The Hidden Roots of the Abandonment Wound (Part 1 of 3)

Most of us don’t even realize we’re carrying an abandonment wound. It can quietly shape our attachment style, fuel fears of rejection, and create patterns in love and relationships that feel hard to break. In this first part of the Abandonment Wound Series, we’ll uncover the roots of the abandonment wound — where it really comes from, including surprising factors that contribute to it. 

You’ll see how even without a “bad” childhood, subtle experiences of emotional disconnection, neglect, or inconsistency can leave a lasting imprint on your nervous system and self-worth. By understanding the origin of abandonment wounds, you’ll begin to connect the dots of your own story, see why these patterns repeat, and — most importantly — realize it’s not your fault.

✍🏼 DOWNLOAD "Healing the Abandonment Wound Workbook": https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hwzbYOucOWW5wXa9N-RAiJtB22HT1q1Z/view?usp=sharing

For FREE Resources, Book Link, Quizzes, 1:1 Mentoring, KB's Self-Love Merch and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

Transcript

Kristen: 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome to Empower Hour with KB. Today we're going to be talking about the abandonment wound as promised on yesterday's broadcast. And this is something that I think many, many of us have or dealing with. We may not even know it. We may not even have realized that we're carrying around this wound. Remember, I call us all the walking wounded. I believe that everyone on earth has some type of wounds. And there's many people that can say stuff like, I had a really great childhood. And they may have, but still, there's wounds that are acquired throughout our life that we may not even realize are there. So this abandonment wound is a biggie and it's very, very, very common. So if you discover that, hey, you know what? I might have some of these signs, then good for you. That's all I can say. Good for you, because awareness is key. And the more that we recognize things about ourselves, we are actually aiming in the right direction for healing. It changes our trajectory because most of the time we're heading in one direction and we're just doing the same things over and over again based on the conditioning and programming of our mind. And then all of a sudden we have this new perception, this new awareness. And it can help us to just boop shift just a couple of degrees over to the right or to the left. And next thing you know, we're going down a whole new path. So if you are here because you suspect you might have an abandonment wound, or you just like to listen to these broadcasts here on Noom Vibe, maybe you'll get a little something from this today. I really hope that you do. Or maybe a greater awareness about somebody that you're dealing with. Because it's it's interesting to deal with other people that have abandonment wounds as well as dealing with ourselves. So to me, knowledge is power. Knowledge is, oh my gosh, it's power. It's the only other way I can say it. It's just something that can help us to move forward on our path in an empowered way. That's why I call this empower hour with KB, because this is all about moving power moving forward in an empowered way. The thing is, when it comes to abandonment wounds, we may have certain behaviors that are showing up based on the beliefs that were shaped through certain experiences that we have. And these beliefs can ironically perpetuate abandonment in our life. I know that's crazy, but this whole healing journey is very, very paradoxical. So it can lead to things like clingingness, people pleasing, withdrawal, sabotage, chronic mistrust of others, and those types of things showing up within a relationship can actually create a person to move away from us, which then perpetuates the abandonment wound. And then we say, see, I knew I wasn't safe. See, I knew that people are bad. See, I know that I'm unlovable or unworthy. So it'll keep perpetuating those belief systems that are causing our actions. So it's really important to recognize, hey, I have an abandonment wound. First, I'm going to talk about the understanding of the abandonment wounds, okay, what they are, giving it like a clear definition so you can understand. Because they're not just about someone physically leaving, they're about emotional disconnection. It can be unmet needs, it could be some type of ruptured attachment during key developmental stages of your life. And then these things take root and they start to show up in our life based on the way we process our relationships, the way we see people. It can create a filter through which we see life and relationships through. One of the first ways that this can happen is in early childhood experiences. And that could be physical abandonment, which means your parent, your caregiver, somebody left. Whether it was through divorce, sometimes it can be through death, it can be through incarceration, or that they just literally walked away. Somehow they were pulled from your life. And even though you were really young, your body recognizes that something has been removed. It can even happen through some type of addiction. Let's say they didn't have an addiction in some part of your life, and then all of a sudden your parent or caregiver developed or partner developed some type of addiction. And most of us know by now who know who know anything about addiction is that that becomes their number one priority, and that everything else is left behind. So that can rupture that attachment with that person is equally. I found that very fascinating when I learned about that, because you know, with most of the things that I learned, they were due to me wanting to understand certain behaviors in myself or in somebody else. And there was a book that I read once, I forgot the name of it. Oh gosh. When I talk live like this, things come up and then I don't remember the name of it. All right, I'll just leave that there until it comes up. I'm perusing my bookshelf right now. I'm like, where is that book? Where is that book? Oh, Adult Children of Alcoholics. I read that book, Adult Children of Alcoholics, once. I did not have alcoholic parents. In fact, they didn't drink. But when I was reading that book due to a relationship that I was in at the time, because I was trying to understand the person that I was in and what was actually going on within them. But you know what I read in that book? Even though I didn't have parents that were alcoholics, that they could abandon in a different way. And that moves us on to the next piece, which is emotional abandonment. And this could be that your parent or your caregiver is physically present, but they were emotionally unavailable. Perhaps they had depression, narcissism, addiction. Maybe they were just neglectful. But these type of things can feel like abandonment too. It could also be that the caregiver ignored or invalidated your emotions when you were little. That's a sense of emotional abandonment. It could also be something like you were told to toughen up or stop crying, which typically teaches a child that emotions are unsafe. So any of these things can lead of abandonment within a person. The next item is neglect. And that means that emotional needs such as comfort, affection, and reassurance, can go unmet. And so I, you know, I wouldn't say that I had severe neglect. I was cared for, I was loved, I was fed. Um my mom hugged me. My dad didn't really at that point. He did later in life, but my dad was an interesting little man. But um, I would say that there was there was definitely moments of emotional