| I will not preview the addiction to drugs, alcohol, food or other materials. On the contrary, I will analyze the dependence of people on other people, relationship or something else such as job position, career and even children.
The most common dependence is addiction to a person or a relationship. As you know, every addiction to something causes dependence and becomes poisonous for the addicted one. |
Sandra An Taylor writes in her book “Secrets of Attraction” the following:
The characteristics of a person who tends to be dependent or addicted are the following:
- Fear and need of certainty.
The fear of rejection and loss, the insecure feeling for your relationship create permanent inner tension. Some question arise such as: “What if I lose him / her?”, “What if I fail and I am rejected?”.
- Need of control.
That control is expressed in permanently keeping the partner under observation, as well as his / her plans, actions and communications with other people. That goes together with furious and odious jealousy.
- Maniacal analyzing of the relationship.
In this case the dependent person always analyzes every situation, for example: “Did I do the right thing?”, “Why she / he told me that?” etc.
- Obsession and attachment that are too strong.
Such extreme attachment makes you require that your partner is always next to you. You do not even want your partner to feel happy if he is not together with you.
All those symptoms activate the law of the paradox intend and you often get exactly what you feel afraid of. Keeping your partner under observation, controlling him / her and being jealous would alienate your beloved and kill his / her love.
Dependent and addicted people start to adjust themselves to the life of their partner. They sacrifice themselves in order to keep their relationship because even the though of loss paralyzes them. They are interested only in priorities of their partner, turn back to their private life and interests, striving, hobby, individuality… those people start to lose themselves.
In some cases, dependent people use manipulation in order to hold on to their partner. Of course most times that is done subconsciously. They start to lie, to make up various reasons for not being with their partner, they get into his head a feeling of guilt.
Feeling a similar state of dependence, they subconsciously and reluctantly refuse their self-integrity and self-respect. If there is no self-respect there are false feelings of value and security in the relationship.
Those dependent people do not only alienate others, but also create inner pain and suffering. Their inner fear grows stronger, they feel more insecure… and there is no way out of this circle.
Morgan Scott Peck writes in his book “Art of being a GOD” the following:
„The worst thing that you can do is to allow yourself to become dependent on somebody else. You had better be addicted to heroin. It will never rush against you for as soon as you have it, thus you will always be happy.
You will be extremely disappointed if you expect that somebody else will bring you happiness,.”
In most cases, the outcome of such relationship is separation, which is devastating. These people keep on living with irresistible feeling of emptiness, insecurity, fear, nonsense of life. Logically, in this state of mind, those people attract unhappy relationships.
How to liberate yourself from this endless circle?
- The most important thing is to love yourself.
You should take care of yourself in the same way as you would like others to do that.
You have to appreciate yourself – how could you expect that other people appreciate you in case you do not value yourself?
Try to become the as the person you would like to fall in love with.
Try to get whatever makes you feel dependent. You should strive for self-confidence, self-development, independence. Try to concentrate on your private life and spend time on your hobbies and goals.
Do not forget that the most important relationship in your life is the one with yourself. The rest of the relationships just come and go.
Your self-confidence, self-respect, faith in your potential and private goals will help you avoid being dependent on your relationship.
- There is something else that is also very important:
You have to try to change the focus of your attention. Try to forget about the fear, analysis and observation and focus on the pleasure of the moments that you spend together with your beloved one.
Do not think about the end of your relationship. Nobody knows how long it will last. You need to completely enjoy it even though it may be a short one. There is a paradox in this situation. You are able to attract and sustain a successful relationship whenever you are not trying to control it, do not feel fear and do not question yourself “How long it will last, will I lose him/her or not?”,
Sandra Ann Taylor, based on her practice of a psychotherapist, concludes the following:
„It is impossible to feel love for yourself without concentrating on the desired results and goals. You should turn your self-respect into your top priority. You should turn back to your addiction and live with trust and faith in yourself.”
