The Revolution Of Self-Love

Posted on by Claire Samuel
The Revolution Of Self-Love

The Revolution Of Self-Love: A Yearlong Journey Of Self-Love: 52 Authors, Stories, And Exercises is an amazing book that takes you by the hand on a journey towards yourself. Thanks to the 52 authors, you can truly realize that you are not alone to struggle with self hate. More than a book, The Revolution Of Self-Love is an exercise assignment, with concrete ways to walk on the self-love path my friend my sister. Here are the key points I take away from The Revolution Of Self-Love.

1. The people around us

Assessing who we choose to surround ourselves with is a first step: “You are the sum of the company you keep. Life becomes better and easier when the people around you are growing in the same positive, expansive, beautiful ways that you are.”

No, it’s not rude to take some distance from negative people. And yes it is our responsibility to really cut cords when people around us are downright hurtful or abusive.

2. Searching inside ourselves

Self-love requires us to have the bravery to take a deep close look at ourselves. Such an inside quest means that our focus has to shift from people pleasing to assessing what we need: “How could I make myself happy if I didn’t know what I really wanted? I was always more concerned about everyone else and their needs because I needed their love; because I was missing my own.”

What do you really want my friend my sister? For instance, I want a man who loves being healthy with me. Yes, I never rejected someone because he was smoking and drinking, but deep down I admit it: I would love to one day meet someone who takes care of himself. It’s new for me to write it clearly like that you know.

3. A work in progress on the path of love

Have you ever seen a woman who had all figured out and really loves herself? Sincerely, there are so many days when I feel sad and desperate my friend my sister.

Self-love is an ever-ending task, a life’s work: “We will always be a work in progress, as perfection is not a human quality. However, we can always choose to walk in the direction of light and love. We can always strive to be a better version of ourselves.”

A little tip? “I started taking “should” out of my life as much as possible.”

You can also take you out for dinner. I did it once, in Paris, alone in a Chinese restaurant. I also went to the movies by myself for many years. It was a joyful experience. “What has been the most helpful way to learn self-love is to date myself!” reads The Revolution Of Self-Love.

Need more pragmatic tips my friend my sister? “Each time you say a judgmental or negative comment to yourself or about yourself, you must give yourself three compliments.”

What about singing? “One of the most dramatic shifts came when I started to sing love songs to myself that I wished others would sing to me.”

4. Another way to deal with rejection

The Revolution Of Self-Love

I am the first one to have done that, and I guess I may still do it without being aware of it: building walls around my heart to protect it: “I strategically learned to build walls that would ensure I was safe from more rejection.” Let me tell you sister, this doesn’t help. 

The authors of The Revolution Of Self-Love write: “Self-love wasn’t always a part of my vocabulary. I thought barricading and isolating myself were acts of self-love. I thought it was supposed to look like me shutting everyone out. If I never let anyone in then I would never get hurt. Plus, protecting yourself is the most significant act of love, isn’t it? In hopes of blocking others out, I subconsciously built a wall up around my heart.”

You know, I loved someone, very deeply. I removed the walls. It didn’t prevent me from being rejected my friend my sister.

I learned the same lesson, that building walls around the heart wasn’t a good protection, in the great book The forty rules of love by Elif Shafak of which I lovingly made a review for you.

So what do we do?

Can we avoid getting hurt in love?

The secret is to understand that being rejected is not an indication about us my friend my sister. Yes, he did leave me, but maybe he had his reasons, maybe it wasn’t the good time for him, maybe he was afraid, I don’t know. Maybe I just did nothing wrong and someone else would have been thrilled to be with me at his place.

“The biggest lesson that I learned and have taken with me is not to take anything personally. Nothing that other people do is about me or because of me.” It doesn’t mean that the man who left me was bad. Not at all. I still admire him as much as I did when I met him. It’s just that he has his life and I didn’t understand everything. I wasn’t in his shoes.

My friend my sister: “You are never responsible for the actions other people take, you are only responsible for you.” reads the book The Revolution Of Self-Love. Of course, I think of the book The Four Agreements here.

5. Ending codependency

What is codependency? “I wanted him to want me the way I wanted him. I wanted him to be something he wasn’t. And somewhere inside me, I believed that if I cared enough about him and loved him that he would eventually love himself and then me.” You know in the past, I have been attracted to broken and addicted men. Not anymore. I cannot save them. Even more revolutionary: we are not victims: “What I didn’t understand was that, in thinking of myself as a victim, I also saw everyone around me as victims who constantly needed my rescuing.”

Moreover, I cannot make them love me. “I alone am responsible for loving and caring for myself and that I have all the power to do so.”

The dream of belonging to someone else is actually a nightmare. I am not an object. I am whole already. “I would always be my number one, put myself first and tend to my own needs and desires. I was the one, and for the first time in my life, I belonged to myself fully.”

