Non-Violent Communication – What Is Holding You Back?

Top: Lost Ink (on sale!), Jeans: Lois (on sale!), Hat: Tallis, Sneakers: Gucci (similar style). Photo by: Surekha.

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A few months ago I did an interview with a business coach to creatives Leticia Martignon. It will be published in the coming weeks on Currently Wearing Presents and I am sure you will fall in love with her too. I was so mesmerized by her energy that I wanted to work with her immediately. She turned me down, citing that I need to work on what is holding me back in order to benefit from her coaching. But she recommended that I start practicing Non-Violent Communication (NVC). It is a method can help to uncover your needs and wishes and communicate them non violently.

In my teens, I suffered from depression, tried to commit a suicide, battled an eating disorder for more than a decade, took drugs and went to a rehab. For my family and our family friends, it was something “out of order”. I was seen as a spoiled little girl. Why would someone want to commit a suicide when on a material level she did not lack anything?

After the rehab, I went back to University and in coming years I attended rigorous, secluded retreats and visited more therapists then I could remember in order to understand my self-destructive tendencies.

Throughout the years I kept getting weird flashbacks but did not want to really see the message. I wanted to believe that those were just my imaginations. Crazy fables. Did you know that if you experience a traumatic experience in our childhood, your mind suppresses it and it will only emerge once you are ready?

After my first non-violent communication session, those flashbacks came back and stayed for good. It was the time when the “Weinstein story” broke out. Alex and I had an argument about it and it made me realize that I needed to talk about my experience.

After my second non-violent communication session, I knew I had to share my story. Both for me and for those who are sitting back in quiet, afraid to come out. I still find it hard to talk about it but writing is easier.

I was sexually abused as a child by a member of my step-father’s family. I never told my parents. I did not believe that they would take me seriously. Nor that they would believe me. I was afraid I would make my mother choose sides and break the family. But when I think about it, my fear was that she would not trust me.

All my childhood I was angry with my parents without telling them why. It ate me inside and translated into drug, food and sexual addictions that none of my therapists could understand. I was coming from “a good family”. It did not make sense. As if things like that don’t happen in “good families”.

If you ask me whether I forgave that person, I can honestly say I did. I also made peace with my parents in my mind.  I could see them and be with them without blaming them for not protecting me as a child. I think it is all thanks to my meditation practice and especially the silent Vipassana retreat that cleaned all the sh*** and blame. I believe that there is a meaning for everything and what happened made me the person that I am today. I don’t want to call myself a victim. I survived all these ups and downs and there is a meaning in being here and having this blog where I can share with you my thoughts. I guess 2018 will be more about writing, sharing stories and finding ways to enable other women doing the same. I will turn 40. maybe we will have a second child, maybe not. I don’t know but what I feel deep inside is that I have to translate my experience into something meaningful. For me, for my daughter, for my husband and for all of you who come, leave a comment (or not) and make this space a two-way conversation.

Thank you for reading my last post of 2017.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.  May love, happiness, success, and joy follow you next year and beyond.