Weekly messages to help you start over in life

Self Love Journey: Healing from Abandonment

Self Love Journey: Healing from Abandonment

by | Feb 21, 2016 | Overcoming Challenges, Self Love

Beautiful African-American model by the sea

By guest writer, Kimesha Coleman

For years I intentionally choose to live as a victim. Yes, it’s true.

I choose to be a victim. At any time I could have chosen not to be a victim in any situation, but I didn’t make that choice. I chose to drift through life blaming others for my issues and complaining about my problems as if I would one day receive the highest achievement award for “most miserable”. Most importantly, I choose to be unhappy.

There was one particular evening I sat faintly and hopelessly in my seriously consideration whether or not I should drive myself to the emergency room as I waited for the red light to turn green. My kids were out of control, my head was spinning and now the cars behind me were honking at me to go. What a day!

I had just finalized my second divorce and started a new job. While I should’ve been somewhat happy about my new found freedom and job opportunity, I actually felt as if I was losing my mind.

I couldn’t picture myself as a mental patient so the battle in my head was over how bad off I would be if I waited to get treatment. Meaning that if I went now, I won’t be as “crazy” and could probably cope better than I’ve seen others. I felt like I was having what they called a nervous breakdown.

I’d experienced a lot of hurt over the last 30 plus years and carried the barrels of poison around with me. Not really sure what I was hoping to gain by holding all that toxic waste inside but the load finally became too heavy for me to carry. I knew first hand that medication would only cover up the symptoms and wouldn’t give me the peace, love, and wholeness I was longing for.

At this point I was way beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired. Instead of driving myself to ER, I went home and I prayed. I’m talking about a 72 hour spiritual rally, 3 day conference of soul seeking, crying, and knee bowing come to Jesus meeting. I asked God to remove the things that was not of him from me, to cleanse my mind and heart, and to show me how to love.

Acknowledge your past pain

Acknowledging your past pain is the first step in healing. I grew up not knowing who my biological father was. On top of that, my step father and mother divorced shortly after I announced that his brother had been molesting me.

My step father had been around since I was 2 years old. He was my father, the only male figure I saw each and every day for the last 10 years. Now he was gone.

This stuck with me for a while. I had split my family apart. Well this is what the 12 year old child thought. What else would I think? No one said anything to me about what was going on.

Never was there a talk between my mother and I about my step father not coming back home. He was just gone. He had abandoned me. He left us and never came to see me. He didn’t even call to say “Hi”. I wasn’t even worth a phone call?

My pain was the feeling of abandonment which involves the sense of loss. There is little or no closure just like grieving from a departed friend or love one. No farewells and no last words; just loss.

Unlike death which is certain, abandonment is uncertain.

Questioning and wondering whether the loved one will ever return, why they left, and struggling with if I could ever trust people again in fear they will abandon me. Similar to being rejected, being abandoned can accompany a great loss of self-worth.

Step 2: Identify your symptoms

Abandonment hurts deeply. Coping with abandonment you will either become overly needy or require a lot of attention and reassurance, or you go to extreme measures to never allow yourself to truly care for anyone ever again (avoiding relationships).

I fell in the never allow myself to care for anyone again category (re-abandonment). Keeping everyone away from my heart and at arm’s length so I wouldn’t get too deeply involved. So just in case abandonment occurred my hurt wouldn’t be that bad. I didn’t pick and choose who I put in this category. Therefore, I put everyone in the same category including friends, relatives, and romantic partners as well.

In my book, He Loves Me Not: Buried Tears of Betrayed Love, I tell of my dating experience and strangely how I repeatedly dated the same men but each with a different name. None of my relationships ever lasted longer than 9 months. After the breakup, this is when I would enter the re-abandonment stage re-living the pain from my childhood all over again.

On the flip side of this, you may deal with abandonment by attempting to fill the empty space in with anyone who is willing to give you attention. This may make you appear to come on too strong too in a relationship, which can scare off a potential partner or friend and increasing your sense of worthlessness. Again re-living the pain all over again.

Step 3: Take action

To identify and put some closure to my pain, I sought out a psychotherapist. We were able to identify my trigger points that caused me to feel emotional sad, hurt, and unworthy in certain situations or even around certain people. I traded my pain for love and created healthier relationships.

One technique that I used to increase my self-love was looking in the mirror and telling myself “I love you”. It felt very strange and awkward at first but I continued to say the words in the mirror and eventually became my own best friend.

I chose love myself and from here I can truly love someone else.

Life does not give you the absolute certainty that our relationships will always remain the same and consistent. However, with time, and even counseling, healing the wound of abandonment can begin and even allowing yourself to trust again.

Say “Yes” to love. Self-love.

In all, be aware of how you feel in every area of your life, situation, and how other people make you feel. This may be your body warning you or it may be a trigger from an old undealt with issue. It’s important to be happy. And if you didn’t know, being happy is your choice.

It doesn’t matter what happened or who did it, it’s still your choice to forgive and choose to be happy in life. Being aware of how you feel, acknowledging your pain, identifying your symptoms, and taking action is the greatest act of self-love you can give to yourself.

Give yourself compassion rather than judging yourself as weak. Take this healing process as an opportunity to build self-reliance and unconditional self-love. This process can be slow and require you to accept yourself as an individual. In the end you’ll be more self-assured and emotionally stable.

Start today by making a decision to be happy and heal your pain.

Author, Transformational Coach, and Inspirational Speaker, Kimesha Coleman works with individuals who have experienced some form of abuse, suffering from low self-esteem, or feeling of unworthiness to break free from their invisible jail. Kimesha recently published her book, “He Loves Me Not; Buried Tears of Betrayed Love” that tells of her own compelling story of how she went from victim to victor. Visit www.coachingbykimesha.com or www.facebook.com/yourstorytolive for more information.

