Self Lovin with Aunty Robin

A Practical Healing Guide For Abuse And Assault Trauma

• Robin Duncan • Season 3 • Episode 5

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Trauma doesn’t just sit in your memories, it shows up in your body, your relationships, and the way you try to stay safe.  I talk plainly about physical abuse and sexual assault and why healing has to be paced. If you’re not ready right now, that’s okay. My goal is to leave you tools you can come back to when you are ready. We start with a set of questions to create clarity without victim blaming. I explain why those questions matter, especially the part most of us never get taught, how people who cause harm often transfer their guilt and shame onto us. Seeing that on paper can be the first crack of light in trauma recovery and self-worth. From there, we move into nervous system regulation with practical somatic exercises you can customize. We also talk about triggers and how to identify them.  I share a “power sentence” framework you can write in your own words to help your nervous system feel safe again. The final stretch is about self-forgiveness as a daily practice.  We end with an empowering “return to sender” visualization to give back the shame, fear, and self-loathing that never belonged to you. If this helps, subscribe, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find real-world trauma healing tools.

Sometimes you gotta be adult in the room to say something. Silence = Death.

A Heavy Topic With Care

SPEAKER_01

Hey guys, it's your Auntie here. And welcome to another episode of Self Loving with Auntie Robin. I'm in Princess Park today and just kind of having a nice little laydown. And we're going to be talking about a pretty heavy subject today. And it's one that I've been through. And it's not enjoyable in any way, shape, or form or fashion. Lastly but not least, it's also not for everybody. We're going to be discussing traumas. And I'm going to break up the traumas into three separate parts because honestly, there's different trauma, traumatic events that we go through. And not everything is the same, shall we say? What we're going to tackle today is physical abuse as well as sexual assault. The other traumas that I will be covering later are emotional abuse and verbal abuse. That'll be on one topic, and it's going to be much later. I am not ready to kind of deal with that, to be honest with you. I like to spread out my big heavy topics, shall we say, of healing sporadically. Because it can't be all heavy all the time. But we do need to get through these events and these situations, and we need to work through it because it affects our daily life. It affects the way our mind works. It affects how we interact with people. Um, what fears come up, what triggers us. And these are topics that we need to work through. The other traumatic thing that we're going to talk about later on is emotional neglect. It isn't one of the bigger traumas, shall we say, but my entire generation, Gen X, had been through it. And it affects your relationships through your entire fucking life. And it's incredible how much it blocks you of opening up to people sometimes and the getting quality relationships that you actually really truly want in life, but you can't because of what happened to you. And mostly that stems when we were children, but later date on that one. I'll let you know. What's great about this is that even if you are not ready to tackle this subject right now, at this very moment, it is okay. If you're not ready to receive this information, then that's all right. You don't have to accept this information right now. But the great thing, and the reason why I love doing a podcast like this is because when you are ready, that information is here for you. And that is fucking fantastic. Okay? That's revolutionary thinking of healing right there. I'm going to abbreviate stuff for you. So let's just say when I say abuse, I'm talking physical abuse. If I'm talking sexual assault, I'm just gonna say

You Can Wait Until Ready

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assault. So we can just kind of uh keep our triggering to a minimum. Now, when I went through this myself, I went and I sought out a therapist to help me. And they were fantastic, but we only covered self-worth and self-esteem. That's where we started. And that did not help me heal my trauma from these events. It did help me prevent any future issues because that is an underlying issue of why these things kind of happen sometimes, um, or how we get ourselves in these situations is a lack of self-worth. But that's not all of it. Okay. So when I went through the dark nights of the soul, this is one that I went through. And what I did is I asked myself a series of questions. I got deep. I got out my pen and paper here, and I wrote everything down. I wrote it all down. I got curious. And so, what we're gonna do is we're gonna get curious with you today. All right. So when they say that you need to go through your trauma, this is what I mean. When they say that you need to sit down with yourself and figure yourself out, this is what it means. Get that sheet of paper and pen and get curious about you and your feelings and what happened during these events.

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So, are you ready? Are you ready to rumble?

