Awareness

Understanding is the key; acceptance is the door

As we move across that Bridge of Recovery, the skills we used in Process begin to pay off. There are a number of properties of awareness; some of them, Sensibility, Prudence, Knowledge, Visualization, Feeling and Foresight are mentioned in the book Repair Your Life. Here again, with great humility, (I wish I were as knowledgeable as he is) we draw on Webster. He says, “Aware implies vigilance in observing or alertness in drawing inferences from what one experiences.” Unfortunately, the experiences a child of abuse has are all negative. But we know what was stolen from us when that happened. Our job now is to regain those properties of awareness.

Before we began recovery, we lacked a number of them. No wonder! When you are abused as a child, lack healthy parenting, are not allowed to develop your own self-esteem and are surrounded by unhealthy people who inadvertently or not fail to teach you about setting boundaries and believing in yourself, you have little chance of becoming a healthy adult. By now, you have learned something of the Family Systems. The most obvious ones include: patriarchal (or matriarchal) family system, obedient/co-dependent mother (father), religiously regimented household, eldest daughter, alcoholic (or other addiction) parent, and/or a family history of sexual boundary violators. This is the forest under which your trees (the individual common denominators that you read about in the Recognition blog) grew. John Bradshaw has an excellent book out called The Family. You might want to get a copy of it. It will target even closer those that might be a part of your life.

At this point, you will check off which family systems were yours. There were, no doubt, more than one. In my case I grew up in a patriarchal family system with an obedient mother, a religiously regimented household; I was the oldest daughter and I had a family history of sexual boundary violators. What chance did I have with that many family systems? Once you take a close look at what these systems contributed towards your child sexual abuse you will be able to list Traits you had prior to the sexual abuse and Traits you had after the sexual abuse. Some of you may have been too young to remember before the abuse. Ask family members and friends who knew you then what you were like. If the abuse happened during the first year of your life and beyond remember that we are all born with the promise of having all of these properties of awareness and more. Unless some damage was done to you while you were in the womb, no child is born without these wonderful qualities.

Someone robbed you of all of these. It is a statement about them, not about you. You were a pawn on a chessboard. Picture a chessboard with all its pieces. The pawn (you as a child) is moved and motivated strictly for the self-serving interests of the king and queen (your parents and/or your perpetrator). Significant aspects to the profile of a child sexual abuse family may include many things. They are all red flags. How many red flags did you have on the Profile Of A Child Sexual Abuse Victim that you filled out earlier? How many did you want and would you have chosen at birth? How many showed up on your Family Systems profile? At this point in recovery, you will begin to assemble the pieces you lost because of your abuse. Here you will take a hard look at your family history and how it contributed to your abuse. After that you will be ready for the next stage called Insight.

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