Judy was an abuse survivor who used her talent as a sculptress both to heal herself and to argue passionately for the protection of children in dangerous situations. Judy died 6 years ago and I still miss her. I worked with her for many years and she had a huge impact on my life.

During the conversation in Dallas I, mentioned that a videotape existed of Judy describing her artwork. The recording was made 13 years ago. Two people asked for copies of it.

I discovered only one copy in my files. The phone number for the business that owned the master tape did not work.

I found the original owner in the phone book. He had closed his business 7 years ago, and was about 3 days away from disposing of all the remaining masters.

The next day this kind man, George Kinzer, delivered the master tape to my door.

OK, that’s a minor miracle. The real miracle was the work that went into producing the recording. It starts with Judy’s survival and sanity. It continues with the impact her work had on the person who asked a TV news station to show the work. Then the TV station actually released the work to us! (A very rare occurrence.)

After the TV crew left, someone continued interviewing Judy and taping each statue and her description of it. All of the tape, some professional and some made with a home video camera, was given to George, who agreed to put it together for a nominal fee.

He worked on it for many extra unpaid hours, adding titles and enhancing and editing the home video. We distributed copies of the tape for educational purposes and then more or less forgot about it.

But there was a continuing problem. Judy’s voice was barely audible, and we did not have the technology to enhance it. We had to send written transcripts to make the tape usable.

The final miracle just happened. We were able to get the tape transferred to DVD so that we can easily make copies. When we received it, I reviewed it and with new technology Judy’s voice is audible.

I am willing to share copies of the DVD. However, BE WARNED! The 33-minute recording contains graphic images of extreme child abuse. It is emotionally challenging to watch — and I think, very important.

If you want a copy for educational purposes — your own education or, if you are a professional, to educate others — contact me directly. Laurie Weiss at Empowerment Systems .com [Close the spaces and change the at to @.] Or call 303-794-5379.

In the US, the cost will be $20 including shipping. Outside the US $25.

Another miracle to me is my complete recovery from my physical challenges of the summer. I am back in my exercise routine and I have even increased my strength in some areas. I feel wonderful.

Its fall in Colorado. We have been blessed with a tree full of Golden Delicious apples that I have been picking and giving away. By the end of the week we will be traveling again to spend time with our family.

I hope you are enjoying the miracles in your own life.

Warmly,

Laurie
[tags]Sexual Abuse,Psychotherapy,Inner Child,Personal Growth,Abuse[/tags]

Judy, who has since died, was committed to helping stop child abuse by letting people know what it feels like to be an abused child — and she was successful.

Most people who have the courage to look at her statues recoil in horror. Many of them report intense feelings of anger, guilt, and shame. They naturally feel angry at the abusers. Sometimes they feel guilty, as I did myself, for taking advantage, however minor, of a small child’s vulnerability. But why do they feel shame?

Although the TV segment was beautifully and sensitively done, alluding to, rather than actually showing the most horrible things, some viewers were still profoundly moved. When Judy first saw the show, she felt both fear and shame, feelings which didn’t diminished until her friends told her how moved they were by her suffering and her courage. But why did she feel shame?

Shame is what we feel when we believe there is something irretrievably wrong with our very being — and that someone else can see it. It is a feeling of wanting to hide, to vanish completely, to never show our faces again. It is an intensely painful emotion, and very common among trauma survivors and witnesses to traumatic events.

People who are traumatized by abuse or by other events, either as children or as adults, often believe that the trauma happened because of something wrong with them: that they caused it, even when they know logically that they were victims. Witnesses sometimes feel ashamed about their relief that it didn’t happen to them.

If you are a trauma survivor and feel ashamed to tell about your experience, gather enough courage to tell someone. Seek help for yourself — healing is possible! And never, never, never, never, hurt a child or knowingly allow one to be hurt!

Is this you? “I don’t need therapy, but I could use some advice about…”
[tags]Sexual Abuse, Personal Growth, Psychotherapy, Emotional Problems, Inner Child, Abuse[/tags]

People with a high EQ have an awareness of their own feelings and an ability to use that awareness to guide their decisions. They do not act solely on the basis of their emotions. They have the ability to both think and feel in any situation.

They make thoughtful decisions that include their emotional responses in the decision making process. They are responsive instead of reactive.

People with high EQ levels take responsibility for their own lives. They do not expect the instant and unqualified happiness and relief from ordinary pain promised by the popular songs or TV shows. They know that consuming heavily advertised things like alcohol, food, tobacco, clothes or cars is not the way to create a meaningful life.

They can sustain close and loving relationships with a variety of people, and can grieve appropriately when relationships end. Their sense of self worth comes from within themselves instead of from the approval of others.