How to recognize that the relationship you are in is not healthy? Easy! “I learned that the moment I start to sacrifice the person I am in a relationship is the exact moment I need to get out of that relationship.”

I am ashamed but I wrote it in my first book The Knot in the Spiral: I almost die trying to please someone who wanted to destroy me. “I can see clearly that I was addicted to this stress, to the pleasing of other people, so much that I nearly worked myself into my grave.”

6. A revolutionary pleasure

Self love is (almost) all I talk about now, yet it was such a new thing to me a decade ago. “Self-love can’t be monetized and doesn’t increase productivity, so I have been told it is worthless. Self-love is revolutionary because it is, in a sense, a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure for pleasure’s sake, for nobody but yourself.”

I do not love myself because I’m perfect, but because I’m human. My shortcomings and inadequacies are something I like too. I don’t want to reject them anymore. “Self-love is loving yourself because of your flaws and your darkness and feeling confident in the fact that your needs and wants are just as critical as everyone else’s.”

Wait! Where do I start?

My favorite motivational words are: step by step. “There is no quick fix to self-love, it is like a muscle that gets stronger with each practice. Survival kept me alive, but it didn’t keep me living.” Practicing self love and exercising are similar. They need consistency my friend my sister: “Self-love is a decision that has to be made every day.”

Falling in love with yourself?

The book The Revolution Of Self-Love has a great tip for us: “I imagine looking at myself through the eyes of someone that loves me.” Can you try it my friend my sister? Can you be your lover, your champion?

A note on addictions

I was bulimic in the past because I wanted to fill a void inside of me. Food seems like safety. However, self-love is a great way to let go of addictive behaviours my friend my sister: “I have felt the resonance of addictive behaviors fall by the side when I can feel the presence of love inside.”

My life is my responsibility

““I am responsible for me” means that, if I don’t take my self-care bath or a solo walk around the block, I can’t point my exhausted finger at anyone but me.” write the authors of The Revolution Of Self-Love.

Is there really a virtue in suffering?

I learned that exhausting myself wasn’t going to bring me the love I craved. Self sacrifice is going to end my life prematurely, not giving me a medal of honor. “I remember when I finally realized that I deserved to take care of myself; that living in pain was not serving anyone, and it did not make me noble to suffer unnecessarily.”

7. The secret of loving relationships

Integrity

A man I really love once told me that there should be my face in the dictionary next to the word “integrity”. Slowly, I learned to give up when I could see the man I love was not available. Trust me, it was hard at first but it’s a process, a necessary process. “Love is unconditional but relationships are not. A key to self-love is living in integrity. Keep that integrity in your relationships no matter how much the people you love beg you to lower your standards.”

Setting boundaries

The authors of The Revolution Of Self-Love write: “Just because you lay down boundaries doesn’t mean you don’t love them, it just means the ball is in their court to step up and respect the love you give.”

8. The law of attraction

The Revolution Of Self-Love

The law of attraction is having a bad rap sometimes because it’s not understood. It works on all emotions, sensations and visualisation: “I practiced visualizing how I wanted my future to look: how I wanted to feel, who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it. I practiced and embodied how my future self would act, feel and be and made a commitment to be that person every day. I learned tools to support me in overcoming those moments when my past self would try and draw me back. Every day I practiced, committed and invested wholeheartedly into being my future self until it was more of a habit than being my past self.”

Write it down

I am a big fan of writing down my dreams my friend my sister. It brings clarity to your mind and it just works. Try it. Feel it. Believe it. Most importantly, act as if you had it in your life already.

9. Respect starts with us

The Revolution Of Self-Love

I cannot blame the man who didn’t respect me. “I realized that if I didn’t respect my boundaries, then no one else would.”

The Revolution Of Self-Love explains: “Self-love is the practice of unconditionally loving yourself regardless of the situation. To unconditionally love ourselves, we first need to forgive ourselves for all the things we have held onto or punished ourselves for. Use this forgiveness ceremony to mend your relationship with your past selves.”

A way of avoiding myself

Desperate for love, I was trying to save broken and dangerous men. I wasn’t a saint, but an avoider: “Many people enjoy filling others’ cups by way of giving love, or attention or assistance when needed, and this is admirable, of course. However, when you are trying to fill others’ cups when yours only has drops of energy in it, you often experience symptoms such as fatigue, stress, feelings of being overwhelmed or overworked. And it makes complete sense because you are giving everything in your cup to others, before caring to fill your own cup first.”