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All right, because I think we are. I'm gonna ask you guys a series of questions, and you guys may need to uh hit pause and play a couple times here in this first little bit because I'm just gonna go through the questions and then I'm gonna explain to you why we're going through those

Journal Questions To Start Healing

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questions, okay?

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First question How old were you when the abuse or assault happened? And if it was more than once, babies, I am so sorry.

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I am so sorry that that had to happen to you. But you also need to write that down. One thing is is with abuse, it happens gradually over time, and there is generally more than one instance with that, sadly.

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So write it down. Get pause if you need to. I'm gonna keep going. Next question. Did you know the person who did it? If so, how long did you know them?

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Were there any signs or warnings that they gave you or could have indicated that they could do this? Did they have a history that you know of abuse or assault in their life?

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Hit pause if you need to. I'm gonna keep going.

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Now that you're a little bit more distant from the incident, did you notice, feel, or sense that anything was off about them as a person or the situation that you were in? Was there something that they said or something that they did that could have given you a notification or something that you picked up on later, but not at that moment? Write it down.

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Hit pause if you need to.

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If it was somebody you didn't know, did you sense or feel anything about them or the situation at that time?

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Go ahead, write it down. Now, if this was abuse, what would generally set this person off?

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Is were were there certain things that set them off, or certain phrases or actions that would make them kind of lose their shit? If so, write it down. Hit pause if you need to. If this was assault, was there something you feel you could have done to prevent it? Or did you feel you provoked it in some way? I'm not victim blaming, this is not what it's about.

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There is a reason for this. So write it down. Write it down.

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I'll explain that one. Pause if you need to, and I'm going on to the next question. Is this something you ever thought could happen to you?

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Hip pause. Alright, next question. What did you do after the incident? What feelings and emotions did you feel at that time?

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What feelings and emotions do you feel now that you're a little bit more dissident from it? Hit pause if you need to.

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Next question. Do you think you deserved what happened to you? Do you think you deserve that now?

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Hit pause. If you need to. Next question. Was there anyone close to you that helped or could have prevented these things from happening?

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If so, what part did they play? Next question.

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If you are who you are today, you and your younger version of you met then, would you have helped you?

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If so, why? Or would you have prevented or stopped it in some way, shape, form, or fashion?

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This is you now, your older self.

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To when that happened, would you have helped yourself? Number 12.

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If you are who you are today, what advice would you give your younger self about these things? What would you tell yourself? I want you to write that all down. That one's gonna be a long one. But actually, that's the last question right now. Once you are done with this, what I want you to do is I want you to put on your favorite song. We're gonna have a little dance party, okay? Because when you're doing heavy shit like this, you need to shake it off. You need to tay it. Okay? So shake it off, come back, and I will explain to you all the reasons of those questions, okay? I'll be right back. Okay. We're

Why These Questions Matter

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back. All right, we're gonna discuss question number one here. How old were you? And also another question I should have asked, I'm gonna ask that now. This is mostly for abuse, because generally in abusive relationships we end up staying a lot longer than what we should. And how long did you stay in that relationship? How long did that abuse continue to go on? That's another uh question you need to answer. But how old were you? If you were under 18, it's not like you really had a lot that you could do to prevent anything like that. It is 100% not your fault. It is 100% put on them. Now, with abuses and assault, it is like a transference. The person who's doing it to you has guilt and shame about doing this stuff. And what they end up doing when they are acting this out upon you is transferring their guilt and shame onto you.

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And you are left carrying this burden forever until you clear it out.

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It is not fair, it is not right, it shouldn't have to be up to you to have to do that, but here we are having to do that. So, this is why I wanted to ask you these questions. And this is why it's kind of important because then you can start seeing, oh, wait, this really had nothing really much to do with me. Because it didn't, it has to do with the other person, and it sucks. But we end up feeling it as the victim who had who has been through it, and that makes it easier for us to kind of clear that stuff out because it isn't attached to us, it's attached to them. And in my third section here, I'm gonna show you how to return that shit to sender. Yeah, it's fun, it's fun. But even if these events happen to you when you are older and supposedly allegedly know better, um, you can't predict what people are gonna do. You don't know what's gonna set and trigger somebody off. The only person that you have control over in your life is you. You have no control over anybody else. So that's the other thing and reason why it's easier to clear this out is because it isn't yours.

