Self Care - From The Language of Letting Go
Nature Girl
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Self Care - From The Language of Letting Go
Self Care
When will we become lovable? When will we feel safe? When will we get all the protection, nurturing, and love we so richly deserve? We will get it when we begin giving it to ourselves.
—Beyond Codependency
The idea of giving ourselves what we want and need can be confusing, especially if we have spent many years not knowing that it's okay to take care of ourselves. Taking our energy and focus off others and their responsibilities and placing that energy on to our responsibilities and ourselves is a recovery behavior that can be acquired. We learn it by daily practice.
We begin by relaxing, by breathing deeply, and letting go of our fears enough to feel as peaceful as we can. Then, we ask ourselves: What do I need to do to take care of myself today, or for this moment?
What do I need and want to do?
What would demonstrate love and self-responsibility?
Am I caught up in the belief that others are responsible for making me happy, responsible for me? Then the first thing I need to do is correct my belief system. I am responsible for myself.
Do I feel anxious and concerned about a responsibility I've been neglecting? Then perhaps I need to let go of my fears and tend to that responsibility.
Do I feel overwhelmed, out of control? Maybe I need to journey back to the first of the Twelve Steps.
Have I been working too hard? Maybe what I need to do is take some time off and do something fun.
Have I been neglecting my work on daily tasks? Then maybe what I need to do is get back to my routine.
There is no recipe, no formula, no guidebook for self care. We each have a guide, and that guide is within us. We need to ask the question: What do I need to do to take loving, responsible care of myself? Then, we need to listen to the answer. Self-care is not that difficult. The most challenging part is trusting the answer, and having the courage to follow through once we hear it.
Today, I will focus on taking care of myself. I will trust myself and my Higher Power to guide me in this process.
~Melody Beatty
Language of Letting Go
When will we become lovable? When will we feel safe? When will we get all the protection, nurturing, and love we so richly deserve? We will get it when we begin giving it to ourselves.
—Beyond Codependency
The idea of giving ourselves what we want and need can be confusing, especially if we have spent many years not knowing that it's okay to take care of ourselves. Taking our energy and focus off others and their responsibilities and placing that energy on to our responsibilities and ourselves is a recovery behavior that can be acquired. We learn it by daily practice.
We begin by relaxing, by breathing deeply, and letting go of our fears enough to feel as peaceful as we can. Then, we ask ourselves: What do I need to do to take care of myself today, or for this moment?
What do I need and want to do?
What would demonstrate love and self-responsibility?
Am I caught up in the belief that others are responsible for making me happy, responsible for me? Then the first thing I need to do is correct my belief system. I am responsible for myself.
Do I feel anxious and concerned about a responsibility I've been neglecting? Then perhaps I need to let go of my fears and tend to that responsibility.
Do I feel overwhelmed, out of control? Maybe I need to journey back to the first of the Twelve Steps.
Have I been working too hard? Maybe what I need to do is take some time off and do something fun.
Have I been neglecting my work on daily tasks? Then maybe what I need to do is get back to my routine.
There is no recipe, no formula, no guidebook for self care. We each have a guide, and that guide is within us. We need to ask the question: What do I need to do to take loving, responsible care of myself? Then, we need to listen to the answer. Self-care is not that difficult. The most challenging part is trusting the answer, and having the courage to follow through once we hear it.
Today, I will focus on taking care of myself. I will trust myself and my Higher Power to guide me in this process.
~Melody Beatty
Language of Letting Go
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Recently I find myself replying to members here that they need to take care of themselves, to practice Self-Care.
This was a strange process for me early in my recovery, I had spent my life caring for others...even at the expense of NOT taking care of ME.
My codependency was based on bad things happening to people I loved, so I always felt like the protector and was "my mother's daughter" and "my son's mother" and my friends' "friend" and it didn't take long in my adult life to lose sight of who I was, and how to take care of me.
Some of the methods that helped me?
Therapy - I had to try 2 not so good therapists who told me "get over it, move on" until I finally found one who wanted to learn about "me" and what had caused this in the first place. My father died of cancer when I was 6, I didn't know he was that sick and I was his little nurse, so when he died I thought it was my fault. My mother was attacked randomly in our home when I was 7...it was a mentally ill neighbour teen who mistook my mother for his abusive and neglectful mother. I saw him in our basement with a mask on and asked her to go find the "monster" I had seen, and she was attacked and hurt so badly that she had epilepsy the rest of her life. I felt it was my fault, I had asked her to look. I never once connected this to my obsession to protect my son from addiction until a good therapist helped me deal with the past so that I could deal with the present in a healthy way. Therapy takes time and patience but I promise you it is invaluable in self-help.
