The Abandonment Loop: Why You Push Them Away

what if I told you that the one person in the world who has abandoned you more than anybody else who has left you high and dry when it really counted time after time is actually you in this video I am going to reveal to you what I call the abandonment Loop a vicious cycle where the harder we try to fit in and make people happy the more isolated and invisible we end up feeling this is something that blew my mind when I learned to about it so what is the abandonment loop at the very beginning

I said that you are the one who has abandoned yourself I want to be clear I do not condone any physical abandonment or rejection that you've gone through if a parent left you or you felt completely betrayed by an ex that's a terrible thing to have happen and nobody deserves to be made to feel alone and worthless like that but here's the thing on some subconscious level many of us have the idea that we do in fact deserve that and for even more of us even if we were never actually abandoned we learned early in

life that we had to be a certain way or take care of other people make them happy in order to get our own needs met we grew up not actually being abandoned but with a fear of doing something wrong and being rejected those internalized beliefs of worthlessness or fears of rejection don't just sit there they Fester into what we call an abandonment wound and this is a subconscious framework of beliefs where we think that people are going to leave us or abandon us or reject us or hurt us these wounds trigger compensation behaviors actions we

take to make up for this perceived lack so maybe you a people pleaser you try to make everybody around you like you maybe you're the nice guy you're always going out of your way to be giving or do extra things for people hope that they will look favorably on you these things all have a sort of practical application in our day-to-day lives but often they are driven subconsciously by a certain fear that if somebody was to see deep down to who we really are we would be found wanting we would not be enough and we

would be rejected or abandoned pay attention cuz this is where it gets crazy now you might think that okay yeah but that's not really that bad right like that's just being a good person but subtly in essence when we act out of that fear of Abandonment every single step we take to try to get other people to like us results in US abandoning ourselves every time we agree to plans that we secretly hate just to go along with the crowd we're telling ourselves that those people's opinions are more important then what I want to do

every time you go out of your way to avoid conflict you squelch your own value system because well I don't know if I can stand up for myself what we are actually doing Time After Time After Time is rejecting ourselves over and over and over again in favor of choosing almost anybody except us we've now created a self-fulfilling prophecy where we might feel empty and incomplete but in our hunger to feel whole and accepted we constantly reject ourselves we constantly tell ourselves no to get other people to like us hoping for them to tell us

yes but of course even if they do tell us yes it doesn't actually matter because we're still telling ourselves no we can end up in relationships with friends family or at work where we feel taken advantage of we feel like people put their work on us or we don't get credit but we're also uncomfortable having conversations about these things maybe with our boss or with our spouse we're uncomfortable bringing up the things that we don't like we continually repress that because well what if they leave what if I get fired what if I get rejected

what if they dismiss me once again we abandon ourselves first the very first thing we do is tell ourselves nope not good enough won't work can't do it and this is the cruel irony of the abandonment Loop is that the harder we strive to get other people to like us to make ourselves feel like we won't be abandoned the more we adapt and try to keep people around us to make ourselves feel safe and loved the more isolated and invisible we can feel because subtly we are still rejecting ourselves we're not even giving other people

the opportunity to reject us anymore this Dynamic blew my mind when I learned about it because it changed my view on so many things that I had taken for granted so many situations in which I had thought life just didn't make sense and I was doing everything I thought I was supposed to being a nice good guy and nobody was meeting my needs in return turn I was not comfortable expressing my own needs or being in my own energy I was terrified of rejection and what I was subtly doing was consistently rejecting myself and hoping

that other people would come by and say Andrew you're so great Andrew you're so cool Andrew we just we just love you so much and that that would somehow fill that inner void I was denying myself that permission I was denying myself the opportunity to be the leader in my own life I was denying myself the opportunity to be the main character in my story and that is your true role as well to be the main character in your story now don't get too crazy because to be clear I'm not saying we should just say

everybody else I'm going to only focus on me me me me me and do what I want not at all what I'm talking about is when you're on an airplane and they give you the safety briefing that nobody really listens to they say your oxygen masks are going to deploy from this ceiling and before you try to help somebody else put your own oxygen mask on so that you are not gasping for air when you're trying to help other people there is nothing wrong with helping other people there's nothing wrong with being a good person

