Let’s just say I’m a lifelong student of this one. While I’m truly grateful for a blessed life, I’ve had a lot of abandonment pain. Given away by my mother at birth for adoption, my true family records were lost by the agency and I’ll never know my original family. A social extrovert, I was devastated when our pastor asked my family to leave the church permanently because I literally wasn’t good enough. To my childhood understanding, I wasn’t good enough for God!  Thankfully that healed before I began burying most of my close adopted family and friends in my 20s. By the time I was asked for a divorce in my 40s, it felt like the end to me. I’ve had many blessings along the way and it wasn’t all this tragic, but I wanted you to know how well I understand this fear and hurt.

In fact, fear of abandonment is more common than you may think. It may not be discussed in open conversation very often, but many admit it privately. It’s a core issue behind addiction, mismatched marriages, and much more. If you feel this, you are in good company.

I wanted to share with you five steps I’ve discovered to be very helpful working through this myself:

1. Call Someone You Love. When someone important to us leaves our life, it’s easy to push everyone else away and completely withdraw.  We don’t feel good enough.  We don’t want to bother anyone.  Stop that! Pick up the phone, or better yet, go see them. Hugs, laughter, and love are exactly what we do need right now.  Give that to yourself!
2. See the Illusion. Our soul knows that it is linked to the Divine Life Source energy that connects all of us. We are all One and it can be no other way.  However, our mind/body ego sees each of us as individuals who can come and go. It is an illusion that we experience in coming to earth to learn unconditional love in human form. Our permanent Self is our soul, and there we are all linked.  This is a temporary body for a temporary experience. We have spirit guides and angels and Divine love that flows through us and links our soul to every other.  We simply cannot be abandoned.
3. Stop the Drama. This part may come across harshly, and I don’t intend it to.  I intend that it empower you. Don Miguel Ruiz says in The Four Agreements to “Take Nothing Personally.”  It is along that vein that I say to you they did not abandon you; it was not about you at all!  They left for their own reasons.  Period. Even if they say it was your actions or inaction, how they feel about that is about them, not you.  Sitting there feeling abandoned is nothing more than a glorified version of “poor me” as explained so well in Chapter 6 of The Celestine Prophecy. Stop giving all of their energy to them by feeling like a victim, and keep it for yourself. (We’ll talk more about loving yourself in a moment.)
4. Meditate. If you have chosen someone to be in your life who left of their own free will, this is a good time to ask yourself why you are attracting someone who will leave you. Feel gratitude that they have shown you that you are still attracting this, and then examine what inner beliefs you hold that sabotage you from attracting more loyal people. Do you still believe people will abandon you, that no one stays?  Do you feel like you’re not good enough?  Working to heal these aspects of yourself will begin attracting different relationships and experiences into your life, and is a much more empowering way to spend your energy than in “poor me.”
5. Love Yourself. I saved the best for last. Give yourself a bubble bath. Pamper yourself with extra time around people you love. Attend a big festival or event and remember how many more people are out there in the world for you to connect with. In these moments, so much attention is spent on the person who left that we lose perspective on how many more amazing people there are in the world to meet, love, and enjoy.  Allow yourself the grief, learn your lessons, bless them, and send them on their way.  You have a wonderful life to live and you deserve to enjoy it!

Have you found other ways to deal with feeling abandoned?  Other ways to heal that in yourself to change your life?  Please share those below!

Namaste and much love,
Sheryl Sitts, Founder
Journey of Possibilities

Visit our new online holistic community!