There are experiences that become so familiar we stop recognising them as experiences.

We begin relating to them as though they are simply who we are. We tell ourselves we're caring, independent, easy-going, strong, resilient or reliable.

Sometimes those descriptions are true. Yet I've found myself wondering how often those identities quietly grow around something else.

A gradual movement away from ourselves. Not through one defining moment. But through hundreds of ordinary ones.

The moments where we ignore what we feel. Say yes when something inside us wants to say no. Push through exhaustion. Dismiss our own experience before we've really listened to it.

Over time, those moments begin feeling normal. I've come to think of this as self-abandonment. Not as something we consciously choose. But as something many of us slowly learn.

The Ways We Learn to Leave Ourselves

The more I've reflected on this, the more I've realised that very few of us begin life disconnected from ourselves.

As children, we depend on the people around us, not only for love but for survival. We learn what helps us stay connected.

If anger wasn't welcomed, we may have learned to hide it. If sadness overwhelmed the adults around us, we may have learned to carry it quietly. If love felt uncertain, we may have become highly attuned to everyone else's needs while gradually losing contact with our own.

I've never experienced these as flaws. They make sense. The nervous system adapts. It learns how to preserve connection in the environments we grow up in.

Over time, those adaptations become so familiar that we stop recognising them as adaptations.

They simply become the way we relate to ourselves.

When Adaptation Becomes Identity

The longer we practise leaving ourselves, the more natural it begins to feel. We stop questioning it. We begin apologising for feelings we haven't yet understood.

Explaining away our intuition before we've really listened to it. Minimising our needs because someone else's seem more important. Gradually becoming so attuned to everyone else's inner world that we lose touch with our own.

From the outside, this can look like generosity. Responsibility. Compassion. Sometimes it genuinely is. Yet I keep returning to one question.

When I'm caring for someone else, do I remain connected to myself while I'm doing it?

Or do I quietly disappear?

The Cost We Rarely Notice

One of the things I've come to notice is that self-abandonment doesn't only affect the relationship we have with ourselves. It quietly begins shaping every other relationship we have.

I've noticed it in relationships. When we stop trusting our own experience, it becomes easier to overlook the moments where something no longer feels right. We explain things away. We question our intuition. We stay longer than we need to because preserving the relationship feels safer than risking the possibility of losing it.

Sometimes we become so committed to understanding another person that we stop noticing we've left ourselves. The cost isn't always obvious. Sometimes it simply looks like feeling increasingly disconnected from a life that appears perfectly fine from the outside. A quiet loneliness. A sense that something important has been left behind, even when we can't quite name what it is.

I've noticed it in work. We overextend ourselves because resting feels uncomfortable. We build lives around what feels expected rather than what feels deeply true. We become dependable for everyone else while quietly becoming unavailable to ourselves.

I've noticed it in the way we receive. Whether that's support. Rest. Love. Money. Receiving can feel unfamiliar when we've spent years believing we have to earn our place by proving ourselves. We question our value. We undercharge. We over give. We struggle to receive because somewhere beneath the surface we still believe worth has to be earned.

I've noticed it spiritually too. Sometimes we spend years searching for another answer. The next teacher. The next practice. The next breakthrough. Those things can all be deeply meaningful. Yet I've also wondered how often we're searching for something that has been quietly waiting for us to turn towards ourselves all along.

Changing the Question

For a long time I found myself asking, "Why am I like this?" It felt like a reasonable question. Yet it rarely led me anywhere helpful.

These days I'm much more interested in asking, "What was this pattern trying to protect?" That question changes the conversation. It reminds me that these ways of relating didn't appear by accident. Most of them were intelligent attempts to preserve connection, belonging or safety.

Seeing that doesn't remove responsibility. It does make compassion easier. I've found that compassion creates far more space for change than shame ever has.

Returning to Ourselves

Healing has started looking very different to me over the years. Less about becoming someone new. More about noticing the moments I leave myself. The moments I override what I know. The moments I dismiss my own exhaustion. The moments I silence what I feel because something outside of me seems more important.

I've realised those moments aren't reasons to criticise myself. They're moments that invite me to return.

And every time I do...I'm showing my nervous system that staying with myself is becoming safer than leaving.

Sometimes returning looks very ordinary. Pausing before saying yes. Acknowledging that something hurt. Resting before my body reaches exhaustion. Trusting my own experience without immediately asking someone else to confirm it. Believing what I already know.

None of those moments seem particularly significant on their own. Yet over time they begin restoring something much deeper. They begin restoring trust. Not trust in life. Trust in ourselves.

The Relationship We Never Meant to Lose

The more I've reflected on self-abandonment, the less I've come to see it as a problem to solve. I experience it now as a relationship to restore. A relationship with the person who learned to leave themselves in order to stay connected.The person who adapted in ways that once made sense. The person who no longer needs to earn belonging by abandoning themselves.

Sometimes that return is accompanied by grief. Grief for how long we've lived disconnected from ourselves.

Grief for the younger parts of us that genuinely believed leaving ourselves was the safest way to preserve connection.

I've come to feel that this grief isn't something to avoid. It seems to be part of remembering. I've come to believe that healing isn't asking us to become someone entirely different. It's asking whether we're willing to remain with ourselves a little more often than we did yesterday. To notice when we've left. And to gently return. Again and again.

I've realised that returning rarely happens through one life-changing decision. It happens through ordinary moments. Choosing to listen instead of dismissing. Choosing to rest instead of pushing through. Choosing to tell ourselves the truth instead of explaining it away.

None of those moments seem particularly remarkable. Yet over time they quietly restore something that was never broken... only left behind.

Because I've found that every moment of self-contact quietly interrupts years of self-abandonment. And over time, those moments begin changing the relationship we have with ourselves.

That relationship then begins changing everything else.

The way we love.

The way we work.

The way we receive.

The way we create.

The way we belong.

The way we live.

Because the relationship we have with ourselves never stays within us. It quietly becomes the relationship we have with life.

This reflection was written alongside the accompanying Voice Transmission,The Pain of Self-Abandonment.

If you'd like to continue exploring this terrain, you're warmly invited to listen below.

With Care,

🜂 Kaha Ruru