Soulshine

    Even if we have been in recovery for years, it’s still easy to fall back into the codependent crazies if we aren’t practicing strict awareness. We meet someone new and we may initially feel nothing special about this person. We like them and we enjoy seeing them. But as time passes we can suddenly catch ourselves thinking more and more about them, daydreaming about being with them, wanting to buy things for them, feeling empty and deprived when they aren’t around, wondering about what they are doing—in other words obsessing about them. When we feel the inner-turmoil of obsessing endlessly about the other person, we have fallen back into the codependent crazies and we are out of control. The painful feelings of obsessive love are a warning sign: they can lift the veil of denial and bring us back to reality. If, at this point, we truly open our inner-eyes we now have a choice: we can continue down the insane path of the codependent crazies by keeping our focus solely a...

“It’s easier for me to focus on your problems than on my own.” Reba McEntire, Reba I was watching an episode of the TV show Reba recently where the title character blurted-out the line above. It’s a line every codependent can relate to because we are all guilty of focusing our attention on other people and their problems so we can avoid our own. In this particular episode, Reba is focused on the marital problems her daughter, Cheyenne, and son-in-law, Van, are experiencing, and she’s determined to fix their problems. Sound familiar? YES!!!! Likewise, we codependents are very good at focusing on the faults and failures of everyone around us. Sometimes we find ourselves very irritated by a particular person we live with or work with, and we spend way too much time renting out negative space in our heads to this person. Every time we turn around we are dwelling on something they have said or done that has rubbed us the wrong way. We may stew all day on this person and the...

“We’re often not attached to the thing itself but to the idea of that thing. We have a compulsive belief that we must acquire something outside of ourselves to make us complete.” Don Miguel Ruiz Jr, Living a Life of Awareness No one wastes more time looking outside themselves for personal completion than a codependent does. Before recovery, I was vigilantly looking endlessly for the right person to complete me. I had a big empty hole inside my chest. It wasn’t visible, but I felt the unbearable emptiness of it every day. It never went away. And I had no clue how to fill it up and make myself complete—aside from finding someone else to fill the hole and complete me. Time and again, I tried foolishly to fit various people inside my empty hole. But no one ever filled it up to my satisfaction. All of them were able to calm my codependent crazies for short periods of time, but no one ever brought me lasting peace and happiness. When these various people were failing ...

Ah, it’s another beautiful day in recovery! Well, until we meet someone whose neediness triggers all of our old behavioral patterns. Let’s say we’re having lunch with a friend and she has brought along a coworker. We feel an immediate attraction (attachment) to the coworker. Seems he’s just ended a bad relationship. As we listen to him speak, all of our caretaking sensibilities (or should I say nonsense-abilities) start rising from the grave within our souls. The more he speaks, the more we are convinced we can rescue him—and we aren’t even consciously aware that this is what is actually going on inside of us. As we munch on our sandwich, we begin projecting all of our old codependent neediness onto him. Suddenly he is as codependent and as needy as we want him to be. And we are convinced that we can use what we have learned in recovery to make him OK. We begin spilling out recovery jargon, telling him about the latest Melody Beattie book we’re reading, and helping hi...

I don’t believe the compulsion to control another person is ever for the benefit of the other person. It’s all about us. We feel insecure, we feel unlovable, we feel empty spaces growing inside of us and so we desperately turn to others to quiet our codependent crazies. When others aren’t being what we want them to be, when they aren’t making us feel OK about ourselves, we then do everything within our power to manipulate them into pleasing us. A good example of this theory comes from the novel Now Voyager . Jerry Durrance, a major character in the novel, is married to Isabel. It’s not a happy marriage because Isabel guilted and shamed Jerry into marrying her. Isabel is extremely insecure in herself and she must have all of Jerry’s attention. Unfortunately for Isabel, too much of Jerry’s attention goes to their younger daughter, Tina. Isabel feels terribly threatened by Tina. As a result, Isabel is always trying to make Jerry choose between her and Tina. When Jerry choose...

“Courage is a natural part of my being. By facing life I transcend it.” Stuart Wilde, Affirmations Everyone is inherently courageous. Courage is a natural feeling. It’s also a fleeting feeling. We have moments when we are able to stand our ground and speak our truth, but we also have moments when we cower behind the curtains, filled with fear of rejection or annihilation. This is true for everyone. The important thing to understand is that courage isn’t about being free of fear. It’s about transcending the fear. And we have to face our fear in order to rise above it. People who are in the throes of the codependent crazies generally have trouble being courageous. This is why compliance is a major problem for codependents. Long ago we rejected and abandoned ourselves, and so the thought of being rejected or abandoned by others becomes an overwhelming fear. Deep inside, we fear that one more rejection will annihilate us from within; that we’d simply implode into nothingness. So we choo...