How to Stop Self-Neglect And Honor Your Own Needs
Here are a few reasons for self-neglect:
- You can’t set clear boundaries and priorities yourself because a part of you doesn’t feel safe to say ‘no’ to others. There may be a subconscious programming that you can only be safe if you take care of everyone else first.
- Sometimes you may neglect yourself because you really want someone else to do it for you, namely your mum or dad. So you end up taking care of everyone else in the hope that they would reciprocate except they don’t, leaving you bitter and upset.
- With time, patterns of self-neglect can become a part of your identity. It’s like a badge of honour: I’m the one who has to hold it altogether, otherwise it’ll all fall apart.
Self-neglect is draining. You’ve been probably running on empty for decades, if not your whole life. I know it from experience.
I’ve certainly been neglected as a child. My maternal grandmother was bringing me up, while cooking elaborate meals for a large family, working as a seamstress and keeping the house impeccably clean.
She had a very little bandwidth for me so I was often left to my own devices to entertain myself and look after my own hygiene. I must admit, I didn’t do a very good job, partly because I grew up watching the adults neglecting themselves, including my grandmother who was orphaned at the age of 10 and learnt to put everyone else first.
To fit in, I had to learn to neglect myself too.
I’ve been healing these patterns for a while now and here’s what I have uncovered.
To heal patterns of neglect you need to:
1. Release ancestral baggage
You learn self-neglect by watching your loved ones to neglect themselves. Children learn by absorbing the patterns in the family and then pass it down from one generation to another. There are other healthier ways of honouring your ancestors.
2. Heal abandonment
Emotional and physical neglect can make you feel abandoned as a child. At some subconscious level you may continue abandoning yourself in the hope that someone would rescue you. Healing the pattern of abandonment can support you in taking care of yourself.
3. Heal numbness
It’s inevitable that you numb down when you feel emotionally or physically neglected. You have to suppress your anger, rage, sadness and helplessness in order to survive. To let go of self-neglect you need to heal your suppressed emotions.
4. Reclaim your worth
Behind self-neglect there is deep unworthiness. It’s as if you don’t exist and, therefore, don’t deserve good things in life. Everything has to come through hard work to get you some attention and validation. You are worthy of ease.
It’s time to fill your own cup so that you can give from the overflow. Saying ‘no’ to others’ expectations means saying ‘yes’ to your own needs.
Say ‘yes’ to healing patterns of neglect.
Join us live or with the recording for a 3-hour healing experience.
You can take the individual class on its own here: www.gularavincent.co.uk/heal-self-neglect
Alternatively, you can buy a self-love package that includes this event and several others at a discounted rate, if purchased by 10 November.
It’s a special offer that includes:
- My 5-week course designed to help you to learn healthy ways of nourishing yourself emotionally, physically and spiritually www.gularavincent.co.uk/end-emotional-eating (£540)
- You’ll have immediate access to the recordings of the 2023 live round of End Emotional Eating
- 30 min bonus live group Reiki healing as part of the course (£55)
- 3-hour live masterclass to heal patterns of neglect, so that you can learn to take better care of your emotional, mental and physical energy (£150)
- 90-min embodied presence session to identify and befriend parts of your psyche that sabotage your self-love and self-care, because they believe that if you relax and lower your guard something bad may happen. This will give you a lot of clarity about your behaviour, which in turn will calm your nervous system down (£125)
- 30 day safety mindset home-study programme to release patterns of lack and embrace abundance of energy, love, money and time (£120)
- Reclaim your feminine power 5-module home-study course (£147)
The total value of this package is £1137, but it’s available for £540 or £96 x 6 months, if you join us by 10 November.
Here are the payment links:
Pay in full: https://gulara-vincent.mykajabi.com/offers/XKPSiihW
6 month payment plan: https://gulara-vincent.mykajabi.com/offers/ULcNCB7C
P.S. Have you got your copy of Fragile Freedom yet? I'd be immensely grateful if you continued to share the book links to get the word out (www.gularavincent.co.uk/blog/fragile-freedom )
When you buy the book, you also get my 5-week home study course for free (usually £149).
Also, as a thank you to my readers, I'm offering three FREE events. The first one is - Speaking the Unspeakable on 8 Nov at 14:00-15:00 UK time/ 9:00-10:00am EST:
https://gulara-vincent.mykajabi.com/speaking-the-unspeakable
With love and deep gratitude for all your support,
Gulara