© 2011 All Rights Reserved

Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.

Self-Love
vs.
Self-Abandonment

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
Self-Abandonment
By Dr. Margaret Paul
If you feel alone, empty, anxious, depressed, hurt, angry,
jealous, sad, fearful, guilty or shamed, you are
abandoning yourself. In this article, discover the ways
you might be abandoning yourself.
The Encarta(r) World English Dictionary defines "abandon" as: "to
leave somebody or something behind for others to look after,
especially somebody or something meant to be a personal
responsibility."

As adults, our own wellbeing is our personal responsibility.

Do you abandon yourself, making others responsible for you, and then
feel abandoned by others when they leave you or don't take
responsibility for you?

As an adult, another person cannot abandon you, since they are not
responsible for you. We can abandon a child, an ill person or an old
person - someone who cannot take care of themselves. But if you are
a physically healthy adult, you can be left, but you cannot be
abandoned by others. Only YOU can abandon you.

What are the ways you might be abandoning yourself?

Judging Yourself

How often do you judge yourself with comments to yourself such as:

"You are not good enough." "You are inadequate."

"You are stupid." "You are an idiot."

"You are ugly." "You are not attractive enough."

"If you fail, you are not okay."

"If someone rejects you, you are not okay."

"It's all your fault that...."

"You will never amount to anything. You are a failure. You are not
reaching your potential."
© 2011 All Rights Reserved
Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
...and so on.

Just as a small child feels alone and abandoned when a parent is harsh
and judgmental, so your own inner child feels alone and abandoned
when you judge yourself. Self-judgment not only creates inner feelings
of aloneness and emptiness, but it also creates feelings of anxiety,
depression, anger, hurt, fear, guilt and shame. Then what do you do
when you have judged yourself and created all these painful feelings?

Ignoring Your Feelings

When you feel alone, empty, anxious, depressed, hurt, angry, jealous,
sad, fearful, guilty or shamed - what do you do? Do you attend to your
feelings, exploring what YOU are telling yourself or doing to cause
them? Or do you ignore them by staying focused in your head rather
than your body? Do you avoid your feelings with some form addictive
behavior, using food, alcohol, drugs, nicotine, TV, work, shopping,
Internet, sex, anger, blame and so on to numb them out?

When you ignore your feelings by staying in your head or turning to

addictive behavior, you are abandoning yourself. Once you have
abandoned yourself, it is very common to project this selfabandonment
onto others and feel abandoned by people or by God.
Yet, as a physically healthy adult, the feeling of abandonment is being
caused by you, just as many of your other painful feelings are being
caused by you.

Making Others Responsible for You

Once you judge yourself and then ignore the pain you have caused, or
you ignore the pain caused by others or by life events, it is quite likely
that you then turn to others for the love and approval that you are not
giving to yourself. Your inner child - the feeling part of you - needs
love, approval and attention. When you abandon yourself with your
self-judgments and ignore your feelings, the wounded child part of you
turns to others for the love you need. Because the child part of you is
desperately needy for love, you likely become manipulative to get that
love - getting angry and blaming, or becoming overly nice or compliant
and trying to do everything right. You have handed your inner child
away to others for adoption, hoping another person will give you the
love you so desperately need. You become addicted to approval,
attention and/or sex.
© 2011 All Rights Reserved
Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
The more you make others responsible for giving you the love,
attention and approval you need, the more your inner child feels
abandoned, leading to more addictive behavior to fill the emptiness
and avoid the pain of your self-abandonment.

The way out of this is to start to practice Inner Bonding - paying

attention to your feelings, putting your attention inside your body
instead of always focusing outside. The moment you feel badly,
consciously decide that you want responsibility for causing these
feelings and then notice what you are thinking or doing that is causing
your pain. Your painful feelings that come from your thoughts are your
inner guidance system's way of letting you know that what you are
thinking is not true, and is not in your highest good.

Ask the highest part of yourself, "What is the truth?" Notice how you
feel when you attend to your feelings and tell yourself the truth rather
than judge yourself, ignore yourself, and make others responsible for
your feelings.

How Do You Abandon Yourself?

By Dr. Margaret Paul

How often do you feel sad, alone and empty inside? How
often do you feel anxious, depressed, hopeless, angry or
hurt? These are the feelings we experience when we have
abandoned ourselves in some way.

There are many ways of abandoning ourselves. We abandon ourselves

when we:
 Do not notice or give comfort to our core-Self feelings of
loneliness, helplessness over others, sorrow or grief
 Do not attend to our fear over real and present danger, taking
loving action in our own behalf
 Do not advocate for ourselves in the face of others' angry,
blaming, invasive or disrespectful behavior toward us
 Allow our wounded self to tell us lies about ourselves and others
which cause our fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, hurt,
anger, jealousy and envy. We then continue to abandon
ourselves when we judge ourselves for these feelings and the
resulting protective behavior, rather than move into compassion
and an intent to learn.
 Expect others to take care of our feelings and needs, rather than
take full responsibility for our own feelings and needs
© 2011 All Rights Reserved
Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
  Blame others when they don't take care of us in the ways we
want
 Make others' feelings and needs more important than our own,
and take care of others' feelings and needs while ignoring our
own
 Numb ourselves out with food, alcohol, drugs, TV, overwork and
so on, rather than attend to our feelings
 Emotionally withdraw by staying in our heads or spacing out
from our own inner experience, rather than stay in our body and
attend to our feelings

All of these are ways that the loving Adult is not showing up and being
present to take loving care of our inner child.

Our painful feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, hurt, guilt, shame,

aloneness and emptiness are always telling us that we have
abandoned ourselves in some way. When we do not comfort ourselves
through painful feelings, when we do not move into the intent to learn
about how we may be causing our pain, and when we do not stand up
for ourselves in the face of others' anger, blame, neediness and
disrespect, we are abandoning ourselves.

Inner abandonment will always energetically create an empty place

within - a place that wants and needs love. We create that inner
vacuum when we refuse to open to Spirit and bring the energy of love
to our inner child. We create that inner vacuum when we refuse to be
an advocate for ourselves regarding health and wellbeing, and in
difficult interactions with others.

Like any vacuum, our inner vacuum will automatically pull energy from
others. Our abandoned child, desperately needing to feel safe and
loved, energetically pulls energy from others, hoping to fill the
emptiness and feel safe. Even when we don't overtly pull from others
with our behavior, our energy will be automatically pulling on them,
because the empty place within needs to get filled to feel safe.

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
Many relationship issues center around this mutual state of inner
abandonment. When each person is abandoning themselves and
energetically pulling on another to get filled, both people will end up
feeling abandoned by the other. Other than situations where a person
is incapable of taking care of themselves, such as a young child, a very
ill person or a very old person, feeling rejected or abandoned by
another is always a projection onto the other person of our own inner
abandonment.

Until you are devoted to practicing Inner Bonding and becoming a

loving Adult for your inner child, it is likely that you will continue to
feel the aloneness, emptiness and sadness that comes from inner
abandonment.

When you are being truly loving yourself, you will feel a deep inner
sense of safety, peace and fullness. Nothing other than taking loving
care of yourself will ever give you these feelings in any permanent,
ongoing way.

Self-Judgment Versus Self-Compassion

By Dr. Margaret Paul

The most common underlying cause of anxiety,

depression, addictive behavior and relationship problems
is self-judgment. The antidote is self-compassion. Learn
how Inner Bonding helps you move beyond self-judgment
and into self-compassion.

We hear a lot about how important it is to be compassionate toward

others, and it is very important. The problem is that you may not be
able to really feel compassion toward others until you are able to feel
compassion toward yourself.

In the many years that I've been doing counseling, I've discovered
that the most common underlying cause of anxiety, depression,
addictive behavior and relationship problems is self-judgment. The
most prevalent self-judgment is:

"I'm not good enough."

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
There are many variations to this core shame belief:

"I'm not lovable."

"I'm unworthy."
"I'm flawed."
"I'm not important."
"I'm bad."
"I'm a failure."
"I'm stupid."
"I'm not okay."
"I'm not enough."

However you phrase it, it is saying the same thing. It is a profound

judgment against who you really are. And it is the opposite of
selfcompassion.

The moment we judge ourselves, we are telling ourselves that we have

no good reasons for our feelings and behavior - that we are just not
good enough. Yet our feelings and behavior always come from our
belief system. When we are feeling badly and behaving in unloving
ways toward ourselves and others, it is always because we are
operating from false beliefs about ourselves and others.

If, instead of judging ourselves for our feelings and behavior, we were
to move into compassion for ourselves, we would open the door to
learning about the beliefs that are causing our pain.

What is your first response when someone blames you for something?
Do you judge yourself or judge the other person, or both? What
happens when you judge yourself or the other person? The chances
are that the interaction is not a healthy one.

What would happen if, when someone blames you for something, you
opened to compassion for your feelings of being blamed?

Let's take an example of how different an interaction would be with

self-compassion rather than self-judgment. In the following
interaction, John attacks Mary for being over-drawn in their checking
account. In the first example, Mary goes into self-judgment. In the
second example, Mary goes into self-compassion.

