We cannot change our abusers; we can only change ourselves.

So often our focus is placed entirely on our abusers. If they only changed, life would be perfect, right?

This erroneous belief is what keeps many couples riding the roller coaster highs and lows of abusive relationships, cycling through the stages of honeymoon, tension, and explosion. I know, I remember it well.

We could spend a lifetime trying to convince another person to change, and while they may have good intentions, unless they are able to sustain the will and conviction needed, it’s just not going to happen.

So, if we can’t change our partner, let’s shift the focus to what we can do.

We can change ourselves.

I can imagine you screaming at me: “It’s not me who needs change. They are the one in the wrong.”

To be clear, I am in no way condoning any abusive behaviour. I have been in this position, so I know it better than most.

It helps to remember that our partners are energetic mirrors, reflecting back to us exactly what we need to understand about ourselves in order to change, heal, and grow. So, for as long as we are involved in an abusive relationship, on some level we feel unworthy of love and respect. Maybe we didn’t feel loved by our parents, maybe we were bullied at school, maybe we were sexually abused, or maybe our internal self-talk is continually critical and diminishing.

Somewhere there is a feeling of a lack of self-worth, or else we just wouldn’t attract such degrading behaviour or continue to tolerate being treated with disrespect. It really is that simple, and this is why so many leave one abusive partner only to walk straight into the arms of another.

Now this is not intended as judgement, but rather empowering information shared with love. Because once we understand this concept, we are firmly on our way to reclaiming our power.

Seeing ourselves at the mercy of the behaviour of others places us firmly in victim mentality, a label we can only attach to ourselves by choice. By choosing to identify ourselves as victims, we are completely releasing any responsibility for our situation, our attitude toward our situation, and our power to change the outcome. It’s a chosen mindset, but one that can be willingly changed with awareness and intention.

So, the first step toward taking our power back is to start seeing ourselves as survivors instead of victims. This immediately shifts the power from external helplessness to internal strength. We are acknowledging that while we are unable to control other people and events, we most definitely have the power to control our attitude toward them.

In quantum reality, every thought, emotion, and action is said to be an energetic request for “more of the same please.”  We are continually magnetizing the people and circumstances into our lives which align with our individual frequency, whether are aware of it or not. Now the good news is, that this is never a fixed state.

The second step is to work on our self-empowerment, to get excited about life again and start doing whatever we can to feel better about ourselves. This serves to raise our energetic vibration to a point where we no longer attract disrespect and abuse. Like energy attracts, this is a fundamental law of quantum physics. Our abuser will either start improving their behaviour or the relationship will end relatively smoothly, as we start aligning energetically with new circumstances, reflecting our increasingly empowering state of self-worth.

Raising our vibes is easy. In a nutshell, it’s anything that leads us down the path to joy, love, peace, and self-respect.

We can get there by having a healthy, holistic diet and lifestyle, including mediation, yoga, hanging out in nature, along with plenty of positive, motivational reading or media, such as elephant journal. Mentally, it is important to be aware of what we are giving our thoughts and emotional energy to, remembering that in every moment we are consciously creating our reality.

Easy does it, one step at a time, there’s no need to feel overwhelmed. Small changes can yield huge results and place us firmly in the upward spiral toward manifesting the life of freedom we only ever dreamed possible.

Our external world is merely a manifestation of our internal world.

As within, so without: The only person we can change is our self.

All those years ago, I used to ask myself, “Why do you stay?”

“I stay because I love him.”

As an older, wiser version of myself, I can now gently tell that shattered woman, “No, my dear, you don’t stay because you love him; you stay because you don’t love yourself.”

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Author: Karen Star
Image: “Sleeping with the Enemy” still
Editor: Travis May