{"product_id":"the-journey-from-abandonment-to-healing-revised-and-updated-isbn-9780425273531","title":"The Journey from Abandonment to Healing: Revised and Updated","description":"The fear of abandonment is one of our most primal fears, and deservedly so. Its pain is often overwhelming, and can leave its mark on the rest of your life. In the midst of the hurt, it’s hard to see an end to your feelings of rejection, shame, and betrayal.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn this updated edition of the groundbreaking book, Susan Anderson, a therapist who has specialized in helping people with loss, heartbreak, and abandonment for more than thirty years, shares recent discoveries in neuroscience that help put your pain in perspective. It is designed to help all victims of emotional breakups—whether you are suffering from a recent loss, or a lingering wound from the past; whether you are caught up in patterns that sabotage your own relationships, or you’re in a relationship in which you no longer feel loved. From the first stunning blow to starting over, it provides a complete program for abandonment recovery.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eGoing beyond comforting words to promote real change, this healing process will help you work through the five universal stages of abandonment—shattering, withdrawal, internalizing, rage, lifting—by understanding their biochemical and behavioral origins and implications. New hands-on exercises for improving your life will teach you how to manage the inevitable pain, then go on to build a whole new concept of self, increase your capacity for love, and find new love on a deeper and richer level than ever before. | “If there can be a pill to cure the heartbreak of rejection, this book may be it.”—Rabbi Harold Kushner, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eWhen Bad Things Happen to Good People \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eHow Good Do We Have to Be?\u003c\/i\u003e | \u003cb\u003eSusan Anderson\u003c\/b\u003e has devoted more than thirty years of clinical experience and groundbreaking research to helping people overcome abandonment and its aftermath of self-sabotaging patterns. A pioneer in the Abandonment Recovery movement, she is author of \u003ci\u003eBlack Swan\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Journey from Heartbreak to Connection\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eTaming Your Outer Child\u003c\/i\u003e. In addition to conducting lectures and leading workshops, she continues private practice in Manhattan and on Long Island. | \u003cb\u003eAkeru\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eONE day, leafing through a Japanese dictionary, I came upon a word that caused me to marvel because it had so many different meanings—and ALL of them pertained to abandonment. The word is akeru. It means “to pierce, to open, to end, to make a hole in, to start, to expire, to unwrap, to turn over.” When someone leaves, akeru refers to the empty space that is created, the opening in which a new beginning can take place. I was amazed at the power of a single word that could suggest that to begin and to end are the same—part of one never-ending cycle of renewal and healing. I was excited to discover this concept and began to use it immediately in my work in abandonment recovery, delighted to see how readily people responded to its wisdom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI am not trying to cash in on Eastern philosophy or establish a new martial art. I am grateful to be able to borrow the wonderfully fluid, many-faceted meaning of a single word plucked out of its context from an enlightened tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Five Stages of Abandonment\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStage One\u003cbr\u003eSHATTERING\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStage Two\u003cbr\u003eWITHDRAWAL\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStage Three\u003cbr\u003eINTERNALIZING THE REJECTION\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStage Four\u003cbr\u003eRAGE\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eStage Five\u003cbr\u003eLIFTING\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMaking a New Connection: A Five-Point Action Plan\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ol\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePreface\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“WHAT is abandonment?” people ask. “Is it about people in search of their mothers? Or people left on someone else’s doorstep as children?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI answer: Every day there are people who feel as if life itself has left them on a doorstep or thrown them away. Abandonment is about loss of love itself, that crucial loss of connectedness. It often involves breakup, betrayal, aloneness—something people can experience all at once, or one after another over a period of months, or even years later as an aftershock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment means different things to different people. It is an extremely personal and individual experience. Sometimes it is lingering grief caused by old losses. Sometimes it is fear. Sometimes it can be an invisible barrier holding us back from forming relationships, from reaching our true potential. It can take the form of self-sabotage. We get caught up in patterns of abandonment.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book provides real help for those who have searched but found nothing to ease the pain of abandonment or hasten the speed of recovery. It guides you through what I’ve observed in years of practice as five universal stages of abandonment. As you continue along this journey, you will perhaps be surprised to discover that the pain you feel when a loved one has left is not an end but the beginning of a time of personal growth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI may refer to a breakup but the effects of abandonment apply to all types of loss and disconnection, whether it’s loss of a job, a dream, or a friend. It may be a loss of one’s home, health, or sense of purpose. Abandonment is a psychobiological process. I’ll share with you recent findings from the field of brain science that shed new light on the biological and chemical processes that underlie our emotional response to loss and the most effective path to restoring our emotional balance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeople going through the anguish of love loss often feel that their lives have been permanently altered, that they will never be the same, will never love again. I’m writing to assure you that as devastated as you may be right now, your feelings of despair and hopelessness are in fact temporary, and they are a normal part of grieving over a relationship. In fact, only by grappling with the feeling that your life is over can you cleanse your deepest wounds from past and present losses and build anew.