You might be curious about the idea of self-abandonment that I presented in my last newsletter and blog post and wondering to yourself…

Why in the world would I ever choose to abandon myself?

There’s something important I want you to understand:

You didn’t abandon yourself for no reason.

Most high-capacity women don’t wake up one day and consciously decide to disconnect from their needs, silence their truth, or override their intuition.

They’ve simply learned over the years to adapt to a performance-based culture that rewards them for their sacrifice.

They’ve learned how to become who they needed to be in order to feel safe, loved, valued, successful, needed, or in control.

At the heart of it all are sociological, generational and patriarchal norms and conditioning that have required women to show up in ways that puts themself last for hundreds of years, all while striving to:

• stay strong
• stay responsible
• stay productive
• stay agreeable
• stay composed

And over time, those adaptations became a deeply engrained part of every woman’s identity.

What once helped you survive eventually became the way you relate to yourself.

This is why self-abandonment can feel so counter-intuitive and confusing.

Because many of the behaviors that disconnect you from yourself are the very things the world has rewarded you for.

Being dependable.
Being selfless.
Being accommodating.
Being high-achieving.
Being the one who can handle it all.

All of these ways of being come with secondary gains or benefits, which is why these behaviors stay in place.

But eventually, there comes a moment when the cost of staying disconnected from yourself becomes impossible to ignore.

And, it also begins to outweigh the rewards and benefits you’ve been unconsciously receiving all along, leading you to feel:

Exhausted… even when you’re functioning.
Disconnected… even when you’re succeeding.
Resentful… even when you’re grateful.
Lonely… even when you’re surrounded by people.

Not because you’re failing.

But because some part of you is wanting, craving and asking to come home. 🏠

And coming home to yourself doesn’t begin with self-blame.

It begins with awareness and compassion as to the REAL reasons you’ve inadvertently abandoned yourself along the way.

A Simple Self-Reflection Practice 🪞

To support you with greater awareness and compassion for the role you’ve been playing in your own self-abandonment, take a few quiet minutes and reflect on the following:

1. What identity or version of myself have I learned to become in order to feel safe, loved, approved of, or needed?
2. What emotions, needs, desires, or truths have I learned to suppress in order to maintain that identity?
3. Where in my life might I be operating from that survival strategy today?

As you reflect, keep in mind the following:

The goal is not to judge any part of you that learned to adapt.

The goal is simply to become conscious of those parts and adaptations.

Because the moment you can lovingly see the strategies that once protected you… is the moment you can begin to unravel these parts of yourself.

After all, what once protected you may now be the very thing disconnecting you from yourself.

And that awareness is where self-rescue begins. 🦸‍♀️

As a reminder, I’m offering a FREE opportunity to join a deeper conversation about how self-abandonment might be showing up in your own life and what to do about it!

You can join myself and other high-capacity women for my monthly online Wisdom Circle this coming Wednesday at 12 pm MT inside my Brave-Hearted Sisterhood community, simply by sending me an email with the word WHOLENESS in the subject header.

I also still have a limited number of FREE Self-Rescue Clarity sessions that will help you determine:  

• Where you’re abandoning yourself
• What it’s actually costing you
• And what it would look like to come back home to yourself — for real

This is a private 60-minute 1:1 session that you can sign up for –> HERE

No fluff. No fixing. Just truth.

Regardless of whether you take advantage of these free resources or not, I invite you to pay attention to where self-abandonment might be showing up in your life.

After all, learning how to unravel self-abandonment and come back home to yourself is where your true power and freedom lies. ✨

In gratitude…

Jess Bonasso, also known as The Self Rescue Goddess, is the founder & CEO of Brave Life Consulting, a women-led company committed to the growth, healing & evolution of all women.

After experiencing burnout & a midlife crisis in her early 30’s, Jess committed to her own self-rescue and then later developed the Brave-Hearted Way, a simpler, easier way for high-capacity women to break free from self-abandonment and come back home to themselves without everything falling apart.

Today, she lives a deeply fulfilling life and has a thriving business that empowers women who lead to reclaim their time, energy and emotional bandwidth so they can create well-nourished lives and careers they love.

With over 20 years’ worth of expertise in alternative & mind-body healing, Jess has an in-depth knowledge of the Enneagram personality system and is as an accredited practitioner of The Journey Method®, giving her the trauma-informed expertise & therapeutic skills to support you in unraveling the root cause of anything that stands in the way of your happiness, health, or wealth.

She is also a published co-author of 2 books & keynote speaker who speaks for organizations, conferences & on podcasts regularly!

Jumpstart your own self-rescue TODAY with a FREE Self-Rescue Assessment!