I don’t think I really learned to walk until I was an adult. Even then, I had to learn to walk again when I was 50- after I lamed myself. It is no secret; I walk for health. Not to become a monument of sculpted beauty and strength; but for all around health: spiritual, physical, mental, emotional. When I walk I pray, meditate, think. I gain a new perspective. This spiritual well-being acquired while walking multiplies the physical benefits of circulation and aerobic fitness. Better circulation of blood and oxygen improves my mental faculties resulting in sharper, clearer perception of my emotions. Bringing emotions into clear focus can be somewhat daunting. When I acknowledge my emotions, I must acknowledge the yearning and longing that surface with high definition in sun and nature. I am wary of acknowledging the longing and yearning. To acknowledge them puts me at risk of attempting to assuage them with false fulfillment. There is so much more I want to do and experience; let me not detour to cheap fulfillment; but rather, may I harness the yearning and longing and let them be a matched team that pulls my chariot victoriously across the finish line.
Category Archives: co-dependence
You are Elastigirl! Pull Yourself Together!
We watched the The Incredibles as a family again a couple of weeks ago; I and my two young adult children, with our traditional home baked pizza. Now every time I head down my familiar codependent path and re-cloak myself in fear, insecurity, over-empathy, wondering for the millionth time if I really gave enough or provided enough nurture in former relationships, toying with the idea of more enabling; anytime I come near wailing, “what’ll I do? How did it come to this?” My daughter responds, “You are Elastigirl! Pull yourself together, whap, whap, whap.”
If you know the plot line of The Incredibles you are aware that Elastigirl had adapted into a perfect mom and wife, meekly following the government issued mandate that super heroes must remain in hiding, masquerading as mediocre people, thus denying they had any gifts or anointing and, in the process, enabling the corrupt system.
Readers, many of you know how easy it is to drift so far into service for others that you forget who YOU are. You forget to care for yourself; to be a steward of your God-given talents. Even though the term co-dependent indicates two persons, I don’t even need to be in a romantic relationship to be codependent. The women in my family line are codependent with the whole world. Every need pulls at our heartstrings and calls us, even obligates us, to self-sacrifice.
By the Grace of God, pull yourself together! Remember who you are! I am not talking about selfish megalomania, I am talking about using your gifts to be you, rather than using your gifts to meddle or enable someone else to be who you think they should be.
Even though she is nearly 21 and has super powers herself; my daughter still needs to see me be all I can be, rightly access the powers of a woman and graciously wield the gifts of all I was created to be.
You are Elastigirl! Pull yourself together!
Lion!
I don’t know if it was something I ate last night. I did have an extra serving of Selah’s birthday cake and some ice cream. I did have a few licks – a taste check and finger cleaning of the seven layer bean dip I made for the potluck today. But, in the pre-waking minutes before six A.M., I had a dream about a lion. I don’t know if it was a precursor of things to come; a sort of warning, or a manifestation of inner thoughts and fears. I was not particularly fearful of the lion.
In my dream I was walking back to my house, my childhood home, where I am now living temporarily. I did take a walk in the dusk and twilight last night, without fear or startle. I dreamed I was headed South on 12th Street from Horizon Drive hiking on the embankment that inclines toward what is now Horizon Towers. It was in the late afternoon. The embankment was rough and rocky as in the old days. Sandstone boulders leaned one upon the other like a railroad grade or new road base. Various piñon trees and scruffy brush told me this was natural terrain, not man made. I had to pick my way and scramble from boulder to boulder, much like I did in Seattle last month when the tide was in and I wanted to get from point A to point B along what had been a nice sandy beach the evening before. Suddenly, as I neared the ridge, there appeared a lion. An African style lion with full mane. He was about 25 feet away and though I tried to scream, “Mountain Lion!” no sound came out and I knew I was too far away from the houses to be heard anyway. It was not a mountain lion. I knew this in my dream, yet I persist in giving it the title, Mountain Lion. My mind and body were consumed by the immediate question, “What should I do?” Fleeing was out of the question. One jump of mine to the next boulder would accomplish nothing compared to the leap of this cat. Nor could I, in my summer shorts and sleeveless top, pump myself up to look bigger and more in command. The king was studying me. I picked up a fist sized rock, aimed, and threw. “Maybe I can distract him,” I thought, pitching another rock wide. With each pitch I moved in the direction of my goal: home and society. He turned his back to me, disinterested, and in his place stood a female lion. I felt wary of the female, particularly as I continued to walk forward and pass a half grown lion. Was this a cub? Would both parents come after me to protect the off-spring? I do not know. I woke then and I am sure, if anyone was passing my open window, they heard me talking in my sleep, trying with numbed lips to articulate the warning, “Mountain Lion.”
