Hi, thank you for joining the Empowered Relationship podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Jessica Higgins, licensed psychologist and relationship coach. This is episode 253, “How to deal with primal abandonment and shame”, an interview with Susan Anderson.
Before we get started in today’s episode, I just wanna invite you to take a moment to just really center with perhaps a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. Just bringing your focus to yourself right now. Just notice what you notice, what’s up for you, what’s alive for you, what you sense in your body, what you feel emotionally, and perhaps what’s going on for you mentally. And more importantly, as we’re talking about on the Empowered Relationship Podcast, what’s going on for you relationally.
The conversations that happen on the Empowered Relationship Podcast are really designed to support you on the journey of long-lasting intimacy. And as we discuss, there are times where we will feel challenged, or perhaps feel difficulty, whether or not that’s in life or within your relational dynamics. And also, the highs, the positives, the happy states, and sometimes that can even evoke discomfort; we’re feeling more happy, more love, more ecstasy than we’ve known before, and that can sometimes give us a rattle. And also attending to the security, the consistency, and the stability.
And this all requires a level of attention, intention, and awareness, and if we so choose what gets brought up in relationship, can be a teacher, can offer insight, reflection to areas of our growth and development. As we grow ourselves, if we say yes to that, that we also grow our intimacy, we grow our capacity to show up, to be present, to love more fully, and to reveal more deeply. And revealing more deeply, particularly reciprocally – you and your partner, not always necessarily in the same moment, but being able to reveal more deeply allows for that deepening of knowing and emotional connection and intimacy.
Wherever we are on the journey of relationship, there is an opportunity. And if you are interested in getting more information, or perhaps show notes for today’s episode, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com. If you’re interested in today’s show notes you can visit the Podcast page; you’ll find that in the top navigation bar. And on that page, you’ll find all the episodes. Again, today’s episode is 253, “How to deal with primal abandonment and shame”, an interview with Susan Anderson.
Susan Anderson has devoted more than 30 years of clinical experience and groundbreaking research in working with victims of abandonment trauma. Founder of the Abandonment Recovery movement, she is the author of four books, including Journey from Abandonment to Healing, Taming Your Outer Child, Black Swan: Twelve Lessons of Abandonment Recovery and The Abandonment Recovery Workbook.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Susan, thank you for joining us today.
Susan Anderson: Well, it’s my pleasure.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, and I was just mentioning to you, the books that you listed in the bio – I have recommended to several clients, and I remember coming across them in graduate school, and just have found them so, so helpful. So it’s such a treat to have somebody as a guest that I’ve followed and known for years and years… So I appreciate you saying yes to doing this.
We’re talking about primal abandonment. Before we get started in the actual topic, what got you interested in looking at abandonment?
Susan Anderson: Well, as a psychotherapist, I was always looking through the lens of separation anxiety or abandonment, and probably based on some of my own childhood history, kind of understanding the separation anxiety as being the source of depression and anxiety… So I was always sensitive to the issue. And then all of a sudden, the love of my life, my 18-year marital relationship – suddenly, the love of my life left me for another woman. It was a cliché kind of situation. And it brought me to my knees.
Now, as a psychotherapist, already sensitive to the issue of abandonment, I knew every tool that was available already. I had read all the literature, the nerdy side of me had really already done a great deal of work to try to understand what’s out there, because I was always incorporating this information into my work. So I knew that whatever I had read so far was insufficient. I had to start almost from scratch to find a way to survive this. The pain was so tremendous. So I started researching animal psychology, and neurobiology, and all kinds of fields that I had to learn a whole background of information in order to interpret, so that I could find a way to really make this experience work for me, rather than have it do what it felt like it was doing, which was tearing me apart and weakening my self-esteem. I wanted to work with this process that I was in, that was so powerful, so that it would actually have a positive benefit.
And that was a lot of work, going into finding ways that would actually work with the pain. So that’s what got me started, and that’s what got me doing all that research.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And if I remember correctly, now this is over like 15 years ago (or plus) remember reading your work, and I remember the first stages, it’s “Shattered/Shattering”?
Susan Anderson: Yes.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And I just remember that description being like “Ugh, that just feels so resonant to the pain”, as you were describing what you had learned up until the point of your experience had felt insufficient, and just your description of that shattering just feels so accurate. Being torn apart, and leveled.
