Some little tips on codependency for weather forecasters

and how to avoid the pitfall of making everything your fault

Photo by Nicholas Bartos on Unsplash

Value yourself, enjoy the moment

This morning, I strolled down to breakfast late. It was close to 8 o’clock already. That was because I spent time lounging in bed to address my unread emails, from the comfort of my pillows. Plus, I wasn’t ready to stop listening to the sound of the waves.

I also took my time getting dressed. What was the hurry? The river’s ever changing form below and the early morning, misty sea beaconed to me. “Take us in Terra. We exist.”

What really matters anyway? That is a question I sometimes ask myself when I find my mind begin to try to plan my day and start to rush me through accomplishing things. I like to stand and take in the beauty of my surroundings. I know it matters, to pause and feel the world permeating my skin and soul; it is a moment of communion. It is like saying thank you to God somehow.

So, I also stopped, half-dressed, and paused behind my sliding glass doors to gaze for a moment at the sultry mysticism of the early morning.

While standing there, I saw a large group of men in matching yellow shirts across the river. They were part of the morning landscape as well. River, waves, yellow-shirted men. This was El Salvador. I took a breath.

I figured they couldn’t see through the glass. That was until I saw one young man look pointedly in my direction while he doubled over laughing. His friend grabbed his shoulder to turn him away. Oops. I realized my assumption about my windows was incorrect.

I told myself they were young. How much of a thrill could it have been to be flashed by a half-naked woman the age of their mother? And it was an interesting start to the day. I am quite sure, God, in whatever form, has a sense of humor.

Dressed appropriately now in grey shorts with a white crop tank top, and my hair pulled into a long pony tail, I trotted down the stairs where I planned to enjoy the experience of breakfast before diving into whatever I would put on my mind’s pesky to-do list.

It was a surprise to see so many full tables and no sign of Eduardo or Jessica. They are usually there ready to greet me and laugh about my breakfast. My order never changes and has become known as “Terra Typico”.

By now, I have also made myself at home enough to go in the kitchen and serve myself coffee. So, with that in mind, I headed over to fetch coffee and to see if either one of them was there to take my order.

Jessica was standing behind a screen window near the coffee maker. She looked, for the first time ever, a little angry and distressed. I could see it on her face.

Now, Jessica is a young, golden-brown, smooth-skinned, usually-smiling young woman with beautiful, glossy black hair pulled up in a bun. The way she walks in her jeans and t-shirt is both friendly and confident. She often encourages me with my Spanish, or my life in general.

Yesterday, she noticed my new bathing suit. I twirled in a circle for her, and we celebrated my success in finding a good one. She made an “ooo la la” sound and her dark brown, liquid eyes danced.

“Ooo la la,” pretty much describes Jessica.

And yet this morning, Jessica was distressed.

When people are angry or distressed, I feel it. I notice.

This comes from a few things. It may partially come from the design of who I am. I may just be a soul that is highly sensitive who came that way, regardless of my past experience.

Your sensitivity can be a gift

I imagine all of us as clouds of energy made up of lots of threads. Some clouds have different kinds of threads, equally valuable, with their own gifts and purposes. But me, I pick up on how things feel pretty quickly. My threads are delicate. A tiny breeze of emotional weather will waft through them and I can’t help but notice.

You will find many books that will tell you sensitivity is often a gift that comes from challenging childhood experiences.

Maybe high sensitivity also comes from all of this…

One thing is for sure though. It provides you with information. The trick is learning how you are going to use it.

Notice codependent tendencies

Let’s dive into the traditional reason often given for the gift of high sensitivity.

Some of us learn to be hyper-vigilant to our environment as young children, for good reason. We learn to notice the emotional state of our parents like excellent weather forecasters, and we have similar coping strategies to try to manage their emotional state so their weather doesn’t overpower us.

When such sensitivity evolves into people-pleasing, it is called co-dependency. Now sure, it is nice to please the people around you. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you know what you want and are being true to yourself. But that is the little glitch, because what you want and need are the parts that get skipped over with a full-blown attack of codependence.

As a child, you don’t know how to be in an emotional parental hurricane and take deep breaths, centered in yourself. You don’t have the freedom to leave a situation that isn’t serving you.

