When Selflessness Becomes Self-Abandonment

I learned self-abandonment from my mother, who tried very hard to make sure she did not pass it on to me.

My mom grew up in a time and environment where she wasn’t given many choices. So when she had me, she did things differently.

She let me make decisions she hadn’t been allowed to make.

She let me do scary things, like riding my pony all over the neighborhood alone. She encouraged independence and raised me to believe I could do hard things.

And I did.

I became a woman willing to do some pretty brave things.

But there was another lesson I picked up that neither of us realized was being passed down.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that pleasing men was a higher value than pleasing myself.

My mother didn’t sit me down and teach me that. Quite the opposite. She was trying to make sure I didn’t repeat her patterns.

But I did.

And that belief followed me into adulthood and into my relationships.

The strange thing is, I didn’t think of myself as a woman who couldn’t make decisions or stand on her own. I was strong. Capable. Independent in many areas of my life.

And yet, in my closest relationships, I could lose access to that woman.

I became very good at reading someone else’s mood. Anticipating reactions. Adjusting myself. Keeping the peace. Giving another chance. Forgiving. Trying harder.

There were times I knew something wasn’t right and still overrode what I knew.

Looking back, that’s the part that’s hardest to forgive.

I have had to forgive myself for the times I didn’t protect myself, or even my children, in ways I wish I had. At the time, I couldn’t understand how the strong, capable woman I knew myself to be could become so small in certain relationships.

Understanding the nervous system helped me make sense of some of that.

But so did understanding my faith differently.

Because some of what I was doing didn’t look like fear to me.

It looked like love.

It looked like forgiveness.

It looked like keeping the peace.

It looked like being a good wife.

Sometimes, it even looked like being a good Christian.

And that is where selflessness and self-abandonment can become very difficult to tell apart.

Selflessness is a choice made from fullness.

Self-abandonment is a compulsion made from fear.

One fills the giver.

The other slowly empties her.

Maybe you recognize this, too.

You feel guilty when you rest.

You say yes and feel resentment almost immediately afterward.

You know what everyone around you needs, but when someone asks what you need, you aren’t quite sure.

You are exhausted in a way that sleep doesn’t seem to fix.

You are the person everyone leans on, yet you rarely let yourself lean on anyone.

Maybe you’ve even said, “That’s just who I am.”

I know how easy it is to believe that.

But sometimes it isn’t who we are.

Sometimes it is who we learned to become.

Your body may have learned the pattern before you had words for it.

This is where understanding the nervous system changed so much for me.

Our nervous systems are always taking in information.

When your experience repeatedly teaches you that someone else’s anger, disappointment, criticism, withdrawal, silence, or reaction could cost you connection or safety, your body learns from it.

You may become very good at reading a room.

You notice the shift in someone’s voice.

The facial expression.

The silence.

The energy that changed when you said something they didn’t like.

Eventually, you don’t have to consciously think, I shouldn’t say no.

Your body is already preparing you to keep the peace.

So you accommodate.

You explain.

You smooth things over.

You say yes.

You figure out what everyone else needs and become exceptionally good at providing it.

Do that long enough and the response becomes so familiar that it feels like your personality.

But there is a difference between being a naturally giving person and believing, somewhere deep inside, that it isn’t safe for you to need, disagree, disappoint or say no.

That’s why simply telling a woman to “set better boundaries” often isn’t enough.

She may know she needs a boundary.

Her body may still be bracing for what will happen if she has one.

This is what I see again and again in my work as a Somatic Trauma-Informed Coach and Positive Psychology Practitioner. It’s often the missing piece when boundaries “don’t stick.” Here’s what I’ve learned: you can’t think your way out of a pattern your body is still protecting.

Jesus did not call us to disappear.

This has been an important distinction in my own faith.

Putting everyone else’s wants, emotions, opinions and reactions above your own isn’t necessarily Christlike.

Sometimes it is fear wearing very religious-looking clothes.

For years, I could have pointed to plenty of good reasons for putting myself aside.

Be selfless.

Forgive.

Give grace.

Keep the peace.

Consider others.

Deny yourself.

There is truth in all of those things.

But I have had to learn that denying myself to follow Christ is not the same thing as abandoning myself to keep another person happy.

Jesus said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24, NASB)

Notice what that verse is about. Denying myself is surrender to Christ, not submission to people.

The important part I had missed was who I was following.

Jesus.

Not someone else’s moods.

Not their approval.

Not their expectations.

Not my fear of what might happen if I disappointed them.

When I look at the life of Jesus, I see someone who loved and served sacrificially without being controlled by the reactions of other people.

He knew who He was and lived from that identity.

That matters to me.

Because the answer to self-abandonment isn’t swinging to the opposite extreme and making ourselves the center of everything.

It is learning to live from a secure identity rather than fear.

For me, that identity begins with knowing who I am in Christ.

I don’t have to disappear in order to love someone else well.

I don’t have to betray what I know is true in order to keep another person comfortable.

I don’t have to manage another adult’s emotions in order to be loving.

And I can consider someone else’s needs without deciding that mine don’t count.

Learning to hear yourself again

So how do you begin changing something that has become almost automatic?

Not necessarily with a dramatic confrontation.

Not by suddenly saying no to everyone.

And not by swinging into a self-protection so rigid that no one can get close to you.

Start much smaller.

Before saying yes to something, pause for ten seconds.

Don’t immediately decide what you should do.

Don’t start calculating what the other person will think.

Don’t explain.

Just notice.

What happened in your body when the request was made?

Did you tighten?

Did you feel yourself deflate?

Did something in your gut drop?

Did you hold your breath?

Did you immediately feel pressure to make the other person okay?

Notice what your body says before your mind overrides it with the automatic yes.

You don’t even have to act on what you notice yet.

Just become curious about it.

Because before we can learn to trust ourselves again, we have to begin hearing ourselves again.

Then comes the harder part.

Eventually, this work requires honesty.

Learning to feel the no before it becomes resentment.

Learning to communicate it before you’ve pushed yourself so far that you explode, shut down, or become depleted.

Learning that someone else’s disappointment does not automatically mean you’ve done something wrong.

Learning to receive instead of always being the giver.

Learning to need another person, and allowing that person the opportunity to show up for you.

That last one can be terrifying.

Because giving can actually keep us at a safe distance.

If I’m always the helper, I don’t have to be vulnerable.

If I’m always the strong one, you never get to see what I need.

If I’m always taking care of you, I never have to find out whether you would take care of me.

And then I can spend years wondering why I feel so alone while surrounded by people who depend on me.

Maybe this isn’t about becoming more selfish.

Maybe it is about becoming more honest.

Maybe the question isn’t:

“How do I start putting myself first?”

Maybe it’s:

“Where have I learned to disappear?”

Where do I say yes when something inside me is saying no?

Whose reaction am I still trying to manage?

What do I actually need?

What am I afraid would happen if I said it?

And perhaps one more:

What is God actually asking of me, and what have I assumed He is asking because of what I learned about being a “good” woman?

I don’t believe God created me with a voice, a body, needs, desires, gifts, wisdom and purpose only for me to spend my life overriding them.

There is a difference between laying down your life in love and slowly disappearing from it.

I’m still learning that difference.

Maybe you are, too.

The next time someone asks something of you, give yourself ten seconds. Feel your feet. Breathe. Notice your body. And listen, because that pause isn’t about becoming selfish. It’s about becoming honest enough to recognize whether your yes is coming from love or from fear.

And maybe, little by little, it is how we begin hearing the woman God created us to be again.