Are You Abandoning Yourself? The Sneaky Ways We Do It and How To Stop | #199

Most people who abandon themselves don't know they're doing it. It looks like overexplaining, performing for respect, being everyone's emotional sponge, making yourself small so nobody feels uncomfortable. In Daily Dose of Dawn #199, resilience coach Dawn Super breaks down the specific ways we put everyone else first — including the ones that are hardest to spot — and shares the three tools she used to turn a dumpster fire of a life into one where she's fully, unapologetically on her own side. If you're fighting harder for everyone else than you are for yourself, this one's for you.

Watch the Video Here or Read the Script below

You need to do it all for you. Are you abandoning yourself? Today's video is going to talk about ways that we do abandon ourselves and what we can do about it. So if that's something you want to think about, welcome in to your daily dose of Dawn at Dawn — videos designed to expand your thinking.

I was riding in the car with a friend and they were lamenting that they were not in a relationship. They said, "I fight harder when I'm doing it for someone." And I pulled down the visor and opened the mirror and told them that that is the someone that they should be fighting for.

Putting yourself first is attractive. People who are healthy and ahead in life want someone else who is healthy and also ahead in life.

One of my clients is concerned about one of their friends drinking and it's starting to consume their thoughts and they're paying much more attention to the person drinking than is healthy for them. You have to give people the dignity of walking their own path. And it's one thing to be concerned for your friend and it's another thing to let it consume your thinking and influence your behavior.

If you're visiting with a friend and they won't stop talking politics after you've told them that you don't want to talk politics and you continue to stay, you're violating your own boundaries. If you don't want to listen to politics and the person insists on talking about it, you need to take yourself out of the situation and just leave.

If you're always helping someone with things, stop being useful. When you see how quickly you're replaced, you'll realize that you were being used all along.

Your identity is your values on display and no is a complete sentence.

None of those things that I mentioned are black and white. They all have nuance to them. And that's why it's important to dig into the whole situation and not generalize. My videos are not intended to diagnose anything. They're designed to get you thinking about your thinking, which is what metacognition is.

Some other ways that we abandon ourselves is overexplaining. Regardless of the reason that you're doing it, bite your tongue. Let people ask you questions. Tell them, ask me if anything is confusing. Balancing that takes a beat. But it eventually happens. If you need strategies to help you overcome being an overexplainer, just Google it, man. They're everywhere now.

Trying to perform to earn respect. You're not a circus monkey. If people don't respect you for no reason, then that's an indicator of their values, not your worth.

Always being the ear for someone who chooses to stay stuck in the same classroom day after day, year after year. Someone who just vomits their drama on you and never does anything about it is not someone looking for an ear. They're someone looking for a codependent.

Some of the ways we abandon ourselves that might be harder to notice are making yourself small so that others feel more comfortable — because you don't want to be too much or too loud or too ambitious.

Giving up your joy. Like I cannot even count how many people have said to me, "What are you so happy about?" As if you need a reason. I defend happy because it matters.

Wearing yourself out for other people. And I'm not talking about just physically helping someone and wearing yourself out. I'm talking about emotionally overgiving — being the person who's always having to clean up the messes emotionally as well as physically and mentally.

If you saw yourself in any of those things, I feel you. I overcame all of them. And that's why I'm making this video now — to encourage you that even if you are a dumpster fire rolling down a hill, you can turn your entire life around. And all you need to do is get completely on your own side.

So some real ways that you can start:

Number one — understand why overexplaining happens for you. Teach yourself why you're doing it, what you can do instead, and commit to it like it matters.

Number two — if you're unsure if people respect you, you need to really embrace the Eleanor Roosevelt quote. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." And it took me decades to understand that one. Work at it until you really deeply understand it. And then someone not respecting you will not affect you at all — because you must consent to feel bad about anything. Not saying it doesn't happen and it's totally normal if someone calls you a name, I mean you feel bad. But it's not necessarily that you agree with them. You're just angry that they said something to you. So it's important that you work through all of that so that when people say something to you, you get what you feel and why you feel that way and how to shut it down.

Number three — this is the tool I use the most. "I've been through this classroom." This is called discernment. As a pattern seeker, I recognize patterns and if I see them, I'm just like, no. Just immediately, no. Now I will help someone if they're stuck in a classroom — I'll throw them a lifeline and help them with tools. And if they choose to use them, then I'll continue to do that. But if they choose to stay stuck in their classroom, I'll cut the line — because I've been through the lesson and I'm not going to drown to save someone else. And if you think that sounds harsh, that's how I lived the first 41 miserable years of my life. So no, not doing that again.

There is real value in checking in with yourself — with who you are and who you are not. Asking yourself the tough questions. Do I support my own dreams? Do I walk like someone who loves herself? Am I choosing to remember that happy matters and that this experience of being a human being is for me and that it's okay to put myself first?

If you can say yes to all those things, you're definitely on your own side. If you need to get there and you need a coach, visit my website, dawnsuper.com. You can get my book and in 14 days get to know yourself better and find a real path to changing how you feel — encouraged inside of yourself for the rest of your days.

If you need my book and you can't afford it - hit the Contact Us and send me a message.
I will give it to you completely free, no strings. Together, we ALL win.

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