Realizing Bigger Picture

by Elizabeth
(Maryland)

I am realizing how the pain of abandonment, the level right before the true self, is the culprit of many losses in my life. What introduced me to even the word "abandonment" was an ex-boyfriend who's behavior triggered the unveiling of my false self.

When I got to the pain of abandonment, I understood why I dodged it for so long. I could barely handle the pain as an adult, much less as a child! Today, I am healing from the end of that relationship and I thought this stuff only applied to relationships with significant others. Now I am realizing that the abandonment from my parents (which lacked basic parenting influences, mainly mirroring or validating what I am sensing about my environment, especially developing my identity and place in the world) is the culprit for vocational confusion. I have been operating in the Iceberg vocationally with an invented self. In fact, I was so numb that I combined my personal and professional life and invented it together!

It brings me great sorrow to turn around today, armed with all this information, and truly understand what happened to me. The loss is complicated and compounded as I applied what I DID learn about how to survive in life to my adulthood. However, today, I am sensing my true self finally surface, something I have been seeking how to do for a very long time. Thanks, THAW!!!!