Sometimes, attachment to your children turns into dependence on them. You being a parent start to live the life of your own children and live for them. Of course, it is normal that parents love their children and the most important goal is to take a very good care of them. Children are the greatest treasure in your life. It is pernicious to become dependent on your children when it comes to your emotional state of mind.
You burden your child’s life when you tell it that it makes your life meaningful. You had your own life, private goals, experience, self-development before the birth of your child, that is so is not it? Is the life of people who have no children meaningless?
Parent becomes so dependent upon the child that he starts to take into its head a feeling of guilt. You are familiar with reproaching children with the love that you gave them and that is why they should be thankful. If your child does not do what you tell it to do then you tell it that you will get sick, etc…
When your grown up children leave your home, some parents start to feel broken, useless, empty and get sick very often in fact.
The best way to bring up children is to let them follow the lead of the parent. The best role model of the parent is to have private life, to work on his self-growth and self-development, to be successful, to take care of his children and let them take on their responsibility for their actions.
In this way children become self-confident and independent and value their parents. Once they leave their home, parents will miss them and will have some private goals and interests to hold them up.
Dependence on the job is also similar to the dependence on children. Dependent person makes his job his top priority in life as if nothing else exists. His strive to get approval and evaluation is maniacal. He is addicted to his job because he identifies himself with his job. His job is the only thing that makes him feel self-confident and secure and makes his life meaningful.
In case he loses his job, he becomes nothing, a zero… There is nothing to identify himself with thus he is not self-confident anymore. In some cases, such people commit suicide or become very sick.
There is something in common between all people who tend to be dependent namely their acute feeling for a SHORTAGE and LACK of something.
They feel emptiness inside and in order to fill it up they become attached to a person or external objects. The lack of something becomes even stronger when they lose the person or the object of their dependence. They feel even more lonely after losing the one they are emotionally attached to. After such a loss, they find something else to attach to in order to fill in the gap inside them. The same circuit repeats all over again and again.
Susan Jeffers, in her book „Feel the fear and do it anyway”, describes the whole life of a person who is dependent on his love relationship as follows:
Love relationship |
In case you are dependent upon your work, your life will look like in the following way:
Work |
The life of the independent and self-confident person who is complete and develop himself will look like in a quite different way. There will be a lot of goals and friends, for example:
| Contribution to the world | Hobby | Leisure time |
| Family | Private time | Self-growth |
| Work | Love relationship | Friends |
If one is dependent on his love relationship and his beloved partner and he loses his love, his life will look like in the following way:
Yes, the life of this person will be really empty because he had nothing to own, nor private and leisure time or anything to make him feel happy and satisfied. It is normal to feel broken and consider that his life is meaningless…
The life of an independent person is totally different and will look like:
| Contribution to the world | Hobby | Leisure time |
| Family | Private time | Self-growth |
| Work | Friends |
He may also suffer but in the same time there are very many things that will make his life complete and happy.
Susan Jeffers proposes the following solution to this problem:
- Firstly, you have to draw a table with nine or more fields:
- You should think about what you want to have in your life.
After that, try to concentrate on each of the fields (components) and think about what you can achieve in different spheres of your life.
For example, in “Friends” field, you may include the names of all your friends whom you have not heard from a long time and to spare some of your time together with them. Or you may think about what kind of new friends you would like to have and try to find ways to meet those people. You must use your imagination and forget about limiting thoughts such as “I have no leisure time”, „That is impossible“ or “I have no friends”.
In “Leisure time” field, you may make up a “holiday hour” when you will be able to indulge yourself, to give yourself a nice lunch or a purchase, to go in the park or do anything else that will bring you joy.
After your Table is filled in and the main fields are marked, you should organize your time schedule and after that:
- to be 100% DEDICATED in each one of those spheres.