neglect. I'm a Gen Xer and we were kind of feral doing our own thing. And I don't blame my parents for this because they were probably emotionally neglected as well. But this can lead to the abandonment wound. This lack of nurturing could teach us that your needs are too much or that they don't matter. Like I'm just too much, I don't matter. And then that's a belief that can get impacted within us. And then what do we do? We start looking out for somebody to fill that void that our parents didn't fill. Problem with this is it's usually an unhealthy type of attachment or seeking because we expect them to constantly fill that void. And when they don't fill that void, then boom, that triggers the abandonment, and then we start acting all kinds of ways. So we've got this in two ways. One, we have the abandonment wound so that we seek for more, and then we have these expectations about how that's supposed to look. And when they're hitting the mark, then we feel great. But when they're not hitting the mark, then boom, once again we feel like we're alone in the world. Okay, the next one is attachment trauma. And that is that caregivers are inconsistent, sometimes loving, sometimes rejecting. That's that's a that's a rough one because you can for a moment you'll feel safe, but then all of a sudden they're rejecting you. And so that creates a disconnect between consistency, like you don't feel like you're truly safe ever because you don't know what you're gonna expect. So this can create what's called the anxious attachment, which is a fear of reject rejection. So we fear rejection because we've had it so often. Like one moment, all is well, everybody's loving us, everything's great. And then the next moment we are rejected or we are neglected. And so that can cause us to be anxious and to fear rejection going forward. It can also create the avoidant attachment, which means of a shutting down of emotions and avoiding things altogether. And most of us know that that doesn't work well in relationships. We need to know what's going on within ourselves and to be able to have those sometimes difficult conversations with people. Trauma within us isn't only what happened, but it's also what should have happened but didn't happen. That's what creates this feeling inside of us. There could also be developmental trauma, which means we have chronic relational trauma that is often invisible but deeply wounding. So that means there's something that happens in our life that is in relationship with another person that we feel more than like they're not hitting us or beating us. There's some, there's there's a chronic feeling that's a running theme underneath the or within the energy of that home or that place that should feel safe to you. So it could also mean that we're growing up in a place that love had to be earned. It had to be earned through some type of performance or obedience or caretaking. We were forced to caretake in a certain area. And maybe, you know, I've seen this before where a child is responsible for all of their younger siblings, and the parents are out doing whatever it is they're doing. I'm working with a person currently who has that. It was their love from their parents came strictly from performance. And this has led to this person's feeling, you know, abandonment trauma, abandonment wound, which is showing up in their relationship. So that's what we're currently working on to help them heal that. It can also be where you were responsible for meeting your parents' emotional needs instead of the other way around. Oh, that's a rough one, right? Where you had to be there for your parents as a small person. That's not your job, but you were forced into that role. So you, as a child, were abandoned in the areas of what you needed emotionally because you were taught that you had to be there for the elders around you, whether it was one or many. That makes me so sad to even think about that something like that has been put upon a child, something so big. There's so many adults that can't even be there for adults, and we're expecting a child whose brainwave states haven't even reached beta brainwave state, which is 12 to, I think it starts at 12 and above, right? So they're in these younger positions. One of the things that my son said to me one time, he said, because as he grew, and you know, they're adults now, he's 29 years old, and he told me it's probably two years ago, maybe, maybe a year ago. He said, you know, at first when I understood all that you had gone through and all the pieces and parts and behaviors and actions of other people's, etc., he said, I was kind of mad about that, that you didn't tell us about that. He goes, but then he said this right in the same breath. He goes, but then I realized I wasn't old enough to handle that. I'm grateful that I had the insight or the wherewithal to realize, like, I'll give them pieces of the situation just to keep them informed. But I didn't want to overwhelm them because they're kids. They can't handle this. I'm thinking of one of the friends of one of my children who, after the mother got divorced from the father or the parents got divorced, she leaned on her son to be her partner, not in a sexual way, but basically he now had to take care of her. She wasn't taking care of him, but she had to take care of her. So if you guys are relating to any of these things so far, I know there's a lot that I've said so far. Send up some claps, send up some emojis if you have an Apple device, because you know, other people need to see that you get it too. I've had these things, some of these things, not a lot of them, but I would love for everybody else in the room to, there we go. All right, you guys, awesome job. To see that it's it's not just them. Because there's some people too that don't even have an Apple device, so they're not gonna be able to send up their claps. And if that's the case, then you all can send me a DM and just send up some claps or something, and I'll check the DM. And you can do that by clicking on my profile picture and clicking where it says say hi. Don't click ask me a question. Click where it says say hi. So Amani, Jeanette, VA, Steven, Jennifer, Terolyn, Sarah, Jeannie, Chris, Christy, and Sarah all relate to that. Awesome, guys. Thank you so much because we are community. We are an Amy and truth. We are community strong here, you guys. This is what makes us so beautiful is the community, the understanding that we're not alone. You're not crazy, you're not broken, and there's nothing that is fatally flawed about you. You're a human being having human experiences. We are humans doing human things, and that's what my podcast is all about. That's what I teach is first and foremost, for you to understand there's nothing wrong with you. You're not unworthy, you're not broken beyond repair, you're not fatally flawed. You are a human being that have had a whole bunch of experiences, and they have culminated into certain belief systems that have contributed to certain behaviors, the end. That's the neuroscience piece of what I talk about. That's all it is. It's conditioning and programming. We all have it on some level. So settle yourself down into that beanbag of truth, crunch in that beanbag. It's kind of an older beanbag, so it's very worn in. You can settle yourself all the way there where your buttons almost touch the ground because it's so worn in, and just feel that cocoon of truth around you that you're okay. You're gonna be okay, and there's nothing fatally flawed about you. All right, the next one could be that there was, oh, I'm sorry, part of that same one, the developmental trauma could be that the you had constant unpredictability, which meant you walked on eggshells, never knowing which parent you would get. Oh, that's a harsh one. You could also get it through a partner. If your partner has certain behaviors that they're exhibiting, one day they love you and everything's great and everything's happy and wonderful, and the next minute they're screaming at you for something, right? This might contribute to like, I need to tread lightly because I don't know what I'm gonna get. I had this with my dad. Now, my dad was two things, and I love my father, and I understand my father, and he had a heart of gold. He was just an unhealed human and who was emotionally immature. That's all that it boils down to. But my dad, we he'd come home, he he never really greeted us in childhood. He wasn't like, hey, Chris, what's up? How are you? Hey, Joe, Charlie, Henry, Jim. He never really did. I just kind of walked in the door silent, and he'd do his thing. He was a very, very quiet person. So he was either quiet or he was yelling. There was really no in between. We didn't really just have conversations. And I've processed this so much. But what did I just say there? Quiet or yelling? There was really nothing in between. Because of that unpredictability of his mood, when we would see his car coming down the road to hear his car, one of my siblings would say, literally, dad's home, and everybody would disperse. Everybody would flee, somewhere, somewhere, whether to our bedrooms, whether to a friend's house, getting on the bike, whatever. Everybody would disperse because we didn't know what kind of dad we were gonna going to have. So that's a that's a developmental abandonment. The next one is betrayal or broken trust. And this can happen in youth, but also can happen in later in life. And this could be where you have an intense relationship and then a partner leaves, cheats, or withdraws love. Do you see how a lot of these things are overlapping? Could be they develop an addiction. Somehow you felt safe, then all of a sudden you don't feel safe. And that can process within you as an abandonment wound. It could be friendships ending without closure. It could be being ghosted, manipulated, or used. And these don't hurt only in the moment. They can reactivate an original wound. Okay? They can create one or they can reactivate an original wound. I had a situation once in my life where I was in a relationship and my partner kind of went radio silent for a couple of weeks. And that was very strange, what came up for me was very strange. It was very strange. I felt activated from an abandonment standpoint of a previous partner. In fact, when I thought of that partner, my previous partner's face was superimposed over them. And that was my cue because I felt a panic feeling. And it was my cue. I was like, what is going on here? Because I can't even picture the current partner. I was picturing the former partner who did abandon. And so I did some practices to help center me because my body was responding to it from an old abandonment wound that I didn't even know was there. And when I'm saying this with a smile on my face, with moist eyes, because I was so glad it came up for me. I was thinking, oh my gosh, standing by myself in my bathroom, thinking, wow, all this healing work that I had done and that particular thing was still there. But I did the work. I because I know certain tools and techniques, and I did the work. I actually took a shower and did the work the entire time in the shower. And I mean the entire time in the shower. Don't even know if I cleaned my hair correctly. And I came out. the shower and it was I wouldn't say it was 100% gone but it was a good 80 75 80 gone and I was like this is the this is the hope this is the inspiration that I want to have you understand this is healable it's 1000% healable all right I got a message I'm not gonna read their name because I saw what it said okay love this topic exclamation point but too triggering to listen to while at work understandable I'm going to listen later but I'm so grateful for the abandonment topic you are hitting on exactly what I need to work on right now thank you that brought tears to my eyes and I know I understand and you know what that self-awareness right there this is why you guys blow me away that self-awareness that this person just had they're like wow this is what I need I get this but I'm working and I can I can I can't do both these things at the same time but I'm gonna come back and listen to it beautiful and if this is too triggering for any of you like you're like holy moly and you're finding yourself crying while you're driving or you really have to get some workout today and this is going to do pause. End the talk you can come back to it it will be here for you. It will also be edited and put up on my Empower Hour with KB podcast on all major podcasting platforms and YouTube. So don't think you have to stay here but if you are in a place that you can receive and your heart and mind are open and maybe even take some notes with a pad of paper and pen or write it in your phone about things that you want to remember because this topic is so incredibly important and dog on it you guys I want you to live your best life I want you to remove this stuff. I want you to heal this stuff because what's on the other side of healing is it's like someone took this muddy or took a big squeegee across the windshield of your life the colors are there the butterflies are there the dog sleeping next to you is there your beautiful paint on your walls whatever it might be your your child randomly walking up and hugging you all of those things become become more brighter they just become like and there's a deep exhale there's a couple of people right now I'm working with coaching clients on the abandonment wound and the one thing that I hear from them all the time is I feel so much lighter. Life is good. Life is good life is good I feel so much lighter so you can heal this and if you do need help for my noom vibers I offer a 40% discount for my noom vibers and you can type that in on my uh website kristenbrown.org slash work with me forward slash work with me that brings you straight to that or you can just go to kristenbrown.org and click the work with me button and on checkout you type in where it says discount code vibers rock v-i-b E R S R O C K Vibers Rock and that will automatically give you 40% discount and that is reusable that discount code I used to do packages and all type of things and now I'm just like you know what I'm just doing solo sessions single sessions and people can just reuse the code for as long as that's available. So feel free to take me up on that offer and we will take it slow, we'll take it easy we'll we'll take it at your pace however it is that you need to but if you feel like I need some help in this area I'm your girl I'm here for you. The next one could be believe this or not this is a biggie. Hear a lot about this one in the world this could be birth and preverbal trauma and this can be this is the deepest layer and can run very very deep. This means you could have had a separation from your mother at birth which means you were put in an incubator maybe you had medical procedures maybe you were given up for adoption one of the people I'm working with right now was given up for adoption and doesn't realize how deep that that abandonment wound is showing up for them until we started talking about it and they're going through a relationship situation right now. And so I started to see this I was like there's something to this I started asking questions in that department and we