posted December 25, 2006 06:26 AM
Letting Go of Unavailable People
by Robert Burney"In our disease defense system we build up huge walls to protect ourselves and then - as soon as we meet someone who will help us to repeat our patterns of abuse, abandonment, betrayal, and/or deprivation - we lower the drawbridge and invite them in. We, in our Codependence, have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will "push our buttons."
This happens because those people feel familiar. Unfortunately in childhood the people whom we trusted the most - were the most familiar - hurt us the most. So the effect is that we keep repeating our patterns and being given the reminder that it is not safe to trust ourselves or other people .
Once we begin healing we can see that the Truth is that it is not safe to trust as long as we are reacting out of the emotional wounds and attitudes of our childhoods. Once we start Recovering, then we can begin to see that on a Spiritual level these repeating behavior patterns are opportunities to heal the childhood wounds."
"I spent most of my life being the victim of my own thoughts, my own emotions, my own behaviors. I was consistently picking untrustworthy people to trust and unavailable people to love. I could not trust my own emotions because I was incapable of being honest with myself emotionally - which made me incapable of Truly being honest on any level."
(All quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)
Codependency is an incredibly insidious, treacherous dis-ease. It is a compulsively reactive condition in which our ego programming from childhood dictates how we live our lives today. As long as we are not in recovery from our codependency, we are powerless to make clear choices in discerning rather someone we are attracted to is a available for a healthy relationship - we are in fact, doomed to keep repeating patterns.
Emotionally we are drawn to people who feel familiar on an energetic level. That is, people who, on an emotional vibrational level, resonate with us as being familiar. It feels to us as if we have a strong connection to those people. In other words, we have an inner radar system that causes us to be attracted to people who resonate vibrationally in a way that is familiar on an emotionally intimate level. We are attracted to people whose inner emotional dynamic is similar to our most powerful and earliest experience of emotional intimacy and love - our parents.
No matter how much we are making an effort on a conscious level to not pick anyone like our parents, energetically we feel a strong attraction to people whose inner emotional dynamic is similar to our first experience of love. It was very important for me to get aware of the reality that if I met someone who felt like my soul mate, I had better watch out. Those are exactly the people who will fit my patterns - recreate my wounding.
It was very important for me to recognize the power of this type of attraction. And also to realize, that on a Spiritual level, these people were teachers who were in my life to help me get in touch with my childhood wounds. It was vital for me to start being aware that if I met someone who felt like my soul mate it did not mean we were going to live happily ever after. What it meant was that I was being given another wonderful, and painful, opportunity for growth.
Becoming conscious of these emotional energetic dynamics was a very important part of owning my power. My power to make choices, to accept consequences, to take responsibility for my choices and consequences - and to not buy into the belief that I was being victimized by the other person, or my own defectiveness.
Recognizing unavailability in the other person does not mean that I have to let go of the relationship - at least not immediately, it could be something I will decide to do eventually.
What is so important, is to let go of focusing on that person as the cause of, or solution to, my problems. As long as we are focusing on the other person and buying into the illusion that if we just: work a little harder; lose some more weight; make some more money; do and/or say the right things; whatever; that person will change and be everything we want them to be.
Codependents focus on others to keep from looking at self. We need to let go of focusing on the other person and start focusing inside to understand what is happening. Our adult patterns, the people we have been in relationship with, are symptoms - effects of our childhood wounding. We cannot solve a problem without looking at the cause. Focusing on symptoms (which our society is famous for: war on drugs; war on poverty: etc.) will not heal the cause.
The reason that we get involved with people who are unavailable, is because we are unavailable. We are attracted to people who feel familiar because on some level we are still trying to prove our worth by earning the Love and respect of our unavailable parents. We think we are going to rescue the other person which will prove our worth - or that we need them to rescue us because of our lack of worth. The princess will kiss me and turn me from a frog into a prince, the prince will rescue me and take me to live in the castle, syndrome.
We need to own our own worth - our own "Prince or Princess" ness - before we can be available for a healthy relationship with some one who has owned their own worth.
It is not possible to love someone enough to get them to stop hating, and being unavailable, to them self. We need to let go of that delusion. We need to focus on healing our self - on understanding and healing the emotional wounds that have driven us to pick people who could not give us what we want emotionally. We need to develop some healthy emotional intimacy with ourselves before we are capable of being available for a healthy relationships with someone who is also available.
Obsession / Obsessive Thinking
by Robert Burney
One of the most ridiculous forms that obsession used to take for me, would involve me actually writing out the script of a conversation with a woman who was unavailable to me in some way. I would write pages and pages. I would say this, and then she would say that, and then I would say, etc., etc. This conversation would build to a the climax where I would say just the right words and suddenly she would understand. She would see the light and rush into my arms in overwhelming gratitude as she awakened to how good I was for her and how much I loved her. And then we would live happily ever after.
