Hi everyone, welcome back. I am Roslyn Saunders, Co-dependency and Addiction Coach Specialist.
Today’s topic is about when we take responsibility for other people’s feelings and actions. I definitely understand the urge to do this. Our fears come up, maybe because of how they’re acting, or because of how we think they should be acting differently. We go in and take over, or we short-circuit their lessons to reduce our own fears.
My recommendation for this is to get support around it. Go to your counsellor or your support network for the fears that are coming up for you. Unless, of course, it’s a crisis or an emergency – then there may be a time to step in. However, normally we want to short-circuit others’ lessons and not allow them to take responsibility for their own actions and own feelings.
So please check in with yourself when someone’s doing something that makes you nervous, or when fear comes up in you. Check in with yourself whether you’re doing it to help them or to reduce your own fears around it, and allow them to learn their own lessons in this situation.
And please, please, never do for someone what they’re capable of doing for themselves. That’s the height of codependency. We take over, we want to control the situation because of our fears about what might happen to them, what they might think of us, or that they might not like us, or that they might never manage.
So please allow them that lesson and learning.