uncovered an abandonment wound from way back in the day. And sometimes this deep layer could require something deeper like EMDR, somatic healing, um, some type of trauma therapy because we do need to approach that deeper layer I 1000% without question believe that this is healable. Absolutely it's just about knowing it's there and resetting your nervous system and belief system about what that impacted into you and also through types of meditations and things like this. It could also be from birth trauma like a C-section, cord complications or a longer fast labor this could register as nervous system shock. And these are stored as felt experiences body experiences rather than memories so keep that in mind. These are just going to be triggered in the body it's not going to be remembered when that parent walked out the door or something you know the parent died or something like that major where it's a it's a memory these are going to show up in the body through your body's reaction to certain things. All right the next one could be intergenerational trauma which is abandonment cycles that are passed down through the family pathology which means that parents who never received secure love will unconsciously repeat those patterns. People call this also generational curse I don't like that that the word curse no that sounds like someone put a curse on you and that you have no control over it. Ayanla Van Zant I'm not sure if you guys know who she is but I love this woman she had Ayanla Fix My Life and that was on the Own network the Oprah Winfrey Network I'm not sure if it was there the whole time or maybe Owen took it over but at any rate great show great show but she talked about family pathology that was the words that she used and I said that I like that or generational patterns those make sense to me but this whole generational curse thing I personally don't like that same way I don't like the word broken. Oh I'm broken. No no one's broken you're not broken you're a little wounded you might be slightly bent same as me same as everybody else but I don't believe in broken that that doesn't feel right to me. It can to you and you can use that word by the way I just have a certain visceral reaction to certain words like the word choice. Choice lights me up just the word choice the word power these type of things light me up but those two words they light me down I don't I don't like the way they feel okay so it could also be an emotional absence becomes a learned coping mechanism inherited like a legacy. This is why I mentioned earlier that my father who I felt was emotionally immature and and um he was emotionally absent for us he was kind of mentally absent from us too I mean I mean if I asked him dad would you help me do math he he would try um I remember us sitting in the kitchen floor playing jacks but it was just kind of he was just kind of off to himself a lot you know what I'm saying but what did I say about that I said that I'm I know that his parents were the same way to him because they were my grandparents and they lived here to the 45 minutes from us and we saw them occasionally again no diss on my grandparents these are those generations ahead of us those are behind us are they ahead of us ahead of us the generations ahead of us and this is why these conversations are so so serving and so imperative and the upside the upside of social media is the language the awareness the information that we have access to now like we are self-healing superstars you guys and I'm hearing younger kids younger that like 20 in their 20s young 20s even teens sometimes talking about things because they're having this awareness and here's my thing I don't discount them okay just because they're young because the brain is so wide open I've often found that young folks late teens early 20s if they're dedicated as always late teens and 20s will heal quickly because they are so receptive maybe they haven't been bashed enough to through life or maybe they haven't done the same thing over and over and over again for 40 years. See what I'm saying? But I've seen them be very receptive. So if they're picking this stuff up I'm happy I'm happy but I always say to everybody use discernment because there's some things out there that I run across I'm like ooh ouch that should not even be out there like ooh no that's that's wrong. That's not good. Okay so use discernment feel into your feeler feel into your heart center does this ring true does it like ding ding ding ding ding ding ding or is it like oh that's what it is what does it feel like to you my entire healing journey was based on things that rang true that's it that's it if it rang true I adopted it I owned it I integrated it I worked with it I found tools around it and I started to heal but there were things that I was like no and I didn't do that. Like the whole um there's just a lot of narratives that were out in the world that I just I couldn't get on board with they just didn't feel right to me. So once again this is about you putting yourself back in the driver's seat of your life this is about you trusting you because you are a soul you have a heart the heart has 4000 neurons brain cells in the heart the heart knows things trusting it trusting those nudges trusting those visceral reactions trusting that ringing true trusting that message from your soul trusting your higher self even with everything I've said so far today and anything I ever say in the future or anything you might be listening to in the past take what resonates the end I'm not here to tell you how to do your life I'm not here to tell you that I'm right or I'm the boss of you or any of those things. I'm just a woman who's gone through a lot figured some things out and want to help the world stop suffering. But you my beloved soul sibling you must be in the power seat of your life you must look at and feel into your soul and into your heart okay so what happens from these abandonment wounds is that we develop core beliefs and these core beliefs are something akin to or exactly this I'm not worthy of love or everyone leaves or if I get too close I will get hurt or my needs are too much. It could also be it's safer to reject others before I am rejected those are the core beliefs and when we have these core beliefs swirling in our unconscious they are the filter through which we see relationships we see ourselves because those beliefs are there those are what is are going to dictate our behaviors see what I'm saying I've heard a lot of people say I am healing trauma and I said this to a coaching client recently I said it's not the trauma we're healing it's the belief systems that came from the trauma. The trauma's over that's done it happened it's done but what are we walking away with we're walking away with these belief systems that came from it and that's what is dictating our actions our behaviors our thoughts the way we show up and by the way you guys that's the inner world that I talk about I always say heal our inner world change our outer world this is why because when we heal those things that implanted that have been programmed into us boom we see people differently we see relationships differently we process information coming to us from relationships differently the way we act show up what we're able to handle coming from our relationships all of it starts to change because the foundation of who we are has changed. Okay I'm gonna take a break right here and see if anybody would like to come up and to share anything that's coming up for you right now about understanding the abandonment wounds. Yes I I had a feeling this soul sister was gonna pop up here.

