Look for Your Own Beauty Instead of Fading Into Someone Else’s



I don’t know who I am. I’ve lived (existed) so many years, walked so many miles in my own shoes, and yet, I don’t really know who lives (hides) deep inside of my body, my heart, my brain. It scares me to realize and to admit this. Even worse is the fact that I don’t know how to really discover, connect with and begin to understand me.

I’m 17 years into codependent recovery, and yes things are better. The real me has floated to the surface in magnificent ways. I speak-up more, say what I believe and feel, and allow myself to be goofy and humorous. I’ve even rediscovered the great singing voice I had as a child. And I give myself credit for all of this.

I also understand that I was a people-pleaser, a caretaker and a fader (someone who constantly fades into another person to find a sense of value or purpose, or to simply escape from themselves.) I don’t people-please anymore. I don’t care-take anymore. But I do still have a tendency to want to fade into someone else. I still want someone to rescue me from myself-- the self I still don’t begin to understand because I run from him every time he shadows me.

I spend a lot of time by myself—but not with him (the real me). He scares me. I don’t know why. Something happened many years ago to make me want to disassociate myself from him. For whatever reason, I had to flee from him. Fleeing from him meant that I had to flee to someone. I instinctively knew I couldn’t flee to my parents, or to a god who was the image and likeness of my parents, or to grandparents or other relatives. None of them understood me. None of them could accept the real me and so I knew I had to keep running from him (the real but unacceptable me), but I didn’t know where to run or to whom.

Once I realized that I couldn’t trust myself or my family, it became impossible to open up to others I knew. If my family discounted the real me, so would the boys at school. I didn’t feel safe with anyone I knew. This is probably why in high school and college, as the world opened-up and grew bigger, I looked to strangers to rescue me. Subconsciously, I thought there had to be someone out there who was empty enough inside to allow me to fill them up and become their body-double.

The odd thing is that I somehow saw more value in these empty people I sought-out than I did in myself, even though they were equally as empty inside as I was. Somehow they were going to give me an identity? Somehow they were going to fill me up with their emptiness? How could that ever possibly happen? It couldn’t and it didn’t. I’d fade into them (and vice-versa) for a short period of time and then I’d run away from them. This left me running from them and myself year after year!

So where am I going with this today? I’m not sure. I’m just trying to understand why I still find myself wanting to fade into certain people: Probably because I am still not able to see my own beauty. And maybe I run to unavailable people because I am able to see the beauty in them that they are not able to see in themselves, and maybe they run to me for the same reason. We can see each other’s beauty. I can see someone else’s beauty despite their flawed emptiness, but I can’t see my own. And so I want to fade into the flawed beauty I do see, rather than make the effort to search inside for my own lost beauty. Maybe it’s time I got better in touch with that flawed beauty of my own. Sound like a plan I need to follow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

Image
Ah, the codependent crazies. Those needy, needy feelings. I remember well the deep emotional pain in the pit of my stomach: The throbbing sting of shame, fear, loneliness and anxious desperation. Those feelings that are like fingernails on the blackboard of your soul. They eat you alive from within as they dig deeper and deeper into the black hole of your inner-emptiness. Yes, I remember them well. And I remember evenings of mental and emotional insanity-- squirming with a magazine, pacing back and forth, indulging in chocolate, chasing up and down the stairs hoping the doorbell would ring, and staring endlessly at the telephone for a sign of hope. All I needed was a call from my false higher power; a call that would help me to know that I was OK, that I was needed, that I was worth thinking about in some good way. I was dying to be emotionally caressed on the head like a poodle desperate for the attention of his master. And certainly I had made that other person into my mas...
Read more

Happiness is Something We Cultivate and Share

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...
Read more

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

Image
Author’s Note: The next few meditations will be from a retreat I directed recently called The Good News According to Disney . If you aren’t familiar with the films that are referenced, I’d suggest to take time to see them and to look for the deeper meaning within them. Many people today still live by the biblical adage “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They actually believe that they will be at peace if they achieve revenge or restitution for any mishap that has befallen them at the hands of another. They believe they will reclaim their personal power once they have achieved their revenge, but this is impossible. Disney’s Cinderella (2015) reveals the true secret to owning one’s personal power and to retaining it no matter what we experience in life: “Have courage and be kind.” On the surface this motto looks a bit simple and wimpy. But in reality, it holds great power. That power comes from the heart of a person, or in this case Ella, who sees the world not a...
Read more

Become the Person You Want to Spend Your Life With Everyday

Image
I really don’t have to say much about the above quote. It says it all and it’s so true. We are too often taught faulty ways of thinking as children. So many of us get the wrong message at very young ages: Love is about finding the right person to love you. Looking back I realize I wasted many years trying to find that “right” person— the one who could love me into loving myself— instead of trying to BE that “right” person myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to love myself, nurture myself and accept myself enough to become the right person— the person I really needed most in my life. After all, what is my life without me? Now I know that I’m what’s been missing from my own life for years. My life is empty without me and without my spiritual Higher Power. This is true for all of us.  Once We find ourselves, become the “right” person God intended us to be, and become the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, then we attract others into our lives who ca...
Read more