Strengthen Your Strengths

So often in recovery people can only see their weaknesses and character defects and are stuck in that cycle of self-doubt and criticism and low-self esteem, judging themselves so harshly. It's extremely difficult to recover from being a victim and on top of it to then take an honest look at yourself and how you contribute to the cycle. List after list of codependency traits are read and all you see is the dark side. But there are strengths as well, and it's part of recovery to acknowledge them and to strengthen them - and not just focus on "fixing" the weaknesses or regret over mistakes. Take a look at your strengths today, make a list of them. Here are some to start with. How many more can you think of that are unique to you?

Strengths to Acknowledge and Reinforce:
I have an incredible ability to survive
I always have the ability to choose
I always have the ability to change
I have the ability to be passionate about something, no matter how deeply it’s been buried
I have the ability to love
I have the ability to learn
I have the natural ability to grow
I have the ability to go within and ask for inner/Higher assistance or answers
I have the ability to ask for help, and say thank you
I have the ability to imagine
I have the ability to positively affect my own energy
I have the ability to be creative
I have the ability to recover
I have the ability to move forward
I have the ability to let go
I have the ability to help others worse off then I
I have the ability to start over any time or as many times as I need to
I have the ability to laugh
I have the ability to create a habit and keep it going no matter what - and I can transfer that skill to healthy habits!

12 Steps to Recovery from Abuse

12 Steps to Recovery from Abuse

1. We became aware that we were powerless over and blameless for the circumstances of our childhood, and the people who have hurt us and that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. We admitted to the truth of our origin, and came to trust that a Power greater than ourselves would nurture, love and restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to begin a process of recovery and change, trusting in a Higher Power of our own understanding to care for us and guide us in our journey.

4. Began an inventory of all that happened to us in our childhood and relationships with others acknowledging how it affected us then, and how it affects us now. We also allowed ourselves to uncover and experience the feelings we had repressed and denied for so long.

5. We admitted to our Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another appropriate person, the truth of our feelings, attitudes and behaviors, and began to feel validated and accepted for who we are at this moment.

6. We became willing to allow changes in our attitudes and feelings, and to make changes in our choices, decisions, and behaviors, with the help of our Higher Power.

7. Made a list of all those who had hurt us, identified what was done to us, and allowed ourselves to validate, own, and understand the resulting feelings.

8. We became willing to forgive those who had harmed us, and to let go of the past.

9. Recognizing that our own attitudes and behaviors were imitative of our dysfunctional caretakers and harmful not only to ourselves but to those around us, took responsibility for them and made appropriate amends where necessary.

10. Continued the process of discovery and recovery, making changes in our lives when necessary, and, recognizing and celebrating our specialness and uniqueness, became capable of self fulfillment.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our Higher Power, striving to allow God’s will and ours to become one and the same.

12. Having achieved a Spiritual Awakening, characterized by a balance and harmony with ourselves, those around us, and our Higher Power, we became willing to share our experience and hope with others like us, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Can Children of Narcissistic Parents Ever Recover?

Posted by Jeanette Pettiford on Apr 13 2008 Recovery Tips

Can children of narcissistic parents ever recover?

