Nothing’s Going to Change Until You Look Inside

“You’ve been down for days and days,

but searching for another won’t fix a thing….

Nothing’s going to change until you look inside.”

The Colourist, Yes Yes

Every codependent has a hole in his/her heart. We’re like human doughnuts and unfortunately, the hole is often large and gaping. Just as unfortunately we tend to be as confused about how the hole developed as we are about how to fill it. To make matters worse, we rarely focus on how the hole did develop. All of our attention is focused on filling the hole, and the only sensible way most of us can see to fill the hole is from outside ourselves.

So we find ourselves endlessly “searching for another” to fix the hole in our hearts. And most any codependent can rattle off a long list of names—all of people that they used to fill the hole and none of whom were able to truly fill it. Guy after guy, or girl after girl, we have attempted to stuff them inside our empty spaces. When one guy or girl didn’t fit, we figured they weren’t the right person and we then threw them over. End of that relationship.

And it generally wasn’t too long after we threw one person over that we started looking for a new person to plug the hole in our hearts. It never occurred to most of us that maybe we were seeking the wrong solution to our inner-emptiness—at least not until we hit bottom.

I had to hit bottom (total misery) before I realized that maybe I wasn’t doing things right. Maybe, just maybe, there wasn’t anything wrong with all of these people who weren’t able to satisfactorily fill up the empty hole in my heart. Maybe, just maybe, they weren’t the problem. Maybe, just maybe, I WAS the problem. Recovery taught me there was no “maybe” about it: I was indeed the problem.

In recovery I learned that the empty hole in my heart existed, not because I was missing another person to fill it, but because I was missing ME! I had abandoned myself as a child and cut myself out of my own heart. I was the missing piece. No wonder that all of my outside focus on finding someone else to fill my hole had come up empty as my inner-hole.

So I learned in CODA groups that I needed to look inside myself to find the answer to my inner-emptiness. I needed to complete myself. No one else could do it for me. This was a solution that had never once run across my mind before recovery.

If you’ve been down for days or months or years because you’ve been searching for someone to fix the hole in your heart, you need to wake up and realize that no one outside of you can do that job for you. There’s no way. You are the only person who can fix the hole you placed inside yourself by abandoning yourself at some point in your life.

Reclaim yourself today. Give yourself enough good love so you can eventually attract the right person who was created to compliment the love you already have for yourself.

The Colourist is a rock band out of Orange County (greater Los Angeles), California. Yes Yes is from their debut album, The Colourist.