Using courage to face your fears means understanding that you don’t or won’t feel safe in painful situations with your significant other. That doesn’t mean that it’s healthy to keep running away from the interaction, punish the person you feel hurt you, or believe that people are incapable of understanding you. In order to learn about yourself and about how you experience emotional pain, it is necessary to remain and exist within the conversation. It means facing your fears about not being heard, feeling abandoned, and feeling betrayed by the person who triggers your pain with courage.
The cycle you are re-creating is actually the re-enactment of the way your mother or father interacted with you or your family members. If they used cut-off, shutting down, shaming, or yelling, during conflicted times, then you will re-enact these types of behaviors that influences your family members in a similar way. The abandonment feelings created in those scenarios are painful and you can’t manage your abandonment or fear of engulfment by avoiding your partner or by punishing your partner. The way your parents taught you to maintain or push away closeness is the way you will manage your intimacy with your partner. It’s the sharpest tool in the emotional shed that you choose to use because you become afraid and you know very well how you will feel and its not pleasant.
You can’t heal your abandonment if you continue to numb, pain kill, disconnect, or use punishment and retribution on the person who triggers your pain. Emotional resolution and recovery of abandonment can be the gift that comes by facing your feelings knowing you are fearful, yet continue to remain connected with yourself. If you self-abandon by shutting down or cutting off, you won’t know what you need or how to reach resolution for your abandonment.
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