Self-Affirmations

I was skeptical about positive self-talk, and I'm still not fully comfortable in some of the practices I read about. Some seem to imply they accomplish magical things just by repeating certain phrases.

Self-talk refers to the ongoing internal conversation within ourselves. We do it constantly, and it influences how we feel and behave. We talk to ourselves all day long and too often our self-talk is negative, focused on guilt about our past or anxiety about our future. Our thoughts inspire our actions. If we can redirect the way we think, we can change the actions we take.

Daily, I've repeated self-affirmations or positive self-talk, but only those that I believe are possible. They're what I consider reachable goals. Research shows that if we focus on those possibilities and keep reminding ourselves, eventually our behavior and attitude change.

As an experiment I began to say several times a day, "I accept my feelings; I feel my emotions." I started that because of my abusive childhood, when I became overwhelmed with good or bad news, I numbed out. I wanted to experience my feelings, so I began to say those two statements.

I can't remember when the transformation took place, but months later I realized that I was feeling and I no longer numbed out.

Here's another I repeated for a long, long time and now believe it without having to say it: I am lovable.

Try your statements. They might make drastic changes in your life.

Feeling My Feelings

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

My major coping method of survival from abuse was not to feel. When the emotional level got heavy, I went numb. I didn't do that consciously, but it was my way to handle the trauma of childhood. Once I became aware that numbing was what I did, I also realized that I needed to feel my pain—to re-experience the hurts of my past—if I wanted to be free from the past.

Here's how I did it and this may work for others. Each day I said, "I feel my feelings." I usually looked into the mirror and spoke to my image. I wanted that message to get into my core being.

Although I hadn't talked to a therapist or a pastor, I sensed that facing the hurts and feeling them once again was a step I had to take.

It took months before I became aware of how I felt; it took even longer before I fully accepted the abuse of my childhood. It took years before I knew I had been healed. It wasn't easy and it hurt. At times I felt alone, unloved, unwanted, unworthy—and many negative emotions flooded through my soul.

Each time I felt my emotions, the pain seemed to lessen a little. Now, years later, I can honestly feel my emotions.

"I Zoned Out"

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

I heard a man say, "I zoned out," and it's not a new term; I understood what he was trying to say. I would say that I went numb. He had emotionally detached himself is a simple explanation. He felt detached from his body or his conscious awareness.

Zoning out occurs during a traumatic event, such as molestation, and it's not that uncommon. He said, "It was like being a spectator and watching the abuse."

And it worked for him. "I survived childhood without being filled with anger."

But like many short-term methods that work, it has a drawback. As an adult, it ruins relationships. The man who talked to me had been in therapy for more than a year and could finally say, "I'm beginning to feel sadness and anger—two emotions I didn't understand when I was seven." He's now 41. It took him a long time to learn to feel.

Stan's Story

Stan W. posted the following message on his blog on Saturday, February 5. He gave us permission to share it here. (http://stanspoint.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-man-you-love-was-abused-by-cecil.html)

The subject of sexual abuse is a topic that is difficult to talk about for a man and even to admit that it happened, takes courage. This video is posted on Cecil Murphey's blog. In his blog he talks about his own abuse and also posts the stories of other men as they process what occurred in their own lives.

For a long time I found that talking about what I remembered about my own sexual abuse seemed like I was telling someone else's story. I knew it was real but over the years I had learned to be numb inside. My feelings were numb and my desire to love and trust were something I had difficulty embracing. Even being remotely close to a woman brought on a desire to keep my distance in the fear that I would not be safe. Even now it is still hard to put into words how I 'feel' in these areas I have mentioned. Getting past the past is something I face each day, some days easier and some days not so easy.

I am so thankful that I can lean on God who I know is carrying me and has carried me through so much turmoil concerning things such as sexual abuse. God has given me a resilience inside to get up when I have felt at the bottom. I really want to pray for other men who face such challenges when confronted with sexual abuse in their own lives. I know how it feels and we shouldn't have to feel alone.