YES, you can recover from NPD Parents!First of all you need to learn about recovery and what recovery really is. There is 12 step recovery and then there is therapy and then there is Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT \”Tapping on Emotional Issues to Clear Them\”) and there is the recovery model in the mental health field.There are stages to your recovery: First you realize something is wrong and you go about searching for answers. Then you discover what NPD is and it is a devastating stage to go through as it is like losing a parent that never existed in the first place. Seek support from someone who will listen and validate you and not deny your reality. It is extremely hard to find someone who can supportively listen to someone talk negatively about a parent to the extent of never wanting to speak to your parent ever again. This is shocking to people who had loving parents. Thus, your reality is invalidated which causes further injury, emotional abandonment and rejection. Then one may look further to either find a therapist who \”gets it\” or to seek your own kind - to see if there are any other adult children of NPD parents.The sad yet good news is that there are many of us out there and they are forming online support groups more and more. Just do a Google search on what you are looking for, like \”narcissistic parent forums\” or something like that and do some research. If you found your way here, you know enough to do some searches.There you will find support and MOST IMPORTANTLY - VALIDATION. It is the one major thing we did not have growing up, we had no voice, we had no boundaries, we had no loving care and our reality was invalidated so much we were left not knowing what to believe, even our own gut intuition. Thus we had to guess at what normal is. And so forth.Then the next stage of recovery once you have found your \”tribe\” is the stage of just being able to finally talk about it, hear how others are talking about it, hear how others are dealing with it, etc. etc. This is a bittersweet stage but it can bring a sense of a new freedom and renewed hope. You get what you never had - support, validation, listening. It’s like the family you never had. You may not like everyone but you know they \”get it\” and that forms a special bond that helps repair the fact that you had a mother/father who could not bond.When you start to get the feeling that you are starting to get tired of hearing all the venting and complaining and realizing that the focus is still on the NPD person, past or present you may be one of the lucky ones to look for further recovery. There is more than just being validated and seeing how wicked and bad the NPD is. That is when you begin to look at you.This can be done in therapy and or via 12 Step, say Alanon or Codependency type recovery or Adult Children type of recovery. It’s not really enough, but close enough. Some of them don’t really \”get it\” either because their focus is on alcoholism of course and most people in society don’t even know what a Personality Disorder is. But if you take the Pro-Active suggestions for SELF-CARE you will be recovering. You will be recovering yourself and your self-neglect behaviors that you internalized from having a parent that programmed you to love them but not yourself.Self-Care is extremely important - I can’t emphasize this enough. Why? Because when you take care of yourself and all your needs (1.) you are providing what you did not get as a child and (2.) you are experiencing what you did not get as a child. There is a healing magic in that experience.OK, back to recovery. There is also The Recovery Model which is relatively new and it’s in the Mental Health field and it’s about Wellness. So you can search for WRAP - Wellness Recovery Action Plans. Basically it’s about self-care to stay well and knowing your triggers and red-flags and having wellness/healthy strategies in dealing with them, new ways. This is great because you are creating your own individualized recovery program. Your recovery can include going to 12 step or other support type meetings - support for emotional abuse, childhood abuse, relationship abuse, etc. etc. Your recovery can include working the 12 Steps which is really about taking a look at yourself and stop blaming the NPD for all your problems which in turn helps empower you to make changes to be more in control of your life and your reactions and not feel like a helpless victim anymore.Once in Recovery, alot of emotions come up naturally. The best, easiest, painless, fastest way I have found - and I’ve been looking for a good 20 years now - is EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). They don’t call it Emotional Freedom for nothing. It truly helps relieve you of distressful, intense feelings and the body sensations that go along with them when you are triggered and upset. All those fears and anxieties, all the regrets and resentments, the rage, the deep sadness and pain, all the stuff you put up with, all the sick dysfunctional relationships you wasted your love and energy and time on - ALL of these things can be “Tapped” on. You Tap on acupuncture points while feeling the distressful feeling - you don’t even have to get all the way into the feeling, you don’t have to have a breakdown or breakthrough or whatever, and you don’t even need to analyze or figure it out and all that. All you have to do is tap and your body relaxes, the emotion subsides and your brain then naturally sort of processes the issue and you feel like it’s behind you now.You can learn EFT for FREE right from the source at emofree.com where it’s creator Gary Craig offers a FREE manual of how to learn it - it’s really very easy, you just memorize about 12 tapping spots, and the site has hundreds of pages of examples and tips etc. all free. So why not use it on NPD Parent Recovery issues? You can use it on anything. You can also search Utube for videos showing you how to use EFT.So that brings us to the final stage of recovery which is basically getting a life and living it for the rest of your life. It is about creating your life the way you want it, self-care, learning how to socialize with the good people, learning what to do with your triggers and issues, learning what you enjoy in your life, taking actions that are positive and have positive experiences and results for you. And therein lies the recovery life - you do things that give you a positive experience. Notice I said DO things - you don’t wait until you “feel like it” or until you are recovered or healed enough or until your depression goes away or whatever, you are pro-active and you take action and you just do it like Nike says.You can Tap you can read spiritual and recovery material, you can pray, you can work the 12 Steps, you can devise a WRAP, you can go to therapy, you can read books on your disorders, you can express yourself in groups or in journals, but until you begin to IMPLEMENT healthy actions into your life not much can or will change for you. Why? Well, what the heck do you think you are recovering? You are recovering your life and yourself. It’s more than what you are recovering from; it’s what you are recovering to. What are you moving toward? What action can you take today that will make you feel good, valued, special, loved, healthy, well? What are you even like when you are well? What actions do you have to take every day to stay well? Every week or month or once in awhile? Because if you did not take these actions what would happen?You would relapse, whatever relapse means to you. You can relapse into old behaviors, old ways of thinking, depressions, fears, addictions, isolating, etc. You know how you’ve been dealing with the affects of NPD - the best way you could given that you had no knowledge or resources. But now you do have knowledge and resources and though you were not in any way responsible for what happened to you, you are responsible for yourself and your life and your recovery now and for the rest of your life. So you might as well make the best of it.Recovery is the reward for all your hard work my friends. Recovery is more than the absence of pain, it is the new freedom and joy of life that you never even knew you could ever have. It’s new friends, its peace and serenity, it’s what you make it and many surprises along the way as well. Life will not always be great, no one said you are exempt from further traumas, tragedies, illnesses, hurts, losses, etc. life is still life, the good and the bad - but - you don’t have to trudge it alone and you have tools now to help you get through.Then when you are there, you will turn and look and see how far you have come and you will see and know that there are so many more out there still suffering that you may want to share your recovery with others so that they too have a shot at this thing.Lastly, one huge aspect of NPD recovery for adult children is the topic of relationships. It’s not bad enough we had NPD parents, but guess what? We get to have all the fun of marrying them and working for them and having them as best friends and the like until we have hit our bottom so to speak and take a look at why we are always victim to them, attracting them or attracted to them in some unconscious way. This is a big part of the recovery process, too much to write about here, but it includes taking a look at what you were thinking when you first met the N’s in your life, and challenging beliefs you have about yourself (I’m too damaged, Healthy people are boring, I can fix him, I’ll be rewarded for all my sacrifice, I can get approval from her, and finally I will be alright then.) When this survival plan does not work it is a devastating place to be in. You’ve tried your upmost best, given all of yourself and all of your prime years, your energy, time and money into trying to make these relationships work. Of course you did, you were programmed from the cradle to do so. It’s ok that you did this, but now it’s time to take a look at it and learn about choices you have, learn new ways of being in the world, new ways of relating to others, etc. And the reward is real, supportive and loving relationships in your life. Don’t be surprised if this takes a bit of getting used to. You’re not used to love and support. But my friends, you deserve it. You have been giving it your whole life - just imagine someone like yourself giving that love to you. Hopefully you are smiling with tears in your eyes right now because I am. I am smiling because This response to the question “Can we recover” is the result of my recovery and I’m so grateful I have so much to give to you. Stop by and visit me some time, I’m working on a website to do more of this - give recovery tips and teach people to Tap for emotional freedom, healing and growth. My blog is Recovery Tapping and my twitter is RecoveryTapping and my email is Recovery Tapping@yahoo.com. I have come up with my own Energy Moving Method, I call my method Psy-Qi-Soma - Psy for the MIND, Qi for ENERGY and Soma for the BODY. I write about a variety of information about recovery, EFT, personality disorders, codependency and self care action plans. Thanks for reading, pass it on to those you think it might help. But as always - take what you can use and disregard the rest. It's your self; own it.

