Bandament can cause real big issues for the rest of your life, unless you can get a handle on the fact that it's up to you to work through it. But first you have to understand why it's there, what you need to do about it, and how you can embrace being your own validation 'cause you deserve it. (upbeat music) Hey, hey, hey everybody, and welcome back to The Positivity Experience. It's your girl, Lori, and I am so excited that you are here. It is spooky season, it is spooky week. Yay, me. This is my favorite time, you know. These are the three months that I look so forward to, and you guys know this, and I live 10 months waiting for these months, so I'm excited. I hope that you guys are enjoying the month of October no matter where you are. Sometimes it's warmer, sometimes it's colder, so I'm just excited that you're here. And I am so excited to talk to you about this topic. I have talked to you about this before. I've done a lot of research with some professors and various people in the, not just the mental health field, but that analyzed brains, right? The brain development, what that looks like, and how the trauma is affected by it. So a lot of what I'm talking to you about today is science-based, and it's so important to realize that the abandonment while an emotional response isn't just an emotional response. There's actually a, like science back to reason as to what happens and how it affects your amygdala and basically how you can start to rewire that. I am going to have a worksheet over on Patreon. This will help you. So the Patreon, we're gonna go through a worksheet, give you a good place to start, good questions to ask yourself, and if that is something that you're interested in, by all means, hop over to patreon at patreon.com/thepositivityexperience, and I think that that would be helpful if you're not sure where to be in. So I really wanna talk to you about abandonment, but before I go into all of this science and kind of all of that, I do wanna talk to you about my experience a little bit. And you know, a lot of you know, the history with the sexual abuse that I endured early on as a child and my mom being ill for most of my life until she was, I was almost 14 when she passed away. So there was a lot, you know, my brother and sister were on drugs and everything was happening. And I felt abandoned. I didn't know, let me rephrase that. I didn't know I felt abandoned. 'Cause I mean, it's not like it, eight, you're like, well, here I go, I'm feeling abandoned, you know, you're looking at the knowledge you have now, but when you're younger, you don't know, you don't even know what you're feeling. You don't even know what you're processing to feel. You just know that, oh my gosh, like, I mean, there's no Instagram, right, growing up, there's no Instagram, there's no TikTok, there's none of that, no podcasts. So you're kind of left with these ideas that, you know, relationships are a certain thing and it's supposed to be a certain way. And why is it not this way and what is wrong with me? And that's how we start getting to the place of blaming ourselves. We really do blame ourselves, or at least I should say I blame to myself. But didn't know I was doing that either. And I think that's the chaos that comes into your mind. Now you look at it and go abandonment issues. At eight, you don't know what it, you'll know your people pleaser. And so you're stuck with this mental prison to not know what to do and where to go. So let's talk a little bit about that, like, what is it? Okay, common sense, you're like, oh, I know what abandonment it is, but it's an emotional and physical withdrawal of love, care or presence. Okay, now it can be all of those things. Love and care or presence. So think of feeling abandoned when a parent really had to work a lot. Okay, now this isn't necessarily the parents fault. It's not an intentional thing. This is a parents job that is maintaining the household. They're doing the best they can with what they have. That doesn't mean that you don't feel how you feel because they're not present. They're not present for being at home or your games, stuff like that. And even though it's not blatant abandonment, it can become problematic. Because now you're looking for validation if you're doing something or if you're experiencing something fun and you want to share with this person and then you automatically assumed they're not gonna be here. So it isn't just basic what we know is abandonment as personal abandonment. That's not what it is. Now, it doesn't even have to just occur in childhood. Nope, this can parent rejection, we know that. A passing, a passing I felt abandoned when my mom passed away. Yep, I did. I had no idea what I was experiencing. I had no idea that I had all of these emotional traumas. I did not know, but I know at that moment I felt like the moment she was off this planet that my life went to hell because it was not stable. After that, that's when dad sold a house and he was with a girl who had drug problems and we ended up living in a van. I mean, like all of these things that are out of your control. So a lot of times when we look and we say, man, this person leaving has now ruined my whole life. Now, of course, that sounds dramatic, but that's how you feel. That's how I felt, I should say. And I think that that's where you have to come in and you have to remember that it really feels like being left alone without the necessary emotional support. And this triggers this feeling of unworthiness or just being unlovable. But again, I'm talking about more or less in your childhood. You don't realize this. So your body is holding all of this