8 Signs You're Self Abandoning and How to Break Free!

Self-abandonment is more common than you might think. It’s rooted in fear, conditioning, and old survival patterns — but here’s the good news: it’s completely fixable.

The trouble is, most of us don’t realize when it’s happening. Instead, we feel it in our bodies as exhaustion or tension… in our minds as overthinking or self-doubt… and in our hearts as loneliness, emptiness, or disconnection. 

In this episode, I share a definition and causes of self-abandonment, the danger of continuing the behavior, common signs, and why learning to stop it can transform your relationships, confidence, and inner peace.

If you’ve been longing to feel more whole, grounded, and true to yourself — this conversation is for you.

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

Transcript

Kristen 0:01

Hello everyone! Good day to you. Welcome to Empower Hour with KB. I am your host, Kristen Brown, and I'm an author, speaker, intuitive healer, and coach who specializes in helping individuals reclaim their true worth and embrace their personal power, all to master their energetic vibration and manifest the life and relationships of their dreams. Today we're talking about eight clues, eight signs that you are self-abandoning. Of course, we know, most of us know by now that self-abandonment is one of the signs that you could be people pleasing as well. It's a symptom of people pleasing. And many of you know already that I wrote the book on how to recover from people pleasing. And that book is called The Recovering People Pleaser, a spiritual guide to reclaim your true worth and attract the love you deserve. I call it a spiritual guide because I do talk about God's source universe and energy in that book. It does not mean it's religious. I don't subscribe to any particular religion, but everything that I do in life is connected to God's source universe, the quantum field, whatever you would like to call it yourself. And so all my books have that in it. This book is really truly the ways that I healed my people-pleasing behaviors and continue to to this day. I'm pretty much there. It's very, very rare that one will show up, and if it does, it's very small. So I don't call myself completely recovered. I do call myself still recovering. But, you know, for the most part, it's all good. It's a book that I invite people when you read it to not just read it really fast, skip over it, and throw it in the corner. That's not going to do you any good. This is literally, if you were personally coaching with me, this is the information that I would give you. So if you take it as a workbook, even though there's lots of stories and some humor in it and a little bit of cuss words, very authentic in that book. If you take it as, you know, this is really truly the way, the way to heal from people pleasing, you're going to get a lot out of that book. And you can find it by clicking on my profile picture here and going to my link tree where it says my link tree. That will take you to the Amazon link, just the easy link. But this book is available on 40,000 bookselling sites as well. Okay, eight clues that you are self-abandoning. Let's get started. First, let's talk about what it is. Self-abandonment is a rejection of your own thoughts, your own feelings, your needs, your desires, everything that is about you in favor of the ones of others, other people's thoughts, feelings, needs, desires. You put those above your own, you forsake yourself, you abandon yourself. You don't often act in your own best interest or well-being. This also means that you don't respect, honor, love, or encourage yourself. So this is what self-abandonment means. It's really a rejection of the self. It is an abandonment of the self. And the danger of this is that it can create anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and self-worth. And here's the killers resentment and contempt for certain relationships that you're in. And also it can create unfulfilling relationships because you're not going to be getting your needs met. You're not going to matter, but you're making yourself not matter. And that's what's important here. I'm coaching someone through this right now, one of my clients. And this person has a history of self-abandonment. They have, how do I word this, basically put all their self-worth into other people. So they abandoned themselves over and over and over again to try to make themselves loved. And what's happening is that they instead had built up contempt and resentment for the people thinking, innocently thinking it's their fault. When really the people are doing, you know, trust me, I've asked a lot of questions. The people are doing all the things. But when we forsake ourselves and try to be something for someone else, we are abandoning ourselves in the most profound way. And it's a very, very self-harmful way. And we often look to other people to fill that void, which they can't ever fill. No matter what, they can never, ever fill that void. So the fact that we've stepped away from self, we have now made it other people's responsibility to fill us. When we return back to self, we have a much healthier and balanced relationship because we've got self. And if they've got self, and then we both meet each other at needs, that's where the balance comes in in a relationship. It's important to understand that self-abandonment is not only hurting you, but it's hurting the others that are closest to you. Because your brain is telling you that they're the ones that are doing something wrong. When it really is you're the one who has abandoned yourself. Key key point. Now, the reasons that we abandon ourselves is the same reasons that we people please. Because people pleasing really is the abandonment of self. That's what it is at its core. And the reasons that we abandon self is because much of what I just said, we're seeking for love, approval, acceptance, validation, and attention from the outside world. So we dim our light, we stay quiet, we dumb down, we play small, we don't talk about our needs, our wants, our desires, and our opinions. It's also a need to be liked or to fit in or to be favored. Think about this. I've done this. How many times have you withhold, withheld something about yourself? Maybe you thought it wasn't going to be approved of by the people around you. Maybe you thought, again, this is all thinking. This doesn't mean this is true. Maybe you thought, they probably won't like me if I share this part about me. Or, you know, I want my boss to still think I'm the most amazing person in the world. So I'm just going to be super uber giving and easygoing, and I'll allow them to pile on the all the work onto me. Does anybody relate to any of these things? I relate to them. Oh, yes, I'll just be the yes girl. I'll just be the easy-going girl. But what I was doing in the process was abandoning myself. I was hurting me. I just got some claps that came up. Share, anitra, VA, they all resonate with that. How about this one, everybody? Do you ever have a fear of someone leaving you? And it kind of goes like this: if I am who I am, they're not gonna like me, or I'm gonna become a burden, or fill in the blank, and essentially they will eventually leave. So again, we try to become all of these things that we think this person wants us to be to try to secure the relationship. Once again, this works absolutely against us. Okay, lots of claps going up. Sarah, VA, Julie, Jeannie, Cher, Paula, Sunshine, Anitra. Yes. Yeah, I