I really enjoyed listening to Melody Beattie's book "The New Codependency" she wrote this many years after her best seller, "Codependency No More".
Codependency is much more pervasive than one might think and it has very little to do with living with someone addicted to alcohol or drugs; it is more about how aware we are of our selves....our bodies, our feelings, our choices or the lack thereof, of how free we are in our lives. Or how disconnected we are with our truth and feelings and the inability to live them out.
I am betting most people don't even know they are dependent upon others...or that they have been taught to live codependently.
There are telling signs.
If you believe that others have the power to make you feel something.
Like your feeling switch is outside of you, and you are being directed like a puppet on a string...and your life would change when others change. You keep your focus on how others are acting and what they are doing right and wrong and how IF only they would do such and such, you would feel better. Be happier and more at peace feel more loving etc.
Until you can recognize that you and your feelings have nothing to do with other people, you will live a life of codependency.
She talked briefly on Guilt.
How we think it is a feeling.
And yet it doesn't really have a feeling in the body; but it is more something that blocks us from moving. This concept has me thinking.
Guilt isn't a feeling like sadness or happiness....rather it blocks us from moving.
How often do you hear how guilt stops people? They would feel too guilty for doing this or that. Interesting how religions use guilt to control people.
I had to look up the definition of Guilt.
"1 : the fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty; broadly : guilty conduct. 2 a : the state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously."
"make (someone) feel guilty, especially in order to induce them to do something.
"Celeste had been guilted into going by her parents"
"The fact of being responsible for the commission of an offense. See Synonyms at blame."
Now how interesting is this....it is more about doing something wrong.
In my journey to being more Me, I discovered that most of the crimes I committed were following my feelings. I wasn't breaking the law or neglecting my responsibilities, but rather becoming more responsible for me, not less.
There will be guilt when you no longer feel responsible for how others feel. When you cast aside the codependency living.
But, I believe you will only feel guilty when you believe in codependency as a lifestyle.
My old religion had deep wells of things to feel guilty about...most of them were my personal choices that they had taken away. And I felt/feel guilty when I try to take them back.
Similar are the traits that a dysfunctional family steals from its members. The right and freedom to feel and be with your truth.
Again, we are put into a state of denial when we don't recognize that our freedom to be fully ourselves has been taken away. We suffer a loss of self, but were too young to even know it. We live in denial, when we can't access our feelings and live in their truths.
I recall feeling the complete and utter space....and lack of knowing who I was, when my family and church both fell in ruins. I didn't know who I was without their definitions of me. I had none of my own. I was so codependent. I had not only lost myself, but I had no clue who I was.
The sentiment that lived with me for a few years....is "I am lost and I am going to go myself and I don't know who I am." It is to search for something but you have no idea what it is....only that it is missing.
How do you miss a self you never even knew?
Most of the past 10 years has been to become Me.
And, in doing so, I have lost lots.
But most of what I lost, were people that defined me from what their needs were...they are blind to what I needed, to be me.
I could not have found myself by what they needed me to be.
I had to rediscover who I was, by how I felt and to follow my feelings...to dare speak my truth and to act upon it.
I did find me by being Me.
