Episode 14 of the Fuel the Fire Podcast hosted by Shanon Safi, RD, LDN.
Do you ever think about how we became who we are at this very moment? What twists and turns in our lives brought us to where we are? Have you taken the time to sit down and truly go through your own unique history? In today’s episode Shanon shares some of her own backstory to delve deeper into what experiences shaped her and the importance of embracing where we’ve come from.
In this episode we talk about: Shanon reflects on her parents’ journey to a new country and starting a family (03:54) Growing up brings a new school and new challenges as the first daughter of the family (13:33) Embracing your life-gained differences but showing yourself empathy (23:40) Self-change requires time and deeper effort than you may realize but happiness is a requirement (31:38) Experiences may shape you but the rest is in your hands to break the cycle (40:05)
Episode Transcript:
     Don't feel bad. It's normal to run through this pattern multiple times. It is not until this 29th year that I finally realized what I can do to actually heal this wound. No matter what age you are or what stage you're in right now, you can heal from this. Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Fuel Fire Soul podcast with your host, Shannon Safi.
Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about the abandonment wound. I think that this can be a really big thing for some people. I know it has been something that's been big for myself personally, and I think that it shows in a lot of different things, and that's definitely something still actively I'm trying to work on healing, because it's not something that's easy to heal, especially depending on how deep it is or what has caused it, and how you're supposed to move forward.
I feel like it can feel... pretty unclear. What I wanted to do today was talk a little bit about how you can actually start to work through something like that and what that looks like in actual practice, rather than just like these vague concepts that you just are aware of. We want it to be something that you can learn, understand, and integrate into your life in terms of healing and being able to move past, again, any sort of negative experience that you've had.
that could have led to, or caused, or have been a repetitive cycle from a wound that you do have deep down. With this, when I first looked at myself in terms of like, how do I go about, you know, Starting to heal this once I realized how apparent it was and so how I knew that I had an abandonment wound was Kind of where I go when things get hard or things seem to get really stressful I tend to want to like withdraw and I feel I guess the thoughts I have in my head are like Feelings of feeling really alone like I can't relate to anyone like no one cares so that sort of comes in and Usually it's like with some sort of change so the loss of something It essentially kind of like triggers those thoughts and feelings.
And so when I say loss, it can be any number of things. Whether it's loss of the concept of a friendship or relationship I had, or the loss of, you know, what I thought my business was going to be, or the loss of some kind of position I really wanted to hold, or like, Yeah, like any number of things where we had a certain expectation of having it, and then something suddenly happens where it was out of our control and we were left alone, or we didn't receive the thing that we thought, or like I said, the reality of a relationship, it could be like a breakup or a friendship ending, but it doesn't even necessarily need to be an ending.
It could just be like mourning the loss of the concept of that person that you had. So even if the person stays in your life, If you had a different thought of what role they would play. I think it can still hit on your abandonment wound because now you're having to let go of that image of that person and the reality that you had created around that image with that person.
And so, for me, I mean, yeah, like I said, there's a lot of examples. I think, more recently, it popped up again for me with just all of the changes that happened in my life, kind of all at once, and I realized, probably, Some of it was, like, self fulfilled in ways because of this wound not being fully healed.
And then in other ways, it was other things that factored in. But I think regardless, with all of these shifts, I think I saw myself wanting to go back into that and kind of like revisiting. Why I'm experiencing this and how I can like really get out of feeling those negative thoughts that come up when that wound is like activated or triggered through events.
So with this, essentially I found this like really cute, like five step or like, I guess the fact it's, I guess it's not really cute, I guess in a sense that way, but you know what I mean? Where it's like this little acronym it's S. W. I. R. L. So S. W. I. R. L. RL. This acronym essentially goes over the five stages when you're going through almost like something that triggers your abandonment wound, whatever that thing might be.
I guess, I think for like ease of simplicity, I'm going to use this in terms of a relationship because I feel like it's probably the most prominent one that we think of when we think of the abandonment, abandonment wound. It's usually in regards to like quite literally feeling abandoned by another person.
And a lot of times that's where it can actually stem from. So when I was looking at myself like the first stage, the S starts for shattering. And so that's when you have those negative thoughts and like when something actually happens and a person leaves or a relationship changes. So in this stage, you're kind of like having those thoughts where I'll always be alone.
