How To Overcome Your Own Abusive Brain Chatter

How about you start by sharing a bit of your story, what brought you to be of service in this arena?

Well, I think many of your listeners can relate. I had a traumatic childhood and, you know, my mother attempted suicide when I was about four years old, and that kind of framed a lot of my life. To me that one incident of the trauma of watching her being wheeled out on a stretcher being held by neighbours, hearing people shame her really kind of hit me and it also set me up to be invisible so that my mother wouldn't kill herself. She wouldn't die if I were good and I were invisible. Later on, as a result of also being molested and different things happening in my life like having a mother who wasn't available and of course a father who wasn't available.

I remember when my mother killed herself. I didn't think anybody would try to kill herself. No one sat down with us to talk about it. She attempted several times in my childhood and so, you know, there was no one there to talk to except my own what I call “abusive brain shatter,” which is what I'm writing.

And I think that's what happened. You know, I got put into this mould and we all do, based on the messages that we believed as a child that we were fed or that we intuited. Like I said, don't upset your mother, hold everything in, it isn't a surprise that I have had severe asthma that would land me in the hospital because I literally couldn't breathe.

Of course, What ended up happening is, that I got into an unhealthy relationship because I thought that, a relationship was what was going to fix me and save me and that was also a message I got from my mother too, it's like, you have to look right, you have to be right because the end goal is to get married.

But inside, I had such low self-esteem, that I had no sense of who I was. So there was no way for me to gauge a partner. And so what I always say is I took my husband hostage. He was emotionally distant, and emotionally abusive, addicted to gambling and womanizing,

substance abuse and all of that.

But, you know, I felt like I was lucky to have a man because my self-esteem was so poor that I was lucky just to have this man love me. We broke up maybe 15 times and even divorced and remarried, but I felt like, you know, he was my hostage. He was going to save me. And so that of course, translated when I had children.

My goal was I wanted to have children and live a white-picket-fence life. Happy dad, happy mom, vacation with the kids. But you know, when you're broken inside, you don't attract that. And that's not what happened, my husband didn't want to be married and I'm not sure he wanted to be a father.

And so I had to pretend like everything was okay and, my poor children suffered. First of all, they suffered from the breakups and I was so outward-focused that I was not focused on them. When I finally left my husband, I had enough self-esteem to realize that I had to do better for my children.

I didn't like the way he talked to my children, and I felt like I had to do better. I didn't know what that was. You know, that's the thing, but I just knew I had to do better. I realized that I was being emotionally abused and that I was in a relationship that was not healthy.

And I finally got the courage to leave, maybe after 15 years we were in and out of togetherness. When I left, I took my emotional abuser with me. And so even though I left my abuser, I then became my emotional abuser and didn't leave healthy. I escaped, which was good. I'm pleased that I was able to escape.

But in terms of motherhood, what that did for my children was awful. I mean, my children, they saw me feeling broken. They saw their mother as weak. They saw their mother in despair. They saw their mother in depression. They felt like they had no support. I had one of my children with my first marriage and the second child seven years later with my second.

So although they were both with the same father, they were different. They had different experiences because I was different at each point. And so, you know, it was very difficult for my son. At some point, he went to live with my mother because he felt like living with me was like living on a pier with three pilings.

At one point it was going to fall off and he was going to fall into the river. Here I was thinking I was doing well by escaping, but I wasn't yet doing the work. You know, that emotional abuser that came with me told me that I wasn't a good mother.

It told me that I'd never be able to find another man, It told me to stay home and be weak. It told me I'd never find a good job, I could never support myself. I mean, that was what I thought my husband was. He was the provider and because I never thought I could.

And so that emotionally abusive voice that now circles back to my mother. My mother had that same voice, right? That's how she raised her four girls with this abusive brain chatter in her mind. And so it played out, but she didn't know. It played out in us. She was a was a rager.

