Enabling is not loving.
Love is only something we can give to someone who is capable of standing on their own two feet, who is of clear mind, and who has also been healthy enough to learn to love themselves.
Love is more a decision than it is an emotion. Emotions are guidelines we follow. A commitment is based on a decision. While our emotions may change, a decision or a commitment should not, extenuating circumstances excluded.
If a relationship is based on the rescuing of an another, then it is not love. If the primary feeling of the relationship is one of "I rescue you, and then you get to owe me your love because I have rescued you so that I can feel 'good enough' through the act of rescuing you", the relationship is not only dysfunctional, but doomed to be riddled with unnecessary drama via manipulation by both the rescuer and the one playing the wounded victim.
While on the surface the rescuer seems like a hero, in some cases the truth is the rescuer needs the helpless one so to shine in contrast to. In some cases rescuers are in need of controlling situations, and have learned that the helpless rarely put up a good fight. Sometimes the rescuers are those of us who feel guilty for being intelligent or for achieving. Because the rescuer may not have learned to love themselves selfishly, they sometimes seek others to help, so to share their good fortune, so to dampen the goodness almost as a way of punishing oneself for being fortunate.
When relationships are rooted in addictions of any kind, and the roles are such as one is the rescuer while the other is the one in need of rescuing, true authentic love is not found. Instead what is found, is a dramatic roller coaster ride of emotions that run highs and lows. When there is rescuing going on, the rescuer basks in the euphoria of the acts of being a martyr, while the one being rescued gets to act out their helplessness.
On the surface for the one in need, it would seem they are unable to tend to their own needs whether they be financial, spiritual, or physical. Perhaps the one who in need has an anger issue, or is depressed. The one in need is emotionally draining to the rescuer, and it would appear that the helpless one is in fact truly in need. But more often than not those in need are sly manipulators who have learned that by acting as if they were helpless, gets others attention. Unable to fulfill or unwilling to learn to fulfill their own emotional, financial of physical needs, the helpless manipulate attention, validation and love out of others through the acts of seeming as if they are unable to care for themselves. The enabling attention of others gets the helpless off the hook every time, and sadly helps keep the helpless one believing in their own helplessness.
The two involved are actually two sides of the same coin. The rescuer could not be without the one who has been deemed as in need of rescuing. While one is usually super independent, the other is super dependent. The two dance the dance of enabling and codependency as well as any seasoned Tango experts.
The need to rescue is so ingrained that the rescuer could not nor would not attract unto themselves a healthy non-needy partner. The 'victim mentality-the world is out to get me one-I can't do this on my own needy one' can and only will attract a partner who has rescuer tendencies. Healthy individuals, not infected by the needs to control others through enabling care-taking, or the need to play the victim and thus control others into care-taking, would not be attracted to a person who has an unusual need to put others into the victim role, or attract one who is not interested in tending to the unhealthy enabling needs of another.
Love is based on a mutual give and a take. Love is based on respect. Love is based on clear concise exchanges of feelings, words, and physical attentiveness. Love is kind. Love is a free giving. Love is empathetic. Love is strong enough to withstand distance, and humble enough not to smother. Love is joyful delight in another. Love is a strong sense of contentment.
If the love you feel is unstable, unsure, argumentative, hostile, or if you find yourself complaining more about your partner whether verbally or just within the confines of your own mind, it is not love. If you believe you are in love with someone who has an addiction, you must decide whether your love is based on your unearthed need to rescue and enable others. If you are the one playing out the role of the victim, know that manipulating others into doing for you what you are responsible for doing yourself, will never make you feel good about you.
All love starts with healthy, self actualizing, self responsible, love of self.
Monday, August 22, 2011
How To Stop Being Negative
Ever notice that the more you try NOT to think about something, the more you end up thinking about it?
Ever notice that when a parent warns a child NOT to do something, the child usually winds up doing it?
And have you ever reminded yourself over and over NOT to forget something, only to wind up forgetting that something anyway?