I'll never find love. I'll never have the job that I like. I'm never heard. No use in trying anymore. So we get into these, like, really negative thoughts. When I look at myself and I'm, like, trying to pace back or, like, pedal backwards and ask myself, where did this come from? Like, where did this really originate?
I think maybe there's a part of me that thinks, like, if we go back to our subconscious brain that was formed before the age of seven, there was probably things that unintentionally happened. with my parents that could have led to the creation of this abandonment wound. And so usually it's some kind of trauma, and I always say like with trauma, you don't always need to think of it as this like really intense thing that sounds so horrible that needs to happen to you for it to have a negative effect.
When you're really young, like when you're five years old, things are really traumatic to you that don't really seem traumatic in your adulthood. But that's why they accidentally happen, because like our parents are adults and we're like, Hey, we know that's not a big deal, but as a kid your mind spirals in the same way when you're unsure or not feeling safe or you're feeling abandoned.
And so a really simple example of that would be like, say your parents are late picking you up from school and you're there like 30 minutes after and everyone has left. And you're sitting in the principal's office waiting for your parents to come because they were late. And so. That's something that happened to me multiple times, so maybe that was part of the cause of my abandonment womb that I kind of found, where my parents were always super busy working, and my dad was kind of, like, notorious for being late, he always kind of ran behind schedule, or ran on Arab time, is what we would jokingly say now.
Where everything just happens, like, way later than you anticipate with that, and what that kind of did, so, you know, as a child, your brain pretty much processes that as like, I'm being forgotten, and no one cares about me, because what's happening, so it's like, Little me was like sitting there seeing everyone else's parents lovingly come pick them up and they're happy to go home.
Happy that the day's over and they're running into the arms of their parents. And then there's me feeling, oh my gosh, like no one remembered me. I'm by myself and I'm just sitting here, not really understanding. So, you know, it's like maybe he was running late because he was working or got caught up with a customer or something like that and.
Really, I, you know, little you just processes that as like, okay, I was forgotten. And so, especially when things like that happen multiple times, you really start to feel that abandonment wound. Or, you know, we can throw it back even further before the age of five. This sort of thing can even be established you know, I was reading a book talking about different theories around birth trauma and, you know, I guess the experience of birth is really traumatic for an infant.
If you think about what's happening, you're like. Going from this, like, nice, cozy, safe environment where you could just trust that you will always be safe and nothing's gonna happen to you. You're protected by this warmth and darkness and comfort. And then you're born, which is wild. So, like, just thinking about, like, you're popping out of this tiny little hole.
That's traumatic. So you're, like, Breathing air for the first time in your life. So you're like coughing and choking, you're covered in all sorts of bodily fluids, feces, blood, all of those things. You're now coming out and you're just like, wow, this, this is earth. And so that in itself is traumatic. And I think.
When we're babies, what can sometimes happen is, you know, I think it's like that it's always tough for a parent when you're like, okay, when my baby is crying, how often do I tend to them versus how often do I leave them alone to learn to self soothe? So I think when the ratio, that can sometimes be off balance where the parent chooses to allow the baby to learn to self soothe a little bit more maybe than the.
Baby can handle so then the baby establishes a sense of abandonment because it's like wow I'm crying and if the baby actually needs something so like sometimes babies cry just to cry Other times babies are crying as kind of like a sign like hey, I need something. I need care in some way. And if the parents aren't sure about what that is, or the parents disconnected from the baby and can't really read the signs or the instinct isn't there, then what can happen?
Or if just like the parents are super busy and they're like, I need to put this child down so I can like do work or clean the house or whatever the case is, that sometimes again, when you're like, Overly neglecting the baby, you can establish that abandonment wound, where they feel like this sense of like, no one's there to care for me, and I can't take care of myself, and I'm aware that I can't take care of myself, and I don't see anything around, so again, it just like, you know, It can create such a deep sense of abandonment that does play out in adulthood, which is really wild to think about.
And not to put pressure on people that have children or think about having children. It can be really tough, but of course, like what you do in their later years and how you communicate with the children is going to make a really big difference with. How this abandonment wound plays out, but on the flip side, I think what happened in my case, that there was probably a lot of confirmation with this abandonment wound.
