Perth

The following are associated with emotional abuse:

- Withholding love, affection and attention

- Ignoring, or refusing to communicate with, the person

- Threatening the individual

- Abandoning, or threatening abandonment

- Fits of anger and rage

- Engaging in chronic deceit

- Criticizing, belittling, ridiculing or demeaning the individual

- Negatively labelling the person

- Controlling their life and ordering them around

- Minimizing their opinions, and ignoring the person’s wishes, needs and preferences

- Gaslighting, and denying the individual’s reality

1. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

2. What others think of you is none of your business.

3. Time heals almost everything; give it time.

4. Don`t compare your life to others`, and don`t judge them. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

5. Stop thinking too much; it`s alright not to know the answers. They will come to you when you least expect it.

6. No-one is in charge of your happiness, except you.

7. Smile. You don`t own all the problems in the world.

Experiences can leave us with some painful memories. They tie us to the past and prevent us moving on. And the only way to freedom is to work on letting go – so these memories don’t haunt us or keep us trapped in pain. Below are some guidelines to help you work on this.

1. Before you can let go, you must face whatever happened and accept that it is part of your past experiences. Suppression doesn’t work as a long-term solution. It can only be a band aid that brings temporary relief. Talk to someone you trust, or write about it in your journal. You need to share what happened, in order to move on.

2. Identify the lessons you have learned from what has happened. There’s always a lesson – so look for what you’ve learned. It doesn’t make it better – but it does lessen its power.

3. Write the lesson down on a piece of paper and repeat it to yourself when you’re hit by old, painful memories. For example, if you’ve been scarred by abuse, then you might write something like: “My experience of abuse does not determine who I am. I’m a stronger person now, and that is not my destiny. I’m choosing my own future, and the person I will be.”

4. Repeat this mantra often so it takes root in your mind. Allow it to be stronger than the bad experience. Say it often, till you mean it, then you’ll start to feel you’re freer. Persevere and keep on fighting when those old memories return.

5. Seek to be a person who’s a peace with themselves. When peace is your focus, old thoughts and memories have much less power over how you think and feel. However, seeking after peace must be a conscious, constant choice.

6. When the past tries to intrude, focus firmly on the present. Ground yourself in what’s happening around you in the room, and try to breathe deeply - and deliberately relax. You are here in this moment; you’re not living in the past.

Even if you’ve hurt other people in the past, or have been the kind of person that you really don’t respect, you can always make the decision to change. The tips below might be helpful for this.

1. Look for the good in the people that you meet, and try to empathise, and understand others’ viewpoints.

2. Remind yourself of this: “That it’s not all about you” … and the feelings and the wishes of others matter too.

3. Be polite; try saying “thank you”; and don’t take people for granted. What they did took thought and effort, and it’s nice to be acknowledged.

4. Think before you speak. This will save a lot of grief. For once those words are spoken, they cannot be taken back. They may never be forgotten, and can haunt you later on.

5. Check your tone of voice and the words you choose to use. These can cause misunderstandings, or create a bad impression.

6. Don’t gossip about others; look for things to praise instead.

7. Don’t take the bait and be pulled into arguments. Just let the comment go. You don’t need to rise to that.