Imani: 34:14

We have Amani thank you for coming up Amani thank you for having me beautiful um yes this is a hard topic but it's also a necessary topic helps us to discover what the patterns are what keeps repeating itself and we can shift from it being like attacked all the time why is it me? People don't like me this and this and this and this to okay this is why I feel that way this is why this keeps happening you know for my whole life I lived it for everyone else because I felt because I wanted approved of acknowledged I would sacrifice my personality I would sacrifice my morals and values just to say I have friends just to say I had a significant other because I didn't feel I deserved anything less anything more than that. Yeah but as I took the time to really sit in my feelings and really process my role in all of those decisions it made it a little bit more easier because when we're in the blame game it is everyone else's fault it's anything else's fault we had no part in it. Well yeah we did yeah we did and that's the hard thing is when we have to look in the mirror and face you taking all the masks off and face you at your whore and for me it was because I still was living off the lie of that oh well you were a mistake you were unplanned you weren't supposed to be here but I chose to have you anyway and I felt to prove my existence every single day and unfortunately my mom when she passed away she still hadn't accepted me all but I stayed on bars for many more years after that and it wasn't until a great pastor said to me he's like you know your life is not about you and I know I gave him the stink face but he said hold on let me finish uh yeah he's like your life is not about you he says your life is about the people who are tied to you waiting for you to get your breakthrough so they can receive theirs. You are part of the link for them and there is nothing you could say if you went back to God today that can explain and excuse why you allowed all those people to perish and die because you didn't want to give up your feelings of rejection being angry being jealous you know gossiping all the things at any time you could have given it up but you chose to hold on to it like that blanket with Linus you know on the penis Linus was everywhere with that blanket he'd fight you if you tried to take that blanket away was the same thing with us our bodies protect ourselves protect itself our mind protects itself is not necessarily a good thing all the time but to the mind it's a danger until you unlearn to relearn how to shift your words and perspective the situation may not have changed but your viewpoint of the situation is what changed yes the reason my mom right there the reason my mom said that to me all the time is because I was a product of an affair I was an affair baby and so every day my mom had to face her decision lively in color every single day she looked at me it reminded her of that decision. And coming from a West Indian family coming from the time when there was no segregation in the Virgin Islands but when they came stateside it still was in effect so that culture shock my mom was the oldest of nine kids so she had to watch everybody while her mom you know worked with the job because while they separated from her dad because he was on drugs. Then my stepdad was on drugs my sister's dad so the whole parting part kept repeating itself of this is what I track because it's what I know. It is the standard example of what I've seen whether we realized it was healthy or not at the time and that's what I saw. And so I ended up in abusive relationships too because my mom had a had stayed in an abusive relationship. My mom tried to change people and then I tried to do the same well if I just stay long enough you know they'll they'll get over it they'll get through this if I just pray hard enough no someone has to be a product of their own rescue. You can't force anybody kicking and screaming to do something different that they don't want to do. It's going to cause more harm to you to try and convince them otherwise so that was eye-opening for me to finally understand the reasonings what my mom said what she said. And then that gave me the ability to become content in the present so I can expect more in my future so go ahead and wear those crowns ladies gentlemen because you are royalty.

Kristen: 39:05

Thank you Amani thank you thank you just to clarify because I know what Amani was talking about but I I there was a part where I thought you guys might be going what okay she's talking about in current relationships there's a part that you were responsible for we all are now in some of the things that I listed like your parent left you or they had an addiction or you they were emotionally neglectful. She wasn't talking about that you're a child you're powerless. She was talking about later in life recognizing her part what she had carried into the relationship. So I just wanted to make that clear in case you guys were like well wait a minute okay thank you Amani that was beautiful as always I super appreciate you coming up and next up we have our sister Robin and then we have Steven afterwards. Oh no Robin Looks like I'm getting the black hole. Yep, I got the uh oh, Robin. So let's try that again. And after Robin and Steven speak, then I'm gonna go into the signs that you could have an abandonment wound. Oh, Robin. Robin, we're not getting you back. Maybe she had to go. I want to wait a little bit though because she is on her lunch hour and see if she's gonna be able to pop back in again. Maybe she can't. Maybe she had to go. Okay. All right, Robin. I'm gonna go ahead and bring up Steven. If you're able to, please rejoin and I'll bring you up right after Steven. She started her new job. So excited. Hey Steven.

Steven: 40:44

Hey.

Kristen: 40:45

Oh, Steven, she's back in. Do you mind if I pop her back up because she is on her lunch?

Steven: 40:49

Oh, go ahead. Sure.

Kristen: 40:51

Is that okay? All right. Thanks, Steve. I'll be right with you. Sure. Okay. All right. I knew Steven would be cool with that. Okay. Thank you, Steven. I appreciate that. Your love. All right, we got Robin. We got the green countdown happening. Oh no, Robin. We're getting the black hole again. Alright, we did get the uh-oh again, Robin. Alright, let's see what's gonna go on here. Let's see if she can join one more time. Third time's a charm, Robin. We're counting on you. You got this. Alright. I mean, I was gonna bring Steven back up again, but if Robin pops back in again, then we'll have to drop him back down again. Live on Noom Vibe, recognizing and healing the abandonment wound part one with Empower Hour with KB. All right, looks like she's not gonna be able to, so I'm gonna go ahead and bring Steven up. And we'll just keep you, Steven, even if she pops back in again, because I'm not sure what's happening on her end. She's in a different location. Alrighty, welcome back, Steven. Thank you. You are very kind. Thank you for allowing us to try that.

