You were taught to self-avoid.
You learned to disconnect from yourself and distrust what you were feeling inside.
The adults that surrounded you as a child didn’t know any better, so they didn’t show you how to turn inwards, self-soothe and heal yourself.
In my own case, I always self-avoided and was very addiction-prone. A lot of it was keeping busy and overworking. Still, other addictions also kept me focused on something external rather than turning inwards to be with, self-soothe, meet my traumas and heal them.
There are many reasons you self-avoid healing; I will explain them in today’s Thriver TV episode.
I will also reveal to you how tending to the vulnerable child within is the greatest gift you can give yourself because now, as adults, we can learn how to turn inwards, come home and get our healing done.
Video Transcript
Today I want to talk to you about healing, specifically about narcissistic abuse recovery, and why you may struggle to turn inwards, face your traumas and heal from them.
Before we do, those of you who want to learn more about the Thriver healing from narcissistic abuse and how to get free from all of your abuse symptoms, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and diminished trust in yourself, life and others, and how to come back from emotional, mental, financial, love, and relationship losses and even ruin, please subscribe to my channel. And hit the notification bell so you can be updated every time I release a new episode, a live event, and much more.
Please remember to like, and share this with family and friends who could also benefit from this information.
Let’s go through the reasons why you can self-avoid healing.
We Were Taught To Self-Avoid
This is what we were taught to self-avoid, and let’s face it, virtually none of us grew up in a family with the program to turn inwards, self-soothe and heal ourselves to completion – as little children. We weren’t shown how to do this.
Rather, the messages that we were given were all about not turning inside to self-partner and healing ourselves. Our parents believed they were doing the right thing because when we asked them, “What’s wrong, Mum or Dad?” because we knew something was wrong, they said, “Nothing, I’m fine.”
That showed you that it’s appropriate to bury your feelings, carry on and act like nothing was wrong. When we did feel that something was going on – that was wrong inside of us – and we said something about it, they told us, “Don’t think about it. Go and do some colouring or go watch TV or go play.”
Not only did this teach us to disconnect from ourselves, but it also taught us to distrust ourselves and what we were feeling on the inside. When we observed something wrong with Mum or Dad and asked them about it, and they told us that there wasn’t, we believed our inner radar must’ve been wrong because, after all, Mum and Dad are our Gods.
It was from them that we learned about what was right or wrong. So right from the get-go, we knew to disconnect from what we felt inside. Even if it was terrible, such as in the case of repeat internal triggered trauma, we tried to adopt every other distraction to avoid feeling what we felt, yet this didn’t improve us, and it only kicked the can down the road.
Internal trauma is like housework. It doesn’t mysteriously disappear, and we don’t have a little cleaning trauma fairy that comes along and takes it away. In fact, the more it’s neglected, the more it piles up, the messier it becomes, and the more complex it is to finally clean up.
Our internal traumas weren’t meant to be ignored. Your triggered, painful emotions are letting you know something is wrong and are there for a reason.
I want you to imagine this. Imagine you were driving your car, and deafening grinding noises started coming from your engine. Would you just continue to drive your vehicle as if nothing was wrong? If you did and had any common sense, you would know that you’re running a terrible risk of something severe happening to your engine, which could mean a significant loss of money and the ability to keep getting from place to place.
This could have a terrible impact on so much more than your car, such as your ability to work and feed yourself and your family. And goodness knows what else.
Here is this really crazy thing. We’ve been taught to disconnect from ourselves and ignore our inner screaming emotions, and we think we can just magically repair them by ignoring them. Did we believe that these traumas were just going to disappear?
How insane it is that we’ve been disconnected, and we haven’t realised the loss of not listening to ourselves, but the loss in our lives due to our own breaking down that we’re trying to ignore. It impacts our ability to function, our vital relationships, and the ability to Thrive, shine, and live out the missions that our Soul dearly wants us to live.
When our emotions break down, and we’re ignoring them, when we’re self-avoiding them, they don’t stop. The reason they don’t stop is because there are inner parts of ourselves that are in dis-ease.
These terrible emotions are screaming out to us and telling us that something needs to be acknowledged, met and repaired. It’s no different to a faulty car engine. Why don’t we want to do this? We want to fix our car engine because we know we need to, but we don’t want to improve our inner engine because we’ve been told that our inner emotions are meant to be avoided at all costs.
Our societies have provided us with a myriad of ways that we can do this thing like television, social media, junk food, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, porn, keeping busy, overworking, Netflix, ruminating and obsessing, having sex with abusive people, or hanging out with low vibrational victimised people, where we can continuously share out war stories all about our trauma without ever actually healing them.