You are not alone

I am so ashamed of how he treated me. I am so so ashamed. Yet, if I turn my gaze around, I did accept it. Why? Why did I sink so low? I want to share it with you today so you know you are not alone: “(…) why I would let someone, anyone treat me with so much disrespect and disregard. Was I a glutton for punishment? Do I not have any self-respect? Do I not love myself? I would never treat anyone like that nor would I allow anyone to treat my kids the way I allowed this man to treat me.”

The authors of the book The Revolution Of Self-Love write: “I realized I didn’t have to do anything that didn’t feel good to me. I saw that the world didn’t fall apart if I didn’t force myself to do things I felt I had to or needed to do.”

Another great tip for everyday life my friend my sister: “I started to ask myself the question, “What would someone who loves themselves do?” I approached every decision, big or small, from this space.”

10. What we really really want

We have often been conditioned to put others first at all cost. We need to slowly relearn to make ourselves a priority my friend my sister: “My parents and school had taught me that a good girl should focus on helping others, not wanting anything for herself”.

The danger of being perfect

Have you ever experienced the following (I did): “I was walking on eggshells, bending over backward to be the most perfect wife, friend, mom I could be, and it didn’t matter. Another person’s happiness is their choice and if they choose to be unhappy, no matter what you do, you can’t change their unhappiness.”

Identify what you truly desire

Wanting and desiring are positive things. “Many of the things we want will ultimately benefit our circles of family and community. If nobody wanted anything, nothing would ever get done.”

The book The Revolution Of Self-Love invites you to do a little exercise to identify your desires and why you may resist them: “Label the left-hand column: Desire. Label the right-hand column: Conflicting Desire”. It really helps to be clearer in our heads.

Your desires may be different from mainstream standards, so what my friend my sister? I met countless lawyers who had the so-called dream career yet their life was depressing and empty. “I realized how unhappy I truly was, trying to live a life I believed I wanted because it was what everyone told me was ideal.”

You know what? I just don’t care about material possessions, I have a second-hand car I love, I have less clothes and shoes than my kids. What matters to me is fresh produce and loving relationships and I couldn’t care less if I look like an alien to some. I quit my promising career in finance for happiness and I don’t regret it one second.

Finding your own way

I am concluding this great review with my favorite quote from the bookThe Revolution Of Self-Love: “Self-love comes in many shapes and forms, just like we do as human beings. For me, it has been following my heart and not listening to what society expects.”

Book review The promise of bruised children

Posted on by Claire Samuel
Book review The promise of bruised children

As announced on Tik Tok, here is my review of the very important book of a man whom I admire more than anything, Mr. Jean-Paul Mugnier author of the book La promesse des enfants meurtris.

1. What is a healthy bond?

The bond of attachment between a child and the person responsible for taking care of her is based on a promise, implicit or explicit: being able to count on the adult in charge of her. Jean-Paul Mugnier describes in his book La promesse des enfants meurtris “(…) the promise behind all bonding: “Whatever happens, you can always count on me!” Respect for this tacit promise binding adults and children will gradually make the children become accountable for their actions and therefore capable of becoming in turn someone who can be counted on.”

2. When the promise becomes a strategy of existence

Faced with the inadmissible, the child creates a promise, a promise from her to her. This promise is essential to her survival, it is the only possibility of respecting herself. Indeed, “(…) the loss of self-esteem that could have resulted from the violence of which they had been victims, had to be overcome by respecting this promise, a strategy of existence allowing them to continue to respect themselves. Otherwise, the risk would have been for them to take responsibility for the crime suffered by seeking in them what could have triggered such violence in their attacker“.

Thus, a victim will say “Rather die than one day look like my father or my mother!”, “Whatever choices I make in existence, I will never make my father/my mother right” or “I will be a protective parent, I will never impose on my children the sufferings that my parents made me suffer!”.

This promise is what keeps the victim alive and “the determination, sometimes bordering on rage, to ensure that the promise is kept, is frequently greater in women than in men” explains the author of the book La promesse des enfants meurtris.

3. The fear of becoming an abuser

The reason for this review is related to the comment of a man, Lofti Mir, about the review I made of the book Toxic parents, who touched me: “It’s a little late but finally I was able to read this wonderful book. It really opened my eyes to several situations experienced in my childhood … that I never questioned because I thought it was like that education … In addition to that, I am a young father and I must really do the impossible to change all my habits, my way of communicating, and especially my reactions because I am very nervous. Thanks Claire for this great video.”

I also think back to a book (in English) that I read over ten years ago and that left an impression on me (I can’t quite find the title though). It was about a story that must be quite ordinary in reality, about a man who was beaten by his father as a child and who does everything to break the infernal circle. When his wife gives birth to their child, he asks himself lots of questions, he is overwhelmed with doubts and fears. He makes an effort to control his anger and keep his promise: to not make his son endure what he himself endured as a little boy.

