A Santa Clarita relationship coach is sharing what she believes are the keys to overcoming abandonment in a past relationship, be it from a parent, an ex, or other significant person.

“This issue comes up time and time again because, especially in relationship, this is something that ends up being a challenge, a wound, a struggle that keeps us held back from really being empowered and moving forward,” said Jessica Hartley, founder of the Legendary Love Program.

After a person is abandoned in a significant relationship — as a child or an adult — the natural response to the trauma is often to live in fear of it happening again, and to allow it to consume their thoughts and emotions from then on, according to Hartley.

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While abandonment can leave a person feeling confused, defeated, deeply sad, in desperate need of the reasons why, and determined to make sure it doesn’t happen again, Hartley noted that staying in these feelings usually leads to getting “stuck” and actually perpetuating that abandonment.

Hartley emphasized the importance of recognizing that the abandonment is a wound or a painful place inside of a person that will be “triggered” by other things in life and automatically put the person into fight-or-flight mode, causing them to either put their guard up or run away from it.

The first step in overcoming this wound is to do what Hartley called “taking space” by having the person ask themselves what it is they expect or need outside of themselves, and taking ownership of it instead.

“In that moment, take space, calm down and give yourself the words, the feelings, the experience that you’re looking for from that person or from that loss or from that trauma,” she said. “Say, “Okay, this is mine, … and it’s my opportunity to heal.”

Hartley continued that it’s important not to judge oneself for the way they’re feeling, or try to suppress or push away those feelings, and to instead accept and even “love” it.

“We have to love it. This can be really hard for people to understand,” Hartley said. “Think about the child that first got that wound, that child that felt abandoned, rejected, and what would you do to that child if you were aware? You would say, ‘Come here. Come here, it’s okay. That’s not true. Here’s who you really are. Here’s what really matters.’ And you give it that kind of acceptance and love. Then you’ve given it the healing energy so that it can transmute and be set free.”

The biggest way to self-nurture after being abandoned is to make the decision to heal that wound with the help of another person, according to Hartley.

“This is where we need to reach out to people that can really help us do that, because otherwise we’re so into the emotion,” she said. “We have to move through action and experience, where we are solidifying a new normal, a new thought, a new perception that can replace that old one.”

One service Hartley offers her clients is what she called “deep healing sessions” designed to meet the “starting point” of the wound and “shift its orientation, move it into something that serves you, that now empowers you to help you move through your journey in a stronger way,” according to Hartley.

Because the wound was “reinforced” for so many years, Hartley noted that part of the sessions involve doing the opposite — “planting” new thoughts and reinforcing that over time “with action and experience and feeling and thought and emotion.”   

“We move through that emotion, we change it, we uplift it,” she said. “And the weight is lifted — now you can move forward finally and no longer feel shackled to that experience replaying itself over and over again.”

Ed. Note: This article is a KHTS Community Spotlight based on the latest “Thriving Relationships” with Jessica Hartley, a Santa Clarita relationship coach.

Jessica Hartley is a Santa Clarita relationship coach and the founder of the Legendary Love Program, which provides the necessary structure to introduce powerful changes in your relationship with or without the direct participation of both partners. Hartley uses her 10 years of experience to coach couples on how to save their marriage from divorce and learn to thrive in deep connection and strong, lasting love. The relationship coach in Santa Clarita is the host of “Thriving Relationships with Jessica Hartley” every Wednesday at 2 p.m. on KHTS Radio.

Jessica Hartley

The Legendary Love Program

661-347-8473

Connect@JessicaHartley.com

Jessica Hartley, Santa Clarita

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0_NZGCPTuQ

Jessica Hartley, Santa Clarita Relationship Coach, Relationship Coach Santa Clarita, Legendary Love Program, Santa Clarita Relationship Counselor, Relationship Counselor Santa Clarita