Hello, my loves. Let’s talk about why it’s so easy to keep abandoning yourself in relationships.

You know what I’m talking about when I say “abandoning yourself,” right? When you meet a  guy, you hit it off, and then all of a sudden, you are super available. Your schedule is wide fucking open for whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it. Even if you had plans that day, you’ll bump them without even thinking about it.

Well, what do you wanna do? Oh, okay, that time doesn’t work for you. That’s okay. I can do it this time.

This is a pattern that will continue throughout relationships, and it is so easy to fall into even when you are a very self-aware human. It is so fucking easy to get caught up in the moment, in the romance, in the excitement…and then all of a sudden you look up and go, “Wait, where the fuck am I? Who the fuck am I?

Worst of all, it’s not usually until you go through a breakup or there’s some kind of rupture in the connection that you actually start to realize you were abandoning yourself along the way.

The How and The Why

Here’s how this usually starts:

Someone goes through a breakup. Then they have a glow-up. They’re thriving. The gym is gyming, the skin is glowing, they’re journaling, they’re on their hot girl healing journey, all the things.

Then a man comes along. And suddenly their entire identity is wrapped up in what he thinks about them.

“Does he like me? Did I just say something to ruin it? Was that too much? Was that too needy? Was that too insecure?”

So you pay attention to what he wants. Even if it contradicts what you need, you do it…and you keep doing it at the cost of yourself.

So why do you keep abandoning yourself, even though you know it’s a pattern? The likelihood is that as a child, your connection to others came at the cost of your connection to yourself.

I’ve quoted this before, but Gabor Mate says, “When a child is faced with the choice between authenticity and attachment, they’ll choose attachment every single time.”

What that means is if receiving love from your caretakers meant people-pleasing, over-giving, not showing your emotions, shutting down your vulnerability, over-functioning, caretaking, being “easy,” being super flexible, not asking for what you needed, etcetera…that is going to carry into adulthood, because your body still equates love with self-abandonment.

By abandoning yourself, you can earn love. That’s how you’re wired.

What Abandoning Yourself Looks Like

So one example of abandoning yourself is making yourself super available, like I just mentioned. If you have plans, you will shorten them or cancel them.

This can also show up through you changing how you dress, how you talk, or even what you believe based on who you’re dating.

This is a fawning response. We talk about fight, flight, or freeze, but there’s a fourth option: fawn.

I go a lot deeper into this in my program The Connected Woman, but a fawning response is usually based on the idea that if you just acquiesce to what someone wants, you’ll be safe and loved.

So you’re constantly going out of your way to do things for them. You’re cancelling plans with your friends the second he wants to hang out. Or maybe you’re not cancelling on friends, but cancelling on yourself, instead.

That’s still abandoning yourself. In fact, it might be abandoning yourself even more.

Here’s the thing about having plans: me taking a bath at home? That’s a fucking plan. Me staying home and watching a movie? That’s a fucking plan. Me wanting to sit and cry my eyes out to Taylor Swift? Yep, still a fucking plan.

Isn’t it interesting that we wouldn’t cancel plans with a friend, but we’ll cancel on ourselves all the time?

These aren’t the only ways you end up abandoning  yourself, either. When you get into a relationship, you’ll often start abandoning your embodiment practices, your journaling, your reading, your routines, etcetera, all because your sole focus is on the relationship.

Obviously you like this person, and you want to spend time with them. That makes all the sense in the world. But it’s very easy to transition from “I like this person, I wanna spend more time with them,” into “I’m completely enmeshed with this person, and they’re my entire world.”

Abandoning yourself doesn’t happen in big moments. It happens in little ways, until you look back after a few months or even years and think, “Who even was I before this relationship?”

Two Ways to Reconnect With Yourself

One way to reconnect with yourself or stay in connection to yourself?

Solo dates.

I bang on and on about taking yourself on dates. Whether that means taking yourself to lunch or dinner, going to the library, going to the bathhouse, taking yourself to the movies…even taking yourself on a walk or on a drive counts. Start small and work your way up if you have to.

It’s the kind of thing you do when you’re single, but then when you’re in a relationship, you feel like it’s not necessary. “I’m going on dates with my partner, so why would I take myself on a date?”

Because you are your longest-standing relationship.

Read that again.

You have been there since the day you were born, and you will be there until the day you die. And I hate to break it to you, but there is no way out of your relationship with yourself.

We will try anything—substances, relationships, Netflix, social media, anything—to escape having to be in relationship with yourself. But in actuality, the relationship you have with yourself is the most beautiful relationship you will ever have. Your external relationships are a bonus.

You are the ice cream sundae. Your relationship with your man is the cherry on top, got it?

As for the second way to come back from abandoning yourself and finding a way to reconnect…if this hit home, and you’re realizing just how disconnected you have become from you, this is the exact kind of work that we do in The Connected Woman.

We’ve got tools for you to stop abandoning yourself and build real security and real safety within your body, your relationships, and your relationship to yourself.

No fluff, no bullshit, just real conversations where you actually get to ask questions and get coaching from me.

That is the space to be in if you want to overcome this once and for all. I’ll see you there.

WORK WITH MICHELLE: 

Join THE CONNECTED WOMAN, a shadow work course for the woman who is ready to break free from the anxious/avoidant dance in relationships and step into unfuckwithable confidence, security, and self-worth: https://michellepanning.com/the-connected-woman

Sign up for THE EXPERIENCE, an exclusive 12-month mentorship experience where you go all in on YOU (aka, you get direct access to me as a mentor, access to every offer I run over your year, and MORE): https://michellepanning.com/the-experience

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/michellepanning

Website: http://www.michellepanning.com