Is It Love—Or Just Self-Abandonment?

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If you've ever caught yourself smiling while your soul is breaking, saying “yes” when your whole body screams “no,” or shape-shifting just to feel wanted—this episode is going to hit deep.

What you’re calling love might actually be a survival response.
 A trauma pattern.
 A lifetime of abandoning yourself just to be chosen.

Martha Beck calls it “the split”—the moment you bury your truth to belong. And science backs it up: chronic anxiety, exhaustion, mysterious illnesses, and that aching emptiness after success… they’re not random. They’re your soul’s alarm bells, begging you to come home to yourself.

In this episode, I’m breaking down:

• Why self-abandonment masquerades as love
• How trauma trains us to perform instead of connect
• What your symptoms are really trying to tell you
• And how to start your return to integrity, truth, and unshakable self-worth

You’re not broken. You’re just tired of living in a world that taught you to betray yourself to be loved.

And once you reclaim your truth, everything changes—your nervous system softens, your relationships shift, and the life you've always dreamed of stops feeling so far away.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Chameleon Effect: Losing Yourself
• 4:16 Symptoms of Living Split From Yourself
• 6:30 Suffering as Your Wake-Up Call
• 9:54 Three Steps to Reclaim Your Identity
• 14:40 My Personal Journey to Integrity
• 17:05 Living in Love and Prosperity

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

If you've ever felt like you've had to shrink, shift or shape yourself into becoming someone else just to be loved, this episode is going to wake something up inside of you, because pretending to be what others want isn't connection, it's self-abandonment. And I definitely know all about that. My name is Dr Emman Kaur, and today we're going to be talking about that chameleon effect, why you lose yourself and how it links to trauma, and it's not something to feel guilty about or ashamed of. It's really about understanding how we've been trained to do this and how we can reclaim your identity and your true integrity. And we're grounding this in with reflecting on a book by Martha Beck. It's called the Way of Integrity, because when you live in truth, everything changes, and it's not an easy journey, but it's definitely one that is fulfilling.

Speaker 1: 1:12

I remember a time where I really didn't know who I was and I didn't know what I loved. I didn't know what I desired, I didn't know what I wanted. I really felt like I lived in a make-believe life. I thought that was what life was, because everything I did, everything move I made, was filtered through one question will this make them like me? I didn't even know that. It was a driving factor and I believe I was a chameleon. I absorbed other people's desires. I said yes when really I wanted to say no. I didn't really want to go. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know who am I. I really didn't know and I smiled. I was always smiling even when I was deeply sad, like my soul was breaking. I was probably in depression, and yet to the world it looked, I was a happy person.

Speaker 1: 2:14

What Martha Beck calls it is like a split of where every time we abandon ourself or we've had to survive emotionally through emotional neglect or abandonment or trauma, and remember when we're a child we don't see things because our cognitive brain isn't fully developed. We believe that if our parents are upset, it's not anything to do with them. It's to do with the fact that we're not lovable or there's something wrong with us or I'm not good enough. That's why they're behaving this way. Everything is basically our fault. We internalize that and every time there's a split and the split Split happens when we split off from feeling loved, where there's an imbalance of feeling love within ourself and our true self gets buried under some cultural thing of like how to behave. So you kill and bury a part of you to learn how to behave in the culture in the way that we're meant to. So you ignore your nature of what becomes natural to you so that you can belong. At that time you almost become against yourself. So there's that split, it's like you become at war with yourself. And that's when we're not living in our own integrity anymore. And it's not just mental, it's spiritual, it's emotional. So there'll be some emotions around it, there'll be some thinking around it and it's also physical. We're seeing that it actually has a physical impact on us and we can see this in science now, where there's been studies etc. That if you have trauma, these are the physical symptoms of it, or if you people that lie, these are the physical symptoms of it.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Let's look at these symptoms, symptoms of when we've got a split. There could be chronic anxiety or depression. We feel fatigue or unexplained illnesses. We might get into toxic relationships. There's relationship drama or connections with people that aren't authentic or false, if you like. And it's not because you're fake yourself, it's just that you've had to suppress your authentic self to live in the world, to feel like you can belong.