Lord Jesus, help my brothers who have been sexually abused. Help them to know that they are not alone, that they can be free to talk about it, to tell someone. Help them to see that they are loved, that they are worth every effort to be whole, that they can be free from the past. Amen.

Numbing

In a previous post I wrote about numbing out when I felt overwhelmed by emotion. It almost happened again recently. My wife had two serious accidents in an eight-day period. Although I was aware of her pain and I could see it in her eyes, I hardly knew what to say.

In the past, I wouldn’t have understood, but this time I wasn't numbed as fully as I had been long ago, yet I was aware of a struggle going on inside me.

For me, it was an involuntary numbing. I can now look back and realize that my wise, inner self used the frozen emotions to protect me from feeling my pain.

There's another kind of numbing, and it's done so often that the people are hardly aware of what they do. We say they self-medicate. Their medication can be stuffing themselves with food. Why wouldn't they? While they were still infants, parents stopped them from crying by thrusting a bottle into their mouths. Food soothed any ills. So for some, food addiction is a natural reaction to abuse.

I know a woman who was sexually abused and after each abuse, her step-father bought her a gift. I overheard her say to a group, "I'm a shopaholic and sometimes I wonder why I buy so much."

Maybe she knows the reason. Or perhaps she knows it's her way to stifle the pain. By shopping she can self-medicate and numb her emotions.

What kind of numbing devices have you used—or still use? What is your "drug of choice" to cover your raw emotions? Why don't you write to me at Cec_Haraka (at) msn (dot) com and share it with us? (You don't have to reveal your identity.)

"I Zoned Out"

I heard a man say, "I zoned out," and it's not a new term; I understood what he was trying to say. I would say that I went numb. He had emotionally detached himself is a simple explanation. He felt detached from his body or his conscious awareness.

Zoning out occurs during a traumatic event, such as molestation, and it's not that uncommon. He said, "It was like being a spectator and watching the abuse."

And it worked for him. "I survived childhood without being filled with anger."

But like many short-term methods that work, it has a drawback. As an adult, it ruins relationships. The man who talked to me had been in therapy for more than a year and could finally say, "I'm beginning to feel sadness and anger—two emotions I didn't understand when I was seven." He's now 41. It took him a long time to learn to feel.

Numb

My wife was seriously ill and I loved her very much. We had been involved in a serious car crash (my fault), and the doctor didn't expect her to survive. (Shirley lived, but that's another story.)

As I sat by her bedside in the hospital, I felt nothing. I was totally numb. What's wrong with me? I asked myself. This is the person I love most and I can't feel anything.

That wasn't the first time I had numbed out; it wasn't the last time. Over the years, I encountered extremely difficult situations and yet felt nothing. I was sure that something was defective in me.

To make it worse, I sometimes cried. But it was always about someone with whom I had no strong emotional ties. I didn't understand how I could be sad over small things and yet feel nothing about the hurt of those I loved most.

Here's how I finally understood what happened. While I was doing my usual pre-dawn run, a car made a U-turn in front of me and knocked me down. I had no pain, but three days later I sensed what I called "a little discomfort" in my left hip. It didn't hurt, but it was a nuisance.

At my wife's urging, I went to a chiropractor and he did a number of tests. He kept asking, "Does this hurt?" Nothing he did caused me to say yes.

"You have a very high tolerance for pain," he finally said.

On the phone a few days later, I related that incident to my younger brother Chuck. He laughed and said, "Don't you remember how Dad beat us and we didn't cry? We didn't feel it."

Just then the numbness made sense. Whenever powerful emotions overwhelmed me, I numbed out. Because I couldn't cope with the crushing impact, I had no feelings.

I've since learned to reclaim my emotions. To some it may sound strange, but I praise God because I feel sad when my wife hurts or one of my children has a serious problem. It's safe to feel and I'm not afraid of my emotions.