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThose of you who have been left to pick up the pieces may wonder about your lost partners, who have already replaced you with new lives and new relationships. You’ve been left to do the soul-searching. You are a part of the chosen group able to undertake this journey. As you continue with the book, you will discover that the pain you are feeling is real, it is part of life, and it is necessary.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnyone who feels this pain is in a legitimate emotional crisis. Many feel as if they have been stabbed in the heart so many times that they don’t know which hole to plug up first. But these overwhelming feelings do not in any way imply that you are weak, dependent, or undeserving. In spite of the intensity of your feelings, you are still the competent, responsible person you thought you were. Your breakup, with all of its emotional excess, has not diminished you. In fact, being able to feel so deeply is a testament to your strength and tenacity. People are strongest where the breaks are. Only by giving yourself over to your feelings can you find your way out of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is a time of personal reckoning, but this soul-searching can also lead to extreme self-doubt and scathing self-recrimination. When someone we love rejects us we often turn the anger we feel toward that person against ourselves and blame ourselves for the loss. In this way, abandonment acts like quicksand, miring us in feelings of worthlessness and despair. No matter how hurtful or demoralizing the circumstances may have been, you are not a victim or undeserving of love. The fact that someone has chosen not to be with you says as much about your ex as it does about you and how well you functioned in the relationship. You may be humbled for the moment, but you have not been vanquished.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFacing these issues and putting what you have experienced into perspective prevents you from turning your anger inward. As you learn to resist the gravitational pull on your self-esteem, you gain strength and emotional endurance. Rather than feeling defeated by your experience, you emerge from it wiser, more self-reliant, and more capable of love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWithout guidance, many people don’t completely recover from the loss of a love. Their fears and doubts remain unresolved. True recovery means confronting uncomfortable feelings, understanding what they are, and, most importantly, learning how to deal with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere are some feelings no one wants to talk about because they involve fear, despair, and self-doubt so intense that you’re naturally humiliated and ashamed by them. This shame is not just about the embarrassment you may feel over having been rejected; it is about feelings that bewilder you with their potency, induce panic, and have you believing you are weak, dependent, unlovable, even repulsive.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUntil these intense feelings are addressed, people tend to suffer them in silence or try to deny them. Eventually, these forgotten, deeply buried feelings are transformed into an elusive grief. Many seek therapy for this grief but can’t seem to overcome that undifferentiated emptiness so often misdiagnosed and treated as depression. (For some people, this persistent grief can involve chemical imbalances that, in some cases, respond to medication.)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment is a complex issue, and its wound can be deeply entrenched. It is important to realize that your feelings, no matter how intense, do not signify a lack of will or frailty of character. They are normal and part of a process that leads to renewal and change.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe healing process I’ll describe doesn’t limit itself to your current loss. It gets to the heart of your cumulative wound—the one that contains all of your disappointments and heartbreaks that have been bubbling beneath the surface of your life, perhaps since childhood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnresolved abandonment may be the underlying issue responsible for most of the ailments you have been struggling with all along: the insecurity that plagues your relationships, depression and anxiety, obsessive and compulsive behaviors, low energy levels, and the loss of self-esteem that have been holding you back. Yet often people who have been abandoned can’t name what they are going through. They may have grown up with an alcoholic parent or felt excluded from their peer group at crucial moments, just as their sense of self was beginning to develop. However detached they may be from the root of their distress, they spend their life energy bargaining with fear and fighting insecurity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHaving lost touch with the source of their wounds, many resort to quick fixes and gratify themselves with food, alcohol, shopping, or other people. Or they become addicted to self-help lectures, books, and tapes. But all of the self-medicating and soothing words in the world will not erase the distress. In order to do that, you must embark upon a journey that addresses the underlying cause—the abandonment wound itself. This is a journey from which all people can benefit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough my own experience and through my years of work with others, I have seen how helpful it is to come out of isolation and commune with others as we learn about the grief process that has gripped our lives. For this reason, in addition to running abandonment recovery workshops, I developed an easy format and help to set up ongoing abandonment support groups throughout the country so that you can join together in your local communities and enhance one another’s recovery. (See my note section for information.)