Most emotional derailments do not begin with evil intentions or conscious decisions to become destructive. More often, they begin quietly, beneath the surface, while someone is carrying more emotional pressure than they realize.

Stress. Exhaustion. Resentment. Fear. Humiliation. Burnout. Years of trying to hold everything together while slowly coming apart internally.

Then one day, something relatively small happens.

A tone of voice. A dismissive comment. A criticism. A disrespectful glance. A delayed text message. A disagreement over something that, under calmer circumstances, probably would not have mattered very much at all. But this time is different.

This time something inside the person accelerates. Their chest tightens. Their thoughts narrow. Their emotional intensity rises faster than their rational mind can regulate it. Their voice changes. Their posture changes. The nervous system floods with urgency, adrenaline, and emotional momentum. And for a few moments, everything they are saying feels completely justified.

Until suddenly… they see the look on the other person’s face.

Not anger exactly. Not even fear. Something worse. A look of emotional withdrawal.

A look that says: “I don’t recognize you right now.”

And for one painful instant, the emotional storm briefly breaks. The person hears themselves. Really hears themselves. The volume. The tone. The hostility. The emotional force that had taken control of the room.

And somewhere underneath the adrenaline and emotional static, another realization quietly appears:

“…And that’s not me.”

I think many people have experienced moments like this. Maybe not with yelling. Maybe not in dramatic ways. But most people have had moments where emotion temporarily outran perspective.

A father hears himself speaking to his son in the exact same tone his own father once used on him, and it shakes him to the core.

A woman in the middle of a jealous argument suddenly realizes she no longer even believes half the accusations she is making, but cannot seem to stop herself from escalating.

An exhausted executive walks out of a meeting replaying his own voice in his head, disturbed by how arrogant, defensive, or intimidating he sounded over something so minor.

A mother locks herself in the bathroom after screaming at her children and quietly cries because she never wanted to become this version of herself.

A person lying awake at night after another emotional collapse whispers into the darkness:

“What is happening to me?”

These moments frighten people because they feel revealing.

People begin wondering:

• • “Maybe this is who I really am.”
  • “Maybe I’m becoming someone terrible.”
  • “Maybe I’m broken.”
  • “Maybe the emotional storm is the real me.”

But I no longer believe that is necessarily true. I think emotionally overloaded people often become temporarily consumed by states that are not the total truth of who they are. And modern life is producing emotionally overloaded people everywhere.

People carrying:

• • unresolved grief,
  • financial pressure,
  • relationship disappointment,
  • chronic stress,
  • loneliness,
  • emotional suppression,
  • burnout,
  • nervous-system exhaustion,
  • and years of accumulated emotional compression.

Most people keep functioning anyway. They go to work. Answer emails. Pay bills. Smile in public. Try to appear normal.

Meanwhile, internally, the pressure continues building beneath the surface. Until eventually, something breaks through. And when it does, many people react in ways that leave them sitting quietly afterward wondering:

“How did I get here?”

I have become increasingly fascinated by that moment. Not the outburst itself. Not the emotional collapse. The interruption. The moment awareness returns. The moment someone sees the look on another person’s face and suddenly realizes: “Something just took over me.”

That moment matters more than most people realize. Because the moment we become capable of observing the emotional storm, we are no longer completely possessed by it.

A small separation appears between:

ourselves,
and
the emotional state moving through us.

That separation may feel fragile at first. But inside it lives something extraordinarily important: awareness.

And awareness changes everything. Not overnight. Not instantly. But awareness is often the first moment a person begins finding their way back to themselves. Not through shame. Not through denial. Not through pretending difficult emotions do not exist. But through the quiet realization that:

“This emotional storm passed through me…
…but it is not the total truth of who I am.”

Maybe more people need permission to talk honestly about moments like these. Not to justify destructive behavior. Not to avoid responsibility. But because emotionally flooded human beings often feel deeply alone in experiences that are far more universal than most people realize.

And perhaps emotional healing begins the moment someone finally becomes able to say:

“That reaction happened…
…and that’s not me.”

In doing so, we create a sacred field of energy in which we can do the work necessary to assist the victim in their desire for true recovery. Note that I said “their desire,” as it cannot be your desire or the desire of a relative, loved one, boss, or judge. If we have learned anything, we know by experience that change cannot occur unless the victim seeks transformative change over all else, including but not limited to coping mechanisms.

You may be able to threaten a victim into feigning recovery to keep from losing the family, risking incarceration, or worse, but the victim will not be likely to conduct the deepest work necessary to get free from the trauma unless it is their idea. Allow them to come to this conclusion of his or her own volition. You cannot make this decision for them. If they choose to never do so, love him or her anyway. If they do, know that it is a process, a lengthy, long, and winding road of discovery, reinvention, and adaptation along the way to authentic recovery and new life.

The love of Jesus mindset provides a safe and sacred space where there is no judgment. Only empathy, reflective listening, compassion, openness, and a true sense of caring. Use phrases like “I’m here to listen” and “I care about your well-being.”

Practice active listening by reflecting back on what the person is expressing. This helps them feel heard and understood. For example, you might say, “It sounds like engaging in these activities is important to you, but I’m also hearing that it has some negative impacts on your life.”

Carefully and gently explore the patterns in their behavior and help them connect the dots between their coping mechanisms and their overall well-being. Ask open-ended questions about their experiences and feelings. Let them fill in the blanks and elaborate. If they offer resistance, change the subject. This is not an intervention.

Making the necessary adjustments in a victim’s life will be difficult for them, and it may take several attempts to make the changes in utilizing their coping mechanisms stick. You can help by encouraging them to celebrate their victories, no matter how small and no matter how short the duration. You understand that this is a process, and further attempts at change will yield better, more long-lasting results.

Over time, they feel supported and can build the self-confidence to move forward and dig deeper into finding the root cause(s) of their life struggles. Little by little, they are becoming the master of their own destiny, no longer just a victim struggling against wounds from trauma from the past.

You can offer them ideas about more positive coping mechanisms that they can use as alternatives to the negative behaviors they are expressing now, but the choice of what to try is theirs. Never suggest that they do a particular thing. You will lose them if you try to tell them what to do. Give them three choices and let them pick one to attempt, or let them devise another option. Alternatively, continue to listen to them and see if they are willing to dig deeper.

