the Henny Flynn podcast

Facing Self-Abandonment: Embracing Self-Compassion and Affirmations for Personal Growth (S15E6)

• Henny Flynn • Season 15 • Episode 6

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Self-abandonment can often feel like a hidden force, quietly pulling us away from the very practices that could ground us in our most challenging moments.

Have you ever wondered why we neglect meditation, journaling, or even a simple walk when they could help us the most? In this episode, we unravel the complexities behind these behaviours and explore how fear of confronting deeper issues keeps us from self-care. By shifting our perspective from "letting go" to "letting be," we create a compassionate space for our emotions, allowing us to approach our fears with curiosity rather than avoidance.

Continuing this journey, we explore the uplifting power of affirmations, such as "I am worthy of this attention", as a tool for reconnecting with oneself and overcoming self-abandonment. My "Affirmations in Practice" mini-course offers a beautiful place to explore the science and practical application of affirmations - full of guidance for those eager to nurture their inner equilibrium.

As we stand at the cusp of a new year, there's no better time to set intentions for personal growth and self-care - and if this raises deeper questions for you, then I'd be honoured to explore Working together one-to-one.

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Speaker 1:

I've been thinking about this idea of abandonment, self-abandonment specifically, and how, when things are challenging, we often end up not doing the very things that we know are going to most servers.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Henny Flynn podcast, the space for deepening self-awareness with profound self-compassion. I'm Henny, I write, coach and speak about how exploring our inner world can transform how we experience our outer world, all founded on a bedrock of self-love. Settle in and listen and see where the episode takes you. I'm also just really curious about what happens when we do abandon ourselves and how that serves us to do that. So I actually put a post out on Instagram about this and received some interesting reflections from others that I'd really like to share as well and weave in to what I bring to this episode. The other thing I did was this morning I journaled about it, and I would really love to share that journal entry with you. So let's begin with this idea of what self-abandonment even feels like. You know what comes up for you when you think of it. For me, when I first reflected on it, I was thinking about how, if I feel sad, if I feel that something in my life isn't going the way that some part of me wishes it were going. If I get distracted by those feelings, then often what that does is it also distracts me from the stuff that keeps me in balance, keeps, you know, maintains my sense of homeostasis, equilibrium. So I might stop meditating, I might stop journaling, I might eat food that doesn't love me, I might stop taking Ronnie out for his morning walks, you know, and I say I might, I mean the reality is I do, I do stop doing all of those things at times, and then I notice, and then I bring myself back and I, you know, put, I reinvest my energy back into myself, back into those practices, and I feel myself return home, for want of a better word. But I'm really curious about why it is that we so often do abandon ourselves, abandon these practices that we know really serve us, and so one all the things you mention. It's like I can't face the situation or the thing and perhaps fear that my helpful practices that could take me closer to it, which I won't be able to cope with, or that I'm too agitated to do them. They feel different. Maybe the writing meditation feels harder, too much. It's odd, as you know. It helps, but you are so absorbed by the thing you lose your way. I think there is so much richness in there and I'm really really grateful to the woman who shared that with us and and sent it to me in order for for me to share it with everybody here.

Speaker 1:

This idea that we fear that the things that we know will help us might take us even closer to the thing that we're trying to avoid looking at, or we're trying to suppress or ignore or turn away, and you know, or walk and do a mindfulness practice. What we're doing that we don't like it will bring us closer to that. You know, likewise, when we journal, the journal is a place without artifice. You know, the journal is the place where we show up really fully, and if there are things going on that we don't like, that we are uncomfortable with, then it really makes sense that we avoid journaling because we don't want to look at the stuff that is making us feel unhappy in some way. And and of course, we also know deep, deep, deep down in our bellies and our wisest selves that what we resist persists. I think it was Jung who said that, and what that means at its heart is that if we keep suppressing something, if we keep pushing something away from us. If we keep trying to ignore the thing that is making us unhappy, miserable, sad, angry, lonely, whatever it might be, then ignoring it isn't going to make it go away. What we resist persists and actually if we turn toward it, then it is much likely, much more likely, that we'll be able to heal it in some way or at least be with it.