know. Me too. Me too. But it's working against us. And that's the craziest bit. And that's what my client is figuring out. They're saying, this is so crazy. I was doing all of these things to try to please my person, but the relationship kept getting worse. And I'm sitting here shaking my head. I'm like, yeah, I know. One of the paradoxes. They're like, what all the things I was doing all these things thinking I was doing all the right things when I was actually doing the things that were hurting the relationship. Because when we do these things, we're not being honest, we're out of integrity with ourselves. Again, we're resentful. We build up contempt. Our needs aren't being met. All these things start to swirling. That could lead to aggression. It could lead to spouting off. It could lead to stonewalling. It could lead to you abandoning the person. This is one of the craziest paradoxes, is self-abandoners can often abandon. That doesn't mean they get up, well, they can get up and leave. But because they're blaming everyone around them, they can end up walking out. They can end up feeling like you just don't get me. You don't know, you don't understand. They might even leave the relationship because they feel like it's the other person's fault. I've seen it, I've experienced it. I haven't been the abandoner, but I've experienced it from people. I'm one of those stay-to-long people. I'm typically not the abandoner. I don't even know if I've ever abandoned, to be honest with you, I'd have to think about it. I'm sure there's somewhere in my history. But it's wild because the stories that we tell ourselves lead us to behaviors that actually hurt the other person. So if we just sit with it and really get clear, and this is all innocent, by the way, you guys, we're not out here trying to hurt people. This is all innocence. We're doing the best we can. But because we have self-abandoned, we're now dealing with the fallout and how that feels internally, and we're trying to control or feel comfortable some type of way, and that can lead to unhealthy behaviors. Another reason why returning back to the self, honoring, loving, respecting the self, stop self-abandoning, can actually lead to healthy relationships because you're on an equal playing ground. Things are balanced. When things are out of balance, they're always going to show up in our behaviors in some way. And it feels real. It feels like what we're seeing in this other person is actually real. If you have had this experience of being a self-abandoner and you've had somebody that got it, that understood it, you might have heard things like, Well, what do you want? You never tell me what you want to do. Or why don't you decide this time? Or I'm tired of making all the decisions. You might have heard these types of words coming from somebody in your life. That's somebody who loves you, by the way, who's trying to urge you to step into your whole self, to return back to yourself, to honor yourself. And we do a disservice to our relationship and to our people. I'm not going to say partners because it's any person really that we're close to, because they want to make us happy too. That's the mind-blowing craziness of this. Our loved ones want to make us happy. But we've abandoned self. We're too busy being a yes man or woman over here. They feel it. It doesn't feel good. Now, here's the even wilder thing about all this. A self-abandoner could be doing things that they think, in air quotes, this other person wants, and it may not be what they want at all. So then they're maybe getting feedback from the other person, like, you know, I really wish that you would blink, blank, blank. But the self-abandoner is sitting here going, I'm going above and beyond and sideways and backwards and forwards for you, and you're still not happy. It's because your mind concocted what it means to be valuable, what it means to be liked. So you're doing the things that your mind is telling you to do, or what you're wanting to do. You're exhausted from the overgiving. And then somebody leaves you, or doesn't want to be around you, or starts to ghost you, or says, you know what, we just don't click. And you're over here shocked and blown away because you don't understand why. That's because they haven't gotten the true version of you and they feel it. They feel it on some level. I am a heterosexual female. And so I'm going to use the men as the example. There's really only one that I really can say for sure, but there was some guy that I dated for a very short period of time. I was self-abandoning, like a mofo, and um, you know, being all the things. And he just lost interest in me. And I remember thinking, how what? I was shocked. I'm doing all the things. What, you know, obviously you were you were gung-ho and super into me and excited and playing songs for me that reminded him of me and all these things. But over the next couple of weeks, I don't even know how long the thing lasted, to be honest with you guys. Could have been a month. I don't even remember. Many, many years ago. But I remember him saying something to me once. He said, Why don't you just let me discover who you are? Something to that effect. I'm paraphrasing. That stopped me because I was trying to be all the things. I was trying to prove myself. Oh, you guys get it. I see the claps coming up. Let me touch base with all those. Kelly, Dalla, Cher, yeah. It was mind-blowing to me. I was so innocent in thinking I was doing the right things. And bro was like, nah, girl, you're in. That's this isn't fun. It's kind of gross. He never said that. It's kind of, I wasn't needy in the outward respect of needy, but it gave needy energy. It gave desperate energy. Even though I wasn't doing things like that, like blowing up his phone or chasing him down, or I didn't, I never did that kind of thing. But doggone it, you guys, the energy is there. The reason why I said heterosexual man with a male is because we all think that the male don't sense things. Mm-mm. They sure do. They sense it just like we do. So it doesn't matter what your gender, what your preference is, it's the energy that we are exuding. And this is why confidence is so incredibly beautiful. This is why self-worth is so alluring and attractive to people. It's just an energy. Okay, another reason we could be doing this is you want to make yourself more valuable to someone. And this is probably what I was doing to this with this guy. I wanted him like, look how great I am. I'm so awesome. And that the energy was was cringy to him. I love young Kristen. I love her so much. She was doing the things she thought she was supposed to be doing. And I just look at her now and we we like smile at each other and shake our heads, and we're like, high five. We're like, what was that? What was that? I don't have any any ill feelings towards her. God bless her, little sweet, little pink juicy heart. Thought she was doing what she was supposed to be doing. These eye-openers, my gosh, when we listen to what people say instead of discounting it, because let me tell you, he that thing he said to me how many years ago? I didn't want to try to count, I don't even remember when it was. It was between marriages. How many? Probably 20 plus. Do you not think that thing mowed around in my head from time to time? What did he mean? Let me figure you out. Let me learn you. Let me discover you. I was taking away the thrill for him. The unpacking. Of course, I slept with him too soon, too. That was