Abused1, I'm so glad you're reading Stosny's book. His work is phenomenal. You might also want to check into attending one of his classes or Boot Camps. You can learn a lot from him in a short period of time.
I've taken two of his classes. One was on HEALS and focused on abusive relationships. The second was his Compassionate Parenting class, which extends the same concepts to raising kids.
One of the most important things you can do is be consistent in your changes. Normally abuse occurs in a cyclic fashion. First things are ok, then something goes wrong and there's an abusive episode, then there's a honeymoon period when the abuser tries to make amends, and the cycle repeats. Most of the time the cycle repeats on a pretty regular time frame. Maybe it's every day, maybe it's every week, maybe it's every hour. One thing that the abused person will look for is a true change there. If the abuse cycle occurs on a weekly basis, for example, then the abused person might notice a change -- not just the same old honeymoon -- after three or four weeks.
The more consistent you can possibly be, the better. And, of course, the more self-care you can do, the better. Every minute you spend transitioning from core hurts to core values is very, very important. Remember that HEALS 12 times a day thing? It's true. Really. Do it every single chance you get. When I was learning it for my classes, I had reminders set on my cell phone. 12 each day, every day, for as long as it took. And it took me a good while to get to the point where I could do it with any consistency at all, that's for sure.
But it's worth it just for the ability it gives you to transform your anger into something much more powerful. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
