Healing Codependecy is Revolutionary
This was originally published August 25, 2021
Grappling with tendencies towards enmeshment and codependency is a fundamentally revolutionary process when taken to it’s logical conclusions.
The nature of social hierarchy and exploitation of subjugated peoples is an unequal division of power and responsibility.
Those at the top enjoy greater power and they seldom take responsibility equal to the power they hold.
Instead it is those at the bottom who not only have their power stripped, but they also take on greater responsibility. They carry out the work created by decisions made above them, and they also bear the greater burden of consequences for those decisions. They are the first to be held accountable when things go wrong.
In healing codependency and enmeshment we begin by assessing what our responsibility is.
We assess what is within our own power and we exercise our agency within this realm.
As this process unfolds we can begin to see the ways that power and responsibility is unfairly divided all around us- be it the mothers’ unequal distribution of domestic and reproductive labor in their own homes, the relationship between boss and worker, or the ultra-wealthy who extract wealth from the lower classes and turn the responsibility back on us for the conditions of our lives and lack of material security.
As revolutionaries we cannot grapple with greater social inequalities without looking upon how their logics live in us, in the ways we either shirk responsibility or take on more than our share.
And as people seeking to free our lives and relationships from the dysfunctions of enmeshment we cannot ask “what is in my power? what is my responsibility?” without seeing the ways that our world is cultivated to enable and encourage this dysfunction.
The work we do to cultivate healthier interpersonal relationships can lead us towards a healthier, freer world if we let it.
Healing Codependecy is Revolutionary
This was originally published August 25, 2021
Grappling with tendencies towards enmeshment and codependency is a fundamentally revolutionary process when taken to it’s logical conclusions.
The nature of social hierarchy and exploitation of subjugated peoples is an unequal division of power and responsibility.
Those at the top enjoy greater power and they seldom take responsibility equal to the power they hold.
Instead it is those at the bottom who not only have their power stripped, but they also take on greater responsibility. They carry out the work created by decisions made above them, and they also bear the greater burden of consequences for those decisions. They are the first to be held accountable when things go wrong.
In healing codependency and enmeshment we begin by assessing what our responsibility is.
We assess what is within our own power and we exercise our agency within this realm.
As this process unfolds we can begin to see the ways that power and responsibility is unfairly divided all around us- be it the mothers’ unequal distribution of domestic and reproductive labor in their own homes, the relationship between boss and worker, or the ultra-wealthy who extract wealth from the lower classes and turn the responsibility back on us for the conditions of our lives and lack of material security.
As revolutionaries we cannot grapple with greater social inequalities without looking upon how their logics live in us, in the ways we either shirk responsibility or take on more than our share.
And as people seeking to free our lives and relationships from the dysfunctions of enmeshment we cannot ask “what is in my power? what is my responsibility?” without seeing the ways that our world is cultivated to enable and encourage this dysfunction.
The work we do to cultivate healthier interpersonal relationships can lead us towards a healthier, freer world if we let it.
And conversely revolutionary frameworks must hold a healthy, differentiated interdependence as the highest ideal lest we only succeed in creating new patterns of dominance and subjugation.