To Your Recovery Journey,
Tap in Love and Care,
J’net

Recovery Tapping is EFT Tappers, Codependency Recovery and Dealing with Personality Disorders

What do EFT Tappers, Codependency Recovery and Dealing with Personality Disorders have in common?
This BLOG!

Come journey with me as I l support your journey toward recovery from codependency caused by living with loved ones who are either addicts or people with personality disorders. The ‘disease’ of codependency is a reaction that happens at the cellular level from the cradle and throughout the growing years into adolescents and adulthood. It’s a defense mechanism that turns into behaviors and beliefs that don’t serve us anymore. Its premise is that you make me happy and I make you happy and there are problems when that principle belief doesn’t work out. We will use EFT and other Meridian Tapping techniques to clear many codependency issues, themes and common feelings

EFT Emotional Freedom Techniques, PEAT, BSFF, Thought Field Therapy, Emotrance, and many other Energy Psychologies.
Codependency Recovery, 12 Step Recovery, SMART Recovery, Rehab Recovery
Axis II: Personality Disorders
and many other mental health issues, inclding all additions, depression, anxiety
which all affects relationships, and the most important one: with yourself which inludes your daily self-care. EFT is a MAJOR Leap in removing the emotional reactionary repeating issues that gets in the way of ignoring or neglecting or not scheduling time taking care of yourself.
How does that even feel to read about?