part of it. Learned all these lessons. Oh, yeah, let me just show you how great I am. Oh, I won't say no to you. Little did I know it was working against me. This is why when we when we look at our patterns, everyone, we're gonna see it. We just have to be willing to look. We're gonna see all the junk. We're gonna see why it's not working. This is when we take radical responsibility and we stop pointing at everybody else. We start looking within and go, what have I done? Do it gently. Do it compassionately. Do it in an observation mode, not a judgment mode. And you've got all the data you need. It's all there. It's wild. So many of us are afraid to do so, and we're just still on this autopilot way of functioning, and we just keep pointing the finger at all these horrible men and women that we're dating or married to, and everybody sucks. Oh my God, what is this world made of? Maybe it's me. Maybe I've contributed to this. Maybe I'm part of the problem. Who sings that song? I'm the problem, it's me. Is it Taylor Swift? I'm not a Swifty. I don't even know any of her songs. I don't even listen to that type of music. No dis on anybody. I know she's so controversial right now. Let the girl do her thing for crying out loud. But is that the song? I'm the problem, it's me. Is it her? I could be completely wrong. I think people are messaging. Sorry, I don't have my glasses on. Let me click on that. Yeah, it is her. Okay. Thank you. All right, got a message. Oh. Okay. Yes. The hubs is back channeling me. Yes, honey. We can go have lunch after this. That's so funny. Okay. But maybe I am the problem. Maybe. I was. Oh, I so was. I so was. And you guys can see here by my tone of voice. I don't care that I was. I'm not mad at myself that I was. Because I'm so incredibly grateful on my knees, prayer pose, kissing the ground, so grateful that I discovered that. Because then I had the correct problem. When I thought it was everybody else, I didn't have the correct problem. When I discovered it was me, I had the correct problem. The diagnosis was there. Okay, gotcha. Now I can work on fixing this, healing this. That's when everything changed. That's when my mind was blown. That's when my world got colorful. I don't even know how to just imagine my world. It really wasn't this way because I'm a very happy person. But for visual sakes, imagine my world was just black and white. And then all of a sudden, this healing journey. Everything's like bursting with technicolor. What? How did this happen? That's why I became a teacher. That's why I became a speaker and a coach. Because there's a way through this, everyone. And the last reason that we could be doing this is because a deep, well, it's not the last reason. Deep desire to fit in because you don't feel like who you are is enough. Who I am is wrong, is bad. So I'm just going to do all these things because I'm learning. I'm trying to learn here. Who I am isn't good enough. So I'm going to learn to do these other things for everybody else. Again, innocent, innocent, innocent, innocent. Course in Miracles talks about the innocent child of God. Okay. This is what that means. Oh, it makes me tear up. I feel so deeply for us because we don't freaking know. We're just doing the things, hoping for a better result. Right? At some point we think we're not enough. So I better learn how to be enough. We think we're doing the right thing. All in the name of wanting to feel loved and belonged and accepted. All in the name of that. Little do we know we got it all wrong. We got it all wrong. It's all about returning back to the self. All right, so here are some clues. Those are the reasons why we self-abandon. Here's some clues. Ready? These are the eight clues. Number one, you don't trust your instincts. You second guess or overthink. Okay, I was a huge second guesser back in the day, an overthinker. Not anymore. Not at all. It's like boom. Second guess and overthink. The second part is that you hide parts of yourself. You hide stories. You hide things that you think will get disapproval. You hide your likes and your dislikes. That's a big one. Because if someone says, Oh, you want to, you know, you want to go see such and such movie. I don't like like John Wick movies, especially the new ones. They're they're just this fast-paced movement. They're ridiculous. The way that people fly through the air and get shot 45 times and live, and then this guy gets shot once and doesn't live. And, you know, John Wick should have been taken out about 8,000 times. You know what I mean? They're just, I don't like them. They're loud. So much movement, too much action. The whole thing is action, no story. So if I was dating someone to this day and they said, You want to go see the new John Wick movie? I would say, I'm sorry. I don't like those movies. I'm happy to go with you. I'd love to go see a movie with you. Can we pick something else? Back in the day, oh my God, bells on, makeup done, hair done, cringing through the whole thing. No, I probably wasn't even cringing because I didn't even know I didn't like it. See the difference? We're not willing to share our likes and dislikes. Someone says, You want to go bowling with me? Like afraid to ask if you want to go bowling because they love bowling. They've been bowling since they were four. And they grew up in a bowling alley because their parents owned one and they want to go bowling, but they're afraid to tell you that they're a bowler because they think it's not cool. These are just really small examples. We don't speak up for our dislikes, our likes and our dislikes. We hide parts of ourselves. The third one is perfectionism. Big, big biggie. If I'm perfect, then I can secure this love and approval and acceptance. If I'm perfect, if I work hard, if I keep going, if I don't stop, if I don't rest, if I don't honor me, if I just keep going and do all the things for all the people all the time, then I will be loved. That doesn't work. Already talked about that in the beginning of this. All the reasons why that doesn't work. People connect through our authenticity, our flaws, our mistakes, our face palming. You know, we put the hand on the forehead, like, oh my God, can you believe what I did? It's so human. It's so human. So that abandonment of self is stopping you from connecting to the people. I was talking to my friend at the gym this morning, and he said to me, he has this old, old friend for a very long time. And he says, There's nothing that is off the table. And he told me a story and I won't repeat it. And he said, with her, he goes, actually, he goes, I think it's where our friendship is going too. And he's not wrong. He's not wrong. Because we're both so authentic with each other. There's we're just being who we are, and we're cultivating a friendship. My husband knows him too. This is nothing weird. I have guy friends that's just part of my gig. Okay. And it's just interesting to me because I thought about that. I thought it's because we don't hold back. Like if I do something, or I'm like, hey, oh, I asked him, invite him one place with uh Doug and I once. I can't remember where it was. I said, Do you want to go to the da da da? He goes, no. Oh, I think it was a sound bath. Yeah, it was a sound bath. He goes, No. He didn't even blink. I said, Are you sure it's kind of a cool gig? He goes, he goes, Well, what is it? And I told him, he goes, it doesn't sound like my thing. Thank you. Thank you. I would much prefer that than someone come and hate every minute of