ED4AW - Stop Abandoning Yourself

30/06/2025 - Intro/Day 1

Welcome or welcome back to my blog!

A couple of days before I start my Each Day for a Week blog run, I'll do a lot of journaling to prepare and make sure I'm getting the best use out of the 7 days etc.

This blog was meant to be about discovering my creative process; a reliable creative method and success criteria for stuff I create. Cool!

It's not clear how this went from a blog about discovering your creative process to stop abandoning yourself, but I've written down everything I wrote down. And I can see how the two things are related, it's just not clear when and where the crossover happened.

I wrote down things like "it's important to have a child-like approach to creativity", and "Doubts are a very adult issue, because you don't know anything really. Only an adult would have the arrogance to think they can gatekeep their own creativity."

I wrote down all of the stumbling blocks and doubts that get in the way when I'm trying to be creative:

• It's going to be shit
• I'm going to be like all of the other tragic people who make stuff that's shit but don't realise
• It's started off shit and flat and underwhelming (I don't want to see the rest)
• I'M NOT SPECIAL
• My emotions are stuck in stasis, behind my face. Can't come out, refuse to be expressed

More from the original blog:

My issue is that I don't trust in my own process, or trust that I can follow through to the end of a process I.  am waiting for someone else to finish the job. 

I don't trust my own process to be successful so I look to other people. 

I feel that someone else can do a better job at making me feel like I am done becoming. 

The best demonstration of creativity is getting a reign on your own creative process.

I acknowledged that I'm way too harsh on myself and need to define success on my own terms. I don't hold space for myself, I instinctively shoot down a lot of things

Everything still felt a bit all over the place, I did this art therapy technique to help align myself but before I did, I jotted some things down:

I have a deep seated feeling that I am wrong and everything I do is wrong and it's almost like the space I live in is collapsing under the weight of this.

I was trying to be honest and confront things about myself..

The art therapy technique I use works by drawing a piece of art, and then interviewing it. One of the interview questions is What have you come to tell me?

This was the response:

Your life has been somewhat confusing and disorganised. You've had to hold multiple versions of the truth at once. One way of becoming more organised is organising your idea of success, not immediately dismissing ideas as wasted time just because don't match preconceived notions of success.

Really long way of saying I need to be less hard on myself.

The first step of having a more organised idea of success, is letting your version of success live, breathe, exist. It's about giving yourself permission to, and not letting it get crushed under the weight of the adult world's expectations.

You treat these small brave creative endeavours the way you would treat a child who is trying something new for the first time (I will be making a lot of references to how you would treat a child in this blog).

And this is how I should have been treated as a kid but I didn't get that, I am now having to make up for the shortcomings of my caretakers. Am I able to separate a child's way of thinking from an adult who knows better?

I feel like I spend a lot of energy trying to keep up with things that aren't keeping up me, that aren't factoring me in, that don't hold space for me. It is very draining!!

Where am I in this? Is not something I ask myself enough.

So I thought about holding space for myself, holding on to my good ideas, seeing them though to the end. There is obviously some inspired action in the beginning, why does this action eventually fall off?

I have a lot of orphaned creative ideas....

I asked myself "Do I have a history of not being allowed or able to stay the course?"

Did some more art therapy, same technique as before. There were themes of trying to keep myself dry, trying to keep myself safe. The response to that piece of art was this:

The whole world can't be dangerous, the whole world can't want to cut you like a knife. Preserve some softness for the parts of the world that want and need you, have faith and optimism in that softness, in the people that will be drawn to it. Nurture and nourish it, make it an important part of what you create.

My creative outlet is music believe it or not!! I watched some videos of people singing, didn't discriminate. I paid attention. There's a full loop happening, these people are connected to themselves.

I thought I must feel disconnected from parts of myself. I am hesitant to commune with them or acknowledge them.

And there must be parts of myself that are almost cordoned off. On an island within an island. And maybe I resonate with people who also don't want to connect with that part. We are avoiding the same thing. I don't know why I'm avoiding myself. I don't know how and where and why the internal breakdown in communication is happening. I've been conditioned to think avoiding myself is NORMAL.

I have been nurturing neglect.