This BLOG represents my years of education, experience and training in psychology, with EFT, and many other self-help/growth/development techniques - that I have been really wanting to teach. But I've been a single working mom and social worker or psych tech all my life that I didn't have time or know-how on web pages, etc. Now with blogging and twittering I can finally share what I've (as a mental health clinician and the recovery I want to give back, I have a venue to put it out there.) I've since gotten passionate about EFT and how awesome the results are, that it finally all came together this year - put TAPPING with Recovery. I'm even writing a book on it, but that's another story.)

To your awesome journey
and a moment of silence for those still suffering.

Tapping for Codependency Recovery

Tapping for Codependency Recovery using Meridian Energy Tapping

The 14 Recovery Statements (aka Cleaning Up the Laundry List with E.F.T.!)
1. Even though I became isolated and afraid of other people and authority figures, I now feel comfortable and involved with people and authority figures. I am an authority on myself. (KC)
2. Even though I became an approval seeker and lost my own identity in the process, I now have a strong identity and give myself approval. (EB)

3. Even though I am frightened by angry people and any personal criticism, I now have strength to accept other people's feelings and use personal criticism in a positive way. (SE)

4. Even though I either became an addict/codependent, married them, or both, or find other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fill my sick abandonment needs, I am now committed to myself and to fulfilling my needs to be well. (UE)

5. Even though I live life from the viewpoint of victim and am attracted by that weakness in my love and friendship relationships, as I face my own victim role, I am now attracted by strengths and I understand weaknesses in my love and friendship relationships. (UN)

6. Even though I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for me to be concerned with others rather than myself which enables me not to look too closely at my own faults, I am now responsible for my own recovery and wellness which I do by loving and focusing on myself. (CH)

7. Even though I get guilt feelings when I stand up for myself instead of giving in to others, I am now empowered to stand up for myself and not give in to others. (CB)

8. Even though I become addicted to excitement, I now enjoy peaceful serenity and healthy activity while I seek balance and wellness one day at a time. (UA)

9. Even though I confuse love with pity and tend to 'love' people who I can 'pity' and 'rescue', I now love people who love and take care of themselves. (RR)

10. Even though I have stuffed my feelings from my traumatic childhood and have lost the ability to feel or express my feelings because it hurts so much (denial), I am now free to feel and express my feelings even when painful (acceptance). (TH)

11. Even though I judge myself harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem, I now love and accept myself and have a healthy sense of self-esteem. (FF)

12. Even though I am a codependent personality who is terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold onto a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings which I received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for me, I am now free from abandonment and fear in relationships as I rely more and more on my Higher Power and participate in supportive relationships. (MF)

13. Even though codependency is a family disease and I became a codependent and took on the characteristics of the disease, I now examine and release codependent behaviors I learned while living with the family disease of codependency. (RF)

14. Even though codependents are reactors rather than actors, I now choose to review my options before I act and I choose actions based on recovery and wellness. (LF)
By JP Bailey, MA

Welcome Post

Welcome to Recovery Tapping!!

I'm really excited to be able to give you all the best information I have been collecting for years.

I wanted to create a space for people in recovery to learn "Tapping", and for people who "Tap" to learn more about Recovery.

Using the two together has healed many people of all sorts of trauma, abuse and emotional triggers. Adult Children of all types of issues from alcoholism to personality disorders will find lots of helpful information here to aid them on their recovery path and turn them on to the coolest self-help power tool at your fingertips - Emotional Acupressure that relieves Stress and Distress and many other intense emotions - in minutes. All natural, holistic, body-mind technique, no drugs or side-efffects, non-invasive, non-reliving of trauama. Less emotional and lengthy than any other traditional or non-traditional therapy, and you can learn it for free, use it on yourself and have it for life. You'll wonder what you ever did without it.

No more being at the mercy of all the issues you've never been able to get over. Clear issues and triggers no matter how long you've had them, or how serious they are. Change your life with Energy Tapping.

I'm going to start this Blog with the 14 Recovery Statements that I like to call "Cleaning up the Laundry List". For each codependency trait, I've developed a Tapping Statement with a recovery emphasis and matched them up with the 14 Meridian Tapping Points.

This can be a way to begin your healing while learning how to do it.

Stay Tuned!

To your Recovery.

JP Bailey, MA