Intellectual Discernment - 'have to' and the Holiday Season
Intellectual Discernment - “have to” and the Holiday Season
“I decided that for this months topic I would discuss the “shoulds” and “have tos” in more depth, in relationship to setting ourselves up to feel like victims at this time of year. In my article Happy Holidays, Sad Holidays that I republished at the beginning of this month, I talk about how trying to live up to the fairy tale / fantasy that everyone is happy and cheerful at Christmas time - and judging myself for not feeling what I thought I “should” - caused me to feel depressed and suicidal during the Holiday Season. This is the time of year when the most suicides occur - because people are feeling despair that their lives aren’t what they “should” be.” “We grew up in families / societies where our experience of love was shaming and controlling, because that is all our codependent parents knew - due to their childhood wounding. Unless our families are in recovery from codependency then their behavior is still manipulative and shaming. They want us to be there for the Holidays to support their ego image of themselves as parents - their fantasy about having a happy family that gathers lovingly for the Holidays.” “And you can set boundaries with them that are Loving for you. There are not just two choices - the black and white extremes of the disease - there are choices in between 1 and 10. You can make a choice to spend some time with them, but limit the time so that you are not subjected to the dysfunction for too long.”
This is the seventh in a series of articles focused on how to apply the Serenity Prayer in our lives by having the wisdom and discernment to recognize the things we do have the power to change.
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney is copyright 1995. Material on Joy2MeU web site (except where otherwise noted) is copyright 1996 thru 2015 by Robert Burney PO Box 98 Fallbrook CA 92088.
Intellectual Discernment - “have to” and the Holiday Season was originally published online on the Inner Child/Codependency Recovery page that I used to edit for Suite101.com Directory on December 24, 2002. There is a list of - and links to - other articles published on that Directory on my Suite101 Articles page.
Originally published at https://joy2meu.com/should_have_to.htm