It’s often said that harbouring resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die.
People pleasing and codependency are like giving someone else a sandwich and hoping it will ease your own hunger.
If you have done the previous two exercises around feeling and thinking, you will have already made some big steps to getting outside the problem so you can look back on it.
And well done. It takes courage to step outside of your own familiar ways of being. As your awareness grow, you will become more and more able to loosen your old patterns and begin to choose your responses.
The last part of this section is developing your awareness of what you do, which affects both your inner and outer worlds.
What you do either reinforces or loosens the faulty shame-based feeling and thinking that drives the pattern. If you feel you are not worth looking after and then follow that through by not looking after yourself, then it is like not watering a plant. It begins to wilt and seems even less worthy of looking after. When you water it, it will begin to come back to life.
When you begin to do things that make you feel better about yourself, your feelings can begin to follow. Self worth loves accomplishment. So accomplish something for yourself – bake a cake, go for a run, learn a dance. (Top tip – choose something in which you can have some immediate ‘wins’. Decide to run a marathon or write a novel by all means, but you probably can’t do that today. What you can do today is jog round 5km or write your first page.)
Building your self worth outside the situation you have been struggling with will free you from being so emotionally dependent within the situation.
Exercise – Breaking the Cycle and Stepping Into Your Power
Like we saw emotions make you feel like you have no choice. In fact, you always have choice. It can just be hard to remember at times!
So start by reminding yourself of the choices you have – the ones that make how you feel and your situation better and worse.
The things I do or could do that
make me feel worse are
- _______________
- _______________
- _______________
make my situation worse are
- _______________
- _______________
- _______________
make me feel better are
- _______________
- _______________
- _______________
make my situation better are
- _______________
- _______________
- _______________
The thing I would feel really proud of having done is _______________.
And if you decide you want to try doing of the things that will help you step out of your circle, don’t let me stop you. 🙂