January

WORKING TOGETHER TO CREATE AN ABUSE-FREE FUTURE
1/20/06
Publisher: Beverly Engel
www.beverlyengel.com

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year! Thanks to all of you who have emailed to let me know that you appreciate this newsletter. I hope your year has started out on a positive note. This time of year is usually rather calm for me but this year seems to have started off with a bang. I have a lot to share with you in the News from Beverly segment about upcoming events, articles and other opportunities that have come my way to get the word out.

In the News from Beverly segment I will include announcements of upcoming events, workshops or conferences relevant to the treatment or prevention of abuse. Feel free to send me announcements you feel readers will find of interest. I cannot guarantee I can include them all but I will do my best to include what I feel is relevant. I will also announce my own upcoming workshops and books. I ask that you order books directly from Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com as I do not sell individual books directly to readers. If you would like to attend a workshop, feel free to email me directly at beverly@beverlyengel.com .

Please forward this ezine to anyone you know who is interested in preventing or healing childhood emotional, physical or sexual abuse or emotional, physical or sexual abuse in adult relationships. If you are receiving this issue as a forward, and would like your own no-cost subscription please follow the instructions at the end of this newsletter.

PRIVACY POLICY: I will never rent, sell or trade your name to anyone for any reason. Thank you for trusting me with your personal information.

BEING KIND AND PATIENT WITH YOURSELF
By Beverly Engel

“We are all pilgrims on the same journey…but some pilgrims have better road maps.”
     —Nelson De Mille, American Writer

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out the window by man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.”
    —Mark Twain

If you are like many of us, a New Year means a new start on your commitment to take better care of yourself and become more healthy—whether this means becoming more fit, losing weight, stopping smoking, or cutting back on your drinking or sugar consumption. But as most of us have discovered, it can be especially difficult to keep that commitment if you were abused or neglected as a child. The motto, “Just do it” is probably not going to do it for you. In fact, sentiments like, “Just do it” and the more recent, “Hold on” (from the now infamous memoir-novel by James Frey) can actually be more detrimental to us than helpful. We don’t need to be made to feel that we are lazy if we aren’t out there hitting the pavement (or the treadmill) everyday and neither do we need to have things oversimplified for us. The truth is, for survivors of abuse and neglect, it is not a simple thing to learn to take care of ourselves. It can be one of the hardest things we ever learn how to do. And because most survivors of abuse and neglect already have a harsh, critical voice installed in our heads—we don’t need any admonishments when we start to lose our motivation.

What we do need is support and encouragement—from ourselves and from others. We need to create a nurturing voice inside our heads that tells us we deserve to be healthy and happy. We need that nurturing, positive voice to tell us we are doing the best we can—even if it doesn’t match up to our expectations or the expectations of others. We need to create a nurturing, loving voice to counter all the negative messages we received as a child—messages spoken and unspoken—messages such as “You’re unlovable.” “You’re bad,” “You’re a disappointment,” “You don’t deserve to be happy because I’m not.”

We need to set reasonable expectations. If you haven’t exercised since before the holidays it is not reasonable to expect that you are going to be able to get back on that treadmill and go as long as you did before the holidays. It is reasonable to expect that you may have to start slowly and allow your stamina to build back up. It is not reasonable to expect that you are going to be able to lose five pounds a week. It is reasonable to expect that you might be able to lose one or two—in a good week. Setting unreasonable expectations not only sets you up for disappointment but can discourage you from continuing to try and can make you feel bad about yourself, which in turn will take away your motivation.

We also need to learn to focus on what we are proud of instead of on what we haven’t accomplished. Years ago we learned how powerful the practicing gratitude can be. Thinking about what you have to be proud of can be just as powerful. So at the end of the day, along with thinking about what you have to be grateful for, think about what you did during the day that you are proud of. Think of at least three things. Instead of chastising yourself for not going to the gym that day, be proud of yourself for resisting that dessert.

The sad truth is, as survivors of childhood neglect and abuse we did not learn to love ourselves or to be proud of ourselves. Instead we learned that we were not lovable and we learned to be self-critical. We did not learn how to take care of ourselves or that we deserved to focus on our own needs. Instead we learned to take care of others and that to focus on our own needs was selfish. It takes time to learn to love ourselves, be proud of ourselves, and to take care of ourselves. It takes time to learn to believe we deserve to be happy and healthy. And it takes time to overcome our tendency to sabotage ourselves every time we take a step forward in that direction.

Neuroscientists (Shore 1997) report that the lack of consistently warm, responsive care during childhood alters the brain’s biochemistry. Changing false self-beliefs requires rerouting neural pathways. Fortunately, the neuroscientists have also discovered that the brain’s plasticity allows new neural pathways to continue to develop in response to new situations and experiences.

So be patient with yourself concerning your resolve to become healthier in 2006. Remember that every time you provide yourself with positive experiences of taking care of yourself you are converting the negative beliefs you have about yourself to positive ones. Every time you talk to yourself in a nurturing voice you are helping to quiet your inner critic and to raise your self-esteem. The better you feel about yourself the more motivated you will be to become healthier.

“You have to choose the voice you are going to trust. You can’t listen to everyone.”
    —Alice HOffman, American writer

BEVERLY’S NEWS

• Starting February 1st you can log on to the popular www.talktotara.com  to access an in-depth audio interview of Beverly on the topic of “Breaking the Cycle of Abuse.”
• Support your local shelters and other organizations in their fight to end violence against women and girls and celebrate V-Day ’06 by attending Eve Ensler’s award-winning play, “The Vagina Monologues” presented in your area. If you are in Palm Coast Florida or in Flagler County, Beverly will be speaking following the two performances on March 3 and 4th as well as conducting a workshop on “Breaking the Cycle of Abuse.” All proceeds will go to The Family Life Center—a domestic violence shelter. Check out my web site or email me at www.beverlyengel.com  for more information and updates.
• Check out the March issue of Psychology Today Magazine for an article on Passive-Aggressiveness. Beverly was interviewed for the article and will be quoted.
• Beverly will be teaching a course on “Breaking the Cycle of Abuse” at the University of Montana in Dillion, Montana the weekend of April 21-23. If you’re in the area, please feel free to attend. (Again, check out my web site for more info).

Look for BREAKING THE CYCLE OF ABUSE OUT IN PAPERBACK

“A beacon of hope for women and men who fear that they will pass the abuse they have suffered on to their children, partners, or employees. Humane and compassionate but also clear and down to earth, this is a wonderful contribution to the literature of healing.”

LUNDY BANCROFT, author of Why Does He Do That? and When Dad Hurts Mom

“In this remarkably powerful, wise and compassionate book, Beverly Engel leads readers step by step through a program that will help survivors of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse in childhood to heal from their wounds so they don’t need to re-enact their abusive pasts. She offers expert advice and strategies to help parents and would-be parents avoid doing to their children what was done to them and helps both abusers and victims in emotionally and physically abusive relationships make vitally important changes in their relationships.”

SUSAN FORWARD, author of Toxic Parents and Emotional Blackmail

I hope you enjoyed this issue of Working Together to Create an Abuse-Free Future.

  —Beverly Engel

To find out more about Beverly Engel, go to http://www.beverlyengel.com

Working Together, copyright, Beverly Engel. All rights reserved.
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