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWherever you are in the five stages this book describes, you are not alone. It is a revelation to discover that the pain debilitates the strongest, smartest, most self-sufficient among us; that it cuts across all ages, cultures, and status levels; and that it ultimately is a universal human experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book is designed to serve as your companion and guide, addressing your most difficult feelings, validating your experience with research from related scientific fields, and giving you the tools you’ll need on your journey toward a new outlook and new love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat Is Abandonment?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA feeling\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA feeling of isolation within a relationship\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn intense feeling of devastation when a relationship ends\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA primal fear—the raw element that makes going through heartbreak, divorce, separation, or bereavement cut so deep\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn aloneness not by choice\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn experience from childhood\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA baby left on the doorstep\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA divorce\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA woman left by her husband of twenty years for another woman\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA man being left by his fiancée for someone “more successful”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA mother leaving her children\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA father leaving his children\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA friend feeling deserted by a friend\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA child whose pet dies\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA little girl grieving over the death of her mother\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA little boy wanting his mommy to come pick him up from nursery school\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA child who feels replaced by the birth of another sibling\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA child feeling restless because of his parent’s emotional unavailability\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA boy realizing that he is gay and anticipating the reaction of his parents and friends\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA teenager feeling that her heart is actually broken\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA teenage boy afraid to approach the girl he loves\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA woman who has raised now-grown children feeling empty, as if she has been deserted\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA child stricken with a serious illness watching his friends play while he must use a wheelchair or remain in bed\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA woman who has lost her job and with it her professional identity, financial security, and status\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA man who has been put out to pasture by his company, as if he is obsolete\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA dying woman who fears being abandoned by loved ones as much as or more than she fears pain and death\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment is all of this and more. Its wound is at the heart of human experience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eChapter One\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWHEN a relationship ends, it is painful for both people, but the pain is especially debilitating for the one left behind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In my case, it happened out of the blue,” said Marie. “One night, Lonny didn’t come home from work. When I didn’t hear from him after only an hour, I started jumping to the worst conclusions—car accident, heart attack. Never mind how much worse these visions got when he still wasn’t home six hours later. The last thing I imagined was that he was with someone else. Why would he want to be? We were lifelong companions and lovers, best friends, and happily married for over twenty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Finally, I heard his footsteps crunching along the gravel driveway. I ran to meet him at the door. ‘What happened?’ I asked. My heart was in my throat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“There was a pause.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“‘I’m not happy,’ he said flatly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“‘Happy?’\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“He vaguely said something about how things were different between us.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“‘Different?’ I asked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“‘Don’t interrupt me,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the problems. You always interrupt.’\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“My face was suddenly hot and pulsating. This was not Lonny.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Then he uttered the words that turned my stomach upside down and left my mouth dry.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“‘I’m leaving,’ he said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I stopped breathing. It was hard to collect a single coherent thought. The only logical explanation I could come up with was that he must have had a head injury sometime during the day. Why would he say what he was saying? I thought briefly but seriously about calling an ambulance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“When I finally managed to speak, my voice came out deep and hollow, like it belonged to someone else.