Self Sabotage is one of the key results of an unresolved abandonment experience. When we have abandonment issues we leave ourselves behind, we abandon ourselves, we try to blame our lives on our neediness and feelings which are natural results of the inner child needing what it did not get. We blame our feelings and so abandon our inner child which is our feelings.
We also become more susceptible to a state of compulsive emotional highjacking, a high stress triggered response connected to buried memories and experiences of past abandonment being activated. John Lee calls this age regression, Pete Walker calls it emotional flashback. It triggers us into outer child which is a reaction to subliminal inner child needs that got buried years before which lead us to self sabotage. Feeling anxiety. Looking for instant gratification or pleasurable quick fixes that lead to self sabotage or self abandonment, tending a deep need with a substitute which does not allow us to feel or resolve the complex feelings that lie beneath. Chasing the unavailable.
In pursuit mode we don’t deal with real intimacy at all. We may instead have to stop still and feel and breath into the hurt and pain in order to recognise the truth of what is happening. But it will not help us to stay trapped in a ‘freeze’ response, making or taking some little step forward from the hurting place into something that will help us or nourish us is very important.
What are our life lines? To call a friend. To touch base with nature. To listen to music which enables us to deepen. Doing something that nurtures our physical body, walking on soft grass, having a foot bath, eating something wholesome and nutritious. All ways of practicing self care and not abandoning our self further. So find ways when you can to come home to you. For the depths of your soul are longing to be met and fully embraced and in the end you are the one whose responsibility it is to make sure you no longer self abandon as you have been abandoned in the past.
Emerging From The Dark Night 