Self-Abandonment and Making Space (Pride Episode)

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) If you learn from a very young age

that expressing your needs, your wants, your emotions

in any way led to being ignored or

rejected or dismissed or even conflict, such as

getting yelled at by a parent, then you're

going to learn a habit called self-abandonment.

And what that leads to is people pleasing

and ignoring your gut instincts and being really

perfectionist and criticizing yourself.

What this means is that if you are

a member of a community and you don't

feel like you are a member of that

community, then it's going to be very hard

to make space for yourself or to even

try to claim identity or kinship with that

community.

And that's what we're going to discuss here

on our last Pride Month episode of the

Feathermane Soul Wisdom Show.

You're listening to Feathermane Soul Wisdom, a podcast

for those looking to rediscover their wild spirit

in spite of life's challenges.

If you're living with a chronic illness or

neurodivergent or consider yourself disabled and you're looking

to connect with your own inner untamed essence,

then this show is for you.

Your host is Kit Kaelstow, Wild Spirit Storyteller.

Thanks for listening and now on to the

episode.

Hello everybody, I'm your host Kit Kaelstow and

this is our last Pride-specific episode as

it is the end of June 2026.

In our first episode, we talked about when

you don't feel like you're a part of

a community and when you don't feel like

either you can claim membership in that community

or that community sees you as a part

of it.

In our last episode last week, we talked

about things that communities can do to include

neurodivergent and disabled individuals.

And finally in this episode, I want to

follow up on a topic that I brought

up in that last episode which is making

space for yourself.

As I was doing some work for this

episode, it really kind of connected with me

that if we do not make space for

ourselves in a community and I'm not talking

about like running up to a Pride parade

and saying, hey let me in because I'm

queer.

What I'm talking about is actually believing that

we are a member of a community following

up on our lived experiences and honoring and

trusting those feelings inside of ourselves.

A good example of this is one of

the discussions that I've been seeing going around

my social media feeds especially here during Pride

is how do you know if you're trans?

And the point has been made that people

who are 100% cis never ever question

whether they're cis.

They never ever ever question their gender.

They know who they are and that's who

they are.

For people who are trans, even if it's

just a teensy little bit and you wonder,

you know, might I be trans?

And I've heard this said too in the

neurodivergent community.

People who are autistic who are not autistic

do not sit around wondering if they are

autistic for example.

And so if you're actually questioning that then

that's a good indication that you may need

to trust your instincts, trust your gut and

do some exploration.

Now the results of that exploration you may

explore and you may realize no no I'm

comfortable with my gender identity but you may

also explore and realize that no some things

in your life need to change.

And so doing that exploration that is a

way to combat self-abandonment.

Let me just start by taking a few

moments to talk a bit about self-abandonment.

Now I just want to preface this as

I always do.

I am not a mental health therapist.

I cannot diagnose.

I cannot treat any sort of condition.

I can certainly coach and help and stand

you know in solidarity with you.

I can hold space for you.

I can be a witness to what you're

going through and that's what I do as

a coach.

And so that's just where I'm coming from

here.

And if you do feel like you know

things are just you know there's things coming

up that you need to discuss.

If you're not feeling safe I encourage you

to seek help.

So let's talk about self-abandonment.

Self-abandonment pretty much starts in childhood and

it's when you learn that expressing your authentic

needs emotions or boundaries lead to conflict.

You know if you're a child and you

tell your parents you know oh I have

to go bathroom and instead of saying okay

let's find a bathroom they say oh not

again you just went or oh you should

have went when you you know left the

house.

That sort of thing if continued and if

it becomes a pattern can lead to self

-abandonment because basically you learn that every time

you express your needs every time you express

your emotions like if something hurts and you

cry and you're constantly chastised for crying you're

going to learn that those needs and emotions

are ignored or rejected by other people around

yourself.

And so then you learn to reject and

ignore those needs partly out of a pattern

and partly out of self-preservation.

Where self-abandonment comes into play is as

we become older as we become adults you

might notice yourself people pleasing.

You might notice yourself suppressing emotions.

You might notice yourself ignoring your gut instincts.

You might notice yourself not having really solid

boundaries or being a real perfectionist and being

really critical of yourself.

Now there's there's ways to actually work with

this and the first step is obviously be

aware of it.

The other step is self-compassion and self

-reflection and that's where I really want to

focus here today is that self-compassion that

radical acceptance of yourself and your needs no

matter what you think about them.

