We think self-abandonment is the falling apart: the life that becomes unrecognizable, the person we no longer see in the mirror. But the abandonment begins much earlier, in the quiet moments when we refuse the parts of ourselves that don't fit the life we have constructed. In this episode, we explore why self-abandonment moves in two directions, what Jungian shadow work and Vedantic philosophy reveal about both, and what it takes to find the integrated middle rather than swinging between extremes. The episode features 'Ana' who came to this session after two years of accumulated loss had quietly dismantled the spiritual life she had carefully built. The anger had arrived. The practices had disappeared. And she no longer recognized the person she had become. What emerged in our session together was something more uncomfortable and more liberating  ...