Jean-Paul Mugnier write in the book La promesse des enfants meurtris : “Being a victim does not exclude becoming an abuser. We have met teenagers who were relieved to discover, even late, that the one who had been presented to them as their father was not their parent. They were thus, according to them, more likely not to look like him. This fear is of course observed more frequently in situations of violence and in boys who are victims of sexual assault who fear that they will in turn abuse children, possibly their own.”

4. Breaking the promise because of the victim?

A particularly unhealthy role reversal happens when the person has not been able to keep their promise. Concretely, they become an abuser themselves. Consequently, they will sometimes start accusing their own victim. As if the abuser’s fault fell on the victim.

Take the example of the following promise: “I will be a protective parent.” The Bruised Children Promise clearly illustrates this case: “Promising yourself to be a protective parent is at the same time doing everything possible to not look like the parent who abused you, or who did not know how/could protect you. And, very often, if the promise is not kept, it is the child himself and/or the spouse who is held responsible”.

You’ll need to brace yourself to read the examples of cases cited in The Promise of Bruised Children when the abusive parent accuses their child of initiating the abuse. I want to stress this point my friend my sister, because the child naturally tends to think that if something bad happens, it is their fault. If this is your case, I beg you, add a huge dose of compassion to your heart for the little girl that you were. Feeling guilty and having an abusive parent blaming you is the worst situation. You are alive today and these kind of books can help you understand the harm that has been done to you and for which you are not responsible for the simple reason that you were a child and that it was the adult’s responsibility to protect you from suffering, not to inflict pain on you.

5. Why empathy disappears

We can sometimes wonder about people who seem to no longer have any empathy, because it is so fundamental to being human. The cycle is this: from the humiliation experienced in childhood arises anger, which leads to lack of empathy as a survival strategy, and then to its counterpart which is the interpretation of any event as a threat.

Here is how Jean-Paul Mugnier describes this phenomenon in his book: “A stranger to himself and to others, he can sink into indifference. The lack of empathy he suffered can cause him to no longer have it for anyone else.” Jean-Paul Mugnier continues: “Strategy of survival, it consists of passing on to another person, more or less close, an innocent victim, the anger born out of the despair that the humiliation gave birth to“.

As a result, this great book puts emphasis on the importance of self-esteem. What happens without it? “As some children and adolescents explain, feeling rotten by violence, they are convinced that they are on earth to rot all of humanity.“

Book review The promise of bruised children

6. First give meaning to your life

Let’s not feel guilty if it took us a long time to talk about what happened my friend my sister. Sometimes such a long silence is once again a survival strategy.

Jean-Paul Mugnier explains: “(…) a large number of victims of sexual abuse can only confide when they are forty or fifty years old. To say this, they need to have given meaning to their existence, to have built a family, etc. Otherwise, they might fear that they will be identified with the damage suffered and that it will become the basis of their identity”.

7. Evil does not come from you

Today with your adult mind, you know very well that the evil does not come from you. And yet, that thought may have registered into your subconscious at an age at which it would have been impossible to realize it.

In addition, it is important to understand that you are not alone (this is one of the foundations of my work). The feeling of uniqueness hurts. In his book, the author Jean-Paul Mugnier states: “While shame put her at risk of being cut off from the world, recognition of her suffering instead links her to humanity. Acknowledged, it finally becomes possible for her to recognize herself again”.

Finally, the recognition of suffering constitutes a step towards another future: “He had to recognize his past in order to move on to something else”.

What is the alternative? What happens when we ignore suffering? “This loss of self-esteem often leads to the same conclusion: to doubt the legitimacy of one’s existence.”

8. Can we forgive the unforgivable?

First of all, my friend Randa published a very interesting video on the subject of forgiveness in case you understand French my friend my sister: “Série Familles Toxiques EP3 | Faut-il pardonner ?”.

In the book The Promise of Bruised Children, Jean-Paul Mugnier asks the following question: “Are asking for forgiveness and forgiving acts of resilience for those who ask for forgiveness or for those who grant them?“

First of all, “Acknowledging fault does not mean that it is forgiven. Moreover, recognizing the fault in order to place the other under an obligation to forgive would lead to doubt the sincerity of the recognition. Likewise, admitting fault is not asking forgiveness. A father who had abused his three children and admitted the facts told me about it: How could I ask their forgiveness for what I have done when I do not forgive myself.“

Second, “the time of understanding and the time of forgiveness are not the same”.

The subject of forgiveness is so vast and everyone will have their own opinion. The “must” and “should”s are not appropriate here. Only asking yourself questions can help clear things up in your mind. For instance: “is forgiveness of oneself possible in the absence of forgiveness (received or granted) from the other?”.