it, go, yeah, that was fun. And then they tell you no every other time. Oh, sorry, I'm busy. No. This is why we click, because we're honest with each other. This is why this friendship is forming. Well, you know, this is over a couple months already so far. So the next one, number four, not honoring your needs. That's a clue. You know what you need. You know you need a nap. You know you need to eat a salad today. You know you need to go to bed early. You know that you need whatever it might be in your relationship. You know your needs, but you're not honoring them because you feel like you're a bother. You feel like it's going to be unaccepted. You feel like they're going to roll their eyes. They're going to call you crazy, stupid, whatever. Now, take out the idea that you might be with a narcissist, all right? Narcissists are going to do all the things. They're going to, they're going to pull out every stop to make you ridiculous, okay? Remove any narcissists. That's just what they do. But look at the the quote unquote average person in your life that's not a narcissist. And you're afraid to share your needs with them or honoring your own needs. I'm sorry, I can't go out tonight. I have a very early morning. Or I'm sorry, I can't stay up late and watch Netflix with you because I gotta go to bed at seven because I'm up at three. Right? The narcissist is never gonna allow you to honor yourself. They'll somehow make you wrong. But the pe regular, the regular Joes and Jills of your life, they're gonna say, okay, they might be disappointed. But you're also teaching them what it looks like to love them, love yourself and honor yourself. Number four, not honoring your needs. Number five, biggie, incoming, suppressing feelings and emotions. You're pushing them away because you have deemed them unacceptable or bothering bothersome to others. You have pushed them away. Anyone relate to that? Yeah, I'm not gonna share my feelings, I'm not gonna share my emotions. I'm not gonna say I'm sad, I'm not gonna say I'm scared, I'm not gonna say I'm nervous. I don't want to put that on somebody else. That's self-abandonment. You're abandoning who you are. Yes. I see the people relating. Yes. Two sisters. I love that. Yeah. You're abandoning who you are. I was abandoning me in this capacity. I did not know it. I just I my mask was easy girl, fun girl. I'm not gonna be a problem girl. So, no, if I was feeling some kind of emotion, unless someone died or something. I mean, there's things that there's no way, but no, I'm not gonna show that I was disappointed or unhappy or disrespected or felt hurt, whatever. Nope. Nope. And with a normal, I'm saying normal in air quotes, average human being, typical human being, most of the time, unless they've got some stuff going on, they want to know these things. They're gonna meet us at those things. People do get defensive when we, when we shine the light on them and give the, you know, the highlight of what it is that they did that that may have contributed to that. Sometimes they can get defensive. But for the most part, if you stay in the conversation, it'll work itself out. If they're not some type of narcissist or highly, highly emotionally immature. But even if you're with someone who doesn't want to know, that doesn't mean you get to abandon yourself or can't handle it in a healthy way. Nope, that doesn't mean you get to abandon yourself. This is one of the one of the biggest rubs or challenges with reclaiming your true worth is and setting those boundaries and protecting your peace and honoring who you are, is standing in it even if you know someone's not gonna like it. I had to take a lot of deep breaths. I refuse to play small or to walk on eggshells or to hide who I am for somebody else's comfort. Just because somebody is takes everything personally or is overly sensitive, and I'm not talking about HSP type sensitive, I'm talking about taking things personally, everything hurts their feelings, everything is going through a filter. You know, it is so natural for us to want to shy away from those things with that person because it's uncomfortable. We're making them uncomfortable. It's this big issue ensues. I don't know what it is about me, probably the healing work that I did, but I refuse to walk on eggshells and not be me because of somebody else's unhealed wounds. What it's teaching them is that they get to have their way with you and they get to stay comfortable and nobody grows in comfort. It's a little itchy, little just uh what's the word I'm looking for? Just uncomfortable to grow. We have to be uncomfortable to grow, otherwise we're not going to. If we're happy and gay all the time and nobody's calling us out on our stuff, there's no reason to grow. And let me tell you, I've had to go up against some serious pushback with people in my life. Serious, serious pushback. But I held that line because I knew I wasn't wrong. I knew it now I'm not talking like I'm yelling, screaming, acting like a jerk. I'm talking about saying the things that needed to be said because I don't self-abandon anymore. I used to, but I don't anymore. And I also discovered that it's the right thing for everybody involved. Yeah. Number seven, or I'm sorry, number six, you're not acting in accordance with your values. This is one of the eight signs that you are abandoning yourself, is you are not acting in accordance with your values. What's important to you? It's important to me to spend time with my children. And I will make that happen. Even if it's just lunch with my son. He's up, I go downstairs, I make my lunch. We we kind of have this new little ritual routine that's started. He comes out. When I'm done with my talk, I think he hears me coming down the stairs, his room's under mine, and he makes his lunch, I make my lunch, we pop on some fun show that we like, 30 minutes or so, we talk and we eat together. That's important to me. That's a value of mine. Just a small example. But I'm going to act in accordance with my values. And I will tell you one thing, I'm really proud of. You guys know, most of you know who've been here for a while, that my one of my highest values is my children and the love and protection I have for them and their mental health and well-being. When I was dating between marriages, my two oldest kids, my youngest wasn't born yet. I did not introduce those guys to my kids. It would have been so easy. There was a part of me that was like, you know, because I was still unrecovered. I wanted to be with the guys all the time. I wanted the attention, I wanted the things, but I wouldn't do it. I would not do it. I think we went bowling with one once, but it was didn't look like it was a relationship. It was just one once. Let's go bowling, total friendship type thing. And that was it. They don't even remember that. I've asked them because we've talked about this. They're adults now. We talk about all these things. But I was like, that is the one place that I would not fold against myself out of neediness or desperation or the desire to be loved or held or accepted. And I'm really proud about that because looking back, I was several several shades of hot mess. But that was in place. So that's one of the things that is a clue is that we are not acting in accordance with our values. That's number six. Number seven is not speaking up for yourself. This is a biggie. How many of us don't speak up for ourselves? I was 50-50 with this. I would in certain environments, but there were some environments that I