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We're going on to question two. Did you know them?

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If there was no signs or history of it, once again, not your fault. I mean, even if you did know that they had a history of this in their life that they were that they haven't worked through, I'm pretty sure that you felt sorry for them. That you were just trying to be a friend, trying to be somebody who who was caring and compassionate.

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And that is not your fault. It's not your fault. That is 100% on them and not on you, which makes it easier to clear. Question number three here. Okay.

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Did you notice, sense, or feel anything about them before or during the situation? Was there something that they said or something that they did? This is your early warning detection system coming online, your spidey senses, if you will. This teaches you to kind of pay attention, be aware of your situation, surroundings, and people. If you didn't know that at the time, because you were too young, you have to forgive yourself for that. That you didn't realize that that was an early warning detection system that your body and your mind was trying to tell you. And you have to kind of forgive yourself for ignoring those if it did happen. And I'm going to show you how to forgive yourself on this stuff. It's not that you're to blame for any of it. You're not. But that's what ends up happening, is that we kind of ended up blaming, or I ended up blaming myself. Um, and it wasn't accurate. It wasn't factual, it wasn't based in reality. I d I was not aware at the time and my age that that is what that was. I couldn't have known. So I have to kind of forgive myself for that. And that's why it's important to know. Let's go on to our next question. If it was somebody you didn't know, did you sense or feel something was off about them? And once again, this is your spidey senses kind of coming online to keep you safe. That's really all that all that it is. We often don't realize these things until much later after the event. But this is data that we can use and keep an early warning detection system, if you will, um, to keep us safe. If you didn't recognize that that was your early warning detection system, once again, you gotta forgive yourself for that. Because we as victims ended up blaming ourselves that I should have known. I I I I could have prevented it if I if I would have realized this.

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It's okay. It's okay that you didn't. But you have to forgive yourself for that.

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And that is something that I'm gonna teach you how to do. Because it's not your fault. It's never been your fault.

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And you shouldn't have had to carry all this crap this entire time. Now we're gonna go to question number five.

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If physical, what was it that set this person off? Um once again, this is not a you problem. This is a them problem, okay? But this is what causes you to trigger now. When somebody else brings something up in along those topic lines, you all of a sudden get triggered.

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Yeah.

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And you may shrink yourself in those kinds of situations when somebody starts bringing that up, or you start avoiding those issues like altogether in order to not have to go through it. Awareness and recognition is what can help prevent these deeper issues in future relationships. And this is why this question is kind of important. Because it isn't you, it's them, but these issues are triggering to you now because of what happened. And that's why you need to kind of work through that. But once again, when you realize that it is not a you problem, it was a them problem, it makes it a lot easier to clear that shit out. Because you are not to blame, you are not responsible, you do not have to do any of the heavy lifting on that.

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They do. And I'll teach you how to do that.

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Now, let's move on to the next question. If it was uh assault, um, was there something that you feel you could have done to prevent it, or something that you feel you provoked in some sort of way? Now, I'm gonna share a personal story here with you. When this happened to me, this was at my first job that I ever had, and I was kind of a smart ass. I know, shocking. Um, and I kind of felt like I provoked it a little bit, just being kind of a smart ass back to this person. They were saying some really crass things, and I'm just kind of like, well, you can't even handle this. And well, it wasn't great. But the thing is, is that I kind of blamed myself for it because I felt like I was provoking it. I wasn't. They started it, but the thing is, is that I didn't help the situation any. And I had to learn how to forgive myself for doing that. So that's why I ask. Is this something that you ever thought that would happen to you or could happen to you?

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If so, you may feel some guilt and shame about that, and you need to forgive yourself for that. That's it.

