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It feels personal, but it’s not

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Boundaries, Grace, The Shame Cycle, Toxic
Relationships / By Sara Wald / March 21, 2023

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 TRIGGER WARNING:
This post contains discussions about mental health that may be upsetting or
triggering for trauma survivors. If you are at risk for serious depression, anxiety,
emotional instability, or self-harm, consider reading this post in the company of
a trusted, trauma-informed supporter.

Perhaps the most deeply damaging part of trauma is the sense of

worthlessness it causes. Even if our conscious mind knows that we don’t
deserve to be hurt, our subconscious mind defaults to blaming itself. When
we experience trauma, our subconscious figures we deserved it, even
though that makes no logical sense! So it’s crucial that we learn how our
brains work so that when trauma occurs, we don’t slip into this dangerous
default of self-blame.

(You can learn more about how our subconscious mind blames itself in the
blog post Naming, Blaming, and the Uncluttered Subconscious.)

I’m by no means an ego expert. I leave that to the masters of philosophy –

Eckart Tolle and the like. But I do know this… When someone is hurtful,
controlling, abusive, or toxic, it’s not about you. It’s never about you.

Even those times when it feels deeply personal, it’s still not about you.
Maybe especially when it feels deeply personal.

Let’s go straight to the nitty gritty. Let’s address the deepest violations of
our personal autonomy: sexual assault, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, and
emotional abuse. When these things occur, it sure feels like it’s about you,
right? How can it not be? It’s your body, mind, and spirit that’s being
violated.

But I argue that the more deeply you are being violated, the less it has to do
with you.
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 Let me explain…
Someone who abuses another person’s physical or spiritual being is so
deeply insecure, is so deeply inside their own head, they don’t even see you.
You barely exist to them.

They are so full rage, feel so out of control, so full of fear and personal
insecurity, that the only way they can find even a moment’s relief is to lash
out, to force someone else into their experience, to make someone else feel
as scared, insecure, and angry as they do. So they rape. They beat. They try
to control how others see the world.

All types of abuse are directly related to survival. When someone

abuses another physically, sexually, emotionally, or spiritually, they are
reflecting their own fear of physical, sexual, emotional, or spiritual
annihilation.

Because these are enormous topics, I’m going to dive deeper into a few of
these categories individually, in their own post in the coming weeks. Abuse
is far too deep a topic to cover in just this one discussion. In today’s post,
we will do an introductory overview of how the It’s Not Personal concept
shows up in each type of abuse:
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 Physical Abuse
Physical abuse occurs when a person feels so out of control of their own
physical body that they seek that control externally. We’ve learned in
previous discussions that emotions are the brain’s dashboard. When we
are angry, our brain sends signals to our body that there is a threat. When
we are sad, our brain sends signals to our body that there is reason to
grieve. Every emotion has a corresponding message that we must explore.

Someone who is entirely disconnected with their own body does not have
any means of interpreting these emotions. All they know is that they are
deeply and profoundly uncomfortable. They know by instinct that they
must act – that they must somehow physically respond to these emotional
cues. So they lash out.

This also explains when people attack themselves with substance abuse,
eating disorders, or self-harm. They simply do not have the tools to process
big feelings through and out. Nobody taught them how to acknowledge and
act to process emotions in a healthy way. No one taught them how to
approach emotions with intention and curiosity. So they lash out and attack
others, or turn inward, and attack themselves.
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 Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse, assault, and harassment comes from the same place of
feeling out of control. Someone who perpetrates sexual crimes feels
completely powerless, specifically related to sex.

It’s important to realize that sex involves much more than the act of sexual
intercourse. It has to do with how the person defines themselves as a
sexual being. Therefore, an individual does not necessarily have to be
sexually assaulted in order to become a sexually aggressive person
themselves.

Instead of approaching sexuality as a natural and normal part of the

human experience, our culture places sexuality into a category of deviance
that must be controlled. In short, it creates shame around something that
should be beautiful.

With each passing generation, that shame builds and corrupts and
confuses, resulting in sexual abuse and exploitation in all facets of society,
from marriage to parenting, to religion and government. It isn’t sex that
broke us, but the shame we’ve created around sex.

For thousands of years we’ve tried to control sexuality and identity, placing
rules about who, when, and how we can express our sexuality. Then, when
the rules have negative outcomes we blame the act rather than the rule.
This rigidity towards sex create power struggles between individuals in an
e!ort to control personal autonomy.

