Own What's Yours to Own

“Feeling compassion for other people

is not about becoming obligated to them

or feeling responsible for their lives.”

Howard Falco, I AM

Codependents often confuse compassion with a strong sense of obligation. When we first enter recovery, we may believe we are responsible for the lives of everyone we have grown attached to, or taken hostage. We are so used to linking our compassion for others with a deep sense of being obligated to fix their lives. Their every feeling has become our feeling and their every disappointment, failure or hang-nail has become ours to own and heal. We have made ourselves responsible for making their world all sunny bright.

As a result, separating feelings of obligation from feelings of compassion can be very difficult for many newly recovery codependents. Initially, compassion without obligation seems like a cop-out. We feel as though we are letting others down by relinquishing responsibility for their lives; when, in truth, we are showing true compassion. We are giving people their lives back. In the process, we are allowing ourselves to feel their pain and we are allowing ourselves to empathize with their pain instead of giving-in to our compulsion to own their pain. By letting go of our false sense of responsibility for their lives, we are allowing loved ones to be responsible for the life God has given them—not us. God gave us one life to own, and only one.

Recovery allows us to own our lives, issues and feelings. It provides a good boundary between what is “ours” and what is “theirs” to own. We learn to be  responsibly compassionate and empathetic without having the overwhelming compulsion to control the lives of others. And we come to understand that compassion is never a cop-out. We cannot rescue or fix others, but we can always provide them with a caring ear to hear their predicaments. Listening is the best way to validate someone’s suffering. Likewise, we can always hold them in prayer and we can help them in ways in which they ask us to help them. In doing so, we learn to respect others by allowing them to be responsible for their lives.

One life to own and live is exhausting enough at times. Is it any wonder then that codependents who are constantly living the lives of three or four other people—in addition to their own—are often teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown? So let go. Stop the juggling act. You can be compassionate without owning the rights to someone else’s life. Own what’s yours to own and allow your soul to shine!