The Phantom Amputation: How You've Weaponized Abandonment Against Your Own Wholeness
Set Yourself on Fire Wanting Others to Burn -
Stop.
The story you are telling yourself about abandonment is not a story about them.
It is a confession about you.
You have systematically dismantled your own wholeness and called it their betrayal. You have positioned their validation above your own knowing. You have made their approval more real than your own truth. This is not love. This is the captivity of your freedom.
And it ends now.
Architecture of Outsourcing Care
That phrase living rent free in your head, "My friends aren't there for me" is not a statement of fact. It is a declaration of war against your own sovereignty. It is you standing in the wreckage of your own making, pointing outward and calling it betrayal.
You have constructed an elaborate architecture of outsourced wholeness. You have taken the inherent, unconditional wholeness that is your birthright and you have leased it out to people who never agreed to the terms. You have made them responsible for your emotional well being, your validation, your sense of being enough and then you have been shocked when they failed to honor a contract they were never required to sign.
This is not friendship.
This is something else dressed in the language of devotion.
You are furious at them because you cannot face the truth: you surrendered your power and now you are experiencing the precise consequences of that choice.
You are the poster child of the road more traveled.
You have become a master of this shortcut.
Not because you are broken.
You are intelligent and your mind has learned to protect you by creating a familiar narrative.
The problem is your intelligence aka protection that is now your prison.
Unsealed Energetic Exchange: The Contract They Never Signed
Here is the architecture of your leak.
You have been there for them.
Consistently.
Reliably.
You have shown up.
You have held space.
You have been the one they called at 3 AM.
You have been the steady presence, the loyal witness, the one who cared.
And in your mind, this created a debt.
Not consciously, perhaps.
But energetically?
Absolutely.
You have been operating under an unspoken contract: If I am there for you, you will be there for me. If I show up for you, you will show up for me. If I love you like this, you will love me back in equal measure.
They never signed this contract.
Maybe they knew what they were 'taking', but maybe not.
But you have been keeping score.
Your feelings are hurt AND they are not proof of abandonment.
Your disappointment is real AND it is not evidence of your unworthiness.
Your unmet need is valid AND it does not prove that they have failed you.
Hold both.
This is where your power lives.
The pain you feel, the conviction that "it feels so easy for them to not be there for you like you have always been there for them," is not proof of betrayal.
It is proof of a profoundly unsealed energetic exchange.
Your giving was an unconscious contract for their enduring presence.
Your feelings are hurt, but those feelings are not the fact of your inherent wholeness.
When they did not show up the way you needed them to, when they were unavailable, distracted, dealing with their own lives, moving in different directions, you experienced it not as a natural shift in relational dynamics but as a personal betrayal.
As proof that they do not care.
As evidence that you are not worthy of their presence.
This is the lie that is destroying you.
The Phantom Limb Pain: Feeling Your Way Into Truth
Feel the hollow ache in your chest when they do not respond. Or not in the way you want them to.
Feel the gripping in your gut when they move on.
Feel the phantom pain in the space where you held them.
Your nervous system is sending signals to a limb you amputated yourself. The pain is real. The limb is gone. And you keep reaching for it as if it still exists.
There is a phenomenon in neurology called phantom limb pain. A person loses a limb, but their nervous system continues to send signals as if the limb is still there. They feel pain in a place that no longer exists.
This is what you are experiencing.
You have amputated yourself from your own wholeness. You have severed the connection to your inherent 'completion'. And now you are feeling pain in the phantom space where you used to be filled/occupied.
You are interpreting that pain as evidence that someone else has abandoned you when in fact you have abandoned yourself.
The ache in your chest when they do not respond quickly enough? That is not their fault. That is the phantom pain of your own self abandonment.
The hollow feeling when they do not celebrate your wins the way you need them to?
That is not their failure. That is the echo of your own refusal to celebrate yourself. FULLY.
The rage that rises when you realize they have moved on, changed, grown in directions that do not include you? That is not their betrayal. That is your fury at discovering that they have a life that exists independent of you. That this independence is not a personal rejection but a fundamental truth of human autonomy.
You are not abandoned.
You are not forgotten.
You are not less than because someone did not show up the way you needed them to.
But here is what is true: You have amputated yourself from your own wholeness and called it their fault.
The Shortcut You Keep Taking: The Groove You've Worn
You know exactly how to get to this place of hurt.
You have worn a groove so deep in your psyche that you could find your way there blindfolded.
Someone does not text back fast enough. Your mind immediately goes: 'They do not care about me.'
Someone is busy and cannot make your event. Your mind immediately goes: 'I am not important to them.'
Someone disagrees with a choice you are making. Your mind immediately goes: 'They do not support me. They are not there for me.'
You have weaponized your own sensitivity into a tool for self abandonment. Every time you take this shortcut, you reinforce the neural pathway. You deepen the groove. You make it easier to return to this place of hurt the next time. The truth is : you don't ever leave here.
This is not accident.
This is not bad luck.
This is evidence that you have not yet claimed your own wholeness. This is evidence that you are still operating from the belief that your completion lives outside of you. This is evidence that you have positioned their validation above your own knowing.
And every time you do this, you are telling yourself a lie: 'I am incomplete without them (relationships). I am not enough without their approval. I am not worthy without their presence.'
You are telling yourself that you are incomplete.
And then you are shocked when life reflects that belief back to you.
Cost of the Illusion: What This Is Stealing From You
Do you understand what this is costing you?
It is costing you your peace. It is costing you your presence. It is costing you the ability to enjoy the moments you do have with people because you are too busy monitoring whether they are showing up enough.
It is costing you your power. Every moment you spend in the narrative of abandonment is a moment you are not spending in the reality of your own sovereignty. It means you are not present.
