Codependent No More Quotes

“Detachment involves living in the here and now. We allow life to happen instead of forcing and trying to control it. We relinquish regrets over the past and fears about the future. We make the most of each day. We live freely.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Whenever we become attached in these ways to someone or something, we become detached from ourselves.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“It’s a “paradoxical dependency.”6 Codependents appear to be depended upon, but they are dependent on. We look strong but feel helpless. We appear controlling, but in reality we are controlled ourselves,”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“If concern has turned into obsession; if compassion has turned into caretaking; if you are taking care of other people and not taking care of yourself—you may be in trouble with codependency.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“codependency involves a habitual system of thinking, feeling, and behaving toward ourselves and others that can cause us pain.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“What began as a little concern may trigger isolation, depression, emotional or physical illness, or suicidal ideations. One thing leads to another, and things get worse. Codependency may not be an illness, but it can make you sick. And it can help the people around you stay sick.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“As Thomas Wright wrote in Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue: I suspect codependents have historically attacked social injustice and fought for the rights of the underdog. Codependents want to help. I suspect they have helped. But they probably died thinking they didn’t do enough and were feeling guilty.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“suspect codependents have historically attacked social injustice and fought for the rights of the underdog. Codependents want to help. I suspect they have helped. But they probably died thinking they didn’t do enough and were feeling guilty.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“lies in ourselves, in the ways we have let other people’s behaviors affect us and in the ways we try to affect them: the controlling, the obsessive “helping,” caretaking, low self-worth bordering on self-hatred, self-repression, an abundance of anger and guilt, a peculiar dependency on peculiar people, an attraction to and tolerance for the bizarre, othercenteredness that results in abandonment of self, communication problems, intimacy problems, and an ongoing whirlwind trip through the five-stage grief process.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Defining the problem is important because it helps determine the solution.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations (e.g., we are all human, vulnerable, and imperfect); selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families too.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“One common denominator was having a relationship, personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“those self-defeating, learned behaviors or character defects that result in a diminished capacity to initiate or to participate in loving relationships.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“codependency is “an emotional, psychological, and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual’s prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules—rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Her problem, she says, is that other people’s moods control her emotions; she, in turn, tries to control their feelings. “I’m a people pleaser,”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“I feel guilty when I don’t live up to other people’s expectations of me. I feel guilty all the time,”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“For many years, Randell believed his duty was to worry about people and get involved in their problems. He called his behavior kindness, concern, love, and, sometimes, righteous indignation. Now, after getting help for his problem, he calls it codependency.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“if we want to get rid of it, we have to do something to make it go away. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Our codependency becomes our problem—and our challenge. Solving our problem is our responsibility.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“wounded healer” to the way in which a healer’s own soul disease and pain can train them to help others heal.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Hurt people hurt people, even sometimes their kids.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Yet these codependents who had such great insight into others couldn’t see themselves. They didn’t know what they were feeling. They weren’t sure what they thought. And they didn’t know what, if anything, they could do to solve their problems—if, indeed, they had any problems other than the other person.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect them and who is obsessed with controlling that other person’s behavior.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“there is nothing wrong with your religion”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More

“What we resist, persists.” “Little by slowly.” “We don’t have to like it; we just have to accept it.” “Easy does it.” “One day at a time.” “My soul can be at peace.” “God, grant me the serenity / To accept the things I cannot change, / Courage to change the things I can, / And wisdom to know the difference.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control. Always, the dam of their lives and the lives of those around them threaten to burst and spew harmful consequences on everyone and nobody but them seem to notice or care. I saw people who manipulated, because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done. I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in, seemed in capable of tolerating honesty. I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies that they didn’t know what reality was. I saw people who have gotten so absorbed in other peoples problems that they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More

“If my husband is happy, and I feel responsible for that, then I’m happy. If he’s upset, I often feel responsible for that too. Then I become anxious, uncomfortable, and upset until he feels better. I try to make him feel better. I feel guilty if I can’t. And he gets angry with me for trying. And it’s not only with him that I behave codependently,” she said. “It’s with everyone: my parents, my children, guests in my home. Somehow, I just seem to lose myself in other people. I get enmeshed in them.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Nobody has ever loved us in a way that met our needs.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“The worst aspect of caretaking is that we become and stay victims. I believe many serious self-destructive behaviors—substance abuse, eating disorders, sexual disorders—are developed through this victim role.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“One common denominator was having a relationship, personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people. But a second, more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.9 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations (e.g., we are all human, vulnerable, and imperfect); selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families too.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“When a codependent discontinued their relationship with a troubled person, the codependent frequently sought another troubled person and repeated the codependent behaviors with that new person. These behaviors, or coping mechanisms, seemed to prevail throughout the codependent’s life—if they didn’t change these behaviors.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself