When We Know Better, We Do Better

Most people who know me understand that after years of teaching about "codependency" as a dreaded disease that needed to be eradicated, I have changed my mind. Again, more on that later, but for now, let's clear something up in terms of assumptions.

When we know better, we do better. Codependency was a word that was created to describe the dance treatment professionals noticed between family members and loved ones with their "dependent" - a person with a substance use disorder. I'm sure those early observers didn't mean it to become a cuss word or a term of condescension - but this is what happened.

Families were soon getting "blamed" for their loved ones choices even as the experts told them that they did not cause, nor could that cure or control the disease that had overtaken their beloved. But honestly - if anyone has ever said to you, "Wow, that's pretty codependent." You felt blamed. At a minimum, you felt judged.

In Emily and Amelia Nagoski's book, Burnout The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, they discuss the role of science in their introduction - and it is brilliant. They remind us that science is a particular way of being wrong. This certainly would have been good information for us to remember as various ones of us have railed against "the experts" during the covid crisis. Science is SUPPOSED to get it wrong; that's how they figure out how to get a bit better at a problem that no one had ever resolved before! Scientists are trying to be a little bit less wrong than the ones who came before them. They want to be wrong in a particularly helpful way. They want to be wrong in a manner that can be tested and proven.

Codependency language was a first step; it was picking up on something that addiction researchers understand better now, because, well, science. Addiction is a family disease - and various family members "break out" in different symptoms. The person with the use disorder looks one way; their loved ones look another. All of it is fairly predictable.

We could think of it like this. The family members become the "human givers" and the used disordered represent the "human beings" - because, duh. When someone has a use disorder, their brain is greatly compromised. They are fighting to survive and do not have much capacity for giving. This disparity is not limited to families with use disorders, but I just want to make note of the similarities because...as we walk through what happened to me and how I found my way through the tunnel of darkness, maybe others will find common ground and (I hope and pray) maybe their own way "through."

Today, take a few minutes to see where you are in life. Are you giving or being?

Searching for Shells

In July, Pete and I received and accepted a lovely invitation to go on a beach vacation with our granddaughter, Norah. Norah let her parents come too. I love the beach. But what I love even more is seeing the beach through the eyes of a three year old. Talk about awe!

Norah would stay on the beach and at the water's edge to infinity and beyond. But she spends her time behaving in ways that are exactly opposite of how adults spend their time. I learned a lot watching her. First, Norah does not hoard.

At Folly Beach, research reports that there are two BIG unique components to Folly. 1. More sharks come here to birth their babies in the spring than other places and 2. It has a ton of shells. No one seemed overly concerned about sharks, but the adults are obsessed with collecting shells.

They walk slowly along the water's edge, humped over, scanning the shell-line (yes, there is one) for the perfect shell. Most have small satchels slung over their shoulder to hold their finds. They never look up or around; they do not gaze lovingly at the sea wondering what lies beyond the horizon. They do not watch the birds dive for fish. They pay no attention to the young children learning to surf. They are on a mission and it is all-consuming.

Norah, on the other hand, spent the entire week returning things to the sea. She would find a shell and run into the ocean, hurling it back into the same water that spit it out moments before she found it. She threw handfuls of sand back too. Anything that seemed like it came from the sea, she sent it back with peels of laughter and delight.

Her eyes glanced down to find shells or sand for recycling even as she feasted on sights unique to the beach - on Folly Beach there are many sights to see.

I couldn't help but think about the difference between the two experiences of Norah and the shell-seekers. One looked as if they were afraid of missing something, while Norah assumed that the world was created to give her things that she could turn around and give back.

Which are you? Do you feel that you have to grab in order to get? Or do you believe the world is an abundant place with much to offer with plenty of opportunities to give back as an act of gratitude?

The Nature of Evil

Roy Baumeister is a psychologist who spent time studying the nature of evil. He was startled to discover that he had to change his questions in order to complete his research. He began by asking the question: "Why is there evil?" and later amended it too read, "Why do some people do things that other people consider to be evil?"

According to Baumeister, the problem was this - the most evil among us do not see their actions as evil. They have constructed a world in which their evil actions make sense. They are certain and do not equivocate - they have a right to take these actions, they deserve to hurt and disrespect others. Their self-esteem is through the roof! Truly evil people believe that they are good and everyone else is bad.

It turns out that certainty is actually harmful for us. Certainty makes us feel worse. Certainty and our efforts to achieve it lead to more anxiety and insecurity.

