Hello, beautiful souls! Caroline Strawson’s journey of healing began with the loss of her mother and the end of her marriage. In this episode, Caroline shares her story of overcoming narcissistic abuse and finding her true self. She discusses the challenges of navigating life without her mother’s support and how this led her to become a healer and help others. Caroline emphasizes the importance of reconnecting with one’s inner strength and the role of angels and spiritual guides in her journey. Her story offers hope and inspiration for anyone dealing with similar challenges, highlighting the possibility of transformation and growth through adversity.

Connect with her and grab a copy of her book here: http://carolinestrawson.com

Episode Highlights:

• 01:46 Understanding Narcissistic Abuse
• 05:30 Caroline’s Personal Journey
• 09:53 Healing and Transformation
• 13:12 Spiritual Connection and Guidance
• 21:50 PTSD and Trauma Response

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Transcript:

I believe. With all of my heart, and I put this in the book as well, that my mom died when she did for a reason. If my mom was still alive when my ex husband walked out on us, I would have relied on my mom. I’d have looked to her to soothe me, to make everything better. But because she wasn’t there, I get goosebumps talking about it, but because she wasn’t there, I had to do it myself.

I had to rescue myself. I had to now learn all of this, go out and help heal others. So I feel with every single cell of my body and in my heart that my mom died before I split up from my ex husband so that I could go out and become an even better version of myself to go out and help and heal others.

And I feel that literally within my heart.

Welcome to the angels and awakening podcast, where we connect you with your angels, loved ones, and soul self. My journey began when I started hearing my late father before I knew he’d passed. Through my readings, membership, and Angel Reiki school, I help you awaken.

Heal and master your unique spiritual gifts. If you feel called to work with me, it’s your angels guiding you to discover your soul’s highest purpose. Details at theangelmedium. com. Thank you, earth angels for the five star reviews. You’re entered into a drawing to win a free session. Now let’s see what messages your angels have for you today. Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Angels and Awakening podcast.today we have an angel story by author Caroline Strawson. She’s the author of How to Heal After Narcissistic Abuse. And I just want to share with the audience. That over the past two years, I’ve heard so many members in our community, so many podcasts, listeners, family members, friends, who are really going through and healing from this narcissistic abuse.

And I know that there are so many empaths. If you’re listening to this podcast, you are most definitely an empath yourself. And. That empath energy can kind of be the yin to the yang of a narcissist’s energy. So I really felt that the intention of today’s episode was to. Was to have Caroline on to share her story and how the divine worked with her, led her, guided her to step back into her power, to see her own worth, to be able to receive love.

because Caroline, I just feel it in all of your work. I mean, you were meant to be doing this and without you stepping into your power, you couldn’t touch the souls of so many other people and help lead them to step into their power. So first and foremost, thank you for being you. Thank you for being open and sharing your journey for being a teacher.

and thank you for being here on the show.

Thank you. I’m really looking forward to talking about this because it’s a subject matter, obviously very close to my heart. And it’s so very needed for us to be talking about it in an educated, but also like you say, in the way that there is hope beyond narcissistic abuse, it doesn’t have to be it forever.

think that one of the hardest things that I’ve seen the hardest energies, because there’s all these different energies we are constantly working with in our lives. And there are just some energies that are harder to work through than others. When it comes to narcissists, one of the energies is they make you think you’re crazy.

They make you think it’s you. They really rob you of your soul’s energy In a controlling way, controlling people rob you of just allowing you to be your soul self in this lifetime. but narcissists take it a step further where. They are controlling you in a way, but making you think and feel that they’re not.

And so it, to me, the energy when I work with folks, that are dealing with narcissistic abuse is that they don’t have their compass anymore. They don’t have the grounding underneath them. They don’t know up from down.

Now you lose, I mean, this is a term we call gaslighting when you start to feel like you’re the crazy one.

