Relationships

Some signs of codependency

There is a very fine line between being a kind, giving person, and being codependent. We used to think that codependency existed only in conjunction with someone else’s addiction but it is now understood as a problem in its own right. The biblical Martha, rushing around, choosing to be “cumbered with much serving,” but becoming highly resentful while she does it, is considered by some to be illustrative of codependency. Of the symptoms below, some may simply indicate your generous and selfless nature. However, if they occur often enough to prevent you from living your own life and feeling good about it, then think carefully about why you do what you do. Some signs that may indicate codependency are:

1. You spend a lot of time doing things for others, but you also feel resentful about it.

2. You rarely do anything for yourself or spend anything on yourself beyond bare essentials, and you have forgotten what “having fun” feels like.

3. You find it easier to say yes, and then feel badly about doing whatever you agreed to, than to say no in the first place.

4. In relationships, you treat your partner as well as you hope s/he will eventually treat you, and wonder why s/he doesn’t follow your example. You allow this to continue indefinitely.

5. You find yourself sacrificing some of your values to fit in with how your partner or friends choose to live.

6. When friends and family are in trouble you see it as your responsibility to save them, even if they brought the problem on themselves, even if they need to learn from their own consequences if ever they are to change.

7. You allow others to invade your boundaries because it makes you feel needed.

8. Even though your own life is in order, you attract dysfunctional people who immediately start to depend on you. You allow this.

9. You have difficulty thinking about yourself as central to your life. Even if asked about yourself, you somehow end up talking about the people who are in your life rather than about you.

10. If you were drowning, someone else’s life would probably flash before your eyes.

Stages of Detachment from Negative Emotions

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

Life does not always go our way. People can be thoughtless or cruel. Things happen to which we over-react, often because they trigger old feelings from way back in the past, when we were helpless to deal with them. Sometimes we respond far more strongly than is warranted by the present situation. Neither we nor those around us may realize that the strength of our reaction is based not on what is happening now, but on something that occurred far in the past. As we grow within ourselves we learn to be less affected by such situations. Here are some of the stages we may go through as we grow.

1. You respond furiously to anything that upsets you. You are convinced you are right and that your response, however strong and intense, is appropriate. The situation continues to replay in your head, and to upset you again and again, long after it is over.

2. You become aware that you are feeling negative way beyond what is appropriate to the current situation, but you can’t stop yourself from expressing your fury. When the situation is past you are unable to stop yourself from recycling it in your mind.

3. You come to the same realization but now you manage to pull back from acting out or yelling. However, it continues to bother you long afterwards.

4. You recognize what past situation the anger was really coming from. and why the present situation triggered it, but still have difficulty in not reacting inwardly.

5. You become able to laugh at yourself as you look at the way your gut is churning, recognizing that it is really about something that actually happened long, long ago.

6. Your gut no longer churns and you congratulate yourself on staying calm. However, the person stays in your head and you (calmly) continue to rehash what you really should have said and imagine yourself “winning” or being proven right.

7. The person or situation remains in your head, but now you are able to consider your opponent’s point of view. You may be able to allow the person in your head, the one from the past, to present their viewpoint without inventing ways to slam-dunk them.

8. When the situation is over, it is over. You are able to evict the person from your head as soon as the situation has ended.

9. You get that whatever it was may have been a lesson that you needed to learn, and you resolve to act upon that learning. You no longer need to attach blame to the situation.

10. You get immediately that that the situation is not important and will not change your life. You don’t allow it to distract your behavior or your thinking. You observe it, respond appropriately without interference from your gut, and move on. You are at peace.

Steps to Forgiveness

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

For many people forgiveness is one of the hardest steps of all in our progress toward freedom of spirit. Yet it is essential. For as long as we are unable to forgive, we keep ourselves chained to the un-forgiven. We give them rent-free space in our minds, emotional shackles on our hearts, and the right to torment us in the small hours of the night. When it is time to move on, but still too hard, try some or all of these steps. (Note that these steps are appropriate for events resulting from an ongoing adult relationship with anyone. They may not all be appropriate for the random act of violence from a stranger, nor for someone who was abused as a child or while in some other position of true helplessness.)

1. Understand that forgiving does not mean giving permission for the behavior to be repeated. It does not mean saying that what was done was acceptable. Forgiveness is needed for behaviors that were not acceptable and that you should not allow to be repeated.

2. Recognize who is being hurt by your non-forgiveness. Does the other person burn with your anger, feel the knot in your stomach, experience the cycling and recycling of your thoughts as you re-experience the events in your mind? Do they stay awake as you rehearse in your mind what you would like to say or do to ‘punish’ them? No, the pain is all yours.

3. Do not require to know ‘why’ as a prerequisite to forgiveness. Knowing why the behavior happened is unlikely to lessen the pain, because the pain came at a time when you did not know why. Occasionally there are times when knowing why makes forgiveness unnecessary, but they are rare. Don’t count on it and don’t count on even the perpetrator knowing why.

4. Make a list of what you need to forgive. What was actually done that caused your pain? Not what you felt, what was done.

5. Acknowledge your part. Were you honest about your hurt or did you hide the fact that the behavior hurt you? Did you seek peace by reassuring the perpetrator that it was all right? Did you stay when you could or should have left? If so, then you, too, have some responsibility. (Here you start to move away from being a victim.)

6. Make a list of what you gained from the relationship, whatever form of relationship it was. Looking back you may be focusing on the negatives, the hurts. Yet if they were repeated, you must have stayed to allow the repetition. You did not remove yourself. Why? There must have been some positives if you chose to stay. What were they?

7. Write a letter to the person (no need to mail it). Acknowledge what you gained from the relationship, and express forgiveness for the hurts. Allow yourself to express all your feelings fully. Do not focus only on the hurts.

8. Create a ceremony in which you get rid of your lists and the letter, so symbolizing the ending of the link between you. You may choose to visualize placing them on a raft and watching it drift gently away down a river. You may prefer to burn them and scatter the ashes. You may invent some other form of ritualized separation – I remember someone who flushed hers down the toilet.

9. Visualize the person you are forgiving being blessed by your forgiveness and, as a result, being freed from continuing the behavior that hurt you.

10. Now that you have freed yourself from the painful links and released the pain, feel yourself growing lighter and more joyous. Now you are free to move on with your life.

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