Codependency Is Epidemic

Codependency is rooted in childhood.

It is the result of emotional wounds that occur during childhood that damage the child's sense of self, and worth.

Consistent stress or fear in childhood results in faulty childhood programming that hinders a child's ability to connect to and form a healthy sense of self and worth.

As adults these wounded children believe unconsciously that their worth is 'out there' somewhere.

They believe that their worth can only be found in others.

They forsake their own needs for the sake of relationships even when those relationships are unhealthy.

They are dependent on others, for their sense of worthiness.

Codependents are enabling, people pleasing, and self sacrificing individuals that attract wounded souls into their life experience that they can take care of, and thus achieve their sense of worthiness from--in the taking care of the other.

They are often devastated by the idea of ending even a dysfunctional relationship because they unconsciously believe in their 'emotional dependence' on the other for their sense of worth.

Codependents stay locked in the dynamic unaware they are enabling the partner they unconsciously believe they are helping.

Because these belief systems are unconscious, the dynamic plays out over and over, until eventually the relationship crashes and burns, and sadly sometimes as the result of traumatic events, like domestic violence, drug overdose, adultery, mental and emotional breakdowns, and even suicide.

I wrote The Road Back To me because I understand that codependency is rooted in childhood, and is the result of conditioning and programming that is operating the adult codependents life unconsciously.

My book uses my life--and in emotional detail attempts to capture the moments as well as the thoughts I was thinking at those critical times when I was being wounded and forming my beliefs about my self, and the world.

I intend on writing many more books--to help make 'codependency' as clear as possible so others can heal the root causes of their dysfunctional relationships with their selves as well as others.

Today we call codependency all sorts of things like insecurity, bulimia, anorexia, divorce, adultery, depression, domestic violence, and perfectionism.

And in my opinion all of these issues have to do with people not understanding at a soul level that they are enough, and that they truly have the potential to make themselves happy, and that that happiness is not dependent on others in any sense.

I use my life as a canvas and invite people to explore and hopefully relate to some of the ways I was wounded and thus programmed in a dysfunctional way--so that others can live a more joyful life experience.

I am hoping that my book helps draw codependency out of the closet...

Because codependency is so closely associated with addictions like alcoholism, its an emotional disease that has been polarized.

Our happiness is not and should not depend on others.

Others are to add to our happiness--not be the source of it--or take from it...

Namaste...

Free Autographed Copy of The Road Back To Me

I am giving away a free autographed copy of my best selling book, The Road Back To Me.

All you have to do, is write a post about how you feel codependent thinking has affected your life.

I will personally choose the post I feel most clearly describes the varied, but innocuous ways in which codependency infiltrates our everyday lives.

You may post your comments publicly, or send them to me directly so that your post remains private.

Namaste...

Lisa A. Romano

Children Who Commit Suicide

When I was twelve years old, I put my fathers black handgun to the side of my head.  Because I had been bullied to the point of torture through various forms of public humiliation, and harassment, life at that age simply just did not feel as if it was worth living.

Detached from the family I loved, and feeling much more like a specimen than a viable human being who belonged to a cohesive family unit, I did not feel worthy of my right to complain about what was going on at school.  Because I felt so powerless then, it seemed highly unlikely that any complaining I had to do about what was going on at school, would end well.  If anything, my small frame of reference had me believing, that telling my truth would more than likely only make things worse.

I am so often baffled by how dismayed many adults seem to appear when they are hearing for the first time, the news of another child's suicide.  Having been a child who has in fact suffered at the hands of other children's lack of decency for creatures less mean spirited than themselves, it always pangs me deeply to discover that  so many adults still don't seem to get it.


I was one of the lucky ones.  A moment of clarity pulled me from the edges of my mind, and saved me from pulling the trigger that fateful day.  However, I have never, ever forgotten the wretched and twisted disease, the almost socially accepted crime of bullying, caused within my being, way back then.

To any teacher, principal, administrator, or adult who cannot conceive why a child would want to die, I say 'shame on YOU!'

The very fact that you are dismayed at all, sheds light on one of the many root causes of child suicide.  Children who commit suicide, do not feel seen or valued in a psychological sense.  Furthermore, any child who has been pushed to the emotional brink, so far so that he/she now feels so hopeless, that death seems more pleasing than life, is more likely than not, a child who someone did not know was being abused in the first place.

This article is not intended to blame the families of the victims who have been abused to death.  It is however, intended to serve as a wake up call to anyone who has been attracted to the sentiments this author shares.

I, like many victims of hate crimes like bullying, did not feel like I had the right to complain.  Taught to smile on cue, keep the apple carts balanced, and to not dare add anymore to my families already mounting plates, my problems were my problems, and grotesquely as simple as that.

In some cases children do tell.  And many times parents do in fact get involved.  And many times, school administrators respond with, "There is nothing we can do."

As BS flies, children slip between cracks, until the moment they split open too wide, and their emotional beings hemorrhage while those who have been deemed as those responsible for their persons, pass the buck, and in more ways than I'd like to spew, invalidate the very beings they were deemed to protect.