Support - I took a long time to join CoDA (Codependents Anonymous) a support group that helped people like me, like us here, find a healthy was to set boundaries and learn to take care of ourselves. I learned and finally accepted that I was powerless over my son's addiction and that the only person I could fix was me. I got to know "that stranger called me" and my life became better each day, each meeting, each step that I worked to heal. SoberRecovery has been a daily support for me too, I come here each day to learn and grow and to remember where I came from and why I will never go back to that dark place called codependency.
A Higher Power - be it God, as you understand God, or the Universe, or Buddha or Nature or anything that is bigger than you that you believe in and can trust to guide you or listen to your prayers/requests/confessions/needs.Prayer, to me, is me talking to God and Meditation is me, listening to God's reply or guidance.
I may be leaving out other way to help ourselves. But is it a path we have to find ourselves and follow each day. We CAN do it, if I found my way out of the darkness, so can you. It doesn't matter how rich or poor we are, how old or young, how strong or weak or sick or afraid...we CAN do it and call it self-help.
Please take a moment today and answer in your mind or write it down, you don't have to share your answers here unless you want to, the questions asked in Melody's writing today. Even make a list of your questions and set them aside, then take time each day to answer them honestly to yourself. Make a list, however long or brief, of what you think would help your progress and then find the courage to do it. Go to a meeting and just listen. Nothing is expected of you and you share when and if you are ready. Listening to others may help you learn about yourself. Take a walk each day and don't think, just notice the flowers or the trees or the shore or the city park or anything lovely along the way and then take a moment to soak it in.
Others, I hope, will share on this thread of what helped them begin the journey that brought them to the better place where they are today. And some, I hope, will share their questions about themselves and how they can start.
This is not just a reading thread, I really hope you all will join in and share anything you want about how you hope for self-help and how you too can find a better path.
Humour is allowed...let me rephrase, humour is mandatory to those of us who need to laugh at ourselves. Humour got me through my early days, thank God for those who made me laugh and laughed with me. I had not laughed in a very long time.
Hugs to each of you.
This was a strange process for me early in my recovery, I had spent my life caring for others...even at the expense of NOT taking care of ME.
My codependency was based on bad things happening to people I loved, so I always felt like the protector and was "my mother's daughter" and "my son's mother" and my friends' "friend" and it didn't take long in my adult life to lose sight of who I was, and how to take care of me.
Some of the methods that helped me?
Therapy - I had to try 2 not so good therapists who told me "get over it, move on" until I finally found one who wanted to learn about "me" and what had caused this in the first place. My father died of cancer when I was 6, I didn't know he was that sick and I was his little nurse, so when he died I thought it was my fault. My mother was attacked randomly in our home when I was 7...it was a mentally ill neighbour teen who mistook my mother for his abusive and neglectful mother. I saw him in our basement with a mask on and asked her to go find the "monster" I had seen, and she was attacked and hurt so badly that she had epilepsy the rest of her life. I felt it was my fault, I had asked her to look. I never once connected this to my obsession to protect my son from addiction until a good therapist helped me deal with the past so that I could deal with the present in a healthy way. Therapy takes time and patience but I promise you it is invaluable in self-help.
Support - I took a long time to join CoDA (Codependents Anonymous) a support group that helped people like me, like us here, find a healthy was to set boundaries and learn to take care of ourselves. I learned and finally accepted that I was powerless over my son's addiction and that the only person I could fix was me. I got to know "that stranger called me" and my life became better each day, each meeting, each step that I worked to heal. SoberRecovery has been a daily support for me too, I come here each day to learn and grow and to remember where I came from and why I will never go back to that dark place called codependency.
A Higher Power - be it God, as you understand God, or the Universe, or Buddha or Nature or anything that is bigger than you that you believe in and can trust to guide you or listen to your prayers/requests/confessions/needs.Prayer, to me, is me talking to God and Meditation is me, listening to God's reply or guidance.
