Pia Mellody > Quotes

“A healthy boundary creates controlled vulnerability.”
― Pia Mellody, The Intimacy Factor: The Ground Rules for Overcoming the Obstacles to Truth, Respect, and Lasting Love

“Recovery from codependence is a lot like a growing up process - we must learn to do the things our dysfunctional parents did not teach us to do: appropriately esteem ourselves, set functional boundaries, be aware of and acknowledge our reality, take care of our adult needs and wants, and experience our reality moderately.”
― Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives

“They say that the spiritual path is straight and narrow, but I used to wonder about that. I used to think that the spiritual path was about being good. It was hard to be good because there were only a few ways of being good. I have since learned the opposite. The spiritual path is straight and narrow because all it takes is moving into a lie to make you absolutely step off of it.”
― Pia Mellody, The Intimacy Factor: The Ground Rules for Overcoming the Obstacles to Truth, Respect, and Lasting Love

“I have discovered that we, codependents, are very hard to treat. I resisted doing anything people suggested that might have gotten me into recovery sooner. It wasn`t until I experienced enough pain to become willing to do anything to change that I would try their suggestions.”
― Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives

“Through the years I found two things that clearly tune in the radio station: one is truth and the other one is love. When we tell ourselves the truth instead of lies, we are automatically tuning in Higher Power energy. In choosing truth, we choose to be loving to self and others; then the radio station is absolutely, perfectly clear.”
― Pia Mellody, The Intimacy Factor: The Ground Rules for Overcoming the Obstacles to Truth, Respect, and Lasting Love

“The best thing we can do for our adult children is to get into recovery for ourselves and set them free to find their own way to recovery.”
― Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives

“Like all the other defense mechanisms, delusion is invisible to us, making it a serious problem: we don't know we are deluded. We live in an unreal world based on our delusions, but we see that unreal world as reality. Because we can't afford to hear the facts about our lives as they really are, we often get very angry with people who try to point out any fallacies in our delusions. This position leaves us very vulnerable, since both reality itself and anyone with a strong sense of reality tend to threaten the view we have of our world. People in delusion tend to isolate themselves from those who might reveal the truth about their lives.”
― Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives

“Not knowing how to be moderate is possibly the most visible symptom of codependence to other people. (...) In other words codependents simply don't appear to understand what moderation is. They are either totally involved or totally detached, totally happy or absolutely miserable, etc. The codependent believes a moderate response to a situation isn't "enough". Only too much is enough.”
― Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives

“From the viewpoint of traumatized children, the phrase “matters of life and death” is not a metaphor—it is the urgent reality of their instinct to live. It is irresistible as an instinct, and, short of grace, there is nothing so powerful. The children instinctively feel that they depend on the care of their parents for life. In that life-and-death situation, they must learn to find their place in the life-giving system, even if the hindsight of adulthood shows their adaptation to have been spiritually crippling.”
― Pia Mellody, The Intimacy Factor: The Ground Rules for Overcoming the Obstacles to Truth, Respect, and Lasting Love

“Codependents don`t just wake up one day saying "I think I'll move over into maturity and mental health”
― Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives

“When children are born, they have five natural characteristics that make them authentic human beings: children are valuable, vulnerable, imperfect, dependent, and immature. All children are born with these attributes. Functional parents help their children to develop each separate characteristic properly, so that they arrive in adulthood as mature, functional adults who feel good about themselves.

In addition, children have three other qualities that make it possible for them to mature properly or to survive and cope in spite of remarkable abuse: (1) children must be centered on themselves to develop internally; (2) they are full of boundless energy in order to do the very hard work of growing up; and (3) they are adaptable, so that they can easily go through the maturation process that requires constant adjusting and change. A functional family accepts these traits in their children and supports the children as they move through each stage of development.”
― Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives