By Carmen Carrol 

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Pathways to Healing looks like a personal story. 

What can you tell us about it?

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Even though this is my personal story, and I understand the loneliness of the experience. I knew I had to be vulnerable again. I still wanted to help and inspire others who may have experienced a similar walk. It all started just with me writing in my journal for years. It was a means of expressing my feelings and trying to find answers to what I was going through and to find some relief. 

 

I did not know at the time that I would be writing a book about my experiences. I started to change in the middle of the situation even when it had not changed, but I was changing, I started taking more care of myself, loving myself again, and speaking positive affirmations. I knew I could not do it by myself. I had to allow God to heal my broken foundation, and I knew what that meant. I had to do something I did not want to do which was to be vulnerable.

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I had to ask God to help me to change my perception of the situation because it was consuming my whole life. I needed to be restored from the inside out. I needed to know what it meant to be loved unconditionally again. I no longer wanted to be identified by what I had gone through but to identify with what God says about me. So, I found a powerful truth in the scriptures that says: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well”. Psalm 139:14(NIV)

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So, I started to believe this truth, I started to change my mind about how I saw myself and what I had gone through. I shared my story with close friends and for the first time, I saw the power in my story. It was over a long period, that I realised that this could help other people who have experienced rejection that comes from sibling rivalry. Any form of abuse can affect you deeply; your mind becomes unstable and is full of anxiety and fear, and your internal dialogue is negative and this also affects your physical health. I also share in detail in the book some of the health issues I had gone through. The scars of emotional abuse are hidden and can have the most power over our lives.

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