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Katy Groves continues her series on deprogramming from trauma-based mind control by exploring how she created safe internal space for her inner child to express itself freely. Using two simple affirmation cards - “I am at peace with my sexuality” and “I express my creativity” - she describes the long war she once fought against her own body, identity, and prodigious childhood talents. Programming had turned authentic art, music, poetry, and self-expression into something shameful or dangerous; reclaiming them, even by composing new variations on programmed songs, became a direct way to loosen those binds and rediscover the creative spirit that still lived in her inner child.
She then shares the daily affirmations that helped replace years of programmed messages of being unlovable or evil with statements such as “I’m safe” and “It is safe to be me.” Emphasizing positive or neutral language over negations, she explains how black-and-white thinking—reinforced by both trauma and Monarch-style programming—kept her trapped in extremes, and how deliberately introducing gray-area thoughts began to open a middle ground.
The heart of the episode is mindfulness as the practical antidote to dissociation. Katie recounts how awareness of the present moment, first accessed through a spiritual experience of her higher self and later strengthened with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, became possible only after rock-bottom powerlessness cracked the door open. She details the system-aware work required: approaching body sensation, breath, and thought with individual parts rather than as a single self; deactivating the programming that kept her disconnected; allowing co-consciousness and eventual integration; and using containment so that returning trauma could be processed rather than simply re-experienced. Mindful breathing and strategic neutral statements are presented as everyday tools that invite every part into the now, where the true self - the inner child and the hidden observer - already resides.
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You hear a song, and a memory opens up. Personal audio essays by Stephen Hollowell.
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