The best you can do is learn to navigate it. You try to control the storm. Sometimes you predict it coming and take measures to mitigate it before it erupts into something that would damage your sensitive threads. For you, emotionally stormy people feel dangerous.

So, you do your best to make them happy. You learn to please them. They become the most important thing. Your own needs and desires, simply don’t exist. At least, they are no longer something you notice.

Notice when you are trying to control how other people feel

There is a covert desire in all this to control people. Mostly it looks like wanting to help them. It feels like wanting to help them. It can feel “spiritual” and “caring” to lean towards someone who is suffering and see if you, the sensitive weatherman, can mitigate their storm.

The thing is, that you, if you are acting from codependency, are likely also doing it because you simply want to feel better. And stormy people don’t feel good to be around. So, a good codependent person will be incredibly talented at trying to fix other people’s perceived problems.

It can be disempowering (even when they ask for it) for the person being “helped” or “fixed” and over time, it can be tiring and annoying for the codependent.

An extreme example would be trying to cure a drug addict. You simply can’t. Sure, you can do things to be supportive. You can encourage them. But that storm, in the end, is one that only they can handle because it is their job to learn to steer their ship and navigate it. You can’t control it. And if you could, they would never gain the empowerment of learning to manage it on their own. You would be their new drug. Do you get it?

I hope you don’t hate me for saying that. (And those last two little sentences, would come from the thoughts of a codependent).

Notice when you value another person’s opinion of you more than your own

So, what’s the answer? Well, first you have to see the dynamic. If you are a sensitive person, you may have developed a tendency to “lean in” towards people to try to help (meaning “fix them”).

Notice when you are leaning in towards someone else and come back to yourself

If that’s the case, it might be good to check back in with yourself. It might help to ask some simple questions like:

• How do I feel?

• What do I need right now?

• How can I bring some care to myself in this situation?

Just those few questions can save you from losing track of yourself and falling into resentment.

Because in the end, weathermen do not control the weather. They can’t. It isn’t their job. They simply help people prepare for it and navigate it, by noticing and reporting on it.

It takes practice to be in the eye of someone else’s emotional hurricane, or a slightly cloudy day, and to see how you feel in it. Then, it is yet another step to be able to offer compassion and empathy, without trying to fix anything for the stormy people around you. It doesn’t mean you can’t offer help. But help is different than trying to fix them. I know it is a subtle-sounding thing, but the energy is quite different.

“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

That statement of Jesus comes from love. It is not codependent. There is no effort to change people in the moment, to make the environment better. That statement recognizes people are learning. And there is respect and care for their process.

Which brings me back to this recent experience at breakfast.

Jessica was stormy. I could feel it.

Now, I have to say that I both like and care about her. And her mood was not as pleasant as what I usually enjoy. I tried to help.

My friend and teacher, John Barnes, used to say, “Without awareness, there is no choice.”

Notice how you feel

I found myself noticing what I was doing and wondering about it. I could feel that what I said to Jessica came mostly from actual care and that I also had a tiny desire for her to feel better. The second desire came from fear regarding how her storm was and could affect me.

It was so empowering to simply notice. And I also was noticing how much more true care had grown in me, instead of the need to fix. This was progress!

I asked if she was ok? She nodded a frowning “yes.” I thought of the overfull restaurant and how she was on her own with all those people and I asked if I could help.

She said “no” to that.

So, I told her to take her time with my order and my coffee (she handed it to me while I was speaking), and went to find a table.

Can you be with your own experience, regardless of what somebody else’s weather is?

I continued to enjoy the morning.

(And just so you know, a full-blown attack of codependence, wouldn’t allow this. In a full-blown codependent attack, I wouldn’t have even noticed my breakfast. All I would have thought about was Jessica, her bad mood, and how to fix it. But I didn’t!).

I noticed a small part of me wanted her to feel better so I would feel better and I noticed that most of my concern, was simply coming from care. I noticed that this morning, I did not feel like Jessica’s storm was me, my fault, or even had to dampen my experience.

You are not responsible for the emotional state of others

I was probably 80% simply feeling care and concern and wasn’t as attached to any outcome of her feeling better as I would have been in the past. I was really happy to notice that.

