Tag: action

Victimhood vs. Vulnerability

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It is a very important distinction to make between an act that serves us versus an act that alienates us. One that I’d like to point out today is the difference between being vulnerable and being a victim.

If you’re feeling beaten down, as with the Ten of Swords, there is a clear cut choice to make here. You can sit with outward blame and project the betrayal on others, a lá victimhood, or you can choose to be vulnerable, take responsibility, and heal.

Well what does all of that mean?

Vulnerability takes Strength. No only does it takes courage to feel your emotions authentically, but to let someone in that you trust can be outright scary! But this is the exact reason why talk therapy, 12 step programs, and life coaching alike work; they all require a degree of vulnerability and sharing to release some of the inside pressure in order to move on. Being vulnerable means taking responsibility for your emotions and dealing with them in a constructive manner. Being vulnerable means loving yourself enough to let your feelings out before they bubble up to the surface.

On the flip-side, being a victim requires no bravery whatsoever. In fact, victimhood kind of embodies this melting figure into a bubbling pool of liquid for me. When you’re a “victim,” you’re accepting no personal responsibility for your feelings.

This is not to say that all victims have control over the reason for their grief or trauma. Not by a long shot. But EVERYONE has the power to heal. When something terrible happens to you, like an attack or a death or a fire, that is not your fault, and I am not insinuating that it is. However, your response to those occurrences are all under your control. You can grieve, pick yourself up from your boot straps, and move on through your life, or you can sit there and say woe is me and never get anything done.

And to be extremely frank, being around a victim is SO BORING. Sitting next to someone who can’t stop complaining about how awful their life is and how things keep happening TO them is such a yawn. It is a huge turnoff.

But I’ll let you in on a little secret…

You have complete control over your life. Facing a stream of setbacks with grace and vulnerability will only serve you in the long run. And projecting blame will only make your life seem terrible to you and everyone around you.

RuPaul said it best, “Life is hard if you do, and life is hard if you don’t.” Any which way you slice it, life is gunna throw things your way. But building character and creating a world in which you are the supreme ruler takes guts, moxie, and is all well worth it.

Get vulnerable, feel all your feelings, and stay witchy ( *)

Where Are You In Your Journey: Episode 10

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witchywisdoms.com

Episode 10 is live! Here you’ll meet Lydia Georgantzi, a sweet young actress from Greece who practices self defense. If you’d like to follow up with Lydia you can find her on Facebook or Instagram!

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Tune in below and on iTunes ( *)

Love Addiction vs Codependency

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While labels may seem obnoxious and confining, they can be helpful tools in figuring out where you are in your journey and how to correct what isn’t working. So lets go through and take my favorite topic and compare and contrast a love addict from a codependent.

First off, love addicts and codeps share a lot of innate similarities. Theses two types have problems with self esteem, self care, and self love. But that is a no brainer. While these two have similar stories as to how they developed those traits (abandonment issues, familial problems, etc.) they kind of fork off in different directions through how they handle their relationships.

A codependent has issues with control and boundaries. This is a person who wants to care for someone and then takes it to extreme levels, forgetting themselves in the process. They have a hard time seeing their reality and processing it, because from the inside there is no other way. They would stand in quicksand with the other person on their shoulders in order to make them better. A codependent person can find themselves in an unbalanced relationship with anyone: a friend, mother, father, child, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc. simply because this is how they operate in daily life. They are second to everyone.

At the very core of it, codependency is the byproduct of a need to control. And when control doesn’t work, resentment bubbles to the surface. Resentment for their own lack of boundaries and inability to control, directed at the person on the receiving end.

A love addict, on the other hand, treats love like a drug. And while these two behaviors can look very similar from the outside, the love addict tends to thrive on the actual feeling of love further than control.   While the codependent has a pretty consistent degree to which their codependency works within their daily lives, the love addict has surging ups and plummeting lows surrounding their drug of choice.

With a theme of longing and desire for attention, and the severe withdrawal associated with loss, love addicts have a chemical dependence on love. They, usually because of childhood neglect, place an extremely high standard for which they need to be loved, and when that attention isn’t paid or their needs are not met, they come back to that sensation of longing and pain. Where a codependent needs to control an outward situation, a love addict needs internal compensation. A love addict needs that high and feeling of euphoria coming from their partner because it takes away, even for a short time, that feeling of emptiness that resides inside.

Both love addicts and codependents serve an internal emptiness by looking for relationships that satisfy their core needs: either control or attention. Their symptoms look similar and their relationships tend to mimic each other, but the actual motives behind them take them in very different mental directions. So, as best to serve you, if you identify with one of these states over another, you can find the proper support group or book to help you. When you can pinpoint what is exactly going on in your heart and your head, you can help yourself to heal from the pain and loneliness that is keeping you confused. Get out and stay witchy ( *)

 

Making the Best Relationship You Can with the Worst Part of Yourself

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The Nine of Swords reversed is a card of sheer torment, anxiety and depression. It signifies utter sadness and despair. But, as with all cards of the tarot, there is a bright side: it is personal, which means it is manageable.