Susan Anderson: We’re always over-prepared for a shattering. It’s kind of a fear that lurks in the back of all human beings – the abandonment fear; the fear of somehow being disconnected from the source that gives us security. But shattering can occur also even within a secure relationship; it’s the moment when all of a sudden you might feel that the love that you were counting on isn’t quite what you were hoping. Or even your own capacity for love. The passion isn’t there, and you’re feeling the dream of your lifetime, of being in love and having a loving relationship, suddenly the relationship isn’t giving you what you need. So there are moments of shattering that even occur within a long-term, happy relationship.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you. I know I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay, so let’s go back, for people that are listening, and you’re talking about the term “primal abandonment”. What does that involve and encompass?
Susan Anderson: We’re talking about abandonment as in the primal fear that we all share. This is the universal stuff. In fact, it’s normal, universal stuff to have abandonment fear. We were all born, so we all experience the disconnect from the womb that gave us comfort, and we were all put on a cold bassinet at some point, and we all experienced the contrast between being alone and kind of scared, versus being held and feeling the connection. We all have that training, that conditioning that we have. So primal abandonment is the feeling that is universal to all people, that connects with a feeling of disconnect, a fear of disconnect, a fear of not being worthy of the connection, which gets into primal shame, which is the flipside of primal abandonment.
Then the specifics of abandonment can get into all the things that could happen in life. We could be going through a problematic marriage, or we could be going through a divorce, or death, or a loss in terms of going through retirement and not having a sense of purpose, or lost in the sense of not being sure where we stand with our friends… There are so many experiences in adult life that cause us to feel kind of out there, lost, not connected to things, or rejected, unsure, disregarded, put away. And all of these things kind of trigger that primal abandonment.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I love that you’re normalizing how common and universal this experience is. And you’re talking about separation anxiety… I’m curious if you see that as a different experience.
Susan Anderson: In terms of normalizing, not only is it something that we all have, and it brings all of us to our knees when something major happens – we’re all vulnerable to that happening – but it’s also positive, because the fear of abandonment is something that motivates us to be good to people, to form relationships, to maintain our bonds. If we didn’t have a little fear… I know we all know people who are kind of flippant, and the opposite of co-dependent; they don’t care who likes them and they can be very powerful and walk away from a situation, but no matter how flippant a person may seem and how fearless, everyone is motivated in part by not wanting to be left completely alone on the [unintelligible 00:11:28.15] to die by ourselves. We all need some kind of human connection, and it’s a highly motivating force. So not only is it universal, but it’s even positive, and we can work with it in a very positive way.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Great. I wanna go there. And I’m curious, as you mentioned human development, and oftentimes when people hear the term “separation anxiety”, it’s often kids that are being so-called diagnosed or labeled with this symptom… And as we’re confronted with the hardships of life, be it in childhood, and early adolescence, and adulthood, that there’s this journey we’re on. Can you talk about this a little bit? …developmental – what you’re seeing as far as that, and then if there is anything that’s different around separation anxiety.
One of the ways that I see it is just there’s this spectrum – like you’re saying, however flippant one is about the value or the significance of bonding, it’s still within us. We’re all wired for connection, so we all need it.
Susan Anderson: I like that you say spectrum, because I too think that there is this spectrum, and I think people change what spectrum they’re on depending on what may happen in adult life. For instance, you could be someone who is relatively secure, and you have some friendships, and they last, and you have a nice relationship, and it’s working very well… But then all of a sudden something happens – a friend suddenly decides you’re not friends anymore, and you’re not sure why, “What did I do?” There’s no closure. And it plagues you, and it begins to sort of bother you more — it’s a head-trip, you can’t figure it out. Or if it’s a lover, of course, it’s terribly painful, the rejection of loving someone when they don’t love you back.
So from a spectrum point of view, you could be really a pretty secure person, and then you go through an experience of rejection, a trigger, and now you’re more or less on a new spectrum. And it’s interesting that people who experience childhood abandonment tend to have a slightly more difficult — it’s difficult for everyone to go through one of these adult triggers, but if you had a childhood that had some disconnection in it, you may have a tougher time.
