Life After Abuse (Part 1): When Abuse Rears Its Ugly Head By Dr. Lisa Cooney

Often, by the time my clients come to see me, the abuse they experienced has
ended. It may have been an isolated incident in their past or many experiences of
abuse over decades.

Either way, when they come to me they describe a feeling of stuckness, like
being trapped in an invisible cage. They describe this cage as being a destructive
force that blocks them from fully creating their life.

This invisible cage of abuse perpetuates destruction, withdrawal, separation and
isolation. When you are in the cage you are in a constant state of degrading and
disempowering yourself. This is abuse rearing its ugly head. Although the abuse
may have ended, its ripple effects are pervasive.

If you’ve ever experienced abuse, you can get stuck in repeating patterns of the
past abuse. Your health, relationships and money flows are all limited. Your
generative and creative capacities to do what you love in the world become
blocked. It’s like the needle gets stuck in the song track of, “I can’t,” “I don’t know
what to do,” and, “Something is wrong with me.”

Instead of creating your life, you actually - unconsciously - choose the energy of
destruction. In subtle yet pervasive ways you destroy everything you desire to
create.

This may look like:
 

   • Destroying or ending relationships
   • Bankrupting yourself or indebting yourself financially
   • Being destructive with your body
   • Not ever realizing there is something else possible beyond the cage

This may feel like you’re paddling upstream and always confronting a struggle,
obstacle or catastrophe. Disharmony and conflict are what’s familiar. Harmony
and peace are foreign.

The invisible cage is rooted in the lie that something is wrong with you. It’s based
in a story that you are limited and that you lack something. These judgments that
you make of yourself (and potentially others, too) are focused on destroying you
and keeping you small.

I know this may sound insane. Why would anyone choose to destroy their life
rather than create their life?

Yet I invite you to consider these questions:

• Have you been creating or destroying your life?
• Have you been creating or destroying your relationships?
• Have you been creating or destroying your relationship with yourself?
• Have you been creating or destroying your relationship with money?
• Have you been creating or destroying your relationship with your body?

And be willing to be honest with yourself. The only way to move beyond the
destructive, limiting nature of the cage of abuse is to first acknowledge that you
are in it.

Over the past two decades I have worked with thousands of clients around the
world. I am deeply humbled and grateful that the first two decades of my life,
entrenched in so much abuse, became the catalyst for eradicating and
eliminating abuse from the planet.

I discovered the keys for unlocking the cage of abuse. And I am excited to share
them with you. Beyond the cage, beyond the bridge, is a way of living that is
rooted in the energy of possibility and creativity. This way of living is what I call,
“Radically Alive.”