or a nice person if you're doing it for the right reasons but most of us if we are stuck in this abandonment wound in this abandonment fearful energy that people are going to leave us or we're going to be rejected we are doing our very best in life to consistently put oxygen masks on everybody else and then we're wondering why we can't breathe it's because we haven't taken the time to put our own oxygen mask on and to make things even more twisted and ironic the further we chase people the harder we pursue them very

often if we are coming from the energy of Abandonment the further we push them away and this is because we are hoping that they will fill that void whether they are a person or a job or a new situation a new career you envision for yourself and you want it so badly because you feel like it's going to validate that inner feeling of worthlessness that all show them this is going to prove it and the crazy thing is that the more importance we tend to put on these things the more we wish we had them

the more we want them the more we are sort of subtly energetically saying that we don't deserve them oh my gosh if my life is empty without that that would make me feel so much better that's a hungry lack based energy the entire Dynamic stems from the fact that you don't accept yourself so now that you understand what this loop is and a little bit of how it functions let's talk about where it comes from and then crucially what we can do about it for many of us these wounds are based in our our childhood

at some point when we were growing up we learned that our parents reacted better if we behaved a certain way or they disciplined us if we got out of line and didn't do what we were supposed to maybe we got yelled at if we got bad grades maybe we were actually physically abandoned or harmed these are terrible things to have happen and even more terribly we see them through the lens of an immature child right we don't understand the world so we don't think okay this person just has some messed up expectations and they're like

projecting that on me no we think this is the way that the world works and I am Bound by this like gravity this is real this is who I have to be or I will be rejected and Abandoned and as a little kid especially those rejection and abandon instincts are very strong because we will literally die if we are a little kid and we are abanded it might as an adult of course feel like your abandonment wound is death and it does trust me I've been there right but it's not actually death not at all

the difference is that we psychologically revert to that childlike Terror at the thought of being fundamentally rejected for who we are and we desperately strive over and over to prove our worth we are trying to prove prove to people that we are good enough we go above and beyond we people please we avoid conflict we give amazing gifts we do everything to be perfect all in order to compensate for our deep rooted fear that if somebody saw who we really were if they saw our real selves they would leave they would abandon us they would

reject us this was something that was kind of crazy for me earlier in life I realized I used to apologize a lot for being in people's way sometimes I was not in their way I was a reflection of my belief somehow that I did not have the right to be in this physical space I was always feeling like I was in somebody's way or I was standing in the wrong spot and I had a coworker one day I said oh I'm sorry man get out of your way he said Andrew you're not in my way

why are you apologizing and I didn't have an answer and it really did make me think why was I constantly apologizing for being in people's way because I did not believe deeply I had never thought about it but deeply I believed that I needed to justify my right to exist in a space with other people to take up space on Earth I felt like I needed to prove myself and although it's painful to say perhaps as a child you needed to be that way right maybe due to your situation you had to actually perform a

certain way you had to change who you were you had to make sure everybody else was happy but now if you're watching this I'm assuming you are very likely an adult meaning you don't actually have to be that way anymore sometimes somebody can reject you in real life and they're just wrong they're just having a bad day it doesn't actually mean anything about you but if you are the person who has the abandonment wound because we go around looking for validation we go around looking saying I'm look how great I am please you know would

you recognize me so I can feel better about myself almost everybody has the power to hurt the person who is deeply afraid of Abandonment but only once again because subtly we give them that power this Cascades out into a multitude of negative effects we are afraid so deeply of that rejection that we won't go talk to somebody we find attractive what if they reject us what if they you know it be better to not even try and whose voice says that is it theirs or is it the internalized voice they learned as a little kid

from a parent a teacher from their environment from society from a random person that taught them to think that way about themselves now that voice is no longer external it has become internal we say I reject that idea I'm never going to let anybody else see it we won't have conversations with our bosses or with our friends about what we'd like to move forward in in our job or what's not working in our relationships we are afraid to be our authentic self we say somewhere inside no that wouldn't work which might be true for a

