Healing The Abandonment Wound: In Conversation With Fabienne

Join Fabienne in this conversation about Abandonment. Fabienne explains what an abandonment wound is, where is comes from, how it can impact us in other ways like self-abandoning, and how we can heal it, step by step.

Transcript

Hello, And welcome to In Conversation with me, Fabienne Sandoval, Life coach, Author, And speaker. I talk way too much, So I thought I'd put that skill to use by sharing with you this series of conversations designed to expound your awareness and knowledge of becoming secure and empowered in your self-worth. Meet Sam, My OBM, Wing woman, And literal can't live without. We tried to break up once and it didn't work. I'll be here to ask the juicy questions and help extract some of these powerful insights from Fabienne. So let's begin. And today we're going to be talking about healing the abandonment wound. So as with always with these things, The question is, What is an abandonment wound to start with? Oh, Such a great question. I mean, The thing is, So I almost want to be like, Well, What isn't an abandonment wound? Because it's actually, Well, It's one thing, Right? It's that feeling or sense of being abandoned, Essentially. It comes in so many like different shapes and forms, And ultimately one person's abandonment to another person's abandonment is actually really different. So for example, One person could feel abandonment. So like, I want to sort of say classical abandonment could occur in childhood where one parent is not present for a whole host of reasons, Like either mom and dad divorce, Or one parent goes away. Essentially the relationship ends and then the relationship with that parent ends. That can be one of the ways, Like I say, Classical, That's like how abandonment can get formed. But abandonment can also be formed by having both parents present, That one of them travels extensively for their work. So although you've got that parent, Like they are still there active in your life, Physically, They're not in the same space as you. Then again, You can also experience abandonment through emotional abandonment. Like you physically have the parent there, But emotionally for whatever thing it is that they're going through, They can't give you that emotional, They don't have the emotional capacity to tend to you. So these are the kinds of things that can happen in childhood. And then of course, As well, We can experience abandonment later on in life. So there's a wonderful woman called, I've just suddenly forgotten her name. No, There's a wonderful woman called Susan Anderson. And she's really the pioneer in the work of abandonment healing. And she went through it when her and her husband broke up. So you can also experience abandonment for that, Right? So depending on what the situation is. But essentially when we're talking abandonment, I really see it as a very invisible wound. It took me a very long time to actually have this kind of categorization that what I was dealing with internally, Like what I was actually attempting to heal was abandonment. And I didn't realize that. So for those of you that are like, Okay, Well, These things might have happened to me, But what's abandonment? I think pretty much it's an invisible wound. So it's not something that we really can like actively, Easily see necessarily, But it is something that is like really, Really deep within, Can leave us feeling really helpless and hopeless that we're never really gonna be able to heal this thing because we don't necessarily know what it is. And so it affects our behaviors in so many different ways. So, We always love to talk about attachment styles. So attachment styles is one of the things usually if you've experienced abandonment, Usually you're gonna have an insecure attachment. You may well also self-abandon. So because someone else has like abandoned you, You will then do things to yourself to abandon yourself, Right? But we're not really taking care of our sense of abandonment when we leave that unresolved, We actually like self-sabotage and we don't take care of ourselves well. It's really interesting because you automatically assume that it's something that somebody's done to you, Somebody external, And you don't look at it as you abandoning yourself. That's a really interesting way of looking at it, You don't see that in, I never thought about it from an internal point of view and from you abandoning yourself. It's so crazy. So like for me, A little bit, My story is like my mom and dad broke up and then my dad like left when I was 14. So I didn't have a relationship with him after that for about 14 years pretty much, I think about how long it was. And then he, I rekindled the relationship with him and we have a really great relationship, But that's a very, Very big story that I'll have to get into another day. But essentially that's just like the basics of it. And for me, It left a very big hole because I was really very close to my dad. But then what happened is because that person is gone, For whatever reason, They have gone from your life, You then find ways to keep recreating the same pain. It's like almost like, I always think about it, Like it's like you wanna heal that thing, So you keep creating the same experiences in order for you to heal it, But you actually just end up back in the same place. So it's like you get yourself caught in a pattern where someone else did it to you and then you start doing it to yourself over and over again. Whether that is through picking romantic relationships, So one of my big things was picking unavailable romantic partners that would abandon me or I would abandon them because I would know that I'm picking someone who really didn't have any capacity or availability for me. So of course I would be the one to abandon them. I would be the one to call things off in the end because of course, Well, You're not giving me what I want, But I chose you, I picked you on purpose to not give me what I want and keep the story up that I get abandoned. So it really is interesting how we do sabotage ourselves a lot when it comes to abandonment. And like you said, We don't think about it like self-abandonment, We operate in that way, Whether it's through the romantic partners that we pick, It can even be down to like jobs, Friendships, The scenarios that we keep ourselves in, But that happens a lot. So with having that quite, Obviously it's very subjective and everybody's one person's abandonment wound is completely different from somebody else's. How do you start then coming back to the main kind of topic, Healing? What's the start point then? Yeah, So from what I found is I was traditionally in a lot of talk therapy and I think talk therapy is amazing. I still have talk therapy every two weeks. So I'm not saying that it doesn't work, Like it's a great resource to have, But I feel like when you're in talk therapy, That is what you're doing, You're just talking. You're not necessarily taking actions and you're not necessarily developing the skills that you need to develop in order to move yourself into a place of healing from the abandonment. Nice. When we experience abandonment, It usually really heavily impacts our