All of these things might distract us for a while, yet, why, after these episodes of self-avoidance, do we still end up back at square one feeling unworthy, unlovable, empty, depressed, anxious, maybe even panicked, and maybe deeply entrenched in despair and helplessness.
The answer is staring us right in the face – it’s because we haven’t yet turned inwards with love, intention and devotion to heal ourselves back to wholeness.
As children, we didn’t have the resources and the ability to do this for ourselves because nobody showed us how to, but as adults, we can learn, turn inwards, come home and get it done.
My Self-Abandonment And The Ways I Self-Avoided With Addictions
I didn’t understand this for a long, long time. I was living in terminal self-abandonment like everybody. Even before narcissistic abuse, I used to get triggered and feel familiar feelings of anxiety or depression.
I always self-avoided, and I was very addiction-prone. A lot of it was keeping busy and overworking. Those were ways that I avoided myself. The other ways I did it was with cigarettes and alcohol. I would go through food. I would even go into self-avoidant addiction, such as over-exercising or overdoing spiritual development – I always had to focus on something rather than turning inwards to be with, self-soothe, and meet those traumas and heal them. I wasn’t going inwards to be with them and heal them.
Can you relate to any of what I’ve been saying? I’d be really interested to hear about what you did to self-avoid? Or what do you still do to self-avoid? Let me know in the comments below.
Tending To The Vulnerable Child Within
This is what I finally realised on my Thriver Healing journey, that there were parts of me – young unhealed, underdeveloped parts, who felt not enough, who felt invalidated, who felt incapable of being heard and held and loved, and didn’t feel worthy of love – that had been screaming out for help.
Those were my feelings that I was self-avoiding, and I’d been ignoring her (my inner child) and pushing her away. Now, I would like for you to imagine this. Imagine if you had a child you adored who came up to you, and let’s imagine that child was five years of age (or even younger). That child said to you, “Mum, Dad, I’m really sad, these people don’t like me (or whatever it is)”, that age-appropriate feeling of rejection.
What if you were to say to that child, “Shut up. I don’t want to listen to you. I’m going to go and eat that chocolate cake. I’m going to go and have those cigarettes. I’m going to drink that alcohol. I’m just going to ignore you and stick my head in my computer and keep working or watching Netflix … go away, go away.”
How would that child feel? Completely and utterly rejected, invalidated, unimportant, and absolutely traumatised. Can you understand that this is what you’ve been doing to yourself? I realised that’s exactly what I’d been doing to myself.
We ignore a car engine, and it blows up. We ignore our inner child or broken, unhealed, or insecure parts, and they get very unwell. This is the thing, when we do that, by ignoring our inner child who is screaming out in total panic and anxiety – because nobody is coming – that child is just going to get more and more panicked and scream louder and louder, which is the traumas and the feelings inside of you just getting worse, and worse and worse, and worse, and worse.
Or that child will curl up in the corner in complete catatonic depression – nobody’s coming, what’s the point? Or maybe the child will gravitate between the two. The reason is that nobody is coming. You haven’t been coming, and you haven’t been turning up.
The Relief Of Turning Inwards
Now, despite being told that we do everything but turn within, there’s an incredible relief to turning inwards. When I realised this, I had my epiphany, and I realised that the way that the narcissist was abandoning and rejecting me was exactly a match for how I’d been abandoning and leaving myself. When I finally realised this, even before I got into the Quantum super tools of Quanta Freedom Healing to heal this stuff, I remember I realised what was happening inside.
I was in the bath, deeply in trauma, and not even starting my recovery. I closed my eyes and visualised my inner child; she was battered, dirty, and just a mess. I remembered in my mind’s eye I opened my heart, held her, pulled her to me, and said, “Melanie, I am so sorry I haven’t been here. I love you, I don’t know how I will heal you (because I didn’t know yet), but I will never leave you again. I’m here.” I cried my eyes out in the bath with absolute and utter relief.
This is the thing, your Inner Being and trauma have been screaming out for you – as a child, it was for your role models, now as an adult, it’s for you. No one is coming other than you.
I realised the profound truth. I had yet to have people show up for me. I hadn’t had people committing to me. I had yet to have people staying with me. They’d been abandoning me, and I realised the Quantum Law even way back then of, so within, so without, that people can only be in my life experience, matching how I’m with myself in my Inner Life.
Quantum Law is absolute – so within, so without. Once I started making the relationship that I had with my Inner Being to heal up these fractures and insecurities and terrors and traumas to completion – that was when very, very quickly the answers, the support, the soothing, the solidness, and the relief came, and I discovered that wholeness came.