Help them examine that the negative coping strategies come at a price, and allow them to discover and relate the potential risk factors to you. At their request, you could help them in the examination process and ask their thoughts on your research results. Allow them to be wherever they are in their process.

Basic healthy suggestions you could make might include embarking on a path of personal growth and change, mindfulness practices, physical exercise, relaxation techniques, building supportive relationships, self-care practices, setting healthy boundaries, and seeking out a specialist to work with.

Remember, the process of change is often gradual, and individuals may need ongoing support. Professional guidance can play a crucial role in helping them navigate this journey towards healthier coping mechanisms and improved well-being.

While victims of trauma may find solace in revisiting similar activities from their traumatic past as an effective coping mechanism, the relief realized is temporary, blocking them from confronting and processing the emotions, slaying the demons, and ultimately overcoming past trauma, emerging from the flames as true masters of their own destiny.

Revisiting, acting out, and recreating traumatic experiences and circumstances, while they may offer some relief, may severely complicate or compromise otherwise potentially healthy relationships, as the individual may struggle with trust and emotional intimacy.

Not only that but there is a tremendous opportunity to make matters worse, re-traumatizing the victim or creating a new generation of victims. Engaging in these unhealthy activities and placing oneself in trauma-related circumstances can lead to serious health risks and may come with moral and legal consequences.

How to Help a Victim of Trauma

If there is any hope for you to help someone struggling with these mind-bending dichotomies, it is vitally important that you do everything you can to first understand how the trauma victim fights for survival in manners which you could not possibly “know,” unless you were also a victim of similar trauma. Even so, everyone’s experience and how they respond to it is highly individualistic, so you can never truly know what someone is going through, but you can do your best to have an idea. And your heart, if it is inclined to truly care about someone suffering in this way, can be a bridge to a victim’s recovery.

Suggesting that someone’s sacred act of providing relief from the pain suffered from one’s traumatic past may be a huge hindrance blocking their potential for a higher quality of life must be considered with the utmost respect and caution. This new idea may threaten their very existence, for their tendency to act out in the manner they do is their key to survival, enabling them to live a somewhat normal life. They may feel as though their very life depends upon it, and they may not be wrong.

Not engaging in the activity could kill them. One such example would be John, whom I asked if he thought he might be an alcoholic. He refused such a label, admitting that he did drink every night, but unlike his father, he could quit at any time. Just to prove it to himself, he decided not to partake in any alcohol over the weekend. By Sunday at noon, he was dropped off at the hospital by the ambulance. Sunday evening, he was sent home with strict orders to drink alcohol until he could be entered into an inpatient rehab program.

Neither you nor I could have explained this to John. For this exercise to be effective, he had to come up with the idea to test his own potential for addiction. He was a strong, independent, successful individual, making his way through life. No one in his circle of life had any idea that he might have an alcohol addiction, yet his very life depended upon it. Today, he is in his sixteenth year of sobriety. But it was a process of facing and defeating his demons from a traumatic past over time. There is no quick and easy fix for this.

While I say there is no quick and easy fix, I am quickened by those words because I have seen miraculous and instant recovery, but only from a magnificent and instantaneous transformative spiritual experience. These born-again-type experiences are far rarer these days than in days gone by. Keep an open mind; you might experience such a feat, but don’t count on it.

Helping a victim of trauma, one who has spent a great deal of time learning to self-medicate or revisit the victim’s root behaviors as a key coping mechanism, will take the love of Jesus mindset.

Why Do Victims of Trauma Find Solace in Similar Activities?

For adult victims of childhood trauma, engaging in activities or placing themselves in situations reminiscent of the traumatic experiences of their past is an effective coping mechanism. The psychological, emotional, and neurological factors behind such actions are highly complex and extremely individualized. These individuals share their ability to adapt to their environment, a successful survival instinct, and the potential to avail themselves to engage in activities that are potentially unhealthy in the long term.

If the victim was robbed of his or her personal power as a child in the traumatic event, note this is a definitive distinction of trauma in general, then restaging the event in adulthood can empower the victim, thereby offering him or her a sense of relief from the traumatic experience of the past.

They can affirmatively experience being in control of the present situation when they have had no control in the recollection of their memories of the past. Reenacting the scene(s) of the crime is conducted in an effort to rewrite the past, rebuild confidence, and, in a sense master the circumstances surrounding the trauma.

Desensitization is another way to cope with one’s traumatic past. Normalizing the activity and partaking in it regularly dulls the senses and makes it not as painful as it was in the past. This type of cognitive rationalization can be thought of as just a fact of everyday life that everyone could or should get accustomed to, thereby reducing or eliminating the pain associated with the traumatic experience.

The victim may be in search of understanding regarding the former traumatic event(s), and revisiting the trauma avails them more data regarding the predator and their own victimization. As further information is gathered and research is conducted by engaging in similar activities as an adult, the inner child believes it can make sense of what happened in the past and find a way to integrate this understanding into present-day life. It might be believed that this understanding could lead to reducing the potential for furthering this type of abuse for others in some way.

When you are haunted by memories of abuses or injustices of the past, they can show up in adulthood in the strangest ways and at the most inopportune times. Managing these emotions by creating similar circumstances to expose and deal with the trauma of the victim’s own volition, in their own way, on their own terms, places them “in control” of emotional trauma when previously there was likely little or no control, never knowing when the compressed emotions might explode into life-threatening exposure next.

With all this effort, relief is experienced by the victim in the revisiting of the traumatic events or circumstances, but the relief is not lasting. This fleeting sense of relief causes the victim to seek relief again by seeking opportunities to revisit the trauma yet again.

When victims come to the realization that even with all their efforts to reconcile their traumatic pasts are in vain and may cause more harm to themselves and others in the long run, that is when they seek out me or one of my contemporaries.

How to Help a Victim of Trauma

When discussing the phenomenon of trauma survivors finding comfort in familiar traumatic experiences, I often encounter strong emotional reactions—even resistance or hostility. Many struggle to comprehend why someone would engage in such behaviors. Early in my career as a counselor and coach, I shared this perspective. However, over time, I have cultivated an open and understanding approach, allowing individuals with this specific experience to seek support through my practice.

Rather than framing it as a “problem,” it is more accurately described as a coping mechanism—one that is far more common than many realize. When an individual is unexpectedly observed engaging in an act that seems shocking or incomprehensible to their peers or intimate partners, it is often a manifestation of this very survival strategy.