The easiest way to develop emotional intelligence is to learn it from emotionally intelligent parents. Parents who are warmly responsive to children‘s feelings, who provide appropriate limits and model ethical behavior, raise children who have high EQs.

If you didn‘t grow up in such a family, you have many opportunities as an adult to raise your own EQ. Many books contain useful information about emotions and I try to fill this blog with tips that will help you out also.

Using the information, practicing over and over again, allows you to actually experience new ways of being in the world. Psychotherapists often help their clients become emotionally literate. Some classes are useful also.

In my work as a therapist, educator, and coach, I developed a Checklist, which describes an emotionally skilled person.

My book, An Action Plan For Your Inner Child: Parenting Each Other, contains a series of exercises to help you learn the skills on this checklist and raise your EQ. It is out of print, but a few copies of the book are still available directly from me.

You can get Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence, at Amazon.com.

[tags]Self Help, Self-Improvement, Emotional Problems, Inner Child, Personal Growth[/tags]

One part of yourself wants to do something, or believes that it should be done. At the same time another part of you is worried about the consequences of doing what you want to do or is more interested in doing something else with your time and energy.

A lot of energy can be expended in this tug-of-war, further draining your resources. The net result is paralysis. You put off any action until later.

Sometimes later means the last possible moment before reaping the consequences of waiting. That is why the Post Office stays open late on April 15th.

At other times, later means never, and a constant inner voice telling you how bad (selfish, dumb, lazy, etc.) you are for not doing what you know you should do. When this inner voice becomes too uncomfortable, you may finally start a project in a half-hearted way, and run out of steam before it is complete, and the procrastination gridlock begins again.

If you want to complete something, but feel stuck, try these steps. It‘s best to go through them with at least one trusted friend.

1. Each of you list several things you are procrastinating about.

2. Take turns telling each other “I don=t want to ….“ Complete the sentence with the procrastinated project. “I don‘t want to clean my closets.“

3. Respond to each “I don‘t want to…“ statement with “It‘s OK to feel that way.“ (This isn‘t permission to not do an important activity, it is permission to know how you feel, and honor those feelings.)

4. Think about why you do not want to do the activities and share the reason with your friend. This is a critical step.

Often you will discover that you are procrastinating about a task that is on someone else‘s priority list. Another frequent reason you may procrastinate is that you want to do something that is very complex and they don‘t know how to get started. You may feel discouraged because you wish for support and encouragement and think they should be able to be tough and do something alone.

By the time this step is complete, you may have developed a plan to get the help you need to do the job.

5. Take turns describing the consequences of not doing each activity.

6. Decide which tasks you will do, and which you will discard because they really don‘t fit for you now.

7. Make a realistic commitment to your friend about when you will complete each activity you decide to do.

8. Support each other with phone calls or meetings, or get outside support to keep your commitment.

A more complete description of this exercise appears in my book An Action Plan For Your Inner Child: Parenting Each Other.

Is this you? “I don’t need therapy, but I could use some advice about…”
[tags]

In order to answer this question, it helps to understand how it became a problem in the first place. Solving the problem at its source is the best way to change permanently..

Usually children decide that they are either not loved or not lovable when something happens that is stressful and difficult to understand. Children are quick to blame themselves for disasters in their lives. From a child‘s point of view, this conclusion makes good sense.

Once the decision is made, a child usually forgets making it and just accepts it as a fact of life that must be coped with.

You may be able to figure out when you made this decision by thinking about when you started believing that there was something wrong with you. This may have happened even before grade school. Once you find the decision, there are a lot of things you can do to change it.

A good therapist has many tools that can help you change early, inappropriate decisions you have made about yourself. So can any visualization that lets you truly feel nurturing toward the child you were when you made the life-limiting decision.

Years ago I wrote a program to help solve this problem. It appeared in the book, An Action Plan For Your Inner Child: Parenting Each Other. This book is for people who prefer to do this work in a class or self-help group. It contains a series of exercises to help people learn to love themselves.

The book/program includes many activities to help the user figure out the early decisions and for parenting/nurturing the child who made the limiting decision in the first place. About 10,000 books were sold in the early 90‘s, and users reported solid, permanent results that included loving and accepting themselves and improving relationships with their children.

Although some professionals have run these programs, they are completely user-friendly for self-help groups.

I still have a few copies of the book available. I am thinking about how to make the program available again. If you are interested in the program you may be able to get one of the remaining books.

If you have ideas for how to make the program available again, please respond here.
[tags]Personal Growth, Psychotherapy, Relationships, Self Help, Self-Improvement, Emotional Problems, Inner Child[/tags]

Probably, like most of us, you feel comfortable and secure in some situations, and insecure and a little scared in others. A lot probably depends upon how connected you feel to the people you are with, and your past experiences with them.