Speaker 1: 4:53

You maybe achieved goals, but you still feel empty inside and you might have some repeating patterns that actually sabotage you. You don't know why Every time you want to do that project, you end up watching Netflix. Or you know you could be doing something else, but you're busy, but you're not doing what it is that's going to help you move forward. But there's something really incredible. There's a part of you that's the nature part of you, the life force that's within you, that doesn't give up. It will never give up. It's like it's constantly fighting.

Speaker 1: 5:30

It's trying to get you, to get your attention, and one way it gets our attention is through suffering, and if you've been in a toxic relationship, you know how much suffering there is. You can feel lost, you can feel empty, you can feel confused. You can be in an abusive relationship and you don't know why. Even when you're out of a relationship, your mind is telling you it's your fault and you're suffering, but you're not broken. What the suffering is is basically like an alarm system. It's like a wake up call. It's saying, hey, wake up, wake up. You're being redirected back to your truth and sometimes we suffer a little bit and we get back on the path. Sometimes, depending on how great your path is, you might have a lot of suffering to get you to move in the position that you're meant to do. So how do we get back on our path?

Speaker 1: 6:34

We have to be honest with ourselves, like the truth, and this is really hard, right, because we've been programmed, especially by toxic relationships, not to be honest with ourselves. I don't like the way they talk to me. I'm tired of pretending. I feel lost, I feel hurt, I feel sad, I feel afraid. I feel like I'm not myself. I'm not myself and saying this out loud to yourself will feel good. Try it now. Just say out loud, just be honest. Don't pretend. Just be honest. I promise you this whole positive thinking stuff. You think that if you're honest're gonna somehow bring that into fruition. No, the way to actually release yourself is just be honest, be authentic, be honest about where you are. Like I don't want to be here. I hate living in this house. Yes, I have all the financial freedom, but I'm a slave. That's where I really when I started to really be honest with myself, when I was in a toxic relationship, it was the worst life I've ever lived. Yes, I might have had the big house and the life on the surface, but it was the worst life I had ever lived. I was suffering so much, I was treated worse than an animal and saying it out loud and acknowledging it, it actually feels relief. It's like the beginning of wholeness.

Speaker 1: 8:16

The second step is listen to your inner teacher. Your body knows everything. Your heart knows everything. There's an inner guidance within you. It's like it lives in stillness. You know that you crave that peace. When you've been in a toxic relationship, you just wish, you just really desire that peace. That peace is your inner teacher. In that stillness you connect back to your true self, your authentic self. It's like there's a storm, yeah, but the eye of the storm. The eye of the storm is where there's stillness. The eye of the storm is where you find your way back to you. The storm could be the narcissist, the toxic person, but the eye of the storm, that's the real you. That's where you can allow to, you, surrender. You come back home. You're coming back home in that space and it feels so good. So the third thing you want to do is start noticing your patterns, make a list where you still feel like you're performing, you're being someone else to be loved and it takes time, by the way, to actually get to that point where you feel like I'm I'm gonna be myself. I made a decision when I was around 21.

Speaker 1: 9:56

Something happened where I used to pass out a lot. I think it was my nervous system. I know now what I didn't know. Then my nervous system would get me to. I used to pass out a lot. I think it was my nervous system. I know now what I didn't know. Then my nervous system would get me to. I used to pass out anyway.

Speaker 1: 10:09

I remember I just finished my dissertation and one of my flatmates woke me up and I was absolutely exhausted. Being a typical student, left everything to the last moment, so spent like a whole week trying to get this done. And yes, and I got woken up and I was trying to take care of my flatmate, but I wasn't taking care of myself At that moment. I needed to take care of myself because my body was exhausted and I literally passed out. And my flatmates told me slowly over days that when I passed out I was making some strange noises, like I couldn't breathe, and they thought I was dying. They thought, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 11:00

But one thing I remember during me passing out was I imagined my whole life spinning in front of me. It was really, really strange. It was like I could see my whole life from that moment and it went backwards to like my whole life just quickly. It was so fast, but I could see every my whole life spinning in front of me and it was really strange after that moment in my life and it happened slowly, but it changed me. It changed me. That experience changed me and I don't know what happened. I don't know what it is or anything like that. I remember I had all these tests and stuff and I don't know what happened. I don't know what it is or anything like that. I remember I had all these tests and stuff and I was absolutely fine, but it changed me as a person.