So I imagine again, this is all speculation for me. I think there's a chance that maybe there was that because I know my parents were really busy working and even when we were little kids, I do remember. my Parents would leave my brother and I home alone sometimes, or like, and a lot of times my grandma would come.
There would, there would be like short brief periods where we were just like in the house and like grandma was on her way, her way over or something like that. But, you know, I do think we did spend a decent chunk of time alone as kids. And then I think it just kind of was like, I probably ran off and like...
Isolated myself in ways because being alone was so normal. Not that I necessarily wanted to be alone, but it was just how I adapted. You know, you're a little human and you're gonna try your best to survive and take care of yourself and do what you need to do, but again, you know, it can play out in so many different ways.
So it's like essentially when you're doing those things. and withdrawing, which is the second step. So actually, before I jump to the second step, I want to go back to the first step. So that S, the shattering stage, this shattering can repeat itself, right? So if you have a really deep abandonment wound, you're going to essentially look for things in your environment that confirm that, or like it can reoccur.
In your subconscious or on a subconscious level without you realizing that eventually this situation that I'm in is going to lead to some form of abandonment or again, like it manifests itself because you have that fear of it. So naturally, when we have fears that we hyper focus on, they actually come to fruition a lot of the times.
And again, that's a subconscious thing that we do. We don't consciously choose to like end up in an abandoning situation, but we sometimes we bring it upon ourselves because of that, that balance of like not internalizing it too much, which is another stage. So again, I'm getting ahead of myself, so we're going to focus back onto the shattering stage.
Other examples of this shattering stage that you can experience in your older ages versus just your childhood. So, like, a breakup can be an abandoning stage where you don't really understand why the breakup happened, or essentially, like, you saw it coming and you were trying to avoid that inevitable end, but you couldn't do it, and so then you feel alone.
Or a friendship that you thought, you know, why isn't this person responding in a positive, healthy way, and then you have a sense of abandonment when they're not showing up for you in the way that you thought that they would. So these different things, I think, are really common as adults for us to experience that can, again, just like further strengthen the wound rather than really try to heal it.
So things that you can do when you're in this stage, so when you're in the shattering stage, it's normal to have these thoughts. And so the goal is to ride the emotional wave and know that it's not going to last forever. You have to learn in this stage to be a resource for yourself and not try to outsource that nurturing that you need.
Because no one else can ride this wave for you. for you. You have to ride the wave yourself. You have to feel the emotions that you're going through and like, let yourself feel them. Don't try to like, avoid the feelings because when you avoid them, essentially all you're doing is just delaying your healing.
So if you avoid processing these emotions, it's. Exponentially 10 times more likely for you to repeat this cycle and have to go through this all over again. So what we really want to do is kind of learn how to prevent us from cycling into this abandonment problem. But when we're in it, again, that first stage of shattering when it's happening.
Feel what you're feeling, acknowledge what's happened, because knowing and learning is part of the healing process. So in that stage, again, let the emotions come out. Be the resource for yourself. In this case, seek the resources you need, but know that you're the one that needs to be there for you. So you need to show up for yourself in this stage.
The second stage, this is the withdrawal stage. So this is kind of like the yearning or craving for having back what you have lost or are missing. It's normal. So during this stage, when you start to withdraw, what's typically happening is your fight or flight hormones are. Kicking up. So they're ramping up.
So now your hormonal stage or your hormonal balance is now completely thrown out of whack because of your emotional response. And it's not to say again, going back, like you need to have that emotional response and ride that wave. And then the withdrawal naturally happens. So like, again, these are stages, like they sound really negative, but they're like inevitable.
So this comes back to like riding the wave. As you go through these stages, it's normal that we do them, and it's that, like, giving yourself grace to go through those stages and make it out to the other side. So as I go through this, as much as it might sound like yeah, I do that, like, how do I stop myself from doing that?
This is not, like, these steps are not about stopping yourself from doing that. It's like, once the shattering has happened, you need to let yourself... Go through all of these stages and not resist them. The more you resist them, you're just drawing out the length of your healing. The more you just let them happen and give yourself time to let that happen, the quicker you're going to recover.
So when you get the urge to withdraw, you need to just allow yourself to withdraw. So if you're finding yourself wanting to spend time alone, let yourself do that. Because again, naturally your brain wants to withdraw because you're feeling really alone. So then what happens is you're like, I need to be alone because that's how I feel.
