What Self-Abandonment Really Looks Like, And How We Can Stop Doing It
When you begin your healing journey, one phrase you’ll hear often is:
“You’ve been abandoning yourself.”
I heard it so many times.
And I thought I understood it.
I knew I was still people-pleasing. Still chasing connection. Still giving in to fear.
But I told myself—“It’s okay. Now that I see my patterns and beliefs, I’ll eventually stop doing this. I’ll start loving myself.”
But nothing really changed. The cycle repeated.
Until one day, during meditation, I had a visual that finally made it click.
The Visual: Two Selves, One Thread
Imagine you live in a house with two core versions of yourself—connected by an unbreakable, stretchy thread. The more you try to move one version away from the other, the more tension you create. But no matter how far one part goes, the other is always pulled along.
One version is confident. It holds your strengths, achievements, and the traits you’re proud to show the world.
The other version is scared. We can call it our shadow, our inner child, or simply our fear. It carries all the beliefs you try to hide: “I’m not enough,” “I’ll be rejected,” “They’ll leave me.”
This scared version craves love and validation. It pushes the confident part to go out and connect. So that’s what it does—it walks out into the world, makes friends, wins approval.
But because the two are tied by this invisible thread, the scared part always follows—whether you want it to or not.
At first, no one sees it. But then it starts to show. The fear, the insecurity, the neediness. People start to feel the shift. And they slowly pull away.
The confident part tries harder to hold on. It stretches the thread. But eventually, the pull becomes too strong—and everything snaps back.
You feel rejected, confused. The confident version gets frustrated. The scared version feels ashamed. And both end up hurt.
This is self-abandonment. It happens when you try to leave behind the messy, insecure, or afraid parts of yourself you believe others won’t accept.
Reconnecting: How to Stop the Cycle
You stop running away.
The next time you're about to reach for connection or try to be “the best version of you”—pause.
Let the confident part lead, sure. But when the fear starts to rise, don’t shut it down. Don’t push through the discomfort just to keep the peace.
Instead, come back inside.
Sit with the part that’s scared. Acknowledge its presence.
Say: “You’re safe. I’m here. I see you.”
This might mean taking a deep breath, placing a hand on your heart, or simply pausing the interaction for a moment to check in.
Because that thread? It’s never going away. That scared part is yours. It’s been with you through everything. And it deserves your love more than anyone else.
That visual showed me something undeniable: I’d spent so long trying to stretch away from the parts of me I didn’t want seen. And I still do, sometimes.
But now, when I feel that scared version catching up, I don’t keep running away.
I stop.
I sit with it.
Because I finally get it—the fear isn’t the problem. Trying to abandon it is.
It’s the part that needs the most love.
I’m still learning how to walk with it.
But at least now, I don’t leave the house pretending it doesn’t exist.
If you’re ready to stop leaving parts of yourself behind and want support in walking forward together with every part of you, let’s talk.
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