How We Self-Abandon in Relationships (and Don’t Realize It) - 31

Self-abandonment isn’t a personal failure — it’s a relational adaptation.

In this episode, we explore the subtle ways people, especially women, learn to silence needs, overgive, and prioritize harmony over honesty in order to maintain connection. You’ll learn how self-abandonment forms through nervous system conditioning, why it often feels safer than conflict, and how these patterns follow us into adult relationships.

We’ll talk about emotional labor, people-pleasing, and the cost of staying connected at the expense of self-trust — and how to begin shifting toward self-loyalty without fear.

This episode connects directly to the Love & Attachment Detox, a premium 30-day podcast series offering daily guided shadow work, journaling prompts, and somatic practices to help you build safer, more secure relationships — starting with yourself.

Healing & Clarity Sessions: https://autumnnoble.com/intuitive-somatic-sessions/

Transcript

Autumn G Noble (00:00)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're here and participating in this month of a love and true relationship detox with me. These free episodes and my 30 day love and detox journey on the premium side have been really pretty powerful and transformative for me. And so I love that you're joining me on this journey because I know that sometimes February can just bring all of the feels good and bad. Today we're talking about

how we self abandon in relationships and maybe we don't always realize it. Self abandonment, it doesn't usually feel dramatic. It often feels responsible, reasonable, kind. And that's why it's often so hard to notice. So today we're talking about how many of us, especially women, quietly leave ourselves in relationships without realizing that we're doing it.

Let me begin this episode by just getting it out there. I am the queen of self abandonment when it comes to relationships, at least historically. As I mentioned in the previous podcast, I spent a really big chunk of my life in a very, very unhealthy relationship. And what I learned during that time was that in order for me to be safe, limit the chaos and keep things as predictable as possible,

I had to focus all of my efforts on this person that I was with. And so I let go of a lot of hobbies. I remember at one point, the person that I was with, I was working at a big law firm and I worked crazy hours all of the time, but I was also the primary breadwinner. And when I started trying to go back to the gym after work,

He said to me, how selfish of you to go to the gym instead of coming home and cooking me dinner. And I had a moment where I was like, you know what, he's right. That's so selfish of me. And then one day I was like, fuck that. That is bullshit. And I just, you feel this tug, right? And for me, like that was the line. Like you're gonna tell me that caring for my health and my body is selfish and you want me to come home and be like, Suzy, homemaker, while I'm paying all the bills, a bridge too far.

But the fact of the matter is I got to that point because I had let go of a lot of things. I had stopped hanging out with a lot of my friends. I had stopped calling a lot of my friends in a lot of ways because I didn't really want to tell them what was happening with me. My primary focus was just trying not to make waves and focusing on this other person. And so I let go of myself a lot. And then when I left that relationship,

I really did kind of find myself like unsure who I was. Like I had abandoned myself so much that I wasn't really sure how to get back to feeling aligned and feeling connected with who I wanted to be in a relationship. And so right out of the gate, I did kind of feel myself like I tried on new hobbies and patterns that matched the person I was with, almost like I was trying on new outfits. Like I remember...

kind of shifting my eating habits and my exercise habits and my interest in books I was reading based upon people I was dating. And I think a lot of that comes from the fact that I had abandoned myself for so long. Like I didn't even know who I was anymore, who I wanted to be. And I met my partner who is now my husband. I met him really early on in this phase. And I remember meeting him and thinking you're such a good human being.

And I am not, I'm not good right now. And I think you need to like go away for a little while until I figure my shit out. And so he and I had this kind of on again, off again thing for I don't know a year or two while I really tried to get my bearings and like reconnect with who I wanted to be because I knew there was something so good in him, but I knew I wasn't okay. And I knew that how I was showing up and how I was feeling was just a lot of baggage that I had to unpack.

And I see it now that I'm past it. I see it in women that I love and women that I know. I see them abandoning themselves, their interests, their cares, their concerns for the people in their lives. And when and if those relationships end, it's really hard to pick up the pieces because you don't really even know where you left them. And maybe the pieces aren't the same anymore, but you don't know. And it becomes a whole new self.

discovery experience, which can feel really scary and make it more tempting just to stay in that relationship of self abandonment. So I share that at the outset just to say that I have been there 110 % and this episode is not intended to be judgmental. If anything, I hope that some of you can relate to this because what I want to talk about today is about how so many of us, especially women, we kind of quietly leave ourselves.

in relationships without even realizing that it's happening. And in fact, there's research to support this and the prevalence of this within women. And the research tells us that once again, it comes back to cultural socialization. We are socialized as women to prioritize emotional harmony over self-expression. We learn very early not to be difficult, don't ask for too much, don't make things uncomfortable.

So self abandonment, it's not just a failure of boundaries. It's often a really learned relational strategy. And I think for me, it was a huge learned relational strategy and it became a strategy sort of of survival in that relationship. But I can look back at all relationships in my life, healthy and unhealthy and find ways where I did kind of abandon my wants and my needs. And I wasn't really using my voice in an authentic kind of a way.

I do a lot of energy work, reiki healing and sound healing. And the vast majority of time when I'm working with a woman, their throat chakra and their power center, that solar plexus belly chakra, those two are almost always obstructed and clouded. And it's because I think as women, we don't often speak our truth or stand in our power.

I think it all kind of goes back to this idea of just abandoning our voice and our own needs in a lot of ways, both personally and professional. One of the patterns that's most prevalent with self abandonment is simply over giving, right? And I think we're all guilty of that. And that over giving often replaces asking. Instead of saying what we need, we just do more, give more and hope more. And I think some of this is sort of like,

Well, if I give enough, maybe someone will wake up and appreciate everything I'm doing and say, like, are you okay? I think, no, I'm not okay, right? But instead of asking and feeling weak and feeling like we're putting burdens on other people, we just over give in hopes, I think secretly, at least for me, in hopes that somebody will say, are you really stretched thin? Like, are you all right? From a nervous system perspective,

This is a of a fawn response. It's a way to stay connected by being indispensable. And I see this so often in women in their careers. Instead of saying like, I'm working too much, I've got too much on my plate, this work environment is toxic, I'm not happy here. We overwork so that we feel like we're indispensable. And no matter how badly we do or how much we break down and burn out.

They can't get rid of us because we're indispensable. It's like a protection thing. And so we overwork in a way to protect ourselves from being dismissed or fired. And we do the same thing in personal relationships. But ultimately, over time, that over giving, creates resentment. And resentment is often grief that hasn't been spoken. When you feel resentful,

There's something that you're mourning, there's something that you're sad or disappointed about that you haven't processed or voiced. And so it's like your feelings have been hurt and no one's noticing it, right? That's resentment. And I think resentment is just a cover for that deeper hurt. I also say similarly, frustration is the sign of an unfulfilled intention. If you're frustrated,

It's probably because you're not being authentic, you're not speaking your truth, you're not standing in your power. There's an intention to be that person that does all of those things, but you're not doing it. And that frustration is a sign that there's some intention, deep intention that you're not living up to. So pay attention to those angry, fiery emotions. They're always a cover for something deeper, but more painful. The other pattern is silence for peace

⁓ my favorite. A lot of people learn that conflict meant loss, right? Like if we fight back or we bring up a problem and it gets contentious, we're going to lose that relationship or the relationship is going to erode because of it. So silence became safety in a way to preserve the bond. But silence doesn't make those needs disappear. It just delays the cost, right?

Think about, and I used to do this all the time in my past relationship where I didn't feel like I could ever say what was wrong or what was going on with me. When we would have conflict, I would have receipts and weeks and weeks and months and months of things that just really bother me. And I would just bury the other person in them. Because even though I was silent at the time about all of those things, it didn't go away. And that resentment and frustration just grew

and exploded. And any of you that have played that game before know how frustrating it is for the other person when you're like, yeah, two months ago, like you didn't do this, that, and the other, and that really hurt my feelings. And they're like, what the hell? Like, why didn't you say something then? And it really muddies the waters from the fight at hand. And so my approach is always this. If you don't care enough about it to say something in the moment, you lose the right to bring it up later.

Either stand in your power, stand in your truth and authenticity and say something now, or it's foreclosed. Like you don't get to bring that up and throw it back at the other person later. That is not fair fighting. Focus on the issue at hand and don't bring all that crap from the past up. But it's because for many of us, we were taught or learned that silence is a way to keep the peace and it's not. It just delays a bigger explosion.

And here's a little piece of research to kind of put the cherry on top. Research has shown that women are more likely to internalize stress rather than externalize it or vocalize it. What this means is we hold it in our bodies. And I always say when we hold stress in our bodies, we become like that tea kettle that's just like boiling on the stove, waiting for one person to like open that latch and we just explode, right? It's sort of like.

