Lawgirl Book Review Part V
- A victim is someone who has no choices, someone who is dependent on th0se around her to protect her. A victim’s sense of well-being, or lack of it, comes from the love, or lack of it, she receives from her environment. A victim looks outside, not inside, herself for clues about her feelings, her next moves. We are not to blame for what happened to us as children, but we are responsible for what we do with our pain as adults.
Worth repeating over and over to yourself. You need to become friends with yourself, start to trust yourself.
- When we experience the body knowledge that no one knows what’s better for us than we ourselves do, a seed of autonomy and self-responsibility is planted. Relationships change – with parents, lovers, friends, wherever denial and lies were part of the unseen fabric of the connection. Once you experience even the palest glimmer of self-love, it becomes increasingly difficult to feel comfortable in relationships where all that exists is the pretense of love.
Wow, this one was so hard. You learn that the majority of the folks with whom you are friends are actually all the same person – just in different bodysuits with different names. They are younger versions of whomever hurt you. When you begin to heal, you will have problems with these folks – problems that you never had before.
All of a sudden, things that they say are not okay with you anymore. The little put-downs that seemed endearing, because they showed that this person really knew you, are not funny now. Now it’s hurtful.
All of these emotions will swirl around, and it will be tough. You will end some relationships for now and some forever. But you will get through it. There will be folks in your life who make it through this transition, I promise.
- The willingness to embark on this journey and the perseverance to follow through with it take courage and commitment. Compulsive eaters would have to stop blaming themselves for everything that is wrong in their lives on their weight.
This means that you have to get angry – you have to go through the 
emotions. You can’t just say, well, I’m overweight – that’s why my life sucks. Figure out how you got there – the weight is JUST the by-product NOT the reason.
- Getting angry is crucial to healing. And just as important is to act on the choice I have as an adult that I didn’t have as a child: to protect myself, to establish clear boundaries about what I will and won’t tolerate, to know that I do not have to stay in a relationship with a person who does not honor my feelings, to express my hurt or anger, without blaming someone else.
You control how others treat you. You show them how to respect you. You have to set the boundaries!
- We cannot be kind enough or thin enough or generous enough, we cannot be successful enough or attractive enough for those who abuse us to stop abusing us. We cannot make anyone love us. We cannot change anyone.
We can only control ourselves. We can only control our reactions. We must find our values inside of ourselves.
