After psychological abuse, many survivors feel broken, like they will never return back to the person they were before. Joy and love seems to have disappeared, replaced with a dull numb sensation.
Essentially what sociopaths and narcissists do is copy / mimic your personality, which quickly gains your trust and vulnerability. Once you’re hooked, they minimize, ridicule, shame, and reject this most vulnerable part of you.
The numbness is this rejected part of you, the part that has been shut down due to betrayal and humiliation. As long as this unresolved wound exists inside of us, we may inadvertently seek external validation for proof of our worth, living with a constant sense that there is something defective about us.
We may believe that our joy will return when the perpetrator’s next relationship fails. It won’t. Maybe the joy will return if we prove ourselves through accomplishments or a great relationship. It won’t. Maybe the joy will return if we’re super nice to everyone and try to solve other people’s problems. It won’t.
This wound exists inside of us, and it can only be resolved by internal work.
This starts by getting out of the ego belief that someone stole something from us that we’ll never get back. This is simply not true, and as long as we believe someone else stole our love and joy, we’ll waste our time thinking about that person, rather than turning inward where we can actually find it.
Mindfulness allows us to work with numbness and unlock the pain within. You should prepare to experience overwhelming sensations of worthlessness, inadequacy, rejection, and shame. You might ask “Why? What’s the point?” Because as long as we don’t feelthese emotions, we cannot healfrom them.
The more we work with pain, the more we develop the loving presence needed to nurture it back to health. And when the loving presence becomes strong enough, we can finally free the most vulnerable part of ourselves (our true selves) from this false prison.
Your joy and love haven’t gone anywhere. They’re locked inside layers of numbness, resentment, rejection, and hurt. Only you can walk back into this pain to find the part of yourself that someone else deemed bad, and instead choose to welcome it home with loving arms.
Will others reject you again? Will this tender part of you be judged or analyzed? Who cares. When you know in your heart that you are good, external validation is meaningless. People who ridicule or shame your feelings are simply projecting their own internal world, and it is a hell you don’t need to accept anymore.
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