For instance, this is a common one – let’s say one of your parents was an alcoholic. Very, very common. So many people had an alcoholic parent. And you grew up and you were fine; it gave you strength. You had to take care of yourself a little bit, you had to withstand some disappointment that other kids didn’t have, you had to get used to being with someone who was physically present, but not emotionally present during different times. But now you’re an adult and you’re going through a breakup, and you’re finding that you’re beating yourself up more than you even expected that you would; you are doubting yourself, you’re feeling more depressed than you ever expected to feel over a breakup, and you’re having a strong reaction.
So you may feel overwhelmed, and weak, and something’s wrong with me, and I’m not able to handle this, and it’s embarrassing, “I’m so miserable. My friends are sick of hearing me.” But what you’re in is — you could have been a strong adult all this time, but you’re in acute abandonment pain, and it’s echoing back to feelings that you had as a child when you were really struggling because you weren’t getting all of your needs met, because one of your parents had a primary relationship with alcohol instead of with you.
So you’re having this sort of revisiting of a lot of uncomfortable feelings that you coped with, but now as an adult they’re all very large, and looming in you, and you’re feeling the effect of having these feelings come back, because the wound that we get in abandonment from even relatively small triggers – it’s a cumulative wound, and it contains all the disconnections and disappointments that we ever had from all of our lives. They’re all there, they’re all remembered by the emotional brain – not the experiences so much as the feelings – and they all come back into the wound when we’re going through a trigger.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you for saying that. That is so important, that there’s a cumulative effect. So often I think the resilient part of us, the coping part of us that wants to overcome and has to overcome and survive learns how to manage and deal, and some of the patterns sometimes does involve suppression, or being even unconscious to some of these wounds that occur… And in adulthood, perhaps when we’re in romantic relationship and we’re feeling that trigger and we’re feeling that pain being activated – it might be incredibly surprising to the degree, like you’re saying, of what is coming up.
I know I can say for myself when I went through a breakup — I’m now married and we’ve been together for 14 years, but there was a relationship beforehand and I did a deep-dive… But I lost my bio father when I was three months old… There were things that I didn’t even have language for, but it all felt so encapsulated that it was this accumulated grief and loss, and feeling — and I honestly, Susan, didn’t even know prior to that relationship the fear of abandonment that I had, that was probably subconscious or unconscious… But it was highly influencing the way I showed up. I just wasn’t aware until that breakup and that experience.
It was an incredibly deep dive, but I love that you’re helping people recognize in any life events, when parents aren’t able to be present, and in tune, and engaged, and then we have other experiences where there’s neglect or trauma or abuse… But that this is such a pivotal part of our way of operating in relationship.
Susan Anderson: Yes, because as kids we’re basically coping. We’re easily distracted and we’re coping, and everything — we’re just sort of dealing with it, and we’re developing strengths… Like post-traumatic growth – we develop strengths, not weaknesses around a lot of these things. So kind of the emotional stuff that we’re gathering up doesn’t necessarily manifest until we hit an adult experience, and then boom, we suddenly feel this emotional reaction that seems out of proportion to the actual event.
We go through, let’s say, the breakup that you’re referring to, and we think “What’s wrong with me? I’m so upset.” And then afterward, now we’re on a spectrum that you mentioned; now we’re thinking “Can I trust another person?” and it can work in our favor, because we can be motivated to find a partner who we can trust, and actually have a lasting connection with. It can motivate us to be keen about who we should give our love to, who to attach to. It sounds like that may have happened in your case. It became an experience that guided you into something positive. But for a lot of people – and not to suggest that they’re not strong or don’t have positive instincts, but for reasons that just remain so difficult to try to sort out at the time, they might have the opposite reaction and get attracted to the unavailable after going through an adult relationship. They can find themselves now caught up in patterns where they keep getting abandoned over and over again because they’re only attracted to the unavailable. And when someone actually is available and wants them and pressures them to get together more often, they lose interest, and they’re not attracted to the ones who are attracted to them. That’s a very common pattern, and it is one of the ways that we react after we’ve been through an adult trigger, like an abandonment.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes. And as you were both describing, we all have a particular constellation as human beings that are unique, and I think bonding and attachment isn’t so pure as it’s described in research… So it isn’t as exact as we’d like it to be, in that our patterns will be informed by those relationships.
I also wanna bring in the topic of shame that you mentioned. How does that fit in the context of all of this?
