The Adult Chair Podcast: Healing From Abandonment

Abandonment can leave an incredible wound inside of us. We may do our best to bury it and not feel the lingering hurt but it often leaves it's mark. We in fact, may move through life unconsciously guarded, in the mindset of being ready and expecting abandonment to happen again. In order to be free from this pain, Michelle goes over two types of abandonment and offer steps to help us heal these wounds. This discussion is on a potentially upsetting topic, so approach this podcast with care.

Transcript

Hello,

Everybody,

And welcome to the Adult Share.

I am Michelle Schelfant.

Today I am chatting with you about abandonment.

Kind of heavy,

Isn't it?

I'm going to speak with you about two different types of abandonment and then ways to transform the abandonment wound.

So I'm going to be chatting with you about that today.

But before we get started,

You can find out more about this show at theadultshare.

Com.

You can join the conversation on Facebook,

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Or Pinterest,

And be sure to request to get in the Adult Share private group on Facebook.

As you know,

It's my favorite group.

It is for a bunch of like-minded people that are also working to live in their adult share and it's private,

Which I love.

So come join us there.

And this is a big,

Big announcement,

Everybody,

Because everybody loved this so much last year.

We're doing it again,

And I believe it's going to be an annual thing here.

We are doing again the journaling challenge,

The 30-day journaling challenge.

It starts November 1st.

And what happens is on November 1st and every single day of November,

You are going to get a journaling prompt that I have crafted in your inbox.

That's it.

It's free.

And journaling is a phenomenal way to take you deeper,

Deeper into the self,

To help you work through things.

For me,

It's like going to therapy every single day.

I love journaling.

It really helps to take whatever's going on on the inside and bring it outside of you.

And it helps to change your perspective.

And it helps to transform what's happening inside.

So it's just amazing.

And we have such a huge group of people doing this together this month.

There's a giant collective consciousness around this,

And I am thrilled.

So if you'd like to join us,

You have to sign up at theadultchair.

Com forward slash journal.

And by the way,

If you're already on my email list,

This is a separate email list.

You will not get the journaling prompts if you are already on just my personal email list that goes out every week.

This is something different.

So make sure you sign up at theadultchair.

Com forward slash journal.

Okay.

Jumping on into abandonment.

There are a couple different types of abandonment.

And the first one I want to talk about is emotional abandonment.

So this is when a significant person just really stops acknowledging who we are,

Or even discards us.

This happens often when we are living with a narcissist in the household,

I have to say.

They just start ignoring us.

But it's not even just always being a narcissist.

Sometimes people just don't know how to cope,

Or they are not good with confrontation or communication.

So the best thing that they can do is stonewall us.

And that means just ignore us and almost act as if we're not even existing in the same house.

I have a couple of clients that have spouses that do this.

They don't know how to cope and they're not narcissists.

I don't want you to think that only narcissists do this because it could be lots of different people,

But it's typical for a narcissist to do that.

But what happens is people that don't know how to handle what's going on inside of them,

They just shut down and it's called stonewalling.

So the person on the receiving end of that has no idea what's going on.

And they might try to reach out to the other person in the household or friend.

This does not obviously happen with people that we live with.

It could be a friend or whomever.

And we get stonewalled.

So that just means that that person just does not want to engage with us.

When they treat us almost as if we're dead,

It leaves a really big abandonment wound inside of us.

And it kicks up all kinds of emotions around that abandonment.

And it's so painful to be on the receiving end of that.

Even if someone is ignoring us for an hour or 10 minutes,

You know,

Just,

Gosh,

It brings up all kinds of things.

But this is what I mean by an emotional abandonment wound.

So there's also physical abandonment that happens with us.

And that is when,

Of course,

If we're in a marriage,

Let's just use this as an example,

And the spouse or the partner or the girlfriend,

Boyfriend just happens to go to the store and never comes back again.

Or says,

I'm getting a divorce and we think everything's fine.

And they up and leave that day.

It's this shocking abandonment that happens.

But as children,

Sometimes when our parents get a divorce and one parent leaves,

We feel really abandoned because we remember we don't have the adult brain yet when we're children,

Not until we're 25.