self-worth. Why? Because someone abandoned you. So instead of being able to build up like that feeling that like I'm worthy and I can have good things and people love me, We usually create the opposite, Like I'm not worthy and I don't deserve good things and no one's gonna love me and everyone's gonna leave me. There's a lot of, I would say, Elements of personal development that you need to go through in order to integrate those in order to heal. So it looks like things like, Okay, Actually looking into your wound, Where did it come from? How did it happen? Having that understanding which talk therapy can be great for, But it's also about, Well, What is my attachment style? Because you're likely gonna have a insecure attachment style. How do I self-abandon? How do I self-sabotage? How do I stop doing that? What are my core beliefs that I now have about myself and the world and the people in it? And then there's also things like really delving into healing your inner child. And then of course, Rewriting that story. So we don't wanna hold onto that story of like, I've been abandoned and it was terrible. And I know for myself, It was something I couldn't talk about without crying. Like I literally, It was devastating to me and it was so painful. And in every romantic relationship that I was in, Even if, I remember being with one partner and he just had to go to work, But for some reason I reverted to my like 10 year old, 12 year old self where dad was walking out the door and just absolutely was intense. And he was like, But I'm just going to work. And I was like, I know, It's fine. And it was like, It obviously was not fine. But something in me was being triggered through that experience of them having to leave. So really figuring out, Okay, So like, Yeah, How do I tend to that little one inside that experience that, And how do I also rewrite that story so that it becomes something different? So that it's something that happened in my life and all the factual elements are there, But that it can become something new so I can move forward. And I think that that's one of the things that is really important that we do, That we learn to do in any of our healing is what is the pathway forwards? And I think that that's, I mean, So I'm going to just jump in and be like, I actually have force on insight timer. That's a good place. That guides you through all the steps that I took myself, That I guide when I work one-on-one with clients and help them really to navigate this deeply. We do the work together. It's the steps that I would guide them through. And so if anyone's listening and they're like, I do want this help, Go check out the 10-day course, Because it has all of the elements that you need to start to learn. It's really very in-depth. Yeah. Course like we want to move forward from this, Or ideally we want to be moving forward from this pain. So yeah, Definitely self-development coupled with the desire to move forward and to move out of that situation. Well, You kind of stolen my last bit there where I was going to ask for if you've got any resources or any kind of courses that people can use to help them and to learn more about this abandonment wound, But you've stolen it and you've already told them. So thank you for taking my job from me. But yeah, Thank you for sharing. And thank you for, Again, Making me think, I've come away again going, I did not know that. I did not realize that it was quite internal as well. So thank you so much for sharing again. No, You're so welcome. And I think that's the thing, There's just not enough spoken about this topic. Like I was in therapy for years and not one single person said to me, And like, Talk to me about abandonment. No one said that to me. And so that's one of the great things often when I get a client that comes to me and says like, Oh, You know, I'm having issues with my relationships or I'm having issues with this. Usually I can see straight away when it's abandonment. I'm like, Okay, Tell me about blah, Blah, Blah. And they're like, How did you know that? And I'm like, I just know, Like it's like you just learn to know what the, I don't want to call it symptoms necessarily, But it's signs exactly of when you've gone through something really painful like that, What it looks like on the other side. But the great news is, Is that there is a possibility for healing. Like I said, There is the 10 day course. So I would definitely recommend that people go ahead and check out the 10 day course on Insight Timer because that's going to be an amazing resource. Of course, Feel free to get in touch with me if this is something that you are experiencing as well. You can write me on Insight Timer using the little message function and just don't suffer. I spent a long time suffering trying to figure out how the heck do I get myself out of that? And again, This is one of the reasons I said, I need to create something that makes it easy, That makes it very clear that if I go through these steps, I will start to move from the pain and into the healing. And that's a really good thing about your courses as well, Just from knowing you and talking to you, Is that they are born from personal experience and you have gone through that abandonment and you have gone through that healing process as well. So I think that really kind of underlines the kind of the core, I can't think of the word, I do apologize, But you know, Then you're in good hands because you've gone through that pain as well. Exactly, Yeah, Absolutely. And it's like when I have a client sat in front of me crying their eyes out from the pain that they're feeling because it's currently being replicated in their romantic relationship and they're going, I'm sorry that I'm crying about this. And I'm going, No, Don't be sorry. Like I know that pain and other people don't get it. Like if you've not had an abandonment wound, Right? You don't understand the pain that like is being carried. So it's so important to have someone that's on your team. I think this is one of my biggest things is to have someone that's on your team that knows, Oh my goodness, I know that feeling. It sucks. And we can move you forward and beyond that. That's brilliant. Well, Thank you again, Fabienne. Thank you so much.

Reviews

Even after working on abandonment, this has been helpful to remind me of what I’m dealing with. Thank you

Thank you for the talk, and insight, Fabienne. I don't know when this was uploaded here, but I hope you're current experiencing peace, joy, love, and security/stability in your life.
I've experienced much childhood PTSD and at 60 the abandonment wound is alive and well. My most recent love was more than willing to be there, but I pushed her away in the end. Can you say regret. I learned about attachment styles- like mine - fearful avoidant, and am trying to "do the work". Funny, I have counselor, but this coming Monday will probably be our last session- he's a good guy, listener, and insightful, but it doesn't seem to be helping - other than paying not to be alone for 50 minutes. He is Buddhist, and I did get a book called "Recovery Dharma", and have read "Waking the Tiger" (ex gave it to me) and "Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma".