Introduction

Abuse takes many forms.

Neglect is the most insidious. When the most important people in your life do not see you for who you are, empathise with your feelings or acknowledge your perspective, you get an eerie sense of drifting alone in outer space. You feel invisible, unworthy, unwanted and flawed. A deathly anxiety grips you as you fight not only to connect and belong, but to validate your very existence. Neglect is a harrowing experience.

Emotional abuse is when your emotions are twisted against you to the point of agony. Emotional abusers manipulate your feelings so they can exert total control over you. They gaslight you, accuse you of constant wrongdoing and question your every move, leaving you with crippling self-doubt.

Physical abuse is the use of rage, threats and violence to intimidate you, punish you, dominate you and crush your will to resist.

Narcissistic abuse involves actively shaming someone into feeling inferior. By exploiting your shame, a narcissist can crush your willpower and mould you into a submissive source of supply for their ego.

Another insidious form of abuse is infantilisation. Here the abuser seeks to dominate every facet of your life by assuming the role of the authoritative judge. Through micromanaging your life and being the arbiter of right and wrong, the abuser achieves total control by effectively turning you into a child. Not only can you do no right, you are incapable of doing anything in general. This state of learned helplessness leaves you vulnerable to further exploitation.

Although narcissistic abuse receives the most attention, chances are you have experienced all of the above at some point — with devastating consequences. Abuse permeates the breath you take, the energy you feel, every decision you make, even the very fate of your life. You become consumed by constant anxiety and overwhelming shame. You dissociate and resort to fantasy as a coping mechanism. Your brain development is affected.

Those who have experienced abuse are at a significant disadvantage. They remain fragmented and alienated from themselves. They have no idea who they are, what they want or what they stand for. Crippled by the after-effects of abuse, they remain vulnerable while having to play catch up. Because they are under-equipped and under-defended, they immediately stand out to potential abusers. It is a vicious cycle that must be broken.

And break it you will.

This recovery program tackles the all-pervasiveness of abuse head-on. It begins with basic breathwork and mindfulness exercises, which help ground you amidst internal and external chaos, before progressing to higher levels of mindfulness practice. Once you have gained a bird’s-eye-view of yourself and your world, you can release repressed emotions, expose self-limiting beliefs and embrace new experiences.

This program will help you to restore a continuous sense of self. It will enable you to clarify your core needs, principles and values, and then support you in developing a broader vision for your life that enables you to thrive. The idea is not only recovery, but transcendence.

With that in mind, let’s begin.