wouldn't. Who relates to that? Who was 50-50? It could have been even 70-30, but who was ha half and half? You know, who had one foot in the door, one foot out of the door? I would like to see by a show of claps. Okay, were you guys like in this environment I can speak up for myself, but this one I can't. Or I didn't. Or I wouldn't. Okay, Deb, Alexis, Cher, Paula, VA. Yeah. It's weird how that is, right? There's no one size fits all here. That's what's important to you to understand. I hope you get that through my talks. Paula, yep. There's no one size fits all. This is about you really going within and getting to know yourself so well and picking up what's yours, not picking up what's not yours, resonating with what's resonates, not trying to force yourself to resonate with what doesn't resonate, open mind, open heart, allowing there to be nuance, context, and variables of how any of my talks fit into your life. This is about you. You knowing you so well. And I love when you guys get up to the stage, like, yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't do that at all, but I did this. And I'm like, oh wow, yeah, that wasn't me at all. We all have these the variables in this, the nuance in this. And that's why I brought that part up about the the percentage-wise, because that was a hard one for me to go. I didn't speak up. I'm like, mm. I didn't probably where it mattered most with romantic relationships. How about that? And where it mattered most with my my female friendships. Yeah. Because I think there was a part of me that knew that they would go. My husband and I watched a webinar last night. It was great. They were talking about that very thing, wrapped up in the whole webinar, and they said something that effect of you don't speak up because you know you'll lose that person if you do. Well, that means that relationship is transactional and it's based on the fact that you stay space, you stay small and keep them comfortable. But they're not doing that for you, are they? Or they're not making you a value, are they? So you're putting all this time and energy into them, but you're not getting it returned. That's something you want to rethink. If someone's really only staying because you keep bailing them out emotionally, physically, monetarily, and you're running circles around them to make sure that their needs are attended to. That's the only reason why they're staying. This was a shocker for me because when I stopped doing that with certain people, they just faded away. They're just gone. I'm thinking of a girlfriend right now. She was going through it and I was there. Oh my gosh, I was there in all the ways. And then when I would go through a little something, she just really wouldn't listen. And I'm the person that checks in a couple days later. Like, how are you doing? You feeling better about that thing? No, she never checked in. So I decided, you know, I'm not going to be as available because I'm giving, this is very, very lopsided. I'm giving up hours and hours and hours and hours and hours dedicated to her, giving my full heart, my full attention, putting everything to the wayside. And she's giving me a quarter attention, a quarter heart, hardly any words. And it was just, it was just lopsided. And I had been in lopsided relationships my whole life. I said, mmm. So I stopped giving as much time, as much attention, and guess what? She just faded away. Nowhere to be seen. See what I'm saying? Ah. The next one is the very last one is you wear masks or chameleon to fit in, to be loved, or keep the peace. Most of you know my masks. They're in my first book from Dormat to Sweet Empowerment. I don't think I talked about them in The Recovering People Pleaser, or at least I didn't share what mine were because I already said them in my first book. My masks were easy-going girl, nice girl, fun girl, sexy girl, pretty girl. Like, let me just have all these masks on so that you like me. Going out of my way. I have to be this. I don't know so much sexy girl. I really wasn't about dressing like that. I say pretty girl, which means, you know, done up, you know, hair done, cute outfits, things like that. I didn't, I wasn't, um, what's the word I'm looking for? I didn't dress scantily, put it that way. I did not do that. Attract a per girl, I guess. Whatever, whatever you want to say it. Nope, not anymore. Mm-mm. Nope. I was attracting the superficial people. I was attracting the people that couldn't go deep, deeper than the surface of my skin, or at all. Nope. I didn't want that anymore. But it was the focus that I was putting on me. So of course that's getting replayed back to me. I'm attracting people who has a focus on that as well. Shocker. It's what I thought my value was. I all that's changed. All that's changed. I have a slew of people right now in my life that are so they just like me. I didn't know back in the day that there would be be people that just liked me. I thought I had to make them like me. Because relating to that, I can see. But I had to take a chance. I had to take a chance and see. Are there people that will just like me? How about if I just do that? How about if I stop wearing makeup? How if I walk around in my yoga pants? How about if I don't take a shower and do my hair for two days? And then all of a sudden, I got all these people that just adore me. What? It was paradoxical. It was ironic. It was weird. It was, what is happening? Why was I wasting my time for so long? But I had to love me first. Love, honor, respect, cherish, forgive all the self-love tenants. Me first. Because that took away any sense of desperation. I didn't care if someone didn't say hi to me at the gym after they talked to them three times in a row. I didn't care. And then next thing you know, they're saying hi to me again. I don't care. I don't care if who calls me, who doesn't call me. It none of that matters. I don't keep score anymore. The legit people who resonate with me. I was going to say they found me, but it's really we found each other. It's pretty, it's pretty groovy. The masks are keeping us attracting people who are attracted to that particular mask. Let's say a controlling people person is going to be very attracted to an easy-going person because they get to do whatever they want. See what I'm saying? A superficial person is going to be very attracted to someone who thinks their value is their looks. Then you're going to try to go deep with them and there's going to be nothing there. It's like waving your hands in midair and not touching anything. So we got to be mindful about what mask that we're putting on because we're going to attract somebody from that space. So I thought, I want people to love me for me. 100% authentic me. That's what I'm going to do. And if that means I'm alone for the rest of my life, so be it. At least I'm honoring myself. But that's not how life works. Life matches our energy. Life matches our energetic vibration. And guess what? I attracted. Boy, if there's any reason right there, that would be it. Amani just said, I want to be celebrate celebrated, not just tolerated. Oh, so good. And this person said, You look great without any mask on. Thank you. Celebrated, not just tolerated. Question for you, Amani. Did you know you were being tolerated? Because I didn't know I was being tolerated, like really consciously knew it. But I think I kind of knew it on some level. Maybe I felt like I was being tolerated because I felt like I didn't matter. Hmm. Welcome up, sis. What say you?