9. Understanding the abuser?

Maybe one day you will feel the need to try to understand the evil that is abusing vulnerable people. How is it possible that one human being hurts another so deeply? Jean-Paul Mugnier quotes the book by Eva Thomas, founder of SOS Inceste : Le viol du silence. Again, if you read French, maybe it will help you my friend my sister. If you don’t, please share below which books helped you so you can help others, thank you.

Educating ourselves, reading, exploring these issues may not allow us to really put ourselves in the shoes of the abuser, but at least shed light on the incomprehensible desire to harm that they have.

“The need to understand the reasons which pushed the author of the offense to commit his act is essential to fight against this feeling of stupidity on the one hand and against the risk of making others suffer the harm of which we have been the victim”.

I repeat: to understand is in no way to excuse nor to minimize. Teal Swan posted a great video on why a human becomes a pedophile: “Pedophilia – Teal Swan-”. I understand where the abomination of the actions comes from, but I make do not forgive the perpetrator in the same move. Everyone is fully responsible for their actions.

10. The importance of recognizing suffering so as not to repeat it

Incest and violence in general constitute an attack on the very humanity of the victim, as if she did not exist as a person, as if she were only an object: “Humiliation, physical violence, sexual assault and, more than any other abuse, incestuous rape, harms the humanity that inhabits each of us. “He killed me !” the victims often say”.

So in order not to die of the offense, let’s recognize the suffering we have experienced. Let’s put words on evil. Let’s not remain in the denial and the silence which imprison the victims.

What is the danger of not recognizing suffering? Jean-Paul Mugnier, in his book The Promise of Bruised Children writes: “Wanting the victim to forgive too quickly or too soon, would actually run the risk of ignoring the harm suffered, which is synonymous with denial, minimization or trivialization, a process which runs the risk of repetition: “If I don’t suffer from the harm done to me, the other on whom I in turn impose it has no reason to suffer”.

The repercussions of silence therefore concern the victim as much as other innocent people, potential victims if the abuse is not denounced.

To conclude the review of the book La promesse des enfants meurtris, I would like to reiterate my invitation to take care of you, to cajole your inner child, to walk step by step on the path which is rebuilding your life. Come back to life by opening your eyes to what happened and convince the little girl inside you that it was never your fault. I am one of those people who thinks that the victim does not have to comply with orders to forgive. It is the “(…) victim’s right to survive the trauma not to forgive because quite simply, this story should not have been“. This story should not have been.

Book review Heal Your Wounds and Find Your True Self by Lise Bourbeau

Posted on by Claire Samuel
Lise Bourbeau tHe five wounds book review
Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

Lise Bourbeau is the author of an amazing book Heal Your Wounds and Find Your True Self: Finally A Book That Explains Why It’s So Hard Being Yourself. Here are my ten reasons to read it now my friend my sister!

1. What are the five wounds of the soul?

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

As a child, we encountered experiences which were so painful that the only way to carry on functioning as (almost) normal within our family was to wear a mask.

There is a soul wound underneath each mask.

Thus the mask of the avoider is hiding the wound of rejection, the one of the dependent the wound of abandonment, of the masochist the wound of humiliation, of the controlling the wound of betrayal and of the rigid the wound of injustice.

2. Which faults?

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

The goal is not to blame others for our wounds, but to do the inner work on ourselves.

Lise Bourbeau writes: “We reproach others everything that we do ourselves and we do not want to see” (all translations mine). We tend to attract people who show us what we do to others or to ourselves.

I am responsible to have attracted an abuser because I was abusing myself my friend my sister, hardly sleeping at night, not honoring my body’s needs, damaging it with bulimia and never following my intuition (so red flags could have been any other color, I was not paying attention to them anyway).

3. Of various degrees of responsibility

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

If you are an empath my friend my sister, you carry the emotions and fears of others on your shoulders. Moreover, you feel responsible for their happiness.

However, such deep empathy is definitely not healthy.

I have been able to rebuild my life once I understood that my responsibility was not to fix everything.

4. How to heal our wounds?

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

Lise Bourbeau writes in her book Heal your wounds and find your true self:

“The first step to heal a wound is to acknowledge it and to ACCEPT it.“

By becoming aware of them. Accepting the wound does not mean to agree that it is present within us.

Accepting means understanding that wearing a mask helped us to survive within our family and environment.

Byron Katie is also an expert in accepting what is happening to us. I reviewed her book I Need Your Love – Is That True? : How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead in the video Thank you Byron Katie #book review “I need your love – is that true?”.

5. Ignoring the wound is not the easy way out

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

Our ego tries to convince us that it is easier to ignore the wound.

But life keeps putting us in situations which trigger it worse each time.

We need to remember that us wearing a mask has to do with a lack of self love.

