Tag: co-dependent

Disguised as kindness.

The word compliment and its twisting definition is trying to find true meaning in my head, for I feel that compliments are an outside expression we are trying to own, like hand-me-down self worth and self esteem.

When I looked up the definition I found this.

“Something that fills up, completes, or makes perfect.”

Or

“An expression of praise, admiration, or congratulation. An expression of esteem, respect, affection, or admiration; especially: an admiring remark b: formal and respectful recognition.

The first meaning seems odd, that ‘something is going to make us complete or perfect and fill us up. I know that this isn’t possible, that we can’t fill up another person or complete them in any way.

And yet compliments are noted as being kind. Really??? How is it kind to pretend to fill up another?

If I give you a compliment how do you wear it? How do you then bring it inside and own it as your own meaning. Isn’t it second hand?

I then thought that the truthfulness or the authenticity of the compliments lay within the receiver not the giver.

The state and condition of the receiver makes all the difference in the world. If your self worth and self-esteem are wanting and you are not whole and healthy, than compliments are desired to make you so. And this leads to the compliments being more powerful than you.

Compliments come from other people and they usually come after we have done something, so then this makes us work to gain our self worth, we have to do something to feel good.

I used to work hard to gain pieces of my self worth, to be perfect, for I had very little sense of self inside, I needed their opinions and expressions to show me who I was, in their silence I disappeared.

As I dropped the folks who used to give me their expressions and praise, I also dropped my need or desire for what they felt about me. I then was able to feel first hand about my self.

Isn’t there a ‘backhanded compliment’? What is does that mean? Is that an unkind compliment or one with an agenda? Is it a compliment that has a hidden meaning?

To me, if compliments are meant to make you feel better then they are dangerous, for you have to first feel great in order to receive them and then you don’t need them for you are full already.

They seem like ego mist to me…something the ego feels is good for us and that it lies within others and not within ourselves…something we can’t ourselves grasp or hold on to, yet others seem to carry for us.

Another co-dependent chain disguised as kindness.

July 24, 2011

co-dependent, compliments, expression, feelings, kindness, opinions, outward, within
My own Little Plot

It is hard to believe that I lived a life without a self that I had disappeared from my life and had not even noticed it, for I left my life before I had a life.

Without knowing I got a life of my own, I spent all my time in other people’s business, leaving my own life quite vacant.

I simply didn’t live a separated life.

The biggest part of myself was lived in the midst of other people’s world, what I meant to them, how I made them feel, I was an interchangeable part to them.

I was a piece of them.

When I latched on to a person who needed me, I came alive.

Set me alone…I had no value.

Having zero value by myself left me very much dependent upon others, hence the word co-dependent, for my sense of self.

Finding a self that stood alone was near impossible.

I had no definition if the words sister, mother, daughter, wife, friend were not around.

Who was I to myself?

I wasn’t as good a friend to me as I was to my friends, nor did I mother myself as wonderful as I tried to mother my children, nor was a good partner to myself as I was to my husband.

In the end all my efforts outside of myself left me completely empty…for I ignored my self while taking care of others.

Imagine 46 years with nothing to show for my self.

My self had lived silently still while I toiled in people’s lives.

It is like weeding and tending a garden that you are unable to eat from, leaving you starving while they enjoy the crop you took care of.

Slaving over their fields while my own was over run from neglect.

What freedom came when I understood we are all gardeners of our own lives, that each of us can plant the kinds of things we love, and pull up and out the things that prick us.

I love my life now that I see it as my own little plot!

June 28, 2011

choices, co-dependent, false, For, happiness, life, living, making, mind, others
Living Alive

The word comfortable is a word that will not always speak the truth, it will not say as much about the surrounding reality, but rather your state of being.

How do I explain being comfortable in a dysfunctional home, to be surrounded by stress and pain and be at ease and pain free?

As I dug around in my past, in my feelings and in my head, I discovered that the only way was to deny myself.

I looked up the word denial, but this time I seen it from my point of view, from the self.

Denial… A refusal to comply with or satisfy a request.

I never denied the other person or request, but I denied myself.

I was comfortable denying myself, not looking at myself and instead used myself to make others happy. I knew that girl.

I was comfortable in my role and in knowing what she had to do, I looked at the other and what they needed and complied.

I never looked at me as me, or me alone. I was a very comfortable not looking at me. I could only see me as what I was for other people, there was no me alone.

In a dysfunctional, incestual home, in a place where you are hurt, it is best to not look at yourself, it is best to become absent of self.

Imagine I was comfortable without a self in the midst of being surrounded by pain, stress, and anxiety. I had to deny my feelings in order to stay there, and I did.

Being self less is denying any request of the self. I was shut down to hearing or feeling my self.

I had no connection to me, the lines were severed, I was pain free, for I was so disconnected.

Comfortably unattached.

When I became attached to the truths of my life, then discomfort met me, and my comfortable detachment disappeared.

My security blanket was to keep me separated from my life and the truth that lay beneath.

Denial kept me comfortable.

Isn’t it amazing that denial is comfortable? Denial of self allows you to stand among uncomfortable people and places… you simply don’t bring your feelings or knowing there, you leave your self to be there.