The more certain we become, the less alert and curious we are to the situations around us. We feel more entitled and less humbled by circumstances that challenge our convictions. Maybe we think we deserve to cheat at tennis, because we are certain we should be able to win some games off of our husband - hypothetically speaking! (Just for the record, I do not cheat at tennis. But I think about it.)

The more we embrace uncertainty and curiosity, the more comfortable we get with knowing that we do not know, the higher our potential for health and happiness. Uncertainty leads to less judgment, more growth and the potential for progress in solving problems. The more we can acknowledge that we do not know, or - heaven forbid - are wrong, we open up to knew ways of being in the world.

The Liberating Power of Taking Responsibility

If we want to grow, then we best learn how to take responsibility for our problems. One of the things that brings me the greatest joy is working with our son Scott on a daily basis. Few parents have this privilege. Sometimes Scott and I have conflict and we get to sit down and figure out what's going on. This is really a great problem and has brought us a lot closer - in my opinion.

Early on, I would sometimes get defensive if he disagreed with me over an issue. Not always, but under the right conditions, I took exception to his feedback. Thanks be to God and our work with the Enneagram, we began to get more clarity around our habitual ways of getting out of sorts with one another. That cleared up a lot of the conflict.

But not all of it. And here's why. Part of the issue was rooted in my own insecurity. This was part Enneagram stuff and part historical context but it was ALL 100% my responsibility to work on - and I have done just that. Failure to take responsibility for every single bit of my life could have had disastrous consequences for our relationship. I might have continued to ask HIM to take responsibility for my own insecurity by changing how he "handled" our conflicts. That was NOT his work to do. This was easier than it could have been because Scott takes responsibility for is stuff too. Separately and together, we work on taking responsibility for our own work and that means we have far fewer instances where we confuse responsibility with fault-finding.

Last week Scott had a power outage right before our Thursday night meeting - which he was leading. He threw his stuff in his computer bag and rushed to our house to get set up in time to run the group. After the group, instead of assuming that there was fault to be called out, I instead took responsibility to follow up with curiosity. "Hey, I thought you were a little grumpy tonight. Is everything ok?"

He replied, "With the group?" Looking chagrined and no small amount of mortified.

"No! That went fine, I thought you were a little short with me." I clarified.

He paused. He thought. He answered, "Man, I was really stressed. I was worried that I would leave everyone hanging on that call. Sorry you got the brunt of that." He took responsibility and I immediately knew that he was also not finding fault with me. He was not saying I was an annoying mother with many faults that he tolerates. No one was at fault, everyone was taking responsibility for speaking about their experience.

I concurred with his assessment and reiterated that the problem at hand got solved, which was a big win. No residual conflict or feelings or issues stand between us and our treasured relationship. When we take responsibility for our lives, it is liberating.

Responsibility vs Fault

My mom's death was...complicated and it left me completely bereft. I desperately wanted to understand the circumstances surrounding it. But there was no way that would ever happen because the parties involved all had their own experiences that colored their interpretation of said events...including me. But it was a great lesson in learning that problems can be powerful, and less painful, when we take full responsibility for the issue at hand. Problems can be powerful in that they provide us an opportunity to self-examine, reflect, and notice our failures, blindspots and even innocent-ish mistakes.

One of the issues that slowed my own recovery from this traumatic event was my confusion over responsibility versus fault. My therapist kept telling me, "This is not your fault" and she was right but it was hard for me to agree with her.

Over time, I came to realize that I resisted her determined attempts to draw a distinction between responsibility and fault because if I could find a way I was at fault, I unconsciously believed I could find a way to control and change the outcome. Which, when I think about it, is really silly. But it is true. I also had the opposite problem. There were parts of this family drama that I absolutely did not want to claim any fault for - no way! I did not know how to believe that I could be responsible without being at fault. And, I struggled to think about how to be responsible in areas where I was at fault.

Here is what was helpful for me. Fault is past tense. We find someone at "fault" as a result of the decisions they already made. Responsibility is what we choose to do in the present moment. Responsibility is claimed as we make choices in the here and now.

There are people whose decisions and their outcomes can result in fault being found and named. But no one is responsible for my situation because my situation is always my responsibility. The guy who hit us head on was at fault for speeding, driving on worn out tires and trying to change his radio while smoking a cigarette and navigating a turn on a rainy day. But only I am be responsible for how I follow up after the accident. I had to choose how to treat my medical conditions; our family had to choose the next vehicle. He is not responsible for that even though his faulty driving resulted in us needing to take on some additional responsibilities.

If you were able to separate fault from responsibility, would any of your nagging problems become more clear? Would solutions present themselves? Would life feel a bit more free from the burden of complicated grief?