Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life by Jason Goodwin (great books for teens .txt) 📕

health, and the next step or steps you need totake.

_____ 1. I still carry the pain and grief ofmy past, but I’m not ready to release it.

_____ 2. I don’t like the pain and grief ofmy past, yet I’m afraid of crying or letting go.

_____ 3. I have learned that if you bottle upyour pain, you will never get past it.

_____ 4. There have been times when I felt somuch pain that I couldn’t hold on to it anymore and I cried.

_____ 5. I’m tired of this pain. I’m tired oftrying to shut it off with alcohol, drugs, and other addictions. Mypain just keeps getting worse.

_____ 6. I have read self-help books orlooked for information on how to release my pain.

_____ 7. I am beginning to challenge what Iwas told as a child about grieving, and whether or not it might beokay to allow myself to cry.

_____ 8. I allowed myself to cry once, and itfelt scary. It’s uncomfortable, but it was a relief to get thosefeelings off my chest.

_____ 9. I allow myself to grieve whenever Ineed to, and for as long as I need to. I realize that I can releasethe pain of my past. I am a courageous soul when I allow myself tocry and release my pain.

Exercise 13-2

Letting Go Exercise

The 12-step serenity prayer goes asfollows:

“God, please grant me the serenity to acceptthe things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can,and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Repeat this prayer in your mind whilethinking about the things you have difficulty letting go of. Make alist of the things in your life you cannot change. Then make a listof the things you can do something about. Are you doing what youcan while still allowing God’s power in your life?

Exercise13-3

The following exercise is reprinted from theinternet. The author is unknown:

To Let Go

To let go does not mean to stop caring, itmeans I can’t do it for someone else.

To let go is not to cut myself off, it’s therealization that I can’t control another person.

To let go is not to enable, but to allowlearning from natural consequences.

To let go is to admit powerlessness, whichmeans the outcome is not in my hands.

To let go is not to try to change or blameanother, it’s to make the most of myself.

To let go is not to care for, but to careabout.

To let go is not to fix, but to besupportive.

To let go is not to judge, but to allowanother to be a human being.

To let go is not to be in the middlearranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their owndestinies.

To let go is not to be protective, it’s topermit another to face reality.

To let go is not to criticize or regulateanyone, but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To let go is to fear less and love more.

Process Questions

What do I need to let go of?

How does it feel when I hold onto the pain ofmy past?

What are some of the things I can do to helpmyself let go? (Crying, journaling, talking to a counselor orfriend about my problems or issues, talking into a tape recorderabout those issues and playing it back to myself, exercising,repeating the serenity prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous, etc…)

How might my life change if I was able to letgo of the past?

Stepping Stones to Health

Letting Go

-Try to identify where you are in thestepping-stones to health, and the next step or steps you need totake.

_____ 1. I am a control freak, and I have ahard time letting go.

_____ 2. I feel angry a lot, and tend to getcaught up in minor problems or issues.

_____ 3. It’s hard for me to let go, and Iprefer being in a position of power or control.

_____ 4. I can let go sometimes if it’s anissue that doesn’t affect me very much.

_____ 5. There are some things in life thatjust aren’t worth worrying about, and I try to let go of thosethings.

_____ 6. I am starting to come to terms withthe fact that there are things in my life I cannot control, andit’s alright.

_____ 7. I am beginning to replace some of myfear with faith. I am starting to believe that things in my lifewill work out in the way they need to.

_____ 8. I am capable of letting go of thebig things in life after I have processed my feelings aboutthem.

_____ 9. I am working on “letting go andletting God.” I take responsibility for the things I can control,and I give everything else to God or my higher power.

Chapter 14 –The Inner Child

“Our inner child needs us, and we need ourinner child.”

-Jason Goodwin

A few years ago, I experienced a relationshipthat really brought out the abused inner child within me. The womanI was with reminded me of my abusers. She was cold and distant. Shetreated me like a child, and I began to act like one. I foundmyself feeling needy and afraid of abandonment.

How could this be, I thought? I was afully-grown adult. Why was this happening and why was I feeling somuch pain?

I used to have a hard time believing thatthere was a part of myself, childlike in nature, that still feltthe pain of the abuse. It sounded strange to me or weird, like somesort of therapeutic nonsense.

But it is a mistake to believe that we couldhave responded to abuse that occurred in our childhood with all thelogic and understanding of an adult. If we were children when wewere abused, the logic we used to understand the abuse waschildlike.

Children often respond to events in theirlives with emotion rather than logic. They believe that they are toblame for whatever happens to them, because they think they are thecenter of the universe. It is difficult for a child to imagine whysomeone would want to hurt or victimize him/her without goodreason. As a result, children often take