and you just want attention, you just want affection. Which, going forward, as you grow up and as you do those things, this is where you're looking for relationships in some of the wrong places. You're looking past red flags because you're like, this person's giving me attention. This is where you'll see a lot of narcissists will glom on to someone that they know have abandonment issues because they can breadcrumb and they can give them just enough to feel valid. But then at the same token, reiterate the need of feeling abandoned. Like, it's kind of a real screwed up thing that happens. But it happens in multiple reasons. Like I said, you know, you have your unmet needs, you're neglect, you're unpredictable caregivers. That's another thing. I had an alcoholic dad. I know a lot of you have had alcoholic parents or people like I said who were kind of in and out or you had a gauge, like at least with my dad. I, and even that wasn't real consistent. But I knew there was a certain point to where I could ask my dad for money or something nice, like something. But it was a small window. It was like that buzzed window. But then it wouldn't always work that way. So then you're dealing with inconsistency. And I say that because that's how you end up walking on eggshells. Now there's adult relationships that become abandoned, feelings of abandonment too, divorce, breakups, ghosting, okay, or emotional distancing. All of those things can lead to abandonment. Now I gotta tell you, I have a little different view on ghosting. I'm not asking people to go ghost people. But when you start taking that on as personal, like you're being abandoned, just remember that that person is demonstrating that they do not have the mental capacity or the emotional intelligence to sit down and have a conversation with you. Absolutely. You wanna be very careful of that. You also have your generational traumas. And that's some abandonment patterns that run through families. This is that ancestral traumas that we talk about or you're like, "Damn, my grandmother did this. "My great grandmother did this." And you're like, "I just wanna break the cycle." But then you're like, "What the hell? "I have no idea how to do that." And then of course you have your societal influences. You know, if you feel as though you have unmet societal expectations or rejection from peers by hearing the word no, this can lead to feelings of abandonment. So how does this affect the brain and the nervous system? Okay, so this is what I had to start learning. When I was in, I call it crazy school, I know it's probably not the right thing to say, but I called it crazy school when I was in my 20s or early 30s, when I was an outpatient, right? I never went impatient, but I was doing some outpatient work. And I was doing it about three to four times a week and really started working with some psychiatrists and psychologists, and this is kind of what led me down this experimental educational path that I've been on, which is probably the best education I've ever had in my life was going through it, experiencing it on the level, not a PhD. I'm okay with that. You know, I have so much knowledge based on the studies that I've done from human behavior and working with top-notch psychiatrist psychologists who have told me that this is a profession I need to go in based on my experience as well. And so I think that was extremely helpful for me. Now the brain's response is you have you're amygdala. We know all about the amygdala. So one of the best things that I ever studied was learning parts of the brain and the brain is such a fascinating place. It's so smart, but yet not, right? It's smart, that's how we're talking, that's how we breathe, that's how we, it's intelligent. But it also only believes what you tell it, right? So it's this real screwed up thing where it's like, "Oh my gosh, it's so smart-ish." And it just can become problematic. And I think in that space is where you really wanna say, "Wow, okay, so this isn't just me feeling." Now attachment is a thing and we will talk about it, but it isn't just that, it's also science, right? When you feel abandoned, okay, when you're in a space, your brain perceives it as a threat. You're being chased by tigers. And it activates that flight, fight, freeze, and I'm gonna throw fawn in there, response. Because abandonment seems like, oh my God, you're in trouble, you're in danger. So now you're in fight and flight. So your amygdala has no idea that you've been abandoned, but it knows that maybe there's some danger there. There's also a dopamine dysregulation. Now this is also what I've learned about any of my binge eating. You guys know I've been a binge eater of my life. I've definitely have worked with it. You don't necessarily get over it. I work with it, so I'm much more aware of it. But in the evenings, when I tend to binge more or call it grazing, right, when I graze multiple times, there is a dopamine decrease, right? During the day, I'm busy, I'm talking to clients, I'm talking to you, we're doing this. The sun is out, all of these things. In the evening, once that simmers down, your dopamine can get like, oh my God, I need to hit a dopamine. So it's the absence of love or connection. That can disrupt that dopamine. It causes emotional highs, emotional lows, and it makes you feel addicted to attention. This is important, or validation. You become addicted, addicted to looking for the validation. You become addicted to these things. And in that addiction, we start that cycle and we get the validation, we get the attention, good, bad or indifferent, and it is a dopamine hit. So I mean, you're getting