🔥The Day I Stopped Abandoning Myself 😍

I’ve been doing the inner work for a while now. My first session with a therapist was at age 20 - the relationship with my mother is what I really wanted to work on - I wanted us to get along, be close and I wanted to understand why I felt that my relationship with her was difficult.

As I continued my journey over the years, I ended up leaving a long abusive relationship at age 29, and it was only after a short relationship that followed, that I realised I had a pattern and was “attracting circumstances” into my life - and now I it was time to choose more consciously what I wanted in life.

This period ended with me writing a letter to the universe (yes I did - literally!) and I wrote down ALL the qualities I DID WANT in a partner - and 3 months later my husband arrived!! What’s interesting is, that now that I had someone in my life who treated me well and honoured me, something within me began to shift - although I didn’t realise it until many years later.

Because once I had been fully seen, fully heard, fully allowed to be me in a relationship, I began to relax and I began to trust (mostly in myself) … and I noticed something even stranger. The relationships that didn’t honour me seemed to all of a sudden be under a spotlight - as if the contrast was now being made very visible.

My journey of self-discovery continued - I was gaining a deeper understanding of who I was and what truly mattered to me. But over the years, the relationship with my mother was still complicated - so I accepted that this was just how it was, and I got on with my life - as I was a mother myself now too.

We moved countries just after I turned 40, and for a while, the relationship with her seemed to improve. However, years later, as the events unfolded, I realised that it was an illusion that I thought things had improved with the distance - because every time I was in her presence for a holiday, the same patterns would repeat and the same feelings of inadequacy, disempowerment, being invisible and that I didn’t matter, would resurface within me.

And so the years went by, and I found myself turning 50. There was an incident that, on its own, might have seemed insignificant - but it was the straw that broke the camels back. In one profound moment, I realised that I could no longer remain in a relationship that didn’t have space for me - that didn’t honour me.

And in that moment, I chose myself - I chose to not abandon myself simply to keep the peace. About a month after said incident, after much contemplation, I ended the relationship - and I knew it would cost me my relationship with my father too. But it was simply too painful to remain in that space.

Choosing to leave my mother was the hardest thing I have ever done - my heart felt like it was breaking into a million pieces and it felt like such a betrayal to her. This was my mother after all - the one person who I had looked up to, wanted to please, and wanted most of all to be proud of me. It hurt like hell.

But there was also something more than me now driving this decision - because now that I was a mother myself with teen daughters, I asked myself what kind of example was I setting for them in how one should allow themselves to be treated? This hit me deeply because I was teaching them about their future relationships and telling them to always honour themselves, to put themselves first. But what were they seeing me do with my mother? The exact opposite!!

On the morning that I sent my mother the letter, I woke in a state - I really had to check deep within myself because this was it - there was no going back once this was done. I asked for a sign - and suddenly, in my head, was a song I'd not heard in decades - and the message was very clear. The song was by Erasure and it is called “Who needs love like that?” … and with that, I sent the letter.

I share this because this massive decision had such an impact on my journey and what’s unfolded since then.  Something big shifted when I chose myself. I also hadn’t realised how much fear was still living within me, and just how much it disempowered me. I felt like I was living in a cage and no matter how I tried to move forward, that there was always this tether keeping me tied to my past.

It was in this unfolding that it became clear to me that NO relationship, no matter whether it’s a boss, a colleague, a friend, a spouse … should be a space that doesn’t have room for me - and that includes family relationships. If I cannot show up fully as myself without constant friction, watching my behaviour, keeping my walls up, then it’s not a place I can be in. Period!

Do I wish things could’ve turned out differently? Hell yes. Do I wish I still had a mother and father in my life? Absolutely. But the reality is that I spent so much of my life wishing for things to be different, until I realised they wouldn’t change - possibly ever - and then I had to decide on whether I was going to keep living a life for them - or living a life for me. Because only I had the power to change my life - even if that meant walking away.

Sometimes the bravest act of love is the decision to stop abandoning yourself.

And that is what I chose.

Because I finally believed I deserved to take up space in my own life!

In many ways, it was my first real act of self-love.

Ironically, it also made me feel like the worst daughter on the planet.

Because sometimes choosing yourself feels like betrayal.

And sometimes leaving feels like abandoning the people you love.

I thought the freedom I was seeking would come when something outside of me changed.

I never imagined it might begin the day I stopped abandoning myself.

#selflove #choices #decisions #expansion #freedom #relationships