So during that withdrawal period, when you're really having those like strong cravings to have that thing back, instead of chasing after that thing, even though it feels impulsive and instinctive to do that, we need to know that that person Most likely is not healthy or not emotionally available for us in the way that we needed, but it's not going to stop us from withdrawing.
Like you become like, you can still crave things that are not good for you, even though you're consciously aware that they're not good for you, your body still wants them because your hormones again, just like lined up with having that person or that thing. in your life. And so your body chemistry literally has changed with that person or thing in your life.
So it's natural to go through that withdrawal stage. You just kind of have to like work through it. So the thing to do in this stage is to ground yourself. And separate yourself from that terror or fear that you're feeling. So things like visualization exercise can really help. So it's allowing yourself to separate from that item and visualizing a reality when you are not controlled by that person or thing.
I think I'm just gonna keep saying person because it's just gonna be easiest so I don't keep saying person or thing. So yeah, just visualize that person, like what your life would be like separated from them. That can be really hard depending on how enmeshed you are with that person, but it's important to start creating a reality and visualizing a reality Without that person, because that's going to allow you to see that there's something better than what you're feeling right now.
So you really have to remind yourself to really try to keep to your routine where you're taking care of yourself. Naturally, when we withdraw, we just want to throw everything out the window and just like be home alone completely. And just like not work out, not eat healthy, not talk to anybody, but that's definitely like a more extreme level.
I think in bits, we can give that to ourselves. But you want to make sure that the things that are for your health, you don't throw out the window. So those can be staples, but other things like, you know, if you're not in the mood to hang out with friends, or go out, or take a vacation, that's totally understandable.
Those sorts of things you can temper to allow yourself to enter that withdrawal stage. But when it comes to like, you know, not going to the grocery store because you need to withdraw, it's like, okay, that you need to give yourself. That is your health. You don't want to let that go. Having a little bit of structure still through this stage is important.
So naturally let yourself withdraw in ways, but not from the things that are keeping you going and that are going to allow you to have the energy to work through this. So if you don't give yourself the energy that you need to move through these, this process, you're not going to be able to move through it.
So yeah, honor that health routine that you already have in place. Even if you don't feel motivated to do it, the more you kind of push yourself into that meditation practice or that cooking practice or that exercise practice, you're going to feel a relief from that. It's okay if you feel like you are going to tone it down, like if you go to the gym five days a week, and you're just only going to go three, that's still okay.
You can withdraw in small amounts, but don't completely eliminate really healthy patterns that you've established. So the next stage, so we have the I in squirrel. This is the internalizing stage. This one this one's tough because what happens is we start seeking things that essentially prove that we don't deserve.
The person that we thought we were gonna have or thought we were gonna get. So essentially we, it's like this, like internalizing, like shame where you're like, yeah, you know what? You're right. I deserved this. I deserve poor things. I deserve poor treatment. I deserve to be disrespected. I don't deserve to have something nice.
I'm not worthy of it. I can't have a healthy relationship. And we really start to blame ourselves for everything. So rather than just taking responsibility for the part that we did play, we start to pay, take responsibility for the entire situation. Rather than seeing it as, oh, this person wasn't able to meet me where I needed to be met, instead we see it as, like, I wasn't good enough, so I attracted this poor treatment into my life, and I deserve to keep having this poor treatment.
So we really want to be careful with this, and it's so much easier said than done, especially when you have a really deep abandonment scapegoated.
Or any kind of environment where you were blamed for a lot of things because others around you couldn't take responsibility for their actions. So especially if you have parents that had a temper or hotheaded, or, you know, if something went wrong, they automatically pointed the finger at you if you were in that spot.
Like if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then it was just like, Blame was deflected to you. I think that can cause like a really deep abandonment wound. And so naturally this internalizing stage feels so natural and it almost feels so logical to you because you're like, yeah, I'm so used to everything being my fault.
So I'm very willing to take responsibility for all of this because it usually is my fault. But what we want to do is change that pattern of thinking and saying like, No, not everything that happens is my fault. I have to give myself that grace. So what we want to do, the steps to kind of help with this internalizing stage is really to continue to hold the image of your highest self so that you can remember what you need to do that puts you in a good energy space.
