Codependency and the Fear of Losing Control

For many of us, the idea of self-love makes us feel uncomfortable. We may have no clue what self-love looks like or feels like. Some of us may even confuse the concept of selfishness with self-love. If we grew up with rigid parents, our concepts of self-love may be rigid as well. This is not our fault, however, nothing changes until something changes. We can’t change our parents but we can change the programs they helped create in our minds as they pertain to self-love.

Becoming more self-loving means we allow ourselves to become less rigid in our thinking. We are learning to allow ourselves permission to not be so perfect. Perhaps this means we don’t make our bed one morning, or we dare to travel out without make-up. Maybe instead of working 10 hours a day, we knock off early to go sit in the park and feed some birds. For others, becoming less rigid might be not hounding our kids about cleaning their rooms. It also might include deliberately choosing to give our partners a great big hug when they come home instead of asking them ‘why they forgot to pick up milk’.