with me

that everyone deserves

to experience healthy relationships

and it starts with you and me

we can learn how to love better by

understanding the invisible forces that

shaped how we were loved

you may or may not have hidden family

secrets

but your childhood

plays a significant role in how you show

up in your relationships personally or

professionally

we can break unhealthy cycles

unhealthy relationships

by doing the work of mindset the inner

work and bodywork

it is never too late to live happily

ever after

[Music]

[Applause]