In this post I’m not going to write about how others may have abandoned us, I’m going to talk about how we may have abandoned ourselves. Abandoned ourselves? How do we do that?

Think back to a time when your mind was full of dreams and outlandish goals. Ideas you thought would change your life and in turn, change the world. Books that needed to be written, art that would cause the viewer to feel a deep sense of awareness. Or traveling to foreign lands as a way to increase your understanding of the world in which you live.

When we were young we had the belief that we could do, be, or have anything we wanted in life. All we had to do was accept it was possible. But what happened? How many of our dreams and goals came to fruition? Did we lose steam? Is it possible we gave up because the world was too challenging? Why did we abandon what we felt was true to our heart?

There is a lot of truth in the belief that the world is not an easy place to pursue our goals and dreams. Those who claim to love us don’t want to see us get hurt as we follow our heart, so they don’t encourage us to see how far we can go. Most people will share their failures because many times they have given up after one setback.

Then there is the belief that whatever we want to pursue is so fragile, we don’t want to express our dreams with others. We fear they will crush our desires by their criticism. We remain silent because the fear of being ridiculed for having an outrageous dream freezes us in place. Never moving forward with our goal, we abandon that which once made us excited because we would rather have friends than walk our destiny alone.

How will we ever know if we have abandoned ourselves? This takes courage, strength, and honesty. It can be easy to use the excuse that life handed us a raw deal. Excuses are a dime a dozen. They come in many forms and we as humans, can justify the stupidest excuses preventing us from stepping into a life that is honest and self-loving.

It is so easy to blame others for the way life is turning out. Yet how often do we look in the mirror and ask about our responsibilities toward ourselves? No matter what has happened to us in life, we are responsible for how we react to these situations. The true blame for an unfulfilled life is looking back at us in the mirror.

Oftentimes we abandon ourselves because we have been taught that the goals of others are more important than our own dreams. We believe our self-sacrifice is an act of love, yet it is not. Self-sacrifice is an act of denying ourselves our true gifts as a way to please others. We think our self-sacrifice will boost our self-worth, but in the long run it does the opposite. Weakening our resolve to see our goals and dreams become a reality.

As we look deep within ourselves to heal our abandonment behavior, we notice a source of unconditional love. We may feel this love for the first time, yet at some level we realize that this love has always been there encouraging us to follow our heart. Now we understand that when we abandon our dreams, goals, and true desires, we are denying ourselves this eternal source of unconditional love.

In a sense we abandon ourselves because we have been taught that love will be found in the outside world. We give up on ourselves thinking that the measure of who we are is the love we feel from others, not the love we have for ourselves.

In the process we fail to understand that the love from the outside world will always be conditional. There will always be conditions placed on the love we receive from others. They may love us as long as we agree with their point of view. Or they love us while we continue to sacrifice ourselves for their gain. They may even love us as long as we don’t follow our heart because this makes them uncomfortable with the choices they have made. In truth there is the possibility they have abandoned themselves. This makes them uneasy to see us taking charge of our own life.

We may have abandoned ourselves in the past but that does not mean we have to continue this pattern. At any time we can connect with the love found at the core of our being, beginning the journey to live to the fullness of who we were meant to be. The key is to accept that no one has the power to abandon us but ourselves.

~

Can you look honestly to see if you have abandoned yourself? Can you heal by loving yourself? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. I’m always interested in hearing your point of view.

If you would like to follow me on Blue Sky Social here is the link,

https://bsky.app/profile/paul-hudon.bsky.social

Thank you for being a part of this wonderful adventure called life, I appreciate your company.

Peace and well-being, Paul

Copyright Paul Hudon 2025