Codependent No More is a guide to reclaiming your life from codependency: a reaction to stress in which a person becomes obsessed with another and loses sight of themself. Codependents forget to take care of themselves in their attempts to manage other people’s lives, and they are often wracked by stress and guilt. Melody Beattie encourages readers to overcome codependency with powerful messages of finding yourself, recovering self-esteem, and living a life that is free and full of joy.
Known as the “queen of codependency,” Melodie Beattie introduced codependency to the wider world. She draws on her own experience as a codependent, addict, and counselor to present a realistic yet compassionate image of codependents and their struggles.
In this guide, we’ll first explore what codependency is and how it forms, and then we’ll discuss how to overcome it. Finally, we’ll discuss Beattie’s primary recommendation for codependents: joining a 12 Step Program.
According to Beattie, codependency is a stress-induced pattern of behavior that dictates how a person treats another and how she allows that other person to influence her. The codependent obsesses over the other person and seeks to control them.
(Shortform note: Defining codependency is a difficult task, even decades after Beattie’s work first brought attention to the condition. Part of this difficulty is that codependency is not technically a mental illness according to the DSM-5, which provides information for diagnosing mental illnesses. There is no single, clear definition agreed upon by experts.)
We’ve synthesized Beattie’s characteristics of codependency into three critical categories:
1) Codependents put responsibility in the wrong place. They see themselves as responsible for everyone else but don’t take responsibility for themselves. (Shortform note: Taking too much responsibility for others comes from thinking yourself so independent that you have to control everything. In reality, no one controls everything. Simultaneously, the inability to take responsibility for yourself comes from low self-esteem: You base your worth on your actions, so admitting a mistake damages your esteem. If you focus on other people, though, you don’t have to worry about yourself.)
2) Codependents neglect themselves in favor of others. They focus on other people so much that they struggle to take care of themselves or let others help them. (Shortform note: Codependents neglect themselves and can’t ask for help because they fear being a burden. You can combat this fear by being open about your needs and boundaries.)
3) Codependents can’t see themselves clearly. They can’t receive help or take responsibility because they’ve repressed their feelings, needs, and personality. (Shortform note: You can avoid repression by expressing your needs, feelings, and personality instead of pushing them away.)
Beattie states that codependency is a reaction to prolonged and often extreme stress. This stress leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms, which become habitual over time. These habitual coping mechanisms result in “reaction mode”: You’ll react to things in both healthy and unhealthy ways, but you’ll almost never act on your own volition.
(Shortform note: When a habit forms around a stressful situation, your brain makes a connection between the situation and your stress. The next time you’re in that situation, you’ll feel stress even if the situation doesn’t call for it, and the connection will be strengthened. To stop this process, identify the habitual stress connection. If you start to feel stressed because of the connection, do something enjoyable: This alters the connection your brain makes and reduces your stress.)
Codependency is associated with substance abuse because substance abuse is a clear cause of stress. However, the source of stress can be subtle, too, Beattie explains, such as underlying family systems. All families have unspoken rules that govern how members behave and interact with one another. Families that discourage open communication are at high risk for codependency.
Why It’s Important to Recognize Your Family System
Underlying family systems like those Beattie describes are also called rules of engagement, and you learn them through trial and error. When you engage in a certain behavior and receive negative reactions, your brain prohibits the behavior in the future.
If you know your family system discouraged communication, caused stress, and therefore left you at high risk of codependency, be proactive in preventing codependency by using the techniques discussed in this guide. This is important because there aren’t established solutions for healing family systems like there are for addiction, so you need to take charge of your healing.
Now that we’ve established what codependency is and how it forms, let’s discuss how to overcome it. Beattie notes that the most important step in recovery for codependents is detaching from other people by practicing self-care. Codependent people are often attached to others. According to Beattie, being attached to someone else means that all your energy goes into their life, leaving none for yourself.
(Shortform note: Some writers disagree with Beattie’s assertion that attachment is entirely negative. For instance, Amir Levine and Rachel Heller argue that attachment is necessary and important. This seems to contradict Beattie’s point. However, Levine and Heller simply use the word “attached” differently than Beattie. Levine and Heller define attachment as a healthy connection with other people, while Beattie defines attachment as unhealthy dependency. At their cores, both sets of authors agree with each other, maintaining that everyone needs healthy connections with other people.)
Beattie believes that self-care is living a responsible life by being mindful of your needs, wants, emotions, and responsibilities toward yourself and others. (Shortform note: Beattie’s definition of self-care might surprise some people as traditional definitions don’t mention the need for personal responsibility. However, her definition is bolstered by the American Psychological Association and the National Institute of Health: Both agree that self-care is being mindful of your physical and mental needs. By adding responsibilities to others into her definition, Beattie ensures people don’t go too far past self-care into irresponsibility.)
According to Beattie, an important part of self-care for codependents is detachment. Detachment means taking responsibility for yourself and letting others be responsible for themselves. (Shortform note: Beattie’s understanding of detachment is similar to the Buddhist belief of non-attachment. Non-attachment revolves around getting rid of unhealthy attachments: You can have nice things and relationships as long as you don’t let those things control you.)
According to Beattie, the most important way to detach and practice self-care is to ask yourself, “What do I need or want in this moment?” Once you know what you need or want, you can work to attain it yourself, ask others for help in attaining it, and prioritize yourself by saying “no” when you don’t have the time or resources to say “yes.” (Shortform note: Codependents think putting their needs and wants first or saying “no” to people is selfish or being a burden, but it’s not. Selfishness is taking things away from other people for yourself, and being a burden is making others provide for you, but self-care, including saying “no,” is providing for yourself.)
Codependents struggle to detach themselves from others because of a lack of self-esteem. People with low self-esteem rely on others to validate their worth, Beattie explains. Relying on external validation is dangerous, but strong self-esteem lets you control your own life and act in your best interest.
(Shortform note: Social media has turned over-reliance on external validation into an epidemic. As it becomes easier to validate others and receive validation, people crave it in every aspect of their life. They have become so attached to other people’s reactions that they can’t recognize their own feelings. The best way to relearn self-validation is to get rid of social media. Rather than focusing on other people’s reactions, ask yourself how you feel about your situation.)
According to Beattie, low self-esteem leads to three problems:
1) Attachment. Many codependents believe they can’t take care of themselves, which leads them to attach to other people. To escape this cycle, you must find worth in yourself, knowing that you can succeed. (Shortform note: You’re more capable than you think. Instead of thinking “I can’t,” shift your mindset to “maybe I can.” This simple shift gives you the space to try, which is often enough to lead to success.)
2) Bad communication. Codependents learn that open communication is not allowed, so they turn to manipulation, guilt-tripping, and lying to get things done. (Shortform note: In families with bad communication, there is a constant fight for recognition and power. Being unheard makes people feel powerless, so they use manipulation to regain that power.) You can foster good communication by improving your self-esteem. (Shortform note: Improve your self-esteem by speaking with self-respect, maintaining good eye contact and posture, and being authentic.)
3) The caretaking cycle. Many codependents try to find validation by taking care of others. This leads to the caretaking cycle. First, the codependent “saves” other people from their responsibilities, which makes them feel good about themself. Second, the codependent feels angry and resentful toward the other person for “using” them, even though the codependent freely assumed the responsibility. Finally, the codependent feels bad for themself, making themself the victim to avoid responsibility.
(Shortform note: You can escape the caretaking cycle through the Empowerment Dynamic, which shifts the mindset of the three caretaking cycle stages to something constructive. Instead of caretaking, the codependent believes the other person can solve their own problem and offers them advice. Instead of becoming angry, the codependent focuses on motivating themself and the other person through accountability. Finally, instead of becoming a victim, the codependent focuses on their goals and motivations, working with what they can do, rather than obsessing over what they can’t.)
Trusting yourself is the first step to nurturing self-esteem, Beattie says. There are a few ways you can practice trusting yourself:
1) Remind yourself of your skills, positive attributes, and past good decisions. (Shortform note: This self-validation increases resilience: the ability to heal and learn from difficult situations. If you’ve made good decisions before, you can do so again.)
2) Practice making small, enjoyable decisions. (Shortform note: Making low-stakes “micro-decisions” gradually builds your confidence until you can make big decisions.)
3) Don’t force yourself to forgive and forget or to trust people over your own judgment. (Shortform note: You don’t have to forget someone’s transgressions to forgive them. Forgiveness is healing, but remembering past hurts lets you protect yourself from suffering similar hurts again. On the same note, don’t trust people unless they earn it by changing their behavior. You don’t owe anyone your trust, and withholding it lets you protect yourself.)
Loving yourself is the next step to nurturing self-esteem, Beattie says. There are a few ways you can practice loving yourself:
1) Release unhealthy guilt. While healthy guilt prompts change and growth, unhealthy guilt just lingers and causes pain and anxiety. (Shortform note: Unhealthy guilt is also called shame, and it damages your sense of self and makes you less likely to change in the future. To overpower shame, redirect your self-hating thoughts to ones of self-love: Remember that everyone makes mistakes, make amends to the wronged person, and consider what acts of kindness you can do for yourself.)
2) Let go of perfectionism. It’s only once you’ve embraced yourself as you are that you can grow as a person.
3) Believe in yourself. How you feel about yourself changes how you act and how others see you. If you believe you are funny, charming, or beautiful, other people will too.
Healthy Striving vs. Perfectionism and Self-Loathing
Research supports Beattie’s suggestion that letting go of perfectionistic behavior is part of healing. Perfectionism is a defense mechanism against shame. Doing things perfectly is the source of your emotional security and self-worth. When you fail to meet your impossible standards, you feel worthless.
The cure to perfectionism is “healthy striving,” the practice of setting reasonable goals based on your wants and needs rather than external validation. Meeting these reasonable goals will arguably help you to believe in yourself. Healthy striving can also help you decide how to present yourself to other people. For example, you could wake up half an hour earlier so you can do your hair rather than rushing. The goal is not to change who you are, but to strive to be your best.
Another way to overcome codependency is to surrender control of others. Beattie explains that codependents spend their time and energy trying to control people. (Shortform note: People control to avoid losing things. They're more afraid to lose their remaining security than they are excited to gain freedom by stopping their controlling behavior.)
When you try to control everyone and everything around you, you’re really the one being controlled, Beattie says. (Shortform note: This can look like letting other people project their opinions on you because you’re too nervous to express your own opinions, constantly asking for advice or approval, or not taking care of yourself. These situations invite someone else to take control, since you’re not doing so yourself.)
In addition, by taking control, you prevent the other person from taking responsibility for their actions. (Shortform note: People won’t take responsibility unless they’re forced to. You must let your loved ones experience the consequences of their actions and learn to take care of themselves.)
According to Beattie, the opposite of trying to control others is taking responsibility for yourself. Even if the situation you find yourself in is the fault of another, your behaviors relating to that situation, including your negative behaviors, are up to you. (Shortform note: Blaming other people instead of taking responsibility can actively harm you. Focusing on the negative, which blaming naturally involves, pushes you toward depression and low self-esteem. On the other hand, focusing on the positive and practicing gratitude can make you happier. If you see the best in everyone, you won't need to control them, and you’ll be more likely to see the best in yourself too.)
That said, resist the urge to blame yourself for things out of your control. Beattie stresses that you are not responsible for the behavior of others. Internalizing this message is an essential step to healing from codependency. (Shortform note: The best way to internalize this is to recognize what you’re taking responsibility for, examine whether you can actually control those things, and discard responsibilities you can’t control.)
Another way to heal from codependency is to reach a state of acceptance. According to Beattie, acceptance means understanding and working with reality. Accepting reality is the only way to change your situation, and the only way to reach acceptance is to grieve. (Shortform note: Some people confuse acceptance with approval. Acceptance is about acknowledging what happened in the past, while approval is about the future and what you will or won’t allow.)
There are five stages to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You must pass through all the stages before you can move past a loss or painful experience, Beattie says.
The first three stages are defense measures, but they become maladaptive over time: Denial stops painful information from overwhelming you until you’re safe enough to process it, Beattie maintains. (Shortform note: Denial becomes maladaptive because it’s only effective as a short-term safety net. You need a long-term safety net of backup plans and external support as well.)
According to Beattie, once the painful information has been acknowledged, anger protects you from being sad. (Shortform note: Anger feels safer than sadness because it provides a sense of power and control. However, turning sadness into anger does not make the sadness go away: It merely hides it, and it can damage your relationships while it does so.)
Bargaining recognizes reality, but it tries to stop it from affecting you by striking deals, Beattie explains. (Shortform note: There are two types of bargaining: bargaining for a change to the end result and bargaining for a change to the timing of the result. The second is closer to acceptance because it accepts that reality cannot be stopped or altered.)
Depression occurs when the painful information fully sinks in, Beattie says. Most people try to avoid this stage because it’s so painful, but you must let it progress naturally. (Shortform note: The depression stage is so painful because you’ve used up all your energy in the defense stages. Its length depends on the severity and timing of the loss, as well as on your personality.)
Acceptance is the final stage of grief and the state of mind you should be living in, according to Beattie. It is the first step toward change: In a state of acceptance, you have made peace with what is true right now, so you can work to change what will be true in the future.
How to Reach Acceptance
In Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach defines acceptance as embracing everything you are experiencing. This is similar to Beattie’s definition, although Beattie adds that acceptance is the first step toward change. Brach does not include this element, focusing on the act of acceptance rather than what comes after.
Here are a few tips from Brach on achieving acceptance:
Recognize and name your negative emotions or fears.
Ask yourself friendly questions about what you feel, need, or want.
Feel your emotions without letting them control you.
The next step in addressing codependency is processing emotions healthily. According to Beattie, most codependents repress their emotions because it seems safer not to feel anything than to risk being hurt again. (Shortform note: Repression can also be caused by a lack of confidence or a desire to keep a relationship.)
However, repressing feelings doesn't work. When you don’t process your emotions, they start controlling you. Once you learn how to process your emotions, you can take back control. (Shortform note: How can you stop repressing your emotions? The key is in feeling the emotions in the moment. Picture your emotions like a wave: If you float along with the wave, you’ll return to balance quickly. If you try to fight the wave, you’ll be crushed under the water. The wave controls where you go and if you can come up for air. Instead of fighting, ride the wave of emotion by focusing on the present, feeling the emotion, and then letting it go.)
Beattie suggests four main steps to processing your emotions healthily:
1) Remember your emotions are important. Your emotions tell you things about yourself and your situation. (Shortform note: Your emotions are inherently connected with your physical and neurological experiences. They help you interpret and react to the world.)
2) Remember your emotions don’t define you. Your feelings don’t dictate who you are—your actions do. (Shortform note: Emotions can’t define you because they’re not always based on reality. Emotions are based on your perception of events, while actions have an objective effect on the world, which is why they can define you.)
3) Take responsibility for your emotions. The situation or other people's behavior might influence your feelings, but your emotions are your responsibility. This doesn’t mean that others can’t hurt you: You can feel hurt, but don’t let those feelings control your actions. (Shortform note: Some people turn the valid mantra of “don’t let your emotions control you” into “they’re not hurting you, you’re choosing to be hurt.” Beattie is not advocating for this: It removes responsibility from the hurtful party and shames the victim, while Beattie advocates for personal responsibility and leaving shame behind.)
4) React healthily to your emotions. Distance yourself from the emotional situation and learn from your emotions. (Shortform note: You can distance yourself from an emotional situation by using second- or third-person pronouns when discussing it. The change in pronouns forces your brain to make a distinction between you and the emotions. After you’ve distanced yourself, you can use emotional agility to gain a more precise and nuanced view of your own emotions. You can practice emotional agility by looking deeper into your emotions.)
According to Beattie, setting goals is another important part of recovery for codependents. Goals let you look forward to the future: They are a healthy method of acknowledging your desires. For many codependents, goal-setting can revitalize their will to live for themselves.
Beattie maintains that needs and wants make the best goals because they let you live the life you want. Unfortunately, many codependents base their lives on “shoulds” instead. Anytime you think, “I should be doing this,” or “I shouldn’t be enjoying this,” you are falling for should-based thinking. Shoulds suck the joy from life. They disparage your actions and goals as not good enough and pressure you into doing things you don’t want.
Defeating “Shoulds” and Negative Pressure With Self-Care
Research confirms that setting goals helps codependents by generating positive pressure. Positive pressure motivates you and keeps you focused, rather than inspiring anxiety. When these goals are based on your needs and wants, this positive pressure keeps you focused on yourself and your healing.
In contrast, should-based thinking exerts negative pressure. It is based on external pressure and obligations, so it inspires anxiety instead of motivation and imposes unhealthy guilt for any want- and need-based goals. You can overcome should-based thinking with Beattie’s method of self-care: Ask yourself what you want and why, and then let the “shoulds” go.
We’ve synthesized Beattie’s advice for setting goals into three main ideas:
1) Write your goals down and cross them off. It’s easier to work toward your goals when they’re concrete and specific. Crossing your goals off when complete gives you a physical representation of success and shows you how far you’ve come. (Shortform note: Writing goals down also improves your brain’s encoding ability: how well your brain analyzes information and transfers it to long-term memory. Writing your goals down means your brain will be able to better grasp, remember, and implement your plans.)
