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So in order to facilitate writing a short column on this month's topic, I am going to make a brief point about two dimensions of this phenomena in relationship to empowerment. These two dimensions are the horizontal and the vertical.
In this context the horizontal is about being human and relating to other humans and our environment. The vertical is Spiritual - about our relationship to the God-Force. Codependence is at it's core a Spiritual disease and the only way out of it is through a Spiritual cure - so any recovery, any empowerment, depends upon Spiritual awakening.
Now that said, I will write this column about the other dimension.
On a horizontal level empowerment is about choices. Being victimized is about not having choices - about feeling trapped. In order to start becoming empowered in life it is absolutely vital to start owning our choices.
As children we were taught that it is shamefully bad to make mistakes - that we caused our parents great emotional pain if we were not perfect. So as adults most of us went to one extreme or the other - that is we tried to do it perfect according to the rules we were taught (get married, have a family and career, work hard and you will be rewarded, etc.) or we rebelled and broke the rules (and usually became conformists to the anti-establishment rules). Some of us tried going one way and then, when that didn't work, turned around and went the other.
By going to either extreme we were giving power away. We were not choosing our own path we were reacting to their path. Integrating the Spiritual Truth (the vertical) of an unconditionally Loving God-Force into our process is vital in order to take the crippling toxic shame about being imperfect humans out of the equation. That toxic shame is what makes it so hard for us to own our right to make choices instead of just reacting to someone else set of rules.
Recovery from codependence is about balance and integration. Finding the balance of taking responsibility for our part in things while also holding others responsible for their part. The black and white perspective is never the truth. The truth in human interactions (the horizontal) is always somewhere in the gray area.
And we always have a choice. If someone sticks a gun in my face and says, "Your money or your life!" I have a choice. I may not like my choice but I have one. In life we often don't like our choices because we don't know what the outcome is going to be and we are terrified of doing it 'wrong.'
Even with life ...»»
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