Healing the Abandonment Wound – Step 2: Validating Our Feelings

If you haven’t read Step 1 yet, I recommend starting here. Awareness is the doorway to healing.

Awareness Opens the Wound — Validation Begins the Healing

In Step 1, we learned how to become aware of our abandonment wounds by noticing what we feel when we are triggered. For me, that awareness came with a flood of emotions: sadness, anger, confusion, feeling misunderstood — and underneath it all, pain.

The pain of not feeling seen, heard, or emotionally supported in early childhood is often where these wounds begin. Many of us were never shown how to validate our inner experience, how to feel what we feel, and then build self‑worth from that place.

To add another layer of complexity, some of us were punished for showing emotion — or punished for mistakes instead of being guided through natural consequences. One of the clearest examples of emotional abuse is hearing something like:

“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!”

In moments like this, a child learns that their feelings are wrong — and that having them is something to feel ashamed of. Many of us have been taught in early childhood to suppress and avoid our feelings.

How Shame Becomes the Wound

When children are shamed for making normal mistakes, or punished instead of emotionally supported, the wound embeds itself deeply. That wound is rooted in shame.

Shame for crying.

Shame for feeling.

Shame for being human.

And here’s the truth: emotional wounds don’t scar over on their own. They stay open when we’re never taught how to process our feelings — especially the most important part of healing: developing our self‑worth.

When these patterns continue into adulthood — through emotionally abusive relationships or domestic violence — the damage compounds. Until we become conscious of it, the cycle continues.

And if we don’t interrupt it, we unknowingly pass it on — to our children, our partners, our coworkers, our communities.

The only real path to healing emotional trauma begins within ourselves.

Safety Starts With Ourselves

As a Wilderness First Responder and practicing Psychic Healer, I’ve learned that safety starts with us. Not just physical safety — but emotional, mental, and spiritual safety as well. These are our four energetic bodies.

When we’re in the backcountry, we know we’re responsible for ourselves. We plan, prepare, and take precautions to avoid a search‑and‑rescue situation.

When we have a physical wound, we tend to it carefully. We clean it. We protect it. Sometimes we even need surgery for what’s happening beneath the surface — followed by rest, rehabilitation, and patience.

So why don’t we treat our emotional wounds the same way?

Your Experience Is Real

One of the most important truths I’ve learned is this:

Every human being is having their own unique experience of reality.

Years ago, during a painful divorce, I realized that my ex‑husband, my children, and I were all living completely different versions of the same event. Understanding this gave me the ability to validate my own experience — and theirs.

Your experience is uniquely yours. Your child’s experience is uniquely theirs.

This understanding, combined with years of deep psychic healing work, has shaped the way I now approach emotional healing.

My goal is simple — and incredibly challenging: To live consciously, present, grounded in my own worth, without being hijacked by nervous‑system triggers.

After three years of intentional inner work, I can finally say I’m learning how to take up space with confidence, sovereignty, and self‑trust.

Boundaries Are a Form of Validation

Today, when someone attempts to gaslight me or invalidate my lived experience, I don’t engage. I understand that behavior as projection — someone else’s unhealed wounds speaking.

Energetically, I say: That’s not mine.

And I stay rooted in my truth and self‑worth.

Validating Feelings — Ours and Others

Our feelings are real. Our experiences happened.

Healing begins when we give ourselves the emotional support we never received.

When I feel abandoned in the present — unseen, unheard, or dismissed — I remind myself that it’s not because I’m unworthy. As don Miguel Ruiz teaches in The Four Agreements: nothing others do is because of us.

Many people are disconnected from their own emotions. If they can’t show up for themselves, they won’t be able to show up for us.

Repeating the same pattern — hoping someone will miraculously change — only keeps the wound open.

So we change.

We show up differently.

The Practice of Emotional Rehabilitation

I began by showing up for myself first. Then, slowly, I changed how I showed up for everyone else.

The method becomes the practice. The practice becomes rehabilitation.

Validation looks like this:

When I feel unseen, I see myself. I exist. I am alive and here in the present moment.

When I feel unheard, I listen to myself. My feelings are real and valid.

When I feel invalidated, I affirm my truth. My lived experience happened.

I ask myself: How do I wish someone had shown up for me?

With compassion. With curiosity. With understanding. With worth and love.

Now, when a friend says they’re having a terrible day, I don’t center myself by responding with my bad day too. Instead I center them.

“I’m so sorry. That sounds awful. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re allowed to feel this way. This moment doesn’t define you."

That’s validation.

Accountability in the Healing Process

As an adult, healing also requires accountability.

I had to acknowledge where I repeated these same patterns with my own children — reacting from my unhealed trauma instead of emotional presence.

And when my children share how painful their childhood felt, I validate them.

“Yes. You’re right. That was painful. I should have done better. I’m accountable. I’m sorry.”

Healing doesn’t happen without truth.

We forgive ourselves the same way we learn to validate others: With honesty. With compassion. Without denial.

I did the best I could with what I knew then. Now I know better — so I do better now.

Keep Showing Up

Healing emotional trauma is not a one‑time event. It’s a practice.

Like an Olympian training for years, we don’t become skilled overnight. We commit. We repeat. We practice showing up — again and again.

C‑PTSD develops over decades of compounded trauma. Healing takes time.

We aim for progress, not perfection.

We will stumble. We will react. We will learn as we go.

And each time we choose awareness, validation, and compassion — we heal a little more.

What’s Next

In Step 3, we’ll explore how to alchemize pain into joy — and shame into self‑worth.

If you feel called to deeper support, I offer personal Soul Path psychic readings and healing sessions. You can book directly through my website.

Recommended Reading

The Inner Work by Ashley Cottrell, Mathew Micheletti

The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz

The Birth Order Book by Dr. Kevin Leman

The Myth of Normal by Dr Gabor Mate'

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

Daring Greatly by Brene' Brown

Jane Garrity is a Psychic Medium, Wilderness First Responder, writer, and content creator — learning, healing, and awakening as she goes.

Disclaimer

I am not a licensed medical or mental health professional. This article is not intended to diagnose, treat, or provide medical or psychological advice. The content shared here is based on my lived experience, intuitive healing work, and personal learning.

If you believe you may be experiencing C‑PTSD or are struggling with trauma‑related symptoms, please seek support from a qualified trauma‑informed therapist, mental health professional, or a local crisis support center. You deserve professional care and support.