The Complex Nature of Trauma Coping

1. Adaptation and Survival

Trauma survivors exhibit remarkable adaptability. Their ability to navigate hostile environments—whether as children or adults—becomes a survival mechanism. Familiar activities offer a semblance of predictability, even if that familiarity stems from painful experiences.

The brain seeks patterns and routines, especially during distress. Engaging in similar activities provides a sense of order amidst chaos.

2. Empowerment Through Reenactment

Childhood trauma often robs victims of agency. By reenacting traumatic scenes in adulthood, survivors reclaim control. It’s as if they say, “This time, I choose to step into the arena.”

Revisiting the scene of the crime allows them to rewrite the script, confront their fears, and emerge as protagonists rather than passive victims.

3. Desensitization and Normalization

The mind seeks equilibrium. Desensitization occurs when survivors normalize the traumatic context. By repeatedly exposing themselves to similar situations, they dull the emotional intensity.

Imagine a war veteran who revisits a battlefield—the sights, sounds, and smells. Over time, the memories lose their razor edge, becoming part of everyday life.

4. The Quest for Understanding

Trauma leaves unanswered questions. Why did it happen? Who was the predator? What led to my victimization?

Engaging in similar activities becomes a quest for answers. The inner child seeks coherence—to make sense of the past. Perhaps understanding can prevent future victimization.

5. Control Amidst Chaos

Trauma is chaotic—an emotional tempest that defies reason. By recreating familiar scenarios, survivors regain a semblance of control.
It’s akin to rehearsing a play where they dictate the script. The trauma becomes a performance, and they hold the director’s chair.

The Bittersweet Relief

1. Temporary Euphoria

Revisiting trauma provides fleeting relief. The adrenaline rush, the confrontation—it momentarily lifts the burden.

But like a sugar rush, it fades. The relief is ephemeral, leaving survivors hungry for more.

2. The Cycle of Seeking Relief

Victims return to the well, hoping for another sip of relief. The cycle perpetuates.

Each reenactment is a desperate plea: “Maybe this time, it’ll make sense. Maybe this time, I’ll find peace.”

Trauma’s legacy is complex—a tapestry woven from threads of pain, resilience, and survival. As outsiders, we may never fully grasp the allure of familiar activities for trauma survivors. But we can extend empathy, recognizing that their coping mechanisms—however paradoxical—serve a purpose.

And its up to us, those who care, are compassionate, and seek to be supportive, not to reject them, judge them or force our ideas about how it should be upon them, but to hold sacred space for them, love them, and allow them to find their way through the complex maze of seeking refuge in these activities.

Love them as these victims come to terms with their past, they are not merely revisiting old wounds; they are rewriting their narrative, one familiar scene at a time.

Now, I believe those numbers were greatly understated. These crimes against young children were far more pervasive than the help and support industries ever imagined. Why the disparaging contrast in the numbers? Because, for far too long, this has been the most concealed life secret that has ever been kept, that is, until now.

These vile sexual abusers are most often known and trusted family members, friends of family, childcare providers, teachers, coaches, counselors, mentors, or clergy.

The adults who have persevered through life keeping this solemn secret of sexual child abuse are breaking through the barriers which have cost them greatly, but far more do not as they continue to keep the secret, even after the violator’s death.

No matter how fervently they deny it, refuse to mention or look at it, keeping it bottled up and buried deep inside, this crime by which they were victimized in their naïve youth finds ways to manifest itself.

What are the signs of child sexual abuse?

When you push down all the emotional impact of this childhood trauma and abuse, it manifests itself in many ways.

1. Social Inadequacy

Social suffering is common. Connections with other people are superficial and commonly not as deep or meaningful as they might have been. Relationships with family, friends, romantic relationships suffer due to this lack of connection, and inability to be open and honest (with others or one’s self).

2. School and Work Extremes

In school and work, extreme behavior shows up either as substandard (mostly) or extravagant high performance. They are often diagnosed as having autism, ADHD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Bipolar, or other mental health disorders.

3. Addiction

They are attracted to addictions in an attempt to self-medicate or cope, to relieve some of the mental and physiological anguish and stress from burying these childhood tragedies.

4. Health Problems

How does childhood sexual abuse affect the health of the victim?

The longer the pressure builds from these deep, festering, inner wounds from being sexually victimized as a child are left unattended to, the more the poison spreads throughout the body, leading to deterioration, disease, and premature death.

Victims of child sexual abuse are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and are more likely to engage in various methods of self-harm, and

5. Suicidal Ideation

and are 17 times more likely to have suicidal tendencies than their non-sexually-assaulted peers.

The Biggest Secret is Lethal

The biggest secret of all time is killing our people, someone you know, or even you.

The statistics are vastly understated, and if you are harboring this secret, covering it up, or trying to just make it through life without ever looking at it, you know that the statistics are not even close.

You know because you know your statistics would never be known. You were determined to take the biggest secret of all time to the grave with you.

HOPE

If that is you, hopefully, you are rethinking your commitment to a life-long cover-up.

Every day you continue to let this crime of your youth continue to haunt you (even if you’ve convinced yourself that it is not or no big deal) the fact remains that you are allowing your victimizer to continue to harm you as your health and peace of mind continue to deteriorate.

Do not let this perpetrator take you out.

STOP

This abuse has gone on long enough. And it stops, right here. Right now.

You don’t have to confront or seek to punish the offender (unless he or she is currently potentially sexually abusing other victims). The most important part of healing from this offense is done within you. Seek out a competent counselor, coach, or therapist who can help you work through the process, and begin the process of healing from within.

This will give you the hope of having a potentially amazing life, full of joy, happiness, health, and longevity.

The Best News

And the best news is this; after you’ve done the work, or even in the midst of it, you can help reach out to others who are also dying from keeping the biggest secret of all time.

Together, we can stop this atrocity, and help to create a better world for our youth who are being sexually accosted at this very moment. It starts with you.

Stop the continued victimization and live a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place.

The holiday ideal starts off with the reverent honoring of those who have given a portion of their lives (all gave some, some gave all) on Veterans Day which falls on November 11th in the USA. Then either the most anticipated or dreaded family get-together comes along as the Thanksgiving celebration. It is generally at this time of year that families which have been separated throughout the year, get together.

This “celebration” could be either amazing or horribly grueling depending on the nature and dynamics of your family’s cohesion, strength, and honor.

