Part I: Changing Self-Defeating Beliefs and Behaviors
January 25th, 2011
By Joyce McLeod Henley, MSW, LCSW, CEAP, SAP, Codependency Topic Expert Contributor
Click here to contact Joyce and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
Now that you understand what codependency is and how it develops, where do you start your healing process? It involves changing some lifelong beliefs and behaviors.
Belief #1: I am responsible for everybody and everything.
No, you are not. You are responsible for yourself, your feelings, your choices and taking care of yourself. You have a responsibility for your minor children, but you do not have much control over what they do. You can encourage their good behaviors and discourage their negative ones. Accepting your powerlessness over others will give you a tremendous sense of relief. You no longer have the whole world on your shoulders. You can free up your energy to focus on what you can control. You can control your own recovery.
Belief #2: I can fix other adults, if I just care about them enough.
Wrong! We are not that powerful. If we try to control other people, we will fail. We will frustrate ourselves and alienate others. We may even push them further away from what we think they should do. Suppose we are concerned about a loved ones addiction. We cannot convince them to seek help. The only thing that will persuade them to seek help is the consequences of their addiction. All we can do is step aside and allow them to experience the natural consequences. Suppose we love somebody and we are fearful that they will leave us and go off with someone else. We may think that if we are hyper vigilante enough that we will prevent this. In fact, we will alienate them, and may push them away before they ever think about leaving. Whether it is your partner, spouse, child, boss, co-worker, sibling, or friend who is annoying, upsetting, or worrying you, you have no control over them.
Belief #3: I cannot ever trust another person, they might hurt me, and I won’t survive.
Wrong, again. There are people in the world who are capable of commitment. Intimate relationships do involve an element of risk. However, we can learn to be honest about how we feel and who we are. Then if the other person does leave us, we haven’t really lost anything. We will then be free to find someone who deserves us. Anyone who survives a relationship with a dysfunctional person is a survivor.
Belief #4: My needs are not important, and I should not spend time taking care of myself.
No, you are important. Your first responsibility is to yourself. You can’t take care of anybody else if you don’t take care of you. Tell yourself every day that you are important and deserve to have your needs met. Do you have any idea what they are? If so, make a list, and try to meet them. Treat yourself like your own very best friend. Please be nice to yourself. If you have no idea, start with the basics. Eat good healthy food, get some moderate exercise, rest, and try to do something that you enjoy. If you have read the sections on managing anxiety, there are many good ideas for self-care.
Belief#5: When I see that others need help, I have to help them.
No, you don’t. Is it within your power to help them? Do you have the resources? Is it your responsibility to help them? Is this something that they are capable of doing for themselves? When we do something for others that they can do for themselves, we actually weaken them. What else would you be doing instead of helping them. Remember the three “C”s. You did not cause it, you cannot control it, and you cannot cure it.
Belief #6: I am not a worthwhile person.
Yes, you are. You have an intrinsic value as an individual. It is separate from what you accomplish and what you do for others. When you treat yourself as you would your own best friend, you will begin to feel better about yourself.
Belief #7: It is not okay to express negative feelings in my relationships. I am afraid if I do there, will be an explosion.
It is okay and important to express your feelings in relationships. If you avoid it, there will be barriers and resentments between you and others. You can learn to express your feelings in a tactful way, so that others may hear you and not feel defensive. I will teach you how in the section on behavioral changes, which will follow next month.
Read More
What is Codependency?
How Does Codependency Affect Us as Adults?
Part II: Changing Self-Defeating Beliefs and Behaviors
©Copyright 2011 by Joyce McLeod Henley, MSW, LCSW, CEAP, SAP, therapist in St Louis, MO. All Rights Reserved.
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Comments
Wow this is great! i definitely buy into some of these bad thought patterns. I’m going to print this and re read it. I want to change.
as I can see it,these kind of feelings an beliefs do not come overnight.it happens due to what a person is facing in his or her life,due to the conditions and people around.and whenthese feelings and beliefs donset in slowly,it can become difficult to throw them out.not too many people are capable of doing this and I just think professional help is the way to go if a person is saying “I have this belief too” to the ones mentioned here!