specific job or a specific person a specific situation but what we do because we are so afraid of Abandonment so innerly lacking in our feeling of worth we think that well not only would this job not really like who I really am but you know nobody would and in fact I might as well hold on to this job even though I'm not feeling satisfied here because I don't know what else is going to come along we become so small so fearful and so dismissive of our own innate power our authenticity and our Ingenuity and we

start to hold on to relationships and Friends so-called that we are not comfortable being authentic around because they're the only thing that sort of fills that Gap but it never really works so now that we know what this loop is and where it comes from what do we do about it well the very first thing is cut yourself a little bit of slack because because those of us with abandonment wounds with feelings of unworthiness tend to have a very strong inner critic voice the very first thing most people will do is say okay wait now

this is great this is great news I understand the problem I've I see it in a whole new light but now I just need to fix it I just need to perfect myself and then I'll never get rejected again then I'll never get hurt again once I'm able to be the perfect me once I'm able to be my best self then and only then will I give myself permission to go out and be human please don't do that because what that is is is actually more self-rejection just taking advantage of a new scenario then you're

stuck in the pattern of trying to fix your abandonment wound and you're still rejecting yourself because how I an abandonment wound well that's not good enough but once I fix that then I'll be good enough it's the same thing so then what do you actually do well the very first thing is to just start noticing when you are rejecting yourself awareness is the first step in any transformation you have to notice in your life where this pattern is taking place so notice and question is it true when you feel like you have to go along

with somebody when somebody's pushing you around and you don't know what to do when you feel compelled to be nice even though you really don't want to go do whatever this person's saying or you really don't want this thing is it true that you have to follow that ask yourself this maybe after the fact because you might fall through a couple times we don't all succeed 100% And that is okay start with some awareness and some acceptance for where you are and for your right to be where you are both physically and emotionally so assuming

you've seen and developed a little bit of awareness as to where these patterns are operating in your own life I'm going to give you three things that I have found very helpful when it comes to embodying that more authentic less fear of Abandonment energy these things require you to trust yourself to stop abandoning yourself to stop telling yourself that you can't do it that you're not good enough that you're not worth it the very first thing is developing new skills starting a new hobby doing something that gets you out of your day-to-day routine and perhaps

something that you're a little afraid to do something that you're afraid people will think badly of you for for instance for me I learned to be a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master and initially I was a little bit afraid I felt like you got to prepare and be in charge of four or five people kind of lead them through this whole thing do funny voices and I was very uncomfortable about it but over time I gave myself permission and this is the overarching theme by the way between these three things I'm going to mention the

overarching theme is rewriting where in your life success comes from success is when you take the step not the result but when you take the step into that fear into that unknown when you give yourself permission when that scared voice says no I need to abandon myself and do what everybody else wants I need to abandon myself make them all happy success in that case is saying no it doesn't matter what happens it doesn't matter if they're all happy it matters that I act authentically I act in line with that true nature that is what's

going to make the difference so in Dungeon mastering I gave myself the permission right to try this new thing now I've been doing it for four years but I was pretty terrified I was very nervous I was very anxious and I sucked at it a little bit in the beginning as we do in these things secondly I have found that taking trips by myself is one of the most impactful things that has helped me build confidence and stop abandoning myself so much for the longest time I thought you need somebody else to go with you

you can't do it you're not good enough what are you going to do you're probably going to die out there man you can't figure this out all all this negative stuff self-abandonment over and over and over all these fears causing me to avoid things subtly abandoning my own interests for me I started with a couple of trips day trips driving around visiting different places national parks then traveling internationally for a couple weeks then traveling internationally for a couple of months by myself that was an amazing confidence booster I was sort of terrified but I still

did it and what I learned about myself what I learned about being okay by myself was massive because for so long I was so afraid of being alone right so afraid of doing something wrong and being left and here I had proof that I would be okay and like the first thing this was a success based on doing the success was pushing into that new territory that felt scary to the abandoned fear it was honoring my authentic right to exist and try and fail from the perspective of my previous self knowing that the true failure

true failure would be to stay in that small terrified mindset right what happens doesn't really matter but it's where you are coming from internally why you are doing it what is motivating that behavior that actually makes the difference for me it was stepping into that authentic energy thirdly along those same lines giving yourself permission to have some difficult conversations with people you're afraid to bring things up with maybe that's your boss maybe that's your friends maybe that's your relationship it might mean saying no to things it might mean asking for something new in a relationship

