Melody Beattie Quotes

A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.

According to some Eastern religion, there is a belt that goes across the world, and I’ve heard that Minnesota is right in the heart of this spiritual-creative belt of energy.

Don’t violate your own code of values and ethics, but don’t waste energy trying to make other people violate theirs.

Each moment in time we have it all, even when we think we don’t.

Feel what you feel, know what you know, and set your relatives free to do the same.

Few things can frustrate us more than trying to make a person someone he or she isn’t; we feel crazy when we try to pretend that person is someone he or she is not.

Few things can make us feel crazier than expecting something from someone who has nothing to give.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Guilt can prevent us from setting the boundaries that would be in our best interests, and in other people’s best interests.

Guilt can stop us from taking healthy care of ourselves.

I gave three years of my life to take care of my dying mother who had Alzheimer’s disease. Being there for her every need for three years might have looked codependent but it wasn’t because it was what I wanted to do.

I used to be afraid of pain, didn’t take a lot of risks, especially in love. I’m not as afraid anymore. I’m more spontaneous, more likely to say what I think.

I want people who have received a diagnosis of Hepatitis C to know that they didn’t just receive a death sentence. They do have options, even if the person who gave them their diagnosis isn’t aware of all of them. The path they choose doesn’t have to be one of desperation.

In martial arts, every time you graduate, move to another level, you don’t forget everything you’ve done. You build on it, but it’s always there.

It’s hard to give up the self-esteem connected to being codependent and appearing ‘right,’ which is probably a survival behavior learned from growing up in a crazy family. It feels like you will actually disappear.

Letting go helps us to live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress.

Live your life from your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal people’s souls.

Make New Year’s goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you’re interested in fully living life in the year to come.

Much of the time, the things we feel guilty about are not our issues. Another person behaves inappropriately or in some way violates our boundaries. We challenge the behavior, and the person gets angry and defensive. Then we feel guilty.

Relationships are where we take our recovery on the road.

Some therapists have proclaimed: ‘Co-dependency is anything, and everyone is co-dependent.’

The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.

There are almost as many definitions of co-dependency as there are experiences that represent it.

Twelve-step promotes spirituality, not religion. It gives a practical, day-to-day spirituality that tells me what I can and cannot control. There is room to be imperfect and to be someone who struggles to find God.

We are on a very rich emotional and physical journey on this planet.

We can trust ourselves to know when our boundaries are being violated.

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.