it. It doesn't matter, you don't have to analyze it. There's also an oxytocin, if you've ever had children, sometimes they'll do an oxytocin drip, for some reason I can never say that damn word. And the lack of physical or emotional affection, it actually lowers those oxytocin levels, and it makes you feel disconnected or isolated. So this is chemical now, okay? Action, cause, or cause and effect, right? So the situation that you've never asked for now creates a physical situation. So I don't want you to just think, oh, this is just me. No, this is also created. There's a book. I gotta, I cannot remember the author's name, but it's called The Body Keeps the Score. I highly recommend listening to it, reading it. And it just kind of gives you a little bit more insight on how your body and your brain reacts to circumstances. It's just, it's just amazing. Like the human anatomy, human brain energy is so freaking amazing. Now it doesn't always mean it's great, but these things are all connected. Now what is your impact on the nervous system? This is where I lived for quite some time, and I'm pretty sure some of you have been there too. Hypervigilance, okay? Hypervigilance is a thing. It's where you're constantly fearing further abandonment. So this is leading to overanalyzing people's behaviors and any relationship. So now you're looking at it, and you're like, hmm, I don't know, this seems familiar. I mean, not saying that you're not, but it's the hypervigilance that creates a problem. It creates the red flags. Now, of course, that goes into your attachment style, which you guys know I have an attachment series on. I kind of specialize in attachment. You know, just kind of leaded, leaded. It leaded that way. Clearly it wasn't English. It has led that way and in that direction for me, just because it's something that I had to work through to get to the secure attachment, which seems like, oh my God, everybody get to secure. Yes, but that means that you have to face a lot of these challenges and be willing to exercise the situations that you need to take care of. And it, you know, again, it's that thing where it's unfair, but life's largely not fair, that you're like, okay, I didn't ask for this situation. I didn't know. Like these people brought me in here. I'm using childhood traumas as far as I goes. And now you're like, great. So now I have gone through relationships and situations where I have struggled so much. It's due to how I was raised and now it's my job to fix it. And if you don't accept that, I didn't say it's cool. I didn't say it's fun. I didn't say you don't like it. If you can't accept that, then it's going to be a problem because then that leads you into victim mindset. And in that victim mindset, it becomes more problematic for you. So again, it's kind of that thing where you're like, I didn't ask for this at all, but now it's my responsibility. But you're here now. I mean, that's how it is. It doesn't have to be fair, but I also want you to think of the power that you gain. Again, I know you didn't ask for it, it sucks. Think of the power that you have to validate yourself. What? I'd say I don't think you know how to do it yet, but to validate yourself, it's priceless. Priceless. And you have to remember your nervous system. It will also create chronic stress within your body. Prolonged abandonment. Think about the lot of the people that you see, and I'll talk to you about a little story where my son works. It can trigger cortisol release, which we know cortisol release is the stress, drug, or stress, stress thing that goes through your body and also holds weight on through your middle section. Again, it's not a bad thing. Your body thinks that it is protecting itself, regardless of it is helpful or not. But what this does do is it can lead to long-term mental illness, mental health issues, right? Anxiety, depression, and PTSD. So really think about that. Prolonged abandonment trauma. So we know you had that. So in order to work through that, that means that you have to be enough and you have to undo the idea that the caretakers were supposed, well, they were, but the caretakers were supposed to come in and teach you these things, and of course they were. But you also have to remember if a person is unhealed, they can only give you the tools in which they have. So it's really important because it can lead to PTSD, certain situations, certain smells, certain tastes. So it can be problematic. Now, what is the emotional impact? There is an emotional impact of abandonment. And this, physical we know, but you know, it's also like which one is worse. I don't think it has to be this one's worse, this one's better. I think there's a this and that. But I think it depends on how you are reacting with it in your body and how you're reacting with it in your emotions. Because low self-worth is an absolute big one here. It's internalizing the idea that you were unworthy of love or care, because why wouldn't it determine that? You don't know what it is you're seeking, but you realize you might see it, you might not feel it and you're like, well, I guess it's me, right? And you know, you can try to make sense of it and be like, well, it's not you, sure, it isn't you. But that doesn't mean that you're gonna believe it. Now, this goes into the podcast that we just talked about, The Fear of Rejection. There's a hypersensitivity to any signs of disinterest or separation. So if someone says to you, hey, okay, you're talking to somebody, you're like, and it didn't have to be a relationship like an intimate one. Hey, you know what? Me and some girls are getting together. I'm so