So we feel physically abandoned.

We don't understand why someone's leaving.

Also with children,

When somebody dies.

So if somebody dies when we're young,

We don't understand why they're dying.

And oftentimes we even blame ourselves.

It's a big abandonment wound when someone just dies without an explanation.

Oftentimes,

I know parents don't want to share with their children what's going on and how somebody died and went to heaven,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

They don't even say that to the child.

So the child's left wondering what happened and why did grandma leave me?

Did I do something wrong?

Or again,

With a divorce,

Why did I get left?

Why did daddy or mommy leave me?

So we're left with this abandonment wound.

Even things as simple as being dropped off at summer camp or any kind of camp,

Even like if it's in the winter and we have a two week break and we get dropped off in the morning and we're picked up in the afternoon,

Sometimes that's really shocking to us as children and it overwhelms us and we feel abandoned.

We wonder,

Is mommy or daddy going to come back?

So all kinds of things.

And it's very,

Very triggering for us if we are the person that is being abandoned.

So those are the two types of abandonment that can happen.

And there's a common denominator with abandonment of any kind and that's the emotion of grief.

There's a loss that happens when we are experiencing abandonment and it's the grief wound.

So we really have to get in and start working with our inner grief.

So I've got some steps here with how we do that.

How do we heal this abandonment wound?

And you guys know I don't like the word healing.

It's hard for me to even say it as I say it,

This healing,

Because I don't feel like when I use the word heal in my humble opinion here,

This is my personal opinion,

It implies we're so broken so we need healing.

I believe what we're doing is simply self realizing or transforming these parts of us.

So we're going to talk about how do we transform this abandonment within us and work with this grief.

So here's a few steps for you.

Number one,

We really need to feel our emotions.

We want to feel the emotions around this loss,

This abandonment that has happened with us.

So a lot of people ask me,

I don't know how to feel my emotions or I'm so in my head about it,

I don't know what to do.

I don't know how to feel my emotions.

And I say to them,

If you can't dive into the emotion and oftentimes that's difficult if we're not used to feeling our emotions,

Can you just get curious,

Which is an adult chair term,

Get quiet and just observe what's happening in the body.

So start with the body.

Notice what's happening.

Maybe you have tension in your shoulders.

Maybe you have a knot in your stomach.

Just start getting curious about what's happening in the physical body and go from there.

That helps us to start easing into what we're feeling.

So you don't have to do a big dive in the deep end of the pool to feel your emotions.

Just start getting curious about what you're feeling.

Maybe it's anger,

Maybe it's loneliness,

It's sadness,

But just get curious about what's happening physically.

And then I think you might be surprised at what comes after you get in touch with what's physically going on in the body.

But number one is we really want to feel our emotions and let them through.

We're not to build a story or assumption around what we're feeling.

We want to just let these emotions come through.

So if you're angry,

Be angry.

Anger is such a powerful emotion.

Let yourself be angry.

It's okay.

And then notice the next emotion that rises up through us.

Because I'm telling you,

There are a lot of emotions inside of us and we need to let them through.

So maybe you start with anger and then it goes to sadness and then loneliness and then maybe more anger again.

We want to let it through whatever those emotions are.

Number two,

This is powerful work that we can do with abandonment,

Inner child work.

And I want to add to that,

Like this is,

I guess number two and two A would be working with the parts of us.

This is a big part of what we do in our adult share.

So with the inner child,

We might say,

Who feels alone or abandoned?

What part of me feels abandoned?

And oftentimes it is our inner child that comes up.

That's the part that zero to six years old.

We want to work with that part of us.

We want to connect with that part and listen.

When we do the work with the inner child,

We want to listen to that part of us that's feeling abandoned,

That's feeling lonely,

That feels so sad.

So from our adult,

We want to tune in to this part of us.

We can either see that little child in front of us or hear that voice or just sense that there's another part of us deep within that is feeling these emotions and just let that part know that you're there and that you want to listen.

I want to hear from you.

What do you want me to know?

I'm here with you.

What's going on?

Just be present with whatever comes up for you.