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Being able to forgive yourself for that kind of stuff really frees you up later on because it makes the burden lighter, because you are releasing yourself from any blame, attachment, guilt, and shame with the event that you are feeling, and it will make you feel light. Lighter. It is going to lighten this load so incredibly much. Um, the K-pop Demon Hunter song free. Uh, if you don't face it, your problems and issues, the past can't be the past. You can't be light and free, is basically what that song is talking about. And it's a beautiful song. If you don't know it, please go check it out. Um, if you haven't seen the movie, please also go check it out. Fantastic. Very healing. It's the forgiveness within yourself that you need to have. It's a big important part. And it's not that you really did anything, it's just that our brain thinks that somehow we're we are responsible for it or allowing it to have happened. It's not. It's not based in reality in any way, shape, form, or fashion. All right, we're on question number eight here. What did you do after the incident? I'm pretty sure the majority of it, if it didn't have involve like police and stuff, probably the first thing you did after that was take a shower. Kind of clean everything off. Energetically, wise, is 100% completely normal. And I do not blame you because that is pretty much what I did. Now we're going to kind of talk about the feelings that you wrote down. Okay. Because what emotions and feelings need to be acknowledged. So, you know, I'd sit down and sleep be like, hey, anger, I see that you're there. And I feel anger about that situation. I recognize you. And is there something physically that I can do for you that might actually help you through this? And oftentimes what I would end up doing is I would either tay-te it, shake it off, do a little dance party, like an angry dance party, like more like mosh pitting, but um and punching air. If you had a punching bag, I used a punching bag. Sometimes I took a pillow and beat it against the wall. Sometimes I took a pillow and I screamed into it. And that actually helped get that out. But I acknowledge it's like anger. I feel you, and I'm letting you out right now. And just like, ah, you know, it helps. You have to let these feelings and emotions rise and meet them and let them out. Otherwise, it consumes you on the inside and ends up causing dis-ease within your own body. And especially women who do this so much, that's why a lot of women end up having all sorts of like lupus is a good one. Um, where your body is kind of slowly destroying itself from the inside out because of all the things that you have bottled up into yourself starts eating away at you. So you have to acknowledge these feelings. You have to let them out, you have to let it go. Another thing that also helps defeat more like anger, frustration, and hurt is a somatic exercise called a somatic hug. And it's basically hugging yourself when nobody else is there. So I'm gonna teach you that. Uh, you're gonna take your right hand, stick it underneath your left armpit. You're gonna take your left hand, grab your right shoulder, and you're just squeezing. Sometimes I'll just kind of rock back and forth, just kind of breathe. And then just be like, Anger, I understand you, and I love you. Anger does not like love. So it doesn't stick around too much after that. You want to get rid of it? Hug it out, hug your anger. See if that works. And then just kind of, you know, sway back and forth, just kind of be with yourself for a little bit. And that's a great way of kind of getting rid of those feelings. All right, let's go on to the next question. Was there anyone close to you that could have helped or uh was there for you during that time or could have prevented things for you? This is just to kind of see if you had support at that time, if you had anybody who was really there for you. And if so, it's kind of good to acknowledge that. Were they helpful or were they not? Um, if they weren't, then let it go. If they were helpful to you, then you know, make sure that you acknowledge that and let them know how much you appreciated that during that time period, because it's hard, it's hard going through that. And if you had somebody there to help you and support you, acknowledge. Okay. The next question is if you were who you are today and your younger version of you met, then would you have helped you? And then he goes like this is basically, do you think you are worth saving? This is kind of a a check-in for your self-worth. If not, then that is something we definitely need to work on. Okay, because this is gonna continue to be a problem if you don't recognize that you are worthy of so much more in life. So much more in life. And you need to be able to acknowledge that within yourself. And this is just basically recognizing that this is a problem, and we need to kind of focus on that. Okay, and then we have last but not least. If you were who you are today, what advice would you give your younger self? This is part of the forgiveness process, and to forgive yourself is one of the hugest gifts that you can give your you. It's all the women, all the women, and it is important that you do that. So that was really tough, but you made it through that. When we come back after this break, I'm gonna actually show you how to forgive yourself, and I'm also gonna give you like a couple, I call them empowerment rituals, in order to get over some of the stuff that isn't your fault. Okay? So I will see you on the next one.

