A history of a childhood abuse is not a life sentence. Here is hope, healing, and a chance to recover the self lost in childhood. Drawing on his extensive work with Adult Children, and on his own experience as a survivor of emotional neglect, therapist Steven Farmer demonstrates that through exercises and journal work, his program can help lead you through grieving your lost childhood, to become your own parent, and integrate the healing aspects of spiritual, physical, and emotional recovery into your adult life.
Just as words can hurt, words can heal. This practical book is filled with affirmations to help you heal the pain of the past, by replacing toxic beliefs with healthy ones. Organized by topics such as Changing Your Thinking, Forgiveness, Responsibility, and Spiritual Growth, you will be able to turn to HEALING WORDS for encouragement whenever you need it, through affirmations focused on where you are in your personal process. Each affirmation is followed by a text showing its application to your daily life. The compassionate words you will find in this book come from the experience of Steven Farmer, author of the bestselling ADULT CHILDREN OF ABUSIVE PARENTS, who has lived with and transformed the pain of his past. HEALING WORDS will help you open up to friendship, love, self-knowledge, and many other aspects of a full, rich life. And it will serve as a gentle reminder that on your journey through life you are not alone.
The messages that we give to ourselves are the most important messages we hear. The internal briefings and conversations we hold determine our attitudes, our behavior and the course of our lives. If, as children, we were criticized and shamed, our internal dialogue will be self-deprecating. If we are used to large doses of self-imposed sarcasm and negative reviews of our daily performance, we gradually mutilate our self-esteem, our creativity and our spirit.
Just as words can hurt, words can also heal. The author of Adult Children of Abusive Parents offers adults who suffered trauma as children a book of affirmations to cleanse, restore, and heal. Divided into sections such as anger, control, confidence, and identity, it allows readers to focus on their specific needs.
Now a New York Times bestseller! If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behavior. These wounds can be healed, and you can move forward in your life. In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents’ emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you’ll learn how to create positive, new relationships so you can build a better life. Discover the four types of difficult parents: The emotional parent instills feelings of instability and anxiety The driven parent stays busy trying to perfect everything and everyone The passive parent avoids dealing with anything upsetting The rejecting parent is withdrawn, dismissive, and derogatory
In this encouraging book, Sheri McGregor helps parents of estranged adult children break free from emotional pain and move forward in their lives. With the latest research, her own experience, and insight from more than 9,000 parents, McGregor covers the growing trend of estranged adults from loving families. Devastated parents can be happy again.
What was behind the door "I kept seeing the image of a barn door, behind which I suspected there was incredible painand staggering truth. By March 1992, I could no longer deny what was behind the door: I had survived satanic ritual abuse." You hold in your hands an unabashed and courageous account of a survivor's journey from trauma to transformation. Suffering from physical pain and increasing emotional anguish, Aisha was determined to reach the crux of both and heal her life. As she relentlessly delved into her own mind for answers, the pursuit of truth brought her face to face with: multifarious memories, multiple personalities and mystical experiences With candor, she has willingly revealed the sequence of events that resulted in a collapse of life as she had known it. Like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, she made a miraculous comeback. Join her and walk through this amazing, life-altering journey. Notice how she transmuted incredibly painful experiences and discovered that there is always hidden wisdom within them. Find your own courage! Be inspired to transform your own life!