2) Trust that what should happen will happen. Take what actions you reasonably can to complete your goals, but don’t obsess. Be patient and focus on the present. (Shortform note: Some people recommend setting a timeline for each goal, but Beattie disagrees. She recommends patience because codependents struggle with perfectionism and controlling behavior, and giving themselves deadlines can exacerbate that problem.)
3) Be flexible. Set enough goals that you have a direction and a plan, but don’t worry about hitting specific numbers. (Shortform note: Some people disagree, arguing that setting goals daily is important for success. Writing down your goals every morning will reinforce them, allow your subconscious to work on them, and give you a boost of energy and creativity.)
Beattie’s final recommendation for codependents is trying a 12 Step Program. According to Beattie, 12 Step Programs help codependents start living for themselves. They work because of three elements: the lack of requirements, the focus on fellowship, and the length of the programs. The lack of requirements means you can work through the program at your own pace, the fellowship encourages honesty and accountability, and there are no graduations because codependency is a chronic disorder and needs ongoing treatment.
Are 12 Step Programs Really That Great?
Beattie claims that 12 Step Programs are almost magical. However, researchers disagree. 12 Step Programs are better than no treatment, but they are no more effective than other treatments like inpatient care or talk therapy. In fact, the very qualities Beattie says make the programs successful can drive people away.
While Beattie stresses the importance of going at your own pace, some people benefit from more intensive treatments. For these individuals, the slower pace could be detrimental. In addition, for some, fellow program members can actually be a deterrent. Minorities especially may feel uncomfortable or unsafe being the only POC, female, or LGBTQ+ member of the group. Finally, some experts argue that codependency doesn’t need ongoing treatment. Instead, you simply need to understand that recovery is important and have the desire to do so.
While these programs have 12 steps, we can synthesize these steps into four broad principles:
1) Accept your codependency and ask for help. This means giving up your need to control and having faith that you can improve with help. (Shortform note: Most people demonstrate this acceptance by labeling themselves as codependents. However, some argue that labeling yourself traps you in the identity of a codependent and makes you less likely to recover.)
2) Connect to a higher power. Humans are spiritual beings, so the treatment for their illnesses must also be spiritual. (Shortform note: The spiritual attitude of 12 Step Programs has persisted for decades, but opinions on this attitude are shifting. There is an increasing number of secular 12 Step Programs, which teach that you can find the strength to live a healthy life through yourself and your community rather than a higher power.)
3) Make reparations. This principle requires paying close attention to yourself, your ideals, and your actions. (Shortform note: Making reparations is difficult because it forces you to pay attention to your ideals and the times your actions did not uphold those ideals. However, doing so lets you release guilt and improve your relationships.)
4) Share your experience. Showing others the healing you experienced can encourage them to find that same healing. (Shortform note: For new members of the program, seeing that you were in the same position and that you healed gives them hope. Sharing your struggles demonstrates that you’re a normal person who put in the work to heal, and they can too.)
Codependent No More is a guide to reclaiming your life from codependency: a reaction to stress in which a person becomes obsessed with another and loses sight of themself. Codependents forget to take care of themselves in their attempts to manage other people’s lives, and they are often wracked by stress and guilt. Melody Beattie encourages readers to overcome codependency with powerful messages of finding yourself, recovering self-esteem, and living a life that is free and full of joy.
Melody Beattie is an author of self-help books. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1948, Beattie had a traumatic childhood that led to her becoming an alcoholic before she turned 13 and a drug addict before she graduated high school.
Beattie’s life turned around after a judge sentenced her to complete addiction treatment. She experienced a spiritual awakening that led her to recognize the mess her life had become. Beattie decided that instead of wasting her energy on harmful behaviors, she was going to use that energy for good. After becoming clean and starting work as a counselor at a substance abuse clinic, Beattie realized that addiction wasn’t her only concern: She was dealing with codependency too.
Beattie wanted to find a way to help other people who were struggling like she was. When she couldn’t find any resources that helped with codependency, she decided to create her own. Beattie wrote her debut book Codependent No More as a divorced mother of two living off welfare. She finished the book in four months, and it went on to spend 115 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, selling over 4 million copies. Since then, Beattie has published 17 other self-help books, as well as articles for Time and People magazine. Her debut book remains her most well-known publication.
Beattie connects with her readers through her down-to-earth writing style and encouraging tone. She writes from personal experience and cautions her readers that she is not an expert or a guru, but rather someone who, like them, is trying to find her own way to healing.
Connect with Melody Beattie:
Publisher: Hazelden Educational Materials, the publishing branch of the Hazelden Foundation, published Codependent No More in 1986. The book was updated with new introductory material on the 5th, 15th, and 25th anniversaries of the initial publication. For this guide, we’re using the 25th-anniversary edition, updated in 2011.
Beattie wrote Codependent No More on the heels of nationally high levels of alcohol and drug consumption throughout the United States. During the 1970s and 1980s, the per-capita amount of alcohol consumed was almost three gallons a year, while cocaine reached record highs of over 10 million users in 1982. These higher substance abuse rates may have contributed to the surge of interest in self-help programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. Beattie’s book capitalized on this interest, as well as on the increased need for support for the families of addicts formed during these record highs.
While the idea of codependency had existed among substance abuse clinics and psychologists for over a decade before the publication of her book, Beattie is widely considered the first person to introduce the concept to the wider world. That said, several other self-help books of a similar nature were published shortly before Beattie’s book, including Adult Children of Alcoholics by Janet G. Woititz, published in 1983, and Robin Norwood's Women Who Love Too Much, published in 1985. Both of these books were bestsellers in their own right, and both talked about codependency and the need to heal from it without actually using the term.
Codependent No More sparked a cultural wave of attention toward the families of addicts, rather than just the addicted member. As the attention grew, television hosts like Oprah Winfrey started talking about addiction, codependency, and self-help programs. Melody Beattie became known as the “queen of codependency,” and many 12 Step Programs for codependents used her book as their central text.
Codependent No More touched millions of people’s lives and has been credited with saving a lot of them. Readers enjoy Beattie’s personability and vulnerability throughout the book. They appreciate the in-depth look the book provides into codependency, its symptoms, and how it forms. Many readers felt able to identify with Beattie’s descriptions and credit her advice with turning their lives around. On a wider scale, the attention the book garnered facilitated new explorations into the field of codependency treatment.
However, Beattie’s book also sparked some debate among psychology circles, since at the time of its publication, codependency did not have a concrete definition. Some experts therefore disagreed with Beattie’s use of the term. Meanwhile, some modern readers dislike the author’s focus on spirituality throughout the book, as it makes it difficult for the secular reader to connect with the advice. Others argue that Beattie provides too many vague encouraging statements and not enough practical, step-by-step instructions for overcoming codependency.
Beattie wrote Codependent No More as the guide she wished she could have had access to when she was trapped in codependency. Thus, there is a tone of caring concern over the entire book, along with moments of fiery determination as Beattie assures her readers that they can heal and come to love themselves.
Beattie draws heavily from her own experience, both as a counselor and codependent, and as a result, the book is full of anecdotes from her time in 12 Step Programs. Beattie uses these anecdotes to give living examples of the complex concepts she is trying to portray. Since Beattie has no specific certifications in the field of psychology, and because she’s writing for others in the same situation, her approach is casual, without scientific jargon.
Some readers are drawn in by Beattie’s casual approach, finding comfort and connection in her stories and advice. Others, however, might be turned off by her reliance on personal experience over research.
Codependent No More is loosely arranged into two parts: a shorter introduction explaining the history and definition of codependency, and the longer advice section of the book where Beattie breaks down specific problems and solutions codependents face.
The chapter organization in the second part is somewhat scattered, with all of the chapters revolving around the central ideas of self-care and independence rather than building on each other. Because of this loose organization, and due to the fact that codependency is many circumstances and tendencies all interacting with one another rather than a neat row of causes and symptoms, there is a large amount of repetition throughout the book. However, this repetition could have been intentional on the part of the author, as she discusses in the book that repetition is important because it reinforces and internalizes good habits.
Part 1 of this guide addresses what codependency is and how it forms, and Part 2 covers how to heal from it. Within these parts, we have combined and rearranged chapters to decrease repetition and increase logical flow. For example, we combined Chapters 16, 20, and parts of 19 under the principle of setting healthy goals. As Chapter 19 is a collection of miscellaneous tips, we have distributed the remaining advice logically throughout the guide.
We arranged our chapters by specificity: We present general concepts like self-care first and then proceed to specific ideas, such as joining a 12 Step Program.
Throughout the guide, we explore the science behind Beattie’s claims, compare and contrast modern information to that in the book, and provide concrete steps to put the author’s advice into action.
In Codependent No More, Melody Beattie explores codependency and how it affects people. She draws on her own experience as a codependent, addict, and councilor to present a realistic yet compassionate image of codependents and their struggles. Furthermore, she shows how codependency can ruin lives just like addiction, and how, just like addiction, it can be overcome.
In Part 1, we’ll look at what codependency is and how it forms; we’ll discuss how to overcome it in Part 2. In this chapter, we’ll cover the definition of codependency, its characteristics, and its causes.
According to Beattie, codependency is a stress-induced pattern of behavior that dictates how a person treats another and how she allows that other person to influence her. The codependent obsesses over the other person and seeks to control them.
Beattie cautions readers, though, that hers is not the definitive definition. Codependency occupies a nebulous place in the psychological field. Many definitions of codependency exist, all capturing an aspect of the condition. These definitions vary between doctors, clinics, and individuals. Some experts maintain that codependency is a disease, becoming worse over time, while others argue that codependent behavior is a normal response to an unhealthy situation.
Though many of these descriptions are outdated, they are useful for getting a better understanding of codependency. Let’s look at a few of the major definitions and discoveries that led to Beattie’s understanding of codependency.
The Difficulty in Defining Codependency
Defining codependency is a difficult task, even decades after Beattie’s work first brought widespread attention to the condition. Part of this difficulty is that codependency is not technically a mental illness according to the DSM-5, which provides information for diagnosing mental illnesses. There is no single, clear definition agreed upon by experts. The American Psychiatric Association denied codependency its own entry in the DSM-5 because it has too many overlapping symptoms with other diagnoses, such as dependent personality disorder (DPD) or borderline personality disorder (BPD).
However, codependency has a few prominent traits that do not fit a DPD or BPD diagnosis: most notably the tendency to assume too much responsibility, as opposed to the shirking of responsibility defined in DPD and BPD. This points to codependency deserving its own diagnosis, and the issue is still debated among experts.
Currently, codependency is generally defined as a dysfunctional relationship where Person A needs Person B, and Person B needs to be needed. Beattie’s definition remains one of the most comprehensive, as she addresses the cause of codependency as well as its symptoms.
According to Beattie, codependency was initially defined as having unhealthy coping mechanisms for dealing with a loved one’s alcoholism. This definition remained until experts discovered that codependent people act like alcoholics, as if the codependents themselves have an addiction. The definition then focused more on the codependent’s loss of control in their life, rather than on the family member’s problems.
As experts conducted more research, they expanded the definition to include conditions other than alcoholism and refined it to describe the cause of the unhealthy coping mechanisms codependents displayed. At this point, codependents were known as people whose lives were out of control because of relationships with needy or dependent people.
Beattie asserts that the final major shift in defining codependency came with the realization that some families displayed codependent behavior without an external problem to cause it. This led to the discovery that family dynamics themselves can cause codependency. We’ll discuss this in more detail later in this chapter.
When Codependency and Addiction Co-Present
While Beattie argues that any prolonged stressful situation can cause codependency, and it may not be linked to addiction, the disorder is still closely linked to addiction because counselors discovered it at substance abuse clinics. Experts recognized patterns of behavior in the family members of the alcoholics they treated and, as the patterns became more obvious, changed their methods to support the families as well as the addicts.
The connection between addiction and codependency goes both ways. While Beattie addresses the primary link (addiction causing codependency), the stress of being in a codependent relationship can drive people to substance abuse. Thus, treating codependency is vitally important.
Some people believe that when addiction and codependency co-present, both disorders must be treated. Because each causes the other, only treating one won’t help. However, while most recommended treatments admit that the codependency needs to be treated, they maintain that treating the addiction is the main step to healing.
While Beattie provides a definition of codependency, she maintains that having a single concrete definition is less important than being able to define codependency for yourself. Understanding your own codependency and how it affects you is the first step toward healing.
The Dangers and Benefits of Self-Diagnosis
Beattie maintains that self-diagnosing codependency is an important step toward healing. However, self-diagnosis is a controversial subject in psychiatry. Some doctors maintain that self-diagnosis is dangerous because it relies on personal research and inexpert opinions. People without psychological backgrounds can overlook important symptoms of mental illness. In addition, mistreating yourself based on an incorrect self-diagnosis can exacerbate your true condition.
However, other doctors argue that self-diagnosis is actually a helpful tool: Doctors suffer from personal biases which affect how they diagnose patients. Self-diagnosis avoids these biases.
Most poignantly for codependents, self-diagnosis changes how you view yourself and your condition. Once you have a name to put to your struggles, it is easier to accept that you need and deserve treatment: A codependent can go from thinking, “I’m a terrible person,” to, “I’m codependent and I can get better.” This shift in mindset is a powerful step toward healing.
Like many psychological issues, codependency has varied and sometimes contradictory symptoms. For the full list of symptoms, please see the book. We’ve synthesized Beattie’s 14 major characteristics into three critical categories.
(Shortform note: These categories are fluid. Several of the symptoms listed below can fit into more than one category. We’ve limited each symptom to a single category to maintain clarity.)
Beattie believes that codependents put responsibility in the wrong place. They see themselves as responsible for everyone else’s behaviors but don’t take responsibility for their own. This manifests in the following ways:
Taking Responsibility for Others and Not Yourself: Why Does It Happen?
Some people argue that taking too much responsibility for others comes from thinking yourself too independent: so independent that you alone have the power to help yourself and others. In reality, everyone is interconnected; no one exists in a vacuum, being the cause and controller of everything around them.
While at first this mindset seems contrary to Beattie’s—one arguing that you’re too independent and the other maintaining that you’re too dependent—they’re really different ways of saying the same thing. In the first mindset, you think you’re independent, but you’re not. By thinking you’re independent and trying to control everything, you’re really becoming dependent on and being controlled by other people and your situation, as Beattie asserts.
To overcome this mindset, look at the outside influences on your behavior, even who built your house or stocked the grocery store. This reminder that you’re not operating alone lets you release over-responsibility.
But what about the inability to take responsibility for yourself? Often, this is due to low self-esteem: Codependents base their self-worth on their actions. Admitting to a mistake would deal heavy damage to their esteem. It feels safer to control other people’s actions because if the other person makes a mistake, the codependent isn’t as affected. Meanwhile, the codependent can’t worry about their own actions while focusing on the other person. We’ll talk more about self-esteem and its effects on codependents in Chapters 3 and 4.
Because they focus on other people’s behavior, codependents struggle to take care of themselves or let others help them, Beattie explains. This can manifest in the following ways:
The Fear of Being a Burden Leads to Self-Neglect
What causes a codependent’s self-neglect? Arguably, it’s the fact that codependents fear being a burden. They worry that if they don’t make themselves useful or pleasing, their loved ones will abandon them. To please others, they discard their own needs and boundaries, both in their sexual and everyday life. They cannot ask for help, because doing so would be burdening the other person. This fear usually stems from childhood: At some point, they learned that asking for help meant they were a burden.
Ironically, in their quest to be self-reliant, codependents end up needing other people for validation. Unfortunately, this reliance only worsens self-esteem and self-neglect. External validation boosts your mood, but it also reinforces the idea that you need to focus on other people and not burden them to receive that validation.
The fear of being a burden is a difficult mindset to escape. Pay attention to your inner critic and recognize when it accuses you of being a burden. Use those situations to practice being open about your needs and boundaries, rather than listening to that inner voice.
Beattie maintains that codependents can’t receive help or take responsibility because they lack self-knowledge. They’ve repressed their feelings, needs, and personality for so long that they’ve lost touch with them entirely. This can manifest in the following ways:
Suppression vs. Repression: The Benefits and Dangers
While Beattie refers to repression throughout her book, a more accurate word is suppression. Suppression is the purposeful pushing away of thoughts or feelings, while repression is a subconscious act. Suppression can be useful in the short term, allowing you to function until you are safe to experience your emotions. However, if you suppress your feelings or needs long enough, it turns into repression. This causes you to lose touch with these feelings and needs entirely, as Beattie asserts, and causes severe problems as listed above.
There are a few steps you can take to avoid repression:
Name your emotions with “I” statements such as “I feel disappointed.”
Journal to understand your thoughts and feelings better.
Make a habit of sharing your thoughts and feelings with others, even if it means admitting that things are wrong or communicating harsh truths.
Beattie stresses that the above symptoms are warning signs and that codependency gets worse the longer it lasts. When it goes unaddressed, codependents become depressed. They may isolate themselves, lose interest in hobbies and activities, be unable to complete daily tasks, and consider suicide. This can lead to codependents becoming addicts themselves.
The Connection Between Depression, Addiction, and Codependency
As Beattie implies here, depression and addiction frequently go hand-in-hand. Someone with depression might turn to alcohol or drugs to cope, and an addict might develop depression. Because codependency has very similar symptoms to addiction, codependents are at high risk for both conditions.
If you notice depressive symptoms in yourself, such as loss of interest in life, prolonged sadness, or thoughts of suicide, reach out to a medical professional. You can also fight depression by increasing positive interactions with other people, taking care of your physical health, and focusing on positive experiences.
