Ways You're Not Taking Care Of Yourself - Margaret Paul, PhD.

[antjs]

I stumbled upon a very good article and it rings some bells with me. Hope you find this helpful.

4 Ways You're Not Taking Care Of Yourself Emotionally

Margaret Paul, PhD.In the 46 years I've been counseling individuals and couples, I've rarely encountered someone who didn't have an abandonment issue. This is because so many of us were either emotionally abandoned by our parents, or our parents modeled emotional self-abandonment, or we actually were abandoned by our parents.

Many people enter relationships with a deep fear of rejection and abandonment, or they stay away from relationships to avoid experiencing these fears.

Do you identify with this?

If you do, what do you usually do regarding relationships when your fear of rejection and abandonment is triggered?

   I give myself up to avoid rejection.

   I'm overly nice to avoid rejection.

   I get angry to try to have control over not being abandoned.

   I explain or defend to avoid rejection.

   I withdraw when I feel rejected or abandoned.

   I stay away from relationships to avoid the issue.

   Other _________________________.

The problem with these coping strategies is that you will continue to fear rejection and abandonment until you stop abandoning yourself and start loving yourself.

What are the ways you are abandoning yourself? Let's look at a few of them:

1. You judge yourself.

What are the judgments you level at yourself?

   I'm not good enough.

   I'm inadequate.

   I'm bad.

   I'm a loser.

   I'm too fat or too skinny.

   I'm ugly.

   I'm stupid.

   I'll never amount to anything.

   I better not make a mistake.

   I better be perfect.

And so on ... .

If you had a child and you treated her with the same kind of harsh judgments that you might be leveling at yourself, your child would likely feel unloved, abandoned, alone, inadequate, anxious or depressed.

Imagine that your feeling self is your child within — your inner child. When you abandon yourself with self-judgments, your inner child feels just as alone, rejected, abandoned, anxious and depressed.

2. You stay focused in your head rather than being present in your body.

If you had an actual child who came to you upset, and you ignored him or her, then your child would feel rejected and alone, and possibly anxious or depressed.

When you stay focused in your mind, you are ignoring your feelings (your inner child) which makes you feel alone and abandoned within, and likely leads to anxiety or depression.

You'll feel especially abandoned if you are judging yourself and then ignoring the pain you are causing with your self-judgments, instead blaming others for your pain.



3. You turn to various addictions.

Again, if you had a child who was upset, and instead of attending to your child, you gave him or her a cigarette or you grabbed a drink, your child would feel abandoned.

The same feelings of abandonment occur on the inner level when you use addictions to avoid and numb your feelings — addictions like alcohol, drugs, food, nicotine, TV, work, Internet, sex, porn, spending, shopping, gambling and so one.

4. You make someone else responsible for your feelings

Once again, if you had an actual child whom you kept trying to give away to someone, the child would feel profoundly abandoned by you.

Likewise, when you make others responsible for your feelings, you are abandoning your inner child.

Healing Abandonment Issues

Abandonment issues get healed when you stop abandoning yourself and instead learn to love and value yourself. No matter how much someone else loves you, as long as you continue to abandon yourself, you will continue to feel insecure, inadequate and unlovable.

Others' love feels wonderful, but it needs to be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Your love for yourself needs to be the foundation from which you are then able to share love with others, rather than always trying to get love to feel safe and secure.

You CAN learn to love yourself, and this will make all the difference!

[NorthLight]

Thank you, a good article

I have the last 2,5 months been in deep depression, because i was left and dumped over night, and i think it is very important that we all accept that we need to love ourselves.

A partner should be a + in your life, but not the key to your happiness.

[Pingo]

Great article and interesting perspective... .

I am guilty of all four ways of abandoning myself, especially numbers 2 & 3.

I have been stuck in my head all my life and had no idea how to stop the ruminations. When I was young I would always be lost in fantasy, daydreaming, often about negative scenarios. I learned to stop myself from doing this by literally saying 'cancel' when I caught myself in these thoughts. Still, it has only been recent that I have started to get in touch with my body sensations. Doing yoga, mediation, walking/hiking. I actually went for my very first massage last week! And I'm going to make it a bi-weekly event which I'm pretty excited about!

I have spent my whole life numbing my feelings and emotions. When I was young it was food. I'd binge eat and then diet or purge or fast, it would go in cycles. I got this under control in my mid-twenties and developed a healthy r/s with food. My drug of choice changed to alcohol. I will go long periods without drinking but when I start to drink I feel impulsive and have a hard time stopping myself. After reading this article, I had never considered that I was abandoning myself by doing this. It is making me consider just not drinking at all, as a way to show myself love. I've been working really hard on this since my BU with my uBPDexh... .the blessing of the r/s!

[mywifecrazy]

Thank you, a good article

I have the last 2,5 months been in deep depression, because i was left and dumped over night, and i think it is very important that we all accept that we need to love ourselves.

A partner should be a + in your life, but not the key to your happiness.

This is one of the most important lessons I've learned in my ordeal. And may I add: If a person comes off as too needy or too attached too quickly... .RUN!. I now realize that they are setting you up as being soley responsible for their happiness. Nobody can live up to that!

Now that I've become emotionally healthy for the first time in my life I live this principal and it is a healthy boundary for me. If I'm in a relationship and the person comes of as too needy it's a major  that they are unhappy in their own skin and there is something internally going on with them that I don't want to be involved with. I've already had to break it off with someone as they were idealizing me   after only one date. Now I know I'm a catch  but this person didn't know that yet!

PS. Hello AJ

MWC... .

[Panda39]

What are the ways you are abandoning yourself? Let's look at a few of them:

1. You judge yourself.

What are the judgments you level at yourself?

   I'm not good enough.

   I'm inadequate.

   I'm bad.

   I'm a loser.

   I'm too fat or too skinny.

   I'm ugly.

   I'm stupid.

   I'll never amount to anything.

   I better not make a mistake.

   I better be perfect.

And so on ... .

If you had a child and you treated her with the same kind of harsh judgments that you might be leveling at yourself, your child would likely feel unloved, abandoned, alone, inadequate, anxious or depressed.

Imagine that your feeling self is your child within — your inner child. When you abandon yourself with self-judgments, your inner child feels just as alone, rejected, abandoned, anxious and depressed.

3. You turn to various addictions.

Again, if you had a child who was upset, and instead of attending to your child, you gave him or her a cigarette or you grabbed a drink, your child would feel abandoned.

The same feelings of abandonment occur on the inner level when you use addictions to avoid and numb your feelings — addictions like alcohol, drugs, food, nicotine, TV, work, Internet, sex, porn, spending, shopping, gambling and so one.

Used to do number one all the time.  l learned that one from my mother... .I felt inadequate and judged by her and I just perpetuated it myself.

Number three would be soothing myself with food not necessarily over abandonment fears but pain in general.

Healing Abandonment Issues

Abandonment issues get healed when you stop abandoning yourself and instead learn to love and value yourself. No matter how much someone else loves you, as long as you continue to abandon yourself, you will continue to feel insecure, inadequate and unlovable.

Others' love feels wonderful, but it needs to be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Your love for yourself needs to be the foundation from which you are then able to share love with others, rather than always trying to get love to feel safe and secure.

You CAN learn to love yourself, and this will make all the difference!

I wholeheartedly agree with this.