The fastest way to go crazy is by trying to change someone else.

If you are one of the 5 million people who have purchased Melody Beatties’s classic bestseller: “Codependent No More,” you are familiar with the powerful practice of detachment. If you have not read the book, but felt drawn to the subject of this article, you may be one of the estimated 80 million adults who struggle with a tendency towards codependent behaviors in your relationships.

What is Codependency?

“A codependent person is overly concerned, obsessed with controlling, managing or “fixing” the behaviors of other people. Codependency is an unhealthy dependency on other people’s moods, behaviors and actions in order to feel ok.”

Adult-attachment is healthy. Codependent attachment is not.

A healthy level of dependency on another adult is the basis for all adult-bonded relationships. Yet codependents take attachment much further. Their fixation with another becomes a block to their own wellbeing, self-care and personal growth.

In codependency, the “object” of our focus becomes all consuming and we neglect the only true power we have, the ability to change and heal our own lives. Detachment is the underlying strategy of healing our over-focus on another human being.

Below, I will describe how untangling your life from another human being positions you in your rightful place of peace, power and above all, sanity!

“Detachment is not detaching from the person whom we care about, but from the agony of involvement.”

– Al-Anon Member

Detachment allows us to work on ourselves, it empowers us to live our lives, take responsibility for our own journey, solve our problems, feel, choose, decide and take action. Detachment releases from the self-perpetuating emotional prisons many codependents find themselves in: obsessing, controlling, overthinking, and worrying.

“If we’re focusing all of our energies on people and their problems we have little left for the business of living our own lives.”

– Melody Beattie

Worrying and obsessing over someone else’s life is a clever hiding place for people who are afraid to face themselves. I lived in this space for many years in my first marriage and in other relationships. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my personal calling is to soul-healing work. I am a wounded-healer. And yet the ultimate call of any soul-work is SELF first. We cannot give to others what we do not first cultivate within.

It is not about what we are obsessing over or outwardly pursuing, the question remains: “What are we avoiding?” Fixated on managing, controlling or changing others is a soul-level-distraction from the energy, focus and discipline it takes to heal our lives and empower our personal peace and happiness. We are “busy” in our heads, yet paralyzed with thoughts and ineffective in action.

We are pre-occupied and therefore we neglect self-responsibility.

Detachment gives us the power to take our lives back. Surrender opens the door to freedom. Until we let go, we are in emotional chaos. Surrender is an invitation to new levels of freedom, ecstasy and joy. The choice to let go, surrender and detach is compassionate and loving to all parties involved.

Give people permission to BE

Pride and ego attempt to manage and control, love and humility allow. Personal growth must be chosen, not forced. The decision to heal, grow or evolve is a private matter. It’s heavy emotional and spiritual lifting for the person who choses that path. In order for a person to own their choices, they must be the one to make them. Trust the process of growth in other people’s lives. Trust God’s peace and truth to be the space between you and another person. Trust the process of life rather than resisting and going against it.

Detach in order to focus on self-care.

Surrender to invite God’s power and limitlessness.

Let go. Make room for bliss and peace.

Relax.

Allow.

Receive.

EXHALE…

Detachment frees us from paralysis and mind-chaos. We make room for serenity, clarity, profound peace and inspired action.

When we let go, surrender, detach, we empower ourselves with the energy needed to get on with the business of transforming our own lives.

We give the people we love space to choose freely, we provide them with the inspiration to evolve as we display the alluring beauty of our personal growth.

Remember YOU are the focus; your soul chose this particular journey to learn what it came to learn and to then use that wisdom to inspire others. Let them be. Let it be. Give yourself permission to walk in deeper levels of wholeness, confidence and freedom, it is your birthright. You deserve nothing less, now before we go, let’s reflect upon and recite the sacred Serenity Prayer together:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Amen

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