Wilma Allan
Domestic Violence – who do you change – the abuser or the abused?
If you want something, anything, to change – the change must first come from inside yourself
I was traveling up to my son’s end of term carol service last Wednesday and became engrossed in Jeremy Vine’s phone-in show on Radio 2. I’ve just listened in again on the BBC iPlayer – and I am still saddened and frustrated by what I heard.
The topic up for discussion was the proposed change in the law on domestic violence in the UK – taking into account coercive control, which is the verbal and emotional abuse suffered by many women, as well as physical abuse.
Although this is not specifically the area I work in, why it became relevant to me as I listened and actually what made me sad and cross, was how these people were unaware of the possibility to completely heal AND move on after their years of very real despair. Some were still obviously victims and some thought they weren’t but, because they were still snared by negative emotions, then they were too. It’s almost as if society wants to have groups of people to feel sympathy for because it makes us feel good, and being sympathetic towards them is more for society than for the good we do them. Society would somehow be missing out if everyone was to suddenly jump up and take powerful control of their lives – who would it put its arms around then?
I’d love it if I had worked to enlighten and
3 top tips to show you how you can choose when your life begins again – Even when you feel as if it has ended
What I’ve noticed through my own experience and observing the dynamics of others’ break-ups and how they play out is this. The separations that are most painful, drawn out and damaging are those where one person is being significantly more demanding, more controlling and, quite often, more childish. As women we naturally like to please, nurture and make things right and so it is often we who find ourselves being the one dangled around like a puppet on a string. (That’s quite a generalisation I realise, and I know, guys, that you can also end up being played and finding yourselves dis-empowered too.)
One of my strongest beliefs is that we all have choice and in fact, the reason that you may have found yourself being thrown around during the negotiation period was because you believed you had no choice.
When you take the philosophy and belief of having ‘no choice’ into your life beyond your break-up you will remain dis-empowered and small. It is going to have a massive impact on how successfully you build your life now, what you believe you can achieve and whether you actually do achieve half of the things you would ‘like’ to. Now is the best chance you are ever going to get to re-design your life. You do have choice and you can choose to believe that now.
Here are 3 ways that you can start immediately to build what can become a fabulous future for you and your children now that
How to create powerful behaviour and boundaries by making the distinction between acceptance and submission
Please don’t confuse acceptance with submission. Acceptance liberates and empowers in a subtle way. Submission dis-empowers and drains.
I want to make the distinction very clear for you because when you get this you will find yourself being able to live a life that is freer and more powerful because of the boundaries you set for yourself and others, and you will find that you can enforce these in a way that is quietly and authentically non-negotiable. This will begin to build a foundation for you of growing stronger day by day, which will increase your self-respect and the way others perceive you to.
Acceptance is the opposite side of the coin to judgment. Learning to become accepting of the things over which you no longer have any control or influence is powerful and liberating – and you will need to make a judgment about the things that you choose to accept, and those that are not acceptable. Let me give you an example here from my own experience of the difference between being accepting and being submissive.
My ex, and I’m going to call him Bert although this is not his real name, was a serial drink driver and about a year after we had split up he began taking the children to the pub in the afternoons at the weekend when they visited – and he would drive them back home over the limit. There was a big issue around his drinking for me and I was still
Taking Responsibility
What’s the quickest way to get into action after your break-up?
If you’ve been sloshing around in confusion and riding the big dipper of indecision since your break-up, not getting the results you want, going round and round in circles, then the quickest way to get back into action is to take responsibility for your results – all of them – good and bad. Ones that make you proud and ones that make you feel ashamed.
When I say taking responsibility for your results, I don’t mean that you should be digging out your hair shirt and flaying yourself with birch – something that we women are metaphorically very good at. I mean it is time to own everything that happens and has happened in your life.
Responsibility for results is something I teach all my clients – it’s liberating and incredibly powerful. It’s the absolute foundation to building an exciting, powerful and a totally ‘owned’ life. Can you put your hand on your heart and say that you totally own and take responsibility for what happens and has happened in your life – with no emotional triggers?
When you can do that with total comfort, without blame for either yourself or anyone else, as I now can and I can teach you how to as well, then you can say that you have set yourself free by understanding and taking responsibility for what shows up in your life.
If you are ready and you want to experience and make