And again,

This is two A would be find the part.

And if that part is not the inner child,

Maybe it's another part that's sitting even in the adolescent chair.

Remember in the adolescent chair,

We have many,

Many,

Many,

Many parts.

So maybe it's a part from there.

Maybe it's your 10 year old or your 15 year old that goes,

I just feel so abandoned.

My grandmother died and I'm so abandoned.

I feel like it's my fault.

I'm upset.

I'm angry.

So listen to that part.

It's the same thing that you would do with the inner child.

It just might not be the child part.

And then after you work with that part in the adolescent,

Then check in with the inner child because at the core of everything are these emotions.

The emotions always come from this inner child part.

So it's important that we do connect with that part of us.

Okay.

So this is really key to transforming this inner child part that feels this abandonment.

We just want to check in and get quiet and listen,

Listen,

Listen,

Listen.

That's key and be present.

Okay.

Number three,

This is something I said in the betrayal podcast that I recently did.

And I'll put that in the show notes in case you want to listen to that one again.

But I talk about leaving your suitcase in the past where it belongs.

And I'm going to add,

Leave your cement suitcase.

So with abandonment,

If your abandonment,

Even if it happened recently,

We tend to get stuck in that story of what happened.

My husband just up and left me.

Can you believe he did that?

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

You know,

When we go on and on and on,

I'm not saying that it's not a relevant thing.

I am not saying not to talk about it.

I'm saying talk about it,

Get it out,

Yell,

Scream,

Cry,

Get those emotions flowing through you.

But at some point you have to make the decision to leave the cement suitcase in the past.

And I'm inviting you to do this not for anyone but you.

Because when we carry around the suitcase with the old story in it,

It only holds us back and down.

Let me give you my personal example.

I spent the whole beginning part of my life until probably about 10 years ago,

Letting everyone know in my family,

You know,

If my father was not so scared all the time that I was going to get hurt or sick,

He would have let me out of the house once in a while when I was a child and let my mom take me places.

But he was always so worried about me.

He had tremendous amounts of fear that something was going to happen to me,

Which of course he put on me.

So then I grew up with social anxiety.

So I would say,

Well,

If dad hadn't have done this,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And if dad hadn't have done that,

Then I'd be a much different person.

I'd have more confidence.

I would be like this and I'd be like that.

My mother would say,

I know.

And I'd say,

You know,

Mom,

If you were just stronger and you could have stood up to dad,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And she'd say,

I know,

Michelle,

I know.

And even my sister would say,

Can we stop talking about this?

We all know why you have this and that wounding.

And what I realized is,

Is I was just looking in the past at what,

Again,

I made up that happened that made me the person that I was today.

Do we really know what happens in our past that creates who we are today?

We can make guesses for sure.

I could sit and say,

Well,

It was because my dad was overprotective.

And that's why I am afraid as an adult or even as a teen and growing up to do things by myself and I had all this social anxiety and it was all my dad's fault.

That's one of the things I used to talk about.

I talked about many,

Many things that happened to my childhood and I would talk about,

If only that was different than I'd be different today.

So that's what I call our cement suitcase.

It's like we're walking around with all these old stories.

Again,

Maybe that's why I had social anxiety and maybe not.

Maybe it's something that was passed down in my DNA from a great grandmother.

Maybe it's from a past life.

Maybe,

Maybe,

Maybe.

Who the heck really knows why we are the way we are?

But I find as humans,

We like to guess,

You know,

Oh,

I got sick because I was hanging around so and so last week and they had a bad cold.

Now I have a bad cold.

I mean,

Do we really know?

We don't know.

But when we live in the adolescent chair,

That part of us needs to figure things out.

Remember,

It's here to keep us alive and keep us safe.

So it tries to figure out the why and the why,

It really just keeps us stuck.

I find when I ask why,

Because we,

Do we ever really know?

No.

So what we want to do is leave the cement suitcase in the past or it belongs.

After we have gotten it all out,

You know,

Gotten our anger out,

Gotten the crying out,

All of that,

Once we've reached,

Once we have reached that place of getting it out is when we have to say,

Okay,

Now this is when we live in our adult chair,

When we slide our butt from the adolescent into the adult is when we say,

You know what?

