Why We Abandon Ourselves in Relationships (And How the Nervous System Learned to Survive)
Pause for a moment before reading on. Not to think. Not to understand. Just notice your body where youโre sitting. Is there tension anywhere? A holding? A subtle bracing you werenโt aware of until now? Many of us learned very early that our inner experience was too much. Not through words but through tone, timing, withdrawal. Through the moment your tears met impatience instead of arms. Through the sigh that followed your anger. Through the warmth that only arrived when you were calm, agreeable, quiet. What did your body learn in those moments? For many, a silent agreement formed long before language: My feelings create problems. My sensations disrupt connection. And so a protocol was installed. When something rises inside you now sadness, fear, excitement, need what happens first? Do you feel itโฆor do you immediately scan the room? You were brilliant. Your nervous system adapted exactly as it needed to. It learned to track others instead of yourself. To calculate impact instead of staying with sensation. To leave your body in order to preserve the connection you depended on to survive. Can you sense how young that strategy is? This isnโt a flaw. It's loyalty. And it often becomes the longest relationship youโll ever have the habit of self-abandonment. Notice what happens in your body as you read that. Does anything soften? Does anything tighten? Over time, this protocol becomes so familiar it feels like who you are. You become fluent in others anticipating moods, managing reactions, smoothing edges while your own inner landscape grows quiet, encrypted, distant. When was the last time you trusted a sensation without needing to justify it? That clench in your gut that says no. That heaviness in your chest that says this hurts. That pull toward rest, space, or truth. If you learned that love required manageability, what did you have to give up to stay connected? This is how spiritual homelessness begins not as drama, but as dislocation.