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All right, see you shortly.

Somatic Moves To Feel Safe

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I'm gonna teach you guys how to do some somatic exercises because, to be honest with you, it is very important that you do this for yourself. Our nervous system has been responding to things throughout our lifetime, and sometimes it gets a little tired, and it needs to be reminded that you are safe, and you have to kind of get back into your body in order to do that. Now, these series of exercises I got off of YouTube, and what I did is I watched two or three different full exercises that somebody was teaching, and then what I did is I picked out like seven to ten of those exercises that I felt my body really relaxed into more because the healing process is very bespoke, okay? And each person, each one of us, just because I choose these, doesn't mean that these might work for you. So I do encourage you to go onto YouTube. There's lots of amazing people who teach this. Um, and look up two or three different people, write down the exercises that you really like, and develop a routine that works for you. That's what I encourage you to do. Because when I tried doing this, I tried doing just one person's routine and it didn't always like bring me back to center. So that's why I'm encouraging you to take a couple of seven to ten exercises that you like, and what you need to look for is how your body responds. You need to be either like you kind of sigh after doing it for a while, or you yawn. That is another indication of that, these are calming to your system and bringing you back to center. Okay, that's what you're looking for. All right. So, what I do is I start off with some body circles. I just kind of sit on the couch like this, and I'm kind of going around making circles with my body. You want big dramatic motions, you want it to be slow, you want it to be steady, and you want it to be consistent.

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You can also go the other way. And you just kind of do this until you kind of feel like you're coming down, okay?

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Like you're calming yourself down. This is a way of self-soothing. Alright. Now, from here, because I just kind of felt myself sigh, that's when I kind of know that I'm ready to go on to the next one, is what I call cat cow.

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So if you know yoga at all, you know, you can kinda in for a cow and then out for a cat. In for a cow. Out for a catalog. I don't know the same play.

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You're just gonna kinda keep doing this until you kind of feel relaxed.

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Perfect. Good job, guys.

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So we're gonna go on to the next one.

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The next one that I like to do is neck circles. And sometimes I'll do just kind of neck extensions kind of down and back. Back into neck circles. So we're gonna go on to the next one.

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So this one is kind of more of a twisting motion, so I kind of put my fingers kind of at the top of my collarbone here. My elbows are kind of straight out, and I'm just kind of doing a slow twisting motion. Like this.

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So this is also kind of loosening up your spine a little bit. And slow and steady runs the race on these because those are not fabs the movement here, guys. Okay, there's my aunt. That's her cue.

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So from here, what I'm going to do is I call this the heart opener and closer. So I kind of look like I'm diving in and closing off my heart. And then I take my arms and I spread it wide, and I try and open myself up, just really stretching across the rib cage here, and open myself up wide. So I close it down, and then I reopen myself back up to the world.

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So I call this the heart opener take some deep breaths with these. It really kind of helps. And this is a great thing to do. I do this actually every morning before I wake up.

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And every evening before I go to bed.

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Because this is actually a great way of helping me kind of get a good night's sleep. And kind of recenter yourself from the day's activities and kind of shutting your brain down a little bit and slowing it all down so you can sleep.

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Now, the next one that we're gonna do is it's called it's a bilateral stimulation kind of going from your low pelvis, kind of your low gut, all the way up to like your collarbone. So it looks like you're beating yourself like an like an ape. But what you're gonna do is just kind of slowly do it, and I kind of move my hands out to the side, move it up, and then come back in, alternating, alternating tabs, and then I go up a little bit out to the side.

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Now I just go over my boobs.

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Now, the reason why you do bilateral stimulation is because it gets you aware of both sides of your body, but in different ways. Now, now that we've gone up, we're gonna go back down. And I do this like three times. And on the last one, I'll show you what we the next move that we do.

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I'm just gonna lean back. See, that time I sighed. And then I generally just kind of like to put my hands on my heart, take a deep breath in. And exhale.

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Now the next move that we're gonna do is called, I I call it the butterfly heart. So I cross my fingers, I sit the palm that's closest to my body on my heart, and then kind of underneath my collarbone here, I'm just tapping.

