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Do we get something out of enabling our grown kids?
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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 637455" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>For me, enabling is defined as a pattern of behavior which we learn in our early lives. My early self was based externally on what another needed, not on what I needed. The focus was external not internal. A healthy self image was not built in, it was skewered early on by a dysfunctional family dynamic which did not lay the groundwork necessary for me to develop healthy boundaries and healthy needs. Enabling doesn't have boundaries where there is a clear delineation between the self and others.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In my way of defining enabling, those questions can't be answered because it presumes enabling is actually a healthy and viable way of connecting and I don't believe it is, so I don't believe if one did enable a kid it would ever work. The questions make the assumption that enabling might somehow work. I don't believe it can work. And, frankly, my belief is that if we take the stance of enabling we won't be producing easy child kids. Not to blame myself or blame anyone for anything, that is not my point here, but I don't define enabling as in any way shape or form as a viable, loving, nurturing, healthy way of connection. I also believe that we can change that stance at any time and correct it. </p><p></p><p>I don't believe that being a good mom or a bad mom is the criteria for having healthy kids.............there are many many instances where that criteria falls short, good parents produce bad kids, bad parents produce good kids. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Even in so called "normal" families, when a crisis happens it doesn't mean it brings the family together. That presumes there is a right and a wrong way of doing things and there isn't, things turn out the way they turn out and sometimes we have no answers for them at all. We can spend our lives trying to find a reason or a person to blame, but there may be no reason, there may be no person to blame. </p><p></p><p>To answer the initial question, yes, I believe there is always a payoff of some kind to our behavior. Unconscious? Probably. But not necessarily. I don't think I intentionally enabled, I don't believe it was a choice, it was a way of being, a choice in that I didn't have another way of being that I was aware of at the time, it was the only way I knew to respond. I had to learn another way of responding. I had to learn to see the ways in which I was defining myself as someone who actually had the power to change, alter, fix, repair, save or in any way control another. I had to take that external focus and place it within myself, so that I could recognize that the only power I really ever had was in how I responded. I had to look at my own judgements of myself and of others. The judging of there is a right and there is a wrong. In many ways, that was the crux of it for me, the judging of right and wrong. When I can step out of that stance, I can begin to see more, I can find my compassion for myself and then for others. Within the judging, I either had to blame someone or blame myself, <em><u>someone </u></em>had to be at fault. Well, maybe no one is at fault, maybe it really just is what it is and we have to accept it.</p><p></p><p>Responding from a place of being all knowing offered a sort of false superiority, a "better then" perspective which I believe strokes the ego and offers temporary satisfaction in an enabling connection. However the message sent to the other is that they are less then, there is a clear negative implication which in my own enabling tendencies, I did not see. It was hard to see that in myself, but in seeing that, I definitely didn't want to be that guy or send that message to my daughter. Or to anyone. </p><p></p><p>In my own journey I had to recognize the cost of enabling, to me, to those around me. In my belief system, the behaviors we elect are not done with malicious intent, but as a means of initially surviving, of making the only choice we likely had as a child or a young person..........but as we get older, those choices no longer serve us or those around us, they in fact, keep us stuck. I had to let go of enabling as a way of connection and the "perks" it offered in keeping me a martyr or the proverbial 'good person' who is always helping everyone, or the nice RE, the good RE, the all knowing RE..........and allow myself to be vulnerable, uncertain, not knowing, making mistakes, blowing it............and be more real.........therefore more human with all the frailties and messiness............which interestingly, brought more intimacy and connection. </p><p></p><p>So for me, the enabling stance, although it kind of looks good in the social arena, really kept me apart, kept me in my superior state, but lacking in a real intimacy, a real connection. Turns out the payoffs were not what I really wanted, I really wanted connection and closeness.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 637455, member: 13542"] For me, enabling is defined as a pattern of behavior which we learn in our early lives. My early self was based externally on what another needed, not on what I needed. The focus was external not internal. A healthy self image was not built in, it was skewered early on by a dysfunctional family dynamic which did not lay the groundwork necessary for me to develop healthy boundaries and healthy needs. Enabling doesn't have boundaries where there is a clear delineation between the self and others. In my way of defining enabling, those questions can't be answered because it presumes enabling is actually a healthy and viable way of connecting and I don't believe it is, so I don't believe if one did enable a kid it would ever work. The questions make the assumption that enabling might somehow work. I don't believe it can work. And, frankly, my belief is that if we take the stance of enabling we won't be producing easy child kids. Not to blame myself or blame anyone for anything, that is not my point here, but I don't define enabling as in any way shape or form as a viable, loving, nurturing, healthy way of connection. I also believe that we can change that stance at any time and correct it. I don't believe that being a good mom or a bad mom is the criteria for having healthy kids.............there are many many instances where that criteria falls short, good parents produce bad kids, bad parents produce good kids. Even in so called "normal" families, when a crisis happens it doesn't mean it brings the family together. That presumes there is a right and a wrong way of doing things and there isn't, things turn out the way they turn out and sometimes we have no answers for them at all. We can spend our lives trying to find a reason or a person to blame, but there may be no reason, there may be no person to blame. To answer the initial question, yes, I believe there is always a payoff of some kind to our behavior. Unconscious? Probably. But not necessarily. I don't think I intentionally enabled, I don't believe it was a choice, it was a way of being, a choice in that I didn't have another way of being that I was aware of at the time, it was the only way I knew to respond. I had to learn another way of responding. I had to learn to see the ways in which I was defining myself as someone who actually had the power to change, alter, fix, repair, save or in any way control another. I had to take that external focus and place it within myself, so that I could recognize that the only power I really ever had was in how I responded. I had to look at my own judgements of myself and of others. The judging of there is a right and there is a wrong. In many ways, that was the crux of it for me, the judging of right and wrong. When I can step out of that stance, I can begin to see more, I can find my compassion for myself and then for others. Within the judging, I either had to blame someone or blame myself, [I][U]someone [/U][/I]had to be at fault. Well, maybe no one is at fault, maybe it really just is what it is and we have to accept it. Responding from a place of being all knowing offered a sort of false superiority, a "better then" perspective which I believe strokes the ego and offers temporary satisfaction in an enabling connection. However the message sent to the other is that they are less then, there is a clear negative implication which in my own enabling tendencies, I did not see. It was hard to see that in myself, but in seeing that, I definitely didn't want to be that guy or send that message to my daughter. Or to anyone. In my own journey I had to recognize the cost of enabling, to me, to those around me. In my belief system, the behaviors we elect are not done with malicious intent, but as a means of initially surviving, of making the only choice we likely had as a child or a young person..........but as we get older, those choices no longer serve us or those around us, they in fact, keep us stuck. I had to let go of enabling as a way of connection and the "perks" it offered in keeping me a martyr or the proverbial 'good person' who is always helping everyone, or the nice RE, the good RE, the all knowing RE..........and allow myself to be vulnerable, uncertain, not knowing, making mistakes, blowing it............and be more real.........therefore more human with all the frailties and messiness............which interestingly, brought more intimacy and connection. So for me, the enabling stance, although it kind of looks good in the social arena, really kept me apart, kept me in my superior state, but lacking in a real intimacy, a real connection. Turns out the payoffs were not what I really wanted, I really wanted connection and closeness. [/QUOTE]
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Do we get something out of enabling our grown kids?
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