Speaker 1:

I've spoken before, quite a few times about I really don't it. I've spoken before quite a few times about I really don't know. I'm uncomfortable with this phrase letting things go. I'm not sure it's always possible to do that, and I think sometimes within it there can be a kind of sense of judgment oh, just let it go. Whereas if we reframe that to let it be, then we can hold ourselves safely and hold the thing that is uncomfortable for us or, or you know, difficult for us. We can hold that safely too. We can, you know, create some spaciousness inside us so we're not getting crowded out by the unhappy feelings. So, yeah, I really just really love that, that reflection, and also, I think there's something in here that this wonderful writer shared about being too agitated to do them so, too agitated to meditate, too agitated to journal, too agitated to, you know, to take yourself off for a walk or to do your yoga practice, or to sit down with a cup of tea and gaze out of the window, you know, whatever it is that you know really serves you.

Speaker 1:

And my feeling is again, of course, of course, you know, part of the agitation is there because on some level, we are afraid of something, whether that's afraid of the feelings that we're having or afraid of the thing that we're having the feelings about. At some level, there is a kind of sense of you know we're not safe, and and so here becomes again this the value of turning toward the thing that's bringing the agitation and checking in with ourselves and, you know, really looking at it very compassionately and holding ourselves with the deepest compassion in order that we can create the space where we can write, where we can meditate, where we can journal and actually to bring that agitation into the practice. So you know, if you have a mindfulness or meditation practice to actually sit, you know where you meditate and notice all of the feelings that you're having. There's that lovely practice from Tara Brack, the RAIN practice, where you recognize the emotions and just notice it anger, and then breathe it out and then notice what else is there pain, loss, grief, whatever and breathe it out. And in the same way, in the journal, we can write I am feeling this, this, this. How would it be if I bring some self-compassion here, how can I see this with more self-compassion? And it can help us create the space for it and and create a little bit of distance from it too, without that ignoring it, suppressing it, um, you know, uh, squashing it, that we know really, really doesn't work and doesn't really help us that much. Um. So I think there's something, there's something really important here about the, the presence of um, what can happen. So, you know, sometimes we we don't even know that we're abandoning ourselves, and I think the the wisdom kicks in when we recognize that that's what's going on. So if there is something that you ordinarily do that really helps you feel grounded and calm you know whether that's sort of going swimming once a week or, uh, or meeting a friend for coffee or or doing something that's, you know, really sort of a deep well-being practice If you notice that you're abandoning those things, the moment you notice it, then we can go oh okay, what's happening here? What's happening here, what is informing the way that I'm responding to these practices that might be coming from the way I'm responding to something else in my life.

Speaker 1:

Um, there's a bit more about this, actually in my in my journal, uh, entry. I'll come to that in a moment. But there was something else that came up um from someone on Instagram which I I really loved because when I was sort of thinking about this, I was thinking very much in these sort of slightly kind of heavy terms about self-abandonment. You know it's it's a pretty heavy phrase, isn't it? Um, when we think of abandonment, we think of something sort of left, uh, you know, alone and lonely and um, without help, without succor, without um support. And yet somebody wrote um.

Speaker 1:

Two thoughts came up for them when they read my initial post. The first one was the joy of pure abandonment of all the things holding me stuck and the fear of abandonment of myself and what's left myself and what's left now. I think there's something so gorgeous in this that within this word and again, I think this comes up in my, in my journal entry we'll see in a minute, I can't quite remember what I wrote this morning but how we can see that in this word abandonment there are these two edges to it. There's this lost, lonely, afraid end of the spectrum. And then there's this, like wild joy, at the other end of the spectrum.

Speaker 1:

And you know, gosh, that feeling of abandonment. You know, when we release everything from us and we dance and we sing and we are the free child you know that, that um term from transactional analysis where we are the, uh, this liberated, free child that has has no um constraints, the part of us that that you know can leap, uh, you know, onto a dance floor and and hand ourselves over to the music. Um, we might not do it, but we've got the part within us. So you know, when we think about that part, when we think about that feeling, oh, my goodness me, I mean, I don't know if it's doing it for you, but I have this utter joy, fizzy joy inside me at this idea of pure abandonment.

