Shauneen is an international Spiritual Transformation Coach and Healer. Raised in a cult, she experienced a profound awakening. Shauneen guides her clients on a personalised journey of transformation and healing. Focussing on integrating the physical with the spiritual, she helps her clients reclaim their birthright, the power to create change.
This article isn’t for everyone, as many of my clients when they initially come to me, are unaware of the impact of this wound, they present with a variation of some or all the following challenges. This list is not exhaustive, if any of this resonates with you; it’s possible you have experienced some form of abandonment. It’s important to recognise abandonment is not limited to a physical experience, emotional abandonment can be just as damaging, in some cases more so.
Signs and symptoms of the abandonment wound
Difficulty dealing with conflict
People pleasing with an inability to say no or put yourself first
Perfectionism
Workaholic
Eternally single, when all your friends are settled, despite putting conscious effort into finding a partner
Inability to sustain healthy relationships
Low self-esteem
The good news is that healing is possible; with awareness and dedicated work, you will learn to recognise when this wound is triggered and develop strategies to manage these challenging moments. Later in the article, I will share an effective technique to support your healing. Experiences of abandonment, in varying degrees, are common during childhood. I see this increasingly in my practice. Clients come to me with a range of challenges, including those mentioned above, and through deeper exploration, we often uncover some type of abandonment experience.
Here are a few examples
Being ignored
Being told your opinions weren’t valid
Being told you were too loud, too sensitive, too quiet, etc.
Big girls/boys don’t cry
Being left at the school gates after pickup
Being adopted
Constantly being sent outside to play, regardless of the weather
Being told you will never amount to anything
Being left to deal with a traumatic situation alone
A parent/ caregiver leaving
A parent/caregiver dying
A violent parent
A critical teacher
Although not immediately obvious, unmet emotional needs can lead to feelings of abandonment. The old philosophy of “children should be seen, and not heard” is one of the most emotionally damaging ways a parent can raise a vulnerable, impressionable child” And given that our parents/ caregivers were likely raised with this philosophy, it’s entirely probable they adopted this ethos when parenting us. It’s always a good sign when this deep wound surfaces, it means it’s ready to be looked at and the healing process can begin. We can't heal an issue if we don't know it's there or if we are not currently experiencing its adverse effects in our present reality.
How to begin healing from the abandonment wound: A step-by-step guide
The first step to healing this deep wound is awareness. Once we are aware of its effects, we start to understand our past and relationship patterns. Suddenly, past hurts begin to make sense: every broken relationship, every potential relationship we unconsciously sabotaged, every conflicting situation we shied away from, our need to be perfect, our need to show the world what we are capable of, even if it’s to the detriment of our health and wellbeing. It all starts to become clear!
The roots of our beliefs: How our childhood shapes us
As babies, we possess a pure unadulterated sense of self-worth, knowing innately we are worthy of unconditional love, we cry in the middle of the night, demanding sustenance, comfort and connection. We innocently expressed our needs freely without fear of rejection or judgment. I remember when my beautiful daughter was a baby, she cried at the top of her lungs all the way through my cousin’s wedding vows! At this stage, we haven’t yet learned to question this fundamental truth.
We are born worthy of unconditional love. Read that again; you were born worthy of unconditional love.
Life experiences, particularly interactions with caregivers and our environment, can alter this innate belief. We are wired for survival, rapidly absorbing information from our surroundings, like a brand-new piece of software being written in real-time. We hardwire this information into our brains, retaining what works and deleting or modifying what doesn’t. We quickly learn what elicits attention from our primary caregivers, ensuring our safety, nourishment, and sense of love and acceptance. By the age of 7, most of our core beliefs are formed based on our observation of the world and the perceived consequences of our words and actions. These perceived connections become our stories, and those stories become our beliefs. Think of it like this: every time we have a thought, it’s like a tractor carving a track in a field, the first few times it’s going slow but the more we repeat the thought, the deeper and more established the track becomes. These “tracks” are neural pathways in our brain, over time these pathways become our “truths” our default mode of thinking. Our beliefs are simply the stories we’ve told ourselves repeatedly gleaned from our early environment. This is how our brain works; our default mode of thinking is lightning-fast. As children, when something bad happens, we naturally blame ourselves; our caregivers are our world, and we wrongly assume they must be right.
The “pretzel effect”: How the abandonment wound impacts our lives
I call this “The pretzel effect.” someone unaware of their abandonment wound will be a chronic people pleaser, constantly modifying their behaviour to fit the situation. They prioritise others, fearing abandonment if they don't. They anchor their self-worth to external validation, having learned love is conditional. They may fear real intimacy and any kind of vulnerability, they may be perfectionists, workaholics or ultra-independent. As children we learned to contort ourselves, altering our true selves, to be loved and accepted. Ultimately, we would do anything within our power to secure the love, care, and approval of our caregivers. This is because we were shown that love was conditional, conditional on our behaviour, and conformity, modifying any behaviour that was met with criticism or punishment. To ensure our safety and our caregiver’s continued love and care, we learned to stifle our exuberance, become self-sufficient, and silence our opinions, to name but a few ways we became a human pretzel.