This was the love I’d been looking for my whole life, and resolution, closure, and peace came. I realised that everything I’ve been through in my outer life caused trauma within so that one day I would turn within and come home to myself.
Quantum Truth and Thriver Healing
The final understanding of coming home to healing and valuing your soul is this – we’ve been chasing stuff and people to get the feelings of love, safety, wholeness, and peace within. The irony is when you start understanding Quantum Truth and Thriver Healing, you know that these beautiful feelings and states are actually natural and organic for us.
We start experiencing them organically once we meet, release, and replace our trauma with Source, the Quantum Healing process. You start coming home to who you really are, who is whole and one and at peace organically with True Source when your traumas are gone.
We’ve been trying to get them from out there, which, as I say so many times, is like trying to put ice cream on top of poop. It doesn’t work because you can’t ‘get’ these states – you can only ‘be’ them.
In Conclusion
I hope what I’ve shared with you today has helped you understand why you’ve been self-avoiding because you’ve been programmed to, it’s been your regular, but it’s actually not your natural state.
What has been going on here intensely is that you’ve been trained to detach. You’ve been trained to self-avoid, and you’ve been trained to self-abandon. I just want you to really, really embody that.
We think that other people will treat us the way we love them. That’s been the grand delusion, but the truth is they treat us completely in alignment with the relationship that we’re having with our own Inner Being. Now that doesn’t mean that if you get an Inner Being right, people who don’t have the capacity for love and true commitment and connection in a healthy way will change. No, they’re not.
When we’re disconnected, self-avoiding, and self-abandoning, we are such a match for people who will give us more of that, exactly narcissists. They’re not connected to their Inner Being either in a healthy way. And what do they do? They bleed dry your energy, resources, life force, and soul. They devalue and discard you, which unknowingly was exactly what we did to our Inner Being every time we screamed out with distress and needed healing, self-partnering, love, and support.
If you don’t come home to this fundamental relationship with yourself, then others and life won’t be there for you either. We live in the Quantum Universe of so within, so without, which is as absolute as gravity. It means that you are the generative source of your experience. What’s going on in your Inner Being is what you will accept, participate in, and what will be attracted to your life experience from the outside.
The real truth about this is there’s no other place to get your life right than to turn inwards, heal, and love yourself back to wholeness. I am so thrilled and honoured and humbled to tell you that I did discover how to do that for real, and to date, I’ve helped thousands of others achieve this as well from all over the world – beautiful Thrivers who were disconnected.
Many people in this community, just like you, were smashed to pieces, suffering horrific trauma that they felt they could never heal. I also believe they would never get back to any semblance of sanity and peace, let alone connect to the incredible lives they are living happily and gloriously living now.
I’d love to share a range of ways to access my inner transformational content to help you stop self-avoiding and start your reintegration and healing process. Check out the resources in the show notes because they will take you directly to my free and my free and also my intensive healing programs for you to check out.
So as always, I’d love to hear your comments and questions, and please let me know if this episode was helpful, if it struck a chord inside of you and if it’s given you hope and inspiration by turning inwards with love and devotion that you can heal. I’d be really interested to know.
I don’t have addictions, but I’m also not a narcissist who seeks attention and pity.
Thank you again. Yes, I’ve self avoided… seems like my whole life. My addictions have been across the entire gambit. Melanie, I see myself inside myself, and he’s pretty terrific, but am I worth him? Guess I’m still healing my childhood traumas. I’ll stop, for some reason, I can’t stop crying. But it good, and thank you again.
This really helped me because unlike the typical addictions that society acknowledges I realize in my childhood U became addicted to unhealthy people. The difference is that as an adult with the help of NARP I’ve been able to recognize it and have been using the program to help me heal. Thank you.
Hi Peter,
you are very welcome.
Please know absolutely your Inner Being is worth your love and healing.
There is nothing else to do!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I’ve been using the introductory module to quanta freedom healing daily while I wait to hear if I’m accepted for sponsorship for NARP. Is it possible that as the layers start to clear I can have an increase in panic, anxiety & depression? I’ve definitely felt positive shifts but the symptoms in the last few days are OFF THE CHARTS & I’m terrified that now I’ve opened the floodgates, will be denied sponsorship & am going to be committed. The connection between what my logical mind knows is happening vs what my body is experiencing is completely opposite. I’m completely sleep deprived & running on nothing but survival stress. I guess I’m just hoping for reassurance… Gaining awareness of the magnitude of my self avoidance & reeling from a cruel discard is excruciating & nearly unbearable. I don’t want to give up because I recognize this as the way to heal but I’m so overwhelmed. I don’t feel capable of being the one to heal my inner being because I feel completely depleted on every level. I’m so grateful to you for giving me hope.