Beattie states that codependency is a reaction to prolonged and often extreme stress. While temporary stress won’t make a big difference in your overall behavior, prolonged and extreme stress does. If your husband is late coming home once, you might worry, but after he gets home safely, you leave the stress behind. When you never know if your husband is coming home, the stress continues and grows every day. And every day, your unhealthy coping mechanisms become more ingrained and habitual.
These habitual coping mechanisms usually result in “reaction mode.” When in reaction mode, you’ll react to things in both healthy and unhealthy ways, but you’ll almost never act on your own volition, Beattie explains. You'll make decisions solely based on others’ actions and how they make you feel. Instead of being able to make decisions and head off problematic behavior, you’re only able to react after the damage has been done.
Eventually, Beattie notes, even leaving the stress behind isn’t enough to return to normality. Reaction mode has become your new normal, and you subconsciously cling to the same coping mechanisms, even though they have started hurting you rather than helping.
(Shortform note: In business situations, reaction mode occurs when a company cares more about profits than their employees. Companies cut their workforce to save money, and their employees struggle to run the company, reacting to one problem after another. In the same way, codependents don’t allot enough time or attention to themselves, and they struggle to live their lives, reacting to everyone else.)
How to Escape Habitual Stress
Beattie discusses habits in the context of both habitual stress and habitual coping mechanisms. In general, habits can be good. They increase your brain’s efficiency by lessening the energy you spend making everyday decisions. According to Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, 40% of your daily actions are habitual.
However, habits can also be dangerous. When a habit forms around a stressful situation, your brain becomes more susceptible to stress. Let’s look at how this works:
You experience a stressful situation. Continuing our example, your husband is late coming home.
Your brain makes a connection between stress and being away from your husband.
The next time you’re away from your husband, you feel stressed and may not know why. If you don’t recognize what’s happening, you can’t counter the stress response.
Every time you fail to counter the response, the stress habit grows stronger.
To stop this process, identify the habitual stress connection. Your brain is too efficient for you to notice the initial connection, but you can recognize when the connection is being reinforced. For instance, if your husband is at work and you feel stressed, the connection is being reinforced. Take the opportunity to schedule an enjoyable activity; this alters the connection your brain makes and reduces your stress.
Codependency is associated with substance abuse because substance abuse is a clear and persistent cause of stress. However, Beattie argues that codependency can crop up in any situation of “family illness,” when one member of a group has a problem and the repercussions spread to the entire group.
(Shortform note: Most well-known family illnesses are mental disorders, but other situations like high-stress jobs or chronic illness can also cause codependency. While some people living with a family illness experience an increase in motivation in the face of the challenge, most experience depression, anxiety, and resentment for the affected party.)
The source of stress is not always as obvious as substance abuse. Beattie emphasizes that some families experience codependency without any clear cause: no history of substance abuse, no highly stressful situation, and no particularly needy family members. So what is the source of the stress? What traps you in reaction mode?
In these cases, the problem is usually the underlying family system, Beattie explains. All families have unspoken rules that govern how members behave and interact with one another. These rules develop naturally and can either help or stifle your family’s communication.
Families that discourage open communication are at high risk for codependency. In a family like this, you feel the need to repress your emotions. You need to be perfect and untroublesome, and you maintain the status quo even when change would be good. The stress of following or reacting to these rules can cause codependency. This kind of codependency is dangerous, Beattie warns, because it’s difficult to detect the source. Underlying family systems have few obvious problems, and there is no established solution as there is for addiction.
Why It’s Important to Recognize Your Family System
Underlying family systems like those Beattie describes are also called rules of engagement, and you learn them through trial and error. When you engage in a certain behavior and receive negative reactions, your brain prohibits the behavior. Some families might have spoken values, such as "You can tell us anything," but the underlying system enforces the opposite. For example, Mark’s parents say he can tell them anything, but when he shares his problems or feelings, they tell him to man up or brush him off.
Common family systems include discouraging talk about feelings or difficult topics, requiring you to act in certain ways because of your age or sex, and enforcing that your worth comes from success.
Every family has different rules of engagement, and it causes interpersonal conflict when people’s rules clash. If you grew up not talking about difficult situations, your husband wanting to discuss them feels threatening. If you grew up with a healthy communication dynamic, your friend might seem cold and standoff-ish because she doesn’t open up emotionally. Evaluating your family rules, and trying to understand those of others, can therefore help you foster stronger relationships and practice better communication.
If you know your family system discouraged communication, caused stress, and therefore left you at high risk of codependency, be proactive in preventing it by using the techniques discussed in this guide. This is important because there aren’t established solutions for healing family systems like there are for addiction, so you need to take charge of your healing.
George is an alcoholic. He regularly goes into town and comes back drunk, or he doesn’t come back until the next morning. His wife Maria never knows where he is or when he’ll be coming back, nor the condition he’ll be in when he does return. When the problem starts, she calls his employers, friends, and favorite bars looking for him. This checking becomes a habit until she calls even when George comes home on time and sober.
Maria is dragged about by her husband’s behavior. She can’t control him; she can only mitigate the damage. After years of living in reaction mode, Maria can’t make decisions. All her choices revolve around George’s actions, even when he starts treatment and the stress is relieved. Reaction mode has become an integral part of how her brain works. It has become a dangerous habit, and Maria might not even realize it exists.
Bobby grew up in an average, middle-class family. He has no family history of substance abuse, chronic illness, or other obvious family illnesses, and he had an overall pleasant childhood. Externally, everything seemed fine. But under the surface, the family system was putting stress on Bobby that would eventually manifest as codependency. Let’s look at what happened:
Bobby’s family isn’t one for emotional displays. Whether intentionally or not, his parents have shown that such displays are weak, childish, or annoying. They reward restraint and disapprove of complaints. As a result, Bobby grows up repressing his emotions. He doesn’t ask his parents for help because he feels he should handle his problems alone. He feels pressured to always be calm and in control, not letting his desires or emotions impact his actions. When he succeeds, the adults in his life praise him for his maturity. When he fails, people say he needs to grow up.
The family system had a set of rules that dictate actions. Bobby spent his entire life reacting to these rules. Now, years later, he is stuck in reaction mode just as much as Maria, even though his reason for being so is subtler.
According to Beattie, the unspoken rules that govern family interaction can either promote or stifle open communication. Families that discourage communication have a high risk of codependency. Understanding these rules of engagement can help you communicate better and foster better relationships.
Identify some of the unspoken family rules that determine how you interact with others. For instance, are there any emotions you feel unable to express or any topics that are taboo due to your family’s expectations? Were you taught you have to act or look a certain way? Write down all the examples you can think of.
Now, describe a recent interaction with someone where these rules affected how you behaved. Did you avoid talking about something? Did you hide your feelings? Try to connect your behavior to the family rules you listed above.
Finally, describe how that interaction might have changed if your family rules were different. What might you have said or done differently? Try to find a different, positive action for each family rule that affected the original interaction.
In Part 1, we learned what codependency is and how it comes about. Now we’ll look at different ways to heal from codependency. We’ll cover the following strategies:
The first method of healing we’ll look at is practicing self-care through detachment. This is important because codependent people are often attached to others. According to Beattie, this means you focus on another person’s behavior while ignoring your own. You also focus on the other person’s feelings while losing touch with your own emotions. This leads to anxiety, obsession, and controlling behavior.
Being attached to someone else means that all your energy goes into their life, leaving none for yourself. Attached people feel depressed and like life has no meaning outside of the other person. You may think you’re controlling another person’s life, Beattie states, but your obsession is controlling yours.
The most important—and most difficult—step in recovery for codependents is focusing on taking care of themselves, rather than putting all their energy into other people. Beattie maintains that it’s only by detaching from the other person and practicing self-care that you can control your life.
Is Attachment Really That Bad?
Some writers disagree with Beattie’s assertion that attachment is entirely negative. In Attached, Amir Levine and Rachel Heller argue that attachment is a necessary and important part of life and that being dependent on another person actually makes you more independent, assertive, and confident. This seems to contradict Beattie’s point.
However, Levine and Heller simply use the word “attached” differently than Beattie. Levine and Heller define attachment as a healthy connection with other people. Beattie defines attachment as unhealthy dependency. At their cores, both books agree with each other, maintaining that everyone needs healthy connections with other people. Healthy connections promote emotional health and provide a sense of security and peace, which does increase confidence and independence as Levine and Heller assert.
Though their core messages are similar, the authors explore the subject differently. Levine and Heller focus on the attributes of healthy connections and how they work, while Beattie focuses on the steps you have to take before you can make healthy connections. While relationships can provide encouragement, security, and emotional stability, you need to experience these things outside of the relationship, too. If you don’t, you’ll come to rely on the other person too much and risk becoming codependent.
Beattie believes that self-care is living a responsible life: knowing you are important and taking responsibility for yourself. You do this by being mindful of your needs, wants, emotions, and responsibilities toward yourself and others.
Beattie warns that people can abuse the concept of self-care. People might claim to take care of themselves when avoiding, escalating, or causing problems. For example, if you take time off work without notice because you want to sleep in, you’re not practicing self-care—you’re neglecting a responsibility and leaving your coworkers in the lurch.
Beattie explains that fulfilling your responsibilities is a tricky aspect of self-care for a codependent because you have the tendency to place too much responsibility on yourself. Before accepting a responsibility, ask yourself if it truly is your duty. One helpful question to keep in mind is whether your actions respect both your and the other person’s right to choose. For example, by taking off work without notice, you’re not respecting your boss’s right to choose a replacement for the day, and you’re forcing your coworkers into a stressful and overworked position.
Is That Really What Self-Care Means?
Beattie’s definition of self-care might surprise some people. When many people think of self-care, they picture spa days and expensive purchases rather than personal responsibility. However, Beattie’s definition is bolstered by the American Psychological Association and the National Institute of Health: Both agree that true self-care is being mindful of your physical and mental needs.
The popular misunderstandings of self-care are often caused by taking the real principles of self-care too far. For example, some people misconstrue the need to care for their physical health, pushing themselves beyond their limits in the hopes of attaining a certain body type. Others take the need for relaxation too far and ignore their responsibilities in favor of lazing about and making unwise purchases.
Beattie’s inclusion of responsibility to others as well as yourself in her definition of self-care helps combat these tendencies: Responsibility toward yourself keeps you from overworking yourself, and responsibility toward others prevents you from neglecting all your duties.
Accepting That You’re Important Enough for Self-Care
It is difficult for codependents to accept that they are important and that caring for themselves needs to be a priority. In 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson suggests combatting this tendency by believing that you have an important job that you are alive to complete. If you hold this belief, treating yourself well becomes a moral obligation.
Peterson also suggests using others as a reason for treating yourself well: for example, saying, “Not taking care of myself will hurt the people around me, so I will take care of myself.” This may be good advice for the general person suffering from low self-esteem, but it’s dangerous for codependents who already pin too much of their value on other people.
Instead of rooting your reasons for self-care in other people, do it because you deserve good things simply by being you. Your important job is to be yourself and live happily and healthily. You can encourage this kind of thinking by challenging your negative self-talk with evidence (for instance, “I’m not lazy, I’ve been working hard every day and completed XYZ.”), turning negative comments about yourself into something positive (for example, turning “I’m so slow” into “I’m careful and diligent.”), and improving your physical health, because the better you feel physically, the better you’ll feel mentally.
According to Beattie, detachment is the underlying principle of recovering from codependency. It means pulling back from the person you’ve attached to and refocusing your energy on yourself. Instead of focusing on caring for the other person, you’re caring for yourself first. In this way, you’re practicing self-care.
Beattie stresses that detachment doesn’t mean abandoning the other person or being cruel: It means not allowing them to control you. You’re taking responsibility for yourself and letting others be responsible for themselves. Detaching yourself can also force others to take responsibility for themselves and improve their lives. In the end, having a healthy relationship will benefit both you and the other person, even if it’s painful or uncomfortable at first.
If possible, Beattie advises that you should detach with kindness and care for the other person. If necessary, though, anger is a powerful motivator. Detaching in anger is more painful, but it will give you the space to work through the problem and your emotions. This doesn’t mean that detachment happens all at once, though: Even if you initially detach in anger, you have to continue practicing it every day.
Non-Attachment and Compassion: How Buddhist Teachings Can Fight Codependency
Beattie’s understanding of detachment shares many characteristics with the Buddhist belief of non-attachment. Non-attachment revolves around getting rid of unhealthy attachments: You can have nice things and relationships as long as you don’t let those things control you.
The Buddhist methods of non-attachment are very similar to Beattie’s recommendations, which we’ll discuss in the next section. However, Buddhism emphasizes recognizing impermanence, which Beattie doesn’t. Buddhism stresses that you have to let go of objects, goals, and relationships once their time has passed. You can tell that something’s time has passed when it starts holding you back instead of helping you. Non-attachment is freedom, so if something makes you feel trapped or controlled, it’s time to let it go.
Beattie’s recommendation to detach in kindness and care unless necessary also mirrors Buddhist teachings. The Buddhist teaching on compassion specifies that you should remain nonviolent, but that sometimes, a situation calls for a forceful response. In those cases, it wouldn’t be compassionate to stand by and watch the situation get worse in the hopes of remaining nonviolent.
In the case of codependency, it wouldn’t be healthy or kind to remain attached to the other person, because in doing so, you’re preventing the other person from taking responsibility for their own life. You couldn’t resolve the situation through kindness and care, so the responsible act is to detach forcefully in anger.
According to Beattie, the most important way to detach and practice self-care is to step back from a situation and ask yourself, “What do I need or want in this moment?” This lets you reflect on your emotional state, responsibilities, and energy levels before making a decision.
Beattie adds that there are a couple of principles to remember when considering your wants and needs. First, don’t shoot yourself down, even if you think a need or want is selfish or inconsequential. Be compassionate with yourself and remember that your wants and needs are just as important as everyone else’s.
(Shortform note: Furthermore, prioritizing your own needs and wants is not selfish—it is self-care. Selfishness involves taking things away from other people for yourself, while self-care is providing for yourself.)
Second, Beattie stresses the importance of being honest when you ask yourself what you need. Self-care can sometimes mean things like desserts, rewards, and fun outings, but it can also mean making that phone call, doing that task, or apologizing to that person.
(Shortform note: The key to honest self-care is finding a balance between celebrating your successes and acknowledging your shortcomings. Maybe you completed a project, but you also ordered takeout when you’re trying to eat healthily. Honest self-care celebrates completing the project, acknowledges the shortcoming of dinner, and makes a plan to improve in the future (maybe you need to prepare dinner earlier or cook in bulk on the weekends). You honestly assess your shortcomings, and you recognize the work you need to do to practice self-care.)
How to Practice Difficult Self-Care
Providing for yourself and honoring what you need or want isn’t always fun, but there are some steps you can take to make difficult tasks easier. Break your difficult task into smaller, more manageable steps, speak encouragingly to yourself, and track your energy levels so you can schedule difficult tasks for when you’re most energized.
For example, if you have to make a difficult phone call, you can break the call into a few steps, such as writing out the most important points and deciding where you’re going to make the call. If you know you’re more energized in the morning, you can schedule the phone call for right after breakfast, when you’ll be best able to handle the mental pressure. Right before the call, spend some time encouraging yourself. This will put you in a more positive mindset to complete your task.
Once you’ve determined your needs and wants, Beattie explains that the next step is to ask yourself, “What do I need or want from other people in this moment?” and then to actually ask them for it. Codependents struggle with this, as they would rather give help or attention than receive it, but learning how to follow through on your needs and wants is a vital step to self-care.
According to Beattie, one of the things everyone needs from others is positive attention. Pay attention to those needs and take steps to fulfill them. Asking for a hug is especially powerful, as hugging releases endorphins, which make you happier and more at ease. (Shortform note: Hugging also releases stress, lowers blood pressure, and boosts your immune system. In fact, hugging is so important to your health that doctors recommend a minimum of four hugs a day.)
If you have difficulty asking for or finding someone to give you positive attention, Beattie suggests getting it second-hand through your own actions. Try giving out compliments. Make sure they’re honest, but give them out freely. It’ll make both you and the other person happy.
(Shortform note: It may seem backward to give someone else compliments when you’re craving positive attention. However, studies show that complimenting other people boosts your own mood. In addition, people tend to mirror behavior, so if you start complimenting or paying attention to another person, they’ll be more likely to reciprocate.)
Asking for Attention Doesn’t Make You Needy
As discussed in Chapter 1, codependents find it difficult to ask for help because they haven’t been able to rely on others in the past and they want to avoid being a burden. Asking for positive attention can be even harder because it requires emotional vulnerability. In addition, many people are afraid of appearing needy or “attention-seeking.” However, needing positive attention is a normal part of the human experience. Everyone needs support and care, and there are a few ways you can go about asking for it.
Taking a five languages quiz is a great way of opening up a discussion about your needs because it’s a more lighthearted way of addressing a serious topic. These quizzes can help you identify what kind of affection you’re craving by explaining the different kinds and how they manifest, which will help you meet those needs.
When asking for positive attention, don’t criticize the other person for not noticing your needs. Many people feel like their needs are obvious to others, but this is rarely true. Focus on the positives and be clear about what you need, rather than passive-aggressive.
