I’m inviting you to join me in a purposeful, reflective pause. STOP and closely examine all the places in your life where your energy and power are being drawn from you:

• Places where you say yes when you want to say no.
• Situations where you do things out of a sense of duty or obligation.
• Relationships in which you feel called to help or fix another.
• Experiences where you can see what would be best and want to offer your expertise.
• Friends and family, clients and strangers who seek guidance but who habitually disregard that guidance.
• Situations in which you assume your guidance is wanted but in fact was never requested.
• Those to whom you run at their first call of distress, hoping to help or take away that distress.
• Experiences where you continually hope and wish for things to change, but they never do.
• Those who want more from you than you can actually give.
• Those who seek your listening ear but do nothing to heal or transform the situation about which they complain.

I’m inviting you into this reflection because you are not alone in this. I am woefully guilty of falling into the trap of co-dependency where I believe not only is it my job to help others, but believing I actually can.

We cannot help others who are unwilling or incapable of helping themselves.  We cannot help those who don’t believe they need help. Every time we try, a hole is drilled into our soul and a piece of our power is drawn out. That power, then is no longer available for us to access, as it is held in the others hand. I call this entanglement. There are certain relationships and experiences in which we become so entangled we may not even see how much of our power we’ve given away.

Contrary to the way in which we have been conditioned (women especially), our power is not meant for others. Instead, our power is meant to serve the purpose of our soul – to know and be Love in the world. This Love is not co-dependent, seeking to help or heal others. Instead, Love is meant to provide an example that others might follow. In witnessing the Love that we are, they may ask us how we came to know that Love. We may share with them the tools that helped us get there, but we cannot do the work for them. The danger with this Love is that it is magnetic and many are drawn to that Love – not to understand how to achieve that themselves, but to draw a bit of it from us. Do not let them.

The power of Love that we are is a precious thing. It is what feeds and sustains us. It is what allows others to be awakened and to seek out that Love for themselves. This is the Love that Jesus spoke of and the Love that changes the world. This Love is not for us to give, but for others to find within themselves. We may provide inspiration, but we are not the source.

For those who have uncovered this Love within themselves, we know how hard the journey is to know that Love more fully. The power of this Love is ours to protect. Protecting that Love requires a reprogramming from what we have been taught about what it means to Love. Love isn’t doing harm to ourselves to care for another. Love is not doing for another what they should be doing for themselves. Love does not intrude on the journey of another, but allows people the freedom to live their lives, learning their own lessons and making their own mistakes.

For me, protecting the power of Love begins with identifying those places in my life where that power is being drawn from me through co-dependent entanglements. Next, it is my job to STOP participating in that entanglement. This is no easy task due to the trigger response that is engrained in so many of us to want to help another’s distress. In order to stop this response, I have had to learn the signals in my body that let me know my co-dependency has been triggered. For me, it is a feeling in my solar plexus (gut) or on my left shoulder of energy being drawn from me. I literally feel as if I have to run to the individual expressing distress. Instead of running, I STOP. I repeat a silent mantra (“it’s their shit not mine”) and then I STAY PUT. I cannot express the strength it takes in me to stay put and not run after the distress.  And I am not perfect in this practice. I repeatedly fail and continually find myself in entanglements. But I’m learning and I’m improving. Every day, I’m a little better at guarding my power and taking back that which I have given away.

Love is a journey and a process, and the work is never done but in the heart of this work is a great treasure.  As we free ourselves from co-dependent behaviors, we have access to more of our own inner power and the Love that dwells within us. We have no idea the miracles that can come about when fully embodying that Love!