6. Which parent is involved?

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

Lise Bourbeau explains that:

“[T]he parent with whom it seemed we got along the best with during our teenage years is the one with whom we have the most issues to deal with.“

I was surprised to discover this but it made sense. I thought the parent I had most difficulties with was my narcissistic mother (who I love anyway) but the abandonment wound has to do with my father.

Lise Bourbeau explains how each wound is related to one of our parent in her great book Heal your wounds and find your true self.

If you are a woman, rejection comes from our mother while abandonment from our father.

Humiliation is generated by the mother for both sexes.

Betrayal has to do with our father while injustice with our mother.

7. No blame nor despair just moving forward

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

The general tone of Lise Bourbeau’s book is very informative and light at the same time.

I love how she teaches us about deep stuff, wounding of the soul, without turning dramatic ever.

Quite the opposite. There is some freedom and empowerment to be gained by that book.

We do not have to feel victims of our parents. They were also wounded and the author herself admits she wounded her children, not on purpose of course.

I feel like hugging my parents, accepting them as they are, not blaming them for the mistakes they made and really taking a lighter step in life, knowing that any wound can be healed with awareness and conscious choices.

Lise Bourbeau writes:

“Acceptance is indeed the trigger to initiate healing.“

8. What is unconditional love?

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

The author of the book Heal your wounds and find your true self invites us to unconditionally love our wound.

She teaches us that:

“I remind you that unconditional love is to accept even if you do not agree and even if you do not understand the why of some situations”. and “True love is to experience being oneself”.

We can grow from our wounds. So empowering! For instance, I can learn that it is my job to never abandon myself anymore.

The person who suffers from rejection can learn to never put herself down while the one who suffers from injustice can work on not demanding too much of herself, not honoring her boundaries and drowning into stress.

9. Our reason to be on this Earth

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

Lise Bourbeau writes that our reason to be living this present life on Earth is to heal the very wound we suffer from. Our life purpose is to accept that we created a mask to protect us, but we do not need it anymore.

She writes:

“To love and to accept a wound means to acknowledge it, to be aware that you came back on this earth to heal this kind of wound and to accept that your ego wanted to protect you by creating a mask.“

Let’s give yourselves the right to be revolted against the pain we endured. But let’s not stay there. This is only a step.

The path involves compassion, forgiving and becoming ourselves again, in full authenticity and vulnerability.

Self-love is when we accept life experiences as teaching us what is beneficial and intelligent for us.

Self-love has healing power. Self-love brings energy to our life.

10. The positive side of our wounds

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

The book Heal your wounds and find your true self ends on a positive note by listing all the qualities attributed to each wound or personality.

Lise Bourbeau indeed writes:

“By acknowledging the unique person that you are, you cannot help but represent an energizing inspiration source.“

The avoider has a great capacity to work in autonomy, she things of every details and does not need others at all costs.

The dependent perseveres in their action, is naturally enthusiastic and able to feel how others are really feeling to help them.

The masochist is adventurous, knows her needs and honors them and makes people feel comfortable.

The controlling is reassuring, great at public speaking and able to multi-task easily.

The rigid is very precise in her work, can explain things clearly and therefore teach well and does not need others to feel good.

What is your mask or your wound my friend my sister? I had the abandonment and the humiliation wounds. Now I am healing them with self-love!

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

Book review The five wounds which prevent us from being ourselves by Lise Bourbeau

#Review of Boris Cyrulnik #book about #hope #resilience and the history of modern #psychiatry

Posted on by Claire Samuel
#Review of Boris Cyrulnik #book about #hope #resilience and the history of modern #psychiatry

First as a disclaimer my friend my sister, I have to mention that you will love the book Les âmes blessées or the wounded souls if you are passionate about medicine. Personally, I have sometimes been a bit troubled by the description of some surgeries!

On a general level, this book is amazing for people who are interested in the history of psychiatry in France, in the psychiatrists who really marked their time and in the gradual discovery and use of antidepressants.

On that topic by the the way, Boris Cyrulnik writes that psychotropic drugs alleviate the pain but do not resolve the psychological issue underneath.

Here are ten key ideas or pearls of wisdom that I want to share with you from the book Les âmes blessées or the wounded souls by Boris Cyrulnik. Translations from French to English are mine. Boris Cyrulnik has written a book in English entitled Resilience.

1. How to fathom ultimate evil or how becoming psychiatrist helps to overcome it

Boris Cyrulnik was a child during Second World War and his family has been sent to concentration camps.

He has been witnessed to the worst of humankind. Moreover, he writes that it was so difficult to understand how some people are genuinely kind to you but can totally turned into the opposite the next day.

For instance, he recalls how some French policemen were friend with one family of the neighborhood. However, one day, the policemen came to arrest and deport their friend, the father of the family with which they spend dinners and evenings as friends.

Boris Cyrulnik became a psychiatrist to try to get his head around such deeply wounding events.