Imani 42:58

What say I I didn't know at first because I was too busy making sure I was accepted. I was approved by them that they included me. You know, I was part of something, so I was blinded by my lack of who I was. Now the journey of learning who I am, loving myself, all of that, it gives me a different lens to look back at all the relationships or lack thereof that I have. And even in and am I having to also give myself for my role in it? Because yeah, I would, I had not shifted out of desperation. I hadn't shifted out of, oh, I have to get my approval and worth from external sources. Once again, I sat down and got quiet, as well as getting comfortable, being uncomfortable in the quiet, because I always felt I had to be around people. And when I was sitting by myself, I felt so isolated. I felt like I was being punished. I felt, well, why doesn't anyone like me? You know, the higher powers was looking at me like, uh, girl, that ain't it. That ain't it. I now can see it. We see because we have, I like to say we have a lack of interpersonal communication because we are so locked in, tied in to social media, our phones, our laptops, our computer, searching on the internet that we don't know how to have a decent conversation face to face anymore. Case in point, you go out to eat, you can see all these families at the table, but they're all looking in their phone. They're not talking to each other. It's like, well, why did you come out? You can do that. It's because we've gotten and shifted out of that point of how to effectively communicate our needs, our desires, and our wants because we want to feel like we're partisan, or we don't want to offend. Because sometimes we err on the subject of caution when it comes to it being like, Well, I'm not gonna say anything because that might make them mad, or they're gonna look at me differently. And it's like, honey boo-boo, they're living their life. They're not bothered by whether you call or not call, or if they call and you don't call. And I had to get to that point where I'm like, I want to be celebrated and not just tolerate it. Case in point, I'm such a sensitive, emotional, empathetic person. I'm gonna give you the shirt off my back, but I can't expect other people to do the same thing back to me because they're not me. They may not know how to communicate to say, hey, you know, KB, I'm at capacity. Uh I know you need someone, I know you're going through a lot, but I can't add anything else on my plate. So they'll rather ignore you, not call you back, not text you, and badly see you out in public, but they've run in the opposite direction. Because they're like, oh, I've been ignoring, I've been, you know, hiding from this person. No, I know it's not personal anymore. I know that people are just life in with life, and they are getting curveballs just like I am, and they just don't know how to sit still long enough to realize that for themselves, but also to tell the people around that they love, I love you, but I don't have it. I love you, but I'm that capacity. We sometimes appease people that we love because we don't want to hurt their feelings, or we they you want to still be approved of or liked by them. That's that's a very good point. And yeah, I've got to learn about that. Because at the end of the day, are they being considered of your feelings, your thoughts, your concerns? They know what you're going through, but they refuse to call. Even if it's just safe for three seconds, hey, just checking on you, but I gotta go.

Kristen 46:45

Yeah.

Imani 46:46

They're not me. I will find, I will do smoke signal, career pigeon, wells Fargo, Pony Express, right now. Carrier Pigeon. I'm serious, KB. That's just how I am. I'm so you're okay. And if you're not okay, if I have to have a good FBI for you, I'm going to make you a missing person. Like, where's KB at? It's been a week, that's not good. We talk every other day. I I just want to make sure she's okay. Can you go do a wellness check? Because that's me. But I can't impose my values and morals on everyone else to get it right back in the same way. No, that's tit for tat. I'm still gonna give of me fully, unapologetically, knowing if they don't receive it, that's okay too. If they do receive it, that's great too. But I still have to stay the course of being my authentic, vulnerable, transparent, audacious self. And you guys can do make that crown and wear it proudly.

