It Was Never Out There: Finding Inner Strength After Abuse
- Oct 30, 2012
- 4 min read
Updated: May 30
For years, I kept looking for my strength in the wrong places.
In other people's opinions of me. In whether things would finally settle down. In something outside of me that would tell me I was going to be alright.
It would take years to understand that what I was looking for was already inside me.
Hello Brave Hearts,
When We Look Outside Ourselves
After everything I had been through, looking outward made sense. When the world around you tells you, over and over, that your feelings are not right and your instincts cannot be trusted, you stop looking inward. You learn to look out there instead.
You look for someone to tell you you're doing okay. You wait for things to settle down before you let yourself settle down. You look for the next situation, the next version of your circumstances, to be the one that finally makes you feel steady.
There is nothing wrong with needing that, especially in the early days. But at some point, looking outside starts to cost you something. It ties you to things you cannot control, and leaves you waiting for something external to give you what only you can give yourself.
The Nights I Was Still Cleaning at 1am
I remember what this looked like for me.
There were nights I was still cleaning at one, two in the morning. Four kids asleep, and I would be mopping floors, vacuuming, putting the washing away, making sure every corner of the house was done.
When I couldn't control anything else in my life, I could control whether the bench was clean. It made me feel better. But only until morning.
It came in cycles. Sometimes I would let everything go. Pure exhaustion. Then something would switch and I would be working until the middle of the night to get it all back. Neither felt like rest. Neither held.
The exhaustion from doing this, over and over, was the thing that finally made me stop.
Not a dramatic moment. Not a sudden realisation. Just my body and spirit finally saying: this is not working.
The Same Dark Hours, A Different Direction
That is when things started to change.
I was still getting up in the dark. But now it was for me. Before the kids woke up, around four in the morning, I would sit quietly. Meditate. Write in my journal. Just be still for a little while before the day began.
It was slow. Nothing shifted overnight. But slowly, the exhaustion eased a little. The anxiety eased a little. I was starting to look in the right direction.
Helen Keller once wrote: "What I am looking for is not out there. It is in me."
I had read those words before and they hadn't landed. But living what I had lived through, I finally understood them.
I had been searching for it out there, in other people, in circumstances, in a clean bench at midnight. And it was already inside me.
The strength was never out there. It was waiting for you to turn around.
This is what emerging looks like. Not a dramatic turning point. Just a small turn, in the right direction, repeated until it becomes the way you live.
Three Small Ways to Begin
Finding inner strength after abuse does not require a retreat. You don't need the perfect morning. You just need a starting point.
Five minutes before the house wakes up. Sit quietly. No phone, no plan. You are not looking for answers. You are just sitting with yourself. That is enough to begin.
One honest sentence in a journal. Not a page. Just one true line. "Today I feel..." builds the habit of listening to yourself, and that is the whole point.
Notice one small thing that is yours. Not "I'm grateful the kids are healthy." Something just for you. A warm cup of tea. The morning light through the window. Something small you noticed because you were paying attention to your own experience for a moment.
If this is where you are, beginning to turn inward after a long time of looking everywhere else, I also wrote about what it looks like to take small steps when you feel completely lost. That one might be worth a read alongside this one.
You Already Have What You Are Looking For
You are doing more than you think you are. The fact that you are still here, still reading, still looking, that is not nothing. That is the beginning of turning inward.
The strength you have been searching for is not out there. It is already in you. It has been surviving, quietly, all along.
When you are ready to look, it will be there.
If you would like to understand where you are on your healing path right now, taking the quiz - Discover Your Healing Path, it will help you see your stage and what might support you most.
Holding hope for you,
P.S. If you would like to walk this path alongside other women who understand, come and join us in the Inner Freedom Facebook group. No details needed. Just bring yourself. 🦋
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