She was never secure with who she was. She was all of the things that she passed on to us, not deliberately, but it's like her bully became my bully in marriage. Her beliefs became my beliefs. And it wasn't until about 10 years after my divorce that you know, I hand my come, you know, come to awareness moment, my spiritual awakening.

I recall when my older son had gone to live with my mother because I wasn't.

strong enough. He got so strong and was 13 years old. He was bullying me as well and I just couldn't cope so he went to live with my mother, my stepfather, and my other son. I was raising a single son, he was ADHD and I was ADHD. We both kind of had to grow up together.

So, the moment that it happened was 1 day, I was Lying in bed, and I just heard the chatter. Suddenly, it was this out-of-body experience where I kept hearing, you're not good enough, you're never going to be good enough, your life will always be this way. I had my asthma inhaler in my hand because I was having a constant asthma attack, I was watching TV, and I was so self-obsessed.

Now, the interesting thing, Emily, is I thought I was a good mother, I thought I tried to be a really good mother. I mean, I go to the school, I do all of these things, and I love my sons. I tried to be there for them. I tried to be, but the truth was that I was so self-absorbed in my self-hatred that I couldn't.

It's as though they couldn't feel me. I couldn't be there for them. It's interesting that they both married women who were very like me that they felt they had to take care of and since have divorced and changed that. But the point I'm trying to make here is that the trickle-down is the connections, whether it be you're raising children, girls or boys.

It's there unless you do your work. You're subtly giving that message to your children, that message that your abusive brain shatter is telling you. So that one day I just hit the wall and said I can't do this anymore. This is just, that I have to do something different, and it was like a spiritual awakening.

I was overeating. I would lay in bed and just binge-eat doughnuts. And by the way, my son would have to sometimes go to me, go with me to the 7-Eleven because I wanted to binge. And so he'd get to binge too. So that was another negative thing. I was feeding my son. Was this addiction to food? I got on my knees and I just said, I'm done.

You know, what do I do? Where do I go? How do I stop this? I'm ready, I'm ready and I'm willing. And that's the moment I kind of took back my life. I was 42 years old. My son must have been 10. I think my young son was 10 and I just knew that something had to change and it had to be me. And so I did the work, I got help from a 12-step program for my addictions.

I sought counselling. I started taking medication for my depression and I started learning about abusive brain chatter. My life started to change as I got the spiritual connection, and I think this is so important in what I teach my clients and what I'm writing my book on is that when you come from a background like I did, you don't have the voice, you don't have the basic knowledge and the skills to change the voice in your head because That's what you've learned.

And you have to find another voice. You have to find a kinder, gentler, softer voice, which comes from within. That's the voice that I started to seek when I was 42 years old and what set me on the trajectory of starting my own business, and becoming a successful entrepreneur. Finding a healthy relationship that wasn't based on “how can you fix me” but more based on “how do you fit into my life”

I was no longer attracting drama and I understood what drama meant. So all of the work that I did, was to help me grow up and fortunately for my younger son who lived with me as I was going through this process, he got the benefit of me learning to talk to myself nicer, learning to use all of these communication tools that I was beginning to use, learning to love myself, teaching him to love himself. Unfortunately, my older son didn't get the benefit of that, but as a mother now, I have had to make amends, and I've made several amends to my older son, telling him that I completely take ownership for not being that support system and for expecting my children to take care of me, rather than I take care of them.

I don't do that anymore. And I'm learning, you know, even at my age, I'm 71 years old, I still ask my children to teach me. If I'm overstepping a boundary, I still want to be teachable, even at my age, because I didn't have those lessons at a young age, and as a young adult, they're now reaching the age I was when I kind of hit my wall, so I'm there to support them and to listen to them, and I think that's that for my journey from trauma hood to motherhood.

My life now is so different. I sold my business and I became a life and spiritual coach the spiritual part was important to me because I understood as I was coaching clients that they were very similar to me and that I couldn't get them to access the stuff down here. They could only stay up in their head and that's where the stuff that we were told and taught and all of those things that we believe are head stuff. But in here is where the answer is. So I became a spiritual coach to help people go from here and quiet the abusive brain chatter and go here and say, okay, who do I want to be? Who am I? What do I value? How do I feed myself? How do I show up for my children? How do I set boundaries for myself? I think a lot of women who've had trauma have issues with boundaries and boundaries can be as simple as three sentences.

