The Control Series: Part 4

Greetings Magnificent Souls to the Attract Health Build Wealth Podcast where we have open and honest discussions about ourselves.

This is a place where we breakdown, breakaway, and breakthrough codependency allowing ourselves to attract health, build wealth, and live a peaceful life.

We are tired of being sick and tired. We are tired, but we are not giving up. We KNOW that there is something magnificent inside of us.

Because we are fighting daily, hourly, and by the minute: fighting ourselves, our kids, our spouses, we have to do things differently.

We have to break the cycle. We don’t have a million chances. We have to be happy, NOW. We have to find a way. So how do we do that? How is that possible?

If you look around at what society is telling you, they’d tell you that what we’re doing is impossible.

Yet, it’s happening.

Every.

Single.

Day.

It’s happening through the practice and love that we call Awakening the Magnificent Soul.

We are all Magnificent Souls, and these are our stories of healing!

Today, Part 4 of a 10 part series all focused on control. Specifically, today, a little bit about the codependent trait of absorbing other’s responsibilities and making them your own.

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So, today, on to today’s topic. As I am exploring this topic of control it just continues to solidify how much our control and codependency intermix.

And, honestly, little things that touch on control, my lack of control or need to control pop up on me everyday.

Lately, it’s been going with the flow when things change unexpectedly.

I have always been the type to be proactive, to think 3 or 4 moves in advance, I just always have.

But, lately, it is popping up on the way that I deal with unexpected happenings in my everyday world and with my interactions with people.

And, a lot of that has to do with control. It’s not a good feeling to feel out of control which is why we try so hard to control our situations and environments. Even though it really may be unhealthy.

It sounds oxymoronic, but it’s true.

I’m just learning so much that codependency is about either overt control or concealed control, but it’s all to the same end.

Our control, on both’s sides of codependency, is mostly unconscious but it is how we have been trained to deal in a world of fear and shame.

To me, it’s just so interesting to think about. Like these were things that I didn’t know that I was doing, but it makes sense now why I would take over other’s responsibilities and make them my own.

The most poignant thing that I can speak of, specifically, when it comes to my codependent relationships and the theme of today is mental health.

And just a note, the way that I’m thinking about mental health is our psychological and emotional well being.

With codependency and with the imbalances in which it thrives, mental health is THE most difficult thing.

And, from what I’ve seen, it is THE THING that leads to other types of abuses: food, drugs, sex, gambling, etc.

When my mental and emotional health was not on point, I masked that with substances and other “distractors” because I couldn’t stand my own skin.

In fact, my codependent relationships fit that bill too. It was a filler, a very very very unhealthy for me filler, but a filler nonetheless because I had not come to terms with my self, my shame, and my fear.

My mental health was unhealthy…

Therefore I was unhealthy…

Therefore my relationships were unhealthy…

And today, as we talk about taking others responsibilities as our own, in my view, mental health by us, by me, by you is paramount FIRST.

Not the person who blames you for everything.

Not the person who puts you down when you’re sad or confused.

Not the person that calls you crazy.

Not the person that tells you that you are over-reacting.

Not the person who makes you feel worse about yourself.

In a weird way, this is because we aren’t whole from the inside, because we are separated from ourselves.

The actions of others tend to break us apart.

So much so that we may try to put them back together by making excuses, by absorbing that person’s hurt or pain, or by simply taking FULL RESPONSIBILITY for others.

I can remember one very very difficult time in my life when I was seriously ABSORBING the pain of someone else.

It turned me into a deep tailspin of depression.

It was so bad for me that I couldn’t work, but as I look back on it now, I was taking on the pain of someone else, the person that I should love.

If I didn’t, it felt like I was betraying them or that I was failing.

In the way that we are talking about here, and a lot of what we talk about in reference to control is an aspect that definitely isn’t overt.

This is an unconscious behavior that we have learned.

In a way, I think it is a way to try to control and make sense of our environment by taking the responsibilities of others and putting them on ourselves.

What’s interesting and what happened to me, is inevitably this is not sustainable. Each person in the relationship is responsible for themselves.

I am responsible for my self.

Period.

Also, when it comes to responsibility absorption, and when you are on the submissive side of codependency, a lot of what we do is try to control the other’s pain.

By taking it upon ourselves.

We become martyrs.

But, we tear ourselves down and sometimes we take pride in our sacrifices.

In the end, can we really control what our other person does?

I don’t think so.

We can only control our side of things, our output, our input, our mental health and our mental wealth.

What’s really interesting about this, too, is that the more that we take responsibility for and absorb, the more that we are enabling their behavior.

Their dependence.

Their IR-responsiblity.

Point blank, we are not helping. (insert the clap emoji here).

Can we, at the very least, relinquish control of what we shouldn’t be control of in the first place?

Codependency tears us away from ourselves.