So there I was many, many moons ago, out Christmas shopping, for the love in my life. I was in a long distance relationship at the time and I use the term relationship very loosely. It had moments of bliss, followed by moments of absolute agony. He kept coming and going from my life and I kept taking him back.

I get downright giddy when I see something that I strongly believe in manifest in real life. I never want to wish ill will on someone, but what I witnessed this week reminded me, yet again, of the importance of our emotional energy.

In the initial stages of a break up, it’s incredibly difficult to focus on anything but the pain.  So early on, our defense mechanisms will likely be, finding a way to distract, or numb ourselves, from such intense feelings.  But once the shock has subsided somewhat, and we’re seeing things a little more clearly, it’s important to heal ourselves from the grief energy that we’ve been holding onto.

A couple weeks back I had dinner with one of my cousins. She recently became aware of my blog and really wanted to talk about it. She and I have a lot in common, the largest being that we both had one emotionally abusive parent. Her father‘s behavior was so outrageous at times, that even as a little girl, I was able to understand that there

“I never would have left.” That’s what I said to my long-term Narcissist, during one of my futile attempts to get him to stay. “I never would have done this.” The scary part is –  that was the truth. It didn’t matter how much pain he caused me. It didn’t matter that nothing was about me, or that I had no idea who I was anymore. None of that mattered.

I went to the grocery store last week and as I was loading my food onto the conveyor belt, at the cashier, I felt a very familiar feeling. I made some pretty good food choices that day. I had lots of fruits and vegetables, some protein and I permitted myself to buy something sweet. Just a small one-time snack that would be done in one sitting.

Inside every codependent is a child, who has been mistreated, ignored, hurt, humiliated, frightened, shamed, or abused by parents, who were themselves mistreated, ignored, shamed and abused by their parents. When we were children we did what we knew how to do, in order to survive and to get our needs met. It is this same child that created how we cope, how we react and how we feel about ourselves. It is this child that has been running our lives as adults.