We don’t have to take rejection as a reflection of our self-worth. If somebody who is important (or even someone unimportant) to you rejects you or your choices, you are still real, and you are still worth every bit as much as you would be if you had not been rejected. Feel any feelings that go with rejection. Talk about your thoughts. But don’t fo

“Codependents are caretakers—rescuers. They rescue, then they persecute, then they end up victimized. Study the Karpman Drama Triangle,”

“I don’t trust people who never get mad. People either get mad or get even,”

I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own. These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt respon

Denial is the shock absorber for the soul. It’s an instinctive and natural reaction to pain, loss, and change. It protects us. It wards off the blows of life until we can gather our other coping resources.

After I detached and took responsibility for myself, I wondered if maybe other people weren’t the reason I hadn’t been living my own life; maybe they were just the excuse I’d needed. My destiny—my todays and tomorrows—looked pretty grim.

Why do we do it, then? We react because we’re anxious and afraid of what has happened, what is happening, and what might happen. Many of us react as though everything is a crisis because we have lived with so many crises for so long that our reactions have become habitual.

People ultimately do what they want to do. They feel how they want to feel (or how they are feeling); they think what they want to think; they do the things they believe they need to do; and they will change only when they’re ready to change. It doesn’t matter if they’re wrong and we’re right. It doesn’t matter if they’re hurting themselves. It doe

The dreams were there. Many of us held on for so long, clutching those dreams through one loss and disappointment after another. We flew in the face of reality, shaking these dreams at the truth, refusing to believe or accept anything less. But one day the truth caught up to us and refused to be put off any longer. This wasn’t what we wanted, plann