Well, seemingly in spite of some of our best efforts, Spring actually came.
The daffodils are starting to open. The hyacinths are pushing their way up through the dirt. The walking onions and strawberry plants in the backyard are really starting to take off.
And the best part is, none of this required a damn bit of effort on my part. It all just kind of happened on its own – the same way it always does…
Codependency, counter-dependency, and the inability to receive…
It’s been said that you can’t pour from an empty cup. It’s also been said that you can’t receive in a cup that’s filled. For a cup to be of true value, to be truly serviceable, it doesn’t remain full or empty; it transitions between those states as necessary:
I’m thirsty, so I fill a cup. I drink from it. The cup empties.
My friend is thirsty, so I fill a cup. I give it to my friend. They drink from it. The cup empties.
When we’re healthy, we learn to become both the full and empty cup as required. In the sickness of codependency and counter-dependency, however, the truth of the matter is that cup is never empty. It’s always filled with one thing: my own need for safety, for love…
If you’d like to see more, please check out the latest episode of my podcast, “Putting it on the wind,” on YouTube.
Amongst the things that get passed down to us from our families – the things that continue to support us, like family traditions or pictures or stories, heirlooms like China, wooden spoons, or upholstered rocking chairs, there are other things that can continue to structure our lives, like fear, shame, and guilt, and some of the darker, more intense stuff like hypervigilance, codependence, or toxic self-reliance.
When you’re raised with dysfunctionality, you learn very quickly how to read the territory. You learn to check the temperature of the air around you. You look for changes in expressions, changes in tones of voice… the slightest clue can give you a read on the environment.
And you learn how to adapt, how to adopt certain behaviors like people pleasing or hiding, never speaking your own opinion but constantly copping to the opinions of others. Or you learn how to constantly challenge authority, to yell back in order to make yourself bigger, so that the threat becomes less.
That was a favorite tactic of mine for many, many years.
These patterns provide a sense of structure and carry us through difficult situations. They can cause us to pick certain types of romantic partners, or repetitive dead-end jobs. They can drive us into reckless spending or self-destructive lifestyles.
Left unchecked, these things can continue to shape the way we live our lives. And so, in their own way, they, too, become family traditions…
…and at this time of the year, when we see the trees that are either bare or on their way there and the leaves on the ground, it’s easy to reflect on those things that have fallen away from our own lives. Some we’ve given up willingly – others have been taken away from us by the strong winds of change: friends who’ve passed through our lives who are no longer there, family members we no longer see or maybe who have died, places we’ve gone, things we believed, ways we’ve acted.
All these things that have come and gone.
Another metaphor that’s reflected upon this time of the year is that of the harvest – the things that we collect, the things that we bring in and fill our cupboards with that nourish us through the long, cold winter.
And while it’s easy to look at that side of it, there is another side to the idea of the harvest, and that’s the things that get left behind. Not only the obvious – the seeds that’ve fallen from the plants, but also the stems and the dying leaves and decaying roots. All those things that once supported the fruits and the vegetables that we’ve harvested, but now get left behind to die and to rot – to get mixed in with the soil to begin to support those seeds that have fallen…
Bonja the Bodger 