Recently I was talking to a client who told me that one of the most influential things she’s gotten out of our work together was an understanding that she felt violated.

Her entire life and by almost every one she loved.

Here’s how we figured this out. She was in Israel staying with her ex-husband because their young daughter was visiting him. When we got onto our Skype session, she was visibly upset. She talked about how she didn’t feel good under her ex-husband’s roof. I asked her, “Do you feel safe”? She said, “Yes”. “Are you sure?” I asked her, gently trying to get a little bit more. “Yes, yes, yes”, she reassured me. Then I decided to ask the question that provided the opening for the conversation that shifted things. I asked her, “Do you know the difference between physical safety and emotional safety?” Her answer was as quick of a “No” as her “Yes” was prior. Okay, we’re getting somewhere I thought to myself.

Turns out she didn’t feel safe, but because she was safe from physical harm she thought she should feel safe. This is where the line gets blurred. When we think of safety, we have the notion that if we are not physically being harmed then we are safe. This is not true.

Safety is not only measured through physical metrics. Safety is also emotional, energetic, mental, psychic and spiritual.

For anyone who grew up in a family where there was a lot of chaos, a current of sexism, comes from a lineage where there was persecution, lives in an environment where there is toxicity or threats, interacts with people who do not respect your boundaries, there is often a feeling of being violated. This feeling tells our bodies whether or not we are safe. You see, our minds can decide we are safe based on the ideas we have of what it means to be or not to be violated, but until we have access to a felt sense of safety we can feel violated by various factors. When our bodies don’t feel safe but our minds tell us we are, this can lead to tremendous anxiety, depression, anger, fear, and other coping strategies such as obsessive or addictive thinking or behavior.

So, what does the idea of being violated mean in the modern world? Because let’s be honest, the world is changing. Quickly.

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Snap-a-gram (I know, that’s not a real thing but you catch my drift), they are constantly bombarding us with images, opinions, ideas. Gathering information from these sources can be profound. It’s likely you found this article through one of those venues, but how much is too much? And are we allowing ourselves to feel violated simply via turning on the screen or the phone these days.

I believe we have become numb to being violated.

I think we can all agree that Jewish people were not safe during the Holocaust, that black people are not provided with the same level of safety as white people in our country, that the Syrian refugees are not safe. This is clear-cut.

Women, let’s call it what it is, safety is not granted to us when we are born. We have spent our lives being told that we may very well be violated and in some cases deserve to be violated if we wear too low cut of a shirt or too tight of a skirt. We expect to be cat called, undressed by the eyes of a stranger, ass grabbed on the dance floor.

We are also constantly reminded these days that people of color, people who don’t identify on the gender binary, LGBTQ people, people with different abilities, people who struggle with illnesses, the list goes on . . .do not feel safe. Friends, I have something I want you to hear.

This is what it means to feel violated.

Permissible violation doesn’t feel good. It makes us feel unsafe, and it is damaging because it doesn’t line up with what we are taught — that we have to be physically endangered in order to be violated.

It may be obvious that if you’ve ever been beaten or raped you’ve been violated.

What may NOT be as obvious is this:

If you’ve ever had someone push a stated boundary, this is a violation.
If you’ve ever had someone touch you in any way without permission or once you’ve said no, this is a violation.
If you’ve ever had someone tell you how you should feel, this is a violation.
If you’ve ever had someone misuse their power on you, this is a violation.
If you’ve ever had someone enter your physical, psychic or spiritual space without being invited, this is a violation.
If you’ve ever had someone dump their problems on you without asking if you are willing to listen, this is a a violation.

Feelings of violation lead to mistrust and these feelings of mistrust can and will lead to anxiety, overwhelm, depression and other coping strategies. Coping strategies such as obsessive or addictive thinking or behavior that numb and mask the feelings of being violated, giving us false permission to withstand the violation.

So the violation becomes acceptable to us over time, it becomes the norm, and we forget that it exists. Therefore, we continue the cycle of obsessive or anxious behaviors to mask the incidents as opposed to addressing the trauma of feeling violated.

We can and do violate each other with words, actions, ideas, and body language.

Think back to a time when you took on a violation as your norm. Know that this may have been triggered by even the subtlest of interactions.

We have fallen victim to the design that society has prescribed to us. The one that says you have to do things a certain way. This way of thinking leaves way too much room for violation because each of us has a uniqueness that must be expressed in its own right.

What if it were possible to live in a world where we were attuned to each other’s unique gifts, needs and wisdom, where each time someone said “I don’t feel safe”, there were structures in place for them to lean into.

How do we get there?

We need to start by listening to the deep wisdom of our own bodies and the call of our own
soul path.

We must understand why we are here because we are all here with purpose. Jen Ross (Click to Tweet!)

We need to become conscious of what lives inside of us and start deliberately integrating it into our lives. When we get crystal clear about what our gifts are and we step into them fully, there is no separation.

You are your purpose, freedom ensues, and violation ceases.

Jen Ross is a therapist and an archaeologist of the soul. Through spiritual guidance and knowledge of Hindu mythology, she re-births sensitive empaths into soul driven warriors. Her signature process activates the gifts that lie beneath the anxiety, depression, and illness. In her spare time, she can be found deepening her connection to mother earth, questioning the paradigms imposed by society, cooking, or doing yoga. Find her at www.liveyourfreedom.com and connect with her on Facebook. To learn more about how you can step into your divine purpose and become your gifts click here. 

Image courtesy of Lakerain Snake.