Speaker 1:

But I think there's something in what this, this sort of gorgeous woman, shared, which is what can hold us back from that is the fear of what might happen if we let go. So there's not only fear can make us abandon ourselves, but fear can also stop us experiencing this freedom of abandonment. So, gosh, isn't that interesting, I mean, I don't know what that sort of raises for you, but, um, for me, I just find it. So, I just find it really, really interesting and and I think there's so much more in this that I want to explore for myself, um, and maybe it sparks those same thoughts for you, even if it's just noticing, you know, I say just like noticing is the thing really, isn't it Simply being aware of when those fears arise, or being aware of the feelings that are associated with those fears, and then bringing my attention deeper and deeper into seeing, okay, so what is actually happening here, my darling?

Speaker 1:

What is informing what's happening, what is informing how you are feeling? And and actually there's a connected thought that if we don't do that, if we don't pay attention in the moment that our awareness gets raised, for me that really feels like abandonment. You know, if I consciously abandon myself and myself, then and I have done that many times and, um, I'm sure you know, most of us will have had that experience where we're really mindful, we're really aware of how something um could really not serve us or how something else could really serve us and we willfully choose to ignore all the signals and stay in the space that's not serving us. And that brings me to another reflection from someone on Instagram who wrote we forget about our loving heart and the peace there. And she wrote I do, as in. I forget about my loving heart and the peace that's there. Meditation helps me remember and be with myself and you know, this just speaks to how important it is to allow ourselves to open that door. You know a tiny little crack of light that comes in through that doorway. We open it up and then we can see, oh, actually, there is something here that can really really help bring myself back home. And for this beautiful soul, it's meditation.

Speaker 1:

And she also wrote believing the old story of the wounded child and abandoning her too, actually. So also this idea that we can be carrying these stories of abandonment and many of us do carry stories of the wounded child a feeling that our needs weren't met in the way that we most needed them to be met at the time. And you know, of course, I say this without criticism or judgment on our caregivers. You know most of us, most of the time, are mostly doing our best. It doesn't mean that we might not be left with some wounds from the experiences that we had, even at the hands of very loving caregivers. So this idea that actually self-abandonment and I think this really resonates for me very much so self-abandonment actually speaks to ignoring the needs of the inner child, my inner child. I actually have multiple inner children. They have appeared at sort of different ages, different stages, and I care for each of them differently actually, although fundamentally it's all about giving them love. So what can help us? I think you know that there's some insights from what others have shared that I've just talked us through.

Speaker 1:

I think the other thing that can really help us is to use affirmations to help break through the defamations that can arise when we abandon ourselves. So I actually practiced one this morning. I realized that I'd stopped taking Ronnie out for an early morning walk and I'd been doing it fairly regularly. You know it was quite a consistent habit and it doesn't mean that Ronnie wasn't getting walks, but it just means that he wasn't getting the early morning walk, just me and him, where we go up the hill at the back of the house and it's kind of part of my morning practice, um and and I lay in bed.

Speaker 1:

This morning it was, you know, not not very early, I don't know sort of before seven maybe, and and I was just thinking about this whole idea of okay, so on some level I've abandoned that aspect of something that I know I cherish and really serves me, um, and and so I I lay in bed and I thought, okay, so what's? What's the affirmation that could help me re-establish this practice, that could help me return to this loving practice? And the affirmation that came to me was I am worthy of this attention. And I thought, well, that's an interesting one. So I lay in bed and I just repeated that affirmation to myself quietly in my head I'm worthy of this attention, I'm worthy of this attention. And as I was saying it, I could just feel this energy rising in my body.

Speaker 1:

And before I knew it, I was up, dressed, and Ronnie and I were up at the top of the hill and I was doing my morning practice to welcome the day, the sun, the mountains, the trees, the sky, the earth and myself, and, and it really felt like the antithesis of abandonment. It felt like, or the antithesis of that negative aspect of abandonment. It felt like this real sense of coming home and it felt like a celebration of that other aspect of abandonment, as in like handing myself over to something that I really love. So, if that resonates with you, if you'd really love to explore using affirmations, I have got a hour-long course on the website which is called affirmations in practice, and my feeling was just that this might be a really useful thing to explore if self-abandonment is something that you notice for yourself or, in fact, if you're just curious about affirmations, so you can get the course. It's normally 17 pounds, but if you use the code podcast you'll get it for seven, and that comes with a bonus workbook which has got some self-reflective questions in there for mulling over, for journaling on or just for jotting down your thoughts, like you can use it in whatever way you want to, but it will take you through some of the science behind why affirmations are so useful and a really hands-on practice of using them, and it's also got a gorgeous affirmation meditation in it as well that you can listen to at any time. To really help ground. You bring you back to this place of homeostasis, this place of equilibrium that I talked about right at the beginning of this episode, so that then you can turn toward yourself, your whole self, including the stuff that feels painful, and turn toward the things that you know are really going to support you to move forward from it, really going to support you to move forward from it. So I'll put links to that in the show notes as well for you.

