Powerlessness – The Light Side & The Dark Side

By Cheryl Fidelman, The Conscious Codependence™ Coach.

One of the hardest things to come to terms with in your Codependent moments is that you are powerless over other people’s behaviors. You are powerless over their personalities, their reactions, opinions, actions, thoughts, wants & desires. And conversely, others are powerless over your reality.  As you heal your Codependency, this can be one of the most freeing concepts that can lead to the exposure of your deepest truths and theirs. When you are still drowning in your Codependency, this idea can be wildly repressive and cause massive amounts of suffering. 

The suffering comes in when powerlessness equates to inferiority.  When it has you diminish yourself and acquiesce to someone else’s reality because you may feel as if you have no power – only they do. This is when the idea of powerlessness turns into a regressive act of submission. You may then build resentment towards the more “dominant” person because you are deferring to their truth while holding in your own. You’re wanting them to see the error of their ways as opposed to you feeling the impact of your own repression.  

When you Codependently submit, you don’t get to truly understand another person because you are not truly understanding your own suffering that comes from placing yourself as inferior – or better yet, placing someone else as more powerful.   More often than not, the person that you’ve put in power does not know you’ve placed them there. More often than not, you think that they want to be there and you blame them for forcing you to give them what they want. But you are not giving them the dominance they are ”asking” for – you are satisfying your Traumatic Identity’s  (the identity that developed in reaction to your parents or guardians reality) fear of belonging and taking up space. When powerlessness equates to inferiority, you will take almost everything they say as an attack, or a belittling comment that sucks your oxygen such that you either shut down or fight to breathe. Simply put, they are bigger and you are smaller. This is where the 3^rd Code to Clear Codependency [The Need to Prove Oneself] can be most prominent. When you find yourself defending, explaining or proving, you’re likely struggling for power from the person you unconsciously gave it to in the first place.   

The freedom in powerlessness can be experienced when we have released taking other people’s personalities personally. When we heighten our skillset to understand the human experience – first and foremost our own. Most human beings live inside of a personal reality that has been set up by various factors from their culture and upbringing. Most of what people do and say has nothing to do with you. And, simultaneously, most of what you do and say has nothing to do with anyone around you. Although your tendency towards inferiority or submission may be magnified around certain people, it has nothing to do with anyone but you. 

To live in powerlessness over other people can help you align with your inner truth as you release others to theirs. You can live as the source and creator of your reality. When you realize that your reality is only real for you, then you will have access to understanding that their reality is real for them. You don’t need to understand them in order to honor their truth that’s true for them. And you do not need to be understood by others in order to honor your truth that’s true for you. Once you connect with and embody your truth, you may be able to invite someone else in to see it. But if you don’t deeply align with your own truth (which has nothing to do with them), then you may be longing to be heard and have nothing to say. You may be longing to be seen and understood and have nothing to show. 

Most importantly, you are NOT powerless over yourself.  You can heal your relationship with your feelings, your sense of safety, your voice, your body, your values, your talents, gifts and passions and your ability to give & receive love. You can heal these things regardless of who’s around you and who you come into contact with. Your healing DOES NOT depend on what others can (or can’t) conceive of. 

In the 12 step program, Codependence Anonymous (which I highly recommend for those seeking further free resources) , the first step is admitting that we are powerless over people, places & things. This is the very first step of 12. This step can take months and sometimes years for some people in that program. And it gets repeated and referred to constantly. Some of us have to keep being reminded that other people are NOT obstacles to our inner peace. They are our access to personal freedom because they show us our inner obstacles that were placed inside of us before we even met them. And in The Conscious Codependence™  Process, we get this in our systems much quicker. The faster this drops into your nervous system, the quicker you will be released into true intimacy & personal freedom.

YOUR RELATIONSHIP w/ YOURSELF is WHERE it ALL BEGINS

You can get your FREE PDF of The 3 Codes to Clear Codependency at www.cherylfidelman.com. The PDF lists the common developmental roots & behavioral patterns of each Code and also some questions to customize them to your experience.