So it almost feels like in your gut initially, when they’re saying things and doing things, you kind of start to feel a sense of danger and threat. You know, this isn’t right, what they’re saying isn’t true. And then the more you question them and maybe push back on some of those boundaries, they will start to gaslight you and you end up feeling like you are the crazy one.

And as a survival response with that, We end up losing ourself and we end up operating from a place of safety, really, of trying to stay safe in the relationship as opposed to coming from our own true authentic essence of who we are. Because when we do that, we get shouted down or we get some kind of manipulation or control or gaslighting.

So we learn it’s not safe to simply be who we are.

maybe let’s start with your angel story of what you went through, what you survived and the ways in which God universe source, your angels, your loved ones on the other side helped guide you back to yourself.

I suppose I used to think I had a really wonderful childhood and it doesn’t mean that I didn’t, but I had a really unemotional father who never praised me, who never said, you know, well done Caroline.

So I became this perpetual high achieving, people pleasing perfectionist as a child. Always seeking the approval of my father. My mom, on the other hand, was a codependent and an empath. So I had real two opposite ends of the spectrum. But what I become accustomed to was in male relationships was breadcrumbs of love, not feeling good enough.

So that there, that was the pattern of my relationships that had come from my childhood. So I didn’t necessarily have abuse or neglect in my childhood, but it was just an unemotional parent not showing a sense of love. I got married in my mid twenties, and even on my wedding day, there was a sense that something wasn’t right, but everybody was there, and like how I live my life, it was about making everybody else happy, and I couldn’t say anything.

Then when we went on to have our son together, kind of that’s when things started to change. And I think with narcissists, they need all of the support. Your attention on them. And they see if they don’t get that, even if it’s your own child that you have together, it’s a slur on them. So that’s for me where I really started to think the behavior really started to change.

Then about 12 years ago, in the space of about two years, My mum died really, really suddenly. Now she was my rock. Anyone who knows what a codependent is like, I was one too. My mother’s sense of worth came from being a mother. So I had a very close relationship with her, not only because I loved her, but also because, I wanted to make her happy because her sense of worth came from being a mom to me and my two older sisters.

So when she died, it was like the rug had been pulled out from underneath me. And then in the space of 18 months, my husband walked out on me and my two children. Now I’d already recognized that there was, the relationship wasn’t good. It was unhealthy. There was something toxic because there was multiple adulteries, but I didn’t realize, I just thought he was a cheating husband.

I didn’t realize actually that there was financial abuse, psychological abuse, emotional abuse, coercive control. I didn’t realize that that was actually in the relationship because no one ever taught me any of that stuff. I just thought he’s a cheating husband. I was broken. I was literally a shell of myself.

I found out we were in nearly 100, 000 worth of debt. I lost my family home and genuinely, if it wasn’t for my two children, I probably wouldn’t be on this, on this podcast right now. I was suffering with depression, anxiety, self harm, panic attacks at a really, really low ebb. But there was something inside of me, even though I was at a low ebb and even though I felt like I didn’t want to be there.

I still felt the presence of my mum. I still felt that there was something inside of me. That this was part of my journey, that this was meant to be happening. If you’d have said that to me at the time, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But there was, there was just some sense of something. And I’ve got two children then, I have a son and a daughter and, Probably for about three years, I was really stuck. Stuck in the trauma bond, stuck in a place of feeling sorry for myself, blaming everybody else, feeling angry one minute, not wanting to get out of bed the next and crying, but still trying to be the mum to my two children. I remember I hit 40 years old in 2013, and it was the year I had, uh, lost my family home.

We were made homeless that year. And I remember on my 40th birthday thinking, I’ve got two options here. One, I can either think it’s downhill from now on. That is life. Life is over. I’m a mom. Just be a mom to my children. That’s it. Or, I can start to try and heal, navigate through all of this and see what’s beyond all of that.