I may be leaving out other way to help ourselves. But is it a path we have to find ourselves and follow each day. We CAN do it, if I found my way out of the darkness, so can you. It doesn't matter how rich or poor we are, how old or young, how strong or weak or sick or afraid...we CAN do it and call it self-help.
Please take a moment today and answer in your mind or write it down, you don't have to share your answers here unless you want to, the questions asked in Melody's writing today. Even make a list of your questions and set them aside, then take time each day to answer them honestly to yourself. Make a list, however long or brief, of what you think would help your progress and then find the courage to do it. Go to a meeting and just listen. Nothing is expected of you and you share when and if you are ready. Listening to others may help you learn about yourself. Take a walk each day and don't think, just notice the flowers or the trees or the shore or the city park or anything lovely along the way and then take a moment to soak it in.
Others, I hope, will share on this thread of what helped them begin the journey that brought them to the better place where they are today. And some, I hope, will share their questions about themselves and how they can start.
This is not just a reading thread, I really hope you all will join in and share anything you want about how you hope for self-help and how you too can find a better path.
Humour is allowed...let me rephrase, humour is mandatory to those of us who need to laugh at ourselves. Humour got me through my early days, thank God for those who made me laugh and laughed with me. I had not laughed in a very long time.
Hugs to each of you.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 291
Lord, without humour I would have caved long ago. People find it odd, that we can find humour in such circumstances, but what are we to do? We can't go around wailing and weeping for the rest of our lives. I was all cried out, but with time, and effort to gain my life back, I was able to find humour - many times a black sense of humour!
Taking interest in the world around me, made me realise that the world kept turning - it hadn't stopped, when I stopped enjoying my life. I had to learn to keep turning.
Fake it til you make it - ain't that the truth! I faked it many times. Face went on, and I did what was required to get me through each day.
Hobbies - I taught myself to crochet from you tube videos. I discovered I had a talent for it, and I absolutely love it! I find it relaxes me, and I zone right out. I love buying yarn- love it a bit too much actually! I have a craft room, with storage compartments filled with balls of yarn. Diamond art is a nice way to pass some time, and some of the pictures are lovely. I like to potter about in the garden - it's very low maintainance. I just finished a little project this weekend, where I added a little something different. I created a "flower wall", for want of a better way to describe it. You may or may not have read about using shower curtains, to create optical illusions. Well, that's what I did - it looks fantastic, even if I do say so myself 😁
Spending time outside - there is a loch, literally "at the bottom of the road" - nice and peaceful to sit with my dog and watch the water, the birds, the "hellos" to passersby.
It's very easy for us to isolate ourselves, and end up in a deep despair about our addicted loved one. Time brings clarity, and clarity vrings strength. Sacrificing our lives, won't change theirs.
Much Love
Bute
Taking interest in the world around me, made me realise that the world kept turning - it hadn't stopped, when I stopped enjoying my life. I had to learn to keep turning.
Fake it til you make it - ain't that the truth! I faked it many times. Face went on, and I did what was required to get me through each day.
Hobbies - I taught myself to crochet from you tube videos. I discovered I had a talent for it, and I absolutely love it! I find it relaxes me, and I zone right out. I love buying yarn- love it a bit too much actually! I have a craft room, with storage compartments filled with balls of yarn. Diamond art is a nice way to pass some time, and some of the pictures are lovely. I like to potter about in the garden - it's very low maintainance. I just finished a little project this weekend, where I added a little something different. I created a "flower wall", for want of a better way to describe it. You may or may not have read about using shower curtains, to create optical illusions. Well, that's what I did - it looks fantastic, even if I do say so myself 😁
Spending time outside - there is a loch, literally "at the bottom of the road" - nice and peaceful to sit with my dog and watch the water, the birds, the "hellos" to passersby.
It's very easy for us to isolate ourselves, and end up in a deep despair about our addicted loved one. Time brings clarity, and clarity vrings strength. Sacrificing our lives, won't change theirs.
Much Love
Bute
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Bute, your post shows that there are so many things we can do to distract us from our obsessions and actually enjoy life. Crocheting and gardening and making pictures all sound wonderful, so does the loch not far from your place.
In my early days of recovery, my husband was working out west in the Oil Sands on a project and I took up photography to make myself get outdoors and walk and look for nature and lovely things to capture with my camera. I joined a fun photography club that had small excursions to various "theme" places to try some shots in different lighting and from different angles. One day we visited lighthouses along the lake, another we visited waterfalls big and small. Farms and livestock, hills and flat land, and my favourite....birds and wildlife such as deer and foxes and all things lovely.