Susan Anderson: Well, there’s the fear of abandonment, which is the fear of losing the connection, and there’s shame, which is the feeling of not being worthy of the connection. So fame is pretty unconscious, because it’s something we don’t wanna feel, and we don’t want it to show… Because we all discover when we’re kids, and we hang out with other kids, and we’re in school, and we see other people, we know that it’s important to have a certain confidence, and to have a sense of self. When we’re very young, we don’t know how to cover it up. But when we get a little bit older, like 6-7, we have to have sort of a persona when we start to develop a system of defenses to deal with it. So the shame becomes very unconscious. We become ashamed of the shame. But we all have it, and we all get it from when we’re infants, and we cry, and we can bring mommy or daddy to the side of the crib to get our needs met. Maybe we can feel omnipotent, but maybe the next time they don’t come to the side of the crib, and it’s wordless, but we could feel that “Oh, I’m not strong enough” or “I’m not enough.” It’s wordless, but it’s a feeling of being too weak, too powerless, not enough.
So we start to accumulate feelings of not being enough every time we are not able to get our way, or not able to will someone to do something for us, we can feel that we’re not enough. And then we compound it when we get into other children and we see other people interacting, we can compare ourselves to them and feel “That person is more popular, that person is smarter, that person is more spontaneous. I’m too inhibited, I’m too shy.” We don’t have words for it as children the way I’m articulating it now, but these are just sensations. And these feelings accumulate along with positive feelings (they too accumulate), but these negative feelings accumulate. And the thing is we all have them; we all have shame, even someone who appears shameless, who makes it a point of “I don’t care what you catch me doing, I don’t care. I don’t care what you think. Ha-ha! I’ll do what I want.” Even a shameless person, who appears shameless on the outside – it’s a defense mechanism, because we all have a degree of shame. So I think of the shame as primal shame.
Relationships make us so vulnerable to this unconscious shame. It’s buried, it’s hidden… It’s not a word that we throw around much. I mean, lately we actually have; it’s been wonderful that people are beginning to talk a little bit more about shame… But it’s something that is there lurking, and it is normal, and it makes us humble, and connected, and it gives us a vulnerable center… But it also makes us — the vulnerability can feel uncomfortable, because it can be triggered by something as simple as… Let’s say you and I work in a place together, and there are a lot of other people, and I come in and I wave to you and you don’t wave back. Well, my shame, unconsciously – I can think “Oh, I’m not important enough”, or something of that sort. It can be very subliminal and not even picked up consciously, but we can be so easily slighted by any kind of dismissal, or not being recognized, or not being seen.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you for acknowledging just how subtle these interactions can trigger these feelings of shame and abandonment. Susan, I’m curious, as we’re talking – a lot of people in relationship seem to get confronted with a large trauma, like being left, or having a breakup, or something happening that ends the relationship, and now they’re contending with the huge loss and abandonment that’s a alive and current, and perhaps triggering all they accumulated… So that’s one thing that people are battling. And as you mentioned, there are people that are re-experiencing this sense of abandonment and are in a pattern of either choosing people that are not available, or not attuned… What do you typically see in the way of working with people? And there might be other patterns as well.
Susan Anderson: Well, I’ll tell you one of the most popular ones, or one of the most painful ones… So many people are caught up in these patterns where they freak out, they overreact in a new relationship because they get insecure. The insecurity sabotages the relationship. This is such a common on. And there’s also a subgroup – I call this group abandophobic. They’re so afraid of freaking out and sabotaging a relationship – they actually feel “There’s something broken in me. I’m just going to avoid relationship altogether.” And they start getting into their own little creature comforts at home. They create a womb in their own world. They come home from work, and they watch their favorite show, or they eat something delicious for dinner, maybe they’re overeating, maybe they’re overdrinking, or not; you know, depending on if they find things that have immediate gratification, and that are comforting, and that are familiar, because they’re creating a nice, secure womb, but they’re not putting themselves out there to meet people. They’re not taking the risk of liking someone… And then sabotaging it. So that’s a popular one – people who either are out there, but they’re in a relationship and they’re very insecure, or they’re very afraid that the other person is going to change their mind, and they need to get constant reassurance, constant texting, constant phone calls, or whatever it is, to reassure them that the person is still interested… And they’re afraid their insecurity makes them unattractive. They’re ashamed of their insecurity, of the weakness. It’s the shame thing coming up.
