I’m grateful for all the people who speak out about abuse. Tears fill my eyes as my fingers stroke the keys. If you have never been a target of a narcissistic abuser or a sociopathic abuser, you really don’t know the courage it takes to speak out. Some people don’t even recognize that they were abused until they start hearing other people’s stories. Abusers can be parents, family members, neighbors, loved ones, partners, bosses, co-workers, pastors, etc. If someone grew up in a household with abuse unrecognized, they will not see it in others who are doing the same behaviors. We have to recognize it first. Once we recognize it, we open a closed box of painful memories. It’s the people who speak up that help those people through one of the darkest times they may ever have to face.

I’m so grateful for all the testimonials, books, and personal stories I heard when I was unearthing my truths. I spent years in an emotionally, mentally, and verbally abusive relationship before I was willing to see. I was living numb. I was living empty. When people spoke up, I didn’t feel alone. When an abuse victim has those voices under their feet, they are carried. When we WAKE-UP from the brainwashing and mind control, we start taking our power back. I know that even though I read many of the books I did after I left, the people’s stories helped me break free from the cycle of abuse, because the stories were so similar. I started asking myself, how I became a target. I discovered I had unhealed shame cycles going on that were causing me to self-abuse. I didn’t recognize his behaviors, because I was treating myself worse.

Though people heal from abuse in different ways, the beauty is that there are so many people willing to share their stories. The more people who share their stories, the less we sweep it under a rug. When we face the abuses that touch our lives whether it is in our personal lives or professional lives, we give ourselves the space to heal, grow, and expand. Suppressing it can actually make us perfect targets for cults, extremist groups, and more abusive situations. If you’ve been reading this blog the last few weeks, I’ve been talking a lot about the ways people will attempt to get us to align with fear, lack, and separation. Unearthed shame around abuse can keep a person aligned with fear, lack, and separation at such a deep level. Remember, healthy people don’t intentionally hurt other people. Only the hurt parts of us can hurt someone else intentionally.

Today, I commit to using my voice to speak up about abuse. I hope that today someone who needs to know that they are not alone reads this blog. I hope they will choose to look at the way I choose to live now and have hope. I was once a victim, but I’m not anymore. I once felt like I was just surviving the day, now I choose to live it fully. I’m not alone in how I choose to live either. One of the things that really helped me heal was reading books by Holocaust survivors. I spent time in Holocaust museums and paying close attention to the heroes who spoke up and/or did something. I did everything I could to learn about abuse, so that I would not only spot it, but I would help myself find the path to breaking the cycle.

My book, Letters from a Better Me has been in the top 20 for domestic partner abuse on Amazon. People can find other books, tools, and resources throughout the pages I’ve written in both my book and on this blog. The best things I do for myself is to align with love, abundance, and peace and be willing to look at what keeps me in the energy of fear, lack, and separation. Our healing matters, not just for us, but for all the relationships we have throughout our lives. Our healing matters, because when we can become aware of when we are in the energy of fear, lack, and separation, we get the opportunity to heal, learn, and grow from it. We stop the cycles of abuse in the generations that come after us. It’s important to be kind, loving, forgiving, and accepting of ourselves. Learning to the difference between accountability and responsibility which aligns our energy with love, abundance and peace and then self-blame which aligns our energy with fear, lack, and separation is so important when we are recovering from the patterns of abuse. The blame keeps us in the cycle of abuse, and accountability for what is ours sets us free. We get to choose.

In the last few years, more and more people are speaking out. I have such tremendous respect for their bravery. Does this mean an attention-seeking person won’t sneak in and try to grab the spotlight from time to time, and lie? Of course there will be people who do this, but remember they are coming from an unhealthy and unhealed place too. If I choose to hate that person and let it affect my humanity with the next person who comes forward, that’s on me. If I let their alignment with fear, lack, and separation affect my alignment with love, abundance, and peace, I’m empowering myself to do something about it. They are responsible and accountable for what they put out into the world, and I’m responsible and accountable for what I put out into the world. I do my best to ask God to help them find their path to love, abundance, and peace. Just doing that helps me to realign.

With Love, Abundance, and Peace,

©Rachael Wolff 2021

Author of Letters from a Better Me: How Becoming an Empowered Woman Transforms the World