Now, I didn’t have a clue how and I didn’t know what to do, but there was something inside of me that took me that down that direction. And as I went down that direction, I started a home business at the time, which started to do really well. And I realized that there was a real lack of Understanding about narcissistic abuse and trauma from really from a body perspective, the nervous system.

So I used to be a podiatrist. That’s what I used to be. And I completely retrained in things like somatic experiencing, internal family systems, EMDR, brain spotting, breathwork, positive psychology, did a post grad, all of these things and totally retrained and started my business. And I initially started my business helping people one to one very, very quickly, completely filled by books.

I was kind of burning out really. So I started to do some group work and as I started to do the group work, I realized as people were starting to heal, they then also wanted to heal others. So I created a coaching certification, which is trauma informed and you can specialize in narcissism. And then as they were then starting to go through that, I realized they also wanted to take that into schools and workplaces and public sector like the police, because again, there’s this real lack of understanding.

So I kind of created a business there. I saw. I actually run three businesses now, and I really feel like what I went through, I was totally meant to go through and we call it, in positive psychology, we call it post traumatic growth as well. Growth beyond, leading an even better life because of the trauma you experience.

But I’ve always felt my mom’s presence through all of this. Always. And you know, my book, How to Heal After Narcissistic Abuse has literally just come out this week with Hay House. And it’s dedicated to my mum, actually, Linda Patricia Hovland. It’s dedicated to her because I really believe well, you will get all of this and your listeners will.

I believe. With all of my heart, and I put this in the book as well, that my mom died when she did for a reason. If my mom was still alive when my ex husband walked out on us, I would have relied on my mom. I’d have looked to her to soothe me, to make everything better. But because she wasn’t there, I get goosebumps talking about it, but because she wasn’t there, I had to do it myself.

I had to rescue myself. I had to now learn all of this, go out and help heal others. So I feel with every single cell of my body and in my heart that my mom died before I split up from my ex husband so that I could go out and become an even better version of myself to go out and help and heal others.

And I feel that literally within my heart.

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Absolutely. A hundred percent. I it’s interesting because I I don’t think that we are human self know exactly when we’re going to go, but I do think that the soul self knows the highest self knows. And I believe that they prepare in different ways that you can kind of see that they’re preparing.

but that they, and it’s hard because the angels say, when you say this, you also have to preface it another way for people who think In a different way. there are times where you can do more for your family, for your kids, for people from the other side than you can do here, but the angels say to preface it, that that doesn’t mean to go out and take drastic action.

if you’re here, naturally you’re meant to be here in this earth realm. It’s only when God universe source. takes us naturally that we’re meant. To do that work from the other side. but I totally get what you’re saying. And I can feel that in your mom, not just for you, but also for your kids, because she keeps showing me that there’s this lineage of energy that runs from her and even past female ancestors, through her, through you, through your son and your daughter and the work that they’re going to do one day, and she said it was so imperative.

Not just, for you, Caroline, but also for the kids to see you do this work, to step into your power in this way, to not give up, and to go in that direction. And the angels had me write down this, you know, I thought it was very interesting when you said basically, it was a choice, like you got. To make a choice in your life.

Am I going to give up or am I going to keep going? Can you talk about that and what that’s like maybe for the energy of empaths, because I know we’re all human beings walking around in the same meat suit and we all look the same, but we are so freaking energetically different on the inside. We’re all wired, completely different.

And I feel that it’s. It’s hard sometimes for empaths to make this choice. It is

hard because it’s, I think we’re always looking externally as empaths about the effects of our actions on others, because we know if our actions affect others, by proxy, it will end up affecting us and it could completely drain us of our energy.

So, Like you say, as an empath, in those situations of choices, but coming out of an abusive relationship, my energy was completely zapped, you know, I was spent, I had zero energy, I was stuck in this freeze response, but equally still trying to do the best that I could. And I think this is the key thing, you know, there was an element from a physiological perspective.