I'm ready to move forward.

I'm ready to move on and I'm going to leave the cement suitcase in the past,

Which is where it belongs.

We got to leave that story.

Even if it's true,

Even if we know a hundred percent that it's true,

We've got to leave it in the past and we're doing it for ourselves.

For no one else.

It's not to let anyone else off the hook.

It's to let yourself become free.

And that's the next point I want to make,

Which is number four.

It's about taking responsibility for my life now in the now,

Which means what's happening now.

For myself as an example,

About 10 years ago,

I was starting to learn,

Put together kind of all this work for the adult chair,

Learning the work of the adult chair,

Putting all this 20 some years of knowledge together and creating this model.

And I said to myself,

Okay,

So I have social anxiety.

What am I going to do about it right now?

Because to turn in the past and continue to blame my father for being so overprotective is not going to help me move and transition and transform the social anxiety.

So what am I going to do about it now?

And I'm going to combine number four and number five,

Which is who's holding my power.

So number five is about power.

So when I combine four and five together,

It looks like this.

When I look in the past and I blame my dad for being so overprotective with me,

I'm actually giving my father my power.

Think about,

I use this example with my clients in my office.

I have a big giant red ball and they hold the ball and that represents their power.

So the moment that we turn backwards in time and start talking about someone else,

We're tossing them that red ball.

So if you guys can get a visual in your mind,

Hold your red big ball and hold onto it so that you are not giving it to anyone else.

Stay present.

That's your power.

We don't want to give our power to anybody else.

So we need to step into the now.

And I said to myself,

For example,

With my social anxiety,

I'm like,

Okay,

So what am I going to do right now with the social anxiety?

I'm like,

Okay,

I'm going to work with it for right now.

And what's comfortable for me.

So I just started making all these little changes within myself and my social anxiety has gone way,

Way,

Way down.

But again,

I had to drop the suitcase,

Step into the now and maintain my power,

Maintain who I am in the now.

It's so easy to get stuck and blame people that abandon us,

That blame people.

We just want to sit and blame.

And that's all adolescent chair.

The adolescent chair is the part of us.

When we slide there,

We start using words like he should have done this.

My father should have pushed me out in public more and let me do things more and let me have sleepovers and not put so much fear in my mind.

He should have,

So I'm going to blame him.

That does not serve me at all today.

Not at all.

So this abandonment wound,

Think back,

Who abandoned you?

How are you abandoned?

Feel the emotions around it.

Stop your suitcase when you're ready.

Live in the now and maintain your power.

This is about doing it for you.

Take responsibility for what's going on in your life today.

Work with that inner child part.

Work with a part of you that has the abandonment wound.

Work with that part.

Listen to that part.

And I promise you everything will start to change and shift in your life.

And I speak this because I've had this experience with a lot of different abandonment wounds in my past.

It truly starts to change.

We have to incorporate these parts though and make these other choices for ourselves.

This will start to transform this abandonment and you will feel much lighter and brighter.

So this is the abandonment podcast.

And thinking about some of these heavier topics that I've done recently like abandonment and betrayal,

They're so heavy,

But yet do they have to be?

The reason that they stay heavy is because we're living in the old story with what happened.

That's what makes things so heavy.

And if you're feeling unfinished with any of these types of wounds,

You want to get in touch with a part of you that really feels unfinished or that needs your attention and only you know what part of you is longing for your attention.

The part of you that feels stuck.

If you feel stuck in any way,

I don't care if it's about abandonment or betrayal or anything.

All that that tells me is that there's a part of you that needs your attention.

Go inside of yourself and find that stuck part.

It's a part of you.

That's it.

It's a part.

And listen to that part.

Just be present with it.

Sit in your adult chair,

Be present.

Ask that part of you what it wants you to know.

What does it need for you to know and let it share?

It might be angry.

It might be screaming.

It might be quiet.

It might be just listen to me to talk about this and that.

Just listen and be present.

It's powerful work,

You guys.

Okay.

That's all I've got for you on abandonment.