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Now, the tapping that I'm doing right now is a little fast.

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What I want to do is kind of slow it down. Because what this is doing, it's kind of right above your heart. So it's kind of signaling to your heart that you want to slow down and that you want to calm down.

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So take a deep breath now and start slowing down. But this is what I do.

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Now, like I said, there are plenty of different somatic exercises out there, and if these do not make you feel calm and relaxed, that is okay. You may just need to look up on YouTube and try and find seven to ten that work for you. Okay? And put that all together, and you've created a delicious somatic exercise routine for yourself. Now, sometimes I will even do this if I get stressed out during the day. I may find a little corner somewhere that's quiet and try and do this for myself. It's a great way of relaxing and getting back to your centro.

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And I highly recommend. Alright.

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Once I'm done, I'm just gonna take a deep breath, gonna put my hands on my heart. All my nervous system, thank you. I appreciate all of its hard work that it's been doing. And then we're gonna now move on to your next step. We're gonna teach you now how to forgive yourself. Okay?

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So let's learn how to forgive ourselves today.

Find Triggers And Reset Script

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Go right ahead. The topic is heavy today, so I understand. Now, the first thing that we're gonna talk about that we need to kind of heal ourselves on is triggers. Triggers are something that pop up in physical abuse as well as sexual assault, and these triggers land more in your body um and in your nervous system. So it's a little hard to tell what exactly those triggers are, but you need to learn how to acknowledge them. So I'm gonna teach you how to kind of find out what your triggers are a little bit, okay? So are there certain conversation topics that kind of set you off? Or is there like certain actions that people do towards you that kind of all of a sudden set off a trigger? And when I do mean a trigger, it it's like your body kind of tightens up. So you kind of feel either like tightness in your chest, tightness in your throat, your gut just kind of twists. Um, that is kind of a way of your body telling you that something's not right. I'm a little triggered, I I need a moment. Okay. The other thing that can be a way of acknowledging a trigger is do you end up going into fight, flight, fawn, or freeze? That's your nervous system reacting. If so, during certain topics or certain conversations, or if you get anxious or scared, you know, that might be a trigger. So acknowledge it. Write it down what it is that triggered you. Okay. You gotta acknowledge it first before we can solve it. Okay. You gotta face it. Or do you avoid like certain topics of conversation altogether? Okay, because I know I'm I'm a big proponent of that one. That's kind of how I always dealt with it. But what I did is then after I figure out what that is, and if you need a few moments, go ahead and hit pause. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna write out a sentence. Okay. I'm going to give you kind of my framework of it, but if you need to reword this so you feel calm, centered, relaxed, and back to yourself, in centered with yourself, you may need to use your own words, okay? Because your words have magic and power to you, not to anybody else, but to you specifically. So that is a very important thing that if my words do not relax and calm you, then you need to figure out your own sentence. And trust me, I've had to like rewrite these things like four or five times in order before I felt like that's it. That's it right there. I feel my power, I feel calm and center, and I'm ready to go. Okay. So what the sentence is going to be, we're gonna start off with, and you can copy this down if you want to. I no longer allow the fear of, and then you're gonna fill in the blank with what your trigger is. I'm gonna use an example of me. So that I had, okay. I no longer allowed the fear of asking for help from others or expressing my needs. So that was my fill in the blank, and then I'm gonna continue on with the sentence here, thinking that it will lead me to being hurt again. I choose differently now. And this is where you fill in your blank again, okay? I am able to express my needs without fear of judgment or harm from others. Now we're gonna continue on with the with my sentence here. My nervous system feels safe. My nervous system feels calm. My nervous system feels supported in the fact that I no longer let anyone harm me ever again.

unknown

Damn.

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That is taking your power back, okay?

