The Long Journey Home

 Most of my clients' main issue is how to set boundaries and deal with a toxic family member- a toxic parent, toxic partner, toxic adult child, toxic siblings or toxic in laws. The struggle is real and in South Asian cultures and Indian culture , we are conditioned as a society to put our family first and to ignore red flags and dysfunctional behaviour. We are conditioned to make excuses for a toxic family member's bad behaviour with excuses like " They are your family" or "They have no one else so you can't abandon them" or "They have had a tough life so try to be forgive them and be kind" or" You will regret it when they die" or"Think about your kids" or "Log kya kahenge"? . The excuses are many but you get the idea right?   You can try having a healthy conversation about your needs and emotions with toxic family members- That is a necessary first step. But if it falls on deaf ears and if toxic , manipulative beh...

  As a narcissistic abuse recovery life coach, I have been working closely with many brave survivors of abuse, who have decided enough is enough and are working hard to reclaim their life post abuse. It takes immense amount of courage and hard work to do the inner work that is required to heal and recover post narcissistic abuse.   As a part of my research for my upcoming book on abuse survivors’ stories, I have been asking around in the abuse survivor groups and my clients to understand what has really helped them to heal and recover post narcissistic abuse. Keep watching this space for more updates on my upcoming book- The long journey home and also for tips to heal. Below is a quick summary of my findings and these are real tips from abuse survivors and not textbook information: Therapy/coaching - Many have confirmed that having a mental health partner in their healing journey has helped them immensely to hold them accountable, create more clarity about their next s...

  As a narcissistic abuse recovery life coach, I have been helping my clients to get out of the victim mindset and transform their life through self healing techniques. During the process of coaching a recurring theme that has come up especially in the context of Indian Culture is the enmeshment that Parents have sometimes with their Adult children which in turn negatively impacts the Adult child's marriage.  It is normal for a child to grow up and shift priorities to their partner especially once they are married. But what happens in enmeshed parent-child relationships is that the adult child struggles with a lot of guilt to shift their priority to their partner and this causes a lot of strain in their marriage.  Having gathered inputs from my clients and having done my research in this area, I can safely say that if you dig deeper into divorces and couples falling apart, there will be an enmeshed parent who has a big role to play. Not all divorces happen because of enme...

Very often we are focused on how others are toxic for us and how they may have caused harm to us knowingly or unknowingly. But how often do we stop to process if our behaviour is hurtful for those around us? What are our toxic behaviours which may affect our close relationships? How can we cope with such toxic traits? Read on to know more. Monopolizing the conversation: If someone shares something that is hurtful or disturbing or challenging in their lives, do you immediately take the opportunity to redirect the conversation to yourself ? For example, a close friend of yours recently had covid and they come to you to share their challenges. Instead of hearing them out, you may jump in and start telling them that even you had covid recently and it was no big deal or you may start talking about how difficult it was for you as well. Your friend may end up feeling unheard and may next time choose not to share their challenges with you. This is a toxic trait that you could be having in your...

  As a life coach, the most asked question by my clients who are recovering from abusive relationships is " When will I know that I have completely healed ?". There is no clear answer to this and it depends on each person's emotional resilience and the amount of healing work that you are committed to do. Some may heal and move on in just few weeks or months and some may take even few years and some may never completely heal from the trauma of abuse. Healing is non-linear and there will be days when you feel completely healed -on top of the world and  some days when you regress backwards and fall apart again. Stay with the process and trust that you will heal. Do not give up on yourself ! Abuse changes you as a person and you can't go back to who you were earlier even if you wish to go back. A physical wound heals with time and medication but what about your emotional wounds? The more you suppress it, the stronger the pain becomes and it manifests as physical health is...