LANGUAGE OF LETTING GO - AUGUST 2014

[MajestyJo]

Sunday, August 3, 2014

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Owning Our Power in Relationships

So much of what I call my codependency is fear and panic because I spent so much of my life feeling abused, trapped, and not knowing how to take care of myself in relationships.
—Anonymous

No matter how long we have been recovering, we may still tend to give up our power to others, whether they be authority figures, a new love, or a child.

When we do this, we experience the set of emotions and thoughts we call "the codependent crazies." We may feel angry, guilty, afraid, confused, and obsessed. We may feel dependent and needy or become overly controlling and rigid. We may return to familiar behaviors during stress. And for those of us who have codependency and adult children issues, relationships can mean stress.

We don't have to stay stuck in our codependency. We don't have to shame or blame ourselves, or the other person, for our condition. We simply need to remember to own our power.

Practice. Practice. Practice using your power to take care of yourself, no matter who you are dealing with, where you are, or what you are doing. This is what recovery means. This does not mean we try to control others; it does not mean we become abrasive or abusive. It means we own our power to take care of ourselves.

The thought of doing this may generate fears. That's normal! Take care of yourself anyway. The answers, and the power to do that, are within you now.

Start today. Start where you are. Start by taking care of who you are, at the present moment, to the best of your ability.

Today, I will focus on owning my power to take care of myself. I will not let fears, or a false sense of shame and guilt; stop me from taking care of myself.

This is a good one. I found that I was projecting the 'sins' of past relationships onto the present one. When I was using, I didn't do proper grieving and processing before I got into the next relations, not that I was capable of doing it properly when I was using.

I didn't know I had a right to say "No!" because I got hit or slapped in the face. I didn't know I had the power. I was the victim, martyr, scapegoat, and all those other roles we played to try to keep someone else happy.

In relationships in recovery, I would think, "I have been here before." I would recognize it for what it was, "Abuse!" That isn't acceptable any more, and if we could come to an understanding, he was gone.