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And anytime a trigger comes up, I actually, you know, for a while there, I had this on my phone. And anytime I got triggered, I pulled this up and I read through it about like three or four times. I tried to get my nervous system calm again. If that didn't work, I would do the somatics, depending on where I'm at. But um, that is something that really helped me a lot in trying to get through the triggers. Now they're gonna keep coming up. I mean, even years later, like I just got triggered by this again, just doing this podcast episode. And it came up. So triggers are tricky bitches, but it's about taking your power back from them. And this really

Write A Letter To Younger You

SPEAKER_01

helps. So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna write a letter to ourselves, and this is how where the forgiving of yourself comes in. So those questions that we did in the first section, you're gonna use those now in order to put those into the letter because that is the stuff that you need to forgive yourself for. All the stuff that I said you need to forgive yourself for, you need to put into this letter. Okay. That's how you're gonna craft it. All right. Now, the words need to be yours, okay? Because your words are your magic and your power, essentially. And if your mind doesn't believe the words that are coming out of your mouth, then nothing is gonna, nothing's gonna work, okay? So your thoughts are your magic. Okay. So I'll give you an example of I'll just make up a letter to myself. And forgive me if I get emotional, because it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. Because when you forgive yourself, it's it's deep. It's on a soul level. And uh it's hard. Oh, another thing you also need to add is add your trigger sentence in here as well.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Now, I call my younger self Little One. You can make up a nickname, you can use your own name. You know, I'm just say I just like to use little one.

SPEAKER_00

So this is how I would start off.

SPEAKER_01

Dearest little one, I am so sorry about everything that you had to go through during our younger time during our past. I am so sorry that you had to deal with those sexual assaults. I am so sorry that you had to deal with that physical and emotional abuse. You did not deserve that in any way, shape, form, or fashion. You deserved better. And I am sorry that I was not there with the woman I am now to protect you then. But trust me when I say I would have protected you fiercely from any harm.

SPEAKER_00

I am hoping that you can forgive me for that.

SPEAKER_01

I'm hoping that you can forgive me that I felt like I provoked some of this and I somehow deserved it at that time. I hope that you can forgive me that I felt that my needs were lesser than other things.

SPEAKER_00

Other people's um over other people's needs. I'm sorry that I put others before us.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sorry that we stayed in that relationship for way longer, way longer than we ever should have. But I did not see we did not see a way out at that time, and I think you know that.

SPEAKER_00

And I hope that you can forgive me for that, little one. Because that was a really tough time in our life. But we made it through. Then we're still here today.

SPEAKER_01

And I can tell you right now with absolute certainty that I will never, ever let anyone harm you or me ever again like that. I hope you know that and feel that within your bones because I feel it within my bones. No harm will ever come to you again, my little one. I love you, and I hope you can forgive me for that time period when I did not have the strength to help us out.

SPEAKER_00

I love you. Okay, I need to clean it. That is how you do it.

SPEAKER_01

That is how you do it. That is taking your power back, okay? That is feeling your feelings and taking power back from that situation and feeling it deep in your body, deep in your bones, okay. So now what you're gonna do with that letter is I want you to rewrite it so it's all nice. And every morning when you wake up, and every night before you go to bed, for at least like 30 to 90 days-ish,

Repetition Then Burn Or Bury

SPEAKER_01

when you kind of feel like, okay, I really truly have forgiven myself. Um, I want you to keep reading it because right when you wake up and right before you go to bed, your brain is susceptible to the things that you program into it just before bedtime. So it's pondering what you just said so it can reprogram, rewire your mind that you have forgiven yourself.

SPEAKER_00

Isn't that a trick?

SPEAKER_01

So do that for about like 30 to 90 days or until you feel like you really have like gotten a hold of it and that you feel like you're you're solid with it. Then what I want you to do, I want you to burn that shit. Burn it or bury it. I don't care which. But if you're gonna burn it, I I want you to read the letter one more time before you burn it. So, what I want you to do is you're gonna fold up the sheet of paper, have your little burn bucket ready, light that sucker on fire, drop it in the bucket and let it burn. Okay, make sure that it burns all the way through. Okay. If not, you may have to relight it. Um, but make sure it's ash, okay? And once it is ash, I want you to say something before you scatter the ashes, okay? Just gotta put your hand on your heart if you want to. I want you to really kind of center yourself and just be like, I forgive myself for the things that have happened to me. And I no longer allow these things from my past to move forward with me anymore. And I want you to scatter that shit and let the air take it. Okay. If you want to bury it, I recommend burying it at a crossroads section, like a four-way stop or something like that, and on one of the little corner pieces, just take your little shovel, just kind of scoop it up, shove it in there, put it down, go ahead and say, I forgive myself for what has happened in the past. I no longer allow these things to go forward with me anymore.