According to Beattie, an important part of self-care is prioritizing yourself. When other people ask you for help, consider yourself first. Do you have the energy, time, and resources to help? Is this a responsibility? Do only what you’re responsible for and comfortably can, and try not to feel guilty if that’s not perfect or exactly what the other person wanted. If the problem isn’t your responsibility to fix, then you’re doing yourself and the other person a favor by refraining.
This might seem counterintuitive since you’re refusing the other person’s request. However, Beattie explains that codependents often end up in maladaptive cycles of behavior. You take care of someone else’s responsibilities and they in turn neglect those responsibilities even more.
In these cases, Beattie maintains that refusing to take on those responsibilities will lessen your stress and allow you to focus on your real duties, and it’ll help the other person by forcing them to take responsibility for their own life. The other person probably won’t see your refusal in this positive light, but in the end, you’ll both be healthier and more balanced individuals who can take care of yourselves.
(Shortform note: People react badly to being refused, even if the refusal is good for them, as Beattie suggests is the case in codependent relationships. Your refusal means the other person has to take responsibility for themselves, and if they’ve shirked responsibility for a long time, they’re going to react negatively. To encourage them to take responsibility while minimizing pushback, be an example of personal responsibility yourself. Be very clear that you expect them to take responsibility, and reward them when they do.)
The Importance of Saying “No”
As discussed previously, saying no to people—in essence, what Beattie is advocating here—is not selfish. You’re not taking anything away from someone by denying their request. That said, saying no can still feel hard, especially if you’re not used to doing so.
In Essentialism, Greg McKeown provides tips on how to say no:
Remember that rejecting the request isn’t the same as rejecting the asker.
Remember why you’re saying no.
Be clear with your answer.
McKeown also suggests phrasing your answer gently, without outright using the word “no.” Beattie contradicts this, saying that being clear and asserting your right to say “no” is important. Beattie’s advice is especially true for codependents first starting their healing journey, as they’re just learning to prioritize themselves. As you grow used to prioritizing yourself, you can move to gentler phrasing.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of how to detach and practice self-care, here are some final tips on how to succeed in the process.
According to Beattie, detachment often involves distancing yourself from hurtful past experiences and, in the process, practicing forgiveness. Some codependents don’t do so, instead holding on to their anger. Allowing yourself to feel angry is healthy, but don’t let it stop you from detaching. Remember, detaching is about you. The person who hurt you may deserve your anger, but you don’t deserve to have your autonomy taken away by them.
(Shortform note: Beattie focuses on the psychological effects of forgiveness: specifically, that forgiving someone lets you control your life rather than letting anger dictate your actions. However, there are significant physical benefits that come from forgiveness as well. When you hold on to anger, your body reacts like you’re sick and produces high amounts of white blood cells. Forgiveness allows your body to return to a healthy state.)
Beattie also stresses the importance of being gentle with yourself when trying to detach. You’re teaching yourself a new way of thinking by putting yourself first, and that takes time. Setbacks are therefore a normal part of the healing process, and you should forgive yourself when you experience them. Setbacks can manifest in a variety of ways, including a return to maladaptive coping mechanisms, ignoring your needs, or getting into a relationship with another addict.
Beattie warns that setbacks are painful and upsetting, and you may wonder if there’s any point in trying to heal when experiencing one. There is. Every time you get up after a setback and keep working toward healing, you’re making progress and training your brain to put your needs first.
How to Handle Setbacks
How can you handle setbacks? Beattie doesn’t say, but we have a few tips for handling them healthily:
1) Remember how far you’ve come since the beginning of your recovery. Experiencing a setback makes you feel like your efforts to heal were useless. Remember your experiences before you started healing. You’ll be relieved to remember how much better you’ve gotten at taking care of yourself. You’ll also be motivated to keep going, as you’ll remember that progress is possible.
2) Go back to the basics of recovery. You might’ve moved past basic coping mechanisms like asking yourself what you need and want as you recovered. Going back to these principles will reinforce the foundation of your recovery and make you more confident.
3) Schedule easy and fun activities to boost your mood. This will give you a boost of happiness and confidence to help you through the setback.
You can also plan ahead for setbacks. When you’re having a good day, try writing yourself “rainy day letters”: Write about how great your good day is and include plenty of encouragement for the next time you experience a setback.
According to Beattie, detaching means focusing your energy on your own needs and wants and allowing other people to fulfill their own responsibilities. Learning to recognize situations where you’re attached to someone can help you prioritize self-care.
Think back to a situation where you prioritized someone else’s responsibilities over your own wants and needs. (Maybe you did your teenage son’s laundry, rather than reading the book you’ve been looking forward to.) What happened? What did you need or want, and what did you do instead?
Next, describe what would have happened if you had prioritized your wants and needs instead. (Be realistic: Your son might be upset, but it wouldn’t be a disaster if he had to do his own laundry or wear dirty clothes to school.)
Finally, write out a plan for the next time you encounter this situation. (You might send your son a text reminding him to do his laundry, put your phone away, and then go enjoy your book.) Be specific with actionable steps.
Codependents struggle to detach themselves from others in the way we’ve described because of a lack of self-esteem. People with low self-esteem rely on others to validate their worth, Beattie explains. This validation can be people complimenting you, agreeing with you, or behaving in ways you want them to.
While everyone likes validation, Beattie warns that relying on external validation is dangerous because your confidence and happiness depend on another person. The other person’s bad mood could ruin your entire day. Relying on someone with a disorder like alcoholism, which results in unstable moods and negativity, could ruin your entire life.
On the other hand, Beattie maintains that strong self-esteem lets you take control of your own life and act in your best interests, rather than reacting to and trying to control other people’s opinions of you. In this chapter, we’ll look at the effects of low self-esteem on codependents and strategies for nurturing good self-esteem.
The Modern Addiction to Validation
Beattie’s warning against over-reliance on external validation is especially important today, as social media has turned this over-reliance into an epidemic. As it becomes easier to validate others and receive validation through the press of a button, people crave it in every aspect of their lives. When they don’t receive this attention, they can no longer self-validate. They have become so attached to other people’s reactions that they can’t recognize their own feelings. This is the same struggle that codependents deal with but on a much larger scale.
The best way to relearn self-validation is to get rid of social media. Rather than focusing on other people’s reactions, pause before you post and ask yourself how you feel about your situation. Accept compliments and enjoy them, but don’t make other people’s opinions and validation your main goal.
According to Beattie, low self-esteem makes many codependents believe they can’t take care of themselves. Regardless of their competence or level of responsibility, they worry that leaving their unhealthy relationship will make them helpless, so they attach to other people. This is a dangerous state to be in because the more desperately you need someone, the more willing you are to settle for unhealthy relationships. Desperation leads codependents into relationships, whether platonic, familial, or romantic, with people who will never meet their needs, which just makes them more desperate.
(Shortform note: It can be difficult to recognize an unhealthy relationship, especially if you’ve had a string of them in the past. If you’re in a relationship more out of fear of being alone than love for the other person, you’re settling for an unhealthy relationship. Another red flag is feeling like you have to hide your own interests and personality to keep the relationship. In these cases, it’s either time to have a long discussion with your partner or to end the relationship.)
Beattie explains that, to escape this cycle, you must step back from other people and not let them control your happiness and self-worth. Stand on your own two feet and find worth in yourself, knowing that you can succeed. This is not to say that you should never need support. As discussed previously, everyone relies on others to some extent. The key is finding a healthy balance. You can need affection, but it shouldn’t be the lynchpin of your identity.
Turning “I Can’t” Into “I Can”
Self-defeating thoughts feed the low self-esteem and confidence Beattie discusses here. Many codependents think “I can’t do this” whenever they encounter a challenge. This way of thinking will only ensure you fail.
Remember that you’re more capable than you think. Instead of thinking “I can’t,” shift your mindset to “maybe I can.” You don’t have to be fully confident in yourself, but this simple shift gives you the space to try, which is often enough to lead to success.
This method of confidence-building is similar to Beattie’s practice of detachment: It requires you to step back from your ingrained beliefs and the opinions of other people and look at what’s true about yourself.
Beattie states that there are a few different ways the attachment mindset—when codependents doubt their own ability to care for themselves—can come about. First, it can stem from childhood, when someone you relied on failed to care for you or taught you that your job was to take care of other people rather than yourself. Consciously or unconsciously, you’re looking for someone to fill that void of care and trust.
(Shortform note: The phenomenon of not being able to rely on your parents as a child, or learning that your job was to care for others, is called parentification. Parentification occurs when the roles of support in a parent-child relationship are flipped and the child becomes responsible for supporting the parent. Parentification makes children believe that to have good relationships with others, they must be caregivers and provide support that they’re not ready to provide.)
Beattie warns that an attachment mindset can also stem from gaslighting, when someone convinced you that your feelings or knowledge were crazy and wrong. Gaslighting makes you doubt your judgment, so you find someone else to tell you what is true.
(Shortform note: Gaslighting is a form of emotional manipulation meant to keep you under the gaslighter’s control. If you feel like you can't trust yourself, you can’t make decisions, which leads you to rely further on the manipulator. This gives them even more “evidence” to use against you the next time you try to make a decision (for example, saying, “You couldn’t choose which kind of meat to buy at the grocery store, how are you supposed to make this decision?”).)
Finally, Beattie explains that living with an addict makes you doubt yourself and your abilities to manage things because your life has been out of control for so long.
(Shortform note: Addiction is a very destabilizing disorder. It causes mood swings and reckless behavior. As the addicted individual relies more heavily on substances, they abandon the stability of a work or school schedule and use the family’s finances to provide for their addiction. The addicted family member requires attention and care, which deteriorates the rest of the family’s lives. In a few months, addiction erodes the family’s schedule, finances, and sense of stability, leaving them traumatized and wondering how things got so bad. Because they couldn’t manage or prevent the situation, they feel that they can’t manage anything.)
According to Beattie, poor communication caused by low self-esteem plagues codependents. At some point in their lives, they learned that honesty and straightforwardness were not allowed. As a result, they can’t ask for help, express desires, or feel openly. They can’t defend themselves or tell people “no” either. When open communication is banned, people turn to manipulation, guilt-tripping, and lying to get things done.
For example, picture Jenny, a high school student whose mother is an alcoholic. Growing up with an alcoholic mother has taught Jenny that she can’t ask for attention. When Jenny has a school performance that she wants her mother to attend, she turns to manipulation and guilt-tripping rather than asking directly. She talks about how excited she is, how her instructor has been praising her effort, and how her friend’s parents are planning a special dinner to celebrate. “Don’t worry about it,” she says, “I know how hard it is for you to make time.”
While Jenny achieves her goal of getting her mother to attend the show, her mother resents Jenny's manipulation and guilt-tripping, which damages their relationship further. Bad communication leads to anger, resentment, and ruined relationships.
Since codependents are usually the ones who can’t communicate openly, Beattie says, they often turn to these habits. However, maladaptive communication isn’t limited to one family member, especially in cases where the same family illness has been spreading for generations. In these cases, family members reflect off each other, and the communication problems only get worse. It also leads to children picking up the same habits and the problems of codependency and family illness spreading. It is therefore vitally important to foster good communication.
Why Does Bad Communication Lead to Manipulation?
Research supports Beattie’s assertion that bad communication leads to manipulation, often throughout entire families, because in families that don’t have healthy communication styles, there is a constant, underlying fight for recognition and power. Being unheard makes people feel powerless, so they use manipulation to regain that power.
Returning to our example, Jenny is in a constant fight for attention and recognition. She has to compete with her mother’s other responsibilities and family members, but her greatest competitor is her mother’s alcoholism. Since addiction is so powerful, Jenny has to fight dirty with manipulation.
Manipulation may start as a coping mechanism, which isn’t Jenny’s fault, but it becomes a dangerous pathological habit over time. After living with her mother, manipulation is such an ingrained part of Jenny’s thinking that she manipulates people even when it’s unnecessary. If not addressed, Jenny’s manipulative tendencies can become abuse.
According to Beattie, most codependents are afraid to live and communicate authentically because of low self-esteem. They don't think who they are is good enough; they think they have to change before they are worthy to live authentically and say what they feel.
Thus, Beattie maintains that the first step to fixing poor communication is to regain your self-esteem, to acknowledge that you are good as you are, your problems and feelings matter, and you’re allowed to express yourself. The second step is to build that self-confidence by being assertive in your communication. Be unafraid of speaking your truth, enforcing your boundaries, and communicating your wants and needs.
How to Improve Confidence and Communication
Beattie says that good communication comes after your confidence is initially improved. However, you can also initially build your confidence in the way you speak. Let’s look at a few ways to do this:
Avoid any words that diminish you or what you’re discussing. Catch yourself before saying things like “it’s just me,” or inserting lots of “maybe”s into the discussion. You are just as important as anyone else.
Maintain good eye contact and have good posture. These give subconscious, non-verbal cues to yourself and the other person that you are relaxed and in control.
Don’t try to sound like anyone else. If you try using fancy language and put on a perfect facade, the other person will pick up on your discomfort. It’s better to be natural and relaxed, even if you use more casual language.
Fake it ‘til you make it. Confidence in communication is a field in which this tactic actually works. The more you pretend to be confident, the more other people will listen to you, and the more your confidence will grow.
Being a confident communicator is important, but confidence can’t save an interaction if your communication itself is bad. Let’s look at a few additional tips for fostering good communication.
Practice active listening. Don’t just wait for your turn to speak. Pay close attention and ask follow-up questions to show that you’re listening and understanding.
Manage your emotions. When talking about difficult situations, don’t let your emotions control the conversation. Detach, figure out what you’re trying to say, and then make your point.
Ask for feedback. Other people are a valuable resource and can give you an outside perspective on your communication abilities.
Low self-esteem leads you to search for validation and approval in other people, as discussed at the beginning of this chapter. You crave good feelings that make you feel better about yourself. Beattie explains that many codependents try to find these good feelings by taking care of other people. This leads to the caretaking cycle.
According to Beattie, there are three elements to the caretaking cycle: the caretaking itself, where the codependent feels good for helping another; anger, when the codependent feels used by the person they took responsibility for; and victimization, where the codependent feels bad for themself. Let’s look closer at these stages:
Caretaking means “saving” people from their responsibilities and the consequences of their own actions, Beattie states. It’s attractive to people with low self-esteem because it creates the illusion of being needed, which promises self-worth. However, caretaking does not mean helping someone out of kindness; it means turning someone else into a victim so you can save them when they are capable of helping themselves. You are using the other person for a momentary high of self-worth.
You might be wondering, “So what? What’s the harm in helping people and feeling good about it? Everyone wins, right?” If the cycle stopped at the momentary high, that might be true. But it doesn’t.
Caretaking Versus Caregiving
Beattie presents caretaking and caregiving (helping someone out of kindness) as isolated opposites. However, some people believe caretaking and caregiving each lie on one end of a spectrum, instead. Caregiving is healthy and activates the same parts of your brain as physical pleasure, while caretaking occurs when your motivation becomes feeling good or “fixing” other people, rather than helping them.
Your place on the spectrum can vary from day to day, depending on the situation and your self-esteem. While you might not be able to avoid slipping toward caretaking at times, strive to be on the caregiving side of the spectrum. These tips can help:
When someone asks for your help and you can’t responsibly agree, be honest. Tell them that you’re focusing on your own needs and that you can’t help them.
Replace thoughts of “I have to help” with “I’m not responsible.” Step back and see how things play out without your intervention.
Help others in a way you’re passionate about and enjoy. This will help you keep a healthy balance of focus between the people you're helping and your own feelings and needs.
Integrate your skills and abilities when helping others. Using your abilities and skills boosts your confidence, which makes you more resistant to caretaking.
After saving someone from their responsibilities, Beattie says that caretakers feel used and unappreciated. They feel like responsibility is being pushed on them. They get angry and resentful, even though they freely assumed the responsibility. And it’s not just the caretakers that feel this way. The person being “saved” can tell that the caretaker sees them as incompetent, and so they get angry as well. This anger erodes relationships and causes people to hurt each other.
Anger as a Secondary Emotion
Beattie presents anger as a volatile emotion that can damage relationships. Why is it so volatile? It’s because of where anger fits with the rest of your emotions:
Emotion is a very complicated field of study. It’s hard to determine definitions, causes, or conditions because the brain is so complex. However, many psychologists believe that there are two kinds of emotions: primary—immediate and instinctive reactions to outside stimulus—and secondary—reactions to your primary emotions.
Anger is a secondary emotion. It does not manifest on its own, but as a reaction to 1) pain and 2) “anger-triggering thoughts.” Anger triggering thoughts are ones where you think someone is intentionally hurting you. The anger-triggering thoughts amplify the initial pain: The emotion is much stronger, and thus more volatile.
In the case of a codependent in the caretaking cycle, the codependent feels pain that people aren't meeting their needs or appreciating their efforts. This pain, combined with anger-triggering thoughts like “they’re using me” or “they don’t care about me,” makes the codependent feel the need to defend themselves. Anger is the defense mechanism. For the other person, the pain of feeling incompetent or untrusted combines with anger-triggering thoughts like “they think I can’t do anything” or “they’re treating me like a baby,” resulting in their own explosion of anger.
Note that the causes of anger are your own reaction to pain and your own thoughts about that pain: These emotions are your responsibility. We will discuss this idea further in Chapter 7.
