8 Signs You Are Breaking Free from Self-Abandonment
Self-abandonment becomes a way for us to “survive”. Often messages throughout our childhood have led to many of the behaviors we engage in today, however we’re often unaware of these patterns because it’s been all we know. We pour our energy into other people, trust the outside world and others’ opinions more than our own inner voice, stay silent to keep the peace, and push ourselves harder and harder to feel like we’re enough. It’s exhausting, unfulfilling, and leaves us feeling empty in our lives.
Awareness of our patterns is the first step. Only once we’re aware of them, then we can change them. Then comes a compassionate process of understanding ourselves and rewiring the patterns we’ve integrated into our lives.
As we’ve navigated the journey in our lives, it can be difficult to see the progress when we’re in the thick of it, so here are 8 signs you are breaking free from self-abandonment:
You’ve become clear on your values and vision. You know what is meaningful in your life and you are aligning your thoughts and behaviors around them. Maybe one of your values is peace. You’ve reflected on the choices you made in the past. Maybe you used to overextend yourself, be around people who drained you, or took on the emotional burden from others. You can now see these patterns and instead of perpetuating them, you make new decisions that align with your value of peace. You now value protecting your peace.
You tune into your body. You have become less reactive and less neglectful of your body. Now, when you feel stressed or triggered, you tune into your body and how you are feeling. You take moments out of the day to take deep calming breaths and view your body as a source of information rather than “your enemy”.
You ask yourself different questions. When you abandon yourself, often your questions will be “why does this always happen to me?, why can’t I say no to this person? What’s wrong with me? Why does my body hate me?” Answers to these questions will only perpetuate the cycle of negativity you feel. A sign of breaking free is when you start asking yourself: “What is the lesson in this challenge? What do I need at this moment? Does this opportunity align with my values?”
You care less about others’ opinions of you. You become anchored in your truth and realize only you know what is best for you and in alignment with your values. You realize the opinions of others is more of a reflection of them rather than a truth about you.
You validate yourself. You recognize what you are feeling and validate your experience. You make yourself feel seen and heard. You may start saying to yourself “I know this is challenging, but I’ve got you and I love you.” All the things you may have desperately wanted to hear from someone else now become a gift you give to yourself.
You trust yourself. You’ve become more consistent with showing up for yourself. When you said you were going to go for that 5 minute walk between meetings, you did it. When you didn’t want to go to a social event that felt more like an obligation, you didn’t because it mattered more to honor your peace than to avoid a potential guilt trip from someone else. Your word means something to you and you build up incredible integrity with yourself.
You make choices that feel aligned and freeing. You operate less off of guilt and more out of love for yourself. You make decisions that leave you feeling lighter, expanded, and more joyful. You say yes when it feels right and no when it feels constricting and pressured. This does not mean that you avoid discomfort. Discomfort is essential for growth, but even with discomfort, an aligned decision will have a lighter feel.
You experience grief. When you are breaking free from self-abandonment, the relationships and situations that benefited from your self-sacrifice will still want that version of you. You may notice your external world may feel like it is unraveling especially as you are taking your power back and realize your worth. This comes with an immense amount of grief because you will feel loss all around you, but the difference is that you are no longer losing yourself. Dynamics of the past only existed when you were willing to pay the price of self-abandonment.
If you are noticing any of these shifts in your life, take a pause right now. Recognize yourself and celebrate yourself. Breaking free from patterns of self-abandonment takes work, self-compassion, and support, but it’s worth it. Self-abandonment keeps you stuck in a pattern of looking outside yourself to feel whole and enough, however it will never be found there. It’s within you.
If you’d like guidance and support navigating self-abandonment, join Infinite Self Circle.