Relationships and Recovery

I have said before that the underlying theme of this blog is relationships—how to navigate the needs of others and explore the various shades of intimacy without being overwhelmed. This includes the journey of recovering from codependency.

There is strange power in anniversaries. It's been ten years since that fateful April Fool's Day when I left my first husband. Is that why I felt a vague sense of agitation, a cosmic restlessness, a difficulty focusing, a shaking sense of something missed, something missing? Was it the holiday malaise, even though Easter has never been a particularly nostalgic holiday. Pictures of cupcakes sent over cellphone from my sister. Memories of storybook artists shared with those who were inspired. Creepy vintage costumes at brunch--ravaged rabbit with matted fur and one dim right eye. It does not surprise me that I was derailed from my intention to work on this post this weekend, even though I deliberately stayed home when friends asked me to go out. I did spend some time by the ocean, walking over the varicolored stones of Cressy Beach. I wanted to find a heart-shaped stone for a friend, and for the first time in a long time I couldn't find the right stone. I did find a beautiful heart, a great green monster about ten pounds, but it was way too big to take home.

Is codependent just another word for a heart that is too big?

In my struggle to define myself, I have run into this word again and again. I have been told by some friends that I am not codependent-- I'm too fiercely independent, too active with personal growth work, for that. Yet years after the end of my marriage to an alcoholic, I became engaged to another codependent, and I began a long slow slide backslide. Before I moved away to be with my boyfriend on the North Shore, I found in Worcester a thriving CODA (Codependent's Anonymous) group. In the Worcester group I had found a wonderful community of tight-knit folk committed to recovery and who had created powerful bonds not confined to meetings. Our group had a standing date at a nearby Friendly's right after the meeting. Though I lost touch with them after my ocean-ward migration, I always remembered that time as a positive growing experience. Recently, I tried another CODA group in Newburyport, but I was chastised for my attempts to bond by sharing my own reactions to the stories and shares. I was told that was “crosstalk”-- which literally means providing unwanted advice or solutions to problems—though my reactions were not verbal at all—nods, meaningful laughter, affirmation of shared experience. I felt deprived by that group leader of the right to have my own experience, which is is very much a part of the lack of self-definition that is codependency. So I left the buttoned-up group with their frozen feelings and numb expressions, and found a more lively fellowship in Emotions Anonymous


I do find it difficult to talk about relationships with these recovery groups, either the positive or the negative aspects. Especially since I abandoned my one attempt at conscious monogamy and came out as polyamorous. Ironically, the more I explore this aspect of myself, the more I realize that I have always had multiple relationships, even when I only had one boyfriend. In fact, were it not for my intimate network of friends, my support system of Shakti sisters—women poets and writers, co-creators and positive conspirators-- my relationship of seven years would never have come into full blossom. Apparently, it takes a village to create a romance, or at least to allow me to brave the initial waves of terror that come with getting close. After that experience, I've come to realize that what it takes to create a healthy romantic relationship is a commitment to each other's mutual growth, even when that growth is difficult and painful. It means an agreement to make time for each other, put each other first, and share meaningful time together (not just vege out in front of the televison). It means accepting responsibility for our own emotional reactions, not projecting them on our partners. It means communication and keeping the lines open. The polyamorists seem to have dealing with jealousy figured out, but there are so many other potential relationship pitfalls, even between two reasonably stable people who are not addicted to any substances.

I am finding that the more personalities you combine the more the potential for exponential growth, and the more the potential for overwhelm and disconnection from self-hood. So now my question is not how to save one floundering relationship, as was my focus for many years, but how to balance the many loves in my life with my own journey as an artist and a healer, a magick worker and a person in recovery from codependency and emotional struggles? How do I take on all this spiritual work and keeping my head together and attending to the minute details of practical living? How do I piece together the many separate shining fragments in the mosaic of my relationships—each beautiful and fascinating in itself—into a coherent constellation of tribe? And how do I find both tribe-time and “me” time?

I suppose the simple answer is creating and maintaining boundaries. As crazy as it can make me, perhaps I need to spend a weekend with my phone turned off, logged off Facebook, without novels, Netflix, television or other distractions, trying to practice mindfulness and sit with silence.

One aspect of that silence could be filled with meditation. When people ask me if I meditate, I tell them about walking on the rocks at Cressy Beach. So many shifting shapes and bright colors. I am taken in by the “rip-rap” of things, the sense of a vast presence, bigger than every one and every thing that describes and defines me. When I first began The Artist's Way, I saw the rocks on that beach as individual planets, perfect works of art, and I felt the deep belief that nothing I could create could be so fine and singular in purpose. I was rejuvenated, awakened and awed-- my rigid perfectionism was for a moment no longer in my way. Art is true co-creation with God, or so boasted Julia Cameron. And in that moment, those moments, I was willing to agree with her grandiose vision. I was willing to let go and let God/Goddess, I was willing to give myself up to the flow.

And that is what recovery is all about.