In Recovery We Keep Our Focus on Ourselves
A major problem for most
codependents is where they place their focus. Unfortunately, most of us were
taught as children to place our focus outside of ourselves. And as a result, we
developed a stifling emptiness inside of our souls.
The day we began to look outside of
ourselves for fulfillment was the day that a hole ate through our hearts. It
was the day we chose to abandon ourselves. And so we began the quest of finding
someone, anyone, to fill up the emptiness we anxiously felt.
Day after day we took up the quest
to find love and approval outside of ourselves. We looked to mom and dad,
siblings, grandparents, friends and teachers to give us the validation that we
no longer knew how to give to ourselves.
Sometimes we received the approval
we sought, but if never managed to fill-up the emptiness of the hole that was
rapidly expanding inside of us. As we grew into being teenagers and young
adults, we began to feel overwhelmed with the landfill that was expanding
inside of our empty shells. So we worked hard to expand our people-pleasing and
caretaking skills.
The more desperate we felt inside,
the more we used our entire arsenal of tools to seduce people into loving us:
we used manipulation, lies, flattery, sex, coercion and rescuing to our
advantage. Sometimes we withheld information, or used shame, pouting and guilt
to get what we wanted so desperately. We used all of these skills repeatedly
until they failed us. And they always failed us eventually.
People walked away or we pushed them
away through our great emotional neediness. Sooner or later, others realized
that there was nothing they could do to fill-up our emptiness. Their endless
words of love or acts of love were never enough for us. The pit inside had
grown so big from lack of self-love and self-care that even God couldn’t fill
it.
At this point many of us entered
recovery programs and we learned that no one but us could be responsible for
filling up the inner-emptiness that we ourselves had created. We learned that
our focus had been in the wrong place-- outside of ourselves-- and that our
focus needed to change: We needed to start looking inside of ourselves for the
love and approval we had so anxiously and endlessly sought from others.
Today, many of us have been in recovery
for years and yet our focus can still be skewed at times. It’s easy to fall
back into the old habit of looking outside of ourselves. All we have to do is
take our attention off of ourselves and we’re quickly looking to everyone else
to do for us what we need to be doing for ourselves. We find ourselves falling
into the pitfalls of feeling bad because someone is withholding their approval,
or of feeling desperately lonely because we have given away our power to
befriend ourselves. Or we find ourselves up to our old manipulative tricks as
we attempt to control someone into ensuring the happiness we are withholding
from ourselves.
Recovery is all about taking our
power back and learning to maintain it. It’s about being 100% responsible for
our own lives and happiness. And it’s about learning to more fully love
ourselves into the reality of who we are: True sons and daughters of God.
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