To any parent who has lost a child to this insidious socially minimized genocide, my deepest sympathies I send to you.

To any child who is perhaps contemplating relief through the walking of deaths door, I implore you to hang on.  If I could sit you down upon my knee, I would look you in your innocent eyes, and beg you to believe in your personal worth.  I would tell you that I understood your pain, sorrow, disappointment, loneliness, anger, and fear.  I would tell you that I understand how sweet death smells, when your life reeks.  But I would also tell you, that one day you were not going to feel as powerless as you do.  I would ask you to look ahead, and to imagine the day you were just a few years older and were leaving the bullies behind.

I would also tell you to bring as much attention as you could to the types of harassment you have endured.  I would urge to record the verbal abuse, or have others video the times when you were being pushed around.  I would ask you to keep a daily log of anything that was said that you felt was threatening or intended to intimidate you in any way.

I would then ask you to take your evidence to the school boards, or perhaps even to the local papers or the local news.  I would suggest you created a blog and detailed the abuse on the internet, and with the vigor and valor of some of the greatest believers in peace such as heros like Martin Luther King, Siddhartha Guatama, Gandhi, and Mandela, use your experiences to help change the world.

Namaste dear child, I see you.  Now, you must learn to see you too.  You are worthy.  You are enough.  You are good.  You are strong.  You can look ahead.  You can change your world, and when you do, you change the whole world too.

The Road Back To Me: How To Enjoy Life

The Road Back To Me: How To Enjoy Life

Tell me, I want to know, do you love yourself?

I have been writing this blog for quite some time now, but now I want you to write me.  I want to know about how you, my reader feels about his/her life.  I want to know about what kind of thoughts are at the helm of your mind.

Tell me, do you love yourself?  If not, I want to know why.

Answer This..Do you know someone who you think is codependent?

I'd like to hear from you...If you are, or if you think you know someone who is codependent, please write me...I would love to hear your stories...

Namaste...

What Is Codependency?

Codependency is a term that was coined a few decades ago. Among addiction counselors it was noticed that the caretakers of alcoholics as well as drug addicts all had very similar emotional symptoms.  Further research indicated that caretakers share traits of enabling personalities, in that they tend to lose themselves while engaging in the care of another addicted person.

Codependent then implies that one is dependent psychologically on one who is dependent on a substance, behavior or other thing.

Codependents are those amongst us who worry obsessively about others.  Most codependents were emotionally abused as children.  They were made to feel psychologically invisible, and very often suffered various forms of abuse, including physical, sexual, verbal or psychological.  The consistent theme amongst codependents is that they can think for others, but not for themselves.

Codependents pair off in relationships.  It is not possible to have a codependent relationship with one who is not codependent.  Non codependents do not appreciate feeling smothered, overly relied upon for their partners sense of satisfaction, and do not enjoy empty praise.

Codependents tend to whine and complain rather than act on their behalf.  They complain about how sorry they feel for themselves, and wallow on sounding as if they prefer the world see them as the martyrs they falsely believe that they are.

On a deep unconscious level, codependents are manipulators who are seeking a sense of validation from others.  They manipulate others by their insatiable need to please others.  In the pleasing of others, the codependent is in search of a return.  The return is the notion that the object of their attention now 'owes' them.  The object of the codependents attention is seen as a source of a much needed sense of self.

Codependents do not cope well.  Because they do not understand how to nurture their own self, and because their childhood wounds are very deep, codependents are blind to the idea that their intentions are skewed and manipulative.  Because in their minds they view themselves as being one who is giving, they are unable to see the error of their manipulative ways.

Codependents are flustered souls, who ultimately wind up feeling exasperated.  Nothing that they thought might help them feel loved has worked.  They have smothered others to the point of draining the ones that they loved, and wind up blaming others for their inability to love the codependent no matter how hard the codependent tries to love them.

The codependent relationship is a trap.  And until the underlying dynamic is exposed, codependents leave trails of chaos behind them.

Overcoming The Need To Enable

It is not an easy thing to do--to think.

While most react without the volition of the mind, most living is done with only 5% of the brain.

Because we beings are habitual in nature, and our organism is one that does not require us to 'think' about breathing, excreting or digesting, our bodies do not require cooperation from a thinking mind.

To think, I have it heard said, is heroic.

To consider ones own patterns of thought, is akin to traveling alone to the center of the earth.

Enabling occurs whenever one sees another as a victim, and who ultimately encourages the illusion that the other is a victim, rather than encouraging the other to learn how to think above their current pattern of thought that supports the idea that the other is a victim.

It is also possible to enable ourselves.

Pity parties, thrown by Debbie Downers, and Sulking Sammy's are drizzled with woe is me party streamers, and 'my life sucks' decorated party plates.

The need to enable is rooted in an immature mindset that is built on less than perfect coping skills.

Coping, suggests that we use our thinking brains to help us choose to feel grateful, instead of pity.