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“‘You don’t really mean this,’ was all I managed to say in my strange, unsteady new voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“‘I’m leaving this weekend.’\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I leaned on the kitchen table for support and tried to catch my breath from the dagger thrust into my gut. ‘Is there someone else?’ I asked, my voice coming in a whisper.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“He flatly and angrily denied this. But a month after he actually moved out, I was to learn that in fact there was someone else—another teacher from his school. It lessened the bewilderment but not the wrenching pain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I spent the first few weeks alone, trying to grapple with the immensity of it all. This was a man I’d loved with all my heart and soul. He’d always been so tender, his goodness always shining right through. For me, loving him had almost been a religious experience. I’d had such reverence for how he lived his life. He was a kind and caring father, both wise and sensitive.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“At night, I’d attempt to put the agony to rest and go to bed. But sleep was out of the question. I would be tortured by the empty space next to me in the bed. How I loved to hold Lonny, my beautiful, sensual Lonny. I hugged my pillow instead, weeping, sometimes screaminginto it, because the torment was so unbearable. I had every right to hate him for what he was doing, but all I could do was miss him and damn myself for letting this happen.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment’s devastation can stem from many different circumstances, many different types of relationships. There are a variety of factors affecting the way we react to the loss: the nature and duration of our relationship, the intensity of the feelings, the circumstances of the breakup, and our previous history of losses. Being left by someone we love can open up old wounds, stirring up insecurities and doubts that had been part of our emotional baggage since childhood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlmost all of us have experienced Marie’s feelings. Someone has chosen not to be with us, not to “keep us.” We feel suddenly cut off, alone, sent into emotional exile. Being alone isn’t bad when it is something we choose for ourselves. When someone decides to leave us, it is a different story. Bewildered, confused, outraged, we feel as if we’ve been handed a life sentence to which we’ve been unjustly condemned by virtue of some invisible defect. We yearn and ache for someone who has abandoned us, as Marie does.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment is our first fear. It is a primal fear—a fear universal to the human experience. As infants we lay screaming in our cribs, terrified that when our mothers left the room they were never coming back. Abandonment is a fear that we will be left alone forever with no one to protect us, to see to our most urgent needs. For the infant, maintaining attachment to its primary caretaker is necessary for its survival. Any threat or disruption to that relationship arouses this primal fear, a fear that is embedded in the hardware of our brains, a fear we carry into adulthood. When children experience feelings of disconnection, they do not have the defenses to fall back on that we as adults do. Their wounds may not heal but instead float beneath the surface of their lives right into adulthood.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEmotional experience is more painful when it echoes an episode from the past; that’s especially true when it comes to rejection and loss. The relationship that ended today may be the fulfillment of your worst nightmares from childhood. Grieving over that lost love opens a primal wound.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSomeone deciding to leave you awakens this primal fear, and out of it rises intense anger. You feel angry for having to feel so much fear and desperation. You feel frustrated with yourself for being powerless, for not being able to hold on to another’s love. You feel utterly and helplessly defeated over the circumstances of losing that love. You fear you are not attachment-worthy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn some cases your grief may not come from a recent breakup; sometimes it is rooted in the residual insecurity and fear stemming from long-lost loves that interfere with relationships you’re struggling with today.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou may still be with your partner, but you understand that he or she no longer loves you. Though physically present, you grieve the loss. It’s a steady throb tinged with feelings of personal failure: “Why can’t I make it work? Am I not lovable? Why can’t I get him to love me?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn other cases, like Marie’s, a partner leaves you for someone else, in which case your grief is complicated by feelings of betrayal and jealousy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSometimes there is no one else; your mate left because he just stopped wanting to be with you, needed his space. Your grief becomes fraught with feelings of self-reproach, anxiety, and lack of closure. You wonder: Are you so very horrible that you deserve this punishment—that your partner would rather be alone?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOr your relationship may have simply fallen apart—perhaps you weren’t ready, or you two just didn’t seem to be able to make it work. Perhaps the relationship was so painful that initially you were relieved by the prospect of separation. Feelings of inadequacy came as an aftershock. In these cases, grieving may be complicated by a profound sense of personal disappointment. You may feel remorseful, uncertain about your future.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSometimes you were the one initiating the breakup because you felt abandoned during the relationship.