I understand that you're a little upset and that you're probably overworked, but I feel uncomfortable when you speak loudly to me, so I'd like to ask that in the future you keep your voice down when we talk or, you know, whatever it is, it's a three-step process that I teach women and men in terms of communicating healthy boundaries that not only honour you and honour me.

And boy, I've gone on a lot, so I'm going to take a break and let you ask your questions.

Wow! As you were sharing your story, I could resonate with certain parts of your story because it wasn't until I dove into my healing journey that I realized that I don't know who I am and some mamas listening may not resonate with this as well.

I don't know who I am without the trauma because it happened and Continued for so long, and then it wasn't until a while after that I reflected and realized that sure, my trauma, the bulk of it, the biggest chunk of it happened when I was seven years old.

But for the last 20-30 years, I've been replaying it in my head. That voice has been changed and adapted and made my voids. When you realize that you have become your abuser and that stings, that, you know, is a game changer. I think when I talk to people, I want to address a couple of things that you said and I think are powerful.

Your listeners may be young, but there used to be an old song by Carly Simon called I Haven't Got Time for the Pain, and there was a line that said suffering is the only thing I knew, suffering was how I knew I was alive or something like that. And I think I agree with you that suddenly the trauma becomes another person in our room, you know, in our body.

And it does become a person. And, the song goes on to say, I haven't got time for the pain. And I used to sing that. I used to sing that to myself…. I haven't got time for the pain and Emily, I think the thing is that once we embrace those voices that tell us that we're not good enough, or that tell us that our trauma is who we are, It is hard to change. I want to recognize that.

I know some people accuse me of being flippant about it because I'm on the other side. I've seen the other side too but I remember that it's not easy and you need help. If there's one message that I want to say to people is that you need support through this.

You don't don't sit in your brain. You can't cure your brain with your brain. It just doesn't happen. Your brain is there to protect you right? If your brain keeps you down and tells you you're not good enough, you should be in bad relationships, and you're never going to be loved.

Well then, you're not going to go out and take risks, right? That maybe might create some pain for you and your brain doesn't want you to feel pain. So it's going to hold you back. There's a process I do that's beautiful, which is called a voice dialogue process, where we get to talk to both sides of yourself, the side of yourself that is so ready to step up like I was that day, that side of myself that just said, “I want to embrace my life.”

I want to be who I’m meant to be and the other side says, you're never going to be that you're going to stay stuck, we allow them to dialogue with each other and discover what each of them wants. And usually, we find that they want the same thing. They want to protect you. That trauma is there to protect you, it's telling you, oh, don't do this, It's going to be scary and it’s there to protect you. But there's also a stronger part of you that can now take over. Once you get to an agreement with both parts of yourself, you can say, okay, I can let go of some of that trauma. Now, I'm going to let you quiet down for a bit.

And how about if we give the wheel to the more dominant side of myself that wants to survive, wants to not just survive, but thrive, because you were meant to thrive and not just survive.

Exactly! I want to dive into the process that you went through to overcome that emotionally abusive voice that resided within you. What are some of the steps that, you went through or that you did to learn how to speak to yourself with more kindness and compassion?

Wow, thank you for that. The book I'm writing is How to Heal Abusive Brain Chatter, and I break it down, I don't want to simplify it, but this is kind of a simplified version of it. It's the ABCs of Abusive Brain Chatter, which is being aware of how you talk to yourself, and that may look like writing in your journal.

That may look like being aware of how other women talk to themselves. You know, when I'm in restaurants or with other groups of women, I listen to how they berate themselves. It's like…. a lightning rod, I'll hear people say, oh, I'm so stupid or God, I was such a bad mother or blah, blah, blah, or, oh, I'm looking so old or I'm so fat or, I've gained so much weight and I can't tell you how much it is around you.