Let’s face it, all families are dysfunctional, so just let that expectation go. It’s a fantasy if you expect anything else, and to do so sets you up for discouragement every time. So, if your family’s a little whacko. So what? Let it go and learn to enjoy, even love, your family’s diversity.

But some families are so terribly broken, that there is very little thread of familial connection, and family members have suffered greatly in what should have been the tender, caring hands or the family, but suffered tragic drama and trauma instead.

What about those who have no family? Maybe, everyone they know in their family has passed away, and they are here, all alone at this moment which represents the coming together of family. No one would blame that person for feeling a bit down, lonely, or depressed, while everyone else is celebrating.

Or maybe their family is alive but separated by too many miles, or even worse miles of bad roads traveled in life. Family members can suffer so incredibly these days, and the effects of a traumatic childhood can be life-long, and even end the lives of the suffering children prematurely through expression as physical illness, disease, or suicide.

If you haven’t suffered tragically under the watch of your parents or were left to fend for yourself in any way possible as a young child, you have no idea of how bad it could be.

How bad is it? Well, consider this: The fastest-growing age group of suicides committed every day is that of 10- to 14-year-old children. So, you tell me, “How is this affecting our kids?”

And if Thanksgiving wasn’t bad enough, what about the looming mother of all familial holidays?

Of course, I’m referring to Christmas, that joyous time of year when families get together and bond. What about that? What if you’re a single parent, or even a couple, struggling financially to raise kids. You’re working so hard just to make the ends meet, now they wanna throw some God-forsaken shopping-spree holiday on top of that?

What could possibly be worse?

I don’t know. Maybe if you lived through all those holidays, you might make it the new year, celebrating with your family with some hope of maybe having a better life next year?

What? No hope?

It’s no wonder these are the most popular holidays to commit suicide. Let’s take a look at them:

Too much drama and trauma will kill you, and if it doesn’t kill you, some people are determined to do it themselves.

But don’t you let them get away with it.

You’re not going to check out. You’re not going to give them the satisfaction.

You can be betrayed by your family so many times it makes you want to puke just to think about it. You’ve been stabbed in the back so often or abused in any number of other ways, it’s a miracle that you can even stand, but here you are.

You are here.

And you know you came here to do some serious work, and that work starts today.

When I was at my lowest and I thought I couldn’t take one more step, one more breath, I decided to do something radical to make a difference in the world, and in doing so, I made a huge difference in myself.

I discovered that one person could make a difference, and that’s exactly what I did.

That year, instead of committing suicide over the holidays I decided to send love to others who might be going through the same thing. And as I engaged in this meditative prayer exercise, every cell of my body began to awaken.

Enthusiastically, I increased the range of my endeavor and started sending love to the world. And since then, I’ve had thousands of people join me in sending love to the world, which if even in some small way does make the world a better place.

You recognize these people building virtual walls around themselves to keep people from getting in. They are highly guarded, defensive about love, keepers of secrets, and avoid connection through social interaction. Even a simple compliment is quickly discounted by these otherwise well-meaning people, who may be quick to respond aggressively or in anger as they reject the idea of being complimented.

At one moment, he or she can seem perfectly normal and suddenly they transform into someone else in a sort of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde safety maneuver.

Our earliest experiences in life often dictate how you will respond to love throughout your life. It is highly likely that a person who rejects love did not grow up around a healthy love model in his or her young life.

In their tender, early years, those who reject love probably equated love with disappointment, rejection, and a barrage of other negative feelings which causes emotional pain and trauma triggered by even the thought of being vulnerable enough to give or receive love.

That’s why someone who has childhood trauma associated with love might react negatively or with hostility when approached with the idea of being loved as he or she sees love as a threat and may feel those same emotions tied to their unconscious childhood memories welling up inside them causing them to defensively reject an otherwise innocent loving gesture.

Those who are closest to them may find themselves being rejected, blamed for the way they are feeling or expressing themselves, accused of some imposed offense, or potential victims of abusive behavior when all they did was to offer caring love and support.

If you are one of those unfortunate recipients of an emotional upheaval, be aware that it has nothing to do with you. Only someone who is in a lot of suppressed emotional pain would respond to your love and affection that way.

Often these people are reacting to their life-long attempts to bury their negative feelings from childhood of loneliness, neglect, fear of abandonment, or abuse.

Their survival instinct kicks in as they subconsciously try to keep themselves from being hurt again, like they were in their youth, when someone they depended on, loved and trusted made them feel safe, loved and protected, only to found out that the people they love will let them down, betray, or hurt them.

There is also a conscious disconnect if someone feels as though they are unlovable, unworthy of being loved, or associates pain with love when someone else extends love to them. It’s like a short circuit happens in their brain, which challenges everything they “know” about life and their place in our society.

This feeling that being a victim of all the negative things which could happen when he or she is loved is triggered and this type of victimhood is very difficult to break-through.

A sense of mortality can present a problem with accepting love if they are obsessed with the idea of impending death. This can be triggered early in life when a loved one or a pet that was deeply loved suddenly dies. It could also happen later in life when an adult loses a loved-one unexpectedly.

These are the people who enter into a contract with their being to never love again so as to avoid the painful loss. They feel better about keeping close relationships at arm’s length or seeking a secluded life in isolation.

There are many other reasons which might find you face-to-face with someone who avoids or rejects love. In any case, those who are able to move on beyond their inclination to reject love are able to make a break-through by working with a coach, consultant, or counselor who can help them deal with the issues which threaten their ability to love and be loved.

And just as effectively, a love rejector can find their way by working through these issues and meet their inner child all on their own.

Even so, most importantly, when someone acts as though they are rejecting your love, know it is not about you, even if they blame you for their reaction. It is your responsibility to be compassionate and love them no matter what.

Do not try to fix them. Do not accuse them of being wrong or broken because they are not.

The object of your affection is only doing the best that he or she can with what they have.

Find new ways to love and support them which do not trigger his or her defense systems and love them unconditionally, if you dare.

God willing, one day he or she will awaken to true love and find a better way to love and be loved.

Love is all there is, everything else is an illusion.

See you at the Soulmate Wizardry event.

You are a bundle of emotional wounds and garbage you’ve collected over the course of your life, which explains a lot about who you are and how you respond to the world around you. After all, nobody knows better than you, that you’re the only person you can count on to look after you. This is your primary objective.