Hi Kari,
deep breaths dear lady … truly what you are feeling just means that there is another shift under the ones you have done to keep doing.
As you clear trauma, related trauma now has room to come up to be cleared also.
Lots of self-love, beautiful talk to your inner child, some warm baths, nurturing food and say to yourself “I bless and accept these feelings” and breath and keep your body open and say to your Inner Child, “Sweetheart I am coming. We are going to do a healing soon to release you from this. I love you, you are doing a great job ad I am never leaving again.”
Or, just work with your loving self-care and when your sponsorship comes through then you can come straight into the NARP Forum.
I’m sending a message through to Support to get this process happening for you as soon as we can.
Much Love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Mel, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude & the timing is truly divine. I have my first appointment with my divorce attorney today & the swirl of emotions are difficult to describe. I know that you accepting me into your community means I’m as good as healed. Thank you with every cell of my being💖💝💕
So much love!
Kari sweetheart,
it is my absolute pleasure!
I can’t wait to see your progress with us all in our beautiful NARP Community!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Thank you I never thought about it but I’ve always been this way. Cry because I couldn’t face the problem alone
I worked at home and at my ranch. Stayed mainly alone and only went where I felt comfortable. I did and do drink some. I slept a lot walked 5 miles a day. Crossword puzzles were my nightly games. I’ve always been a cryer because I couldn’t handle not being nice to someone that hurt me. My dad would always make me stop crying. Now there is no one there so I tried handling it my self. I felt everyone left me because Of what I said and did. Thank you
Thank you Melanie. You are an angel and a divine catalyst of healing conscious understanding and healing. Keep sharing your transformative wisdom.
Hi Melanie,
Thank you for being so much to the point! For sure there is nothing like the ideas and practices of NARP of turning within, finding our Inner Child, etc., which for many of us is so difficult, to help one heal from narcissistic abuse, period! For 30 years I practiced meditation, visited shamans and healers of every type, went to therapists, participated in self help groups, etc….. all of those modalities were somewhat helpful but I can honestly say, today, that NARP, after all that EFFORT and ENERGY I expended with these other methods, is the way to overcome the ramifications experienced from the abuse of a narcissist, the control of a narcissist and the demonic behavior of a narcissist! If I could shout from the rooftops to everyone who is going through narcissistic abuse to follow your teachings I would do so! Doing the inner work that is ascribed in your teachings does, indeed, produce miracles! I’m a believer! Thank you so much Melanie! Lots of love to you! ❤️🦋❤️
Boy! Did I need to hear that today. I’ve been anxiously busying myself today and getting agitated that very very few people have been faithful to me over the course of my life. After one week done from Thrive, I have reverted back to looking outward. I will be doing a few shifts this evening.
Hi Camilla,
that’s great that you are going to keep working on your inner being.
Are you working with NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com ? It may be great for you to have a connection with the NARP Member’s Forum as well to help keep you on track when needed!
Much love to you – you’ve got this!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I use to just scroll past your posts in complete denial. Once had a day I couldn’t handle any more of the same so I actually stopped on your post and woah behold the light went on. Really thought I could do it but realised how damaged I am. Thank you it has been wonderful to have an ear that is listening out for me I am still reeling thought Yes I can handle the crap. Once again thank you for your wisdom.
It’s my pleasure Barbara,
I’m really happy that this has helped.
Mel 🙏💞🦋
This material and insight and TOOLS have nurtured me. My future is bright. It is beyond what I could imagine possible for me during marriage with narc.
The fear that he was right about who I was, was a reflection of my diminished belief in myself. Which predated him.
I’m so pleased that this has helped bring clarity to you Kevin!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Stumbled across this and tears fill my eyes to finally feel a connection that I may be able to overcome and move on with my life is so exciting. I’m ready to do the work. I haven’t been before. I was comfortable in my pain and it has become my identity. I’m grateful to God for allowing me to see this video and hopefully move into a better frame of mind. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Hi Mary,
please know how welcome you are.
