Codependency Support Group
Codependency is defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for another person's struggles. A codependent person may try to change, or feel shame about their most private thoughts and feelings if they conflict with the other person's struggles. If you are on a journey towards self-love, this support group is for you. Join us and find others...
Yes I am going to talk about God again. I just had a revelation about my hang up. Now to clarify I don’t think the 12 steps or believing in a higher power is necessary for recovery for everyone. I do dislike it when Alanon says one is required to spend time with God, implying that if one doesn’t they’ll never recover. People have said they recovered without God and 12 steps and I believe them. Everyone is different. No one method works for everyone and if you’re like me, I need about five different methods that seem to contradict each other to make sense. Ha! If anyone is interested in stoic philosophy let me know because that has helped me a lot. Concepts like Amor Fati and Memento Mori are life-affirming and comforting in their own way.
Anyways, the Higher Power thing HAS helped me in trusting and letting go and giving me strength and guidance, so I’m continuing to explore. it’s also been really revealing to me.
Case in point: The courage to change daily readings have been urging us to spend time being friends with our higher power to built faith. I’ve been trying to find quiet time to do that and I just can’t. Today I figured out why.
So I started with me talking to Higher Power how sad and empty I was feeling and how I wanted some answers about what to do next and then my old church training kicked in and said “you’re not supposed to tell God how you feel or what you want. How selfish and egotistical of you. It’s not His job to give you what you want. It’s your job to ask Him what He wants of you.”
So I put my hands out to the universe and started to say, “your will, not mine” and then the anger and panic from my old church days kicked in. WHY NOT MY WILL? Oh right because I’m not allowed to have needs wants and desires. I’m too stupid to know what’s good for me. Only God has that privilege. I’m supposed to understand that if God wants me to do something I hate, I will do it with a smile and if I whine, that’s a sign of ingratitude so shut up, smile, bend over, and take it.
Wow. That was intense. Okay, it’s nothing new to anyone who has read my previous struggles with this higher power thing, but the intensity of rage and pain took me by surprise.
so what was the revelation? That other people talked of God like a friend, and re-reading the Courage to Change I didn’t see anything about how it was my job to make Higher Power happy, and I wondered, maybe I can tell Higher Power about my feelings and wants like a friend. Maybe it’s not about what is my job for the universe, pleasing the universe, keeping the universe happy, sacrificing myself so the universe is glorified, letting the universe decide what will make me happy and denying my will for his, but the universe just wants to help and be my friend. And I can talk to the universe like a friend.
so next time I try to have quiet time with the universe, I’m just going to be me. As I am. I’m not going to worry about am I approaching the universe the right way, am I being too selfish or egotistical. I’m just going to be me. To be honest, I like me. I think the universe does too. Then let’s see if we could have a chat as friends.
Is Holding my hand giving me the strength
And courage To do the work.
Fear is what keeps many from getting
Honest and handing over their self will.
Fear of losing control, fear of losing their
Relationship. Change is hard so is getting
Humble. To be humble is to be teachable,
Not having the ego/self will in the drivers
Seat.
When i first started out in recovery. I was
Trying to fix my ex and my marriage. I am
A codependent and My ex a dry drunk. Not
A good mix and often those types of
Relationships fail after time.
It was My insanity i can laugh about it Now.
I was totally insane and obsessed with him
and my marriage. I had needed to detach
from him instead. My codependent brain
Would not let go of him.
It took me a long time to trust God and
To Let go of the need to control, fix and
Care give all three of them are unhealthy
Behaviors especially for Someone like me.
Those are the three Basics types in alanon.
I was a passive Caregiver type that had
become A doormat in my marriage.
HP is a spiritual being not a religious one,
There is a Huge difference. I go to church
for the Spiritual part the religious dogma
not so Much.
I totally get insanely obsessed with a man!!! Detaching is hard but I’m glad you’re stronger now. Lots of hugs.
It was more, why can’t I want things? Or can I have a choice?
Ever read those stories where two people are in love but the family doesn’t approve and forced their child to marry someone else? That actually happened in my family. When they say you’re not allowed to have a will of your own, my family can be deadly serious about it. They want to choose what job you’ll work at, who you will marry, where you will buy your house, etc.
I don’t think it was wrong for that family member to want the man she did. Did she not have a right to choose who she wanted to marry? (The marriage her parents arranged was a disaster btw.)
when I said “WHY NOT MY WILL” I was really asking “can I not make my own choices?” Not “hey I need everything to go my way.”
To me there is a contradiction in telling codependents that our problem is we put what other people want from us ahead of what we want, and then be told that the solution is to put what the universe wants from us ahead of what we want.
Now I understand the danger of thinking I’m in control when I’m not and that there are certain times in life where I am in no position to make any type of decisions. I totally get that but I’d like to think that with help and hard work, I’ll get to a place where I can make healthy decisions.
To me, the universe nudges and shows me towards the right path to take. The more I listen, the better decisions I make. It does not want to knock me off the path and do the walking for me.
change The way we think and feel. It does
take a lot of work to get in there deep and
To Learn to trust ourselves and our HP
guidance.
Handing over my self will was the most
freeing experience. Now i just do the best
I can without forcing solutions and staying
in My own hula hoop.
It took a lot for me to get to a place of really
Learning how to Self focus. Many people wont
do it. Its easier to Focus on the other guy because
they are Sicker/more damaged and its less
emotionally painful for us. We can then point
the finger at The other guy for all our troubles.
Staying in your own hula hoop is crucial. I’ve been so much calmer since I started doing that. It definitely doesn’t help to blame all our troubles on other people.
Seeing our Own stuff. Its often from our
upbringing and Our family.
Now As an adult, we were still using the
same old playbook and running from
Our Ego.
They say we recreate our parents until we
Get strong and healthy enough in ourselves
to stop the Dysfunctional cycle and to deeply
Heal ourselves.
I did therapy at 24 that helped me detach
from My Sick enmeshing mother but i still
had tons more work to do to really get
Emotionally healthy. We Often marry What
we know and understand too. I know i did.
May I suggest that you take some of these ingrained notions of God's control from your childhood and write out a phrase that negates one of these notions. If you believe God is going punish you, write out something about God being the lover of your soul who is not into punishment. Take that phrase and read it over and over all day, for many days. Take a minute or two to think about it. This is to change one's thinking. When that one seems ingrained and you understand it, change to a new phrase. We change our thinking by actively working on new phraseology in our heads, just like physical exercise, we have to exercise our brains. Or so it has worked for me. My current phrase is about detachment, and this may be a repeated suggestion of mine. I have just found it so powerful in my life to change my stinking thinking to positive and self affirming and self loving.
I also believe that we have souls and that our souls come into this lifetime for certain lessons or learning we need to do. I believe in reincarnation and go to a protestant church that doesn't talk about this at all (but I take what I need and leave the rest). So my viewpoint is skewed towards what lesson is my soul trying to learn or needs to learn.