You surround yourself with emotional tripwires and landmines to protect yourself and you try to keep all those emotional wounds hidden and suppressed, which is the highest level of self-abuse. All that unresolved trauma compromises your immune system, promotes premature aging, makes you more prone to sickness and disease. If that weren’t enough, is also keeping you separated from all the best things in life.

The fortress you’ve built to protect yourself is nearly impenetrable. You might applaud yourself for doing such a good job of protecting yourself. From inside your fortress you feel safe but if you could see from a higher perspective, you could see you have sentenced yourself to a life in prison of your own making.

Forgiveness is the Key

Forgiveness is the key to unlock every level of containment you’ve subjected yourself to.

There’s no denying the multitude of transgressions you’ve endured. The wounds run so very deep. Your pain, fear, and the repressed anger from the grudges you maintain are weapons of those who hurt you in the first place. They continue to hurt and abuse you every moment that you harbor unforgiveness.

The first thought which you might consider would be to ask the question, “Why would I forgive someone for doing that to me?” and you might rather see them punished for what they did, but contemplating retribution is another way the victimizer continues to have power over his or her victim.

Not only are you a victim of your abuser but you subject yourself to continued self-abuse by second-guessing yourself, and feeling guilty, wondering how you could have let someone do that to you? Setting up emotional blockades and numbing your own emotions so that you can’t be hurt like that again.

Playing the part of the victim does offer you emotional support from others who might feel sorry for you, which helps to ease the pain, but it also cements your position in being continually victimized by your abuser.

Forgiveness Can Set You Free

Forgiveness starts with you. You must forgive yourself first. You are not responsible for any of the emotional pain you’ve endured. You never deserved to be disrespected, mistreated, or abused. You were innocent. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe you suffered the abuse because you were strong enough to take it, like a shock absorber, sparing someone else who could not have survived the abuse.

You cannot control what other people do. You are only in control of your own life and forgiving yourself, absolving yourself from any sense of wrongdoing or deservedness is implicit.

Forgive Them

You are not required to face or confront your aggressor(s), all you need to do is to realize that these people were only doing the best they could with what they had at the time. Just as you were only doing the best you could with what you had at that time.

You might even offer up a little empathy, that had you lived that person’s life, you might have committed the same atrocities.

Forgive them. Forgiving them is not about them at all, it’s more about you forgiving them so that you can go on with your life without them continually exerting additional abuse to you over time.

Your forgiveness is complete, when you can look back at the episode without pain, guilt, or anger, and can truly hope that he or she finds his or her own way to claim a better life for themselves in love, without having to strike out at others anymore.

You can learn the lessons from your past without having to carry around all that emotional baggage. No need to seclude yourself deep within your fortress.

You can be free, and forgiveness is the key.

Related: Forgiveness Ain’t Easy, Let Go of Unforgiveness, True Forgiveness, Unforgiveness or Forgiveness

When someone is in crisis, helping them overcome their most difficult challenges can be tackled by having an anchor, a base from which to launch their new more empowered approach to starting over.

In childhood, we are all victimized, traumatized, and programmed to be fearful. We learn about injustice, how to lie, and how to represent ourselves as “a good person” to others, even if we know this person is not who we really are. Our dreams are crushed, and we let others tell us what we should believe, do, how we should act, what we’re allowed to feel.

If you parented a child, even though it was no fault of yours, you were an active participant in the reprogramming and socialization of your son(s) and/or daughters(s) and assisted into transforming innocent and empowered children of God into subservient taxpayers. You didn’t know any better, and you were only doing the best you could do at the time, having fallen victim to the same programming in your youth.

It’s been going on for thousands of years, and no one would fault you for how you raised your child/children, that is, until now.

Your son or daughter is reaching out for help, and help is here for him or her, but unfortunately, you are the key, possibly the sacrificial lamb, which will usher in a better life for your offspring.

Many parents, and even I, would gladly take a bullet to help any of my children have a better life.

If your son or daughter is reaching out for help, try not to take it personally, as you are blamed for your son or daughter’s sense of incongruency. This dichotomy between what your child was brought to this life to do, and the way you participated in robbing them of their highest and best, would drive anyone to the brink.

For thousands of years, very few have awakened to the knowledge of having a higher calling in life. In the past, the socialization of our children was an effective way of controlling humanity en masse. That is, until now.

Your child is awakening, and the truth is, it’s not their fault they are they way they are, it’s yours, not yours alone, because all of society supports this programming, but you were the closest person to them in those most formative years.

You were the first person to deny your child’s divinity and assist in his or her reprogramming.

Your son or daughter did suffer the consequences of your parenting. While you are to blame, you are not at fault. Following the assignment of guilt, comes forgiveness and the realization that had your son or daughter lived your life, he or she would have done the very same thing(s) to his own son or daughter.

Your son or daughter may need to focus on the errors of your parenting to get through this crisis. There may be anger and hurt feelings, and rather than defend yourself and complicate things by trying to justify the past, the most honorable approach you could take is to assert your good intentions and take the heat, in effect falling on your own sword, for the benefit of your child.

You’re defending yourself or justifying your actions will only hinder or delay your child’s healing and advancement. Love your child, and let him or her act out in any way necessary to get a grip and move on. Try not to take it personally, just love your child now more than ever.

In this way, you can be there more for your child than you have ever been in the past, if you humble yourself and love him or her more than ever before.

Also, know this, your influence in your child’s life, even with all the mistakes you may have made, and the things that you could have done better if given the chance, were all a specialized part of making your child more powerful than he or she could have been without you.

So, bless your child, and these things will be realized as he or she grows beyond this crisis.

In this moment, by sacrificing your ego and silently focusing on the needs of your child right now, this is your chance to make right all the wrongs and help your son or daughter achieve his or her highest and best, live a better life, and make the world a better place.

God bless you and all that you do.

Keeping in mind that people are not statistics, and there are always objections to the rules, there are certain situations of lifestyles which when you see a child having to succumb to these circumstances can turn nearly anyone into an armchair prognosticator.

With hindsight being 20/20, we can review the lives and lifestyles of adults who have been incarcerated, unexpectedly arrived in emergency rooms, or prematurely registered to mortuaries.

What you find, as you might have expected, is that many of these adults lived underprivileged lives in their youth. If a child’s life is impoverished, and lacking in many areas of life, such as strong parenting figures, positive support systems, and self-esteem, this increases the chances of having trouble later in life.