Making the subconscious, conscious
Most of our beliefs are held in the subconscious, consciously we may be unaware of why we behave as we do, blaming external factors or other people. However, when life consistently yields the same results for the same actions regardless of who we are with or where we are, eventually, we must look closely at the common denominator: Ourselves.
It’s important to acknowledge this is not a big stick to beat our caregivers with or use our past as an excuse. No, healing, therapy, and coaching are all about moving through what’s not working in our lives and moving toward forgiveness. Whilst easier said than done, you will discover as you read on, not impossible.
Inner-child healing: The key to self-love and emotional wellbeing
The key to healing this wound lies within its origin, inner child work, I know what you might be thinking “Woo woo” That’s certainly the label I used to give it. Until I stumbled into this healing process for myself. I say, stumbled as, naively I thought I only needed to address the remnants of this wound, believing my extensive inner work had addressed the core of it, I was wrong, I hadn’t scratched the surface. I want to acknowledge the incredible people who were in my life at that time, some were triggers, some were fellow healers and teachers and of course my friends and my family. All of whom contributed to me coming out the other side a much more whole and integrated version of myself. One day, whilst amid this deep shadow work, I confessed to feeling “broken” to my daughter. My beautiful, insightful girl looked at me and said, “You’re not broken; you're just a different shape, and when you come out of this, you will be a different shape again.” I use that phrase with my clients all the time: wherever we are in our lives, we are never broken; we are just different shapes of our true selves.
The bedrock of self-love and your greatest gift
Healing your inner child is the greatest gift you can give yourself. It is the bedrock of self-love, the landing strip for us taking off into a transformational journey of loving ourselves and accepting ourselves exactly where we are, giving ourselves compassion for what we have experienced and survived. When we can hold that part of ourselves with love and understanding, everything changes.
Reaping the rewards: The transformative benefits of inner child work
Why? Because our inner child no longer needs to shout or act out to get our attention. Our triggers stem from our inner child panicking, holding up a big red flag, shouting, “This feels too much like the past when (fill in the blank) happened.” We make space for that part of us; we can listen, and we can hold them with compassion and reassure this part of us that from now on, they will be ok because we will always be there. Understanding that our previous choices were rooted in fear of abandonment allows us to make better choices. Our boundaries become strong because we know we deserve better than what we have been putting up with. We stand up for ourselves in conflict, knowing that no matter what happens with friendships, colleagues, and partners, we will always be there for our younger selves. They will never again feel abandoned, ignored, or forgotten because we will be there to listen, hold them with love and compassion, and reassure them they are no longer alone. By doing this, we alchemise our pain, integrate those fragmented, forgotten parts of ourselves, and welcome them home. In short, we make better decisions rooted in the truth. We are worthy of the love, care, and understanding we didn’t get as children.
Compassion transcends forgiveness
Personally, when I came through this twisty labyrinth of emotions, I felt there was so much more of me. I was indeed a different shape. There was more to love, to protect, and to honour. I patiently and lovingly healed and integrated my younger self and gained insights into my ultra-independent nature, a work in progress, as we all are, however, I’m happy to say that part of me is softening, the walls have come down.
With help, I committed to the inner work, I released the stagnant energy of the old beliefs I had unknowingly held subconsciously, for decades, combining energy release techniques with hypnotherapy, I successfully installed new empowering beliefs. A beautiful by-product of this healing journey was an unexpected well of compassion flowing towards my caregivers, who were simply doing the best they could with the tools they had, which in this case were no tools at all. I discovered compassion transcends forgiveness. Forgiveness without compassion is akin to staring at an unlit candle and feeling the palpable absence of its warmth.
A powerful technique to calm the inner child
The next time you are hit with a surge of emotion that feels out of proportion to the situation you are in, take a breath, pause, and ask yourself, “Am I reacting to what is happening right here, right now, or am I my 5-year-old self, experiencing rejection for being too loud, too sensitive, too exuberant, etc. and simply remove yourself from the situation if you can, place your hand on your heart and say to that younger part of yourself, “ you are ok, I’ve got you, I love you, this is not the past, and I can handle this” Because my sweet fellow human you can. The journey of healing this wound is a complex one; you don’t have to do this alone if the content shared here has resonated with you and you feel ready to begin your healing journey, I have a gift for you: my guide “Healing your inner child with love” which can be downloaded for free here Find A New Way - Free Resources.
This article would not be complete without thanking my beautiful friend and fellow healer Alice Ming for holding my hand and my heart so fully throughout this process, Thank you from the centre of my heart Alice. You can discover more about Alice and her profound work at Earth Soul Truth.
Another great resource to help you navigate this journey is the book Becoming the One by Sheleana Aiyana, available on her website.
Read more from Shauneen Quinn
Shauneen Quinn, Spiritual Transformation Coach & Healer
Shauneen, Takes her clients on a personalised journey of spiritual transformation and healing. Drawing on her own experiences of navigating a profound spiritual awakening after leaving a religious cult.
Shauneen created The Starlight Method, a unique and grounded fusion of hypnotherapy, Multi-dimensional healing, and cognitive therapy.
Shauneen's soul mission: Lighting up the world, one soul at a time.