My friend is a psychology expert, I was venting to her about all my stuff. She said it's important to keep checking in with yourself and with your body.

And I wondered, how frequently am I abandoning myself? Micro-abandoning.

I wrote in my journal that I'm discarding myself when I should be holding myself tighter, and bringing myself closer in. I'm thinking about closeness, tightness. Minimising the difference. Minimising the space you think you have to travel. Minimise can also mean reducing the significance of, in this context.

I avoid the world because I'm scared it's going to let me down, I'm scared things aren't as they seem. I find that dangerous about the world. My issue is that the world has let me down.

But when you avoid the world in the name of self preservation, you also avoid parts if yourself. The parts of you that can step up to catch you if you fall. The part that looks less to other people and how they might let you down. When you're always anticipating how the world might let you down, you are reinforcing that you are abandonable or let-downable.

When I'm looking to other people I'm not looking at myself, I'm not close to myself.

When you anticipate what people might discard about you, with fear, you start to avoid yourself.

My issue is that I am subconsciously trying to get closer to people by leaving myself.

And running after runners; I didn't realise this was something I was doing.

I say to myself when encountering runners "I know there's things missing from whatever you're offering me, parts you're skipping over. But I will willingly skip over them with you. Abandon myself. I've told myself that this is the toll for affection."

This is a real issue because why is my first instinct to emotionally grapple with the person rather than walk away?

When I try and paint myself as "everything someone could ever want" I am also, being left behind.

That's Day One over, and you know what I've realised? There is a risk of this even becoming an issue at work, I've just started the job, so expectations need to be set. We will see....

Day 2 01/07/2025 - Always Being Ready to Flee

First day of the month woo! It is super hot today.

This day I thought about honesty and imperfections. Creative success relies on me getting closer to myself and no longer running, I think.

Creative success will need me to develop a more intimate relationship with myself and stop running.

It sounds really sad, but I've always been skeptical of people who don't move in the other direction away from me. Skeptical of people who are drawn to me. Because I've been conditioned to think moving in the other direction is the route to success.

What is out there that I can't get at home? I wonder.

When my first instinct is to look outward, at how the world might respond, I think I am abandoning myself.

I thought about taking a step back from this urge to look outwards and treating myself and my ideas with some dignity. Fairly assess them once they've said all they've had to say. Why do I immediately cut them to pieces? It's like arresting someone without a trial.

And I think I should treat myself less like this as well, not just my ideas. Evaluating things in their own right instead of letting them collapse under the weight of the world.

I think a hallmark of creative success is leaving less and less of myself 'stranded' so to speak.

Resisting the urge to look away, can I fix my attention on myself and my ideas for them to say all that they need to say? For them to be judged in their own right? Instead of abandoning them...

It's a much slower order of magnitude.

And in resisting the urge to look away, to leave myself behind, I will encounter thoughts, feelings sensations that feel new. That's what I think.

Your thoughts, feelings and ideas are very articulate and have a lot to say if you can be strong enough to just sit and listen strong enough to resist the urge to move on.

Too much skipping and running away, not enough encountering.

When writing in my physical journal I realised that I am in another fight, flight or fawn loop. Abandoning myself and letting someone lese finish the story feels like the only clear opportunity to act.

When I outsource the finishing of my story to others, I am leaving myself with nothing. I think this is something that happens before the outsourcing in fact. If you anticipate you may have to leave your home at any moment you stop yourself from having strong attachments to your possessions.

There is nothing left for myself...

And because it's like the wiring in my brain is set up to do this, I am not checking in with myself that I'm at risk of abandoning myself. It all happens so fast. There are a lot of themes in today's post about slowing down and checking in.

Give your thoughts dignity

• If you are always rushing you don't grow attachments to your belongings
• Your thoughts and feelings are very articulate if you're strong enough to resist the urge to run away
• It's a much slower order of magnitude

That's minus points for wanting to run all the time; it rushes, and it skips steps. 

If I slowed down, abandoned myself less I could think a bit more about:

• Is this even worth it?
• What is so bad at home that you have to leave?
• What about all the things you're leaving behind?

I need to practice encountering myself...

I thought about being a bit more radical about how I encounter myself. Why do I always need to be ready to run? Why do I need to always keep my options open'? Where did I learn that was the best way to go about things? I'm not missing out on anything by closing some of these options down. 

I read this article written by the school of life. You can't stop running away from yourself, or the world, if you struggle with trust. I mentioned that my issues were caused by feeling like the world let me down. 

Learning To Trust Again - The School of Life

Day 3, 02/07/2025 - Cutting Corners

This day I thought about how one of the most dysfunctional things about abandoning yourself is that it rushes forward and cuts corners.

You aren't paying attention and you aren't checking in. I assume it's a nervous system thing. I've written a lot of blog posts about cutting corners, and not paying attention; oversimplifying.

One thing I do a lot which might be doing more harm than good is taking the moral high ground. This is good, this is bad, this is right this is wrong. I wonder if this sort of black and white thinking is what makes it so easy to flee from myself, what makes it feel normal. 

Everyone is living life for the first time, and will I die if I'm actually like 'this person is just doing the best they can with what they have?' It triggers me because I treat people as the light source in an avalanche, but perhaps there are better ones?

Maybe this moral high ground stuff is also contributing to parts of me being left behind....

People aren't good or bad everyone is somewhere on a continuum. 

Always being on the run from yourself is a horrible state to be in. Nothing should make you want to flee your own home, but it all happens so fast. There isn't the headspace to kind of 'calculate' if fleeing is even the best choice. It's like how animals in the jungle don't second guess fleeing too much. 

I'm not sure the issue is wanting to flee from myself, I don't think it's that I can't sit with myself. I think what makes me panic and not want to sit with myself is a type of social blindness?

It's like you're trapped in the snow after an avalanche and you don't know which way is up or down or out. And then someone pokes a hole and a bit of light comes in, but the light I'm using to know if I'm going in the 'right' direction has been self deprecating. 

Day 3 was kind thrown together, on to the next one.

Day 4, 03/07/2025 - Call, Response, Reward

It's so late as I'm writing this I'm super sleepy.

4 days in,  do I feel less like abandoning myself? I definitely feel like I' m taking it more seriously.

There is a 'structure' in music called Call and Response. One part plays, another part responds to it.

I feel like a lot of what we do and why we do it is an exercise in call and response. I could say it's dopamine, and your brains reward centres etc but I want to put more focus on the fact that it's kind of a dialogue? It's an exchange of information somehow. 

Like my call out into the world is that I am willing to leave behind a lot of things about myself if the price  is right, and the response I'm looking for is someone else acting as a place of refuge. 

This obviously sounds messy and messed up, but the main issues are that it's outdated and it actually doesn't work for me. 

Maybe a better approach is making it more internal, what are the calls and responses that are going on in just me? How do I signal to myself that I'm going in the desired direction?

Things that are outward facing and meant to make sense to the world tend to be a lot more on the nose...shallow. Maybe a more inwards facing process consists of icons, images, feelings sensations. When you are always abandoning yourself you're less likely to even be looking for these.

It's hard for me to associate anything good with being self referencing, but that might mean it's something to explore. 

Day 5, 04/05/2025 - You Have All The Language

From my iPhone:

Just don't ignore yourself, especially in favour of paying attention to other people. If you think they've got something to say imagine everything you have to say to yourself. 

Right from the source.

All intimate. 

If you don't know the Tik Toker Justin Scott, get to know. I'm going to reference two of his videos for Day 6, it's like they located me just so I could write this blog for real:

Trigger warning, if you're sensitive and not ready to unpack emotional trauma idk maybe you want to skip these or not watch the videos... I don't know !!!

Rescuing Your Childhood Self is Not Love - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdPrR96v/

You are trying to reparent yourself through someone else's suffering...

You don't want a partner you want to win the moment that broke you.. 

Looking for redemption for your childhood self...

People were never meant to carry the weight of your healing...

You will always confuse collapse for closeness..

Stop mistaking your pain for your compass..

Until you address your issue you'll keep encountering yourself (the same story)…

You've been serving as other people's emotional basement...

A lot of hard truths, but my main take away is that when we're running from ourselves we're really trying to get back to ourselves.

Stories of Invisibility - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdPMKEo7/

Love just feels like being good at not existing.

Presentable and not present and somewhere along the way you forgot the difference.