Again,

It doesn't have to stay heavy.

We get to choose to move out of it.

And I invite you to choose just so you can feel lighter and brighter in your own life.

It's your choice.

It's your choice.

And we cannot lean on people outside of us to correct who we are.

We have to make that choice for ourselves and make the decision to move out of it.

All right.

Again,

If someone wants to apologize after they've abandoned you,

That's wonderful.

If you feel like you need that,

Go for it.

But don't get stuck until you get that apology.

Don't stay in a stuck place because it holds you down and makes your energy heavy.

We want light,

Clean,

Clear energy.

And the tips I gave you today will help you to have lighter,

Cleaner energy so you can live with more peace and balance in your own life.

Okay.

All right.

I know this was a really important topic because I can't imagine any of us that really haven't had at least a little bit of this feeling of abandonment in their lives.

So I hope this has been helpful for you guys.

And don't forget,

We've got coming up the journaling challenge on November 1st.

And you can go to theadultchair.

Com forward slash journal to sign up for that.

And that's all I've got for you.

This was wonderful today.

Thank you again for listening in to The Adult Chair.

I appreciate and love you all so much.

I have a great book recommendation coming up,

So hang on and you can get that.

Again,

You can get it for free on Audible,

Which is kind of cool.

But for now,

I'm out everybody.

I will see you next week seated firmly right here in The Adult Chair.

Okay.

I have a great book for all of you today.

And for listeners of The Adult Chair,

Audible is offering a free audio book.

I love these audio books because I listen to them in the car on the way to and from work.

And I get like,

It's kind of cool because I can almost get one book in a week.

So I'm feeling like really knowledgeable lately about all these different topics because of Audible.

So it's the greatest service.

I love it.

So if you go to www.

Audibletrial.

Com forward slash The Adult Chair,

You get a free audio book.

So the book that I love and was so,

I just really loved reading about this book today is called The Journey from Abandonment to Healing.

And it's by Susan Anderson.

She talks about these five phases of grief again,

Of moving through this grief.

And she talks about different kinds of grief too.

So this really landed really solidly on me as a book that I really would like to download.

So The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson.

Get it for free at www.

Audibletrial.

Com forward slash The Adult Chair.

And the reviews on this book were simply like really,

Really,

Really amazing.

So I think you guys will like this one.

Enjoy and I will see you next week everybody.

Reviews

So insightful

That was so very very helpful thank you. I had already downloaded the recommended book too.

Thx a lot

No more carrying heavy suitacase (baggage) around. 😊

Incredibly helpful information! Thank you for sharing it.

thank you for this podcast, I really needed it.

Very helpful. I’ve been dealing with my Adult Child issues for almost 10 years now and have been aware of the core abandonment issues that are driving me. I hope to find more and more healing as i grow in awareness. This was helpful and I will check into your other podcast episodes.

This was a great podcast. Opened my eyes to a few new ways of thinking about being abandoned and owning it so you’re not stuck in it.

Thank you for such a concise summary of how to address old and new abandonment issues.

Michelle and her Adult Chair is a door I am choosing to open, and walk through. Michelle speaks from her heart and it’s her love to help people transform that makes you want to learn to help yourself and grow. I’m so grateful to have discovered The Adult Chair. Thank you🌻

Just love Michelle's easy insightful talks. Like talking with a friend. I needed this one especially. So much abandonment in my life. Very grateful.

This info was so helpful, so clear and matter of fact. Thanks much for your generosity. Namaste 🙏🏻

Excellent! I will be sharing this with others too. Thank You.

Excellent! I will be sharing this with others too. Thank You.

Thank you shedding into my concrete suitcase..

Thanks! Quite good, leaves me feeling - with ease - understood and empowered. Lessens that severe, “seriousness” feeling on the understandably very sensitive, painful subject(s) of abandonment, betrayal, etc. Note, the book Michelle mentions here by Susan Anderson is hands-down absolutely the best I’ve ever read, was happily surprised to hear it as recommendation as o feel it needs to be better known, especially for professionals and their clients - it’s one that helps me often, I highly recommend it, too. May you be well.