There is nothing quite like falling in love to show you where you are abandoning yourself…
When we feel disconnected or hurt or resentful because we let our partner cross a boundary, or realise we are manipulating or controlling in order to get love, or ignore what it is we’re needing, or avoid feeling emotional pain through numbing ourselves, or act out of integrity to keep our partner/lover happy – these can all be ways we are abandoning ourselves.
We have so little awareness of this collectively – after all, we are all embedded in a system that cultivates the opposite of true self-love, and a system that both creates and perpetuates trauma induced self-abandonment – that many of us are not even sure what a healthy embodiment of self-love looks or feels like.
My journey into working with my own self-abandonment is ongoing and feels like an entire reprogramming in my software. Sometimes self-love feels like meeting my neediness and daring to ask for what I need, sometimes it’s forgiving myself that I wasn’t able to do that. Sometimes it is allowing myself to feel uncomfortable knowing I have disappointed someone for setting a boundary or telling myself how lovable I am when I realise I’m yearning for it from outside. Sometimes it’s realising I am stuck in my head and busy with thoughts – avoiding feeling pain and then deciding to welcome feeling. Sometimes it’s bringing the awareness back to myself after realising I am getting caught up focusing on criticising someone else’s behaviour or that I’m being manipulative to feel loved or safe. It is an endless journey of meeting and parenting myself – giving expression to my inner mother who loves unconditionally and my inner father who lovingly and firmly brings me back into integrity.