Excerpts from

Out Of Love For Yourself

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Having first-hand experience of abuse, Carla van Raay understands the feelings and challenges of the abused person; also, what it takes to heal the wounds that go so very deep. It is common for an abused person to feel that no-one could understand her and that she and her life are unfixable. This is common but not true, and Carla is a living example of this fact.

Carla's background is teaching, so she has a good grasp of step-by-step learning. First there is information leading to a challenge, then a way to meet the challenge, usually in the form of an exercise to perform. You are asked to keep notes of your actions and of your progress. Knowing yourself to be a spiritual-energy being is a most powerfully freeing understanding, so you are gradually invited to recognise this about yourself.

An enormous number of women and girls have been abused, and this book offers a first and yet thorough road to seeking further help, setting the stage for overcoming a major problem in women's healing: the shame and secrecy which very often prevents her from opening up to another person.

This workbook was at first available in print, at a price of $67. As an electronic book, it has the advantage of transmitting all the information at less than half the price. There is no waiting, there are no postal charges. Should you lose your e-book, a replacement will happily be sent to you entirely free of charge. You will find that the workbook enables you to find the chapter and page you want just by clicking at the right link, and you can print out the whole book or just the sections that you want.

Don't hesitate! Let this be the first day of the rest of your life, where you learn to look back only to realise how far you have come.

Enjoy these excerpts from my eBook ...

Excerpt from Chapter Thirteen
ACCEPTANCE OF FEELINGS

You have done some great work on awareness: now it's time to process some of the thoughts and beliefs you've become aware of. This is the start of some real work! You will notice great changes in a short time, and you will notice how many feelings will crowd forward to be accepted! It's as if you've opened the doors to a Spring Sale, and everyone wants to take advantage of the bargains! Your feelings will fall over each other to get to your attention! They have come to be healed, so be ready!

As you know by the above title, the next tool is ACCEPTANCE.
In this chapter, I'll make it clear what acceptance is and what it isn't, when it's ineffective and how to do it properly.

ACCEPTANCE is achieved by the part of us that loves unconditionally.
Some parts of us have no clue how to accept ourselves; they are too busy trying to change us, to make us measure up to an internal, impossible image. The rest of us is occupied slating us for our imperfections, so believe it: only your unconditionally loving self knows how to accept you and your feelings.

Now you might really despair, because you don't know where this unconditionally loving part of you is! But don't worry: not only do all of us have this part, but the core of ourselves IS this Unconditional Love! We can be badly out of touch with it, but we can never get away from it, and it never deserts us.

So how do we call on it?

This is how. Pick a feeling that you've been struggling with, a feeling you've become aware of that is the result of having been abused. Shame is a very common feeling, so let's take that as an example.

When the feeling of shame comes up, what do we usually do? We try not to feel it! It's very uncomfortable, isn't it? It makes us cringe, it makes us turn hot and cold, it makes our self-esteem wilt. No, there's nothing nice about feeling shame.

Call on your unconditionally loving self to help you feel the feeling. There's only one way to deal with shame, and that is to allow the feeling to be there, in other words, to accept it.

The proper way to do this

The proper way to do this is to allow the Unconditionally Loving part of you to do it. If you try to do it yourself, you will only be able to do it half-heartedly. Not only that, you'll do it in order to get rid of the feeling! Do you get the contradiction?
The proper way to do this is also to remind yourself, before you start, that you are not this feeling, no matter how much you might feel that you are.
You are not this feeling!
You didn't manufacture this feeling, and it isn't even yours: you adopted it somewhere along the way.
This feeling isn't personal. It's universal.
This feeling isn't new: there are no new feelings under the sun. This feeling is an old, recycled feeling, old and tired and out-of-date.

EXERCISE:
Accepting a feeling

Bring up a feeling, such as shame, and call on your Unconditional Loving Self to come to your aid. Now say the words:

'Even though it's difficult (and nearly impossible) for me to accept this feeling of shame, I choose to deeply and completely accept it. I surround it with love and compassion.'
Close your eyes and surround the feeling with light. Don't move as you allow the feeling to run through your body. You might feel coarse energy waves like rough electricity go through you. This is the energy of the feeling that you've been suppressing for so long! This is what you've been holding on to for so long, and it wasn't good for you! Let it go, let it go, let it go!

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Excerpt from Chapter Fifteen on SEXUALITY
CHOOSING A PARTNER
Abuse can cripple our ability to build relationships with clarity and ease after eros dies down. Why? Because abuse distorts our perception. What this means is that we can't really 'see' the other person for who they are. What do we do instead?

First, we unconsciously tend to see them as a means to an end. What end? The end of them being able to love us as parent substitutes. As abused women, we often look for the partner who most resembles our father, both the good parts and the bad. As little girls, we wanted to be unconditionally loved by our dad and the males in our lives. He didn't, or other significant males didn't, and from that time onward, all partners became possibilities for loving us the way we were never loved as children.

And so we project. We project the ideal image onto our partner. We don't see them for who they are but for who they appear to be in our hopeful eyes. It won't be long before reality sets in. The guy is pleased, at first, to be so popular, but then gets overwhelmed by our expectations, which he can't fulfil. Then he says, 'Whoa! I'm out of here!'

Abuse can impair our ability to choose a partner who will respect us. This is because, deep down, abuse has created in us a lack of respect for ourselves. Our creative thoughts carry this energy outwards, so we attract abusive partners.

Our guilt will make us seek out partners who will punish us.

Do you get the drift? It takes some honesty to come to terms with the fact that although we were not responsible for the abuse we received as children, we are responsible for the choices we make now. Until now, those choices were unconscious. The reasons for choosing were hidden from you. Now you can afford to recognise them and deal with them.

EXERCISE:

Make some notes about the partners you've chosen: what did you notice about them that might have reflected what was inside you?

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