It is possible in any situation, to see good, if one deliberately chooses to use the power of focus to do so.

It does no one any good to play into the illusions that we thinking beings need to feel sorry for ourselves.

From the position of victimhood, we hand over our personal power, throw blankets over the rainbows our brains know it can find, if you just let it, and depress our very own immune systems.

Enabling? Its just not worth it...

Encourage instead of enable, even ourselves...

Namaste...

Forgiving The Other Woman

When we find ourselves being lied to and we discover that our lovers have lovers other than us, we are often left with veins full of anger.  Our lives turn inside out, and upside down. Its all we can do to just keep breathing. So afraid of believing that our man could ever be completely responsible for the affair, we take our rage out on the other woman, in the hopes of relieving some of the pain that is left in our veins.

Unfortunately, however, our anger is misdirected.  Often times the other woman, thinks you are the other woman.  More often than not, we women have been 'played', 'manipulated' and toyed with like some recreational hobby.  So in fear of being alone, or perhaps facing the demon called humility, we run towards the easiest target and refuse to face the fact that we were wrong about our man, us and our relationship.

I am one who firmly believes in 'Sisterhood'.

I am hoping that as time marches on, women become more self-fulfilling and need to be validated by men less.

I am hoping and believing, that as women begin to honor themselves for the miraculous creatures they are, that they no longer require a man in their life to feel validated or worthy.

I am hoping that as we women learn to forgive one another, we fear facing life alone less if that is what we need to do.

I am hoping that as women educate themselves more deeply about how to 'love themselves', that we also learn to love one another more too.

If we woman had not been taught to be envious of one another since we were tiny children, perhaps we would not be--the sometimes catty creatures we are today.

Cinderella, and Snow White, although I do believe they were kind, empathetic creatures, did little to empower the little girls we all once were.  The messages received in fairy tales like these, do more harm than they do good, and do little but reinforce the idea that women need be envious of one another, and that woman need to be rescued by men.

And so, when our prince turns out to be toad, we are left feeling disillusioned, and broken.

But in that time of broken heartedness, is when we need to love our selves the most.

Denying the truth, displacing the blame, and staying angry only keeps the dysfunctional illusion of the life we are living--alive.

Illusions are better off dead.

Namaste...

On The Road Back To Me

I am currently working on my next book, 'On The Road Back To Me'.  In it I will discuss how I struggled to reinvent my thought process towards healthier ideas, so that I could spare my children the splintering effects of codependent thinking processes and behaviors.

Finding The Road Back To Me was one thing.  Staying On The Road Back To Me was quite a different journey than the first.

In life we are bombarded in every moment with choices.  We may not consciously keep ourselves ever aware of this concept, but it is my belief that we should.

Many times I disowned my right to choose, and instead stayed in chaotic, toxic, unsatisfying places, because at the very least things were predictable.  Afraid of change, and a deep rooted fear of the unknown, rooted in the notion that I could or should not trust my own self, kept my stymied much of my life.

Throwing ourselves into an abyss for the sake of healthier, and happier days is a courageous act, for we have no bearings to help us navigate the future unknown terrains.

All too often we beings fail to rely on our ability to choose, and to trust our internal guidance system, the one that so instinctively lets us know by way of our emotions, whether we are heading in the right or wrong direction.  We beings choose to stay where we are -- mentally, and continue doing what we did the day before, simply because we fail to challenge our thoughts to think a different thought.

We think others should think like us, or do what we do, or want what we want, and get stuck in the byproduct of resistant thinking.

Change is like being dropped off in a foreign country with a blindfold on.  Its that intimidating, that daunting, and that life zapping.  Nothing is familiar.  Nothing sounds like home, and nothing feels right.  So accustomed to dysfunction, we know nothing of the sweet aromas of possibility, or hope, or of letting go.

For those of us who find the courage to take the leap into the abyss of the unknown, most of us discover that we are more aerodynamic than we ever realized.  As the dust of newness settles, and we begin to learn to ease up on our resistance to change, we come to rely on the one source that we often ignored -- our inner being.

Your inner being and mine wants only one thing -- joy -- that can only by found by way of love.

Our ego's -- our minds -- our patterned thought processes, fails to allow new tracks to be laid out in the brain.  So afraid of change, or of being made to feel vulnerable, our ego's help us to learn how to distract from those things that challenge our predictable lives and protects our false identities from being exposed to others.

We play the game.  We smile on cue.  We do bad things behind others backs.  We never tell the truth, especially not to ourselves.  And in all of it, we deny our right to be in love with -- truth -- joy -- others -- and life itself.

In order to be truly happy, we beings must learn to tell the complete truths, especially to ourselves.  Because if we don't, we miss out on the ultimate human experience.

Love your 'self'.  Know what your priorities are.  Follow your bliss.  Challenge your old thought patterns.  Don't be so resistant to thinking new thoughts. And most important, be gentle with your self and others.  Journeys are meant to be shared.  When our priority is love, and not to be right, we simply cannot get it wrong...

Namaste...