Step one is;

• Just be aware.

Be aware of all of those things that are being said by you and by other people so that you're aware that chatter is within you. The second awareness is to be aware of the signs of emotional abuse and the signs of emotional abuse are bullying, belittling and gaslighting. That's a huge one, Isolation. If you're using addictive behaviours, a lot of times I can tell when somebody is an addict or has some addiction, and I know exactly where to start. It's with that abusive brain shatter because the addictions, if you've got some kind of addiction going on, if you've got a food addiction or a codependency addiction or whatever it is, You're trying to quiet something, something that you, your internal bully is doing to you, is saying to you. So the addiction just helps you to quiet and shove it back down. So that's important to be aware of. Just be aware of all of those things. What am I overusing? What is my brain chatter telling me? What am I hearing it say to other people? What are the signs of emotional abuse? Like I said, really be aware of them and say, Okay, when I look in the mirror and I say, Oh, look at you, you're looking so old. What is that? Is that belittling? Yeah, that's belittling and bullying…telling myself, Oh, you're so stupid, don't even sign up for that job!

Don't even try that job, you're never going to make it. You know, that's kind of bullying you, right? Gaslighting, oh my gosh, that was my favourite. You know, my ex-husband was a great gaslighter telling me that some truth was the truth when inside I was going, but that's not the truth. Well, your abusive brain shatter bullies you because that's what happens.

It starts telling you these things that it says are the truth and you're kind of going, wait a minute, that's not true. Or is it? Am I, am I really that stupid? I won't be able to get a job? You know, so it kind of gaslights you? Isolating, if you're isolating. For some reason, you're not going out there and living in the world, but you're staying at home.

You possibly have an emotional abuser in your head. So be aware of all of those things. And I always say to people, just start with your journal, just start writing it down. What I like to say in terms of awareness. Because awareness can also trigger you, you know, suddenly you start hearing it. Don't get sucked into the hole.

Just pretend you're Margaret Mead or you're Jane Goodall and you're watching the brain of a chimp. And so you take your journal out and you say, Hmm. Today, Emily told herself she was fat and she didn't deserve to find a man. Emily told herself she would never find a good job. Emily told herself she couldn't write that book she wanted to write.

And you just write down all those things that you're saying to yourself in a third party. So that's step one. Awareness, you just need to start becoming aware that brain shatter is a form of emotional abuse and that you no longer want to do it, right? So it's kind of like a 12-step program, you admit you're aware.

• The second part is believe.

That's the ABC, believe. And that's the part where you have to do your work, where I had to do my work. When I told you, I just hit my knees and said, you know, whoever's out there, whatever's out there. I don't care what you want me to call you, I can't do this by myself.

I can't find my way out of this labyrinth of loud, obnoxious vitriol that's going in my head. Show me the way out. What do I need to do? What do I need to believe? Thus belief is as important as finding a coach. What I say to people is, I'm a spiritual coach as well.

I help people find their spiritual Beliefs because a lot of people have negative ones and what I say is if you find a punishing spiritual voice, or whatever is going to punish you if you don't behave in this way. You haven't found the voice I'm talking about. When I'm talking, I don't mean to slam any religion, but what I'm talking about in terms of belief is that inner voice that when you take a moment and you just meditate and quiet, there's this voice inside of you that says. You are loved. You deserve to be loved, You are here. I will guide you. You have to take the time to find that, and that's usually done through meditation and journaling.

There are all kinds of ways that I write about in my book about how to get to the point of belief, even if you've been spiritually or religiously abused a lot of my clients come to me and say oh, no, you know, I grew up in a religion that was very abused. It's okay, we can find something. I always share this wonderful story that I had with a client.

She couldn't believe in anything God, I couldn't say the word God or anything. So we found… which of the West or the East or whatever it was, Glinda, you know, that beautiful glowing ball from Wizard of Oz, that she could visualize, just coming into her and opening her up and just giving her beautiful new thoughts.