As children the best advice our parents could give us was to ignore whatever it was that was bothering us. As parents ourselves we tell our own children to 'just not think about' the whatever it is that is bothering them. Whether children have been bullied at school, or are worried about switching schools, it seems that the best advice anyone could ever give had something to do with doing the almost impossible. How can you really ignore a bully when they're chasing you down the hallway, and how can you really NOT think about the one thing in your life that is causing you stress? It seems simply not doable.
What if instead of giving more focus to the very thing we do not want, like the bully, or the stressor of any given situation, and the subsequent anxiety induced by any said given stressor;what if instead of reinforcing the anxiety related to a particular stressor; what if opposed to the re-telling of stories that have to do with our stressor we instead trained our minds to focus upon things that made our spirits happy?
Maybe my mother should have told me what to do instead of what not to do. Maybe when I complained about being punched in the hallway by my bully, she should have told me to instead take a dance class. Maybe the dance class would have improved my self esteem, and would have given me something to look forward to. Maybe if I had something wonderful to cling to, I would not have entertained such negative thoughts about the bullies in my grammar school. Maybe all the focus, albeit negative focus, actually helped me attract the bullies in the first place.
Maybe instead of parents telling their children to be happy, parents actually made themselves happy, by taking a yoga class, or a painting class and in return offered their children a model for what self love is, then maybe our children would learn to focus all by themselves on how to draw positives into their lives, rather than falsely assuming that being a slave to negative programming is fate.
If we want to grow an apple tree, we wouldn't stare at the ground and say, "Wow this soil sucks. There is no way an apple tree is going to grow here. It will probably not grow. It will probably die anyway, or if it does grow it won't bare any fruit anyway."
We usually have more faith and hope in the annual impatient flowers we plant around our property every spring than we do in our abilities to attract positivity into our lives. The key is to hear the programming that is swirling about in our minds.
Happiness is but a single thought away....
Peace to you my friends...
Ever notice that when a parent warns a child NOT to do something, the child usually winds up doing it?
And have you ever reminded yourself over and over NOT to forget something, only to wind up forgetting that something anyway?
As children the best advice our parents could give us was to ignore whatever it was that was bothering us. As parents ourselves we tell our own children to 'just not think about' the whatever it is that is bothering them. Whether children have been bullied at school, or are worried about switching schools, it seems that the best advice anyone could ever give had something to do with doing the almost impossible. How can you really ignore a bully when they're chasing you down the hallway, and how can you really NOT think about the one thing in your life that is causing you stress? It seems simply not doable.
What if instead of giving more focus to the very thing we do not want, like the bully, or the stressor of any given situation, and the subsequent anxiety induced by any said given stressor;what if instead of reinforcing the anxiety related to a particular stressor; what if opposed to the re-telling of stories that have to do with our stressor we instead trained our minds to focus upon things that made our spirits happy?
Maybe my mother should have told me what to do instead of what not to do. Maybe when I complained about being punched in the hallway by my bully, she should have told me to instead take a dance class. Maybe the dance class would have improved my self esteem, and would have given me something to look forward to. Maybe if I had something wonderful to cling to, I would not have entertained such negative thoughts about the bullies in my grammar school. Maybe all the focus, albeit negative focus, actually helped me attract the bullies in the first place.
Maybe instead of parents telling their children to be happy, parents actually made themselves happy, by taking a yoga class, or a painting class and in return offered their children a model for what self love is, then maybe our children would learn to focus all by themselves on how to draw positives into their lives, rather than falsely assuming that being a slave to negative programming is fate.
If we want to grow an apple tree, we wouldn't stare at the ground and say, "Wow this soil sucks. There is no way an apple tree is going to grow here. It will probably not grow. It will probably die anyway, or if it does grow it won't bare any fruit anyway."
We usually have more faith and hope in the annual impatient flowers we plant around our property every spring than we do in our abilities to attract positivity into our lives. The key is to hear the programming that is swirling about in our minds.
Happiness is but a single thought away....
Peace to you my friends...
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