In the Sexual Abuse section of this series, we will explore more deeply how
this shows up in our culture. For now, it’s important to note that these
power di!erentials don’t have to manifest as abuse to be deeply damaging
to our intimate relationships.
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 Spiritual Abuse
Spiritual abuse is a lesser discussed, and therefore often a lesser
understood violation of personal autonomy. Acts of violence are not just an
act against the body. They are also an act against the human spirit.

Many in the Redefining Love Community have asked me about spiritual

abuse. This is a minefield that I’ve stepped away from for a long time,
because I don’t want to push away anyone who could benefit from the
principles of boundaries, accountability, and grace. But the more I see how
deeply members of our community are su!ering the e!ects of spiritual
abuse, the more I realize that by avoiding this discussion, I am doing a
disservice to our community.

When others push their own religious beliefs onto others, they are
convinced it is coming from a place of love and concern for the other
person (this is your path to enlightenment, it’s about your soul’s eternal
damnation, etc.). But in reality, it proves a lack of confidence in their own
enlightenment or salvation… Their own survival, in a spiritual sense.

Ultimately, people who are truly confident in what they believe don’t feel
compelled to force others to do life exactly like they do. People who truly
have faith in a higher power trust that higher power to run the show. This
frees them from carrying the burden of other people’s enlightenment or
salvation on their shoulders, and frees their loved ones from spiritual
abuse.
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 Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is the catch-all for all other types of toxic behavior. And it
is the one form of abuse we all perpetrate at some point in our lives.

There are varying degrees, of course. Telling your child that his skin will
turn green if he eats his boogers is, technically, manipulative and a total lie.
But in the grand scheme of things, not as harmful as screaming in a child’s
face that they are stupid and pathetic because they spilled their milk.

For brevity’s sake, I’m not going to delve too deeply into the most toxic
forms of emotional abuse. If you are interested in more information, please
visit the Toxic Relationships page on the Redefining Love website. You can
find that here: www.redefine-love.com/toxic-relationships.
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 It isn’t personal
Ultimately, in order to fully live into the Redefining Love Framework of
Boundaries, Accountability, and Grace for ourselves and others, we must
come to understand that toxic behavior and abuse is never about us. It’s
never personal, even when it feels deeply personal.

Because when it feels personal, we get stuck inside the hurt,

disappointment, and lack of trust we feel in others, and the shame cycle
continues. We absorb the abuser’s shame, which becomes our shame,
which we then pass on to others.

In order to break the shame cycle, we must realize that each and every one
of us is acting and reacting from our own unique temperament and
experience. When someone hurts us – even profoundly, even in such a way
that leaves permanent scars – it has nothing to do with us, and everything
to do with them. Their pain. Their rage. Their sense of powerlessness and
insecurity.
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 That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
It may not be about us, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a valid gripe.
What it does mean is that we can still love ourselves, regardless of how
others treat us. Because our value, or worth as a human being, is not
determined by how others treat us. It just is. We are inherently valuable,
simply by virtue of existing.

And once we realize that, we also have space within ourselves to give grace
to others.

We can still hold them accountable. We can say, “The way you are treating
me hurts and that is not okay.”

And we can set boundaries. We can say, “No. You don’t get to treat me like
that.” While also loving the value that is inherent in their existence.

They are separate from us. We are separate from them.

We all steer our own boat. We all determine whether we will sink or swim.
We all get to decide who rides on our boat.

Power is found not over others, but within ourselves. Connection is

determined not by how much power we hold over others, but by how well
we love ourselves.
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 When someone hurts you, it’s not about
you.
It’s about them. They’ve presented you with a choice:

How much do you value yourself? Do you deserve better? The answer is
always yes.

So how will you respond? Will you internalize the pain, allow it to fester and
become shame, and eventually pass it on to someone else. Or will to
approach your pain with intention and curiosity?

Will you react with shame, rage, and bitterness? Or will you respond with
boundaries, accountability, and grace?

We will be exploring this idea that It’s Not Personal further in the coming
weeks.

Learn more...
To learn more about the Redefining Love Way, I encourage you to browse
the site. Have questions? Feel free to email me at sara@sarabethwald.com,
or schedule a free discovery call.

For more information on how to join the Redefining Love Community,

please visit redefine-love.com/coaching.
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 Related Links:
What is Redefining Love?
Boundaries
Accountability
Grace
Toxic Relationships
The Shame Cycle
Emotions are the brain’s dashboard
Understanding emotions
How we get trapped in toxic circumstances
Naming, blaming, and the uncluttered subconscious

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