Believe it or not, how you feel also is related to how you were treated when you were a small child.

If there was always a loving grownup to return to after you met the challenges of your world, you felt like you had what psychologists call a secure base. If you had this sense of security then, you expect to be able to recreate it whenever you need it, and you do so. If you didn‘t, you have a harder job feeling comfortable in new situations.

We each need to feel like we have a secure base to return to in every situation. This base is created by our meaningful relationships with others. The more relationships you can rely upon, the more secure you feel. The more secure you feel, the easier it is to reach out and create new relationships.

If you are one of the lucky ones who feels an internal sense of security from childhood experiences, it‘s easier for you than it is for some others to build new relationships.

If you are not one of the lucky ones, and especially if your early experiences taught you that others are untrustworthy or unreliable, you may feel less secure now. Creating a relationship, with a therapist or a professional coach can definitely help you learn how to connect more easily with others.

An important reason for belonging to any organization is to create a web of relationships where you feel accepted and appreciated — to create a secure base for yourself within the organization and within a community. When you know others and are known by them, you automatically turn to them when you need someone to help you solve a problem or provide a product or service.

Another reason for belonging is to make contacts that will aid you in your career or business. When you focus on creating relationships, this support seems to happen by itself.

Networking, deliberately meeting new people, is another way to connect with others. If you are not an experienced networker, or if you feel insecure about being accepted, you may be uncertain about the best way to make this happen.

When you are at a gathering you may feel tempted to only talk to the people you already know. Or you may think that because you are there to network, you should talk to as many new people as possible. You really need to do some of each in order to keep expanding your own secure base.

Remember, the thing you need is meaningful relationships, and meaningful relationships need to be nourished with repeated contacts in order to grow. Go ahead and get connected!

Is this you? “I don’t need therapy, but I could use some advice about…”

[tags]Relationships, Self Help, Self-Improvement, Personal Growth, Inner Child[/tags]

Elaine had good reason to ask this question. She firmly believed in her inner guidance, engaged in many spiritual practices which helped her feel loving and peaceful, and was just emerging from her fourth disastrous relationship.

“Each time I meet a new man who excites me, my inner voice tells me this time I have really found the right one; this time it will be different! But it isn’t long before he starts the same old pattern of distancing himself from me. With four different men I have started out feeling close, and as soon as I really commit, each one has pulled away.”

Elaine sought help from her spiritual teacher, who suggested gently that sometimes people seek spiritual healing to avoid dealing with painful past experiences. When a problem keeps recurring — like repeatedly choosing inappropriate men — more spiritual work is usually not the answer. Repeating something that has not worked in the past is unlikely to solve the problem. The teacher suggested that Elaine find help to explore the source of her problem.

Working with a therapist, Elaine discovered that she was choosing men who reminded her of her father, who had never given her the affection she desired. Her inner voice was indeed a child, hopefully seeking affection from a man “just like Daddy”. No wonder they seemed right — they were perfect, and because they were so perfect, they acted just as distantly as daddy had.

When Elaine finally let herself feel how angry and sad she was about her childhood isolation, she realized that she had been avoiding this intensely painful memory. She realized she kept trying to get her father to love her, rather than exploring a relationship with a man who felt “different” and might really offer what she needed.

Elaine decided that her inner voice was not her Higher Self when it came to choosing men, and started avoiding the men she was excited about. She is slowly learning that she can get the affection she wants.

[tags]Personal Growth, Emotional Problems, Self Help, Self-Improvement, CoDependency, Inner Child, Relationships [/tags]

* Marty got all of his phone calls returned the first week of the new year — then settled back into his old pattern of waiting for the caller to try again.

* Jerri used her new filing system for almost a month. Her desk stayed clean, and she was thrilled. One day she was in a hurry and piled up a few things, and in a week her stack was as big as ever.

One reason why it is so hard to establish new habits is that you usually try to do it by yourself. You get into an argument between your inner child and your inner parent. Your inner child wants the ease and comfort of familiar old patterns, and no matter how sensible the changes may be, she resists doing what she should do.

Your inner parent then enters the argument, scolding you and telling you to get on with it, producing even more resistance from your inner child. You (your inner child) make excuses to yourself (your inner parent). “Just this one cookie, I‘m really busy, I just don‘t have time, nobody else will know, etc.“ Before you know it, the good new habit is history.

If you have children (or a spouse), you know that it often takes frequent reminders to help them learn to do something differently. In fact, if it‘s a change they aren‘t really interested in making, you may be accused of nagging. If it takes support and reminders for others to change, why do you think that you can do it yourself?

