Putting Our Life on Hold

We cannot afford to put our needs on hold, waiting for another person to fulfill us, make our life better, or come around and be who and what we want that person to be. That will create resentment, hostility, an unhealthy dependency, and a mess to deal with later on.

If we have decided we want a particular relationship or want to wait about making a decision in a particular relationship, then we must go on with our own life in the interim. That can be hard. It can feel natural to put our life on hold.

That is when we get caught up in the codependent beliefs: That person can make me happy. . . . I need that particular person to do a particular thing in order to be happy. . . .

That’s a circumstance that can hook our low self-esteem, our self-doubt, and our tendency to neglect ourselves.

We can get into this situation in a number of ways. We can do this waiting for a letter, waiting for a job, waiting for a person, waiting for an event.

We do not have to put our life on hold. There will be repercussions from doing this. Go on with your life. Take life a day at a time.

What is something I could be doing now to take care of myself, make myself feel better, get my needs met in an appropriate, healthy way?

How can I own my power to take care of myself, despite what the other person is or isn’t doing?

What will happen if I break the system and begin taking care of myself?

Sometimes, we get the answer we want immediately. Sometimes, we wait for a while. Sometimes, things don’t work out exactly the way we hoped. But they always work out for good, and often better than we expected.

And in the meantime, we have manifested love for ourselves by living our own life and taking the control away from others. That always comes back to us tenfold, because when we actually manifest love for ourselves, we give our Higher Power, other people, and the Universe permission to send us the love we want and need.

Stopping living our life to make a thing happen doesn’t work. All it does is make us miserable, because we have stopped living our life.

Today, I will force myself, if necessary, to live my own life. I will act in my own best interest, in a way that reflects self-love. If I have given power or control of my life to someone other than myself and someone besides a Power greater than myself, I will take it back. I will begin acting in my own best interests, even if it feels awkward to do that.

From the book: The Language of Letting Go: Hazelden Meditation Series

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