Your Fear of Abandonment Can Heal, When You Stop Abandoning Yourself
Ways You May Be Leaving Yourself, and How to Break the Cycle
Abandonment issues run deep, and most of us have them. Since abandonment is a root chakra trauma, these wounds often imprint within the first 7 years of life. Many things can create this wound within us. For example,
When a parent is unpredictable in their nurturing, as in, sometimes they’re available, and sometimes they aren’t. This reinforces the idea of not being able to count on others to help you when you need it. It creates a fear that you can’t really depend on someone, and that they may abandon you.
Abandonment trauma can also happen when a caregiver physically or emotionally leaves you. Such as in death or if they check out emotionally, or even when someone you are connected to moves away. It isn’t always the fault of the parent. Some things are unavoidable. Yet it is hard to explain that to a small child, which is why they may carry a fear of abandonment.
Abandonment wounds can also occur when a parent gives you the silent treatment if you “misbehave”. And it can happen with the loss of friends, pets, moving away, etc. This is why “fear of abandonment” is such a universal issue in all of us. And when it isn’t properly dealt with when we are children, the energy imprint of it can live on in our body.
As adults, abandonment energy often manifests as defensiveness, insecurity, blame, addictions, people pleasing, busyness, and perfectionism. All these things are done subconsciously, in hopes to bandage this wound, but it never works.
It only succeeds in allowing us to reinforce our abandonment issues, because in doing so, we are abandoning ourselves. Here are some common ways we abandon ourselves, to compensate for our fear of abandonment.
Getting Lost in the Device – When things get too quiet, we often coddle ourselves with our devices. We get lost in them to escape the pain that tries to surface in the silent moments. Our ego thoughts are encouraging us to look at our phones, out of fear of facing the shadows within that need to be seen and felt.
It is way less scary to feel your feelings, than it is to spend a lifetime running from them.
Blaming Others for Your Reaction – When insecurity arises due to the fear of someone leaving us, one way we abandon ourselves is by looking outward with blame. “They are doing something to make us feel this way.” So instead of sitting with the discomfort inside of our body, and really noticing “our trigger response”, we look outward at them for “making us feel a certain way.”
Nobody is responsible for your feelings, but you. When you realize this, you embody the power to heal your own wounds and are no longer under the illusion that you are at the mercy of others.
Overly Trying to Please Others – We also abandon ourselves by doing everything we can to please others. As if to say, “if we give everyone else what they want, then they won’t leave us or dislike us.” However, every time we fail to honor what we want, so that we may please others, we are yet again abandoning ourselves.
Letting Go of Self Care – When we fail to take care of ourselves physically and emotionally, we are engaging in deep abandonment. Our bodies are our vessels for our soul’s journey in life. Taking care of ourselves is nurturing our self-worth.
Abandonment wounds carry with them a sense of unworthiness, and when we fail to take care of ourselves, we are only reinforcing this belief.
Using Alcohol and Drugs to Bypass Feelings – Attempting to cover up your feelings with any type of substance is another form of self-abandonment. It is like putting duct tape over the mouth of your inner child every time they try to tell you what they need.
Chronic Busyness – When you are constantly going and doing and never feel comfortable in rest, this is another form of self-abandonment. It’s great to be productive, but if you don’t balance this with rest, then you may be using busyness to abandon and bypass your feelings.
Think of the abandonment wound as an energy imprint of your little child self that remains unhealed in your body. This is the one who reacts in fear, insecurity, and feels unworthy. This is the one who gets the heart pounding and panics when they feel threatened.
And the only one who can settle them down, is you. This is why when you escape into any of the above-mentioned ways, you reinforce the feelings inside, because you are abandoning that little child once again.
Imagine your child self-sitting in a corner of your energy field, when something provokes the same old fear. Maybe someone critiques you or rejects you. The wounded inner child jumps in reaction! They panic. Daddy is leaving me all over again! They react through your body, which causes you to react.
The wounded you feels this reaction of the fearful inner child and personalizes it by projecting or escaping. And when you escape this child who needs to be felt, seen, and loved, they cannot heal. And you will continue to feel them react through you anytime they are provoked.
The way to heal this wound for good and prevent it from running your life and your relationships, is to acknowledge it. When the inner child in you feels threatened and scared – be with them. Be with the feelings coming up inside of you. Don’t look outward, and don’t find something to distract yourself.
Breathe deeply and place your hands upon your belly or your heart, or wherever you feel the discomfort most. This is how and when you begin to soothe the inner child abandonment wound, so soften and let go. If you can, speak to this child in your mind, or aloud. Tell them that you are there for them. Let them know that you understand their fears, but you will keep them safe now.
This is all they need, and you need, to close this loop. To gain closure. They need you to offer them what they didn’t have in the moment when they needed someone most. When that wound first began. Your little child self needs you to fix this for them. Nobody else can.
Acknowledge their fears, let them feel the emotions fully through you, and comfort them. This is also how you cultivate self-love. After all, it is typically the shadows within us that get in the way of our ability to fully love ourselves. And when we can fully love ourselves, then we can fully love life, and those around us.
When you stop abandoning yourself, you will stop fearing others will abandon you. And this wound may finally heal, for good.