Get Emotionally Healthy - Is It Time to Break the Chain of Pain?

Image by AD_Images from Pixabay

I was reading an email from Lisa Romano this week that really spoke to me; it's about breaking the patterns of intergenerational people pleasing, codependency and enmeshment trauma.

She said “It took me decades to unravel the layers of my mind, false beliefs, and mind-twisting misconceptions regarding my value as a human being. There was a time of isolation much like the dark cocoon a crawling caterpillar must encapsulate itself in while they endure its metamorphosis.  It took me years to sift through what was negative brainwashing versus what was true about my divinity as a soul”.  

Given, as I’ve said before, I seem to attract people who are unreliable, unavailable, uncommunicative and leave me feeling like I never really know where I stand with them, that is a pretty big pattern that points to some – as Lisa calls it – negative brainwashing.

“When someone is brainwashed” she says “they don't know it. What has been accepted by the subconscious mind becomes an unconscious script the minimally conscious mind never questions.”

Her mother lived in fear of upsetting her father, although her mother would have said she loved him. However, Lisa and her siblings knew her mind was always preoccupied with what her father needed, felt, thought, and required to remain calm. Dinner was always warm, the milk in the refrigerator never spoiled, and their home was near sterile, yet her mother would have told you she was happy. 

I know that story as I have been that mother.

Lisa said “Knowing what I know now about negative childhood brainwashing, perfectionism, and the fear of making a mistake, it now seems so clear that as a child, I never felt safe. It was not safe to laugh or cry, jump, run, or rest. My childhood home was so rigid, that I had no choice but to remain on guard”. 

I know that feeling too, it lives within my nervous system.

My childhood story is not an exact mirror of Lisa’s by any stretch, but the end result of unhealthy patterns is. As Lisa says, changing from a codependent way of relating to others to a more healthy one is a sobering experience. Like Lisa, love, acceptance, pleasing others, feeling needed, and fixing other people's problems are ways I, as codependent, get my “fix”.

Her words are exquisite, when she says “Ending my addiction to people, relationships, and feeling loved required that I find myself within myself rather than in the reflection of the worth others found within my relationship with them. I had to stop looking for people with problems I could fix and I had to learn to feel the lack of control choosing not to people-please created within”. 

In recent weeks I’ve really begun to see which of my relationships are healthy and which are not, and why not. And I’ve made painful decisions, risking losing people by spelling out what I want our relationships to look like. That is all I can do, I can’t make them desire something different, if they do and we are aligned, great. It will take practice and new ways of relating to make it happen.

If people are not on the same page as me, whether it is because they don’t desire to have the same kind of relationship I want or they don’t feel able to make the changes required for us to have that, then it is time for me to cut those ties and ultimately make room for more healthy relationships.

And in the cases where those unhealthy relationships are – by necessity – ongoing, I am working hard to make my boundaries a lot clearer.

Which is why I then appreciated Rebecca Zung’s words this week when she said “There will always be toxic people and things in life.  You can’t control that.  But you can control you.   So how do you change you, Shona?“
She loves the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.  And says ”these are four agreements that you make with yourself:

1. Be impeccable with your word. You use this to create your entire world.  Everything flows from this; your story, your perceptions, everything. 

2. Don’t take anything personally. Everyone lives in their own story. The way people treat other people is always a direct reflection of the way they feel about themselves.  Hurt people hurt people.  

3. Don’t make assumptions…Because most assumptions are not the truth.  We make up stories about we think is happening based on our own perceptions and then proceed based on those assumptions (which were most likely wrong to begin with).  Chaos then ensues. 

4. Always do your best. Because then you are in integrity in your life in every way, knowing that you are doing everything you can to negotiate your best life.”

Both Rebecca and Lisa are fine examples of people who have become consciously aware of unhealthy patterns in their lives and learned different ways of being to the degree they can now teach others.

In Edith Eger's book The Choice she reflects on her time in Auschwitz and how, while imprisoned, her inner world was full of hope and life. Yet in the years afterwards she reflects on how, by not dealing with the ghosts, her inner world became the prison. She later became a psychotherapist and so has helped thousands break free of their inner prison.

She said "Conventional wisdom says if something bothers you or causes you anxiety don't look at it Don't dwell on it. Don't go there." … but "Far from diminishing pain, whatever we deny ourselves the opportunity to accept becomes as inescapable as brick walls and steel bars. When we don't allow ourselves to grieve our losses, wounds, disappointments, we are doomed to keep reliving them"

Lisa Romano’s email wrapped with the news of her granddaughter being born and her observation that her daughter is in a much more healthy relationship, which must be so gratifying to know that she has broken the chain of pain that continues unabated until someone becomes consciously aware of it and makes different choices.

She ends with encouragement that I have taken in and would like to share:
“Dear One, it does not matter how many times you fail to set a boundary, or how often you ignore those red flags as long as you stay on the path of becoming aware of the aching wounds of your inner child. Seeing the cracks negative childhood brainwashing has created is to stare fear in the face and to refuse to look away.”

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How to Attract the Blissful Relationships You Actually Deserve, Great Relationships Happen When You Put You First, The Almighty Growth Opportunity in Dealing With Emotionally Unavailable People and Risk Losing People to Make Room for Those Who Can Honour and Cherish You. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.