So, whatever you believe in is okay. I'm permitting you to believe whatever it is, as long as it's loving.

• The third step is challenging your core beliefs.

Your core beliefs are anything that you were handed. That doesn't belong to you and that doesn't fit with who you are.

A core belief for me was, you had to find a man because a woman is nothing without a man. Well, that's a core belief. So that indeed framed what I did in my life by trying to find a man rather than, looking inward or getting educated, getting a college degree, all of those things.

That was a core belief I had. I had a core belief that I wasn't good enough, and I had a core belief that I was weak because of my asthma, so this asthma, this inability to breathe gave me this core belief that I was weak. I couldn't exercise and I had to challenge that. So the first part is just to start writing down what are your core beliefs that somebody gave you. You're not good enough, you even have to be perfect. That's a core belief. They can be good, they can be good core beliefs. I had a girlfriend whose father told her she was just beautiful and she has this core belief that no matter what, she's beautiful.

So they can be negative or positive. And that's an important distinction. Write down your positive core beliefs and your negative core beliefs. And then the next step is to challenge them. The way I did this was when I thought I was weak and couldn't exercise, I realized that I had to challenge that belief because otherwise, I would allow myself to quit any form of exercise as I got older.

And so I signed up for a triathlon. Now mind you, I came in last and I had to be rescued from the water. But, the bottom line is I came in and I challenged that core belief and what I learned from that is, that anything can be done in baby steps. Any belief I have can be challenged in baby steps.

I do this once-a-month workshop called Motivation Monday for free on Zoom, where I help people break it down into baby steps so that you can challenge your beliefs you have a belief that you can't earn more than the minimum wage. I had that belief once and I had to challenge that as well. And well who told me that, Is that true?

How about if I just try making it? 2 more than minimum wage. How about if that's my start? And you know by the time I ended up challenging all these core beliefs, like I said, I was a successful entrepreneur who owned my own business. I started from barely earning a living to being able to own my own business and go back to college at 64 years old and go back and get my coaching Certifications.

So, those are the 3 steps to abusive brain chatter. They sound really easy and each one involves something, but ABC.

So, you asked, what can you do?

When you're sitting there thinking, something just goes. Wow!

Oh, I just said something negative myself. ABC aware. Okay, I'm aware. I said that I'm a bad mama or that I'm never…. when you're using that kind of language, remember B.

Hmm, Let me think, Let me tune in. That doesn't align with who I am now.

And that's why you have to do the spiritual work to find out. I find that new voice that doesn't align with the loving me that is compassionate and loving. So now, I'm not going to believe that and I'm going to challenge that.

Am I really stupid? Am I not able to get a better job? Am I only entitled to make a little bit of money? Do I only deserve a bare minimum, or do I deserve to get everything that's out there? And if so, how do I do it? And then, take action. Take action by getting the support to get you from A to Z.

Oh my gosh, I can hear myself going on and on and on, because this is such an important topic for women. I think women do this more than men do. Men do it, but I know that women do this so much. Yeah, women, we are so hard on ourselves, and I think it comes from society. It's been ingrained in us, in our society.

We need to shift that collectively, and individually as well. Yeah, and you know, putting a reminder on a mirror is a good thing to shift that mindset. I say to myself when I look in the mirror as I'm ageing, that's a whole another level of use of brain chatter that we have to change, you know, our whole view on ageing is so negative.

And so I say to myself. Jackie, we don't talk to ourselves like that anymore. When the Zoom meeting comes on and I see the wrinkles and I see this, I say, no, Jackie, we don't talk to ourselves that way anymore. I'm so gentle and loving. And if I could move my camera, you'd see, I have a picture of myself as that four-year-old girl that had this beautiful and kind look. I was a beautiful child with this loving spirit, this kind spirit that I believe all of us come into the world with.

And I have a picture of her there to remind me that that's really who I am inside. That anything that my voice is trying to tell me is not true and that's not the woman I am. One of the exercises I do and people listening can do this is I lead a guided meditation to go back to when you lost your soul what I call your essence who you are now.

