Art That Overcomes

We tend to face the most internal resistance when it comes to the very activities that are going to help us most in our healing.  This is a subconscious way that our brains try to self-sabotage our healing, because on some level it feels safer to stay stuck in the place we are now. The unknown is scary, and as a survival mechanism, our brains want to protect us and keep us planted in our familiar...

In some ways, I’m a very consistent person. I like to have a basic routine, I’m loyal to those who are close to me, and I think I’m pretty dependable. But in other ways, I struggle with consistency. Namely, when it comes to daily or weekly practices that help me take care of myself. Self-care. It’s a struggle. I’m guessing you can relate to this.  Most humans find it hard, at least in certain seas...

Yesterday was my birthday! I turned 43, and I couldn’t be happier with where my life is heading. No, everything isn’t perfect (far from it!) and I haven’t even achieved all that I wanted to this year. I’ve had many setbacks and surprises. But I’ve also experienced so much goodness, and I’m able to see how even the perceived setbacks are actually working for me in really big ways.  One of the massi...

When you’re in survival mode right after leaving an abusive relationship, your priorities are clear. Safety. Stability. And that’s about it.  But after a while, that isn’t enough to keep us going. It’s important to consistently stop and assess our priorities at each stage of life.  Today I’m going to give you a practical exercise to help you stop and reflect on what your life is telling you that i...

There’s a question that I hear a lot in the personal development space: “Did it happen to you or did it happen for you?” It’s a question to ask yourself, intended to help you get out of a victim mindset and see the bigger picture. It’s intended to help us reframe the way we view our abuse, trauma, or other life struggles, and to help us look for the positives we can pull out of the experience. I e...

Have you ever created a “vision board”? Maybe it was something you did towards the end of the calendar year, in preparation for your New Year's resolution… sort of a visual representation of what you hoped to accomplish in the new year. Well, I have a love/hate relationship with new year's resolutions, and also with the concept of vision boards… no matter what time of year you create them....

Hey, Overcomer! Do you know what your top values are? For me, honesty and authenticity are definitely in my top five. I consider these two concepts to be one in the same. In my opinion, striving to live as authentically as possible, as true to yourself as possible, is a matter of honesty. Much of this comes naturally to me. I find it very hard to lie. I’m not saying I’ve never told a lie before, b...

This week marks one full year since the Art That Overcomes podcast first aired! I can’t quite believe that every single week for the past year, I have posted an episode (and some weeks, even two episodes). I’ve just been putting one foot in front of the other, one committed action and then another committed action, until one day I woke up and realized I’d created 60 episodes.  I’m curious… are the...

Have you checked in with yourself today? Have you taken just a few moments to consider how you’re feeling, both physically and emotionally? Have you assessed if this is how you want to feel or not? And if you don’t like this state, how will you change it? I’ve been processing a whole lot of emotions lately, and several weeks ago I found myself in a place of overwhelm. I stopped and caught myself i...

I’m an all or nothing kind of person. I don’t like in-betweens, transitions, or lack of control. I want to skip right past the messy middle and get to the good part.  Sound familiar? So many of us loath the feeling that we are not finished healing. We get frustrated with the fact that we can understand where we want to be (or where we feel we need to be, or should be), but we just can’t get there...

As we talked about last week, sometimes as survivors of narcissistic abuse, we can be too hard on ourselves. We’ve been taught by our abusers to question our decisions, actions, and motives, while turning a blind eye to their problematic behaviors.  Two of the heaviest emotions that can linger on after leaving an abusive relationship are regret and guilt. We see the effects of the abuse in our liv...

Are you being too hard on yourself? Are you beating yourself up over things that are in the past, or that weren’t even yours to take responsibility for in the first place? After surviving narcissistic abuse, it can be difficult to focus on the positive. We can’t quite envision a better future. Or, we’re not willing to do the work to set those goals.  Our brains like patterns, and it’s easier to le...