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOr the abandonment was sudden and unexpected, in which case shock and disbelief took over. You must first address the desperate pain and debilitating panic before you can begin to grieve.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe grieving process is similar to bereavement over a death: Loss is loss. But abandonment grief has a particular life of its own, stemming from the circumstances that led up to it and from the feelings of rejection and inadequacy that often accompany it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is because abandonment’s knife cuts all the way through to the self that it is so painful. You lose not just your loved one but your core belief in yourself. You doubt that you are lovable and acceptable as a mate. These feelings can become deeply inscribed, creating an invisible wound that causes you to turn on yourself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSometimes people feel the loss of a loved one so deeply and question their own worth so profoundly that it is as if there’s an invisible drain deep within that works insidiously to siphon off self-worth, like a slow, internal bleed. The paradox for these folks is that when they try to rebuild self-esteem by doing esteemable things, their deep wound is always draining it away.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis drainage of ego strength is crucial to understanding and working through the abandonment cycle. In fact, it is hard for me to understand why its special type of grief had gone virtually unrecognized, unstudied, and untreated until this book. Mental health professionals generally interpret the feelings of abandonment as a symptom of depression or anxiety. But abandonment grief is a syndrome of its own. It is the way in which your fear and anger are turned against yourself that gives abandonment grief its particular character.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tendency toward self-attack and self-recrimination represents the midway point in the grieving process. But injury to self (orinternalizing the rejection, as I call it) is interwoven into all of the stages of abandonment. It is a persistent, ongoing process that causes us to abandon ourselves over and over.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWHAT IS AN ABANDONMENT SURVIVOR?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment survivors are those who have experienced the anguish of lost love and have the courage to go on believing in life and in their own capacity for love. Some are celebrities who have told us their childhood stories; others never make a public disclosure. Some are therapists—probably the majority of therapists have their own abandonment histories. But most are everyday people. There is an abandonment survivor in just about everyone, though some may not acknowledge it. The insecurity, longing, and fear associated with the loss of love are universal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeople struggling with the abandonment syndromeare plagued by insecurity and self-sabotage, yet many manage to lead productive, even stellar, lives in spite of it. Others find the chronic insecurity too disabling to fully express their talents.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment survivors are sensitive, caring, and primed for love. But membership to this venerable group is not restricted to those able to achieve success in their relationships. Many continue the struggle to resolve the old abandonment wounds that stand in the way of finding love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor all abandonment survivors—those who’ve found love and those still seeking it—the impact of losses past and present can be found in the fragments of unlived life, unreached potential, and unfulfilled dreams still waiting to be redeemed through the process of abandonment recovery.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWHAT IS ABANDONMENT RECOVERY?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment recovery involves a program of five exercises outlined in this book. I call the program Akeru. You take action to heal the underlying wound of abandonment from past and present losses. You gain new information, identify unfinished business from the past, and practice hands-on exercises for improving your life. Anyone can benefit from this process.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment recovery provides a new language and approach compatible with twelve-step recovery programs. Its program is specifically designed to deal with unresolved abandonment—the underlying source of your addictions, compulsions, and distress. Abandonment recovery is based on the most recent information from brain science and years of clinical experience working with the victims of abandonment trauma. The program empowers you to overcome your primal abandonment and its aftermath of self-defeating patterns—and to reach your goals for greater life and love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf you’ve been holding out for the right words or the ultimate insight that will finally free you, beware. The magic bullet is not in any book or program. It is within you. It is that untapped energy that you will learn to redirect. Abandonment recovery is easy, even pleasurable. You must do more than read this book. You must put its wisdom into practice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWHAT IS AN ABANDONER?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandoners come in every possible size, shape, shade, age, gender, and disposition. It is often difficult to tell who is or isn’t capable of being emotionally responsible—who is worthy of trust, and who is an abandoner.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat complicates the picture even more is that one person’s abandoner might be another’s lifelong partner. The circumstances surrounding relationships are so complex and variable that it is neither wise nor fair to make moral judgments, point fingers, or draw generalizations.