Sending you love, healing and blessings
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I’ve just recently come to the realization that my empty life and unhappiness is due to narcissistic trauma. After much study & research, by the grace of God I was led to your work Melanie. I’ve had 3 significant, highly toxic, abusive relationships. Years ago a therapist told me #3 was a narcissist and that I am a codependent love addict. Her advice for healing was a 12 step program. Well that didn’t work for me; really I just didn’t want to work it. In 2007 after #3 discarded me I decided no more, not going through this again, I’m a terrible judge of character. My soul was so beaten & bruised. So I worked on healing my broken relationship with God, and have stayed single for the last 14 years.Thought I was fine, until…last summer I was contacted by a man I knew in high school who I hadn’t talked to in 48 years. After one date with mild love bombing all those triggers and familiar feelings reared their ugly heads! Ignored all Red flags. After the 2nd date I was hooked and he ghosted me. I was a basket case – again. Long story short, I now know for sure he is a covert narcissist; they were all highly narcissistic. This is not a coincidence. He was definitely a messenger. You can run but you can’t hide. Time for me to get to work!
It’s so true Ginger,
there is no avoiding ourslves! Nothing changes until our Inner Being changes.
Sending you love and healing
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I have had limited modified contact with my 35 year old daughter for a few years now. Recently moved interstate leaving the grandchildren behind whom were always used as pawns.
I have a lovely husband who looks after me every day.
Finally having to heal, can’t avoid it anymore. Taking it slowly as the trauma is manifesting in sores and rashes at the moment. It’s nice to know I’m not alone or totally crazy.
I busied myself with people who demanded love without giving any back. I then tried to be even nicer to them to get the love my inner soul craved. Im working on this daily. It is definitely learnt behaviour and what can be learnt, can be unlearnt.
Thank you for posting this video. Here are my thoughts for what they’re worth:
What comes to mind is that growing up, and developing the brain and the inner world, is a really big topic. I’ve actually turned inwards for as long as I can remember, troubleshooting my own life. But these things still require real life trials and errors, and I also need to revisit issues as circumstances changed, obviously, for all kinds of reasons. What ultimately put me on the path to the kind of trauma processing you’re addressing, to the best of my understanding, was to say to myself: Things that happened at an age before my brain was able to put words together, before my self awareness was in place, all that, good and bad, normal or not, would be stored in memory as some kind of poorly structured bodily sensation. Forget about searching for a description of the truth of my experience, I will never know because I simply wasn’t capable of structuring my thoughts yet. That’s how far back I have to go to properly connect with today’s subconscious emotional reactions. I have to, like you say, imagine talking to myself as a little girl, even a baby. That works really well. And, yes, I totally support your message that turning inwards is the way to start to get a grip on a messed up life situation, however painful it may be in the moment. It would make sense that this is how humans are born to function, that this is one of the reasons we have a large and flexible brain, capable of imagining and remembering.
I’m not an expert, don’t take my word as the scientific truth, but this line of reasoning works for me. Just sharing.
Thanks again!
I have tried the qfh and tho I feel like it helped I keep on thinking I’m okay and won’t relapse back into hating myself. However I find myself slowly hating myself again as my day continues… should I be doing way more qfh in order for this to stop happening?
Hi Courtney,
yes… absolutely …
There is more healing to go …
Mel 🙏💞🦋
WOW! Just starting–signed up for presentation tomorrow, 7/16/2021 and MUST focus so I don’t go somewhere away from this work & forget until it’s too late. It sounds very hard to do this work: after 10 years of body-centered therapy, I got just one thing from it–a recollection of an interchange with my mother as a child that I had stuffed & reported to my analyst (as she said) as if I were a newspaper reporter (without emotion). This was years ago, & I’ve replayed that encounter and added some new knowledge of the impact it had that I was unaware of. But that just explained what happened, not why, nor what to do about it. I’m terrified of doing the work you suggest. But I know I MUST do it if I want the pain to do away. I’m 77 years old & determined it’s not too late!!!!!!!
Hi Enid,
I love that you are inspired!
Thank you for being brave and inspiration to yourself and others.
We have many beautiful Thrivers your age in our wonderful NARP community.
All of our souls are ageless, and your True Self and life awaits you!
So much love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Thanks so much for your heartfelt video talk. Really resonates with me. I have been progressing on my own but I get set back and sometimes just get so depressed. I have been in a bad place lately and trying to work with myself and then at my job I got “called in” to the supervisor because the office gossip is now focused on me. Not because I did anything but because I keep to myself,thier interpretations were very negative. it really triggered me and hearing your talk today is helping me self soothe. Thanks for all you do, I am hugging my little girl inside, talking, crying, singing.
Hi Devorah,
I love that you are hugging your “little me”.
Soooo beautiful.
All my love to you and little Devorah
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Hello Melanie!
I am looking for a video (articles are welcome too) where you speak about the pointlessness of arguing and being caught in self-defending with a narcissist. Can you suggest something please?
Thankful f the many important things you taught me so far!
Anastasia