Speaker 1: 11:52

I remember thinking I don't want to lie anymore, I don't want to lie anymore, and I remember I don't want to hurt anyone anymore, but I don't want to hurt anyone anymore, but I don't want to lie anymore. And that from that moment, oh my gosh, you would not believe how my life changed. I start, my whole life changed. And it happened slowly and I'm still learning how not to try and fit in and I'm putting more and more boundaries in place. Even now, that moment is still guiding me, if you like, but it's my moment of my way to integrity.

Speaker 1: 12:32

I basically started noticing how I was trying to fit in and I left home. I'm an Indian and I said no to a arranged marriage because it didn't authentically align with me. It was hard being authentic. It's hard living in integrity because you have to let go of all that programming, of all those people, of all those. But you, when you're listening to this podcast, you're probably doing it as well.

Speaker 1: 13:05

You're on your way of to integrity and it's not easy. There's a battle, there's that internal battle and it's like your soul is saying, instead of seeing your pattern as shameful, as like you're not good enough for not molding yourself and pretending and lying, your soul is trying to revive you. It's saying you're ready to thrive, you're ready to be you. You don't need to survive anymore, you don't need to kill yourself to live in this. That's how you move from trauma to truth, from trying to fit into sovereignty. When we find integrity, we find purpose. It's like we're aligning ourselves so we can fly and it's like we can then feel the miracle of life. And it can happen step by step, day by day, moment by moment.

Speaker 1: 14:06

But you're freeing that energy that is tied into fitting in, and, yes, I don't fit into that old world that I used to fit into when I was 25. But you know what, what? I don't have any regrets, because I couldn't do it. I can't do that anymore and it feels good, it's freeing. However, I've had to say goodbye to some people and some people that I really love, and I still love them, but I understand that's their world and this is mine, and it's because of that that I was able to continue living in that world of integrity and leave the toxic individuals behind.

Speaker 1: 14:54

And now, honestly, I'll go for a walk and I feel love from a tree. My life is just so different. I look at a tree and I just feel like, oh my gosh, this is love, this is amazing. You know the love I feel by looking at a tree. There's so much love in nature and that nature is within you. There's so much love in nature and that nature is within you. That, and I promise you, if I met you today, I will feel your love within you. You are so beautiful, you are so incredible, and we need to allow our nervous system to calm down so that you can feel that love within yourself, so that you can feel that love within yourself, so that you no longer have to feel you have to perform or be or do or become this or that, or have lived by this rule or that rule to be loved.

Speaker 1: 15:58

Just you being you, returning to that truth of who you are, just you being you, returning to that truth of who you are, know that, oh my gosh, I am love, just the way I am, and it's okay for me to be who I am. And the more you live in your integrity, the more you'll free yourself to be yourself and from that moment, everything, you'll know that you are so powerful, because love is power. The more you can feel the love within yourself, the more you will allow yourself to have what you want, your desires. That means the home you want, the life you want, the relationships you want, the wealth you want. It all comes down to can you love yourself enough, can you see that you are worthy enough, can you see that you are love itself to allow to receive everything that you're worthy of?

Speaker 1: 17:09

And then your whole life starts to change. You become prosperous, you have those loving relationships. You allow yourself to have that, but it starts with just being honest with how you're really feeling, rather than pretending to be happy when you're not. Just be honest with yourself. And if you're ready to walk down that path of alignment, truth, prosperity, join the prosperity code. The doors are opening soon on the prosperity code. It's starting in June and I would love to have you work and create the life that you want. If that is you and you want to open the door to your life and you want that world of integrity and to create that life that you've always dreamed of, everything is possible for you. I promise it really is. You can have everything you want, and more, more, and it starts with you really knowing that you are worthy and to really truly love yourself enough to have the life that you want. You're allowed, yeah, sending you so much love Till next time.