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLet it be said that many abandoners do not set out to intentionally hurt someone. Many are just human beings struggling to find the answers to life’s difficult challenges along with everyone else. But there are some who are callous, leaving a trail of discarded lovers along heartbreak’s Appian Way. And there are serial abandoners, those who get some reward from inflicting emotional pain on those who love them. For them, creating devastation is their way of demonstrating power.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEven those who are not motivated by this need might experience a heightened sense of self-importance when the one they leave behind seems so desperate to have them back. In the light of the other person’s pain, these folks usually don’t admit to an ego boost or feelings of triumph. Instead, they air more humble feelings, like the guilt they feel over having caused you pain. They are usually easily distracted from this guilt as they get caught up in their new lives and new loves with greater gusto than before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome abandoners are able to bypass these pangs of guilt by remaining oblivious to the effect they have on others. They’re in a general state of denial about the devastation they’ve caused. This denial helps them maintain an image of themselves as decent, caring human beings. It often comes across as callousness and cruelty to the one who was left behind to pick up the pieces.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome abandoners insist they feel as badly as you do. But the difference is, they don’t have all of those rejection stingers piercing deeply into their psyches like poison arrows.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOther abandoners, however, unable to deny the pain they’ve caused, endure their own genuine grief and remorse, parallel to yours, over the failure of the relationship.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbandonment recovery is dedicated to all of those who struggle to sustain relationships, abandonees and abandoners alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou are about to discover the benefits of working through the various stages of abandonment. As grief stricken as you may feel right now, the process will help you avoid the pitfalls of suppressing and avoiding the pain. Burying your feelings leaves them unresolved. Unless you face them, they continue to interfere from within, and you may find yourself caught up in self-defeating relationships that end in abandonment over and over again. Unresolved abandonment is the root of self-sabotage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe recovery process that I’ve come to call Akeru is designed to reverse this injury. It provides a program of five exercises described in this book. Abandonment recovery helps you gain something from the intense emotions you are feeling, so that you can turn one of life’s most painful experiences into an opportunity to grow and change.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat follows is a bird’s-eye view of the stages that will help you get started on your journey. Being able to see the stages as one processwill, I hope, give you some insight on where you are, where you’ve been, and what to expect.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSHATTERING\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this devastating first stage, you are in shock, pain, and panic, suddenly bereft of life’s worth and meaning. You try to keep the shards of yourself together, but in spite of all your efforts, your faith and trust have been shattered. The severing of this important emotional bond makes you feel (temporarily) that you can’t live without your lost love. Suicidal feelings are normal to this period. They are caused by despair that is overwhelming but only temporary. Old feelings of helplessness and dependency intrude into your current emotional crisis. Akeru provides a pain management technique that will help you get through the most difficult periods as quickly as possible and gain strength from them, allowing you to enter a time of rebirth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWITHDRAWAL\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLove withdrawal is just like heroin withdrawal, involving intense craving and agitation for the love you are missing. You ache, throb, and yearn for your loved one to return. Human beings are genetically heir to a powerful need for attachment; severed relationships do not end your need to bond. In fact, losing your relationship tends to intensify the clingy, needy feelings. The emotional tear triggers a psychobiological process that can include wakefulness, weight loss, anxiety, and emotional and physical fatigue. Akeru will show you how to work with the bonding instinct that is responsible for the wrenching pain. You can redirect its energy toward making a significant new connection to yourself, which has ongoing healing benefits.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eINTERNALIZING\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDuring this critical third stage of abandonment, your emotional wound becomes susceptible to infection, which can result in permanent scarring in the form of damage to your self-esteem. This is when you suppress your anger toward your lost partner and beat up on yourself instead. You tend to idealize your abandoner at your own expense. Any implicit or explicit criticism from your ex is taken to heart. You become preoccupied with regrets over the relationship, agonizing over what you should have done or what you could have done to prevent the loss. No matter how hard you try to fight back, your sense of self takes a beating. Akeru provides the tools to help you access internal energy and build a new whole new concept of self. The exercise is designed to open new windows in your awareness, allow you to make new decisions, and set new goals.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRAGE\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRage is not the first time you encounter anger in this process, but during the first three stages, your anger was victim rage, that useless flailing in space or stabbing your pillow to death. It is not until this fourth stage that your beleaguered sense of self, under siege from self-attack, is ready to stand up and fight back, to take on the challenge of the outside world. 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