{"id":678,"date":"2010-08-13T22:27:05","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T22:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=678"},"modified":"2013-09-14T14:50:48","modified_gmt":"2013-09-14T18:50:48","slug":"journey-from-abandonment-to-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=678","title":{"rendered":"Journey from Abandonment to Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Written in January 2007)<br \/>\nI\u2019ve been reading a book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Journey-Abandonment-Healing-Relationship-Beginning\/dp\/0425172287\" target=\"_blank\">The Journey from Abandonment to Healing<\/a> by Susan Armstrong, and finding it extraordinarily helpful.\u00a0 She talks about childhood abandonments as well as divorce and adult breakups.\u00a0 She describes five stages and gives exercises for working with them.<br \/>\nStage One is Shattering, Shock, and she recommends a practice of staying in the present.\u00a0 She validates that the present itself can be extremely painful and then paying attention to present sensory details will help.<br \/>\nStage Two is Withdrawal, which she describes as facing the reality that you are utterly alone: \u201clike the baby chick without its shell, still wet, facing the world without its protective cover.\u201d This is pretty exactly what I\u2019ve been feeling lately: the awful cold, the sense of there being no safe place to go and hide.\u00a0 The recommended exercise is dialogue between your child self and your adult self, both seen as separate from yourself.<\/p>\n<p>BIG: Hey, Little, what do you need today?<br \/>\nLITTLE: I want to paint.<br \/>\nBIG: Good, we\u2019ll do that right after breakfast.\u00a0 Anything special you want to paint?<br \/>\nLITTLE: I like the stamps, I\u2019d like to do a picture of me where the anger grows at the bottom and supports me against the terror.<br \/>\nBIG: OK.\u00a0 We\u2019ll do that.\u00a0 What are you feeling today?<br \/>\nLITTLE: Scared<br \/>\nBIG: Scared of anything in particular?<br \/>\nLITTLE: being left all alone<br \/>\nBIG: I\u2019m here and I\u2019m not leaving.\u00a0 My intention is to always be there for you, at least be with you even when I can\u2019t help with the pain.\u00a0 At those times I\u2019m sharing it.\u00a0 And I have left you in the past, getting caught in activities of trying to change the external stuff.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry for those times, and I\u2019ll try to do better.<br \/>\nLITTLE: That helps.\u00a0 I feel a little stronger and warmer now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Written in January 2007) I\u2019ve been reading a book The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Armstrong, and finding it extraordinarily helpful.\u00a0 She talks about childhood abandonments as well as divorce and adult breakups.\u00a0 She describes five stages and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=678\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-interesting-link","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}