I'm Back...

I’ve just had a kick in the butt. My friend, Kristen, someone who I very much admire and respect (check out her beauty speaks project) emailed me with a lovely comment about my blog. Damn it, I thought, if she isn’t being polite, I don’t know what polite is. I haven’t written anything in ages and of what I have written, wasn’t worth the comment. In other words, she jolted me (or perhaps it was my codependent parts) into action: there was approval to be had and writing to be done.

I started out this blog with a commitment to write weekly for one year. I made it until the end of July when, much to my surprise, my world fell apart. Okay, a little melodramatic but I discovered a truth about myself that not only hurt to the core but made me doubt much of who I was. Moreover, I knew the truth to be founded on codependent behaviour. It was, without exaggeration, devastating.

As soon as it happened, a part of me knew that I had to write about it but the shame, which I wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge, was too big. Instead I lamely suggested in my submission on August 17 that I just needed a summer hiatus, that I was, “repeating things and, perhaps, not willing to go to the required depth”. True enough but not the complete picture. The real story is that my blog had become another codependent crutch: I was attempting to find self value in my writing.

I had been writing in a mad frenzy (note: a little hyperbole is good for the soul) all winter and spring in order that I could stand proud come November and say, see, I did it, I am great. I wrote (and published) an article every week. In retrospect, the goal had become my reason to be and the process was falling by the wayside. And there was more: I wanted, dreamed, fantasized about people responding on the comment page; the blog going viral and Meryl Streep playing me in my own version of Julia & Julia. When people didn’t respond or acknowledge my blog, I hit my personal self doubt button. When they did respond, I either hit the “I want more button” or declared myself undeserving. My avatar was a bunch of paragraphs strung together under the name Creative Codependence: I was codependent with my codependence blog — how embarrassing.

As I’ve described in previous articles, both responses of self doubt and “I want more” are codependent behaviours. With the former, it is fairly obvious. I was placing my self worth on what other people thought or what I perceived they were thinking. The latter response is a little more interesting in that with codependent parts, there is never enough. I could have been getting ten, no, one thousand comments a day, and it still wouldn’t have been enough. Oh sure, the first day would have been exciting but then there would have been this ultimate craving for two thousand, three and then four thousand comments increasing exponentially thereafter. I was the crack addict with open sores and vacant eyes, scratching and pleading for one more hit. But my hunger wasn’t for coke or another comment. Underneath is all was a desire for validation. But as I forever am saying (and yes, isn’t it about time I listened to my own teachings) you cant receive love, respect and acknowledgment, until you love, respect, and acknowledge yourself. A cliché but also a truism. We will always be wanting if we neglect our own self care.

So, as I wrote in Summer Hiatus, I needed time to refocus, regroup and, as also stated, time to bake bread. I now have an incredible sourdough mother starter living in my fridge and a repertoire of several sprouted whole grain breads with chewy mouthfuls of taste. But all that is for another story. I am back and watching (and even enjoying) my codependent parts as I maneuver around this latest learning experience.