Status Updates From Do I Have to Give Up Me to ...

When you heard,
"Calm down, don't get so excited," or, "You ask too many
questions," you came to believe there was something wrong with you
for feeling as you did or for your curiosity.

Our deepest fears and false beliefs are triggered in the relationships
that are most important to us. All our protections come from the fear
of these people, who have a power similar to that of our parents.
(You probably give power to everyone who plays an important part
in your life.) Therefore, when any of these important people
disapprove of you, those fears are touched off.

If you weren't afraid, you would be as open as a newborn.
When confronted with something, you wouldn't be concerned with
being "wrong," you would merely react with curiosity: "Oh, that's
interesting. Why am I feeling this way? And what do I have to learn
in this situation? What's my lesson here?"

Everyone senses consciously or
unconsciously, whether another person is open or upset, shut down
or judgmental.
• What you've done is upsetting to me, but I know you must
have some important reasons for it. Would you tell me what
they are?
• You seem upset (or angry, distant, defensive, etc.). Have I
done something that hurt you?
• Is there something I'm doing that's upsetting to you?

You have a part in creating almost every unhappy situation in
your life. So an important first step in finding the loving behavior is to
discover your unloving behavior—how you set up the unhappy
situation you are in.

In any conflict you have two levels of responsibility: (1) your part in
setting up the conflict; and (2) how you react to the conflict.

Will often challenge deeply held beliefs and fears.
Involves the risk that those who want you to take responsibility
for their behavior, or want to control you, will not
appreciate your efforts.
May be exactly opposite what you've been doing to gain
approval or avoid disapproval (your own or others').

Loving behavior:
Makes you feel the best about you—that you're adequate and
worthwhile.
Is not motivated by fear or guilt.
Is not the safe, habitual path of least resistance, the rut you've
fallen into—rescuer/rescued; taking care of/being taken care of.
Will often feel like the most difficult choice.

Unloving behavior is any attempt to:
Avoid taking personal responsibility by giving in
or shutting down.
Take responsibility for others.
Get others to change.
Make others wrong.
Get others to give themselves up or doubt themselves.
Establish power over others.

We use "erroneous," "false" and "self-limiting"
interchangeably.
A belief is self-limiting and erroneous if it:
• keeps you from feeling good about yourself, happy, satisfied,
successful;
• creates any negative feelings—fear, doubt, pain, depression,
unhappiness, anxiety or guilt;
• diminishes self-esteem, self-worth, aliveness;
• makes you feel wrong, bad, inadequate.

If a person believed something was
wrong, he or she would get upset. If I didn't want to make love with
Jordan and he got hurt, then his hurt was coming from his fears and
beliefs. If I jumped up and down when I was excited and this
embarrassed him, his upset came from his beliefs about "appropriate"
behavior and his fears of others' judging him by my behavior.

My intention was to
get Jordan to open and to change—"for his own good," of course.
Most discussions wound up in power struggles. I never understood
why he got so defensive whenever I wanted to talk, until I recognized
that my intention was to get him to change and he was resisting being
controlled by me. It was quite shocking to me to see how controlling
I was.

(The need to be in
control always comes from the fear of being controlled. It can be hard
to see, but people who seem to be controlling and powerful are
actually afraid and weak.)

Because of our early dependence on our mothers, most men
have deep, basic fears of women. That issue rarely gets resolved in
childhood and so must be dealt with in our adult relationships with
women. The fear began when we needed both our mothers' love and
our own identities at the same time. Since needing Mother was
terrifying, we developed a love-hate relationship with her.

I came to understand how I had become dependent on Margie
taking care of me emotionally. Like most men, I had been taken care
of by my mother, who I believed was responsible for my happiness
and unhappiness. And then I grew up and got married to . . . guess
who?

I came to understand how I had become dependent on Margie
taking care of me emotionally. Like most men, I had been taken care
of by my mother, who I believed was responsible for my happiness
and unhappiness. And then I grew up and got married to . . . guess
who?

I quickly realized that it is impossible to love someone or
something you need for your happiness or well-being. Neediness feels
weak and eventually turns into resentment toward the person or thing
you need. The alcoholic doesn't love alcohol any more than the
compulsive eater loves food. The desperate energy of need is the
antithesis of love. Yet, our culture teaches us the "romantic love" of
neediness.

They continue to give because
they feel empty and are trying to get others to fill them up. That is
not loving. When you give without expectation of getting something
in return, it always makes you feel wonderful. And that's love.

People often say,"I've given and given and given and I have
no more left to give." This usually indicates that they've given themselves up or they've given with strings attached, in order to get
love, approval, connection, and so on.

One of the greatest problems in our thinking about love is our
belief that "love" means being a caretaker, being nice, giving when
somebody doesn't want it, or giving when somebody is angry. But in
truth, loving means loving yourself. What is loving to your Higher Self
is automatically loving to others. This means taking responsibility for
making yourself happy.

Bir şey elde etmek için veririz: sevgi, bağ, onay, güvenlik, seks, daha fazla iletişim, değişim, takdir vb. Sorun bu tür şeyleri istememizde değil; başkalarını bunları bize vermeleri için manipüle etme çabalarımızdadır.

Takers must learn how to make themselves happy; caretakers
must be willing to risk losing another's love, either temporarily or
permanently.

Both categories of behavior
are motivated by fear, and both roles are needy and focus on getting
the other person's approval. Neither is loving.

People whose primary fear is that they don't have the right to make
themselves happy generally become caretakers. They are compilers,
believing it's their responsibility to make others happy. When others
are upset, they try to make things right by giving themselves up,
hoping that by making others happy, they will be loved and therefore
will be happy.

People whose primary fear is that they don't have the power to make
themselves happy generally become takers. They believe that it's the
other person's behavior that is making them unhappy, and that if only
the other would change, things would be fine, Their manipulations
are obvious as they attempt to control others by intimidating them
with fear and guilt.

We become dependent on them for our good feelings (or
to dull our pains—loneliness, boredom, unlovableness), and a codependent
relationship is formed between takers and caretakers.