It is costing you your future. Because the people who could be in your life, the ones who are aligned with your growth, who celebrate your expansion, who can meet you in your wholeness, cannot find you or if they do, they don't / can't stay. You are too busy grieving the ones who have fallen away to notice the ones who are trying to arrive or are present.
And most insidiously, it is costing you yourself.
Because every time you outsource your completion to another person, you are saying: 'I am not enough. I need you to make me whole. I need you to validate me. I need you to prove my worth.'
You are telling yourself that you are incomplete. And no amount of word salad will supersede your signal.
You are handing over the keys to your sovereignty to people who can never live up to the responsibility of handling such a humungous assignment.
Circular Return: You Are Not Abandoned
You are not abandoned.
You are not forgotten.
You are not less than because someone did not show up the way you needed them to.
But this time, hear it differently.
This is not reassurance. This is not comfort. This is the truth that will set you free if you are brave enough to face it.
You are not abandoned because abandonment requires that someone was responsible for your wholeness in the first place. And no one ever was. No one ever could be.
Your wholeness is not contingent on their presence. Your worth is not determined by their validation. Your completion is not dependent on their approval.
This is not positive thinking.
This is not something you need to work toward or eventually achieve.
This is your baseline reality.
The only thing standing between you and the embodiment of this truth is your refusal to claim it. Your insistence on outsourcing your completion. Your addiction to the narrative of abandonment.
Yes. Addiction.
Because this is what addiction looks like: returning again and again to a thought pattern that causes you pain, unable to stop (yourself), convinced that the pain is evidence of something external rather than a symptom of your own choices.
The Captivity of Your Consciousness: How You've Made Them More Real Than You
You have positioned their validation above your own knowing.
You have made their approval more real than your own truth.
You have given them authority over your internal state that they never asked for and could never actually hold.
This is not love.
This is a trap for all parties involved.
Handing over the keys to your sovereignty to people who are simply trying to live their own lives.
This is you, making them responsible for your emotional well being while they are trying to manage their own.
This is you, asking them to fill your cup while they are trying to fill theirs.
And when they inevitably fail, when they cannot be there for you in the way you need them to be, you experience it as a personal betrayal.
But the betrayal is not theirs.
The betrayal is yours.
This is the precise architecture of codependence.
And you are the architect.
The Dormant Codes Calling You Home: Your Wholeness Is Not Waiting
Your wholeness is not waiting for permission.
It is waiting for YOUR recognition.
Your sovereignty codes are not dormant. They are calling you home. They are calling you back to the truth that you were never incomplete. They are calling you to remember that your worth was never contingent on anyone's presence or approval.
These codes went offline because they did - insert your personal story.
When you discovered that seeking external validation kept you connected, these codes went dormant. Your self reliance atrophied because 'someone' else proved your worth.
It matters not what the why was.
Drop the story.
Your sovereignty codes are calling you to wake up. They are calling you to remember that you are whole. They are calling you to reclaim the power you surrendered.
Will you answer?
Declaration: The Threshold
Consider this:
What if the person who has abandoned you is not them?
What if the person who has failed to show up is not them?
What if the person who has not been there for you is you?
What if every moment you have spent in the narrative of their betrayal is a moment you have betrayed yourself?
What if the only way out of this is to stop looking outward for the proof of your worth and start looking inward for the truth of your wholeness?
You can continue to take the shortcut.
You can continue to return to this familiar place of hurt.
You can continue to blame them, justify your pain and wait for them to finally prove that they care.
Or you can do something radical.
You can claim and seal your own wholeness. You can become the person who shows up for you the way you have been showing up for everyone else.
You can stop waiting for permission to be whole.
'Why aren't my friends there for me?' becomes irrelevant the moment you ask the only question that matters: 'Why have I abandoned myself?'
This is the threshold.
Cross it or remain.
Sovereign Fire: What Becomes Possible
This is not about becoming a party of one in isolation.
This is not about rejecting connection or closing your heart to others.
This is about reclaiming the fundamental truth: Your wholeness is not negotiable. Your worth is not conditional. Your completion is not dependent on anyone else's presence or approval.
And from that place, from that unshakeable foundation of inherent wholeness, you can actually choose connection. You can actually allow people into your life. You can actually love without the desperate need for them to love you back in equal measure.
But first, you have to stop amputating yourself.
First, you have to stop calling your own self abandonment their betrayal.
Next, you have to face the truth: You are not abandoned. You are not forgotten. You are not less than.
You have simply forgotten that you were never incomplete to begin with.
Your wholeness is not waiting for them to return.
Your wholeness is waiting for you to remember.
Your sovereignty codes are not dormant.
They are calling you home.
Will you answer?
Fonda shares: 'When I was a massage therapist, I noticed the common thread of physical pain that people expressed. It inspired me to pull on the 'why' of pain: No matter what walk of life, the disconnect (pain) is basically the same.
People are fearful that the love (they are seeking in all areas of their lives), they aren't worthy of it.
The fact IS unless and until you accept yourself, to remember your worthiness and love yourself in plain sight - no one else's love can full you up. This is the Wholeness journey + the cycle of pain can cease.'
Fonda Clayton Smith is the founder of Wholeness Lab, a sanctuary for those who are ready to stop performing and start embodying their Sacred Wholeness.
Her core teaching? To truly liberate yourself from constraining systems, you must first repair and seal your energetic field, reclaim your personal power, and practice radical self love. As she powerfully reminds her community: "There is no one coming to rescue you - and that's your freedom, not your abandonment."
As a Certified Life Coach, Polarity Therapist, Licensed Massage Therapist, published author, podcaster, she brings a rare blend of energetics + practical guidance to her work.
Fonda's transformational approach helps women dismantle the patterns keeping them fragmented and guides them back to the wholeness that has always been their birthright.
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