Below is a question that came in from one of my Forgiveness and Freedom Ezine subscribers.

Dear Brenda,

I have become a huge fan of yours over the past six months.  We have a mutual friend, and she sent me the link to your site.  I have been reading it religiously.  I have a question though, if you don’t mind.  In my recent experience with forgiveness, it is myself that I am having the hardest time forgiving.  I was truly in love with a man who turned out to be an abuser.  It started with emotional / verbal abuse and escilated to sexual abuse.  I have been working as diligently as I know how to heal this…it has been a year now.  Sometimes I do feel healed and then it seems that the wounds resurface.

I still can’t feel anything for any other men who try to get past the force field that seems to be around my heart.  I still feel intense feelings of guilt for allowing that to happen to me and intense feelings of hatred for him.  I so want to be over this and I don’t know what the next step is.  I am in therapy, I have read sooo many books on happiness, healing, abuse, you name it and yet it still lingers.  Now that so much time has passed I don’t feel that I can speak of this to my friends any longer as the consensus is that I should have “moved on” by now.  To tell you the truth I feel the same way.  Any suggestions on how to move forward?  I am so ready to be free.  I don’t want to waste my life on this.

Dear M,

Thank you- for your heartfelt question, your courage to continue your path to freedom and your openness. I’m so glad that my writing about forgiveness and setting boundaries has helped you in your healing.

I think it’s perfectly normal that you have a ‘force field’ around your heart. It’s only been a year and it doesn’t sound like you have learned how to set healthy boundaries.   I teach forgiveness-always coupled with setting healthy boundaries. Sometimes the first step to boundary setting is what I call a Hard No and that’s not allowing the ‘abuser’ into your life in any way and sometimes it means not getting back into relationship with anyone until you’ve done the inner work necessary to rebuild trust with yourself. Getting into an intimate relationship with someone else before you’re ready takes a lot of energy and serves as a distraction from going deeper in your own work. Maybe the ‘force field’ is there to keep you on track with your self-exploration?

You are on the right track by being in therapy and reading books on healing from abuse.

I’ll also recommend my ebook, My Father Killed My Mother and Married My Aunt: Forgiving the Unforgivable as it is filled with the exact exercises I used to forgive my father and forgive myself for ever trusting him. When I was able to move into acceptance and into the present moment I was able to embrace the love I had for my father, let him go from my life with my new sense of boundary setting, and make self-honoring decisions in the present moment-from a place of love-not fear.

Because you say the wounds resurface-I would suggest that  you are  not done with your healing. Perhaps there are more layers? I diligently work my process years after I learned how to forgive my father for killing my mom, receiving a Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology and even while teaching these skills to my 1:1 coaching clients.

You don’t  want to continue talking to your friends about this.

This is about you and your healing now. By continuing to talk about it with friends you are focusing on it and actually keeping the story and the wounds alive.

Here are 3 suggestions to continue your progress right now:

A. Journal about it whenever you are triggered. Take time to set up a sacred space (light a candle, put on gentle music) and set a clear intention to release the negative energy and judgments surrounding the relationship.

B. Talk with your therapist about it.

C. Do the exercises in my ebook, My Father Killed My Mother and Married My Aunt: Forgiving the Unforgivable. For a short time I’ve also included a 60 minute MP3 on Healthy Boundary Setting that comes with it. The ebook and bonus MP3 is available at http://www.forgiveandbefreebook.com I also do life coaching in person or by phone. However, my schedule right now is full.

Above all else-be kind to yourself in this process.

Shakespeare said, Above all else-to thine own self be true.

Holding the vision of your wholeness through forgiveness,

Brenda

http://www.forgiveandbefreebook.com