This is so common out there, and I get so many people caught up in that bind – either not daring to be in a relationship because they’re just sure they aren’t well enough; they’re too much of a basket case to handle. Or they’re in a relationship, but they’re insecure.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… And I’m sure there’s many variations, even as you’re describing this, Susan…
Susan Anderson: Well, there is another one that’s also very popular… These are popular. I mean, you know, I’ll run a workshop with 50 people, and 30 of them will have that issue. But another enormous subgroup are people who lose interest once the other person becomes available. I have so many people who will say to me, “Susan, I wanna settle down, but I lose interest the minute I catch the person. The minute I’m no longer in pursuit of them. When I have them, I lose interest. I have this thing where I look to trade up and I don’t want to. I wanna stop trading up, and I wanna be with who I’m with, and I don’t wanna lose interest in this person.” And they just can’t seem to find someone who sustains their interests. They’re in a relationship, they’re so happy, they meet someone, there’s such a connection. They feel the connection, that wonderful feeling, and then they lose that feeling. Then they’re all alone all over again, and they feel guilty because they have to hurt a person, and they get so disappointed in themselves, and guilty. This is also a very common problem out there.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And at the root of all of this is abandonment.
Susan Anderson: Yes.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And do you work consistently, similarly, in your approach in how to help people start to recognize and work more directly with this? Or is it different depending on how it presents?
Susan Anderson: Well, I work the same way, in one sense, because we’re working with the primal abandonment wound and the primal shame, the primal fear. You know, we’re working with the real guts of the machine, in one way or another… So the ultimate approach is more or less the same. But then the content of what the discussion will be about varies with the person’s situation. It’s sort of a two-pronged approach. There’s the content of what this person’s particular pattern or particular situation is, but then there is the general need to go in, all the way in – it’s like you’re already splayed open with open heart surgery; life did that to you, I didn’t. We’re not doing that; we’re not opening you up. You’re already opened. All you had to do was tune into what you’re feeling, which I have many tools… The abandonment recovery helps you really tune in, and we work that way.
Once we get in there, we use that open space within, all the way into the primal feelings, to do work. And the work is creating a new relationship with yourself that’s based on radical self-acceptance and self-love, self-nurturing. And also, using your imagination, which is very vital to this whole process, the imagination – an under-used resource, but we use it a lot – to create positive images for the future, so that your mind has trajectory. And that mind, which is more or less guiding you through your life, has ideas of positive future, of positive outcomes, so that we work to create that imagery for the mind, so that those images are familiar and something that the mind does. We don’t have to will it into place, it just kind of can go there automatically once we lay it in, once we do the work. And of course, we continue to reinforce it.
So there’s positive imagery and there’s a new relationship with the self, dealing with the current feelings… But the mind also has trajectory on where it wants to go. And where do most people wanna go? They wanna find peace, they wanna be in a connection, they wanna feel love, they wanna have a sense of being connected to other people in the world, to a specific person – most people want that – and also to themselves.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: No kidding. Thank you for sharing a little bit of that. It’s really helpful, because even as you initially started talking, usually people are motivated by pain to start to do something different… And as you mentioned, when life circumstances open people up and they’re so in touch with the immediate crisis of the pain, they’re more — like you said, they can access that deep, primal place that perhaps if they were in their patterns might not be able to recognize as easily…
I’ve had so many people talk about, when they start getting in touch with some of these deeper layers – it’s almost like “I’m awake now. I’m awake to what’s been happening.” And even my own self, when I talk about my previous tendencies before that breakup that really woke me up – I was running around, I think… Not running around; it sounds like I was in a lot of casual relationships. I wasn’t. But I was operating in relationship choosing, I would say, people that weren’t that available… And therefore it was a protection. If they’re not gonna go there, then I don’t have to risk confronting my fear of abandonment.
But then I love too what you’re describing around helping people get in touch with that, helping them work with that, and that radical, radical compassion, acceptance, and then also shifting into helping them have an imprint and almost a scaffolding that perhaps they haven’t known before, and that the imagination can really help them have an experience of this. Is that what I’m hearing?