Speaker 1:

And then, to close, today, I'd really love to like Iian slip to share this entry from today's journal. And it began in a way that I really wasn't expecting, and I it's. One of the things that I love so much about flow journaling is that often there are things that we don't expect. It's almost when we know that we're right. Deep in the practice is when stuff appears on the page and we're surprised by it even as we're writing it. So here is the entry Self-abandonment.

Speaker 1:

Maybe sometimes it's okay. In reality it will always be, because whatever comes of it will be useful in some way, if not in this life, then the next. Is there a callousness to that? I think of Elizabeth Gilbert's story about the woman she loved who said do not try to help me, because she knew she had to find a way to help herself. And is that part of what we learn? When we do abandon ourselves? We meet ourselves in that place that's out beyond and realize we are not alone because we are there, this deepening connection with self, so many survival stories of people being guided and supported by an inner voice interpreted in so many ways, god being an obvious candidate, something greater than us another. For me, it feels like it's the truest, deepest me that is connected to the everything. And so there's a balance here, as with everything, and, of course, our most joyful goal is to be with our whole self, not abandoning any part and always remembering that if we have left a part of us out beyond, we can always call it home.

Speaker 1:

There's also beauty here too an abandonment being freedom, how we can lose ourselves in a moment, a dance, a laugh, a communion with nature, or another being communion with nature, or another being ridding ourselves of all constraints until we are purely present. How curious that the word should have two such extremes. So many words that do this, none I can think of now. And so how do we bring ourselves the joy and the deep learnings while staying present? Well, it's in that word being present, seeing what is happening, because at times it is okay to sink in. We need to have the depth of experience to understand our pain, our grief, our loss, our sadness, in order to be able to see how to care even more fully for ourselves. And yet the artistry here is not to get lost within it, not to abandon hope, all ye who enter here, but to remember we always have a choice and we can change things if we so desire.

Speaker 1:

Those words I am loved can be a wonderful place to start. So there we go, my darlings. I am loved is another incredibly beautiful affirmation, actually, and one that works for so many experiences that we face into, where things are feeling agitated, activated, just to place our hand on our heart and whisper to ourselves I am loved, I am loved, I am loved, even if you, you know, just sort of feeling the resonance of those words in ourselves right now can be such a beautiful thing, and maybe, maybe, it's part of the pathway back to the things that we know really do care for us, support us, serve us. So do take a look at that affirmation course. I think you'll absolutely love it.

Speaker 1:

It's an hour of time just for you, um, broken up into little 10 minute segments so you can listen to it all in one go, or you can listen to it in little sections. It's an audio course, so you can listen to it if you're traveling or, you know, if you have the opportunity to create your own little mini retreat experience in your home, giving yourself some time and space and attention and then, through that, crafting some affirmations that really really support you. The words that we use are so important for how we shape and create our mindset and the experience that we have, and paying attention to those is really part of paying attention to our deep self, like being really really present. So that was a bit of a meander and an exploration. I'd love to hear your reflections on what that raises for you and if there's something in there where you feel like, oh gosh, there's something I really want to pay some deep attention to, then you know you can work with me. Then you know you can work with me. I offer a free one hour call for anybody who wants to explore what this work could be like.

Speaker 1:

I'm recording this episode. It's right at the end of October, early November in 2024. And I will have space in my diary to start working with some new clients from the end of January. So now is a good time actually to be really sort of stepping toward this work, because we know new year, new beginnings even though we don't use the language of resolutions and all of that anymore. Actually setting an intention to really focus in on your own needs at the beginning of the year can be a beautiful, energizing thing to do, so if you'd like to chat through what that could look like for you, then get in touch. You can just email me, henny, at hennyflinncouk, and take a look at the notes for that affirmation course too, and don't forget to use the code podcast and you'll get £10 off and it'll just be £7. All right, my loves, I am sending you a hug and a wave, thank you.