Finding Softness in Your Heart After Emotional Abuse @ Psychopath Free

"When recovering from emotional abuse, it's important to retain our softness. Sometimes boundaries and self-respect and awareness can lead to some strong feelings of frustration. This is totally normal, and an essential part of the healing process. Once we understand what happened, we should be angry. We should be furious.

Manipulative, hypocritical, remorseless, and narcissistic people are much more likely to bring about long-term feelings of resentment and bitterness in us. It's the nature of their personalities. They leave no opportunity for reconciliation, forgiveness, or softness. They laugh in our faces when we attempt it. They use it against us.

This is exactly why it's so important that we find our softness in spite of their efforts to harden our hearts. Softness should only happen after we've built boundaries, self-respect, and we know with 100% certainty that we'll never make contact again (this can take years). Only then is softness safe and sensible.

Softness is purely an internal process, not one involving the abuser in any capacity. It means listening to our heart, talking with it, and doing whatever we need to do to keep it open (or to reopen it). For some, this is forgiveness or empathy. For others, it is indifference or pity. For others, it is an act of letting go. For others, meditation or prayer. It will be different for all of us. The most important thing is that we never keep our hearts closed, especially when someone wants us to.

To me, this has been the most paradoxical part of the healing process. It's why I find myself practicing forgiveness even though it makes my mind scream in protest. The mind has already done its part in protecting me, so now I am trying to soften and let my heart back in the picture.



I remember the ways they provoke us even when we try to be kind & understanding, and how that provoking finally reached a breaking point and convinced me to stop being soft. While I rarely consciously think about the relationship anymore, there are subconscious effects on the body & mind (blood pressure, insomnia, impatience, irritability, anxiety, and tight feelings around the heart). Almost like manifestations of a sloppily patched software bug, instead of addressing the root cause.

I think this is because deep down, I am still resentful of that provoking. I am resentful that I reached that breaking point. I am resentful that I'm resentful to begin with. In the software coding world, we call this an infinite loop bug. I feel that it never "should have" happened. These lingering resentments clog up my heart and make it difficult to be soft. But day by day, when I practice some of the exercises above, it feels better. I feel that my heart is slowly being given an opportunity to speak again.

In the end, I don't think it will be about a heart in charge or a mind in charge, but rather a reuniting of two old friends. A recognition of the gifts that both can offer. "

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