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
John: "Mary, we are overdrawn in our account again because you
forgot to enter some of the checks. What is the matter with you? Are
you stupid?"

Mary: (Thinking to herself, 'I'm stupid, I can never do anything right,'

she defends herself and attacks John.) "I just forgot. What's the big
deal? I've been too busy taking care of your stuff. If you would do
more around the house, I wouldn't forget things like that." Mary has
abandoned herself.

John and Mary end up in a fight.

John: "Mary, we are overdrawn in our account again because you

forgot to enter some of the checks. What is the matter with you? Are
you stupid?"

Mary: (Tuning in to how badly it feels to be attacked by John, she has

compassion for her own feelings of sadness and loneliness at being
attacked by someone whose love is important to her.) "John, this feels
awful inside. My stomach hurts when you attack me like this. I'm
willing to talk with you about the checkbook, but not when you are
attacking me. Please let me know when you are ready to talk with me
about this without blaming me."

Because Mary moved into compassion for her own feelings, she was
able to respond to John in a way that was loving to herself and to him.

Moving out of self-judgment and into self-compassion takes much

Inner Bonding practice. Most of us have been practicing self-judgment
for so long that it has become our automatic way of being. It takes
much consciousness to move into self-compassion - much practice
with Step One of Inner Bonding - but with practice you can move out
of abandoning yourself and into being loving to yourself.

Compassion for Self - A Key to Emotional Freedom

By Dr. Margaret Paul

Discover how to be in compassion for yourself, and how

this choice moves you into your personal power and
emotional freedom.

Clients have often asked me: "What is compassion, and how do I feel
it for myself?"
© 2011 All Rights Reserved
Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
My definition of compassion is a feeling of kindness, caring, tenderness
and gentleness. Most of us have often had the experience of
compassion toward others, but what about toward yourself?

What if, when you are aware of your wounded feelings - your anxiety,
depression, anger, guilt, shame and so on - you choose to feel
kindness and gentleness toward these feelings? You can then move
into the Six Steps of Inner Bonding to discover how you are
abandoning yourself - what you are telling yourself and how you are
treating yourself - that is causing your feelings. In understanding and
moving into truth, you will feel better.

What if, when you are aware of your wounded feelings, you ignore
them, move into judgment toward them, blot them out with
addictions, or make someone else responsible for them? It is likely
that you will then end up feeling even worse, from compounding the
self-abandonment.

What if, when you are aware of your core feelings - your sadness,
sorrow, heartache, heartbreak, grief or helplessness over others -
instead of avoiding these feeling with various addictions and other
forms of self abandonment - you embrace them with caring,
tenderness, gentleness and kindness toward yourself? When you make
this choice, you open the door to these feelings moving through you,
rather than getting stuck in you due to avoiding them with your
various protections.

Moving into compassion for yourself - choosing to be kind, caring,

tender and gentle with yourself - is the key to being loving to yourself.
It's the key to moving out of being a victim of your addictions and of
others choices, and into your personal power and emotional freedom.

When you make the conscious choice to be kind, caring and gentle
with yourself and others, your heart opens; then compassion, which is
a gift of Spirit, comes into your heart. It is the choice to be kind and
caring that opens your heart to the power of compassion.

Do you know what kindness is? Do you know what gentleness is? Do
you know what tenderness is? Most people do. Most people have the
ability to chose to be kind and gentle with others. What about choosing
to be kind and gentle with yourself?

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
If you wanted to be kind and gentle with yourself, would you judge
yourself? No, because it is not kind. Would you ignore your feelings?
No, because it is not kind. Would you attempt to blot out your feelings
and fill your emptiness with food, alcohol, drugs, TV, spending, blame,
anger, caretaking, or any other addiction? No, because it is not kind to
yourself. Would you pull on others to be kind to you, rather than being
kind to yourself? No, you wouldn't, because it is unkind to yourself to
make others responsible for you.

On the other hand, would you be unkind to others - blaming them,

judging them, ignoring them, rejecting them? No, because it is not
kind to yourself to be unkind to others. It is never loving to ourselves
to treat others badly, so when your guiding light is to be kind to
yourself, you will naturally be kind to others.

Why not decide today to make kindness - with yourself and others -
your guiding light? Being a kind person will bring you far more joy
than being a reactive person, i.e. allowing others to determine who
you want to be. Try focusing on kindness each moment and see how
you end up feeling. You might discover your personal power and
emotional freedom!

© 2011 All Rights Reserved

Margaret Paul, Ph.D., Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.