This devaluing of listening is handed down from generation to generation. There are many children who don't have the experience of being listened to by their parents.

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.

But compassion is a deeper thing that waits beyond the tension of choosing sides. Compassion, in practice, does not require us to give up the truth of what we feel or the truth of our reality. Nor does it allow us to minimize the humanity of those who hurt us. Rather, we are asked to know ourselves enough that we can stay open to the truth of others, even when their truth or their inability to live up to their truth has hurt us.

No, I don’t live in heartache. I don’t cry myself to sleep or any of that. I am, I tell myself, over it. But I do feel a void, icky as that sounds. And—like it or not—I still think about her every single day.

Don't tell me that [broken heartstrings] hurt less than a broken bone, that an ingrown life is something surgeons can cut away, that there's no way for it to metastasize - it does.

You might believe that it's only for their own good, but how does it feel when you try to manipulate the people you love? Are you teaching them that your love is conditional? Maybe through inquiry we can find another way.