That self-compassion treating yourself the way you

treat a loved one you care about the

way you would treat a beloved companion animal

that that self-compassion really can help go

a long way towards being present for yourself.

Because if you've noticed that people in your

life are not present for you then it

is doubly important for you to step up

and be present for yourself.

And there's a whole lot I could get

into that's kind of leans more into mental

health.

I you know I kind of just want

to leave it there for now but I

encourage you again if you're recognizing some patterns

and some behaviors you know maybe talk to

a trusted professional maybe learn a little bit

more about it maybe reach out to somebody.

What does that have to do with creating

space for yourself in a community and especially

during pride?

Well I'm going to get vulnerable here for

a moment and just share that this is

something that I've been struggling with this pride.

I live in a very rural community the

local queer community is not safe for me

because of some experiences I had with people

who are connected to it and being somebody

who pretty much appears cis.

I mean I pretty much you know I

cut my hair short but that's about it.

You know I I cannot medically transition right

now I can't do a lot of things

right now in regards to change making changes

and so pretty much you know I look

like the gender I was assigned at birth

and because of that I really struggle and

of course this goes back into you know

my own past and that but I really

struggle to feel connected and a part of

a community and so you start to say

things to yourself like oh it doesn't matter

you know oh it's okay you know I

I don't need to do that anyway you

start to dismiss some really serious is the

word that comes to mind but I don't

think that's what I'm looking for here some

really strong urges and really strong thoughts on

your part you start to dismiss that you

start to abandon yourself how do we not

do that how do we make space for

ourselves when we don't feel wanted by the

community we're trying to make space in well

the first step is simply admitting that you

belong nobody has a monopoly on pride pride

is a celebration there are non-queer people

at pride there are you know people from

all walks of life all across the gender

sexuality orientation spectrum there everybody belongs at pride

and so if you could just keep telling

yourself that not in a you know lying

to yourself sort of or you know trying

to change your thoughts but just just gently

reminding yourself hey you know nobody in spite

of what some groups may or may not

think nobody has a monopoly on pride that

means if you feel safe and able to

go to a celebration you know do so

if you want to do something small and

quiet at home something that's more personal less

public facing do that so once you admit

that you belong in a group you can

decide whether you want to claim public kinship

with that again you decide how much information

you disclose or don't disclose you decide what

you get to do for yourself that's how

we fight self-abandonment the other thing is

to understand that there will always be people

who try to claim ownership of a space

there will always be people and and and

at this point i'm stepping outside of just

talking about pride and going into you know

any group there will always be people who

will you know try to tell you that

you're taking up too much room who will

try to tell you that you don't belong

one of the things i've gotten really good

at in my five decades here on this

planet is to be comfortable just doing my

own thing now some of that's the autism

some of that is again location but i

mean and this podcast honestly is an example

of that so um you know if you

just get comfortable you know banging your own

drum as the saying goes and just doing

your thing and even though it's difficult to

remember just remembering that what other people think

of that reflects more on them than it

ever will on you the other thing i

would encourage you to do to avoid self

-abandonment is to really think about where that's

coming from and think about how you can

make that right with yourself i mean we

can't go back in time we can't fix

the things that we have happened to us

what we can do is make sure we

give ourselves compassion and love and understand for

example that that younger version of you that

didn't have their needs met that wasn't right

and that that you know happened and so

because of that you know you need to

give that younger person you know just the

same compassion you would give anybody that you

care about and again i know all of

this is easier said than done and i

am right there with you and working on

this every single day so when we make

that space for ourselves it's a matter of

also rethinking our ideas of community now we

may have an idea of community of how

we exist how we want to exist in

a space how we should exist in a

space what actually should happen when we're in

a space and a lot of times that's

not going to happen a lot of times

you know people everybody being individuals everybody having

free will that how we show up in

a space pretty much means that we're going

to have to deal with other people's actions

as well and the way other people may

affect our showing up in a space i

felt like i was talking in circles there

so i i apologize but i i think

what i'm trying to say is let go

of perceived you know connotations let go of

any perceived notions that this is how things

are going to go because we don't know

how the world how how day-to-day

minute-to-minute hour-to-hour things are

going to unfold in front of us i

don't think anybody has a crystal ball that

works 100 percent of the time i mean

even autistic pattern recognition gets it wrong from

time to time so i think the other

thing is in some respects to let go

of our cynicism and this could be the

hardest thing of all when you have been

