3 Reasons Why Investing in You After Sexual Abuse Will Change Your Life
Investing in You | 8 MIN READ
3 Reasons Why Investing in You After Sexual Abuse Will Change Your Life
Written By Wendy M. Johnson | @WendyMJohnson7
As a survivor of sexual abuse, you may not be comfortable putting YOU first. It seems that your past and current life can get in the way. With all your obligations, how can you fit in time to even take a 15-minute break let alone fit in time to heal. But taking time out for you is key to changing your life. When was the last time you invested in you? Everyone has goals and dreams, even those of us who were sexually abused. What do your goals and dreams consist of? Your past can blur your potential and abilities. But there must be a starting point to make a change in your life. Today is a good day to start!
Investing in you, after sexual abuse, is crucial to changing your life. When you have been a victim of such a horrific experience, your outlook on life can be changed. You can fall prey to extreme negativity and a lack of belief in yourself. Investing in yourself and healing from sexual abuse has countless benefits.
3 Reasons Why Investing In YOU, After Sexual Abuse, Will Change Your Life
- Understand Your Resilience
- Understand Self-Acceptance
- Build the Life You Want
1. Understand Your Resilience
Healing is action. Along with dealing with the past, you also have to deal with the present. Healing is different from any experience you will ever have. It is emerging from one life to another. A rebirth that you choose to experience. On your healing journey, you can gain a new sense of inner power, resiliency, and an inner belief that you can take care of yourself. Overcoming a trial of this magnitude teaches you how resilient and strong you are. Healing gives you a higher sense of self-understanding. One of the greatest parts of healing is having a sense that everything is going to be okay because of you. The pursuit of Healing can give you a sense of knowingness, the ability to learn and apply new coping strategies, as well as a belief in yourself that you can overcome future trials.
Pursuing healing also includes an inner, deep, and strong self-confidence. During your healing process, you can learn to conquer your insecurities and realize that you can overcome outside destructive forces. Instead of wanting someone to take care of you or feel sorry for you, you will know that you can take care of yourself. In fact, you can take care of yourself better than anyone else can. Instead of feeling sorry for you, people will want to emulate you and learn how to tap into that inner power you possess. Investing in yourself also includes re-examining and choosing the relationships you want to be in, which may include having to end some that are not compatible with your new self. Investing in yourself may include changing your surroundings. Your surrounding may include situations that may not be healthy for you. Investing in yourself and finding the right help you need can help show you how resilient you can be.
2. Understand Self-Acceptance
Self-acceptance is one of the hardest thought processes for a victim of sexual abuse. It is easier to love others than to love ourselves. Self-acceptance is so hard when the people you cared about the most or someone of authority you valued abused you. Along with the abuse comes negative messages about who you are and your value. You can internalize others’ actions and words and make them your own thoughts and beliefs. But healing counteracts all of that.
Loving yourself means to stop focusing on all the negatives in your life. A lack of self-love can lead you to make bad choices or sabotage yourself. Loving yourself means you are not dependent on others for their validation. You don’t need their approval. You can already get it from yourself. Relying on others’ approval means you set aside your own needs. Loving yourself and being kind to yourself means you don’t have to be perfect. Lighten up on yourself. Loving yourself during your best times or worst times is part of healing. Eventually, you will learn to love yourself for your past mistakes and be more accepting of understanding of who you are.
Understanding your own goodness is the outcrop of a strong self-worth foundation. Life after abuse helps you to see your own goodness. This can be hard for victims to see. Not only can your view of yourself be blinded by the abuse, but your own decisions in life. It is hard to see your own goodness when you are experiencing self-hatred. But healing helps you to see your goodness. There is so much more to you than your abusive past. There is so much more to you than self-hatred, self-doubt, and the struggles you are faced with. It’s time to stop looking at what is wrong with you to start looking at what is right with you. Lastly, self-love means forgiving yourself and giving yourself a break. Forgiving yourself is the truest path to self-love and self-acceptance.
3. Build the Life You Want
Investing in you is taking time out to find the help you need to lead a fulfilling life. Set aside time to evaluate your life. No matter where you are in the healing journey, recommit to setting aside a regular time each week to work on specific issues that are holding you back. You may want to learn more about healthy parenting to stop the cycle of abuse or how to set boundaries to protect yourself. There are many parts of your life that the abuse can affect, and you can work on several issues at a time or focus on one. If an issue you are trying to address cannot be overcome by education and a support system, then you can seek a professional therapist.
Many survivors do not understand that healing is multi-faceted. There are many new skills to be mastered and many to be unlearned. Building the life you want and investing in you takes courage and practice. There are many resources to help you on your healing journey. The HEAL interactive website takes survivors through a 14-session curriculum in a masterclass format that offers personal analytics to track your moods, behaviors, and triggers. Take time out for you and invest in your future. By doing so you will see incremental changes in your life.
Make investing in you a priority. Give yourself permission to put yourself first. When you do this, your need and motivation for healing will become stronger. Investing in you also means recognizing the importance of your feelings and honoring them. Take this next week to look over your calendar and find one day a week in which you will set aside time to work through your healing journey. Even if it is 15 minutes. Healing does not need to take a lifetime. Setting aside time to heal each week will move you closer to personal dreams and goals. Investing in you can change the course of your life. As you invest in you make sure you journal so that you can look back at the progress you are making. Do not be deceived by the abuse, rather as you start on a path to healing you will find self-acceptance and self-love and that you are more resilient than you think you are!
Please comment on what day and how much time you are committing a week. I would love to hear about your commitment and progress. Give yourself permission to invest in yourself!
Love and Friendship,
Wendy
Ever imagine what it would be like to live a life without shame? Join the HEAL community today. 🎉
HEAL has strict sourcing guidelines and draws only from peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations. HEAL also may reference thought leaders, experts in the field, survivors stories, and websites. We link primary sources – including studies, scientific references, and statistics – within each article and also list them in the resources section at the bottom of our articles.