Susan Anderson: Yes, and the imagination is something that becomes so valuable… Because a very important part of the program is to be able to personify the different parts of the personality. So we use our imagination to divide the personality into three parts – the inner child, the outer child, and the adult. There are plenty of ways to divide up the personality. There’s ego, super-ego [unintelligible 00:34:04.13] many people may have heard of that… You could divide it up in many different ways. But for our purposes, for the purposes of primal abandonment, dividing it into the inner child, the outer child and the adult self… And the inner child is the inner child within the inner child; it’s the real little you, the littlest part of you. The part that beholds your deepest emotions, your most fervent needs and prayers and hopes. It’s the part that wants, and yearns, and fears, and feels the insecurity and the anxiety. It’s the deepest part of your emotional core. That’s the inner child, for the purposes of abandonment recovery.
And then the outer child is the part that breaks your diet and gets attracted to all the wrong people. It’s the self-sabotaging part. And then the adult self is sort of the higher adult self. It’s the cognitive mind. The part that really tries to govern your behavior and tries to be reasonable about life, and tells you to stop eating the chocolate cakes. But the outer child wants the chocolate cake, so the adult self is always trying to moderate, and sometimes not doing such a great job. The outer child is always sabotaging and wanting immediate gratification, and the second glass, third glass of wine… And the inner child is just feeling. So using your imagination to tease those parts of the personality as far apart as we can get them conceptually, so that we can imagine a feeling self, and an acting out self, and then an adult self; to tease those parts out, again. Once we do that using our imagination to create those personas, then we can really make them have a dialogue, and it can become extremely powerful in terms of making real changes within the personality.
So the imagination in that regard, and then in developing these images for a positive future outcome for certain things… They just put nice pictures in the mind, but they’re so helpful to goal-directedness, to moving forward, these pictures that we form. So the use of imagination in the healing process is tremendous. And it’s not like you snap your fingers and you can do it. You learn how to do it; it’s a whole skillset that you learn. But once you have that set in, you really have powerful tools there that you can use using that wonderful imagination that we all have.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And Susan, as you’re talking, it sounds like given that this work is occuring after the deep excavating and getting really into that primal, fundamental places of the primal abandonment and pain, and then really that radical acceptance – there’s a level of information that people are working with, and attunement to themselves… And I almost wonder, if you can speak to this at all, that the higher self is almost in some ways having an opportunity to reparent parts that that inner child didn’t get along the way… Is that part of perhaps what’s happening, too?
Susan Anderson: Yes, because in the process of abandonment recovery you never lose touch with your inner child, and the inner child – we’re talking about here the abandoned inner child; the one with all the primal feelings. So you’re very much in touch with that. So let’s say, as a child, let’s say that you were emotionally alone. Your mother didn’t have the kind of empathy that would have been helpful. If you went to her with a problem, she’d try to take it away, fix it, get rid of it; she didn’t know how to empathize with your feelings, and you felt kind of alone… And then your parents fought a lot, there were power struggles, and so forth.
So let’s just say it was a normal childhood, but that you grew up and you were emotionally isolated, and you were kind of shamed for having feelings, because they were always dismissed and fixed; they were always being tied up in a bow… So now you’re an adult. Well, as an adult, you can now become the parent you always needed. So now – what you said about self-parenting… You now have the chance, big you, the adult self, the cognitive adult self, the higher self, can now become the parent of the inner child. But you can do this not just by sort of imagining it; you have to actually use your imagination to create the personas, but then you don’t just leave it there, you create a dialogue so that you create a working parent-to-child corrective relationship. It’s unbelievable when you do it, to feel how real it feels when you’re actually doing the exercise. So what you’re saying is “Yes, it’s all self-parenting at that point.” You get to become the parent you never had growing up.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So powerful and so healing, because as you said, so much of this occurs in the emotional state in the nervous system… So if we can really, again, support that corrective experience through the imagination, it sounds like it really has a powerful impact.
Susan Anderson: And what’s kind of amazing is that — you know, I use this term “wordless”, because a lot of the stuff we experience… You know, kids are very resilient. They barely know what they’re feeling; if you ask them what they’re feeling, they barely have words even to describe part of it. They could cry, but they can’t say exactly why they’re upset, because they’re too busy. Well, besides they don’t have the vocabulary, they also have the capacity to get distracted. But kids are having feelings, they’re accumulating all kinds of feelings that are wordless. So when you create this dialogue, a lot of what comes up is wordless.