Describing Codependence
You know you are codependent when you self-sacrifice to give another what you want for them. You can be sure you are codependent when you are doubly self-sacrificing in order to provide what you want them to want and what they want. It is proof positive you are codependent when you pull out all the stops of self-sacrifice in order to provide for another person the thing you want for them as well as the thing they want; in hopes they will see the thing you want them to want is the better choice and choose that thing over the thing they thought they wanted. Love is complicated. Codependent love is convoluted.
“The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the most important point.” C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Toilet Paper Recovery
We have nothing to fear but fear itself! So speak the great American leaders. Being of the plebeian variety, my motivating thought has all too often been: I have nothing to fear but embarrassment.
Just as one never attempts the possible in order to avoid failure; I avoid embarrassment at all costs. I plan, I plot, I educate myself. I think things through, I consider the logical conclusions of my actions. I do my laundry, press my clothes, maintain a regular sleep and grooming schedule; all toward the goal of “having it all together.”
It is important to me to do the right thing. Lately I began to question my motives. Am I doing the right thing out of a noble, altruistic heart? Or am I constantly doing the right thing in order to show others how it ought to be done? To prove that I have it altogether? To avoid, through super human effort, mistakes; or, heaven forbid; embarrassment.
I had a wonderful time Wednesday night. Philip and I took an impromptu mother / son night out and viewed Star Trek. After the screening, I hit the ladies room (as is my custom); we struck a fast pace toward the car, all the while in conversation and critique of the movie. The gas gage pegged at empty so I decided to fill up on the way home rather than chance a late arrival at work the next day.
We found an after-nine, discount gas station and commenced the filling and window washing. From the shadows near the air compressor I heard a male voice call, “Miss.” I ignored him. Coming a bit closer, he hailed me again, “Miss, excuse me, Miss,” From the corner of my eye I saw a young man in his twenties, with garish henna hair and sideburns stepping toward me. Was he going to ask me for money? Directions? Quickly I looked to see where Philip was. In the car, talking on his cell phone. “I hope he is paying attention to what is going on out here!” I thought as I looked up. “Oh, Miss, there is something about to fall out of your pocket!”
(My pocket? Do I have pockets? If I reach for my back pockets that draws my attention and effectively ties up my arms. And this guy is approaching me. Where is his friend?)
Keeping my eyes on him, I reached behind with my left arm, my strong right arm at the ready. Nothing. Then I reached behind with my right arm, my left hand free, and grasped it – the 18 inch strip of toilet paper- as my informant faded back into the shadows and was gone.
I am now recovered from my laughter – and my false assurance of having it all together.
Rule Number 3- Please Everyone
I have spent half a century trying to please people; how about you? Yes?
Well, as they say, “You can please some of the people all the time and some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all the time.” But, hey, it never hurts to try, right? Maybe I will be the first one to be perfect, get it right all the time, please everybody and the whole world will love me-rise up and call me blessed.
I don’t think there is a thing wrong with pleasing people, with living peaceably with everyone. I do take issue with peace at any cost – or with pleasing others to manipulate the outcome. At sometime in your life someone has probably said indignantly, “After all I’ve done for you, how could you……” The words are designed to heap guilt, to convict the hearer to change his ways. If the recipient has stolen, embezzled, cheated or betrayed, perhaps a parent or spouse does have a right to utter this accusation. But, usually, I think what the offended one means is, “After all I’ve done for you how could you not do what I wanted you to do?” This is the type of thing Handel’s father spat when George F. decided to be a musician and composer rather than a barber. When parents say this they often mean, “After all I’ve done for you how could you possibly think of being yourself instead of the person I wanted you to be?”
Recently I was accosted by an acquaintance whose basic communication was, “You are the meanest person in the world! I knocked myself out for you! I did lots of things for you, whatever I thought was right for you, whether you asked or wanted it or not and now I am angry with you because you did not respond the way I wanted you to respond and do what I wanted you to do. You didn’t do the job the way I would have done it. You are not the gregarious personality I wanted you to be. You’re not even trying to be the person I wanted to help you become. I have piped and you have not danced.” Funny thing, I didn’t even hear the piper. I was too busy marching to the steady beat of a different drum. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Back to Square One
Recently someone tried to convince me that starting over is never a good idea; it just doesn’t work. Essentially she was saying that one needs to just stay in the pit one has dug and continue plodding, maintain the status quo of the circumstances and people one finds oneself with. I understand the Biblical principle behind her adamance to never start over (Peter’s example of a sow returning to wallowing in the mud, or Paul’s question as to why the Galatians were returning to the weak and beggarly rules they started out with which led them from the school master to grace).