As I sat there in wistfulness of missing the old me, the part I missed was their reception of me, how they received me, not how I wasn’t there.

What I know now is that they don’t like it when I bring me, when I have requests and when I don’t comply, they only want the me that doesn’t have a me there.

They want me to be without a self.

A self less me, to leave my self behind, to come without her…

I don’t leave home without her…now.

The differences in the way I live now compared to the way I lived before is with me or without me.

Before I wasn’t there, did not exist, was living a few feet behind my life, numb shut down unaware.

The new me is alive and aware and right here, feeling and dealing in this now moment, no longer denying her inner requests.

The striking differences between living a life with a self inside, to hear her voice, to make her choice, compared to living a life without her, is an ocean of difference, it is like living dead or living alive.

March 30, 2011

choice, co-dependent, comfortable, denial, families, incest, life, living alive, living dead, truth, unknowing
Not the Tail…

When one person in a relationship changes, the relationship changes, for you are asked to adjust yourself. We are like two moving puzzle pieces that keep losing their shapes and we have to move and work to fit back together.

I have felt the nerve of my security and found that it is based on sameness.

It likes looking at the sameness; it likes to see itself in others and is fearful around different views and actions…it gets nervous.

My security nerve feels more secure when the other person acts, thinks and moves like me, it wants a mirror image, it feel secure there.

When a person moves in a different direction, I feel they are hearing differently than I, perhaps tuned into a different radio station, and dancing to a completely different song.

My history on group movement, and being so alike, has made my security nerve accustomed to a bunch of people moving like a flock of birds, and it feels uneasy with independent movement.

This is good to know, that it isn’t that the actions so much that is off, but how I perceive it.

When you are raised to fit into a group and live nestled in that group, it is really odd to separate and live as a single.

A single amongst the many…

An individual doesn’t make you alone; it makes you a single in the bunch of many, a unique expression of humanity.

My security nerve is okay with me being unique, however, it does seem to register changes within others as well.

If the changes are empowering and heading towards whole being, I am okay…and actually feel a lift as I cheer them on…but if the changes are someone losing their power, I feel the drain as well.

My security nerve has to fully separate and become its own, and stop being so co-dependent upon another’s power source.

My wiring seems to get twisted up, it surges or fails when my boundary between self and other get blurred.

Where my sense of self leaves my body and is attached inside of another, in one point two seconds, I am clinging to their feelings to find mine.

When my power of security relies on another, I fail for I am plugged into them and their actions for my peace of mind, and this is insanity.

This is how I know that a part of me is still co-dependent, for I feel unsettled by your actions, I feel my power surging or failing; I feel the pull and ebb as you move.

It is incredible and yet frightening to feel the tail of the dog, and not being the dog.

When I am the tail I have no power, I go where you go and either wag or droop…but can’t steer.

Life is completely different when you are the dog and not the tail…

March 25, 2011

co-dependent, detaching, feelings, ladies, life, security, style
While waiting…

What came to me today while mindlessly tossing mail, was that the reason I was so sorely affected by my daughter’s life, was that her life was in my life, that we didn’t have a clear and separate space between what is hers and what is mine, the apron string was still connected.

The impact upon my body and psyche was equal to it happening to me, where my inner wounded child responded, my ‘mental lady’ mom came out ready to fight battle, and the Loving awareness arrived all fully engaged in her life as soon as she spoke of her crisis.

What was so beautiful and tragically displayed were how all the parts of me felt and responded and finally released her to be on her own, a completely felt separation and liberation for myself but more importantly for her.

She was given her life without any strings attached to me.

While it was the hardest thing for me to do, to let my child go it was almost like a second birth, but this time a birth of freedom.

And a three-week labor of intense inner working and letting go.

As long as I feel the strain or worry of what her actions will be, there is a string attached into my world, and I have to snip it to let her be fully and completely free.

It is not to say, I will no longer give word of wisdom or point out what I see in reality, or how I see changes happening between her and I, I will. But the greatest thing is, that our bodies and psyches are separated.

It almost seems like this was my last co-dependent exam, a lesson with huge consequences one that my old co-dependent self would have longed to get wrapped up in like an old cozy blanket.

Yet this time it felt like I was being possessed by another’s life, that their choices had the power to make or break my life, take my peace, destroy my inner sanctity of love and joy and that I was once again riding shotgun in another’s life.

It was the ultimate life review of how it feels to be a victim in a co-dependent relationship.

When I look at my daughter there are no strings attached to my happiness or my unhappiness, instead I am sitting in a place of wonder.

I wonder what it is she will do.
I wonder how it will affect her.
I wonder, but my life isn’t totally eclipsed by her life, I feel space opening up and distance coming in.

A place where If she is to suffer, I can be there as the non-suffering one, we are no longer one big animal of two.

Today, I was listening to a CD by Sarah Ban Breathnach called, “Romancing the Ordinary.” What she is teaching and talking about is how to romance your self and be fully engaged and in love with you and your life.

It is simply delightful in the very simple ways we can look around where we are and see what is all there. How we can listen instead of just hear, how we can use all our senses to connect to the Universe.

