| Emotional Dependency or Emotional Responsibility |  |
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Emotional dependency means getting one's good feelings from
outside oneself. It means needing to get filled from outside
rather than from within. Who or what do you believe is
responsible for your emotional wellbeing?
There are numerous forms of emotional dependency:
* Dependence on substances, such as food, drugs, or alcohol,
to fill emptiness and take away pain.
* Dependency on processes such as spending, gambling, or TV,
also to fill emptiness and take away pain.
* Dependence on money to define one's worth and adequacy.
* Dependence on getting someone's love, approval, or
attention to feel worthy, adequate, lovable, and safe.
* Dependence on sex to fill emptiness and feel adequate.
When you do not take responsibility for defining your own
adequacy and worth or for creating your own inner sense of
safety, you will seek to feel adequate, worthy and safe
externally. Whatever you do not give to yourself, you may
seek from others or from substances or processes. Emotional
dependency is the opposite of taking personal responsibility
for one's emotional wellbeing. Yet many people have no idea
that this is their responsibility, nor do they have any idea
how to take this responsibility.
What does it mean to take emotional responsibility rather
than be emotionally dependent?
Primarily, it means recognizing that our feelings come from
our own thoughts, beliefs and behavior, rather than from
others or from circumstances. Once you understand and accept
that you create your own feelings, rather than your feelings
coming from outside yourself, then you can begin to take
emotional responsibility.
For example, let's say someone you care about gets angry at
you.
If you are emotionally dependent, you may feel rejected and
believe that your feelings of rejection are coming from the
other's anger. You might also feel hurt, scared, anxious,
inadequate, shamed, angry, blaming, or many other difficult
feeling in response to the other's anger. You might try many
ways of getting the other person to not be angry in an
effort to feel better.
However, if you are emotionally responsible, you will feel
and respond entirely differently. The first thing you might
do is to tell yourself that another person's anger has
nothing to do with you. Perhaps that person is having a bad
day and is taking it out on you. Perhaps that person is
feeling hurt or inadequate and is trying to be one-up by
putting you one-down. Whatever the reason for the other's
anger, it is about them rather than about you. An
emotionally responsible person does not take others'
behavior personally, knowing that we have no control over
others' feelings and behavior, and that we do not cause
others to feel and behave the way they do - that others are
responsible for their feelings and behavior just as we are
for ours.
The next thing an emotionally responsible person might do is
move into compassion for the angry person, and open to
learning about what is going on with the other person. For
example, you might say, "I don't like your anger, but I am
willing to understand what is upsetting you. Would you like
to talk about it?" If the person refuses to stop being
angry, or if you know ahead of time that this person is not
going to open up, then as an emotionally responsible person,
you would take loving action in your own behalf. For
example, you might say, "I'm unwilling to be at the other
end of your anger. When you are ready to be open with me,
let me know. Meanwhile, I'm going to take a walk (or hang up
the phone, or leave the restaurant, or go into the other
room, and so on). An emotionally responsible person gets out
of range of attack rather than tries to change the other
person.
Once out of range, the emotionally responsible person goes
inside and explores any painful feelings that might have
resulted from the attack. For example, perhaps you are
feeling lonely as a result of being attacked. An emotionally
responsible person embraces the feelings of loneliness with
understanding and compassion, holding them just as you would
hold a sad child. When you acknowledge and embrace the
feelings of loneliness, you allow them to move through you
quickly, so you can move back into peace.
Rather than being a victim of the other's behavior, you have
taken emotional responsibility for yourself. Instead of
staying stuck in feeling angry, hurt, blaming, afraid,
anxious or inadequate, you have moved yourself back into
feeling safe and peaceful.
When you realize that your feelings are your responsibility,
you can move out of emotional dependency. This will make a
huge difference within you and with all of your
relationships. Relationships thrive when each person moves
out of emotional dependency and into emotional
responsibility.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and
co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me
To Be Loved By You?" She is the co-creator of a powerful
self-help, 6-step emotional and spiritual healing process
called Inner Bonding. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web
site for a FREE Inner Bonding course:
http://www.innerbonding.com or
mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com
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