Quote:
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
You are reading from the book Today's Gift
A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
—Dorothy Canfield Fisher
A strong, healthy tree is one which is free to grow straight and tall. A weak tree often must lean against another for support. It is not that different with people. We are not healthy and strong when we must always lean on another to support us.
This doesn't mean it isn't healthy to accept help. But the best help we can get or give is that which enables us to do things without it. Sometimes we think we lose a relationship when others don't need our help, or when we don't need theirs all the time. The reverse is true. Only when we are each strong enough to stand on our own can we really share the kind of help, which allows both, helped and helper to be independent.
Have I been giving the right kind of help?
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A good question! Learned in recovery it was best to pray and ask that THEIR God give them what that someone needed , when it was good for them, my God's Will, not mine.
When I do for someone else, I can be playing God with their life.
If we enable and care take, they are unable to help themselves and they become codependent. A caretaker can be acting out in their own disease. They need someone to care for, to fix, and a distraction which helps them to not look at themselves. They want a leaner, because they want to lean too.