Whenever you stretch yourself into a new area, there is a tendency to regress and seek comfort and support. If you allow yourself the same comfort, support and encouragement you willingly offer others, you‘ll find it much easier to sustain your changes.

Make an agreement with a friend, spouse, or coworker for mutual support. Commit to be both tough and caring with each other. It‘s all too easy to fall into the trap of being nice and accepting excuses.

If that kind of agreement is not practical, hire a professional coach to give you the support you need. A professional coach is committed to helping you set and reach your own goals, and has a variety of tools available to help you manage your natural desire to regress.

You deserve the chance to create the life you want to live in 2007. Happy New Year!

[tags]Transactional Analysis,Inner Child,Self Help, Self-Improvement,Personal Growth[/tags]

“First I need to use my Adult,” she told herself. “I need to stay rational and keep thinking about what is actually happening and respond to that instead of getting caught in her game. When she starts whining at me about how miserable her life is, and how much she depends on me to take care of her, I need to remember that her Child is inviting me to use my Parent to think about what she needs instead of about what I need. That just makes my Child so furious because she never did want to take care of me when I needed her. I wonder if I will really be able to have a rational Adult to Adult conversation with her.”

One morning, lingering over coffee, Rosalie decided that the time had come to carry out her plan. “Mom, I need to tell you about some things I’ve been learning about myself in therapy. I’m sorry I haven’t been the kind of daughter you want. I have done lots of things I’m not proud of.”

To Rosalie’s amazement her mother listened attentively to her explanations about how the different parts of her personality functioned and how she was learning to act differently. “Maybe how I approach her really does make a difference,” she thought.

Later, Rosalie asked the most difficult question. Imploring her mother to be honest, she asked if she really was an unwanted baby. Instead of the usual “of course you were wanted,” her mother told the truth.

“I was angry at you, but it wasn’t your fault. Your father was running around with other women even before you were born, and I was completely tied down, and furious with him. Then he abandoned me, and I had no money and didn’t know how to take care of us. I did the best I could. I traded sex for a place to stay and for food. Finally I had to leave you with my sister — I didn’t want to, but I thought it would be better that way. I’m sorry, I didn’t know her son would hurt you.”

With further questioning, her mother told Rosalie about growing up in an alcoholic family, and leaving as a teenager, to avoid physical and verbal abuse. They cried together and continued the conversation. The truth hurt, but it was better than the lies of the past.

Rosalie imagined herself in her mother‘s position and felt compassion for the frightened young woman her mother had been.
When she left a few days later, Rosalie realized that she was no longer angry, and that she and her mother were finally starting to become friends.
[tags]Emotional Problems, Inner Child, Parents, Personal Growth,Psychotherapy, Relationships, Self Help, Self-Improvement,Transactional Analysis[/tags]

She then confessed, “Sometimes I feel so afraid I am going to turn back into the scared little girl I used to be. I’m afraid the positive changes I’ve made in my life will disappear and I’m afraid that dwelling on my fear will cause something bad to happen.”

Others in her support group admitted to similar fears. They too worried about whether their positive changes would remain in times of stress. They discussed the difference between the changes they had made that seemed stable and lasting and those that were short lived — like their New Year’s resolutions, forgotten by January 15.

Their New Year’s resolutions were generally based on a promise to do better because they thought they should (Adapted Child), while their true selves (Natural Child), really didn’t want to go to the trouble of doing something different. They noticed too, that changes that seemed stable had the agreement of all parts of themselves. Their Parent(s) thought it was the right thing to do, their Child ego state wanted the result, and their Adult(s) knew the change was possible and how to accomplish it.

Elizabeth examined her change by asking herself;

• Parent: Do I think this is right for me? (Yes, it keeps me out of painful, addictive relationships.)
• Child: Do I want the result (Yes, I like to get to do the things I want to do.)
• Adult: Do you know how to manage this change? (Yes, I can be alert to every invitation to consider someone else’s desires instead of my own — both are really important to me.)

She felt reassured that her change was probably stable.

Members of her support group also reminded Elizabeth that although children believe that thinking about bad things may cause something bad to happen, it isn’t really true. It is a myth that thoughts are dangerous; thoughts, like feelings, are neither “good” nor “bad”, they just are.

They discussed how thoughts and feelings don’t affect anything that goes on outside yourself unless you express or act on them in some way. Focusing on negative thoughts can bring negative results, but only by influencing your behavior. They all agreed that it is necessary to say something or perform some action, (or withhold some action) in order to have an impact on the world.

Elizabeth was greatly relieved that she had confessed her fears. Examining the problem helped to build the firm foundation she desired instead of precipitating the things she feared.

[tags]Personal Growth, Emotional Problems, Self Help, Self-Improvement, CoDependency, Inner Child, Relationships, Transactional Analysis[/tags]