EAS Syndrome: Healing Burnout in Adults Lacking Parental Affirmation By Trevor Walters With Jim Stanley, M.D. _____________________________________________ Why do so many pastors burnout and leave the ministries they''ve diligently shepherded? The phenomenon is epidemic, with record numbers leaving monthly. Writing in professional partnership with a psychiatrist, Trevor Walters shows that midlife burnout is not caused by stress, as we thought, but by an inner conflict strong and persistent enough to ignite burnout in professional men and women. From decades of counseling burned out clergy and other professionals, the author concludes that in most cases the operative inner conflict is affirmation deficiency. When parents fail in their task of affirming a son''s or daughter''s unique personhood, the child embarks on a life long quest of seeking after affirmation elsewhere. This is a pursuit they can maintain only so long before burning out around age 50. No book until now has explained External Affirmation Syndrome (EAS), its consequences, and therapy for healing. This will enrich readers and all therapeutic counselors, Christians especially. In this groundbreaking new book, Bishop Trevor Walters draws on his more than three decades as an Anglican priest and marriage and family counselor to show why high-functioning professionals break down in midlife. Contrary to the popular assumption, Walters explains that the primary cause of burnout isn''t stress. (Some very high-stress professions have low burnout rates.) Rather, burnout results from an internal conflict. Adults lacking affirmation from parents - particularly fathers - during the formative years will go about seeking it from those whom they serve - an inevitable path to burnout. In collaboration from psychiatrist Jim Stanley, M.D., Walters offers hope by demonstrating that recognizing this hidden source of burnout, far from being a dire diagnosis, is the first necessary step to seeking healing available through the Great Physician, Jesus Christ. Walters looks to the example of the Heavenly Father''s relationship with Jesus during his incarnate earthly ministry as a heavenly pattern for relationships. When earthly fathers fall short, real injury is done to their children. Identifying, acknowledging, understanding the nature, and the full extent, of this injury can set the course for genuine healing and forgiveness. The insights this milestone book offers to psychologists, psychiatrists, and religious counselors are very accessible to anyone seeking to understand their own struggles, and to employers and loved ones concerned about a fall-off in the performance or wellbeing of another. This is neither a man''s nor a woman''s book, nor is it a book for any particular age or group. Individual chapters identify and explain the following: · The usual cause of midlife burnout is not stress as we thought, but inner conflict. · Observable symptoms of burnout are catalogued. · The heavenly template: Jesus was affirmed at the Jordon before he had done anything to earn it. He was able to slough-off his temptations and challenges knowing that that his Father affirmed him. · The behaviors Jesus modeled are not beyond our reach today. · EAS people live in subjectivity (internalizing happenings according to their feelings and previous experiences) rather than objectively; hence their addiction to affirmation. · How childhood affects you; e.g., resentment begins at home, caused by lack of affirmation. · Unpacking co-dependencies of the growing-up years. A reprise of the therapy so far and an outline of the next steps to healing. · How misapprehending the Fifth Commandment (Honoring your father and your mother) gets in the way of healing. · Victims of abuse accept responsibility for what happened. Children attribute lack of affirmation to being unworthy of it, with harmful consequences in life. · Cataloging parental failures is a necessary step to assigning blame where it belongs and to true forgiveness. Excusing parental failures in the guise of forgiveness allows wounds to continue festering. · One must know the extent of the damage done before choosing to forgive. · Grieving the loss of what could have been when growing up, and grieving for one''s parents, who also missed out on God''s plan. · An imaginary return to one''s home of origin in order to offload toxic emotions generated there. · Coaching for the imaginary trip to the home of origin. · The preeminence of Christ and what he has in store for those who seek his healing touch. · Seeking out people of godly wisdom. St. Paul''s affirmations in the introductions to his letters. · Living into words of affirmation given by discerning people. · Building healthy peer-to-peer relationships to replace shallow "best friend" relationships. · Persons healed of EAS must parent themselves. Doing it well. · Advice about affirming children.
All of us need positive affirmation throughout our lives. As children, these powerful messages helped us to know that we were worthwhile, that it was all right to want food and to be touched, and that our very existence was a precious gift. The messages that we received from our parents helped us to form decisions that determined the course of our lives. If we were raised with consistent, nurturing parents, we conclude that life is meaningful and that people are to be trusted. If we were raised with parents who were addictively or compulsively ill, we determine that life is threatening and chaotic--that we are not deserving of joy. These are the crucial decisions that impact our lives long after we have forgotten them. Unfortunately, childhood judgments don't disappear. They remain as dynamic forces that contaminate our adulthood. When childhood needs are not taken care of because of abuse or abandonment, we spend our lives viewing the world through the distorted perception of a needy infant or an angry adolescent. The more we push these child parts away, the more control they have over us. This collection of daily meditations is dedicated to those adults who are ready to heal their childhood wounds. It is through this courageous effort that we will move from a life of pain into recovery.