So. Picture what is cleared and really be happy for that space that is now being made so that your highest self can come through. So really taking a look at it and being able to acknowledge and start to show yourself how it's not all your fault that this thing happened or that you were Like quote unquote abandoned.
Right? You weren't abandoned. That's not really what's happening. It just feels that way. So we need to remind ourselves what we are capable of doing, what we are responsible for, and what we are not responsible for that we are taking responsibility for. So it's really trying to see like, hey, and again, I, I think some people can go in two opposite ways.
So if you're someone, again, if you have an abandonment wound, you're gonna be the type that internalizes. If you do not have an abandonment wound, you might be the type that points your finger at someone else. And so, that's okay. That's like, that's a different type of wound, right? We all have different wounds, and they're going to be healed in different ways.
But again, in this stage, we really want to disconnect and say like, Okay, there are some things that are not my fault, and so I can't stay mad at myself for those things. And the things that are my responsibility, I need to give myself grace for and allow myself to work through it. All right, so now we're on to the R of swirl.
So the R stage is the rage stage. This almost sounds like it's I would love, you know, great idea. Let's do a rage. Let's do a dance, turn on some music, move through it. That's actually going to be my tip for this part of that. So going back to what is this rage stage? So this is kind of just like having it can be like heightened sense of rage.
So it can really be anger. outbursts, but it can even be just like low distress tolerance, moodiness, and sometimes even like fantasies about revenge on that person or having those thoughts of like, Oh yeah, like one day they're going to get what's coming to them. Like they hurt me. I hope someone else hurts them.
It's again, normal for those thoughts to come up. This is really like you trying to like regain strength within your ego and like stabilize your world again. So after we get done with this stage of like internalizing everything, we almost sometimes. Get the opposite where it's like, I think of this as like, when I went through a breakup, it's like, first I internalize everything and I'm like, it's all my fault.
I did this. I could have been better. I'm a terrible partner. And I tell that person, I'm so sorry that I didn't treat you better. You don't deserve me to treat you this way. Like all of this stuff almost seeing it's like, Oh my God, it was so horrible. And then. If this person is like, yeah, you're right.
Like, if there's someone again, that like, led to this abandonment or let really essentially like hurt this abandonment wound, that other person is likely to be happy to give you all the responsibility for the failure of the relationship. And they will put more and more on you. And I think we all have our tipping point where we hit that and we're like, Oh my gosh, you know what?
It's not my fault. Like, why don't they take any responsibility if I take responsibility? So then you can sometimes, like, slip into that, or I shouldn't say sometimes, like, inevitably you slip into that rage stage where you're like, You know what? Some of this is your fault. You need to take responsibility and you kind of get angry.
Like you genuinely get angry because you're frustrated that everything's being put on you and you have that awareness enough to know it's not all you. So I think naturally it just becomes anger because we don't know how to express that because that person doesn't seem to be getting it. What you need to do in this stage is to allow it to move through you instead of getting stuck inside of you.
So I'm not telling you to go yell at that person that you think has abandoned you or you feel that has abandoned you. What you want to do is really just like focus on what healthy habits. You have that help you release emotions. So if boxing is a great way for you to release anger or dancing is a great way for you to release anger or exercise any kind of like physical processing or emotional processing that you can do to get that anger out is what you need to do in this stage.
Because if you just get angry and you internalize it and you have these thoughts in your head and you let them build up, you are just going to continue to just swell with anger and that is not going to help you recover. You need to let that anger out. So it's like, think of it as like a balloon, right?
So if you just keep putting more and more air into a balloon, so if you're just releasing more and more anger into this balloon, Then eventually that balloon will get so large and so taut, one day it will explode. And when a balloon explodes, everyone around is so startled and is like, WTF just happened?
And that's normal. Again, you don't, you don't want to make your balloon explode. You want to let the air come out in a safe. Healthy way so that you physically feel better and that you don't cause more problems or re enter the cycle through your actions or reaction from that rage. So it can be dangerous if you let these emotions overtake you because then you can never let yourself exit the cycle.
So, to exit the cycle, that's the L in the swirl, so that's the lifting phase. That's the relief from the pain and the grief that you're experiencing. The only way to relieve yourself from that pain and the grief is to process that emotion, let it come through, you have to go through every stage, let that thing shower you, ride that emotional wave, withdraw to reflect, ground yourself.