excited. Like, do you wanna come? And somebody says, no, no, thank you. There is a part of you if you were in this abandonment cycle still that you're gonna feel very personal. It's gonna feel very personal. Now you're gonna start with, oh my God, are they mad at me? Wait, wait, wait, why are they not coming? I thought we were good. Wait, are we good? So now you're hypersensitive to it because everything is personalized. So now you're taking on the personalization bias. But again, we know why. So it's never to beat yourself up. It's never to do anything like that, ever. What it is, however, is a roadmap to let you know, hey, this is what's going on. It also leads to self-sabotaging behaviors. I did this and I know a lot of you do this and a lot of my clients do this. You push people away before they can leave you. Yep, yep, you're like, oh my gosh, I really like this person. Oh, it's going kind of good. Oh, no, no, and you know there's a way of doing that. It can be very subtle to say you're talking to somebody and you're kind of feeling the vibe and you're there a couple of dates and you're like, I'm just really bad at relationships. I just can't really keep a relationship. So now you're putting this doubt. You're putting this protection in. So if and when the relationship doesn't work, you're like, see, I told you, it's like a confirmation bias. So that self-sabotage is I'm going to protect myself by pushing everybody away. This also goes into hyper-independence a little bit where you don't want to ask anybody for anything. No, I'm not asking for anything. Now, there's a little bit of truth to sometimes people want to hold things that they do for you over your head, sure, sure, absolutely. And in that place, you have to say, what is it that I'm grabbing onto? What is it? Why am I taking the crumbs off the table? Because this person is giving me just a little bit of attention and that's what's going to keep you in a bad relationship or an unfulfilled relationship because in your mind, it's about the best you're going to get. And again, this is where a narcissist would come in and find that crack in the foundation and walk right into it. That's just where it is. Now, there's clinginess and over-attachment, which of course, that's becoming overly dependent on a relationship for validation. A lot of times you'd see this, and some of it wasn't just abandonment, but in a younger relationship, even though some people do it now, they get in a relationship and it's like nobody else exists. It's like they've checked out and they need to do everything that the partner wants them to do or the new person wants them to do. So this is the clinginess because you, again, you're addicted to this little bit of adopamine boost of like, oh my God, they see me. Oh my God, they like me. Oh my God, I have value. So again, if you know it, then you can see it. If you see it, then you can address it, but you gotta be willing to see it too. 'Cause sometimes we look and we don't even realize that that's what it is that we're dealing with. Now, how can you work on it and heal on it? Like I said, we'll go deeper in this on the Patreon, but I do wanna give you some really good insight here. You gotta show up for yourself. There's so many podcasts in the world out there and definitely on my podcast. I know that there's so much on self-love, on attachments, on rejection. And again, none of us, no podcasts that you listen to, is going to give you different information. We're just going to deliver it to you differently because there's only so many ways that you can love yourself. There's only so many ways that you can show up for yourself. So this aha moment that you're looking for, maybe how it's delivered, but no one's reinventing the wheel here because this has been effective and known to be effective before any of us were even on this planet. So we just package it different. So don't think that somebody has more knowledge because there is only, whether you put initials after it or not, there's only so many ways in which you can address different situations. So it's consistent self-care. Building rituals, so I got my morning ritual, my evening rituals, my journals. It creates a sense of security within yourself. So if you're journaling, you're exercising, or you're doing hobbies, it is a sense of security. You kind of know what it is, you're giving yourself that. That's bigger than you think it is. That's not just like doing what basic people do, it isn't. Then there's re-parenting practices. Comforting your inner child. Now you guys know I do this a lot. How I did it with me and how I like to do it with my clients is not for everybody in the beginning because you're going to have to go back to some of these things and relive them over and over again. Remember the sounds, the taste, the smells, the sights. So for me, when I went back and let's say I went back to the sexual abuse or even my passing, is going back there and feeling the space of helplessness. Okay, so this is why I said it's not necessarily gonna be for everybody day one. Go there and submerge yourself when you were insecure, when you felt scared, when you felt unsafe. Be there, but go back there, feel that feeling, but know that you're you now and you're standing there and that person is safe. It's a practice 'cause you gotta be willing to feel the anxiety. It is so effective. This is where exposure therapy comes in, ERP. It is spectacular, but you gotta be prepared for it. So it isn't gonna be for everybody in the beginning, but when you are re-parenting yourself, it's so amazing because you're showing up for yourself. You're giving yourself that love