Wow, woke up and having coffee and what did I find here, but an excellent post to help me on my day. Thank you for sharing everyone!
This all reminds me of a day when I finally realized that in my situation I had been always looking outward to the addict. It kept me from looking at my own stuff. It worked for me for a long long time even though I was completely and utterly miserable.
I had a teacher that I was talking to one day and I asked her how could I ever stop worrying about this person(my addict) and she told me to stop looking at her as though she is broken and in need of fixing. That was the beginning of a long journey for me. A journey that started me looking within myself. I took my focus off my addict and began focusing on me. The truth was that I had become broken- I was the one who had to begin to make change if I ever wanted to feel differently. I was the only one in the relationship that I could fix or at least influence:-) I was the one who was miserable!
Recently I've been doing some writing, well a lot of writing and somewhere I began to look at love and what that means to me. Love does not mean I say yes when I mean no, it does not mean I "do" anything extraordinary, in fact love is not for me a doing thing at all. Love is a "being" thing for me, and has nothing to do with the other person. It has everything to do with myself. I can not love another until I love and accept myself and all my icky parts. When I can live, accept and love myself than I am in a state of "being" in love, and I can pretty much love those around me.
When I am not in that being state of love for myself, I am frustrated with the world and the people around me. Nothing they do is good enough, I judge them and my ego gets all wacky and twisted.
When I love myself I do not have to resort to "tough" love or other means to get what I want, in fact I really do not want for anything from others around me, it is as though I am in some strange ecstasy and need for nothing from outside of myself. I am filled with joy and happiness. I am at a place where I have no desire to "change" another, and so they are free to be who they need to be.
I think you are right where you need to be, part of my own journey was to feel pain, pain is the thing that spurred me into looking deeper and finding the answers that I needed to find. Pain and misery have become friends of mine, they have served me very well, and to that I hold a lot of respect for them. When they show up on my doorstep, it is a sign for me and tells me I am resisting something somewhere, so in some respects they come to warn me that if I want to remain happy, joyous and free, I might want to take a look inside, and stop looking outward at someone else. That is all a distraction that keeps me from the joy that is always here, always waiting for me to step into. Joy does not go anywhere...it simply waits for me to slide the crude over so I can get to it.
Much love and light to you, and trust that you are on your Divine Life Journey.
~Cheryl