Beautiful 🙂
Don’t walk too far away from the child within you,
and never abandon the sense of wonder
that magnifies the smallest of things into mountains of joy.
For one day, when you lose sight of happiness,
that child within can guide you back
to the things
that once nourished your heart.
Wishing all you wonderful readers and fellow bloggers a wonderful Christmas (although a little late) and I really hope that you managed to find beauty & love in your surroundings, even if you were grieving or not having such a good time today. If not, then know you were not alone in your grief! I hope that you were loved or at least were able to spoil yourselves.
Lots of love to you all! ❤️
Athina
Second-guessing myself always lingers in the background, when I don’t allow myself to PEOPLE PLEASE..
Feeling guilty for not people-pleasing is something that I just have to make friends with, although sometimes it just feels harder than others.
Being authentic & true to myself is so much more important but breaking old habits is tough, especially when I am not always aware. Sometimes I just seem to realise too late and end up having to deal with whatever it is I said yes to.
Whenever I have lingering guilt after saying ”I am not comfortable with that” or just simply saying ”No”, I try and ask myself why I am feeling this way. It always boils down to not feeling good enough, not being liked & feeling like ‘I am bad’ rather than the healthier ‘I have done something bad’.
I know now, that I was moulded into a people-pleaser by my parents, when I was a young child . Narcissistic parents are very good at using their children as sources of supply, whether that is for adoration, love, doing chores for them, being their emotional crunch or getting them to do all sorts of uncomfortable or age inappropriate things.
I am fully aware that even now, in my thirties, it is a lot easier and less scarier for me to make excuses about why I don’t want to do something rather than to simply say ‘I don’t want to do it’…
As a child, if I simply said NO, I would usually get into trouble and my parents would withdraw their love and attention towards me, until I complied..I learned the hard way that standing up for myself would almost always lead to punishment..
Now as an adult, I still feel crushed whenever I sense that someone isn’t happy with my response. The guilt can sometimes linger for days and this is a really crappy frame of mind to be in, as it isn’t productive or useful. However, part of being able to stop people pleasing, is to accept that you just have to sit with your feelings of guilt, as in the end you are doing what is best for you and not others.
What is your experience with feelings of guilt when choosing not to people-please?
Love Athina ♥♥
© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.
Dear readers,
This post today is only a quick one. I thought I would share this week’s Youtube video which will also be shared on my Child Within blog, so it reaches more people. It is a Q & A video on narcissism and in this case, one of my viewers wanted to know whether narcissists are paranoid.
This is something I have had first hand experience with and I know how detrimental it can be to those that surround the narcissist. My father’s paranoia was incredibly magnetic and my husband and I, as well as his friends and colleagues, all got sucked into his overly paranoid outlook just before and after his suicide attempt.
If you have had to deal with narcissistic family or partners who were overly paranoid, please feel free to share your experience.
Love Athina ♥
© All blog posts and images are owned by me and Courage Coaching. Please don’t use without consent and only re-blog if you would like to use the information on here.
Very powerful post by this incredibly strong lady! It speaks to so many sexual abuse survivors out there, who never got the closure they deserved!
For any newly created site there is always a bit of a delay in the initial interaction. I am currently in Germany but hoping to reach more people via this platform.Since I am already familiar with wordpress and the people on here are very friendly, I decided that the creation of a page here would be ideal. I also have another blog site on here which focuses on trauma and healing from abuse. It is an anonymous blog so please be respectful of this if you know it. I will be creating YouTube videos very soon so bare with me.
Feedback is always wonderful so look forward to hearing from you!
COURAGE COACHING 