Healing the Abandonment Wound
(blog #4/11)
Do you frequently experience feelings of loneliness, insecurity, or a fear of rejection? Do you struggle to maintain healthy boundaries in relationships or find it challenging to trust others? If so, you may carry the abandonment wound.
Take our core wound quiz to determine if abandonment is your core wound (and if not, here are the links to the other blogs on healing core wounds:)
Why focus on healing your #1 core wound first?
Maximize healing impact: By addressing the wound with the most significant current impact, you'll experience substantial improvements in your well-being and relationships, providing motivation and momentum to continue healing.
Clear a path for healing other wounds: Healing your core wound develops essential skills, insights, and resilience for addressing other wounds effectively.
Gain clarity and direction: Identifying your core wound illuminates patterns and triggers, helping you set clearer goals and track progress.
Prevent overwhelm: Prioritizing your core wound allows you to maintain focus, avoid burnout, and ensure meaningful progress.
Ready to embark on your inner child healing journey for the abandonment wound? Follow these steps:
STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE: HEALING THE ABANDONMENT WOUND
Step 1: Identify Abandonment Patterns
Start your healing journey by cultivating self-awareness. Pay close attention to moments when you feel lonely, insecure, or fear rejection. These patterns indicate that your abandonment wound needs attention and healing. Keep a daily journal to track these experiences and consider beginning a mindfulness meditation practice (check out my meditations on Insight Timer here). These tools will help you deepen your understanding of your inner world and better manage your emotions throughout your healing journey.
Step 2: Identify Subpersonalities
Explore your inner system by asking these questions for each subpersonality:
What emotions or behaviors arise when you feel abandoned? (e.g., clinginess in relationships, avoiding intimacy, etc.)
What triggers strong reactions, causing you to seek validation or isolate yourself? (e.g., perceived distance in relationships, fear of being left alone, etc.)
What name would you give this part of yourself? (e.g., The Isolator)
Discovering your subpersonalities is a journey, so I invite you to be kind to yourself as you take the time to name and understand these parts of you. Tracking your patterns in Step 1 will make a big impact on helping you identify parts more easily.
Step 3: Self-Compassion
Explore the Pathway Back to Love Process– I created this to help you practice self-care when you’re feeling emotionally dysregulated and want to soothe your inner parts system: close your eyes, place one hand over your heart, and:
Acknowledge: “Parts of me are active, and that's okay”
State to yourself “ Emotions are temporary waves in the ocean of who I am”
State to yourself “ I choose to be kind and love myself through this” (or choose your compassionate phrase)
Step 4: Activate One of the Seven Soul Qualities
Healing the abandonment wound involves activating the Seven Soul Qualities as described in a previous post in this series. They are Peace, Love, Joy, Freedom, Trust, Courage, and Power. In this post, we will focus on the qualities of Trust and Self-Love, specifically loving your inner child, to overcome feelings of abandonment- but please do choose one that you most want to cultivate within and ask yourself, how might I bring this quality to my day? (lead with your intuition!)
Trust: Reflect on a past event where you trusted yourself or another person- it can be something very small, such as a time when you trusted yourself to take a small leap of faith at work on a project, and it turned out well. Take a moment to write down the emotions you experienced during that event from beginning to end. Then, journal:
“What would it be like to extend a bit more trust to myself and/or others?”
“Would it be possible to take one step forward this week with the knowing that I can take a break from opening my heart if it becomes too hard?”
Next, I invite you to visualize a future situation where you will need to trust yourself or others. Imagine how you would approach it with a new sense of trust, and write down your insights. Repeat as needed.
Loving Your Inner Child: Developing self-love for your inner child allows you to build a strong foundation of emotional support and reduce the impact of abandonment fears. To nurture and love your inner child first close your eyes and visualize yourself as a child. Imagine turning toward this younger version of yourself with warmth and kindness. Ask your inner child what they need to feel loved and supported.
Engage in a two-way conversation with your inner child, while offering reassurance and expressing your commitment to their well-being. Then, last but not least, make a list of activities that bring play and joy to your inner child, and commit to doing at least one of these activities each week.
Step 5: The Akashic Core Wound Method
Once you've gained insight into your inner parts system and cultivated self-compassion, I invite you to join me on the Akashic Core Wound Healing Journey. The Akashic Records are a spiritual realm containing a vibrational record of every soul's journey throughout time. Accessing these records can provide insights and healing for our core wounds. Through the Akashic Core Wound journey, I invite you to focus on healing your abandonment wound- but not until you have focused on the steps before and feel that you are gaining insight into your inner parts system as well as compassion for yourself. And please note: There is no time limit on this, everyone's journey will be different!
Next Steps on Your Core Wound Healing Journey
As we come to the end of this post, I invite you to approach your healing journey with an open mind and a compassionate heart. As you might imagine- Healing core wounds requires patience, self-compassion, and awareness of your inner patterns. Be sure to celebrate even the smallest victories along the way – each one is a significant step towards living an empowered and authentic life aligned with your Soul's purpose.
Please share your experiences, insights, and questions in the comments below, as we foster a supportive community on this healing path.
Stay tuned for the upcoming blog post in this 11-part series, where we will explore the healing of disempowerment wounds. Together, we will cultivate courage and personal power to overcome feelings of helplessness and self-doubt, embracing the strength that lies within each of us.
Also quick note: I have a new book coming out this year that provides the full map for your core wound healing journey, all in one place with exercises and guidance to help you make momentum forward on your core wound healing path. I invite you to click this link below to join the book interest list, to be the first to receive exciting goodies alongside the book, as well as when the release date is:
Please do share in the comments any insights you’ve gained or what you’re excited about, I’d love to hear from you!