I also dislike being bumped back home or to the hospital as much as the next person playing Careers or Monopoly or other reality games. While I understand the necessity to refrain from continually running away and starting over, I have found that retracing one’s steps is often beneficial to ascertain why one went to the kitchen in the first place, what one was thinking of, desiring and wanting, before allowing oneself to be distracted by outside urgencies or circumstances and the daily stresses of life.
So, pardon me, if, in my mid-life quest to be all that I can be and all that my Higher Power asks of me, I decide to return to square one, a mile marker with clear directions.
Though it appears to some that I am starting over, I am actually still standing expectantly on the beach waiting for the next big wave – not just any wave, but a true quintessential pipeline, something I can ride all the way into port; “or be content to sail with God the seas,” as Emerson penned.
Voo Doo Prayers
Voo Doo Prayers; I hate them. I refuse them. They release way too much negative energy into the world through thoughtless, selfish, controlling words. You know what I mean. Voo Doo prayers go something like this:
Dear God, please make Jane trip and skin her knee right here so I can help her up and be her hero.
Dear God, please help Joe’s plane to have mechanical problems so it never leaves the ground because he shouldn’t be going on that trip anyway. Dear God, do something bad or scary in John Doe’s life so he will have to call on God for help and know that I have been right about God all along…….
How much better it is to pray a recovery style prayer, “Dear God, please give Jane, or Joe, or John, knowledge of your will for their lives today and give them the power to carry it out.” Oops, I forgot to ask God to keep me in the loop and tell me what his will is for Jane’s life – how will I ever know to pray heartily for that will and what I can do to make sure Jane does that will (are you smiling?).
Voo Doo prayers; I hate them, I reject them. Someone has been meddling with my car and my computer with voodoo prayers. I reject them. Onward, straight into the wave of what positive and good (tho sometimes hard) things God has for me.
Rule Number 1:
Never, ever, make someone feel bad. Its not nice to make someone feel bad. Nice people never make someone feel bad. So if you are a child, be very careful that you never disobey your parents. If you disobey, even once, it will make your parents feel bad. Your mother will say, “Don’t you love mommy? It makes mommy feel bad when you do not obey.” If you do not obey your father he will say, “What have I done wrong that I have raised a child that does not obey.” He will feel bad. You don’t want to make anyone feel bad.
If you are a student at school or a worker in an office, never succeed above your peers. It makes them feel stupid if you get a better grade on a test or if you can naturally do a skill they have not yet mastered. Do not make them feel bad by being better than they are. Everyone knows it is not nice to act better than someone else. Hide your skills. You do not want others to feel bad.
If you are an adult in charge of others, don’t correct your underlings when they make an error, encourage them instead. If you correct them, they may feel bad and think you are not a nice person.
If you are a spouse, take care that you never make your mate feel bad. Instead, choose words that encourage. If you disagree, never infer that your spouse’s position is wrong. You must put things in the best light, beat around the bush, change your position if you find yourself coming dangerously close to the heart of the matter. Never ask them to do something they don’t want to do. You must not make them feel bad.
If you are writing or speaking to any of the general public, be sure you choose a vocabulary that is positive and uplifting whether it gets the point across or not. Otherwise someone will say, “That’s too preachy,” and you will be devastated that you almost went to press with something that would make someone feel bad. You must never, ever, make someone feel bad. Nice people just don’t do that.
Congratulations! You have made yourself responsible for the feelings and happiness of everyone else. You are now codependent.
Indispensable
The trouble with “making it happen” for someone you love (particularly if you are doing it for them to draw their attention or love to yourself) is that they fall in love with the thing you made possible in their life-and they ride off into the sunset with IT.
When one makes it happen for another, a thank you is all that is required. It is not a guarantee of lifetime allegiance and service out of gratitude.
With growing kids, this is a natural and right practice. We provide them with education, upbringing, tools for careers and relationship and they ride off into the sunset toward lifetime success.
With others, peers, adults, employers, corporations; making someone’s life or vision or business happen for them (often through heroic measures) is disastrous.
This has happened to me at least twice in major arrangements and numerous times in small, day to day working relationships.
Am I hard-hearted to say, “Never again”?