Don't internalize everything. Acknowledge what's your responsibility and what was their responsibility. Let the anger come through in a healthy way and then allow yourself Finally in the lifting phase to feel relieved from that pain and grief in that lifting stage What we want to do here is really understand the lessons that you had to learn in order to integrate them.
So this integration piece is so big because what can happen is you can move through all five stages of this and end up re entering it if you do not learn how to integrate what you have gathered from the situation. The only way to really know how to integrate is to fully understand and to truly learn the lesson that this situation was trying to show you.
So in this case of like a relationship, If you're with someone and, you know, you go through this scenario where there's a breakup, you go through the breakup and you go through the different stages, you have the emotions you blame yourself and you get angry and then you're in this stage of like, okay, I'm really trying to learn.
What you have to do, especially if it's like in the realm of relationships, because I think what can a lot of times happen is this abandonment wound, if it's really deep, will show up in all of your relationships in some way. there are going to be some people that don't activate it, which is, which are going to be the people that you naturally gravitate towards.
But what also happens is we can gravitate towards people that trigger this wound and not realize that we're going for someone that fulfills this if we don't truly learn. Why we're gravitating towards certain people. So what you have to do in the case of like a relationship is kind of look at what your patterns were.
So a lot of times the downfall of one relationship that we've had is really similar to the downfall of another, even if it doesn't externally feel like it. So like for me, for example, like. I was in a relationship where I was cheated on and that led to the ending of the relationship. And then another relationship ended because the other person was blaming me for things that never happened.
And I kept trying to hold space and You know, at the end of the day, I had to back away and say, like, I kept trying, but it was really like it needed to end so that I could just realize that I was being blamed for things that I really had no control over, but because, you know, I was probably in the internalizing stage, I was like, yeah, this is my fault.
I need to fix it because this person is saying so I had to realize how they were showing up and how that wasn't giving me space to actually show up better in the relationship. So in many ways, you know, it was like, Oh, these are, you know, Two completely different scenarios, but at the same time, they were both people that were activating my abandonment wound just in different ways.
But if I didn't really sit and understand this and go through it and have all of these stages of this cycle, I wasn't going to ever really learn what it was. And if I didn't really look at myself and ask, like, okay, what are the repeating patterns in here and really try to process in a very, like, scientific way, I would have never came to that conclusion.
And unfortunately, like, I didn't realize the abandonment wound was the thing that was repeating for a very long time. This is like more of a new realization that I had. That was coming up that I was naturally like still I had to check myself and I was like, wow, I am putting people in my life that activate this wound because it's what's so normal to me because of how I, you know, because of my identity that was established way back when so that wound is so deep for me that I wasn't even seeing that It was all I've ever known, but now that I'm seeing, wow, like I was giving my energy to the people that were inevitably going to cause pain in my life because I was emotionally detached, but like not knowing I was emotionally detached because I thought that my desire to serve and desire to love and like give to that person that I'm with wasn't coming from a place of wholeness.
It was coming from a place of like, I'm unworthy, so like, let me give you everything that I possibly can so that you can see that like, I'm worth being with. And I really had to take a step back and say, like, I shouldn't have to give my arm and leg away in order to prove that I'm someone that's worth being a partner for.
I should have been more confident in myself and just known, like, hey, like, I am me and just by existing, I am worthy. So I don't need to overextend myself and overdo things to prove that worthiness. On the other side of that, like, I'm not saying that it's wrong to give to your partner, it's really important to give to your partner, and be really open, and open with your heart, open with everything, and honest, but what can be dangerous is if, again, like, start to sacrifice yourself for that relationship, and again, like, I was taught that, like, self sacrificing was very admirable, As a child.
And so I naturally would do that in my, in all of my relationships where I would sacrifice so much of myself for the other person's happiness. And now I had to kind of realize like, no, you don't need to do that. It's more about balance. Like you guys shouldn't have to sacrifice, you know, like they do say like in love, you have to make sacrifices, but the thing is, is when it's true love, they don't feel like sacrifices because the alternate reality without the thing that you were craving.
If that is still beautiful, to me, it's not truly a sacrifice. It's just a different decision than you could have made. So for example, if like, to me, I'm like, okay, like I'm living in this area and I'm with an amazing person. And they said, Hey, like I would like to move to a different place. Maybe initially I'd be like, ah, you know, I don't really want to, because I wasn't really thinking about it.
