Class is in session. It’s not an easy class. It’s not one of those classes you can coast through- just do the bare minimum and hope you pass. It’s going to require hard work and discipline. You’re going to have to study, and ask questions, and maybe even get extra help. You’re going to get out of it what you put into it and no one, not a single other soul, can do the work for you. It’s the University of Life, the School of Hard Knocks, and yes, it’s got my full attention.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I am trying to be a better student of life. I’m trying not to be so easily discouraged by challenges, setbacks and negative experiences, but rather to see them as learning opportunities. When I think back on my formal education, I can honestly say that I learned the most from the more challenging classes. And that’s the case for life too: the more challenging a life experience is, the greater the opportunity to learn and grow. I’ve been through many challenging things in my life, but one of the toughest, and recurring challenges has to do with my abandonment wound. This wound has been one of the most painful for me to face and one of the most difficult things for me to navigate. It brings with it irrational fears of abandonment and rejection, coupled with feelings of anxiety and panic at the sometimes real, sometimes imagined, prospect of being abandoned or rejected.
When my abandonment anxiety is triggered, even though I know rationally in my mind that I am okay, in my body it feels like I am in grave danger. The best way I can describe it is the feeling you might get standing on the edge of a cliff, on the verge of being pushed off at any moment. Imagine that fear and that panic filtering into your life and relationships and you can begin to understand why some of us have such a rough go at it. But there is hope. Like any wound, the abandonment wound can be healed. It might leave a scar, never going away completely. There might always be a trace of it that can be triggered by outside sources, but the healing comes each time the pain is dealt with internally. When we take our power back and show up for ourselves, we heal little by little.
The abandonment wound is not to be stitched up by external circumstances or other people. You see, there are many things that can cause an abandonment wound. Sometimes it’s physical abandonment, sometimes it’s emotional abandonment. But the ironic thing is that once we experience some kind of abandonment, we learn to self-preserve and survive by abandoning ourselves. We abandon the self when we put others’ needs before our own, when we stifle our anger, when we say “yes” when we mean “no,” when we don’t say what we really think, when we people please, when we’re codependent, and when we hide our true selves. I’ve done all of the above in misguided attempts to hold onto people and avoid being abandoned and rejected. But getting caught up in those unhealthy dynamics caused me to lose sight of the most important person- myself.
With the abandonment anxiety and fear of rejection leading the way, I became overly focused on the wrong things. I looked outside of myself to quell my feelings of panic, but I could only ever find temporary solutions. And in reality, looking for external validation only ever made the abandonment anxiety worse. Kind of like picking at a scab incessantly and then wondering why it won’t heal. There’s not a person in this world that can heal your abandonment wound for you, or whatever trauma or pain you may be carrying. Don’t get me wrong, there are people in this world who will be a part of your healing journey. Loving, safe people can be a wonderful salve to what ails us. But the totality of your healing will rest in your own hands, with the guidance and help of Jesus if you allow Him in.
Your healing will require getting honest about your pain, feeling the difficult emotions, processing them and getting them out. It will require taking responsibility for the negative thoughts, unhealthy choices, and dysfunctional behaviors that once helped you survive but that no longer serve you. It will require learning new, better ways of thinking that lead to healthier choices and more functional behaviors. Healing is going to mean stepping up for yourself, being there for yourself, and giving yourself the consistency and stability that may have been lacking at some point in your life.
Let me tell you what the School of Hard Knocks is teaching me: the only way to heal my abandonment wound is to stop abandoning myself in the name of loving others. Now, when my abandonment wound is triggered, I am learning to stop looking for solutions externally and to start turning inward and asking myself what I need. How do I need to show up for myself? What can I do to be there for me? How can I comfort myself? Because I am just as worthy of my own love and attention as anyone else in my life.
I am learning to strengthen internally to cope with difficult external circumstances. I have started thinking of managing my emotions like walking a bunch of dogs. I imagine myself with these big dogs on leashes that are yanking me around every which way they want to go. I have no control and I am at their mercy. If they want to run, we run. If they want to knock things down, we knock things down. They can cause whatever destruction they want and I am left to clean up the mess. But as I keep walking those dogs, working out and getting stronger, I am eventually able to keep those dogs in line. If they start to get out of control, I can yank back the leashes and counteract their wild energy. I can set the pace and direct which way we go. I can avoid trouble and have a nice, peaceful walk with the same set of dogs that once caused so much havoc. Similarly, when the triggers come and I’m flooded with painful emotions, I need to be strong enough to be the one in control of those emotions and not vice versa.
Do you see why it’s so important to take back your power and show up for yourself? Because no one can manage your emotions for you. No one can walk your metaphoric dogs, and if they did, you’d never have the motivation to get stronger so that you could do the job yourself. You can’t look to others to ease your anxiety, or anger, or sadness, or fear, or loneliness. You have to find ways to ease them for yourself and that means asking yourself what you need when you feel those things. You might decide that you need to call a parent, or meet a friend for coffee, or talk to a therapist. It is absolutely okay to reach out and be comforted by others. The key is to not reach out immediately to others, looking to them for all the answers. That’s a form of self-abandonment. You’ve got to check in with yourself first and really listen to your own heart. Because while you might need to seek an outside opinion, you just as likely might need to spend some time in prayer, or sit in silence, or read a book, or take a walk in nature.
And know this: everytime you look for the answers within, you get a little stronger. As you get stronger, you get more confident. As you get more confident, you learn to trust yourself. As you learn to trust yourself, you learn that you can rely on yourself. As you learn that you can rely on yourself, you become less preoccupied with others. Abandonment and rejection, though painful, do not present as such panic inducing things when you know your happiness and peace are not tied to anyone outside of yourself. When you’re looking out for yourself and giving yourself what you need, it takes the pressure off of others and makes the time spent with them more enjoyable. And if they leave or reject you, you’ve always got yourself. You’re the person you will spend the most time with in this life, so you might as well learn to enjoy your own company. All the rest is a bonus.
Some people come and go. Some people come and stay. Some people teach us lessons. Some are catalysts for growth. Some love us and some hurt us. In the University of Life, the people we cross paths with are part of our curriculum. There’s always something to learn from people and our experiences with them. But remember, knowledge only gets us so far. Application is where we grow. You can get knowledge from anyone and anywhere, but the application is entirely up to you. You have to take the lessons, skills, and tools you are learning and apply them to produce the changes you want to see in your life. And when you do, congratulations! It will be time to graduate to the next class at the School of Hard Knocks, whatever that may be for you. Because for as long as we are on this Earth, class will be in session. If we are willing, there will always be learning and growing to do.