Train yourself to accept self respect

As a codependent and/or an active addict (and even a "dry drunk" or inactive addict, one that stopped using but still does addictive behaviors)you probably have to:

Practice the art of self respect.

TRAIN yourself to allow you to (internally)have self respect.

I said on another of my recovery blogs that I'm doing a whole series of posts on the topic of self respect and/ or the lack of it. From the point of view of an addict and a codependent (which I believe all addicts are originally, you can't be one without also being the other)

In my post: "Respect doesn't come naturally for an addict"

http://repairmanual4selfdestructivebehavior.blogspot.com/2008/08/respect-doesnt-come-naturally-for.html

I wrote that respect is something you have to work at, what I left out is this:

"You can't give to others something you don't have"

If you do not respect yourself, you cannot respect others.

Codependents are said to, "when having a near death experience, someone else's life flashes before them", the idea being that codependents are so 'other centric' that the paradigm they live in starts with the premise that "OTHERS" are important and by implication, 'They' are not important.

When you (internally) do not have self respect, and you seemingly give others a type of respect, what you're really doing is patronizing them. You aren't genuinely offering another respect... you're paying them homage, as if you were the serf and they were the lord (if you wanna use medieval ideas to represent what I'm saying)


What's a person to do if they have little background in self respect?

What can you do if you're family of origin didn't teach you self respect?

Build it artifically, make one up.. that's right 'fake it till you make it'

If you think logically about this, you'll see that ALL ideas held internally aren't really 'real'.

What's that mean?

All sensory input is 'configured' mentally, you don't really "SEE" an apple, you see from your brain's visual cortex a "representation" of an apple... you also 'smell' the apple, you 'feel' the apple... but the concept of an apple, the one in your mind's eye isn't the apple... it's a constructed digitalized apple.

You actually "conjured up" an apple to mimic the 'real' apple, the apple that's external to you.

Therefore, you can, simply 'conjure up' self respect, as if a doctor treats a broken leg with a cast, to 'assist' it in healing...

you can treat your broken self respect with a cast... just practice 'faking' self respect, so you can get yourself used to the idea.

A 'dry run' if you will


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This article is for informational purposes only.
Please contact a licensed professional in your area
if you are in crisis or require mental health services