My therapist has helped me to celebrate my small victories. For example, dealing with my anger has been such a process. The first step was being able to recognize what had happened after the fact. Like, if I had blown up at my husband - recognizing the anger and what was underneath the anger (usually hurt or fear) was a big step. It was important for me to celebrate that small victory, with something as small as taking a bubble bath. The next thing I went through was being able to feel that I was getting angry in the situation. Next step was being able to identify that I was hurt in a situation. Next step was being able to step away from a situation where I was feeling hurt and didn't know how to respond except with anger. And so on, and so on. But, I think celebrating each of these small victories has helped me to see how far I've come and to appreciate that this is a process and not an overnight fix.
Another thing that has been big for me is learning to listen to myself and allow myself to speak my truth. This all came about because of an affair that my husband had, and looking back over how I knew something wasn't right but I didn't honor my feelings. The "friend" that he had an affair with gave me a bad feeling from the start, months before the affair started. At that time, I wanted to growl at her and my instincts told me she was a threat to my family. But even though I wanted to tell her to stay away from us, I didn't want to be crazy, so I didn't honor my feelings. I also let my husband make me feel like I was crazy and jealous. Once I learned about the affair, it became really important to me to tell the truth about it and to tell the truth about his problems with alcoholism too. I let him go around telling his side of the story for to long. He went around telling people, "But we didn't even sleep in the same bed anymore!" without telling them that I woke up one too many times in a puddle of urine, and, "I want a divorce because it's a cold and loveless marraige!" without mentioning that he had been having an affair. But anyway, once I got my side of the story out to friends and family, I was able to find support and he was able to get a big reality check. I will never dishonor my inner voice ever again.