Recognizing self-abandonment and four steps to build self-trust! 

Just as trust is an important factor in pretty much every relationship, trusting yourself is no exception! The opposite of self trust is self abandonment and in this love note aka blog post, we will discuss the following concepts:

• What is self abandonment & how does it feel?

• Why do we self abandon? 

• What is self trust? 

• How can I build self trust right now? 

Before we dive into this topic, I have to say that if you don’t know what it means to trust yourself, you are not alone!  After coaching hundreds of women, one of the most complex and difficult concepts to discuss and teach is SELF TRUST! Not trusting yourself not only makes it difficult to make decisions, but it’s also detrimental to meeting your own needs, going after your desires and trusting that you are ENOUGH when making life changes!

If you’re being honest with yourself you might realize that you lack self trust more than you’d care to admit. There can be varying degrees of self abandonment and self trust, depending on your upbringing, your past traumas and other factors such as addiction issues. 

In my personal experience, when I haven’t trusted myself, I would make decisions out of fear of disappointing others. Making decisions based on how others might react to my decision, is not living in alignment with my own values and it always ends in pain. Every time I have not trusted myself, I have been met with pain. If I would have listened to my inner guidance, I may not have experienced the lesson. It has been my experience that whether it’s a relationship, a work (business) situation, or anything else, I must trust my inner guidance, otherwise I’ll experience pain.

I’ve had to learn on a deep level that I need to listen to my guidance system, and trust myself to whether or not it makes sense logically. When my intuition tells me what the next steps are I just trust it because I know that it’s never wrong. Before I could listen in to my guidance system, I had to understand the cause of my lack of self trust, which is self abandonment!  

What is self abandonment? 

I don’t know about you, Goddess, but I was never taught to trust myself! I was taught to abandon my own needs in favor of pleasing other people, value their ideas, experience, and expectations above my own. Rather than be taught to lean into listening to trusting my intuition, like most of us, we are taught that it’s better to follow the rules, and go with the status quo. 

Self abandonment can be any act of disregarding our needs, wants, or desires. 

When we ignore our own intuition, unknowingly or blatantly stop taking care of our physical, emotional and spiritual well being, we are abandoning ourselves! Listening to that inner mean girl, not speaking up for ourselves, and putting others as a priority is also an indication of self abandonment.  

In my programs, we deep dive into each of the ways we self abandon and how to shift out of these self destructive patterns, so that you can align with the life of freedom you desire, but for the purpose of this love note, I’ll be sharing how to recognize self abandonment and how to start to trust yourself! 

How does it feel when we self abandon?

In most cases, self abandonment feels like consistent overwhelm, frustration, anxiety and lethargy. Self abandonment can be as simple as having a non-stop overwhelming to-do list (because you aren’t prioritizing you!), or much deeper issues such as mental or physical ailments. 

Many of my clients that struggle with self abandonment experience elevated levels of anxiety, depression, and guilt. These women have difficulty sleeping, are distracted, and oftentimes disassociated from their bodies and the world around them. Self abandonment makes us feel less inclined to take action on our goals or dreams and depression can set in. 

Oftentimes there are deep patterns of self abandonment, physical conditions can also arise such as severe mental health issues and decrease in physical well being due to the anxiety and uncertainty caused by lacking self trust. 

The flip side is that once we work together through my programs (click here for more) on building their own self love, self esteem and self trust, my clients experience massive upgrades in their overall wellbeing and happiness.  Many of my clients go on to create businesses, marry their soul mates, travel the world, etc., all because they learned to trust themselves! 

So, Why do we self abandon? 

As a society, we are not taught to listen to ourselves. We are taught to value those opinions of our family, our religion, or education system. In order to function in society, we are taught to value other people and what they believe about us, and to make decisions about ourselves, and our life, based on what others value.  

We live in a society that does not value intuition, and favors logic. We each have an internal guidance system where we get intuitive hits, or guidance on which course of action to take in our lives, yet most of the time this guidance is not logical. 

We may fear disappointing others or be scared of the emotional outburst that might come from someone else. If we grew up in a family or home that was chaotic, riddled with addiction, or did not have caregivers that provided our emotional, physical or spiritual needs, we were unconsciously taught to abandon those needs as well. 

What is self trust?

Self trust is any act of putting your own spiritual, emotional and physical needs first and trusting that you are guided and know exactly what you need, want or desire in each moment. 

Trusting yourself doesn’t mean you have to break any rules (except the self imposed limitations you’ve created for yourself), it means that you choose to stay true to yourself, despite how others might feel about it.  

My personal definition of self-trust is to honor and meet my own needs, wants and desires. 

How do I build self trust? 

Here’s the fun part of my job!  As a coach, I get to teach what I know about building trust with oneself. For me, the deeper my self trust, I have been guided to take massive leaps of faith in creating my dream life (which includes moving to Costa Rica - read more here)! 

Like my long standing relationships, it’s taken me many years to build trust with myself enough to choose a different life than the status quo. If I didn’t learn to trust myself, I would have never had the opportunities I have had the past 10 years to coach hundreds of women on creating their dreams! 

Just like any other relationship, self trust is not built overnight, or in big, grande gestures. Trust is built in each moment where we choose to show up for ourselves, despite what we've been taught. Building self trust, by simple acts of taking your power back, is the antidote to years of self abandonment. Here are some tips on how to build self trust:

Step 1 - Recognize self abandonment. Recognizing self abandonment can be tricky. You can notice symptoms of self abandonment by the way you feel. What I teach is to tune into your feelings by asking the question “how do I feel?”. Feelings are feedback and if you feel any negative emotion, it’s a good indication you want to look at how you are meeting your own needs. 

Step 2 - Recognize your own needs. This is tricky for those of us that haven’t practiced tuning into our own needs! Especially if you have a full life - family, career, friends, all of which probably include children, or grandkids. Many times, the women I work with put themselves LAST on their own priority list of needs! Listen to that inner guide and she will tell you exactly what you need!  Asking the simple question “what do I need?” each day, and then following through on that NEED, will pay massive dividends in building trust with yourself. 

Step 3 - Have a non-negotiable date with yourself each week. I can already hear the peanut gallery on this one… “But, but, but…”. NO IFS, ANDS OR BUTS! If you want to trust yourself you have to spend time with yourself. PERIOD. You may disappoint others by putting time on the calendar JUST FOR YOU, however that will only show you who might not have your best interests at heart, in which, you want to re-evaluate those relationships anyways! 

Step 4 - Keep your small daily commitments. If you promised yourself to write a gratitude list before bed, and you consistently DON’T DO IT, you are telling yourself that you can’t be trusted! Keeping small commitments to yourself are just as, if not more important, than keeping commitments to your friends, family or working life. You can show yourself that you are no longer abandoning yourself, simply by keeping your small commitments! 

By following these tips, tuning into your feelings, recognizing and prioritizing your own needs, having that weekly date with yourself and keeping your small commitments will drastically improve your overall well being, so that you can have that magical energy to create the life you desire! 

To recap, recognizing self abandonment can be tricky and it takes time to learn how to trust yourself after many years of self abandonment! 

Be gentle, be patient and be loving with yourself while building self trust! 

It’s taken me years to build a life of magic, based on radical self trust! By following the steps above, I am always guided back to a deeper, more intimate relationship with myself. 

A perfect way to start your day off right to tune in can be found with my free Magic Morning Meditation, available for download here!