that you needed, but you didn't receive. And that's gonna be hard for you at first. Like, you don't know how to do it. That's why you gotta start with small things. Boundaries, oh god, that's all I do is talk about. Boundaries, learning to say no, and that's it. If you're saying yes to everything, you are not saying yes to you. Listen, you're gonna have to be okay with people not liking it. You would rather distance or have people distance from you. You would much rather this, have people distance from you that aren't gonna serve your best and highest good, even if that means you gotta feel it like a little chink in the armor there. You also have to confirm, well that too. You also have to celebrate your small wins. You have to celebrate your small wins, affirming your progress. No matter how small it is, I don't care. I don't care if you brush your teeth today and you haven't done it in three days. That's a win. You gotta celebrate it. Stop seeking this, oh, this like big steps. And that's just not gonna, that's not gonna be it. Mindfulness and self-compassion. Now this was a game changer for me too. A lot of the things that I talked to you about, I've experienced, still experienced, and know the effectiveness to it. And it is always based in science and some of it is based in experience based on science. And that's why I like what I do 'cause it's mostly based in experience and then the science behind that experience. And I think that depends on what it is that you're seeking. If you just want a clinical knowledge, which, I mean, I have that, but if you just want a clinical knowledge and something that's more traditional, that's okay too. You have to ask yourself what works for you. I've had both and I prefer personally. I prefer a situation where somebody has been there. Somebody has done that, they see it, but still have the education to help me through it. And for me, that works and that's more who I'm for. Not so much a doctor's perspective, even though I definitely have doctor friends that I work with. And I think it's important because you gotta be mindful and you gotta be honest with it, you gotta be present. This is where the Buddhist practice, I kind of do a little bit of a few things, came into play, being present. Notice in labeling your abandonment triggers without judgment, like, oh, this is triggering it. This person, I dated this person, I liked it, they didn't call me for two days, it's triggered my abandonment. Now you're projecting, going back to psychological projections, now you're projecting it. Practicing radical acceptance, my God, please go listen to, get off here when you're done, go listen to the Radical Acceptance podcast, print out, if you're on Patreon, print out the worksheet, you probably already done it, go back and visit it. Whether you like it or not, it's gonna be what it is. It's a bitter pill to swallow. Because that means you gotta really put your ego in check, you gotta lay that ego sword down and it is hard because you feel protective and you feel scared. And that's okay, but you gotta do it anyway. You gotta be like, like, you can do it anyway. Then there's that self-talk reframe. You know how I am about reframing thoughts. So instead of critical words, you say things like, I am safe, I am enough, I am safe, and I am enough, and that's why I put them on there, is they are probably two of my biggest one, but I am safe is probably my biggest one. And I'll do a lot of ERP, or ERP, tapping, EFT, is what I was talking about, EFT tapping, where I had to tap that in multiple times, I am safe. I am safe. And in the beginning, you're not gonna necessarily believe that. And I think that's another thing for you to be very, very on point with that. Like you just gonna have to be. And if you're not, then you're not showing up for yourself and you're still waiting for somebody else. And you know, that's the other thing. The amount of power that you have by accepting that you have this power, in the beginning, it's gonna feel isolating, okay? It is, it's gonna feel like, well, damn it. Why did I do this on myself? Why? Because you're the person who has to show up for yourself. And again, you didn't ask to be there, but you're here now. And you do have the power. Now, you also wanna practice meaningful connections, and this is quality of quantity. You don't need 800,000 friends, because if you have them, that means that you're saying, yes, way too much. You wanna focus on deep, meaningful relationships, instead of many shallow ones, and you're not gonna be able to do that, till you can go back to the core values podcast. Listen to the core values. What resonates with you? What is an alignment with you? And then what are you going to do to feel comfortable in that and not chase and attract those people instead? Or those situations, and it's not gonna be overnight? 'Cause then this next word, I know how much you just love so much, and that's allowing vulnerability. Yeah, I know. It's giving people the opportunity to show up for you without expectation. And you don't have to repay them back, but that means you have to be vulnerable. You have to be able to say, all right, God, okay, I'm a trusted person. And you know, trust and faith are the same things with different labels, right? You can have faith, and you'll see that a lot in more of like a spiritual practice, faith and trust, but it's essentially the same exact thing. It really is, right? 