Steven: 42:02

You're welcome. I mean, I'm just out here driving up and down the road. It's okay. Yeah. So I have heard about the parents not being emotionally available many other times. Why in the heck would you say that it triggered me? I have no idea.

Kristen: 42:29

It triggered you how?

Steven: 42:32

Um I don't know. I just got sad all of a sudden. And because there were it can sort of resonate with the way your dad was. I mean, we lived on a small little hobby farm, and I swear dad would rest the tractor up and down the field and do stuff like that that he would hang out with us. And I wonder where I kind of wondered where that came from. And while you were talking, I'm like, wait a minute. Um, his dad left him several times because my grandmother, his mom, would I was told showed up a few times at other people's houses with my dad and his older brother in tow back in the twenties. Um, you know, because his dad was kind of a quote-unquote shyster and had the next get rich quick scheme in the twenties that never panned out. So I'm guessing dad didn't have the best role model for him, so how would he know what to do with us? And why I just put all that together just now? Uh I don't know.

Kristen: 43:56

I love it, Steven, because you're you know what? Driving is so meditative too, and you're you're driving and you're listening to this at the same time. So maybe you were just in the place that you could hear it differently.

Steven: 44:10

That and one of Mani came up, um, because it was like, oh, okay, so I basically took that, and my sister made the remark one time. It's like we grew up in an alcoholic home without the alcohol. I'm like, we were poor. I mean, we lived out of my dad's unemployment with five kids, and emotionally responsible. I remember one time mom's like, well, he he's gonna come home from uh, I don't know if he'd just been laid off or whatever. I know I was preteen, and she's like, he's gonna come home looking like a whip pup, so don't you guys do anything to piss him off or just basically say you know, and I guess that's how I got trained to do it in in my marriage, too, because umani was speaking, I'm like, oh yeah, I wanted to marry my unfinished business, and for some reason the the phrase kind of ran through my head and really got me was you don't matter, and then I was like, Oh shit, I don't. I matter to a whole bunch of people, not just because I didn't matter to that one is not truth. And so while she was in the second half, and she's I don't not sure what all she said because I was processing like one of that here. Let me give you a list of people I matter to. And I was like, oh, look at you. What's going on here?

Kristen: 45:53

I want to tell you, you just broke a piece off of you. You just you just accessed something really powerful.

Steven: 46:00

Thank you. Pretty darn amazing what you can do when you're flying down the highway.

Kristen: 46:08

It's just it's it's your open heart and open mind, though, Steven. Really? It's just you're always you're a seeker. You're a seeker. And yeah, you marry your unfinished business. Oh my gosh, yes, because guess what? I married emotionally unavailable men, just like my dad. There's also this strange thing about it though. I process through this a lot. I'm like, what is that? And I heard this once. It it's it's familiar because we are used to dealing with it. So it feels like quote unquote home. That's such a strange way for me to look at that. But I was like, oh, I get it. Like this feels quote unquote comfortable because it's familiar. And I remember having one guy come in that was not that way, and I was not attracted to him. I was not attracted to him at all. Like I broke up with him after a couple of weeks because it was like too, too much heart. I thought it was weird. Not anymore, but that's how it was back in the day. It's so interesting how the brain works. Stephen, thank you so much for coming up. Thank you, thank you. You can feel free to join again later if you'd like to, or anybody else. And I would love to hear what you guys have to say because right now you're seeing, you're seeing, you're seeing wisdom, you're seeing experiences healed, you're seeing new aha's. Like Stephen said, wow, I just put all that together. And the next step I would say to anybody who's realizing that a parent might have abandoned and you didn't even really realize it, because we think abandon means they leave. That's what we think. But again, like I mentioned in all of this talk so far, there's so many different layers of abandonment or different types of abandonment. The key to that piece for me was forgiving my father. He doesn't even know I forgave him. He doesn't even know there was an issue. He doesn't even, but I I had to, when I was doing a lot of my inner child work, I was like, you know, little Kristen needed to be protected. She needed dad to say, I'm gonna meet your boyfriend before you go out with him. I had an abusive boyfriend for two years, guys. Nobody knew it. 17 years old to 19. No one knew it. It wasn't like constant all the time, but he got rough with me uh a lot of times. And I won't explain all that. I'm not sure if that's appropriate for this app. But you know, not just little things, I will say. And um, you know, I needed more. And I realized that I didn't know how to protect or or respect myself because I wasn't taught. And of course, initially, that makes us want to go back to the parents and go, why, you know, fist pounding on the ground. Why didn't you teach me this? Why didn't you love me the way I needed to be loved? Why didn't you? And then I realized he did the best he could. He didn't know. And then I learned about the pathology of families. I learned about all this. I was like, you know, when I look back at my dad now, you know what my lens is? This is gonna blow your mind. My dad loved us so much. Isn't that mind-blowing? I see that now because I'm so clear and have forgiven that I see all the ways that this man loved us. How he showed up for me so many times uh monetarily when I needed him, how he showed up for my brothers, how he started to really show his heart after the grandkids were born. And he just we was older and probably less restrained, and who knows what else, maybe I don't know. But and all of this first time I ever heard him say, I love you was to one of my children. And then it started to bleed onto me, and then we started to tell each other we loved each other, and that was weird at first. I was like, Well, that never happened, and it just kept growing and growing, and I just realized and mu and how uh when he you know before he passed away, how he had all of his finances in order and how it went to all of his kids, all of these things. Yeah, Stephen said your dad couldn't say it. No, he I don't think he knew how it wasn't said to him, it wasn't said to my mother, right? And of course, my mother and her upbringing, I can see why she attracted an individual like my father. It all starts to make sense. And that forgiveness piece is huge because we know not what we do, we do the very best that we can, and sometimes it's not great, and sometimes we wish people did it differently or more or better in an improved way. And it was because of that with my family that I wanted to be a different mother. Because again, for all practical purposes, my childhood was fine. There was weird stuff and some dysfunctional stuff here and there, and like I said, all of that, some abandonment things here and there, but I didn't want to repeat that pattern. And this is long before, I mean, I was 26 years old when I had my first child. It's long before I was doing any of this work. I knew I didn't want to do that. So part of my parenting came from what did they do that was great and serving to me? And what did I not receive that I want to give my kids? So a lot of my, it was like Daryl with the Dashes calls reverse engineering. I reversed the whole thing and decided how am I going to figure this out? What is my parenting plan for me? And I took in a lot of information and I read things and I talked to clients at work, how they did things, because you know, the hairstylist, so you know, every an hour or two, depending on what whatever they're getting that day, whether it was a haircut or whether it was a color, whatever it was, every couple of hours I had someone new in my chair, and there were some people that were great parents, and I would ask them questions. So I just kept taking in information because I wanted to do it differently. All right, I have a message on the back, Chandil from Amani. She said, My mom didn't know how to give and receive love. She did the best with what she had. I know she is proud of me and loves me. Yes. So wild what we figure out later. Robin, thanks for showing back up. Hey, Kristen. Can you hear me today? I can.