There is a difference between isolating (unhealthy) and embracing solitude (doing things we love by ourselves) and that has made all the difference to me. I also learned to be with people again, my photography group was a nice bunch of people who were happy like me to be outdoors and share what we had in common, a love for photography.
I no longer took time to worry about my son and obsess about his addiction. Instead I felt connected to God, the universe and all the beauty that I found around me.
Self-Care? You betcha.
In my early days of recovery, my husband was working out west in the Oil Sands on a project and I took up photography to make myself get outdoors and walk and look for nature and lovely things to capture with my camera. I joined a fun photography club that had small excursions to various "theme" places to try some shots in different lighting and from different angles. One day we visited lighthouses along the lake, another we visited waterfalls big and small. Farms and livestock, hills and flat land, and my favourite....birds and wildlife such as deer and foxes and all things lovely.
There is a difference between isolating (unhealthy) and embracing solitude (doing things we love by ourselves) and that has made all the difference to me. I also learned to be with people again, my photography group was a nice bunch of people who were happy like me to be outdoors and share what we had in common, a love for photography.
I no longer took time to worry about my son and obsess about his addiction. Instead I felt connected to God, the universe and all the beauty that I found around me.
Self-Care? You betcha.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 291
"I no longer took time to worry about my son and obsess about his addiction. Instead I felt connected to God, the universe and all the beauty that I found around me."
HERE!HERE! Absolutely Ann! I also enjoy clay pidgeon shooting - such a stress buster! I can afford to indulge in doing things that make me happy, as I no long dish MY money out to my son, like I did initially. I never thought for a minute, 8 years back, that I would ever be happy again - I was wrong!
Much Love
Bute x
HERE!HERE! Absolutely Ann! I also enjoy clay pidgeon shooting - such a stress buster! I can afford to indulge in doing things that make me happy, as I no long dish MY money out to my son, like I did initially. I never thought for a minute, 8 years back, that I would ever be happy again - I was wrong!
Much Love
Bute x
Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
I think the mama's of addicts have a sense of humour that nobody else would understand...we "get" each other and our shared stories help us along.
I've told this story before here, and no doubt will tell it again. It still makes me laugh, it makes most of my friends here laugh...because they "get" it. Normal moms would just think I was crazy as my son....
I had some dental work done and the dentist prescribed me some Tylanol 3's for the pain. While I was at the pharmacy picking them up, I also picked up a repeat of my hormones (I was menopausal). I took them home, hid the Tylanol 3's (we mama's know all about hiding medications) and set the hormone containers on my dresser.
My son doesn't read well and thought my hormones were the Tylanol 3's and he took a bunch. I discovered this and hollered for him and he quietly confessed and said that they didn't do much for him anyway (gee, too bad son). I grabbed this opportunity and said "You KNOW what you took? The same hormones that men undergoing sex changes take! You will grow breasts!!!
"
He believed me...and he checked every day for a month before he caught on that I had maybe exaggerated a little.
Now see, I could never share that story with family, or with friends whose children never did drugs. They would think the insanity of the whole thing was weird. But WE get it, we here each have our stories that stick in our minds. And stories like this still make me laugh...at myself and at the circumstances. Lordy, if I didn't laugh I would be stuck in the darkness full time.
Laughter has been as important to my recovery as any other resource. Mostly laughing at myself in hindsight and reminding myself that I really don't want to ever return to that crazy dark world again.
Bute, shooting clay pigeons would be a wonderful release...except my aim would never cut it. Even the clay pigeons would get away.
I've told this story before here, and no doubt will tell it again. It still makes me laugh, it makes most of my friends here laugh...because they "get" it. Normal moms would just think I was crazy as my son....
I had some dental work done and the dentist prescribed me some Tylanol 3's for the pain. While I was at the pharmacy picking them up, I also picked up a repeat of my hormones (I was menopausal). I took them home, hid the Tylanol 3's (we mama's know all about hiding medications) and set the hormone containers on my dresser.
My son doesn't read well and thought my hormones were the Tylanol 3's and he took a bunch. I discovered this and hollered for him and he quietly confessed and said that they didn't do much for him anyway (gee, too bad son). I grabbed this opportunity and said "You KNOW what you took? The same hormones that men undergoing sex changes take! You will grow breasts!!!