For instance, you should pay all your attention to your beloved one when you are together. You should not think about him whenever you are in the office or have fun with your friends, for example: “what is he doing now”, “we had such a wonderful evening” or “how it will be tonight”. You have to concentrate on the present moment where you are and do not miss it. You have to be 100% present there, participate actively and not be a viewer. If you want to be 100% present in every sphere of your life, you should use the following formula:
Take action as if everything depends on you.
For example, if you are at work and your day is quite boring, try to imagine how would it be if it was up to you to make it different? In fact it depends on you, no matter what you work. You can do very many things to brighten your day – to hang up a nice picture on the wall, or get some flowers, be polite with your colleagues, to smile at them, to set some goals and have some short breaks for staring at the green tree outside, etc… Such small actions will totally change your attitude to your work, you will feel much better and will like the atmosphere and thus attitude of others to you will also change.
Then you will start to feel more self-confident, valuable and complete person, there will be a lot of sources of positive emotions, fun and satisfaction.
„The feeling of empty life will start to disappear. In fact the problem of people who have empty life is that they can not actively participate in the situation around them. They start to wonder why they feel emotionally hungry and incomplete.” Susan Jeffers
In conclusion, if you want to liberate yourself from your dependence and feel joy of people and objects surrounding you, without getting attached to them:
- Firstly, you have to learn to feel love for yourself. You should accept and value yourself, to take a good care of you and have trust in your own potential and strength.
- You have to set your own goals and strives, hobbies and have a successful private life.
- Draw the table of Susan Jeffers, organize your time and try to actively participate in all spheres of your life. Do not forget to be 100% dedicated to all of your activities, try to take all your actions as if everything depends on you.
- Change your focus – move from the fear of loss to the pleasure of the moment.
- As Susan Jeffers writes:
„You should always ask yourself the following question:Is my life complete?
You have to create your own welfare. Thus nothing and nobody will be able to deprive you from your own feeling of completeness.”
Extracts from:
„Feel the fear and do it anyway” Susan Jeffers
„Secrets of attraction” Sandra Ann Taylor
I will not preview the addiction to drugs, alcohol, food or other materials. On the contrary, I will analyze the dependence of people on other people, relationship or something else such as job position, career and even children.
The most common dependence is addiction to a person or a relationship. As you know, every addiction to something causes dependence and becomes poisonous for the addicted one.
Sandra An Taylor writes in her book “Secrets of Attraction” the following:
The characteristics of a person who tends to be dependent or addicted are the following:
- Fear and need of certainty.
The fear of rejection and loss, the insecure feeling for your relationship create permanent inner tension. Some question arise such as: “What if I lose him / her?”, “What if I fail and I am rejected?”.
- Need of control.
That control is expressed in permanently keeping the partner under observation, as well as his / her plans, actions and communications with other people. That goes together with furious and odious jealousy.
- Maniacal analyzing of the relationship.
In this case the dependent person always analyzes every situation, for example: “Did I do the right thing?”, “Why she / he told me that?” etc.
- Obsession and attachment that are too strong.
Such extreme attachment makes you require that your partner is always next to you. You do not even want your partner to feel happy if he is not together with you.
All those symptoms activate the law of the paradox intend and you often get exactly what you feel afraid of. Keeping your partner under observation, controlling him / her and being jealous would alienate your beloved and kill his / her love.
Dependent and addicted people start to adjust themselves to the life of their partner. They sacrifice themselves in order to keep their relationship because even the though of loss paralyzes them. They are interested only in priorities of their partner, turn back to their private life and interests, striving, hobby, individuality… those people start to lose themselves.
In some cases, dependent people use manipulation in order to hold on to their partner. Of course most times that is done subconsciously. They start to lie, to make up various reasons for not being with their partner, they get into his head a feeling of guilt.
Feeling a similar state of dependence, they subconsciously and reluctantly refuse their self-integrity and self-respect. If there is no self-respect there are false feelings of value and security in the relationship.
Those dependent people do not only alienate others, but also create inner pain and suffering. Their inner fear grows stronger, they feel more insecure… and there is no way out of this circle.