2. About not following the crowd and news ideas in science and elsewhere

If we start from the idea that “theoretical choices are influenced by (…) life experiences“, therefore, those who look for something already influence the result they are going to find. Doesn’t it remind you of quantum physics my friend my sister?

Thus, a big part of the book is dedicated to the scientific world and how researchers do not choose their subjects by chance. Boris Cyrulnik also recall how it was sometimes difficult for thinkers to share new ideas without being rejected.

The author of the book writes:

“Woe to he who does not think like everybody else, he will be seen as an aggressor“.

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

For instance, the idea of all human beings are truly equals and therefore, children born outside of wedlock should not be ostracized, was not accepted easily. Also, incest was not recognized as a reality by professionals even during the 80s in France.

Reading this makes me aware of how far we have come when it comes to mentality.

3. What is “neuro-emotional vulnerability”?

#Review of Boris Cyrulnik #book about #hope #resilience and the history of modern #psychiatry

One key concept of the book is called “neuro-emotional vulnerability” which means that a child whose sense of safety has been hurt during childhood by an accident of life will have far more difficulties to overcome hardships when he is a teenager.

However:

“A same event, traumatizing for one, will be for another a mere exciting adventure of life“.

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

Why? Because “A person who has been prematurely isolated, because of an accident of life, acquires a neuro-emotional vulnarability” which makes her prone to feeling abandoned when years later she suffers from isolation or aggression.

This is what is described by the author as the “surprising inequality of traumas“.

4. Why is excessive alertness an issue?

Alertness is a normal state of being which prepares the body to defend itself. However, if alertness is an almost constant state, it is tiring to the person and actually hinders how a child learns.

I link that to a high dosage of cortisol within the body when we are under stress. Today I really make a point at lowering my stress triggers and putting my body in a calmer state. Meditation is a great help my friend my sister.

5. Where we talk alchemy again

#Review of Boris Cyrulnik #book about #hope #resilience and the history of modern #psychiatry

Boris Cyrulnik writes:

“Can the events we suffered mold our soul and orient our intellectual path towards the resolution of the issue to which our existence made us sensitive?“

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

To me this is what alchemy is all about. The hurt we felt in the past can be turned into a magnificent transmission to help others who face similar challenges in their lives.

6. An acknowledgement of the progress made in terms of patriarchy

I was shocked my friend my sister when I read how Boris Cyrulnik recalls how pain was dealt with during childbirth right in the 20th century.

When techniques were introduced to lower the pain of mothers giving birth, some professional reacted vehemently arguing that a woman who does not suffer during childbirth cannot love her baby.

The author of the book writes:

“For centuries, one theory stated that women were not bringing anything to the making of a baby. They were only carrying the baby that a man had planted into their belly“.

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

I know we still have progress to make to overcome patriarchy, but woman, do we come a long way!

7. Of the importance of the environment on the brain development

Boris Cyrulnik writes:

“Neurosciences made photos proving that some newborns, prematurely isolated, have a frontal lobe which seems atrophied. The synapses development in that brain area has not been stimulated by the environment“.

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

That quote made me immediately think of a great book called Why Love Matters (How affection shapes a baby’s brain) by researcher Sue Gerhardt. Early interactions are crucial to brain development and cognitive functions.

Consequently, it is easy to imagine the developmental damage cause by affection deficiencies and the author of the book describes numerous examples of that.

8. What is Resilience?

Boris Cyrulnik coined the term and has even written a book about it translated in English: Resilience: How Your Inner Strength Can Set You Free from the Past:

Resilience is this decision to try to feel alive again despite what happened to us. The opposite? A large variety of post-traumatic syndromes.

Boris Cyrulnik writes:

“How is it possible that some children pull trough and become fulfilled adults, whereas in all logic, they should have been definitely crushed?“

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

Such a revolutionary interrogation, supported by the research to which the author dedicated his career, is the best message of hope from Boris Cyrulnik.

9. Believing in another person more that she believes in herself

The best gift I received in my life was when some people chose to genuinely believe in me more than I believed in me. This is what helped me to overcome adversity and rebuild my life, instead of getting stuck in victim mode.

These angelic people who believe in us more than ourselves can be teachers or friends. Boris Cyrulnik recalls in his book how some adults came to express their immense gratitude to the psychiatrist Myriam David, who searched for a way to repair the connection damaged during childhood by not considering the teenager as “doomed, worrying and without a future“.

The author of the book The wounded souls reaches this surprising conclusion according to which:

“Globally, a population of wounded children who are backed by a new support system evolves almost as well as a population of children well surrounded by their family, their neighborhood, their school and their culture“.

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

There is a great place in France where children and teenagers are being treated in such a respectful way. It is called “La Maison d’enfants Elie Wiesel“. By the way, I will donate to them.

