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]