excluded from spaces when you have been treated

very badly by individuals who maybe claim to

be a friend or maybe claimed to be

welcoming you know an organization that claims to

welcome everybody but then it's very obvious that

it's obvious that they don't want to make

accommodations for a disability it's obvious that they

don't want to you know welcome people who

maybe process things differently or even welcome people

who are outside their own experiences when that

happens it is very easy to fall into

the trap of cynicism you know my spouse

has a t-shirt we got it at

walmart and it looks like a review box

and it says you know people and then

you see one stars you know so it's

like it's it's very easy to dismiss the

whole human race with the zero stars or

a one star review but the truth is

is that when you put people in monolithic

blocks you diminish them and so in it's

this is something i need to remember um

as well that you know when you put

people in monolithic blocks you just diminish them

and so i would encourage you to understand

the harms that people can do but don't

be cynical about everybody acting the same way

now this doesn't dismiss anybody you know who

needs to look at the actions of themselves

their community make things right reparative justice that

certainly needs to come into play and the

more of that that happens frankly the better

we all think about other people in the

world around us but to simply pull yourself

away from a community because you think everybody

sucks that may be true on like a

small local level but certainly not on a

global or national level which brings us back

to the general topic of our podcast today

which is making space for yourself when you

don't feel wanted by a community when you

don't feel like you're a part of a

community and i think it comes back down

to being willing to sit with that loneliness

being willing to sit with those uncomfortable feelings

being willing to sit with the grief that

comes up when you're willing to do that

you start to become willing to accept your

own company now does this mean that things

you don't want things to change of course

not but what it does do is it

gets you comfortable holding space taking up space

and making space for yourself without anybody else

around and feeling like you belong and i

would encourage you to in this space to

start speaking your truth to start speaking authentically

to start identifying yourself as a member of

the community because the flip side of this

is that if somebody on the outside of

a community looks at a community and all

they see is kind of a monolith of

people who look the same act the same

think the same with subtle differences between them

then that is not doing a good service

for the community and that probably would be

a whole another topic of another podcast maybe

next year's pride i'll start making notes but

when you start saying hey i'm a member

of this community too you also hold up

a light for other people um i was

having trouble sleeping last night and i saw

the most beautiful post on blue sky from

a gentleman who was basically saying hey please

don't forget the trans men this pride and

really reminding everybody within that community that they

belong at pride that that they deserve the

same care and concern and not to be

erased as other members of the lgbtqia spectrum

and that's something i very much agree with

um but you know i read that beautiful

post and i shared it and i thought

got a little bit of traction online and

you know that little post that just saying

hey don't forget about us that really shone

a light that really shined a light and

allowed um you know made me feel better

i'm sure it made other people feel better

and that's why they shared the post there

was you know no negative replies there was

no negative mocking um to the post at

all and so when you show up in

a community and you show up as your

true authentic self even if it's your tiny

corner of a community then that is going

to help other people see that they belong

as well and when we think about it

the communities that we're in you know basically

a community is just each of us showing

up with our own tiny little corner and

when you put all those corners together it

makes something big and wonderful and so i

would encourage you that in the space that

in space that you have basically don't self

-abandon yourself don't dismiss your identities don't dismiss

your wants your needs your desires don't dismiss

those if loneliness if sadness comes up i

i encourage you to actually sit with that

and feel that and express that in whatever

way feels safest and best to you could

be a journal could be some form of

artwork could be talking that over with a

somebody you know a close person that you

trust or a professional but i guess where

i'm going with this is we have to

stand up for ourselves we have to stop

abandoning ourselves and when we do that we

automatically step into a space where we can

begin to create our own little corners of

communities thank you so much for listening to

this podcast as always it is a super

big help and i am extremely grateful anytime

you tell a friend about this podcast anytime

you like follow subscribe wherever you hear my

voice and if you would like to learn

more about how wild spirit storytelling and my

grief pathfinding method can help you with these

situations please reach out at feather main soul

.com i offer free connection calls you can

also email if that is you know more

accessible to you as well thank you so

much i hope you had a wonderful pride

and i will speak with you next week

you've been listening to the feathermane soul wisdom

podcast hosted by kit kaelstow learn more about

feathermane soul at feathermanesoul.com as a wild

spirit storyteller kit is passionate about helping those

who are neurodivergent disabled or living with chronic

illness rediscover their own inner wild spirit visit

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