I am thinking as long as I was connected to the lives of so many, there wasn’t space or feelings of my senses left for me to use in my life, for me to feel for me, to see for me, to be for me, for so long my life has been used by others.

Sarah spoke of the waiting. And in my case I have been waiting for my daughter to make a choice, breathlessly waiting, life stopping waiting.

What Sarah suggests is to make use of the time while we wait, while the Universe and her soul converse and decide, I can use this time in a million little ways.

While I wait, I can quilt, I can read, I can sit and watch the sunrise, I can sip tea and watch the fire, feel the warmth of a quilt, smell the scent of a candle, and the waiting will pass by…in delight.

I can’t know tomorrow or what or when or if, how her life will go, but I can get busy in my life while I wait.

I love this.

I already listened to a few CD’s while I waited.

I enjoyed a bowl of soup and homemade bread, while I waited.

I love that I am free to pass the time while I wait, instead of sitting and worrying while I wait.

What a huge gift to live my life while I wait to see what transpires in hers. When she needs me, I can stop enjoying the waiting and act.

I can’t tell you how this simple idea freed me or gave me permission to enjoy my time while waiting.

February 11, 2011

apron, bondage, children, choices, co-dependent, freedom, life, mine, ours, parents, released, Romancing, sarah ban Breathnach, separation, strings, the Ordinary, waiting, yours
Caretaker of Me!

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

~Friedrich Nietzsche

Peer pressure will always be there, the calling of a group, or the pressure to just go along with everyone else, to keep the peace, to not ruffle feathers, and it is usually at the cost of self.

What I think we instinctively feel is that we will be alone IF we go against the pack and it is usually the case, and nobody wants to be the odd man out.

So, instead of owning yourself, you just go along so you are not alone.

Being alone isn’t seen as a worthy goal, going with the flow and peacefully accepting the group consensus is.

What I find so intriguing is that I feel the draw of being part of a group even if it is dysfunctional and painful group!

My old co-dependency feels frightened to be disconnected and separated. I feel the anxiousness at times of never fitting in or being together like that again.

It is like I have two separate dialogues going on at one time, my free spirit is cheering and celebrating, ‘thank God we don’t have to be part of that ever again,’ and my co-dependency longs to join up, hook up, tag team with anyone, be part of a group of any kind, to fit in and not be dangling free.

Once I can separate who wants what and what I really want, peace settles back in.

What relief that this body is no longer for rent!

I am the owner and caretaker of me!

May 31, 2010

alone, being part of group, co-dependent, fitting in, free, independent, ostricized, owning self, peer pressure, separated
Real Me.

“Some people will not tolerate such emotional honesty in communication. They would rather defend their dishonesty on the grounds that it might hurt others. Therefore, having rationalized their phoniness into nobility, they settle for superficial relationships.”

~Author Unknown

When I began following my truth and spoke with emotional honesty, it really never occurred to me that I was sealing the deal on having no relationship.

How sad and telling that most of my past relationships were based upon phoniness, either theirs or mine or both.

When I could no longer tolerate the absence of emotional honesty and the other side wasn’t ready for the full exposure to emptiness, our relationship ended.

Our phony relationship lay exposed.

It is funny how you can miss what wasn’t there, how you ache for the closeness you falsely created, incredible to grieve a loss of something you did not have.

It seems mental to feel separated and alone when a phony relationship dies.

How can I grieve something phony?

How can I love something phony?

How can I have a relationship with phony?

Phony was the only family that I knew, was the only me I knew.

It is funny that you can crave a false thing, something that has no substance, like a drug.

It isn’t the drug itself, but the feeling.

I felt like I belonged.

Now I am standing separated from them.

I am different, perhaps no longer co-dependent.

Feeling strange at being totally alone and separated, yet totally connected to feelings, my emotions and me!

The phony me died, the phony relationships died and they gave birth to a real me.

“It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.”

Homer Simpson

May 30, 2010

co-dependent, dishonesty, exile, honesty, lies, phony, relationships, self, superficial
Living Solo

Learning how to navigate life by using the inner signs, sensations, feelings, is like driver's training for being in a body.

Body training is something we all need to learn in order to live freely, instead of attached to another. You can tell how free you are by upsetting others. If you always comply, you are not free but instead floating along attached to the other body.

Co-dependent bodies are hard to manage and get tangled up lots, and it gets so that you don't know if it is your feeling or theirs, you life or theirs, you lose your self within their desires.

I found myself without a self, for I had no idea who I was or what I liked, I had no opinion without somebody's first.

Imagine that? My body was led around by another's good opinion of me.

How scary and free it is to learn this, and how shocking to begin making moves that upset other bodies, while being a new me, but what glorious freedom!

The freedom to follow a feeling with an action, or speak up instead of suffer silently, to be truthful to myself and be willing to disappoint another, is being alive within my body.

It is so thrilling and frightening at the same time, to witness the detachment of yourself from another's approval.

I love that I have control of my legs. I can walk with you or away from you.

I love that I have hands, to either push you away or bring you close.

I love that I have a voice to speak my truth.

Learning to pilot your own body is living solo!

May 25, 2010

body, co-dependent, opinions, truth, voice