Life Coaching is all about the present and the future; it is all about taking control of our lives, now, and creating the future we want. It is not about analysing events of the past or going back to old emotions. But it is true that what we are today is the result of what we have experienced, and we need to let go of the past, to resolve it fully, in order to free ourselves, take control of our lives, empower ourselves and create our future.

And if you have experienced abuse in the course of your life this is even more crucial, because sometimes it might seem that the scars of the abuse will be ever present and even prevent your happiness.

But abuse can be truly overcome and resolved fully, and it can be seen as a powerful proof of confirmation of your extraordinary strength and courage. You will be proud of yourself for having endured all that you did. You will discover the fabulous person you are; you can indeed create the life you love; you can be and do and achieve anything, really anything you want.

I have experienced emotional, verbal and mental abuse myself, and I remember how difficult it was for me to take control, because I did not know I had the right to it.

Taking control is all about knowing that we have the right to choose and the right to our freedom, then taking full responsibility for our lives.

It is all about choosing: choosing our beliefs, choosing our rights, our thoughts, our values, our boundaries, our standards, our behaviours, and our responses to events, people and situations.

And if you have experienced abuse, it might be difficult to know what is ‘normal’, what you have the right to. It is very important to trust yourself, to listen inside: you will understand and know what is right for you. You decide what your rights are: you can be and do whatever you want, of course provided that you respect the others.

What also makes difficult to let go of the scars of the abuse is that abuse is often linked with negative emotions: shame, guilt, blame and anger.

Overcoming abuse means making some resolute and bold decisions to let go of all negative emotions:

• the anger towards the abusers; because they did what they were capable of and probably were not capable of doing better

• the shame, guilt & blame towards yourself; because you did nothing to bring the abuse on yourself, were not in a position to prevent it, and there is nothing to feel bad about

What makes difficult to move on from the past is that sometimes events in the present trigger an event from the past: the meaning, in your mind, of the event in the present is linked to an old belief. It is necessary to free yourself from these negative associations. You need to choose which meaning you are going to give to every event you live now, in the present, and stop linking the event with the past. Your past will not determine your present or your future, because you can take charge of your life, right now.

You need to let go of old beliefs and choose what you believe. Old beliefs can be very limiting and can seem very powerful, but they aren’t. You need to make a bold decision to ‘divorce’ from them; you can choose to deny beliefs that are not good for you. What would help in challenging the old beliefs are questions like: ‘Who says that?’ ‘Why is that?’ These questions help you to regain decisional control on your beliefs. You choose them.

It is not possible to challenge all of the old beliefs, but you can decide, right now, to ‘divorce’ all of the old beliefs in full, if they are false and wrong for you. You decide what you want to believe, today, with regard to yourself, your life, people, situations…

Then you need to choose:

• your values: what is important to you, and align your behaviours to them

• your boundaries: what is acceptable to you and what is not

And through all of these processes, be kind to yourself, welcome yourself, develop a special relationship with yourself, take care of yourself, back yourself always, approve of yourself, like yourself and what you do, and always be proud of yourself.

Copyright © Piercarla Garusi, Life & Career Coach

All rights reserved

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