We go back and we find it and then we bring it back to the present so that you now have the real “you,” you have “the you” at four years old, and you know your qualities… your sweet smile, you know you are beautiful, kind and compassionate and so, everything that you say that goes against that is a vocabulary that needs to go.

You know, you have a way, and that's what I would say to people. Pull out a picture of yourself and believe that person is you. That's who you were meant to be and it's just a matter of loving yourself back to that way. And sometimes a simple thing is putting on your mirror. We don't talk to ourselves that way anymore, I talk to myself kindly.

I am compassionate, I love myself. All of those positive things that you now get to say after leaving abusive and traumatic relationships.

This has been such a great conversation because the emotionally abusive brain chatter is something that I think so many trauma survivors are battling. It's like a dark cloud that just sits over our heads and no matter what we do, no matter where we go, it's always there until we address it.

Trauma is a big thing, I don't dismiss it, and, I loved how you acknowledged that healing trauma in mama hood is hard. It's hard, and so often, we are unaware of what's on the other side of postpartum pregnancy, when we've had trauma.

I know for me, I thought that because my trauma was a long time ago in my childhood it didn't matter. Time and geography had worked in my favor. Man alive, I was wrong. And it was like the trauma bus came steamrolling down the track so fast that I didn't know what hit me. And, it sidelined me. I was a hot mess and I was full of guilt.

I was scared to say something because I thought that if I did, it would make me a bad mom. I chose to be a mom, I chose to get pregnant and have my daughter. But it wasn't my fault. I had things that I needed to work through, that I was not awake to before she was in my arms.

So thank you for acknowledging how hard it is, and it's not all in your head, Mama.

I was so surprised, I started yelling at my kids because I was yelled at in childhood and marriage. And boy is that a scar because what would happen is that being overwhelmed can trigger your trauma, and being a mom and having a kid crying or spilling or, you know when you're trying to pay a bill, you then hit your overwhelm and it's that flight like a getaway and you’ve got to retreat to your bedroom and the child doesn't even know what happened. So sad for both of you. I just want to offer a tip before we go, because I know our time is up, but I learned something valuable about random apps of kindness.

I learned that when I am in self-pity, doing a random act of kindness for somebody else can help me get out of self-pity. And I know that for a lot of mothers, self-pity happens. You're so overwhelmed, that you just start feeling a lot of self-pity and you're single. You’re like why did I do this?

Shame and all of those other things come up that overwhelm you as well. So I would just say this one. If you want to change, start with a gratitude list every day for this next month, write down five gratitudes, no matter how hard they are. I mean, you may be kicked out of your home, and there may be a lot of things, that you say, what can I possibly be grateful for? But you'd be surprised that there are things to be grateful for and gratitude lifts you. Studies have shown it will get you out of self pity and that will help give you a dopamine boost.

The other thing is to do a gratitude list with your child. When you come home, the child goes and you go, how was school? Instead, when you sit down with your child, sit down at night and both of you have a piece of paper and say, okay, we're going to write. Five things we were grateful for today because they show that it also helps children.

So now you're feeding positivity to your children and you're just kind of setting a new intention to help them so that they can see that no matter how their life looks, whether they're being bullied or whatever it is, there are things to be grateful for, and then think of a random act of kindness for the two of you to do together, you know, simple as letting somebody go in a line ahead of you, you know, you're shopping the grocery store and you look to your child and you say, Who can we help today?

Just start putting those positive messages into your mind and body and your children, and you're going to see a big difference in terms of the way they start thinking about themselves and the way you start thinking about yourself. And even if you do, you can't yet.

So how can a listener connect with you further if that's what they desire to do?

Sure, my website is healingabc.com you can click on there, I have free appointments and I want to invite everybody.

I don't mean you know I am not looking for clients. So I'm not putting this out there for you to you know, call me I mean for you to take advantage of my free consultation for us to put things in order without any pressure. I just offer this, it's my way of giving back.