This is the stereotypical observation.

The data which you might find shocking is that many adults whose lives end prematurely, live lives either revolving through the legal system or spend life behind bars, were raised in families that were thought to be privileged.

Their families lived in nice homes, lived in better areas of town. Their homes had well-manicured lawns, with nice cars in the driveway. These kids wore designer clothes, went to the best schools, got good grades, and participated in sanctioned extracurricular school activities, were members of the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, and reached high levels of achievement in and outside the classrooms.

While there are hundreds of variables, some of the most common ones include

Lack of Positive Connection

Positive connection includes spending time commiserating with family and positive role models, not excluding positive human touch. A contemporary term respecting the aspects of positive connection is, “nurturing.”

Children who are denied being able to develop a positive connection with a parent or alternatively other supportive family members may find themselves short-changed as they grow into adulthood.

Connecting with your child takes time, which many successful parents have very little of when running the rat race and trying to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. With many families depending on two incomes, there’s a good chance that there may be no one home when latchkey kids come home from school and learn to fend for themselves.

Touching is a key component in connection, without it babies die. Humans are designed to connect via positive skin-to-skin exchange. So, it’s not enough to be there, you need to be touching.

In contemporary society, the idea of touching a child probably sounded a warning alarm inside your head, because touching a child is bad. And this has set the alarms of many parents initiating a perceived panic and struggle with the idea of maintaining positive physical contact with their offspring (especially those of the opposite gender) to avoid possible misinterpretation or legal ramifications.

Many parents have found themselves trying to explain themselves in front of a judge or have even been incarcerated because someone accused them of inappropriateness in positive physical nurturing of a child.

That would strike fear into the heart of any law-abiding loving parent.

The child is left to pay the price for this lack of nurturing as they approach adulthood and continue to have to find ways to cope in a world that is out of control.

Even so, there are children who have faced the worst of circumstances in their early years, who come from the most modest, even severely abusive childhoods who become powerful members of society.

These are the unsung heroes.

If you knew the details of their childhoods, you might ask them, “Should you be in prison?”

Statistically, maybe so, but these people found the wherewithal to go against the odds, take charge of their own lives, and decided not to become a statistic.

If that’s you, I thank God for you and admire you for taking the high road to live a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place.

May God bless you and yours.

The greatest stressors will be initiated by those whom you know the best, the people within your family. While the family unit is no stranger to stress, if there are little witnesses to these active familial stressors, they will be affected the most. This is how children learn to interact with others, and this follows them into adulthood, even if they cannot consciously recall these events.

Even if the conflict does not engage the children directly, they are still being affected by these stressful situations. If you don’t believe me, just think back to familial conflicts which you witnessed when you were a child. How does that affect the way you handle stress and conflict today?

If you have children around watching your interactions with your family, you might consider taking a break or a timeout, the next time you feel tensions building. Maybe you can reason with the person you’re experiencing the conflict with and pick up the discussion at a different place and time. You might be surprised that delaying the discussion will allow you both to revisit the topic when emotions are not running as high.

This works for adults, adults interacting children, and among children as well.

This can have a tremendous effect on reducing the familial stress in relationships, also, it gives whoever might be inclined to do some deep inner work time to reflect on his or her own past to see if there are any hidden anchors from the past triggering the feelings which are being experienced in the moment.

If you are in a relationship with someone and are not able to manage taking a break or timeout, then you might consider seeking a relationship coach, counselor, consultant, or a member of the clergy, whatever appeals to you and seek assistance from a qualified third party, someone you can trust.

There are many techniques which can be applied to any type of relationship which will reduce both conflict and stress, and it’s up to you to check it out and take the appropriate steps to change your life. No one else is going to do it for you.

This is your life, and those whom you care about deserve not to be impaired by your lack of control, and left to itself unhindered by someone’s drawing explicit boundaries, not seeing eye to eye, or having different points of view, could turn into an abusive situation.

If ever, any relationship is visited by abuse, you have the right and the responsibility to stop the abuse. You are never required to fight back if there is abuse. Just take the steps necessary to isolate yourself from any further abuse.

This takes a great deal of courage and determination, but you can do it.

You have zero tolerance for abuse.

Not unlike an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm, throughout our whole life, we collect data and develop programs that run in the background in an effort to understand and allow us to perform better as we encounter new situations and circumstances.

We run thousands of tiered If-Then-Else programs in the background, our subconscious, in an effort to have better experiences as we go forth into an unknown future. This is how we learn. This is how we grow, and this is how we limit our potential and quality of life.

At the moment in time that a program was initiated, it may have been appropriate and fit for the situation at hand, but now in the present day, the old program is still running, and it may not be serving you in the now. In fact, it may be hindering your potential for living a better life.

Let’s say you had a parent that would leave you unexpectedly alone when all you really wanted was a little love and attention. At first, you would desire of cry for attention to no avail. You never received the love and attention you sought. After a while you wrote a program to help you to deal with the situation, so you could go on with life.

IF your parent left,

THEN you would change your expectation, assuming they would not return at all.

“Fine,” you might think, “I will just find comfort in my time alone with myself. I don’t need anyone.”

ELSE the parent returns, you have already asserted confidence in your own independence, you might reject their presence, encouraging them to leave,

“Why don’t you just go enjoy yourself elsewhere? I don’t really need you here.”

You reason its better to reject than be rejected, plus the pain is far less severe by lowering your expectations, creating boundaries, and enforcing them. All at the young, tenderest of ages.

Even at such an early age, when you may not have been able to form the words, you were a survivor. You developed a program that made you stronger, more independent.

If you never recognize it, delete, or reprogram it, that program continues to run in the background to protect you and keep you safe, even if it no longer serves your best interests. Left to run on its own, it will affect all areas of your life, from career to social interactions, and the quest for love.

That’s just one program among thousands, or more likely millions, of programs accumulating in your subconscious machine code.

Hopefully, by now, your starting to realize that you are the Master Programmer (MP). By taking the time to go back and check your old programming codes, you can delete old programs which no longer serve you, and/or replace them with newer, more useful programs which will empower you to live your best life.

SOURCE CODE SEARCH

Search for the programs by reviewing the traumas of your life, year by year.

Make a T-Chart for every year of your life. Title it by your year of age and the calendar year.

On the left side of the page, list any traumatic event you can think of.