I was stuck in a nervous system response, but still wanting to function and to please others to make sure everybody else was happy and just absolutely exhausted in the process to the detriment of myself, wanting to make sure and not realizing even from my children’s perspective that. Because, you know, we talk about when we have children, we need to put our children first.

And of course, we need to have our children as a priority. But if we don’t prioritize ourself, especially when we are an empath, and we are so susceptible to energies, you know, if I go into my father’s care home or a hospital, I have to prep myself to go in and I have to down regulate when I come out, because, you know, I can feel the energies of.

ill people, you know, it literally, I can’t watch things like, you know, animals do the funniest thing on TV. I literally get jolts of electricity through my body if I see people fall or hurt themselves and things. So I have to really, really protect my energy with that. So it was a real process in understanding What it’s like to be an empath and embrace the gift, which I believe is being an empath of helping others, but realizing that I also had to really look after myself first and foremost, and really protect my boundaries around my energy as well.

It’s interesting that you say that because last night I was on with my membership doing a workshop and then I was talking to some individual members after and then this morning I had a session and the angels brought through the same message in both places, which was if you look at your entire life, like a book with all of these different chapters.

You’re going to have these rare years or period of a stretch of months where you are just surviving your life because you’re going through a divorce or you’ve just gone through a loss or you’re going through a hard time. That period of survival, I feel is really, really hard for empaths like you’re saying, because we just want to do our best.

We just want to give our best. We want to be everything to everyone. And we want to do so good for the other side. I think a lot of people, just want to make God universe source proud of us and our angels and our loved ones on the other side, proud of us. And so we try and not just survive, but keep.

Going on our life’s journey. And the angels came in to two people in the last 24 hours and just said, it’s okay to just survive those months, those years, and to put everything else on the back burner. You’re not meant to be more. We’re not expecting more of you. You just need time and space to survive. So

important.

I think learning to just be and trusting in that, you know, how I feel now is I just trust in whatever is going to happen is guiding me to something greater, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time, you know, it’s guiding me. You know, I’ve just put an offering on a house that got accepted, for instance, three weeks ago, everything was fine.

It’s falling into place beautifully. And then our buyers, buyers now can’t get a mortgage. but I feel really caught. I’m not like thinking, Oh my goodness, I’m not going to get that house. You know, I’m leaning into if it’s meant to be, it will happen. And if it isn’t, then there’s a reason for that. And something else is out there or we’re meant to stay here, whatever that may be.

And, and I think having gone through everything that I’d experienced and really lent into that. Yeah. And obviously I didn’t to start off with, but eventually, you know, when I trusted and really let into the pain and really gave that opportunity to just be, to cocoon, to kind of be out there when I needed to be, to be kind to myself, to protect my energy and my boundaries.

I totally trust now that And it’s an innate feeling inside of me. And even sometimes if I have a part of me that starts to try and come in and say, yeah, but it’s almost a sense of peace and calmness of what will happen, will happen if it’s meant to be, it will. And I really trust that. And I feel like my mum is right.

with me on that journey too. And just as you said, my grandmother, my grandmother was a really strong woman too. we have a really long line of very strong women, but strong people pleasing women. So I really feel like I’ve managed to break that cycle and having a son and a daughter really broken that cycle of codependency as such to of seeking external approval and validation from others.

That’s beautiful. There’s an energy too, in some people. And I agree with everything that you just said. there’s an energy within some people who have gone through. And again, people are very different internally where. They’ve gone through so much in such a short period of time that to me, I call it a PTSD energy because they keep having this fear of like, what if, what if, what if, the angels are asking you for your opinion on PTSD energy and how you work with some of those clients that you have yourself to make that break, make that shift and choose hope.

Choose their beautiful future.

