In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about the way we get too hard on ourselves when we're experiencing lots of emotion during the healing journey.

Main Take-Aways:

• You can feel conflicting emotions at the same time. E.g.like joy at not being around toxic family members but ALSO feeling sadness because you love them. They're not mutually exclusive.

• In the beginning of the healing journey, it's normal to get overwhelmed by your emotions to the point of not even recognizing what they are. But over time, you will recognise and process your emotions more quickly and with greater ease.

• Self-awareness is a key part of developing the above skill. Check in with yourself by asking "What am I feeling and WHY am I feeling that?"

Listen to the whole episode here: www.anchor.fm/swanwaters

In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about the back and forth of emotional experiences, behaviors, and beliefs when you heal.

Main Takeaways:

• When you're healing, you can go from being lax about boundaries, for example, to being overly militant and forceful with them; to the point that you overprotect them

• It's totally normal to swing from not being able to communicate boundaries to being too forceful when you enforce them and end up being rude

• Eventually, as you heal, the pendulum swings less and you learn how to adjust; becoming more confident in your ability to communicate and enforce boundaries

Listen to the full episode here: www.anchor.fm/swanwaters

In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags discusses the way that healing often requires you to go back over the same painful territory. And usually at a deeper level  because you haven't dealt with certain aspects of it yet.

Main Take-Aways

• Deep and complex issues (like dealing with childhood trauma and PTSD, etc) don't heal overnight. So you need to be patient with yourself as you peel back each layer of healing

• It's PERFECTLY normal to revisit areas that need to be healed

• Healing isn't linear

In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about the fact that healing is often quite an in-your-face process. But that, given time, it can become intriguing—rather than only painful and exhausting.  

• Healing is less soft piano music and more punk rock

• You can mentally forgive someone but emotionally still be holding onto anger and hurt

• You have the power to reprogram how you feel about yourself

In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about why the SwanWaters team is taking a two-week break from social media between March 18 - April 1, 2019 (no April's Fools jokes here lol).

Main Take-Aways:

• We're always talking about how important it is that people take time for rest: we want to make sure we're practicing what we preach in that regard, too

• No one, even in (especially in) the workplace, can burn the candle at both ends

• It's important to have a break from personal development and healing

Listen to other episodes of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast here.  

In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags talks about how you have to participate in your own healing or nothing's going to change. 

Main Take-Aways:

• Healing doesn't just magically happen: it's somthing you DO

• You can join all the support groups and buy all the healing programs you want, but if you don't actually apply what you're being taught, you're not going to see healing in your life

• Healing takes time and effort

• Healing is about developing skills to recover from abuse and also cope with life afterwards

Resources:

- Healing From Abuse: Find Tools That Work For You by Mags Thomson  

In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags asks the question, "What if, instead of rushing to do as many things as possible in our day, we slow down and do less, but with greater care and more intent."

The Main Take-Aways

 • Multi-tasking often means you don't give things the attention they deserve. The same principle often applies to the way you heal: too many cooks in the kitchen = ineffective

 • Spending energy on your healing will fill up time so you need to take that into consideration when plans for other things in your life

 • Different healing modalities suit different people

Resources:

www.asana.com

www.evernote.com

In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags discusses the way we take the capitalist value of productivity over humanity into our healing journey with us.

Main Take-Aways

 • Instead of focusing on the ways you're NOT healed, focus on your healing milestones 

• Make small, attainable goals instead of expecting yourself to be able to tackle big, unrealistic ones 

If you liked this topic, click the following link to access The Healing Academy where we'll support you and equip you for life after abuse:  www.swanwaters.com/join

In this episode, Mags interviews Carrie—the content manager and editor for SwanWaters. 

*Trigger Warning: detailed description of religious abuse and mention of self-harm

Carrie is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, intimate partner rape, and the former member of a Pentecostal Christian cult. She joined the SwanWaters team in 2017, and talks with Mags about her painful past and healing journey.

Main Take-Aways 

• When you leave an abuser/abusive situation, you need to be prepared for the fact that the aftermath can have material consequences

• The aftermath of leaving an abuser/abusive situation can often be as bad as the abuse itself—the main difference being that when you leave, things will eventually get better 

• "You can't get better in the same environment where you got sick." - Unknown

Jo Gifford

Finding Your Wings: A Journaling Journey of Abuse Recovery by Mags Thomson

50 Traits of Dangerous Cult Leaders

To book a Mindset Mentoring session with Mags, click here:  https://www.magsthomson.com/mindset-mentoring/

FREE Preparing Your Escape From Abuse module in The Healing Academy.

The podcast episode where Carrie staged a hostile podcast take-over, and interviewed Mags

In this episode of the Pint-Sized Healing Podcast, Mags discusses the importance of getting around people who can help you recalibrate your thinking in order to heal after abuse. And also to transform the way you think in order to see the world (and experience the world) differently.  

Main Take-Aways: 

• When you spend time with other survivors (especially with those who are further along in their healing journey) they can help you when you're triggered by getting you to refocus your thoughts

 • When you're experiencing the consequences of trauma, you likely believe that you're not functioning properly. But what if you see those bumps in the road as an invitation to approach problem solving in a different way?

 • Learning how to change your mindset and shift your perspective is an important part of healing from abuse

 • The extent to which you change the way you think (or heal your emotions), will determine how successful you will be in your healing

Link to Instagram post

FREE Compassionate Goal Setting webinar