The trouble was, she never had the same script I did.
Looking back, it is both silly and sad to remember the amount of time and energy I would put into figuring out just the right words to say to get the other person to see how much she needed me.
Obsessive thinking for me was always about trying to fill the hole within. I would focus on a person or the outcome of a situation as the thing that would fix me. Or I would obsess about getting the substance that I needed to temporarily fill the hole within until I got the person or outcome that I thought I needed.
The delusion was that once I got the relationship, or the money, or the job, or whatever, then I could really start to live. That person or outcome was the missing ingredient in my life that would make me happy and whole - that would fix me.
All codependents have some obsessive tendencies. Some of the flavors of obsessive thinking are: the alcoholic who starts thinking about where he/she is going for a drink after work, while eating breakfast; the drug addict who starts feeling some panic when the prescription bottle or the baggy is almost empty and starts urgently focusing on replenishing the supply; the person whose relationship has ended who focuses on the good times and ignores the bad, or who focuses on what an awful villain the other person is - and keeps trying to find allies to support that view by telling horror stories to friends (who will then be baffled and confused when the person jumps at the chance to go back into the relationship); the person who is always focused on eating, or dieting; the person who is constantly thinking about money, or the lack of it, and projecting fantasies of grandiose jackpots or homeless ruination; the person who obsessively cleans house because their fear of the unknown drives them to focus on that which they can control; etc., etc.
Someone told me as some point in my recovery, that what I focused my mind on was what I was worshiping. I didn't want to hear that, but I came to see that there was Truth in it.
Obsessive thinking is about focusing externally in order to escape from our self, from the fear and shame we feel at the core of our being. When we obsess on another person, thing, or outcome of a situation as our savior, as the magical ingredient that is going to fix us, as the prince / princess / success that is going to get us to "happily ever after," we are making that external source our higher power, our god. The opposite extreme is, of course, when we focus on either our self, or another person, thing, or situation as the villain who has destroyed our lives.
To paraphrase something I said in my March article here - Letting Go of Unavailable People - what is so important, is to stop focusing on an external source as the cause of, or solution to, our problems. It is vital to start focusing on what we do have some control over instead of things which we cannot control.
One of the most powerful tools in my recovery from the beginning has been The Serenity Prayer. The Serenity Prayer is a very simple formula, a template, for how to live life in a way that works. Accept the things I cannot change - change the things I can.
Focusing my time and energy on trying to change another person, or on controlling the outcome of a situation is a dysfunctional way to live life because it is not really living. Living happens in the moment - not in the future or the past.
One of the most important things I learned to do to counteract obsessive thinking was to pull myself back into the moment. Take some deep breaths and get into my body in the moment. Look around me and see where I am and what is happening now. And then take some action.
I cannot force myself to stop obsessing. Shaming myself, "should"ing on myself, threatening myself, will not stop me from obsessing. It is not possible to stop obsessing by obsessing about the obsession.
It was very valuable for me in recovery to realize that I cannot force myself out of an emotional place - I can't force my process. I learned that I needed to accept where ever I was emotionally - no matter how uncomfortable. Once I accept where I am at, then I can take some action that will be helpful in moving me to a different emotional place.
One of the things I have control over, that I have the power to change, is what I am doing in the moment. I have the power to force myself to take an action. Not because I "should" - because it is the kind thing to do for me.
Allowing myself to be in my head wallowing in the agony of the trauma drama that is obsession is not a kind thing to do for myself. Getting up and getting in motion is a good thing.
I take the deep breaths to get into the moment. I look around and see that the sink is full of dirty dishes. So I do the dishes. Then as I am drying my hands I look around and notice what a beautiful day it is outside. So, I go out and take a walk.
It was vital for me to learn to take action in alignment with my recovery. Working the third step in the twelve step program - "Made a decision to turn my will and life over to the care" of a Higher Power as I understand him/her/it - is a step of action. It is not enough to have faith - we need to take action based upon that belief.
Love, like faith, is not just a theoretical concept. Love requires action. Loving ourselves means taking actions that are good for us, that are kind and Loving. I will talk some more in my next article here about applying the Serenity Prayer in our lives - learning to take responsibility for the things I can change as a way of being Loving to my self.
http://www.joy2meu.com/letting_go.html
Lindaland
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posted December 25, 2006 06:26 AM
posted December 25, 2006 09:38 AM
posted December 25, 2006 12:44 PM
posted December 25, 2006 01:05 PM
Thank you!
Zala
and 
to all of you. 
very interesting.
posted December 26, 2006 05:49 PM