Beattie explains that the mutual anger between the caretaker and the person being cared for leads to the final stage of the cycle: self-victimization. While the person being “saved” was pushed into the victim role by the caretaker, the caretaker places themself in the victim position by initiating the caretaking cycle.
According to Beattie, victimization is a very easy stage for codependents to fall into because they were real victims in the past. Even though they are no longer victims, they have learned to see themselves in that light. It is their own actions that victimized them. Self-victimization is dangerous because this vulnerable state attracts people who want to use the codependent.
To stop being a victim, Beattie says you have to recognize when you’re victimizing yourself. Monitor your urges to caretake, and practice detachment when determining if something is your responsibility. If not, refuse to join the caretaking cycle. Let other people deal with their own responsibilities and the consequences of their own actions. Giving to and helping others are important parts of life, but knowing when not to give is just as important. Give some of your time and energy away, but make sure you’re holding others responsible and keeping enough time and energy for yourself.
Self-Victimization: Why It Happens and How to Stop
Research backs up Beattie’s assertion that people see themselves as victims as a coping mechanism after being a victim in the past. If you experience a lack of control in your life for a long time, you are more likely to see yourself as unable to control anything, including your own actions. After trying and failing to exert control for so long, your brain accepts that you can’t and gives up to protect you from failure and wasted energy.
Self-victimization is also connected to the theory of fixed versus growth mindsets. If you have a growth mindset, you are able to adapt to situations, respond to criticism, and grow as a person. With a fixed mindset, you see yourself as a victim of external forces, you don’t believe you can change your behavior because it’s caused by other people or situations, and you become stagnant as a person.
To stop being a victim, be alert for times when you start to self-victimize or shift blame. Even if you're justified in blaming others, accept the situation and focus on what you can control, rather than obsessing over what you can’t.
From Drama to Empowerment
Beattie takes her caretaking cycle from the Karpman Drama Triangle, introduced in 1961. When Beattie published Codependent No More, the only “cure” for the Drama Triangle was being aware of it and working to avoid it. However, in 2005, the Empowerment Dynamic was introduced.
The goal of the Empowerment Dynamic is to make it easier to escape the Drama Triangle. Rather than avoiding the caretaking cycle, which takes a massive amount of self-awareness and will, the Empowerment Dynamic focuses on shifting the mindset of the three Drama Triangle roles to something constructive.
In the Empowerment Dynamic, the victim becomes a creator: Rather than focusing on the problems that plague them, the creator focuses on their goals and motivations. This forces them to focus on what they can do, rather than what they can’t.
The persecutor shifts into a challenger: Rather than disparaging and hating the victim, the challenger seeks to motivate the creator. The challenger holds others accountable but does so in a constructive way.
Finally, the rescuer becomes a coach: Rather than focusing on fixing things for the other person, the coach tries to help the person solve their own problems. The coach believes the other person can and will help themselves, and thus doesn’t need to “rescue” them.
Beattie’s caretaking cycle is based on the Karpman Drama Triangle and its roles of rescuer, persecutor, and victim. You can escape the Drama Triangle by shifting your mindset to the Empowerment Dynamic and its roles of coach, challenger, and creator.
Describe a time you started the caretaking cycle by “saving” someone from their responsibilities and what happened when you “saved” them.
What could you have done differently to be a coach rather than a rescuer in this situation?
Now, describe what happened when you shifted to the anger stage. What could you have done differently to be a challenger rather than a persecutor?
Finally, describe what happened when you moved to the victimization stage. What could you have done differently to be a creator rather than a victim?
Now that we’ve explored the harm low self-esteem can cause, we’ll discuss how to increase your esteem. As a codependent suffering from self-esteem issues, you need to learn to trust and love yourself, even when other people won’t. In this chapter, we’ll look at some strategies for doing this.
Beattie explains that many codependents were taught that they can’t trust their own minds. They don’t believe they can assess a situation or make decisions. This doubt paralyzes them from making even minor decisions. They cope with this anxiety by ignoring or passing off decisions, hoping someone will rescue them.
Beattie adds that this self-doubt also inspires perfectionism. If you believe you shouldn't be trusted to make decisions, then every time someone trusts you anyway, you feel pressured to be perfect so they don’t regret their trust. Impossible standards further increase anxiety and self-doubt.
Gaslighting and Perfectionism
While Beattie doesn’t put a name to it, being taught that you can’t trust your own mind is gaslighting, a form of emotional control. Robert Greene identifies gaslighting as a form of passive aggression in The Laws of Human Nature. By being passive-aggressive, the aggressor can pretend you’re being irrational if you’re upset. Overt aggression is much harder to ignore. Greene suggests keeping a journal of your experiences so that you have a record when you start doubting yourself.
Beattie argues that gaslighting causes perfectionism. Amy Marlow-MaCoy acknowledges that there is a connection between perfectionism and being made to doubt your mind. She maintains that imposter syndrome is a type of self-gaslighting, where you don’t believe you are as talented or successful as you are. When suffering from imposter syndrome, you convince yourself that other people are seeing you incorrectly, and you ignore evidence to the contrary. You’re also terrified of people seeing “the real you” and strive to be perfect. However, she does not make a connection between traditional gaslighting by another person and perfectionism.
Let’s look at a few strategies for learning to trust yourself: (Shortform note: We have synthesized Beattie’s ideas into internal and external strategies for finding peace.)
Seek peace internally by detaching from the situation that is causing you to doubt yourself. Remind yourself of your skills and positive attributes. This self-validation will help combat doubt and remind you of times you have made good decisions in the past.
Seek peace externally by making small, enjoyable decisions. This will help you trust your decision-making skills. Gather the information you need to make good decisions, and then express those decisions to others without worrying about being perfect. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help from other people or your higher power.
Seeking Peace Internally and Externally
Research supports Beattie’s suggestion to self-validate to find internal peace. In addition to increasing your confidence, remembering your skills and past good decisions increases resilience (the ability to heal and learn from difficult situations): If you’ve been in a difficult situation and survived it, or made good decisions before, you can do so again.
Beattie’s strategies for external peace are also supported by modern advice, as making low-stakes “micro-decisions” gradually builds your confidence. However, some writers disagree with her suggestion to ask for help: They argue that asking for help is delegating your decisions, which means you’re not making them yourself. In addition, they add a caveat to Beattie’s advice to collect information: Don’t include other people’s opinions in that information.
Another writer who advocates the use of both internal and external strategies is Brené Brown. In Dare to Lead, Brown has a few other suggestions for increasing confidence and trust in yourself. Let’s look at a few examples:
Be aware of your own thoughts, feelings, and reactions towards other people. This is an internal act that helps you to accurately judge your decisions and determine for yourself if they were good or not.
Put your values into practice. This is an external act that lets you find peace and confidence in your convictions.
Approach life with curiosity rather than fear. This is an internal mindset that changes the way you act externally, and it allows you to face uncertainty and errors with greater confidence.
Beattie maintains that trusting your mind also means standing your ground and doing what you think is best, even if it means refusing to forgive and forget, withholding your trust from a person, or finding a new therapist when you feel you're not benefiting from your current treatment.
Forgiving and forgetting is something many codependents feel pressured into doing, Beattie explains. Forgiveness is good and healing, but you shouldn’t forget how others mistreated you, because it can play into denial of how bad a situation really was.
Forgive, But Don’t Forget
Forgiving and forgetting are often conflated, as Beattie explains, but you don’t have to forget someone’s transgressions to forgive them. Forgiveness is an act of healing where you accept what happened and allow yourself to release any anger you have about the situation.
Forgetting, on the other hand, can harm your relationships and well-being. Remembering past hurts lets you protect yourself, and keeping track of red flags helps you determine whether the relationship should continue.
In addition, remembering past arguments and disagreements can strengthen your relationships: If you and the other person both improved since that argument, you’ve proven how much you care about the other and shown the effort you’re willing to put into your relationship.
In the same vein, codependents struggle to trust others, Beattie adds. Their loved ones have betrayed them and behaved badly for so long that trust is impossible. And yet, codependents’ loved ones sometimes use this lack of trust to levy unearned guilt. You don’t have to trust anyone over your own judgment. Accept that you don't trust the other person and it’s a reasonable reaction to their past behavior. Withhold trust until they back up their promises of good behavior with action.
(Shortform note: Talking about change is a classic manipulation technique used by people who have no intention of actually improving their behavior. It works by stalling you: The manipulator knows what you want to hear, and they give you hope that they will change. While you wait, the manipulator avoids consequences. This behavior will not change as long as you keep giving them your trust. You must demand they change their behavior, and hold them accountable.)
Beattie points out that many codependents have the tendency to trust their doctors over themselves. They might stay in unhelpful and even unhealthy situations because of this trust. Don’t doubt yourself: There are many kinds of therapy, and it’s okay to explore your options until you find a good fit. Remember, your therapist might have more psychological knowledge, but you know yourself best.
Sometimes Your Doctor Is Wrong
The urge to trust the expert over yourself that Beattie discusses gets codependents in trouble, but they’re not the only ones who experience it. Overweight individuals experience similar pressure when interacting with medical professionals. Bias is still present in the medical field, and doctors have the tendency to ignore any symptoms an overweight patient reports in favor of telling them to lose weight.
Besides being rude and unhelpful, this advice becomes dangerous when the ignored symptoms stem from a disease or genetic condition. When experts won’t take their problems seriously, patients are more likely to dismiss those problems themselves. Even when patients continue seeking treatment, the delay can cause complications. A problem the first doctor could have fixed if they looked past their own bias can progress into a dangerous condition that affects a patient’s entire life.
For the codependent, this means being your own advocate and trusting yourself. If you feel that your therapist isn’t helping you, find one you can trust and who will listen to you.
According to Beattie, codependents’ low self-esteem is usually caused by impossible standards and unhealthy guilt. You need to release those standards and guilt to truly love yourself.
Healthy guilt prompts change and growth, while unhealthy guilt just lingers and causes pain and anxiety, Beattie clarifies. Thoughts and feelings trigger unhealthy guilt, rather than actions. For example, you feel unhealthy guilt over being angry, even if you don’t react to your anger in any negative ways. Feeling guilty for your anger is pointless, as you handled the emotion in a healthy way.
In cases of unhealthy guilt, the codependent’s tendency to give so much of themself without receiving anything in return is a form of self-punishment. You feel the need to atone for your very existence, so you help others as much as possible and refuse the help of others.
Beattie is adamant that who you are is good, and you deserve a life free from guilt. Your problems and mistakes do not define you, and you shouldn’t be plagued by guilt over them. And while it isn’t your fault that you have low self-esteem, so you shouldn’t feel guilty about that either, is it your responsibility to work toward healing.
(Shortform note: The best way to live a guilt-free life is to focus on the present rather than the past, determine what values are important to you, and develop a growth mindset, as discussed previously.)
Guilt, Shame, and Self-Punishment
Research supports Beattie’s idea that healthy guilt prompts change, while unhealthy guilt just hurts. This is because healthy guilt is directed at actions, while unhealthy guilt attacks your self-esteem. Brené Brown refers to this as “shame” in Daring Greatly. She argues that shame is counterproductive because it damages your idea of self, which makes you less confident and less likely to change in the future. If you think you’re doomed to be a bad person, you’re not going to try to change.
Shame often leads to punishing yourself through denying yourself good things, speaking negatively about yourself, or self-harm. Usually this happens because you feel like you’ve done something wrong and you take the responsibility to correct yourself. When motivated by healthy guilt, this is a good thing. When motivated by shame, however, this response becomes unhealthy: You punish yourself excessively and further internalize the idea that you’re a bad person.
To overpower shame, redirect your self-punishing thoughts to ones of self-love. Remember that everyone makes mistakes and you’ll do better next time. If you can, make amends to the wronged person. Finally, consider what acts of kindness you can do for yourself. This will retrain your brain to practice self-love rather than wallowing in shame.
How can you heal from unhealthy guilt and embrace yourself? Remember that all you can be is yourself, and all you can do is your best, Beattie says. Let go of the impossible standard of perfection: it’s only once you’ve embraced yourself as you are that you can grow as a person.
Beattie maintains that your worth is your own, just like your actions. It doesn’t depend on others’ behavior or acceptance. You are still worthwhile if someone rejects you. The way others treat you is a reflection on them and their situations, not you.
(Shortform note: While there are certainly times this is true, it isn’t always the case. In Chapter 2 we talked about mirroring, where people will mimic your behavior toward them. Hold people responsible for their actions, but monitor your own behavior to see how they might be reflecting off you.)
Beattie concludes that how you feel about yourself changes how you act and how others see you. If you believe you are funny, charming, or beautiful, other people will too. This isn’t a trick or a way to fool other people into thinking you’re something you’re not. Loving yourself means living authentically. You’ve always had humor, charm, and beauty inside of you: now you’re learning to let them shine.
Healthy Striving vs. Perfectionism and Self-Loathing
Research supports Beattie’s suggestions that letting go of perfectionistic behavior is part of healing. Brown argues that perfectionism is a defense mechanism against shame. You seek approval externally and believe you can reach perfection if you try hard enough. Doing things perfectly is the source of your emotional security and self-worth. When you fail to meet your impossible standards, you feel worthless.
The cure to perfectionism is “healthy striving,” the practice of setting reasonable goals based on your wants and needs rather than external validation. Meeting these reasonable goals will arguably help you to believe in yourself.
There are three major ideas underpinning healthy striving:
Focus on what you learn and how you grow during the process rather than just the goal. This will let you find meaning in the experience, even if you don’t meet your goal perfectly.
Assign goals and standards for yourself in a sequential, step-by-step format. This will let you experience success and will keep you from getting overwhelmed.
Ask yourself, “What is the worst that could happen if I don’t succeed perfectly?” Consider how realistic this is and what more likely options are.
Healthy striving can also help you decide how to present yourself to other people. For example, you could wake up half an hour earlier so you can do your hair rather than rushing. The goal is not to change who you are, but to strive to be your best.
Many codependents struggle to trust their own judgment. You are more capable than you think, and reminding yourself of times you’ve succeeded in the past can build your confidence and help you make decisions in the present.
Describe a decision you’re worried about making and why you’re worried about it. What do you think will happen if you make the wrong decision?
Now, think about three good decisions you have made in the past. Describe those situations and how you felt before making the decision. Were you worried or confident?
Describe why those situations turned out well and what made the decision the right one.
How can you take those good experiences and apply them to your current situation?
Many codependents struggle with unhealthy guilt. Unhealthy guilt is based on thoughts and feelings rather than actions, and it makes you anxious instead of motivating growth. Releasing unhealthy guilt will let you grow as a person and live a happier, more authentic life.
Make a list with two headings: Healthy Guilt and Unhealthy Guilt. Think about times you felt guilty, or things you feel guilty for right now. Ask yourself, “Is this guilt based on an action (healthy) or a feeling (unhealthy)? Does it motivate (healthy) or paralyze (unhealthy) me?” and divide the situations under the headings accordingly.
Look at the situations under the Unhealthy Guilt heading. Describe why each situation is unhealthy. (For example, you might say, “I feel guilty for being angry at my wife and feel anxious and paralyzed because of it. This is unhealthy guilt because I reacted appropriately to my anger. I stayed calm and discussed the issue instead of lashing out, so I have nothing to be worried or guilty about.”)
Look at the situations under the Unhealthy Guilt heading and write out a plan for letting go of the unhealthy guilt. (For example, you might write down the reasons for your unhealthy guilt on a piece of paper and tear it up to find closure, or you might repeat a mantra to release guilt every day.) Be specific and schedule times to put your plans into action.
Look at the situations under the Healthy Guilt heading and write out a plan for dealing with each one. (For example, maybe you need to make amends, apologize, or plan how to do better in the future.) Be specific and schedule times to put your plans into action.
As we noted in Chapter 1, codependency is a response to prolonged stress. Usually, the codependent lost their sense of security, whether financially, emotionally, or in another person. They try to control the rest of their lives in the hope of not losing anything else. Ironically, while focusing on controlling other people, they lose control over their own behavior. To live a healthy life, they need to focus on controlling their own actions. In this chapter we’ll examine the dangers of controlling others and the importance of personal responsibility.
(Shortform note: Some people handle losing their sense of security better than others. These people have a large amount of resilience. Resilience is the opposite of self-victimization: It means knowing that you can determine your own life. Resilience means accepting that outside events can affect you, but not allowing them to define you. Whereas codependents try to control everyone else, resilience takes back control of your own actions.)
Beattie explains that codependents spend their time and energy trying to control people and their own life. This controlling behavior can either be blatant (“I’m in charge and you’ll listen to me!”) or subtle, through manipulation (“I’ll come with you to see your friends, it’s been ages since I’ve had a night out”) or self-victimization (“I’m so pathetic, please help me”).
(Shortform note: While overt controlling behavior is obvious, subtle manipulation is hard enough to spot that some people are manipulative without realizing it. This is especially true for those who grew up without good communication, as discussed in Chapter 3. If you find yourself guilt-tripping, lying to, or punishing people who get your way, you’re behaving manipulatively. You can communicate better by addressing the underlying issues causing you to manipulate and asking others to hold you accountable.)
When you try to control everyone and everything around you, you’re really the one being controlled by others, Beattie adds. By investing all your energy into someone else’s actions, you give them the keys to your self-control and energy. (Shortform note: This can look like letting others project their opinions on you because you’re too nervous to express your own opinions, constantly asking for advice or approval, or not taking care of yourself. These situations invite someone else to take control of the situation, since you’re not doing so yourself.)