Morgan Scott Peck writes in his book “Art of being a GOD” the following:
„The worst thing that you can do is to allow yourself to become dependent on somebody else. You had better be addicted to heroin. It will never rush against you for as soon as you have it, thus you will always be happy.
You will be extremely disappointed if you expect that somebody else will bring you happiness,.”
In most cases, the outcome of such relationship is separation, which is devastating. These people keep on living with irresistible feeling of emptiness, insecurity, fear, nonsense of life. Logically, in this state of mind, those people attract unhappy relationships.
How to liberate yourself from this endless circle?
- The most important thing is to love yourself.
You should take care of yourself in the same way as you would like others to do that.
You have to appreciate yourself – how could you expect that other people appreciate you in case you do not value yourself?
Try to become the as the person you would like to fall in love with.
Try to get whatever makes you feel dependent. You should strive for self-confidence, self-development, independence. Try to concentrate on your private life and spend time on your hobbies and goals.
Do not forget that the most important relationship in your life is the one with yourself. The rest of the relationships just come and go.
Your self-confidence, self-respect, faith in your potential and private goals will help you avoid being dependent on your relationship.
- There is something else that is also very important:
You have to try to change the focus of your attention. Try to forget about the fear, analysis and observation and focus on the pleasure of the moments that you spend together with your beloved one.
Do not think about the end of your relationship. Nobody knows how long it will last. You need to completely enjoy it even though it may be a short one. There is a paradox in this situation. You are able to attract and sustain a successful relationship whenever you are not trying to control it, do not feel fear and do not question yourself “How long it will last, will I lose him/her or not?”,
Sandra Ann Taylor, based on her practice of a psychotherapist, concludes the following:
„It is impossible to feel love for yourself without concentrating on the desired results and goals. You should turn your self-respect into your top priority. You should turn back to your addiction and live with trust and faith in yourself.”
Sometimes, attachment to your children turns into dependence on them. You being a parent start to live the life of your own children and live for them. Of course, it is normal that parents love their children and the most important goal is to take a very good care of them. Children are the greatest treasure in your life. It is pernicious to become dependent on your children when it comes to your emotional state of mind.
You burden your child’s life when you tell it that it makes your life meaningful. You had your own life, private goals, experience, self-development before the birth of your child, that is so is not it? Is the life of people who have no children meaningless?
Parent becomes so dependent upon the child that he starts to take into its head a feeling of guilt. You are familiar with reproaching children with the love that you gave them and that is why they should be thankful. If your child does not do what you tell it to do then you tell it that you will get sick, etc…
When your grown up children leave your home, some parents start to feel broken, useless, empty and get sick very often in fact.
The best way to bring up children is to let them follow the lead of the parent. The best role model of the parent is to have private life, to work on his self-growth and self-development, to be successful, to take care of his children and let them take on their responsibility for their actions.
In this way children become self-confident and independent and value their parents. Once they leave their home, parents will miss them and will have some private goals and interests to hold them up.
Dependence on the job is also similar to the dependence on children. Dependent person makes his job his top priority in life as if nothing else exists. His strive to get approval and evaluation is maniacal. He is addicted to his job because he identifies himself with his job. His job is the only thing that makes him feel self-confident and secure and makes his life meaningful.
In case he loses his job, he becomes nothing, a zero… There is nothing to identify himself with thus he is not self-confident anymore. In some cases, such people commit suicide or become very sick.
There is something in common between all people who tend to be dependent namely their acute feeling for a SHORTAGE and LACK of something.
They feel emptiness inside and in order to fill it up they become attached to a person or external objects. The lack of something becomes even stronger when they lose the person or the object of their dependence. They feel even more lonely after losing the one they are emotionally attached to. After such a loss, they find something else to attach to in order to fill in the gap inside them. The same circuit repeats all over again and again.
