Last Week, during the Elemental Cleanse, I spoke about unconscious choice making, specifically co dependency. It’s one of the big “sleeping dragons” as I call them. Many others call unconscious choice makers shadows, your shadow self, the wounded healer and the wounded child.
Unconscious choice making happens because there are thoughts that naturally arise in your consciousness that you are unaware of. These thoughts stem from the mistreatment of a person as a child. Typically, the child is from an alcoholic or abusive family. The child uses the thoughts to survive trauma, lack of love, abandonment and abuse. In yoga, we call these patterns Vasana.
Vasanas are bits and pieces of experience stuck in your subtle body. These are habits and patterns that drive your life. They are very hard to discern. You don’t even know you do these things and you don’t know there is a better way. The vasanas are quiet subtle choice makers that are your thoughts. Your thoughts drive your desires and your desires drive your deeds. Your deeds become your life.
The issue of co-dependency is near and dear to my heart. Having grown up in a home of alcohol abuse and abandonment, my child mind certainly learned to protect itself. It’s been a lifelong battle to identify and begin the process of changing these thought patterns. The patterns in my mind have not allowed me to have successful and loving relationships. It’s recent experience for me to come to terms with co-dependency. It’s something I am actively working on myself.
Common behavior and patterns of thinking for a co-dependant include the following:
Feelings of Shame: You feel that you are not enough just the way you are so you pretend that everything is okay with you all the time. You will not ask for help because asking for help would make you appear weak and you need for everyone to believe that you are fine. You cannot handle criticism and yet you constantly criticize yourself. You have a need to be perfect, to outperform, to outshine and to outwork everyone else.
Feelings of Fear: You tend to analyze all situations intellectually. You do not listen to or trust your heart. You are always thinking and planning ahead to avoid what you believe to be your inevitable failure and demise. You self-destruct or destroy others to maintain control of situations. You are so frightened of loss that you create the loss so that you can simply get it over with.
Black and white thinking: You cannot see the grey in others. You assume that when any one person says any one thing, they must mean exactly what a past bad experience was and you assume the worst. You judge yourself very harshly. You believe there is a right and wrong and anything in the middle is not good enough.
Have to/Should: You have a never-ending list of things that you HAVE to do or SHOULD do. The list never gets shorter no matter how hard you work. You work all the time. You do not feel that you have permission to play and you do not know how to play. If you have down time, you create more work for yourself. You feel worthy when you produce and work, but otherwise you do not feel worthy.
Worry: You constantly worry that people are judging you…that people will leave you...that people are pretending to like you. You have no basis for this worry other than past experience. You assume that people are just pretending to like you, that they are not genuine and inside you don’t really believe that anyone really values you or wants to be with you.
Sabotage: You are out to get yourself. When someone else has bad behavior, you turn on yourself and begin the process of destroying yourself. You surround yourself with needy, critical, controlling and often times alcoholic and abusive people. For some reason, they make your child mind feel at home and you gravitate to them. They are all you know so that's where you go.
It’s sad really that we can’t see the beautiful person that we really are…that we don’t tangibly know unconditional love. Unconditional love is learned as a child and if you grew up with “conditional” love, then you are wired to believe that you are not perfect, not worthy and quite frankly, unlovable.
This is not true.
You are lovable.
If you want to begin the process of breaking free from these Vasanas, start with education. Read some books on co-dependency with an open mind and simply ask yourself if you are exhibiting those behaviors. If the answer is yes, go to mantra or affirmations as a tonic to your thoughts. Monitor your thoughts and notice when you are thinking those subtle thoughts. When you go off into negative fantasyland, use mantra to interrupt it.
This process is not easy. You are going to become supersensitive to this situation and probably drive yourself a little crazy at first. You may find that the Vasanas tighten their grip and your behavior becomes even more co-dependant as you try to destroy yourself and your relationships. I don’t know why it gets worse before getting better. Just be aware and stick with it.
Be gentle with yourself, the people around you and your life. This is a time when it is easy to drive everyone away. Be aware and allow yourself to gently unfold.
“I am light, I am love, and I am perfect in this moment”
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