So when I work with clients who have PTSD, let’s say they come to me and they’ve got, they’ve been diagnosed with PTSD. The first thing I say I is educate them of what PTSD is, you know, post traumatic stress disorder. And I immediately say, let’s take away the word disorder.

as such because we can heal PTSD. And let’s put in the word response. Post traumatic stress response. This is your response after trauma that you have experienced and this is how you’re reacting. So immediately it shifts how people feel. It’s, it almost feels like, so it’s not a life sentence then. It’s like, no, it’s just your, your brain and your body and the essence of who you are hasn’t timestamped the events into the.

past for you. It’s still very live and it’s still very real for you. That doesn’t mean we can’t do that. So immediately it’s like we’re a hope merchant, you know, we’re giving our clients that sense of hope that this, you know, because, you know, there’s such an array of symptoms of PTSD and they can be so debilitating for people.

So it’s really helping them understand that their energy with where they are is just really their essence and their nervous system trying to protect them from their perception of those past experiences. And it’s doing a great job. It’s keeping them vigilant. It’s keeping their energy just in case as such, but they’re just in case what it serves well in the moment of the trauma.

And that’s great. But we no longer need that energy now. We no longer need to have that state of hypervigilance. We can process and integrate that so that we can shift our energy to coming from a place of presence and groundedness and rather than feeling like we’re in the trauma that we’ve experienced.

So we can look back and we can still maybe have a sense of some energy in our body because it’s not nice experiences many of us have had. But it’s not like it’s happening to us right now. And I think when clients can process and integrate that into their body so that they can go back to, I do a lot of internal family systems in my work, I do.

And we talk about that sense of self, the source, the essence of who we are, you know, when we’ve got things like. PTSD or post traumatic stress response. It’s because it doesn’t feel safe to sit in self energy and the essence of who we are. So we have all of these protector parts that will come up, and they could be things like addictions, self harm, anger, dissociation, or All there with a loving intention for us, trying to distract us away from feeling the pain, maybe of not feeling good enough and things like this.

So it’s really about helping understand and listening to those parts of us working hard in our system so that they can come and we can go back to a sense of self energy and source. So we can feel more presence grounded. And it’s becomes simply safe to be ourselves without any expectation on that.

Oh, beautiful.

Caroline, you’re such a beautiful, you know, resource for anyone who is going through a narcissistic abuse, trauma, and healing in that way. I’d love for you to share, where everybody can find you, your book, your work, but also spirits asking me to ask you this last question. You and your mom have built this incredible relationship.

Yeah. On the other side where you still feel her and I know there was that codependence, but my God is her soul just so expansive. And I mean, her love is just so grand and so expansive. Tell everybody how you communicate with her and day to day and your week and your year and maybe how that relationship has morphed over the years to become even more deep, even more strong.

Yeah, it literally feels like she’s within the essence of who I am. You know, wherever I go, even if I’m driving my car, if I’m sat in the bath, it’s just an innate presence that I feel inside of me. Sometimes I hear her voice as well. Sometimes if I’m listening to music, It’s like I can hear her voice coming through the music.

Sometimes if I’m, you know, in different places, it feels like she’s talking to me as well. it feels sometimes difficult to think that she’s passed away because her physical presence isn’t here. But it feels like every other part of her presence absolutely is here.

That’s beautiful. Where can everybody find you and your book? How to Heal After Narcissistic Abuse.

So come and find me on Instagram, Facebook, they’re probably the best places, or you can always drop me an email at hello at carolinestrawson. com, and my book is available on Amazon, it’s available in Barnes Noble, all the places you would normally expect to find books, you can go ahead, and it’s on Audible, Paperback, and on Kindle as well.

Amazing, Caroline. Thank you so much for the work that you’re doing in the world. And to everybody listening, if you have an angel story that you want to share story of, miracles, blessings, opportunities, uh, you connecting with your loved ones on the other side, we’d love to have you on the show. You can email us over at Julie at the angel medium.

com. Thank you. Oh my gosh, you too. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I

so appreciate you. Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you for inviting me. It’s been an absolute pleasure.