On the right side of the page, across from each traumatic event, detail how the trauma affected your life. This will help to identify the program which needs to either be deleted or replaced.

This process is never complete because as you start to look for trauma and either delete or reprogram the subroutines, more data becomes accessible.

We know that hospitals, prisons, adult care facilities, and cemeteries are heavily populated by people who were not given adequate nurturing, human touch, and interaction in their younger years. While they received enough attention to survive, they were denied the ability to thrive for lack of touch.

Human beings need to be touched. The lack of compassionate human touching sends people in a whirlwind of exploration and searching for something to fill the void left by lack of touch. This pleasure-seeking enthusiasm leads to over-compensation by engaging in activities which seem to appease the need, or make you feel better, even though these efforts do not satisfy for long.

These activities include seeking material possessions, hoarding of objects or financial resources, living above one’s means, intense focus on increasing social status, moving into positions of power, risk taking, thrill seeking (engaging in potentially dangerous or questionably legal or moral activities), substance abuse, self-centered enhancements (i.e., cosmetic surgery, bodybuilding, etc.), among other things which can stave off the need for physical connection, including successive sexual encounters.

Sex and human connection with compassionate touching are not even closely related, therefore, the quest for successive sexual encounters, while it will ease the pain until the next dose, will not sustainably fill the void left by not touching and being connected to others.

Years of seeking to fill the void of left by lack of authentic human connection and nurturing touch, leads one to the conclusion that nothing can fill the gap, and without connected physical touch, the immune system declines, clearing the way for disease and one’s deterioration of heath.

If you are among those who did not receive adequate amounts of compassionate nurturing as a child, you probably don’t even know how important it is to you. You do not need to live your life as an A-type personality in a fervor to keep up with the Joneses, spending your life scurrying through the rat race, turn to a life of addiction, or crime, etc. in an attempt to feel better. You can engage in some healthy activities which can fill the void left by lack of connection.

Snuggling with a pet (that is not averse to the idea of snuggling) can help to feel the void, and it doesn’t even require the engagement of another person. This is a good source of connection in the absence of another human being and has proven to be effective for increasing health and longevity in the elderly.

Hugging (while it may sound crazy, at first) is an excellent non-threatening activity. If you are not well-acquainted with the idea of compassionate hugging, just for the sake of hugging without any sexual or manipulative intent, it can take some time to get used to the idea.

A 7-second hug boosts the immune system and releases health-enhancing feel good hormones, like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, while a 20-second hug (which would be awkward with someone with whom you did not know well or were intimate with) increases the effects exponentially.

There are other methods available to subsidize your lack of touch and to neutralize the effects of lack of touch in your childhood. These can be explored with an aware third-party, coach, or counselor.

You might be surprised to find out what you’re really looking for is the love that you feel like you didn’t receive from your (usually opposite sex) parent, and on a deeper level the love we seek is that akin to the love we felt prior to being born.

On the surface, a quick overview of your search for love and the people you align yourself with might have you thinking you’re always attracting the wrong kind or person, that people change after you get to know them better, and that you often discover that while you thought you had so much in common in the beginning, the two of you are complete opposites.

Your friends might try to console you with, “Not to worry. It’s just that your picker is broken,” reinforcing the idea that you unbeknownst to you are unconsciously selecting bad apples from the barrel.

But,

What if…?

What if everything is in divine order and the type of person you’re attracted is exactly the type of person you need in your life to complete your personal cycle of love, to heal from the love seeking you did as a child, and to evolve into a far greater lover, expanding your horizons and moving to the next level of enlightened love?

What if the people you’re attracting, who appear to be completely incompatible are actually the perfect person you need in your life to bring out the very best in you?

And if this were true, you would be the same for him or her, just as they are for you; the key to unlock your highest and best.

Emotional wounds from childhood leave you wanting the love you failed to receive in your youth in adulthood. You don’t know why you’re attracting someone similar to your parents but this is exactly what you need to make it right, heal those old wounds, to receive the love that you desire and deserve.

In this present age, we focus so much on compatibility, which is terribly convenient in exercising a relationship where the value of growth and change seems difficult or like too much work to bother with. The more alike you are, easier it is to get along, live together and appreciate each other.

It sounds like a dream come true compared to your past experiences where you’ve thought that you were with the wrong person and just could not find a way to make it work out for you or your partner, and if you could, the cost would just be too great.

True love, the love that comes from above, dwells within us but it is hidden beneath a cloud of bad feelings, let downs, and life experiences through which we could barely know it is there, if at all.

You try so hard to love in an authentic way, the way you long to be loved, but you feel unworthy, are confident that you will fall short, so you sabotage your relationship, allow it to fail, in an effort to keep yourself safe from exposing too much of yourself, as an act of self-preservation. This disengagement is a source of great anxiety within you.

Love’s connection with another person is a part of who we are. This connection one-to-another in an authentic intimate relationship is what we seek as we try to recapture the pure love we felt prior to birth. To be suddenly aware of the separation and unable to make it work, could leave one feeling as though true love is not possible.

If it is your destiny to find this evasive love, and if it is the only reason you have come here to live your life on this planet, then you might even think that life itself may not be worth living at all.

In this way, life and love are deeply embedded in us as humans. It is difficult to separate one from the other (though many of us choose to maintain this separation, ignoring the true love component our life’s work).

In human form, there is no way to manifest the original true connected love we experienced prior to birth but we can come very close if we are willing to learn and grow, leaving behind the shadows from our past and move on into the light of love.

Unless you settle for compatibility as your only criteria for selecting your life mate, you will continue to be offered the opportunity to meet the exact type of people who can assist you on this sacred journey of love and life.

In most, if not all, cases, fear of abandonment can be traced back to one’s childhood. It is often linked with a mother or primary caregiver who was not there to provide the proper nurturing, caring and attentive support to the child. Regardless of the reason for the lack of nurturing, whether the primary had to work, or had personal issues or unavoidable circumstances to properly love and connect with this little baby, this young child grew up insecure.

This insecurity could express itself as either avoidance or anxiety.

Avoidance

In the person who expresses his or her fear of abandonment as avoidance, he (avoidance if far more common among men) or she will likely retreat when his or her partner is crying out for love and connection. When witnessing his or her partner expressing his or her need, the avoider will make a bee-line to a safe place.