I love this post so much because i learned from it a lot for free….after reading this i learn how to appreciate myself more. thanks…
You can’t let negative emotions stew. It’ll just keep getting worse until you explode. You need to tell someone when you feel bad, and if a friend tells you they feel bad, do them a favor and listen to them. Don’t blow them off.
It’s a good thing to help others but you can’t help absolutely everyone all the time. There’s a difference between attempting to help a drug addict that refuses to accept treatment or that they have a problem, and helping a child who cuts their finger and needs a bandaid. If you don’t know how to do it properly, you’ll probably waste your time or make things worse.
I love this article because currently my son is in karate and these are the things that his teacher is always railing against. He is trying to instill positive self image and worth at a very early age in all of his students and to show them the healthy ways to take care of themselves.
Even if you try to help everyone, there will always be someone, somewhere who will be a huge butthead and call you selfish for not helping a specific person or group, and instead choosing to help someone else. I find that these people are often guilty of not helping the same person or group that they profess to be so keen on themselves. Somehow they just can’t find the time…
Thank you Joyce for this article. I am very interested in how CBT can help people with their day to day lives. Nice work here.
How therapists manage to keep a professional distance and not allow themselves to be affected by the stories they hear from the broken every day is amazing. It’s such a giving profession filled with compassionate, caring men and women that have devoted their lives to healing through therapy. I don’t think I could do it and remain “up”.
That was a good article. Don’t kid yourself, folks. You’re neither a martyr nor a hero if you put another person’s needs at an infinitely higher priority than yours. You’re being silly. There’s no point in helping someone if you wind up needing help yourself in the process.
Even if you want to give people your time to help them, it’s important to take care of yourself first. You can’t help someone very much if you yourself are out of sorts. It’s not selfish to do so either because you’re then in much better shape to be of real assistance. We think too much about giving to everybody else before we give to ourselves first. It should be the other way around.
Curing people with care only works in fairy tales. It’s like praying or having lucky charms on your keyring. It gives some people a bit of a pick-me-up and keeps their spirits up, but that’s where that ends. People with physical problems need actual physical help from professionals who know what they’re doing.
If you do want to help a friend or loved one and you don’t have the skills yourself, the next best thing you can do is to find out who can and let them know what support is available. But most importantly, you should ask them first if they want help from you. Being pushy about it if they don’t want it could end the relationship rather than improve it. They need to want the help, not have it foisted upon them.
Breakups hurt, but the population of the world is in the billions. You’ll find another love. If you’re scared of being hurt by your girlfriend or boyfriend breaking up with you, welcome to the human race. That’s the chance you take when you fall in love! We become more vulnerable. It’s much better than being lonely forever, is it not? :)
If they genuinely don’t like you anymore and want to get out of the relationship, breaking down into tears in front of them and begging them to stay is extremely selfish and manipulative as far as I’m concerned. If you love somebody, set them free as Sting once sang.
Not everyone is out to get you. You can think that if you want and while it’s true of some people, the vast majority of us have no enemies who wish us serious harm. I have run across people I dislike, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to ruin their lives.
If you’re in a relationship where you’re scared to admit your feelings, leave it. That’s not a relationship. Easy to accept when you can stand to hear the truth.
Some people who feel worthless are just in situations where they -are- worthless. Like me for example, put me at the helm of a ship, I’m worthless. Want me to fix your computer? You will sing my praises. If you’re bad at something, find something else to do and if you don’t know what that is, keep at it until you find what you’re good at.
Last time I tried to be responsible for everything, I burnt dinner because I forgot about it while cleaning the yard. That can happen as well if you try to help too many people all at once. You simply do not have the time nor the ability to help everyone and take care of your day to day routine.
Wow! There are so many excellent comments, I don’t know where to begin. So much good advice about dealing with relationships. I understand that they are hard, and they are not supposed to be easy. I also know that if you grew up in a dysfunctional household, you spent alot of time learning to believe the above myths and you won’t disbelieve them overnight. There is so much help out there. If you read my second article, it lists some of the sources.
Thank you all so much for writing.
One important thing I got out of this article is that it is a bad idea to ask friends or family for emotional support. (Which is something I knew already, but your article confirmed it.)
So many people struggle with these issues and with having clear boundaries. This was a concise, clear explanation. Thank you! I will be showing this to some of my clients, colleagues & friends.
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