SPEAKER_00

And bury it. You just had a funeral for all of that shit. It feels pretty good and kind of empowering, being real with you.

SPEAKER_01

It's very empowering to feel that. So I highly recommend. Now we're going to talk about returning stuff to the center.

Return Shame And Guilt To Sender

SPEAKER_01

Okay. I kind of talked about this during the questions in section one. The stuff that the person who inflicted this upon you put upon you. All the emotions, the guilt, the shame, the hatred, the self-loathing, the anger, the fear, shame, guilt, all of it. Write it all down that you want to return to sender. And just empowering yourself so much by getting rid of that shit that no longer serves you, because it was never yours to begin with in the first place. It was theirs. They inflicted that upon you. And you are now returning those emotions, those feelings back to them. It's fantastic. I love this. I need you to make this personal to you, okay? Use your own wordy words because once again, that is gonna make it more powerful to you, okay? And really strengthen that connection for yourself. So you're gonna take all the emotions and feelings that you feel towards this person, and all the emotions and feelings that they made you feel during that moment, and you're gonna release all of it. You're gonna verbally vomit out all of that. Write it out if you want to. Don't care. I'm just gonna come off with it off the top of my head here. So I am very sweary, and this is where you get to express your anger and rage, and I totally recommend doing it. And swearing is really honestly a great way of doing that for you. So I'm gonna get a little sweary here, okay? Now, something else I'm going to do is if you remember Harry Potter, okay, when Dumbledore was like taking his wand and he was kind of pulling out that thought and put it into the water so Harry could see his thought, that's kind of what you're doing. But I want you to do it from your head, not just your head, but also your heart. Imagine like you're pulling out these things, like these emotions and these feelings from your body. Because it gives you a visualization of it, and it kind of represents that that stuff is leaving your body. Okay. It helps. Trust me. So, what you're gonna do to all the motherfuckers who have laid their guilt and shame upon me, to all the assholes who have abused me and assaulted me over the years, I return to you all the fear, the hatred, the self-loathing, the shame, the guilt, the way that you made me feel, all these emotions. I will no longer carry these things with me anymore. They were never mine. And you're gonna kind of take some scissors, cut it, come down like you're protecting yourself from it, and now these feelings are now yours.

SPEAKER_00

I return them to sender and just kind of push that shit away from you. That, my friend, is taking your power back.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it feels really good. And sometimes when I do start feeling, because you know, shit keeps coming up. I mean, it's life. You know, our brains try and do their best, but sometimes things from our past keep coming up. And when they do, I repeat this again. I'm now down to the point where I don't have to say anything. I'm just kind of like, I'm just kind of like, if one of those thoughts start coming that I'm not worthy enough, or the self-guilt and the self-doubt and the shame from that event, I'm I'm just kind of like, cut, cut. That's that's pretty much what I do. Take it, uh go back. I don't I don't want these feelings anymore. They're they're yours. Um but it works. It really truly does. And it makes me feel better. It made me feel better. Hopefully it'll make you feel better. All

Closing Thoughts And Next Month

SPEAKER_01

right. I hope you take your power back from these situations because it is a bitch. But you guys did so amazing. Like, I am so proud of you guys for sticking through. I know it was rough. There were a couple spots in there that it was emotional. But the next episode that we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about questioning your beliefs and how to break free from like societal family expectations and stuff like that. So uh that will be our next episode. Okay. I will see you next month. And remember, keep working on this stuff because that's why I give you a month in between, is because small, little actionable steps eventually equal the biggest breakthroughs that you have ever seen in your life. And I hope that you'll join me next month.

unknown

Bye.

Contributor

Robin Duncan

Host