10. Of the importance of art to recover from the wounds of our soul

I really beleve that you can write and rewrite your life my friend my sister.

Thus, the title of chapter 3 of the book is:

“Your story is not your destiny“

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

Enough said!

We can create our life anew, inasmuch as we make sure we are well surrounded and supported, by the environment and the people we allow in our inner circle.

Let’s remind ourselves my friend my sister that nothing is set for ever when it comes to the brain. Boris Cyrulnik writes that:

“The clinical signs which were told to us at the university were not inherent to the subject. They were the result of a transaction between what the subject is and what is around him. Could we be without a world? Change the context, and you will change the expression of what you are.“

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

Consequently, depression would not be expressed in the same manner according to the context in which a person is immersed. It is not inherent ot the person.

Moreover, genetics now proves that it is not an inexorable fate inasmuch as the environment modifies the expression of such hereditary code all the time.

Even better, the brain “flabbergasted by a trauma, can function again as soon as the person with a wounded soul is secured” explains Boris Cyrulnik in his book.

So, what is a better way than art to renew with vitality? Art like an outlet, art which transforms experiences and transforms us my friend my sister.

Boris Cyrulnik writes:

“[A]rt changes the representation of the wounded soul. The subject is no longer prisoner of his traumatic past (…) He is not a thing carried away by the torrent of unhappiness (…) He becomes a subject again, an author“.

Boris Cyrulnik, Les âmes blessées

May we become author of our life my friend my sister.

#Book #review The heart, this neglected brain or the powers of the #heart

Posted on by Claire Samuel

1. Why three brains?

Our first brain is the most obvious: the cerebral brain of course. Our second brain is the intestine and I am glad it is talked about a lot nowadays (see the book The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection).

Lastly, our third brain is the heart. The thing is, these three brains are connected to each other. Therefore they are influenced by one another. If I act on one of them, I am going to see a difference in the others.

2. What is reality?

The author of the French book Le coeur, ce cerveau négligé (The heart, this neglected brain), Gervais Saint-Laurent, explains that reality is an image created by our brain from connections made by the neurones. Therefore, pure objectivity does not exist.

3. What does manifesting mean therefore?

Consequently, manifesting your reality means taking advantage of this power, inherent to all human beings: whenever I maintain my thoughts and my intention on one topic, then I create it.

In quantum physics, it is proven that “Life replies to intention”. So our life circumstances respond to the frequency/vibe/energy we are emitting.

4. And physiologically, what is the heart?

First, the heart is linked to the intestines through the vagus nerve. It is our job to work on relaxing that nerve, through meditation for instance.

Second, the book The heart this neglected brain teaches us that the electromagnetic field of the heart is 5000 times more powerful that the one of the cerebral brain.

5. Living our own life, how and why?

In his book, author Gervais Saint-Laurent invites us to be brave enough to life for ourselves: “we are here to life our own life”.

We are not on Earth to life the life our parents chose for us, whether it is by duty, love or guilt.

Let’s grant us the permission to choose our life and our personal experiences.

6. How to get rid of cellular memories?

Old unconscious thoughts can be sometimes inherited and they pollute us on an unconscious level. However, the body can be cleansed from old ways of thinking stuck in cellular memory.

How? First by awareness, which flows from the heart to the brain. Then the intestines can play their elimination role by getting rid of what we don’t need anymore.

Gervais Saint-Laurent identifies three steps in the process of eliminating old memories: assimilation, elimination then rejoicing!

7. Is there such a thing as coincidence?

Of course chance does not exist inasmuch as we create our life! Contrary to animals, we as human beings possess free will which enables us to influence external circumstances. That is really one of the messages of that book that I love the most.

8. What is the heart major ability?

Our heart can transcend negative emotions. Sadness is turned into forgiveness. Resentment is turned into freedom.

9. How can I change my life?

I change my life when I marry intention and commitment writes Gervais Saint-Laurent.

10. What is the recipe for a successful life?

“Choose with awareness, transform with love and life with your gut“

Le coeur, ce cerveau négligé

French #book #review or dare to #create #Asaliah by Justine Valais

Posted on by Claire Samuel

Who was the first to write a review about my book The Knot in the Spiral? Justine the French blogger from Blog d’une partageuse.

This is such a pleasure to review her book now: Asaliah, a cute and fresh chapter book.

I found in Asaliah some sparks of the law of attraction and inspiration to draw from our personal power and imagination.

My 13-years-old daughter who hates reading said Justine’s book was easy to read and interesting with beautiful drawings.

My 10-years-old son who loves reading thought the book Asaliah looked very good even before reading it. Then he said: “I love that book!” and “I would love to read the following stories!“.

So I am sending good vibes to the author Justine so she writes the following adventures of her character Asaliah!