I Make the Path

I feel like an emotional yo-yo. Yesterday was awful, and then great, and then nerve-wracking again. I'm being yanked back and forth by what other people decide to do, or given peace when they decide it's time for me to have peace. I'm drained physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and it's time to take myself back.

It's much easier said than done, though. Being a codependent person means truly relying on others for my sense of worth, my sense of peace, even my sense of being. I've been working on this for years and thought I had gotten better at not letting others yank me around, only to find out that I'm as bad as ever. It's unnerving, but also enlightening to see how much farther I have to go, because at least now I know.

Now I know I'm still being thrown about, that I'm still that puppet on a string. Yes, that's a frustrating thing, but I have to know the string is there before I can cut it, before I can take control of it myself and choose.

In giving others so much control, I lose any and all control of my own well-being, so I desperately try to control anything around me. I have given away my ability to choose for myself who I will be, and trying to replace that by attempting to control other people and their reactions becomes a sort of obsession. If I can make everybody else happy and keep the peace, then the person controlling me will be peaceful, too, right? If I can just take care of everything myself, no one else will have to be burdened or upset, right? If everyone would just do what I say, they would be happy and safe, and so then I will be happy and safe. 

 Because my well-being is fully connected to the happiness and peace of others.

What an exhausting existence.

So, I've given myself some homework: choose happy.

  • I choose happy even when he changes his mind on things we've already agreed on. I already got through it, I can get through it again.
  • I choose happy when the kids are upset that they're not in their own home right now, because it means we are moving on.
  • I choose happy when I have no idea how to fix the problem, because it's not my responsibility to fix all the problems.
  • I choose happy when everything is going well in my world, not because other people are allowing me to be happy, but because I CHOOSE to be.


Of course, I will not always actually feel happy. I will have moments where I feel overwhelmingly sad. I will have moments of anger and fear. I will have moments of confusion and frustration. I will have moments where I feel joyful and invigorated. But, when I am feeling affected by others around me and slipping into that place where I am losing my grip on me, I will say to myself, "choose happy," and I will remember that it is my choice,
not his
not hers
not theirs.
Mine.

It's time to truly, once and for all, take myself back.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feasting

Image
I'm on a quest, of late. I've been delving into the depths of doctrine and discovering myself inside of it. (Nice alliteration there, eh? Just didn't want you to miss it.) That is my quest, to find me. I want to know as much as I can about who I was before and what I am to become. This quest is filling up many of those pieces of me that sat empty for so long from mere spiritual and emotional exhaustion. Now that I am awakening, I am studying the doctrines of the gospel, searching the scriptures, reading the words of the modern day prophets with a hunger that I haven't felt before. It's like feasting in a banquet hall. Everyone else is there, too. We all have this delectable feast before us, and it fascinates me how so many of us still just nibble at the edges when there is so much there to fill us. So many others scrounge around on the floor, licking up crumbs that others have dropped when all we need to do is look up and make the effort to feed ourselves. I under
Read more

Save Me a Seat

He didn't save me a seat at the table. For me, that's when it really started. For him, I guess it had been going on for months before that with him feeling pressured into things he wasn't ready for with the engagement and the wedding plans. I thought simply allowing him more time would be enough. I thought we were still trying to work things out as a couple but taking a time out to think and heal and reorient. I feel like such an idiot. I felt so humiliated that night when he didn't save me a seat in front of all of our coworkers who still thought we were engaged. We had talked about not making it awkward for everyone and very first thing, he didn't save me a seat. Then, we talked and resolved it and I thought we were reconciling. I started wearing the ring again. He went on his solo trip and thought about things and came home ready to commit and set a date. Then two days later he got stuck in his head again and started making up stories about how I don't give h
Read more

Lessons

I'm shifting out of it, now. The fear has dissipated. The frustration has ebbed. My desires now stem from wanting to do and be better instead of basic survival. I'm glad. I keep trying to do this life in absolutes. I keep trying to find the  fix, the solution, the end to the fear. I keep thinking I've learned the  lesson. Silly me. Life is cyclical. It's up and down and backwards and forwards and sideways and up and down again. Every single time I think, "Oh, I've figured this out! I've got this, now!" life shows me how ridiculous I am. Pride doesn't get to ride this ride. Whenever it does, it throws me off course and I crash. I'm ready to listen again. I'm ready to see that I have to employ self-discipline and do things I don't want to do. I despise schedules. They grate against something in me that doesn't want to be controlled. I like going with the flow and doing what feels right. That's okay sometimes. But I need schedu
Read more