Choosing to take responsibility for ourselves and for the consequences our choices create looks like hard work, but it really sets us free.

Today, I will focus on what's right about me. I will give myself some of the caring I've extended to the world.

Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act. They react to the problems, pains, lives, and behaviors of others. They react to their own problems, pains, and behaviors.

Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave. It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means we stop trying to do the impossible-controlling that which we cannot-and instead, focus on what is possible-which usually means taking care of ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love, as much as possible.

What do you do when life blindfolds you and spins you around? We think it's our fault, that we're to blame, when really we should be focused on being gentle with ourselves.

I didn't have to scramble up and down the ladder from despair to euphoria anymore, trying to convince myself that life was either painful and terrible or joyous and wonderful. The simple truth was that life was both. p 214