So here you are, writing a dialogue, trying to say “I’m feeling this”, pretending to be the voice of the inner child… “I’m feeling this and that”, and you’re trying to find words for it… But a lot of what you’re feeling just doesn’t have words. So you’re getting in touch with such a primal part of yourself. And you’re trying to give words to it, but it’s because the adult self is asking the child self to begin to really communicate. So the process of trying to find words for the wordless, and being listened to like that and being cared about – just that alone creates a relationship within the self that begins to heal the broken relationship that may have been with a parent.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So, so powerful. I’m thinking of a client of mine that did grow up in an alcoholic family, and talking to his inner child, and that process of comforting and soothing… So I really am so grateful for what you’re doing. And before we lose time with you, I wanna see if there’s anything you can help listeners with the second part, of the radical acceptance. I will say, when I’ve recommended your book Black Swan, the short story, to clients, it’s a little hardcore. But the end goal of it – and I just wonder if you wanna speak to that at all, just the radical acceptance…
Susan Anderson: It is pretty hardcore, I must say. It’s not a fairytale for children, it’s a fairytale for adults… Because it really does speak to the primal abandonment fear, and the shame; it’s all there. And the little girl, who’s left behind by her parents.
The radical acceptance is portrayed by a character in the book and by the black swan… It’s really a process of recovery from the separation anxiety, the abandonment fear. It’s the process of recovery from that, and it is something that involves tuning in, focusing on the moment, the reality that you’re facing. Looking at reality as it exists and not based on all of the distortions that we have. Kind of tuning in on that and embracing that. That is — it contains the 12 steps of healing, in a way that is very much keeping with yoga, and Buddhism and all the different philosophies, because it has to do with the existential reality of the situation that you’re in.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you for speaking to that, because I was wondering if it also assists people in getting out of that suffering. You’ve just mentioned the Buddhist, but it’s trying to fight against the pain; the stories, and the pushback, and the wishing that we’re different – tendencies that keep us in the loop.
Susan Anderson: Yeah, because healing is in the body, and what we do – we do the opposite. The way the human mind is constructed, we do the opposite. We protest the pain, we rail against it, we dig our heels in, “No, no!!” and that of course perpetuates the pain, being in protest mode.
We also stay in our head, and we develop obsessive thoughts, and we talk our friends’ ears off about all of the things, and we analyze everything, we’re in our heads. The healing is not in our heads, it’s in the body. So what we have to do is – and Black Swan gets into this – there’s a gesture for every one [unintelligible 00:44:43.14] So the gesture puts the healing in the body. A gesture may be putting your hands on your heart, or tilting your head a certain way (each one is explained), but it takes the healing process and it takes the protest mode and it takes the whole head trip, and takes that and erases that in favor of putting the healing in the body with gestures that mean a particular healing step.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: As you’re talking, it’s almost as if the validation that perhaps previously was outside of self in the other person, that you’re helping them reclaim, and re-orient their essence in their body, rather than the needing of the other to validate. Is that right?
Susan Anderson: Well, it is. And you know, abandonment recovery is all about doing. You don’t think your way out of abandonment, if you don’t imagine your way out without doing. Even imagination, which is such an important tool, has to be accompanied by doing. So the truth is we do our way out of abandonment, because it has to go from just pure mental into the body.
So the program is very active… It involves actually doing things. It isn’t just mental, it’s a doing program, because it has to integrate into all levels of the being. And in our society, we do have sort of a dichotomy; mind/body is a little too separated in the way that we function… But the abandonment recovery really involves taking the process, using the imagination in the mind, but putting it into the body and doing.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So, so great. I love the integration that you’re offering in your support. Well, before we tune into what you are offering and up to, is there anything else you wanna say about what we’ve been discussing?
Susan Anderson: You know, the idea is that the helplessness is something that people feel. The abandonment going through any kind of trigger – there’s a feeling of “There’s something wrong with me”, or “I’ll never be able to find love”, or “I’ll always be alone”, or “I’ll always be stuck with this problem.” And without the hopelessness, the abandonment wouldn’t even be painful. We’d think “Oh, I’m feeling bad today, but tomorrow I’ll be fine.” It’s the idea that this will go on forever. That’s what makes it so painful.