Robin: 52:16

Hey, sorry that I I think I just probably lost signal in the very large building that I'm in in Orlando.

Kristen: 52:24

No big deal.

Robin: 52:25

My new my new place of work. I don't know if I've ever talked to you about this. I talked to Chris um Christina about it when I was a little girl, daddy's little girl. And I didn't know a lot of this when I was young. I was the second child. My sister was older, but she was, we found it later, adopted. Um, from my mother was pregnant, and my father did marry her and adopt my sister. Um, so I was the first, his child. And um, he was a very bad alcoholic, very abusive to my mom. He would get get the belt out, and we would have some things that we would get punished for. Um, I think my sister probably got the brunt of more things. Um, but I I loved my father and he was very affectionate with us and very loving, and he loved my mother, but I think that when he was drinking, he really just couldn't control it. And I think he also had a degree of paranoid uh schizophrenia as well. Oh boy. So yeah. So, you know, I have a young, I had a younger sister and a younger brother as well. So the four of us. My mother just tried to, she just tried to leave. So when we left, you know, like we got scattered, like with my my mother, took the younger two and lived with one of my aunts, and my sister and I lived with my grandparents, and so there was kind of a division there. But we were used to being with our grandparents, it wasn't that bad, but we were away from my father, you know. So I used to go to my friend's house and I would go and I would run across the field and I would go see him because I missed him. And there, you know, there's a dog there, and I miss the dog. And one time I went there and he looked at me and he said, Get out of here. I don't want I I don't want you to keep coming here because every time I see you, you've changed or you've grown, or you know, get go away. And I remember running teared across this field, just running with tears down my eyes. Like he just literally kicked me out, kicked me away, had me leave. And um, so I think that has affected my relationships with men. Um moving forward. So anytime somebody leaves, I feel abandoned. I feel like, wow, here we are again, where a man doesn't claim he loves me and and wants to take care of me and all that, but then leaves. Um, so that is a wound that I have been working on and trying to heal. And I think you know this from just working with our group here. I have worked through a lot of that, especially with the last relationship that I've had, and I've been able to, you know, maintain a relationship with him still, and it's different, it's different. So I don't I've learned more to love myself and I know that I'm not leaving myself. Yeah, um, yes, yeah, and I know that other people that are in my life um are not leaving, but more recently my nephews were blew up at me about something that I have a difference of opinion with them. And um, I just I feel like they're really a real disconnect there. And I for a minute I was like, you know, here we go again, another abandonment. And even my best friend, she did that. She's like, um, if you're gonna talk about that, I don't want to be on the phone. And I was like, okay, sure, just abandon me like everybody else. And I literally said that, yeah. Um, but when she called and she apologized, well, she texted actually and apologized. And um, I just thought to myself, you know what? If this is the time, and I've listened to Lois, this is probably the time where people start leaving your life that don't have the same beliefs and values and want to see where you go and upward and onward. Um, so I that's that's kind of the where the healing starts, but I'm really anxious to see part here part two of you.

Kristen: 56:25

Robin, if you're not done and you'd like to come back up, feel free to. If you are and you need to get back to work, that's okay too. Yeah, I had a feeling that she had a little bit more to say. Oh, such great awareness. Yeah, you know that when we heal, one of the things about it is some people may fall out of our lives. And that's just part of the gig. But yes, please continue, Robin.