Commonly, he or she will retreat to the office, or some other location deemed as a “safety zone,” and so it is not uncommon for avoiders to become workaholics.

As a child, the avoider found self-sufficiency and finding comfort in solitude his or her coping mechanism in dealing with a primary caregiver who did not give them the love, attention, and support they so desperately needed in those young and formative early years.

Anxiety

If the person who was raised with abandonment issues found reward from crying out or clamoring for attention, then this will likely carry over into adulthood. The anxious person carrying fear of abandonment issues will likely be stirring the pot in an attempt to get the attention they seek, even though this obviously is an ineffective method of getting them what they want.

What do they want?

In either case, whether they are operating from a place of avoidance or anxiety, both of these individuals are desperately in search of the love, safety and security they were denied at a very tender, young age.

Since we are often drawn and attracted to someone like our parents, you will have someone in your life that triggers the abandonment threshold which throws you into a state of panic or fight or flight response.

This emotional state of emergency disconnects the part of the brain which is reserved for rational thought as they follow their knee-jerk instincts which seek to protect them from further abandonment. So the avoider retreats and the anxious person who fears abandonment pitches a fit because the avoider feel safe in seclusion and the anxious person gets attention (even though it is negative) when they act up.

This reactivity does not foster a healthy environment for creating a congruent connection between two people. In fact, it does just the opposite, it keeps these two people from having a positive, loving and supportive relationship, which is just the opposite of what they so long to have. But for them, it has not become about connection, it has been reduced to its simplest form of survival, so they react and prevent connection from happening.

And there’s a good chance that you are either one of these, either suffering from avoidance or anxiety paradigms, and you are also in a relationship with one, and there’s an even greater chance that if you are in a relationship with someone also suffering from fear of abandonment, that your partnered with someone who is the other type.

In most fear of abandonment couples, one is the avoider and the other is anxious.

What can I do, if I’m in a relationship with someone who has fear of abandonment issues?

Good question. Thankfully, there is a cure for what ails the person who is dealing with fear of abandonment issues.

Avoidance

The person who is suffering from abandonment and has embraced avoidance as his or her coping mechanism wants love and connection but has no idea about how to get it. He or she retreats and expects you to leave.

The key, here, is to do exactly the opposite of what he or she expects. Don’t disconnect yourself, instead, be totally supportive, reach out and touch the heart of the avoider in such a way that he or she longed for in childhood.

That’s right. Treat him or her like a baby, hold him or her in your arms, look him or her in the eyes and say, “I am here for you. I know you feel like running away, right now, and that’s okay, but I will be right here for you. I love you. I really, really love you. I am here for you and I will never leave nor forsake you. You can depend on me.”

The results may not be immediate, but as you gain the trust of the avoider and he or she begins to realize that you are there for comfort, support, safety, security and benevolently offering your loving kindness, and he or she sees strength, consistency, and dependability in your love, he or she will open up.

This might be the first time he or she has ever felt safe.

Anxiety

The anxious person suffering from fear of abandonment needs the same thing. Needs to know he or she will not be judged or ridiculed, desires to be loved, accepted and embraced in love.

When he or she is acting out, this can look like a rant or a fit of rage, but in reality, it is only this person’s inner child crying out for love and connection.

Likewise, instead of berating or getting defensive, make eye contact in a loving and non-threatening manner, just as you would a little baby, reach out and hold him or her, let him or her know that they are loved unconditionally. And if it was something that you did to trigger this response assure him or her, “Hey, I can see that you’re upset. I’m so sorry. I never meant to do anything to hurt you. I would never intentionally do that. I am here for you. I love you. I am here for you.”

Again, if you are honest and true, your love will shine through in your actions, and this person might be able to feel safe and secure in your love.

The more secure he or she feels over time, the more infrequent the reactions will be.

And there is a third type of person who suffers from fear and abandonment. This one is the,

Trauma

Having suffered trauma as a child, this person acts out more expressively, probably jumping to conclusions and making irrational accusations, over-reacting to circumstances and scenarios that might seem mundane to anyone else.

The traumatics are often their own worst enemy driving away those whom they desperately want to be loved by.

Again, just like everyone else, they are desperately in search of love and connection.

If you are brave and steadfast enough, your love can break through the protective walls they have built around themselves.

Love can be a dirty business, but there is no greater love than being the reason that someone has sincerely felt safe, secure and loved for the very first time.

See you at the Soulmate Wizardry event.

Say, “Hello,” to your wounded inner child, who is throwing a tantrum.

Your inner child can break through and expose itself at any time, and usually expresses itself defensively, fearfully, frantically, or shamefully, in a way that is inconsistent with your normal adult state of being. Most of the time your inner child occupies the space in your mind and your heart but sometimes it breaks out in a way that encompasses your entire being.

Your inner child doesn’t always express itself negatively, it can also revel in joyous celebration in the best of times, but in most cases, your inner child hides in fear of being hurt due to wounds you may have suffered as a young child.

Since your youth you have grown into a strong adult and as you grew and matured your inner child fractured and found a safe place to reside inside you, so the more aware and physically demonstrable you could mature as you found your methods of interacting with your adult world in the most effective manner. Meanwhile, your inner child took the back seat.

Your inner child is content in hiding safely away deep inside you, but every once and a while gets it’s feelings hurt or feel threatened by something happening in your present and asserts itself, feeling its life is at risk or pitches a fit.

The inner child is always in a heightened state of awareness looking for potential threats. When something triggers it, he or she panics, initiating our instinctive reaction to either fight for life or flee in hopes of finding a safe retreat. In that moment your inner child has usurped your ability to cognitively manage your adult life. As you review the over-reaction, you can see there was no apparent threat, but your inner child perceived some detail that caused you to instinctively react as if there was a real threat.

When we are young, we find it hard to rationalize or make sense out of the injustices we suffer as a child. It isn’t long and we often realize that if we protest, we suffer negative consequences, so instead we learn to find ways to bottle up those fragile emotions and that part of ourselves which feels small and powerless fractionates from our conscious awareness and finds a safe place to hide inside of us. All that part of us wanted was to be accepted, loved, and protected, and even now, that’s all it really wants.

Therein lays the key to resolving the conflict between the adult rational part of you and your inner child.

You can give your inner child the love and acceptance he or she longs for and invite him or her to have an honored and safe place to live in your current world, where you can share life in harmony, no longer fractionated, safe and secure, with no need to hide.