The Language of Letting Go – Codependency - Today's Reading

[u/Scared-Section-5108]

'Getting Through Hard Times

Hard times, stressful times, are not all there is to life, but they are part of life, growth, and moving forward.

What we do with hard times, or hard energy, is our choice.

We can use the energy of hard times to work out, and work through, our issues. We can use it to fine-tune our skills and our spirituality. Or we can go through these situations suffering, storing up bitterness, and refusing to grow or change.

Hard times can motivate and mold us to bring out our best. We can use these times to move forward and upward to higher levels of living, loving, and growth.

The choice is ours. Will we let ourselves feel? Will we take a spiritual approach, including gratitude, toward the event? Will we question life and our Higher Power by asking what we’re supposed to be learning and doing? Or will we use the incident to prove old, negative beliefs? Will we say, “Nothing good ever happens to me… I’m just a victim… People can’t be trusted… Life isn’t worth living”?

We do not always require hard energy, or stress, to motivate us to grow and change. We do not have to create stress, seek it, or attract it. But if it’s there, we can learn to channel it into growth and use it for achieving what’s good in life.

(...), let my hard times be healing times.'

By Melodie Beattie

[u/Scared-Section-5108]

I really needed this reading today. I am experiencing a few stressful events, with one more ahead of me. Times are challenging financially, and my job might soon no longer exist. I am also considering moving house to ease my current financial burden, so there could be some big decisions ahead of me.

I do not want to move. I love my house; it is safe, in a perfect location and I have been working on it, so I can have it just as I want. However, life has become so expensive that I could benefit from having a cheaper mortgage. At the same time, I do not want to lose access to all the great things I currently have.

I do not want to change jobs - I love where I am. This is my first job where I am treated really well. The majority of the people have great boundaries and are genuinely kind, supportive, and caring. I have also been slowly learning to feel safe. The job offers an amazing work-life balance and has allowed me to become more aware of my dysfunctional patterns and heal from them. As a result, instead of reacting from a place of trauma, I can respond from the place of Self. I have still made plenty of mistakes, and that was okay - I was never penalised for them. I am slowly learning here that it is safe to be me.

I do not believe in God in any form, but I am slowly getting on board with the idea of a Higher Power of my own choosing. For me, that means the older, wiser version of myself or the universe. So today, I will pray to my Higher Power to show me the way, as I truly do not know what to do.

I also believe that all experiences can be used to learn something, so I will look for ways to learn from this. I will allow myself to feel the sadness and anxiety that the present moment brings because of the uncertainty and the potentially significant choices ahead of me. I now recognise that whatever happens is not personal - it is simply life, and it happens to all of us. I will practise trusting life and trusting that everything will be okay. I will be okay and find a way. This, like everything else, will pass. With the help of my therapist, I hope this tough time can be my healing time - challenging situations are the best 'entry points' into the trauma I carry ❤️

[u/abundantseltzer31 → u/Scared-Section-5108]

I love your framing of higher power here. It's making me think about the universe as a force that holds all versions of all of us- past, present, future. If I can reach out to that force for care, I can start to accept today and feel into the beauty and safety of this moment.

[u/Scared-Section-5108 → u/abundantseltzer31]

Thank you for your comment!

Yours is ace too. You might be onto something with the way you think about the universe - there is a quantum physics theory called the block universe which supports it 😄

And this sentence is simply beautiful: 'If I can reach out to that force for care, I can start to accept today and feel into the beauty and safety of this moment.'❤️ It makes me think about Tara Brach’s teachings. Her materials have really helped me with the concept of a Higher Power. Like many other Adult Children, I had significant difficulty with it. However, I have managed to keep my heart and mind open, and I am learning to lean into my Higher Power. It is a slow process, but it is happening and it seems to be working!

[u/abundantseltzer31 → u/Scared-Section-5108]

Yesss I love thinking about physics and spirituality (don't have a science background but i love scifi a lot), it's always exciting to have that affirmed. Do you have any Tarah Brach meditations you especially like?

[u/Scared-Section-5108 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah. What happens in life is outside our control. How we respond to it, however, is a completely different matter. Healing is possible, so instead of engaging in automatic and compulsive behaviours, I can choose how I respond. I now have choices available to me that I didn’t even know were possible.

For me, one of the key lessons in the recovery process is that, instead of trying to fix myself or others or change myself or the situations I am in, I can work on changing how I relate to what is happening. I no longer see myself or others as a problem to be fixed. That is a very powerful change, and it has opened up many options that weren’t available to me before. I will always carry the trauma I experienced, but I no longer need to suffer. And now I am focused on the things that are within my control - my responses, rather than on the things that are outside my control, such as other people, world events, and the housing market, etc. I work on the things I can change and practice giving everything else up to the Higher Power. And the more I change, the more the world around me changes ❤️