4 Tips to Address Self-Abandonment
The definition of self-abandonment: when you reject, suppress or ignore a part of yourself in real-time.
We don’t hear enough about self-abandonment but we do hear a lot about abandonment from others. If we have experienced trauma, we can definitely relate to the feelings of abandonment, especially if it is interpersonal trauma.
If we have had some experiences with others who are toxic to our wellbeing, gaslight us, make us feel like we are not enough, and invalidate our emotions we will do these same things to ourselves over time.
It is important to remember as we work through these steps that they don’t match how we want or really feel about ourselves. These innate beliefs that were instilled on us, either through childhood or through trauma, doesn’t normally match with our rational thoughts and feelings.
We may think when our anxiety is high with our partner that we don’t deserve their love and therefore don’t advocate for what we need (self-abandonment) but when we are in a rational space, this doesn’t always make sense and we can rationally say, “no I need to advocate more for myself.” The hard part is the actual implementation.
Here are some tips to learning to trust ourselves and not abandon or well-being:
1. Be aware of our triggers.
Again, we can’t change something if we don’t know when it is happening. Our triggers could be as simple as someone asking us what we want for dinner. “Oh, whatever you want.” That may seem insignificant to some but if we know what we want and choose not to share it with our partner for the fear of upsetting them, causing them distress, or creating a burden, we will choose to hold that inside and make it look like we are super flexible and “go with the flow.” We are abandoning our sense of self in these moments. This is why I say start off with the triggers and start off small. Just like with any change we are creating in our life, we don’t want to go all-in right off the bat. It causes too much shock to the system and will only lead us back to the dysfunctional behavior later.
2. Challenge our beliefs about ourselves through self-compassion.
We will later have a post on self-compassion but we first need to validate and challenge our beliefs by relating to them. We cannot understand something if we do not know it up close and personal. I always share with my clients the quote of “keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer”. We naturally shy away from something painful but that only leads us to feel disconnected and not help us understand something painful so that we can better regulate, manage, and possibly control it in the future.
“This is hard and I feel uncomfortable” is a good example of a self-compassion statement that could be used when you are confronted to do something outside of your comfort zone. This statement isn’t suppose to make you “feel better” it is suppose to make you sit the reality of the emotion which is the feeling of something being difficult and uncomfortable. When we validate this, we are establishing our reality, we affirm our own emotions, and this helps us ultimately lead to regulation. All of this without having to have others help us.
3. Meditate and focus on our gut instincts.
Our gut instincts are like a 6th sense. We are constantly getting this gut feedback throughout our day but because our mind is busy and we are moving from one task to another, we are not mindful that our body is sending us signals. These signals are from our internal systems where it is constantly monitoring our environment to make sure we are safe and stable. If something feels off, we will get these signals and most of the time we ignore them. Instead, we need to learn to first get in touch with our body and listen to it and the best way to do this is with meditation. We don’t have to this for long periods of time. I suggest to people to just start off by closing their eyes and taking a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth while scanning their body. We hold most of our tension in our body but we are now allowing our mind to register the tension. When you notice something, just notice it. Don’t over-analyze or try to justify it; just notice it and sit with it. Not only are we learning to sit with being uncomfortable but we are also telling our body that getting these signals is a good thing and we are embracing it. This allows us to recondition the response that we are listening to our body. The more you do this the easier it’ll come. Remember this is a skill, so once you get it you can’t stop practicing it and expect yourself to be a master at it later.
4. Learning to self-love.
This can be a painful process for those who have experienced trauma or don’t even know where to begin. One of the things we need to learn when going through trauma therapy, especially if our trauma is in childhood, is to reparent ourselves. We need to learn to give ourselves the love we never received either during the trauma or throughout our childhood. This may appear like a happy and joyful process but this is painful because we are grieving and living through the disappointment of our inner child all over again. When we learn to embrace this as being painful, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and thus accept the self-love.
These are the first steps to acknowledging and understanding self-abandonment. Once you work through these and also practice them daily, you can move onto advocating for yourself, setting boundaries, and showing up for yourself later.
If you are relating to any of this, I’d highly encourage therapy through this as this is hard and difficult. Someone supporting you and guiding you with this knowledge can be the greatest resource as you go through this journey.