Loss Aversion Bias Leads to Controlling Behavior
Beattie explains that people act controlling because they’re afraid of losing things. But why is this fear so powerful? It’s because of “loss aversion bias”: people’s tendency to put more value in keeping something they have than gaining something else. Controlling a situation means you can maintain a little security while dealing with family illnesses. Losing that security is scarier than gaining freedom is appealing.
However, it is important to overcome this bias. The stress that comes with controlling others will eventually override the security you’re clinging to. In addition, loss aversion bias gets stronger over time. Letting go of control now will be easier than if you wait.
No matter how you go about trying to exert control, Beattie maintains that you never really succeed. You cannot control other people or events. (Shortform note: This isn’t necessarily true. It is possible to control people if you know what they want and can manipulate the situation to make their goals align with yours. However, this only works as long as the person wants the same thing. If they change their goals, for example from “Getting another drink” to “Annoying my nagging spouse,” you will lose control. However, just because you can control others doesn’t mean doing so is healthy.)
According to Beattie, even if you could control other people, it would be a bad idea. By taking control, you prevent the other person from taking responsibility for their actions. Trying to control others stops their natural growth and does more harm than good. In addition, control breeds resentment. By trying to force someone down the path of sobriety or responsibility, you might turn them away from it. You can’t change people, not in healthy or lasting ways. They will change when they are ready and not before.
Differentiation of Self and Responsibility
Beattie says you should let others be responsible for themselves. But how can you do this? The key might lie in differentiation of self, an important tenet in family system therapy. It points out that most people will take responsibility if they feel pressured to. It’s hard to let a loved one experience consequences or struggle to take care of themselves, but this is an essential part of life.
The process of self-differentiation is similar to Beattie’s advice on self-care and detachment. However, it goes even further to suggest that you under-perform your own responsibilities, because not fulfilling your responsibilities might be enough pressure to make the other person fulfill theirs.
This experiment in under-performing your own responsibilities cannot be a long-term solution, however, or the roles of dependent and codependent will merely switch. For a short time to apply extra pressure, though, it might be worth trying.
According to Beattie, the opposite of trying to control others is taking responsibility for yourself. This is hard for codependents, who like to blame others for their problems. They’re not entirely wrong: Had their loved ones not struggled with a family illness, they wouldn’t have become codependent. However, focusing on the faults of others won’t help you heal. To find healing, Beattie believes you have to focus on what you can control: your own behavior. The situation you find yourself in might be the fault of another, but your behaviors relating to that situation, including your negative behaviors, are up to you.
(Shortform note: Focusing on the faults of other people is not only unhelpful to your recovery; it can actively harm you. Focusing on the negative pushes you toward depression and low self-esteem. It forces you to see things in black-and-white, which lowers curiosity and acceptance. On the other hand, looking for the positive things in life and practicing gratitude can make you happier. If you see the best in everyone, you won't need to control them, and you’ll be more likely to see the best in yourself too.)
That said, resist the urge to blame yourself for things out of your control. Beattie stresses that you are not responsible for the behavior of others. Internalizing this message is an essential step to healing from codependency. (Shortform note: The best way to internalize this is to recognize what you’re taking responsibility for, examine whether you can actually control those things, and discard responsibilities you can’t control.)
Beattie explains that taking responsibility is important because it lets you escape reaction mode, where you allow other people to control your actions and emotions. Taking personal responsibility makes you focus on yourself, and you can choose to act rather than react.
Beattie adds that leaving reaction mode is important because reacting means you’re not acting in your best interests. Your moods and happiness are subject to the whims of others and even your own brain. You are never in a state of peace, always braced for the next shift you need to react to. This is destructive and unproductive. Learn that your emotions and actions are your own; you don’t have to let other people influence them. It is your responsibility to regulate them and react appropriately.
(Shortform note: A pervasive example of reaction mode is cell phone usage and social media. Many people react when they get a notification. While this seems like a benign form of reactivity, your emotions—a shot of dopamine at the notification—and your actions—checking your phone—are still controlled by an outside source. Combined with the addiction to validation discussed previously, this type of reaction mode can be as dangerous as its fellows.)
The Importance of Neuro-Associations in Personal Responsibility
How can you take personal responsibility? Beattie doesn’t say, but Tony Robbins suggests paying attention to your “neuro-associations.” Neuro-associations are subconscious feelings and conclusions you apply to certain actions. These associations usually form from observing other people.
For example, if your friend drinks a lot, your neuro-association might be between alcohol and friendliness. You’ll react differently to someone displaying alcoholic tendencies because your brain associates these tendencies with friends rather than addiction.
Recognize the subconscious associations your actions are based on. Once you know you associate alcohol with friendliness, you’ll know to be cautious around alcohol, using your conscious mind to determine risk rather than relying on your subconscious. This forces you to detach from your feelings and look at the situation rationally.
Codependents are bad at taking responsibility. They try to control things that aren’t their responsibility while ignoring their real duties. Determining your real responsibilities will let you focus your energy where it needs to be.
Write out the things you feel responsible for. To aid with this, look at your past actions and see what they can tell you about the things you feel responsible for. (For example, you might not consciously think you’re responsible for your sister’s mood, but if you’re always avoiding conversations that might upset her and ignoring your own needs to keep her happy, you probably feel that way subconsciously.)
Next, divide these responsibilities into two categories: Mine and Not Mine. Under each responsibility, write in detail about why it’s yours or not yours. Think about the following questions to help you decide which category to put each responsibility under: Can you really control each responsibility? If so, are you taking away someone’s right to choose? (For example, if you try to control your sister’s mood, you’re taking away her right to choose how she reacts to difficult conversations.)
Look at the responsibilities under the Not Mine category. Make a plan for how you’re going to release each of them. Be specific, with actionable steps. (For example, if you always rearrange your schedule when your boyfriend wants to spend time with you, you can write out what you’ll say to turn him down the next time. You could also organize your calendar according to how important the activity is; then you’ll have a clear idea of what activities you can rearrange and which ones take priority.)
Another way to heal from codependency is to reach a state of acceptance. According to Beattie, acceptance means understanding and working with reality. Many codependents struggle with acceptance. They live in a constant state of uncertainty, robbed of physical, emotional, and financial security. As discussed previously, this means they hold onto what they do have even tighter. Unfortunately, this often manifests as rejecting reality and clinging to the past or a fantasy of how things should be. This will only cause them more pain.
(Shortform note: Living in a fantasy is dangerous. Your subconscious is just as affected by imagined events as real ones. The longer you focus on a fantasy, the more real it will feel and the more you’ll believe it. For example, if you’re in an abusive relationship and convince yourself that your partner will change her behavior on her own, that belief will become so ingrained that you can no longer see reality. This does not mean reality disappears, however, and ignoring reality means the situation and the codependent’s state of uncertainty will get worse.)
Beattie explains that dealing with reality means letting go of hopes and dreams, which is an incredibly painful process. But accepting reality is the only way to change your situation, and the only way to reach acceptance is to grieve. In this chapter, we’ll look at the stages of grief and some tips for how to healthily pass through them.
(Shortform note: Some people confuse acceptance with approval. If you were told to accept that your husband was abusive, you might balk at the idea. But this does not mean allowing the abuse to continue. Acceptance is about the past, and it allows you to work to change reality as well as understand it, while approval is about the future and what you will or won’t allow.)
Why Letting Go of Hopes and Dreams Hurts
Why does letting go of hopes and dreams hurt so much? Beattie doesn’t say, but Christian Jarrett suggests it’s because your aspirations, especially long-term ones, are part of your identity. As such, they’re a major part of your sense of security. The classic children’s question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a prime example. Children say, “I want to be a firefighter! I want to be an astronaut! I want to be an actor!”
These children have a picture of themselves in their heads based on a dream. This picture strengthens when they start working toward that dream, whether they’re taking extra science classes or joining a theater troupe. Letting go of this dream and image of themselves feels like losing a part of themselves, which is why grieving for that lost part is so important.
Beattie explains that there are five stages to grief. You must pass through all of them before you can move past a loss or painful experience. Let’s look at the five stages.
Denial is the stage that most codependents live in, Beattie explains. People in denial are clinging to the way things were or how they imagined things could be. They don’t allow themselves to see or process reality.
Denial is a defense mechanism that prevents you from being overwhelmed when you’re emotionally fragile, Beattie says. Denial keeps you functioning until reality can safely filter through. Unfortunately, many codependents don’t reach that level of safety, so they never leave this stage. After the initial shock period is over, denial starts becoming more dangerous than the truth. Ignoring problems makes them worse, and the more repressed a problem is, the harder it is to heal.
(Shortform note: As discussed above, people cling to their dreams because they are part of their identity. While denial is a good temporary safety net from the pain of losing that identity, you need a long-term safety net too, made of other goals and backup plans. People who are able to recognize an impossible goal and pursue a more reasonable goal instead are happier. This doesn’t mean giving up your dream entirely. If you dreamed of being an actor, you could join community theater, even if you’ll never perform on Broadway. Let go of the impossible, channel your energy in productive ways, and you'll be more fulfilled as a person.)
How to Overcome Denial
Overcoming denial is important because it becomes dangerous once the initial shock period is over. So how can you escape denial? Beattie doesn’t say, but these methods might be helpful:
Ask yourself why you’re so afraid to face the problem head-on. Acknowledging your fears makes them more manageable.
Make a pros and cons list of accepting the situation vs ignoring it. You’ll see that ignoring it is ultimately worse, which will push you toward acceptance.
Confide in someone objective. If you can’t overcome denial yourself, ask for help.
Once you overcome denial and acknowledge the painful information, Beattie states that you turn to anger. You are angry because something has been taken from you. You feel slighted, used, and lost, and you turn to anger because it feels safer than being sad.
(Shortform note: Anger feels safer than sadness because sadness makes you feel helpless and vulnerable, whereas anger provides a sense of power and control. If you focus on being angry at the person who hurt you, you’re not focusing on how their actions hurt you. However, turning sadness into anger does not make the sadness go away: It merely hides it. Eventually, you have to feel the sadness, and relying on anger just damages your relationships along the way.)
The anger stage of grief is why proving people wrong is a perilous activity, Beattie explains. You’re taking a measure of knowledge and confidence away from them, and anger will naturally follow. You may think it’s reasonable for the other person to move right into acceptance, especially if the loss doesn’t seem important, but that’s not how acceptance works.
(Shortform note: While correcting someone can be dangerous, there are times when it is necessary. When not correcting someone would spread misinformation, it is better to correct them. Your correction should be kind, helpful, and delivered in a way that deflects embarrassment.)
If denial is trying to put off reality, bargaining is trying to make sure reality doesn’t affect you, Beattie argues. You believe if you can strike the right deal, you won’t have to deal with the loss you’ve suffered. Sometimes bargaining is helpful: It helps you identify steps you can take to fix a problem. Most of the time, though, there is little connection between your actions and the reality you’re trying to prevent.
For example, if Sarah’s job means she can't take her daily walk in the evening, she can use bargaining to rearrange her schedule and allow herself that walking time. If, on the other hand, Danny thinks that making more money is the key to his wife’s loyalty, bargaining is not helpful. His wife will continue to cheat, and Danny will work himself to the bone for no reason.
Two Types of Bargaining
While Beattie treats bargaining as a single phenomenon, some people argue that there are two distinct types: bargaining for a change to the end result and bargaining for a change to the timing of the result. The first involves hypothetical situations, such as “if I had done X...”. Seeing areas they could have hypothetically influenced gives them an illusion of control, even though those opportunities are in the past. The second kind of bargaining is closer to acceptance: The person accepts the inevitable outcome of their situation. However, they still try to delay that outcome, so they are still clinging to the past.
Both types of bargaining can be useful because each allows you to gradually absorb the painful information. However, since these bargains can never actually prevent the pain, you must move to the next stage.
Most people think about depression when they think of grief, Beattie explains. This is the darkest and most difficult stage for most people, and the reason people try to avoid grief. Your defenses come down, and you finally allow the pain of the loss to sink in. It is vitally important that you let this stage progress naturally. Trying to brush off the pain or “get back to normal” faster will delay the process and stop you from moving to the final stage.
Why the Depression Stage Hurts So Much
Research supports Beattie’s assertion that depression is the most painful stage of grief, because you’ve used up all your energy. Before, you had energy to deny, be angry, and bargain, but in the depression stage you just feel empty and helpless.
The length of this stage depends on a variety of factors, including how important the loss was (for instance, if you lost your house, was it associated with dreams of married life? Do you have somewhere else to go?), the timing of the loss (did the house get repossessed on a random Tuesday or near Christmas?), and your own personality (are you adaptable, with a growth mindset as discussed in Chapter 3, or will this loss paralyze you?).
Acceptance is the final stage of grief and the state of mind you should be living in, according to Beattie. Acceptance does not mean giving up or taking abuse. It does not mean thinking things will remain the same forever. Rather, acceptance is the first step toward change. In a state of acceptance, you have made peace with what is true right now, so you can work to change what will be true in the future.
Can You Reach Acceptance?
While Beattie believes that acceptance is vital, writer and psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb argues that it is actually more damaging than it is helpful. She explains that the stages of grief were designed for terminally ill people coming to terms with their deaths, rather than general grief. She maintains that sometimes you can’t reach acceptance, and telling people to do so will make them think they're in the wrong when they fail.
However, Gottlieb goes on to say that healing from grief is possible: You can move on from a loss and find happiness again, even though the loss has changed your life. She uses “healing” in the same way as Beattie uses “acceptance,” so their disagreement is based on word choice rather than principle. Gottlieb defines acceptance as acting like the loss never occurred, when it really involves recognizing the loss as reality and thus being able to heal.
How to Reach Acceptance
In Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach defines acceptance as embracing everything you are experiencing, mentally and physically. This is similar to Beattie’s definition, but Beattie adds that acceptance is the first step toward change. Brach does not include this element, focusing on the act of acceptance rather than what comes after.
Here are a few of Brach’s tips on achieving acceptance:
Recognize and name your negative emotions or fears. This will force you to confront these feelings and can make them less intimidating.
Ask yourself friendly questions about what you feel, need, or want. If you have trouble being kind to yourself, pretend you’re asking a friend.
Feel your emotions without letting them control you. Beattie’s method of detachment is important here.
According to Beattie, people pass through the stages of grief at different speeds and in different orders. People who are losing several things at once may experience several stages at the same time.
It is important to be kind to yourself, Beattie maintains, and to let yourself grieve for as long as you need. This doesn’t mean surrendering to a life of depression, it means acknowledging the feelings you would be having anyway and giving them an avenue of escape, rather than bottling them up until they explode.
Being kind to yourself doesn't mean you have to let your grief dictate your behavior, either. Grief is not an excuse for lashing out at others, Beattie states. It is still your responsibility to control your actions.
Are the Stages of Grief Real?
Research supports Beattie’s assertion that everyone grieves in their own way. It's hard to predict how people will react to grief. This is why there are a few different models of grief, including the seven stages model and the extended model, which argues for the existence of eight stages. Beattie believes in the classic five-stage model, but some experts argue that the stages of grief don't exist at all, while others say the existence of a strong support network can negate the stages of grief.
Ultimately, this lack of certainty proves that everyone grieves differently. Give yourself time and compassion to complete your unique cycle of grief. If you don’t, you’ll end up suppressing your grief. This leads to obsessing over the loss, angry outbursts, a heightened state of anxiety about losing other things, and getting stuck in the depression stage.
Suppressed grief makes it harder to control your actions. Doing so is still your responsibility, though, so it’s important to complete the grief cycle. You can seek closure by journaling your thoughts, seeking out the grief you’ve been avoiding, and changing maladaptive behavior patterns to healthy ones.
Another important strategy for overcoming codependency is learning how to process emotions healthily. This is a difficult area for a lot of codependents.
According to Beattie, most codependents repress their emotions because it seems safer not to feel anything than to risk being hurt again. (Shortform note: Repression can also be caused by a lack of confidence or a desire to keep a relationship.) However, repressing feelings doesn't work. When you don’t process your emotions, they start controlling you. Repressed emotions act like quicksand, keeping you in place, unable to change or grow. Once you learn how to process your emotions, you can climb out of the quicksand and take back control of your life. In this chapter we’ll look at some helpful concepts for processing emotions and then examine one of the most stigmatized and feared emotions: anger.
The Importance of Processing Emotions
How can you stop repressing your emotions? Margaret Cullen explains that the key is in feeling the emotions in the moment. Many high-pressure jobs, such as doctors and the military, teach people to suppress their emotions in favor of effectiveness. However, these methods don’t actually work. Allowing themselves to feel their emotions in the moment improved these experts’ effectiveness, as well as their overall health and sense of happiness.
Cullen suggests picturing your emotions like a wave: It comes and goes, and if you let yourself float along with the wave, you’ll return to balance. If you try to fight the wave, you’ll be crushed under the water. The wave controls where you go and if you can come up for air. Instead of fighting, ride the wave of emotion by focusing on the present moment, feeling the emotion, and then letting it go.
Beattie suggests four main steps to processing your emotions healthily. In this section, we cover each of these steps and their importance.
According to Beattie, the first step toward processing emotions healthily is acknowledging that your emotions are an important part of who you are. Your emotions are not pointless or weak. They tell you things about yourself and your situation. Your emotions can alert you to a problem, motivate you, and improve both your relationships and health.