But when you envision the alternate reality. And you're like, okay, but that's like a feasible way that I could feel happy. So yes, I will. I'm open to doing that thing. But if this on the flip side, if this person is like, Hey can I have 80, 000? Because I really want to run with this dream that I have.
And I'm like, Hmm, well, the only way to do that is if I sell my car, sell my house, sell my left kidney. I guess like, yeah, I'll do that for you. No, that's probably a red flag. So. In those situations, it's more about, like, you have to process, like, what is appropriate and what's not appropriate. So, like, to some degree, sure, there are things you need to give up.
But other things, you should never have to abandon yourself. When you are abandoning yourself in a relationship, you are making that abandonment wound within yourself deeper. So, through this, it is really, truly your responsibility. So, in some ways, yes, like, we can say, like, oh, this person mistreated us, they didn't appreciate us, this person cheated on me, this person did this, like, these things, like, even though sometimes they feel super external, and it's like, yeah, that person didn't treat me well, this may be true, and that's part of the, like, internalizing stage where you're realizing, like, okay, like, Yes, this person did do those things, but then it's on the other side of like, how did I abandon myself in this situation to allow this situation to occur?
So again, I think it's a really, a really fine line and sometimes really hard. And that's why, you know, it's something where after one time of abandonment or like, you know, it's like you've been subconsciously entering partnerships and relationships where you are being abandoned. a lot of it is like, because you were abandoning yourself in some way.
So you didn't establish boundaries. You didn't make it clear what you wanted. You didn't make it clear how you felt. You just let their emotions essentially become the standard for how you get to treat yourself. So like they got to set your boundaries for you and therefore that allows room for that self abandonment.
And I think thinking of it in this way is really hard. It really takes a lot of practice to remove yourself from the situation and to be able to observe it scientifically so that you can deduce the patterns so that you don't end up repeating them. So what you really want to do is just make sure that you're not unconsciously being a magnet to more rejection and more insecurities or people that are going to play on your insecurities.
And that's going to be through allowing yourself to have the time and space to process this and to move through all of the stages. Quick review, so we have stage one, the shattering stage, which when the situation occurs, the goal, ride the emotional wave. We have stage two, withdrawal. You are yearning to have that thing back, but what you need to do is ground yourself and separate yourself with, I'm sorry, separate yourself from that terror or fear through visualization exercises of you separating yourself from that item or person.
Three is the internalizing stage where you are seeking proof as to why you don't deserve to have the thing. What you need to do is remember who you are in your highest good and continue to put yourself in the position to have energy to attract the things that you truly want. Stage four, the rage stage where it's your moody, anger outbursts, fantasies about revenge.
What you want to do here is to allow yourself to move through This stage of anger and process that anger in a healthy way and the last stage you're lifting stage When you're finally finally feeling relieved from the pain and the grief What you want to do is understand the lessons and truly integrate them into practice.
So the goal is, after you move through this, integrate the lessons that you have learned from these situations and hold yourself to those standards and establish the boundaries that you do not currently have established so that you do not Repeat the cycle over and over again. And again, don't feel bad.
It's normal to run through this pattern multiple times. Like, I am 29 right now, and I've been doing this my whole life. And it is not until this 29th year that I finally realized what I can do to actually heal this wound. Some people live a lifetime never healing this wound. And so no matter what age you are or what stage you're in right now, You can heal from this.
You just have to trust yourself and you have to take the right steps. Okay. That's the key. Taking the right steps to heal. Healing is not avoidance. Healing is taking head on every emotion and feeling that you're experiencing and learning what boundaries you need to establish. in order to protect and honor yourself.
Wow. Alright guys, I hope that you found some really good information from this. Again, I know this is so tough, so I'm here to support you in any way that I can, because moving through these stages does feel like a lot, and it can take many months to actually process all of these stages. But the more you just let it happen, the sooner you can get through it.
So just embrace it. Embrace whatever you're feeling. Embrace what you're experiencing. It is real. There is a reason. Search for where that wound started and really look to nurture yourself, love yourself, meet yourself with compassion so that you can be the best version of yourself. Alright guys, thank you so much for listening!
Love you lots! Bye!