'What if they say this? What if they do this?' Thoughts like this would run through my mind and I would get knots in my stomach. Instead of enjoying myself and my life, I found myself worrying and fearful.

It was a cycle I had been in for so long I didn't even realize how knotted up I was inside and how tense I felt at times. One person in particular was causing me a lot of angst. This person had been verbally, mentally, and a few times physically abusive to me. I stopped the physical abuse almost immediately, but the verbal and mental abuse carried on for years. I didn't always recognize the abuse because sometimes it was subtle. Little underhanded comments would be made to me when no one else was around. I learned to let them slide off my shoulders.

At other times the verbal abuse was obvious. I would be slam-dunked and berated for being a poor excuse for a mother and constantly being told there was something 'wrong' with me. Even though I knew deep in my heart those things weren't true, they still weren't things I liked to hear. Sometimes I would even second guess myself and I would feel insecure.

You'd think the easiest thing to do would be to avoid this person, wouldn't you? The circumstances in my life didn't allow that at the time. So I put up with it rather than cause waves. I'm basically a peaceful person, and I don't like conflict.

However, there came a time when I decided not to put up with it anymore. I had asked this person several times to stop the put-downs and negative comments about me. There would be some improvement for awhile, and then it would start all over again. It was a cycle that never seemed to end.

I think I almost resigned myself to the thoughts that it would always be like that and I would just live with it. Then one day Barbara Rose brought through an analogy for me. She said I was allowing this person to be like a big, mean giant to me. I was giving this person power and control over me.

What I needed to do was establish firm boundaries around myself. No type of abuse would be accepted or allowed. Then Barbara said to think of this person as a one inch green bean having a tantrum. I found a lot of humor in that, and it helped immensely. Rather than allowing this person to feel like a mean bean/being, I started to see this person as a little green bean. How much control could a little green bean have over me?

When I established the boundaries a lot of rage was directed at me. Only I then heard it from a little green bean on the floor, fists waving in the air, and I was able to smile and walk around it. Barbara lovingly told me that if I was a vindictive person I would have stepped on that green bean, but because I'm not that way I chose to walk around the green bean. It did take me awhile to fully integrate this into my life, and initially it met with a LOT of resistance, but having that one image to hold onto gave me the inner strength to carry on.