GUEST COLUMN: MARIANN AALDA (DIDI; EDGE OF NIGHT)MARIANN’S MIDLIFE MAYHEM & MISCELLANY:
A Word of Caution to Co-Dependents
A Word of Caution to Co-Dependents
Okay, here’s Part Two of my holiday message to close out 2007 with a bang!
My presents (just a few) are all wrapped, and the cookies (again, just a few) are all baked, but I’m still going to keep it short and sweet because, I don’t know about you, but right now I could use a nap! I wanted to make sure I shared this with you because, for me, it was a lesson that was really hard-learned. Maybe you’ve learned it already. But if you haven’t, this might save you a little time, angst and more-than-a-little guilt.
The first lesson in “Mental Health 101” is not to make anyone else responsible for your happiness. When you do, you’re turning your power over to them.
That’s a pretty easy lesson to grasp, but the next one may not be as obvious, especially to “Nice Guys/Girls”: Never make yourself responsible for anybody else’s happiness.
It’s hard to watch people – especially the ones you love – going through "stuff." And it’s natural to want to help, but just because you feel you have happiness to spare, that doesn’t mean you should always be giving it away. When you do, it deprives your loved ones of an opportunity to develop resources for creating happiness on their own. And it short-changes you on energy needed to pursue your own “happy-making” goals and dreams.
Besides, when you finally get tired of being on call as “The 24-Hour, Good-Time Fairy,” and suggest to your loved ones that, perhaps, they should start bearing more of their own load, these same people are going to be really, really ticked off…especially if their happiness-building muscles have gotten flabby and weak from lack of use…and they’re seeing green with envy over your happiness.
But they won’t be able to recognize it as their problem. The only thing they’ll be consciously aware of is that you used to make them happy…and now you don’t.
Have a Happy!
Mariann
www.mariannaalda.com
Watch The Edge of Night on the AOL/PGP Classic Soap Channel!
1 comment:
I always enjoy reading these blogs. Very entertaining. It's getting frustrating however, because they all end with the link to watch the old episodes on AOL...and those episodes do not play. They don't load. None of the P&G ones do lately. No one appears to monitor the site at all to make sure that the videos posted can actually be watched. And there seems to be no way to contact anyone to get the problem fixed. It's very aggrevating.
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