Kristen 47:49

Thanks, Amani. And that is as long as it's not at the expense of our own well-being. Because that's why I talk about overgivers. Man, I was the overgiver. I was doing everything all the time. I mean, I can't even express it. And then I started to say, is this hurting me or is this serving me? What's my motive for this? What is the reason for this? Is this because I care, or is this because I feel like it's my job? I think I told you guys a couple of talks ago that I really felt like I was responsible for the world. I was responsible for everybody's health, health, happiness, and well-being. And, you know, that I had to really get honest with myself and sit in that and say, what's what's from the kindness of my heart? What is authentic? What is because I want to, or what is because I'm feeling like on some weird level I have to. So learning the discernment between the two of those is key, super key. Now, for this last little remaining bit of time, I'm gonna jump into how to stop self-abandoning. Ooh, this is where it gets really super juicy because some of these things that you may have heard thus far that you might be doing in the self-abandonment department, you might be thinking, oh God, that's that's so daunting. I can't, I can how am I gonna stop doing that? I can't stop doing that. Or I've tried and it hasn't worked. Well, sister brother, this is because we need to reset that foundation. And this is the first thing is to cultivate a loving, respectful, and honoring relationship with yourself. I mentioned my book, The Recovering People Pleaser, at the top of this talk. You can, at the beginning of this talk, you can find it by clicking on my profile picture, going to my link tree where it says book link, or I think it has the title. That'll take you to the Amazon link. You can also find it on 40,000 bookselling sites if you have a favorite somewhere. They're everywhere. And in that book, I talk about this because I also expressed how self-abandonment is a symptom of people pleasing, or vice versa. They're really hand in hand. People pleaser is a self-abandoner. Okay. So learning what you can do on the foundational level that is going to automatically shift your behavior. That's the grooviest thing about all this. I did not have to force myself to do things. The lens through which I saw me, my needs, my wellness, other people's needs, and their wellness shifted. Things just looked different. Now, where the courage was is being willing to do something differently, being willing to say no, being willing to, I don't know, I can't think of anything offhand, set a boundary with somebody. But what when I learned to love, respect, and honor myself, my behavior naturally changed in a way that was serving to both me and the other person. That's the thing. Anytime we apply love, capital L love, the highest energy, the purest form of energy, to a situation, it is always serving to both parties. Always. Okay? Because it's coming and rooted from love, from the highest energy. So when you learn to love, respect, and honor, and forgive, and are compassionate with self and speak kindly to self and to care for yourself. All those things are denominators of capital L love or participles or pieces or however word you want, way you want to word that, of capital L love. They're all things of love. When you apply those things to yourself and you start to heal, your behavior is going to start to change. Now, also congruently by applying these things to yourself, you're already not abandoning. So when you talk kindly to yourself, boom, you're not self-abandoning anymore. You're self-honoring. When you care for yourself, boom, same thing. When you respect and protect yourself through boundaries, boom, you're already not abandoning. When you're forgiving yourself, when you're honoring your emotions, when you're being gentle with you, all of that is the opposite of abandonment. You are now reclaiming, recentering, returning to you. And in that, this is what's proved really crazy. Self-abandonment perpetuates wounds and even creates new ones. Self-love heals wounds and steps you into your highest self. You see that? So by self-abandoning, we think we're doing something right unconsciously. We're not. But doing the quote unquote, sometimes hard thing because we have to break out of the pattern of putting others above ourselves. So it might be the hard thing to then start honoring self. That's actually where everything shifts in the most miraculous way. So self-love. Cultivate self-love. Number two is to give yourself permission to have feelings and needs. Give yourself permission to have needs. We all have them. You're not weird. There's nothing wrong with you. You're not selfish. Self-abandoners don't just dive over to selfishness. Okay. You have needs. They matter. And they do matter to your people that love you. They want to see you happy too. They want to meet your leaves, needs. Sure, you might have some person in your life. Often children can be very self-oriented. They can be very selfish because they haven't learned any better yet. Up around 25 and beyond, they start to move beyond that unless they've had some type of crazy experience and they've developed some really keen wisdom from young, young, young, because that can happen. But for the most part, people want to honor us. They want to do what makes us happy. They want us to honor ourselves. But we have to give ourselves permission first. It's not that they're not allowing us. There could be some. Like I said, you could have some of those people in your life. But it's typically because we're not allowing ourselves. The third thing is to show your authentic self. Baby step your way into this. Be you. Wear that weird shirt, that shirt you think is gonna gain disapproval, or that outfit, or do your hair in that way, or don't wear makeup that day, whatever it might be, little baby steps towards honoring your authentic self. When you see that the world did not end, you did not or anybody lose a limb, and no one died, you're gonna then start getting the what's the word I'm looking for? The proof that it's okay to be you. You're gonna start getting the proof. But you have to be willing to recognize the proof. You have to be willing to say to yourself, hmm, this is nothing happened. I still had people smile at me. The clerk was still nice to me, or whatever, how however an environment you're in, relating to whatever it is that you're stepping into. It's okay. I'm safe to be myself. You could have some like really hyper judgmental parent in your life that you know, you know, going in, no matter what you do or say, is gonna always say something. Don't be trying to think it's gonna be different with them. They got some wounds, they got some problems. I'm talking about get the proof from the outside world. Leave Bob or Trish out of it. We know that nothing makes them happy. Having the conscious awareness of that too, that there are some people that are just never, they're always gonna judge you. They're always gonna be jerks. You gotta know that there are people like that out there, that they're unpleasable. Don't hold your authenticity up against their approval. You're never gonna get it. Because they're over there trying to control their world and you're part of their world. So they're trying to control you. The next thing is, and I talked about this already, so I'll fly over. Give yourself grace and compassion. That's part of self-love. Be kind and gentle with yourself. Also be willing to comfort yourself. Comfort yourself. Not with food, not with corn, if you know what I mean, not with substance. Comfort yourself through hugs, through love, through rubbing your arms, through saying, I got you. The next one is to be aware of your emotions. Honor them, no matter how uncomfortable they are. Give them space to breathe. It has now been proven that it is physically harmful for us to repress, or I'm sorry, suppress our emotions. It can upregulate and downregulate certain genes. Genes that we have a propensity for. What does upregulate mean? It means we can activate a gene if we have a propensity to some type of disease or something. Now that thing is activated. This is proven science now, y'all. Proven science. It's all about energy. So if we're pressing down this negative, dark, heavy energy, boom, something can be activated. Let the energy flow. Emotions don't last very long. The thought we might have that's causing the emotion, this is really important. Lean in right here. Thoughts create emotions. Thoughts create emotions. Emotions are a chemical release in the brain. I think it's actually accurately a neurotransmitter that's released in the brain in response to a thought. So when we have the actual emotion come, if we don't think about what's causing the emotion, we just allow the emotion. I'm so angry right now. What does this anger feel like in my body? I'm gonna breathe into it. I'm going to scream into a pillow. I'm going to scream under water. Whatever it might be, I'm going to move this energy. I always bring up anger because that's the one that everybody's afraid of expressing. Okay, some people. I'm going to just let this energy move. Get it out of your body. Now, if you keep thinking the same thing over and over and over again that's causing the anger over and over, you're going to keep having to do this. I tell this story in my book, The Recovering People Pleaser, about me being so angry. I was repressing anger based on my tsunami ex and all the stunts he pulled. But I was living at my mother's house. I had three little babies that were relying on me. I had to work, I had to do all these things. I was repressing anger. And one day I decided I was going to feel that anger. And it was all towards him, my tsunami ex. And I turned the corner, I said, I mean, I'm by myself in my car. And I said, I'm going to feel this, the full expression of this anger. And I growled and screamed and used a few choice cuss words. I had one tear come out of my eye. And the whole thing lasted about 30 seconds. I thought this was going to go on for like 30 minutes. I just had to move the energy. Doesn't mean I wasn't going to be angry with him again another time and need to do the same thing. But I had it was like bubbling inside of me and I had to let it go. It it literally was like 30, 45 seconds. It wasn't long. And then I thought, well, that's not enough. And that felt really good to do. So I tried to like I tried to like force more anger out, and there wasn't any. Because I just moved the energy. Please consider doing this, you guys. Honor yourself in a safe way. The next one is the very last one is to speak up for yourself. And we when we do this, we make ourselves matter. Do what's right, even if others disapprove. That's the one thing I said to you. I'm going to do it. I know it's right to speak up, to not walk on eggshells, to be honest, to speak my truth, to share my emotions, even if somebody over here is going to kick and scream and throw themselves on the floor having a tantrum because I'm being honest. Okay, again, not harmful. I'm not talking about harmful. I'm talking about truthful. It was uncomfortable. You know it was. But I had to matter. To withhold meant I was telling myself I didn't matter, and it meant to abandon myself again. I wasn't willing to do that. I stood in it, discomfort and all, and I watched how my relationships healed and shifted and how stronger I got. You know, when someone's barking at you the first time trying to make you wrong, gaslight you, turn it around on you, it's very discompobulating. But by the 30th time, you're kind of like, mm-hmm, here you go again. It gave me practice standing in my truth until where I just understood things in such a different level. So those are the ways to stop self-abandoning. And I want to um oh no, I have to add this too. This is about setting boundaries without guilt and also saying no with confidence. Setting boundaries without guilt takes a minute. Takes a minute for recovering people, pleaser, and self-abandoner. Takes a minute. Doesn't mean you don't do it, it just means you do it, you feel the feeling, and you do it anyway. Because you know you need to for you. You know you need to take to protect your peace, your energy, and your well-being. And I actually cultivated a free resource called Say No with Confidence. 25 Ways to Politely Decline Without Guilt. And you can find this on my link tree by clicking my profile picture, clicking where it says my link tree, and you'll find tons of free resources over there. My book look, my YouTube channel, my self-love merchandise shop, coaching, all the other all the things over there. And this is 25 prescripted ways to say no so that you know you are coming from your highest place. You're dotting all your I's and crossing all your T's. So if your person has an adverse reaction to this, it's on them. Prescripted ways that are cool, that are kind, that are gentle, that are assertive. So go check out that free resource. This is what I had to do. This is part of my journey, and I share things that I do. I had to find ways to say things that were comfortable to me, that felt good, that I could stand behind. Okay, not comfortable as in not moving or shaking or growing, but like, yeah, that can I can get down with this. This this feels okay to me. And then I would send, let's if it was a text, and I'd cringe. Let's be real. There's a cringe factor. Oh my god, oh my god, oh, what's gonna happen? Until I stopped cringing. And I said, eff it literally they're mad at me, they're mad at me. I got plenty of love in my life. This person can get mad at me because I'm honoring myself. Okay. Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. Keep practicing. That's how we get there. One step at a time. Don't worry about the sidesteps, the back steps, whatever. Just keep going. You'll get there. Steven. Welcome, Steven.