The title of this post is a quote from the book that I’m reading through now and am infatuated with, Women Who Run with the Wolves. I’m sure I’ve linked up to it in a past blog post. If you haven’t, buy it now.

It is such a powerful quote, because I truly believe that is the secret of self help. Knowing your faults, understanding your faults, and caring for them accordingly.

No one is perfect, nor will they ever be. But shaming yourself for your imperfections is more damaging than cleansing. It will spiral you down the well further to a point where you cannot see the light. And while there is always a way out, why delay the healing process?

So to make the best relationship with the worst part of oneself, where does one start?

Well, I think that you need to do a lot of self reflection in order to get to that worst part first. Mine is control and judgement. And those weren’t easy realizations to come to.

Understanding these faults comes with compassion. In doing some digging, I understand why these are present parts of my personality and knowing the backstory helps me to empathize with myself rather than throw shame in that direction. That is a great way to cultivate a relationship.

But then how do you care for them? Well each fault is unique to each person in accordance to their backstory. That is why the understanding portion is so crucial. But when you see these bad habits (or whatever you wish to call them) arise, you can sense them quickly, find the trigger, and do what you need to do to quell the urge to act on them. I repeat mantras and breathe, as most of you know. You can also give yourself space by removing yourself from a situation. Anything that will help you to care for that part of yourself that may be holding you back. Any team is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

Treat your “worst part” like your own child, but when they are having a tantrum. How are you best going to deal with this situation in order to come out on top? Spank them in public and cause a scene? Or remove yourself from a less-than-desirable situation and handle it after a few deep breaths? Remember to love all parts of yourself, and stay witchy ( *)

Triggers

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To kind of piggy-back on the 3-parter I just finished, I want to step in and discuss triggers. Throughout my exercise in clarity and empowering myself to make the right decision in my everyday dealings, I started to notice all of the triggers that got me to the fork in the road in the first place.

Triggers are anything that can send you into a spiral. You are the loaded gun, and the trigger creates the explosion. Everyone has them, and recognizing them will help you have more control over your actions and emotions.

Triggers are insanely important within the realm of addiction. No matter in what stage of my addiction, certain triggers would bring me to need to fill myself up with my substance of choice. Those triggers that seemed to be most effective were comments from people I may or may not have misconstrued, a let down (like a lost job), comparing myself to people on TV or magazines, or even something as simple as location. But even if you’ve never experienced an addiction per se, look at some of your habits and see what comes before your need to act them out.

Triggers are creatures of habit. They come from our brains natural conditioned responses to save us from what it thinks is harmful. They are learned. If some girl says that you look fat in that skirt, and you went to throw up your lunch after so you could feel better, your brain starts to think that, in order to feel good after feeling bad, you need to throw up your lunch. If you keep doing this with the same effect, you are training yourself against yourself. You are teaching your brain bad habits, but that doesn’t mean you can’t UNteach it.

The Ace of Swords represents your mental force. It represents using your intellect to analyze the situation. Everyone possesses the ability to do this, but you must exercise this muscle. This starts with recognizing your triggers, and then doing what you need to help retrain your brain. If, for you, that looks like avoiding a certain route to work to help quit smoking, repeating a mantra to help you shift focus from a rude comment, filling your life with hobbies so you don’t reach for that fourth drink, or calling your sponsor instead of reaching for (insert paraphernalia here) then do it! There’s no right or wrong answer with triggers. Every journey is tailor made. But in order to embark on it, you have to make the decision to do the work. I invite you to try the exercise I did below and see what you find. It could be the first day you see things clearly. Stay witchy, friends ( *)

Love and Vulnerability

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Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

– Rumi
Being vulnerable is terrifying. But it only becomes terrifying once you’ve been hurt or rejected. When you were a child, you were bold and unabashed. Shameless. Unafraid. But over time, we become more and more sensitive to peoples reactions, and when those reactions are geared towards us, they have an impact on our being. Especially if they are negative.
Through our interactions with people, we take on a lot of their emotions as sensitive animals. If someone says something to us that we perceive as offensive, we start looking as our past actions to think of why they would say such a thing. We dissect OURSELVES instead of thinking of what might happened in their head to yield such a response. We create these stories to support our pain and embarrassment and they become our truth.
Similarly, in relationships, if our partner doesn’t respond to our vulnerabilities they way we want them to, we shrink up and create walls. We think “Well that wasn’t the desired reaction, so I should stop doing what I did so I can control the situation.”
Instead of being proud of showing up in a vulnerable way and creating a dialogue, we shrink up out of trauma and create barriers that inhibit us from true intimacy.
Barriers are a natural response. They signify what we need for survival. They protect us. Unfortunately, though, in order to have a truly deep connection with someone, we have to take emotional risks. Which is so scary. But its necessary.
Relationships exist in a give and take environment. You will only gain what you can give out. You will only inspire vulnerability in someone if you can offer some to the table. And sometimes it won’t work in your favor, which is the huge risk. But when it does, it is highly rewarding. Stay risky and stay witchy ( *)