These are excerpts from Melodie Beattie's book, Codependent No More. It is a wonderful self help book for people who have been affected by addiction. I am coming to realize that I am codependent and an enabler. A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior. Once upon a time, a woman moved to a cave in the mountains to study with a guru. She wanted, she said, to learn everything there was to know. The guru supplied her with stacks of books and left her alone so she could study. Every morning, the guru returned to the cave to monitor the woman's progress. In his hand, he carried a heavy wooden cane. Each morning, he asked her the same question: "Have you learned everything there is to know yet?" Each morning, her answer was the same, "No," she said, "I haven't" The guru would then strike her over the head with his cane. This scenario repeated itself for months. One day the guru entered the cave, asked the same question, heard the same answer and raised his cane to hit her in the same way, but the woman grabbed the cane from the guru. To her surprise, the guru smiled. "Congratulations," he said, "you have graduated. You know now everything you need to know." "How is that?" the woman asked. "You have learned that you will never learn everything there is to know." he replied. "And you have learned to stop the pain." |
