Language of Letting Go -October 6 - Taking Car of Ourselves
 

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

Taking Care of Ourselves

It's healthy, wise, and loving to be considerate and responsive to the feelings and needs of others. That's different from caretaking. Caretaking is a self defeating and, certainly, a relationship defeating behavior - a behavior that backfires and can cause us to feel resentful and victimized - because ultimately, what we feel, want, and need will come to the surface.

Some people seem to invite emotional caretaking. We can learn to refuse the invitation. We can be concerned; we can be loving, when possible; but we can place value on our own needs and feelings too. Part of recovery means learning to pay attention to, and place importance on, what we feel, want, and need, because we begin to see that there are clear, predictable, and usually undesirable consequences when we don't.

Be patient and gentle with yourself as you learn to do this. Be understanding with yourself when you slip back into the old behavior of emotional caretaking and self-neglect.

But stop the cycle today. We do not have to feel responsible for others. We do not have to feel guilty about not feeling responsible for others. We can even learn to let ourselves feel good about taking responsibility for our needs and feelings.

Today, I will evaluate whether I've slipped into my old behavior of taking responsibility for another's feelings and needs, while neglecting my own. I will own my power, right, and responsibility to place value on myself.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

It is important to my recovery to be aware of my feelings, and if I am feeling off balance, sad or down in any way, I need to do whatever is necessary to work through it and get back to a place of light.

When I keep the focus on my needs and what I want, it helps me regain my balance. When I am distracted by the behaviour or needs of others, especially when they have the ability to take care of themself, it can trigger my old codependent reactions and set me back a few steps.

One way I discern between being loving and caring or being codependent is to examine my motives when I help someone else. If I do it because I want to with no expectations of the results, if I do it because it's a nice thing to do and not because of guilt or a need to "fix" something, then it's okay, it's just a nice thing to do and nothing more.

Taking pause to think about my actions before I go ahead, is a good way to ascertain that my actions are healthy for me.

Hugs