'Cause you're asking to trust or have faith in something that you don't know if it's gonna be work or whatever. You just have no idea. So I think that's important. Finding a community, but this doesn't mean go out and seek people. Now there are like match for friends. There's a few of them. There's one too, and I don't know if it's just local, but like getsomecoffee.com or a cup of coffee, something like that where like you can get together with friends, you can reach out to people. And it is good, but you gotta be willing to again, be vulnerable. And don't go into it from like a victim perspective looking for a group where like everybody is abandoned. 'Cause now each of you are feeding each other, but if you starting a new hobby, then get into a group of that. That's a really good thing. Learning to regulate your nervous system. This is a little bit more difficult for people who struggle with chronic anxiety. I've had chronic anxiety all my life, and I've learned to just let it come, not fight it. Don't fight the intrusive thoughts. Don't fight the feelings of like, "Oh my God, what is happening to my body?" And again, it's still a daily practice for me. It really is. It's just I have the tools of implementing it. That doesn't mean it's easy. You just do it. And breath work. You have no idea the power of breath work. It is amazing. And that's why you'll see it a lot in various treatments, especially alternative treatments. Calming your fight or flight response, slowing your breathing, grounding your techniques, putting your feet in the ground, hugging a tree. Body movement, yoga. Yoga is definitely known to be effective. Walking, you can do walking. And it releases this stress and it resets your nervous system. And you put, you gotta be consistent. And you don't go into it with an expectation. Like yoga is going to make me feel balanced. Yoga is going to balance me. It will down the road, but you're gonna have to be willing, listen, when you first start yoga. You know, first you're like, "Okay, I can hold these positions." Yeah, you're gonna get sore. But it's this thing called, you know, flow. So there's usually like three different flows, depending on if, what kind of, if you're doing like vinyasa or whatever type of yoga. And there's these like, okay, so there's systems, right? Okay, go down here, breathe, do this. And it becomes ritualistic, like three times. And it is so much harder than you think it is. Like, so much harder. And so you're in your brain. You're like, "Oh my God, this hurts. "My arm hurts, why is this so this way? "I can't hold this position. "Oh my gosh, it's hot." Like your brain is gonna go through that in the beginning. And you have to be kind enough to yourself to embrace that. You're not gonna hit this out the park. It isn't gonna happen day one. And of course journaling, it's effective. That's why I have the five journals. Like there is a reason that the five journals are effective. Now for me, why did I come up with five? Is I have really bad ADHD, anxieties, OCDs. And to dump everything in one place is only taking the chaos from one place and putting it into another. So the five journals have been very helpful for me because I'm able to kind of like individualize it. And then of course, you know, therapy, coaching, doing stuff, you know, I know a lot of you work with me. Usually there's a team. So it isn't always just like, oh, you know, one thing or one medicine or one session. Like it's just, there's usually a multitude of things. So it's like I call it a healing team. And why is showing up for yourself so essential? What teaches you self-reliance? And that's going to be hard at first. And this is why I said every choice you make always works out 100% of the time. Just doesn't always work out the way you want it to work out. It may work out in a way that you're like, oh my God, that's a lesson. Why did I do that? But it's okay, it still works out. And it gives you a sense of comfort, but you got to consistently show up for yourself. You're reinforcing the beliefs that you can actually rely on yourself, regardless of what the external circumstances is, 'cause the reason we glom on to people is we think that we can't do it. That's not true statement. The hell, these people don't even know who they are at the time. Don't go leaning on them. It also prevents codependency, right? Yes, we as humans need community. We need interaction, but not at the sake of being codependent on that. By giving yourself that love and validation that you need, you're reducing the tendency to seek it exclusively from others, you really are. This doesn't, now this goes into that hyper independent, right? It's a healthy way of being where hyper independence is more like, I don't need anybody. No, no, no, no, we're not doing that, right? There's that thin line. And sometimes when you hear it, you go all or nothing, black and white, no gray, and there is a gray, there's this and this. And I think it's just really important because when you're in that, you can show up for yourself, but then you can allow people to come in and you're not gonna be their day one. Just know this. You're not gonna listen to this podcast or listen to 56 books and see 67 thought leaders and go through 93 different therapy sessions and just be there overnight, it's just not gonna happen. So it also empowers your growth and healing, this whole journey, it's a journey. And I know it sounds so cliche. Hey, it's not a span, it's a marathon. It's a lifelong process because it is, you're gonna hear it all the time, you know, Wayne Gretzky said it, and he was at the hockey team where I live, you know, you miss 100% of the shots you never take, it's the same way as showing up for yourself, right, you can't sit there and fear and never take a shot, you're always gonna have a hard time with that. And showing up for