Are Emotions Really That Important?
Beattie emphasizes the importance of emotions, but does science uphold this claim? As discussed previously, emotions are a difficult field to categorize and understand. Experts have a number of different theories on how emotions are caused and how they affect you. There are four main agreed-upon components of emotion: stimulus, physical response, neurological response, and emotional response.
Though experts debate the order in which emotional, neurological, and physical reactions occur, they agree that emotion has a significant relationship with your physical state. This unanimous connection shows how important emotions are: They are inherently connected with your physical and neurological experiences.
These experiences provide information that your emotions help interpret. For example, you might intuitively recognize a problem and feel uneasy. Logically, you can’t explain why you feel the way you do, but the emotion tells you to look deeper, which lets you discover the problem. In the same way, happiness and excitement trigger motivation, and emotional intimacy releases chemicals like dopamine, which make you happier with other people and let you live longer.
Beattie argues that the next step to processing emotions healthily is to realize that, though they’re important, your emotions don’t define you.
Your feelings don’t dictate who you are, Beattie maintains, your actions do. You can be angry when someone apologizes to you or happy when someone dies, as long as you’re not acting in harmful ways. Feeling emotions doesn’t make you bad or wrong. Feel your emotions without fear, and then allow yourself to move on.
Sometimes Your Emotions Lie
Though it feels like strong emotions define you because the emotions are all you can pay attention to, research upholds Beattie’s assertion that they do not. Your emotions cannot define you, partially because emotions aren’t always based on reality.
Emotions are closely tied to your perception of events. You might assume someone insulted you and feel hurt when they made a neutral statement, or you might worry about how someone looks at you. These feelings are still important because of the way they affect you, but they’re not based in fact. On the other hand, your actions have an objective effect on the world: They’re real, regardless of how you or others feel about them, which is why your actions define you.
When you feel overwhelmed by emotions, meditation can help you find distance. Don’t suppress your feelings, but step back and realize that you are more than the emotion you’re feeling. Look at the reality of the situation and people’s actions, rather than your subjective emotions.
Beattie explains that the third step to healthily processing emotions is recognizing that you are responsible for your own emotions. The situation or other people's behavior might influence your feelings, but you must accept responsibility for your reactions, rather than blaming others.
Beattie stresses that this doesn’t mean other people can treat you badly or vice versa. Everyone should be courteous of others, but the one responsible for processing and reacting to emotions is the person feeling them.
This dichotomy of responsibility can be confusing. Consider this example: Rebecca is talking with her friend Sandy about a party. Sandy mentions that Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend was there. Rebecca feels sad and angry at this reminder of her ex-boyfriend. If Rebecca handled her emotions unhealthily, she might say, “Why would you mention him? Now my day's ruined.” On the other hand, if she handled her emotions healthily, Rebecca would remember that her feelings and reactions are her responsibility. She would allow herself to feel the sadness and anger, and then she would release them and focus on spending time with her friend.
For Sandy’s part, she wasn’t responsible for Rebecca’s feelings. It is her responsibility to be courteous toward Rebecca’s feelings, though. This could manifest as giving Rebecca a moment to handle her emotions, changing the conversation topic, or letting Rebecca talk about her feelings.
Beattie adds another element of taking responsibility for your emotions: realizing that your mindset can alter your emotions. If you believe that a situation is impossible to fix, you’ll feel worse. If you believe you can fix and learn from a problem, you’ll be happier and more hopeful.
(Shortform note: Changing your mindset is easier said than done, as your worldview forms over the course of your life. Activities like writing down things you’re grateful for, looking for the positives in every situation, and surrounding yourself with positive people can help. These changes make you look for the good in life, which gradually becomes the natural way you see the world.)
Taking Responsibility for Your Reactions Doesn’t Mean Letting Others Hurt You
While Beattie’s advice for taking responsibility for your emotions echoes some modern articles on the subject, she has an important distinction that they lack: She emphasizes the importance of feeling the emotions and then letting them go. In other words, you are responsible for reacting to your emotions.
Some modern articles miss this crucial distinction and end up victim-blaming. The valid mantra of “don’t let your emotions control you” becomes “they’re not hurting you, you’re choosing to be hurt.” People can take this as permission to treat others badly because, “I’m not the one hurting them, it’s their job to choose how to feel.” This idea removes responsibility from the hurtful party and shames the victim. People can use it to justify racist or discriminatory language and behaviors.
People can hurt you. Feel those emotions and hold those people accountable, just don’t allow those feelings of hurt to control your actions.
According to Beattie, the final step in processing emotions is to react healthily to your emotions. She recommends distancing yourself from the emotional situation. Leave the physical location, distract yourself, or journal about your feelings. Calm down and come back to the problem when you are in a clear headspace.
Beattie also recommends learning from your emotions. What are they trying to tell you? Find the thoughts that underlie your emotions and look for patterns. Be honest about your feelings, and talk about them with your loved ones.
(Shortform note: An important part of reacting healthily to emotions is “emotional agility.” This means having a more precise and nuanced view of your own emotions. You can practice emotional agility by looking deeper into your emotions. If you feel angry, see what else is hiding behind that anger. You can also use emotional agility to recognize patterns of behaviors and the emotional reason behind your actions.)
Distancing Through Word Choice
Research supports Beattie’s recommendation of reacting to your emotions through distancing. Previously, we discussed distancing through meditation. You can also use second- or third-person pronouns when discussing an emotional experience. In other words, ask yourself, “Why do you feel this way?” or “How did Jack feel about that?” instead of “Why do I feel this way?”
The change in pronouns forces your brain to make a distinction between you and the emotions. Looking objectively at the situation lets you learn from your feelings and actions and have a productive discussion about them.
Healthily processing all emotions is important, but Beattie maintains that anger is one of the most important emotions to handle properly. (Shortform note: It’s important to process anger because it sparks aggression, an evolutionary remnant of when fight or flight were the only options to survive. In the modern day, the increase in blood pressure and adrenaline that come with anger are usually maladaptive instead of helpful, as they can damage your health and relationships.)
Beattie warns that you may find yourself acting in uncharacteristic and damaging ways because of repressed anger. If you repressed your anger well enough, you might not even understand why you’re acting the way you are. Let’s look at an example:
Mindy is generally a very kind and helpful individual. However, recently she’s been snapping at people over small problems. Mindy doesn’t know what’s wrong with her or why she feels this way. The truth is, Mindy got into an argument with her husband several weeks ago. It was brief, but only because Mindy was repressing her anger. She didn’t allow herself to be angry, but repressing it made it attack innocent people. If Mindy had expressed her anger initially, the argument might have lasted longer, she would have avoided the long-term issues.
Anger can tell you important things about yourself and your situation, Beattie adds. When handled correctly, anger is a tool.
(Shortform note: Daniel Goleman provides some ideas of what to do when you or someone else is angry in Emotional Intelligence. He suggests providing a pleasant distraction, practicing relaxation techniques like breathing exercises, and shifting your mentality in a more positive direction.)
The Connection Between Anger and Hot Cognition
Why does anger make you act in uncharacteristic ways? Beattie doesn’t say, but it’s because when you’re experiencing negative emotions like anger, hot cognition takes over. Hot and cold cognition are two types of thinking. The first is influenced by instinct, emotions, and social situations, while the second is based on logic and reasoning. These different kinds of thinking are managed by different parts of the brain.
Over-reliance on emotionally-charged hot cognition causes recklessness and impulsivity; it prevents cold cognition’s logic and reasoning. This is the cause of Mindy’s outbursts and uncharacteristic behavior.
Suppressing anger or other negative emotions doesn’t stop them from disrupting cold cognition; in fact, it makes it more difficult to solve the problem. You must process your negative emotions to re-enable your cold cognition.
When processed, anger can activate your hot cognition in a good way. Because hot cognition relies on instinct, it keeps you safe in dangerous situations. If you handle them correctly, anger and hot cognition are valuable tools for navigating life.
Processing your emotions is a vital skill. When you process your emotions, you are in control of your actions and can make good decisions. By walking through the healthy and unhealthy ways to react to your emotions, you can get some distance from the situation and decide how to react with a clear head.
Think about a difficult emotion you’re feeling or felt recently. Describe why you’re feeling that emotion, what you think about it, and what you’ve done to process it. (Have you taken responsibility for the emotion? Have you remembered that it doesn’t define you?)
Now, write about your unhealthy reactions to that emotion. (Are you lashing out? Are you blaming other people?) If you have trouble picturing yourself reacting unhealthily, imagine someone else doing so.
Finally, write about your healthy reactions to that emotion. (Are you using “I” statements? What can you learn from this emotion?) Describe how you might use these healthy reactions more often. Again, if you have trouble picturing yourself reacting healthily, imagine someone else doing so.
According to Beattie, setting goals is another important part of recovery for codependents. Goals let you look forward to the future: They are a healthy method of acknowledging your desires. For many codependents, goal-setting can revitalize their will to live for themselves. In this chapter, we’ll look at how to set goals and some examples of good goals to set.
(Shortform note: Setting goals helps codependents by generating positive pressure. Positive pressure motivates you and keeps you focused, rather than inspiring anxiety. This positive pressure keeps codependents focused on themselves and their healing.)
Beattie maintains that needs and wants make the best goals because they let you live the life you want. Unfortunately, many codependents base their lives on “shoulds” instead. Anytime you think, “I should be doing this,” or “I shouldn’t be enjoying this,” you are falling for should-based thinking. Shoulds suck joy from life. They disparage your actions and goals as not good enough and pressure you into doing things you don’t want.
(Shortform note: Beattie puts wants and needs on the same level, saying both are equally important. Others believe you should focus on your needs, leaving wants for later. The second method seems more practical, but Beattie specifically designed her method for codependents. After years of suppressing them, recognizing their wants as just as important as their needs is an important part of recovery. For the non-codependent individual, it may be wise to take a needs-first approach.)
Defeating “Shoulds” With Self-Care
The should-based thinking Beattie describes is difficult to escape because it is based on external pressure and obligations. When surrounded by examples of success and told to strive for those standards, you internalize those standards and reject any desires that don’t fit that metric. These internalized standards impose unhealthy guilt (discussed in Chapter 4) and negative pressure, which inspires anxiety and makes it harder to complete your goals (as opposed to the positive pressure discussed above).
Completing should-based goals only provides momentary satisfaction. There is always the negative pressure of another “should'' waiting: You can never truly enjoy your accomplishments.
Overcome should-based thinking with Beattie’s method of self-care: Ask yourself what you want and why, and then let the “shoulds” go.
We have synthesized Beattie’s advice for setting goals into three main sections. Let’s look at each one and how they help in the goal-making process.
Putting your goals down on paper solidifies and organizes them, Beattie states. It’s easier to work toward your goals when they’re concrete and specific. Crossing your goals off when complete gives you a physical representation of success and shows you how far you’ve come.
(Shortform note: In addition to solidifying and organizing your goals, writing goals down improves your brain’s encoding ability. Encoding ability is how well your brain analyzes information and transfers it to long-term memory. Writing your goals down means that your brain will be able to better grasp, remember, and implement your plans.)
Trusting that what should happen will happen doesn’t mean not working toward your goals, Beattie explains. Take what actions you reasonably can, but don’t obsess. It’s okay if fulfilling your goals takes a long time. Be patient and remain focused on the present.
(Shortform note: In Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins recommends setting a timeline for each goal. Beattie disagrees, recommending patience because codependents struggle with perfectionism and controlling behavior, and giving themselves deadlines can exacerbate that problem.)
It’s good to have structure when setting goals, but be flexible when you need to, Beattie says. If you’re having a hard day, you may need to set goals for every task, and that’s okay. Other times you may only make broader goals every month. Set enough goals that you have a direction and a plan, but don’t worry about hitting specific numbers.
(Shortform note: While Beattie refers to daily goals as a tool for setbacks and difficult days, others argue that setting goals every day is an important path to success. Writing down your top goals every morning will reinforce them, allow your subconscious to work on them, and give you a boost of energy and creativity to start the day.)
According to Beattie, many codependents have difficulty setting goals for themselves because it requires focusing on yourself and acknowledging your needs. Let’s look at some good goals to get you started.
Beattie maintains that the most important goal for codependents is finding balance, primarily in how you give and receive love. Everyone needs love, but you can’t allow that need to overpower your other needs: Give and receive love while still living your own life and looking forward to your future.
Usually, Beattie explains, finding balance in love requires a recalibration of how you search for love. Unhealthy relationships make you trade your life for the other person’s care and affection. When you have become used to this kind of relationship, changing how you search for love seems impossible.
So how do you find that balance? Beattie says you must be honest about your unhealthy relationships, challenge your ingrained beliefs about relationships, and change your actions to match. For example, Jane admits that her relationship with her boyfriend is unhealthy: She’s given up her own life to keep the relationship. She challenges her ingrained belief (that she has to give up everything to be a good partner) by reciting self-love affirmations, and she changes her behavior by restarting her other activities and refusing to drop them for her boyfriend.
Why You Fall Into Unhealthy Relationships and How to Avoid Them
Beattie says that past experience and ingrained beliefs cause you to lose yourself in unhealthy relationships. Another reason is that you have come to associate intensity with intimacy. In the first few weeks of a relationship, you throw yourself in headfirst, abandoning other responsibilities or activities for your partner. The intensity of feelings and the speed of the relationship makes you feel like you’re gaining intimacy, which makes it hard to be honest with yourself. You think intensity means things are going well, when in reality a true foundation of trust and intimacy takes time.
Beattie suggests challenging your ingrained beliefs to maintain healthy relationships. These are also called limiting beliefs: negative thought patterns that change how you think about yourself and your relationships. Thoughts like “this is the only kind of love I’ll ever find,” damage your self-confidence and make you more likely to settle for unhealthy relationships.
Here are a few ideas for avoiding these pitfalls and changing your behavior, as Beattie suggests:
Take your relationship slow to build true intimacy.
Don’t sacrifice the rest of your life for the relationship. Maintain your other responsibilities, interests, and hobbies.
Challenge your limiting beliefs. Track down the sources of these beliefs and see if they actually make sense.
Be active in caring for yourself and making decisions that make you happy. Focus on yourself as an individual, not as just half of a relationship.
Fun is hard for codependents, Beattie states. When you have spent so long believing that you don’t matter, you think you don’t deserve to have fun and feel guilty for taking time for yourself. However, fun is vital for enjoying life. Fun allows you to celebrate the good in the world and encourages you to keep living and healing.
Taking time for yourself and doing activities you enjoy will get easier the more you practice, Beattie explains. If you’re not sure what you enjoy doing, adjust the goal to finding those things. Try lots of different activities and explore with an open mind.
The Importance of Fun
Beattie believes fun is important, but is it really? In A Theory of Fun For Game Design, Raph Koster defines fun as a hit of dopamine from learning something or mastering a new skill. That dopamine, along with its fellow serotonin, helps decrease unhealthy stress hormones like cortisol. This makes you happier and more hopeful, and lets you see the good things in life. It also improves sleep, blood pressure, and memory. In addition, doing fun activities increases creativity, curiosity, and productivity. So yes, it’s very important.
Start easy in your search for fun, with things that you find interesting and tasks you know you can do. Starting with minimal challenge will give you the mental space to overcome feelings of discomfort and will guarantee you the hit of dopamine Koster references. Once you become more comfortable, you can challenge yourself by exploring different activities.
Boundaries are also difficult for codependents, but setting strong boundaries is vital to living your own life, Beattie argues. Having weak boundaries leads you to be overly tolerant for a long time before hitting a peak of anxiety and stress, after which you become intolerant even of normal human behavior and mistakes. (Shortform note: Weak boundaries leave you open to being hurt by other people. After you reach a peak of hurt, your weak boundaries become rigid, with no understanding or compassion.)
Beattie suggests watching your reactions. Find a healthy balance of maintaining your boundaries while understanding that people are not perfect. Communicate your boundaries clearly, and then hold them firmly. Don't let people guilt you, ignore your boundaries, or try to adjust your boundaries.
(Shortform note: Some people argue that your boundaries should be flexible, but only in certain circumstances. You might clear your schedule when a family member ends up in the hospital, for example, but not in everyday life. You might also give leeway when your family is adjusting to setting and respecting boundaries, but everyone must have the intention of learning, rather than weakening each other’s boundaries.)
How to Set Healthy Boundaries
Research supports Beattie’s assertion that setting strong boundaries is important. There are five kinds of boundaries, all of which are important for living your own life: physical, sexual, intellectual, emotional, and financial. Each kind of boundary needs to be strong. Here are a few tips for strengthening them:
Reflect on your current boundaries or ones you are thinking of setting. Figuring out why they’re important to you will help you maintain them.
Set boundaries early in new relationships. If your partner won’t respect your boundaries right off the bat, it’s probably not a healthy relationship.
Create a “framework” for your boundaries. A framework is made of repeating activities that enforce your boundaries. For example, scheduling an hour of alone time every weekend or deciding you won’t respond to work messages after hours.
According to Beattie, intimacy feels dangerous for many codependents. They might have been hurt by an intimate partner, or they might have never learned how to form intimate relationships. Some people are so used to unhealthy relationships that a lack of intimacy has become a habit. However the lack of intimacy came about, it causes limited relationships that make you feel distant and isolated from your loved ones.
