Explore the 3 hidden barriers to true personal liberation (and healing from narcissistic abuse). This is how to forgive yourself and move forward.

Last year, I found myself visited by a persistent feeling of shame about how I’ve struggled and “fallen behind” during the last few years as a result of narcissistic abuse — a term I didn’t even know five years ago and yet has finally brought peace and understanding to what I’ve experienced all my life without realizing it. Along with that peace and understanding also came a lot of turmoil and painful endings. I mean… really painful. I’ve been slowly opening up about what happened to me recently, and growing more comfortable with talking about it. I have no desire to “out” anyone in my personal life and that has kept me from speaking up about my experiences, but I’ve come to recognize that speaking about it and sharing parts of my story are essential aspects of my healing and recovery. And so… let’s talk about it. 

Discovering My Hidden Puppet Strings

How Gaps in Our Self-Love Make Us Vulnerable to Abuse & Manipulation

I want to preface this by saying, even those with pretty firm foundations of self-love can become targets of abuse and manipulation. I don’t like nor do I agree with those who chastise victims by saying “How could you have allowed that to happen to you? Don’t you love yourself?” Abusers, particularly narcissistic abusers, often start with small, almost imperceptible slights and watch for your reaction over time. They try and try again until they find your weak spots, before digging in deeper at a later date. The result is an orchestrated attack. You don’t realize you’ve been at war, until it’s too late. 

At the crux of their strategy and, quite frankly, every entity that aims to manipulate is a hope, a hunch, that you don’t love yourself fully. We see this easily in the beauty industry. If we don’t think we’ll be lovable with gray hair, we can be easily manipulated to purchase products and serums to help us hold fast to our colored strands. We see in it in the media. If we believe we’re not capable of high achievement, then we can be convinced our underachievement is caused by “DEI hires” and “illegal aliens” taking “our” jobs (regardless of the fact that these aren’t even jobs meant ourselves). Where self-love may guide us to acceptance of our aging beauty or self-belief in our ability to improve and find our place in the world, manipulative agents see these weak spots in our self-love armor and use them to pierce into our psyche.

Publicly Toying with Our Strings 

Bartering with Social Acceptance and Rejection 

Popular social tactics that narcissists use are triangulation and public smearing. 

Btw… (a quickie, way too short, introduction to narcissism):

Narcissistic abuse is a form of emotional abuse where someone with narcissistic traits or narcissistic personality disorder manipulates, exploits, and mistreats another person. Narcissists are motivated by a strong need to control and have lower levels of empathy — the ability to understand and share the feelings of others — which causes them to be more callous or “heartless” with their abuse. Narcissism exists on a spectrum, with some only possessing mild expressions of narcissistic traits to outright and overt malignancy and psychopathy. 

Narcissists aim to control you for their own personal gain. And these gains can be as big as wealth and accolades or seemingly measly like your personal admiration or pity. 

One of the easiest ways to gain this control is by leveraging how others perceive you against how you want to be perceived. Hence, the triangulating and public smearing. Both of these tactics wager that your self-love is predicated on how others see you, which means you won’t be able to withstand the public shaming and lies being told about you and will play into the narcissists hands with your reactions. 

In order to become free from this coercive control, we have to do something absolutely radical and deliciously liberating: love ourselves.

Gifted Replay: “Loving Yourself Free Pt. 1: Self-Forgiveness” 

I talk more about how experiencing these two abuse tactics and an ardent desire to heal from codependency led to my ultimate spiritual liberation and radical self-love in the following class replay, “Loving Yourself Free Pt. 1: Self-Forgiveness.”

The Loving Yourself Free mini-series is a series of three live conversations on how to approach some of the toughest aspects of self-love, including self-forgiveness, shame, guilt, and self-blame. This series is free to all members of the 30-Day Meditation Challenge to Access the Deeper Self (as well as all live calls and replays from the Winter Sessions so far!). 

I loved this conversation on self-forgiveness so much, I just had to open it up to the entire community: 

Your Deeper Self Has Already Forgiven You…

None of us love ourselves perfectly… but there is a part of us that does.

I don’t think it’s possible for the ego-mind to 100% love itself, all the time. Our minds are always looking for ways to improve upon ourselves and our situations and that comes with some judgment. The kind of self-love I’m advocating for isn’t a perfect mind, full of happy thoughts about ourselves, but a practice in aligning with our Deeper Self who loves us unconditionally.

As I shared in the class replay, love is an act of being deeply present with the beauty you’re beholding. Your Deeper Self is delighting in present you, every single ounce of present you. Not your potential or who you used to be, the present you. This can be hard to imagine… so don’t. Experience it for yourself: Start your Deeper Self Practice »

To your Deeper Self, there is nothing to forgive. You are living life and exploring, just as you knew you would before you came into physical form. You knew you would make mistakes. And you knew there would be a part of you, a larger part of you, that would remain whole, intact, and vibrantly alive, regardless of what your life experience brought. 

As we forgive ourselves, we release the burning embers of the past and allow our psyche, our entire being, to return to our natural state of presence and easeful pleasure. We allow ourselves to delight in the present moment without guilt or shame about what is or isn’t manifest. 

“Acceptance” doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling.

Your Deeper Self’s Love for You Gives You an Affinity to Everything That Will Expand the Love in Your Life (and Repels the Rest) 

In Parts 2 and 3, I’ll be sharing more on healing from shame, guilt, and self-blame. 

An active Deeper Self practice can help us to identify the gaps in our self-love and guide us around those who seek to benefit from our insecurities. 

I’ll make a post sharing key insights from both of the upcoming talks, but in order to join the sessions live or access the replays, you’ll need to register for the 30-Day Meditation Challenge. 

• Loving Yourself Free Pt. 2 – Healing Shame | Feb. 10 at 5:30 PM ET | Attend Live/Watch Replay »
• Loving Yourself Free Pt. 3 – Amending Guilt & Self-Blame | Feb. 19 at 5:30 PM ET | Attend Live/Watch Replay »

Guided Meditations to Support Self-Forgiveness and Expand Love:

• Access the Deeper Self – Guided Meditation – Buy Now
• Resonating with Your Love-Match – Guided Meditation – Buy Now
• Burning Ceremony Visualization to Let Go & Move On (Better than Cord Cutting) – Watch on YouTube
• Accessing the Deeper Self – Spring Webinar Series with Bonus Pre-Season Live Classes & Group Coaching – Explore the pre-season bonus classes to help ground, soothe anxiety, and find your center of potency.
  • Upcoming Sessions:
    • At Ease with Love – Live Guided Meditation | Feb. 11 at 5:30 PM ET | Attend Live/Watch Replay »
    • Group Coaching | Feb. 13 at 11 AM ET | Attend Live/Watch Replay »

The Nurture Sessions – Pay-What-Feels-Good Private Coaching

Sparked by the absolute dumpster fire that is the U.S. government right now, I’ve started a few initiatives in response to a deep calling to nurture more light on this planet. The first of which is A Daily Dose of Light — daily healing quotes and positive affirmations to nurture your inner light. And the second is the Nurture Sessions. These are “donation-based” private coaching sessions (in quotes because they’re technically not donations. You can’t add this to a tax form).

In other words, for the first time ever, I’m offering private coaching sessions which you can book at whatever price feels good to you, starting at just $10. 

These sessions are open to all. You don’t have to be located in the U.S. or experiencing extreme hardship to claim a spot. If you connect with my teachings and offerings and would like to work together, I would be honored to be your coach. 

I offer trauma-informed intimacy coaching, somatic healing, and spiritual guidance. I’m here to help you emotionally heal, recover your sensual essence, and access your Deeper Self – Book a Nurture Session Today (first come, first served)

What do you need to forgive yourself for? Comment and share your reflections on self-forgiveness ❤️