Susan Jeffers, in her book „Feel the fear and do it anyway”, describes the whole life of a person who is dependent on his love relationship as follows:
Love relationship |
In case you are dependent upon your work, your life will look like in the following way:
Work |
The life of the independent and self-confident person who is complete and develop himself will look like in a quite different way. There will be a lot of goals and friends, for example:
| Contribution to the world | Hobby | Leisure time |
| Family | Private time | Self-growth |
| Work | Love relationship | Friends |
If one is dependent on his love relationship and his beloved partner and he loses his love, his life will look like in the following way:
Yes, the life of this person will be really empty because he had nothing to own, nor private and leisure time or anything to make him feel happy and satisfied. It is normal to feel broken and consider that his life is meaningless…
The life of an independent person is totally different and will look like:
| Contribution to the world | Hobby | Leisure time |
| Family | Private time | Self-growth |
| Work | Friends |
He may also suffer but in the same time there are very many things that will make his life complete and happy.
Susan Jeffers proposes the following solution to this problem:
- Firstly, you have to draw a table with nine or more fields:
- You should think about what you want to have in your life.
- After that, try to concentrate on each of the fields (components) and think about what you can achieve in different spheres of your life.
For example, in “Friends” field, you may include the names of all your friends whom you have not heard from a long time and to spare some of your time together with them. Or you may think about what kind of new friends you would like to have and try to find ways to meet those people. You must use your imagination and forget about limiting thoughts such as “I have no leisure time”, „That is impossible“ or “I have no friends”.
In “Leisure time” field, you may make up a “holiday hour” when you will be able to indulge yourself, to give yourself a nice lunch or a purchase, to go in the park or do anything else that will bring you joy.
After your Table is filled in and the main fields are marked, you should organize your time schedule and after that:
- to be 100% DEDICATED in each one of those spheres.
For instance, you should pay all your attention to your beloved one when you are together. You should not think about him whenever you are in the office or have fun with your friends, for example: “what is he doing now”, “we had such a wonderful evening” or “how it will be tonight”. You have to concentrate on the present moment where you are and do not miss it. You have to be 100% present there, participate actively and not be a viewer. If you want to be 100% present in every sphere of your life, you should use the following formula:
Take action as if everything depends on you.
For example, if you are at work and your day is quite boring, try to imagine how would it be if it was up to you to make it different? In fact it depends on you, no matter what you work. You can do very many things to brighten your day – to hang up a nice picture on the wall, or get some flowers, be polite with your colleagues, to smile at them, to set some goals and have some short breaks for staring at the green tree outside, etc… Such small actions will totally change your attitude to your work, you will feel much better and will like the atmosphere and thus attitude of others to you will also change.
Then you will start to feel more self-confident, valuable and complete person, there will be a lot of sources of positive emotions, fun and satisfaction.
„The feeling of empty life will start to disappear. In fact the problem of people who have empty life is that they can not actively participate in the situation around them. They start to wonder why they feel emotionally hungry and incomplete.” Susan Jeffers
In conclusion, if you want to liberate yourself from your dependence and feel joy of people and objects surrounding you, without getting attached to them:
- Firstly, you have to learn to feel love for yourself. You should accept and value yourself, to take a good care of you and have trust in your own potential and strength.
- You have to set your own goals and strives, hobbies and have a successful private life.
- Draw the table of Susan Jeffers, organize your time and try to actively participate in all spheres of your life. Do not forget to be 100% dedicated to all of your activities, try to take all your actions as if everything depends on you.
- Change your focus – move from the fear of loss to the pleasure of the moment.
- As Susan Jeffers writes:
„You should always ask yourself the following question:Is my life complete?
You have to create your own welfare. Thus nothing and nobody will be able to deprive you from your own feeling of completeness.”
Extracts from:
„Feel the fear and do it anyway” Susan Jeffers
„Secrets of attraction” Sandra Ann Taylor
Author: Rosica Vakavchieva- www.sebepoznanie.com
Rositsa Vakavchieva – online email consultation
Translation: Vanya Osmanlieva www.VirtualAssistants.bg
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