I’ve got a bit of a controversial opinion on the topic of forgiveness, particularly when it comes to forgiving those who have abused us. I think forgiveness is important, but so often it’s a concept that’s shoved down our throats. We’re told we have to forgive. And if we don’t? We’re shamed (or we shame ourselves). I also think that we often confuse the word “forgiveness” with “reconciliation”. Th...

Soon after my abusive relationship ended, I began attending a support group that became my lifeline for quite a while. It was a co-ed group, and not centered on the topic of domestic violence, but I was relieved to find that among the attendees there were many women just like me. While we may have been different ages, come from different cultural traditions and socioeconomic backgrounds, and we ha...

Trust. It’s one of the topics I hear about most from my clients. They can’t trust men. They can’t trust certain friends and family members anymore. They recognize they’ve been a little too quick to trust in the past… so now, they don’t even trust themselves.  Today’s recording is all about the juggling act of learning to trust ourselves and others, because in my personal experience, and in what I’...

Do you sometimes feel selfish, arrogant, or even question whether you’re the narcissist? Often I notice that Overcomers of narcissistic abuse are overly sensitive to the possibility that these traits are present within themselves, or in others.  Here’s an important reminder: There’s a huge difference between feeling confident, taking time to care for yourself for a change instead of overextending...

If you’ve been listening to me for any length of time, then you’ve heard me say that healing from narcissistic abuse is an endless journey. It can be our natural tendency to want to heal as quickly as possible. We want to hurry up and skip to the good part. But unlike a book where you can skip to the last chapter, or a movie where you can fast forward to the good part, our lives take time to unfol...

Hey there, Overcomer! This summer I’m sharing some previously recorded thoughts on a variety of topics related to healing from narcissistic abuse. I hope this content will resonate with you, and that with each episode you’ll really take the time to consider one action step you can take, based on the insight you’ve received.  If you need some help with that, I’d love to talk with you. Go to the lin...

When exploring unwanted emotions like fear, anger, and sadness, I find that my clients’ immediate reaction is that they actually don’t want to explore it at all. Sure, they might come to me voicing their concerns about these emotions…but therein lies the problem. They’re concerned about it, in the sense that they want it gone. They want to jump right to a place where that emotion no longer exists...

Hey, Overcomer. I’m in a bit of a transition right now. I’m sure you know what that’s like. Our lives are full of transitions, some that feel good and some that feel bad. But even in the good ones, there can be lots of grief and other unwanted emotions that come up. Those feelings get all mixed together with the joy, relief, or optimism that we are experiencing as a part of the goodness. Right now...

Hey Overcomer, Today I’m sharing the audio from a live video I did in my Facebook group Women Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse, a couple of years ago. I had pushed record, in real time one Saturday morning, as I was having an aha moment about my tendency to procrastinate, stay stuck in anxiety, and subconsciously believe that I was not in control of my life. I hope this real life example is something...

These days, we’re all photographers, aren’t we? Armed with a smartphone, tablet, or basic little digital camera, we all have the ability to take some pretty awesome photos. Heck, even back when I had a flip phone, I found myself using the camera feature a lot. And even before that, disposable cameras were so easy to come by, I always had one on hand, to capture both the beautiful and silly moments...

Whenever I find myself in the midst of an overwhelming trauma reaction…you know…the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn type of response… when I can tell that something deep within me has REALLY been triggered, it always comes back to my inner child. In those situations, there’s some aspect of the trigger that has brought my wounded childhood part to the forefront. I can usually tell this is what’s goi...

Hey Overcomer, today I want to share a really simple drawing exercise with you. It’s a way to discover and explore your individual color preferences, and a way for YOU to figure out what that means about your emotions, your personality, where you are on your healing journey, and where you need to go next. I realize the title of this episode might be a little misleading… making it sound like *I* am...

I’ve found that some women like to move right on to dating new people after leaving an abusive relationship, some swear off relationships altogether (with no interest of dating at all), and others fall somewhere in between (choosing to wait a length of time before dating, but with the eventual goal of finding a healthy relationship down the road).  After leaving my abusive relationship, I definite...