"He believed me...and he checked every day for a month before he caught on that I had maybe exaggerated a little.
Now see, I could never share that story with family, or with friends whose children never did drugs. They would think the insanity of the whole thing was weird. But WE get it, we here each have our stories that stick in our minds. And stories like this still make me laugh...at myself and at the circumstances. Lordy, if I didn't laugh I would be stuck in the darkness full time.
Laughter has been as important to my recovery as any other resource. Mostly laughing at myself in hindsight and reminding myself that I really don't want to ever return to that crazy dark world again.
Bute, shooting clay pigeons would be a wonderful release...except my aim would never cut it. Even the clay pigeons would get away.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 291
LOL that was hilarious Ann 😂 I'm lying in bed reading this - laughing. (9pm here)
It's unreal the things they get up to to get a buzz.
Most definitely, mothers would think we were bonkers. I think being a tad bonkers helps to be fair.
My aim is getting better Ann. I actually hit some now and again 😁
Much Love
Bute x
It's unreal the things they get up to to get a buzz.
Most definitely, mothers would think we were bonkers. I think being a tad bonkers helps to be fair.
My aim is getting better Ann. I actually hit some now and again 😁
Much Love
Bute x
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 2,684
This is a great thread and thanks to those who have shared.
I just love this -- I instantly feel peaceful when picturing this scene:
I just love this -- I instantly feel peaceful when picturing this scene:
Originally Posted by Bute 
Spending time outside - there is a loch, literally "at the bottom of the road" - nice and peaceful to sit with my dog and watch the water, the birds, the "hellos" to passersby.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 2,684
And speaking of kinda dark humor (I know, I spell it differently here in the USA 
) ... daughter and I were remembering an incident involving my son that happened years ago, when he was out of control, on drugs, and causing problems for himself and others. He had come to stay at the home of his sister and her beau and she described remembering how he instantly went from peaceful and calm to crazy and demonic, out of control; they called the police and off son went into the night, running through the city without shoes in below freezing weather. I laughed about it when she brought it up, thinking of him running the streets barefoot in the winter; I would not have laughed then.
) ... daughter and I were remembering an incident involving my son that happened years ago, when he was out of control, on drugs, and causing problems for himself and others. He had come to stay at the home of his sister and her beau and she described remembering how he instantly went from peaceful and calm to crazy and demonic, out of control; they called the police and off son went into the night, running through the city without shoes in below freezing weather. I laughed about it when she brought it up, thinking of him running the streets barefoot in the winter; I would not have laughed then.Nature Girl
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
Anaya, that would be quite a sight. Families that have tried to save their loved ones, most often get to the point that they need help themselves. It's traumatic to have a front row seat to addiction.
There is a very old thread here somewhere, called something like "Of all the Parks in All the City, Why did he Choose Mine?" I started that thread one time when my son was living on the street (after countless efforts to help him at home) and he took to sleeping on a park bench just up the street from where we lived. He was making a statement, of course the neighbours didn't "get it" and wondered why he would sleep there. On a cold night, I would slip him a blanket and offer to drive him to a shelter/detox/a meeting...the places that could really help him...but he refused. Just one more bad decision.
In trying to help him, I neglected my own self-care, even then when he chose to sleep in the park up the street.
Another wise statement from Bute...
It's very easy for us to isolate ourselves, and end up in a deep despair about our addicted loved one. Time brings clarity, and clarity brings strength. Sacrificing our lives, won't change theirs.
There is a very old thread here somewhere, called something like "Of all the Parks in All the City, Why did he Choose Mine?" I started that thread one time when my son was living on the street (after countless efforts to help him at home) and he took to sleeping on a park bench just up the street from where we lived. He was making a statement, of course the neighbours didn't "get it" and wondered why he would sleep there. On a cold night, I would slip him a blanket and offer to drive him to a shelter/detox/a meeting...the places that could really help him...but he refused. Just one more bad decision.
In trying to help him, I neglected my own self-care, even then when he chose to sleep in the park up the street.
Another wise statement from Bute...
It's very easy for us to isolate ourselves, and end up in a deep despair about our addicted loved one. Time brings clarity, and clarity brings strength. Sacrificing our lives, won't change theirs.
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