The Simple Technique to Manifest a Dreamy Lover

The Simple Technique to Manifest a Dreamy Lover

by | Feb 7, 2016 | Love and Relationships, Visualization

beautiful woman

Imagine you wake up one day and meet your dreamy lover.

She’s smart. Funny. Interesting. Educated. High-achieving. Focused. Resilient. Easy to talk to. Down to earth.

Yes, I believe in the power of intention and the power of manifestation, but never have I seen it work so powerfully as it did late last year.

So, now that I’m “over” the whole divorce thing, healed from the past, fixed thanks to therapy, reconnected with spirit, and in alignment with myself, I felt that there was no better time to meet someone new.

Of course, most people meet someone new by going on a dating website.

Or letting their happily married friends set them up.

Or showing up at a gathering with like-minded people, etc, etc.

Naturally, I did what I do best – I wrote.

So I wrote and wrote and wrote about this ideal, dreamy lover.

I described the most “perfect” person I wanted in my life. I didn’t do this once, but several times over the course of a couple of months. I tried to get as clear as I could about who I was looking for.

And through a series of events, the internet and Skype, I found myself mesmerized by a Goddess!

She was enchanting, she was brilliant, she was funny, she was a doctor, she was Indian, she had a similar background, she volunteered, she was hard-working, ambitious and, oh yeah, did I mention? Gorgeous.

And she appeared to me as an enchanting Indian princess. She was like Freida Pinto, Amala Paul, and Priyanka Chopra all rolled into one.

How was this happening, I wondered.

I thought the Gods must have opened up the heavens to bless me with this attractive, talented and intelligent woman.

We emailed, we spoke, we chatted, we Skyped. I was swept off my feet and in a dreamy daze.

I heard wedding bells every time I saw her text on my phone.

However, let me break the bubble of this love story and bring us back to reality. It didn’t quite work out.

In all of my visualizations and in my writing, I had missed something important.

I forgot about the stuff that matters most – values.

See, I had forgotten my own advice to stay true to what really mattered in relationships – values that you both hold dear.

This is where we differed significantly.

She valued her career, her industry, her achievements and everything that her hard work had brought her. I’m not saying that her values were wrong.

They just didn’t fit with mine.

We each saw the world very differently.

Many of the things I valued are internal – compassion, simplicity, freedom and spirit.

While I don’t look down on her values (her values are her values), I had to really come to terms with the fact that this couldn’t work. As alluring as her achievements were and as beautiful as she was and as thrilled as I was, I knew that this romance wouldn’t last long.

I share this story with you for two reasons. One, to show you that visualization works. Two, to show you that if it doesn’t work exactly the way you want, you can work on getting clearer about YOUR dream guy or woman.

Here are 5 quick tips on how you can visualize a dreamy lover. (And even better, a free visualization worksheet you can print out and use to manifest your dream partner.)

1) See.

I want you to imagine as clearly as possible the kind of partner you’d like to have in your life. You might think about the physical appearance, height and clothing of this person, but I urge you to go deeper. Think about their voice, their demeanor and their personality.

Think about their qualities, their values and how they make you feel. Yes, it’s all imaginary, but the more real your imagination, the more likely you’ll see someone like this materialize in person. Feel free to consider the type of work they do and the field they work in.

The sky’s the limit with visualization – allow your mind to see as much detail as you want.

2) Feel.

Once you’re done seeing this in your mind’s eye, feel what it would be like to have this person show up in your life. Go through all the feelings of the excitement you’ll experience upon meeting and being with this person.

Now experience how it would feel to meet and spend time with your partner. Capture those feelings of joy and excitement with this person who will soon be showing up.

3) Write.

Now put all the pieces together and cement this visualization through a writing exercise. You can do the exercise first, or you can do it after you visualize it. Either way, there’s something magical about writing about your dream partner on paper. It takes the abstract and makes it real.

Write down the exact type of person you’d like to see in your life. I’ve made it easy for you and put together a worksheet that will walk you through this writing process. It’s the exact process I used when I visualized this dreamy woman who showed up in my life.

Here are the questions and the prompts on this two-page worksheet. Print it out, fill it out and make a practice of doing this for a month. Check out the last question also to help you address any internal blocks that might prevent you from meeting this person.

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4) Do your part.

Now, this isn’t magic per se or some kind of hocus pocus. I’m not going to talk about the law of attraction or any such thing. I’d like to think of this process simply as cultivating your energy and turning your subconscious thoughts into reality.

Doing your part means doing the writing and the visualization exercises.

It also means doing your part in getting out there, being available to meet people and taking concrete steps toward opening your life to a relationship.

Finally, doing your part means improving yourself, working on your inner and outer selves and being connected to your personal growth. You’re going to attract the person of your dreams only when you’re putting out the same energy in life as he or she is.

5) Welcome.

Once you’ve completed the visualizing and done your part to meet new people, get ready to welcome this wonderful person into your life.

Don’t run away from good things. Yes, it is entirely possibly that your dream partner will show up and that you did your part by manifesting them.

Yes, this manifestation is partly through your mind and vision, but you’ve also likely been doing the work to attract this person. You’ve been doing the work to become the best and highest version of yourself.

Don’t push this person away and don’t run from him or her. Give the person a fair shot. See if the man or woman you dreamed up is the real deal. If yes, celebrate. If not, go back to the drawing board and clarify your visualizations even more.

To download the Dreamy Lover worksheet, print it out here: ManifestDreamPartner.

For my books on attracting your dreamy lover, check out Love After Heartbreak here and Does True Love Exist here (affiliate links) I wish you manifest your dreamy lover today.