OPINION: 'We have to realise that we have a choice in every single moment of our lives'

If you didn’t know you were in a trap how would you know that you needed to escape?

The short answer is that you wouldn’t, unless something happened to change how you saw your circumstances.

The truth of life is in seeing it as it is rather than how I’d like it to be. Rose tinted glasses are all very well and everything looks better but they don’t let us see things for what they are and that is all too often very damaging.

Let’s look at what some people refer to as co-dependency, the term used to describe a relationship where one or both members’ behaviours and actions can be said to enable the other person’s irresponsible or even destructive behaviour.

It isn’t exactly a scientific term but it gets widely used.

We enable the other person to behave in a way that is damaging, either to themselves, to us or to our relationship with them and we do it for a variety of reasons, both consciously and unconsciously.

It can take so many forms, from tolerating narcissistic behaviour and becoming invisible so the narcissist can take centre stage to allowing family members to behave in a way that leaves us feeling undervalued, to saying ‘yes’ to an employer’s unreasonable demands when we really want to scream “no!”

It can be in the shape of making excuses for alcoholism or drug addiction which allows the person to continue their destructive behaviour and perpetuate the problem.

The reasons for enabling someone’s behaviour can be as varied as the ways in which we do the enabling.

We may have had childhood issues in terms of not feeling valued and this can form unhealthy habits in trying to get validation from our family and later on from friends and in romantic relationships.

It can be because we “are” caring, loving people but in trying to be we make allowances that aren’t merited or healthy.

We, as humans, want to form enduring emotional bonds and overlooking or even putting someone’s needs before our own are perfectly natural and healthy, to a point.

It’s when we act in ways that create misery for ourselves, that go against what our intrinsic standards are for ourselves to either please someone or excuse their behaviour that we fall into two traps.

We want to see the best in people and we want them to see the best in us.

We can fall into the trap of enabling their behaviour just because of these two triggers.

They can lead us down the path of thinking that the other person will change if we persevere or that they will see how much we are worth if we continue to support them in their patterns, no matter how destructive they are to them or us in the long run.

There is also a form of bond that we create through sharing experiences and even traumas but it should be said that commonality of experience doesn’t automatically mean any kind of compatibility.

Just because two people have suffered the same traumas doesn’t mean they are compatible or that they even understand the other.

It just means that they have a shared frame of reference.

We will only ever escape the cycles we create and perpetuate when we begin to see that we are in a trap, that the other person’s behaviour will not change because they don’t see any reason for it to change.

After all, their life is going along pretty well and you’ve been agreeing with your supportive actions, even if you didn’t mean to be.

But here’s where we have to begin. We reach a point where either some action is intolerable, or some behaviour costs us so much personally that we are forced to stop and think...

What the heck am I doing?

Why am I allowing this?

Surely there has to be a better way to live, to be happy?

This is the first glimmer of self-awareness and it’s a spark we need to nurture, to fan and to turn into a blaze!

It should begin to throw light on every facet of the relationship, be it with a spouse or a family member or with a close friend.

We have to realise that we have a choice in every single moment of our lives.

In this instance it’s to keep going as we were or to change or reject the situation. In this example we can’t accept and keep on going.

We can see that something has to change, but what?

We have to change what we are prepared to tolerate for ourselves. If the person is willing to see their behaviour hurts themselves or you or others around them and you, change is possible, but if they can’t see, or won’t see because of how their personality and perceptions are formed, then you have to let them go.

Forgive their inability, more for your peace than for their sake and don’t waste any more time or energy feeding the cycle of behaviour. In this way you’ll have more energy to devote to positive changes in your life.

This is just another facet of learning Acceptance.

It’s a practice that can be applied to everything we face in life, all you have to do is light that spark and all that takes is one moment of awareness for change.

Karl Clancy from Tipperary writes a weekly column in The Nationalist.