I heard the perfect descriptive phrase this week . . . \u201cfamine of the soul\u201d.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 I love it!\u00a0 It perfectly describes abandonment.\u00a0 Many people spend most of their lives achingly in pursuit of something to satiate a gnawing, constant hunger, but nothing seems to feed it quite right.\u00a0 Nothing satiates it like it seems it should.\u00a0 Famine of the soul starts with physical or emotional abandonment in our childhoods, but before long, it follows us wherever we go, even when the originally abandoning conditions are long gone.
\nSomeone who grows up under true famine conditions – constantly wondering where their next meal is coming from – doesn\u2019t ever forget it.\u00a0 Anxiety about not having enough food may still plague the person, long after resources become steadily abundant.<\/p>\n
Abandonment is the same way.\u00a0 When we are abandoned in our early years, the worry, the anxiety, the angst, the pain, is forever imprinted on our souls and we spend our lives trying to satisfy an insatiable famine.\u00a0 People with hundreds of friends still feel lonely.\u00a0 The emptiness is felt even in a crowded room full of people who love us.\u00a0 Our anxiety becomes focused on the one person who isn\u2019t reassuring us that their love is constant.<\/p>\n
If you can imagine the little girl or boy in us who desperately wanted the absent or disconnected parent, or the approval of a disapproving parent \u2013 the fact that we are still seeking that years later, suddenly makes more sense.<\/p>\n
Most people find the thing that \u2018feeds\u2019 them just right \u2013 then they marry it!\u00a0 It feels like they\u2019ve signed on for a lifetime supply of nourishment!\u00a0 Soon enough, the spouse will miss \u2018feeding\u2019 their wounded partner a meal and catch hell for it.\u00a0 The anxiety is awakened and the famished, abandoned soul becomes pre-occupied with where their next \u2018meal\u2019 or \u2018snack\u2019 is coming from.\u00a0 They cannot even appreciate what nourishment they do<\/strong><\/em> get because they are ever-worried that they\u2019ll be left wanting \u2013 just like they did when they were a child.\u00a0 This over-zealous pursuit of basic \u2018nourishment\u2019 begins to push our partners (a\/k\/a our best chance for a sustaining life source) away, and thus, we have unknowingly re-created our childhood trauma of being abandoned.<\/p>\n The real cure (as best there can be one) is to learn how to provide ourselves<\/em><\/strong> with what we need.\u00a0 People with abandonment hate it when I tell them this!\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0They don\u2019t want to be responsible for their own famished soul, they want a feeding tube.\u00a0 In essence, they want another person to give it to them on their terms<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, but it truly doesn\u2019t work that way!<\/p>\n We simply must learn to tell the difference between a minor hunger pang and a major famine.\u00a0 We must learn to ask<\/strong><\/em> for our needs to be met, not demand<\/strong><\/em> them from our partner.\u00a0 We must learn to \u2018feed\u2019 and \u2018nourish\u2019 ourselves instead of expecting those around us to anticipate and give us what we need.\u00a0 When we begin to take responsibility for our own needs, we will finally be able to relax and appreciate each and every morsel of life!\u00a0 Now that<\/strong><\/em> is satisfying!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I heard the perfect descriptive phrase this week . . . \u201cfamine of the soul\u201d.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 I love it!\u00a0 It perfectly describes abandonment.\u00a0 Many people spend most of their lives achingly in pursuit of something to satiate a gnawing, constant hunger, but nothing seems to feed it quite right.\u00a0 Nothing satiates it like it seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[394,466,681,682,683,684,685,637,641,610,429,686,678],"class_list":["post-3588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage","tag-abandonment","tag-anxiety","tag-borderline-personality-disorder","tag-emptiness","tag-escessively-needy","tag-excessive-neediness","tag-fear-of-abandonment","tag-grieving","tag-loss","tag-marital-issues","tag-marriage","tag-neediness","tag-needy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4215,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3588\/revisions\/4215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healingheartsofindy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}