Dive into a profound exploration of trauma and healing on the "These Fukken Feelings Podcast©," where speakers Micah Bravery, Heather Warren, and Crystal Davis navigate the complex pathways of overcoming childhood sexual abuse. With a focus on building self-trust and nurturing the inner child, the hosts introduce methods like internal dialogue and emotional expression to reconstruct safety and love within oneself. As Bravery shares his own experience of learning to communicate without bitterness with abusers in his family, the discussion sheds light on the significance of embracing one's history and finding peace through intellectual and emotional growth.
The conversation extends towards recognizing and disrupting toxic cycles in relationships that reflect familial dysfunction. With poignant personal anecdotes, Crystal Davis reflects on the unconscious tendency to seek out partners mirroring aspects of childhood abusers, while Heather Warren highlights the importance of grieving idealized family images. They also emphasize the role individuals play in preserving and healing family histories, addressing ancestral traumas, and fostering open communication to transform inherited behaviors. This episode offers insights into the practices that encourage facing one's past with courage, aiming to cultivate healthier futures for oneself and family lineage.
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Micah Bravery and Heather Warren focus on the healing journey of individuals who endure childhood sexual abuse. Healing involves rebuilding self-trust which is vital to love and trust others. Bravery creates a secure inner world to process trauma, likened to a "Lego city," whereas Warren advocates for self-trust as a means to protect against further harm. The advice extended to survivors is to nurture their inner child, establish safety, and progressively open up. Bravery's own healing journey is marked by loving the complexities of his life, including communicating without animosity with family members who were his abusers. His approach involves intellectual growth, suggesting a practice akin to journaling to cultivate internal dialogue and truth.
Micah Bravery recognizes the value of journaling to give voice to inner thoughts and emotions. There is an innate fear of how others will receive these personal truths. Heather Warren encourages Bravery to first document these thoughts privately, then gradually share with trusted individuals. She views this as a stage-wise process to gain confidence and dictates the need for a secure space for such reflection. This act nurtures the internal voice, preparing it to confront a wider audience.
Micah Bravery and others delve into how past family dysfunctions predispose some to seek similar dynamics in partners, creating a cycle of toxic relationships. Crystal Davis parallels her father with a partner, revealing a subconscious yearning for the stability her father provided despite his harmful behavior. Heather Warren remarks on the necessity of grieving for one's idealized family relationships or deceased family members to thwart the pursuit of partners who echo past family dynamics. Recognizing and processing grief is key to developing healthier relationship practices and breaking this cycle.
Warren and Bravery advocate for introspection into one's ancestry and transparent communication about family history's troubles and traumas. Incorporating ancestral traditions and having candid discussions about deceased family members help healing. Warren proposes that individuals without children serve as custodians of family history, tasked with addressing and sharing inherited familial issues. During spiritually charged times like Halloween, practices such as family constellations work can reveal subconscious patterns. Open dialogues about deceased relatives' complexities can transform dysfunctional behaviors into conscious choices, steering towards healthier relationships and healing as a family.
1-Page Summary
Individuals who have experienced childhood sexual abuse confront a challenging journey toward healing. Micah Bravery candidly recounts his own path and Heather Warren provides insights on rebuilding the foundational trust in oneself, which dictates the capacity to love and trust others after suffering trauma.
Micah Bravery shares his story of overcoming the silence that surrounded his experience with molestation in childhood. He describes creating a secure inner world, like a "Lego city," where he preserved his knowledge and thoughts. This became a space of solace that allowed him to store and process his experiences.
Heather Warren stresses the importance of self-trust, especially for those who have been betrayed or deceived. For survivors of trauma, trusting their own intuition and feelings is critical. This internal trust is a safeguard to prevent future entanglement with individuals who could further harm them.
Furthering Warren's advice, it's suggested that survivors explore what conditions make them feel safe enough to share parts of themselves. By treating their inner child with the same care they would show to a tangible child in need of safety and comfort, survivors can methodically reconstruct a sense of security.
Micah Bravery talks about his complex path to healing, which involves loving the various parts of his life, even the painful experiences like cancer and past sexual traumas. In ...
Childhood sexual abuse survivors and overcoming trauma with love
Micah Bravery taps into the power of writing to articulate inner thoughts and feelings that might not yet be ready for public consumption. They reveal a personal trepidation about the potential reception of their truths.
Micah Bravery enjoys the introspective process of writing, appreciating how it transfers their innermost self onto paper in silence. However, Bravery is concerned about how their writing may be perceived. They worry their written truths might be deemed either "corny" or "crazy," highlighting an anxiety about audience reception and the vulnerability that comes with sharing personal thoughts.
Heather Warren provides Bravery with guidance, recognizing the raw potential in journaling. Warren advises Bravery to start by journaling to articulate complex intelligence and ideas privately. To build confidence and courage, Warren suggests transitioning from private writing to sharing these thoughts w ...
Finding your voice through journaling privately first
In examining the patterns of toxic relationships, Micah Bravery and others discuss the subconscious drive to repeat family dynamics and the importance of processing one's grief to break the cycle.
Bravery’s personal journey through his feelings about family members who molested him demonstrates the importance of doing grief work to avoid seeking out similar toxic relationships. Crystal Davis reflects on her own experience, drawing a parallel between her father and her partner. Despite recognizing her father as an "evil man," she acknowledges that he kept the family together, and after his death, the family disintegrated. Davis discloses an emotional conflict in seeing her partner’s resemblance to her father, suggesting an unconscious attraction to partners who replicate difficult family dynamics.
Similarly, Heather Warren articulates this attraction to people similar to family members as an almost magnetic pull, even when one knows these individuals are harmful. This compulsion can often be mistaken for a sense of stability or continuity of family.
Family dysfunctions and toxic relationships with partners similar to childhood abusers
Exploring one's ancestry and having open dialogues about family history, particularly with regard to the hardships and traumas experienced by ancestors, can be a powerful step on the journey towards healing and self-understanding.
Heather Warren suggests that connecting with one's ancestors can be as intimate as incorporating traditional foods from ancestral homelands into one's diet. This connection provides a way to relate to ancestors on a fundamental level. The practice of having honest conversations about deceased family members, including those who may have been abusive, appears to be part of the healing process that Bravery—implicitly—refers to in discussing difficult pasts.
Warren believes that discussing unresolved family issues and traumas is vital. She compares individuals who do not have children to "seers" or wise persons in historical contexts. According to her, the role these individuals play often involves grappling with unresolved family matters—acknowledging, sharing, and speaking truths—that have been passed down through generations.
Warren discusses the spiritual aspects of addressing influences that persist around Halloween, a time resonant with ancestral themes. She points out that with the help of practices like family constellations work, individuals can unearth subconscious patterns, such as seeking approval from ancestors, which may manifest in attracting toxic partners or repeating dysfunctional behavior. ...
Benefits of addressing difficult pasts with family members and ancestors
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