(Shortform note: Beattie’s description of a fear of intimacy mirrors the traits of anxious-avoidant attachment, where you crave intimacy but are afraid of it. To overcome this fear, look at the facts of a situation when you start worrying, pay attention to how and when you push people away, and work on mutual support, rather than caretaking or relying only on yourself.)
In a way, Beattie adds, codependents are right: Intimacy is a risk. It’s showing someone your most vulnerable parts and hoping they don’t reject you. But codependents tend to think that they must avoid this pain even at the cost of relationships. Rejection is not the end of the world. You can handle your emotions, heal, and move on to better relationships. It is possible to find people who will love you, and it is possible to love people in return.
(Shortform note: Rejection is painful for everyone. Rejection hits an instinctual part of you, an evolutionary remnant of when rejection from a group meant death. However, rejection doesn’t have such dramatic consequences in modern times. The best way to handle rejection is to follow Beattie’s guidelines for self-care and distancing to process your emotions. Spending time with loved ones reminds you that they accept you, even if you were rejected by someone else.)
Healthy Relationships Are Possible
Healthy relationships feel impossible after experiencing rejection, escaping an unhealthy relationship, or never having learned how to be intimate. However, experts agree that you can find a healthy relationship by having good standards for your partner. Let’s look at a few examples of good standards:
They’re interested in you. This doesn’t mean they’re infatuated, like many new couples are. Someone who’s genuinely interested in you likes hearing about your interests and enjoys spending time with you, even without a romantic or sexual component.
They respect you. They treat your time and energy as valuable, and they defend your privacy and autonomy.
They’re willing to grow. This is important for all parties in a relationship. If you’re not willing to grow, the relationship will fail. If you and your partner grow together, you will have a deeper and more meaningful relationship.
Codependents have unhealthy sex lives. If the rest of your relationship is in shambles, your sex life will be too, Beattie explains. Sex cannot save, restore, or cause love. It just shows what’s already there. To make your sex life healthier, be honest with what you need and want sexually, both with yourself and with your partner.
(Shortform note: The keys to a healthy sex life don’t just lie in sex: You have to improve the rest of your relationship too. Spending time together, communicating openly, and showing affection every day increases intimacy and improves the whole relationship. Making plans or scheduling times to have sex helps too: Flirting and setting the mood can revitalize your sex life.)
Beattie explains that codependents sometimes find themselves bored and listless after escaping their stressful situation. When your normal has become constant chaos and turmoil, even healthy change is daunting. For some, this chaos and anxiety are not only normal but what make them feel alive. In fact, some codependents expose themselves to family illnesses and chaos to return to that comfort zone. (Shortform note: The more anticipated a return to normality or escape from stress, the more likely you are to minimize the stress of the transition. When confronted with this new stress, you feel tempted to return to the situation you’re familiar with.)
Beattie stresses that this reaction does not mean you’re a bad person. Reprogramming your brain to react in healthier ways takes time. Accept that it might be a while before you enjoy the peace you’ve found, but remember that you will adjust to it.
Boredom Isn’t Always Bad
The boredom that Beattie discusses is increasingly emerging in the age of online dating. Most people think this means the relationship is failing. However, boredom isn’t always a bad thing.
There are three components to a strong relationship: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Most people spend a long time moving between short-term relationships, which means they never leave the passion stage. The passion stage lends a sense of excitement and mystery to the relationship. Once you enter a stable relationship and start transitioning to the second stage, these traits are replaced by intimacy and comfort. Because these traits are less dramatic, you wonder what happened to the excitement and mystery. You feel bored without them. But that “boredom” is a sign of a strong relationship.
But how are you supposed to adjust to this new stage of a relationship? This is when the third element comes into play: commitment. You have to make a firm decision to go deeper into the intimacy stage, even if it means leaving some of the passion behind.
For the codependent struggling to adjust to peace, this means making a commitment to yourself. You’re not going to run back into danger because it’s exciting, and you will allow your relationships with yourself and with happiness to grow stronger.
Beattie maintains that codependency goes hand-in-hand with a lack of self-esteem, as discussed in Chapter 3. A lack of self-esteem often leads to self-hatred and not taking care of your body or appearance.
It is important to take care of your body and appearance, Beattie explains, because how you treat yourself influences how you feel. If you dress in clothes you don’t like and never brush your teeth, your lack of confidence and feelings of self-hatred will intensify. However, if you wear clothes you like and keep up your personal hygiene, you’ll feel more attractive and confident. You deserve health and happiness, and taking care of yourself is the best way to achieve this.
The Connection Between Hygiene and Enclothed Cognition
Lacking self-esteem and neglecting to care for your body and appearance is not unique to codependency. Many people suffering from mental illnesses have trouble with personal hygiene. By working through the underlying issues in therapy or by practicing detachment, you can improve your relationship with hygiene.
Improving personal hygiene and dress changes your attitude and encourages self-esteem through “enclothed cognition.” This means you associate certain traits with certain appearances. If you dress in a nice dress or collared shirt, for example, you’ll feel attractive and professional because those are the associations you have with that appearance.
Enclothed cognition can also alter behavior. People who were given a white coat and told it was a doctor’s coat had increased levels of focus. Because the participants associated doctor’s coats with authority, intelligence, and focus, they emulated those traits while wearing the coat. Thus, you can change the way you dress to boost your self-confidence.
Codependents are dependent on another person for emotional security, as discussed in Chapter 6. According to Beattie, this emotional dependence results in financial dependence as well. Financial dependence traps you in a powerless position, whether you’re relying on someone else to provide the finances or providing them by yourself.
Finding financial independence means evaluating the division of financial responsibility in the home, Beattie explains. Consider whether you’re putting too much financial responsibility on the other person or taking too much yourself. While you don’t have to get a job if you enjoy being the homemaker of your family, it can help your self-esteem. Having skills people will pay for boosts confidence, and having your own money makes you feel more secure.
(Shortform note: Financial independence also makes it easier for women to set boundaries. Because they can take care of themselves, financially independent women can set higher standards for partners and have healthier relationships.)
The Dangers of Financial Dependence
Research supports Beattie’s idea that financial dependency makes you powerless, and adds that it easily becomes abuse. Financial abuse means one member of a relationship is unable to leave because they have no access to money. Emotional and financial abuse go hand-in-hand, just like emotional and financial dependence, because an abusive individual is seeking to control every aspect of their partner’s life.
Even in cases where there is no abuse, being dependent can lead to nasty surprises such as surprise debt. Also, if the dependent relationship ends, you'll be left with no knowledge of your money or ability to manage it.
Taking an active role in finances doesn’t have to mean making all the decisions. It means knowing the necessary information and deciding if the decisions and division of responsibility are fair. Pay attention, ask questions, and do research if you need to. If your partner tries to stop you from learning about finances, look even closer: They might be trying to hide something from you.
Goals let you look forward to the future: They are a healthy method of acknowledging your desires. By examining your goals and planning how to complete them, you can improve your self-esteem and find motivation to live for yourself.
Write down a list of your goals. Be creative and don’t limit yourself. You can put down wants, needs, pipe dreams, anything you’d like! (If you’re not sure about your goals, pick some of the example ones discussed in the previous chapter.)
Pick one of your more immediate goals. (“Have fun” is a more immediate goal than “Enjoy peace,” for example.) Write about what this goal looks like for you and why you want to achieve it.
Have you done any work to reach this goal already? If so, describe the work you’ve done and how effective it’s been. If not, describe why not.
Now, make a plan for reaching this goal. (If you choose the “Have fun” goal, for example, you could write about the different clubs and activities you’re going to try. If you choose the “Take care of your body” goal, you could talk about donating clothes you don’t like, buying some new clothes, or trying out a new hygiene routine.) Be specific, with small, actionable steps that you can realistically take.
Now that we’ve covered the main principles of healing from codependency, we’ll examine some final tips to help you on your healing journey. In this chapter, we’ll look at Beattie’s primary recommendation—joining a 12 Step Program—and cover some miscellaneous tips.
According to Beattie, 12 Step Programs help codependents start living for themselves. Joining a 12 Step Program can change your life and set you on the path to healing. In this section we’ll look at how these programs work and the principles that underpin them.
12 Step Programs work well because of three elements: the lack of requirements, the focus on fellowship, and the length of the programs, Beattie explains. The lack of requirements means you can work through the program at your own pace, and if one group isn’t helping you heal, you can find another that suits your needs and personality.
These programs revolve around fellowship, Beattie adds. Everyone in the group is struggling with the same problems of family illnesses and codependency. Honesty is easier when everyone can connect with and understand each other. Members encourage and hold each other accountable, promoting the creation of new habits based on responsibility and self-care.
Finally, Beattie points out that 12 Step Programs don’t have graduations. Family illnesses like alcoholism and codependency are chronic, and the treatment must be as well. Even when you’re “better,” attending meetings provides encouragement, reminds you of how far you’ve come, and allows you to show others that recovery is possible.
Are 12 Step Programs Really That Great?
Beattie claims that 12 Step Programs are almost magical. However, researchers disagree. 12 Step Programs are better than no treatment, but they are no more effective than other treatments like inpatient care or talk therapy. In fact, the very qualities Beattie says make the programs successful can drive people away.
While Beattie stresses the importance of being able to go at your own pace, some people benefit from more intensive treatments that focus both on stopping the addiction and treating the underlying traumas that caused the addiction. For these individuals, the slower pace of self-help groups could be detrimental.
For some people, fellow program members can actually be a deterrent. This is especially true for minorities, who may feel uncomfortable or unsafe being the only POC/woman/LGBT+ member of the group.
Finally, some experts disagree with Beattie’s assertion that chronic conditions like codependency and addiction need chronic treatments. There is no significant difference in recovery between people who remained in the programs for years, people who attended a few meetings, and people who had a brief conversation with their doctors. In addition, continual attendance of the meetings can make some people feel like they’re living for the program, rather than themselves.
Thus, the solution to addiction and codependency seems to be simply understanding that recovery is important and desiring to do so, rather than a specific program.
While these programs have 12 steps, we can synthesize these steps into four broad principles.
The first principle of 12 Step Programs is accepting that you have a problem and asking a higher power to help you overcome that problem, Beattie explains. This requires you to accept yourself, give up trying to control your life, and have faith that you can improve with help.
(Shortform note: Naming yourself an addict or a codependent is a big part of 12 Step Programs. These labels represent accepting that you have a problem and need to heal. However, while some people believe the benefits of these labels continue even after getting sober, others argue that labeling yourself is damaging, as it traps you in the identity of an addict or codependent and makes you feel like you can’t recover, even with outside help, which contradicts the main principle.)
The second principle involves finding the strength to live a healthy life through a connection to a higher power, Beattie states. The principles don’t dictate a specific higher power, leaving that to the individual. However, they hold that humans are spiritual beings, so the treatment for their illnesses must also be spiritual.
Do You Need a Higher Power?
The spiritual attitude of the 12 Step Programs Beattie advocates for has persisted for decades, but opinions are shifting. There are many people who feel uncomfortable with the spiritual aspects of the programs. This discomfort has led to an increasing number of secular 12 Step Programs, which teach that you can find the strength to live a healthy life through yourself and community, rather than a higher power.
Interestingly, some secular groups include spiritual care as an essential part of self-care. They take the same tack as the 12 Step principles, not conflating spirituality with religion, but stressing its importance. They argue that spiritual well-being means connecting with your “inner being” and finding peace through prayer, mediation, and community involvement.
The third principle involves admitting the ways you have hurt people and making reparations. Beattie argues that this principle requires paying close attention to yourself, your ideals, and your actions. The goal is to free yourself from guilt, either by making reparations or by releasing unhealthy guilt.
How to Make Reparations
Research agrees with Beattie that making reparations is important to the healing process. Making reparations is a daunting task because it forces you to pay attention to your ideals and the times your actions did not uphold those ideals. Making amends is especially complex for codependents, who have often been hurt by the people they need to make amends to. Here are some tips for making reparations:
Talk to the person face-to-face and openly admit to your wrongdoing. Use “I” statements and don’t try to mitigate blame.
Ask what you can do to make it up to them. If you have caused a specific kind of damage, such as breaking something, offer to fix or replace the item. Ultimately, though, listen to what the person needs.
Give the other person space. Making reparations isn’t about being forgiven or feeling better: It’s about righting your hurtful actions so you can release your guilt. Let the other person process and forgive in their own time, and understand if they can't. You have fulfilled your responsibility by offering reparations, even if the other person doesn’t want to continue the relationship.
Do better in the future. Sometimes the best reparation you can make is learning from your mistakes.
According to Beattie, the final principle of 12 Step Programs is sharing your experience with others. By living a happy and healthy life, rooted in the principles and freed from codependency, you can show others the healing you experienced and encourage them to find that same healing.
(Shortform note: Many people feel that they’re not strong enough to heal. They feel that there is no hope for them. Seeing that you were in the same position and how you healed gives them hope. Sharing your struggles demonstrates that you’re a normal person who put in the work to heal, and they can too.)
Beattie suggests figuring out how the past is affecting you so you can move toward the future. Often there are bottled-up emotions from your childhood that you need to release before you can move on. Give yourself permission to feel everything. Accept that these are your feelings and that’s okay. Only once you have accepted the past and processed it will you be able to heal.
Breaking the Compulsion to Repeat
Research confirms that you have to process the past to move forward. Many people think they’ve moved past traumatizing situations when they’ve only repressed their feelings and are still being affected by the past. Freud’s compulsion to repeat theory says you’ll return to the same situations that traumatized you until you stop repressing.
To break out of the cycle of repetition, you need to understand and accept your painful past experiences. Therapy is primarily recommended, as it is difficult to recognize your own repressed emotions. However, there are times when past hurts emerge unexpectedly. In these cases, follow Beattie’s advice and feel the emotions fully, no matter what they are. Journaling also helps: It distances you from the situation and helps you clarify your thoughts.
Acknowledge that there is a part of you that might always be a scared child craving love and care, Beattie states. Be kind to that part of yourself, and figure out what your inner child is saying. Sometimes listening to the inner child leads you to repressed emotions that you need to work through. Repressing the inner child or hating yourself for its existence won’t help you heal.
(Shortform note: Listening to and caring for your inner child is called “self-reparenting,” where you give yourself the attention and care you lacked as a child. There are four main pillars of reparenting, each an important life skill: Love and Respect, Self-Belief and Self-Confidence, Emotional Management, and Good Communication Skills. Reparenting could take the form of cheering yourself on, talking to yourself gently, or being disciplined about self-care.)
According to Beattie, codependents tend to think everything is related to them. This causes a lot of stress. If you assume a situation or someone’s mood is caused by or directed at you, you’ll constantly analyze their behavior to determine what they want from you. This is unhealthy and gives you less time and energy to focus on yourself.
Assume that the situation or person’s reaction is not about you. Make people express their desires clearly, rather than trying to anticipate and react.
The Pitfalls of Inductive Reasoning
Thinking everything involves you is a kind of inductive reasoning, where you take a single event and make universal assumptions based on that event. This kind of reasoning doesn't work, but it’s attractive because usually you can’t step back from a situation enough to work from the whole to the specifics. Inductive reasoning keeps people from panicking about whether the sun will rise tomorrow, but it can also lead to dangerous assumptions.
Social media increases this self-obsessed inductive reasoning. For example, if someone suggests a certain way of preparing for a job interview, others argue that the advice doesn’t apply to their situation. That’s a form of thinking everything is about you. If the situation doesn’t apply to you, then the advice wasn’t meant for you, but people don't see that.
Even if a situation seems clear, ask a lot of questions and confirm that you are involved in someone’s behavior before worrying. If the situation is about you, detach, determine your level of responsibility, and act accordingly.
Make a commitment of support to yourself, Beattie concludes. Even if other people won’t support you, you can always choose to take care of yourself. Being committed to your own well-being improves your confidence and ability to maintain your boundaries. Pay attention to your needs and wants, and trust that you can handle whatever life throws your way.
Commit to Yourself Every Day
Research confirms that committing to yourself is important and that it isn’t a single act: it’s a goal that you must keep chasing throughout your life. One of the ways you can do this is by making promises to yourself before making them to other people. This process prioritizes your own life. The process for making and keeping self-promises is much like making promises to others.
Make sure that you really need or want something before promising it.
Examine why you haven’t completed your responsibilities toward yourself in the past.
Reward yourself when you keep your self-promises.
When other people ask you to make commitments, consider your self-promises before agreeing. Don’t break a self-promise unless absolutely necessary.
Processing the past is a necessary part of healing. Giving yourself permission to feel bottled-up emotions from your childhood lets you complete the grieving process and find acceptance. Writing about your feelings gives you the distance to understand and learn from them.
Note: Processing past traumas can bring up a lot of negative and powerful emotions. Though you need to experience these emotions to heal, make sure you are in a safe place both physically and mentally first.
Think back to a painful or significant moment in your life, perhaps from your childhood. Describe what happened. What did you feel at the time? How did you handle it?
Now, describe how you feel about the event in the present. (Are you still holding onto any of your past emotions? If so, why do you think that is? Have the emotions changed at all?)
Describe how completing this exercise has made you feel. (Are you more at peace or more upset?) Why do you think you feel this way?
Finally, make a plan for processing your emotions going forward. (For example, you could journal about your feelings every night to process instead of repressing.) Be specific, with actionable steps.