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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

If The Eyes Had No Tears, The Soul Would Have No Rainbow

Self-Sabotage Is Motivated by FEAR