This year one of my themes has been letting go. Letting go of the things that create busyness or that were born out of my desire to please people rather than please God. It’s interesting to me that when I make commitments that are to “look good” in front of others that those commitments end up getting in the way of what I am truly supposed to be doing.
I took a hard look at my life this year and realized that probably 50% of what I was putting my energy in to were things that I shouldn’t be doing. I started doing the Daniel Cleanse 4 days ago (for spiritual reason this time) and already I am gaining more clarity and focus. I am amazed at how much better life is when I’m not living it for anyone other than God. It’s only in this place that I am able to truly love other people.
I’ve been really delving in to codependency. I Life Coach and this often comes up with clients. I’m so grateful for Life Coaching because it helps me to grow too. Codependency means making the relationship more important to you then you are to yourself. It is a blurring of the lines of individual definition. It is when things get unhealthy. It is not uncommon for a parent to develop this type of dynamic with their child. The child is made responsible for the parents emotional needs instead of the parent providing emotional needs and stability for the child. This is backwards and often it is this dynamic that is then brought in to adulthood.
The child has learned developmentally that love means being responsible for someone else. You see this in spouses or partners of alcoholics. Where the person who is the alcoholic is enabled by the person who is codependent. The codependent takes responsibility by perhaps bailing the alcoholic out or being there to catch them so that they never deal with the consequences of their actions. It becomes damaging to both people.
However, this dynamic isn’t relegated to just partners of people who have substance or alcohol abuse problems. It can be the case in friendships, marriage relationships, business relationships, children and their parents (even after the children are grown) and others.
Breaking this dynamic is very important because when we are in this type of relationship we are lost. We don’t know who we are or what we stand for. We don’t know what we really feel or think. We chase things that aren’t there. And, we are not able to hear the voice of God because we are too entangled in the voice of man. This is idolatry. It is getting our worth from something other than God. Putting a relationship as more important then the One who enabled it to become something in the first place.
What I have learned is that codependency is often bred in the fear of abandonment. It is a form of control. If I take responsibility for this relationship and this person then I can be assured that I will not be left. Anytime we are run by fear we are run by Satan. And codependent relationships are not ones that honor God. I have also learned that it takes healing of both emotion and beliefs to step out of this. I am grateful to see the examples of my clients who are choosing to be true to themselves and to God.
