cover

page_66

Page 67

6

Don't Be Blown About by Every Wind

Easy Does It.
Twelve Step program slogan

I am a reactionary.

That thought burned deeply into my consciousness one day while I was sitting in my office. I had heard people discuss
reacting, but until that moment I didn't understand how much I reacted.

I reacted to other people's feelings, behaviors, problems, and thoughts. I reacted to what they might be feeling, thinking,
or doing. I reacted to my own feelings, my own thoughts, my own problems. My strong point seemed to be reacting to
crisesI thought almost everything was a crisis. I overreacted. Hidden panic (which bordered on hysteria) brewed in me
much of the time. I sometimes underreacted. If the problem I faced was significant, I often used the tool of denial. I
reacted to almost everything that came into my awareness and environment. My entire life had been a reaction to other
people's lives, desires, problems, faults, successes, and personalities. Even my low self-worth, which I dragged around
like a bag of stinking garbage, had been a reaction. I was like a puppet with strings hanging out, inviting and allowing
anyone or anything to yank them.

Most codependents are reactionaries. We react with anger, guilt, shame, self-hate, worry, hurt, controlling gestures,
caretaking acts, depression, desperation, and fury. We react with fear and anxiety. Some of us react so much it is painful
to be around people, and torturous to be

page_67

Page 68

in large groups of people. It is normal to react and respond to our environment. Reacting is part of life. It's part of
interacting, and it's part of being alive and human. But we allow ourselves to get so upset, and so distracted. Little things,
big thingsanythinghave the power to throw us off the track. And the way we respond after we react is frequently not in
our best interests.

We may have started reacting and responding urgently and compulsively in patterns that hurt us. Just feeling urgent and
compulsive is enough to hurt us. We keep ourselves in a crisis stateadrenaline flowing and muscles tensed, ready to react
to emergencies that usually aren't emergencies. Someone does something, so we must do something back. Someone says
something, so we must say something back. Someone feels a certain way, so we must feel a certain way. WE JUMP
INTO THE FIRST FEELING THAT COMES OUR WAY AND THEN WALLOW IN IT. We think the first thought that
comes into our heads and then elaborate on it. We say the first words on our tongues and sometimes regret them. We do
the first thing that comes to mind, usually without thinking about it. That is the problem: we are reacting without
thinkingwithout honest thought about what we need to do, and how we want to handle the situation. Our emotions and
behaviors are being controlledtriggered by everyone and everything in our environment. We are indirectly allowing
others to tell us what to do. That means we have lost control. We are being controlled.

When we react we forfeit our personal, God-given power to think, feel, and behave in our best interests. We allow others
to determine when we will be happy; when we will be peaceful; when we will be upset; and what we will say, do, think,
and feel. We forfeit our right to feel peaceful at the whim of our environments. We are like a wisp of paper in a
thunderstorm, blown about by every wind.

Here is an example of a way I tend to react (one of many): My office is in my home, and I have two young children.
Sometimes when I'm working they start going wild in the other roomsfighting, running, messing up the house, and eating
and drinking everything in the kitchen. My first, instinctive reaction is to screech at them to, "Stop that!" My