The first step to emotionally and spiritually heal from any harmful relationship requires self-reflection. Self-reflection involves examining how you got into and chose to stay in your relationship. For this blog, I will focus on domestic abusive relationships. And I will address some of the changes you might need to make as you seek healing.
When I talk about self-reflection, I am talking about discovering how your partner’s abusive actions affected your emotional and spiritual well-being. I am not talking about taking the blame for what your abuser did. You are never responsible for someone else’s actions. But your responsibility is to understand what happened and what you did about it.
You can start by asking yourself, how did I get into this mess? I believe that when we self-reflect and try to answer that question, we will discover things we might need to address as we seek healing. I will attempt to answer that question and suggest things you can do to change and heal.
Self-reflection: How did I get into this mess?
Love
Yes, love is the number one reason why we stay in an abusive relationship. Most people I know married for love. I certainly did! But I think my concept of love wasn’t as clear as I thought it was. It was influenced by others’ perceptions of who I was and was performance-based. The truth was, I didn’t love who I was or see myself as important due to past experiences in my childhood and teenage years. In addition to those experiences, my parents weren’t around to nurture my sense of self-worth. This led to a faulty concept of love which made it difficult to tell the difference between healthy love versus sick love.
Love in an abusive relationship means one person does all the giving and the other person does all the taking. Once you realize that, you can change your unhealthy concept of love and replace it with healthy love. As Christians, we don’t have to look too far because Christ demonstrated what healthy love is.
Fear
We can’t move forward without addressing fear. Fear is a powerful force that keeps us frozen and ineffective to seek change. Some fear is healthy, for example, the fear of safety, but most of our fears are irrational. For me, I fear my ex-husband more, then I fear God. You might ask, how? I wasn’t afraid to break God’s commandments, like lying to please him or covering up the abuse, but I was more fearful of what he will do if I don’t follow his wishes. For some, we fear our families, or the church response to us when we speak the truth. We let our fears stop us from seeking change.
We can’t let fear stops us from taking responsibility to take actions to change our abusive environment. We will have to confront our fears to move forward.
Shame/Embarrassment
As we self-reflect, I think shame is second to fear for not seeking help. Shame is inwardly self-inflicted. It tells you that you are not significant, or not good enough because you made wrong choices. Embarrassment, on the other hand, is other people’s perceptions of you. Both are damaging to one’s sense of self.
I believe that educated women who are used to be in control or might have access to resources to stop the abuse are more a risk to let shame and embarrassment stop them from seeking help. I know of friends who have left their abusive relationships but haven’t started the process of healing from “domestic abuse” because they weren’t ready to accept the fact that they were victims of abuse. Accepting that fact will mean they will have to face their shame.
Exposing our shame in a safe environment will help us to conquer it so that we can move forward to freedom from abuse.
Anger
Self-reflection will help us expose our anger, which is required to heal. Questions like, “Why didn’t I leave early?” “I can’t believe I let him treat me that way, and why didn’t I do something?” These types of questions will produce anger and regret. Anger itself is not bad. Anger allowed me to take back some of my power, like refusing to have a joint account so that I can have control of how I spent my money.
But the thing about anger is, if you continue to stay in that state, it makes you resentful and bitter. We have to make a conscious effort to use it only for change and not let it control our lives.
Trust
Abuse can cause a damaging blow to our sense of trust. It hampers our ability to trust ourselves and even God. I know of a woman who was angry with God for allowing her abuser to get off without any consequences. Mentioning the name of God will send her into a tearful state, and her anger came alive in her facial expressions. She didn’t trust God anymore.
But I believe we have to regain our trust in God first so that we can trust ourselves. Also, we have to evaluate and develop a conviction about what trust means.
I am glad the scriptures don’t command us to trust everyone that says, “I am sorry”. Regardless of this fact, some of us were pushed by others to trust our abuser when he said he was sorry without outward repentance.
Even though I have forgiven my abuser, that doesn’t mean that I have to trust him. I had to come to a conviction that I am not required to trust him even if he tells me he is sorry or shows outward remorse. Trust is earned, and he will have to demonstrate that he is trustworthy. There is no time frame attached to my acceptance of my trust in him. I have to be okay with that choice.
As we seek healing, our priority should be learning to trust God and trust ourselves. Trust that we have the power within ourselves to change our situation. In addition, trusting our abusers is not based on others’ expectations.
Forgiveness
I think our greatest challenge as we self-reflect, is addressing forgiveness. We can spend hours talking about this topic. Forgiveness is the key to healing. Here, I am talking about self-forgiveness. For most of us it is easier to forgive others than ourselves.
It was difficult to forgive myself. Why did I accept abuse from someone who didn’t have the capability of meeting my needs? Why did I expose my children to an environment that was damaging to their emotional health? My response to these questions produced anger that I had to confront and let go of.
If we don’t forgive ourselves, abuse will continue to have a hold on us. I believe the key to self-forgiveness is understanding God’s grace. It is easier to extend grace to others than to ourselves. For me, at times extending grace to myself means that I am not taking responsibility for my actions, or I am taking advantage of God’s kindness. But if we don’t extend grace to ourselves, we are denying that the scriptures have the power to change us.
In conclusion, we have to come to believe that the scriptures have the power to heal us. But we have to do the work that is required to heal. Self-reflection will help us identify areas that we can address as we seek healing. I pray that when you self-reflect, God will grant you the knowledge to change the areas in your life that needs his healing.
The content of this blog is adapted from my book, A Path to Hope: Restoring the Spirit of the Abused Christian Woman.
*Reposted bog
