Codependent No More Workbook (14 page)

After you inventory negative assets and the specific wrongs you’ve done, here are categories for the positive side of your inventory. Again, you can either divide a piece of paper into four columns or write about these items in story form. Choose from beliefs or behaviors such as caring, loving, kind, encouraging, creative, having good boundaries, intelligent, curious, calm, good in a crisis, or any other positive quality or skill you possess. Yes, you do have some.

Now, look at what you’d like to acquire. Maybe you know someone who models behaviors you’d like to have. Use your imagination. (If you put half as much energy into working on developing yourself as you’ve done obsessing about someone or something, you can have almost anything you want.)

Scan the following list of possible emotions, beliefs, and behaviors. If, during the process of scanning the list, the memory of an incident or an emotion is triggered, whether it’s connected to the list or not, stop scanning and begin writing about the memory or emotion that became triggered. Try to get to the root of the emotion, belief, or behavior that triggered the memory or emotion. Inventorying ourselves isn’t an intellectual process. It’s experiential, and it’s emotional too. It begins a process—which life will continue organically—of getting rid of what we don’t want in order to make room for what we want to acquire, and who we want to become.

EMOTIONS

• Feel afraid people will reject me
  
• Feel alone
  
• Feel annoyed and irritated by most people and life
  
• Feel anxiety
  
• Feel as though I’m a burden to others
  
• Feel as though my life isn’t real
  
• Feel ashamed of having a problem and needing help (codependency or other problem)
  
• Feel ashamed of my family
  
• Feel ashamed of myself
  
• Feel betrayed
  
• Feel blame toward myself
  
• Feel blame toward others
  
• Feel blame toward others for my behavior
  
• Feel blame toward others for my unhappiness
  
• Feel depressed
  
• Feel different from other people (in a negative way)
  
• Feel disapproving of myself
  
• Feel disapproving of others
  
• Feel dislike or hatred for others
  
• Feel dissatisfied with life
  
• Feel drained by my relationships
  
• Feel entitled to everything I want even if I don’t work for it
  
• Feel exhausted and depleted
  
• Feel fear
  
• Feel guilty
  
• Feel hopeless and helpless Feel incompetent Feel invisible
  
• Feel judged by other people Feel lethargic
  
• Feel like a failure (at almost everything)
  
• Feel like I don’t belong (no matter where I am)
  
• Feel like I’m always in the wrong place doing something wrong
  
• Feel like I’m on the wrong track
  
• Feel like I’m deprived of whatever I want or of anything good
  
• Feel like my life hasn’t begun yet
  
• Feel lonely
  
• Feel overly concerned with how others perceive me (try to control their perception of me)
  
• Feel overwhelmed with grief
  
• Feel overwhelming need to control people and situations to keep from getting hurt
  
• Feel resentment
  
• Feel sad
  
• Feel self-hatred
  
• Feel sense of dread
  
• Feel separate from others
  
• Feel separated from God
  
• Feel so much fear I have panic attacks
  
• Feel terrified of leaving the house
  
• Feel terrified of making people angry
  
• Feel trapped
  
• Feel undeserving (of anything good)
  
• Feel unfulfilled Feel unhappy
  
• Feel unloved and unlovable
  
• Feel used
  
• Feel victimized
  

BELIEFS

• Believe I can’t be direct
  
• Believe I can’t make good decisions
  
• Believe I can’t financially take care of myself
  
• Believe I can’t trust myself
  
• Believe I don’t have a life
  
• Believe I have no assets or strengths
  
• Believe I have no purpose
  
• Believe I have no skills
  
• Believe I know what’s best for others
  
• Believe I need someone to take care of me or be with me
  
• Believe I’ll lose all self-esteem if I admit to making a mistake
  
• Believe I’m alone in the world
  
• Believe I’m always right
  
• Believe I’m always wrong
  
• Believe I’m better than others
  
• Believe I’m fat although others tell me I’m not
  
• Believe I’m incapable of dealing with anger
  
• Believe I’m incapable of solving my problems
  
• Believe I’m not as good as others
  
• Believe I’m not creative
  
• Believe I’m not enough or not good enough
  
• Believe I’m not responsible for myself
  
• Believe I’m responsible for other people’s feelings and behaviors
  
• Believe I’m trapped
  
• Believe I’m ugly
  
• Believe I’m unable to care for myself or live/be alone (not in a romantic relationship)
  
• Believe I’m unable to learn anything new
  
• Believe I’m undesirable and unattractive
  
• Believe I’m unforgivable
  
• Believe I’m unloved and unlovable
  
• Believe my emotions are wrong or bad
  
• Believe my entire life is wrong
  
• Believe other people owe me
  
• Believe others hold the key to my happiness
  
• Believe that how family members and those close to me behave is a direct reflection of my self-worth
  
• Believe who I am isn’t okay
  

BEHAVIORS

• Am abusing another person (emotionally, physically, sexually)
  