Steven 1:04:20

Hey, how's it going?

Kristen 1:04:22

Great. How are you?

Steven 1:04:24

I'm doing well. Your thing on the return to the authentic. I'll show you that path, and that will kind of give some of the listeners that have listened to me point of where I was at. So in 2017, when I'm separated and it starts to get warm, and I start to go out biking a lot more. I remember first ride that uh somebody rolls up beside me and goes, Hey Steven, how's your day going? And I looked over and like, and he's like, Oh, it's Carrie from church. I'm like, Oh, okay, yeah, I recognize you. And that was the first person that recognized me. And then slowly but surely, especially after I rode on Rag Ri in the summertime and started doing more group rides, people would wander up and recognize and say hi and want to know how it was going. And at that point, I had I had to go through this process, and I remember thinking it's like, okay, they have met me before. At that point, they had a choice, and so now they have met me the second time, and instead of ignoring me or jumping all over me because I didn't do it right, or whatever, they were just friendly and go, Hey, how's it going? And it it took a lot of that for me to understand, man, your ex is really messed up, and these other people just see you.

Kristen 1:06:00

Right? When it's pounded in our head like that, and then we see the polarity out here, it's like, whoa, good for you, Steven. You're seeing the difference. Good for you.

Steven 1:06:12

It's it's you know, I'm sitting here and it's not the air conditioning making me uh all the hair stand up because I'm probably really late. You know, it's still a moment of my apparently what I'm throwing out isn't that bad. It's it may be a little bit, but they're still willing to come back and talk to me again. So man, that that was Steve. He was a messed up dude.

Kristen 1:06:37

He didn't know he was innocent.

Steven 1:06:41

He was, he just was trying to get along the best way he knew how, and uh, you know, when you're trying to please somebody that is so way off base, man, you're just not gonna make it happen. And turns your and turns you inside out. You sit there and look at the person in the mirror and go, I still don't understand what I did wrong, but obviously it was wrong. Caveat in their eyes.

Kristen 1:07:08

Thank you. Thank you.

Steven 1:07:12

Yeah. Your perception is your reality, and what you consider normal is what you're willing to accept. If you want the rest of the world to cow down to you, good luck. You're gonna be disappointed daily, hourly, minutely. Yeah.

Kristen 1:07:31

Well, and I think one of the signs for us to know that it's really not us is that they're often just miserable people. I don't know somebody that's has that degree of making another person wrong when you instant internally we're like, this is not wrong. But if we look at them as a whole, they're generally pretty miserable. Even if they don't show it all the time, they're just they're negative biased. They're like, you get what I'm saying? Do you see that in that person?

Steven 1:08:05

Yeah, I still wonder what was causing that because I remember the wounds. Yeah, and I don't even know what they are because they were so closed up. There was a point in the that letter that was left to me. It's like the further I get away from our comfortable life that we have built, and I'm like, we're making 150k a year, we're going on all these trips, it's like we're just having fun all the time. And I'm like, I don't know why you're trying to escape this. Everybody else is trying to get it. Right. You know, what's so damn bad about it? Please explain.

Kristen 1:08:46

I couldn't even begin to vent-oh, you're off. Sorry, I had my eyes closed. I couldn't even begin to venture a guess because you know, there's there's some everybody has a wound. I don't know what that person's wound was, but it's definitely contributed to how they showed up in the world. I want to say thank you to Amani and Stephen for coming up today. This was a very important talk. I really hope this talk resonated with you, whether you're listening to it on Noom Vibe or on some other platform after the fact. I really hope you got something from this. One thing, two things, maybe the whole darn thing. I hope you took notes. I hope it helped you to shift your perception in one way, maybe encouraged you or amped you up a little bit, or maybe it was just validating. Or you thought, wow, and not alone. Oh my gosh, this makes sense. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Man, that validation can really help solidify the ground beneath our feet. Because so often, like Steven was saying, in his former relationship, he said he he didn't know. He didn't, he just kept thinking he was doing things wrong because his his foundation was was murky, it was muddy, it wasn't, it wasn't solid, it was moving, and and I'm I can't come up with the right words today, you guys, but get the visual, okay? And once we start to realize I wasn't the crazy one, my instincts were right, my intuition was right, my wisdom was right, my messages from source was right. Once we start to get all of that through these type of conversations, it starts to solidify. And we keep going and we keep going and we keep going. I am here to tell you with 100% certainty, you are a self-healing superstar. You are self-healing badass. You have everything it takes to heal your life. To heal your inner world so that your outer world reflects it. I'm living proof of it. There's many other people I know who are living proof of it as well. Yes, it takes some time, yes, it takes effort, yes, it takes consistency, but it's doable. So the question becomes how much do you really want it? Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Are you sick and tired of self-abandoning, being a people pleaser? Sick and tired of not mattering, not getting your needs met in life. At that beautiful moment where we decide no more, that's when our life opens up. And I feel it's just it's part of the hero's journey. I feel like it's part of how we are. We just keep doing the same things over and over again until we finally go, enough. I just can't take it anymore. And I believe we all are our own heroes, and we have the capacity to bring us to new heights, to bring ourselves through new to new heights. I appreciate you guys. I love you dearly. Thank you so much for taking your time to spend with me today. Once again, I hope you got a lot out of this conversation. If you're listening to this on any other platform, don't forget to follow and subscribe or here on Noom Vibe. Leave a comment, however, that works on whatever platform. And I will see you again tomorrow for another episode of Empower Hour with Katie. Bye bye, everyone.