What is Self-Abandonment?

Most of us never got all of our needs met as a child, so we spend the rest of our lives hoping that others will meet those needs for us - spouse, parents, children, friends, bosses, etc. And then, as we become socialized, we learn that parts of us are not acceptable. So what do we do? We learn to abandon ourselves by looking (primarily) outside to others (instead of turning toward ourselves to provide ourselves the care we need) and we learn to abandon parts of ourselves that we have been taught to believe are not acceptable and we fear would make us unlovable. 

The antidote to self-abandonment is to reclaim all of these parts of ourselves and befriend them. To consciously examine what it is that we need and seek to provide those needs to ourselves and to more explicitly ask others when we wish for them to meet a need (vs. abandoning ourselves in a bid to get those needs met by them but they don't even know we're doing that). 

In summary, the antidote is self-love. Speaking up for ourselves. Caring for ourselves. Claiming our worth.

Do you give your power to others? Ask other people to take care of you, meet your needs, validate you, tell you you're enough? You aren't alone. And then, so often, we do this in tiny ways all day, every day - abandoning ourselves and what we need. We've been taught that that's what nice people, good girls, generous and polite women do.

And we've also been taught not to have needs. So we end up pretending we don't have needs (we ALL have needs) and over-giving to others. Being the one who helps and takes care of others. All the while, we're hoping if we do enough, give enough, someone will notice. Someone will appreciate us for once. And at a bare minimum, we hope they won't abandon us or hurt us. 

This pattern causes so much suffering. When we see this pattern and acknowledge how crappy it feels, it's time for us to see that there is another way. But it requires us to let go of the fantasy that other people are responsible for making us happy, validating us and taking care of us. That's our young child speaking. And it's time for us to take care of that young child. The adult us needs to bond to that inner child and treat her with the love and care we always wanted and needed as a child.

Check out this video to explore this topic more. In the video, I discussed what the inner child is, why we feel empty and alone, how to feel less alone. I discussed how this is a process of maturation and coming into wholeness where we can stop giving to get and begin to give from a full cup.​

If you'd like to move away from self-abandonment into self-love, you may want to take a look at my membership group at SelfLoveBasecamp.com.