• Am controlled by someone else
  
• Am defensive
  
• Am dependent on people (in an unhealthy way)
  
• Am dogmatic and inflexible
  
• Am easily manipulated
  
• Am experiencing sexual problems (can’t say no, am impotent, am frigid, have sex when I don’t want to, feel repulsed by sex)
  
• Am flat (no emotions)
  
• Am having an affair or affairs
  
• Am indecisive
  
• Am needy and clingy
  
• Am not aware of my emotions
  
• Am not in touch with my true powers and abilities
  
• Am overly focused on others
  
• Am out of touch with myself
  
• Am passive-aggressive (I don’t deal openly with anger, but I get even eventually)
  
• Am surrounded by people I don’t like but fear letting go of them
  
• Am tense and rigid
  
• Am trapped and looking for an escape
  
• Am unable to express who I am—or have great difficulty expressing myself
  
• Am unable to receive
  
• Am without goals
  
• Annoy others intentionally
  
• Attempt to control other people
  
• Can’t handle reality
  
• Compare myself to others
  
• Compulsively engage in sexual behaviors
  
• Confuse pain with love
  
• Constantly deny what I know inside is true
  
• Deprive myself unnecessarily
  
• Display inappropriate emotional affect or responses
  
• Don’t ask directly for what I want and need (hint, sigh, manipulate)
  
• Don’t deal with anger—other people’s or mine
  
• Don’t feel good about myself
  
• Don’t know how to be intimate
  
• Don’t know how to connect with my Higher Power
  
• Don’t know how to connect with my purpose
  
• Don’t know how to connect with people
  
• Don’t know how to nurture others
  
• Don’t know what I think of others or how I feel about them
  
• Exercise heavy, repressive control of myself
  
• Fantasize about another person’s death
  
• Fantasize about dying (myself)
  
• Feel hurt, abandoned
  
• Find it almost impossible to say no
  
• Find it difficult to have fun or enjoy myself—I can’t let loose
  
• Frequently become sick
  
• Get caught up in perfectionism
  
• Give compulsively
  
• Go to any lengths to stop people from becoming angry with me
  
• Have an aggressive, angry response to life and events
  
• Have been or am now being abused (emotionally, physically, sexually)
  
• Have difficulty being alone
  
• Have lost faith in God and life
  
• Have no ambition
  
• Have no self-awareness
  
• Have no sense of self
  
• Have not received nurturing
  
• Have a passive response to life and events
  
• Have poor communication skills
  
• Have problems with eating disorders
  
• Have sex to cover emotions
  
• Have violent explosions of emotions
  
• Hope and wait for someone else’s death so I’ll be happy and free
  
• Judge myself
  
• Judge others
  
• Justify my behaviors
  
• Lack boundaries—don’t set limits about how far people can go for or with me
  
• Lack boundaries—don’t set limits as to how far I go with or for others
  
• Lack self-esteem
  
• Lack a sense of humor
  
• Lack spontaneity
  
• Let others use me for money
  
• Make excuses for others
  
• Manipulate
  
• Need distractions to prevent me from looking at my life
  
• Need external validation
  
• Obsess
  
• Often believe lies
  
• Over-apologize for myself when it’s unnecessary
  
• Over-commit
  
• Over-indulge myself People-please Plan revenge
  
• Prefer it when there’s a crisis or problem to solve
  
• Punish someone by spending their money irresponsibly
  
• Repress or ignore my feelings
  
• Resort to denial
  
• Try to control the flow of events
  
• Try to have power where I don’t
  
• Use food to medicate emotions or find good feelings
  
• Use medication or alcohol to smooth emotions
  
• Use other people for money
  
• Was legitimately victimized as a child or adult
  
• Wish I were dead
  
• Won’t admit to wrongdoing
  

Here’s another alternative for your inventory. It’s a family-of-origin chart. I’ve filled in a few lines just to spark some ideas. Don’t get caught up in perfectionism. Take a basic inventory of the ways you’ve been affected by your past, by events that took place, and by some losses you went through when you didn’t know how to deal with your emotions or didn’t have enough safety or support to grieve. Here’s the sample chart:

Another approach is to look at the list and then write in a free-flow story form about your life and the things you’ve done that you feel bad about. Include things you don’t want to do anymore and secrets you’ve kept that cause you to repress your emotions. Treat your inventory like a confession—a time to admit your wrongdoings. But please remember that not treating yourself with love and respect is a moral defect too.

“Even after recognizing my codependency and decreasing or stopping some of my cognitions and behaviors, I still didn’t feel whole for a long time,” said Pira M., a woman recovering from codependency who also works as a therapist. “I’d just changed my object of codependency from my husband to various other people who would allow me to become codependent with them, such as my children, parents, and others. Becoming aware of this helped me realize that I had been a codependent for a long time, and I just kept repeating the cycle,” she said.