Break the Bad Habit of Bargaining for Love
Key Lesson: We never enable someone else without having first disabled our own Higher Nature that knows better than to bargain for friendship, love -- or to just feel "needed" in some way...
Cut the Root of What's Wrecking Your Life
The unsure self that not only looks for, but attaches itself to codependent relationships -- cannot possibly be the real you. Let's see why this statement has to be true. The real you is that silent "I" within you whose awareness understands -- without having to think about it -- that you are on this earth (going through all of these events) to grow, to realize ever-higher stages of your self. And since this is true of the real you, then it follows that your life is not -- cannot be -- about agreeing to limitations.
Can we be sure of this encouraging finding? Yes, because our native longing to break free -- to live without restrictions -- has its origin in our Creator's wish for us to know perfect freedom. Add to this fact of life that whatever reality wishes for us to know as true must be made possible by that same perfect power. The whole universe is behind us if we will put these truths before us.
Anything active within us -- by whatever name it is given or that it calls itself -- that stands up within us and explains to us why we have the "right" to ache or hate, or why we need to stay in a destructive relationship as either the abused or abuser, is set against what is good in us and for us. Further, this self-wrecking nature that both creates and sustains these codependent relationships requires our willing captivity as one of the conditions it needs to keep us from growing into what God intends for us to be. It wins this willingness of ours through deception. Can we begin to see why saints and sages from the beginning of time have always cried out, "Wake up! The dream we dream does not belong to us"?
This is the truth: There is nothing in the universe that can stop us from growing -- nothing -- except for one thing: our unconscious identification with a habitual, mechanical sense of self produced by a mistaken self-image. A "self" it is worth noting that for all these years has found a way to make peace with an unconscious nature whose pleasure it is to pressure us into ruinous relationships of one kind or another.
If you put a beautiful eagle in a cage, eventually he'll start to pine and pout. His very nature makes any captivity a form of punishment. He can't express his pain, but his body will. For example, his feathers may begin to fall out, or he will peck himself incessantly. You and I live under similar conditions. We don't understand why we feel punished. But now we are beginning to wake up. We have been listening to a misleading voice within us that always comes up with new reasons for why we feel the way we do. Guided by these false conclusions we embrace yet more painful illusions. The only way to end this parade of empty explanations and the captivity they help to induce is to realize its root cause. And here it is:
The suffering inherent in any condition created by unconscious codependency is due to one thing. It is the effect of our having forgotten who we really are. This is why we are so anxious for other people to confirm us, to tell us who we are through their behavior towards us. The flip side of this is the person who withholds his smile from us. He also tells us who we are! And, for his indifference, we are content to know ourselves as a victim of his uncaring heart even as we ravage ourselves with resentment for his perceived insensitivity.
We have uncovered the real root of codependency, whatever its form may be. Its dark seed in us is that we have forgotten our original nature. We are asleep to our true self in God. And until we can begin to remember outright our created title that grants us freedom, the pain of our captivity will go on because we continue to participate in its creation.