Soon she delivered my breakfast, many people left, and she was cleaning the tables.

I wondered a bit about what was going on for her? But mostly, I sat and enjoyed my breakfast. I could tell you about a lot of other people in the restaurant as well and what their state felt like to me. Jessica was not the only weather forecast I could give.

But here is the key. The key that felt so momentous, that the realization took me back to my room, away from walking on the beach, to type this up for you.

You can enjoy your life, regardless

In the midst of Jessica and all the other weather forecasts I was feeling in the outdoor hotel restaurant, I felt relaxed. I actually enjoyed my breakfast.

I felt grateful as I finished my fresh watermelon and prepared to leave. And I decided to clear my plate and take it to the kitchen myself as a little, “I care about you Jessica, and I hope things get better for you soon,” gesture.

There is a fine line with all of this. It is the line between care, and anxiety which leads to codependence. I am not as relaxed around people who are on edge about something. I don’t want to be a target.

For sure I was not in danger of this with Jessica, and I know it is a thing for me.

Afterwards, as I walked up the wooden stairs towards my room, I thought about her. I both noticed and reminded myself that whatever was going on with her, was not my fault and not mine to fix. I could offer care and compassion, and I did. It was authentic.

And her experience was “not-my-stuff” so to speak. We all have moods and emotions that we must learn to navigate like stormy or sunny days, filled with anger or bliss. We are all our own weather systems, our own little worlds. Sure, we affect one another, just like I know she and I were affecting each other.

There is nothing you need to fix

The main thing is, I know, deep down, that there is nothing I need to fix. That is huge. That is what is necessary, one thing that is necessary, to pull out of the painful state of codependence.

All this was running through my head as I came into my room with my delicious coffee, which I had yet to finish. I was going to practice my Spanish apps for an hour. After that, I hoped my new friend Tono, would pick me up to show me some property.

It was a 15 minute motorcycle ride away. I would ride on the back behind him and that too, would be a new adventure. I was up for it.

Only you can be responsible for your own experience

Jessica will be fine. I will be fine. At least I think so. One never knows. That is why it is good to savor who I am, in the moment.

Know you are enough

There is uncertainty in the weather outside. I can’t tell which way it will go yet. Like me. Like Jessica’s mood. All I can do is embrace the day and the specialness of it.

And I see it changing now. I am told a hurricane is coming.

My new friends are starting a restaurant here and are renting a little two-room place nearby. It floods. I think of them when it rains hard at night as I have heard of their middle-of-the-night struggle with water suddenly flowing next to their bed.

But yesterday, one of them found a nearby drain. It was clogged with refuse from the city. No one in the town would clean it. They preferred to live with the backup of sewage and water. Not him. He pulled on some rubber boots that were not tall enough for the task and then using his bare hands, he cleaned it. Now the water is flowing just fine.

I think we are a lot like this. There comes a point where we can address how we are in our environment. When we discover we do have some control and choice regarding what we do and how we feel that doesn’t require changing the weather. Sometimes we work on ourselves.

We can open the drain and let things flow. Like water and emotions.

Or, sometimes we are in situations like I am in right now, tucked away from the storm. We don’t have to stay in the midst of it.

My room is made out of concrete block high above the water mark. I can hear the rain and the wind howling. This structure doesn’t budge. Not one tiny bit. The hatches are battened down. The storm can rage and I can simply enjoy the experience of it.

Either way, my friends and I are navigating the weather just fine.

So can you, when you realize you are not responsible for the experience of others. When you let yourself feel how you are doing, and offer yourself what you need. You might just sit down and enjoy your breakfast. You might need to let some emotions flow and clear things a bit. Or you might need to go somewhere secure and batten down the hatches. It simply comes down to noticing what the weather is, and what you choose to do to manage it.

Let’s finish with a poem a new friend here on Substack sent to me. It speaks to feeling how you are doing, which is a key to so much of this:

Forget about enlightenment.

Sit down wherever you are

And listen to the wind singing in your veins.

Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.

Open your heart to who you are, right now,

Not who you would like to be,

Not the saint you are striving to become,

But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.

All of you is holy.

You are already more and less

Than whatever you can know.

Breathe out,

Touch in,

Let go.

By John Welwood