People aren't holding you they're holding the version of you that's tolerable, the one who knew how to disappear just enough to be kept.

You were never loved you were just managed. 

You get good at disappearing on time, at meetings on dates, in the mirror.

You weren't raised to become someone you were raised to endure someone else's fear of you.

Stop performing the version and honouring the silence beneath the silence... you will return. 

You don't need the lights (attention from others). 

An Adult is a child that remembers

And obviously playing invisible is  a way of keeping distance from yourself.

So good...let's continue.

When you're running away from yourself you can't be in dialogue with yourself. 

I wonder what someone who's in regular dialogue within themselves, speaks, sounds, acts like. 

This dialogue needs to be taken seriously and treated with reverence. 

And it's important to witness yourself without judgement. No added fluff or baggage. An absolute view instead of relative. And you do it like it's your job because it is your job.

I like the word dialogue, it has positive connotations. Two things meeting in the middle, understanding and encountering each other. Those things  are your intentions and how you end up executing on them. 

Things have been quiet/one sided for so long...

Speaking language dialogue is so important for today's journal post. Do you need other people's language to understand  the world? Can you be strong enough to use more of your own?

It's not even other people's language, it's mine with a filter. The filter is thinking What Would Other people think? |how might I minimise myself so that people can keep me? So that I am less of an intellectual inconvenience?

I don't want to run away from myself, or towards anything actually. I don't want to be unnecessarily in a hurry.

Day 6 05/07/2025 - Is Anything Going to Change After This Week? 

If we circle back to Day 1, I started this week because I wanted a more consistent creative process, or to be better able to follow through on ideas. I feel like I'm a bit better with that... I'm better at noticing the urge to look a way. I see my work more objectively I think.

I will sit with whatever I am...

And I'm willing to find out more about what that is. I am more committed. 

Ironically, I think being eager to nail down a consistent creative process might also be a from of running. Trying to save myself from something. The creative process part is fine and normal, the urgency though.. I don't know,  it feels like putting the running shoes on.

A more consistent creative process so that I have something to share with the world, dialogue with the world. I should be thinking about dialogue with myself first, then we'll see what's left for the world. 

When you take out the urge to run you can have an even, tempered dialogue. I wrote a song on the spot but on my first ever guitar and one of the strings will always be out of tune, so.. I don't think it's good enough to share. But I'm glad I was able to make it up on the spot and I'll get better at this. 

The song was actually called I will sit with whatever I am... and writing it, interpreting it, thinking of my experience of it, did feel like a back and forth, a dialogue, when I committed myself to not looking away.

For example, I say I will sit with whatever I am rather than whoever, this means I'm able to hold space for big big question marks about my identity... not even questions, just things that feel missing. Some of which are hard to describe with words.  Some of these things are question marks because I abandoned them (amongst other reasons),

Abandoning yourself leaves you poorer not richer, don't take refuge in others meanwhile you've left all your belongings somewhere else. 

I'm trying to reach the bottom of other people meanwhile I'm describing myself as a whatever, not trying to be harsh but it is something to think about. It just means you can't go as far of a distance with yourself and within yourself.

Day 7, 06/07/2025 - Conclusion

Abandonment, execution, reason to act.

So 8  days later, what has changed.

I'm noticing the urge to want to run off and leave myself behind, and that I actually have a say in whether I follow it. I'm noticing it in small things that I otherwise might not have picked up on.

I'm seeing it in things I used to let people get away with. And you know what it does take strength to no longer let things slide. 

I'm noticing whether my motivation to act is something that is pushing me towards myself or pulling me away from myself.

I'm less inclined to abandon myself because where would I go?

I thought about this tweet and how it covers off a lot of things I wanted to cover off this week:

When you're abandoning yourself, it's in a rush. It's an urge, it's an impulse. You're not thinking about what's going on.

You are desperate, desperate in the same way as someone who has fled their home and not had enough time to collect their belongings. When you have nothing you are desperate. 

Arriving somewhere has a certain amount of planning and intention behind it. You can't plan and be intentional if you cut down everything about yourself before they've gotten to make a case. Slow down, pay attention, treat everything about you with reverence, form a dialogue. 

That's it, if you reached then thank you for reading.