Robin: 56:47

What's happen what happens, I guess, with each successive relationship is I now say to myself, you know, I've been through this, you can get through this. And what I've gone through in the past year, I feel like I could get through anything, to be honest. Um, and it's not that I don't because I value love and I have a lot of love to give. And the person that does come into my life and join with me and compliments me because I'm not looking for them to make me happy, because you can't do that. You need to have your life and love your life and do your thing, and then you just come in and it's a it's it's a compliment and not feel torn when somebody does decide that they don't want to be in your life. Um, it's not that it's not gonna break your heart, but you can heal a lot faster, probably. Yeah, believe me, I I at the beginning of my journey here and Cecilia Grace will tell you that's where it all started was a a relationship that failed. So that took me, hit me very, very hard. But when I started listening and learning and giving myself a little grace, I determined that I can I can get through. I have support, I have the tools, and I will keep trying to use them to heal.

Kristen: 58:08

Yeah, yeah. So you're doing such an amazing job too. You really are. Thank you.

Robin: 58:13

Thank you.

Kristen: 58:14

I've you're welcome.

Robin: 58:16

I feel like I feel like I am, I really do. I um keep on keeping on, right?

Kristen: 58:21

That's right. And there's, you know, I think in not I think, in regards to what you were saying, that there is a difference between someone leaving and us being sad and maybe regretful or remorseful or grieving and it triggering an abandonment wound. The abandonment wound is like a panic. And all of a sudden we're clamoring to try to get this right because it's touched something deep, deep, deep inside of us. I've had both. Where there's a breakup and it's like, oh, okay, that's that's really sad. And then I've had like like it feels like my whole, like I'm frozen.

Robin: 59:01

I'm like, like the 20, the 21-year marriage that just suddenly, all of a sudden, I'm leaving. Boop, you know, that that was a moment.

Kristen: 59:10

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's that, there's that panic that can happen. And so when like you know, when I talk about true trauma triggers, not just the having an emotional trigger about something, but like a true trauma trigger is gonna be accompanied with the feeling of panic. And so that's how we can know the difference. If this is really triggering something inside of us or if it's just really flipping sad. Yeah. Because really relationships, even if even if a person is the one to choose it and to leave, even if a person is the one who chose to end the relationship, they still grieve. You know, there's always the grieving process.

Robin: 59:50

Definitely. Definitely. I I'm gonna keep keep on listening and and learning, and that's what I encourage everybody else is is. learn listen and learn and like Peter says stick and stay and you're gonna stay absorb you're gonna absorb so much that will help you in your in your life day to day and long term and and be able to model for your children and and be a better a better person so it can you know be a better better world absolutely the only person we have control over is ourself so be the change we wish to see in the world right yes things thanks for um having me on Kristen I appreciate it you betcha Robin sister love you my sister thank you for coming up yeah I do love that Peter says stick and stay and he is in the room he was sending up some some love yeah that's such a great thing stick and stay like stick around even if it's a little uncomfortable even if it's topics that you don't think you need you know stick and stay I was listening to Coach Kara this morning talk about uh I think it was habit looping I'm sorry I'm gonna mess it up but I was like I was so enjoying listening to her just sitting on the treadmill sitting walking on the treadmill at the gym just listening to Coach Cara and to hear other people's topics and what they're talking about and how they lay it out I do it as much as I can I listen to Noom Vibe as much as I can.

Kristen: 1:01:17

I could be on here 247 even when it was wisdom you know just I love hearing people talk about real life situations. Okay I did get a message let's see what Sarah said she said I resonate with this and what you've said and what Amani and Robin have said so much. I want to talk but I feel jumbled maybe tomorrow I will feel more light coming up I'm glad it's going into a part two yes I totally understand. Oh gosh I'm very grateful that this is resonating with so many of you because I I was I'm gonna be honest with you I was a little nervous I was like oh this is a really big one this is a heavy one this could trigger people but you know me it's it's so important and I pushed through that because I thought someone needs to hear that and then I said a little I spoke to God Source Universe and I said bring the people into this space that really want to hear this need to hear this are ready to hear this and I see that it has resonated with many of you and just the even the ones that have reached out I'm sure there's others that have not reached out so I'm so glad about that. And yeah this is going to go this was may it's gonna go into a part two it may go into a part three because I actually have three packets the first packet was where the abandonment wound came from the next one is going to be the signs of abandonment which I've only touched on number one and then the the next packet is the tools to heal the abandonment wound. And I'm saying packets are just my notes all right so but I I made them in three separate pieces so that I'm like if this goes into um a different talk than I have like I segmented it out because this is a big talk. This is a big big conversation and it's a it can be heavy but it could also be light because for me awareness is amazing. Anytime I have awareness I I don't know maybe it's just is it just me you guys I get happy I've talked about that a lot and then I've seen other people that didn't and I was like okay this is a very happy thing for me that I'm excited when I discover something or even when I discover something about someone else I'm like oh you have an abandonment wound. Right on let's let's do this because now we know what we're dealing with. That's the key here is knowing what we're dealing with so we can apply the appropriate quote unquote medicine that's a metaphor or tools or practices to the wound because it's all healable and that's my favorite thing. But we are at the top of my time so I'm gonna go into part two is going to be the signs of abandonment and then part three or maybe it'll happen in part two we'll talk about the tools to heal the abandonment wound. But I definitely want to say thank you to the brave souls who came up and spoke with me today Amani, Steven and Robin. Those are amazing shares you all I feel the heart and soul of this community beating every single day. I appreciate it. I love it. I am so grateful to that I have the opportunity to come up and to share these type of topics and conversations with people like yourselves that are so open hearted like I said this podcast is for the soul led the heart centered and the courageously curious and that's what you all are. So thank you for listening everybody I will be back tomorrow for a part two. I love you. I appreciate you have an amazing day stay open stay aware stay centered in self put yourself back in the driver's seat of your life because that's where you belong. Much love brothers and sisters see you tomorrow