And of course, my message is that hopelessness is a feeling, but it’s not a reality, because once you feel any of this stuff – as we said, it can be triggered by so many different experiences – it’s great, because it opens you up and now you can actually do open heart surgery, and clean things up, and really make a tremendous positive change.
The other very important thing is that people have a problem with perfectionism. Perfectionism is an outer child characteristic, it’s self-sabotage. Perfectionism is not our friend. But people, when they find out that they are, let’s say, co-dependent, or a people pleaser, they wanna stop being a people pleaser, they wanna stop being co-dependent, but that’s asking for a lot. And all you really need to do to make an enormous change in your life and in your friendships and in your work relationships and everything – all you need to do is make a small improvement, just to be a little bit less of a people pleaser; just a tad less co-dependent, perhaps. And that very small difference makes a difference.
When people are looking to change patterns, they don’t have to become a whole new person, who does things in a whole new way. They can really make a small change, but that change is the difference that makes the difference.
When you see people out there happy, and enjoying life, and in wonderful relationships, or whatever they’re doing, you’re not looking at perfect people. You have people out there who are happy and fulfilled who have a little codependency, or they’re too critical, or they can have all the flaws that human beings have, but they might be just a little bit less so; just enough that they can have a good life.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Thank you for saying that. That’s such a powerful message. Susan, how can people get in touch with your program and what you’re offering?
Susan Anderson: Well, they can contact me at abandonment.net. That’s one way. Of course, I’m on all the social platforms, Facebook and all of that… But you know, I try to get out there and work with people in groups, and I have online abandonment recovery workshops going on right now. I also work at various locations around the country, in various venues, like Esalen in California, and so forth. Right now, at this moment, those venues aren’t having workshops, but they will start up again. But I try to actually work with people because – and I know you can appreciate this, Jessica, because it’s something we’ve all experienced and it’s very profound – doing this work in a group is so good. It’s wonderful to join other people doing this groups, because it really is all about relationships, and the relationships are right there in the group. So I do try to work in groups, as well as — you know, I have four books and a million articles; this is an endless subjects. There are so many ramifications… I could have 20 books and there’s still be a lot more to say.
So there are lots of books and articles that touch on all different aspects… And then workshops that are very helpful.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. And what is the website outerchild.net?
Susan Anderson: Outerchild.net is more devoted to the self-sabotage, because self-sabotage is the result of unresolved abandonment. Self-sabotage is about self-abandonment. But the reason I have a separate website for self-sabotage, outerchild.net, is because some people don’t realize that they’re caught up in patterns of self-sabotage. They don’t realize that it’s connected to abandonment. So when they go to look up help, they don’t know to just put in abandonment, so they put in self-sabotage, and that’s how they find the help. It all boils down to abandonment, self-abandonment, which leads to patterns of self-sabotage. All the ways that we abandon ourselves.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Lovely. And I’ll make sure to have all of those links on today’s show notes. Susan, thank you for sharing your gifts, your knowledge, all of your work with us today. I know you just scratched the surface, but just spending your time and sharing on this really, really important topic.
Susan Anderson: Thank you very much for all of your beautiful questions, Jessica. I enjoyed it very much.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s interview, again, with Susan Anderson. I really just wanna underscore what she said earlier in the interview, that healing and working through this primal abandonment allows for more self-confidence, for more healing, and a sense of self-worth. I really recommend Susan Anderson’s work if you are noticing struggles with abandonment and perhaps shame, I wanna encourage you to check out her work – her books, and her workshop, and her program… I’ll make sure, again, to have those links on today’s show notes, which can be found on my website, DrJessicaHiggins.com. Again, you can click on Podcast and find today’s episode, 253.
If you’re interested in exploring how to cultivate more security in relationship, in your couple dynamic, I wanna bring your attention to the course by Dr. Susan Johnson, titled “Hold me tight”. You can find that course on the Course page on, again, my website, DrJessicaHiggins.com. She has a great discount right now, and I was surprised to see how much she’s discounted her course. And so much has gone into it, with her team, and just her enormous background of research… And again, this is supporting the couple bond in creating more security in couples dynamic.
Thank you for listening, and until next time, I hope you take great care.
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