The program of Co-Dependents Anonymous teaches us that we all have strengths, and that right now we are learning to carry out our life and relationships to the best of our learned ability.
We have all learned to survive life, but in CoDA we are learning to live life.
CoDA Welcome – 2010 Co-Dependents Anonymous, Inc. www.coda.org
But many of our go-to strategies, approaches, and tactics for handling circumstances and people, are rife with defense mechanisms and unhealthy methods for meeting our needs (through other people).
For me, Learning to Live Life, means cultivating the willingness to
Perceive
Interpret
Respond to
and Engage
with ourselves and other people differently.
We are asked to be willing to change our perspective and to learn new techniques for handling our affairs.
I can expect a miraculous change in my life by working the program of Co-Dependents Anonymous.
CoDA. Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions – The Workbook (p. 8). Co-Dependents Anonymous. Kindle Edition.
The 12 Steps are a suggested process for cultivating new awareness and changing deeply rooted habits of thinking and behaving. The path also helps us to release shame, guilt, self-harm, and other self-defeating responses to what we are thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
We validate how and where we’ve been….and at the very same time we allow ourselves to change – in order to experience something new.
May you find a new strength within to be what God intended – Precious and Free.
CoDA Welcome – 2010 Co-Dependents Anonymous, Inc. www.coda.org
For me, this process looks like allowing my feelings. I am allowed to accept whatever reaction I have to my experiences and people in the moment.
Right now I am angry….I respect my anger.
And yet, I learn to release my defense mechanisms.
Those knee-jerk and strongly intense responses that lead me to emotionally distance from hurts, to protect the wounded and (perceived) fragile parts of me.
I allow spaciousness….
….room for me to make mistakes
which are choices that
once I see the outcome
I wouldn’t make that same decision again.
CoDA Promise 2: I am no longer controlled by my fears. I overcome my fears and act with courage, integrity, and dignity.
The Twelve Promises of Co-Dependents Anonymous – 2010 Co-Dependents Anonymous, Inc. www.coda.org
And instead,
I allow the ups and downs
The pains and pleasures
The joys and heartbreaks and learnings
of life, relationships, and experiences.
CoDA Promise 3: I know a new freedom.
The Twelve Promises of Co-Dependents Anonymous – 2010 Co-Dependents Anonymous, Inc. www.coda.org
Excerpts from the “Recovery from Co-Dependence: A Brief Introduction” pamphlet. https://coda.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Recovery-From-Codependence3.pdf