or asking to try something new with your partner hey let's go take a yoga class or learn taiichi or go learn to cook or whatever you you might be afraid on some level that your partner will think this is weird oh what are they going to think about me what are they going to say you are on some level rejecting yourself for their sake what are they going to think ah you know they'll think I'm weird they won't like it whatever my boss they're GNA he's going to if I'm mention this idea he's going to

look down on me subjugating yourself for the opinions of others it's okay if you are in line with yourself to let go of things say this is not worth my time I'm not going to fight this but if you are doing that with a deep feeling inside I really should say something I really need to do something I'm really not okay with this and you still go along with it that's where the failure comes in that's where the true failure comes in because the only success as far as I'm concerned is in stepping into that

new Arena giving yourself that inner permission to be in that Fearless space or rather push into fear not that you will be Fearless but to act courageously and this Cascades through your life because the more you able to authentically shine who you are the more you will connect with other people who authentically shine who they are the more you connect with yourself the more you will attract people who resonate with that new energy and this is initially terrifying to the person who's afraid of Abandonment because the person who is afraid of Abandonment wants to hold

on to everything they want to keep everything they don't feel comfortable letting people leave letting situations leave because they need to control they need to feel secure and they don't like this scarcity but the scarcity is not real the scarcity is in your mindset of what you see you as being worth when we believe I am small and limited and Tiny and worthless so I can only have these things then we have to hold on to them that's a terrible place to live but it's where so many of us live our entire lives and when

we're stuck in those patterns of self-abandonment our fundamental orientation towards life tends to be scarcity clinging insecurity fear we are so desperate to hold on that we don't realize we're holding on to things that we don't even like very often we can be holding on to a bad relationship holding on to a job that we hate but we're so afraid that if we let go nothing good will take place we're so convinced that we will be left out we will be abandoned we will be rejected we'll be isolated we'll be annihilated that we hold on

because this has to be better than nothing but only when we let go can new things come in in the first place we don't many of us have room in our lives for new to come in the success comes from your action in alignment with yourself when you give yourself s that permission to breathe to be to exist it's not saying everybody else has to see the world the way I do it's not saying you have to disrespect other people it is saying you have to equally respect yourself breaking this Loop is really about self-love

it's about self-acceptance and it's about giving yourself that inner permission to be the main character in your own life to put on your own oxygen mask not to be selfish but so that you can actually genuinely help other people put their masks on you can't do that if you are gasping for air if you're dying looking for any Oxygen you're not helped to anybody but when you're able to take care of that fundamental need for yourself to say you know what I'm good I'm going to pick me I'm not going to hope everybody else does

but I'm going to pick me first and then I can support others then I can be there for other people truly not manipulatively but authentically and wholly there and present that's a beautiful thing that's the opposite of neediness that is genuine giving and genuine presence and that is what will make you incredibly attractive the key is to practice awareness to notice in your life where you are telling yourself no before anybody has the chance to where you are abandoning yourself so that other people won't because as long as you keep doing that you are sending

yourself the message over and over you deserve this you're not good enough you can't do it you're worthless whatever that is a terrible place to be and if you've been there if you're there now my heart goes out to you because I have been there too right and don't beat yourself up about it it's very human ironically the more we beat ourselves up the more we condemn ourselves to stay in this Loop just look at it for a second and see that that is not true and the more you reject the more you deny yourself

the more you punish yourself the more hungry that inner void feels for those of you who are interested in more guidance on these topics I am extremely passionate about them and helping people through them and I do offer one-on-one coaching which you can find a link to in the description where I'm happy to go over these topics lay out action plans for individual people I provide exercises and Reflections and just a safe space for people to talk and be their authentic self and be seen and heard I I genuinely enjoy doing that so check that

out if you are interested and if you enjoyed this video what you need to do next is check out this video right here on inner child healing where we talk about these wounds these deep rooted wounds where they come from and some other ways in which they manifest and how we can heal our inner child thank you so much for watching we will see you next time bye-bye