When someone asks you the wrong question and you just lose your mind or you start crying, it's because you've internalized all of that energy and it's just boiling below the surface. It doesn't go away. It builds and we explode. And I will tell you, quite frankly, it shows up in your body. know, a lot of the trauma that I experienced in that past relationship, I kept a lot of it in. There are things that I've experienced that I've never told anybody about.

but working with my own energy healer and sound healer, we were able to open some of those spaces and some of that chronic pain that I had in my hips, which is where I start trauma, some of that chronic pain was able to dissipate because I was finally able to move that energy and let it out instead of keeping it stuck in our bodies. So something to chew on, not everybody buys the whole energy gets stuck in your body and causes physical manifestations.

Don't believe me, you'll find out on your own, but that's truly what I believe. We stuff that energy down and it has an impact on our biology and on our DNA. That's an interesting rabbit hole to go down if you're curious about that. Okay, the next pattern to check out is being really low maintenance. This was another one I was really good at. Being low maintenance.

often means trying to be low priority in your life. So we minimize, we rationalize, we tell ourselves it's not a big deal until one day it's a huge deal. So it's sort of the same thing as the previous one where we reach for silence for peace. But with being low maintenance, we actually vocalize, it's not a big deal that you totally forgot my birthday or that you didn't get me anything for our anniversary, whatever the thing is.

we vocalize it's not a big deal, even though inside we know damn well it's a big deal and we feel that it's a big deal. And so it's us verbally being inauthentic. So being low maintenance, really asking yourself, why do I do that? Am I trying to be low maintenance and have people think I'm low maintenance because I don't want to rock the boat? Like, where does that come from? And is that in alignment with who I want to be? Like, does not rocking the boat mean I don't get to say when someone hurt me or?

when I need something and really asking those questions. Where does this idea that low maintenance has a value, where does that come from? And is that who I want to be? Does it align with my values today?

In short, all of these self-abandonment strategies, we all do them in one way, or form. And awareness is really helpful to kind of help us realign with how we're showing up in reality and asking, this really who and how I want to be? But we didn't start to self-abandon because we didn't care about ourselves. We did it because connection mattered. And these self-abandonment strategies were a way to keep that connection and keep people close.

And I think we deserve some compassion for that. I the reason we try to be silent instead of picking a fight is because we care about the person and the relationship. And we don't want to have a problem, right? We don't want to erode the relationship. We don't want to hurt someone's feelings by telling them, hey, I need more of that. Like, I needed you to call me when my dad had cancer. That doesn't feel good. And there's that fear that the other person's not going to receive it and the relationship's not going to survive. We do it because we care about these people. And I think that's a beautiful thing.

but we also have to learn to care about ourselves just as much.

As I mentioned at the outset, I've been doing all this work on love and attachment and putting together this 30-day love and attachment detox on the premium podcast. And it got so far that I decided to spend an entire week in that 30-day experience talking about self abandonment, really gently and including somatic exercises. How does it manifest in our body and how does it feel? Because I think it's just so common in us as women.

And the goal there is not to force strict boundaries or to rehearse scripts for how you're gonna show up and vocalize your needs, but it's about learning you to sense in your body and in your mind, when am I self-abandoning? And teaching your body to learn that we can be safe.

and that honesty doesn't mean that we're gonna be abandoned and there's no reason to tighten up and fear that. In that series, it's really just a very simple daily supportive and intentionally slow unpacking of those self abandonment patterns. And again, $5 a month, you can start anytime. Link is in the show notes.

For today, my friends, I want you to know that self-loyalty, does not require confrontation. It doesn't require you to flip a switch and turn into a total jerk. But it begins with just simple presence and connecting with your body, connecting with what you want, because oftentimes we know what we want to say in our bodies. It's just we don't often follow through. And so...

the more we start being present with ourselves, with our minds, with our bodies, and what we actually want, the easier it's going to be to start practicing less self-abandonment and more authenticity. And you're allowed to practice that, just one small moment, one small step at a time. And I really hope that this month you will learn a little bit more about your own self-abandonment strategies and maybe make a choice to just show up a little bit differently and use your voice or stand in your power.

in just a subtly different way and see how that feels in your body, in your mind and in your heart. All right, my friends, thank you so much for being here today and thank you so much for sharing with your friends. I know I mentioned during the episode today that I do a lot of energy work and a lot of energy healing. I do do those things virtually, so I'll also drop a link in the show notes in the event that's something that you want to schedule and just see maybe what we can release for you as well.

All right, my friends, happy new year and see you soon.