Learning to Love our Self

‘Codependence is an emotional and behavioral defense system which was
adopted by our egos in order to meet our need to survive as a child.
Because we had no tools for reprogramming our egos and healing our
emotional wounds (culturally approved grieving, training and initiation
rites, healthy role models, etc.), the effect is that as an adult we keep
reacting to the programming of our childhood and do not get our needs met
- our emotional, mental, Spiritual, or physical needs. Codependence
allows us to survive physically but causes us to feel empty and dead
inside. Codependence is a defense system that causes us to wound
ourselves.’

‘We need to take the shame and judgment out of the process on a personal
level. It is vitally important to stop listening and giving power to
that critical place within us that tells us that we are bad and wrong and
shameful. That ‘critical parent’ voice in our head is the disease lying to
us. . . . This healing is a long gradual process - the goal is progress,
not perfection. What we are learning about is unconditional Love.
Unconditional Love means no judgment, no shame.’

‘We need to start observing ourselves and stop judging ourselves. Any
time we judge and shame ourselves, we are feeding back into the disease,
we are jumping back into the squirrel cage.’

Codependence is a dysfunctional defense system that was built in reaction
to feeling unlovable and unworthy - because our parents were wounded
codependents who didn’t know how to love themselves. We grew up in
environments that were emotionally dishonest, Spiritually hostile, and
shame based. Our relationship with ourselves (and all the different
parts of our self: emotions, gender, spirit, etc.) got twisted and
distorted in order to survive in our particular dysfunctional
environment. We got to an age where we were supposed to be an adult and
we started acting like we knew what we were doing. We went around
pretending to be adult at the same time we were reacting to the
programming that we got growing up. We tried to do everything ‘right’ or
rebelled and went against what we had been taught was ‘right.’ Either
way we weren’t living our life through choice, we were living it in
reaction.

In order to start being loving to ourselves we need to change our
relationship with our self - and with all the wounded parts of our self.

The way which I have found works the best in starting to love ourselves
is through having internal boundaries. Learning to have internal
boundaries is a dynamic process that involves three distinctly different,
but intimately interconnected, spheres of work. The purpose of the work
is to change our ego-programming - to change our relationship with
ourselves by changing our emotional/behavioral defense system into
something that works to open us up to receive love, instead of sabotaging
ourselves because of our deep belief that we don’t deserve love.

(I need to make the point here that Codependence and recovery are both
multi-leveled, multi-dimensional phenomena. What we are trying to achieve
is integration and balance on different levels. In regard to our
relationship with ourselves this involves two major dimensions: the
horizontal and the vertical. In this context the horizontal is about
being human and relating to other humans and our environment. The
vertical is Spiritual, about our relationship to a Higher Power, to the
Universal Source. If we cannot conceive of a God/Goddess Force that loves
us then it makes it virtually impossible to be loving to ourselves. So a
Spiritual Awakening is absolutely vital to the process in my opinion.
Changing our relationship with ourselves on the horizontal level is both
a necessary element in, and possible because we are working on,
integrating Spiritual Truth into our inner process.)

These three spheres are:
1. Detachment
2. Inner Child Healing
3. Grieving

Because Codependence is a reactive phenomena it is vital to start being
able to detach from our own process in order to have some choice in
changing our reactions. We need to start observing our selves from the
witness perspective instead of from the perspective of the judge. We all
observe ourselves - have a place of watching ourselves as if from
outside, or perched somewhere inside, observing our own behavior.
Because of our childhoods we learned to judge ourselves from that witness
perspective, the ‘critical parent’ voice.

The emotionally dishonest environments we were raised in taught us that
it was not ok to feel our emotions, or that only certain emotions were
ok. So we had to learn ways to control our emotions in order to survive.
We adapted the same tools that were used on us - guilt, shame, and fear
(and saw in the role modeling of our parents how they reacted to life
from shame and fear.) This is where the critical parent gets born. It’s
purpose is to try to keep our emotions and behavior under some sort of
control so that we can get our survival needs met.

So the first boundary that we need to start setting internally is with
the wounded/dysfunctionally programmed part of our own mind. We need to
start saying no to the inner voices that are shaming and judgmental.

The disease comes from a black and white, right and wrong, perspective.
It speaks in absolutes: ‘You always screw up!’ ‘You will never be a
success!’ - these are lies. We don’t always screw up. We may never be a
success according to our parents or societies dysfunctional definition of
success - but that is because our heart and soul do not resonate with
those definitions, so that kind of success would be a betrayal of
ourselves. We need to consciously change our definitions so that we can
stop judging ourselves against someone else’s screwed up value system. We
learned to relate to ourselves (and all the parts of our self - emotions,
sexuality, etc.) and life from a critical place of believing that
something was wrong with us - and in fear that we would be punished if we
didn’t do life ‘right.’ Whatever we are doing or not doing the disease
can always find something to beat us up with. I have 10 things on my ‘to
do list’ today, I get 9 of them done, the disease does not want me to
give myself credit for what I have done but instead beats me up for the
one I didn’t get done. Whenever life gets too good we get uncomfortable
and the disease jumps right in with fear and shame messages. The
critical parent voice keeps us from relaxing and enjoying life, and from
loving our self.

We need to own that we have the power to choose where to focus our mind.

We can consciously start viewing ourselves from the witness perspective.
It is time to fire the judge - our critical parent and choose to replace
that judge with our Higher Self - who is a loving parent. We can then
intervene in our own process to protect ourselves from the perpetrator
within - the critical parent/disease voice. (It is almost impossible to
go from critical parent to compassionate loving parent in one step - so
the first step often is to try to observe ourselves from a neutral
position or a ‘scientific observer’ perspective.)

This is what enlightenment and consciousness raising are all about.
Owning our power to be a co-creator of our lives by changing our
relationship with ourselves. We can change the way we think. We can
change the way we respond to our own emotions. We need to detach from our
wounded self in order to allow our Spiritual Self to guide us. We are
Unconditionally Loved. The Spirit does not speak to us from judgment and
shame.

One of the visualizations that has helped me over the years is an image
of a small control room in my brain. This control room is full of dials
and gauges and lights and sirens. In this control room are a bunch of
Keebler-like elves whose job it is to make sure that I don’t get too
emotional for my own good. Whenever I feel anything too strongly
(including Joy, happiness, self-love) the lights start flashing and the
sirens start wailing and the elves go crazy running around trying to get
things under control. They start pushing some of the old survival
buttons: feeling too happy - drink; feeling too sad- eat sugar; feeling
scared - get laid; or whatever.

To me, the process of recovery is about teaching those elves to chill
out. Reprogramming my ego-defenses to knowing that it is ok to feel the
feelings. That feeling and releasing the emotions is not only ok it is
what will work best in allowing me to have my needs fulfilled. We need
to change our relationship with ourselves and our own emotions in order
to stop being at war with ourselves. The first step to doing that is to
detach from ourselves enough to start protecting ourselves from the
perpetrator that lives within us.

From: cuarescb@yahoo.com