yourself, right, it takes the responsibility for your emotional wellbeing. This is a great thing, it's fostering growth instead of, you know, waiting for others to fix things. Think about that, it's fostering growth in that. And when you're seeing that growth and you're watching it and you're experiencing it, you're basically saying, I am responsible for my wellbeing, which is really good. So if mom doesn't call you on your birthday, you're not giving her that wellbeing, you're saying, okay, this is my birthday, I'm lucky to be around the sun again. I know it's my birthday. It's just, these are the important things that will come up and it actually builds trust in yourself. I don't know if you've ever said this, but I know a lot of my clients have said this, I don't know if I can trust myself. Okay, so if you've ever said this to yourself, then this is for you, right? I don't know if I can trust myself. But each time you follow through, so this is where self-discipline must be forefront. Went to the gym this morning, I had no desire to go to the gym this morning, I could have laid on about another hour and it would have been okay. And I did not, because I had to show up for myself, did I want to? No, I did not. Did I know that I deserved it? I absolutely did. So I had to jump on board of myself discipline. Okay, and every time you follow through on your promises to yourself, you rebuild the inner trust that was damaged by these experiences. You know, healing from abandonment, by the way, it is possible. It isn't ever about preventing people from leaving you because people are never and can never, ever, ever, guarantee you that they're not gonna be out of your life. You can't do that, yet people are not possessions. You don't possess them, you don't own them. So it's not ever about believing people are gonna leave, that's codependency and attachment, to remain whole because you don't need that. It's by showing up for yourself consistently, you are cultivating the resilience, the emotional security and self-love. You're doing that for yourself. So you become your own mother, you become your own anchor, allowing you to engage in relationships from a place of confidence rather than fear. It's possible, I promise you, it's taken me, it took me a long time to get here. A long time, I was that people pleaser, I was that victim mentality, I was a severely disorganized, attached person. I was, I was an outpatient for goodness sakes. I didn't know up from down, I was in a space that was so dark and that's why I'm good at my job, right there. Sure, learned this about the brain. Sure, learned this about the amygdala. Sure, I know these things. Sure, you can study them in a book, have you experienced them? It does matter, it does matter because you understand which ones work, just because you have, say, bipolar and clinically you read da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, you know, some of those things are gonna work. I mean, that's why they're in an educational book and you get a degree in it, right? That does not mean that that person knows how to deliver it to understand it. And I think that's where you have to ask yourself, what are you looking for? Do you want familiarity? What is it that you want as far as practicing clinician or someone who has been there or a combination of the both? But there's a space where you are enough for you and sometimes you just need a little bit of guidance there. That's all, you're not that lost. I know it feels like you are that lost. I understand, you feel empty, you feel like you're in the bottom of a well and there's no ladder to come out of it? Absolutely, yep, it's a real ass feeling. But if you stay there and you're looking for the other person or these people to guarantee you, no human can guarantee you that they're not gonna go. But just because they go doesn't mean that you're unlovable. It means that people all grow people. Doesn't mean they're better or worse. People do outgrow certain situations. And I think that's the important factor for you. Is allowing yourself to appreciate that because they're not the only ones. There's no way that you like everybody or feel in alignment with everybody you meet. You don't. There's certain situations, jobs, people's, friends, people, friends that you just grow distance from. That doesn't mean you're better. Just means that you're distant from them and maybe that's okay. It is okay. So you have to be careful of feeling as though you're abandoning people too because if you're always worrying about their emotional state based on you moving it forward, then you're not moving forward. So that's a good highlighter for you to say, what is it that I'm, am I addicted to the feelings of being needed? And it's a very important question. But you are capable. My God, you're capable. And you're deserving. Like you're worthy. You are deserving of this kind of stuff. You owe it to yourself to be that person even though they never taught it to you. In many ways, if you can look at it from a different mindset shift, the experience that you went through is gonna create even more love that you can give yourself. Sometimes remember every storm runs out of rain, right? You can't have a rainbow without rain. You just can't. So sometimes you have to go through these deep dark times in spaces and then you're gonna come out on the other side, you know? Throw me to the wolves. I come back later with a pack. There's like all of these metaphors that you can use, but you're capable. And I promise you that when you start that, those abandonment issues get less and less. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
