The Single Best Life Advice I Was Given
In September of 2021, I had the great opportunity to speak with one of the most prominent and well-regarded therapists/ 20 year + best-selling author Terry Real. Terry has been on most every notable TV show (e.g. Oprah) and by great fortune I had him on my podcast to speak about finding true, unconditional self-esteem. I would highly encourage you to give it a listen here as it has left many a listener, including me, touched and teary eyed. In just 30 minuets you will hear a life-changing story from Terry and incredibly likely will come away more self-aware. But it’s what Terry didn’t say on our podcast, but rather privately in a later conversation to me that is what stands out the most:
“As an adult you can not be abandoned, you can only be left.”
Here’s why I think this isn’t just the best advice summed up in a singular sentence for me, but why it matters for you. It’s two fold and both have to do with incredibly deep belief systems we have due to ~300,000 years of human evolution. We all, to some degree, have feelings of abandonment. I say “to some degree” because for certain this rests on a continuum. Some people are more self assured than others. Some mask it through acting overly grandiose. And for some it can cripple almost every aspect of their lives. But for reasons of survival, and thus the most powerful of all reasons, every single one of us does not want to feel abandoned. And we all take at minimum a part of this into our adult lives.
As a child these feelings are adapatitive. If you are left alone you cry, and an adult comes and cares for you. No different than a kitten meowing so that its mother knows where it is. This is true in every mammal species, enabling us all to reach the age where we can both take care of ourselves and then pass on our genes. But they are so deep rooted that we carry them into adulthood and without growth they become maladaptive. I mentioned grandiosity which would be a classic example you have seen. Someone telling you over and over how good they are at something means they are seeking attention. They still do not want to be abandoned. Teenagers rebelling and not wanting to go with the norm — classic from generation to generation. Yep, abandonment is the root cause. Countering cultural norms simply gets you attention. I could go on and on but you have both seen it and experienced it yourself.
What’s more, also for evolutionary reasons, unless you have sociopathetic tendencies you will hate rejection. I spoke about this in a previous post: Rejection is an evolutionary echo. For 200,000 + years the feeling of rejection was an early detection tool to keep you from getting kicked out of the pack…which meant certain death…which meant no passing along of your genes. The point: those with the most super-sized tendencies for feeling rejected are us today and we don’t need them. They aren’t even real 99.9% of the time.
Early this morning I awoke to a dream about someone I have not seen or talked to in a long time. Someone who I deeply care about. That was my brain feeling abandoned at the subconscious level. For most of my life, my morning would have be dispondent and a mess. And I wouldn’t have even known why. But today, the second the sun came up I went for a happy and upbeat walk. I didn’t abandon this person, nor they me. We simple left each other’s lives. And that’s okay. Which is why I would truly embrace what Terry said, and which I will repeat one more time. “As an adult you can not be abandoned, you can only be left.”
-Mike Spivey